Brains Like a Shoe

Darfuri Rebels at Negotiations

First posted at Save Darfur’s blog…

As I mentioned in my last post, at the request of the African Union Panel on Darfur (AUPD), the Save Darfur Coalition submitted recommendations to the panel on how to promote peace, justice, and reconciliation in Darfur.  You can read our full submission here.

Since no country or international organization has the institutional capacity or required relationships with the Sudanese parties to end the conflict alone, we first urged the AU to closely coordinate its efforts with the international community.  To that end, we recommended that the AU deepen its partnership with the United Nations for peacekeeping and peacemaking while at the same time coordinating all of its efforts with the permanent members of the UN Security Council, the League of Arab States, and key regional states.

In discussing the specific issue of peace, we first rebutted the charge of many that the pursuit of justice in Darfur through the International Criminal Court (ICC) proceedings had fundamentally interfered with the peace process:

Despite predictions to the contrary, the talks between the Sudanese government and some of the rebel movements have progressed considerably since the ICC Prosecutor requested an arrest warrant from the court for Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir in July 2008.  In fact, at the time of the Prosecutor’s announcement, no serious negotiations were taking place.  The naming of Djibril Bassolé as AU-UN Mediator that same month and the Qatari invitation to host the talks in subsequent months served as opportunities to re-launch substantive talks among the various parties.  There is no doubt, though, that the possibility of Bashir’s indictment contributed to the Sudanese government’s decision to return to the negotiating table.

It has been argued that the prosecution of Bashir would only embolden the negotiating stance of the Darfuri rebels…The signing of the “goodwill agreement” between JEM and the Sudanese government and the continuing negotiations serves as evidence that the peace process has not stalled because of the ICC proceedings.  On the contrary, the possibilities for reaching a peace agreement – while still not assured – appear closer now than at any point since the Abuja negotiations of 2006.

Writing at the end of June, we also stated that all pressure therefore should be placed on the parties to agree and adhere to a long-term ceasefire that “could give necessary space and confidence for the negotiating delegations to move to the next step of negotiating a final settlement.”   As for the structure of the mediation efforts, we recommended that the AU support a process similar to the Navaisha talks that produced the Comprehensive Peace Agreement:

As did Kenyan General Lazaro Sumbeiywo with the Naivasha process, AU-UN Mediator Djibril Bassolé should lead the Darfur process.  The Joint Mediation Support Team (JMST) should work with Ambassador Bassolé on the plan for a negotiation framework, timeline for negotiations, and appropriate mechanism for shuttle diplomacy.  Bassolé must also be supported by a strong team of diplomats and regional experts and backed by a small group of countries with leverage, high-level support, and full-time representation at the talks.  This inner circle should include the United States, United Kingdom, France, and China. An outer circle group of countries and multilateral organizations (UN, AU, Arab League) should also be engaged in a formal manner to discourage spoilers, and other key nations such as Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, and South Africa need to be thoroughly consulted.

On the specific matter of securing a comprehensive and inclusive Darfur peace agreement, we urged the AU to draw lessons from the failed Abuja negotiations and the failed attempts to revive the peace process over the last three years.  We felt the most important lessons from the past demonstrated a current need for the AU and international community to:

• Provide the armed movements with support for pre-negotiations and negotiations;
• Ensure that the Darfurians feel ownership of any peace agreement;
• Support strong civil society input and presence in the peace process;
• Ensure that a Darfur peace agreement advances peace, justice and democracy for all Sudanese; and
• Coordinate all support to the peace process with appropriate regional and international actors.

Finally, we wrote that after multiple failed peace efforts and meandering consultations, the issues at stake in Darfur are fairly well understood. Any final agreement, therefore, must include:

• A substantial sum for individual compensation to be paid by the government;
• International monitoring of a cessation of all forms of state support for the janjaweed militia structure and the complete disarmament of the janjaweed;
• International monitoring and support for encampment of all forces in Darfur (government, rebel, and militia);
• Administrative arrangements for Darfur;
• Power sharing for Darfurian constituencies; and
• A comprehensive plan to address the humanitarian, livelihoods, environmental, and development challenges that Darfur will face in the aftermath of the conflict

As noted yesterday, we feel that the recent AUPD report includes a number of the above recommendations.  Perhaps of most importance, the panel does not view the pursuit of justice as an obstacle to the pursuit of peace.  Instead, it states:

[E]ven as the peace negotiations are taking place, action should be undertaken to investigate the serious crimes that have been committed in Darfur, and to put in place measures to prevent the commission of fresh crimes.

Among other things, the report also make a strong case for the necessity of an immediate ceasefire and an “inclusive process of negotiations” involving the Darfuri armed movements, IDPs and refugees, political parties and civil society leaders.

The challenge of course will be in the implementation of these recommendations. The AUPD fell short of putting forward a concrete plan to support the UN/AU joint mediation efforts of Djibril Bassole.  The team’s responsibilities are outlined in general and ideas for better coordination are suggested, but the report does not detail exactly how – in its words – the “AU/UN Joint Mediation should be properly positioned to discharge its mission.” In short, a lot is left for follow-up work.

Yet, President Omar al-Bashir and the National Congress Party (NCP) are notorious for making verbal commitments to a peace process, only to continue their non-stop efforts to divide and intimidate those Darfuris seeking a durable and just peace agreement.  There is no doubt that Bashir and the NCP are now devising ways to influence the implementation of these recommendations.  It is for these reasons that we have called for the United Statesand the international community to put together a set of incentives and pressures to ensure that the Sudanese government does not unduly take advantage of critical processes like the Darfur negotiations.

In my next post, I will summarize the coalition’s recommendations for seeking justice in Darfur, and how the AUPD’s recommendations of hybrid courts could actually work as a mechanism for accountability complementary to – but not a replacement of – the ICC proceedings.

First posted at Save Darfur’s blog today…

The African Union Panel on Darfur (AUPD) chaired by former South African President Thabo Mbeki released its much-anticipated report and recommendations to African leaders on Thursday.   As mandated, the panel submitted specific “recommendations on how best to effectively and comprehensively address the issues of accountability and combating impunity, on the one hand, and peace, healing and reconciliation, on the other” (read the full report). Most reports in the press focused on the panel’s recommendation of hybrid courts to “investigate, prosecute and adjudicate the war and other crimes committed during the Darfur conflict.”

In addition though, the Mbeki panel’s recommendations also covered:

the process for reaching a Global Political Agreement (GPA); the important issues of justice and reconciliation; the promotion of dialogue among Darfurians; mobilising Sudan’s neighbours; the Sudan General Elections and the Southern Sudan Referendum; measures for the implementation of the agreements; support for the AU‐UN mediation process; and the role of UNAMID and the African Union in promoting and consolidating peace in Darfur.

As part of their seven month investigation, the AUPD consulted with a range of actors, including those in the advocacy community.  At the panel’s request, the Save Darfur Coalition submitted recommendations concerning ‘a comprehensive and inclusive Darfur peace agreement’; ‘the challenge of justice and the suppression of impunity arising from the conflict in Darfur’; and ‘the challenge of reconciliation and healing arising from the conflict in Darfur.’  In subsequent blog posts, I will compare the AUPD’s report with our recommendations.  With that said, we believe strongly that peace, justice and reconciliation are intertwined and cannot be dealt with in isolation from each other.

Overall, the AUPD report generally matches the solutions to Darfur and Sudan’s other interlocking crises that the Save Darfur Coalition has urged the U.S. Government and the international community to support through aggressive diplomacy and mediation.   On the specific question of hybrid courts, such courts could work as a mechanism for accountability complementary to the International Criminal Court (ICC).  It is important to underscore that the panel did not suggest that these courts would replace the ongoing proceedings of the ICC.  Rather, it observed that the ICC necessarily will only deal with those perpetrators most responsible for crimes in Darfur; an additional mechanism is necessary to ensure there is not impunity for lower level perpetrators.  The ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo concurred in his reaction to the AUPD: “The primary responsibility lies in national states…The ICC is just doing a piece — prosecuting the most responsible — but then there are other efforts needed.”

At its core, though, the report acknowledges that political transformation is necessary for peace in Darfur and all of Sudan.  The report reads:

Characterised by the inequitable distribution of wealth and power, this imbalance has fomented tensions and conflicts in Sudan and given rise to the situation that the Panel has been called upon to investigate. The Panel believes that all the various overlapping layers of conflict must be addressed, but above all that the fundamental problem of Sudan must be confronted if lasting peace for Darfur is to be realised. The Panel defines the fundamental problem of Sudan as “The Crisis of Sudan as manifested in Darfur.”

For this change to happen, the report also specifically suggests that Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP) must make a strategic decision to open up political space:

To enable the people of Sudan to approach the next important phase of their history as one nation, without other distractions, there is an urgent need to secure a definitive peace settlement for Darfur before the 2010 General Elections and to ensure nationwide legal and security conditions to allow political activity to be freely conducted.

While these recommendations strike at the root of the political problem, the NCP seems nowhere close to implementing the National Election Act of 2008 as urged by the report – nor implementing the key elements of the 2005 Interim Constitution that guarantee important political rights.  Put another way, the NCP continues to resist fulfilling these obligations to open political space agreed to both in the spirit and text of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.  Thecurrent dispute within parliament between the NCP and the SPLM and northern opposition parties over a revised National Security Act and other issues of freedom of association demonstrates that Bashir and NCP party leaders believe they can keep their tight grip on power by playing the same games they have for the last two decades.

One can even read such an NCP strategy in its reaction to the AUPD report.  Second Vice President Taha offered a classic example of the long-practiced NCP delaying tactic of appearing to say “yes” when the real meaning is “no”: “The report listed several recommendations worthy of consideration and is no doubt worthy of our great tribute due to the efforts made by the African Union” (translation from article in Al Ray Al Aam).  He and other NCP officials have already expressed their deep misgivings about the hybrid courts. The Mbeki recommendations and other proposals for peacemaking in Sudan must be complemented with a significant set of incentives and pressures designed to achieve behavioral change by the NCP and structural reforms agreed to by all of Sudan’s competing stakeholders.

We are also concerned that the extension of the AUPD’s mandate beyond last week’s report constitutes another “initiative” that provides an alternative forum for the NCP to talk, talk, talk without doing anything.  To avoid this possibility, Mbeki and the other panelists should immediately commit their valuable services to support the efforts of AU/UN Chief Mediator Djibril Bassole.  He has praised the work of the panel, but stated that the recommendations should be implemented through the Darfur peace talks that are set to resume in mid-November in Doha.  The AUPD members’ involvement in the negotiations, as well as active support and leadership from U.S. Special Envoy Scott Gration and the other special envoys, could result in a major step forward in these stagnant and fragile talks.  If there is a lack of coordination, however, the Sudanese government will inevitably play the various actors off against one another.

Tomorrow I will have more to write on this subject.  In the first of three blogs, I will describe our recommendations to the AUPD concerning ‘what can and should be done urgently to conclude a comprehensive and inclusive Darfur peace agreement.’