This week, the African Union/United Nations Chief Mediator Djibril Bassolé will begin consultations with 150 Darfuri civil society representatives in Doha, Qatar. Rather than focusing on this important gathering though, the media over the weekend strangely focused on the postponement of negotiations between the Sudanese government and the Darfuri rebels.
Those following the process closely knew for weeks that Bassolé and the Qataris were intending to use the remaining weeks of November to consult with Darfuri civil society and the rebel movements – and were not planning to launch direct talks between the rebels and Sudanese government until December. So this was not really news. A government-leaning Sudanese newspaper, Al Rai Al Aam, on November 9 even ran a story entitled, “Resumption of the Doha negotiations in December.”
What the media has fundamentally missed is that the gathering of Darfuri civil society is critical to a successful peace process. The voices and concerns of these local leaders who have not taken up arms merit attention from the press and support from the international community. The most important question that journalists should be asking is whether the Sudanese government this time will allow all Darfuri leaders to leave Sudan and travel to the meetings. Despite all of its recent rhetoric about being ready for peace talks, in May of this year, the government obstructed “the safe passage of Darfurian delegates from Sudan” to the Mandate Darfur conference organized by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. At the time the organizers wrote:
“Despite numerous attempts at engagement with the Sudanese government, including sending a delegation to Khartoum and inviting senior figures to address the conference, we were greatly disappointed that Sudanese security services harassed our delegates, confiscated passports and threatened the conference coordinators in Sudan. Ultimately, the government has refused to grant exit visas to the delegates making it impossible for the conference to proceed.”
A second important question to ask is whether the 150 delegates will be representative of the diverse nature of Darfuri society. That is, will there be the necessary ethnic, geographic, and gender balance and will IDPs and traditional leaders be represented? Many Darfuris remember the hand-picked civil society “representatives” that the government sent to the Abuja peace talks in Nigeria in 2006. The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) has already complainedabout the current list of invitees and delivered to the mediators their own list (article in Arabic).
