nairiporter (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nairiporter) wrote2009-10-31 02:08 pm
nairiporter) wrote2009-10-31 02:08 pm
Darfur is the lesser issue in Sudan now
Now a little about Sudan. As the highly publicised rollout of the new U.S. policy on Sudan made clear, Sudan has become an unlikely foreign policy priority for the Obama administration. For this, the Sudanese can thank the Darfur advocacy movement, which effectively put the nation on the map for the American public over the past 6 years. And Sudan certainly deserves every bit of attention it receives... If Africa's largest nation again implodes, it threatens to further destabilise what's already one of the most unstable regions of the world.
But the internal tension hidden within Obama's newly formulated Sudan policy is that Darfur is no longer the main attraction. Not even close.
To be sure, the Darfur conflict is not yet resolved. But the crisis is no longer actively boiling over either. Instead, a fragile equilibrium has emerged, in which clashes between Khartoum-linked militias and the splintered rebel forces have become few and far between. Menwhile the Darfuri people lack a definitive voice, and the numerous feuding rebel groups make any chance to forge a political peace deal elusive. Millions of Darfuris remain in refugee camps across the border in Chad and the Central African Republic. They point to the ongoing insecurity back home to explain why they're not returning. While there's truth to that rationale, the underlying and often unspoken reality is that there is now little for them to go back home to. While this is certainly an unpleasant situation, it is hardly a unique one in a continent filled with unresolved refugee and IDP issues. By this measure, Darfur no longer demands the urgent priority it once deserved.
Meanwhile, the growing rift between North and South Sudan becomes a graver threat all the time. With the exception of an 11-year interruption, the North-South civil war has raged from 1955 until the 2005 deal known as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), and by its end had killed more than 2 million people! The CPA ended the hostilities, creating an interim joint government between the two sides, with provisions for national elections and ultimately an independence referendum in the South. The elections have been delayed twice and are now scheduled for April 2010. The independence referendum - the climax of the entire 6-year process - is maybe more than 14 months away. By all accounts, the nation is on a path to fatally fail both critical tests, should the current climate of escalating tensions continue.
South Sudan holds most of the country's vital oil fields, a fact which makes Khartoum unlikely to just let the South walk away without further intense wealth-sharing negotiations. Whether the 2005 agreement was an actual "peace agreement" or simply a ceasefire remains to be seen. But with both sides actively upgrading their arms in anticipation of renewed clashes, a new Sudanese Civil War could quickly dwarf all other conflicts on the already hugely troubled continent.
The ticking North-South time bomb inevitably became Scott Gration's top priority as the Obama administration's newly appointed special envoy to Sudan. Given the hugely difficult task of trying to prevent the complete deterioration of North-South relations, this former general has found it necessary to engage with an administration many back home consider the expression of pure evil. He has been constantly criticised by Obama's opponents, whether for genuine reasons or more probably for the purpose of gaining political advantages in their little domestic bickering. And the domestic public is easy to sway from one side to the other, because Americans know little about the CPA or the Sudanese civil war. So to justify spending such diplomatic capital on another failing African state, at a time when vital American interests are being actively threatened elsewhere, the new policy document squeezes mediating the North-South feud in between "saving" Darfur and preventing Sudan from regressing back into a terrorist haven - two familiar objectives for the U.S. media and public that are much easier to swallow.
At the press conference unveiling the new policy, Hillary Clinton and UN Ambassador Susan Rice followed the published document's lead, discussing the humanitarian situation in Darfur before moving on to the CPA talks. But the man on the ground, Mr. Gration, flipped this order, an indication that he clearly considers the North-South hostilities his main focus.
The reality of U.S. domestic politics when it comes to Sudan has put Gration in a thorny situation. The pragmatic necessity to treat the ICC-indicted Khartoum regime as a legitimate player has proven difficult for the Darfur advocacy groups to swallow - even as they also try to adjust by shifting their focus increasingly to the North-South split. But giving effective support to the behind-closed-doors, high-stakes diplomacy necessary to prevent a war is a very different kind of campaign than that of mobilising the political will to end a genocide and demand justice against its perpetrators. Advocacy groups are well-suited for the latter. Whether they can succeed in constructively engaging the former remains to be seen.
Whatever the international community's approach to Sudan, its effectiveness will largely be determined by the degree to which the Sudanese players hear a single, coordinated voice from their foreign interlocutors. As analysts for the Center for Strategic and International Studies note, the new policy of pragmatic engagement brings the US approach closer in line with that of the other main international players, such as the UK, the EU, and Sudan's African neighbors. Because it is more than clear now that preventing a new humanitarian disaster in Sudan will require a sustained intervention from now through the scheduled referendum in early 2011 - and beyond. The new US policy gives Gration a flexible framework and some breathing room in which to work. But his overall effectiveness may largely depend on whether he is granted the same space to breathe from his critics back home as well. Which, having observed the internal US politics for a while, I doubt will happen.
x-posted
But the internal tension hidden within Obama's newly formulated Sudan policy is that Darfur is no longer the main attraction. Not even close.
To be sure, the Darfur conflict is not yet resolved. But the crisis is no longer actively boiling over either. Instead, a fragile equilibrium has emerged, in which clashes between Khartoum-linked militias and the splintered rebel forces have become few and far between. Menwhile the Darfuri people lack a definitive voice, and the numerous feuding rebel groups make any chance to forge a political peace deal elusive. Millions of Darfuris remain in refugee camps across the border in Chad and the Central African Republic. They point to the ongoing insecurity back home to explain why they're not returning. While there's truth to that rationale, the underlying and often unspoken reality is that there is now little for them to go back home to. While this is certainly an unpleasant situation, it is hardly a unique one in a continent filled with unresolved refugee and IDP issues. By this measure, Darfur no longer demands the urgent priority it once deserved.
Meanwhile, the growing rift between North and South Sudan becomes a graver threat all the time. With the exception of an 11-year interruption, the North-South civil war has raged from 1955 until the 2005 deal known as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), and by its end had killed more than 2 million people! The CPA ended the hostilities, creating an interim joint government between the two sides, with provisions for national elections and ultimately an independence referendum in the South. The elections have been delayed twice and are now scheduled for April 2010. The independence referendum - the climax of the entire 6-year process - is maybe more than 14 months away. By all accounts, the nation is on a path to fatally fail both critical tests, should the current climate of escalating tensions continue.
South Sudan holds most of the country's vital oil fields, a fact which makes Khartoum unlikely to just let the South walk away without further intense wealth-sharing negotiations. Whether the 2005 agreement was an actual "peace agreement" or simply a ceasefire remains to be seen. But with both sides actively upgrading their arms in anticipation of renewed clashes, a new Sudanese Civil War could quickly dwarf all other conflicts on the already hugely troubled continent.
The ticking North-South time bomb inevitably became Scott Gration's top priority as the Obama administration's newly appointed special envoy to Sudan. Given the hugely difficult task of trying to prevent the complete deterioration of North-South relations, this former general has found it necessary to engage with an administration many back home consider the expression of pure evil. He has been constantly criticised by Obama's opponents, whether for genuine reasons or more probably for the purpose of gaining political advantages in their little domestic bickering. And the domestic public is easy to sway from one side to the other, because Americans know little about the CPA or the Sudanese civil war. So to justify spending such diplomatic capital on another failing African state, at a time when vital American interests are being actively threatened elsewhere, the new policy document squeezes mediating the North-South feud in between "saving" Darfur and preventing Sudan from regressing back into a terrorist haven - two familiar objectives for the U.S. media and public that are much easier to swallow.
At the press conference unveiling the new policy, Hillary Clinton and UN Ambassador Susan Rice followed the published document's lead, discussing the humanitarian situation in Darfur before moving on to the CPA talks. But the man on the ground, Mr. Gration, flipped this order, an indication that he clearly considers the North-South hostilities his main focus.
The reality of U.S. domestic politics when it comes to Sudan has put Gration in a thorny situation. The pragmatic necessity to treat the ICC-indicted Khartoum regime as a legitimate player has proven difficult for the Darfur advocacy groups to swallow - even as they also try to adjust by shifting their focus increasingly to the North-South split. But giving effective support to the behind-closed-doors, high-stakes diplomacy necessary to prevent a war is a very different kind of campaign than that of mobilising the political will to end a genocide and demand justice against its perpetrators. Advocacy groups are well-suited for the latter. Whether they can succeed in constructively engaging the former remains to be seen.
Whatever the international community's approach to Sudan, its effectiveness will largely be determined by the degree to which the Sudanese players hear a single, coordinated voice from their foreign interlocutors. As analysts for the Center for Strategic and International Studies note, the new policy of pragmatic engagement brings the US approach closer in line with that of the other main international players, such as the UK, the EU, and Sudan's African neighbors. Because it is more than clear now that preventing a new humanitarian disaster in Sudan will require a sustained intervention from now through the scheduled referendum in early 2011 - and beyond. The new US policy gives Gration a flexible framework and some breathing room in which to work. But his overall effectiveness may largely depend on whether he is granted the same space to breathe from his critics back home as well. Which, having observed the internal US politics for a while, I doubt will happen.
x-posted