At last, Sudan accepts a hybrid peacekeeping force for Darfur and the new political dispensation is remaking the old, writes Gamal Nkrumah If the world is in two minds about Sudan, so is the superpower, America, itself. Officials in Washington insist that Sudan is a vital source of information in the war against terrorism. The Sudanese government has systematically been providing Washington with invaluable information regarding the whereabouts and movement of supposed terrorists. Yet ironically, Sudan is blacklisted as a rogue state that aides and abets international terror. Moreover, Sudan is confounded by critics of the country's human rights record. "The ruling National Congress Party [NCP] found me guilty of publishing an article in which I was deemed disrespectful of a member of the government, Cornelius Befu," Alfred Taban, the editor-in-chief of The Khartoum Monitor, Sudan's leading independent English-language publication, told Al-Ahram Weekly. The Sudanese court found Taban guilty of libel. They promptly incarcerated him and demanded a $250,000 fine. He had to pay $5,000 immediately. "I didn't even write the article myself," Taban explained. Be that as it may, the Sudanese authorities have clamped down hard on opposition figures. "Nothing has changed," stressed Taban. "This is fundamentally a military regime. A leopard does not change its spots". He noted that members of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) -- the predominantly southern main coalition partner of the NCP -- "don't bother about Khartoum any more. They are disinterested and are being systematically ignored and undermined," Taban warned. He reckoned that at this rate the country was heading for a split. Nevertheless, both the Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir and Foreign Minister Lam Akol -- an SPLM member -- have spoken out in favour of the expanded hybrid African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force. The 7,000-strong AU force was hopelessly inadequate. It could neither protect civilians nor humanitarian workers. Indeed, Oxfam is closing permanently its largest refugee camp in Darfur, the 130,000-strong Gereida Camp. Meanwhile, a French female aid worker was raped and countless Darfur women have been subjected to sexual harassment and abuse. The humanitarian situation in Darfur is untenable. It is against this backdrop that matters may be stirred up by China, Sudan's largest trading partner. "In our own way and through various means and channels we have tried to advise the Sudanese government to be more flexible," Liu Guijin, China's special envoy to Sudan told reporters in Khartoum. Can mutual interests keep pulling them together? "We are pushing for a long-term solution. We hope for the restoration of peace and stability not for reasons of self- interest but purely for the benefit of stability in the region," Liu said. China has come under intense Western criticism for supporting the Sudanese government. Indeed, the future of the 2008 Beijing Olympics is at stake. United States think-tanks, and particularly the Christian right and the neo-cons are fiercely anti-Sudan. The political differences between the US and Sudan are enormous. Bringing these differences out in the open is considered provocative by the Sudanese who are in favour of suppressing them. Furthermore, as many have predicted, Khartoum has complied with international demands to accept non-African peacekeeping troops in Darfur. The halting of vociferous Sudanese opposition to the deployment of international peacekeeping forces in Darfur has eased American-Sudanese relations somewhat. The perverse result of rejecting foreign troops was to hamper, not expedite, the peace process in Darfur. American diplomats are frustrated by what they see as Sudanese insouciance over the plight of the people of Darfur. There is an instinctive suspicion of Khartoum's motives in Washington. United States President George W Bush declined to comment on Sudan's change of heart, but the US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack expressed cautious optimism. "The challenge is to put that down on paper and everybody agree to it and actually implement it," McCormack explained. According to the Sudanese authorities, Washington's pressure saps some of the impetus for peace in Darfur. In America's eyes, Sudan is invariably wrong. But, there is a brighter prospect out there in Sudan's war-torn westernmost province. Unhealthy enthusiasm for peace at any cost is dangerous. The expiry of fast-track peace negotiations concerning Darfur, of course, also has further dire implications for the country. Furthermore, the consequences for Darfur and the entire central Sahel African region are at stake. That a militant, oil-rich Muslim theocracy of 40 million people, poses some sort of threat to Western interests is not in dispute. Opinions, however, are divided on what to do about Khartoum. Sudan is of paramount strategic importance in Africa. And, Washington should indeed be wary of actions that make its own posturing in the continent look even weaker than it already is. The conflict in Darfur is continuing to keep the two sides apart, despite their common goals in containing terrorism.
