The Tripoli African summit on Darfur is a case of praise where praise is due, but there is still the difficulty of uniting the disparate nation of Sudan, writes Gamal Nkrumah It could be the best of times in Sudan this year or it could be the worst of times; as ever the bets are wide open. To begin with, it would take years for Sudan to shake off its reputation for political turmoil and languid inefficiency. Years of authoritarianism seem to be buckling under a wave of international and regional pressure. However, both the Sudanese government and armed opposition groups should be given credit for making a fresh start. Be that as it may, recent news out of Sudan has been so dire that it is a genuine concern that the situation is getting worse, rather than better. Reports on Wednesday rang of Sudanese police and soldiers randomly butchering southern Sudanese refugees in a camp on the outskirts of Khartoum. The refugees apparently refused to be forcibly relocated to another camp further away from the Sudanese capital. Running battles between the Sudanese authorities and the refugees who refuse to budge have become a permanent feature of life in camps with no running water or electricity. It is hard not to be swept along with the political drama unfolding in Sudan. Even the most optimistic observers of Sudanese politics understand that the peace process is far from perfect. There is no solid evidence of subsiding tensions in Sudan. The tendency of Khartoum to polarise its domestic opponents and foreign adversaries has often meant that it is at loggerheads with Western powers, especially the United States. Still, Sudan's neighbours are hoping for a breakthrough, to end the cycle of war and devastation in Sudan's war-torn westernmost province of Darfur. Heads of state and government from Egypt, Eritrea, Chad, Gabon, Nigeria and Sudan met in the Libyan capital Tripoli on 16-17 May for a summit aimed at ending the two-year conflict in Darfur. The Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi played host to the Darfur summit. He has excellent working relations with both the Sudanese government and the armed opposition groups of Darfur. The Libyan authorities seem sensitised to the nuances of Sudanese politics. Credit must also go to Gaddafi for arranging for Eritrean President Isaas Afeworki to meet his erstwhile enemy President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir of Sudan. The Sudanese umbrella opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is headquartered in the Eritrean capital Asmara, and the Sudanese authorities have long accused Eritrea of meddling in Sudanese domestic politics. President Hosni Mubarak was joined by Chadian President Idris Deby. Chad, which shares a border and a similar ethnic composition with Darfur, has long been the haven for Sudanese refugees fleeing fighting in Darfur. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has also taken a keen interest in resolving the Darfur crisis. Nigeria, like Sudan, once divided into a predominantly Muslim north pitted against a mainly Christian south witnessed an especially gruesome civil war in the late 1960s. While the president of oil-rich Gabon, Omar Bongo, declined to go to Tripoli, he dispatched Gabonese Vice-President Didjob Divungi di Ndinge. Sudan, like Gabon, is among Africa's oil-exporting nations. One of the main resolutions of the Tripoli summit was that the Sudanese government and armed opposition groups in Darfur agreed to resume talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja on 1 June. "Negotiations [in Abuja] must be resumed to reach a political resolution and allow the people in Darfur to become partners in Sudan and enjoy their rights while fulfilling their obligations," Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit was quoted by Egypt's Middle East News Agency (MENA) as saying. The two main Darfur armed opposition groups have accused the Sudanese authorities of instigating violence in order to launch an all-out war of extermination on the indigenous non- Arabised peoples of Darfur. The war in Darfur has left 300,000 dead and some 2.5 million rendered homeless. The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the two main armed opposition groups of Darfur, insist that Khartoum "implement all United Nations resolutions" and hand over 51 Sudanese government officials and allied militiamen accused by the UN of committing crimes against humanity. The Sudanese government, meanwhile, refuses. Sudan wants the men tried in Sudan. The UN, the African Union (AU) and the Darfur armed opposition militia want the men prosecuted by the International Court of Justice in The Hague. "Sudan will do its best to carry out justice in Sudan through the Sudanese justice system with the help of African legal experts," insisted Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail in Tripoli. The Darfur armed opposition groups urge the Sudanese government to accept a similar deal with them like the one clinched between the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) on 9 January 2005. They want to see Khartoum's "readiness for serious and responsible negotiations in Abuja, the Nigerian capital under the auspices of the AU. The SLA and JEM also want to see Khartoum's "commitment to the implementation of all previous ceasefire agreements". On the other side of the ledger, Sudan's African neighbours do not want to see outside interference in Sudanese affairs. Like the Sudanese government, the African leaders meeting in Tripoli would rather eschew from the internationalisation of the Darfur crisis. Egypt's Abul-Gheit summed it up when he said that above all, Africa insists on "the respect for the unity, territorial integrity and sovereignty of Sudan". Sudan's neighbours are serious about bringing about change in Sudan. But before we can be hopeful about the future of the Sudanese political scene, human rights must be better respected in Sudan. Sudan, however, is keeping a very wary eye on US policy in the region, and in particular the US interpretation of good governance, democratisation and the upholding of human rights, which is regarded as little more than a red herring -- an excuse to interfere in Sudanese domestic affairs.
