The Sudanese road to peace is straightening out, but the end is still a distance off, writes Gamal Nkrumah The two-day summit meeting that took place in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, this week raised the prospect of regional solidarity for Darfur and the beleaguered Sudanese government. The summit was convened at the behest of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. However, while representatives of the armed opposition groups in Darfur were invited to the Tripoli summit, they were not permitted to participate, ostensibly in deference to the Sudanese government. Nevertheless this did nothing to curb the brazen outspokenness of the armed opposition groups from Darfur. "If the Sudanese government will not listen to the voice of reason, the battle will move into Khartoum itself," the leader of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), one of the two main armed opposition groups in Darfur, ominously warned. The other Darfur group, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), failed to show up altogether in Tripoli. The humanitarian crisis in Darfur is fast deteriorating. According to United Nations figures, the Darfur conflict, which erupted in February 2003, has so far claimed the lives of 50,000 people and rendered some 3.4 million people homeless. In a recently released report, the World Health Organisation (WHO) claims that 70,000 displaced people have died since March in Darfur. David Nabarro, WHO's crisis group head, warned that up to 10,000 people were still dying in refugee camps in Darfur each month. The Sudanese authorities angrily disputed the WHO's figures, claiming that the real figure could not be more than 7,000. "This report is totally wrong," protested Sudan's minister of state at the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Mohamed Yusuf Ibrahim. "We are running on a threadbare, hand-to-mouth existence, and if the plight of these people in Darfur is as important to the international community as it seems to be, then we would have expected more long-term support," the Sudanese minister added. The five African leaders meeting in Tripoli expressed solidarity with the Sudanese government. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was accompanied by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit. Also present at the mini-summit in Tripoli were the presidents of Chad, Idris Deby, and Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, who is also the current chairman of the African Union (AU), the continental body grouping 53 African states. Sudanese president Omar Hassan Al- Bashir was also in attendance. The African leaders also condemned what they described as "foreign intervention" by Western powers in Sudanese domestic affairs, especially with regards to Darfur. They warned that meddling in Sudanese affairs "would only hinder the efforts to stabilise the country" stressing that the Darfur crisis was a purely African affair. The Tripoli summit coincided with the deployment by the AU on Sunday of a 4,500-strong force of armed peacekeepers to patrol Darfur. However, the United Nations special envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, warned that a much larger force was needed. The African leaders also stressed that a federal Sudan would give the politically marginalised peoples in the outlying regions of Africa's largest country a stronger say in the running of their respective regions. It is in this context that the SLA and JEM are diligently seeking international intervention. Arguably the single greatest source of popular rage in Darfur against the central government in Khartoum has been the Sudanese government's support for the local tyrannies. This included corrupt provincial officials and the dreaded Janjaweed, composed in the main of Arabised nomadic tribesmen. For decades the people of Darfur have been shackled by underdevelopment, political marginalisation and arbitrary laws designed to curtail freedoms. The struggle for political participation and economic freedom go hand in hand. The SLA and JEM have grave reservations concerning the involvement of Arab states in the Darfur crisis. The belief exists that Arab states are inherently biased against the indigenous non-Arab people of Darfur and are unfairly protective of the Sudanese government. They are devoutly Muslim, but are proud of their non- Arab identity. Meanwhile, in Kenya, there are peace talks between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the country's most powerful armed opposition group. Sudanese Vice-President Ali Othman Mohamed Taha and the leader of the SPLA, John Garang, are in Kenya to put the finishing touches to a comprehensive peace agreement. This would bring more than two decades of armed conflict between the two parties to a peaceful and conclusive end. "The discussions between the two parties were in a cordial and frank atmosphere and have resolved most of the outstanding issues, paving the way to the comprehensive peace agreement on the Sudan conflict," stated Lieutenant General Lazarus Sumbeiywo, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki's special envoy and chief mediator at the Sudanese peace talks. "The two parties recommitted themselves to finalising and concluding the comprehensive peace agreement in recognition that prompt completion of the peace process is essential for all the people of Sudan as it will help in resolving all challenges facing the country," Sumbeiywo added. The Sudanese government, unnerved by the rise of a loud chorus of international condemnation of Khartoum's handling of Darfur crisis, wants stronger backing from neighbouring countries. A Sudanese military helicopter on a reconnaissance flight crashed in Nyala, southern Darfur, this week. It was not quite clear if the helicopter was shot down by armed opposition groups in Darfur or if the crash was due to adverse weather conditions or engine failure. Whatever the cause, the incident aroused fears of an intensification of fighting in Darfur. Meanwhile, the Sudanese government has pointed accusing fingers at the Islamist opposition Popular Congress Party (PCP). Headed by Hassan Al-Turabi, the country's chief Islamist ideologue, the PCP has been accused by the Sudanese government of fomenting trouble in Khartoum. Sudan's ruling party, formerly called the National Islamic Front, has split into two. The now ruling group is headed by Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir and the opposition by Al-Turabi. This split in their own ranks not only weakened the Islamists in Sudan, but it also sowed the seeds of suspicion among the Sudanese military which is dominated by Islamists. The Sudanese opposition groups, including those of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the umbrella opposition organisation grouping the SPLA, have sought to make the most of the split. The NDA met this week in Al- Qanater Al-Khairiya, a resort 20 kilometres north of Cairo, to discuss their strategy of dealing with the government. Some 100 NDA representatives are participating in this NDA conference . The Sudanese peace talks in Kenya are taking place under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD), a regional organisation which groups seven East African countries, including Sudan. Three parallel Sudanese peace processes are currently taking place: the Darfur peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria; the SPLA-Sudanese government talks in Naivasha, Kenya; and the NDA- Sudanese government talks in Egypt. The litmus test is to be found in Naivasha. If the SPLA and the Sudanese government work out a comprehensive peace deal, then the likelihood of the Darfur crisis being eventually resolved will be greatly enhanced. Once the crises in the south and in the west are resolved a comprehensive peace settlement for Sudan is a foregone conclusion. But Sudanese opposition groups are sceptical about the outcome of the Tripoli summit. "How can the Sudanese government be trusted as peace partners when it is not in their interest to dismantle their own power base," PCP Secretary-General Ali Al-Haj told Al-Ahram Weekly. "I am pessimistic about the result of the summit, even though I hope I am wrong because I want peace for Sudan above all else, above all political gain." "With all due respect to all the sincere efforts made by neighbouring states, I think these peace processes are a waste of time. They will come to naught," Ali Al-Haj stressed. He added that two high-ranking PCP members were released in the past few days. One, Musa Makkur, was released on account of his failing health and the other, Kheiry Al-Deleim, ostensibly because his mother had passed away. The Sudanese authorities put pressure on the incarcerated PCP members to denounce their jailed leader, Hassan Al-Turabi. They were also asked to produce false confessions stating that they were part of a plot to overthrow the government of Al- Bashir in a military coup d'état. Al-Haj's observations coincide with those of Western nations. "Sudan should continue to feel the pressure from as many sides as possible," said Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, who recently visited Sudan. Netherlands is the current holder of the European Union rotating presidency. Like most other Western nations, the Dutch have put the blame for the escalation of violence in Darfur squarely on the shoulders of the so-called "Janjaweed Arab militia", a pro-Sudanese Government group. The SLA and JEM accuse the Sudanese government of pursuing a policy of divide and rule and also of using delaying tactics. The issue of democratic transformation in Sudan was the main topic of discussion at the NDA meeting. Built into this were the mechanisms of forming a broad-based government of national unity and creating a civic and democratic state in Sudan. Darfur also featured prominently. "The government must demonstrate that it is serious about resolving the Darfur crisis," Al-Shafie Khedr, a leading member of the NDA, told the Weekly. Khedr who had met SLA leader Abdel-Wahid in the Kenyan capital Nairobi last week stressed that coordination between the three parallel peace talks in Abuja, Nairobi and Cairo must be strengthened. "We cannot have a secular southern Sudan and a north run as an Islamist or theocratic state. The whole of Sudan must be civic and democratic and this must be reflected in the constitution and the legal system," Khedr added.
