Egyptian NGOs have sent a fact-finding mission to Darfur. But to what end, asks Gamal Nkrumah At a time when civil society organisations in Egypt are still struggling to establish a convincing domestic role, they are being called upon to pull their weight in Sudan, and particularly over the humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur. "Arab governments, like governments everywhere, usually have a predictable agenda and set of vested interests. Arab civil rights organisations, on the other hand, often seem to lack a coherent agenda," Baheieddin Hassan, head of the Cairo Centre for Human Rights told Al- Ahram Weekly. "Civil society organisations must have some clout and influence in Egypt before they can be expected to exert pressure on Sudanese affairs," says Hassan. "In many instances they seem to take their cue from Arab governments, something that is particularly pronounced when it comes to criticising other Arabs. The deafening silence over Darfur is similar to that which prevailed when Saddam Hussein was slaughtering 185,000 Kurds in Iraq." Media and civil society organisations have always reacted passionately to the plight of the Palestinians, and are now doing the same for the Iraqi people, both of whom suffer under foreign -- read non- Arab -- occupation. And, according to Hassan, Arab governments are quick to exploit the overriding sentiments of the Arab street for their own benefit. But while events in Palestine and Iraq meet with a vociferous response, the same media and civil society organisations have shied away from the seemingly more prickly issue of genocide and gross human rights abuse in Darfur largely because non- Arab victims are being oppressed by people labelled as Arab. But the fact is that both oppressed and oppressor in Darfur are black Africans and predominantly Muslim, whether they identify themselves as Arab or not. "It is more convenient to criticise non-Arabs than to scrutinise the Arab record on human rights. The Arab public seems more attuned to jingoistic songs, flag- waving and the rhetoric of patriotism. It is easier for it to sympathise with Palestinians and Iraqis than with Kurds and Darfurians," says Hassan. Western media, governments and even charitable and humanitarian relief agencies are often accused of trying to drive a wedge between Arab and non-Arab in Africa, portraying the Darfur conflict as between black Africans and Arabs. "The Western media labelled the insurgents in Darfur as non-Arab. So Arab media and civil society organisations began to view the Darfur conflict largely in terms of foreign intervention, as a conspiracy to dismember Sudan and dilute its Arab identity," said Helmi Shaarawi, director of the Arab-African Research and Studies Institute. In an attempt to clarify their own position Arab civil society organisations have finally organised a fact-finding mission to Darfur. A delegation of representatives of Arab civil societies, organised by the Arab Lawyers Union, was dispatched on a fact-finding mission on 15 August. The NGOs will assess the humanitarian needs of the people of Darfur and see how they can be of assistance. They include the doctors and pharmacists syndicates, two organisations that are seen as having a potentially useful role in Darfur. But while the final report of the mission has yet to be completed many commentators suspect that it is an exercise in rearranging the deck chairs rather than rethinking the destination. "The vast majority of the most effective and dynamic Arab civil society organisations are Islamist in orientation. These organisations rushed to the help of the people of Bosnia -- assistance at the material and moral levels was tremendous," says Hassan. "But there are no non- Islamist organisations with similar resources and capabilities." But the shortage of resources and funding is not the only explanation for the lack of concerted action over Darfur. The Arab media and NGOs reflect a view of the Darfur conflict that is prevalent in Arab world. There is widespread suspicion over the motives of the US despite the fact that many Arab governments have been happy to accommodate themselves within the Pax Americana. For their part many Sudanese express growing frustration with Arab governments and NGOs, in particular the wealthy oil-rich states of the Gulf who, following increases in the price of oil, are in a position to fund development projects and relief operations in Darfur. Hassan believes that Arab NGOs have entered a stage of denial when faced with information released by Western humanitarian groups. "Most of Arab civil society dismisses the claims of Western humanitarian and rights groups as a gross exaggeration," he says. There is also much ambiguity concerning the local Darfur Arab Janjaweed militias blamed for the escalating violence and the humanitarian crisis. Islamist-oriented NGOs in Egypt for example, many dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, are loath to criticise the Janjaweed which is closely aligned to the Sudanese government. "We must first assess the material resources, human capacity and technical expertise of Arab civil society organisations," believes Ibrahim Nasreddin, professor of political science at Cairo University and a member of the board of Usrat Wadi Al-Nil (The Family of the Nile Valley), an Egyptian-based NGO that caters to Sudanese refugees in Egypt and on strengthening Egyptian-Sudanese social and cultural ties. But given the lack of available resources among local NGOs or, where resources exist, the lack of any desire to find out what is really happening, hopes that the delegation will have any real impact are slim.
