In Qatar, the chastened Sudanese protagonists are persuaded to stress soft power and partnerships over military force, notes Gamal Nkrumah What bait has brought Sudan's feuding political groups to the negotiating table? The impetus for the deal came from Qatar. The wealthy Gulf state has plenty of funds. Yet this is not enough; other regional players are not short of money and yet they do not have the diplomatic finesse to deliver. Lilliputian Qatar seems to be offering new ideas larger than old grumbles. Fuller details are promised later. Peace in Darfur could not be in better hands. In all fairness, the tiny gas and oil-rich emirate is doing its best to make peace and to prove its mettle in the regional arena. The Doha deal comes after years of on-off talks between the Sudanese government and the Darfur armed opposition groups. Be that as it may, lethal fighting in the westernmost Sudanese province of Darfur is still a weekly occurrence. A peace deal, at last, and then a backlash? Qatari largesse is producing some surprising Sudanese political bedfellows. The Sudanese protagonists often find it hard to be civil to one another in public. But few fracases have been as nasty as that between the militant Islamist Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudanese authorities, who also ironically profess to be militant Islamists -- at least the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) of Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir does. Yet behind the scenes political personalities from both parties (JEM and the NCP) are prepared to work together in some areas. JEM has traditionally been the most intransigent of all Darfur armed opposition groups. The charismatic JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim was stone-faced. Resplendent in a Robin Hood- like Lincoln green massive headgear and matching military fatigues, he reiterated his position that he seeks social justice, Islamic-style. All eyes were on Khalil, but he disclosed very little that he had not reiterated before on countless occasions. Yet, there was the unmistakable impression that he had something up his sleeves. Nor are they the only rivals thinking the previously unthinkable. The leaders of at least two other Darfur armed opposition groups, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) headed by Abdel-Wahid Mohamed Al-Nour, and its splinter group also called the SLA but headed by Minni Arko Minnawi, are not Islamist in ideological orientation. And yet curiously, at least the Minnawi faction has always professed to be loyal to the Sudanese state. Indeed, the Sudanese authorities cajoled Minnawi into joining the NCP government of President Al-Bashir. Yet the proposed peace agreement in Doha could be merely a reprieve for the armed opposition groups of Darfur, including the vacillating Minnawi, not a resolution. These are after all just three of the many armed opposition groups in war-torn Darfur. Khalil's schemes seem politically shrewd. Minnawi's somewhat politically immature and naïve. The agreement presumably offers a definitive solution to the vexed question of Darfur. And, all parties understand that. Minnawi, leader of the rival SLA Minnawi faction, and now special presidential adviser to Sudanese President Al-Bashir, has expressed exasperation with the Doha deal. Does he feel like he's being sidelined? Perhaps. An ethnic Zaghawa, Minnawi, is the only Darfur leader who has so far signed a peace deal with the Sudanese government. Sudan is rising, it is becoming worryingly assertive as far as the West is concerned. Oil. However, for the foreseeable future, the priority for both the Sudanese government and the Darfur armed opposition groups is to try and win today's petty wars. And, that is what Khartoum fears the most. The Qataris, however, displayed a great deal of political acumen by involving key regional players such as Chad and Libya. The Doha talks might encourage JEM and other Darfur armed opposition groups to widen their sights and attempt to secure détente between them and their rivals. Riddled with corruption and incompetence, the Sudanese government is in a tricky situation. The Sudanese authorities would love to see Khalil join the government of national unity in the amenable fashion of Minnawi. But Khalil would not budge -- at least not for now. Minnawi's rival Abdel-Wahid Nour is following in Khalil's rather than Minnawi's footsteps. But why is Khalil and his JEM so bitterly opposed to Al-Bashir? Behind this spat is an elaborate dance involving the NCP's chief Islamist rival -- the opposition Popular Congress Party (PCP) headed by Sudan's chief Islamist ideologue Sheikh Hassan Al-Turabi, onetime speaker of the Sudanese parliament and head of the now defunct National Islamic Front, and now languishing under house arrest. Turabi, a mentor of Al-Bashir, is silent for the moment. The outspoken leader of the PCP, however, is at the centre of a dispute that threatens to tear apart the precarious Sudanese peace process. Hectoring and irascible, Al-Turabi is a formidable foe and his spirit hovers over Doha, even though he might not have been there in person. To chose such formidable foes as Al-Bashir in the autumn of your life takes bags of self- confidence. Al-Turabi's unswerving self- confidence has repeatedly been punctuated by pragmatism. President Al-Bashir has always been sniffy about his subordinates' political agendas and ideas -- Al-Turabi not excluded. These rows have reopened fissures that have long threatened to split Sudan. The armed opposition groups of Darfur turned the Sudanese state institutions into a target. Wars like those of Darfur are only won through the patient intensification of popular support. By trying to set limits to radical Islamist influence inside Darfur, the SLA compromises its position in a predominantly Muslim province. JEM's broader aim may be to try to roll back the advances of the Sudanese government in Darfur. That move might have been stymied in Doha. Only time will tell. The two groups -- Sudanese government and JEM -- have much to talk about. Al-Bashir is a survivor. His dealings with southerners and his clinching of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 9 January 2005 only confirmed his political sagacity. He hopes a political stimulus package will stave off criticisms that he is insensitive to the plight of the indigenous people of Darfur. And, the splashiest single event of the Al-Bashir presidency is the CPA. Optimists might note that the CPA suffered years of setbacks before at last taking hold. The CPA ended two decades of war between the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) and successive Sudanese governments. The immediate political danger posed by Khartoum to the redistribution of wealth from Khartoum to the peripheral Darfur, as far as JEM is concerned, has not yet passed. It is against this backdrop that International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno- Ocampo filed 10 criminal charges against President Al-Bashir, an unprecedented move in the annals of history. Matters might come to a head next week. Indeed, the excitement continues unabated these days. Matters came to a head with concerted efforts by the Arab League and the African Union to contain the crisis. Nobody believes that Moreno-Ocampo has more modest goals. The only way forward is to break the cycle of lawlessness and corruption undermining any advance in Sudanese nation-building. A good starting point would be to acknowledge how the Sudanese government shafted the wobbly institutions of Darfur already weakened by decades of misrule. This appears to be the main grievance of the armed opposition groups of Darfur, and JEM is no exception. The second most important stumbling block is the exchange of prisoners of war. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki- Moon was upbeat about Doha, and the new United States ambassador to the UN Susan Rice was cautiously optimistic. Darfur is her baby and in the final analysis, what Rice decrees is more consequential than any dialogue in Doha. This sums up much of what African and Arab diplomats have been whispering in private of late. Khartoum is in a quandary: its Arab and African friends tell it to stay calm yet seem unable to stop Western bullying.
