Sudanese and Somali peace processes may help avert the looming humanitarian catastrophes threatening both countries, notes Gamal Nkrumah reliminary Darfur peace talks commenced in the Tanzanian mountain resort of Arusha on Saturday. The talks ended inconclusively on Monday. Darfur, Sudan's back of beyond, has tremendous economic potential -- oil, uranium, and a host of agricultural products including gum Arabic (or is it gum African?). A southern Sudanese official insisted that "gum Arabic", the traditional term for the precious resin-producing savanna tree, is racist and biased. He suggested this most lucrative of Darfur's traditional exports, should be called gum African, as opposed to gum Arabic. Today, it is oil that has replaced gum as the region's most valuable resource. And, many Sudan observers suspect that oil lies at the heart of Darfur's current predicament. There are those who see the Arabised Janjaweed militias, responsible for much of the brutality against the indigenous non-Arab population of Darfur as the veritable barbarians at the gates. Still, there are those who don't know quite what the violence in Darfur is all about yet. Others suspect that the ruthless Arabisation and Islamisation policy of the Khartoum regime is to blame. This very same constituency has been vocally against the Islamist government. In Arusha the Sudanese protagonists faced each other. Some key characters declined to attend the Arusha conference, but important armed opposition groups did sit at the negotiations table. Many groups pursue personal feuds. There is no sound economic reason behind the war in Darfur, except perhaps a squabble over real and imagined fabulous oil reserves. Yes, there is the age-old struggle for meagre resources between nomadic pastoralists and settled cultivators. The cost in humanitarian and socio-economic terms has been horrendous. Human rights organisations have long warned that the warfare in Darfur has claimed the lives of some 300,000 people. The Sudanese authorities vehemently dispute this statement arguing that the real figure is far lower -- in the range of 20,000. Quite how many people were killed in Darfur is open to debate. The new United Nations Security Council resolution on Darfur is widely seen as a small success for the UN. Eight groups participated at the Arusha conference. Some Darfur factions deliberately stayed away. There is a consensus among the Darfur armed opposition groups, though, that autonomy is paramount. They have also set their eyes on a power-sharing and wealth sharing mechanism that would guarantee that the revenues from the oil wealth of Darfur trickles down to the people of the war-torn province. The main problem of Sudan's backwaters, including Darfur, has been political peripheralisation, economic marginalisation and underdevelopment. Everyone seemed happy with the deployment of 26,000 United Nations and African Union peacekeeping troops in Darfur, in accordance with UN Security Resolution 1769. The ruling National Congress Party (NCP) headed by Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir sees the army as a bulwark against lawlessness and impunity of the indigenous in Darfur. Moreover, the NCP believes that the AU-UN peacekeeping troops would demobilise the armed opposition groups of Darfur and that stripped of their weapons they would acquiesce and join the political bandwagon of the Sudanese political establishment. Then there are Sudan's African neighbours, many of whom have been dragged begrudgingly into the war. Countries like Chad and the Central African Republic have been hardest hit. A number of African nations have won much praise in the West for their increasing involvement in United Nations peacekeeping operations. The new "hybrid" AU-UN peacekeeping force is to be composed in the main of African troops. "We are now at the pre-negotiation level, and we hope that the negotiations will begin within two months," the AU chief envoy to Sudan Salim Ahmed Salim told reporters in Arusha. The greatest disappointment, as far as the AU and UN were concerned, was the conspicuous absence of Abdul-Wahid Mohamed Al-Nour at the Arusha conference. He emerged as the main critic of Arko Minni Minnawi, leader of the rival SLA Minnawi faction, about a year ago. For many, Al-Nour is a threat to the Darfur peace and reconciliation process. Minnawi, on the other hand, is no stranger to controversy either. He was severely criticised when he struck a deal with the Sudanese government in the Nigerian capital Abuja. As a reward for his cooperation, Minnawi was invited to join the Sudanese government as special presidential advisor on Darfur. He later fell out with President Al-Bashir and fighting erupted between his men and the Sudanese armed forces. In Arusha, Nour stole the limelight -- not because he was present, but precisely because of his nonattendance. And, in many Sudan observers' eyes, Minnawi's slight amounts to a snort from the dragon's nostrils -- the dragon being Al-Nour. Al-Nour, an ethnic Fur, representing some 80 per cent of the refugees and displaced people in Darfur, has tremendous popular support in the war-ravaged province. Another important Darfur opposition figure who declined to attend was the aged and ailing Suleiman Jamous, the leader of the SLA's so-called Unity faction, who languishes in a UN- administered hospital in Sudan. Nevertheless, Sudanese government officials have expressed relief that the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), one of the main armed opposition groups in Darfur, did take part in the Arusha peace talks. Khalil Ibrahim, head of JEM, is sanctioned by the Americans. Ibrahim is known to have close political affiliations to his ideological mentor the leader of the opposition Popular Congress Party Sheikh Hassan Al-Turabi, Sudan's chief Islamist ideologue and influential former parliament speaker. Members of a splinter JEM faction headed by one Mohamed Saleh, however, declined to take part. But for all its problems, the likelihood is that the Darfur peace process that kicked off in Arusha will stumble on. There were no less than seven rounds of the Abuja talks, and at their conclusion there was nothing but bloodshed and the further fissuring of the Darfur opposition armed groups. Abuja ended in failure. So what? That can happen anywhere nowadays. The AU and the UN say that there is hope for Darfur at a time when other freedom fighters are heading for the hills. From Abuja to Arusha, the dilapidated buildings of Darfur's towns and hamlets carry the ubiquitous pockmarks of bullets and blood. The tragedy is that the people of Darfur cannot sustain the punishing toll. The Darfur armed opposition groups have consistently hammered the point home. They cry out loud that the reason for all this confusion and suffering lies in the nature of the two beasts involved -- abject poverty and underdevelopment. Springing the Somali traps Last Saturday, the second phase of the Somali Reconciliation Conference commenced in the Somali capital Mogadishu. Somalia's future is at stake. The success or failure of the conference will determine the course of the country's future. The big question now is how serious those consequences are likely to be. Failure, or the fear thereof, could create a systemic panic in Somalia and the politically volatile Horn of Africa. By Tuesday, the various tribal leaders were exchanging copies of the Holy Quran as a token of peace -- a symbolic gesture that reinforces the Muslim identity of the country. Islam is paramount in contemporary Somalia and Ethiopia, a country with a sizeable Muslim population, is loathe to tamper with religious sensibilities. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the Ethiopians do not want to get bogged down in the intricacies of domestic Somali politics. They want to find a face-saving exit from the Somali quagmire. The Somali militant Islamists, who hold political sway over large swathes of the country and have a strong constituency in the central and southern parts of the country in particular, have demonstrated some political flexibility and now seem ready to talk business with the Ethiopians. A prominent member of the Council of Islamic Courts (CICs) disclosed that there are currently negotiations via third parties between Somalia's militant Islamists and the Ethiopian government. Apparently, Arab and African mediators are trying to break the ice between Ethiopia and the CICs. Hopes are pinned on the newly-formed National Reconciliation Committee of Somalia headed by the former president Ali Mahdi Mohamed. He seems to have done a pretty good job when he was at the helm, and is widely seen as a man all sides can trust and talk to. Be that as it may, an unpredictable period looms for Somali politics. A flurry of diplomatic activity might save the day. Though by reputation hardline and uncompromising, the CICs have proven time and again to be pragmatic when it comes to the crunch. Representatives of the CICs paid a visit to Egypt recently in order to gauge the disposition of the Ethiopians. Egypt, Libya and Yemen have all expressed a desire to assist in the Somali peace process and to act as mediators in settling the Somali political crisis. The three aforementioned Arab countries, and other oil-rich Arab Gulf countries, have good working relationships with both the Ethiopians and the CICs, who are spearheading the resistance to the Ethiopian military presence in Somalia. Ethiopia claims that its peacekeeping forces are in Somalia at the behest of the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) under the auspices of the African Union (AU). The pan-African body has consistently backed the Ethiopian claims and Ethiopian peacekeeping troops, widely regarded as an occupying force by the CICs and their allies, have been reinforced by Ugandan peacekeeping troops. Nevertheless, the AU and the Ethiopians realise that the current stalemate is untenable. It is against this backdrop that the Ethiopians have made reconciliatory overtures in order to find some political common ground with the politically- influential CICs. The progress of the National Reconciliation Conference has been torturously slow. The main hindrance to any advancement of its proceedings has been the boycotting of the conference by the CICs and the former parliament speaker Al-Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adam and other parliamentarians sympathetic to the CICs or opposed to the Ethiopian military presence in Somalia. The CICs are supported by a bevy of tribal and clan leaders who are vehemently critical of the Ethiopians' interference in domestic Somali affairs. Then there is the business of brokering peace in a land long controlled by warlords. The CICs are sometimes depicted as a bogey. Slowly but seemingly relentlessly, the possibility of an Ethiopian- CICs rapprochement seems to be wending its way to fruition, in spite of the sporadic violence that is ripping the Somali capital apart. The indirect talks between the Ethiopians and the CICs have taken place at a time when Ethiopian troops are reported to have conducted house-to- house searches in Mogadishu. Hundreds of people were reported arrested and an undisclosed number detained indefinitely. Mogadishu residents are reported to be terrified and indignant of the mass arrests and detention of Somali nationals. The area around the heart of the Somali capital is reported to be the worst affected. Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation in Somalia is fast deteriorating. Thousands are fleeing the fighting in Mogadishu and the conditions inside the displaced people's camps are horrendous. But in his own idiosyncratic way, Somali President Abdullah Youssef has demonstrated an assured grasp of the feints and the subliminal realities of international power games. The fundamental reality is that neither the United States nor its Western allies are willing to contemplate the presence of a bellicose militant Islamist state in Somalia. Any such Taliban-like entity is bound to foment trouble in the Horn of Africa, and Ethiopia and Kenya, Somalia's immediate African neighbours, are fully sympathetic to Western concerns and supportive of the Western stance. Indeed, these two countries in particular fear that they are at the frontline facing a deadly enemy. Beneath the circumlocutions, these sentiments were all too visible this week. The Ethiopians are determined to avoid any possible splits and gaffes in the prickly negotiation process with the CICs. There is no question, as yet, of the Ethiopians speaking directly to the CICs leaders. The CICs, on the other hand, are quite prepared to speak openly about "negotiating the exit of the Ethiopians from Somalia" as a CICs representative told Al-Ahram Weekly. The TFG is under tremendous pressure, both at home and abroad, to accommodate the rival Somali political groups and especially the CICs. Meanwhile, the CICs want to make sure that they have the last word. The CICs' leaders are unperturbed by their routing at the hands of the Ethiopians. They regard their defeat as a temporary setback. There are no signs yet that the Ethiopians are growing impatient with the TFG, but Horn of Africa observers are now insinuating that tensions between Addis Ababa and Mogadishu are palpable. Indeed, the nature of the working relationship between the TFG and their Ethiopian backers has always modulated according to the sometimes diverging interests of the two allies. The Somali president is no stranger to controversy. Nationalist Somalis dislike his enthusiasm for doing business with the Ethiopians. He has long been derided as an Ethiopian stooge. Moreover, he did nothing for his popularity by bringing some of the outcasts back -- the warlords who ruined Somalia. Can the Ethiopians, the TFG and the CICs lie in the same cosy bed? If the answer is yes, then maybe they will be able to contemplate an end to their nightmares.
