Let us first focus our energies on making sure that we and our governments are doing all we can to get literally life-saving basic humanitarian aid to the people of Darfur. They are women, men, and children with pressing physical, social, and psychological needs. They are not a “cause” to be taken up (or dropped) by well-meaning outsiders.
And yet, the international “community” has not yet responded in even a halfway acceptable way to the pleas of the World Food Program and others for enough basic food aid to be sent there.
The NYT reported Saturday that the WFP,
- said it had received just a third of the $746 million it had requested from donor nations for all of its operations in Sudan. As a result, individual rations that include grain, blended foods, beans, oil, sugar and salt for people in Darfur, where a brutal ethnic and political conflict has raged since 2003, will be reduced from 2,100 calories a day to 1,050 calories — about half the level the agency recommends.
This is beyond tragic. It is also, surely, the very first thing we should be campaigning about. Go to Oxfam’s site and send them a donation. Then call your representatives in Congress or your local parliament and tell them to quadruple the government’s food aid to Darfur-– and to do it now.
Then, we have to recognize that it is not only the pro-government forces in Sudan who are impeding the delivery of such aid as is available. This sobering press release issued last Friday by he UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) states:
- Over the past few weeks aid workers operating for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and U.N. agencies have come under continuous attacks and harassment by armed groups in the area of Shangil Tobayi, Tawilla and Kutum in North Darfur. Several reports indicate that many of these attacks have been waged by SLA factions [that is, factions of an anti-government force ~HC]. Armed robbery and hijackings have endangered humanitarian workers assisting over 450,000 vulnerable people living in the area. Moreover, credible information point to the use of hijacked vehicles for military purposes by these armed groups. This is unacceptable and contrary to International Humanitarian Law.
The SRSG [Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General] Jan Pronk appeals to the SLM/A to take all necessary steps to assure the safety of humanitarian personnel and property in areas under their control and the consistent implementation of agreements. Unless these attacks and harassment stop immediately, the U.N. and its partners will be obliged to suspend all relief assistance to this particular area till effective safety for humanitarian personnel and assets is guaranteed. The U.N. will hold responsible the armed groups, including those related to the SLA, and their leaders, for the failure to assist the vulnerable populations under their control.
I noted, too, that on last Friday’s BBC t.v. news report, Orla Guerin– whose reporting from Darfur I had earlier criticized– spoke openly about Darfuri villagers having been expelled violently from their village or villages by the rebels, and having sought refuge inside one of the bases for the AU forces. She spoke as a crowd of the expelled villagers could be seen behind her in the frame…
Now, of course, there is the additional political development of the nearly-secured peace agreement between the Sudan government and the rebels, that AU negotiators have been working on for two years now.
Yesterday, the Government of Sudan expressed its acceptance of the deal. But today, the two main rebel groups still seemed unprepared to accept it. In this piece, Reuters’ Estelle Shirbon writes:
- Chances of a peace agreement for Sudan’s Darfur region looked slim on Monday despite a 48-hour extension to negotiations, observers said, citing rebel inflexibility.
Mediators from the African Union (AU) agreed in the early hours after a deadline expired to give the government of Sudan and two rebel groups until midnight Tuesday to agree on a proposed peace plan, the result of two years of talks.
But on Monday morning, Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha left the Nigerian capital Abuja, venue of the talks. Taha had arrived three weeks ago and held face-to-face meetings with rebel leaders that had raised hopes of a deal.
A diplomat who is closely involved in the talks said Taha left because his latest meetings with rebel leaders had given him the impression they were not open to substantial talks.
“His meetings with the (rebel) movements yesterday were so bad. They were, frankly, so insulting to the government,” said the diplomat, who described his mood as “depressed”.
So it looks as though the rebel leaders’ inflexibility may now be consigning the people of Darfur to further months or even years of civil war. This, when we know that far too many of the civilian people of Darfur have already had their homes, communities, and livelihoods wrecked by the gunmen from both pro- and anti-government groups… Surely, the most urgent imperative should be to find a formula that will allow everyone to de-escalate, disarm, return to their home communities, and start rebuilding lives and livelihoods shattered by the violence!
I have to ask whether the rebel groups’ intransigence was perhaps stoked by the one-sidedly anti-Khartoum tenor of much of the Darfur-related mobilization in the US over the past few weeks? (Did that mobilization perhaps give the rebels the idea they could get more political support from Washington than they have been able to win, so far, from the African Union? If so, I suspect they will be sorely disappointed…)
Wouldn’t it, honestly, have been better if from the get-go the people involved in the US “Save Darfur” coalition had focused their efforts somewhat less on one-sided finger-pointing, and much more on the urgent need for solid humanitarian aid, and the creation of the political climate of civil peace which is the only climate in which such aid can both be delivered in the shorter term and help to rebuild and heal war-torn communities over the longer term?
By the way, Jonathan Edelstein recently had a good post on the draft peace agreement out of Abuja, on his blog, here.
His analysis of the draft was this:
- If I’m reading between the lines accurately, the proposal falls somewhat short of what the southern Sudanese got in the Machakos protocol, offering some degree of local control over land and resources but not a full-fledged autonomous government or a secession option. This is probably to be expected. Unlike the south, Darfur has a significant pro-government constituency (the pastoralists), and the rebel movements can’t claim to speak for the region as a whole. In addition, the Darfur rebels aren’t as militarily powerful as the SPLA/M, and thus don’t have the leverage to overcome Khartoum’s opposition to regional autonomy. The AU draft is, in practical terms, the most that the rebel movements are likely to get.
Finally, maybe the only thing we can do at this late hour in the diplomacy is to pray for peace and rebuilding in Darfur… And to hope that wisdom, compassion, mercy, generosity of spirit, and restraint can guide the actions of all concerned… Including our own.
By the way, Jonathan Edelstein recently had a good post on the draft peace agreement out of Abuja
I wrote an update earlier today. Based on a more complete description of the draft accord as discussed by the AU mediators, I’d argue that the rebels have legitimate objections to the proposals for local and regional governments. The proposal will hardwire ruling-party majorities at least until 2009 and is short on meaningful guarantees of local participation in security and development issues.
I don’t think the rebels are justified in rejecting the agreement outright, much less in escalating the military conflict. However, I think that further negotiations without artificial deadlines are in order as long as all parties agree on the general principles of the draft. One possible approach to resolving the regional-governance issue might be to hold state and regional elections now rather than in 2009, which would (1) create representative governments rather than artificial NCP majorities, and (2) permit the refugees to participate in decisions affecting their repatriation. It might be good for some of these decisions to be made from the bottom up rather than by a top-down commission heavily loaded with the people responsible for the disaster in the first place!
In any event, I readily second your motion on Oxfam.
I completely agree that the NGO coalition should be less one-sided. However, it is very difficult for the “street” to present nuance. It is much easier to get people out protesting on the streets if there is someone to blame. It is much easier to call for intervention without explaining what that means, then to call for something more appropriate, such as protecting and tending to the humanitarian needs of civilians and refugees while political space is opened so that all parties can reach a peace agreement and reconcile so that there is a sustainable peace.
It is very unfortunate that the grassroots movement aimed at ending the killing in Darfur may, in fact, help to prolong it. It seems to me that the anti-government rebel groups think that since the world is condemning the Khartoum government, they can extract more concessions from the peace negotiations. If the goal of the anti-government rebels is to assert the rights of the people of Darfur, they should enter any agreement that will stop the killing now. They can sort out issues of autonomy later.
Let us first focus our energies on making sure that we and our governments are doing all we can to get literally life-saving basic humanitarian aid to the people of Darfur
Helena, in same time US/World doing their job I am very sadden with the Saudis as government and Enterprises whom they don’t know how to spend billions of money from their petrol same as other Gulf countries, as I recall that one Kuwaiti ministers said that Kuwait state do not know what can do with the extra billions (26Billions) they gained from petrol!!!!!!.
From Saudis there is only the RED SEA to pass a lot of aid and food for those striving and dieing because of hunger mainly and secondly from the military conflicts and criminals gangs there.
The question is why US did not put a lot of pressure on Saudi regime with the other Gulf courtiers to pass the food aids just across the RED SEA? Why US keep quote in this in same time we hear there are many military arm deals with US and UK France Russia with Saudis every one like to get a big cut of the Saudis Cake without caring for 2 millions just across the RED SEA?
Last thing if we compare Darfur human crises with the rest of Sub SAHARA in Africa or other nation in mid Africa is it small in the size with the rest? And Why Darfur much picks attentions right now?
Jonathan– thanks for that very informative update there. I find it hard to be able to say, from here, what the best sequencing of the various steps would be. I have, however, been fairly strongly persuaded by the arguments Roland Paris has made in his book At War’s End that it can often be a mistake to try to undertake “liberalizing” steps– which are also often by their nature politically polarizing steps– like the holding of elections, before you’ve built or rebuilt finctioning institutions of basic governance through which the democratically-derived authority is actually able to govern. (Q.v., Iraq!)
I would tend to trust the wisdom of an experienced guy like Salim Ahmed Salim on this…
You’re right though that the proposed, built-in NCP majorities in the three state-level parliaments looks like a real problem… Maybe a three-way split would be better: NCP, opposition movements, and independents…
Slah, you are completely right about the Saudis– who should have been extending food aid, as a matter of simple human solidarity and Muslim ethics, to Darfuris and other beleaguered populations of northeast Africa a long time ago.
The other day in Washington DC my cab-driver was a Somali guy. He talked for 20 minutes about the hardships his brothers, mother, and other family members were having back home because of the collapse of their traditional livestock raising industry there– due to the fact that the Saudis, who used to buy nearly all the meat that they could produce, have for some time now been ben importing meat from Australia and elsewhere…
Scott, I agree completely with your It is much easier to get people out protesting on the streets if there is someone to blame. Blaming a clearly identified “other” can also make the blamer feel superior and smug. I remember Ian Buruma wrote someplace about growing up in Netherlands right after WW2… He wrote of the atmosphere and general views in his community then that, “The Germans were bad. Therefore we were good.” Look at that “Therefore”.
Trying to learn about and understand the factual and moral complexities of a situation like that in Darfur is, of course, far harder than whipping up a one-sided chorus of blame.
I have, however, been fairly strongly persuaded… that it can often be a mistake to try to undertake “liberalizing” steps… before you’ve built or rebuilt finctioning institutions of basic governance through which the democratically-derived authority is actually able to govern.
Point. I should have thought of that, given that transitional elections are often the point where peace processes fall apart. I doubt that Darfur is ready to handle a disputed election at this point, and the odds of a Darfuri election being disputed approach unity.
Your alternative proposal of state governments divided between the NCP, the opposition and neutral forces makes sense. But I would still include refugee representatives on the panels that oversee repatriation, compensation and resettlement – the armed movements are not entitled to speak for the refugees in these matters.
Thanks Helena for your replay, But I would like US government and International community to put pressure on the Saudis and other Gulf courtiers (these Big Fat Ambers, and kings and Princes) to cut some money and sponsor urgent humanitarians aids to Dafur and we don’t need to waste time while people dieing each mint there.
one point that should not disappeared from out site in regards to the same point you started your post which” we and our governments are doing all we can to get literally life-saving basic humanitarian aid” your government band on aid and all financial relation and money transfer even from Islamic/Arab countries to the Palestinians elected authority and now the Palestinians under humanitarians crisis because they choose their representatives, so your government doing life-saving in Darfur but in same time doing the opposite in Palestine!.
Jonathan: I would still include refugee representatives on the panels that oversee repatriation, compensation and resettlement – the armed movements are not entitled to speak for the refugees in these matters.
I quite agree.
Salah: your point about Washington’s anti-humanitarian policy toward the Palestinians is also one I completely agree with.
It’s out of topic but looking new problem to GWB and Untied State.
President Evo Morales decreed he was nationalizing Bolivia’s vast natural gas
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