Just World News with Helena Cobban

African Union mediators who have been convening peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria, between representatives of the Sudanese government and the two main Darfuri opposition groups have put forward a draft peace agreement for consideration by the parties. (Hat-tip to Jonathan Edelstein for that news.)
The foregoing link goes to the Sudan Tribune‘s account of the content of much of the peace deal. That account says that the “Security” portion of it still has to be worked out. VOA’s account of the draft presented by AU chief mediator Salim Ahmed Salim says, however, that the draft contains provisions in all spheres, including security.
Reuters’ Estelle Shirbon writes in this very informative report that the AU-proposed draft includes a requirement that Khartoum disarm the Janjaweed militia.
As the April 30 target date for the final conclusion of the peace agreement approaches, there have been recent reports that both sides have been taking some worryingly escalatory moves.
IRIN reported from Nairobi today that,

A recent spate of attacks in South Darfur State seems to constitute a new military offensive by the Sudanese government and puts the lives of tens of thousands of people at risk, regional analysts have warned.

And in Friday’s Christian Science Monitor, Katharine Houreld has a very troubling report saying that “various Chadian and Sudanese rebel groups” have been kidnapping men– and even some children– from the refugee camps strung along the Darfur-Chad border, and impressing them into their own forces.
Houreld writes:

Although the exact number is unknown, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that around 4,700 refugees in Chadian camps were abducted last month. Most were taken in the span of three days in mid-March from the camps of Treguine and Bredjing, when unidentified rebels went from tent to tent looking for potential fighters, according to refugees and the UNHCR. Women who tried to cling to their men were beaten back mercilessly, say witnesses. Some men who resisted were tied up at knifepoint and carried off in vehicles. Many of those taken say they saw people tied up and left in the sun for days, or witnessed beatings. Some were killed.
Among the dusty tents and straw shacks of the refugee camps, the clumps of frightened people do not even know who attacked them, although most of the refugees who escaped agree their kidnappers spoke with Sudanese accents. At least four rebel groups – some Sudanese, some Chadian – are now active along the chaotic border between the two countries.
… Although the Darfur conflict has been marked by gross human rights violations and ethnic cleansing, Olivier Bercault of Human Rights Watch says the forced recruitment of fighters, including children, is a new development.
…”The war is shifting gear and [the various rebel groups] need more people to fight,” said Bercault. “I’m very concerned about child recruitment. When you start with this, it’s like an addiction. It’s difficult to stop.”

In the United States, meanwhile, President Bush hurried to add his own, US sanctions to those that the UN imposed on four military leaders involved in the fighting in Darfur… And representatives from numerous US organizations have been preparing for Sunday’s rally to “Save Darfur”, though their “Unity Statement” still doesn’t tell us how they propose doing this …
(Oh, and actor George Clooney has gotten into the action, too. In a newsclip he and his father made that I saw tonight, the dad– described as “a journalist”– got some very basic political facts about the situation wrong, referring to the janjaweed as “insurgents”, which is precisely what they are not… Which doesn’t give me much confidence in the quality of the duo’s analysis.)
I hope the peace talks in Abuja can really succeed, and the rebuilding process that they envision can really take hold. That is far and away the best way to end the commission of atrocities in Darfur and start rebuilding a rule-of-law-based society there.
But what about the reports of the recent escalatory acts? Let’s hope they were just one last push that each side was making, trying to win one last spot of negotiating advantage, before they both sign onto the peace deal…
Another interesting question: Have the UN’s recent imposition of targeted sanctions and other political pressures from outside helped to nudge the government toward accepting the peace agreement? If so, that’s good.
One last point. If the parties do sign onto the peace, then surely the main impetus in the “international community” has to be towards supporting this peace and giving it the very best possible chance to succeed. Including, obviously, by funding it. But also, by agreeing to be led by the AU negotiators regarding questions of how perpetrators of the conflict-era atrocities should be dealt with.
I certainly hope the AU has been making robust plans for the Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration back into their home communities (DDR) of the vast bulk of the former fighters on both sides of the conflict… DDR is by far the best way to help rebuild societies torn apart by civil war.

The NYT reported today that the UN Security Council yesterday voted to impose personalized sanctions on four named individuals suspected of involvement in the atrocities in Darfur.
Interestingly, the four persons sanctioned comprise two leaders affiliated with the Khartoum government: “Maj. Gen. Gaffar Mohamed Elhassan, a Sudanese Air Force officer accused of helping the government-backed janjaweed militias commit atrocities; [and] Sheik Musa Hilal, chief of an Arab tribe and a janjaweed leader”– along with two leaders with the anti-government forces: “Adam Yacub Shant, a commander of Sudanese Liberation Army forces that broke a cease-fire to attack government troops; and Gabril Abdul Kareem Badri, the commander of another rebel force, which kidnapped and threatened African Union troops.”
Is the Security Council (and perhaps also the ICC, with which it has been working on the Darfur atrocities) perhaps getting something right this time, in terms of the political “balance” of these sanctions?
The Council’s position stands in notable contrast to that adopted by nearly all the mainstream media and political activists here in the US, who have stayed almost completely silent about the atrocities reportedly committed by the anti-government militias– the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement– while hyping up those committed by pro-government forces.
In a report on BBC t.v. the other day, I saw even the estimable Orla Guerin fall into that trap. She spoke breathlessly about refugees “streaming away” from a government-attacked village– while in the frame behind her all you could see was a bedraggled group of around six people making their way mournfully from one side of the screen to the other. She also stated– incorrectly– that the African Union troops in Darfur “have no mandate to protect civilians”. And at a point when a group of armed anti-government fighters were visible in a Jeep quite close behind her she made no mention of their presence or of the well-documented accusations that the anti-government forces are also accused of atrocities.
I note that many Jewish-American organizations are among those that have joined the (increasingly politicized, anti-Khartoum) US campaign to “Save Darfur” that was launched recently by Elie Wiesel and that is organizing a big march in DC this Sunday. If you go to the campaign’s Unity Statement, you will see descriptions of atrocities committed by government and pro-government forces, but no mention at all of violence by anti-government forces.
Here’s what it says:

The emergency in Sudan’s western region of Darfur presents the starkest challenge to the world since the Rwanda genocide in 1994. A government-backed Arab militia known as Janjaweed has been engaging in campaigns to displace and wipe out communities of African tribal farmers.
Villages have been razed, women and girls are systematically raped and branded, men and boys murdered, and food and water supplies targeted and destroyed. Government aerial bombardments support the Janjaweed by hurling explosives as well as barrels of nails, car chassis and old appliances from planes to crush people and property. Tens of thousands have died. Well over a million people have been driven from their homes, and only in the past few weeks have humanitarian agencies gained limited access to some of the affected region…

What a problematic statement. Firstly, it completely ignores the horrendous conflict-related suffering in eastern DRC, where more than four million people have already died in the past eight years, as a result of conflict stirred up largely by the Rwandan (post-genocide) government or by the west’s poster-boy in Uganda, Pres. Museveni.
… And the last sentence I quoted from the statement is now quite out of date and should be updated or dropped.
… Note, too, the way in which the “Unity Statement” tries to make the conflict seem quite simply to be one between “Arabs” and “Africans”, and thereby to whip up the anti-Arab sentiment that lies very close to the surface of much US discourse; whereas, as best I understand it, the Darfur conflict is much, much more complex than that.
… And finally, the statement makes no mention at all of what the signatories believe should be done in response to the violence and suffering in Darfur. This is presumably because the signatory groups failed to agree on this? Some people here in the US have been urging the intervention of NATO forces “to save the Darfuris”– a military campaign on the model of Kosovo, which would similarly weaken the central government involved, i.e., Khartoum. Others urge a more pacific, multilateral approach. But by waving the bloodied garments of the victims of pro-government violence, while making no mention of the victims of anti-government violence, this campaign will surely serve only to whip up anti-Khartoum feeling.
My own prescription for what should be done? Support peace efforts in these three troubled provinces of Sudan to the greatest degree possible.
Atrocities like genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes always (or nearly always) occur in the context of an ongoing armed conflict. The situation in Darfur is certainly no exception to that rule.
I share the angst of all those in the global rights community who are appalled at the grotesque, man-inflicted suffering in Darfur. But the way to bring those atrocities to a lasting end is to bring to a lasting end the conflict that has spawned them. By contrast, engaging in a campaign of one-sided, blame-hurling accusations against only one party to the conflict seems like a sure recipe for keeping the situation inflamed.
That’s why I’m really heartened by the even-handed approach adopted by the Security Council.
By the way, the ICC– to which the Security Council last April made a formal referral of the situation in Darfur– has not yet named its own list of indictees, as you can see if you check the documents available through this ICC web portal on the topic. But I wonder if the prosecutor there consulted with the Security Council members on who should be the targets of these sanctions?