Darfur and the Crisis of Governance in Sudan

The deep extent to which Sudanese, both in Sudan and abroad, have been and continue to be engaged in what is happening in their country, was brought into sharp focus during an international conference: "Darfur and the crisis of governance in Sudan", convened at the Institute for Ethiopian Studies at Addis Ababa University on 22-23 February.

The conference brought together leading scholars, civil society members, and activists who are involved in proactively addressing the situation in Darfur and Sudan generally. Together they discussed and debated the multiplicity of factors that have given rise to what has been called "the first genocide of the 21st century".

Strikingly, even with such a diverse group of presenters from various walks of life and with different political orientations, a clear consensus was reached that while a range of historical, geo-political, military, socio-economic, and environmental factors have contributed to the conflict, its root lies at the doorstep of the Sudanese government and its monopoly of power and wealth.

Evidence of this consensus emerged during the conference's first panel on "The origins and evolution of the conflict." Presentations by Professor Atta El-Batahani (University of Khartoum, Sudan), Benaiah Yongo-Bure (Kettering University, USA), and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) senior member Abdullahi Osman El-Tom (National University of Ireland, Maynooth) were rich, diverse and mostly led to the same conclusions such as:

(1) The conflict in Darfur is part and parcel of the larger crisis of governance in Sudan;

(2) The war in Darfur, like its predecessor in the South, and long-brewing conflicts in the East, have all witnessed rebellions against the central government and accordingly must be understood as a derivative of the tension and inequality between the centre and the margin, rather than as a race war between "Arabs" and "Black Africans"; (3) The onus is on the centre to restructure power and address injustices within a truly democratic structure.

Ugandan intellectual Mahmood Mamdani (Columbia University) gave a provocative keynote address which analysed the politics of conflict in and around Darfur, by drawing attention to their global dimensions and their long-term consequences for conflict resolution and Sudanese sovereignty.

He also provided a powerful critique of the prevailing misrepresentations of the war. While clearly stating that the number of civilian deaths is unacceptable by any standard, he contended that the huge discrepancy between the numbers being reported in the Western media, and quoted by organisations such as Save Darfur as proof of genocide, and the much lower numbers reported by the UN's Commission on Darfur, deserve to be scrutinised, for they tell us something about the agenda behind some of those who have taken up the Darfur cause.

Mamdani warned that the push by Western constituencies to internationalise the conflict through the deployment of a hybrid UN/AU force comes on the heels of a deliberate effort to undermine the role of the African Union force in order to open the door for a far more robust international intervention in Sudan. Significantly, he noted that the affected populations on the ground, including various rebel movements, often share the desire for an "outside" solution, but pointing to Iraq, he warned that external intervention is not a panacea.

While welcomed by some as a nuanced analysis of the international manipulation of the war in Darfur, others took Mamdani to task for what they felt amounted to genocide denial, and for serving President Omar Bashir's government with what could be seen as evidence supporting its assertion that its actions in Darfur are justifiable and do not amount to ethnic cleansing or genocide.

The way the war in Darfur has been represented and understood within Sudan, and in Africa generally, was taken up by Ahmed Sikainga (Ohio State University, USA), Salah Hassan (Cornell University, USA), and myself. Sikainga and Hassan addressed one of the most important missing pieces in the public discussion of Darfur: the varied perspectives of the Sudanese themselves and their response to the crises within Sudan, while I surveyed the extensive reportage on Darfur in the African press.

Together the presentations demonstrated the vigorous engagement around Darfur of the Sudanese people, and Africans at large.

A panel on "Gender, War, and Violence" collectively looked at a particularly troubling aspect of the war in Darfur: its devastating effects on women. Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf (Qatar University, Doha) and Karen Willemse (Erasmus University, Netherlands) both noted how violence against women has become a mechanism by which men seek to secure and prove their masculinity and power over other men.

Fahima Hashim, director of the Salmmah Women's Resource Centre in Khartoum, delivered a gripping talk on how Sudanese grassroots organisations are responding to gender-based violence. She warned, however, that the NGO-isation of society is creating a dangerous pattern of co-dependency, especially in light of the government's creation of its own well-funded parallel NGOs, or what have become known as GONGOs (Governmental NGOs).

A discussion by Dr Mansour Khalid, member of the SPLM's Political Bureau and former foreign minister of Sudan, addressed how the failure of post-independence governments to reconceptualise the model of governance inherited from the colonial state, has led to the monopolisation of power at the centre. As such, Khalid argued that what was now needed was a complete restructuring of the state to recognise its internal heterogeneity, rather than a piecemeal approach focusing on environmental and other contributing factors. He offered the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which brought the North/South war to an end, as a model. Audience members noted in response that the CPA, itself, in many ways had created a ceiling for power-sharing and in this sense has become an obstacle, rather than a model for resolving the war in Darfur.

The panel on "Law, Human Rights and Prosecution" began with a presentation by the noted Sudanese lawyer, writer and activist, Kamal al-Gizouli, who provided an astute analysis of the array of ever-shifting erroneous excuses that the Sudanese government has used to evade facing the International Criminal Court (ICC). At the same time, he noted that demanding Khartoum's compliance was complicated by the double standard of the international community towards the prosecution of war crimes in places such as Palestine and Iraq, and the refusal of the USA to sign the ICC's charter.

Human rights activists, Amira Khair and Adrienne Fricke, jointly presented their work on the lack of access to justice for survivors of sexual violence in Darfur, and in Sudan in general. They highlighted the great risks women face in bringing rape charges to official attention because Sudan's legal code conflates rape with zina (adultery), thereby exposing women to being punished for adultery if they failed to prove they had been raped.

Finally, Abaker Mohamed Abuelbashar, a member of the Leadership of Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), drew on his first-hand experience as a representative of the SLM/A at the Abuja Peace Talks (2004-2006) in order to provide an account of why the talks failed.

While confirming that the SLM/A believes that a political rather than military solution is needed, Abuelbashar noted that the political solution on offer at Abuja did not meet the minimum standards for addressing the root causes of the conflict. Ending on a more hopeful note, he reported that recent efforts by the SPLM have helped to reunify what was increasingly becoming a very fragmented rebel movement.

Taken together, the panels highlighted the fact that formidable pre-existing and newly formed multi-regional and multi-ethnic movements and civil society organisations have organised themselves in Sudan and the diaspora, around the issue of Darfur. This often neglected development is but one indication that if solutions to the conflict are to be found, they must be developed in dialogue with ongoing internal and diasporic efforts.