Year in Review 2005: Ongoing violence jeopardises a fragile peace

On 9 January, the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) signed the CPA in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, giving hope to many that a corner had finally been turned after a 21-year civil war that claimed 2 million lives.

International donors were united in their support, pledging more than US $4.5 billion to rebuild Sudan during a conference in Oslo, Norway.

The euphoric swearing in of John Garang, chairman of the SPLM/A, as first vice-president on 9 July, with Umar al-Bashir retaining the presidency, further cemented the general sense of optimism.

Garang's sudden death in a tragic helicopter accident on 31 July, however, was followed by three days of violent riots that left 130 people dead around the country. His death shook the nation and brought many unresolved issues and simmering tensions to the fore.

"Garang was the intellectual force behind many of the provisions in the peace deal, and holding the NCP accountable for the implementation of these provisions was much more difficult after his death," said John Prendergast, special adviser to the president of the International Crisis Group (ICG).

Following the riots, the state government decided in August to resume the demolition and relocation of camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and squatter areas that housed a million people on the outskirts of the capital, Khartoum.

Hundreds of thousands southern Sudanese IDPs, alarmed by the riots and demolitions, began returning to a region with almost nothing in terms of basic services, roads, telecommunications and building infrastructure. Government institutions in the southern capital of Juba were extremely weak, and at the state and county level almost nonexistent.

David Gressly, the United Nations deputy humanitarian coordinator for southern Sudan, estimated that of the four million people displaced from southern Sudan, about half a million returned in 2005 and some 700,000 were expected to return in 2006.

Increasing scepticism

Despite Salva Kiir Mayardit's election to replace Garang, the creation of a government of national unity (GNU) on 20 September, and the establishment of various autonomous government institutions in the south, political analysts expressed concern that Sudan's ruling elite remained reluctant to share power with the former southern rebels as stipulated under the CPA.

In the new GNU, the NCP retained the key ministries of energy and mining, defence, interior, finance and justice.

"In terms of political power and the economic sector, the NCP kept full control over the key ministries, and this is creating a credibility problem," said Alfred Taban, editor of the Khartoum Monitor, an independent newspaper. "The SPLM/A and many southerners were very disappointed and lost faith in the intentions of the NCP."

Other observers in the region believed the NCP was still firmly in charge. Besides retaining key ministries, the party dominated the presidency and its advisory council. The NCP was also able to exert a degree of control over ministries they had handed over to the SPLM/A through shadow bureaucracies comprised of NCP loyalists.

On the military front, continued rumours about Sudanese support for the Ugandan rebels of the LRA and other militias in southern Sudan and the lack of progress in formally agreed troop withdrawals from the southern capital of Juba were other reasons for concern.

"The LRA had spread its operations considerably over the last two to three months, disrupting humanitarian operations in those areas and continuing to be a threat to hopes for development and recovery activities," Gressly noted.

An additional problem was that the composition of the GNU, with the NCP and the SPLM/A together holding 80 percent of the seats, did not incorporate other important groups in the political spectrum, such as the Ummah Party, the Democratic Unionist Party and the Popular National Congress.

"The challenge facing the GNU is to deliver real changes, to transform Sudanese policies towards democracy and human rights and to address poverty and marginalisation," said Hafiz Mohamed, Sudan programme director of Justice Africa, a London-based advocacy group. "But nothing has really changed."

This trend was exacerbated by the fact that following Garang's death the SPLM/A has been relatively passive at the national level, focussing on rebuilding the south instead.

"He was a national, Sudanese politician, not just a southerner," Prendergast said about Garang. "That voice for national interests and the need to prepare for a unified state is missing with his passing."

According to Prendergast, the engagement of the international community was key for the implementation of the CPA. "When their engagement was robust, the parties have responded," he noted, "but it hasn't been consistently robust."

Regional conflicts continue

Essentially an agreement between two warring parties in the south, the CPA failed to address the political and economic marginalisation of eastern Sudan and the western Sudanese region of Darfur. Conflicts continued to fester in these regions.

During the same month the CPA was signed, Sudanese security forces crushed a demonstration of Beja people in the Red Sea town of Port Sudan, killing over 20 people and wounding hundreds. In Darfur, Janjawid militia attacks and aerial bombardments destroyed villages, killing hundreds of civilians.

The international community, encouraged by the signing of the CPA, remained engaged with Sudanese affairs, however, and seemed determined to resolve outstanding conflicts.

In March, the UN Security Council adopted three resolutions on Sudan, deciding to send 10,000 troops to support the country's peace agreement, to impose sanctions on those believed to have committed human rights abuses in Darfur, and to refer the suspected perpetrators of war crimes in this region to the International Criminal Court.

As a result of concerted action by the international community, Darfur experienced a period of relative stability, and mortality rates fell below the threshold that defines a humanitarian emergency. Progress was made on the political front, and the Sudanese government and two main rebel groups in Darfur signed a Declaration of Principles on 19 July.

Escalating violence in Darfur

In September 2005, however, violence increased significantly in Darfur, prompting the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) to warn that banditry and continuous attacks by armed groups on humanitarian workers, Arab nomads and villages threatened to destabilise the fragile ceasefire.

Three Nigerian peacekeepers and two contractors were killed after armed men opened fire on them in October. It was the first time the African Union suffered fatalities in the region.

Meanwhile, progress in the peace negotiations was undermined by tension within Darfur's main rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), as well as between the SLM/A and the other main rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

The divisions within the SLM/A were partly personal, between the ethnically based factions led by SLM/A Chairman Abdel Wahid Mohammed al-Nur, a member of the Fur community, and its secretary-general, Mini Arko Minawi, a Zaghawa.

There were also divisions between the field commanders and the political leadership, leading to a degree of warlordism on the ground.

In November, violence escalated further, and another 15,000 newly displaced people sought refuge in Gereida town following fighting that affected 26 villages. The International Committee of the Red Cross reported that all the villages had emptied and hundreds of people were killed.

In December, Human Rights Watch published a report containing a list of senior Sudanese officials, including President Umar al-Bashir, who it said should be investigated for crimes against humanity in Darfur and placed on a UN sanctions list.

The looting and destruction of villages was not only condoned by government officials, the report said, it was also methodically organised, with troops and militia members permitted to take land, livestock and other civilian property after killing, raping and torturing tens of thousands of people.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned on 29 December that the security situation in Darfur continued to deteriorate, leading to nearly a doubling of confirmed civilian deaths from violence. He called the ongoing militia attacks a "shocking indication" of the government's continuing failure to protect its own population.

"The vast majority of armed militia have not been disarmed, and no major steps have been taken by the government to bring to justice or even identify any of the militia leaders or the perpetrators of attacks, contributing to a prevailing climate of impunity," Annan noted.

By then, nearly 3 million people - half the Darfur population - were receiving food aid from humanitarian workers, who faced increasingly high levels of insecurity. Those Darfurians most exposed to violence and gross violations of human rights, however, continued to live in fear and terror.

Also, as a result of the souring of relations between Sudan and neighbouring Chad, observers warned that the Darfur conflict had the potential to destabilise Chad, following various cross-border incursions.

"The international response, just like in Rwanda in 1994, focuses on the interethnic aspect of the killing, rather than the planners and the perpetrators," Prendergast observed. "So the concern is that the increasing attacks and small-scale battles and reduced access for relief agencies will lead to the resumption of full-scale civil war among a number of parties in Darfur."

Eastern Sudan

In its latest report, "Sudan: Saving the Peace in the East", the ICG warned that if the SPLM/A proceeded with its scheduled troop withdrawal from eastern Sudan, the low-intensity conflict between the Sudanese government and the rebel Eastern Front (EF) risked becoming a major new war with disastrous humanitarian consequences.

The EF was established in February 2005 between the rebels of the Beja Congress, an ethnically based group from the Red Sea Hills, and the Free Lions, backed by the Rashaida community from the eastern plains. The movement has links with the SPLM/A, and the JEM, as well as support from Eritrea.

Due in part to the eastern region's economic and strategic significance, as well as military activity since the mid-1990s, the government has a heavy security presence involving - according to the ICG - three times as many forces as in Darfur.

Under the CPA, the SPLM/A is obligated to remove its troops from eastern Sudan by 9 January 2006, and this - as well as the possibility of JEM activity in the east - has increased the likelihood that Khartoum will move militarily against the EF.

"Given that SPLM/A was much more implicated in the [war in the] east than it was in Darfur, a new conflict there has the potential to unravel the CPA and draw the SPLM/A back into the conflict," warned David Mozersky, senior Sudan analyst for the ICG. He stressed that the establishment of a credible forum for negotiations was key to Sudan's stability.

Conclusion

In short, although a historic peace agreement was signed and considerable progress has been made in setting up transitional government institutions, the ruling NCP seems reluctant to genuinely share power. At the same time, poor security in Darfur, the east and the south appears to persist, with negative consequences for the CPA. The conflict in Darfur, in particular, has the potential to destabilise the region and spill over into Chad.

At the same time, it is remarkable that peace, after decades of brutal civil war in the south, has held.

More coordinated and continued pressure by the international community, as well as support, seems to be imperative to consolidate a sustainable peace in Sudan, as acknowledged by a major donor who requested to remain anonymous.

"We are still not forceful enough. We are too soft and we don't attach enough conditions to our assistance. I don't see any progress with regard to objecting against and trying to reduce the demolitions and forced displacements around Khartoum, the lack of cooperation with the ICC or the continued aggression in Darfur and lack of good faith towards reaching solutions there," he said.

"The UN, too, should be an independent forceful political force in Sudan," the donor added. "The UN shouldn't be a play-ball of political forces in Sudan, who might not have the people's needs in mind. The UN should be the custodian of people's needs."