Articles

The Arab Summit in turn!

 

Mahgoub El-Tigani
3 April 2006

“We call on all concerned international and regional parties to restore security and stability in the Sudan… We call on the participant Sudanese parties in the Darfur peace talks to increase their efforts to finalize a comprehensive agreement to resolve the crisis of Darfur,” urged the Khartoum Declaration of the Arab Summit, as issued in the Sudanese capital, on March the 29th, 2006.

The Summit demonstrated a great deal of rhetoric “in solidarity with the Arab unity” in the face of “external invasions.” That rhetoric, however, was a matter of “much cry, little wool,” for the Summit failed, with only five heads of states, to commit the participant governments with clear decisions to reconcile conflicts with civil society and opposition groups; democratize their systems of rule; and realize the regional and international obligations towards women, ethnic and religious minorities, and the other suppressed populations.

The meeting of the Arab Summit in the Sudanese capital had been strongly rejected by many human rights and democracy groups protesting, as earlier exhibited before the African Union meetings in Khartoum, the leadership of the Summit by the NIF repressive rule whose president ignored the country’s urgent agenda on national reconciliation, and the compliance conferred upon the Sudan’s government by international resolutions to implement the peace agreements; end the Darfur and East Sudan conflicts; stop acts of security terrorism against civil society; reconcile with opposition groups; and surrender suspects of crimes against humanity to international trial, etc).

Stressing an all-Lebanese settlement, Lebanon dealt a severe blow to the NIF-motivated Initiative that aimed to tie in a Syrian-Sudanese approach to resolve the Lebanese conflict. Although the Initiative was never fully exposed to the public by the Syrian or the Sudanese authorities, it appeared as a poor diplomatic effort to release both initiators from international pressures. Moreover on the question of Iraq, the Summit failed to commit the Arab leaders to provide the Iraqis with effective developmental support or to help release their outstanding debts. Still, both Western and Arab entities emphasized national unity in Iraq and Lebanon!

The Summit appreciated a proposal by Egypt to hold a consultative session for Arab leaders in between their regular summits (Al-Ahram, Cairo: 03/30/06). The proposed sessions would probably allow follow-ups and high policy coordination; however, they might as well pre-empt the Arab dialogues or visions with ready-made decisions!


Looking forward to “effective implementation of the [Naivasha] agreement and a peaceful, unified Sudan working in harmony with all other States for the development of Sudan, the Security Council Resolution 1556 (2004) asks the Government of Sudan to “facilitate international relief; advance independent investigation in cooperation with the United nations of violations of human rights; facilitate the work of the monitors in accordance with the N’Djamena ceasefire agreement; cooperate with the High Commissioner for Human Rights; conclude a political agreement without delay; fulfill its commitments to disarm the Janjaweed militias and apprehend and bring to justice Janjaweed leaders and their associates.”

Instead of pressing upon the NIF regime to show responsible commitment and implementation of these international obligations, the Arab Summit decided to offer a self-awarding prize to “the conscientious management of the Arab Summit… through the wisdom, experience, efficiency, and creativity… of president Omer Bashir by which the Arab collective work will witness more achievements and development programs in the Arab Nation.” (!)

Vaguely avoiding a specific need to call directly on the Sudanese opposition to participate with the two negotiating parties in the ongoing peace talks (the Darfur rebels and the NIF ruling group), while offering unspecified “Arab support to the African Union forces,” the Arab Declaration un-vaguely missed an essential component to ensure deserved solutions for the political crisis of the Sudanese State, in general, and the region of Darfur, in particular. These strategies, however, fell short of a full-fledged governmental, opposition’s and external support solution of the escalated crisis.

A quick glance to the political composition of Darfur would testify to the Umma and the DUP politico-religious influences in the region since the colonial era throughout the present times. These two parties with the other contending groups, including the Federal Party, several professional and civil society associations, the newly established Darfur rebel groups, the NIF opposition faction, al-Mutamar al-Sha’bi, and a few other Bedouin and farmers’ groups comprise a majority of the Dafur population that not any solution of the Darfur’s Crisis can do without!

The “concerned international and regional parties,” and the “participant Sudanese parties,” specifically the Government of Sudan, addressed by the Arab Summit, however, have been excluding, to the detriment of the nation, most of these opposition groups from all decision making processes of the country, including the key peace negotiations between the central government and the regions of the South, Darfur, and Eastern Sudan.

The external powers’ peace process strategies, notwithstanding, emphasized the accomplishment of short-term structural governance arrangements on the basis of cease-fire agreements. These strategies miscalculated the national responses and their anticipated repercussions in the long-term.

Seriously ignoring the important realities of the Sudanese arena, the international sponsors of the country’s peace process, including the USA Government, the European Union, IGAD, and the African Union have unnecessarily underestimated the vital role to be played by the Sudanese Opposition in the North-South peace negotiations, which concluded in an exclusionary flavored “Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)” in January 2005.

The Arab Summit simply followed suit since it ignored the nature of the crisis and the need to ensure full-scale Sudanese participation in the current pursuit for the country’s permanent peace and political stability.

For a large bulk of the masses of Sudan, whose opposition has been continuously harassed by the NIF heavily-armed militias and security forces (which most recently roamed the streets with aggressive slogans condemning both opposition groups and the UN/USA “invasions in Sudan”), the negative stand of the external sponsors towards the issue of representing all Sudanese parties in the peace process worsened the short sightedness of the NIF ruling group (by now, 17 years’ corrupted alliance of army generals and NIF businesses).

As it boils down to the specifics of power relations and administrative performance with respect to the political, legislative, executive, and judicial authorities of the State, the CPA emerged as a bilateral treaty body approved by two asymmetrical groups of the Sudan’s conflict, namely the NIF militarily controlled central government (since June 1989) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and Army rebel group - both of whom assumed the key offices of the post-Naivasha Government of National Unity (GONU) with ineffective participation or non-representation of the other Sudanese groups, regardless of their political weight or national leverage.

This antagonistic, dramatic indifference to the Sudanese well-established diversity and potential plurality spoke the truth about a show down by the CPA versus the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) opposition umbrella and the NDA original resolutions to achieve the permanent and just peace in the Sudan. The NDA resolutions and consensual agreements resembled principled nationalist strategies that western think-tanks, the IGAD, the African Union, and now the Arab League collaborated in some way or another to replace with the CPA’s circumcised version of bilateral power and wealth sharing.

Compared to the CPA restrictive deal, the NDA original resolutions were meant for all Sudanese peoples, which is a tradition rooted in the political culture of Sudan and is certainly the best way to ensure national unity and democratic rule. Worst of all, however, is that non-accomplishing follow-up negotiations the NIF reluctantly offered to the NDA in Cairo. That did nothing to straighten out the CPA “partisan impositions” towards the achievement of a “national” transition rule.

Excluding the NDA, the DUP, and the Umma large constituencies from a real share in political participation and national decision-making, the GONU could only speak of itself as a NIF-SPLM coalition government. With only some ritualistic participation of small political factions and one or two portfolios for former opponents, the GONU is virtually short of any firm grounds to claim national representation of the Sudan.

Although basically designed, and so finalized by regional entities and international powers, to protect the South share of national power and wealth, the exclusion of the core parties of the Sudanese national opposition from the peace process would only reduce the necessary local guarantees to execute the agreement in real terms; this situation would ultimately act against the protection that the peace deal aimed, in the first place, to achieve since approval of the CPA in January 2005 by the bilateral partners.

Quite expectedly, the Naivasha-based NIF-controlled GONU has taken the opportunity to monopolize national decision making, in close collaboration with the African Union and the Arab League, concerning sensitive nationalist agenda that legitimately require the broadest national consensus (for example, the Darfur crisis, the Eastern Sudan crisis, the foreign policy crisis with the UN Security Council and the International Criminal Court, and the crisis of Sudan’s transitional governance, all in all).

Reported by many observers in and outside the country, the NIF performance, nonetheless, continues to weaken the roles of the South Sudan Government, added to the adamant exclusion of the Northern Opposition, in regard of Darfur and the other affairs of the country.

Apart from the African Union/Arab Summit “formal” support to the NIF rulers, the unabated challenges of the Sudanese peoples’ democratic forces and movement vis-à-vis the NIF militias and security bodies, the GONU unacceptable economic planning, including questionable oil deals and condemned financial corruption, in addition to escalated confrontations with the International Community and power entities, isolated the ruling regime in the national and international arenas and are doing a great harm to the situation of peace and the future of Sudan’s unity.

Several northerner and southerner political and civil critics criticized the miscalculations of the North-South CPA since the beginning of the peace process, which came about in the early 2000s under active guidance by the American Envoy Senator Danforth. The Senator held meetings with all parties to the Sudan’s Crisis, He worked, however, in close collaboration “only” with the NIF regime and the SPLM via western states and think tanks to resolve, reshape, and reestablish a partisan CPA to “end” the Sudan’s National Crisis.

Of the Sudanese major critics, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) continues to support the peace process despite many reservations about the political, legislative, judicial, and executive provisions of the CPA. The NDA, however, alarmed repeatedly that “the absence of the NDA groups from the Naivasha negotiations is a serious shortcoming that will seriously affect the final results of the negotiations, as well as implementation of the agreement in the near future.” The NDA predicted the CPA GONU would ensue in unfair elections in the post-transitional period” (several NDA statements, 2000-6).

Equally importantly, the Umma Party, a significant mentor of the Darfur region in the Mahdiya and the colonial era, long before the national independence of Sudan throughout the post-independence decades (1956 to the present), and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) - the Umma foe in national contests as well as a major political partner in all democratically elected governments of Sudan - have loudly protested the negligible 14% share that had been contemptuously reserved by the CPA to the sizable constituencies and historically leading parties of Sudan in the CPA’s present-time GONU.

It is true the SPLM/A has been carefully struggling to maintain close relations with the Northern Opposition groups, especially the Merghani-led NDA and the DUP. The rejection of a dual role of both opposition leader and government partner by Mr. Salva Kiir, the successor of the late John Garang, the long-time venerated partner of the NDA and the DUP, added to the odds of adopting NDA objections while performing State responsibilities and leadership obligations by the CPA. This situation alienated the SPLM/A in actual terms from the larger body of the opposition.

The SPLM/A ceased to exist as an NDA opposition group vis-à-vis the NIF regime: the SPLM/A is a government body that is fully answerable by all democratic criteria to the Sudanese opposition, as well as the masses of the Sudanese people regarding its GONU performance together with the largely condemned NIF rulers. The South parliamentarian rejection of the ethnically dominated post-Naivasha Government of South Sudan, as expressed in the Memo of the Nuer Members of Parliament to President Kiir, is a case in point.

Additionally, since the departure of the New Sudan’s most influential unifying leader, Dr. John Garang de Mabior, the high interest in national unity among the northern-southern ruling elites has somewhat dried out, while a countermovement on both parts of the Nation raised a developing banner of political separation between the two sides of the Homeland.

The extent of this movement is not yet clear. Still, the unabated international pressures on the GONU to improve implementation of the CPA on one hand, and the African and Arab “diplomatic” concerns for the humanitarian relief and the other inter-continental and international security agenda on Darfur, on the other hand, failed to lend sufficient support to the nation’s key agenda to accomplish national unity and political stability via a pluralist system of rule.

As earlier stated, the Arab Summit endorsed several romantic visions and ideological plans to boost “the Arab unity and solidarity.” These plans included in the Khartoum Declaration an interesting emphasis on women’s rights and scientific research which offsets any real mention of the top humanitarian needs of the populations of the Arab region to enjoy the right to life and public freedoms versus the extra-judicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and tortures by the well-financed Arab security forces and praetorian guards.

Apart from the courteous tone of the Arab States’ “praising, with gratitude, the conscientious management of the Arab Summit… through the wisdom, experience, efficiency, and creativity… of president Omer Bashir by which the Arab collective work will witness more achievements and development programs in the Arab Nation” (!), it is true the Summit Communiqué has cautiously pledged to support “the national initiatives that aim to broaden the basis of participation in governance in such a way as to guarantee national reconciliation and peace.”

Similar to the politico-administrative plague that characterizes the Arab governments with a state of continuous oscillation between peace and war, democracy and dictatorship, national reconciliation and security suppression, etc., the Arab Summit failed to address the Sudan’s outstanding issues with any committed obligation. Several alterations were made on the Declaration, including a vague promise of supporting the African Union forces “with the necessary material logistics to complete their mission,” instead of US150 million dollars earlier pledged in the draft for that purpose (Al-Ray, Kuwait: 03/30/06).

Al-Qabas (Kuwait: 03/30/06) mentioned “the frustration of Sudanese people by the Summit’s failure to provide effective humanitarian relief or some strong support to avert the international intervention in the country’s internal affairs.” The truth of the matter, however, is that western donors, not the Arab governments, have constantly ensured the largest portion of relief to the Sudanese victims of drought, famine, or civil war.

For sure, it would have been better had the Summit advised the Sudanese president to resolve the country’s crisis in full collaboration with the Sudanese opposition. To avoid international sanctions, the NIF rulers must abandon their partisan policies and practices to come in good terms with all civil society and democracy groups to be able to adjust the CPA provisions by a constitutional national conference to the country’s situation. This political procedure should translate the realities of Sudan to favor a viable transition to democratic rule and the lasting peace.

Clearly, the only way to ensure political stability and national unity in the country hinges on the insurance of full political participation by the Sudanese opposition groups in the peace process of Darfur, Eastern Sudan, and the other warring zones of Sudan, indiscriminately. This unfulfilled participation must be immediately redressed to meet the urgent needs of South Sudan to enhance its social, economic, and political development by a principled indiscriminate commitment to the human rights and freedoms of people, as enshrined in the CPA, with due respect to the cultural diversity and the pluralist structure of the region.

The N’Djamena ceasefire [and security arrangement] agreement did not put forward a comprehensive political solution to end the Darfur’s Crisis, as Omer al-Bashir claimed (April 3rd, 2006). Related to this-self-defending approach, neither the Arab Summit’s promised finances, nor the Summit’s proclaimed “wisdom” of the Sudan’s repressive dictator Omer al-Bashir, his adventurous junta or repressive regime, would end the Darfur Crisis, let alone the Sudan’s Crisis.

The road to national sovereignty and international cooperation is not yet observed by the Sudanese ruling elite, if not seriously handicapped. There is already enough evidence in the case of the South-NIF peace deal: only full-fledged all-Sudanese transition governance with equal representation of the Sudanese opposition parties, civil society associations, and human rights groups would do that complex task.