Sudan calls world’s bluff – ISN
September 7th, 2006
Sudan rebuffs attempts to send UN peacekeepers to Darfur amid a renewed military offensive against rebels.
Omar al-Bashir
By Simon Roughneen
Not only has the Sudanese government refused to give consent to a UN mission in Darfur and threatened to expel African Union (AU) peacekeepers, it has also renewed its military offensive in northern Darfur, apparently in alliance with the Janjaweed militia and the rebel faction that signed the May Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) – a peace agreement that is now basically defunct.
The developments come on the heels of a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution passed last week to deploy over 20,000 UN peacekeepers to Sudan’s Darfur region to bolster the dying peace agreement and forestall an even greater humanitarian catastrophe.
Reports from the AU and non-governmental organizations on the ground in Darfur tell of an explicit military build-up in El-Fasher, the capital of northern Darfur, with government aircraft bring troops to the region and carrying out air raids on nearby anti-towns held by rebels who did not sign the peace agreement. (more…)
Cautious optimism over Uganda truce – ISN
August 30th, 2006
There is hope that a truce agreed on between rebels and the government will provide a solution to northern Uganda’s 20-year conflict, but a rebel amnesty that contradicts the ICC is seen as problematic.
By Simon Roughneen in Nairobi
Women and children shelter indoors at night, safe from the depredations of the LRA. Kalongo, northern Uganda (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
“If their fighters enter these camps as agreed, then even before we sign a final peace deal, we can say it is the end of the war.” So said Ugandan government spokesman Robert Kabushenga, speaking after a ceasefire between the government and northern rebels of the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) was agreed on in Juba, Sudan, on 26 August.
LRA fighters are to proceed to two camps in southern Sudan during the three-week period leading up to 12 September, the deadline sought by Uganda President Yoweri Museveni for a peace deal to be signed between his government and the rebels.
On a visit to northern Uganda in April by ISN Security Watch, the desire for peace among the some 200 internally displaced person (IDP) camps in the region, home of sorts to 2 million people, was strong and clear.
At that time, the Ugandan government was promoting the idea that safe return to rural areas and villages was possible for northerners, some of whom had been displaced for almost 20 years. However, people in camps remained doubtful. As James Makena, a farmer staying in the Kalongo IDP camp, said: “ We can only go back when there is no more war, no more rebels and when the Army is gone.” (more…)
Stalemate in Northern Ireland – ISN
August 16th, 2006
With deadlock in Northern Ireland, the Irish and British governments could override local institutions in a potentially-destabilizing maneuver aiming to make parties cooperate.
By Simon Roughneen in Dublin
One year after the Irish Republican Army (IRA) announced the end to its almost-40 year armed campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland, political progress remains piecemeal in the long-divided region.
The IRA’s ongoing reticence to disarm was a key constraining factor in Northern Ireland’s slow-moving peace-building process. But now despite the organizations’ disarmament, ongoing wrangles have prevented the revival of the regional political institutions, which give Northern Ireland significant devolved authority from London. These institutions remain core aspects of the 1998 ‘Good Friday’ peace agreement.
The British and Irish governments have stated their intention to put some of the institutions into ‘cold storage’ if a 24 November deadline for restarting devolution is not met by the political parties. (more…)
Uncertainty ahead of Congo vote – ISN
July 27th, 2006
Haunted by a violent and corrupt legacy, the Democratic Republic of Congo prepares for elections.
IDPs on the move in the Kivus (Photo: Bob Kitchen/The IRC)
By Simon Roughneen in Paris & Nairobi
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will hold presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday, 30 July, marking the vast country’s transition from corruption, tyranny and violent anarchy. However, the elections are being held amid grave political and strategic uncertainty. Fears pervade that Congo’s conflicts could re-erupt as a result of elections that are meant to underline a transition to stability and provide a seedbed for development.
The last democratic elections held in Africa’s second largest state took place in 1960 after Zaire, the DRC’s name between 1971 and 1997, gained its independence from Belgium. The victor, Patrice Lumumba, was later assassinated, and his short tem in office was marked by an attempted secession by the mineral-rich Katanga province and a UN peacekeeping intervention. Mobuto Sese Seko then ruled Zaire with a Western-financed iron fist, from 1964-1996.
Since Mobutu’s accession to power, the past 40 years have seen the systematic impoverishment and destruction of a vast and potentially wealthy country. Gross domestic product (GDP) was US$259 per capita at independence. It is now less than US$100. (more…)
Deciding peace & justice in Northern Uganda – ISN
July 13th, 2006
Ugandan government and brutal LRA looking end a twenty-year conflict?
By Simon Roughneen in Nairobi
People made homeless by LRA attacks queue for NGO ration cards (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Two weeks ago, the reclusive leader of the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) gave an unprecedented television interview from an undisclosed location in the Congolese jungle, close to the border with Sudan and Uganda. Joseph Kony denied charges leveled against him by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has indicted him and four other LRA members for crimes against humanity and war crimes, saying “How can I kill the eye of my brother?”
Kony’s budding openness to the outside world has had ramifications beyond media interviews. Even though they have been postponed, peace talks were set to begin 12 July between an LRA delegation and the Ugandan government in the southern Sudanese town of Juba. The talks, if they had happened, would have been hosted by the former Sudanese rebel group known as the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), under their current role as the lead member of the regional Government of South Sudan (GoSS).
Whatever the catalyst for the new-found willingness of both sides to attempt to forge a deal, the two-decade-long conflict has left a legacy of abduction, death, displacement and failed peacemaking attempts that will occlude the latest process. A simmering dispute between the ICC and the Ugandan government may also have an impact, with the ICC stating that the Ugandans cannot override the indictments with a contradictory amnesty and political process. The Ugandan government sees its legal and political decision-making as a prerogative of national sovereignty. (more…)
The Dying Darfur Peace Agreement – ISN
June 29th, 2006
El-Fasher, Darfur - Despite the signing of the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) by the Sudanese government and one rebel faction on 5 May, tensions remain high in the vast and remote western region. Two rebel factions have not signed the agreement, and fragmentation among signatories and refuseniks alike is affecting security on the ground.
Meanwhile, a diplomatic row over a planned UN takeover of the Darfur peacekeeping duties from the African Union (AU) hangs over the 1-2 July AU Summit in Banjul, where AU states and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan will seek to persuade Khartoum to accept a UN force.
Darfur's camps stretch out across the hot, dusty Sahel (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
It has been almost two months since the signing of the DPA in Abuja, Nigeria. The peace deal was controversial from the outset, with then-US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick present to move the negotiations along by exerting much pressure on all sides to sign the agreemen
Lack of security on the ground undermines aid agency efforts to reach people in camps with vital food, health, water, health and sanitation provisions, while the looming rainy season will worsen the already diminished humanitarian access to Darfur’s three million conflict affected. (more…)
High Stakes in Somalia – ISN
June 20th, 2006
By Simon Roughneen in Nairobi for ISN Security Watch
Somalia Islamist militia members rest next to a truck carrying an anti aircraft gun that they have seized from the warlords. Photograph: Mohamed Sheikh Nor/AP
With allegations and denials abounding that Ethiopian army regulars crossed into Somalia on 17 June, the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) -Islamic Court Union (ICU) talks scheduled for Yemen this week will take on added bite.
And with a UN official suggesting that arms are flowing into Somalia in contravention of an embargo, security in Somalia and in the Horn of Africa region could be set to deteriorate in the coming days and weeks.
Militias loyal to the ICU wrested control of Mogadishu on 5 June from secular warlords widely viewed as backed by Washington, after a three-month battle that cost upward of 300 lives. The US sees the ICU as being a potential seedbed for Islamic terrorism.
Reports suggest that the Islamist militias are debating an attack on the TFG outpost of Baidoa, torpedoing the talks scheduled for Yemen and foreshadowing an ICU take-over of Somalia.
The terror threat: overblown or mishandled?
Somali Islam has historically been a Sufi-mystical variant, with scant regard for politicization or militancy. Somali society is renowned for its openness and oral culture, which makes the sort of foreign or ill-fitting extremism that wahhabist or al-Qaida operatives promote difficult to conceal.
However, terrorist attacks have emanated from Somali soil. (more…)
No peace in Sudan – ISN
June 8th, 2006
Since the signing of the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) on 5 May, there has been some optimism that real peace could return to Sudan’s Darfur region, but that optimism is fading fast, and it now appears that the UN peacekeeping force due to take over from African Union (AU) peacekeepers in October will not be allowed into the country
Men awaiting their turn to see doctor at IDP camp (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
After meeting on Tuesday with a UN delegation in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir argued vigorously against any UN force.
With Russia and China providing powerful patronage at the UN Security Council, the prospect of an effective UN mission in Darfur is slim. There are already 10,000 UN peacekeepers in southern Sudan, deployed after the January 2005 peace deal between the Sudanese government and the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A).
Now the SPLM/A is in a Government of National Unity with its erstwhile opponents, the governing Arab-dominated National Congress Party (NCP). However, Sudan’s foreign minister, the SPLM/A’s Lam Akol, has been unable to persuade al-Bashir that a UN force is needed in Darfur – where between 200,000 and 400,000 people have been killed since a local uprising was met with a crushing counter-insurgency campaign by the Sudanese Armed Forces, and a deadlier scorched earth campaign targeting Darfurian civilians by Arab nomad militias called the Janjaweed.
This latest diplomatic failure comes after the one apparent success in Darfur’s recent troubles. On 5 May, the Darfur Peace Agreement was signed by the Sudanese government and a faction of the Darfur-based Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) led by Minni Minawi. (more…)
Influence Anxiety: China in Africa – ISN
May 15th, 2006
By Simon Roughneen in Nairobi for ISN Security Watch (15/05/06)
Chinese investment in Africa, 2005 (risingpowers.foreignpolicyblogs.com)
“Business is business. We try to separate politics from business. Secondly I think the internal situation in the Sudan is an internal affair, and we are not in a position to impose upon them,” Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Zhou Wenzhong said in an interview with the New York Times on 22 August 2005.
In the Mao era, China dealt with Africa as part of a show of solidarity with countries that shared some of China’s experience of Western oppression. However, these links were fostered in an ideologically charged time, when China sought to display affinity with other socialist countries and to demonstrate an almost nihilistic aversion to the institutions and norms of international relations. Although it joined the UN in 1971, any real alteration of China’s foreign policy did not come until the Deng-initiated reforms post-1979.
Even then reform was piecemeal and cautious, predicated on careful changes to China’s domestic political economy, which allowed for marketization of the economy while retaining a totalitarian state. According to Christopher Alden, senior lecturer in International Relations at the London School of Economics, in an article for YaleGlobal magazine, China’s foreign policy changed in 1993 when it shifted from being an oil exporter to being an oil importer. (more…)
Darfur: local conflict, international chaos – ISN
April 5th, 2006
Simon Roughneen in El-Fasher, Darfur
A senior Chadian general died in a battle with rebels near the Chad-Sudan border, close to the Darfur region, on 30 March. It was the latest sign that the three-year-old Darfur conflict is set to degenerate in the coming months, and could also lead to the destabilization of Chad and a Sudan-Chad war.
Since February 2003 – when Darfur rebels known as the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), joined later by the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), attacked government positions in the western region – between 200,000 and 400,000 people have died from conflict or related causes, and over two million others have been displaced into refugee camps in Chad or Darfur. (more…)
