ICG Urges New Approach for Darfur Peace Settlement - report
April 30, 2007 (NAIROBI/BRUSSELS) — The international community needs to complement efforts to get peacekeepers on the ground with a new approach to negotiating a political settlement if there is to be peace in Darfur, said ICG in a report released today.
Darfur: Revitalising the Peace Process,* the latest International Crisis Group report, proposes a comprehensive strategy to achieve a political settlement and end the tragedy. While there has been marginally less fighting for two months, the security situation has deteriorated since the government and one of three rebel factions signed the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) in May 2006. Peace will remain elusive unless the international community coordinates better to surmount obstacles, including the ruling National Congress Party’s pursuit of military victory and increasing rebel divisions.
Deploying an effective African Union/UN hybrid peacekeeping force to protect civilians and establishing a workable ceasefire is vital, and further Khartoum delays can be expected despite recent agreement on more support for the African Union contingent. But new impetus in the moribund peace process is equally vital. “The DPA has failed because it did not resolve the conflict’s root causes, too few rebels signed, and inadequate representation in negotiation has meant a lack of support in Darfur”, says David Mozersky, Horn of Africa Project Director. “A revised political agreement is the only chance for lasting peace”.
Talks must respond to the conflict’s complex nature and can be built on the framework established by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the mainly North-South civil war in 2005. To maximise chances of success, the AU/UN mediation team needs to build a new international consensus on strategy and pursue three prerequisites for peace: help the rebels unify and develop a common agenda so that they can negotiate coherently; broaden participation to include more of Darfur’s constituencies; and strengthen the structure of the new negotiations. The mediation team must also make the NCP understand that a solution requires greater power sharing than what was in the DPA, and it should avoid setting artificial negotiating deadlines.
For negotiations to produce an agreement with a chance to be implemented, the international community will have to adjust its approach to Khartoum, which will continue to wage war and defy its international obligations as long as it does not face punitive, multilateral measures. A U.S.-China understanding is central to changing its perception, which in turn requires Beijing to recognise that continuation of the crisis threatens its legitimate interests and investments in Sudan.
“There is no easy solution. Ending this crisis needs creative thinking”, says Francois Grignon, Crisis Group’s Africa Director. “Without intense international engagement and cooperation before new talks, the crisis will continue ravaging Darfur and could revive the deadly conflict in the South and further destabilise the entire region”.
The full report is available at :
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=4769&l=1
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