Peace processes around the world are marked by missed and broken deadlines. Negotiating rooms from Belfast to Bulawayo still echo to the scrape of chairs pushed back as participants stormed from tables. In reality, such upsets are merely building blocks for peace. This is how we should look at the developments in Sudan’s Darfur where two rebel groups are yet to join the third in signing the Abuja Accord of May 5 in spite of an African Union deadline and hints at UN-mandated sanctions if they refused to cooperate with the peace process.
The point not to be missed here is that the dissidents would not have entered peace talks in the first place if they imagined that there was any way they could achieve their ambitions by continued conflict. At the same time any such group sees playing hardball around the negotiating table as a way of winning concessions they could not have won on the battlefield. Peace talks are thus a continuation of the conflict but by other means.
We must remember that in a Darfur-like situation only carrots, not big sticks, will influence the dissidents’ behavior. On the other hand, threats, especially threats that would be difficult to carry through, are likely to make it hard for the dissidents to persuade their supporters that a peace deal is worth signing up to.
The AU knows to its cost that feeling against its 7000 peace keepers is running high among the Darfur refugees in camps within Sudan itself. The people protest that they are still unprotected from attacks by Janjaweed militias and apparently by some elements of the Sudan police and army. It is an insistence that the murderous activities of the militias be stopped that is one of the sticking points for the two rebel factions. During the Abuja talks, the Khartoum government did give assurances that the Janjaweed would be reined in. The dissident rebels are demanding that it be disarmed. Given the fact that the rebels themselves want to keep some of their weaponry, it seems unrealistic to insist upon this. Nevertheless the Sudanese government could do the peace process no end of good by acting against Janjaweed thugs who continue to attack refugee camps and sack unprotected villages.
In the end, peace is all about confidence; can two bitter enemies trust each other enough to pull back from bloodletting? Khartoum must not imagine it can take advantage of the divisions among the Darfur rebels to improve its own position.
