The protests currently taking place around the world demanding an end to the fighting in Sudan’s Darfur region will probably achieve nothing — or at least very little. As noble as the demonstrations are, the events being held in over 35 capitals to mark the fourth anniversary of the conflict will probably not even serve as a catalyst. Such staged occasions may alert the public to the ravages of the conflict but any genuine settlement must start and end on the territory of Sudan, rather than in London, Berlin, Rome, Cairo or Abuja — all sites of various kinds of protests. On the ground, it is crystal clear that neither the African Union nor its 7,000 troops can do the job of ending a conflict that has killed more than 200,000 people and driven 2.5 million from their homes. Hence the need for the deployment of a new UN-AU peacekeeping force to include some 3,500 UN military and police personnel to which Sudan’s president has pledged his commitment.
President Omar Al-Bashir’s green light is perhaps the first positive signal in almost six months of serious negotiations with the Sudanese government and gives UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon the breathing space he has requested for from the Security Council as he tries for a diplomatic settlement before the UN imposes economic and military sanctions on Khartoum.
Ban will be allowed even more leeway if Khartoum were to agree to an eventual plan which envisions a hybrid UN-AU force of 20,000. That the Sudanese government has rejected this hybrid unit and will only allow a larger AU force with logistical support from the UN is putting both Khartoum and Ban in a corner. Both are fully aware that the patience of the international community, which in the main is the US and Britain, is wearing thin and that the knives are out and are being sharpened. Should Bashir renege on his pledge, Ban will only be able to say he had warned Khartoum.
An agreement is needed not only on the military track but politically as well. The hybrid force is vital but so too is a political settlement which incorporates the 2005 peace deal that ended the 21-year civil war between Sudan’s north and south.
As the conflict continues unabated, questions are surfacing over which approach is likely to end the crisis most quickly. The Darfur crisis is complex, much more now than the rebellion it started. It has snowballed into a savage conflict involving government forces, tribes and villagers and threatens to spill over into neighboring countries to which tens of thousands of refugees have already fled. The situation has political, tribal and ethnic dimensions and as such, equilibrium in Darfur between the different groups that have existed for centuries must be restored. In the end, though, Sudan is an African problem. What is most needed is an African solution. Far-off protests will only help soothe the world’s conscience for not having done enough to end the conflict. They produce precious little of substance.
