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*Pambazuka News *

Pan-African Postcard

KHARTOUM IS FOOLING THE WORLD AGAIN

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem

As someone who believes in 'African solution to African problems' I
should be excited as everyone seem to be about the so called break
through between the African Union and the UN on the one hand and the
Government of Sudan on the other, on ending the genocidal war in
Darfur. But I am not excited at all. I am not excited because we have
been down this road several times before.

Khartoum has been taking everyone for a ride for so long that we take
every sign of compromise as a breakthrough even if it will lead to
yet another road bloc.

Khartoum has perfected the art of talking while continuing to kill
its own citizens either directly or indirectly through its Janjaweed
militia.

The timing of this latest breakthrough is very significant. An
African Union summit is only three weeks away. The UN human Rights
Council is sitting in Geneva and the Bush Administration has recently
announced a raft of ineffectual sanctions.

Khartoum has played the Pan Africanist card very well, insisting on
an 'African only' troops which satisfies our Pan Africanist instincts
but knowing fully well that logistical, political and other technical
challenges may make it ineffectual. It believes that an African force
is more amenable to its delay tactics than a force that included
other armies and with a UN command. It has exploited the
understandable anti–American sentiments across the world and in
Africa especially to hoodwink people into believing that any UN
involvement will mean a proxy American war in yet another 'Muslim' ,
'Arab' or 'poor Third world' country. It needs the shield Africa and
the AU in order for it continue to fend off a more effective
international involvement. It can also count on other shields in the
Arab League and Muslim countries and in diplomacy with other Third
world countries.

In proclaiming African solutions Khartoum has been counting on
African incapacities as evidenced from the various challenges that
the AU Force has been facing since its deployment. It has a very
restricted mandate that limits it to 'protecting civilians' many of
whom it can only reach after the Janjaweed and Khartoum forces have
done their worst. Even on occasions when it had had early warning
about impending attacks on innocent civilians it had been slow in
responding or unable to do so.

The situation has not been helped by many of the rebels who seem to
be more interested in their own egos and exaggerated political
importance than the suffering of their own people. Their clamor for
'international' force (which in their colonial mindset means US or
other western intervention) has consistently played into the hands of
Khartoum. It helps Khartoum's image laundering as an African country
standing up for African solutions and sovereignty portraying the
rebels as 'agents' of extra continental powers. The rebels have not
learnt from the bitter lessons of the MDC in Zimbabwe whose struggles
have been made difficult among many Africans because of the West's
support for them.

Just check your diary and see how many times Khartoum has looked very
reasonable before an AU summit and only to return to its belligerency
soon after. I am not sure this is not yet another of such deliberate
rising of false hopes of a peaceful settlement.

Khartoum has been talking to any body that cares to talk about
Darfur. That is why it has been involved concurrently in half a dozen
of peace initiatives!

The problem with these talks is that they do not stop Khartoum and
its allied killers in Darfur from continuing their violence against
the people of Darfur but they hold those involved in the talks in
check. You cannot be advocating tougher measures against a government
that you are negotiating with. In the face of a fractious and faction
–ridden opposition and rebel movements the government become
reasonable and many peace brokers become more sympathetic to it as
their frustration against the rebels grow.

However there is a wider issue relating to the mandate of the peace
keeping force itself on which the Khartoum government has been giving
the whole world a merry-go round. AU forces on the ground are not
delivering not just for technical and logistical reasons or lack of
numbers alone. There is no peace to keep since neither the government
Janjaweed and the rebel factions have in practice committed
themselves to ceasefire for any length of time.

You can increase the numbers of troops but without enlarging the
mandate the butchering of Darfurians will continue. What everyone is
now calling a breakthrough has been on the cards right from the
start. Even the limited AU mandate envisaged an African leadership
but did not exclude collaboration with the UN and contribution of
troops from outside Africa. But Khartoum bogged everyone down in
logistical issues for several months. Everyone is feeling so guilty
at the horrible pictures from Darfur that we become desperate for any
sign, no matter how vague that Khartoum is about to relent. Hence we
are now supposed to jump that the government of Omar Al Bashir has
agreed to a 'hybrid force'. What is inherently good in a hybrid
force? What is so new about it anyway? Any Peace keeping force is by
definition 'hybrid'. The people of Darfur have been under the attack
of a hybrid of Sudan's regular forces and their Janjaweed killers.
Africa and the UN must really stand up to Khartoum and say : enough
is enough, we will do everything possible to stop you from further
killing your own citizens. It is peace making, peace enforcement
before talking of peace keeping.

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the deputy director of the UN Millennium
Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article
in his personal capacity as a concerned pan-Africanist.

* Please send comments to [log in to unmask] or comment online at
http://www.pambazuka.org

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