A peace “agreement” between Khartoum and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army: Has the regime done anything but change the subject?
Eric Reeves
December 29, 2004
FRAMING THE QUESTION
What should we make of the various announcements that a final peace agreement between Khartoum and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) will be signed in Nairobi within the next two weeks? Is such an agreement, which could easily have been reached months ago, anything other than a cynically timed diplomatic ploy, designed to deflect international attention away from the regime’s accelerating genocidal destruction in Darfur? Such questions can only be answered on the basis of recent history, particularly the history of the past two and a half years: from the time the National Islamic Front (NIF) regime nominally committed to self-determination for Southern Sudan (in the Machakos Protocol, July 2002) to the present apparent culmination of diplomatic efforts.
Most notably, this has been a period marked on Khartoum’s part by relentless deceit, delay, obfuscation, reneging, mendacity, and bad faith. The regime has in particular systematically, continuously, and consequentially violated the cessation of hostilities agreement, signed with the SPLM/A on October 15, 2002. The regime has similarly violated the February 4, 2003 “Addendum” to the October 15th agreement, an “Addendum” necessitated by Khartoum’s massive, authoritatively documented violations in the oil regions, especially during January 2003.
The forceful investigations of the Civilian Protection Monitoring Team (CPMT) were an especially authoritative source of documentation for violations from January through early March 2003 (this writer was also able to interview at the time a number of wounded civilians, including children, targeted by Khartoum’s deadly helicopter gunships). None of the terms of the agreements has been kept by Khartoum, including a commitment to halt work on the militarized oil road south of Bentiu in Western Upper Nile.
Large-scale civilian destruction by Khartoum and its militia allies has also been documented earlier this year in the Shilluk Kingdom, a conspicuous violation of both the October 2002 cessation of hostilities agreement and the February 2003 “Addendum.” The Shilluk, like the Dinka and Nuer, are part of the larger Nilotic tribal group in Southern Sudan; the Shilluk Kingdom comprises an area mainly north of Malakal town in Upper Nile Province. The defection of Shilluk commander Lam Akol from the Khartoum regime back to the SPLM/A in October 2003 does much to explain, though certainly cannot justify, Khartoum’s decision to launch intense military offensives in this area, with deliberately destructive consequences for civilians.
The CPMT, though now badly compromised by political expediency, was still able to assess earlier in 2004 the effects of Khartoum’s military offensive in a series of “sitreps” (situation reports). These included the following excerpts (March/April 2004):
“Popwojo [Shilluk Kingdom]: Assessed as 97% destroyed (Photo 4); CPMT witnessed/photographed fresh grave mounds (Photo 5);
Thousands of civilians displaced and in urgent need of humanitarian intervention (numbers given by witnesses in this village estimate displaced at 19,100 between the villages on Diny and Popwojo);
[***NB***] A CPMT member with 18 months of CPMT field investigative experience described this as the worst systematic destruction/displacement of civilians he has personally observed since the formation of the CPMT in August 2002.
[***NB***] A second CPMT member with over 8 years of Sudan experience and 16 months with CPMT described the Government of Sudan offensive in the Malakal area as reminiscent of the devastating ‘clearing’ of the oil region in the Western Upper Nile in the late 1990s.” (Malakal Area Destruction SITREP # 2; March 31, 2004)
Another Khartoum-initiated attack is described in the same “sitrep”:
“Nyilwak: Assessed as 75% destroyed (Photo 1); eight civilian men (aged 18-60) killed while trying to flee (CPMT witnessed/photographed fresh grave mounds [Photo 2] and interviewed surviving family members);
Close to 30 civilians wounded; exact count not yet established because of widespread displacement;
Reportedly several thousand head of cattle had been stolen and taken to Malakal; reportedly all grain stocks had been stolen or burnt;
[Humanitarian] compounds and clinic (VSF Germany and World Vision) have been looted and razed (Photo 3);
Thousands of civilians displaced and in urgent need of humanitarian intervention.” (Malakal Area Destruction SITREP # 2; March 31, 2004)
These are the actions of a regime that had committed to:
“To retain current military positions”; “Refrain from any offensive military action by all forces,” “including allied forces and affiliated militia”; “Refrain from any acts of violence or other abuse on the civilian population.”
(Section 3 of the “Memorandum of Understanding [MOU] between the Government of Sudan and the SPLM/A on Resumption of Negotiations on Peace in Sudan,” October 15, 2002])
There have also been numerous, consequential violations of the terms governing work of the UN’s Operation Lifeline Sudan, the umbrella for humanitarian operations in Southern Sudan: these violations all represent a refusal to honor another key term of the October MOU:
“The parties shall allow unimpeded humanitarian access to all areas and for people in need, in accordance with the Operation Lifeline Sudan Agreement.” (Section 5)
The relentless, flagrant nature of these violations on the part of Khartoum’s regular and militia forces—committed with impunity, with a cessation of hostilities agreement nominally still in force—suggests the highly limited value of any agreement the NIF regime may be prepared to sign under diplomatic duress and by way of shifting attention from genocide in Darfur.
THE RESPONSE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY TO VIOLATIONS OF AGREEMENTS IN SOUTHERN SUDAN
For its part, the international community is most conspicuously defined by its consistent refusal to hold Khartoum accountable for its violations of the many agreements signed since the Machakos Protocol. There has also been an expedient international willingness to allow Khartoum to play off negotiations concerning Darfur against what has only in recent stages come to be called the “Naivasha peace process” (Nakuru, for example, was a previous Kenyan diplomatic venue marked by such failure that we never hear of it). This behavior on the part of the international community, unsurprisingly, encourages Khartoum in the belief that this impending peace agreement can also be reneged upon, continually trimmed and compromised, and abandoned whenever convenient.
For what will prevent the NIF from abrogating a Southern Sudan peace agreement, assuming it is finalized? Put differently, what guarantees are required for a sustainable peace? what resources must be in place on the ground? And just as urgently we must ask how the international community can ensure that an agreement signed by Khartoum in Nairobi does not have the effect of consigning Darfur’s civilian population to continuing genocide by attrition. For there should be no mistaking the nature of present realities in Darfur, realities that will be entirely unchanged by any diplomatic ceremony in Kenya. There is certainly no prospect for the resumption of meaningful negotiations in Abuja (Nigeria) between Khartoum and the insurgency movements, on either security or political issues. Indeed, it is clear that all-out fighting has resumed in the wake of a complete breakdown in the Abuja negotiations.
Darfur is illustrative of the difficulties in securing a truly meaningful north/south agreement in other ways as well. For there is no evidence of an international will to intervene to protect civilians or humanitarian operations, despite the growing insecurity that threatens both. The quite confused signals coming recently from the UK government are symptomatic of broader indecision and diffidence. The Independent (UK) reported (December 26, 2004) that 3,000 British troops were being prepared for humanitarian intervention in Darfur; but a spokesman for the Blair government promptly denied the account.
This most recent posturing should be filed with the account that surfaced this past summer: “General Sir Mike Jackson, the head of the Army, said in August that the Army could find a brigade of troops [5,000 soldiers] for a humanitarian mission to Darfur” (The Independent, December 26, 2004). And yet another report earlier this fall indicated that the UK might commit 8,000 troops to Darfur for peacekeeping, but only after a peace agreement had been negotiated—a development that is nowhere in sight. These are ultimately meaningless gestures; indeed, they amount to mere saber-rattling that only convinces Khartoum there will be no timely international effort to halt the genocide, despite the enormous numbers of victims.
PRELIMINARY REQUIREMENTS FOR A MEANINGFUL PEACE IN SOUTHERN SUDAN
If the agreement between Khartoum and the SPLM/A is to have any meaning, there are two primary conditions that must obtain; neither is in evidence.
[1] PEACE-SUPPORT OPERATION: There must be a timely and robust peacekeeping force, defined by an appropriate mandate, fully equipped and staffed, with the means to investigate all reported violations of the Security Protocol, signed originally in September 2003, included within the May 26, 2004 signing of various protocols in Naivasha, and formally to be included in the final peace agreement. Current reports indicate UN plans for a force size of 7,000 to 10,000. This number is sufficient only if the forces are skilled and well-trained, containing an appropriate contingent of personnel with experience or knowledge of Southern Sudan.
Moreover, peacekeepers must be fully provided with all necessary transport and communications capacity. The absence of these key logistical elements has led to gross inadequacies in the performance of the vastly undersized African Union monitoring force in Darfur. For its part, Khartoum has carefully taken note of the ease with which the effectiveness of the AU force has been undermined by logistical problems—problems of a sort that can easily be manufactured in still larger Southern Sudan. The regime has also for several months been redeploying Janjaweed militia forces from Darfur to various garrison locations in Southern Sudan, Abyei, and Southern Blue Nile. Confirmations of these redeployments are numerous and highly authoritative.
The success of the peacekeeping mission in Southern Sudan will depend to a considerable degree on rapid deployment. It will also be essential to establish in the very near term effective liaison with civil society leaders, especially in northern Bahr el-Ghazal, Western and Eastern Upper Nile, and the Juba area. Moreover, the contested Abyei region, Southern Blue Nile, and the Nuba Mountains all received less than satisfactory outcomes in the Naivasha negotiations, and are potential flash-points of renewed conflict, particularly Abyei and the Nuba Mountains. They must receive particular attention from peacekeepers.
Among leaders from the Nuba Mountains there is considerable resentment of the terms of the final agreement, and this will likely result in various challenges in coming months. This writer well remembers his experience in the Nuba in January 2003, and the fierce determination by both military and civil society leaders not to be left out of any new agreement. There was a very strong belief that the Nuba had been excluded both in pre-independence negotiations (1955) and in the ill-fated Addis Ababa peace accord of 1972—and an equally strong resolve that this would not occur again.
If the international community is serious about deploying an effective peacekeeping force, it must ensure that these potential flash-points receive particular scrutiny. It is also essential that Khartoum be encouraged to redeploy its regular military forces out of Southern Sudan as rapidly as possible. The dominant military force in Southern Sudan must consist of the various “Joint Integrated Units” (teams consisting of Khartoum’s regular armed forces and those of the SPLA) stipulated in the Security Protocol. To the degree Khartoum argues that its slow redeployment of troops is a function of lack of funding, these funds must be found (e.g., from increasing oil revenues) so as to accelerate such redeployment, and prevent de facto control of Southern Sudan by the remnants of Khartoum’s regular forces. The sooner that Khartoum’s massive military build-up in Southern Sudan, reaching back to the “cessation of hostilities agreement” of October 2002, is reversed, the sooner it will be possible to ascertain whether there is any real commitment to the key terms of the peace agreement.
Another key test will be the ability of a peacekeeping force to oversee the disarmament of militias, armed and sustained by Khartoum, in Southern Sudan (such disarmament is stipulated in the Security Protocol). Khartoum has long supplied, armed, and controlled most of these militias. These are forces, now including elements of the Janjaweed, that must be disarmed; otherwise the regime will have a potent, long-term military tool for destabilizing Southern Sudan even after a peace agreement.
The peace-support operation should comprise two forces. The first element should consist of several thousand monitors, located throughout Southern Sudan and the contested areas, with particular concentrations in the areas noted above.
These monitors must be deployed in accompaniment with a brigade-sized rapid reaction force, spread between several strategic locations. This reaction force should have fully adequate helicopter transport capability, as well as the mandate and weaponry ensuring that those who might violate the formal ceasefire agreement will face an unsustainable military response. Since it is distinctly likely that ceasefire violations will be initiated by Khartoum-allied militias, Khartoum must even now be seriously pressured to stop supplying these forces, and to begin the difficult process of disarming them. This requires a reversal of the flow of weaponry and deployment policies that have been clearly in evidence for months.
[2] TRANSITIONAL ASSISTANCE: It is not enough merely to provide a peace-support operation for Southern Sudan: there must be very substantial emergency transitional assistance to allow for the resumption of agriculturally and economically productive lives. Currently there are still over 3 million Southern Sudanese living as internally displaced persons (IDPs), a tremendous number of them—perhaps 2 million—living in squalid camps around Khartoum. There is strong evidence that as many as 1 million of these IDPs, from throughout northern Sudan, will be moving back to their homelands in the first year following a peace agreement. Over 100,000 have moved back this year according to UN and other estimates (especially in Bahr el-Ghazal).
These people, many with only the most meager of possessions and obliged to run a gauntlet of Arab and other militias intent upon stripping remaining assets, will be returning to a part of the country that has been brutally ravaged by war for twenty-one years, and that has never seen a fair share of Sudanese wealth for economic development, education, or basic infrastructure requirements. The oil regions of Upper Nile Province in particular have endured terrible scorched-earth warfare for a number of years, and will be especially inhospitable to returning indigenous people.
Financial commitments to emergency transitional aid are presently woefully inadequate, and there is no prospect of appropriate levels of funding coming from wealthier European, Asian, or Arab nations, or those nations that have benefited most from rapacious oil development in Southern Sudan (Canada, China, India, and Malaysia in particular). The US for its part is far from fulfilling the promise made by former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter Kansteiner:
“[The United States] stands ready to support reconstruction and development in post-war Sudan…. [If peace comes] there will be a large peace dividend for reconstruction and development if, but only if there is peace.” (Congressional testimony before the House International Relations Committee, May 13, 2003)
Nothing in past or present budgetary requests by the Bush administration begins to suggest that these promises are being kept in a meaningful way. Obviously funding critical transitional aid for Southern Sudan will be neither cheap nor easy. But as expensive as such aid may be, resumed war will be far more expensive—no matter what calculus of costs we use.
What in particular must be done? The US Agency for International Development provided a superb overview in a document published over a year ago: “The Sudan Interim Strategic Plan, 2004-06” (available at: www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/sudan/sudan_isp.pdf). Articulating as its central goal establishing the “foundation…for a just and durable peace with broad participation of the Sudanese people,” this extensive report lays out the key areas in which transitional aid will be essential—offering headings for key objectives, with particular needs organized under these rubrics.
One heading is “Increased Use of Health, Water and Sanitation Services and Practices.” This will entail “increased use of health, water and sanitation services and practices”; “increased access to high-impact services”; “increase Sudanese capacity, particularly women’s, to deliver and manage health services”; “improved access to safe water and sanitation.” Another heading speaks to establishing a “Foundation for Economic Recovery.” This entails responding to the “food security needs of vulnerable communities”; “market support programs and services introduced and expanded”; “transparent policymaking and processes encouraged.” And yet other headings are “Improved Equitable Access to Quality Education” and “More Responsive and Participatory Governance.”
As more particular context for these goals, especially those of “economic recovery,” we should keep in mind the agricultural base of micro-economies throughout southern Sudan, and understand that this means in large measure economies in which cattle have always been of central importance. The re-stocking of herds is essential, as is timely provision of veterinary inoculation against prevalent diseases. So, too, is the provision of agricultural implements, a tremendous number of which have been destroyed in the war.
In the area of health care, we should recall how deeply compromised even emergency humanitarian medical assistance has become. Despite the agreement that created Operation Lifeline Sudan in 1989—at the time a precedent-setting arrangement for humanitarian access—health facilities and delivery capacity have been seriously diminished in recent years. A telling account of the disastrous fate of emergency health care in Western Upper Nile—most of it directly related to oil development—was provided by Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontiers: “Violence, Health, and Access to Aid in Unity State/Western Upper Nile” (MSF, April 2002, www.doctorswithoutborders.org/publications/reports/2002/sudan_04-2002.pdf).
The urgent need for dramatically increased sources of potable water, especially in Western Upper Nile, yet again highlights the tremendous pressures that will be exerted by the return of hundreds of thousands of IDPs and refugees—many having originally fled the most ravaged areas of Southern Sudan. It is to these areas that they will be seeking to return.
All of these represent key needs if Southern Sudan is to withstand the serious challenges that will inevitably confront any peace agreement. For a signed agreement will not in itself ensure anything—will not in itself bring stability or a full military stand-down, by all parties, in this part of the country. Peace has a realistic chance in Sudan only with a full commitment to support, on a transitional basis, these essential areas of development and reconstruction.
The international community must accept that Khartoum has gone this far down the road of negotiations only because it must—because of domestic demands for peace, military pressure from the insurgency movements in Darfur, and because of unusually concerted attention to Sudan’s civil war. With considerable encouragement from recent diplomatic history, Khartoum held out until it was simply not possible to hold out any longer.
We may be sure, then, that sustaining peace in Sudan will likely be as much about overcoming the obstacles Khartoum puts up as about positive efforts at reconstruction and development. Only the most relentless pressure on members of this regime in any “national government,” only the clearest signaling of consequences for failing to honor the terms of this peace agreement, can work to make the expenditures of wealth and distribution of power truly meaningful in Southern Sudan and other marginalized areas.
The battle is only half won with a peace agreement; if the struggle for peace is not completed, then we may be sure that there will be a relentless slide back toward war. And surely there could be no crueler fate for Sudan than to see a peace agreement wither because it was not supported financially at the critical moment of transition from peace to war. The massive commitments to reconstruction in post-war Iraq and Afghanistan, many tens of billions of dollars, amply demonstrate our capacity for helping Sudan. If the US reneges on its promises, refuses to accept the compelling moral challenge presented by Sudan’s transitional needs, then it will share deeply in the blame for any renewed war.
THE SPLM/A AMONG KHARTOUM’S GENOCIDAIRES: HOW WILL THE KILLING IN DARFUR BE HALTED?
One reason that Khartoum has delayed a final peace agreement so long is that there is no obvious way in which the proposed new “national government” (per the terms of the Power-sharing Protocol, January 2004) can accommodate SPLM views of genocide in Darfur. Nor is there any obvious way in which John Garang, Chairman of the SPLM, can take up his post as Vice President in a government that continues to be responsible for massive human destruction of precisely the sort that has defined Southern Sudan for so many years. Khartoum put off negotiations for many months (which it did without consequence), and in this time had hoped to find a final solution to its “Darfur problem.”
But in fact, civilian destruction has accelerated—35,000 now die every month and total deaths number approximately 400,000 (see December 14, 2004 morality assessment at www.sudanreeves.org), even as the insurgencies continue to demonstrate their military determination and resilience. But there is also a growing desperation that has resulted in increased looting of humanitarian convoys, both for food and vehicles. Such actions must be unequivocally condemned, and it is incumbent upon the leadership of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army and the Justice and Equality Movement to halt such deeply destructive actions, actions inevitably most consequential for desperate civilians.
At the same time, we must recognize that the notional cease-fire that emerged from the Abuja Accord (November 9, 2004) is now utterly worthless, despite its recent reiteration by both parties. Moreover, despite suggestions that the insurgents are trying with their actions to provoke an international intervention, the preponderance of evidence indicates just the opposite. The insurgents, convinced that the international community is content to allow genocidal destruction to proceed without meaningful action, are fighting with an increasingly desperate air. But such desperation cannot in itself confer legitimacy upon actions taken in perceived service of their military cause, especially attacks on international humanitarian convoys.
Moreover, it is extremely short-sighted of the insurgents not to recognize that these attacks are profoundly counter-productive. Indeed, violence that threatens humanitarian aid in Darfur only assists Khartoum in its larger genocidal aims. The Independent (UK), citing a senior aid official, puts the matter with acuity:
“The aid agencies are wary of criticising the Sudanese government in public, but a senior official said: ‘We are going to continue to see the humanitarian organisations drawing back. It is simply too dangerous. This means that the Sudanese government is effectively winning in its campaign to keep independent observers out of Darfur. It’ll also be even more of a humanitarian disaster than it is now. It is astonishing the outside world does not realise this.'” (The Independent, December 26, 2004)
But if the “outside world” doesn’t realize what is happening, or rather refuses to look, humanitarian organizations certainly understand the situation on the ground:
“International charities working in Darfur are considering drastically reducing their presence in the wake of Save the Children’s decision to pull out, and the murder of yet another aid worker [the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) worker killed by Khartoum’s forces in an assault on Labado, South Darfur, December 17, 2004—ER].”
“A number of organisations are reviewing their positions after a week which saw a further unraveling of security in what the United Nations has called the ‘world’s worst humanitarian crisis.’ [ ] Oxfam staff now only fly by UN helicopters because the roads are considered too dangerous. A small African Union force, deployed to monitor a fragile ceasefire, grounded all its helicopters after one was damaged by ground fire.” (The Independent, December 26, 2004)
Khartoum is now looking for the most advantageous pretexts for attacks and counter-attacks against the insurgencies; the net result is not a military stand-off, but the furthering of civilian destruction. For example, the UN News Center reported yesterday:
“About 260,000 people in Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region will miss their food ration this month because the UN’s World Food Program has been forced to suspend its relief convoys after rebels yesterday launched a large-scale attack on a nearby town and government forces retaliated.” (UN News Center, December 28, 2004)
These people, already displaced and vulnerable because of earlier violent attacks by Khartoum’s regular forces and its Janjaweed allies, are now extremely vulnerable, and desperate for food as well as other forms of humanitarian aid. They are directly threatened by current violence, and countless thousands will die without food and assistance.
WHAT WE HAVE KNOW ABOUT DARFUR, AND WHEN WE KNEW IT
These basic facts are too well known; and in the absence of a robust international peacekeeping force, we must accept as an inevitable conclusion that the world is prepared to look on while this massive human destruction, genocidal in nature, continues. The African Union force, both as presently deployed (approximately 1,000 personnel) and as contemplated at fully deployed strength (approximately 3,500 personnel) is transparently inadequate to address the multiple and daunting security tasks in Darfur.
Total mortality in the region is now approximately half that of the Rwandan genocide—400,000 human beings (again, see most recent [December 14, 2004] mortality assessment by this writer at www.sudanreeves.org). The UN, the US, the European Union refuse to accept these terrible statistical realities, even as they are conducting no comprehensive mortality studies that might give a clearer sense of the scale of Darfur’s genocide. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that this refusal to estimate total mortality derives from an unwillingness to see rendered a more accurate account of what is transpiring before our very eyes. Darfur is Rwanda in slow motion—or, as Alex de Waal of Justice Africa has recently suggested, it is genocidal destruction in Southern Sudan speeded up.
However we characterize Darfur’s genocide, it provides an impossibly difficult context in which to imagine a “national government” being formed. Comments from various international actors, suggesting wishfully that conclusion of a formal north/south peace agreement in Kenya will somehow conveniently provide the template for an end to conflict in Darfur, reflect either ignorance or disingenuousness. For despite the superficial plausibility of such a notion, Khartoum has done nothing to suggest how the Naivasha process can be adapted to negotiations with Darfur’s insurgency movements. On the contrary, the regime has sent a number of very strong signals to the opposite effect.
In any event, negotiations to end genocide in Darfur could stretch for months; but the present monthly mortality rate of 35,000 could easily grow to 100,000 deaths per month if humanitarian aid is suspended: this is the figure indicated by Jan Egeland, UN Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs, in an interview of December 16, 2004 (Financial Times [UK]). To pretend that a timely response to Darfur’s catastrophe lies implicit somewhere in a Kenyan signing ceremony is simply a moral grotesquerie. It is as true now as it was a year ago: without robust international humanitarian intervention, there is nothing that will stop massive genocidal destruction.
We have known this all too well, as we have known the real nature of the relationship between Darfur and negotiations in Naivasha. We have chosen not to act upon that knowledge:
(On Genocide in Darfur)
Eric Reeves
December 30, 2003 [sic]
from Africa InfoServe (Sudan publications of AfricaFiles.org)
http://www.africafiles.org/article.asp?ID=4075
[excerpt]
“It is intolerable that the international community continues to allow what all evidence suggests is genocide. For surely if we are honest with ourselves we will accept that the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ is no more than a dangerous euphemism for genocide, a way to make the ultimate crime somehow less awful. As Samantha Power has cogently observed, the phrase ‘ethnic cleansing’ gained currency in the early 1990s as a way of speaking about the atrocities in the Balkans—‘as a kind of euphemistic halfway house between crimes against humanity and genocide.’ But linguistic half-measures are not enough when the question is whether an ‘ethnical [or] racial group’ is being destroyed ‘in whole or in part’—‘as such’ (from the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide).
“The present realities in Darfur must urgently be rendered for the world to see and understand—fully, honestly, and on the basis of much greater information than is presently available. In turn, these realities must guide a humanitarian effort that will not allow Khartoum’s claim of ‘national sovereignty’ to trump the desperate plight of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians caught up in a maelstrom of destruction and displacement. [ ]
“Indeed, the logic of the situation is so compelling that one can only surmise that the failure of the international community even to speak of the possibility of a humanitarian intervention in Darfur derives from some morally appalling failure of nerve, and an unwillingness to roil the diplomatic waters with a peace agreement [apparently] so close between Khartoum and the SPLM/A. [ ]
For unless the international community shows its concern for the various marginalized peoples of Sudan, peace will be only very partial and ultimately unsustainable.”
*****************************
Eric Reeves
Smith College
Northampton, MA 01063
413-585-3326
ereeves@smith.edu
www.sudanreeves.org