PresidentOlusegun Obasanjo never lacks criticism from his boisterous and disparate Nigerian press and citizenry for any perceived wrong acts of omission or commission; so it behoves us to be fair and praise him when he actually does something right.
He is doing the right thing in regard to the continuing catastrophe in Sudan. He has devoted a lot of attention, time, effort and money to this issue. So far, it has not borne much fruit, but that is not for his lack of trying.
It is not his fault. Nobody said it would be easy; these things never are, and this one is not.
President Obasanjo needs to be praised and encouraged, and Nigerians as well as all Africans, and indeed people of goodwill everywhere else should pray that his noble efforts come to a positive conclusion. The world should insist on peace in Sudan.
In his capacity as Chairman of the African Union, the President has brought representatives of the Sudanese Government and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) - whom the Government calls the “rebels”- for protracted negotiations in Abuja, at tremendous sacrifice to him personally and to the Nigerian Government financially. Often, these interlocutors have come near to agreement, but they have balked, each side insisting that the other should disarm first.
The Government refuses to disarm the Janjaweed Arab militia and take other necessary measures until the SLA disarms; the SLA refuses to disarm until the Government does the same, in fear of leaving itself exposed and therefore vulnerable, at the mercy of the merciless Janjaweed.
This recalls the age-old unanswered and obviously unanswerable question: which came to the world first, the chicken or the egg? It would be funny, except that there are deadly consequences to the Sudanese diplomatic and military impasse.
Why African Union, and why President Obasanjo? Just over a decade ago, the United Nations adopted a policy of assigning to regional organizations the first instance duty of handling conflicts in their regions.
This made sense because of regional, cultural and historical perspectives, alliances and affinity. While keeping an overall global view of the situation, the UN would deputize regional organizations, such as the Organization of African Unity, now African Union, NATO, the Arab League, Association of South Eastern Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Organization of American States (OAS) would handle conflicts in their respective areas while the UN Security Council nevertheless remain seized of the matter.
This explains why the AU has been the primary convener of these Sudanese negotiations.
However, now that President Obasanjo has done and continues to do his best, but there seems to be no hope for the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, the matter needs to revert to the UN Security Council, specifically for one issue simultaneous ceasefire by all sides.
When a situation is reached, as in Sudan, when there is so much distrust that each party insists on the other one disarming first, there should be a declaration that both parties disarm simulta-neously. They should disarm at a date and time certain, such as midnight on an early date in October. Perhaps only the UN Security Council is capable of making this declaration.
It will not be easy, but it needs to be done. The irony is that the weakness of this prospect may also be its strength: both sides have supporters in the Security Council. Some Arab and Islamic countries support the Sudanese Government; others have investments in its emerging oil industry. In the Security Council resolution on Sudan on September 18, China, Russia, Pakistan and Algeria abstained, allowing the resolution to pass by a vote of 11 to 0.
The same thing should be possible with a resolution mandating a ceasefire on all sides by a date and time certain.
This is urgent because the situation in the Sudanese region of Darfur, officially declared by the UN as currently “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis” continues unabated.
Reports from UN and non-governmental aid agencies as well as the world media continue to be grim.
They say that pillage and mayhem wreaked by the horrible Janjaweed militia since the violence has convulsed Darfur from February 2003, and the concomitant hunger and disease have killed up to 500,000 people and forced almost 1.5 million people to flee their homes. Houses and tents are destroyed, men and male children are killed, and women are raped and mutilated.
UNICEF says more than 500,000 displaced children are facing a massive malnutrition crisis. A Director of CARE International, Bob Macpherson said: “I didn’t think anything could be as bad as Somalia where 50,000 people were starving to death – but what I’ve seen in Sudan gives me nightmares ...This isn’t just a national or international or UN issue. This is about humanity.”
The situation has been described variously as genocide (officially by the US State Department), pogrom, ethnic cleansing and such. Jan Pronk of the Netherlands, Special Representative of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told a press conference in Khartoum that “atrocities, very bad things, killings, rape, burning of villages have taken place.”
So far, the only concession of the Sudanese Govern-ment is to allow the African Union to increase the number of its soldiers and observers in Darfur from 300 to 2,000. Even then, their mandate does not allow them to intervene in the violence. Observers note that it would take maybe 50 times 2000 troops to keep peace in what is geographically Africa’s largest country. Moreover, only Nigeria, Tanzania and Rwanda have offered troops.
It is the lot of President Obasanjo and Nigeria, Africa’s giant and bulwark of the black diaspora – even if we have not always lived up to the potential – to bear the burden of an African problem like Sudan.
But the urgency is to insist on a ceasefire and peace, so that the people of Darfur can settle down physically and mentally; so that donors and aid agencies can freely deliver assistance, and all concerned can begin the process of building “a new Sudan”.
This is necessary, as the International Crisis Group put it graphically, “if Darfur 2004 is not to join Rwanda 1994 as shorthand for international shame”.
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