Genocide as a Disease?

From what we are told by many recent media reports, the violence that has spawned from the genocide in Darfur is now "spilling over" across the border into Chad. Besides the fact that "Darfur's" (the quotation marks are meant to question the implied possessive quality of the violence, as if it belongs to Darfur) violence has affected Chad since early in the conflict, evidenced by the Janjaweed's persisently demonstrated willingness both to chase victims into Chad (the majority of today's Darfurian refugees in Chad (over 200,000) in fact arrived in the first 18 months of the terror) and to initiate new raids on Chadian villages, such reports are deceptive in how exactly they treat the phenomenon of genocide. I do not mean to question the boon of any press attention at all to this under-reported area, but much of this press is unfortunately tailored in a way that will likely have the long-term harmful effect of perpetuating a common myth about the very nature of genocide. Reports highlighting the "spill-over" of violence from Darfur into Chad imply, as stated above, that this violence was previously (almost "meant to be" it seems at times) confined to Darfur, that the violence was thus Darfur's, and that any appearance of the violence outside of Darfur represents a spreading of the violence. Again, I will reserve commentary on a typically misunderstood issue of the Chad-Darfur relationship, the importance of overcoming our traditional conception of a "border" between two well-defined states and seeing the ambiguous territory of eastern Chad and western Sudan for what it is - a porous and essentially nonexistent "boundary" (simply a line drawn by colonialists, we must remember) onto which are transposed the same peoples, living in similar fashion - and which has historically served as a breeding ground for rebels and foreign interference (think Qaddafi) and a launching pad for coups (for which the string of Chadian dictators is certainly grateful), and instead focus on what strikes me as the deeper problem, which will likely have a greater and longer lasting impact through its historical and theoretical inertia. By portraying genocidal violence as something that spreads or spills over, we de-emphasize the fact that the violence is not "spreading" of its own volition; rather it is being spread, it is being used by its perpetrators against a wider population. Herein lies the media's likely unintentional obfuscation of the nature of genocide; it is a tool, wielded by human actors, and does not have its own agency.

I was thus maddeningly infuriated to hear the well-intentioned Jonathan Miller of the UK's More4 News, in his 16 May 2006 special report, "Echoes of Horror" (can be found here: http://www.channel4.com/news/special-reports/special-reports-storypage.jsp?id=2377), describe "Chad's dangerous borderlands, where the contagion that's affected Darfur has now spread" and opine that "the [only] certainty [is] that, like a virus, ethnic cleansing is poisoning the borderland." I would like to point out two elements of the construction of these seemingly innocuous (at least as innocuous as genocide can be) characterizations of the horror in Darfur and Chad. The first is that Mr. Miller provides a perfect example of the grave error described above, as, through the verb phrases "has now spread" and "is poisoning," he accords the processes of genocide and ethnic cleansing their own self-propelling agency. Though this may seem like a minor grammatical squabble, and one that certainly should not detract from More4 News' attempts to provide coverage and commentary on the repercussions of the genocide in Darfur, it is emblematic of, and subtly reinforces, our relatively well-entrenched idea of the pathological quality of genocide, whose crippling effect has been to take what is fundamentally a human crime - perpetrated by human beings on other human beings - out of our hands and depict it as an uncontrollable tornado of unstoppable wrath, which relieves us of the burden of even explaining the seemingly organic momentum of this unthinkable atrocity.

Samantha Power would criticize this relinquishing of explicative power and moral responsibility as tactfully sidestepping the cold, hard, human-produced reality of genocide by labelling it "a problem from hell." Such characterization, and the hands-in-the-air helplessness that it engenders, Power argues, has been the prevailing tactic of the international community in hedging, skirting, dithering, and otherwise withholding meaningful action to deal with genocides from the Holocaust to Rwanda. It effectively plays on an undisputed pillar of common moral thinking - that genocide is in theory a horrible and inhumane act - to justify an immoral conclusion - that no human action, no matter how concentrated, good-willed, or pragmatic, can possibly affect such pure evil. We have seen this pattern time and time again; after each strategic, well-orchestrated campaign of violence that we (belatedly) qualify as genocidal, we lament our lack of action, but expend a far greater amount of moral capital bemoaning the unspeakable horrors inherent in such human atrocity. We cannot reconcile the cognitive dissonance of our own moral paralysis with the acknowledged fundamental evil before us, so we absolve ourselves of (the possibility of) assuming responsibility by depicting what has just occurred as something not from our world, something we can not possibly grapple with, something by whose very nature transcends any hope of containment or defeat. Thus genocide, we declare, is something "from hell;" the very idea of this confounds human sensibility and renders us prostrate on the floor before the embodiment of the greatest conceivable evil. The More4 News report commits this evasive tactic by describing the genocidal violence of Darfur and Chad as a "contagion" and "a virus." While these are certainly accurate descriptors - and probably even understatements - of the level of horror to which innocent Darfurians and Chadians are victim, they imply that ethnic cleansing and genocide are pathological - and by implication nearly incurable - phenomena, and that we can only wait (with prayers) until they run their course of "spreading" and eventually - hopefully - weakening. We can patch concience-appeasing band-aids onto the problem area (the AU) and throw bags of rice at the suffering victims (though only half of what they need to live), attempting to ease their immediate pain, but what can we expect to accomplish in the face of an epidemic, a many-headed atrocious beast of pure evil (especially without investing anywhere near sufficient political capital or even centering the issue on the popular radar screen)? We are left with merely words. More4 News is not the only one complicit in this abdication in the face of genocide; perhaps every media outlet, nearly all political leaders, and practically everyone who comments on the heart-wrenching situation plaguing (this verb, as an example, subtly implies both genocidal self-propulsion and the unstoppable, disease-like pathology of genocide) Darfur unintentionally give credence to the theory this is something we can complain about, empathize (to a very limited extent) with, wave signs and take token action against, but are ultimately powerless to stop. The two world leaders' whose inaction history will judge the most harshly, the UN's Kofi Annan and the US's George W. Bush are guilty of this erroneous conception of the roots of genocide. Thus when Annan describes Darfur as "little short of hell on earth," he is certainly making an accurate plea for the dire nature of the humanitarian situation there, but, by bringing the unearthly "hell" into his characterization, he also likely furthers our distance from the reality of what is happening in western Sudan.

How can we possibly combat this? There is little hope of changing the dominant vocabulary and phraseology of dealing with genocide when it has been etched into our ignonimous history, according to which regret and remorse cyclically follow death and destruction as soon as we are clear of the frame in which meaningful intervention would have been possible. Though in Darfur we have been experiencing the unprecedented drama of watching something unfold that we have, during its lifetime, acknowledged as genocide, this has not resulted in any revision of the predominant strategical attribute of watching. We have more information, more photographs, and more evidence of genocidal intent and consequences than any previous genocide (including the more publicized reporting of the Armenian genocide and others), yet it does not stop us from limiting our action to peppering the crisis with words of sympathy and lamentations. The only solution is to remember - and focus on - what we do know. This is a genocide committed by individuals - members of an Arab supremacist, power-hungry, unscrupulous NIF regime who have actively and thoughtfully planned and carried out this strategic campaign - and which victimizes other individuals - innocent civilians of certain tribes of Darfur and Chad labelled as "non-Arab." Only after we acknowledge this and truly internalize it will we be able to see the genocide in Darfur as something very real and very human, which, as such, can be stopped by real human methods.

Punishing the Good Guys?

At its meeting on Monday, the African Union Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) once again extended the deadline for the two holdout rebel groups to accept the Darfur Peace Agreement laid out in Abuja and accepted by the dominant SLA factions' leader, Minni Arco Minnawi. This extension, however, is tempered by the PSC's warning of issuing sanctions on the two groups if they do not accept the agreement by the new date of May 31. This threat exhibits the growing exasperation of AU Chairperson Alpha Oumar Konare in dealing with the rebels, whom he characterizes as very frustrating to work with, but it also attests to the AU's unfortunate tendency to allow itself to be manipulated by the Government of Sudan in Khartoum. The GoS has effectively stiffarmed the peace talks at Abuja; Second Vice President Ali Osman Taha, previously the main figurehead Khartoum was displaying to show its dedication to the talks, left Abuja long ago, and Government spokesman Amin Omar has highhandedly asserted that Khartoum "...will not open the negotiation again and there is no problem (in the peace agreement) which should be negotiated any more" (Xinhua, “Sudan refuses to reopen talks on Darfur peace deal,” 17 May 2006). This leaves me with the sinking feeling that, by portraying its threat of sanctions on groups that fail to sign the accord as enforcement of its ceasefire provisions, the AU is trying to cover Khartoum's tracks and cast a gloss of legitimacy over the Government's obstinacy. The Government's sharp line-drawing, refusing to consider any further concessions, also convinces me that it is not worried that the DPA as stands will prove a significant obstacle to achieving their genocidal aims of self-preservation.

I do not mean for my title to be deceptive. No one in Darfur can truly be considered a "good guy." The province is so rife in guns, abuses, and corruption that any attempt at a ceasefire or peace accord is by default a steep uphill battle. Furthermore, recent reports that the internecine squabbles between SLA factions have once again flared up in violence - violence that the Sudan Tribune describes as "gunmen on pick-up trucks and horseback...burning huts, killing, looting, and even raping women, in raids just as deadly as those of the Arab "Janjaweed" militia ("After peace, Darfur's rebels turn on each other," Sudan Tribune, 17 May 2006) - greatly decrease my dim hopes that the two groups can coalesce under the unified banner of protecting the people of Darfur. To engage in violence only gives the GoS legitimate bargaining capital; it is much easier to convince the AU of the desirability of sanctions on the rebels if they are indeed actively violating the ceasefire. The problem with threatening sanctions on the el-Nur faction of the SLA and Khalil Ibrahim's JEM is of course that it ignores the flagrant, and likely deadlier and more systematic, ceasefire violations simultaneously and wantonly carried out by Government-backed Janjaweed militias immediately after the DPA theoretically mandated their disarmament; for example, Janjaweed attacks in seven villages
around Kutum in the past week have killed 11 people, providing solid evidence that the piece of paper signed in Abuja has not translated into any meaningful relaxation of the genocidal status quo. The additions to the DPA that el-Nur is pushing for constitute entirely reasonable assurances for the safety and security of the people of Darfur to be upheld in a realistic and effective way. El-Nur demands include “adequate compensation for the individuals and families who have suffered losses during the conflict," a vital step in returning Darfurians to their livelihoods, as well as crucial specifications of what should be the fundamental motivating concern at Abuja: disarmament of the Janjaweed. El-Nur requests "full involvement of SLM/A in key aspects of security arrangements including ensuring the protection of civilians as they return to their original places and the mechanisms for monitoring the disarmament of the Janjaweed" (Sudan Tribune, "Rebel JEM mulls joining Darfur peace deal," 17 May 2006) he should not be censured for seeking to achieve what Abuja was indeed premised on achieving.

Even without accepting el-Nur's characterization of the SLA as "freedom fighters," he is correct in stating that "sanctions are for those who commit crimes" (The Daily Telegraph, "Darfur rebels reject sanctions threat," 17 May 2006). Surely there is no crime - especially not the refusal to sign an agreement that does not adequately provide for protection of the victims of the Darfur conflict - that should overshadow that of genocide. To threaten sanctions on rebel groups for not signing a "peace" agreement, while ignoring the persistent (and illegal) campaign of systematic violence wreaked by the Government and its proxies, is to make a mockery of the seriousness of the attempt at peace, as well as of the AU's status in general as a force whose mission should be to protect civilians.

Sudan hopes to follow the path of Libya

The US's removal of Libya from its list of state sponsors of terrorism today and its restoration of full diplomatic relations with Tripoli represents the culmination of Muammar al-Ghaddafi's efforts since late 2003 to curry favor with the US, renounce all ties to terrorism, and obtain all the perks that friendly relations with the world's superpower (and largest oil consumer) bring with them. This is of course interesting in its own right, but for our purposes, I am sure that Omar Hassan al-Bashir is taking note of the successful road paved by Ghaddafi, the Colonel whose experience in human rights abuses, support for terrorism, and general manipulation of (what he views as) his sphere of influence in East Africa dates back to the days of Bashir's infancy. If a mere three years committment to "fighting terrorism" - coupled with all of the information he has been able to provide US intelligence agencies - can undo 35 years of brazen rogue actions, then, Bashir must be thinking, the almost ten years during which Sudan has been trying to wipe off the stain left by its accomodation of Osama bin Laden in the mid-90's surely will pay off soon. Khartoum has been campaigning actively to repeal the state sanctions levied against it since 1999 and remove its name as a "state sponsor of terrorism" by portraying itself as a friend of the United States and a willing participant in the "war on terror." That a country could attempt to pass itself off as accomodating to the West when its head of state ominously forecast just a few months ago that a portion of his country would become a "graveyard" for foreign troops if they entered his territory is ironic to the point of contradiction. Nonetheless, there are signs that Bashir's two-faced policy - genocide, utter disregard for human rights, and vicious and crafty power consolidation on one side, and smiling appeasement, lies about good intentions, and signing pieces of paper (the Naivasha accords for peace in the South in January 2005 and the recent DPA in Abuja last week) that it has no inclination to uphold on theh other - is satisfying the United States. The degree to which the US is contended by the mere formality and words of DPA, or to what extent it actually intends to pursue viable assurances of actual peace on the ground - will become clear in the following weeks and months, but there are other signs that the US has made other priorities besides taking Khartoum to task for its genocidal policies. For one, the CIA's willingness to host genocidal architect and head of Sudanese security forces Salah Abdallah Gosh belies any commitment to reprimand genocidaires over the countervailing interest of securing terrorism intelligence and cooperation. Perhaps even more appallingly, in October 2005, the US upgraded Sudan's international slavery status to Tier 2, a level that includes countries like Switzerland (see http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=55098), an unacceptable concession given the recent predominance of enslavement as an institutionalized practice of war in southern Sudan and its continued existence today. Sudan has been actively cultivating the strengthened ties that such steps entail, as evidenced by its attempt late last year to skirt regulations and hire Robert Cabelly, a notorious former State Department employee, as a lobbyist to improve Sudan's image in the US (an effort that created such a disgusting taste in people's mouths that legislative and popular pressure, the former led by, among others, Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia (see http://www.house.gov/wolf/news/2005/10-17-Sudan.html), and the latter by the Genocide Intervention Network (see http://www.genocideintervention.net/about/press/releases/2006/02/08/sudan-lobbyist-quits/)), and by its million dollar payment for an 8 page advertisement in the New York Times heralding the prospects of investing in Sudan. This gets at the real source of Sudan's interest in cooperating in the "war on terror;" it is seeking eager investors for abundant, recently discovered and as yet untapped, oil reserves (often in areas, such as the Nuba Mountains region, potentially Darfur, and for strategic reasons in the South and East, where Khartoum has forced local inhabitants off the land to ensure that the (blood) spoils flow directly to their pockets and are not distributed equitably. The attempt to resist these devilish calls to participate in Khartoum's genocidal clockwork, and for American organizations to divest from businesses fuelling the regime, is of course undermined when countries like China unreservedly exploit Sudan's oil resources.

"Shameful" Corruption and More Shameful Genocide

Reading a report of the tremendous amount of corruption amongst delegates in an Abuja hotel over the past few months of peace negotiations (Andrew Walker, "Sudan: Nigerian Peacekeepers Unpaid in Darfur," Daily Trust (Abuja), 8 May 2006), I was of course first shocked by the gall of mediators whose sole professed goal was achieving peace and stability for the innocent civilians they were claiming to represent. The numbers unearthed by Mr. Walker and his sources at the Chida Hotel where the talks have been taking place detail the questionable sort of purchases made by delegates, including visits of over 2,000 prostitutes and 200 bottles of whiskey sold. The explanation of AU Chief Mediator Sam Ibok that delegates' per-day salary of $85 is "not a lot when you have to consider you have to buy lunch and dinner, laundry and such" does not alleviate my concerns, especially in lieu of the two month delays in paying some AU peacekeepers in Darfur their considerably lower earnings of about $15 per day, which Ibok brushed off as "cash flow problems." While these numbers do instinctively make me uncomfortable with the delegates' apparent level of commitment to the substantive aspect of their mission - finalizing an accord to bring ensure the safety of hundreds of thousands of Darfurians - they are not what worries me the most about the goings-on at Abuja. The discrepancy between delegates and their "constituents" can be measured in many other ways, and is indeed a grave concern, but more pressing is the GoS reaction to the peace process, for rebel negotiators - even if hedonistic and simply seeking the spotlight of power - are at least trying to wean from the Government concessions that will have a direct effect on improving innocent Darfurians' prospects for survival. The National Islamic Front Government, on the other hand, has demonstrated no concern whatsoever for the livelihood and human rights of any of the people it has marginalized and excluded from governance; be it in the South, the central Nuba Mountains or Jebel Marra areas, the West, or the East, the Khartoum elites, with the national army and military proxies at their control, have exhibited no qualms to using violence, destruction, forced displacement, and death as mere policy tools to expediently reach a preferred outcome. With that in mind, the statements of Government spokesman Abdul Rahman Zuma with regards to the spending exploits in Abuja are far more illuminating in revealing the true dynamic of the Khartoum-Darfur-Abuja axis. While Zuma was correct in calling the corruption "shameful," the motivations for his claim must be doubted the moment one considers how he opened his criticism ("To think we came here to talk when...the people here were drinking whiskey and entertaining prostitutes.") and his follow-up statement ("I can assure you that no one in the government delegation was involved in such specialisations."). He depicts the Government as graciously descending from on high to begrudgingly lend an ear to grievances of ne'er-do-well troublemakers who have been causing problems since they began complaining, and finding that they can still not get their act together. His claim that the Government has not similarly engaged in corrupt spending is dubious and especially ironic in the face of Sudan's recent anointment atop US Foreign Policy magazine's list of "failed states." Zuma's tactic here seems - reading only slightly below the surface layer - to be an attempt to delegitimize the rebel delegations, the entire Abuja process, and thus implicitly any obligation to uphold the peace agreement that has emerged from it. What is truly "shameful" is the Government's continued desire to undermine the prospects for peace and lack of intention to implement any provisions of the accord (which I will detail in another column); this, however, is a "shame" that runs like water off of the Khartoum genocidaires, confidently entrenched in impunity and safe from real accountability, a hollow "shame" that will likely cost many more Darfurians their homes and lives.

A piercing glimpse into reality, courtesy of a genocidaire

Over the past three years, I have heard many - equally hollow, disingenous, and (morbidly) laughably incoherent - explanations given by the Government of Sudan as to what was occurring in Darfur and why it did not constitute genocide. The Khartoum architects of the genocide have persistently denied the reality of the mass murder and displacement carried out at their behest and using their military force, attempting to pass it off as an internal problem, "tribal warfare," or at most simply a maintenance of the peace in the face of an illegal insurrection. They have sought to obscure the nature of both the perpetrators (falsely equating the Janjaweed and the rebels at one point - see my first post) and the victims (including trying to convince one tribe, the Jebel Misseriya, traditionally considered "non-Arab," that they were indeed "Arab;" see "To Save Darfur," International Crisis Group, 17 March 2006, p. 7) and have successfully resisted any meaningful interference by the international community, despite the patently clear falsehood of practically any government description of the situation in Darfur. The recognition, of the US, Germany, and others, that Darfur is indeed the home to a genocide, and even the UN's belabored identification of the crisis as "tantamount to genocide," indicates that most of the rest of the world has seen through Khartoum's lies; our failure to act and continued deference to a genocidal regime is thus made all the more appalling. Never before though, have I encounted such a biting defense of the Sudanese genocide as that recently proffered by Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol (a Southerner who, acting as no more than a tool of the elite Khartoum ruling clique's genocidal aims, has convinced me almost more than anything that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the Government of National Unity are mere mirages concealing a continuation of the brutal status quo). Answering a question about the characterization of the Darfur conflict as genocide, Akol, in addition to spouting ridiculous deflective rhetoric such as asking why US intervention in Vietnam was not called genocide, took a sharp stab at the rest of the world's paralysis in the face of genocide. He remarkably turned logic on its head to assert that "...genocide requires international intervention. So why did they not intervene?" ("Sudan is committed to deploy UN forces in Darfur - FM," Sudan Tribune, 9 May 2006) Despite its supremely flawed logic, this statement nonetheless should reverberate loudly in our consciences. If Khartoum can use our inaction to justify its genocide, how can be absolve ourselves of complicity? Moreover, how can we not see through this tactic, for to take advantage of our guilt is to admit that intervention has indeed been required. Akol, as much as I hold him in utter disdain for his duplicity and deception, presciently asked that question that I cannot answer: "Why did they not intervene?"
In the same interview, Akol, perhaps through naïve diplomacy or perhaps through sheer brazen contempt (I am inclined to lean toward the latter, though the former might also be present), voiced very clearly reasons that the world should not trust his government to implement the terms of the Abuja peace accord. He belittled the recent sanctions imposed on Janjaweed chief Musa Hilal, lying through his teeth about Khartoum's support for him by deemphasizing Hilal's role to one in which "Musa Hilal might own some camels and I do not know where he travels to warrant banning him" (Ibid.) He furthermore scorned the possible effectiveness of sanctions, threatening their ability to be implemented, and confidently asserted the immunity of top government officials from any international retribution. Such hubris indicates either supreme naïveté or a chiseled understanding of the ultimate weakness of the international community's resolve. Unfortunately the latter is likely a much greater motivating factor, one that all Khartoum leaders seem to have internalized; they recognize that they - until the international community demonstrates some muster - will be able to continue their actions will wholescale impunity, a fact that does not bode well for the prospects of implementing the DPA. He further demonstrated his willingness to make threats in the same sentence as his professed commitment to peace, warning that "[i]mposing sanctions threatens only the parties that refused and refuse to sign the peace agreement" (Ibid.). Akol also rejected the prospect of individual financial compensations for those who have suffered from the genocide, dismissing claims that the government, in compensating Northerners forced to relocate from the construction of a damn but not support victims of genocide, callously cares for some of its people less than palm trees, with an offhand dismissal of such "emotional talk." Perhaps Mr. Akol should take a trip to the IDP camps in the west of his country, flooded with over 2 and a half million Sudanese civilians, and listen to their "emotional talk."

Peace Achieved? Abuja, Kalma, and the Prospects for Meaningful Peace

"World hails Darfur peace deal as first step to peace." That is just one of the headlines (from Africa News, 6 May 2006) to emerge in the last few days since Minni Arco Minnawi, leader of the "main" faction of the rebel Sudanese Liberation Movement/Army, urged on by the recent arrivals of Bob Zoellick and Britain's Hillary Benn, signed the proposed Darfur Peace Agreement on Friday, May 4. The text of this headline underscores two questions that have emerged in the wake of Minni's signing of the document. The first prompts us to assess the way in which the "world [is] hail[ing]" the agreement" - how we interpret what happened in Abuja and how we are reacting to it in the press. The second, encompassing a great number of underlying questions, involves the extent to which the agreement can legitimately be called a "peace deal" at all and whether it does in fact signal the "first step" in a progression toward peace.

The attention generated by the peace accord, inspiring prominent stories in the New York Times and Washington Post among others, is greatly welcome at a time when many are still unaware of what is occurring in Darfur. The darker side to this, of course, is that newcomers to the issue reading headlines like above may very well think that this disastrous genocide has been contained and is on the safe road to resolution. This carries with it the danger of absolving people of their concern, leading them to close their checkbooks (especially harmful in a context in which donor fatigue has led to only a fraction of pledged aid actually reaching Darfur, aid even more desperately needed with the recent withdrawal of humanitarian organizations from the more dangerous areas and the UN World Food Program's heart-wrenching budget cut halving the calorie ration afforded to refugees and IDPs to an unviable 1000 per day) and turn their attention elsewhere. Some press, the Times especially, has, however, accurately portrayed the unchanging situation on the ground as a remonstrative foil to the promise that we have cultivated from the Abuja agreement. I have carefully avoided the phraseology that the DPA has "provided" or "generated" actual promise, because I believe it warrants enough cautious skepticism to withhold building castles of peace in the sky out of a document that does not even garner the full support of the people it purports to protect and that, more significantly, relies on the goodwill of the Sudanese government and the enforcement capacity of the African Union, both of which have consistently failed to demonstrate their reliability in the past two years. While I truly want to be hopeful that perhaps this peace accord, supported by the efforts of the US, will bear fruit, that the support of the United States, which did, after all, send its Deputy Secretary of State on a red-eye, last-ditch mission to Abuja, will prove genuine, that the Janjaweed will be disarmed, that Darfurian representatives will be incorporated into the Government of Sudan, and that the painfully deceptive banners of "Peace and Unity" currently flapping with murderous irony in the winds of Khartoum will actually achieve some meaning, all of my familiarity with the GoS and its history tempers my hopes and reduces me to simply praying that nothing will go more horribly awry than it already has.

The DPA is unfortunately lacking in both the depth and the width of its adherence. It does not span the wide gulfs separating the one SLM/A faction that signed it from the other, that of Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur, nor the ideological divide between both of these groups and the Justice and Equality Movement. While the motives behind the JEM's refusal to sign are questionable (mistrust is justified by the JEM's supposed ties to Hassan al-Turabi, the prominent Islamicist idealogue and former mentor of and co-conspirator with Omar Hassan al-Bashir), the reservations of the el-Nur faction parallel a similar wariness toward the agreement manifested by the Fur tribe, el-Nur's primary "constituents" (to the extent to which any of these factions can even be pinned down as truly representative of innocent Darfurian civilians, a goal that has in the past seemed to lose the prominence it deserves amidst internecine squabbles and jockeying for position). Many Fur seem to be even resentful toward Minni's faction for signing an agreement they do not support, a resentment surely the result of perpetual frustration, which reached its tragic culmination today in the brutal killing of an African Union translator in troubled and overcrowded Kalma camp. This horrendous event, and the violent mass protests that prompted the UN to expeditiously evacuate Jan Egeland from the camp, have at their source the growing friction among displaced persons in the squalid conditions of one of Darfur's largest camps about their seemingly interminable situation, the persistence of the Government's active creation of "conditions of life calcuated to bring about [their] destruction," (to quote the much-ignored, but most relevant, prong of the definition of genocide by the 1948 Commission on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide), and the repeated insufficiency and failures of international efforts to improve these people's lot. The impetus for today's outburst of frustration was likely inhabitants' sense that they have been left out of the signed peace agreement that brought Mr. Egeland to Kalma. A large proportion of the IDPs in Kalma camp are of the Fur tribe, and many of them echo the animosity felt by el-Nur toward Minnawi and reflect that the divisions within the SLM/A are not limited to a struggle for power and that very real tensions exist between the primary "members" (both those in the movement itself and those "virtually" represented by it) of the two factions. One banner at the protest epitomized the extreme of the resentment felt toward Minni for signing the DPA, declaring that "To the Darfur, Arco Minawi is destroyer'' ("Angry Darfur Refugees Riot in Demand for U.N. Troops," New York Times, Lydia Polgreen, 9 May 2006). The divisiveness espoused by many Fur in Kalma - remember, one of the earliest camps to arise and boom in population - can largely be explained by the fact that the Fur and Massaleit tribes bore the brunt of the early Government/Janjaweed attacks of 2003 and 2004 ("Unifying Darfur's Rebels: A Prerequisite for Peace," International Crisis Group, Africa Briefing No. 32, 6 October 2005, pp. 3-5). Furthermore, the traditional predominance of Zaghawa (Minni's tribe) in the military component of the movement, cultivated and emphasized by Minni as he forced himself up the chain of power, has undercut relations between this faction and that of el-Nur, representing the Fur and seeking to compensate for their underwhelming influence in military matters by focusing on the movement's political wing (Idem.)

The Fur protest in Kalma attests to the personal loyalty many feel toward el-Nur, for they trust that a peace agreement that their leader calls "a big disaster" ("Darfur talks yield imperfect 'peace,'" Toronto Star, 6 May 2006) must leave something to be desired for their protection. El-Nur's primary objection, and the most dire concern of the people of Darfur, is that the agreement does not do enough to ensure immediate and total disarmament of the Janjaweed militias stalking the Darfurian countryside. IDPs have developed a very rational fear of these terrifying "devils on horseback;" the women who arrive at camps recount their inhumane stories of fleeing their village, watching their husbands summarily executed, their children riddled with bullets, and their subjection to strategic genocidal rape. The identity of those whom they fear is obvious in the cry of "Janjaweed! Janjaweed!" that accompanied the mob attack on the innocent Sudanese humanitarian workers who were the unfortunate objects of Darfurians' displaced anger.

The popular agreement with el-Nur's reservations is not, however, limited to personal loyalty and trust. The Darfurian people have very real reasons to be skeptical toward the GoS's intentions to disarm the Janjaweed and thus follow el-Nur's attempts to hammer out specific delegations added to the agreement specifying who will ensure that this occurs (“Darfur’s main rebel faction says Abuja accord is still incomplete,” Sudan Tribune, 13 May 2006). As of now, the task remains in the hands of the African Union, whose mandate prevents them from exercising sufficient authority to ensure disarmament, so this effectively results in a perpetuation of the status quo, a status quo dominated by death and unimpeded Janjaweed raids, as documented mere days after the DPA was signed (see "Truce is Talk, Agony is Real in Darfur," Lydia Polgreen, New York Times, 12 May 2006). It is difficult to take Khartoum's word when it hedges out of its commitment by casting ambiguity over what groups it is even supposed to disarm, evidenced by Government spokesman Amin Omar's statement that "...Janjaweed is an ambiguous term. It represents many groups holding arms in Darfur" and that many of these groups "will be harder to control." (“Darfur prepares for uneasy peace,” Associated Press, Alfred de Montesquiou, 13 May 2006). A refugee in Gaga, Chad voiced the popular acknowledgment that Khartoum's profession to disarm the Janjaweed does not necessarily amount to anything in reality and raised the logical question - one that the international community seems to be blindly ignoring - of "if these marauders are still in Darfur, how on earth can we be expected to go back and live there?" ("Refugees too scared to go home despite Darfur peace deal," The Independent, Claire Soares, 9 May 2006). The conditions for security simply do not yet exist, and until they do, people will not feel ready - and we cannot force them, for they likely know better than we that if they venture out of what little safety they have in the camps, they will be killed - to return to their homes. Even Zoellick acknowledged that "…Darfur is going to remain a dangerous place and it's going to be a place of violence," though he did so in practically admitting that the DPA as signed represents a "second-best" alternative, taking solace in the "assurance" of having secured "at least the commitment of the major rebel movement and the government not to be conducting violent operations…” (Abuja press conference, 5 May 2006, can be found at US State Department website), which of course leaves out the most dangerous force - the Janjaweed military proxies.

Ultimately, any guidance looking toward the future of this peace accord must factor in the mistrust that the GoS has earned through its three years of continued genocide and failure to uphold any pact or ceasefire. A refugee in Chad best expresses the impossibility of returning home with conditions as dangerous as they are and with the Government having acquired no legitimate degree of reliability whatsoever: "I'd like to go home in 2006," Ismael Haron says, "but I doubt it will happen...We know Bashir. We have seen him make agreements and then break them 10 minutes later, and that worries us.'' Unfortunately, the only response to Mr. Haron is that we in the international community have seen this too, but we seem too shortsighted or bullheaded to allow it to worry us.

Khartoum "negotiates" with one hand, attacks with the other

The meaningless of the Khartoum government's supposed support for a peace initiative in Abuja is likely felt most acutely by those innocent civilians in Gereida, Darfur, who very probably face a siege and attacks by the same government that purports to be seeking peace. The civilians in rebel-held Gereida, including an astonishing 90,000 Internally Displaced Persons, are likely experiencing the same feeling of ominous dread experienced by so many innocent Darfurians (and Chadians), a feeling described by Nicholas Kristof, in his report from Koloy, Chad, as being "convinced that they would soon be murdered" (see Kristof, "A Village Waiting for Rape and Murder," NY Times, 12 March 2006). The UN anticipates the attack: the United Nations deputy humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, Gemmo Lodesani, admitted that "[w]e have received unconfirmed, unilateral reports that there might be an attack on Gereida town - meaning that the town could be under fire - if we do not take immediate steps" (see "Government offensive raises fears about attack on Darfur's Gereida," IRIN, 3 May 2006, at http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=15424) (I will spare the rant of the likelihood of the UN, or anyone, taking these vitally necessary "immediate steps"), and acknowledges the death and destruction it will cause to Gereida's civilian population. Lodesani admits that "[i]f an attack occurs, the price to be paid by civilians protected at the moment in Gereida would be very, very high," a fear echoed by Human Rights Watch's Africa director, Peter Takirambudde, who sees that "Civilians there - particularly those who share the ethnicity of the rebel groups - could be in grave danger" (Ibid.). Furthermore, these people in Gereida who will bear the brunt of the government's offensive know themselves that the attack is coming; they hear the stories, they see the wounded and displaced straggle in from nearby villages, and they can only wait and pray. Khartoum's willingness to sign a peace of paper hundreds and hundreds of miles away means nothing to them, so long as the government's policy continues to be one committed to genocide, not peace.
The wonder is not that the Sudanese armed forces, alongside their Janjaweed proxies, will attack a rebel-held village, or a concentration of IDP's and civilians; they have demonstrated their willingness to do so in the past few weeks in the towns neighboring Gereida, as well as in the past three years of the genocide. Rather, the shocking aspect of this is that the international community can nonetheless take the Government of Sudan at face value when it claims to be working to achieve a peace agreement, epitomized most recently by Omar Hassan al-Bashir's lies to President Bush voicing his government's "commitment and determination to reach a peace agreement and achieve stability in Darfur" (see "Sudan's Bashir assures US's Bush he wants Darfur peace deal," Sudan Tribune, 2 May 2006). How can anyone believe with a clear conscience that a government is committed to "achiev[ing] stability" and ending its violent conflict with rebels when just a week earlier, according to UN sources "on 24 April, the Sudanese government used an Antonov plane and two helicopter gunships to attack the rebel-controlled village of Joghana, southeast of Gereida" ("Government offensive...," supra) and is planning a major offensive a rebel territory. Not only does Khartoum hold no intention to peacefully settle the formal conflict with its armed opposition, but it exhibits no sign of restraint in massacring collateral civilian damage as a strategic and systematic policy of war. While the world dithers in Abuja, fretting over provisions and concessions, thousands in Gereida wait to be slaughtered.

Abuja Extended: Brokered Peace or Khartoum's Genocidal Tool?

Perhaps some breathed a sigh of relief at the 48 hour extension granted to the parties in Abuja, Nigeria after the the failure to hash out a peace agreement to "end" the "conflict" in Darfur. Not only is such relief unwarranted and unfounded, it is not shared by the parties at the talks. The JEM and SLM/A representatives are likely only sighing with exasperation at Khartoum's continued intransigence and stubborn refusal to negotiate a veritable and equitable accord, while the GoS's only sigh is one of exasperation and fury that their heavy-handed imposition of "peace" - translation: the silencing of the pesky Darfur rebels and the return to the uneven status quo - has been thwarted. Joining the GoS in sighing with exasperation are the chief AU mediator, Salim Ahmed Salim, who has repeatedly stressed how "frustrating" it has been to work with the Darfur rebels, as well as the African Union, United Nations, Arab League, European Union, and the United States, all of whom have made at least a token investment in success of the talks, if only to obviate them from more concentrated action.
The degree to which the proposal on the table at Abuja is a Khartoum-manufactured dictation of terms is indicated by the GoS's stubborn insistence to push forward and impose the provisions of the treaty despite the rebels' unwillingness to sign, according to statements made on Monday by the government's chief negotiator, Majzoub Khalifa (see "Sudan to move ahead on peace deal without rebel signatures," Sudan Tribune, 2 May 2006, at http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=15406). This blatant disregard for the entire purpose and democratic process of the Abuja talks demonstrates that Khartoum's interest is not in obtaining a negotiated ceasefire and genuine peace agreement, but rather simply to advance its desires with the same callous indifference to the Darfurian people that it has demonstrated in its three year campaign of strategic and systematic slaughter. A further sign of the GoS's lack of intention to carry out any measure likely to realize an actual peace on the ground is its attempt to wiggle out of its obligation, according to the peace proposal that they stubbornly intend on one-sidedly implementing, to disarm the Janjaweed militias carrying out the brunt of its genocidal destruction. To do so, Khartoum is using a rhetorical technique that it has used throughout the genocide to obfuscate the role played by its murderous Janjaweed proxies - claiming that the Janjaweed are simply one of many "legitimate" "tribal militias" in the area (see "FACTBOX - Contentious issues in Darfur draft peace agreement, Reuters, 1 May 2006, at http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=15387). This painfully transparent claim echoes the persistent dismissals of the Darfur genocide as a "tribal conflict," stretching to the ludicrous statement by the Khartoum Minister of Information that the Darfur rebel groups are the Janjaweed (see his incredible avowal that "[t]he rebels in Darfur have been a part and parcel of the Janjawid itself" in "SUDAN: Interview with Al Zhawi Ibrahim Malik, Information and Communications Minister," IRIN, 1 September 2004, at http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=42972&SelectRegion=East_Africa). Whatever the tactic, Khartoum clearly had no intention of disarming the Janjaweed even with a peace agreement signed by both sides (why would they, as they have had plenty of opportunity to oblige by the N'djamena Ceasefire and Security Council Resolution 1556 in the past two years?); without an agreement, the Khartoum genocidaires may in fact be secretly reveling in the opportunity to react viciously against the Darfur rebels (and civilians), now seemingly holding the winning hand of being open to accomodation. The troubling statments of Mahjzoub Khalifa, the government representative, foreshadow an increase in brutal repression; he warned that "[a]nyone who obstructs peace efforts should be forced to bear responsibility" and that the rebels will be dealt with "seriously" for failing to uphold the role of willing victim at Abuja that Khartoum (and apparently, the world) expected it to (see "Sudan to move ahead...," supra).
As previously suggested, Khartoum's willingness to sign this agreement, coupled with the rebels' well-founded reluctance to do so, deceptively places the Sudanese government in the role of "good guy" with regard to public opinion. UN Special Envoy to Sudan Jan Pronk, completely duped (as usual) by Khartoum's disingenousness, lauded the government's preparation to sign the accord as an admirable "decision that they can sign the document though they said they did not like the document a hundred percent" (see "Darfur rebels reject peace deal, talks continue," Sudan Tribune, 30 April 2006, at http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=15370). He cast the whole of the blame for the talks' failure to produce a signed document on the rebel negotiators, whom he insisted were "not worthy to be leaders" (Ibid.). Pronk even made the frightful statement that "If the government of Sudan is willing to accept the pressure of the international community to sign, and the parties are not ready to do so, then they have to bear the brunt" and face "political consequences" (Ibid.), which, while it does not necessarily suggest that Pronk is in favor of the genocidal retribution facing innocent Darfurians, does indicate his naïve self-deception that such "political consequences" will likely be paid in blood.
With Deputy Secretary of State Bob Zoellick headed to Khartoum to lead a last-ditch effort to persuade the rebels to sign, the US is demonstrating that it is indeed investing some capital in achieving peace in Darfur. We can only hope that Zoellick will not adopt the condescending tactic of simply attempt to convince the SLM/A and JEM leaders to sign a document that grossly violates their interests and that his attempts to extract concessions from the GoS, namely in assuring disarmament of the Janjaweed, prove wholehearted and successful. This, however, will be difficult in the face of strong opposition to the proposal as it stands by both the JEM, whose delegate Ahmed Tugod, cautioned, "We are not going to accept this document for signature unless there are fundamental changes made to the document," and the SLM/A, who, while leaving open a slight possibility of signing, similarly stated that "[i]f the proposal does not include all our demands we will not sign" (see "Darfur peace talks extend deadline for two days," Sudan Tribune, 30 April 2006, at http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=15380). Even more of an obstacle is likely Khartoum's unwillingness to move anywhere beyond its staked out position of false accomodation, evidenced by the gruff departure of Second Vice President Ali Osman Taha from Abuja.