"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.