'...we have to show these people, these abids (slaves, blacks) who is the master here.' Eva Dadrian on the Arabisation of Darfur by Khartoum with a great deal of help from 'the brother from the North, Gadaffi'.

Since 2003, the international community, African heads of states, the African Union, the Arab League, the United Nations, numerous humanitarian organisations and a number of African or non-African 'intellectuals' have debated the meaning of the word genocide, and whether it can be applied 'accurately' to the tragedy that was taking place in Darfur. Whether there were 200,000 killed, or only 20,000, or whether the rebellion or the Sudanese army or the government-backed Janjaweed militias perpetrated the crimes, this kind of debate could go on ad infinitum as Kwesi Kwaa Prah rightly says (Pambazuka News 305).

But as these 'good wishers' were debating, the tragedy of Darfur was unfolding in front of their eyes. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians were killed, raped and uprooted from their homes and villages. Despite a ban on the media, despite the pressure on aid workers, the conflict in Darfur is very well documented, showing how entire communities were wiped out, how more than 800 villages were burnt to the ground and thousands of wells poisoned, mosques desecrated, schools destroyed, cattle slaughtered and crops ruined…

And the debate is still continuing while the people of Darfur are left in hellish IDP camps, in the middle of the desert, struggling to keep their children alive who are subjected not only to hunger, thirst, violence and diseases but also to humiliation for being destitute in their own homeland and having nothing to go back to.

Let’s not re-open this kind of discourse and 'indulge in technicist sophistry, tip-toeing nimbly around the real issues in Darfur' that may again provide 'solace to the Khartoum regime' (Kwesi Kwaa Prah, Pambazuka 305) and to others who persist to view the deployment of an AU-UN peacekeeping force as 'an invasion'. Darfur is neither Afghanistan nor Iraq, nor as a matter of fact Somalia.

Having said that I should emphasise also that Darfur is the microcosm of all the ills that mar the continent: Arab in the north versus Africa in the south. We could of course continue to blame the 'colonial borders' for these problems, but as Africans we had more than 50 years to solve our differences.

From the very beginning of the Darfur crisis, the government of Sudan proved time and again its unwillingness to look 'seriously and genuinely' into the demands of the people of Darfur. The numerous ceasefire agreements have collapsed for the very reason that the government of Khartoum has not kept its part of the deal, i.e. stop all its military operations and especially put an end to the crimes committed by the Janjaweed against the civilian population. The Janjaweed, the government-backed Arab militias, still roam free in Darfur. Driving pick-up trucks with mounted guns, they are 'not being arrested' according to AU commanders. The Abuja peace agreement signed between the government and one faction only of the Darfur rebel movement is not worth the paper it is written on.

Only recently, a small light has appeared at the end of the tunnel for Darfur. In mid-June, the Sudanese government announced its acceptance of the proposal for a hybrid United Nations-African Union peacekeeping operation to be deployed in Darfur. Under the new revised plan, the AU will run day-to-day operations while the UN will have overall control of some 20,000 peacekeepers, mostly from Africa. Currently, as we all know it, the 7,000 ill equipped AU troops are overwhelmed by the sheer vastness of the region, the complexity of the conflict and the limitations of their mandate.

'The UN and AU have outlined two options for the size of the force's military component: under one plan, there would be 19,555 troops and under the other there would be 17,605 troops. The police component would require 3,772 officers. The hybrid operation is the third phase of a three-step process to replace the existing but under-resourced AU Mission in the Sudan (AMIS), which has been unable to end the fighting in Darfur.'

Ten days later, Lam Akol, the former southern Sudanese rebel leader turned minister of foreign affairs declared that his government was in complete agreement with the composition of the peacekeeping force, the nature of its operation, its mission and its command 'We are ready to have the force deployed at any time'.

Khartoum’s acceptance for the deployment of this hybrid peacekeeping force is a welcome step but it requires immediate and rigorous pressure from the international community and from Africans in particular, to make it happen.

So far, so familiar. Since the beginning of the conflict (February 2003) Omar el Beshir has disputed accusations, played for time, promised but never delivered and broke more agreements that he honoured. Khartoum has accused everybody except the Janjaweed militias. General Omar el Beshir had until the end of 2006 to disarm the Janjaweed, accept a hybrid AU-UN peacekeeping force in Darfur or face the consequences.

Taking the Almighty as witness, El Beshir has vowed, time and again, he will not allow any UN peacekeeping force to be deployed in Darfur. A year ago, he announced that the situation in Darfur was 'under control'. But the sad reality is that the situation is far from being 'under control'. The same scenario is being repeated again as Omar el Beshir, who has skipped this year’s AU Summit in Accra, not only warned the West, and Washington in particular, not to mess up the handling of the crisis in Darfur, but also declared that calm has returned to Darfur and the IDPs are already going back to their villages 'We can say that most of Darfur's region is safe', and 'The situation on the ground in Darfur is improving. Now IDPs are voluntarily returning to their villages'. In fact, according to witnesses, villages are being repopulated indeed but not by their very former legal owners.

The old ambition of Khartoum successive governments to Arabise Darfur is being fulfilled. The so-called returnees are in fact entire families of the nomadic people who have for so long aimed at taking over the 'green pastures' and the fields of Southern Darfur and Gebel Marra. Not only, the long dream of Khartoum is being fulfilled but also that of Brother Gaddafi, the man with the floating robes and a fat chequebook. Indeed, back in the 1980s our Brother from the North planned to rid Darfur of its African population and replace them by Arabs. As Kwesi Kwa Prah points out the dear colonel while attending an Arab League summit meeting (Amman, October 2000) showed his true colours when he declared that 'two-thirds of Arabs live in Africa and the remaining third must join the other two in Africa...'

Needless to point out that those who refuse to recognise the genocidal plans of the Khartoum regime have neither seen nor heard of the Black Book. Secretly circulating in the late 1990s and very early 2000s, this infamous blueprint provides all the details of the soon-to-happen Darfur tragedy.

Just for information, I myself have seen the Black Book. Back in 1987, I also witnessed the destruction of the Fur villages in Gebel Marra. I have seen the horsemen of the apocalypse armed by Brother Gaddafi, who spread terror and destruction among the Fur community. I have also recorded Fadlallah Burma, Sadiq el Mahdy’s security suprimo, in those days, admitting that the government was arming 'the Arab tribes' and in addition I have also recorded a government official in Nyala telling me 'we have to show these people, these abids (slaves, blacks) who is the master here...'

'The international community simply cannot continue to sit by', said Condoleezza Rice at the end of an international conference in Paris about Darfur (June 2007). Of course this statement comes from a secretary of state who cannot claim to have a clear conscious when it comes to conflicts such as Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, to name just a few. But as Africans we cannot continue to sit by and allow rogue governments to send their troops to kill us, their planes to bomb us, their bulldozers to demolish our homes and their henchmen to intimidate us for the simple reason that we oppose their rule.

* Eva Dadrian is an independent broadcaster and Political and Country Risk Analyst for print and broadcast media.

* Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

At least 200,000 people are estimated to have died since the Darfur conflict between government forces, allied militias and rebels seeking autonomy began in 2003. Aid workers have also been attacked, and their vehicles and communication equipment stolen. Eva Dadrian writes that for international development aid to be effective, peace must be restored first to Darfur.

Throughout the Darfur crisis, Sudan has disputed accusations, accused everybody except the pro-government Janjaweed militias, played for time, pledged and promised but never delivered. It has even managed to stave off UN intervention. Darfur is entering its fourth year of conflict and turmoil and there are no more excuses to be made, say observers.

Despite calls for action from the United Nations (UN), aid agencies and human rights organisations, Africans have consistently resisted any action which would be critical of the Sudanese government, in the name of African solidarity. But patience seems to have run out even from a very complacent African Union, and not long ago, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria warned of possible genocide in the region. Now, President Omar el Bashir has until the end of the year to disarm the Janjaweed, and accept a hybrid AU-UN peacekeeping force in Darfur or face the consequences.

Addressing the African-Caribbean-Pacific conference held recently in Khartoum, President al Bashir said that the situation in Darfur is “under control” and that peace has been restored in the province. In reality, the situation in Darfur is far from being "under control" as claimed by the Sudanese strong man. The rebellion continues and a new group has emerged and taken up arms against Khartoum.

Reported to belong to Darfur Arab tribes, the Popular Forces Troops (PFT) say they are fighting against the “marginalisation” of the region. It is not yet known whether they will join forces with the rebel groups that did not sign the Abuja Peace agreement. However, the PFT is reported to have made a statement saying that “Darfur Arab groups believe that Darfur people are fighting for a just cause”.

In the meantime, the only group which signed the Abuja Peace agreement with the government last May (the Sudan Liberation Army), has threatened to pull out of the deal if Khartoum-backed militias “continue to be armed and to attack civilians”. In addition, fresh fighting has erupted between the Sudanese government troops and the National Redemption Front (NRF), an umbrella group of the rebel factions that did not sign the Abuja peace agreement in May.

Sitting in Addis Ababa last week, the AU Joint Ceasefire Commission (JCC) decided that the disarmament of the Janjaweed in the war-torn Darfur region "be started immediately." That decision was made upon the assessment of a confidential report presented to the JCC by General Luke Aprezi, the commander of the AMIS (African Union Mission in Sudan) peacekeeping force. The report testifies clearly and without ambiguity hat the Janjaweed had recently increased their attacks. It also draws the attention of the JCC to the fact that "the re-emergence of the Janjaweed also negatively affected the security situation." Although Khartoum continues to deny it, General Luke Aprezi’s report says, “The Sudanese government continues to arm the Janjaweed."

Back in 2004, at the height of the conflict, I wrote that the Sudanese armed forces and other paramilitary units, i.e. the government-backed Janjaweed, have simultaneously targeted civilians, allegedly accused of supporting the rebellion. Despite promises and pledges from the government, the Janjaweed are still being armed and still targeting civilians. Only last month, the Janjaweed were again in action against civilians. This time the attacks took place near the Chadian borders.

Both the AU and the United Nations confirmed this recent military campaign and said that the Janjaweed militia has targeted “civilians and particularly children”. More than 70 civilians were reported killed. Western monitors have also reported that the Sudanese Air Force has also been deployed in the offensive and bombed villages along the border with Chad. No circumstances can justify deliberate attacks on civilians, or military operations that endanger civilian lives. These recent attacks were grave violations of human rights and the laws of war, and they happened despite the recent pledge by the government to dismantle the Janjaweed and honour a UN Security Council resolution that banned bombing raids in Darfur.

President Al Bashir has consistently rejected the deployment of an extended peacekeeping force on the grounds that his government is capable of maintaining peace in the region. He went as far as declaring that the presence of any UN force would be like “an invasion” or that the West is interested neither in human rights nor in the plight of the people of Darfur, but seeking to invade Sudan only so it could plunder its resources. Sudanese government officials have also warned that the war-torn province could become “a new battlefield for jihadists”.

There is no doubt that the disarmament depends on “ the political will of the Sudanese government” says Monique Mukaruliza, deputy head of the peace mission, but the pressure is building up and it appears that even Sudan’s African supporters have given up on Khartoum’s long-lasting diplomatic game.

That game is almost over. An “informal” consensus seems to have been reached by the AU, the international community and the UN to put further pressure on Sudan.

As the AU Joint Ceasefire Commission was sitting in Addis Ababa, 15 former foreign ministers wrote a proposal for Darfur. Published in the Financial Times of London (18 December 2006), the proposal, signed by amongst others: Joschka Fisher (Germany) Ismail Cem (Turkey) Gareth Evans (Australia), Erik Derycke of Belgium, Lamberto Dini of Italy, Bronislaw Geremek of Poland, Rosario Green of Mexico, Surin Pitsuwan of Thailand, Hubert Vedrine of France and Ana Palacio of Spain, says that a “fully observed ceasefire leading to a sustained political settlement would be the best way to save lives in the war-ravaged region.”

In the interim, says the proposal, the international community will need to convince President al-Bashir that his best interests would be served by allowing the “African Union peacekeeping force to be strengthened with financial, logistical and other support from the United Nations.”

The option of sanctions, the so-called “consequences” mentioned by the JCC communiqué, is clearly stated in the foreign ministers’ proposal. They reckon that sanctions would force a change of policy by Khartoum. “As former diplomats, we support one last effort to persuade Khartoum to accept the proposal for a hybrid force. If by the year's end Mr Bashir still refuses or, more likely, continues pretending to agree one day and saying no the next, he should pay a stiff price."

That price, or the consequences should first include targeted multilateral sanctions [such as travel bans and asset freezes] directed at military and civilian leaders who are responsible for the violence. The second step should be measures to target revenue from Sudan's oil sales, coupled with an embargo on the sale of equipment to that country's petroleum industry, and thirdly, steps to be taken to close offshore accounts affiliated with the government-majority party, including militias.

In addition, the International Criminal Court should up its investigations into those who order or commit crimes against humanity in Darfur. However, unless these sanctions are “multilateral” they will have no effect on the Sudanese government. Extensive diplomatic efforts by the AU and the international community are being made to persuade Sudan’s African, Arab and Asian allies to help change President al Bashir’s mind and to reach an agreement for a “hybrid” AU-UN force to be sent in 2007. Before being asked to leave Sudan, in October 2006, Jan Egeland, the United Nations humanitarian chief, made a similar plea and called on African, Arab and Asian countries to urge Sudan to accept a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur.

The Addis Ababa-Abuja broad diplomatic coalition, which benefits from the support of the AU, the Arab League and the UN Security Council, has recommended a hybrid force that would combine AU personnel with financial, logistics and other support from the United Nations. The plan is 1) to strengthen the capacity of the AU monitors, 2) to provide for increased logistical support to the embattled African contingent and 3) to see the deployment of a hybrid AU-UN peacekeeping force yet to be formally approved by Sudan.

Pressure is also mounting from the International Criminal Court (ICC), as Luis Moreno Ocampo, the chief prosecutor for ICC, announced that his investigation has collected enough evidence to prove “who are the most responsible for the crimes committed in Darfur” in 2003 and 2004. It was during that period that the highest number of crimes were committed, by all parties involved in the conflict. The chief prosecutor has also asked the Sudanese government to facilitate a visit by his team in January 2007 to gather information on the 14 arrests made by the GoS.

However, it seems that the people indicted by the GoS are not the same people the ICC is investigating. Under the Rome statute, the prosecutor must first assess whether the government is building the same case. Ocampo has already asked the Sudanese government for an update on their national proceedings, regarding the arrest of 14 people by the Sudanese authorities.

Furthermore, as the UN Human Rights Council is preparing to send a high-level team of human rights experts to Darfur, news reports have quoted Mohamed Ali al-Mardhi, the Sudanese minister of justice, as saying that he was “ready to cooperate with a UN fact-finding team due to investigate human rights abuses in war-torn Darfur.”

According to Al-Mardhi, “the authorities have nothing to hide” and all obstacles will be removed in order “to allow the team of experts to probe cases of rights violations in the western region”.

Collective decision-making is very well, and there is no doubt in my mind that as Africans, we have to stand for African sovereignty and reject any outside interference in our own affairs. But my question is whether in the name of that same sovereignty, we should allow our governments to kill Africans and destroy entire communities, making hundreds of thousands of people flee their homes and become refugees or IDPs (internally displaced people), facing starvation and life threatening diseases? It is indeed in the name of their sovereignty that successive governments in Khartoum have waged wars against their own people: for more than twenty years in Southern Sudan and now for almost four years in Darfur.

Observers and aid agencies continue to remind us that Security Council resolution 1706 was written under the enforcement chapter of the United Nations, therefore the UN force could intervene “regardless of what the government of Sudan wants”. But this is not, and this cannot be, the preferred option. Sudan must agree to let the hybrid AU-UN into Darfur where the humanitarian situation is deteriorating as aid agencies have announced that they had to pull out 650 staff from Darfur and Chad, because of security fears. The evacuation of the aid workers, even if temporarily, means disrupting supplies of food and medicines to hundreds of thousands of people.

Some African political analysts say that the so-called "international peacekeeping force" is a “euphemism for foreign military intervention which is destined to have disastrous repercussions for the people of Darfur and Sudan as a whole.” Let us be honest and look into the past 50 years of Sudan history. The only disastrous repercussions for the people of Sudan are the centralised, hegemonic, dictatorial, elitist and undemocratic policies of successive Sudanese governments who have ruled the country since independence.

Some observers suspect that oil is the main “motivation” behind the heightened interest of the international community and specifically that of Washington. Yet, there is no geological evidence of oil reserves in Darfur. Academics and some diplomats are behind the spread of these false reports. If one looks into the oil issue, one can see that China, Malaysia and India hold the concession rights for oil development and exploration in Southern Sudan and in the Kordofan province.

For my part, I have always believed that the fighting in Darfur should not be seen as an isolated issue, but in a wider regional context. The entire Sahel region, from Mauritania to Sudan, faces a common problem: droughts and underdevelopment that lead to a scramble over the meagre resources between nomadic tribes and pastoralists, mainly Arabs or Arabised, and African non-Arab agriculturalists and farmers. This has been the situation since the 1960s. Only sustainable development assistance to the entire region of the Sahel can help quell current and future clashes between those communities. But before sending any international development aid, peace must be restored to Darfur.

• Eva Dadrian is an independent broadcaster and Political and Country Risk Analyst for print and broadcast media.

• Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

The Middle-East is on fire, and it does not look as if the political situation is going to improve anytime soon. Eva Dadrian looks at Africa’s response to the conflict. She argues that those who know how it feels like to be at the receiving end of colonialism have always criticised Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

After 34 days of fighting, more than 1,200 civilian casualties, 15,000 homes destroyed, 80 bridges and 94 roads damaged, the two-week-old cease-fire between Israel and Hezballah is holding. Apart from being a human tragedy, the recent conflict is also an environmental disaster with massive oil spills resulting from the bombing of a power plant close to Beirut.

The question now is how UNIFIL (the United Nations International Forces in Lebanon) will fully implement the UN Security Council Resolution 1701 that asks for the two Israeli prisoners held by Hezballah to be handed over to the International Red Cross, and that Israel lifts its blockade of Lebanon?

Should the cease-fire and the arrival of the peacekeeping force be considered a victory for the international community? The UN knows, like everybody else, that UN peacekeepers will never be in a position to “impose peace”, let alone become peacemakers.

But, it is expected that in the coming weeks, armed with a tougher mandate than any UN peacekeeping force has ever enjoyed before, the multinational force of some 15,000 troops from Bangladesh, Italy, Malaysia, Poland, and many others, will attempt to consolidate this cease-fire. They are also expected to help in the clearing up and to carry out humanitarian operations. But will this really happen?

According to observers, the government and the people of Lebanon are determined to implement Resolution 1701. Also, they are expecting the Israeli government to do so. However, to date Israel has been reluctant to withdraw from Lebanese territories and lift its air, land and sea blockade on Lebanon, thus hampering not only humanitarian aid in reaching the country but also delaying a full environmental damage assessment of the Lebanon coastline. Environmentalists estimate that between 11 and 40 million litres of heavy fuel oil leaked into the sea following the Israeli bombardment of Jieh coastal power station, 28km south of Beirut. The pollution is estimated to extend at least 150km (90 miles) off-shore and has hit the tourism and fishing industries hard. One UN spokesperson has been reported as saying the damage could last "up to a century". Furthermore, the oil has hit a 150km stretch of coastline extending even into Syria.

Has the war achieved anything that would make either Israel, Hezballah, Washington and others involved front line or back stage, proud? Was all this destruction the only means to secure the safe release of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, the two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezballah? Is it possible to believe that Mossad, the Israeli secret service, considered by many as the world’s “best and most efficient” in the field, would have not been capable of getting back the two kidnapped soldiers by more discreet and efficient means?

Most Israelis and many others in the region, in the Arab nations, say that the war was meant to reduce Hezballah’s growing power in Lebanon and dismantle its arsenal.

Do we need to admit that this war has had the opposite result? Not only has Israel not managed to destroy Hezballah, but Israel’s war on Lebanon has reinforced Hezballah’s aura in Lebanon and in the Arab world, thanks to the resistance and the resilience of Hezballah’s fighters. This war will go down in history as the only war fought and lost by the State of Israel since its creation. Do we need to become cynical and laugh because the two soldiers whose kidnapping is said to have sparked this conflict are still in Hezballah’s custody?

So what was really achieved by all the parties involved: Israel, Lebanon, Hezballah, Washington, Syria and Iran?

Analysts and politicians from Europe, US, Asia and Africa, have implied that the conflict between Hezballah and Israel had the potential to become a wider regional conflict. So was this meant to provoke Syria and Iran and drag them into direct confrontation with Israel? Was it to distract world public opinion from the failures in Iraq, the sectarian killings and the body bags returning home, or the failures in Afghanistan and the renewal of the old tribal conflicts there?

In fact, the entire region is at war. From the East Mediterranean shores to the borders of Pakistan (save Iran at the present time) the so-called “New Middle East” as envisaged by President Bush, Secretary of State Rice, PM Tony Blair and the like, is but conflicts, rubbles, destruction, broken lives and dismantled nations.

For argument sake, let’s transpose Israel’s action against Hezballah elsewhere in the world. For example, in Christian, white Europe imagine that Sweden, the pillar of European democracy, disagrees with the fascistic politics of the French Front National of Jean-Marie Le Pen. So, the Swedish government decides to bomb Paris and destroy all the French “departments” where the Front National has its offices. It does it with an arsenal of weaponry supplied by Germany!

Or at the height of the IRA bombings in mainland Britain, London decides to bomb Dublin once and for all? Would it have been possible?

After touring Beirut’s devastated Dahiyeh district, where he was booed by the residents, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is reported to have declared that “there is a lot of work to be done” and that the UN and international community would work effectively with all parties to “ensure that we do implement the resolution to the fullest and that we have a long-term peace in this region”.

The war in Lebanon was but another chapter in the Middle East conflict. And this conflict cannot and will not be resolved unless the Israeli-Palestinian question is resolved. Is it so difficult to secure a “long-lasting peace” that we have to accept today the small token of a “long-term” peace?

For the Israeli-Arab/Israeli-Palestinian question, one should look into the issue of colonialism, exactly in the same way as one would look into the Irish question and British colonialism in Africa.

Interestingly, those who know how it feels like to be at the receiving end of colonialism have always criticised Israel’s occupation of Palestine. For years, Africans have condemned Israel’s “colonial” policies in Palestine, and the recent conflict was yet another source of debates. Further, people took to the streets. Anti-war demonstrators marched in their hundreds through the streets of Gaborone (Botswana). The African Union strongly condemned what it described as Israel's “indiscriminate bombing”. This was particularly after the bombing of Qena, which the AU said “cannot be justified under any circumstances”.

In South Africa activists often liken Israel to Apartheid South Africa. The African National Congress condemned Israel for its disproportionate military action.

African politicians were not the only protestors. Many artists, writers and media people strongly expressed their views on the issue. At this year’s Zimbabwe International Film Festival (ZIFF) Israel’s war against Lebanon took centre stage. In its programme ZIFF had included the world acclaimed documentary “Paradise Now” – which was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards (Oscars) earlier this year and the winner of the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film (USA).

In complete contrast to the strong position against the war and Israel's action taken by Africa south of the Sahara, North Africa and particularly Egypt, adopted a much milder position. Precaution was the name of the game when it came to analysing and discussing the causes of the war. Most mainstream Arab political analysts avoided criticising Egypt's position and President Mubarak's condemnation of Hezbollah's kidnapping of the 2 Israeli soldiers. Pointing a finger at Washington' policies for the region and criticising president Bush's administration for the moral, financial and arms support, to Israel, Egypt remained "unstained". The Arab street had a very different position. In Cairo, protestors called for the dissolution of the Camp David agreement between Israel and Egypt (1978-79) labelling it as the "leach" that is "tying up Egypt's hands and feet" in any decision concerning Israel's and Washington's policy for the Middle East conflict.

In Tunisia, at the international Carthage Festival, the Tunisian artist Lotfi Bouchnaq, cancelled the final programme to replace it with patriotic songs and music in solidarity with Lebanon and the Palestinian people.

One Israeli blogger has gone so far as to write, the Palestinians are victims of “a colonial type of oppression”. Their land is confiscated, their homes bulldozed, their olive groves uprooted, their youth disturbed by 50 years of wars, killings, bombs and displacements and their sons in Israeli jails. Aren’t these the real stigmata of colonialism as practised in the past by the colonial powers?

The 50 years of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have engendered resistance. Depending on the standpoint from which one views the political situation in the Middle East, Palestinians militants have become “freedom fighters” or “terrorists”. As political dialogue became a futile exercise, Palestinian militants have become “Islamic Terrorists”. However, in reality, the militants of Hamas and Hezballah are only “resisting” the occupation of their lands - Palestine for Hamas and South Lebanon for Hezballah – and refuse to accept Israel’s expansionist policy.

In the very early days of the conflict, As Safir, the Lebanese daily, published the translation of a “secret” report presented by Wayne Madison*, a journalist at the New Yorker, specialising in the political intricacies of Washington D.C. and the CIA. The report preceded an article published by the San Francisco Chronicle (July 21, 2006) under the title: ‘Israel set war plan more than a year ago, Strategy was put in motion as Hezbollah began gaining military strength in Lebanon’. Matthew Kalman, the author of this article, wrote the following: “Israel's military response by air, land and sea to what it considered a provocation last week by Hezbollah militants is unfolding according to a plan finalized more than a year ago.

In the six years since Israel ended its military occupation of southern Lebanon, it watched warily as Hezbollah built up its military presence in the region. When Hezbollah militants kidnapped two Israeli soldiers last week, the Israeli military was ready to react almost instantly”.

But the report presented by Wayne Madison has far more to reveal about the recent conflict. 1) The aggression against Lebanon was planned by key Israeli decision-makers and members of the Bush Administration during a meeting organised by the American Enterprise Institute, held at Beever-Creek-Colorado, on 17 and 18 June 2006.

2) During that meeting, US Vice-President Dick Cheney, Israel’s Prime Minister Ehoud Olmert, and Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehoud Barak, Shimon Pérès and Nathan Charansky were all present.

3) The two parties agreed on the following plan: the American Administration will provide ‘all the necessary assistance’ to Israel so that it (Israel) can put into execution Plan ‘Clear Infiltration’ formulated some 10 years ago. This plan dealt with ‘new strategies’ concerning global ‘matters of security’.

4) Clear Infiltration was in fact the “next” step to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. This was to be followed by wars in Palestine, Lebanon, then Syria and Iran.

5) To put the plan into motion, two steps were foreseen: the first was to last for four years and incorporated “secret activities from the Pentagon, the White House and Mossad, inside Lebanon” These secret activities included using booby-trapped vehicles to assassinate high-ranking Lebanese officials. The objective: forcing Syrian troops to withdraw from Lebanon. The author of the report mentions three names: Elie Hobaïka, former minister who was in charge of the Lebanese Forces and who sided with the Syrians, Georges Haoui, former secretary general of the Lebanese communist party and Rafiq Hariri, former Prime minister.

Whereas the second step included bombardment and then the invasion of Lebanon, observers reckon that somehow ‘Clear Infiltration’ has succeeded: invasion and occupation of Iraq, the assassination of Rafiq Hariri and other prominent Lebanese, bombardment and invasion of Lebanon have happened. ‘Plan Clear Infiltration’ would come into completion if Israel and Washington succeeded in removing Hezballah from South Lebanon and transferring them in the same way they had planned to “transfer” the Palestinians from the West Bank.

Notes:

* Wayne Madison, first journalist to reveal and write about the horrors of Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq

* Eva Dadrian is an independent broadcaster and Political and Country Risk Analyst for print and broadcast media.

* Please send comments to

Eva Dadrian tracks the aftermath of the massacre of Sudanese refugees in Cairo on Friday 30, December 2005, noting that it is an insult to the memory of those killed that the very regime which originally led to their flight to Egypt will soon be hosting an African Union Summit (in Khartoum, 14-16 January). Dadrian asks: “Will the African heads of state attending the AU Summit in Khartoum, in a humanitarian gesture, stand 60 seconds in silence in memory of the tragic incident in Cairo? I wonder whether any one of them will sense that 60 seconds is more than enough for a police truncheon to cut short the life of an African refugee?”

Human rights groups and opponents of the Sudanese government call the hosting of the African Union Summit by Khartoum (14-16 January 2006) an affront and an insult to the memory of the people of Darfur who have died at the hands of the very regime hosting the summit.

Observers and political activists are asking how a country which has a civil war in Darfur - where more than 2.5 million internally displaced people are still being subjected to attacks by government backed militias – and has some 500,000 refugees scattered in 5 neighbouring countries and more than 2 million Southern Sudanese IDPs in and around Khartoum, can be considered as the host of the AU Summit?

It is a further insult to the memory of those Sudanese refugees who were trampled to death or died of their wounds during and after the vicious attack by the Egyptian security police on the Mustafa Mahmoud Park, just across from the UNHCR office, on Friday 30, December 2005, where since September 26, 2005, they were staging a sit-in in protest at the UNHCR’s earlier decision to close their files and start their repatriation.

Whatever accusations can be had against the Sudanese refugees, like those made by Egyptian comedian Adel Imam, himself a UNHCR goodwill ambassador, who said, “they put their children in front of them as human shields” or a police officer, who said, “they were singing and dancing during the attack”, the high loss of life suggests that extreme brutality was used by the Egyptian security forces during the dawn attack.

Precise figures for the dead and wounded are still unclear. Various reports have put the death toll at 56, with 15 children and many women and elderly among them. According to Astrid van Genderen Stort, a spokeswoman from the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), there are also over “70 injuries of various degrees of severity”.

As shocking as it may sound to the readership of Pambazuka News, the Egyptian security forces aimed mainly at the heads, kidneys and genital parts of male and female refugees alike. All those who died and whose corpses are still lying in morgues have head wounds, brain haemorrhages, burst kidneys and burst pancreas. Many of the refugees, Muslims and Christians alike, who were later released from the military barracks they were taken to, and who had gathered in a number of churches in Cairo, said that a refugee from Darfur, who was bleeding from his head wounds, was thrown off by the police from the military truck taking them to Al Torah security barracks. His body was later recovered by fellow Darfurians from the road where he had bled to death.

Human rights groups and MPs from the Muslim Brotherhood are calling for an independent investigation into the violent clashes of last Friday. In a statement issued on January 2, the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights (EOHR) is saying “the Egyptian Security Forces should immediately investigate these deaths and unjustified violent incidents” stating that the police used “excessive force” in breaking up the three-month long peaceful sit-in. EOHR urges also that “all those responsible be brought to trial”. Fingers of accusation are pointed at Habib Al Adly, the minister of interior known for his notorious heavy-handed techniques against demonstrators and opponents to the Mubarak regime.

Civil society activists who organised a demonstration last Saturday in protest at the “Friday massacre in Mustapha Mahmoud Park” and in solidarity with the Sudanese refugees, were defiantly holding banners and posters that read “We are All Sudanese” and “Down with Habib Al Adly”. Al Adly, whose name means “The Just one” has just been reinstated in a new cabinet and took his oath of allegiance on Saturday, January 1, 2006, a day after the Friday events.

After 5 days locked in highly secured military barracks and security forces’ camps around Cairo, the Egyptian authorities announced that they were preparing to deport some 656 Sudanese. The official reason for the deportations is as vague as the destination the refugees will be taken to. It is believed that they will land either in Khartoum or in Juba. Among these refugees are people from Darfur where there are already 2.5 million internally displaced people living in camps and at the mercy of banditry. No one can guaranty their safety when they will reach Sudan.

For three days, members of the foreign and Egyptian media, human rights activists, and members of non-governmental organisations managed to keep in touch with the refuges held in the 5 military barracks, through their mobile phones. Then, silence fell and all contacts were cut off as “the police have taken away cell phones and money from our pockets” confirmed a Southern Sudanese, who, thanks to his Blue Card giving him Refugee Status, was released from Manshiet Nasr barracks, just a few hours before I met him in the Sakkakini church in Abbasseya, Cairo.

Some refugees, accused of being the instigators of the “violence against the security forces” (by the way according to the ministry of interior, some 73 policemen and officers were wounded during the attack) have “disappeared”. Human rights activists fear for them as unconfirmed reports are mentioning that the so-called leaders are being held in the special units of the dreaded Amn Al Markazi at Al Darrassa (Central Security) for “further interrogation”.

On the other hand, the EOHR stresses the very valid point that the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, ratified by Egypt in 1981, should be implemented “through legislation consistent with the Egyptian constitution, which guarantees the right of refuge”. According to the UNHCR office, between 1994 and 2004, some 31,000 Sudanese were given refugee status and more than half were resettled in third countries. However, the vast majority of asylum seekers have not been granted refugee status and as such are disqualified from resettlement. Furthermore, the UNHCR changed its policies for the Sudanese refugees on the basis that the Naivasha Peace Agreement signed and ratified in January 2005, between the Khartoum government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), has brought peace and improved the conditions in Sudan.

For the past 48 hours, contradictory reports have been circulating in Cairo and ambiguous declarations made by both the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Interior and the UNHCR Cairo office. Egyptian officials say that only those Sudanese whose asylum requests have been rejected by the UNHCR and who do not have legal residence in Egypt will be expelled, yet the UNHCR declares that the Egyptian authorities have promised not to repatriate any of the Sudanese refugees. There was no comment on the reports by the Egyptian officials. However, in a statement issued by the Sudanese government in Khartoum, some 100 refugees have been flown back to Khartoum “according to their wish to return home”.

Apart from the loss of life, the accusations and the blame, the consequences of these tragic events are already having serious repercussions on diplomatic relations between Cairo and the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS). In a statement issued by GOSS, Vice President Riek Machar declares that his government is “greatly shocked by this callous act from the security forces of a friendly and sisterly country that has been known of spearheading the unity of the people of the Nile Valley, and particularly the peoples of Egypt and Sudan.”

The wording of the statement is extremely severe as it implies that what happened in Mustapha Mahmoud Park is a crime as it “breaks every known international law including the UN Human Rights Convention and the fundamental right to life.” In Southern Sudan politicians are already voicing a freeze on the diplomatic relations with Egypt, while unconfirmed reports from Sudan have mentioned the closure of the Egyptian consulate in Juba, on the request of GOSS.

But officials in Cairo, Khartoum and even the UNHCR have all rejected calls for an international investigation, so who is to stand by the fundamental right to life of some 25 million African refugees, homeless and IDPs? Will the African heads of state attending the AU Summit in Khartoum, in a “humanitarian” gesture, stand 60 seconds in silence in memory of the tragic incident in Cairo? I wonder whether any one of them will sense that 60 seconds is more than enough for a police truncheon to cut short the life of an African refugee?

* Eva Dadrian is an independent broadcaster and Political and Country Risk Analyst for print and broadcast media.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

For the past two weeks, the intensified violence in Darfur, Western Sudan, the restrictions imposed on humanitarian aid to 1.4 million people, and the expulsion of senior aid officials from two of the most renowned international humanitarian organisations are the dire result of the past and present failure of the United Nations Security Council, the United States, the international community and the African states.

By refusing to act on the extensive documented evidence of the atrocities, war crimes and human right abuses committed against the black African civilian population of Darfur, the United Nations Security Council has dried its crocodile tears on the empty slogan of “Never Again” that it proclaimed six months ago when commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide, and turned its back on the people of Darfur. None of its resolutions on Darfur has made any impact on Khartoum in stopping the violence and the ethnic cleansing in the region. In addition, the United Nations has not put any pressure on Khartoum to fulfil its commitments stipulated in the Joint Communiqué jointly signed with the UN Secretary General in July 2004, regarding the “immediate disarming of the Janjaweed and other armed outlaw groups”.

Have we forgotten the Resolution on the armed conflict in Darfur adopted by more than 100 African human rights organisations during the 34th Session of the African Commission on Human and People's Rights, at Banjul (Gambia)? That was only a year ago, in November 2003.

It is true that collective decision-making is all very well but what do you do when the culprit is part of the collective? When Sudan, for example, sits on the African Union's Peace and Security Council as it debates alleged atrocities by Sudan government-backed militias and then comes to frustrate the efforts of that same Peace and Security Council to monitor the cease-fire in Darfur?

Could it be possible that because we, Africans, do not agree with the policies of Washington, London or Paris, we are ready to sacrifice the lives of our own people and hence reject any human rights resolution condemning an African state? This is exactly what happened at the UN General Assembly in Nairobi ten days ago. A draft resolution which could have denounced the killings and the ethnic cleansing that is still taking place in Darfur was frustrated by developing countries including almost all Islamic and African states. Is Africa saying to Sudan “Maalesh (never mind, in Arabic) - do not “fully and unconditionally respect your obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights as well as other regional and international human rights treaties to which you, Sudan are a State Party”.

The African Summit held in Tripoli (Libya) in October 2004 was claimed to be 'an important step to settle the crisis peacefully' and part of “relentless efforts” to settle the Darfur crisis in order to introduce the best model in facing other African problems. “Global support will be more effective and useful than threatening sanctions." It is said that it is Khartoum's legitimate right to solve its internal crises and no one can contest the Sudanese government's prerogative to deal with issues pertaining to its national security. Yet, time and again, the Sudanese government has proved its inability to finding a peaceful solution to the Darfur problem. Khartoum has made many promises to international visitors, to African leaders, to the UN, but has delivered nothing. It has failed - one would even say “refused” - to rein in the Janjaweed militias that it has unleashed against the black African population of Darfur. It has systematically stopped and restricted the humanitarian efforts. It has expelled aid workers. It has bombed and killed its own citizens. It has blocked all regional and international mediation efforts to solve the crisis.

Whenever confronted with real facts on the ground, the Sudanese government officials are always prompt to deny, reject, accuse, condemn and blame others, yet they have not found a proper answer to the Darfur crisis. When last July, the UN Security Council passed a first resolution condemning the atrocities perpetrated against the people of Darfur, Khartoum was angry. Later in September, the Sudanese vice-president was fuming when the UN Security Council passed yet another resolution on the violence in Darfur. As extraordinary as it may appear, Khartoum is always “right” while the African Union, the United Nations, the international community, the humanitarian organisations, the media and the people of Darfur are always “wrong”.

The Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail says that the African Union (AU) has not fulfilled its commitment towards Darfur, particularly regarding the expansion of forces it promised to send to help in monitoring the ceasefire and protecting civilians. Yet, only a few weeks ago, Khartoum not only imposed “restrictions” on the African Union troops, but also was refusing to allow the same AU troops to fly into Darfur. The Sudanese government's onslaught on the AU does not stop there. Nageeb al-Khair Abdel-Wahab, State Minister at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Sudan, has labelled the recent AU report on the renewed clashes in Darfur as “unfair and imbalanced” whereas the report holds all the warring parties - the government, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) - responsible for violating the security and humanitarian protocols signed in Abuja, Nigeria (October 21 to November 10, 2004).

Though western mediators acknowledge that the issues in Darfur “need to be worked out” they fail to understand that these are not “manageable” disputes that can be handled “as they arise”. Time and again, analysts have made it clear that the issues at stake, not only in Darfur or in the South, but in Sudan in its entirety, are related to “structural” matters and to how Sudan can be governed and not who is to govern Sudan. The viable solution to be found needs to be “proactive” and long term so to avoid the recurrence of the problems. A “reactive” and short-term solution would only solve the problem “temporarily”. Sudan has been mis-governed since independence by interest groups and political ideologues that are today trying to keep their hegemony despite and against all common sense. Whether it comes under internal pressure from opposition parties or it concedes to pressure from the international community, Khartoum's position in dealing with its problems is unlikely to change. The government of Hassan El Beshir is determined to maintain its hold on power at any cost and force its policies on the Sudanese people by all means, except national dialogue. Let's be serious. Khartoum is not interested in global support.

Human rights activists, observers, analysts and US officials have all condemned the extremely weak and meaningless United Nations Security Council resolution (Nairobi). Now, Khartoum and the militias it has armed have “carte blanche” to continue their vicious treatment of the black African people of Darfur with impunity. They can kill, burn, rape, displace people, usurp their land and propagate racial hatred in the province.

* Eva Dadrian is an independent broadcaster and Political and Country Risk Analyst for print and broadcast media, who currently works as a consultant for Arab African Affairs (London) and writes on a regular basis for AFRICA ANALYSIS (London), for Al Ahram HEBDO Echos Economiques and Al Ahram WEEKLY (Cairo) and contributes to Africa Service BBC WS (London).

* Please send comments to

Foreign or African, mercenaries are back into action in Africa. Having changed their name and their image, today's mercenaries are not any more the rug-tug soldiers of fortune of the past. Since the war against Iraq, “corporate warriors” as the new mercenaries are now called, have come to the fore and offer their services to governments. Gone are the “dogs of war” connotations linked to these “killing machines” of the 1960s and 70s.

Mercenaries of the new millennium are Armani-clad gentlemen who rub shoulders with the greats of this world while running their businesses from glass and chrome offices where Bond girl receptionists welcome business clients. These respected businessmen are highly sophisticated, well read, knowledgeable in world politics and especially very well connected. Combining engineering skills and military know how with business acumen, these former military officers who served in the armies of Britain, Canada, the US, former Soviet republics or South Africa, cultivate good relations with either powerful friends in governments or are themselves political heavies in their respective countries.

Their transformation has been swift and easy. From the ideologically motivated early days, mercenaries were paid to support particular governments or regimes in, for example, Namibia, Angola, Ghana, Zaire and Congo-Brazzaville. These warriors metamorphosed into “security” groups protecting the interests of the multinational mining and oil companies. In the early 1980s, Chevron paid and armed local militias to defend its oil fields in Southern Sudan, but other companies have made use of the services of "security" firms like Executive Outcomes (South Africa) and Sandline International (UK). Their services were already highly paid, but additional revenue was generated when they succeeded in exchanging their services against stakes in the mining concessions they were contracted to protect.

In the 1990s, the mining arm of one of the most active of these “security” companies was Branch Energy Ltd. Established to carry out mining operations in Angola, Sierra Leone and Uganda, Branch Energy was a subsidiary of Diamondworks Ltd., which had a variety of gold and diamond concessions in Sierra Leone and in Angola. Branch Energy was registered as a wholly owned subsidiary of Diamondworks, and the two may not have had corporate links with each other, but directors, partners, owners and/or executives of one entity were also directors, partners, owners and/or executives of the other entities. These arrangements were made in such a way that for each mining venture, be it in Uganda, Sierra Leone or Angola, a company was set up with some government and local businessman/men participation.

For example, in Sierra Leone, Branch Energy had a 60% stake in Branch Energy Sierra Leone, the government had 30% while a local businessman/investor held a small stake of 10%. The same pattern was repeated in Angola and in Uganda. Branch Energy's African assets were mainly concentrated in countries where civil wars and rebellions were raging, so was it just pure luck or coincidence that these countries were selected? In fact the selection appears to have been guided by very defined criteria: the potentials in minerals (diamonds, gold and oil), a bankrupt national economy and armed rebellion threatening the ruling strongman.

With their associates, this Third Generation of mercenaries specialises in security matters, engineering, arms, transportation, finance, recruitment, consultancy, and other businesses related to security and defence. Their network is like a giant octopus that spreads all over the world but more specifically in Africa and the Middle East where the pickings are easy and very lucrative. At the height of the fighting in Sierra Leone, the now disbanded Sandline International was accused of helping the British government to exporting weapons illegally to that country.

Providing high technology military capabilities, their services cover not only like in the past combat operations, but also strategic planning, intelligence gathering and troop training. Specialised magazines such as Soldiers of Fortune or Cover Action advertise the many career opportunities available “both domestically and world-wide” in “international police monitoring in Kosovo, Bosnia and East Timor” to “Qatar Security Guard Forces”. An article published in International Security in 2002 spells out the range of services these businesses can provide. Just like the armed forces of most western powers, they can deploy capabilities ranging “from a team of commandos to a wing of fighter jets”.

Strange as it may sound, these mercenaries do not work any more under cover. They have come out of the closet and operate in the open because governments have come to recognise the role these "private military companies” can have in peacekeeping and peace enforcement. In the corridors of power in Washington or London, the supporters of this new global policing and peacekeeping vision believe that emergency response to conflicts around the world must be “privately provided” as a public service. Though some UN members are still reticent to make use of these private “peacekeepers”, the organisation has also been considering the use of these groups for peacekeeping in conflict areas.

Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, is reported to have said that during the 1994 Rwanda crisis when he was the UN Undersecretary General for peacekeeping he “considered hiring a private firm”. Not long ago, in 2002, Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said that a strong and a “reputable private military sector might have a role in enabling the UN to respond more rapidly and effectively to crises”. Opportunities in Africa for these “corporate fighters” are made available by the very fact that national armies in many African states have been transformed into “operetta” armies, good enough only for welcoming state visitors and staging military events.

Next to being pampered, cajoled and looked after, these “Republican Guards” or “Presidential Guards” are hand picked “loyal” fighters from the ethnic group of the elite in power. The relationship that exists between them and their employer is like a vicious circle: as long as their employer remains in power, they will continue enjoying extra privileges and vice-versa. So loyalty depends on how much and how long will the privileges last. When the situation changes and the state disintegrates - Mobuto's Zaire comes to mind - loyalty ceases and these special units disappear in the wilderness, taking with them the last few dollars left in the coffers. In many parts of Africa these “special units” are still active. Often they become “uncontrollable monsters” and continue to operate for their own benefit, even when their employers try to disband them. In Sudan, despite the promised efforts of the regime to disarm the Janjaweed, militias loyal to the regime and accused of genocide in Darfur are still killing people, destroying villages and terrorising refugees in the camps. In Chad, the Guarde Republicaine of President Idriss Deby composed of the Zaghawa tribesmen who helped him into power, have today their own agenda.

According to many observers, some 10,000 trained and highly qualified soldiers of fortune roam the African continent. They have been joined by colleagues from Eastern Europe and former Soviet republics and offer their services - either in the old fashion or in new style operations - to the highest bidder. The 70 suspected mercenaries held in Harare and accused of plotting to overthrow the regime of the Equatorial Guinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema are a sad indication that mercenaries in Africa are here to stay.

* Eva Dadrian is an independent broadcaster and Political and Country Risk Analyst for print and broadcast media, who currently works as a consultant for Arab African Affairs (London) and writes on a regular basis for AFRICA ANALYSIS (London), for Al Ahram HEBDO Echos Economiques and Al Ahram WEEKLY (Cairo) and contributes to Africa Service BBC WS (London). Published reports include: Religion and Politics in North Africa; The Horn of Africa: Country Risk Analysis; The Nile Waters: Risk Analysis; State and Church in Ethiopia; Policing the Horn of Africa; Religion and Politics in Sudan; Can South Sudan survive as an independent state?

* Please send comments to

Like a multicolour fireworks display illuminating the skies and sending ecstatic crowds cheering for a few moments, the Naivasha Peace Agreement has faded away. The short-lived jubilation is over and with a serious hang over, the international community is waking up to the new Sudanese reality in Darfur, asking how and why it allowed it to happen?

Neither the UN nor the US has learned anything from past mistakes - Rwanda, Liberia, Sierra Leone and RD-Congo. Less than a month ago, brushing aside the sound of machine guns coming over from Darfur, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan described the signing of the agreement a “major step forward”. Now, on a mission to Sudan he described the situation in Darfur as “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis”.

Before going to Darfur (as a matter of fact like Evita Peron “I have never left it”) I would like to stop a few moments in Naivasha and see who are the real beneficiaries of the Protocols signed between the Khartoum government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army. Is it a genuine “key deal” that would benefit the Southern Sudanese people?

The sad reality is that only three individuals will benefit from Naivasha. These three so-called Men of Peace have succeeded in cheating the international community, the United Nations and the 35 million Sudanese.

Beleaguered, embattled and an outcast for the past 15 years, President Omar el Beshir who since staging his coup in 1989 escalated the war in South Sudan, sent thousands of young Sudanese zealots to their death, can now claim high and loud that he is the Sudanese leader who took Sudan out of its international isolation and brought peace to the country.

One Nobel Prize to go to el Beshir! Hip Hip Hurray!!!

Fraught with dissent among his own people and justifiably tired after 21 years of fighting, Dr John Garang of the SPLA is taking control of Southern Sudan. Crowned with the blessings brought by the Naivasha deal, Dr Garang is ready to believe anyone who tells him that he is the paramount chief of the South.
Was it a mere slip of the tongue when he declared “We have reached the crest of the last hill in our tortuous ascent to the heights of peace" or did he mean “the heights of power?”

One Nobel Prize to go to Dr Garang! Hip Hip Hurray!!!

Last but not least, comes the Texan cowboy who occupies the Oval Room in the White House. Having waved carrots and sticks, sanctions and promises of aid to the Sudanese for almost two years, now George W. Bush can happily wave the Naivasha deal to his hysteria driven supporters as he campaigns for a second term. Naivasha is meant to counter Bush’s disastrous policy in Iraq.

One Nobel Prize to go to Bush! Hip Hip Hurray!!!

I do not know what are the criteria set up by the famous Swedish Academy for prize sharing but I dread to believe that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and US Secretary of State Colin Powell would join in to form the most famous peace Quintet of this millennium.

DARFUR

At the end of his visit to war-ravaged Darfur and having seen the devastation caused by the violent campaign backed by Khartoum against its African citizens of the region, Secretary of State Colin Powell said “Let's not put a label on things”. The crack of the matter is that we have to call the atrocities in Darfur by “their rightful name" as Donald Payne, Democrat member of the Congress for New Jersey and of the Congressional Black Caucus said recently. According to Payne, the atrocities committed in Darfur “meet the requirements of the 1948 UN Convention on the prevention and the punishment of the crime of genocide and therefore we have a legal obligation under international law to act". So why is everybody stalling? Why is no real decision taken? Time is running out for the people of Darfur and the atrocious memories of Rwanda are being revised while the US refuses to say the word.

But let’s not play on words, meanings and legalities. Genocide has taken place in Darfur and ethnic cleansing is still perpetrated because one million people could die before the end of this year if the international community, the UN and the US fail to intervene immediately to stop the killing and the displacement.

Secretary Powell claims that he knows what the situation is like and that the US knows what it has to do and is going to do it. In order words, take real action.
Instead the US has circulated a resolution to member nations of the U.N. Security Council calling for sanctions against the Janjaweed militias, blaming them for what has been described as a "humanitarian catastrophe" in Sudan and taking no action against the government of Omar el Bashir, the instigator of the ethnic cleansing in Darfur.

The sanctions are ridiculously irrational. They call for an arms embargo and travel restrictions on the Janjaweed militias. Is the United States serious when it circulates these sanctions to member nations of the U.N. Security Council? Does the Security Council really believe that the Janjaweed need travel documents to move from village to village to kill, rape, burn and destroy? As for an arms embargo, do the members of the UN Security Council really believe that the Janjaweed buy their weapons on the open market, with proper contracts and stamped and approved shipping documents, and that they, the supremos of the Security Council could stop these contracts? Are we to believe once again that these good people are being misled by erroneous “intelligence” reports?

The western Sudanese region of Darfur is bordered by Chad, Libya and the Central African Republic, three states where gun running is a child play and where the Janjaweed face no arms embargo and need no license to buy their lethal weapons. In addition, as they have been provided with official Sudanese armed forces uniforms one would presume they would have also free access to weapons and ammunition from the arsenals of the Sudanese army.

There is indeed a “humanitarian catastrophe and a security crisis” in Darfur as Secretary Colin Powell finally decided to acknowledge this week. But the humanitarian crisis is man made and its origins are political. The people of Darfur, like their compatriots of the peripheries (South, Nuba Mountains and Eastern Sudan) have been marginalized by all the Sudanese regimes, which took power since independence in 1956. Democratic rule, as universally understood, was never on the agenda of these regimes. Dominated by the Northern elites, the centralised governments ruled from Khartoum, seldom interested in the plight of the regional people. Ironically as it may sound, but the regional people of Sudan are in their large majority Africans – Nuba, Beja, Fur, Massaleit, Dinka, Nuer, Shilluk, Zaghawa and many others.

Because of the emergency of the humanitarian catastrophe, the political aspects of the Darfur crisis are being brushed aside. But, as many leading Darfur politicians have asked, the humanitarian intervention has to go hand in hand with a political solution so the 1.5million internally displaced people and refugees scattered on the Chadian borders can return safely to their farms and live in peace and security guaranteed by their constitutional rights as citizens of Sudan. While the ancestral lands of the African people of Darfur have to be restored to their rightful owners, there is no doubt that the Arab nomadic groups and the African settlers of Darfur have to live together, like they did for centuries and share the same resources – water and land – in an equitable way. This can be achieved if the political will is there. If Kofi Annan wants progress in 48 hours, this is what he should ask from the government and the Darfur factions who took up arms against Khartoum.

* Please send comments to

* Eva Dadrian is an independent broadcaster and Political and Country Risk Analyst for print and broadcast media, who currently works as a consultant for Arab African Affairs (London) and writes on a regular basis for AFRICA ANALYSIS (London), for Al Ahram HEBDO Echos Economiques and Al Ahram WEEKLY (Cairo) and contributes to Africa Service BBC WS (London). Published reports include: Religion and Politics in North Africa; The Horn of Africa: Country Risk Analysis; The Nile Waters: Risk Analysis; State and Church in Ethiopia; Policing the Horn of Africa; Religion and Politics in Sudan; Can South Sudan survive as an independent state?

* NOTE FOR EDITORS: Please note that this editorial was commissioned from the author for Pambazuka News. While we are pleased that several print publications have used our editorials, we ask editors to note that if they use this article, they do so on the understanding that they are expected to provide the following credit: "This article first appeared in Pambazuka News, an electronic newsletter for social justice in Africa, Editors are also encouraged to make a donation.

No, Nicole, no and no again. The very people who have built that Holocaust Museum that they proudly show to visitors like yourself, are today killing, destroying and dispersing another people. So what is the meaning of that Museum? What is it there to say? Is it to say “It should never happen again to Jews” but I don't care if it happens to others?

Read Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem's "When 'never again' becomes again and again" (Pambazuka News 152). Do you want me to believe that for Israel to exist and Israelis to live in peace and commemorate the Jewish holocaust, Palestine should disappear and Palestinians continue to be refugees in their own land?

In the name of what can you take away the dream of a Palestinian child for a home or for a country? When Jews were forced to become Christians or were burnt at the stake in the kingdom of the very Catholic Queen Isabel of Spain, they found asylum and refuge in Arab lands. Christian Europe chased them away and then to redeem itself, gave them a “homeland” at the expense of the Palestinians. Let's not forget history.

You talk about awareness, yes I agree. Like the American public should be told about Iraq and should see on their television screens the destruction of that country, Israelis should also see how their soldiers shoot and kill children and women. How their tanks uproot olive trees, how Palestinian water wells are blocked and how cement is poured into Palestinian homes so that they become inhabitable. In retaliation…

Try to find that young Israeli girl who convinced you to visit the museum and ask her if she knows what is happening on the other side of the Wall of Shame her country is building?

Awareness, Yes, Yes and Yes again. Let's build awareness and see with two eyes wide open, not just one. Let's listen with two ears, not just one!

(This letter is in response to Nicole Venter, Letters section, Pambazuka News 152.)

There is no doubt that the painful memory of the 800,000 victims of the Genocide in Rwanda will live with us forever. For many years to come, we will continue to unearth the remains of children, women and men hacked to death in one of the most frenzied, planned and organised massacres ever witnessed by the world.

For the past ten years we said never again, we made resolutions, we set up commissions and tribunals, we organised conferences … yet Genocide was revisited this very year, Rwanda's Tenth year. Still sore and raw in our memories, the Genocide of Rwanda has made way to that of Darfur.

Same crimes, same atrocities and same disregard to human lives. In the name of greed, hatred and spite, the Janjaweed, the Sudanese government armed militias and very much equivalent to the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi of Rwanda, have killed, looted, burnt, and raped their neighbours. Like vultures, they have cleansed villages from their people and destroyed the dreams of entire communities.

In the space of a few months more they have uprooted from their homes more than one million people and reduced them to statistics for the UN and for various humanitarian organisations. The early warning signs were very much present in Darfur. For more than three decades, indigenous Africans - Fur, Massaleet and Zaghawa to name but a few - were at the mercy of successive ruthless regimes, military as well as the so-called “democratically elected” government of Sadiq el Mahdi (1986-89).

Ruling by the gun and with the gun they imposed a religious-ethnic-sectarian ideology on the country. Their proxy killers, Muraheleen in the South and Janjaweed in Darfur, implemented various scorched-earth strategies to take over land, pastures and water points from their legitimate owners. For years, the international community and us Africans, deserted Darfur. ‘Il n'est pire sourd que celui qui ne veut pas entendre’ (so we closed our eyes and turned away) from the plight of the people of Darfur.

Better not to see, not to hear and not to know was the general attitude. Now, there is some hope, or should we say, there was some hope when two weeks ago, a cease-fire agreement was signed in N'djamena between the Darfur fighters and the Sudanese government.

The 45-day cease-fire that was to come into effect on Sunday 11 April was mainly meant to guarantee safe passage for humanitarian aid, free prisoners of war and especially disarm militias. The ceasefire is good news and a first step to stop the killing but it requires the immediate dispatch to Darfur of an international monitoring team of observers, military and civilian, to prevent further killing, stop the continued displacement of the population and secure humanitarian assistance to the people.

Today, after ten days, where do we stand? Recently, Kofi Annan has pointed out that UN peacekeepers "are no longer restricted to using force only in self-defence” and that they are also “empowered (to protect) local civilians threatened with imminent violence." At the time of the Genocide of Rwanda, Kofi Annan was Under Secretary General for UN Peace Keeping Operations (PKO) and we all know what happened. Today he is UN Secretary General, he is Alpha Dog, but will he give his marching orders to “armed” peacekeepers?

Again and again Khartoum has broken its agreements, prevented a UN human rights team from entering the country to investigate the widespread atrocities committed in Darfur, delayed humanitarian workers to reach the displaced, denied entry to independent observers, turned away the media, closed the borders. The list of Khartoum's violations is too long to continue.

- On the humanitarian front, reports indicate that “nearly 3 million people are beyond the reach of aid agencies trying to provide assistance, and mortality rates in the region are possibly as high as 1,000 per week”.

- On the military front, the ink was hardly dry on that farcical cease-fire agreement before government-backed Janjaweed Arab militias were back into action. Mounting attacks against civilians in Mastrey, a farming locality south of Al Geneina (Western Darfur) and south of Nyala, the capital of Southern Darfur. Despite denying any violation of the cease-fire, Khartoum's request to “postpone” the trip of the chief of the UN Emergency Relief clearly indicates that the fighting is still continuing and that the Janjaweed have not been disarmed.

Shall we give Khartoum the credit of the doubt when instead of disarming the Janjaweed the Sudanese government is providing them with military costumes and integrating them into its regular forces and into the much-hated Popular Defence Forces (PDF)?

Now, as Khartoum's “official” killing machine they have been posted in and around Nyala, capital of Southern Darfur, preventing the return of the refugees. They are attacking internally displaced people and preventing them from returning to their homes. They are occupying the farmland and villages of the Fur farmers they chased away earlier, and refusing to allow them to retake possession of what remain from their homes.

Posted on the borders with Chad, they are preventing anyone crossing into Darfur. Aid agencies allowed in the region have reported that “Sudanese soldiers” have even beaten back women searching for food and firewood. By enrolling the Janjaweed into its regular forces, Khartoum is not only protecting its proxy killers, but also it is covering up its own crimes against the people of Darfur.

The European Union (EU) has put forward a resolution calling for a special Rapporteur to monitor human rights abuses in Sudan, but the vote was postponed until April 22 at the request of the African group. Coordinated by the government of Congo-Brazzaville, the African Group has consistently blocked scrutiny of African governments regardless of their human rights records.

Isn't it true that the well being and the safety of a country's nationals is the first and foremost duty of a responsible government? Isn't it true that that duty is enshrined in national constitutions in Africa as it is elsewhere in the world and that it figures also in the Charter that governs the African Union? Indeed the African Union has announced from Addis Ababa that it will deploy military observers next week to the Darfur region to monitor the ceasefire.

According to Said Djinnit, AU's Commissioner for Peace and Security, Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal and Namibia have agreed to send military officers to be deployed in the region. Discussions are under way in N'djamena and in Addis for the arrangements but reports from the Chadian capital are grim and nothing has been decided as we go to press.

The Sudanese government and the Darfur fighters are to meet again next week in the Chadian capital to iron out a definitive settlement to the conflict, whereby the political issues that have driven the people of Darfur to rebel, will be addressed.

The most crucial issues are land and water points and as redistribution of farmland is high on Khartoum's agenda, Fur leaders are suspicious about the recent Idriss Deby-Omar el Beshir's meeting in N'djamena. The Fur believe that to quell any dissent among the Zaghawa, on either side of its borders, the Chadian president would favour them in any future political settlement between Khartoum and fighters. Such arrangements would be in line with the “divide and rule” policy that Khartoum pursued for years in the South.

I doubt whether the people of Darfur can still trust any one to come to their help. Already they have lost faith in a government that has devoted its time and efforts to usurp them from their land, kill their children and force the survivors into exile.

Now it is the turn of the African community to fail them. We reported here in Pambazuka News 112 that the challenges facing Africans and the African Union are enormous. On each and every front - economic, social, scientific and political - the continent is “yet to fulfil its potential”. Ten years after Rwanda and in the wake of Darfur, many African political and civil society activists are calling for the establishment of an “early warning mechanism” for detecting any attempt, by groups or governments, to violate human rights in any part of the continent.

DEADLINE UPDATE FROM THE AUTHOR: The five-member delegation of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has just left Geneva for Darfur, after weeks of waiting for permission to travel into the region. However, in an interim report, based on interviews carried out by the team with refugees in camps along the Chadian borders, the OHCHR lists numerous cases of murder, rape, arbitrary killings and expulsion, committed against the Black African communities of Darfur. These are extremely serious accusations that amount to "crimes against humanity".

* Send comments on this editorial - and other events in Africa - to For more news and information on the situation in Sudan, please visit the Conflicts and Emergencies section of Pambazuka News.

* Eva Dadrian is an independent broadcaster and Political and Country Risk Analyst for print and broadcast media, who currently works as a consultant for Arab African Affairs (London) and writes on a regular basis for AFRICA ANALYSIS (London), for Al Ahram HEBDO Echos Economiques and Al Ahram WEEKLY (Cairo) and contributes to Africa Service BBC WS (London). Published reports include: Religion and Politics in North Africa; The Horn of Africa: Country Risk Analysis; The Nile Waters: Risk Analysis; State and Church in Ethiopia; Policing the Horn of Africa; Religion and Politics in Sudan; Can South Sudan survive as an independent state?

* NOTE FOR EDITORS: Please note that this editorial was commissioned from the author for Pambazuka News. While we are pleased that several print publications have used our editorials, we ask editors to note that if they use this article, they do so on the understanding that they are expected to provide the following credit: "This article first appeared in Pambazuka News, an electronic newsletter for social justice in Africa, Editors are also encouraged to make a donation.

* CORRECTION: Please note that Patrick Bond, the author of last week’s editorial (Pambazuka News 152: After the South African election, rhetorics and realities), has pointed out that the reference to more than 50 Landless People’s Movement activists arrested on 14 April should have read “more than 60”. For the latest news on this issue see the Land and Land Rights section of this issue.

Once again the military regime of Khartoum has proved that old habits die-hard. By trying once again to solve the Darfur crisis through the barrel of the gun is a clear indication that Khartoum has learned nothing from the 20 year-old-war it fought against its own citizens in Southern Sudan. Despite agreeing recently that a ceasefire is necessary to stop the bloodshed in Darfur, and despite claiming this week that the "war in Darfur" is over, the regime has stepped up its military operations in the province and with the same token has rejected the invitation to a conference on Darfur proposed by the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, a Swiss non-governmental peace group, to be held February 14 and 15 in Geneva.

While fighting the so-called "insurgents" the Sudanese armed forces and other paramilitary units – the Popular Defence Forces - have simultaneously targeted civilians, allegedly accused of supporting the rebellion. More than 600,000 people have fled from their destroyed villages and have taken refuge in other towns in makeshift camps under trees with almost no food, water or shelter, while more than 100,000 fled to neighbouring Chad. Khartoum announced that major military operations in Darfur are over but villages are still being attacked and burned by the Janjaweed, the Khartoum-backed armed militias, and government Antonov planes continue to bomb indiscriminately villages as near as 60 kilometres from Al Fasher, the capital of Northern Darfur.

A ceasefire negotiated in neighbouring Chad (Abeche 1) seeking to end the conflict collapsed because the government has not kept its part of the deal, i.e. stop all its military operations and especially rein in the Janjaweed. In fact Osman Youssef Kibir, the governor of North Darfur, has admitted that militiamen acting in the name of the government executed civilians in his province, although he denied that the government bore any responsibility for their acts. Last week, the government overrun a number of camps held by the fighters of the Movement for Justice and Equality (MJE), one of the fighting factions in Darfur. Then it turned its wrath against the other faction, the Sudan Liberation Army and has surrounded Jebal Marra, their stronghold, with the full might of its armed forces and its allies.

The situation in Darfur is far from being "under control", as claimed by the Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir. The rebellion will continue as long as Khartoum refuses to acknowledge any political motivation for the unrest in the province, rejects a political solution to the crisis and blaming it instead on "armed criminal gangs and outlaws", who it says are aided by tribes from Chad.

Much of the tension in Darfur results from the same issues that led Southern Sudan to take up arms back in 1983 -- a central government that exploits local resources, imposes its cultural beliefs on the indigenous African population and consistently plays off local tribes and ethnic groups against each other for short-term gains. The Darfur Liberation Front -- which later changed its name to the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) -- took up arms last February because the Khartoum government had "introduced policies of marginalisation, racial discrimination and exploitation that had disrupted the peaceful coexistence between the region's African sedentary and Arab nomad communities". Since the rebellion erupted the province is a war zone, with tremendous suffering inflicted on the civilian population by the army and the armed militias. SLA complains that the government in Khartoum, like all its predecessors, is dominated by the northern Arab elite and has ignored their needs. They argue that Darfur too should be offered a slice of a power-sharing deal and that its natural resources developed for the benefit of the local population. Calling for a separation of state and religion, the SLA/SLM have spelled out their objective "to create a united democratic Sudan" where the unity of the country will ultimately be based on the right to self-determination of the various peoples of Sudan. Also, they are asking for the establishment of an economy and a political system that addresses the uneven development and marginalisation that have plagued the country since independence. Yet these claims have had no effect on the government. It continues refusing to acknowledge the political motivation for the unrest and accuses Eritrea and the Sudan People Liberation Army (SPLA) of supporting and arming the rebels.

Darfur is the most underdeveloped region in the country and is prone to drought and famines, two factors which have fuelled conflict between nomadic Arab tribes, armed by the government, militias and local African villagers. Libya, who backs the Zaghawa, "a useful long term leverage weapon against N'djamena" according to Al Fazzan, the former Libyan ambassador to Cairo and who is now representing his country in Damascus, has offered to solve Darfur's "tribal dispute" by inviting the Arab herders and pastoralists of Darfur into Libya. There, they will receive new territories, pastures and water points and even the Libyan nationality. Tripoli wants at all costs to unite with Sudan and Egypt and recently Kadhafi has proposed a draft constitution for a tripartite union to form the Golden Triangle, his 35 year-old dream. Sudan may be an oil producer at the rate of 330,000 barrels per day, but the oil bonanza has only begun in 1999. With the exception of the capital, there is practically neither proper health services nor education and no communications infrastructure in the country. Neglected by successive governments, the peripheral regions - Darfur, Kordofan, Nuba Mountains and the Eastern Province – can easily claim to benefit from "sustained UNDERdevelopment".

Parallel to the issues of neglect and underdevelopment, racial discrimination and exploitation have poisoned inter-tribal co-existence. Pastoralism and farming have historically been and remain the most viable economic sectors in the province. It could be argued that land has long been at the heart of many conflicts in Africa, either between the indigenous black African populations and new comers - the case of Zimbabwe – or between farmers and pastoralists like in Darfur. During British colonial rule, the conflicts over pastures and water points were solved through the local tribal administration. Good neighbourhood still prevailing in those days, the pastoralists were allowed to move into the grazing areas with their cattle, sheep and camels, only after farmers had harvested their fields. But at independence, in the rush to modernise the country and move away from "old traditions", the new rulers of Sudan dismantled the local tribal administration and never replaced it. In the early 1980s, as drought and underdevelopment reduced pastures and water resources, the struggle for survival intensified for the nomadic pastoralists. During the 1986-89 premiership of Sadiq Al-Mahdi (Umma Party) the problem resurfaced when the nomadic tribes of the region, commonly known as the Baggara, moved indiscriminately into farming lands. These actions were made possible by a deliberate government policy and with the tacit approval of local government officials. The Baggara were even given weapons to "defend" themselves in case they were attacked by the indigenous farmers. Needless to say that often the weapons were used to take over lands and water points from the indigenous farmers.

Since then, Darfur has been the scene of attacks by armed groups on indigenous farmers. The present government reacted by detaining incommunicado in various prisons around the country, community leaders and alleged critics of its policies in the province. Following unrest in and around Geneina, Northern Darfur (2001) where hundreds of Massaleet were killed and dozens of villages burnt to the ground, Special Courts were established to deal with "murders, armed attacks and banditry". These courts have handed down death sentences and cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments – cross amputation, public flogging - after unfair and rushed trials.

Armed conflict and deliberate government strategies have largely been responsible for the long history of wars and of famines in Sudan. The current fighting, primarily along ethnic lines, is the result of that strategy. For almost twenty-five years, famine and scorched earth policy have been regarded as the outcome of a political process of depleting a region from its native population and transferring the resources of the region from the weak – the indigenous people - to the politically strong – Khartoum northern elites.

Various armed militia groups, the Janjaweed in the case of Darfur and the Muraheleen in the Nuba Mountains and in Southern Sudan, have been the vehicles for the regime policies and have been utilized as proxies by Khartoum. Their task is to attack and plunder the people of a given region and take their reward – the war booty - in the form of looted cattle, crops etc. A few years ago, these groups did not have any political agenda in Darfur, but today this has changed. Their political agenda is to assist the government in 'arabising' the region and taking over its natural resources – oil and minerals. The army and the security forces, the specially created Popular Defence Force (PDF), support these militias whose main task is to terrorise and isolate the local populations by forcibly preventing them from working in their fields and looking after their animals. By burning crops and looting cattle, the Janjaweed militias have created and maintained artificial scarcities of food, driving the farmers from their land and pushing them towards urban centres or to the arid, desolate parts of the province. It is true that the raiding, displacement, and asset destruction did not affect all parts of Darfur simultaneously but they have created a situation of extreme instability whereby ordinary economic activities and survival strategies became impossible.

In addition, the nature of inter-tribal clashes in Darfur has been exacerbated by an inflow of arms from neighbouring countries, Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR). Tribal groups, militias, dissidents, rebel groups as well as ordinary civilians have easy access to small arms. However, in this particular instance, local politicians as well as the central government have fuelled the rivalry between farming settlers and semi-nomadic communities. Neighbouring states also have interests in Darfur. The Zaghawa of Darfur have helped Idriss Deby gain power in N'djamena in 1990 and with their kin tribe in Chad they form the backbone of Deby's army and security forces. Libya has its own agenda, especially since Col Kadhafi has turned its attention to Africa and to the mineral-rich Sahel countries. In Northern Darfur, bordering Egypt and Libya, lies Jebal 'Aweinat, one of the richest mineral regions of the entire Sahel with foreseeable deposits of uranium, while Southern Darfur is known for its oil, iron ore and copper deposits.

The government has come under serious criticism from humanitarian and human rights organisations about attacks on civilian targets and the deteriorating security situation in Darfur. There is no circumstance that justifies deliberate attacks on civilians or military operations that endanger civilian lives. These are all grave violations of human rights and the laws of war. But since the Sudanese leaders and their friends, especially Libya, which became a member of the UN Human Rights Commission last year, have halted the work of the UN Rapporteur for human rights in Sudan during the Commission annual meeting in Geneva (April 2003) violations of human rights have doubled in Darfur. Already in November 2002, Gerhart Baum, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Sudan, expressed concern over the slow progress achieved by the Khartoum government in redressing the human rights situation. He referred particularly to the negative role of the nomadic Arab tribes (mainly the Baggara and Misariyyah) from which government formed Muraheleen (nomadic) militias, which were deeply implicated in abductions and the targeting of civilians. Yet this has been crippled because civilians' cattle and grain are looted, agriculture land devastated, homes burnt, mills destroyed. Thousands of Fur, Zaghawa and Massaleet are unable to go back to their villages, plant or replace their herds.

During a consultative meeting that took place in Nairobi in January between Vice President Ali Osman Taha and Ahmed Diraige, the leader of the Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance (SFDA) and former governor of Darfur (1980-1983) the government accepted that a ceasefire would be agreed and implemented under the supervision of international monitors, and negotiations opened with the Darfur fighters in order to reach a political settlement to the issue. But it seems that diplomatic and political solutions have been put aside and the government will pursue its military policy.

* Send comments on this editorial - and other events in Africa - to

* Eva Dadrian is an independent broadcaster and Political and Country Risk Analyst for print and broadcast media, who currently works as a consultant for Arab African Affairs (London) and writes on a regular basis for AFRICA ANALYSIS (London), for Al Ahram HEBDO Echos Economiques and Al Ahram WEEKLY (Cairo) and contributes to Africa Service BBC WS (London). Published reports include: Religion and Politics in North Africa; The Horn of Africa: Country Risk Analysis; The Nile Waters: Risk Analysis; State and Church in Ethiopia; Policing the Horn of Africa; Religion and Politics in Sudan; Can South Sudan survive as an independent state?

* NOTE FOR EDITORS: Please note that this editorial was commissioned from the author for Pambazuka News. While we are pleased that several print publications have used our editorials, we ask editors to note that if they use this article, they do so on the understanding that they are expected to provide the following credit: "This article first appeared in Pambazuka News, an electronic newsletter for social justice in Africa, Editors are also encouraged to make a donation.