EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
On 1 September 2002, two weeks into the second phase of the peace negotiations in Machakos, Kenya,
the Sudanese government suspended its participation in the talks being brokered
by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD). This followed the
capture, after a series of battles, of the southeastern Sudanese town of Torit
by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLA).
The Machakos talks represent the best chance for peace the
Sudanese people have had since the beginning of the war nearly two decades ago,
and the interruption is dangerous. The government has reached an historic fork
in the road as it deliberates next steps. Two scenarios are possible. Either
those officials benefiting from the status quo will torpedo the peace process
and intensify the war, or those who see the far greater benefits of peace will
ensure that the government returns to the table and seeks a negotiated end to
the war. The rebel SPLA movement, bedevilled by competing tendencies towards
war and peace, faces a similar moment of truth.
If an attitude persists that without peace on their terms
war should continue, the outlook is bleak. Forceful diplomacy by the mediators
and the application to both sides of increased international leverage will be
required to bring the parties back to the negotiating table and to forge an
agreement to end one of the world’s most intractable conflicts. The first order
of business should be to arrange mutual informal commitments to cease major
offensive actions for the next half-year to break the dangerous battlefield
dynamic and give negotiations a chance.
Despite widespread international scepticism, IGAD scored a
major breakthrough during the first phase of talks. The parties reached
agreement on the “Machakos Protocol” of 20 July 2002 for dealing with one of
the most important issues driving the conflict, self-determination for southern
Sudanese, by means of a referendum that will pose the alternatives of continued
national unity or secession for the South at the end of a six-year interim
period during which laws in the North will be based in part on Sharia law while those in the South will
be secular. (The basis of law for the central authority that will also exist
during this interim period is still disputed, as is the legal status of
non-Muslims in the North.)
These are not new positions for the parties. What is new is
that they have incorporated them in a jointly signed document in the context of
a serious peace process from which it will be difficult to backtrack without
significant diplomatic costs. It is a significant achievement for the partnership
between the IGAD mediators, led by General Lazaro Sumbeiywo of Kenya, and
involving envoys from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Uganda, a quartet of active
international observers representing the U.S., UK, Norway, and Italy, and the
United Nations.
The government’s early
agreement to a self-determination referendum with an independence option
surprised almost everyone. Its possible motivations are varied, even partially
contradictory. They range from a survival decision driven by calculations about
the need to make inroads into the constituencies of the larger sectarian
parties by showing it can deliver peace, oil and prosperity, through a desire
to obtain greater oil revenues and debt relief, to uncertainty about U.S.
intentions in possible further stages of its “war against terrorism”. They may
also include tactical judgements, at least among the harder line elements of
the regime, that early agreement on a single big issue provides an opportunity to split the SPLA from its northern allies or
to paint the SPLA as the intransigent side responsible for the eventual
breakdown of the negotiations.
The signing of the
Machakos Protocol had a catalytic effect on internal political dynamics, not
all of it positive. While grassroots support for a comprehensive peace is
growing across the country, the government, the SPLA and the northern
opposition parties are all aggressively seeking to use the new situation to
undermine each other, and politics are becoming more polarised by the day. The
Machakos process has also revived dormant hard-line tendencies, or uncovered
hidden ones, on both sides that will have to be overcome if the parties are to
reach a final deal.
The remaining
negotiations will be very difficult since the agenda includes complex issues
that have heretofore been little discussed. The two largest remaining obstacles are arrangements for internal
security and for the areas adjacent to “the South” that are also in armed
revolt. Other difficult issues involve wealth and power sharing, human rights,
and serious structural reforms of the state.
For peace to come, it is crucial that the mediators
encourage, and the parties accept, proposals that genuinely give Sudan’s
long-term unity a chance. To ensure that Southerners have confidence and
commitment to put down their weapons, there will have to be security
arrangements acceptable to the SPLA and provisions for substantial
redistribution of national power and wealth. The agreement must vest the SPLA
in national development and governance, not just control of a southern regional
government.
Khartoum is simply unlikely to sign, or maintain its
commitment to, an agreement that does not provide a reasonable prospect that
the South will in the end vote to keep the country together. It is critically
important that the mediators put forward proposals that will – if implemented
fully – create favourable conditions for unity. They must, accordingly, take
the time to develop compromises as complex as necessary to ensure their lasting
acceptance. Additionally, the mediators must use the break in negotiations to
address the status of the areas adjacent to the South that are in armed revolt.
The foundation upon which any peace agreement must be built
remains the agreement already achieved – the referendum. It is the SPLA’s absolute
requirement. So long as they have it, the rebels should be willing to accept
creative proposals on other points that give unity a chance. The prospect of
the South voting, after six years of transition, for independence is a strong
incentive for Khartoum to implement the terms it signs.
It is not just North-South issues that have been tearing
Sudan apart, and if an agreement in the end is only a narrow power sharing deal
between the SPLA and Khartoum along geographic lines, it is unlikely either to last
or to maintain the country’s unity. A further crucial dimension not yet
seriously addressed at Machakos is how to bring into the process the views of
other Sudanese groups deeply disaffected with the present government – the
SPLA’s northern allies (the National Democratic Alliance, NDA), the Umma Party
and other political parties and key members of civil society from North and
South.
Peace is
indeed within reach but much work remains to be done, not least by the U.S.,
which must lead other international actors in organising multilateral leverage
and then using it judiciously to move the parties through all the crucial
decision points still ahead.
RECOMMENDATIONS
To the IGAD Envoys, the IGAD Secretariat, and the International Observers:
1. Maintain
commitment to the Machakos Protocol in its entirety, most particularly the
self-determination referendum after the six-year interim period that gives the
South the options of unity or secession, and enshrine international guarantees
about the modalities and timeframe for the referendum in the final agreement.
2. In order to bring the parties back to the negotiating table,
seek an informal commitment from both to undertake no major offensive action
for the next six months, and when the parties return to Machakos begin
negotiating the terms of a comprehensive ceasefire as part of the overall
agreement.
3. Make every
effort to bring the views of other political actors – particularly the Umma
Party and the opposition coalition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) – and
civil society formally into the process, including by:
(a)
seeking their views on each major issue during the
negotiations by setting up a consultative mechanism, based in Nairobi and
parallel to the Machakos process;
(b)
ensuring that an all-inclusive constitutional review process
takes place early in the six-year interim period after an agreement and before
a self-determination referendum in the South; and
(c)
scheduling free and fair multiparty elections – at local,
regional and national levels – to ensure a transition to democracy but in ways
that do not threaten the stability of the agreement and the fragile
post-agreement internal political dynamic.
4. Focus mediation efforts on developing creative proposals
designed to make unity attractive to referendum voters if the peace agreement
is implemented fully and faithfully, including
(a)
on state and religion, maintain that the “consensus of the
people” will be the source of legislation in the national constitution, or
remain silent on the source of legislation; press for exemptions from Sharia
for non-Muslims living in northern states;
(b)
on power sharing, use formulas that maximise meaningful SPLA
and broader southern involvement in the central government and fundamentally
reform structures that are discriminatory and exclusive;
(c)
on wealth sharing, prioritise the use of national resource
revenues, especially oil, in national economic and social development programs
that promote joint or cooperative development of North and South;
(d)
on internal security arrangements, allow the SPLA operational
control of the South within a national army of equals, with significant power
sharing in the central military and security institutions, joint patrols in
sensitive areas, and joint training and modernisation, as well as facilitation
of demobilisation and the monitoring of joint exercises by the international
community;
(e)
on a ceasefire, arrange for the deployment of an international
observer mission in ways that promote cooperation between the parties,
particularly through joint patrols that include the observer mission; and
(f)
on the status of the contested areas adjacent to the South
(Abyei, the Nuba Mountains, and the southern Blue Nile), affirm a mechanism for
determining the wishes of the inhabitants, and create special arrangements for
these areas to take into account their history of severe marginalisation and
their unique present circumstances.
To the International Observers (U.S, UK, Norway and Italy
and United Nations) specifically:
5. Play a leading role in stimulating the supportive efforts of
other key members of the international community, for example by pressing Egypt
at a high level not to reactivate its joint initiative with Libya but rather to
adopt a more constructive approach based on the shared objective of achieving
fundamental reforms in Khartoum that will increase the prospect of keeping
Sudan together.
6. Craft a multilateral strategy of incentives and pressures
that can be deployed at the request of the IGAD mediation team when one or the
other party is being intransigent or undermining the negotiations. The first
major task will be to bring the government of Sudan back to the negotiating
table.
7. Take the lead in supporting donor efforts to prepare
Southerners for the interim period by immediately embarking on a serious
program of capacity building and skills training for the SPLA and others
involved in governance.
Nairobi/Brussels, 17 September 2002