Darfur diplomacy row

On the road with Unamid

Ibrahim Gambari is head of Unamid, the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur. He’s a diplomat. And one of the things about being a diplomat is that you go to things when you are invited. That’s the diplomatic thing to do. And so it was that he turned up at a wedding do in Khartoum. Of course it wasn’t any old wedding. It was the marriage of Chad’s president Idriss Deby to a daughter of the infamous Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal. And guess who was there? Omar al Bashir, president of Sudan who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on several counts of crimes against humanity.

Unpleasant and distasteful the company may have been. But then few diplomats in the region would get very far if they avoided unpleasant and distasteful company. But look what happened next:

New York-based Human Rights Watch protested in a letter last week to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon over the meeting, in which a Reuters photograph showed Ibrahim Gambari talking to President Omar Hassan al-Bashir at the wedding in Khartoum.

“Mr. Gambari’s attention has been drawn to the letter and to the need to avoid such encounters in future, however unintentional this particular encounter may have been,” U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters.

In an ideal world, of course Mr Gambari should not be consorting with suspects such as Mr Bashir or his Janjaweed lieutenant. But then again, we don’t live in an ideal world. As Simon Allison points out, that is rather why we have diplomats:

This is a conflict in which there aren’t any good guys, only men of varying levels of disrepute. Bashir is among the worst, but he is also the most important. Knowing this, and given the parlous state of Darfuri politics does it not make some kind of sense that Gambari should seize whatever opportunities he can to speak with Bashir and his lieutenants?

I don’t know about anyone else, but when I turn up at an office in my tie with tape recorder in hand then everyone’s guard goes up. Instead I get some of my best work done, contacts made and titbits collected at social occasions. And the same goes for diplomacy.

The human rights analysis has proved an effective tool for raising awareness of so much suffering around the world. But sometimes we have to remember it isn’t the only game in town.

In the end, Mr Gambari has a better chance of making a difference in Darfur than a bloke with a megaphone laying down the law from New York.

(And if you like this argument – or disagree so much that you want to throttle me – there’s more of the same in my book, Saving Darfur.)

Monitoring the Sudanese Elections

The Carter Center: ” it is apparent that the elections will fall short of meeting international standards and Sudan’s obligations for genuine elections in many respects. Nonetheless, the elections are important as a key benchmark in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and because of the increased political and civic participation that has occurred over the last several months

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development: “Taking into account that the Sudan is undertaking a massive exercise for the first time in 24 years, the vast size of the country and the challenges of infrastructure, our preliminary assessment is that the election process was credible. This is in view of promoting a peaceful and democratic transformation of the country. The Mission observed that the NEC was overwhelmed by the magnitude of the work and the resulting technical problems. Notwithstanding the unexpected workload, it made all efforts to rectify the situation for the process to proceed.”

The European Union: “The election process suffered from unprecedented complexity in its design and, consequently, from confusion in its implementation. The campaign was dominated by the two ruling parties. In the north reduced competition came from a late withdrawal of the opposition and diminished expectations. In the south there was greater competition but a less controlled environment leading to more confusion, clashes and intimidation. However these elections have shown the interest of the Sudanese people in entering upon democratic transformation.”

Sudanese Civil Society: “All these failures led to the corruption of the election process and opened the door wide to malpractice and fraud. The overarching theme of the current elections is one of severe moral and professional failure by the NEC which impaired its management of fair and free elections.”

African Union: “…the elections constitute an important milestone in the country’s democratisation process. Given Sudan’s history, its current and immense challenges on many fronts, the just-completed elections though imperfect are historic and are building-block for the future elections.”

The consensus seems to be that the elections were flawed but they still constitute an important step in Sudan’s democratic transition. As a benchmark in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, they were crucial to the survival of Sudan itself. Comments about the vigour of an emerging civil society are particularly encouraging. However, there is no doubt that there could only be one winner from such a flawed process. No-one is under any illusions that this was a model election. That has led to a vocal round of criticism.

US Slams Irregularities in Sudan Election: “Political rights and freedoms were circumscribed throughout the electoral process, there were reports of intimidation and threats of violence in South Sudan, ongoing conflict in Darfur did not permit an environment conducive to acceptable elections, and inadequacies in technical preparations for the vote resulted in serious irregularities,” the White House said in a statement.

Save Darfur: “Reports by the Carter Center and European Union election observation missions make clear the Sudanese election was not conducted under conditions that were free and fair and which reflect the true will of the Sudanese people,” said Mark Lotwis, Acting President of the Save Darfur Coalition. “The Obama administration must lead the world in condemning this election as illegitimate and that Omar al-Bashir is not a legitimately elected leader.”

The Ugly Election: “The ugly result of the election was determined long ago by the material forces that have driven Sudanese political life for the best part of forty years.”

Eight Myths About Darfur

Rebels of the Justice and Equality Movement in North Darfur

Despite my best efforts, there is still plenty of guff being written about Sudan and Darfur. Some is written through simple ignorance. Never has so much been written about a place by so many people who have never been there. At the same time, there are lots of campaigners who should know better. For anyone thinking about writing Darfur in the next weeks as we approach important elections, here is my simple guide to some myths and realities about the place:

1. Darfur is the size of Texas or France - A far better comparison is Spain (or Turkmenistan, if you want to be really pedantic)
2. The conflict in Darfur is between Muslims and Christians – It is not. They are pretty much all Muslims
3. The conflict is  about oil – Nope. There is no oil in Darfur
4. The Arabs are the bad guys – While some Arab militias have joined the Janjaweed, most Arabs stayed out of the conflict altogether but have still wound up as victims
5. The rebels are the good guys – It would be nice if they were. But Africa is full of rebels who seized power only to repeat the abuses of the regimes they replaced. In Darfur, they use child soldiers, hijack aid and have been one of the barriers to peace
6. Foreign Arabs have settled in villages vacated by persecuted tribes – There are plenty of reports, but little evidence. In some cases the Arabs have been described as foreign because hundreds of years ago their ancestors arrived from other countries. But today they are Darfuris
7. The Arabs are light-skinned – it is nigh-on impossible to identify many people calling themselves Arab simply by skin colour. Some come from “African tribes” and adopt the name Arab to reflect their nomadic status. All Darfuris are black and African
8. President Omar al-Bashir is a crazy, genocidal monster – he is a war criminal, yes, but he has pursued a clever – and at times pragmatic – strategy to hold on to power. That is how we should deal with him

The Perfect Storm

Met a snooty American journo yesterday who said he had no interest in writing about the Gillian Gibbons story. I find that astonishing. This is almost the perfect story for the following reasons:

1. It involves a teacher – and we all love teachers

2. It involves a teddy bear – and we all love teddy bears

3. There is a sense that it is about East v West, Islam v Christianity

4. But in fact it isn’t, it’s actually about a bitter employee with a grudge

5. There’s a former imperial power pitted against its colony

6. And there’s a clear baddy – Omar al-Bashir (see Darfur)

7. Only it turns out the Islamists (cue stage boos) think he’s too soft

As far as I can see, there is only one way it could be a better story. And that’s if Gillian Gibbons had been working as a nurse on a paediatric ward looking after children with leukaemia.

This is a great story because it’s the sort of thing that makes people gather around watercoolers. It is terribly sad what has happened to Ms Gibbons. But if it’s reported responsibly, people will be discussing the power struggle inside the Sudanese government and what lessons are to be learned for putting pressure on Khartoum over Darfur as they fill their cups with, erm, cool water. Or am I being naive? Does it just make people think Muslims are bigots?