Sudan

U.S. Special Envoy Andrew Natsios says there is a risk of new large-scale bloodletting in Darfur unless peace talks intensify and peacekeepers are deployed.

The conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region increasingly threatens two neighboring countries—Chad and the Central African Republic. Here is a look at the major actors and how each country’s government has addressed—or exacerbated—the crisis.

Princeton N. Lyman says that despite calls for military intervention in Darfur, he does not believe that such an approach would be practical. He hopes the U.S. special envoy to Darfur will be able to get the parties back to the negotiating table.

Whatever the outcome of the current round of peace negotiations between Sudan’s government and rebel groups, the crisis in Darfur seems likely to drag on. Meanwhile, the UN Security Council is planning a transition from AU peacekeepers to an expanded, UN-led force.

Millions of Sudanese continue to live in fear of violence because of the unsettled conflict in western Darfur. Also, a one-year-old peace deal ending a long civil war between Sudan’s mainly Muslim north and the animist and Christian south has still not produced a national unity government as planned. The International Crisis Group’s John Prendergast tells cfr.org international pressure is needed for real change in Sudan.

This publication is now archived. What will be the impact of John Garang’s death?John Garang, the 60-year-old Sudanese vice president and former rebel leader, was a critical partner with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in plans to build a new government of national unity and to ease tensions between north and south Sudan after a 21-year civil war. His death in a helicopter crash July 31 makes those goals "much more complex and difficult," says Princeton Lyman, a former U.S. ambassador to South Africa and Nigeria and the Ralph Bunche senior fellow in Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. How will Garang’s death affect the peace process?Garang, head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), the main southern rebel group, took office in a power-sharing deal just three weeks ago as part of a peace agreement signed in January. The agreement ended a war that had raged since 1983, when Khartoum attempted to impose sharia, or Islamic law, on the south. The fighting claimed about 2 million lives and left some 4.5 million southern Sudanese homeless. Garang’s death, which occurred just as he and Bashir were about to appoint a new government, happened at "the worst possible moment" for Sudan’s peace process, says Suliman Baldo, director of the Africa Program at the International Crisis Group. "The government of national unity is not yet established. The government of southern Sudan is not yet established. No one is ready to cope with this situation. There are no fallback scenarios to go to," he says. Do early signs point to a peaceful or chaotic transition?Two weeks before his death, Garang chose Silva Kiir, a longtime SPLM/A leader with strong support from members, as his deputy. On August 1, Kiir took over Garang’s positions as head of the SPLM/A and president of south Sudan and vowed to continue Garang’s work. Bashir’s government also claimed that Garang’s death will not derail the peace. "The march of peace will continue toward its goal, and his death will only make us stronger and more determined to complete the march which he began and his companions began," the president said in a statement read on state television August 1. However, there has been unrest in the capital, Khartoum, with more than 130 people killed in rioting since Garang’s death was announced. What’s the background of Sudan’s peace process?Civil war between successive Khartoum-based Arab Muslim governments and rebels from the country’s south--whose population is mostly Christian or practitioners of traditional African faiths--wracked the country from 1956 to 1972, and from 1983 until 2002, when a cease-fire was signed.  Protracted negotiations followed until Garang and then-Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha signed a peace agreement January 9, 2005. The south is now at the beginning of a six-year political process, at the end of which it may vote for independence in a public referendum. What are the terms of the peace deal?The deal created a semi-autonomous region in the south, headed by Garang, who also joined the Khartoum government. It divided the parliament: Bashir’s party received 52 percent of the seats and Garang’s party received 28 percent, with 20 percent going to opposition groups from both north and south. The south will be exempt from sharia, which is enforced in Khartoum and the northern regions, and oil revenues will be divided evenly between north and south. The south is also slated to receive $2 billion in international aid. Despite the terms, some experts doubt Khartoum’s commitment, or ability, to carry out its promises. Bashir’s government’s "long-term interest is not in the peace agreement," Baldo says. "It’s about keeping their access to money and power." How will Garang’s death affect hopes for southern independence?It will help the separatists, experts say. The south, which holds the nation’s reserves of oil, natural gas, and minerals, has long complained of persecution by the north. "If you had a referendum today in the south, it would be overwhelmingly in favor of separation from Sudan," says Robert O. Collins, a longtime Sudan expert and professor emeritus of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Even the majority of Garang’s advisers were "closet separatists," he says. As leader of the SPLM/A, Garang was resolutely in favor of a unified, democratic, secular Sudan, but experts say Bashir’s government must tread lightly about exploiting that legacy. "If Khartoum is not careful, they’ll just strengthen the hand of the separatists," Baldo says. How will the tragedy affect the SPLM/A?Garang, who was criticized as an authoritarian leader who concentrated power on himself, had dissolved his organization’s leadership council two weeks ago in preparation for the new national unity government. Kiir hastily revived the council August 1, but it was an "ad hoc decision, made under the pressures of the moment," Baldo says. The SPLM/A leadership is fragmented and disorganized at the moment; despite this, Baldo says, the party is under strong pressure to improve life for the southern Sudanese. "The peace agreement raised hopes, but now they have to deliver," he says. The SPLM/A will also have to try to hold together a fractious collection of parties, militias, and other rebel groups in the south. "Garang’s stature and personality were a major factor in bringing all those factions in,” Lyman says, adding that the coalition is very fragile and could easily split. Will Kiir be able to fill Garang’s shoes?Experts say Kiir, who had challenged Garang in the past, may be a strong enough leader to take Garang’s place. "There’s no question that the SPLM/A will rally around Kiir," says Collins, who praises Kiir as smart and well-liked. "He has some charisma and is independent-minded," Balto says. However, Lyman warns that "a lot depends on how good he is at holding everything together." How did Sudanese society react to Garang’s death?Along with the riots in Khartoum, there were reports of violence in the south. Khartoum is currently under a curfew from 6 pm to 6 am. Three days of official mourning have been declared nationwide. "There will be a lot of chaos and a lot of opportunity for people who oppose the peace process," Collins says. What caused Garang’s helicopter to crash?The Ugandan presidential helicopter was carrying Garang back to Sudan from a meeting with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni when it flew into bad weather. It crashed into a mountain in the Amatonj range in southern Sudan, government officials said, killing Garang, six of his associates, and seven Ugandan crew members. Many angry Garang supporters accused Bashir’s government of involvement in his death. But there has been no official accusation from the SPLM/A of foul play in the crash, and initial investigations appeared to indicate bad weather was responsible. The chief mediator of the Sudanese peace negotiations, retired Kenyan General Lazaro Sumbeiywo, told the Associated Press he "totally disregard[ed]" any claims the flight was sabotaged. How will Garang’s death affect the crisis in Darfur?Garang had been publicly committed to helping solve the crisis in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, where nearly 200,000 people have been killed and some 2 million driven into exile by roaming bands of janjaweed attackers reportedly backed by the government. But Garang’s death "will distract [attention] away from resolving the crisis," Baldo says. Without Garang to pressure the Khartoum government on Darfur, it will go back to "business as usual," Collins says. What is the U.S. relationship with Sudan?The U.S. government designated Sudan a state sponsor of terrorism in 1993 and imposed extensive sanctions in 1997 that banned commerce, investment, arms sales, and international loans. In August 1998, in retaliation for attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the United States launched a cruise-missile attack on a suspected al-Qaeda-linked pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum. Recently, however, U.S. officials have sought Sudan’s cooperation on counterterrorism efforts, and actively assisted in the settlement of the North-South civil war. Sudanese officials are eager to normalize relations with the international community in order to gain increased access to international markets and foreign direct investment, especially to develop the nation’s untapped reserves of oil and natural gas. Their efforts have been hampered by their failure to stop the Darfur crisis, which the Bush administration has labeled genocide.Some U.S. officials had expressed hope the U.S.-educated Garang--he attended Grinnell College in Iowa and received a doctorate in agricultural economics from Iowa State University--could help improve U.S. relations with Khartoum and moderate the position of the Bashir government. Despite his death, the United States will continue to remain involved. On August 1, two high-level envoys from Washington headed to Khartoum to encourage a smooth transition in the SPLM/A leadership and the continuation of the peace process. "Whatever you think of the Bush administration, they’ve been very, very good on Sudan," Collins says. "They’ve gone too far down the road to go back. Now we have to maintain that level of concern and pressure to make sure the peace process doesn’t collapse."

This publication is now archived. Will the U.N. Security Council’s recent actions help resolve the humanitarian crisis in Darfur?That remains to be seen. On September 18, the Security Council passed Resolution 1564, which threatens sanctions against the Khartoum government if it does not stop attacks by Arab Sudanese militias on black Sudanese villagers in the Darfur region. The resolution also establishes an international panel of inquiry to determine whether the attacks qualify as genocide. As estimated 30,000 people have died and more than 1 million have been driven from their homes since the campaign by the Arab militias known as janjaweedbegan last year. What actions has the United States taken?The United States was the main sponsor of Resolution 1564 and has pushed for punitive action to stop the violence in Darfur, a desert region roughly the size of France. U.S. representatives have called for strengthening an international monitoring force in Darfur and have threatened sanctions against Sudan’s oil exports. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 9 that the situation in Darfur amounts to genocide. That followed a congressional resolution adopted in July that also characterized the events in Darfur as genocide. Will Powell’s genocide declaration force the United Nations to take action?Article 8 of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide empowers countries that have signed the convention to call upon the United Nations to take action to prevent genocide. The United States ratified the convention on November 25, 1988. However, Fred Eckhard, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said September 10 that Powell’s remarks had no immediate effect on the obligations of the United Nations. What position has the United Nations taken regarding Sudan?Annan has called Darfur "the world’s worst humanitarian crisis." The United Nations has repeatedly pressed Khartoum to stem the violence, which began as an effort to put down an uprising by rebels from the country’s west. On July 30, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1556 demanding that the Sudanese government disarm the Arab militias dispatched to quell the rebellion. The militias’ raids on tribal villages--reportedly backed by Sudanese air force bombing and strafing runs--have killed tens of thousands and forced more than 1 million people into refugee camps in western Sudan and neighboring Chad. Resolution 1556 gave the Sudanese government 30 days to curb the violence or face Security Council action, including sanctions. That deadline passed August 30. Is there an international military presence in Darfur?The African Union (AU) has a team of nearly 100 officials in the region to monitor a cease-fire negotiated in April and some 300 troops on the ground to protect the monitors and returning refugees. On August 25, Sudanese officials agreed to allow more AU troops to enter the country. This group, roughly 2,000-3,000 soldiers from Rwanda and Nigeria, is intended to confine rebel groups to their bases. The AU’s chairman, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, said the AU troops would not constitute a peacekeeping force but, rather, would complement Sudanese security. U.S. officials and Annan have called for a more robust force to help protect refugees. How has the Khartoum government reacted to the international pressure?Sudanese officials have largely dismissed it, accusing the United States, for example, of trying to overthrow an Arab government. They apparently don’t fear that sanctions on their oil exports of some 320,000 barrels per day will be imposed; China and Pakistan are among the countries on the U.N. Security Council that oppose sanctions, arguing they would be counterproductive. Ghazi Salaheddin Atabani, a senior Sudanese government official, told Reuters in Khartoum that while the Sudanese government would accept more AU troops and monitors, expanding the U.N. mandate under which they serve threatens Sudan’s sovereignty. How has the Sudanese government responded to calls for humanitarian assistance in the past?It blocked international access to Darfur from November 2003 to February 2004, exacerbating starvation and disease and worsening the crisis, according to a Human Rights Watch report. Sudanese President Omar Hassan el-Bashir has repeatedly promised that Sudan’s government would disarm thejanjaweed, investigate human rights abuses, allow international access to refugee camps, and deploy police officers to protect refugees. But he has failed to live up to many of these pledges. Some reports say, for example, that armed militia members have been given police uniforms and sent to guard refugees. What were the July trips by Annan and Powell to Sudan intended to accomplish?The U.N. secretary general and U.S. secretary of state visited the region in early July to highlight the humanitarian crisis and pressure the Sudanese government to stop the janjaweed’s violent campaign. Experts say many world leaders--particularly Annan--are haunted by the memory of Rwanda, where nearly 1 million people were massacred in 1994, and are determined to prevent another African genocide. How much humanitarian assistance is needed?Officials of the U.N. World Food Program (WFP) say nearly 1.2 million people currently need food and medical aid in the Darfur region. How much aid has been supplied?The United States has delivered nearly $135 million of assistance to Darfur and eastern Chad and has pledged some $165 million more, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the White House. The European Union has given $43 million worth of aid to Sudan for the Darfur crisis in the last year; this is in addition to the $24 million per year the union already allocates to Sudan.The WFP says it aims to feed some 2 million people in Darfur between April and December this year, at a cost of about $200 million. What is the human cost?The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that as many as 50,000 people have been killed in the past year’s fighting and about 1 million internally displaced. In addition, roughly 170,000 refugees have fled to eastern Chad. The World Health Organization (WHO) concluded in a September 13 study that up to 10,000 people, many of them children, are dying each month from disease and violence in the Darfur refugee camps. USAID estimates that as many as 320,000 people in Darfur are likely to die by the end of the year from hunger, disease, and exposure. Sudanese officials have disputed these figures. What are the roots of the current crisis?Sudan had been wracked by a 21-year civil war between Bashir’s Khartoum government, composed of Muslim northerners, and rebels from the country’s south, whose population is mostly Christian or practitioners of traditional African faiths. Southerners resisted attempts by Khartoum to forcibly impose Islamic culture and religion. The main southern rebel group is the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). After years of mediation attempts, the government and the SPLM/A signed three key protocols in the Kenyan town of Naivasha in May 2004 that laid the groundwork for a peace deal. The protocols called for a permanent ceasefire to be signed in mid-July, followed by a comprehensive peace agreement that will include six years of autonomy for southern Sudan, followed by a referendum on its future. The signing of the permanent ceasefire was put off because of conflicts over security arrangements.While those events were unfolding, two western Sudanese rebel groups--the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM)--launched a separate uprising in early 2003. The SLA and JEM, made up largely of black Muslims from the Fur, Masaalit, and Zaghawa tribes, resisted what they saw as government-sponsored seizures of their farmland by nomadic Arab herders. Armed militias retaliated against the rebel groups by targeting their villages, killing men and boys, raping women, razing crops, and destroying wells--while government forces reportedly provided air and logistical support--in what many observers characterize as a deliberate, coordinated campaign to drive black Sudanese out of Darfur. What progress has been made to stop the recent fighting?The United States and the European Union led peace negotiations in Chad at which the Sudanese government, the SLA, and the JEM signed a cease-fire agreement April 8. Under its terms, Bashir’s government agreed to disarm the janjaweed and make Darfur accessible to international monitors and humanitarian aid. Talks to negotiate a lasting peace agreement collapsed July 17; a new round of peace talks hosted by Nigeria began August 23. After three weeks of fruitless negotiations in Abuja, Nigeria, the two sides broke off talks September 15. Nigerian officials said talks could resume talks in a few weeks. The rebel groups and the government had disagreed over disarmament demands and security guarantees. Sudanese government officials said U.S. criticism had encouraged the rebels to harden their position and refuse compromise. Has the Sudanese government lived up to its promises?Inconsistently. U.N. Special Envoy Jan Pronk reported in early August that the government had halted attacks against villages in Darfur and eased restrictions on humanitarian assistance, but international aid groups report that attacks on civilians and aid workers by armed militias continue. The government has repeatedly promised to disarm the janjaweed, but many experts--including John C. Danforth, a former presidential special envoy to Sudan and now U.S. ambassador to the United Nations--question the Bashir government’s commitment. Jemera Rone, a researcher in the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, says Khartoum officials "make the promises with their fingers crossed behind their backs. The government’s going to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes as much as they can." What is the U.S. relationship with Sudan?The U.S. government designated Sudan a state sponsor of terrorism in 1993 and imposed extensive sanctions in 1997 that banned commerce, investment, arms sales, and international loans. In August 1998, in retaliation for attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the United States launched a cruise missile attack on a suspected al Qaeda-linked pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum. Recently, however, U.S. officials have sought Sudan’s cooperation on anti-terrorism efforts and pushed for a settlement of the civil war. Sudanese officials are eager to normalize relations with the international community in order to gain increased access to international markets and investment, especially for their untapped reserves of oil and natural gas.