Daily Darfur: Rebels Re-engage at US Envoy's Request

by Michelle

categories: Daily Darfur, Obama Administration

Published May 05, 2009 @ 04:22AM PT

The Darfuri rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) cited the influence of US Special Envoy Scott Gration as their reason for re-engaging with a Qatar-led peace negotiation process with the government of Sudan. Qatar secured signatures to a "goodwill agreement" (essentially, an agreement to start thinking about talking about a ceasefire) between the two parties in February, but JEM accused Khartoum of violating the terms after it expelled 13 foreign aid agencies from Darfur following the issuance of an arrest warrant for President Bashir by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in early March.

"This was a gesture of goodwill on our part to prove our seriousness in our pursuit of peace at the request of the US envoy," JEM spokesperson Ahmed Hussein told Sudan Tribune.

"We are simply going to take part in a process that will oversee the implementation of the agreements we signed" he added.

Easing restrictions on humanitarian access was part of the original agreement, and JEM is now demanding that the expelled groups be readmitted. According to the Tribune, Qatar unsuccessfully pushed JEM to drop the issue. (JEM is by no means the unequivocal "good guy" here, but I definitely understand where they're coming from here.)

Feeling Misunderstood

A UNAMID spokesman said that the peacekeeping force's lead representative was "misunderstood" when he characterized Darfur as a "low-intensity conflict" in front of the UN Security Council last week. UNAMID Joint Representative Rodolphe Adada drew sharp criticism from Council members and advocates alike for the statement, which noted a sharp decline in violent deaths since the conflict's peak in 2003 - 2005:

"Today Noureddine Mezni, the Mission's spokesperson, clarified that Adada ‘was only speaking of what has transpired in the one year and a half of UNAMID's existence in Darfur, based on factual enumerators done by senior military and security officers from different sectors.'

‘His description of the Darfur conflict as a ‘low intensity conflict' has been misunderstood,' Mezni told Sudan Tribune.

‘Whether it is a ‘low intensity conflict' or not, it is still a conflict which can easily deteriorate into a ‘high intensity conflict' one,' he highlighted."

(Because God forbid anyone use factual enumerators for anything...)

I tend to agree with UN Dispatch, on this one.

Quickies

Sudan's First Vice President Salva Kiir Mayadrit, also president of the semi-autonomous South Sudan, urged rebel groups to unify and engage in peace negotiations with the Sudanese government, and spoke out against any attempt to seek separate agreements with individual rebel groups.

Rebecca Brocato at ENOUGH draws our attention to an interesting tid-bit from the State Department's Country Reports on Terrorism, released last week, with identifies Sudan as one of four state sponsors of terrors but then states that Sudan remains a "cooperative partner in global counterterrorism efforts." Seems slightly disingenuous, don't you think?

The ICC is "an opportunity and a challenge for the Obama administration." (As in, don't expect the US to join anytime soon.)

Will South Africa's new leader Jacob Zuma change his country's stance on Darfur?

And finally, a professor at the University of Missouri is returning to his native Sudan to run for president in the 2010 election.

[Image from South African cartoonist Zapiro, from 2007...and still highly relevant.]