Darfur: Anatomy of a Crisis
This is Ben Naimark-Rowse. This week I’ll be guest-blogging for this salon on the crisis in Darfur. I’ve been involved in Darfur consulting and activism for some time now and professionally in human rights work for seven years. I hope that this blog will provide both insight into the empowering world of Darfur Web 2.0 Activism and an opportunity to engage each other in fleshing out what is, at its root, a story about the use of genocidal violence by a military regime to maintain a stranglehold on political power.
This story has a cast of characters that many of you are familiar with. However, the genocidal nature of this crisis has tended to overshadow its root causes so I’ll begin the story there -- with a brief and basic anatomy of the crisis.
The regime in Khartoum led by General Omar Bashir wants us to think that the crisis in Darfur is about race when it’s actually about power. As Bill Berkeley notes incisively in The Graves Are Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe and Power in the Heart of Africa, many crises in Africa involving mass atrocities, including the one involving Charles Taylor in Sierra Leone and the current one in Darfur, are often characterized as being rooted primarily in racial and tribal differences when in fact differences of race and ethnicity are exploited by ruthless men to retain undemocratic strangleholds on political and economic power. This lens for analyzing the crisis in Darfur becomes essential when crafting durable solutions that resolve the root causes of the conflict instead of just resolve its symptoms.
In early 2003, the current crisis broke out in Darfur. The Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) hailed primarily from the African Fur, Zaghawa and Massaleit tribes and claimed years of political and economic marginalization by successive governments in Khartoum. In addition, drought and desertification had caused increasing tension between the largely Arab nomadic population and these African pastoral tribes.
Since early 2003, after a string of rebel victories, Khartoum has taken advantage of Darfur’s complex ethnic make-up to launch a scorched-earth counterinsurgency campaign against the rebel movements in Darfur, specifically targeting the civilian population. General Bashir and Vice-President Ali Uthman Muhammad Taha masterminded the organizing and arming of Arab Janjaweed militia to clear the civilian population in Darfur that they accused of supporting the rebels. There have been credible reports of violence by the rebel groups against non-military targets. However, there is a definite asymmetry in the attacks against civilians with the vast majority of such attacks attributed to the Janjaweed militia and orchestrated by the regime in Khartoum. To date, the conflict has claimed over two hundred thousand lives, forced over two-and-a-half million people from their homes and has prompted the humanitarian crisis that now stretches not only throughout Darfur but also the Central African Republic and Chad. Aid organizations have been dedicated against considerable odds, including direct attacks on their personnel, to assist the people of Darfur through this crisis.
Despite intermittent peace talks and the 7,000 strong African Union (AU) protection force that was deployed in 2004, violence and broken ceasefires have continued to haunt Darfur. Largely as a result of increasing pressure by the activist community around the world, the crisis in Darfur emerged on the political map and the international community began to get serious about resolving the crisis.
In March 2005, the UN Security Council referred the crisis to the International Criminal Court (ICC). To date, the ICC has issued arrest warrants against Humanitarian Affairs Minister Ahmed Haroun and Janjaweed leader known as Ali Kushayb. They are wanted in connection with 51 counts of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity including the murder, rape, torture and persecution of civilians in Darfur. Mr. Haroun was a government minister responsible for the Darfur portfolio in 2003 and 2004 during the height of the genocide. According to ICC documents, he was also responsible for organizing and funding the Janjaweed. Ali Kushayb is accused of ordering the murder, torture and mass rape of innocent civilians during attacks on villages near Kodoom, Bindisi Mukjar and Arawala in west Darfur. International criminal indictments such as these are not only one mechanism for providing justice for the people of Darfur. They are a credible means of acknowledging that specific individuals may very well not be fit to participate in democratic governance.
In addition to supporting criminal prosecutions for the atrocities committed in Darfur, the international community has supported -- in fits and starts -- peace talks in Darfur. In 2005-06, the AU mediated peace talks between Khartoum and rebel factions which culminated on May 5, 2006 in the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA). Yet the DPA was stillborn from the get go. Only one of the main rebel factions -- the SLA faction commanded by Minni Minnawi -- signed the deal with Khartoum under misdirected pressure from the United States and the African Union. The non-signatory rebel factions refused to sign what they viewed as an unjust agreement that kept them politically oppressed and at risk of future aggression. The agreement did not give the people of Darfur a representative political stake in governance at the national, regional or even the local level and it did not contemplate disarmament of the Janjaweed militia. The non-signatory’s stance was born out to be valid. Despite having bought into the DPA, Minni Minnawi failed to sell the DPA to his own constituency, the people of Darfur.
Violence orchestrated by Khartoum against civilians in Darfur is no longer of genocidal proportions but it continues directly through Khartoum's Janjaweed proxies and indirectly through hampering the delivery of food aid. And so the humanitarian crisis drags on, especially for the third of the population of Darfur that lives in refugee and internally displaced person camps throughout the region.
Intensive pressure by activists to address this desperate situation, including significant pressure on China, led the UN Security Council on July 31, 2007 to pass Resolution 1769 which authorized a 26,000 strong hybrid UN-African Union peacekeeping operation in Darfur. Authorized under chapter seven of the UN Charter, these peacekeepers have the authority to use force to protect civilians in Darfur. This peacekeeping force has received sufficient commitments from troop contributing nations to begin deployment by the end of October as required by Resolution 1769. However, major logistical obstacles must be overcome for these peacekeepers to deploy. Troop transport planes, helicopters, communication equipment etc. can only be provided by a few nations such as the US, UK and France. The region is one of the most landlocked and under-developed with respect to infrastructure anywhere. So this materiel is required if the hybrid force is to reach civilians in time to prevent further atrocities.
Nevertheless, peacekeepers alone are not sufficient to resolve the crisis in Darfur. It’s worth asking -- what peace will they have to keep? Any durable solution to the crisis needs to address its deep-seated political causes. The international community has ostensibly recognized this reality -- peace talks are scheduled to begin under the auspices of a joint UN-African Union mediation team at the end of October in Tripoli. Yet any peace agreement that will outlast the DPA and confer fair political representation on the people of Darfur will require sustained, full-time, high-level diplomatic pressure from the international community and regional actors. I will return to this point in more depth later in the week.
A complete understanding of the situation in Darfur must also take into account the history of greater Sudan especially efforts by south Sudan to gain fair political and economic representation. For brief historical context, in 1898 Egyptian-Anglo forces captured Khartoum and established a jointly-administered government. Prior to independence in January 1956, the British gave political power over to northern elites. Yet in 1962 shortly after independence, civil war broke out between the northern dominated government and the south. Ten years of civil war ended with the Addis Ababa peace agreement, under which the south became a self-governing region. However consistent violations of the Addis agreement led southern troops to mutiny against their government in 1983. Khartoum then rescinded the peace agreement and civil war broke out again between the north and the south then led by Dr. John Garang, head of the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA).
After over two decades of civil war, world leaders brokered an end to this civil war between north and south Sudan through a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that was officially signed in 2005. The intensive commitment that the United States and others made to resolving Africa’s longest-running civil war was due in large part to the activist constituency of the Bush administration. It’s clear that the regime in Khartoum does respond to appropriately targeted pressure.
To date, world leaders have not yet followed through on their words promising the same for the people of Darfur. In the past two-months, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and President Nicolas Sarkozy have committed together to “spare no effort” in securing a peace agreement. Their increasingly firm position marks significant progress towards resolving the root causes of this crisis. The people of Darfur view the CPA as a reasonable standard for the fair political representation that they have been fighting and suffering for. World leaders should indeed spare no effort to secure the fair peace with justice that the people of Darfur demand. They deserve no less.
I look forward to your comments, our discussion and to tomorrow’s posting: Darfur in Human Figures.
Many thanks and best, BNR.
Welcome. I look forward to this.
Do you think there's any chance that we can help in Darfur without putting American troops there (even as part of a multinational force)? I have to admit that at the moment, no matter what the cause, I'm feeling a little weary of having our troops deployed if there's not a clear threat to the homeland. And, I realize that one could argue that Darfur could turn into another another lawless Somalia and terrorist base or that the Chinese will fill whatever power vacuum we leave but... those arguments don't convince me. I'd like to help. But not to put our overextended military into harm's way.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
September 17, 2007 8:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
This sounds like one good way for America to help is to use the Corps of Engineers to provide the facilities for an international peace keeping force. That idea I would give some support to, but sending fighting units is not something I would support. I also like the idea of supplying air transport and trucks. But, no fighting units.
Hoppy in Sacramento
September 17, 2007 9:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've had a deep interest in Sudan, not just Darfur, and agree the history and dynamics are extremely complex. There are various things that suggest to me that someone hasn't really studied the subject.
I've made some extensive posts here on the subject, and they haven't typically gotten a lot of traction, especially when people realize it's a lot more complex than they realize. To deal with the power aspects, one minimally has to be able to go back to 1955, a year before independence, and it's a very good idea to have an idea of the history and traditions coming from the 19th century Mahdists. To deal with the real-world humanitarian efforts, one has to take a cold hard look at the logistical structure of Darfur, or, more precisely, the lack of it. To deal with the janjaweed, one must understand the tactics, and that calls for an air campaign against them makes about as much sense as an air campaign in the US Indian Wars: there are no serious targets.
I am skeptical about the ICC actually having much enforcement power, as some of the indicted individuals will not have their lives shattered if they never leave Sudan. I also am not happy with generalized economic sanctions, when I have ideas in mind where selective economic investment in South Sudan could put enormous pressure on al-Bashir's faction. I can go into more detail, but what could be the effects if oil didn't have to go on a pipeline north from Bentiu to the Khartoum refinery and then to Port Sudan? What would be the effect (and do consider SPLM autonomy) if it could go south into Kenya, be loaded onto the Kenyan pipeline, and then to the (repair needed) refinery and oil terminal at Mombasa?
As far as Darfur itself, any serious intervention is going to need logistics that aren't currently there. Some of the best examples that come to mind are the frustrations of airlift from Nigeria to El Fasher, with the C-130 aircraft having a very limited cargo capacity because they can't refuel at El Fasher, and thus suffer the weight penalty of carrying round-trip fuel. Another example is an invitation I saw recently for various organizations to join a WFP convoy, for safety.
On the one hand, I believe economic warfare, playing the south against al-Bashir's faction, is one potential enabler of getting better cooperation on logistics. No significant force could be supported by air alone, but how much better could a limited effort work if it staged out of Khartoum International, with a nearby refinery?
Securing a rail line is always a tough military problem, harder than securing roads. Still, at some point, it may be worth a serious look at trying to repair and secure the rail line from Babanusa to Nyala, or even from Chad to Nyala, with transport coming from Senegal or Libya. The French have a great deal of experience in Chad, and that could well be exploited in an international effort. It might also be worth an analysis of making the Chad pipeline to the Atlantic bidirectional, and getting fuel flowing west, putting an operational headquarters in Nyala or eastern Chad.
Hoppy, in a situation like this, construction units need to be able to protect themselves. There's a saying in US combat engineer circles, "first we build 'em, then we fight in 'em, and sometimes we die in 'em". The construction units would need what a modern military would call light infantry to protect them; they aren't going to be fighting armored units.
Obviously, Ben, I've only skimmed the problem. You can find other posts of mine, or I can send them to you. Still, calls to put 26,000 people into Darfur, without a secure fuel supply or even a viable way of getting food there, needs some unemotional looks at how the logistics could be worked out. One of the ways of encouraging better logistics is, as the Godfather might put it, making al-Bashir an offer he can't refuse, the alternative being making the South more economically viable than his areas. China might very well supply engineering forces; the French could enforce a no-fly zone at least in the west of Darfur. The WFP needs to look at perhaps having a logistics center farther north than Kampala, although road/rail into Uganda and Kenya are key, perhaps through Thormaehlen's speculative proposals.
I look forward to a more detailed discussion than we've ever had at TPMcafe.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 18, 2007 5:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think any of the plans floating around call for any U.S. troops to be deployed. The UN/AU plan does not.
We can provide logistical support and perhaps air power to enforce a no-fly zone or retaliate against Sudan's gov't for attacks by air.
September 18, 2007 9:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
US Air Force transports have been flying AU cargoes from Nigeria to El Fasher (best airport in Darfur, although that's not saying much). They've been using C-130's, and the cargoes have been very small, apparently from the performance penalty of having to carry the return fuel.
One of the most important issues for any operations in Darfur is a way to get quantities of fuel into it. No simple ways come to mind--from a pure efficiency standpoint, making the railroad from Babanusa to Nyala would be attractive, but it's extremely difficult to keep a railroad, running through sparsely populated areas, safe.
Alternatively, if the airlift could be based out of Khartoum International, not as much fuel would be needed. I don't know if there are airport facilities at Babanusa, essentially the western edge of the safe rail lines in Sudan; even building an airport there might be efficient.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 18, 2007 9:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
The use of the term genocide to describe what is happening in Darfur is a mistake. I believe it has been inserted into the discourse by those who want the west to intervene militarily to solve this problem. These are the humanitarian warriors. The UN does not use this term for the simple reason that they see no evidence of genocide.
Howard is an expert on this but the simple characterization is that this is a war of secession complicated by the fact that a significant fraction of the people of Darfur wish to remain in Sudan. Thus the war is a civil war with North against South and many southerners against their neighbors. It is a very bloody civil war and outside humanitarian help is appropriate. Western troops from Christian countries, however, is not a solution.
Ben. You made one statement that leaves me stumped. You said General Bashir wants the world to think that this is a war about race. I think you got this wrong. It is the rebels that have been pushing it as a war between Africans and Arabs, not the central government.
September 18, 2007 12:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sudan's factionalism makes the worst Balkanization of Yugoslavia pale before Sudanization. At least the factions in the Balkans stay relatively constant. In an earlier post, I realized I made a typo and put down SLPM when I meant SPLM, but I'm not without confidence that there may indeed be, or will be, an SLPM to complement the SPLM.
I agree that genocide isn't an ideal term. There is certainly persecution and attempts to drive groups out of areas, but no equivalent to the clubs of the Khmer Rouge, the machetes of Rwanda, or the gas chambers of the Third Reich.
Seriously, the Darfur conflict is quite different than the main North-South conflict. It's more North and West. Darfur is more south than north (factionally), but I suspect the SPLM running the South would rather Darfur just would go away.
For that matter, there have been less publicized conflicts, such as ethnic cleansing of Dinka, Nuer, and Shilluk from the south-central oil areas. This had been complicated by the fact that all three of these groups, especially the Dinka and Nuer, had been long-term enemies. There was a magnificent reconciliation meeting at Wunlit, which has progressed. The symbolism of Dinka and Nuer leaders washing the feet of the humble of the other group was striking.
Without using the loaded term "race", I would say you can describe much of this in terms of language, and then ethnicity and then religion. Essentially everyone in Darfur is Muslim, but there are significant populations for which Arabic is or is not a first language. In the North-South conflict, the South is mixed with Muslims, Christians, and traditional animists.
The North is more clearly Arab and Muslim, but even there, there are distinctions. Both in Darfur and against the Dinka and Nuer, the "enforcers" were Baqqara Arabs. I was giving a briefing on some of the elites in Sudan, and someone asked a question that stumped me for a while -- and I answered, and I'm still not sure if I was insightful or not, is that the elite Arabs tend to be of Egyptian derivation, who think the Baqqara are very useful, but wouldn't want their daughters to marry one. It's really not that simple, because there are still elites going back to the Mahdi Wars of the late 19th century, where a young and annoying subaltern and correspondent named Winston Churchill was charging about, shooting people from horseback and also sending dispatches back to independent newspapers. Kitchener was not amused with Young Winston, but had more focus on avenging "Chinese" Gordon.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 18, 2007 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can anyone direct me to a good on-line map for Sudan?
September 18, 2007 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
The best all-around map library I know is the University of Texas at Austin, with Sudan linked. For Darfur specifically, here are some good situation maps.
Depending on what you are looking for, there are some good maps from Human Rights Watch and the UN World Food Programme. WFP is the UN executive agency for Darfur, but I don't have those bookmarked.
For a high-level view and statistics, there's always the CIA World Factbook entry. Unfortunately, I don't have my big folding road map of Sudan handy, which was enormously important in understanding transportation.
Just a few suggestions of not obvious things to find:
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 19, 2007 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks everyone for your comments. I can see I’m going to like this respectful and honest conversation with some folks who are already entrenched in the situation in Darfur. Please take all my comments and responses in that vein.
First, I’d like to respond to the comments questioning military intervention by the West. Ohiomeister is correct that NONE of the credible plans floating around entail the US putting boots on the ground. The one exception might be in the instance that the US contributes transport helicopters or additional C-130s etc. to the hybrid force in which case air force mechanics might need to be on the ground in El Fasher to make sure that the aircraft are properly taken care of. Apart from that, sending US troops into Sudan would be an awful and unlikely idea for four reasons. First it would be a pr boon to Khartoum. Bashir’s regime is already adept at capitalizing on every potential opportunity available and in the shadow of Iraq, sending US troops into another Muslim nation would give him and his cronies more fodder than any of his multi-million dollar pr firms could ever cook up on their own. Second, the US military is already stretched thin on manpower due to our entanglements in Iraq and in the “war on terror.” Third, there are sufficient troop contributions from nations other than the US to fulfill the need. Finally, the public in the US is so upset by the way our men and women in uniform have been treated by this administration, I think we would be very hesitant to engage our troops in another conflict abroad.
Secondly, I think we should be hesitant now to suggest military strikes or other military action against Khartoum. First of all, as we saw in Iraq, rushing to war -- which is certainly how Khartoum would characterize any such action by the US, NATO or otherwise -- can have disastrous consequences. Also, rushing to war when there are other options is a waste of resources, can be counter productive and leaves us with no options for escalation. War (i.e. violent military action) should be the last option on a continuum of intervention. For those interested you might check out point #6 on the following website where Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Harvard professor, Samantha Power discusses what a continuum of intervention looks like: http://www.ushmm.org/conscience/analysis/details.php?content=2002-03-26
With respect to the issue of actually improving the transport infrastructure in Sudan, if anyone would send me any relevant reports on the current usability of rail links into Darfur I would be most appreciative. It could be a creative, albeit potentially very time-consuming way of improving transport options into Darfur. However, it’s an interesting option because the rail links could obviously be useable once Darfurians return home and could very well facilitate sorely needed economic growth. I suppose we can hope that world leaders have similar long-term strategic thinking or are reading this blog!
Howard raises a key point. Khartoum must be given an offer that it can’t refuse. This is a nice (and stronger) paraphrase of my point about the international community “sparing no effort.” I was just using Brown and Sarkozy’s own words to hold them accountable to their promises. In any case, I’d like to dig a little deeper into the issue of sanctions which is part of this global offer that Khartoum shouldn’t be able to refuse. There is a consensus that generalized sanctions such as broad trade embargos on durable goods do hurt innocent civilian populations. However, targeted sanctions can be used very effectively even if the leaders of the regime in Khartoum would be perfectly happy never leaving Sudan. For example, targeted sanctions can include not just the leaders of the regime but also their wives and children. It’s not uncommon to see the wives of authoritarian and military (and other) rulers traveling to London, Paris or New York to go shopping. It’s also not uncommon to see these guys’ children in expensive boarding schools in Switzerland, the US and elsewhere. Point being, targeted sanctions can hit hard and hit close to home.
Also, I’m hesitant to buy into the positioning the South against the North economically. The CPA is already fragile and I would hate to further enflame an already tenuous situation on the ground. Secondly, I think there are many other tools in our continuum toolbox for pressuring Khartoum. Why do something that could re-ignite what was until recently Africa’s longest running civil war if we don’t have to?
Re the possibility of enforcing a no-fly zone, I would suggest this ENOUGH strategy document: http://www.enoughproject.org/reports/noflyzone_20070724.php It highlights some on the complexities of enforcing a no-fly zone that render it a highly unfavorable option at the moment.
I look forward to your responses.
Many thanks and best, BNR.
September 19, 2007 8:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
First, we are in agreement that there is no good reason to send US combat troops into Darfur. As part of a larger plan, it would be reasonable, for example, to send USAF RED HORSE or the UK RAF Regiment into the area, for specific tasks of expanding or building airports.
Construction
Oddly, I have to give credit to the al-Bashir government, and even conceivably bin Laden's construction company, for something wise they did and could well be repeated in Darfur. When it became obvious that good ground transportation, highway and rail, was needed between Khartoum and Port Sudan, there were foreign workers, but the bulk of the effort was by Sudanese. The foreigners were there to teach as much as build; there was a conscious effort to create a cadre of experienced workers for building transportation infrastructure.
Reminding the government of the successful Khartoum-Port Sudan project, if airfield construction specialists (or, for that matter, any infrastructure specialists), there should be a conscious effort to involve Sudanese in the effort. This falls into the "offer that can't be refused", but also is positive reinforcement to the Sudanese about something they did very well and could be a model both in their own country and elsewhere. It would not be a bad thing for a country in East Africa to be recognized as having a strong construction sector. Incidentally, they do have cement and structural steel factories.
From the US standpoint, there is a morale and perception issue in using regular military unit, and not contractors, to do the construction. I'm not familiar enough with the Air Force table of organization for RED HORSE operations, but I do know that most of the Army Engineer organizations have a column for "class B augmentation", otherwise known as local workers. The more that this is set up as a cooperative and teaching effort, the better it looks for all concerned, and I don't mean that ironically.
With respect to the status of the railroad, I could dig up some secondary references at least two years old (or try; they are in storage boxes). Since one of the issues is that a railroad easily could be mined, again, "an offer that can't be refused" would be to get an appropriate technical team together, regrettably with a military protective force (competent but not large), and send it down the railroad. It needs to survey current status, detect mines, and also come up with a realistic plan for guarding the railroad.
My last understanding is that an occasional train ran from Babanusa to Nyala. I would note, incidentally, that the railroad also runs west to N'Djamena in Chad, and south at least to Awei. Those links, when I last looked, were not usable.
Railroads can move tremendous quantities of goods. If you think about it, the width of land that has to be cleared for even double rail lines is narrower than for a highway, although it needs to take heavier weight. Given that some of the railroad construction exists, it might be one of those cases where a crash effort might be more productive than the classic getting nine women pregnant to have a baby in nine months.
Brainstorming here, it would be worthwhile to do an analysis of whether economic development in Darfur could be associated with building as much as possible along the railroad. That would have the double benefit of efficient transportation, but also basing local forces for track security.
Military strikes
This is something that sounds nice to politicians, but could quickly be dismissed, not for humanitarian but practical reasons. Again, while I looked at this about two years ago, the biggest janjaweed encampment was a captured village in which perhaps 500 fighters lived. Human Rights Watch, IIRC, had identified ten such camps, mostly with a couple of hundred fighters. These could be blown to fragments, and also cause civilian casualties, but they could be reconstituted quickly. The West has to understand that they are not fighting a conventional military with large forces, heavy weapons, or significant infrastructure. There's very little that could be targeted, and I don't think that airstrikes from Khartoum have been so intense that a no-fly zone would make a huge difference.
If a need for military force was decided, the key nations could be:
South vs. North in Economic Warfare
Positioning this is key. Having transportation routes through Kenya and Uganda have benefit even if Sudan remains a cohesive whole after the 2011 referendum. I'd need some maps I don't have here, but if the North's railroad (or significant river barge) system connected with rail or road to Juba and Yei, to say nothing of Bentiu, it would improve the national economy. The North has, for example, concrete and steel manufacturing that could be useful not just in South Sudan, but in Uganda and elsewhere.
Cooperation is better than antagonism, but the big stick here is that if things become too difficult for foreign oil companies to export through the pipeline to Port Sudan, and there were a viable alternative via rail and pipeline to Mombasa, al-Bashir could see that revenue falling away. In the positive sense, there's enough different terrain and agriculture to make the North and South complementary.
A Broader Context
If we look at things in a broader way, consider that there is oil in Chad, with a eastbound pipeline to an Atlantic oil pipeline. Obviously, fighting in eastern Chad needs to be brought under control, but if it could be, and the railroad plus telecommunications be brought back, there are logical economic cooperations. It's not unreasonable to assume that if oil is on either side of Darfur, it might be in Darfur.
There have been proposals for trans-Sahel telecommunications network, although this is in confusion with the split between NEPAD and the EASSY East African submarine cable effort. Still, there's useful research.
Focusing now just on the South, Ethiopia has been doing a very interesting upgrade on its electrical power infrastructure, which could easily cross the border into Sudan. On the power pylons, they are putting "WiMax" or IEEE 802.16 wireless local loop equipment, which means that telephones and data equipment can have reliable wireless communication (depends on terrain) at least 30-60 miles on either side of the power lines.
Some overall remarks
Coming back to the "offer that can't be refused" by al-Bashir, cooperation is better than isolation, and I see him as a pragmatist, although certainly not a democrat. These suggestions would be less optimistic if al-Turabi had more power, although he is a brilliant man if there were some way to co-opt him into a cooperative effort.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 20, 2007 7:43 AM | Reply | Permalink