The ongoing conflict in the Sudan between the government-backed Janjaweed militia and rebel insurgency groups has produced one of the worst humanitarian crises of the modern era. Analysts put the death toll of civilians caught in the fighting between 100,000 and 200,000, with an additional two million people forcibly displaced from their homes. Considerable humanitarian efforts have taken place to help these refugees, but the security of international aid agencies is threatened by the military conflict. The African Union (AU) is maintaining a peacekeeping operation of 7,000 troops in Darfur, but has so far failed to end the conflict. The past year has witnessed a further increase in the fighting, a breakdown of peace negotiations and a flow of refugees and militia groups into neighboring Chad, sparking fears of regional conflict between Chad and the Sudan. This week, the Daily talks to Political Science Professor Pearl Robinson, an expert on African regional organizations and politics.
Paul Lemaistre: Sudan is a state of considerable international importance, considering its oil reserves, its developing status as a crossroads for international terrorism and a massive humanitarian crisis that attracts international states' interests and aid agencies' concerns. How effective is this international attention in helping to resolve the conflict?
Pearl Robinson: The question about peace and stability has to be framed to ask who are the domestic actors for whom peace and stability is the primary concern... the Sudanese living in refugee camps are in no position to hold their government accountable for what they are doing. Even though there are all of these international actors involved, I see the crisis in Sudan as a domestic political crisis. You have various politicians who have power and aspire to power, some of whom have decided that the best way to achieve these objectives is through some sort of insurgency operation. You have the SPLA (Sudan People's Liberation Army), which after more than 20 years of civil war achieved one of its major objectives of sharing power in governance. The people who are in positions of power in the government will argue a position of national sovereignty. The people who represent groups who are being hurt by the government want the UN and African Union involved in bringing resources that can get their personal security and safety in ways that the government is not doing. It is about the domestic politics and the ways in which various actors make sure that they prevail in the domestic political battles. The government of Sudan has determined that the AU is a better partner for them than the UN, who would be more capable of changing the status quo... so the AU is a desirable group to have in there because they lack the resources, power and military capacity to change the status quo. The status quo is beneficial for the present Sudanese government. The other thing that I think is highly important to say, as frustrating as it is, is that the Sudanese have highly capable diplomatic skills because they understand sovereignty, and they understand how the international system works, and how to manipulate it to preserve the status quo and their upper hand.
PL: What does it mean for the AU that, despite its claims that it is under-funded and has limited resources, its first peacekeeping mission in the Sudan could end in failure and handover to power to the UN? Was it even a realistic goal for the AU to maintain peace in such a deteriorated situation?
PR: The charter of the AU says that its original purpose was to create a larger economic community - it wasn't set up as a security operation for Africa in terms of its primary purpose. The AU, even though it has functioning structures, does not have capacity to enforce major operations in an area with ongoing security crisis that nobody has been able to resolve. I think that it was a mistake for them to take it on. They did so because the rest of the world was encouraging them to do it and offered funding. I don't think that they had the capacity to do it, and I think that it diverts them from their major function of trying to work for economic union and other things that are doable. I think that they should have looked for ways to become a partner in a coalition of forces to address the ongoing crisis. I think that it was the wrong mission for them to take on. The original purpose and mission of the AU may suffer setbacks that can be measured in years if not decades.
PL: A recent publication by NYU's Center on International Cooperation claimed that the UN's global peacekeeping efforts were "past the point of overstretch." The proposed UN involvement is circulating around the Security Council, with Kofi Annan calling for a 12,000 to 20,000 troop commitment, most of whom would be from African states. Could this be any more effective than the AU, given its critiques of being overstretched, or would its basic logistical and resource infrastructure be a critical factor?
PR: My easy answer to this would be yes, the UN can be more effective than the AU. But your bigger question seems to be, "What can the UN do?" That gets me to the question of whether the situation in Darfur can be remedied by a peacekeeping force, or would the peacekeeping force only serve to maintain the status quo? What is the mission of the peacekeeping force? UN officials say that they need security to protect the people living in the camps and to have the humanitarian assistance work. That alone does not remedy the situation in Darfur. Therefore you may want to ask the question, how many years of enabling humanitarian assistance ... will it take to solve the problem in Darfur, and who is working on solving the fundamentals? This returns to the basic issue of the lack of political accountability. Just focusing on how to enable humanitarian assistance delivery is not a solution in the long run. Therefore I will ask, "Who is working on the real solutions to the problem?" The humanitarian assistance community is well-organized and savvy. They know how to get attention... What about the people looking for real political solutions for these issues? I also argue that the government of Sudan is very savvy and understands international relations. They know how to play the sovereignty card to maintain the status quo. The people who are the targets of political attack and the recipients of humanitarian aid are the ones who lack the savvy and means to survive, and as a result their political leaders are turning to political insurgency. I think that is the hard nut to crack, but that is where some serious money and effort needs to be focused. After all, this is a country where the political situation has worked before, with the SPLA finally entering a power-sharing government after 20 years of fighting and then eventually negotiation... There is the absence of a political entitlement agenda that needs to be supported by the international community.
PL: What does it mean for the US to advocate increased NATO intervention beyond existing airlift and logistical support for AU troops? What is the role of NATO - known primarily for its operations in Europe - in America's crisis intervention efforts in Africa?
PR: I believe that Africa falls under the Europe command of U.S. military. Firstly it has to do with how the U.S. military is organized and which regions of the world fall under it. We don't have a freestanding column for Africa; it mainly falls underneath the Europe command. The second piece is that it is a further articulation of ACRI, the African Crisis Response Initiative. This was initially a Clinton initiative, after the genocide in Rwanda and after the Rangers were killed in Somalia. First, the U.S. could not put troops down in Africa, but we got a lot of criticism for sitting back with our arms crossed and allowing genocide to take place in Rwanda. The idea was that we could promote African solutions to African problems by providing them with military capacity that they lack. There were also joint training operations with American troops, so all of this is actually an outgrowth of security people working in Africa figuring out what they had to do to stop the genocide in Rwanda and to help African militaries in the future. The NATO involvement is seen as a way of strengthening the AU capabilities without directly placing American troops there. It is complicated now post-9/11 because of the presence of U.S. troops in the region for other initiatives, namely anti-terrorist operations. Ordinary and high-ranking Africans often don't differentiate between this attempt to strengthen the AU by military advisors, and this American presence working with local forces in anti-terrorist operations.
