African Arguments

Top Menu

  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

logo

African Arguments

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
Politics
Home›African Arguments›Politics›Sudan: A Ceasefire in Prospect?

Sudan: A Ceasefire in Prospect?

By Alex de Waal
February 19, 2009
1785
0

After the Sudan Government and JEM signed a ‘Declaration of Intent’ in Doha earlier this week, hopes have been raised that a ceasefire might be in prospect. We should be cautious.

Since September 2003 there has been a succession of ceasefires, declarations of cessation of hostilities, and efforts to agree an end to fighting. None has worked.

One of the reasons for failure is that all agreements thus far have been incomplete. Some groups have been left out, and as a result the agreement has led to more violence, not less, as the excluded groups assert their presence, and the included groups try to suppress their excluded rivals. That danger exists in the wake of Doha. Many of the other armed movements will see the Doha agreement as part of Khalil Ibrahim’s strategy of ensuring that JEM is the only recognized opposition group, thereby de-legitimizing all others. The mediation will need to work rapidly and in close coordination with UNAMID on the ground to ensure that this interpretation of Doha does not prevail and the agreement leads to more security, not less.

A second reason for recurrent failure is that mediators have often assumed that a ceasefire, or a cessation of hostilities, can be negotiated rapidly and simply. It cannot. The purely technical challenges of achieving a workable ceasefire are considerable, and the groundwork has not yet been done.

A ceasefire is a complex military operation which requires specific training, which is rarely provided even to graduates of military colleges. A ceasefire is not a matter of stopping firing: it involves rules about movement, deployment, resupply and communication. It allows the forces to fire under certain circumstances. The ceasefire provisions in the Darfur Peace Agreement of May 2006 ran to 177 paragraphs over 28 pages, with another 79 paragraphs and ten pages concerning post-ceasefire security arrangements. In some ways, these provisions were too complicated to be implemented (and were quickly rendered irrelevant anyway). But in other respects they were too simple because they did not include the detailed mapping that the professional military officers on all sides recognized was essential if the proposals were to work.

Officers in a regular army need to be trained in the rules of a ceasefire. Commanders in armed movements, many of whom have not attended staff college, are in greater need of training. Rebels also tend to be suspicious of any proposals for restricting their military activities, fearing that any provisions they do not understand are a trap. It is not enough to hold a workshop for the leaders. In a poorly-organized rebel movement, all commanders must have ceasefire training because the leaders won’t pass on what they have learned and cannot give orders that their subordinates will follow. The training must therefore be done in the field.

In late 2004, African security specialists (led by former guerrillas from Zimbabwe and Ethiopia) prepared a proposal for technical training for the Darfur armed movements. Their estimate was that about six months’ training was required before the armed movements would be ready to negotiate a workable ceasefire, and that any short cuts would not only doom the process to failure but would be dangerous. They further estimated that three months’ work would be needed to negotiate the ceasefire. This proposal was rejected as being too slow. It was presented again in late 2005, in 2006 and 2007 and each time rejected as being “˜leisurely’. Even today, some international officials working on Darfur make the mistake of assuming that technical training is a longer-term activity akin to the retraining of former combatants in the skills they will need after demobilization and therefore is a non-urgent activity that can be postponed.

Another issue is the provisioning of combatants during a ceasefire. This can be a major problem for an irregular force, especially one that supplies itself by taxing trade, stealing vehicles or raiding enemy forces. Major problems of discipline arise when fighters are not paid, clothed, housed or fed. Some turn to banditry. Logistical support to the members of rebel movements may be essential to ensure that they comply with a ceasefire””and is obviously conditional on them respecting such a ceasefire. This assistance provides an incentive for the armed movements to comply with agreements including humanitarian access and cessation of hostilities. In the Abuja talks, this was one of the issues that most concerned the armed movements.

Most models of ceasefires have been developed for armies that can adopt a defensive posture within clearly-identified territories. Mapping forces and precisely demarcating areas of control are essential components of ceasefire negotiation and implementation. It has been a recurrent headache in Darfur. This is workable for the infantry forces of SLA-Abdel Wahid in and around Jebel Marra, but not for the other SLA groups or JEM, which are Landcruiser-based. In the context of these highly mobile armed groups, using four wheel drive vehicles rather than consolidated territory as the basis of their organization, it is harder to apply these models.

Darfur also poses special problems because it consists of several overlapping kinds of conflict. There is a limited insurgency/counter-insurgency war alongside various forms of political and criminal violence, much of which is best seen as a fusion between politics and criminality, in the form of violent bargaining over the price of loyalty for militias and tribal-military units. Analysis of the patterns of violence will be the subject of a later posting.

Four years ago, security experts estimated that we were six to nine months away from a workable ceasefire. Today we are six to nine months away from a workable ceasefire””though progress could be more rapid in some locations, and slower in others. This is unfortunate and unnecessary, to say the least.

Previous Article

Criminology of Genocide: Breaking Paths

Next Article

Arguing Genocide in Darfur

mm

Alex de Waal

Alex de Waal is Research Professor and Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation at The Fletcher School, Tufts University. He was the founding editor of the African Arguments book series. He is the author of The Real Politics of the Horn of Africa: Money, War and the Business of Power.

0 comments

  1. Bravo 5 March, 2009 at 13:51

    Insightful analysis. Problem is – The Sudanese issue has for long been underestimated, deliberately ignored, evaded, and for the most part, handled with levity. In this crisis, there is deep division within the country, aggravated by a divisive and illegitimate central government having selfish and hegemonic agenda. Unfortunately, this is a case of a group of people trying so hard to colonize not only the land but also the body, mind and soul of others. It is partially an extension of the belief in the region: stiffle opposition, give no inch of ground in negotiation, see the issue of land as the all in all, use any means to get results. I believe the time has come when democractic power has to be localised within Dafur and other regions of Sudan given the importance of self-governance to peace and justice. This should be pushed, with the help and support of monitoring groups from the major industrialized world. The role of China and the exploration and exploitation of resources cannot be discounted from the whole equation. The wicked usually reap from confusion. Same is happening in the southern part of Nigeria. Same happened in Sierra Leone, Cote D’Ivoire and Liberia. We need men and women of courage to stand up again as done in Bosnia. Enough is enough!

  2. retired military support 9 June, 2009 at 09:24

    i agree, this was an indepth analysis of the situation. But I must also agree with Bravo’s point. Enough is enough!

    I just hope that the government would have read these. For ordinary people like me, this was a very interesting and insightful read.

  3. Outsourcing Process 20 May, 2010 at 01:41

    The mediation will need to work rapidly and in close coordination with UNAMID on the ground to ensure that this interpretation of Doha does not prevail and the agreement leads to more security, not less.
    ________________________________________

  4. Mange Mites 21 May, 2010 at 09:21

    So a part of the cease fire is to PAY and supply the very people who are killing and robbing? That does not make sense to me. Sounds like the kind of thievery that goes on in Nigeria on the roads. They would likely take the money and supplies and then go back to stealing.

Leave a reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • Two women from the Ndebele tribe wait for the start of an initiation ceremony. Credit: UN Photo/P.
    Climate crisisTop story

    Why 30×30 would be the worst possible outcome of COP15

  • Politics

    Zimbabwe 2013: By hook or by crook Mugabe is likely to win, get used to it – By Simukai Tinhu

  • African ArgumentsAfrican Arguments Book SeriesAfrican VoicesBooks and ControversiesDebating IdeasDigital SolutionsKenyaPodcasts

    Episode 7, African Arguments – African Voices: Digital Activism and Transformation

Subscribe to our newsletter

Click here to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter and never miss a thing!

  • 81.7K+
    Followers

Find us on Facebook

Interactive Elections Map

Keep up to date with all the African elections.

Recent Posts

  • The unaccountability of Liberia’s polluting miners
  • Africa Elections 2023: All the upcoming votes
  • “Poking the Leopard’s Anus”: Legal Spectacle and Queer Feminist Politics
  • Introducing Parselelo and a new climate focus
  • The ‘Hustler’ Fund: Kenya’s Approach to National Transformation

Editor’s Picks

Editor's PicksLibyaPolitics

Libya: A country in need of a king?

Restoring a symbolic monarch may sound anachronistic, but after a decade of division and chaos, it makes perfect sense to many Libyans. More than a decade has passed since the ...
  • At the inauguration of President Joao Lourenco in Luanda, Angola. Credit: GCIS.

    Angola’s regime is scared

    By Paula Cristina Roque
    March 9, 2022
  • women covid UN Women/Ryan Brown

    The pandemic has set gender equality back. Its legacy must not.

    By Nana Adjoa Hackman
    March 8, 2021
  • Sudan Middle East influence

    Cash and contradictions: On the limits of Middle Eastern influence in Sudan

    By Alex de Waal
    August 1, 2019
  • Hundreds march in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 2017 calling on people to speak out and take action to end violence against women and girls. Credit: UN Women/Deepika Nath.

    A woman online, in Tanzania

    By Elsie Eyakuze
    November 7, 2018

Brought to you by


Creative Commons

Creative Commons Licence
Articles on African Arguments are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  • Cookies
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • en English
    am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu
© Copyright African Arguments 2020
By continuing to browse this site, you agree to our use of cookies.
en English
am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu