Reading the AU Panel Report
The report of African Union High Level Panel on Darfur (AUPD) has injected a new dynamic into Sudanese political life. President Thabo Mbeki has confounded those who had forgotten that he was the architect of the negotiated dismantling of Apartheid, and short-sightedly misperceived him as a member of the club of African status quo statists. In his opening presentation to the AUPD seven months ago, Mbeki mentioned just one Sudanese by name: John Garang. Recalling that, the substance of the Panel’s report should come as less of a surprise.
The AUPD report moves Sudanese politics ahead in two major respects. First, it shifts the centre of political attention away from responding to immediate human rights violations and humanitarian concerns, to addressing the underlying political malaise in Sudan, that gives rise to such violations. Second, it puts the Sudanese people back at the centre of the process. The report does not contain any blueprint for peace, and correctly so, though it does make a number of proposals for discussion by the Sudanese parties. It is essentially a call for a political process””and in fact the Panel has already set such a process in motion. The challenge is to sustain and accelerate that process.
In his introduction to the Report, President Mbeki writes of “˜the Sudanese crisis in Darfur.’ This is a careful phrasing that represents a deliberate shift in focus from considering the Darfur crisis in isolation, to seeing it as a manifestation of Sudan’s historic problem of inequity. At independence in 1956, the Sudanese nation inherited a gross disparity from its two colonial episodes. The riverain elite has dominated Sudanese political and economic life since independence, and its dominance has sparked recurrent rebellions in the peripheries””notably south Sudan and Darfur.
In specifying the Darfur crisis as a symptom of national minority rule, Mbeki has taken a step beyond all previous international inquiries. Some of these have either focused on the human rights and humanitarian dimensions of the Darfur crisis””the outcome of the political crisis, not its cause. Other international approaches have zeroed in on the need for a Darfur peace, plus solutions to the problems in the three areas and a legitimate referendum in the south. On this blog, this has been criticized as a strategy of liberating the country one Bantustan at a time.
The AU Panel attempts to go straight to the centre of gravity of Sudan’s crisis, as it is manifest in Darfur. It identifies this as a historically-rooted crisis of inequality in governance and development which needs an inclusive Global Political Agreement, in which all stakeholders come to a common commitment on peace, justice, reconciliation, and Darfur’s place in the Sudanese nation, as an integrated whole.
The three pillars of peace, justice and reconciliation make no sense when considered separately. They are meaningful only when part of an overall package, agreed to by all stakeholders, to resolve the root causes of the conflict. Also, they are only meaningful in the light of Darfur’s integration into Sudan’s national political process of democratization and the debate on unity or the separation of the south.
When Mbeki took on the Chairmanship of the AUPD in March, his critics were quick to allege that was seeking an escape route for President Omar al Bashir from the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant. The ICC was indeed the spark for the AU to set up the Panel””to be precise, it was the AU Peace and Security Council’s spurned request to the UN Security Council to consider a deferral of the prosecution that angered the AU. Some wrote off the Panel in advance on these grounds, and even refused to engage with it, arguing that they knew the outcome in advance. Most press attention focuses on how the Panel deals with the ICC, and especially its proposal for a special chamber within the Sudanese judiciary staffed by international jurists to try those alleged to have committed war crimes in Darfur.
The most important point about the ICC in the Report is not whether the Panel endorses it or not, but the position that the Court has within the overall structure of the Recommendations. The ICC issue does not take pride of place in the AUPD Report. The ICC is given its place, along with consideration of a Hybrid Court and a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission, as part of a broad agenda of items to be negotiated in a round table process of hammering out a Global Political Agreement. The Panel neither supports the ICC nor seeks to block it. Rather it puts the ICC in its place as one possible part of comprehensive package””perhaps useful, possibly not, depending on the views of the Sudanese themselves.
Critics have also accused Mbeki of being conservative and statist, defending the status quo in Sudan, as he allegedly did in Zimbabwe. In fact, the approach that Mbeki has taken has far more in common with his strategic role in bringing about the negotiated end of minority rule in his own country. Those seeking to understand Mbeki’s strategy should look back twenty years, not five. The implicit, tough message for the Khartoum Government is: negotiate power sharing now, or face the likelihood that Sudan will soon be fragmented and ungovernable. The message for Africa is that the continent cannot afford an irreparably fractured country at its heart.
Across the Sudanese political scene, the report has challenged the opposition to take seriously its responsibility for seeking constructive political solutions. The days of grandstanding and appealing for outside salvation are numbered. Those who respond positively will make the political running in the years ahead, those who do not risk being sidelined.
The Panel’s report therefore shifts the international debate on Sudan from the politics of condemning atrocities (where the UN Security Council has found itself stuck) to the politics of constructing political solutions. Equally importantly, it brings the Sudanese people back as the principal actors. The task of solving Sudan’s crisis in Darfur is first and foremost a challenge for the Sudanese, next for Africa, and finally for the international community.
Any number of think tanks could have articulated such an argument””indeed there is nothing fundamentally new in making the case that there needs to be an inclusive political solution leading to democratization within an “˜all Sudan’ framework. Where the AU Panel differs is its innovative method. All previous international engagements of this kind on Sudan have operated through expert consultations in high-class hotels, with chiefly symbolic trips to the Darfur’s displaced camps to shake hands and have photographs taken. The commissioners then retire to write their report which descends from on high, full of exhortations about what the Sudanese must do to meet international obligations. The UN Security Council may make solemn pronouncements, but as Khartoum has shown, these have little meaning in their own right.
Not so Mbeki and his Panel. During the last six months, the Panel’s three former Presidents, the Nigerian Abdusalami Abubaker and the Burundian Pierre Buyoya, as well as Mbeki, spent at least three months’ worth of full-time work on the task. Overall, the Panel spent more than forty days in town-hall style meetings in Sudan, mostly in Darfur. This was a grueling exercise, unmatched by any special envoy, mediator, or investigator. These were not ad hoc lectures or informal discussions, but well-prepared consultations in which the Darfurians systematically spoke about their fears and hopes. It provided an important role for the Darfur-Darfur Dialogue and Consultation. As a result, every recommendation is grounded in what the people themselves have said.
For example, in long meetings with refugees and displaced persons, tribal leaders, women, civil society activists, and nomads, all these groups insisted that they should be directly represented at future peace talks. They were not content for the armed movements to represent them””all felt that the rebel leaders had been a disappointment. The Panel reflects this unanimous demand with its round table formula for political negotiations. The rebel leaders will be unhappy, and so too some of the diplomats who have run the last rounds of failed peace talks. They have already said that it is an unwieldy and complicated process. Mbeki will have a simple response: this is the people’s demand, and it is less complicated to have an inclusive process than another failed accord.
As the initial four month mandate of the Panel came to a close, Mbeki asked for an extension. He told the AU staff, advisors, and fellow panelists that he intended to make a third mission to Sudan, to discuss the draft recommendations. This was also a new departure. Meeting once again””often for the third time””with the same representatives, the Panel had shown its seriousness, and was rewarded when the Darfurian people recognized their own demands in those recommendations. Having generating this sense of ownership, a political process is now in motion.
Implementing the recommendations for peace, justice and reconciliation is a bigger task. The AU Peace and Security Council has endorsed the Report at a special summit level meeting in Abuja, Nigeria. The recommendations already have the broad support of the Darfurian population. The Sudan Government will protest, but ultimately will be under immense pressure to go along. The armed movements are criticizing some details, but will recognize that Mbeki has articulated their own critique of the imbalance of power and wealth in Sudan. Corralling the international community and re-energizing a moribund peace process are next. President Mbeki has shown strategic vision and stamina thus far. Facilitating the negotiated transformation of Sudan will demand even greater political skill.
Dear Alex,
Since I did not read the report, I have just few questions to help me understand the contents of the proposal correctly:
1) How can we read this initiative together with the CPA as far as the pending issues between the North and the South, which are central to the overall crisis of Sudan, are concerned? Can the two processes go together side by side, or does it mean that we have to postpone the CPA as a partial process until we go through and exhaust the processes that the report seems to advocates.
2) You mentioned that one of the pillars of the report is that it shifts the emphasis and puts Darfur in the Centre. My question is that: are Darfur injustices represent a cause or a result of the problem of the North and why for that reason the Beja area or the Blue Nile could not be the centre of focus?; also by putting Darfur first how is that different from “Liberating the Country, one Bantustan at a time†Isn’t Darfur first, as part of the entire Sudan problem, imply that the Nuba Mountains is second, the Blue Nile is third…etc?
3) The second pillar of the proposal which calls for putting justice, peace and reconciliation as one package to be accepted by all, isn’t that quite challenging or next to impossible? I do not see any major challenges with peace and reconciliation, I do have a major concern about the type of justice and whether it will also cover atrocities by all Sudanese political parties in the past as we discussed in the Kampala Conference of 2000? What are the mechanisms to bring consensus on that? And what incentives could the guilty parts find in this proposal?
Dear Ahmed
we will post the AU PSC shortly which will provide a chance for seeing the core elements of the recommendations.
The Panel was specifically mandated to deal with Darfur. It didn’t inquire into whether the CPA substance or timetable should be altered in any way and was not mandated to make any recommendations on that. Rather, it accepts the CPA as it is and argues strongly that Darfurians should become part of it.
This is also the reason why the Report doesn’t deal with the Beja or the Nuba or any other periphery. It starts with Darfur, but argues that Darfur’s problems cannot be solved without addressing the national crisis.
You are correct that justice will be a major challenge, and it is interesting to see that most of the controversy so far concerns the proposal for a hybrid court. Abdel Wahid seems to be rejecting the report on the basis that only the ICC can try every culprit. In reality this would award impunity to everyone other than the half dozen or so individuals named so far. Can this be what he wants?
As you rightly indicate, the Panel does not recommend anything about accountability or truth telling for the entirety of Sudan’s experience. However, it does not preclude this.
Lastly, when the PSC Communique is published, take note of the mandate for the High Level Implementation Panel mentioned in 11(d).
Thanks again Alex for posting the AU Peace and Security Council Communique on Darfur.
The communiqué did push again for the postponement of the ICC decision by the UN Security Council. Earlier we all anticipated that the ICC decision might result in destabilizing the Sudan, which did not happen to the level of our expectations. What benefit to the peace process in Sudan would the deferral of the ICC decision bring now?
I do not understand what is meant under the second part of point number (6) which calls for creating conducive environment for the elections to take place as per the CPA and “ to ensure that Darfur fully participates in the national debate arising from the 2011 selfâ€determination referendum in Southern Sudan“ what is this debate? And how is the participation of Darfur going to affect the resolving of the Darfur crisis? If it is a national debate why do we need to emphasize the presence of Darfur? And actually who should be the legitimate representative of Darfur in this debate according to the proposal?
While also the communiqué stresses the importance of the April 2010 elections for both Darfur and CPA, the real challenge is whether or not the AUHIP will be able to assist in the implementation of the CPA by making sure the elections take place in Darfur with all the current complexities and whether there is really enough time to strike a truce that involves all the players in the Darfur conflict between the time of the formation of the AUHIP and the elections deadline of April 2010 which seem as just few months. And the big question is that does the failure of ensuring the participation of Darfur in the April 2010 election imply the failure of all this initiative?
Dear Ahmed
it is pro forma for the AU PSC to recall its previous decisions, which in this case include the request for the Article 16 deferral of the ICC case against Pres. Bashir. That is now pretty much irrelevant. The main significance of this request is not is relevance to Sudan but a signal to the UN Security Council that the AU has not forgotten the way in which it was snubbed last year. The AU considers that, as more than 50% of the UNSC business concerns Africa, it could extend a minimum courtesy to the AU in raising a unanimous AU PSC resolution to the UNSC for debate.
Concerning the national debate over self determination, I would read this as a signal about what the AUHIP may be considering. One of the successes of the AUPD was that it generated public discussion among Darfurians in Darfur and among Sudanese more widely in Sudan about Darfur. I surmise that Pres. Mbeki and his colleagues are thinking that some similar kind of public debate is necessary about the future of the Sudanese nation (or nations).
As you say, the elections are imminent, a huge amount needs to be done for them to proceed, and the participation of Darfurians is one of the trickiest questions.
Dear Alex,
It is very understandable for you to be defending the AU report on Darfur since you were part of the technical team that assisted the panel, but what I find bewildering in your posting is for you to speak on the AU as a credible body deserving any sort of respect or consideration from the UN Security Council or even the African people it claims to represent.
I think you have seen the statements by Ping this week in which he again plays the role of Bashir’s defender ignoring the plight of the Darfuris all these years. I find the fact that Ping continuing to make these remarks on behalf of the continent unabated is evidence like no other on the nature of the AU being a club for human right violators and corrupt leaders who could care less about accountability. After all they elected Kaddafi to be their chairman and we have seen how he made a mockery of the body he is representing in the UN General Assembly meetings last September.
Yet is also funny and sad that Ping complained about lack of money saying their only source is the EU. How pathetic could that be? Isn’t he the one acting all about Africa and liberation from western colonialism yet he wants their money!
I am glad you acknowledge that the ICC indictment of Bashir sparked the AU to create the panel but it is also in the same light that you should see the mission envisioned by the leaders for it; to find a way out for Bashir and others from the ICC. I will also admit that Mbeki did not quite give the Africans what they wanted as it made no mention of the need for Article 16 or the negative impact of it has on Sudan peace. However I am not sure how the panel is asking for the ICC role to be part of the peace negotiations? Mixing justice and politics?
As far as the hybrid court proposal it is all but naive. It effectively gives the AU control over it with Sudan. As I mentioned before the AU is not a credible body and will therefore not be in a position to press Sudan on creating something of value to try the Darfur criminals. The report does not even say who will pick the tab for these courts.
Yet even so, Sudan said unequivocally that it will not accept hybrid courts and this is the end of the story as it is Alex. The “immense pressure†on Sudan as you put forward is more or less a dream. It will not happen. The AU will not pressure Sudan to do anything it does not want to do and its leaders could care less about justice and accountability.
The report in itself is not a bad one. I think overall it is a positive one but I don’t see where it came with anything new that was not mentioned before as far as the peace process. All these recommendations have been exhausted before and what was lacking is a political will and an implementation mechanism.
Also I noticed that the report was written in a diplomatic language inconsistent with the role of the panel as a fact finding mission supposed to say things as they are not say it in a manner so as not to anger any party. It just severely undermines its impartiality.
Another observation I have is some small mistakes here and there for example accurate description of people they met. For example, they refer to Mohamed Ali Al-Mardi as the justice minister and not the former one. Also they use different spellings for the Umma party leader Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi. They also refer to Mubarak Al-Fadil Al-Mahdi as someone from the Umma Party not the head of the Umma Reform and Renewal Party.
These are small mistakes but for me it indicates some lack of quality with regard to the report. I am somewhat disappointed in the report. For the most part, it did not come with anything new and did not live to my own expectations. If I was to grade it I will gave it a “C-“.
What is even funnier that even that even though the report does not make any calls for deferring Bashir warrant, the AU reiterates the request in its communiqué!
I am afraid that the hard efforts of the panel members and the support team made in the report will end up in the garbage can of the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa. Khartoum will just do its best to play the game of foot dragging it excelled in all these years to make sure that it kills the report with the aid of the complicit and inept AU.
Regards
Dear Khalid,
I was happy to take on the assignment as adviser to the AUPD because it was the most serious engagement with the Darfur problem for several years. In particular, the method adopted by Pres. Mbeki–spending a long time listening to the people of Darfur and basing his analysis and recommendations on what he heard–was an attractive one. I have many reservations about the AU but I find the AUPD process, analysis and recommendations to be credible.
Many expected the Panel to recommend lifting or deferring the ICC arrest warrant and somehow letting Pres. Bashir off the ICC hook. In fact the principal criticism of the Panel for the ICC was the fact that the ICC is only intending to bring charges against six individuals (it may of course add a few more, but not many), thereby leaving the greater number of perpetrators free from investigation, trial and (if found guilty) punishment. I am sure you welcome this. On the other hand, are you writing off the report because the Sudan government is rejecting the hybrid courts? If one dismisses anything that is opposed by the Sudan government, that does not take us very far. But if one only welcomes that which is impossible (like the ICC trying every alleged perpetrator), that is also a non-starter. What is important is what can be implemented. Hybrid courts can be implemented, let us see what transpires.
Incidentally, I saw in today’s Sudan Tribune that Ahmed Maher said that he understood the role of the Panel as finding a way out for Pres. Bashir. I think you should examine the record of Minister Maher’s participation in the activities of the Panel. I did not see him a single time in Darfur or Khartoum.
You note that the AU PSC reaffirmed its request for an Article 16 deferral. That is what is to be expected from the PSC: it passed a unanimous resolution in July 2008 and cannot be expected to revise that.
You are correct that the challenge is implementation and that the report will only be as good as the implementation. Many initiatives in the past have ended as a dead letter through political obstruction. I believe that the AUPD recommendations have a better chance because they have not descended from on high but have already been presented and discussed with the Sudanese stakeholders.
Dear Alex,
Thanks for your feedback. I guess my main question is whether the AU is really willing to press Sudan on implementing the report? I am not saying the report is dead end because Sudan rejected. All I am saying that the AU has no history of pressuring Sudan and thus why should this time be any different? I read an interview with Ghazi in Rayaam newspaper on the issue and he pretty much said we will only accept supervision.
I also saw Mahir statements. It seriously shocked me. I hope Mbeki will release a statement to distant himself from what Mahir said. This is very damaging to the panel’s credibility at least among Darfuris and sckeptical audience.
Dear Khalid,
A major difference between the AUPD and the normal AU activities is the person of Thabo Mbeki. He does not accept anything other than success in implementation, and is accustomed to having institutions that work for him. So let us see.
Mahir signed on to the report of the Panel without any reservation, so I would imagine that his comments should be taken as a personal view only, not reflecting any of the Panel discussions.
Thank you for posting the AU Panel Report which I have now had the opportunity to read. It is a commendable effort including sound analysis of the origins of what it correctly identifies as ‘the Sudanese crisis in Darfur.’ My congratulations to President Mbeki and his team for a formidable analysis.
Allow me to make several observations. The ruling regime is undoubtedly more unsettled by President Mbeki’s report than it is letting on. It is focusing its criticism on the hybrid courts issue, which is frankly a secondary reservation which can easily be conceded, and trying to draw attention away from what it finds more disturbing which is the expose of its political bankruptcy.
As for JEM, it should be applauding the fact that President Mbeki has given a better articulation of its own critique of power imbalance in Sudan than can be found even in the JEM Manifesto. As you indicate, we shall see if the JEM leadership can rise to this challenge. Abd al Wahid can not do so but we knew that already.
The quality of the writing and analysis drops off sharply in the chapter on justice and accountability. One suspects that President Mbeki was not involved in writing this part. The errors are unfortunate, but the recommendations are in my opinion sound and practical, and I think Sudan is making a pointless defence of an indefensible judiciary.
I concur with your analysis that the implicit theme of the report is the dismantling of minority rule and the transformation of governance in Sudan. However I fear that if President Mbeki believes that he can replicate the experience of the negotiated surrender of the Apartheid Regime he is sadly mistaken, for two reasons. On the one hand, the Islamist regime is (in contrast to the Boers) a rentier enterprise, for whom the grip on power is essential to their continued existence. They know this all to well and recognize that real power sharing is a slippery slope ending with political suicide. On the other hand, the opposition forces have failed to generate the subjective or objective conditions for a transfer of power to a progressive regime, whether by military force, popular uprising or elections, and their victory would spell not liberation but disintegration (as we are seeing today with the growing momentum towards separation of the south).
The test of the report is whether its laudable recommendations can be implemented. On this I must concede my serious doubts. I share the widely-expressed doubts about the capacity of the AU, and especially I doubt its staying power. It is after all a rentiers club. I have no confidence on the good faith of the government. In addition I fear that the political infrastructure, in both government and opposition, simply does not exist to make the political changes necessary in the short time available.
Alex,
Why did you think Al Maher issued his statement? Was there a secret agenda for the panel that was known to Mbeki?
Dear Ahmed
in addition to what I have written above, I would note that Mr. Maher was not appointed to the Implementation Commission established by the AU PSC last week.
I should add that my comments on this are personal observations and have not been made in consultation with the AU or any members of the Panel.
“Corralling the international community and re-energizing a moribund peace process are next. President Mbeki has shown strategic vision and stamina thus far. ”
I just don’t know if I have faith that these peace agreements will take hold.. The very people that enforce the agreements are those holding the biggest guns..? The threat of violence stares us right in the face even as we fight for peace.
“I just don’t know if I have faith that these peace agreements will take hold.. ”
All we can do is hope for peace. Humans have a tendency for power and with that comes war.
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