Sudan and the National Congress Party

Sudan's National Congress Party is controlled by an intellectually capable, radically committed, conspiratorial, and compassionless nucleus of individuals, long referred to as the National Islamic Front (NIF). In the seventeen years since these individuals came to power by coup to abort an incipient peace process, they have consistently defied the international community and won. The NIF has never paid a price for their crimes. Almost all of them are still in important positions.

The NIF core is a competent cadre of men who have an agenda, the pursuit of which has killed millions of Sudanese and uprooted and destroyed the lives of millions more. While their agenda is radically ideological, it is equally about personal power and enrichment. They are not at all suicidal, but they respond only to credible threats against their power and prosperity. The international community with its limitless posturing and (too often) empty words has, to date, never constituted a credible threat. During its seventeen-year reign, the NIF has engaged seriously with critics only once, that being when confronted by a strong Sudanese Peoples Liberation Movement and Army (SPLM/A) and an energetic international coalition led by the United States. The result was the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), a detailed document that ended a twenty-two-year war between the NIF government and the people of southern Sudan, the Nuba Mountains, Southern Blue Nile, and Abyei. Despite Khartoum's implementation of the agreement, albeit slowly and selectively, in my view the CPA is now at very serious risk of survival.

Power and wealth in Sudan have historically been concentrated in the center, in fact, in just a few tribes. All the peripheral populations—north, south, east, and west—have, as a result, been marginalized and are largely destitute, powerless, and lacking in development, regardless of their religious, cultural, or ethnic background. The US initiative beginning in 2001 made rather impressive progress in ending hostilities between the SPLM and the NIF government and opening up humanitarian access to war-affected people, raising the hopes and expectations of a better life for almost all Sudanese. That the peace process took four years is not surprising, given the egregious history to be overcome and the quality of the final text. The CPA was signed in January 2005. In April an SPLM delegation went to Khartoum to begin implementation arrangements. On landing at Khartoum's airport the delegation was engulfed by joyous throngs of Sudanese of all backgrounds—Muslims, Christians, Africans, Arabs, and others—who hoisted the delegation members onto their shoulders and danced in the streets. They understood the implications of the CPA for all Sudanese. On 8 July when John Garang de Mabior, chairman of the SPLM and commander-in-chief of the SPLA, arrived in Khartoum to sign the interim constitution that was to implement the CPA, huge crowds of northerners and southerners estimated by some at 6 million to 8 million came out to meet him. His popularity was such that, in a free election, it is likely that he could be elected president of Sudan by all the people. A new Sudan was being born.

But Darfur Was in Flames

In February 2003, perhaps seeing the progress of CPA negotiations and concerned about being left out of the benefits of the CPA, "rebels" from Darfur's marginalized populations who were considered African as distinct from Arab initiated hostilities against the NIF government, the NIF responded precisely as it had in the war against the SPLA. This involved the destruction of civilian populations, denial of humanitarian assistance to war-affected civilians, utilization of surrogate Arab militias in coordination with formal government military forces, and pretence of themselves being the aggrieved party, being the "sovereign" government. The violence exhibited a character far beyond that which could fairly be described as "military." Ethnic cleansing was clear. Genocide was its truer name.

The CPA includes a provision that the south and potentially Abyei can legally secede from the Sudanese state if a referendum in those areas, scheduled for 2011, results in such a decision. (The people of Southern Blue Nile and...