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195 t e n The Politics of Negotiating Peace in Sudan S H A r At H S r i n i vA S A n M o S t C o n t e M P o r A r Y A r M e d C o n F L i C t S i n A F r i C A e n d W i t H negotiated settlements, and peace negotiations lay important foundations for peacebuilding. yet peace negotiations straddle awkwardly the immediate desire to end violence and aspirations for forging a more lasting yet underdetermined “peace.” the latter imperative assumes greater prominence in connection with outsiders’ peacebuilding strategies , aimed ostensibly at transforming war-torn societies, in the supposed self-image of the outsiders, into strong and stable states as sites of peace, democracy, and prosperity. Peace negotiations thus prefigure ever-broader reformist agendas, and this leaves more at stake at the negotiating table. Consequently, negotiations now involve wider and more complex political contestations. external interveners and domestic actors , not limited to armed belligerents, all seek to shape the contours of what “peace” will mean through, or in spite of, the negotiating table. the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) finalized in January 2005 between the Sudan People’s liberation movement/Army (SPlm/A) and the government of Sudan provided a framework for national peacebuilding but also laid foundations for the secession of the republic of South Sudan six and a half years later, in July 2011. these two adversaries had fought a bitter war since 1983, which had claimed more than a million lives and displaced millions more civilians. this also followed Sudan’s first civil war, fought by southern separatists intermittently between 1955 and 1972. the so-called government of national unity,created by the CPA and comprising both signatories, failed to make unity attractive to southern Sudanese. 196 SHArAtH SriniVASAn the CPA’s promise of national democratic transformation and institutional reform, seen as key to peacebuilding in the country, also went mostly unrealized , and peacemakers’ hope that the CPA would help in the resolution of the darfur conflict—which escalated in 2003 while the exclusive bilateral negotiations for the CPA were under way—proved naively optimistic. rebellion in the western region of darfur, aimed at the central government in khartoum as much as being born of local intergroup conflicts, showed that the CPA was not at all “comprehensive,” a bitter complaint expressed by various opposition groups across Sudan who had been excluded from the negotiations long before darfur’s crisis. mediation efforts focused on darfur between 2004 and 2011, first led by the African union (Au) with strong support from the united States (uS), and then followed by various initiatives that culminated in the Qatar-hosted joint Au and united nations (un) meditation. these negotiations were at times rushed, and failed to be wholly inclusive. they were also undermined by the way in which the post-CPA political arrangements constrained political space for compromise. At the moment of South Sudan’s naissance as a sovereign state in July 2011, violence escalated in the nuba mountains area of Southern kordofan state, on the northern side of the new international border. thousands of disaffected nuba fighters who formed part of the SPlm/A demanded a better peace deal for their region than the CPA had delivered . this conflict soon spread to the neighboring blue nile state. this was another ominous reminder that the binary simplification of Sudan’s wars into a north versus south, Arab versus African, muslim versus Christian conflict, while it helped facilitate the CPA, did not come close to bringing peace to the region. Sudan is thus an example of partially failed peacebuilding with the negotiations process as a key element that severely limited the subsequent possibilities for peace. At the heart of peacemakers’ strategy in mediating the CPA was a belief that only by first ending the “north-south” war and then including provisions for national democratic transformation could Sudan’s multifaceted political crises be addressed. narrow, bilateral negotiations were not only expedient; they were considered the only way forward. yet this causal logic was interpreted differently and actively resisted by groups who were excluded from the talks. northern opposition groups and nascent rebel movements in darfur feared that a bilateral deal would only strengthen the khartoum government’s power, rather than facilitate political change, and sought to access negotiations to influence [3.149.213.209] Project MUSE (2024-04-19 19...

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