Will the latest Doha ceasefire deal be enough to end Darfur crisis?
On February 10, 2013, in the Qatari capital Doha, a ceasefire agreement was inked by the Sudanese government and a group, led by Muhammad Bashr Ahmed, an offshoot from the Sudanese Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).
It follows a string of ill-fated agreements signed by the government and movements seceding from mother movements, prompting analysts to question the sense of these partial agreements.
The government’s tactic is to break down armed groups.”
The government’s tactic is to break down armed groups. First came the Khartoum Peace Agreement made with Dr. Riek Machar and Lam Akol from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), but it eventually turned out that they did not represent the mother SPLM led by John Garang,” said writer and political analyst Tayeb Zine el-Abidine in a February edition of Al-Intibaha newspaper.
The government repeated the same mistake in Juba when it signed an agreement with Minni Minnawi, even though Abdul Wahid al-Nur was the movement head. Shortly after signing the agreement, Minnawi went back to the lines of rebellions because the government did not commit to the agreement.”
Zine el-Abidine suggests that the government’s underlying aim is to grind down the movements in order to weaken them and exterminate them on the battlefield.
According to AFP, Ahmed Bin Abdullah al-Mahmoud, the Qatari Prime Minister and mediator, said the ceasefire agreement will pave the way for inking a final peace agreement in Darfur between both sides”. But he did not mention the fact that the agreement was struck with a small movement that had seceded from a larger armed movement.
Political Sciences Professor at Omdurman Islamic University, Salah Douma, said that the armed mother movements would continue to blight Darfur’s scope for peace, no matter how hard the government and supporting groups try to reach a deal.
Most of the movements that have signed agreements with the government have been formed by the regime which is now exploiting this through providing misinformation. The government has not yet stated that the agreement has been concluded with a JEM-dissented faction,” he said.
The faction does not even have fire to cease, as it did not fire one bullet since it separated from JEM.”
Jibreel Adam Bilal, spokesman for JEM, the most heavily armed rebel group in Darfur, stressed that the faction signing the agreement in Qatar is a mere inconsiderable group loyal to the government.”
The faction does not even have fire to cease, as it did not fire one bullet since it separated from JEM”, Bilal said in an interview with Radio Dabanga on Monday, February 11.
The agreement would not change anything on the ground, he told AFP. The agreement does not end the crisis in Darfur,” he said, recalling another ineffectual agreement in July 2011, signed by the government and the Liberation and Justice Movement.
Clearly a ceasefire in the region will not be able to usher in peace, unless the key rebel movements are on board.
In a recent development, the government of North Darfur declared that the visit of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to the State, planned on Wednesday, March 6, to the town of Twesheh has been cancelled”, as published on the JEM website.
A source blamed this decision on insecurity and clan conflicts in the region over recent weeks, involving clashes between the army and the opposing Revolutionary Front.
Reuters published a report on these disorders, stating that JEM declared it had seized the western area of Wad Bahr, South Kordofan, and that Jibreel Adam said: We have defeated the army and seized a lot of weapons.”
According to the United Nations, at least 300,000 people have been killed in Darfur and over one million people have fled their homes since the conflict started. Rebels and the Khartoum regime have now been fighting for a decade.
