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Jan. 12, 2007
A hope for peace in Darfur
"We need to continue to put the pressure on," says CJC
chair.
RON FRIEDMAN
Darfurian Peace negotiator Nouri Abdalla recently returned from
peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria. Advocacy leader Mark Weintraub from
Canadian Jewish Congress met with him in order to hear about the
current situation in Darfur and strategize about future co-operation.
"The best-case scenario is to have a robust UN peacekeeping
force, highly experienced, well funded and equipped," said
Abdalla.
In August, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution
1706, ordering the expansion of the current African Union (AU) mission
in Western Sudan to a 22,000-strong hybrid UN and AU peacekeeping
force. China, the main consumer of Sudanese oil, has not signed
the resolution, even though it contributed to the peace talks. It
claims that the resolution impinges on Sudanese sovereignty.
However, Darfurians like Abdalla view the implementation of the
resolution as their only hope after the collapse of the Darfur Peace
Accord (DPA), which was signed in May.
"We were hoping that after the signing of the DPA, peace, stability
and tranquillity would come to Darfur," said Abdalla. "As
a matter of fact, what has happened is exactly the opposite, the
situation actually got worse."
Since 2003, more than two million people have been internally displaced,
another 250,000 refugees have crossed the border into neighboring
countries and 400,000 people have been killed as a result of the
violence.
Units of the Janjaweed militia, who are responsible for some of
the worst atrocities of the conflict, are constantly raiding the
villages and terrorizing civilians and aid workers. While the Sudanese
government, led by Omar al-Bashir, denies responsibility for the
actions of the Janjaweed, reports indicate that the Khartoum government
recruits, arms and pays the militias, often performing co-ordinated
attacks with them.
"The Sudanese government is trying to resolve this conflict
militarily; they are still using their helicopter gun ships, their
Antonov airplanes, bombing villages and still mobilizing, arming
and unleashing the Janjaweed militias," said Abdalla.
Sudan peace talks
The main sticking points in the DPA concern issues of wealth and
power sharing. The Darfurians want economic autonomy, equitable
representation and adequate compensation for victims and survivors.
"We calculated an amount of $800 million to be put in the compensation
fund on account of resident population and villages destroyed. They
[the Sudanese government] ended up putting $30 million in,"
said Abdalla, who was part of the power-sharing commission at the
peace talks.
"Just as important as protecting innocent civilians and trying
to reverse the humanitarian and security situation in Darfur, is
addressing the key fundamental demands for the people of Darfur
and trying to resolve the root causes of the conflict," he
said.
Peace efforts are becoming more challenging due to the splintering
of the rebel groups: two out of the three have refused to sign the
treatise.
"We do not refuse negations, but how can we negotiate with
someone who [is] committing genocide against our people," asked
Abd-al-Wahid Muhammad Nur, a leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement
in a recent interview with the BBC.
The Khartoum government is currently implementing a separate peace
accord with its southern region, also under UN supervision.
World needs to act
In addition to supporting the peace talks and taking the issue to
the UN, the international community provides billions of dollars
for humanitarian aid to Sudan. Canada alone has provided assistance
of approximately half a billion dollars.
Abdalla credits this achievement in part to the work done by advocacy
groups and CJC in particular.
"I take some measure of satisfaction in that the media in Sudan
and the leadership of Sudan points the finger at the Jewish communities
of Canada and the United States as being behind the advocacy efforts,"
said Weintraub, chairperson of CJC, Pacific Region, and of the national
Darfur committee of the CJC. "That tells me that we have made
some progress."
The North American Jewish community has made it a priority to advance
awareness of the situation in Darfur and attempt to bring a peaceful
end to what many refer to as a genocide.
"The reasons for that are obvious - we are a people living
under the shadow of our own genocide. We are the people who have
demanded from the world a commitment to the formula 'Never again,'"
explained Weintraub. "All aspects and dimensions of the Jewish
community have always been supportive because it was intuitively
understood that if we remained silent here, we were really abdicating
our principles as a people."
The main thrust of the advocacy effort surrounds the notion of individual
responsibility to action, said Weintraub.
"We have tried to communicate throughout that, if grassroots
movements [and] ordinary individuals can have an impact on one crisis,
then that gives us optimism for working together as a world community
for all of the other tremendous problems that face us," he
added. "If we can get one success under our belt in terms of
shifting world opinion and intervention, then that will give us
confidence to go to deal with the next."
The Darfur crisis has already expanded to neighboring Chad and the
Central African Republic, with the Janjaweed raiders attacking villages
in these countries. According to Abdalla, if something is not done,
the whole region may go into a situation that the international
community will be unable to maintain.
"There is much more to be done, and what we have to do is communicate,
not only to our Jewish community, which has been quite solid on
this, but to other communities, that we need to continue to put
the pressure on," said Weintraub. "The media and political
leadership have a short attention span. Darfur is no longer on the
radar screen because, in some sense, we have been successful in
institutionalizing the pressure through the peace talks.
"We are hoping that, in this final stage, the media, political
leaders and educators will pay attention again."
Ron Friedman is a reserve officer in the Israel Defence
Forces and a student in the master's program in journalism at the
University of British Columbia.
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