Comments on: Observations on the CPA, Darfur and AMIS’s Role in the War http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/darfur/2007/10/28/observations-on-the-cpa-darfur-and-amiss-role-in-the-war/ Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:56:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Alex de Waal http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/darfur/2007/10/28/observations-on-the-cpa-darfur-and-amiss-role-in-the-war/#comment-971 Alex de Waal Mon, 29 Oct 2007 13:48:56 +0000 http://www.ssrc.org/blog/2007/10/28/observations-on-the-cpa-darfur-and-amiss-role-in-the-war/#comment-971 Peter Schumann has made three very important points. A basic principle of mediation is that the conflict 'belongs' to the parties and the solution must therefore be 'owned' by them too. In the days after the close of the Abuja talks, when I remained behind in Abuja trying to bridge the (then very small) gap between Abdel Wahid al Nur and the GoS, I felt that the text of the DPA was more obviously 'owned' by the AU, UN and internationals than it was by the parties. The government and the two SLM factions were all ready to make amendments--it was the internationals who weren't. I wrote in my diary, 'whose war is this anyway? and whose peace?' Today I feel very strongly that the AU-UN mediation should be supporting the SPLM initiative. We risk approaching the point at which a peace process is pursued, not because it has the confidence of the national stakeholders, but because the credibility of the international mediators is at stake. I thoroughly concur that an objective assessment of AMIS will soon conclude that it was 'mission impossible' at the outset--the N'djamena ceasefire and mandate made success impossible. That having been said, I also think that AMIS did a remarkably good job in its early months, and that the focus should have been on fixing the shortcomings of the mission rather than the ill-starred push to hand over to the UN. And lastly, I cannot agree more that the focus must now be on the CPA and a single solution for the whole of Sudan. The opportunity for a separate Darfur agreement was missed last year and I believe it is unlikely that it will recur soon. Peter Schumann has made three very important points. A basic principle of mediation is that the conflict ‘belongs’ to the parties and the solution must therefore be ‘owned’ by them too. In the days after the close of the Abuja talks, when I remained behind in Abuja trying to bridge the (then very small) gap between Abdel Wahid al Nur and the GoS, I felt that the text of the DPA was more obviously ‘owned’ by the AU, UN and internationals than it was by the parties. The government and the two SLM factions were all ready to make amendments–it was the internationals who weren’t. I wrote in my diary, ‘whose war is this anyway? and whose peace?’ Today I feel very strongly that the AU-UN mediation should be supporting the SPLM initiative. We risk approaching the point at which a peace process is pursued, not because it has the confidence of the national stakeholders, but because the credibility of the international mediators is at stake.

I thoroughly concur that an objective assessment of AMIS will soon conclude that it was ‘mission impossible’ at the outset–the N’djamena ceasefire and mandate made success impossible. That having been said, I also think that AMIS did a remarkably good job in its early months, and that the focus should have been on fixing the shortcomings of the mission rather than the ill-starred push to hand over to the UN.

And lastly, I cannot agree more that the focus must now be on the CPA and a single solution for the whole of Sudan. The opportunity for a separate Darfur agreement was missed last year and I believe it is unlikely that it will recur soon.

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