ants Darfur in flames because it allows him to blame his internal troubles on Khartoum. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir wants it because it is the best possible pretext for not implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement concluded with South Sudan, an agreement that obliges Khartoum to share both wealth and power.
The UN’s acting emergency relief coordinator for Darfur, Margareta Wahlstrom, said recently that Darfur is becoming one of the most dangerous areas in the world for aid workers. With more than a third of Darfur’s war-affected population – almost 1 million people – effectively out of bounds to aid agencies, aid workers are themselves now coming under direct and deliberate attack. Attacks on aid workers almost doubled in 2006. In December alone, hundreds were withdrawn from Darfur for their own safety.
Andrew Natsios, the US special envoy to Sudan, has said he fears that aid groups could be forced out of Darfur, opening the way for a “bloodbath” in which the government-sponsored Janjaweed militias would try to close down camps that give refuge to millions. Natsios said US diplomacy would focus on protecting the humanitarian aid effort in Darfur. How? The AU has proved incapable of doing this and there is no agreement yet, and may never be, on a tougher hybrid force.
The only possible solution lies in going back to the drawing board and seeking a political settlement that involves all those who are a party to the conflict – inside and outside Sudan. There are no shortcuts, and it may well be that there will be no solution for a very long time: All the key elements are moving in the wrong direction today. The international players made mistakes, bad mistakes, and didn’t care enough when all was said and done. But if the leaders of the parties, government and rebel, don’t want peace they can’t be forced to make it. The responsibility, at the end of the days, is theirs.
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