American Enterprise Institute

Thursday, May 3, 2007

[Edited transcript from audio tapes]

12:45 p.m.	Registration
1:00	Introduction:	Mauro De Lorenzo, AEI
1:15	Presenters:	Alex de Waal, Harvard University and the Social Science Research Council
		René Lemarchand, University of Florida
		Louisa Lombard, Duke University
		James C. Swan, U.S. Department of State
	Moderator:	Mauro De Lorenzo, AEI
3:00	Adjournment

Proceedings:

Mauro De Lorenzo:  As some of you may have noticed, Mia Farrow is not here.  She came down with an illness over the weekend and is not able to join us unfortunately.  I’m going to do my best to step in and make some introductory remarks and then hand over to our very distinguished panel today.

The contours of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur are very well known.  That crisis continues unabated and in some ways I think it’s one of the greatest activist campaigns on African in our times, something we haven’t seen since some of the campaigns around Live Aid and the anti-apartheid struggle in the 1980s.  Lately, the diplomatic and media attention has been focused on how to pressure the government in Khartoum to accept the hybrid AU-UN force which was provided for in a Security Council resolution.  That force is to be deployed in three phases.  In mid-April Khartoum agreed to the deployment.  Of the second phase, it was unclear whether this resulted from the threats of further US sanctions, whether it resulted from the visit of the Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister or for some other reason.

But the focus on how to get Khartoum to agree to the hybrid force, in my opinion, avoids two other questions which are as important, if not more important.  One of them is what happens after force arrives, if it does.  The record of such peacekeeping forces in war zones is not necessarily a good one.  Equipment and capacity may not be the most important reasons why such forces fail to protect people.  You might want to look, for example, at the political will of the states that are supplying the troops and the mandate that the force has.  So the deployment of such forces in a way can actually cause damage if civilians are given the false impression that they are going to be protected.  One lesson of Rwanda and Bosnia is that you can’t necessarily count on such forces to save you if fighting breaks although I’m not sure if anything has really changed over the past few years to alter that skepticism.

The second question which we have to focus on is how to do you make process towards a political settlement of the conflict.  All analysts are emphasizing the centrality of this issue.  The nature of the war in Darfur has family relationships with other wars that have been fought in Sudan since independence, issues about the nature of the Sudanese state who controls what center versus periphery.  And until the internal contradictions of the Sudanese state are addressed in some kind of comprehensive way, it’s hard to imagine a lasting peace in Darfur and the rest of the country.

Analysts are also increasingly pointing to how the Darfur crisis is intertwined with the politics of neighboring states, Chad and the Central African Republic, particularly the vast sort of ungoverned space along their borders with Sudan.  The politics of these countries has been linked together for decades.  Chad and Sudan have lately been supporting each other’s rebels, housing each other’s refugees.  Some of them have apparently been identified as Chadians, some of them as Sudanese and have carried other attacks in Chad.  The CAR (Central African Republic) has also been destabilized in some way by what’s going on in Darfur. 

Again, if you want to focus on the prospects for a political solution in addition to internal Sudanese politics, we may need to pay more attention to the regional dimension.  And also France is a country that has influence in both Chad and CAR and it would be important to know more about what role they can play and have been playing.

The main purpose of this panel is to discuss the local and regional politics, get some clarity on what role the US is already playing on these issues and what it should be doing that it’s not and if it should be doing more at all.

Finally, Darfur has taken on significance beyond Africa because of China’s involvement there.  There are very high expectations that have been placed on China and I think this is likely to become a permanent feature of African conflict resolution efforts from now on.  China is already present on the ground in Sudan.  It participates in the UN force in the south.  China has also been participating in many other peacekeeping activities throughout Africa but it has steadfastly backed the Sudanese government’s refusal to accept the peacekeeping force that was mandated by Security Council Resolution 1706.  It more recently shown some willingness to put pressure on Khartoum to accept the phased appointment of the hybrid force yet at the same time it has also promised to build a new palace for the president in Khartoum.  So, on the one hand you have progress, on the other hand mixed signals.

While Sudan exports a majority of its oil to China, a relatively small proportion of China’s total imports are from Sudan.  Given the odium in which the Sudanese government has held, it’s hard to imagine how many other major oil companies would be willing to rush in and take a stake if for example, Chinese companies were no longer there.  Both of these factors suggest that in some way Sudan depends on China more than China depends on it. 

It also suggests that the reason China has been obstructing some international priorities in Sudan is not out of any fear for its energy investments but perhaps more because Beijing is keen to see the US fail and for the US made this a very public issue in 2004 with Secretary Powell’s declaration of genocide.  China may, to the extent that progress can be made, a pressure can be put on Khartoum to achieve some sort of resolution.  China may wish to take credit for that itself rather than allowing the United States to take credit.

While China’s influence on Sudan is probably overstated, its behavior with respect to Darfur and Sudan is the clearest case yet from which to judge whether Beijing is prepared to play the role of responsible stakeholder, a term that was coined by Deputy Secretary of State Zoellick.  What we see from China and Sudan may be what we expect to see from it in other parts of the developing world in the coming years.  China’s activities there are constantly evolving.  It’s too early to say what the overall shape of their role would be but this is why the world is watching what China is doing there very, very closely.

The panel assembled here could hardly be more qualified.  We’re going to begin with Jim Swan, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs responsible for East Africa and Central Africa.  He was formerly director of African Research at the State Department, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.  His distinguished foreign career service includes postings in both Congos as well as in Kenya where he watched Somalia and Cameroon and then Caribbean and Central America.  Thanks very much for joining us today.

James Swan:  Thanks very much, Mauro.  I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today on this topic.  I should clarify that my responsibilities actually do not include Sudan.  They include the neighboring countries but not Sudan itself and my presentation today is really going to focus much more on the regional and international aspects of the Darfur conflict and not so much on the internal Darfur aspects.

Also I plan to devote a fair portion of my remarks obviously to US policy and US actions.  You have some extraordinary distinguished academics here have far deeper expertise than I could bring to bear on the issues of the different players and actors in the Darfur region and surrounding countries.

Let me start by noting that the US approach to the Darfur crisis is very much an approach that addresses this problem as a regional and an international problem.  We spent a lot of our time consulting with neighboring governments including in Central African Republic and Chad and Libya.  In fact, our new Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, who made his first trip to Africa in his current job earlier this month visited Sudan, Chad and then went on to Libya precisely to address the regional aspects of the Darfur conflict.  And our special envoy for Sudan Andrew Natsios is also frequently in the region and spent time in Chad and Libya in terms of seeking to ensure that we are sensitive to the regional dimensions of what’s happening in Darfur.  And I personally was out in Chad and CAR myself in late March and early April.  Focus more on the internal developments in CAR and Chad but also obviously concerned about spillover impact from Darfur.

If you look at the neighboring countries, particularly Chad and CAR, both have a long history of instability and internal war that can be ascribed to a combination of both domestic and regional factors.  Neither of these important neighbors has a record of good governance or stability or rule of law or democracy and as a consequence both Chad and CAR are vulnerable to instability imported from other countries as well.  If we look at the relationship between Chad and Central African Republic and the Sudan, particularly in the case of Chad, its a very complex relationship with Sudan in which frankly the national borders are, in many ways, less significant than tribal and ethnic loyalty and then the competition within the local communities along the border areas for scarce resources.  In both Eastern Chad and Western Sudan for example, we see frequent examples where limited access to water and arable land lead to conflict between pastoralists and agriculturalists on both sides of the border.  And these sorts of conflict are exacerbated by familial and ethnic ties on the two sides of the border.

Chadian rebels have long used Sudan as a base of operations for their attacks back into Chad sometimes certainly with the Sudanese government’s complicity.  Its worth remembering that both current Chadian president Déby and his immediate predecessor Issen Habre took power based on rebel movements that operated initially out of the Darfur region of Sudan.  So there’s a long history and enduring connections between Chadian and Sudanese actors.  And indeed, many of the current Chadian rebel movements which gained strength in late 2005 and early 2006 have also benefited from support from the Sudanese government.

In the case of Central African Republic, I’ll be interested to hear from the panelists later but the direct connections with Chad are perhaps a bit less evident.  Also connections with Sudan are perhaps a bit less evident.  There is clearly a very close relationship between the Chadian and the Central African Republic leadership.  Current president Francois Bozizé initially took power in a coup in 2003 and was subsequently elected in 2005 had been in exile in Chad prior to returning to power and indeed has a close personal relationship with Chadian president Déby.

There have been some allegations that rebel groups operating in Central African Republic have benefited from Sudanese support but frankly we’ve had some difficulty establishing that that is in fact the case with respect to the specific degree of assistance that these rebel groups may be receiving from Sudan.

So in short, support for the rebel groups flows in both directions across the Chadian and Sudanese border and tribal loyalty appears to be at the heart of Chadian support for some of these key Sudanese rebel groups.  President Déby and many members of the Chadian elite are from the Zagawan ethnic group and this group is also dominant among some of the key Darfurian rebel organizations, notably the Justice and Equality Movement.  And there are indeed reports that Justice and Equality Movement fighters have in fact supported President Déby’s troops in clashes with Chadian rebel groups on the Chadian side of the border.

Actually, as an interesting example of how internal political dynamics in one of the neighboring countries may affect developments in Darfur, initially President Déby appeared quite reluctant to see support from Chad for even ethnic Zagawa rebel groups operating in Darfur.  But partly as a consequence of internal dissent within his own government and with his own Zagawa support base, over time we’ve seen a greater willingness on the part of the Chadian government to offer support to Zagawa ethnically-based rebels in Darfur.  So I guess this is an example where an internal political dynamic within a neighboring country is in fact having an impact on the military equation in Darfur.

Again, Central African Republic in the northeast there is certainly ethnic and familial ties between this region and Sudan but it’s unclear whether the Sudanese government is providing direct support to any of the rebels in northeastern CAR.  What we have seen in the case of northeastern Central African Republic as a contributor to regional instability is largely a factor of this being a heavily ungoverned space with relatively little presence on the part of the Central African Republic government and so we know that this territory has been used in the past by, for example, Chadian rebels that were assembling in Sudan and traversed northeastern Central African Republic to enter Chad as part of their military operations in Chad.

Although the focus of today’s discussion is not the humanitarian situation, I do think it is important to mention it.  Clearly the level of violence that we’ve seen in Darfur and in eastern Chad had exacerbated and already dire humanitarian emergency.  Currently in eastern Chad, the United Nations estimates there are 230,000 Sudanese refugees and up to 140,000 internally displaced persons.  And many of these internally displaced have now suffered secondary displacement, that is they were initially chased from their homes and then as a consequence of further violence, have been forced to flee to new locations.

In Central Africa, the UN estimates some 290,000 Central Africans who have been displaced.  Of those, about 212,000 are internal IDPs.  50,000 are refugees in Southern Chad and 25,000 are refugees in Cameroon.  And there are even a small number fled to Sudan.  In Chad, insecurity and attacks against humanitarian workers and facilities have led to significant staffing reductions in the part of the humanitarian community.  And of these current lower staffing levels, the community is increasingly unable to accommodate new IDPs and refugees.

So let me talk now more about the US government response to this complicated situation in Darfur and in the neighboring countries.  Again, we are taking a holistic approach to addressing stability and security in Darfur, in Chad and in CAR.  An approach that reflects regional dynamics as well as domestic political and economic realities.  As I mentioned, I visited Chad and CAR earlier this spring and Deputy Secretary Negroponte made this the centerpiece of his first visit to the region with stops in Sudan, Chad and Libya in April.

In Darfur, our policy has three prongs, three thrusts and I think it’s a bit misleading when the emphasis is placed entirely on efforts to put the peacekeeping operation in place because there has really been three dimensions to the policy throughout the Darfur conflict.  The first is humanitarian response in terms of responding to the needs of this population in Darfur that has been severely affected by the violence and by other conditions that have added to the emergency.  I think you are all familiar with the figures – more than 2 ½ million displaced, 300,000 plus killed or otherwise dead as a consequence of the situation.  So the first prong is humanitarian response and the US continues to be the largest single donor of humanitarian aid in Sudan.

As I mentioned, we are concerned that continued insecurity and also government measures that have impeded the work of humanitarian organizations makes it difficult to respond to this humanitarian situation and so we call on the Khartoum government to ensure that humanitarian aid can continue to be provided in Darfur.

The second prong of the policy after humanitarian response is peaceful resolution of the conflict.  This is essentially the effort for a political settlement.  Again, the US has been in the lead in this effort since the beginning.  It was the primary instigator and organizer of efforts to promote the Darfur peace accord which was signed last year in Abuja.  Deputy Secretary Zoellick played a leading role in the negotiation and mediation of that accord and our position remains very much - first the government needs to continue to move ahead with the implementation of the provisions of the Darfur peace agreement but also that nonsignatories need to develop a cohesive position and to participate in the Darfur peace accord using that accord as the basis for further negotiations with the Khartoum government.

So the first prong again – humanitarian response.  The second prong – political settlement and resolution of the conflict in Darfur.  And the third element and the one that Mauro has mentioned has attracted a great deal attention, is deployment of a robust peacekeeping operation.  And in this regard, as I’m sure many of you followed President Bush on April 18th, made the speech at the Holocaust Memorial Museum where he laid out a series of steps including sanctions that the United States is prepared to take if the Khartoum government does not allow deployment of UN and African Union peacekeepers under UN command and cease support for militias and permit unimpeded humanitarian aid to enter Darfur.

Similarly in Chad and Central African Republic, they were pursuing a multi-track policy that looks at responding to the humanitarian emergencies in these countries seeking to find solutions to improve security particularly in Northern and Central African Republic and Eastern Chad.  And finally, looking at longer term political solutions that will help resolve the internal rebellions in these countries.  Again, in both Chad and Central African Republic we’re major bilateral donor focused not only the domestic population but also refugees and internal displaced.  With respect to both Central African Republic and Chad, we also support deployment of a robust peacekeeping operation for Chad and for Northeastern CAR that would focus not only on protection of civilians but also on deterring cross border attacks.

This mission would not have an express mandate to secure the border but we think that its mere presence would help to improve security in that region.  We’ve made a very strong pitch to the Chadian president to accept this force including during Deputy Secretary Negroponte’s meetings earlier this month and Central African Republic President Bozizé has already endorsed the plans for this deployment.

With respect to domestic factors in Chad and Central African Republic, we recognize that poor governance is at the root of instability in Chad.  In our communications with the Chadian government we’re strongly emphasizing the importance of democratic reform, dialogue and transparent governance.  We deliver this message consistently at a variety of levels including directly from Secretary Rice to President Déby and at a variety of working level contacts.  We’re also working very closely with our European partners through their embassies. Europeans have a very promising initiative in terms of promoting democratic reform in Chad that involves some modifications to the electoral commission in Chad, agreement on a new timeframe for the legislative and local elections to be held in Chad.  That appears to be having some success in terms of bridging differences between the opposition and the government in Chad.

Similarly, in the Central African Republic we engage regularly with their leadership in terms of promoting democratic reform and good governance and it was a message that I delivered in my meetings with President Bozizé earlier this month.  We’re also supporting BONUCA, the UN operation in Central African Republic, it’s a peacekeeping office with the UN system to promote their reconciliation and dialogue within the Central African Republic.

Let me just speak briefly about some of the many international initiatives that are underway to try to improve prospects for peace in the region.  There are many that are taking place.  We think that it’s important that these initiatives be coordinated under the rubric of the African Union and the United Nations and we were encouraged by a meeting held in Tripoli in April 28th and 29th that included not only regional partners but a number of international partners.  We were represented by our special envoy for Sudan and Andrew Natsios at which it was strongly endorsed that the African Union and the UN be lead mediators have responsibility for coordinating political initiatives related to Darfur.

There have also been a couple of other developments even today.  We got a report that in Saudi Arabia, King Abdallah has brought together President Bashir and President Déby who have reached some agreement on supporting deployment and collaboration with UN and UN operations.  Frankly, we don’t have a detailed readout of that right now so we’ll have to wait and see the details.  We also understand there was a meeting yesterday between Sudanese and Chadian military officials mediated by the Libyans and the Eritreans to discuss border security.  So there are a number of initiatives underway.  We welcome these initiatives but they clearly need to be coordinated.

Perhaps just in that context, a word about the role of Libya.  Libya has long been involved in the region.  It has its own very complicated relationships with Chad and Sudan and others.  It clearly sees the Darfur conflict as in its own backyard and is determined to play a role in resolution of that conflict.  Libya has been instrumental in brokering some other recent peace agreements in the neighborhood including between the Chadian government and one of the main Chadian rebel groups, the FUC, United Forces for Change and also was involved in brokering agreements between the Central African Republic government and two of the rebel organizations.

In some cases these efforts have been criticized as being essentially moves to co-op other groups but I think at a minimum, it’s clear that the Libyans are actively concerned about security in their region and want to play a role in trying to resolve it.  And I think that this may be an opportunity to work more constructively with the Libyans in terms of trying to advance peace in the zone.

Mauro mentioned in his introduction the role of two key players from outside the region, France and China.  Let me just say a word about that.  France obviously is the former colonial power in both Chad and Central African Republic, continues to wield tremendous influence.  It has troops in both countries.  In Chad, although the French have provided some logistical support to the Chadian government but they have not been directly involved in any sort of combat operations in Chad.  In Central African Republic, the French troops have directly engaged some rebel groups in the northeast of the country and this has been important to securing the Bozizé government.

Obviously, there is a great deal of uncertainly about what will happen after the French elections and installation of a new government.  Clearly, there is going to be a generational change with these elections in France.  Clearly, President Chirac is known for his very close, personal relations with a number of Francophone and other African leaders.  There is a lot of speculation as to whether those close relations may change with the elections. 

I think our sense is that in view of the long-standing French ties to countries in Africa that it is likely that they will continue to be a very close and cooperative relationship between Paris and certainly the Francophone countries and others as France has, in recent years, reached out to a number of other countries in Africa.  But it remains a bit of a question mark and perhaps others will have more insights into the likely impact of the change of the president in France.

With respect to China, we agree that China has considerable leverage in Sudan particularly as a consequence of its economic investments and we think it is important that China be part of any solution to the conflict in Darfur.  We think that the Chinese have been helpful in recent months, notably in the negotiations in Addis Ababa in November at which a commitment by the Khartoum to the three-phase deployment was secured.  The Chinese were very helpful in that context and joined that consensus position. 

We are in very close contact with the Chinese.  Special envoy for Sudan Natsios traveled to Beijing in January for extended conversations with respect to the situation in Sudan and Darfur.  My boss, the Assistant Secretary for African Affairs had a lengthy bilateral with her counterpart Zhai Jun in March at which a variety of African issues but including Sudan and Darfur were discussed in some detail.  Zha Zhun subsequently traveled to Khartoum and visited Darfur.  So we are in a very close dialogue with the Chinese and clearly recognize that they have an important role to play and want to see them play that role in terms of encouraging Khartoum to accept a hybrid peacekeeping operation under UN command as has been agreed.

So I think, I’m sorry I probably ran on.  I apologize Mauro, but let me stop there.  I look forward to hearing from the other panelists but I think the key message that I wanted to convey is that the US approach to the situation in Darfur first of all is not single-mindedly focused on the peacekeeping operation.  There is a broader multi-prong policy related to advancing peace in Darfur and that more broadly even than that we see Darfur in a regional context and are actively working the Chad, CAR and Libyan pieces as well as other regional and international pieces of the resolution.  Thank you very much.

Mauro de Lorenzo:  Thank you very much.  To learn more about the Chadian side, we’re going to turn now to René Lemarchand who is Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida.  He has an international reputation for his studies Burundian Congo but also has been involved in studies of Chad for several decades including a two-month stint in Chadian prison in 1971 as we just learned.  René, thanks very much.

René Lemarchand:  Thank you, Mauro.  If I’m wearing the sinister-looking dark glasses, it’s not because I’m trying to look like Déby but because I just went through a cataract operation.  Mauro, again, many thanks for inviting me to share my thoughts on Chad, a country which I know wretchfully well because I did field work in Chad. And I was in Chad more recently, in 2005 during a mission for the World Bank.

Well, it seems to me that as one reflects on the very complicated nexus of relationships between Sudan and Chad two things become immediately clear.  One is the nature of a paradox.  Here you have Déby and al-Bashir who are sworn enemies, at each other’s throat, but they share a number of traits.  They are both dictators relying heavily on a party dominant state.  They both are targeting specific regional and ethnic communities, Darfur in the case Sudan; Salamat, Wadi and the southern provinces in the case of Chad.  Both are pocketing large amounts of oil revenue for the purpose of building up their armed forces and they are both involved in the proxy war manipulating clan factions.  So that’s the first thing that I want to underscore.

The second is in the nature of a policy dilemma of which the French are particularly well aware.  It’s sort of a damn if you do, damn if you don’t proposition.  If you pull the rug from under Déby’s feet, you may end up with a much worse situation that is paving the way for the entry into Chad of some of the most radical through Khartoum faction.  I’m thinking of the faction that is now headed by Mahamat Nouri who is known for his very, very close relations with al-Bashir and who certainly Ashek Umar certainly would have the capacity to overthrow the Déby government if the French were not there to prop him up, so to speak.

Now, on the other hand, if you do lend your support to Déby, what do you have?  Well, you have a volley of criticisms from the domestic and foreign opposition.  You are in effect becoming complicit of supporting one of the worst dictatorships in Sahelian Africa.  So this is really the dilemma that the French are confronted with and I think this is one of the reasons why the Darfur issue has received so little attention during the presidential campaign.

Well, some of the questions that we need to ask ourselves are what are the stakes in Chad?  What are the actors?  What is their logic?  And to what extent can one identify some connecting links between Chad and Sudan. 

Well, let me say first of all that we’re dealing here with a phenomenon namely, factionism, which is externally difficult to pin down.  When you try to define a faction in terms of its orientation, etc., it’s like grasping at wind.  You just cannot pin them down long enough to define them.  And it is this chameleon-like quality that is the dominant characteristic of many of the factions that are fighting Déby and this would apply even more, I’m sure pundits would agree of the factions that have emerged out of this sadly in operatives in 2006 accord.  Those of you who have read his magnificent piece in the London Review of Books, if I’m not mistaken, know what I’m talking about.  So, first let’s keep in mind that we are dealing with factionism.

Now the second point that I wish to impress upon you is that although the crisis in Central African Republic, Chad and the Sudan are interlinked, the roots are indigenous to each of the states concerned.  Let’s take Chad to begin with.  And here, I think that we have to engage in a brief plunge into history, into the historical past because it is in Chad that Libya for the first and the last time suffered a devastating military defeat.  This took place in a part of northern Chad, a place called Wadi Doum and in Wadi Doum, Hissein Habre was the president at the time, proved remarkably skillful in adapting traditional modes of warfare to modern conditions.  And with his warriors who set up those Milan missiles on top of their Toyota trucks, at great speed he was able to circumvent the Lybian position and to kill 1,500 Lybians and capture enormous quantities of military hardware. 

And I’m told that much of it was sold in parts of the United States, in fact sold to France.  But a lot of loot was at stake here.  And I’m told that one of the reasons why Abre and Déby didn’t see eye to eye on certain fundamental issues is because they fought over the loot.  Now, whether there is any truth to that I do not know.  But Wadi Doum is indeed a turning point. 

Why?  Well, because after Wadi Doum the Libyans figured that they really had no choice but to use Darfur as an alternative theater of operations to propagate the Arab supremacist ideology and send in their Islamic legion, Failaktah Alistamiyah and of course the legion was one of the main providers of men to the Janjaweed.

I would like to emphasize also that the man who played the most important role in forging ties of solidarity between Arabs in Chad and the Libyans was Ashek ibn Umar who took over from Assil after he died when he walked into the running propellers of his Cessna plane.  He didn’t see the propeller was still running, was hit by the propeller, died instantly and was replaced by Ashek ibn Umar is now fighting in Darfur along with Abdallah Nouri and doing everything he can to reenter Chad.

The third point that I want to make is that it was in Chad that Quaddafi recruited the largest number of Islamic legion members.  These were Arabs, most of them Aballa Arabs, there are a few Bhaktara as well.  Bhaktara in Arabic means cows.  You have cow herders and you have camel herders.  So Salamat, and Wadi Doum, these were the areas in Chad where a lot of Arabs were recruited to join the Arab legion.

I was talking to Tom Erdimi, a good friend of mine, we’ve known each other for the last 20 years, when I was in Germany back in 2005, he told me “Monsieur Lemarchand, don’t kid yourself, 50% of them are Arabs in Chad,” which I thought was quite surprising.

Now, the heeding off of CDR into Darfur is a major element behind the bloodshed going on today in Darfur.  By 1987, pitch battles were fought between the CDR (the Democratic Revolutionary Council) pro-Arab party, Chadian party and Darfur soldiers.  And this still is going on today.  This lasted until 1990 when Déby came to power.  And this gives me an opportunity to underscore one more general point. 

Interactions between Chad and Darfur is a two-way phenomenon.  First of all, you have Chadians penetrating into Darfur and then by 1990, when Déby is girding his loins for a cease fire, what you have is a lot of Zaghawa giving him support, logistical support, manpower essentially to fight his way across the border into Chad and eventually seize power.  This is what happened on December 1, 1990.  So it’s a back and forth movement that is going on all the time.

The point to be stressed here is this – al-Bashir has never forgotten that he is the one who made it possible for Déby to seize power.  And what happened next is a little bit more complicated.  I’m not going to go into it in great detail but as violence picked up momentum and when Déby feeling that he had no other choice but to be neutral and to sit back, his arms folded while watching his Zaghawa friends being decimated, enormous pressure was brought upon him to enter the fray and do something to save the lives of our brothers -- our brothers being essentially the Kobe people. 

Now Zaghawa, and this is quite typical of Sahelian society, are extraordinarily fragmented and fractured.  You have the Touwe, you have the Badeyat, you have the Kobe, etc., etc.  So it’s not so much a case of ethnicity being the key that his adversaries are, you also have a conflict of Zaghawa against Zaghawa.  That’s another major point to emphasize.

Now, when I’m talking about crisis being indigenous to Chad, bear in mind the quite remarkable series of events that happened in the early ‘80s after and before the defeat of the Libyans at Wadi Doum.  Bear in mind also the role of the CDR.  Bear in mind intra-Zaghawa fighting.  And finally, and most importantly, bear in mind that they are now over 27,000 demobilized soldiers in Chad who had no where to go.  It is the failure of the DDR in Chad that is largely responsible for the capacity of dissidents to recruit people.

When I was in Chad in 2005, we tried to work very hard on the DDR program, which had been going on since 1982.  Now, the Chadian army is a huge hydrocephalic monster with about 500 colonels, about 60 generals, an army of about 50,000 troops.  And you’ll understand these conditions why Wolfowitz and Déby had a run-in over the phone with Wolfowitz telling to Déby, you promised us to give 15% of the oil revenues, spend them on developmental projects and now you’re pocketing them.  And Déby said, I have no choice, I have to pay my soldiers otherwise they are going to turn against me. 

And this is very important also in the case of the CAR.  When Bozizé came to power in 2003, he did so with the help of demobilized soldiers and Déby was delighted to get these guys out of his hair and get him out of the way.  Unfortunately by the time he was in power and when his helpers, liberators as they were called, came to his office and said, well, now we want our pay, Bozizé said I’m sorry but the coffers of the state are empty.  And at this point they have no choice but to fend for themselves by joining one faction or the other.  I don’t want to spend too much time on that. 

The main factions and I only want to mention very briefly – how much more time do I have?  About five minutes?  So in brief, the states in Chad are of enormous significance because if Déby falls, and this is almost what happened in April of last year until the French intervened in the nick of time to prop him up logistically.  There’s absolutely no certainty that if Déby falls, the winner will not be a faction sympathetic to Darfur.  This is really where the stakes are. 

The actors - there are essentially three – they are really important.  There’s the Forces Unies pour le Changement, the United Front for Democratic Change (FUC) which is led by a man, very interesting, Mahamat Nour. 

Now don’t get mixed up between Nouri and Nour.  Mahamat Nour is a Tema and the Tema have suffered a lot by the encroachments of the Zaghawa on their land.  And they hate the Zaghawa.  And that explains why a Tema decided to take the lead of this FUC movement.  And it was Mahamat Nour who almost brought down Déby’s government in April of last year.  And they lost a lot of men and when Nour suddenly figured that he had lost half of his army, he said very surely, well, why don’t I move back into the government?  He made peace with Déby and is now Minister of Defense.  Déby got him.

The second movement is the Rally of Democratic Forces (RAFD) led by two remarkable men, one of whom I know very well, I mentioned him already Tom Erdimi and Timan Erdimi and they are both Zaghawa and therefore have very little to do with the other faction that I just mentioned.  But to my knowledge, they do not carry much weight.  Much more frightening and significant is the UFDD, the Union des Forces pour la Démocratie et le Développement of Mahamat Nouri who is a Goran by the way and one of Habre’s former lieutenant who has teamed up with Ashek ibn Umar who, if I remember correctly, was at one point ambassador to Washington.  If I remember correctly but we have somebody from the Chadian embassy who can confirm or disconfirm that.

Finally, there’s a fourth faction called Kukor Nationale Chadian of Hassan Sale al Genedi who is quite close to the Erdimi brothers but they have not yet merged.

Now, all of these factions, and please bear that in mind, are to some extent supported by Khartoum.  To some extent, with I think the UFDD receiving most of the support of Khartoum.  What is their logic?  It’s a very simple logic.  The enemies of my enemies are my friends.  The friends of my enemies are my enemies.  So if Bashir is the enemy of Déby and since Déby is my enemy, I’m automatically a friend of Déby.  And this is the logic, I think, that you find underlying the operational code of most of these factions.  Ideology was, I think, a very important factor but I think that it is no longer so although I’m sure that Alex will have a lot of say about that.

What about the French position?  Well, I’ve already mentioned the dilemma facing the French.  There’s a lot of moral posturing in passing but very little action.  And those of you who’ve watched the debate yesterday between Segolene Royale and Nicolas Sarkozy are aware of how little attention is being paid to Darfur.  Is it that the French don’t give a damn?  I don’t think this is the case.  It is just that they don’t know how to handle it. 

Ironically, the French are ideally situated to make a difference because they have a 1,000-men standing force.  Because they now are going to pull out of the Ivory Coast, the elite government soldiers who could really be sent to Chad to be [indiscernible].  They have six Mirages on the ground and if they wanted to, they could really try to establish a no-flying zone which they haven’t even tried.  They are potentially quite influential and to that I might say that there are French firms that are doing business in Sudan, Total, in particular.  But to my knowledge, the French government has so far refused to initiate economic sanctions.

There was a meeting in Paris, I think a couple of weeks ago and the inevitable haranguing the crowd and calling upon the candidates for the presidency to do something.  As somebody said, we’ve had enough compassion, now we need action.  But unfortunately, there has been much action.  The things that the French would do are essentially foreign and I would say that first of all, beef up the force to at least 5,000 men with the assistance of Le Grand, that is, shifting the manpower from other coasts to Chad.  And redefine its mandate with the view to protecting human lives in the camps. 

If you have 5,000 troops monitoring the camps and protecting citizens, I think this would be a very good thing.  They should also develop a contingency plan under the European Security and Defense Policy patterned perhaps along the lines of Afghanis in Etouri so that the French could set in motion on fairly short notice an intervention force where it is needed to counter the attacks from rebel factions.

Three, the French could bring pressure to bear on their firms, to either divest or suspend their activities.  And finally, on the diplomatic front, I think the French could do a lot more particularly to reach out to China and Russia and also to the Arab league.  I think my time is up.  Thank you.

MAURO DE LORENZO:  Thanks very much René.  We’re going to turn now to one of Africa’s mysterious countries.  Louisa Lombard is a doctoral candidate in Anthropology at Duke University and one of the few people who has been doing some field work in Central African Republic.  She will soon do more.  Her most recent works were with the small arms survey.  Louisa, thank you for coming in.  If you could turn off René’s microphone, there we go.

Louisa Lombard:  Thanks, Mauro.  I wanted to start with an illustration.  I thought it was fitting given our location right across the street from National Geographic that it come from National Geographic.  I don’t know if anyone saw this.  It came out a couple of months ago and it’s an article – the cover article is about poachers and anti-poaching efforts in Chad.  And it’s in the southeastern corner of Chad and there are all sorts of horrible photos of elephants being killed. 

It’s mostly Sudanese poachers who are coming in and killing these elephants.  And the article goes on to talk about an anti-poaching program that’s being run there jointly by the Chadian government through a national park that’s located there and then also through the European Union. 

But there is only one brief mention in the whole article of the country that lies just to the south of this region and the country through which all of the elephants pass on route to this national park, the Central African Republic.  And that one mention is basically to say that poaching used to be a problem in Central African Republic but it’s really not much of a problem anymore.  And I have to say that couldn’t be more untrue. 

Pretty much, poaching is the worst that it has, pretty much, ever been in Central African Republic right now.  It used to be an EU-funded program in the northeast of Central African Republic also to combat these poachers.  But the funding was cut a few years ago and probably won’t be returned.  So these gangs of Sudanese poachers have become just a common occurrence throughout all of the dry season which lasts from about December through June.

Now, why did I start with this example of poaching in the northeastern part of the Central African Republic?  Well, for one thing I think that it captures some of the ways that the international community tends to engage with the CAR, half-heartedly at best.  It also captures the difficulty of finding out information about this part of the world and also the ease of spreading misinformation about such an isolated part of the world. 

And then thirdly, it also shows or perhaps shows by way of omission how Sudanese actors in particular have become quite used to using, making use of Central African Republic territory as they wish.  We saw this during the 1980s when the Sudanese government launched attacks against SPLA rebels in Baralkaza province from positions in Central African Republic.  During that same period, the SPLA occupied towns as far as several hundred kilometers into Central African Republic territory.

When I was there in December, I visited the northeastern part of the country and I was led to the political leader of the town which is about several hundred kilometers from the Sudanese border.  But I was led to the political leader who was not the government-appointed prefect who remained in the capital in Bangui pending dispersal of his salary, which he was probably going to be in Bangui for quite some time.  I was led to the sultan and the sultan who has been ruling this town is a Sudanese man and his family has been ruling this town for generations and that’s just kind of the way that it is in that part of the country.  Some of the other speakers have mentioned that these Khartoum-backed Chadian rebels cross through Central African Republic on route to N’Djamena a year ago, and this was just a continuation of a long-standing pattern.

Let me back up just a little bit, I am an anthropologist so I enjoy contexts and I like to tell stories.  I hope you’ll indulge me a little bit in that regard.  I’ve been doing research in the Central African Republic for several years now.  My first visit to the country was in June 2003, just after current President Bozizé seized power in a coup.  And it has been kind of interesting to me to see how it’s just now, only recently, as outside actors start to – in the international community – start to express concern, they noticed that there is this country that does share a border with the southern end of Darfur. 

And so people are starting to take notice of Central African Republic but this notice often comes in the form of concern over the spreading of the Darfur conflict.  And in this presentation I’d like to complicate that viral picture of conflicts, a little bit to explore some of the political dimensions to conflict in the Central African Republic.

I have three main points that I’d like to make about the political context in CAR.  First, I’d like to talk about the militarized regional economy from Cameroon to Chad to Central African Republic to Sudan.  For that, I’ll draw a little bit on what René was talking about, some of these liberators, the story of these people who some Chadians anyway, who helped Bozizé take power in 2003.

Secondly, I’d like to talk about how fragile the Central African Republic is given the regional context.  Jim mentioned that it’s been hard to tell whether the rebels operating in the northeast of Central African Republic are backed by Sudan or not.  But in some ways that’s kind of immaterial because what we’ve seen is that it takes very, very little for a rebel group to take towns in the Central African Republic.  And that the same time as we raise alarm over how fragile is, I also want to drawn a little bit of historical context and remember that no Central African government has ever controlled the country’s territory.  There’s an expression in Bangui [foreign language] the state stops 12 kilometers from the city center and it’s only a slight exaggeration.

And then thirdly, I’d like to talk a little bit about civilian military tensions in the Central African Republic as a source of conflict because I think that in this area there is perhaps an under explored potential for constructive engagement in terms of security sector reform.

When I talk about a militarized economy, what do I mean?  Well, I think that these liberators are a really good illustration.  And for these comments, I draw both on my own research and also that of a colleague, Mariel du Bois who has done research, interviewing some of these liberators in southern Chad in September of last year.  A little bit about Bozizé, his history.  He was seen as very loyal to President Petase throughout the years.  He even served time in prison on behalf of Petase but Petase was becoming increasingly paranoid and sacked him. 

Bozizé was the chief of staff of the army until October 2001.  Petase fired him and Bozizé retreated northward and gathered some adherents and decided to make an attack on Bangui to try to seize power.  He was pushed back and retreated northward again and then regrouped and rearmed on Chadian territory, having won support of President Déby.  He also recruited Chadians towards his cause and estimates place his strength of fighters, those who were Chadians at about a third of his fighting forces.  And these were the demobilized soldiers and kind of troublemakers of that kind.  They were given 60,000 CFA francs when they joined and they were promised 10 million, they say anyway, but they were promised 10 million Central African francs after they were successful.  10 million Central African francs is about $20,000 US.  It’s quite a substantial sum of money.  So you can see why if that was what they were promised, it seemed like a good idea to join up.

So they went down and they did take the capital and it actually wasn’t right away that they came to Bozizé and asked for their payment.  Some of them got jobs in the Central African Republic, in the state security sector.  Some of them did other work in the capital but after about a year they got tired of this and started demanding more payment and marched on the presidential mansion and caused a lot of trouble.  They were clashes with the military and several people died.  And at that point they were transported northward, back across the border to Gore, a town in southern Chad. 

And they were actually given some money.  They were given not the full 10 million Central African francs that they had asked for but they were given 1 million franc CFA which still about $2,000.  And they were given this money in a ceremony that was presided over by some Chadian officials and also by President Bozizé’s son.  And it’s not clear whether the money came from Chad or from France or from Central African Republic.  Once they got their money, these guys had big parties in the area and brought in singers from N’Djamena and it was a party for several months, at which point all the money was gone and that was the end of that.

But where are these men now.  Some have gone on to join Chadian rebel groups such as the FUC and so whereas previously they had been sort of allied with Déby, fighting on behalf of Bozizé and now they’re opposed to Déby but now that they have approached them all, they are now on Déby’s side again.  These kind of changes, some are living in refugee camps that were set up for Central Africans in southern Chad even though they are Chadian and some have joined the coup de haute gang, the highway bandits that are so prevalent in the region.  And all say that they would gladly, when asked, they said they would gladly join another armed group if they were given that option. 

But I think it’s important to note too that they all say that they listen eagerly to the radio and hopes that the disarmament program, that the reintegration component which would be some money, some way to start maybe a small business, something like that.  They all listen eagerly to the radio and hopes that that would be announced also.

So it’s not so much necessarily that they love fighting, it’s simply that this is a viable economic option in an area that has very few.  So fighting is not necessary ideological for some of these people but it’s a well paying job.  And I think if we want to understand why conflict has become so long standing in this region, we need to come to grips with this daily reality that people face.  So when people call for the need for the signing of a peace accord with rebel groups, in at least the Central African context, in the Central African Republic that may be an important first step. 

But I think if the peace accords don’t change some of these, don’t include provisions that help change these dynamics whereby joining an armed group is the only viable economic option for many people, then oh wow – my time is running up quickly, I have to rush ahead.  But if that doesn’t change, that is still the option that people have then it’s going to be the phenomenon that’s going to stay around.

So Central African Republic is a very fragile country given the regional context.  When the UFDR, the l’ Union des forces Démocratiques, it took several towns, it’s the rebel group operating in the northeast.  When they took several towns in late October to November 2006, a general pattern played out.  When it became clear that the rebels were approaching, the government soldiers, the faka and the gendarmes grabbed their small arms and fled off into the bush together with all of the civilians and they hid out there.  And the rebels just kind of had taken the town without any fighting. 

Once the rebels had been chased back primarily by French soldiers who were in the country under the framework of a military assistance program.  Once the French had chased the rebels out, then the Central African Armed Forces returned and were happy to torture any suspected rebel collaborators and burn civilian houses and other kinds of retaliation against the local population.  But they are not going to necessarily defend the towns in the event of any kind of onslaught.

Two countries are currently very important to the maintenance of relative stability in Central African Republic and those are Chad and France.  In addition to 150 Chadian soldiers that are located on the border in the northwest between Chad and Central African Republic and who are they under the framework of joint order protection agreement, there are also the strongest if not largest contingent in the form of a regional peacekeeping force that has been present in Central African Republic since January 2003 is Chadian.  In addition to these sort of more regular government soldiers present in terms of Central African Republic, Bozizé also has a personal guard contingent of Chadians.

But despite his very close relationship with Chad, I think that in the broader regional context, looking at Sudan, also positions in Central African Republic are not necessarily so ideological.  There was an incident in December that I think is kind of illustrative.  Bozizé had been accusing Sudan of supporting this rebel group that was operating on his territory.  He was very eager to capitalize on the idea that this was the spreading of the Darfur conflict because that might be a way to bring in peacekeepers so people would help him stay in power. 

So he had been making these claims but al-Bashir wanted to talk to him and so he sent his personal plane to Bangui in the beginning of December for Bozizé to come to Khartoum so they could discuss.  At that point, Déby found out about this intended meeting and made it clear to Bozizé that if he went his personal guard contingent of Chadians would very quickly be pulled.  And Bozizé decided that that was not, that this meeting wasn’t worth it to him -- that these soldiers were quite important to him.  And so the plane returned to Khartoum empty, without its intended passenger.

Then on the French side, as I mentioned, the French had been very important.  They are predicated as joint maneuvers between the French soldiers and the Central African soldiers to turn back the rebels.  The French assistance turned out to be decisive and it was – they engaged in both, on the ground combat and then also had air support.  Privately, French military officials in Bangui say that France would like to drawn down its rule in the country.  They certainly don’t want to be engaged in man-to-man combat in northeast and Central African Republic and they do see it as somewhat likely that their presence will be reduced to some extent.  But given the length and depth of this relationship I don’t think that they will simply abandon the country.

Then just briefly on civilian military tensions, I was just discussing the situation in Central African Republic with a friend who has been studying it for a lot longer than I have and I emphasize the need for real security sector performed and he just kind of sighed because that’s something that people have been saying for decades.  And the French, in particular, have been trying to enact for decades to little effect.  But it still remains a very important piece of the puzzle I think as some of the stories that I told earlier allude to the state security sector is a big cause of conflict for many people in the country also.

I know I’m out of time so I guess I’ll just wrap up there and I’m always happy to take more question but I’ll just conclude say that I think that this idea of the spreading of the Darfur conflict into Central African Republic has turned a relative spotlight on to the country recently.  In reality, I think the situation there owes more to internal and regional dynamics of this militarized economy, the civilian military tensions and just a very fragile central state than Darfur as virus metaphor might suggest, but that doesn’t diminish the need for engagement and/or it also doesn’t diminish the – make the suffering of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced civilians any less.  Thank you.

Mauro de Lorenzo:  Thank you very much.  We’re going to turn to our final panelist Alex de Waal who has been working in Sudan for more than 20 years, his doctoral dissertation on the politics of famine in Darfur later published as “Famine that Kills” as a foundational textbook for the study of humanitarianism and for the study of the political economy of Darfur and the Sudan.  He currently wear several hats as a program director at the Social Science Research Council, as a fellow at the Center for Global Equity at Harvard University and as the director of Justice Africa, an organization in London.  Thank you very much for coming today.

Alex de Waal:  Thank you very much, and it’s a pleasure to be here.  The three things I want to say and the first is about how complicated the Darfur crisis is.  And in that respect I think it is extremely valuable to put it in the context of Chad and CAR because as René had said, the Darfur war began as a spill over from Chad and many of us thought this war began in Chad it will end in Chad.  And I suspect that’s actually what’s happening.  Secondly, I want to ask the question why has US policy failed with respect to Darfur, that is.  And thirdly, looking at the implications of that failure for regional politics and regional attempts at peacemaking.

Very briefly on why Darfur is complicated now.  Louisa said something interesting which is very true of Darfur, Omar al-Bashir is a dictator but he has no authority to be on the first checkpoint outside of Khartoum.  And this is a characteristic of all these sorts of governments.  They are authoritarian but actually outside major metropolitan centers, and in the case of Sudan, outside the central regions which are well-governed, prosperous middle income enclave.  If you go into the region, their authority doesn’t run there.  Their authority is not by command; it’s by negotiation.  And typically, the way the Sudan government has conducted its laws over the last 25 years is faced with a major military threat, it mobilizes. 

It’s army is not up to job, it mobilizes proxies.  It sends those proxies out as the vanguard and then spends five or six years trying to clear up the mess because it doesn’t control the proxies, the proxies defect to the other side.  It is faced with a situation of degradation and anarchy in which those proxies, those militias, are a threat to the army itself.  And that’s what’s happening in Darfur now.

What we have in Darfur is the aftermath of the immense counterinsurgency ethnic cleansing campaigns of 2003-2004.  And that aftermath is mass displacement, ethnic cleansing if you like, but it is not being reversed, militarization, fractionalization on all sides and a host of groups that the government frankly does not control.  One of the errors made by the UN Security Council was to demand that the government disarm the Janjaweed within 30 days.  And probably Janjaweed are more powerful than the government, ergo the government cannot disarm them.  Still less can the UN disarm them. 

The only way that they can be disarmed is by consent.  And the Sudan government’s preferred way of doing that, which is in some respects a quite sensible way of doing it, is to absorb them into the army, control them, pay them, diminish the economic incentives for them to fight and then begin to demobilize them and the Sudanese army generals do not like the Janjaweed.  They are frightened of them, they are embarrassed by them and they know the consequences of them, the militia strategy followed by military intelligence that is a rival power center to the army in Khartoum.

So what we have is aftermath of that.  We have a situation in which over the last 12 months in Darfur there probably have been 5,000 or 6,000 civilians deaths and comparable number of military deaths.  The largest two sources of military deaths have been, and deaths are all number one, two failed army offensives in northern Darfur in August and September of last year, in which the army sent ill-trained forces into the front line, were wiped out by the rebels in north Darfur.  And a major intertribal fight in south Darfur between two groups that were armed by the government, two Arab tribes, the Targem who are absorbed into the Nomadic police and the northern Razegat who are absorbed into the Border Intelligence Guards. 

These two groups have been fighting each other over a local issue.  Four hundred people have been killed, the largest single episode of casualties in Darfur in recent months.  The government trying to reconcile them, it couldn’t.  One of the militias surrounded government offices with its armored vehicles and the government was less powerful. 

So we have fighting also among the rebel groups, we have some of the groups that signed this agreement being out of control also killing peacekeepers and we have ongoing attacks by new emerging Janjaweed forces that are at the same as the Janjaweed, are sending groups into north Darfur.  These are groups armed and supported by military intelligence.  The army is very unhappy about this.  At the same time that this is happening, the rebels are talking to the Janjaweed and then you have rebel Janjaweed agreements in different parts of Darfur or with several hundred of the Janjaweed defecting, joining the other side.

So you have this type of fractionalization, endless, myriad, a chameleon-like armed groups shifting sides, shifting positions that René described for Darfur.  When the first Chadian armed groups, the CDI arrived Darfur 20 years ago, the arrived with an Arab supremacist ideology.  That is now gone.

You may see statements about it but frankly they are all interested in power and survival, local politics and you get very close relatives of Mousa Hilal, the Janjaweed leader, actually doing business with the rebels.  You get some of the rebels joining the government, etc., etc.  It doesn’t follow any of those clear lines and they have existed a few ago.  One thing you will probably hear about over the coming days is that the army has sent a large battalion to a town of Culvas.  Culvas is close to the Chad border.  Surrounding the town, that group in the town is called the Gimer. 

The Gimer, when I was in Darfur, describe themselves as a non-Arab group.  Recently, they’ve taken to describing themselves as Arabs for political reasons.  They received arms from the government and they formed a militia.  They fell out with the government recently.  I’m not quite sure why it may be because they are in dispute with another group, the Filata that was owned by the government.  The Filata are more numerous, more politically significant, the government will support the Filata, preferably to the Gimer.  The Gimer may be saying, okay, we don’t like this.  So we have a stand off at the moment between the militia that was owned by the government and government forces.  There could be fighting, there could be a lot of people killed there.  Is this genocide?  I’ll leave that for you to judge.

Why hasn’t US policy worked?  There are two schools of thought on this.  One is, we haven’t tried hard enough and this is what we hear from most commentators.  The other is we haven’t been smart enough.  I put myself in the second camp.  I find it extraordinary that Darfur, and I care about Darfur, I’m delighted there’s attention to Darfur.  I’ve spent 15 years of my life explaining where Darfur was, I don’t need to do that anymore. 

I consider myself a friend of Darfur but I find it extraordinary that the US government, at the senior level are spending more time in Darfur than on China.  This is what the former Deputy Secretary Zoellick told me and that’s I don’t think frankly or to be what the US government’s priority is in global affairs. 

I think definitely the suffering of Darfur, the war, the killings, the atrocities need to be stopped but in global terms, I think Darfur has received an extraordinary amount of attention.  So I don’t think it’s from lack of attention, lack of leverage that it expels.  I think because it hasn’t been smart enough.

Why did the policy succeed with regard north and south?  Why did we get a north-south peace.  I think we got it for several reasons.  Number one, between 2001, September 11th and the immediate aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, US leverage was at its height.  And the US strode the world’s stage unchallenged.  There was a consensus on this.  There was a consensus between the United States, between Europe, between the Arab countries and the states in the region.  Let’s not forget that the number one reason why the Sudan government closed down the terrorist training camps that it had in the mid 1990s was because the Ethiopian government rolled tank divisions across the border and took the towns. 

No one listened because his government was a piranha state.  It was true.  An Ethiopian tank division on the outskirts of a major town in Northern Sudan has a lot more leverage than resolutions that the UN Security Council.  As a matter of fact, it isn’t popularly known in historical record but unless that is like that, the situation is likely to be repeated. 

Frankly, our leverage is Sudan is much less and I’m actually a critic, I’m an opponent of military action against Sudan.  I don’t think it would work, I think it would be very counterproductive.  So I’m not advocating that, I’m just pointing out that the relative leverage that there is now compared to what there was.  And of course, the rise of China as an alternative power center is important in that.

I think the most important point was there was carroting.  There was a single policy objective and it was a policy objective that clearly explains to the Sudan government and ultimately acceptable to the Sudan government which was peace and as a result the US government will reward the Sudan government with recognition and support for its policy of democratization and national unity.

Now, the reason why the US government changed that policy is, of course, Darfur.  And that cannot be laid at the door of the US government.  That is the fault of Khartoum.  But the point that I want to make is having one priority, one objective as absolutely clear, as absolutely critical.  Having worked on Sudan policy for practically 20 years, the international community collectively can usually only do one thing in Sudan over a three-four year period.  If you trying to do three or four things -- you’re not going to achieve any of them.  So think, what is the A, let’s forget about the B and the C.  What is the A?

And the final point is Sudanese ownership.  The north-south agreement was on process with something that was actually owned by the Sudanese negotiated by them.  One of the points that Senator Danforth repeatedly made was he said, the world is not going to come in and supervise and guarantee this agreement, you have to do it yourselves.  And that’s the other core lesson.  Things work if they are done by the people of Sudan themselves, we cannot impose solutions from the outside as much as some of us would like to do so.

And I think as far as Sudan is concerned, the center of gravity of Sudanese concern, especially the government concerned, is a set of concerns around the country as a whole, the unity of Sudan which is likely to be contested, the stability, basic governance, basic functions of governments and democratization.  That is the center of gravity of Sudanese concerns.  Now what happened over Darfur?  Number one, the leverage of the U.S. was less.  It was reduced because of events in the Middle East, the bluff being called if you like of US invincibility, the rise of China.  It was reduced because of the lack of consensus.  There is no consensus between Washington and Europe and it may be that Europeans are not doing enough. 

I personally would like to see them do more but also they maybe would be happier to do more if there was greater clarity on what was the objective.  The Arab countries are no longer, almost automatically on the side.  Let’s not forget 12 years ago agents based in Sudan tried to assassinate the Egyptian president which did not do much with Sudanese-Egyptian relations. 

The Egyptians also had troops on the border occupying a contested area.  And that pressure was also very important in the north-south piece.  The Egyptians were not wholehearted supporters of it and they were not obstacles to what the US was trying to do and the way they are now.  And of course, the region, the countries of the region, Sudan is now basically surrounded by friendly countries and I’ll come back to that point, Chad being a partial exception but Chad is not a threat in the way that the Ethiopians along with the Eritreans and the Uganda, well they have, at one point probably about 10,000 or 12,000 elite troops on Sudanese soil with army brigades.  I mean that is much more serious than a handful of Chadian soldiers prowling across and the occasional raid.

Now, here I would respectfully disagree with James Swan.  I agree that the US has had multiple policy objectives and they are laudable but I would argue that a huge, a disproportionate amount of the US policy, energy and diplomatic time has been invested in this issue over transition from African Unions to UN troops.  I would argue that during the talks where I was part of the mediation team.  And in the years since Abuja concluded, which was a year ago on Santa Day, that has been the overwhelming preoccupation of the US policy establishments that the Department of National Security Council, has set.  And as a result of that, a lot of other things are being neglected.

In August, the necessity was recognized that the rebel groups that haven’t signed must unite.  They actually came together in one location in November and they sat down for four months.  They just dispersed last week.  The US made a number of statements in support of this.  Nothing actually happened.  No US person went to visit.  The US said it would implement – it would support the implementation of a Darfur peace agreement.  It would send people to help with verifications, standing up the commissions and the institutions. 

That actually didn’t happen.  The US said it would, and actually when I say US, I should also say the Europeans, the UN, etc., we’re here in Washington so the target becomes the US but it is frankly unfair to single out the US on this.  The US and Europeans, etc. said they would make the cease fire commission and monitoring work.  Now, in the Darfur peace agreement there are provisions banning hostile military flights, banning the use of AU and UN insignia on military airplanes.  And their provisions are monitoring these.  None of the monitoring are actually being done.

Now, in the north-south piece there was also a ban on offensive military flights.  It was monitored and it was respected.  It was monitored internally.  Complaints were made at the high level it was respected.  Here, there hasn’t been any monitoring, there haven’t been any complaints, there haven’t been any follow-up.  And it has been routinely, flagrantly violated. 

One could make the argument, oh we can’t trust Khartoum therefore we need to shoot down their planes, etc., etc.  But hold on a moment, shouldn’t we try the intermediate step of actually fulfilling our part of this deal before we condemn the Sudan government for violating its part.  I’m no friend of the Sudan government but I do feel that we have missed major opportunities by this focus on the transition from the AU to UN.  And I think it’s – there’s just a couple of misleading adverse implications.

And the most important of this is that there has been an inflation of the expectation of what the UN troops can do.  Frankly, the UN won’t be able to do much more than the AU is doing now.  It’s basically a rehashing operation.  The mandate won’t be that much tougher.  It’s a Chapter 7 mandate but actually it is a Chapter 7 mandate to use force in defense and force protection, in exceptional circumstances.  This is not a force that will police Darfur.  It is the actual activities to be conducted by any UN force or any hybrid force are derived from the implementation plan drawn up as part of the Darfur peace agreement. 

And as I worked on it I can tell you what the conclusions were, what that force could do and the recommendation of the size of that force which has three phases starting at 14,000 going up to 21,000 to protect humanitarian supply routes, etc., etc. -- as long as there is a cease fire.  That was what was taken by the UN Security Council.  The UN Security Council is not mandating a force to intervene and go into some Janjaweed and fight the Sudan government.

But there has been a conflation of what the UN force would do and what a military intervention would do.  And that confused and alarmed a lot of people in Khartoum just as it unrealistically raised the hopes of many Darfurians, many rebels and actually helped contribute to that in transition.  They are refusing to sign the peace agreement.  And many of the civilian supporters, the more militant civilian Islamists in Khartoum objected to the UN Force on those groups. 

Sudanese generals did not – the Sudanese force commanders met in June and July last year and said, oh we have no problems with the UN.  It was Bashir who overruled them.  And he overruled them for a couple of reasons.  And the most important being that his own domestic constituencies, he insists he had militant ones he had to deal with.  I realize I’m running out of time.  And he also realize this was a quick win.  He could stand up, stand tall in the Arab world saying I’m defying the US, I’m defying the UN, very confident but actually these were empty threats.

But most importantly, what he could do and he realized this after he had done it, this was not a strategic thing.  He is not a strategic thinker; this is very tactical.  He realized that he was tying down the efforts of the US and the UN in what is essentially a blind alley, a false corridor of transition from the AU to the UN, which actually means very, very little in terms of what Darfur is all about. 

As it were, if you take this war of words that’s going on between Washington and Khartoum and you think of it as an actual military confrontation, metaphorically, what’s happened is Washington has been fighting on Khartoum’s terms, the battle that Khartoum wants it to fight and the battle that Khartoum will win because no one is going to attack Sudan with missiles.  Whereas the real battle that needs to be fought, the real center of gravity concerns Sudan as a whole, the future of Sudan that experiments in democratization, the elections of next year, the liberalization of the political culture of Sudan, dealing with the future of Sudan.  And that is being almost completely abandoned.  And that is where the Sudanese has been active because that’s where it’s really concerned about.

Now, the impact of this on regional politics is very interesting because Bashir doesn’t really know what he wants.  And even if he knew what he wants he is probably not powerful enough within his own government which has multiple power centers to prevail.  He is powerful enough to say no, he is not powerful enough to say yes.  To say yes to a peace means sacrificing one of his close colleagues, and that might be the guy who turns around and stabs him in the back.  He can’t do that. 

He is powerful enough to say no.  He knows what he doesn’t want and what he doesn’t want is he doesn’t want us, the US, the UN, the UK running Darfur.  He doesn’t want a major international force that would control Darfur.  He doesn’t want the US and others in control of his country’s politics.  And he has two allies in that.  He has Libya and he has Eritrea for their own completely different reasons, their own completely separate calculations, they also don’t want the same thing.

Now, Eritrea is in a state of friend conflict with Sudan.  It is arming and supporting the most radical of the Darfurian rebels but the most senior Eritrean security officials are flying around in planes supplied by Sudanese security.  This is part of the opportunism of the politics of this area and for someone like René or Louisa this would not be a surprise that someone whom you are paying can be arming or your apparent enemies.  And the reason for it is that there was a peace deal done in eastern Sudan last October by natural action.  It was between Khartoum and Asmara, the Eritrean capital. 

And what the Eritreans did is they basically rolled up the eastern rebels and presented them as a package to Khartoum, kept out the international community.  No international guarantees, no international monitors.  The Sudanese say, can you do the same thing for Darfur for us, with the Libyan help and can you also do the same with Chad?  Can you do a deal with Chad?  So we see Eritrean troops in Chad now, seeing the Eritrean political figure security officers in Chad, protecting the Chadian government, putting their troops on the border to protect Chad, trying to unite the Darfurian rebels on something called the National Redemption Front.  In order that this group can be made to be seen very powerful, very credible, in order to do that it has to have a few attacks and kill a few Sudanese soldiers and Bashir doesn’t really mind that very much.  And then they will be delivered, wrapped up and delivered to Khartoum and this deal will keep out the US, the UN, etc.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work or fortunately it doesn’t work.  The majority of the Darfurians don’t trust the Eritreans, they don’t trust Déby, they will do deals with them but everyone is double-crossing the other and that strategy hasn’t work but they are still trying it and they will continue to try it.  They will continue to invest in it as long as this distrust continues.  As long as there is such a profound distrust between Omar al-Bashir and the Sudan government and the United States.  The Sudan government will do everything it can to keep out the international community from running Darfurian affairs.

That’s why I think the US policy made an error by getting their priorities wrong, the wrong way around.  I think that peace should have been the priority, peacekeeping and support of that.  And I think the peace deal that was signed on paper was a very good one.  I think that the Sudan government yielded a lot more than one might have expected.  I think it’s now dead, politically.  I think it’s being discredited, it hasn’t gone anywhere and as a result we have this regional conflict which is not going anywhere. 

I think what’s important now is to find some sort of formula that is a face saving formula and allow both the US government and Bashir to back down.  And we can get back to the real key questions which are number one, the stability, governance, democracy, the overall future of Sudan which is absolutely essential project, which we’ve lost sight of.

Those people who believe in a regime change, there is actually a mechanism for regime change – it’s called elections.  They are guaranteed in the interim national constitution for next year or the year after.  And then the issue of trying to create government or governance in there for Chad and Central African Republic -- I recall, this is my last point, a year ago today in the last days of Abuja, there was a delegation of tribal chiefs to try and get the rebels to sign up and they gave a warning and a caution to the rebels.  And the warning was you may not like this peace agreement, but if you don’t sign it we will have a war of all against all.  We will have what they fawda, anarchy.  And anarchy is the worst crime a government can commit, allowing the complete collapse of governments of law and order.

And secondly, they warned the rebels, they counseled, they said, you’re fighting against the government but do not fight against government.  And that is an absolutely crucial distinction.  And what I fear is, for those of us who are long term critics of the Sudan government and who would be delighted if it would be replaced by a more democratic alternative.  We do not want to see the absence of government completely because that would be a worst disaster.

Mauro de Lorenzo:  Alex, thank you so much.  We have some time questions if anybody has one.  And someone with the microphone, when you ask a question if you could just identify yourself that would be helpful.

Question:  This question is for Mr. James Swan, I’m Iyna Fund [phonetic] from Voice of America and to what degree of damage do you think has China’s investment in Sudan caused to the international effort to solve Darfur’s situation?  And the second question, whether the US government has taken any punitive action against the countries with close ties to the Sudanese government?  Thank you.

James Swan:  As I mentioned in my earlier remarks we have been in very close dialogue with the Chinese with respect to developments in Sudan and in Darfur.  These have included consultations in the Security Council, they included consultations around the November agreement to accept the three phase peacekeeping operation in Sudan.  They have included consultations between Special Envoy Natsios and the Chinese. 

Deputy Secretary Negroponte also was in China earlier.  Our Assistant Secretary has consulted with the Chinese, Policy Planning has consulted with their Chinese counterparts so there is a range of levels and effort to coordinate with the Chinese on a policy in Sudan.  I think that Chinese investments and economic interests do afford a certain leverage with respect to Khartoum and it’s our strong desire that China would apply that leverage to try to persuade the Khartoum government to accept and indeed move forward with implementation of the hybrid operation as has been agreed in principle.  So, to that extent we’ll continue to work closely with the Chinese to try to move this forward.

Question:  Thank you, I’m from the Embassy of Sudan.  One element of the presentation here is one absent element.  The presentation here is a focus on the rebel movement in Darfur.  It has been – it started at three and now there are 18 factions.  And this is a major impediment in the peace in Darfur.  Whatever pressures, sanctions or whatever is done, the government of Sudan is not going to solve the problem.  Dr. de Waal has correctly said that some, even now some periphery and no control even in Darfur.  In such situations, even the government wants today to have peace, it could not achieve that. 

The other thing is concerning the effect of sanctions and policies of isolation.  Understandable on the government side to have some pressures but if the pressures on one side, they are giving wrong signal to the other sides.  They are just waiting for the international community to come in Darfur to solve the problem for them, which is also, if such happens, is going to – my personal view – is going to even complicate the situation.  If you are now thinking of reading in dimensions, we might at that time think of international dimensions as well.

Alex de Waal:  I agree that’s the, you know, you can’t clap with one hand.  And there is a difficulty of getting the rebels who are fragment to the negotiating table.  I have said, that really rebels rarely need any assistance in creating disunity amongst themselves.  They are very good on it on their own.  But their efforts are not assisted by the fact that the Sudan government attacks their locations on several occasions using aircraft which it would have been helpful had the Sudan air force were trained for that action. 

I would also like to say that, and I realize that the Darfur peace agreement was in many ways, a shotgun marriage.  And it was clear to me that the Sudan government delegation in Abuja wanted to – preferred to do a deal leading to all the factions and it was left with just one, Minni Minawi, who in fact was the, probably the weakest but the most abusive.  But the reality has been over the last month. 

If you look at the reports of the Cease Fire Commission, about 75% of the reported abuses are by the government forces.  Now that government forces includes Minni Minawi forces and they are responsible, especially in South Darfur for the great majority of those.  So the Sudan government is in a situation where the number four in the government Minni Minawi is trying to have it both ways.  He’s trying to be a member but he’s also trying to be a rebel and his forces are, it seems very probably, it hasn’t been proven, that they actually killed some peacekeepers recently. 

But, again, and the probability factor is we don’t know quite know what the line of command and control is but the presence of Minni Minawi as the representative of the Darfur rebels in the country is profoundly problematic because this man does not command support in Darfur.  He has a terrible reputation.  After Darfur peace agreement, his forces were driven out of most of Darfur, north of Darfur, after which the situation calmed down.

Question:  Jonathan Kyle from the Century Foundation.  Your remarks, I think one of the tight line points is that the situation is complex and that’s at least one of the things I’ll be taking away from this.  I’m not sure though that that message is really filtering down and being communicated to the public, the world public.  We hear throw away lines, perhaps of genocide in Darfur.  So I’d like to pin Dr. de Waal down on his comment that he’ll leave that for us to decide.  Is there genocide in your opinion and if not, why and if yes, why?  And perhaps you could come up with a better term for it. 

And then I’ll add also is a followup to Mr. Swan, there seems to be a little disagreement amongst State Department officials about exactly how to characterize what is going on in Darfur.  I know for example, Mr. Natsios refrains from using the term genocide.  I guess a comment on Mr. de Waal’s, please.

Alex de Waal:  It’s very easy to put a slogan – let me start again.  A lot of public policy, official policy in Darfur has been policy by Op Ed, by slogan, by post and it is not possible to condense the reality of the situation into an Op Ed or a post or a slogan.  You can say – you can very easily have a slogan, you know, its genocide.  Stop genocide.  It’s very much more difficult to say, it’s a little bit of genocide, plus blah-blah-blah. 

It simply can’t be done.  And that’s a very unfortunate reality for those of us who are trying to give a slightly more complicated message.  Now, is it genocide or not?  There’s no one going genocidal massacre.  Most of north Darfur is calm.  A couple of military confrontations, a few skirmishes.  My colleague Pat came back from a month-long tour and there are no signs of malnutrition.  People are doing fine.  I mean, another illusion is that people are not being reached by aid agencies, most must be starving. 

My research in the famine of 1984-85 found that 90% of the contribution to people’s prosperity were their own efforts.  And in areas of north Darfur where there are no agencies, no UN, etc., etc., people are actually basically doing okay.  I mean it would be great if there was assistance provided but they’re not starving.

 Again, there’s a problem over these figures.  The 84-85 famine killed 100,000 people.  We saw pictures of stick-thin kids and so on and we know what it looks like when you have a famine that kills 100,000 people.  We don’t have those pictures.  We think we don’t.

Getting back to the genocide question, there is no genocidal massacre, there is no war of Arabs against Africans.  What there is, is the aftermath of a huge and extremely violent ethnic cleansing counter insurgency campaign in 2003-2004 which tens of thousands were killed and 2 million displaced which unleashed its humanitarian crisis, which is not being reversed.  And the situation, on the region, is heavily armed.  It’s even more heavily armed than it was then, with huge potential for violence. 

Now, will that or should there be a new outbreak of violence which is quite possible.  Will that violence be genocidal?  It could be.  It could not be.  On the current trajectory it is likely to take different forms which would be much more complicated.  It would be much more likely than Chadian wars of the 1980s, but it’s also opportunistic alliances and it wouldn’t fit any o r those genocidal definitions but we do have a series of events in 2003 and 2004 which fit that definition, which is a very, very broad definition of the Genocide Convention which is not being reversed.

James Swan:  You asked about the US position on this.  The President gave a speech on April 18th at the Holocaust Memorial in which he labeled this genocide.  So when the US policy is very clearly that this is indeed a case of genocide, I think that Special Envoy Natsios and some of his testimony was trying to reflect some of the complexities that Prof. de Waal has just illuminated.  Although if you read that closely, he also concludes in that testimony that indeed it is still genocide.  But in essence, with respect to the position of the United States government, it has been stated clearly by President Bush within just the past several weeks.  And that is the position that continues to govern our approach to the situation.

Question:  Thanks to all the panelists.  I would like to ask - Shaka Sayid, Moslem Old Institute in Virginia – Mr. de Vaal and Mr. Swan, what is your detailed definition of what exactly the stakes for the rebels, what do they want exactly and where do they come from and are they all the same, are they different, and what does this do to the handling of the crisis in Darfur.  The same for Mr. Swan because unless we define clearly what is going on, we are going to handle it and label it differently.  So I need to know your two versions of this.

Alex de Waal:  The rebels are a coalition of many, many different groups with different interests and they include an elite interest which is in remedying the gross neglect of Darfur over the years.  A lot of local interest in terms of bringing into local violations, local [indiscernible].  There’s a group among them that are split off from the Islamic movement in Sudan, they were part of those who disagreed with President Bashir when he went into conflict with Hassan al Turabi.  And in some ways you can see the Darfur conflict as a struggle over the ruins of the radical Islamic project in Sudan.  And then some of them are frankly criminals.  There are some that are largely bandits and killers, a minority I should say, in that regard. 

But I’ll just, very briefly, I should also add that the neglect, the exploitation, the abuse, the Arabs of Darfur has also suffered.  They haven’t been given much of a voice and their exclusion from the debate has often pushed them in acting as tools of the Sudan government even when their interests do not converge.

James Swan:  I’m thinking in general terms we see it as a group in Darfur that sees itself as historically marginalized by the leadership in Khartoum and the I believe that it has not had access to the sort of resources, power and influence that have passed through Khartoum as the primary forum for political leadership in the country.  I think clearly with the emergence of this plethora of new rebel groups, there is also a significant element of personal ambition that of course has crept into the emergency of many of these new individual rebel leaders.  We need to take that into consideration as well.

Mauro de Lorenzo:  Thanks, Jim, and thanks to all the panelists.  We’ve run out of time unfortunately.  Thank you for coming and continue these discussions.  Thanks.

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