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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 03/04
Capturing the Moment: Sudan's Peace Process in the Balance
April 2002
Abstract
Sudan's window of opportunity threatens to become a missed opportunity if the peace process is not revitalised in the near future. Escalation of fighting around the oil fields, increasing use by the government of helicopter gunships against civilian as well as military targets, and indecision surrounding the nature of wider international engagement all put at risk Sudan's best chance for peace since the latest phase of civil war began nearly nineteen years ago. The parties continue to signal that they are ready to negotiate seriously. The international community, and in particular the United States, must seize this opportunity to revitalise the peace process before the two sides re-commit themselves to resolving Africa's longest conflict on the battlefield.
A government helicopter gunship attack which resulted in the killing of at least two dozen women and children lined up to receive food in the remote southern village of Bieh highlighted yet again the war's terrible cost. The tragedy, however, served as an impetus for progress on one of U.S. Special Peace Envoy John Danforth's proposed humanitarian confidence-building tests - a protocol focused on the protection of civilians. Widespread condemnation from human rights organisations, relief agencies, the UN, and the international community forced Khartoum to accept international monitors for the agreement on the protection of civilians, which both parties had signed by late March 2002. The incident also accelerated implementation of one of his other key agreements: a local cease-fire in the Nuba Mountains. The parties' willingness to accept all four of Danforth's tests clears the way for the U.S., United Kingdom and Norway to work as an informal "troika" with regional states in an effort to move beyond the Danforth initiative to a more serious negotiating process that addresses the underlying causes of the conflict.
