UNDERSTANDING THE CRISIS IN DARFUR
Listening to Sudanese voices 

Edited by
Abdel Ghaffar M. Ahmed and Leif Manger

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The major context of this book is the conflict in Darfur. The humanitarian disaster unleashed by the conflict has led to the displacement of over a million people. The escalation of the crisis has attracted the attention of the international community and the international media. The conflict has led to allegations of acts of genocide in Darfur and the dispatch of UN/AU observers following the issuance of a UN Security Council resolution on the conflict in Darfur. Several heads of state and government have voiced their serious concern about the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. For the first time, two US Secretaries of State and a couple of other leaders have visited the area. The African Union has also dispatched a force of peacekeepers to the area. These international interventions and the recent signing of a comprehensive peace agreement between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) have resulted in new impetus in the negotiations between the main rebel groups in Darfur, namely the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), and the Government of Sudan. On July 5, 2005, the representatives of SLM/A, JEM and the Government of Sudan signed a “Declaration of Principles for the Resolution of the Sudanese Conflict in Darfur,” under the auspices of the African Union (AU). However, progress is slow and negotiations in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, are continuing.

While the signing of the Declaration of Principles is a major step towards the resolution of the conflict, there is concern that the tendency to simplify the issues, especially via the international media, may undermine the search for a sustainable solution. We feel that there is a clear gap in the information needed to display the complexity of the situation, the diversity of the actors and stakeholders involved, and the local peculiarities as well as the broad national dimension of the causes of the conflict. We also believe that researchers on Sudan, citizens involved in the peace process and other intellectual stakeholders should help to fill this information gap. This book represents such an attempt as it contains reflections on the nature of the crisis and identification of the critical issues presented by concerned parties and individuals, with the aim of contributing to the peace process by suggesting the path to a sustainable peace in the region. 

The book is divided in two main parts. Part One consists of contributions by Sudanese academics, in which various dimensions of the crisis are discussed. Papers by Abdel Ghaffar M. Ahmed, Musa Adam Abdel-Jalil, Atta El-Battahani and Mustafa Babiker are all focused on the general, overall dimensions while also presenting more specific discussions of important issues such as land and land tenure, the history of conflictual relations in the region, ethnic relationships and various types of state-society relations. Part Two of the book is based on discussions held at a meeting in Addis Abeba on July 25 and 26, 2005.  The participants in the meeting were senior Sudanese academics and citizens with particular links to Darfur. The papers in Part One of this volume were all presented at this meeting, which also included general discussions based on the interventions by the participants. There were plenary discussions followed by group discussions of action-oriented recommendations, which were further amplified during a final plenary session and adopted for dissemination to various stakeholders. Part Two thus takes the form of a report of that two-day meeting, starting with a general summary of the major points raised in the proceedings, followed by a detailed report on the actual points made by the individual participants, and finishing, as an annex to this report, with a concept paper presented to the participants as part of the invitation to take part. Finally, the book ends with an appendix in which copies of central document from the Darfur conflict are presented.

Part One and Part Two together thus represent an attempt to present relevant information and reflections on the crisis in Darfur, as well as presenting and reporting on a process that we think is important. The involvement of the Sudanese themselves is the key to any possible solution in Darfur, and by Sudanese we mean Darfurians as well as others. The political and humanitarian crisis must be the concern of all Sudanese, as the major challenge is how to fit a solution to the local crisis in Darfur into a broader context in which a new Sudan is being built. At the time of writing there is a lot of scepticism around, and the new national government is struggling to maintain the momentum of the peace process as well as struggling to show tangible practical results. A solution in Darfur would also be a major contribution to a renewed faith in the possibility of a new, united and stable Sudan. In this context contributions such as those represented by this book must be allowed to play a part.

 
Khartoum, January 2006
Abdel Ghaffar M. Ahmed
Leif Manger

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