Establishing an Enduring Peace: A way forward in Darfur

Joshua Owens, MPA


For over five years, peace talks between Darfur rebel groups and the Government of Sudan (GoS) have failed to yield a substantive agreement. Low-level fighting and lawlessness continues, and recent developments indicate a potential relapse into serious conflict. Over the summer major clashes erupted along the North-South border between GoS and Southern-aligned groups (the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – North, or SPLM-N) in Kordofan, which was not allowed to secede with the rest of South Sudan. In November SPLM-N and the main Darfur rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice for Equality Movement (JEM), united to establish the “Sudanese Liberation Front,” with the aim of launching coordinated military attacks across Sudan and forcefully overthrowing the Bashir regime. According to a recent International Crisis Group report, “...the growing war on multiple fronts poses serious dangers for the country, for its future relationship with the Republic of South Sudan and for the stability of the region as a whole."

To build enduring peace, the international community must first realize that the current mediation strategy of facilitating negotiations between insurgent groups and the GoS is fundamentally flawed. Peace talks have failed because they have neglected (1) traditional tribal leaders and (2) building civil society. My reflections are based on my two-year experience as a development program manager in rebel-held territory in the heart of Darfur – near the fighting lines between Darfuri rebels and GoS forces (together with their Janjaweed allies). While there, I worked on a UNDP project to study and address root causes of ongoing conflict and recognized these pitfalls in the peace-building process.

1. Breakdown of the Traditional Leadership Structure
According to local accounts, a strong tribal leadership structure facilitated relatively stable relations between African and Arab tribes in Darfur for decades before the war. Tribal elders led this structure, and it provided the mechanism for maintaining the balance of power equilibrium between tribes and mediating occasional conflicts.

However, during the 1990s, a new group of young, political activists emerged from the African tribes (Fur, Zaghawa, and Masalit) to protest their enduring socio-economic marginalization under Arab hegemony from Khartoum. As this group (Sudanese Liberation Movement or SLM/SLA) amassed support from neighboring Chad and the people in the isolated tribal areas of Darfur, the balance of power shifted from legitimate tribal elders to young insurgent leaders.

When the SLM finally militarized and attacked Sudanese Armed Forces in early 2003, the GoS responded by arming Arab tribes in Darfur and authorizing them to eradicate African tribes. This intervention further disrupted the delicate balance of power that had long existed between Darfuri tribes.

Nevertheless, peace talks are framed primarily as a negotiation between the GoS and rebel groups. Though these insurgents purport to represent the best interests of the African tribes, their primary concern is their own survival. SLA and JEM present unreasonable demands in peace talks and perpetuate the conflict because peace would deprive these young, zealous rebels of their raison d’être and the basis of their authority. Rebel groups continue to wield considerable power and maintain popular support only because local populations are wholly dependent on them for protection.

Therefore, effective peace negotiations and reconciliation must also engage the traditional tribal leaders. These elders are the only legitimate representatives of the best interests of the tribes, and their continued exclusion will undermine any settlement attempt.

2. Shoring Up Civil Society
Second, in order to facilitate long-term peace-building, the international community must help these areas build strong, village-level civil society institutions. According to conventional social science definitions, civil society is the space that (a) exists between the family and the state, (b) connects different families and individuals, and (c) is independent of the state. (Varshney 2001) Civil society organizations are modern and voluntary and generally take the form of cultural, social, economic, or political associations. For example, in Darfuri villages, we attempted to establish agricultural extension networks, community water and health committees, women’s trade groups, and English classes.

Most scholars of conflict agree that civil society play an important role in mitigating violence because these associations connect people from diverse backgrounds, build trust and reciprocity, and facilitate the exchange of view on public issues. In Darfur, building civil society now is vital for peace-building for two reasons: First, civilian-led organizations will help offset the power and voice of armed rebel groups and promote the legitimate leadership of civilian tribal leaders. Second, these organizations can facilitate the ethnic reconciliation process in Darfur by gradually establishing links with civil society groups in rival tribes with similar interests.

Conclusion
Taken together, these steps will help resolve the impasse of negotiations over Darfur. Though international attention has shifted in the past year to the plight of South Sudan, this lingering crisis in the country is no less important.

Philanthropy, defender of civil society

Heather Lord, MPP

“Chorus: Let not thy love to man o'erleap the bounds
Of reason, nor neglect thy wretched state:
So my fond hope suggests thou shalt be free
From these base chains, nor less in power than Jove.

 Prometheus: Not thus — it is not in the Fates that thus
These things should end; crush'd with a thousand wrongs,
A thousand woes, I shall escape these chains.
Necessity is stronger far than art.”
                   – Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

The term “philanthropy” was first used in the Aeschylus work quoted above, a mythical tale about early humans dwelling in dark caves, living and dying at the whim of the gods. Prometheus shows exceptional philanthropos (love of humanity) when he defies the gods to give humans fire. The gift of fire symbolizes the beginning of all knowledge and optimism for the future – the two key ingredients necessary for improving the human condition. Because Prometheus’s gift was an act of rebellion against tyranny, philanthropia became inextricably associated with the arduous battle for a free and just civil society.

This association holds as true today as it did in ancient Greece. Global philanthropy is a massive international industry of strategic charitable organizations and activities broadly defined as “private initiatives for public good, focusing on improved quality of life.”[1] While laws and government policies generally encourage charities to flourish, philanthropy is often referred to as the “independent sector.” This independence is fiercely important. Ideally philanthropy and the state have a collegial relationship; however, like Prometheus, the philanthropic sector often finds itself fighting to defend a concept of justice and humanity at odds with the goals of the state, an unfortunate reality given the potential benefits of philanthropic causes to advance civil society in all societies.

In the United States, we can see an example of this tension in the government’s post-9/11 anti-terrorism funding guidelines which require that no resources from US non-profits fund terrorist organizations or suspicious individuals in a direct or even indirect way. For major foundations operating hundreds of international programs, following the letter of this law means they have to stay abreast of the multiple suspicious persons lists and run background checks on every conference attendee or every local vendor providing key program services in under-resourced high-risk regions. Charitable foundations and the US Treasury Department certainly share a commitment to combat terrorism, but clearly have a different threat calculus. Is the complex Gordian knot of terrorism really best addressed with such a blunt stroke against US-based foundations? Although it may be necessary for the US to want CYA (cover your assets) laws on the books, surely there is a more efficient way to address this problem than diverting foundation assets away from programs and into legal fees as they try ensure against and quell concerns about terrorism funding largely inapplicable to most US foundations.

There are also tensions in other countries as increased indigenous interest in private philanthropy forces a redefinition of the role between the citizen and the state. For example, in China there is some concern in the government that a robust home-grown independent philanthropic sector could invoke a destabilizing, undesirable “Western-style” democracy. The relative difficulty of officially registering a private foundation in China has resulted in growing informal extra-judicial philanthropic “gray market.” The fledgling Chinese Foundation Center was established in 2010 to build in-country philanthropic capacity, but continued crackdowns on freedom of expression in China may have a harmful effect on the burgeoning sector. In another part of the globe, an example of the tension between philanthropy and government in Africa is evidenced in the in the 2009 laws passed in Ethiopia capping NGOs’ foreign-sourced funding at 10% of their total budget and forcing organizations to go through an onerous re-registration process, effectively putting many of them out of business.

Philanthropy makes governments nervous only in countries where civil society makes those same governments nervous. This is all the more reason to consider the philanthropic sector as an essential civil society safeguard worthy of attention and investment. But putting aside strategic considerations (for once), philanthropy at its best is poised to act as a defender and advocate for the forward-looking goals of civil society in all countries, liberal or repressive. Regardless of the many challenges, human optimism remains unbound and hopefully each society will use the forces of philanthropos to fight its way to a better future for all of us. 

E-mail Heather at hlord@princeton.edu or check out her philanthropy blog, www.PhilanthroMeme.com.


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References:
[1] This definition from Wikipedia condenses excellent and extensive work on philanthropy by leading scholars John W. Gardner, Lester Salamon, and Robert Bremner.