Darfur: The Possibility of Peace?
Over recent weeks the possibility for peace has edged nearer,
although negotiations in
Abuja have been
fraught with problems. As things currently stand, the government
of Sudan has signed the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) together
with the SLA/M Minni Minnawi faction. The remaining faction of
the SLA/M headed by Abdelwahid Al Nur and the smaller Justice
and Equality Movement (JEM) have still to sign. They are holding
out for improved compensation and greater guarantees over
security.
Darfur needs
peace. But this peace must be sustainable and perhaps most
importantly implementable. These are serious obstacles, since
without a roadmap to peace it is easy for the Government of
Sudan (GoS) to regress into its appalling human rights record
leaving the people of Darfur without any real recourse to
justice. More importantly, without a serious roadmap to peace,
failures in the proposed peace agreement may be read as a
license to stray off the path of peace with a resulting descent
into political disorder. The International community must
therefore step up and ensure that adequate peace keeping
measures are put in place. This means a UN peace keeping force
since all other possibilities have already demonstrably failed.
