Showing posts with label 2009 Sudan Elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2009 Sudan Elections. Show all posts

Progress in the Doha Talks!

Posted by Kuku on 10:32 PM
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There has been some major progress in Doha, Qatar. The Sudanese Government, represented by Nafi Ali Nafi, held face-to-face meetings with the leadership of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), led by Khalil Ibrahim and is working on signing an 'agreement of good intentions'.

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CPA Four Years On

Posted by Kuku on 12:47 AM
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Earlier this month was the fourth anniversary of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Alex de Waal, as always, has a brilliant piece on the CPA and its current status, vis-a-vis its implementation and future prospects.

(Source: Sudan Tribune)
 Both the parties to the agreement, the NCP and SPLM have arguably failed in several key protocols of the agreement, with most of the blame laying with the NCP. It seems more and more unlikely that the most critical part of the CPA, the national (democratic and free) elections that are to be held in 2009, will take place. These elections are critical for the survival of Sudan as it stands today. Both parties must work hard, along with international pressure, to hold these elections (with some compromise on the situation in Darfur). Without a democratic transition, the real peace dividend of the CPA, the agreement is dead. There have been speculations that the SPLM might unilaterally secede from the north, which is undoubtably one of the worst case scenarios. 

Additionally, the imminent arrest warrant for President Al-Bashir remains a very contentious issue. Like always, only time will tell.

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Khartoum -- Urbanization; Periphery --Marginalization

Posted by Kuku on 3:33 PM
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A great essay written on Alex de Waal's SSRC blog by Munzoul Assal, an anthropologist from Khartoum University, details the current situation with regards to Khartoum's urbanization.

Assal's analysis of the situation is spot on. The tens of thousands of IDPs in and around Khartoum have been almost literally ignored by the regime. Mostly southerners and Darfurians, these people literally live on the less than $1 / day everyone talks about. These large IDP camps, some of which I have visited during my work last summer with SUDO, were the most devastated areas during the rainy season.

Khartoum’s urbanization is pathological. It is the aggregation of people without their integration into a social and political system that enfranchises them and provides for democratic transformation.

The regime has been completely unwilling to provide the most basic amenities to the residents of these camps. Only when it comes time for elections, it starts to give lip service to their plight, and in some cases even allotting some people plots of land so they can remember which box to fill on the ballot. These people are so marginalized that they feel as though they have no future. It is only a matter of time before a serious violent outbreak to occur on a bigger scale, than that after Garang's death.

The failure of integration in Khartoum was brutally manifested in the events that followed the announcement of Garang’s death at the end of July 2005. While many analysts and local media commentators tried to link the rampage in Khartoum to angry southerners, it was found later that those who engaged in burning, killing and looting were not only southerners, but also marginalized people from different parts of the country.

The lack of reintegration on the part of the government will end up hurting it the most. It is imperative to find a way to provide for these people, and most importantly to give these people a reason to return to their homes all around the country. This will not happen until the focus of the government on modernizing Khartoum ends, while all the regions of Sudan (including some of the north) continue to lay in anguish.

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