Sudan’s Spreading Conflict (II): War in Blue Nile
Africa Report N°204 19 Jun 2013
http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/africa/horn-of-africa/sudan/204-sud
ans-spreading-conflict-ii-war-in-blue-nile.pdf
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The war in Blue Nile state has had a horrible impact, with about a third of
the state’s population in need of humanitarian assistance, including some
150,000 refugees in South Sudan and Ethiopia and approximately 200,000
displaced or severely affected within the state. It resumed in September
2011 because the root causes – mainly the concentration of power and
resources in Sudan’s centre at the expense of its peripheries – had not been
resolved by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). The war pits
against each other old enemies, the long-ruling National Congress Party
(NCP) regime in Khartoum and the northern branch of the Sudan People’s
Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) that won South Sudan’s independence, but
was not able to achieve as much autonomy as it had hoped in Blue Nile. The
conflict’s local and national dimensions are more intermingled than ever,
and it will not end conclusively without a truly comprehensive national
dialogue between the regime and both armed and unarmed oppositions.
Blue Nile state is a “microcosm of Sudan”, inhabited by an array of
communities and deeply divided between “indigenous” and Arab and non-Arab
“newcomers”. The area has long been marginalised, its natural wealth mostly
enriching elites in Khartoum without them sharing power and redistributing
resources. This feature is the main cause of Sudan’s multiple conflicts.
Many had hoped the CPA would transform governance, but neither the NCP nor
the SPLM focused on the reforms that would make “unity attractive” and
prevent South Sudan from pursuing self-determination. Such a right was not
granted to the “two areas” of Blue Nile and South Kordofan, and the CPA
instead offered vague “popular consultations”. In 2011, the process allowed
76,000 Blue Nile citizens to air their grievances, and the SPLM used this to
push for “self-rule”. The consultations were supposed to be finalised before
South Sudan’s July 2011 independence, but once that deadline passed the NCP
was less inclined than ever to share power, let alone to allow local
autonomy.
The SPLM-North (SPLM-N) was supposed to become an opposition political party
after July 2011, but it still had troops, which Khartoum wanted to expel or
disarm expeditiously. This in particular led to the resumption of war in
South Kordofan and Blue Nile. A last-minute deal between the NCP and the
SPLM-N, the 26 June 2011 framework agreement, brokered by the African Union
(AU) and late Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, was rejected by
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Hardliners in his party in particular
disagreed with the agreement’s commitment to a national solution. Since
then, both humanitarian and political negotiations, with international
players confused on whether they should be separated or linked, have largely
stalled.
The SPLM-N in Blue Nile was less prepared for war than in South Kordofan,
where the rebels managed to seize more territory and weapons than they ever
had during the earlier war (1985-2005). In Blue Nile, they were rapidly
pushed toward the South Sudan border and lost Kurmuk, their historical
stronghold on the border with Ethiopia. Addis Ababa, a former SPLM/A
supporter, has refused to help and cautiously remained a neutral mediator.
Even South Sudan, under international pressure, has not proved willing or
able to support former comrades as much as might have been expected given
their historical ties.
The SPLM-N now has united with the main Darfur rebel movements under the
Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) with a more than ever national agenda. But
divisions remain between South Kordofan and Blue Nile, and within Blue Nile
itself, notably over whether the conflict should take a national dimension.
Those differences are benefiting Khartoum’s strategy to limit peace talks
and subsequent agreements to local issues in order to prevent reform – seen
as dilution of NCP power – in the centre. While they partly supported SPLM-N
calls for autonomy during the popular consultation, Blue Nile’s political
elites, including NCP members, are now critical of the SRF’s national agenda
and support a local solution. Yet a local deal is unlikely to address the
root causes of the conflict in Blue Nile, which are not different from those
of the other regions’ conflicts.
This report is the second in a series analysing the spreading conflict in
Sudan’s peripheries. A comprehensive solution, including broader governance
reform and meaningful national dialogue involving the whole armed
opposition, is necessary to end the multiple conflicts and build a durable
peace. Thus, many of the recommendations in the first report, Sudan’s
Spreading Conflict (I): War in South Kordofan (14 February 2013) and the
preceding, Major Reform or More War (29 November 2012), are relevant for
solving chronic conflict in Blue Nile, which goes beyond local dynamics.
Since the 1980s, the state has become a major battleground for the
ideological competition between two opposed models: Khartoum’s attempts at
unifying and centralising the country with a dominant Arab-Islamic identity,
which South Sudan’s separation is paradoxically reviving, versus the rebel
SPLM/A’s and now SRF’s agenda for a more inclusive and devolved Sudan.
Attempts to resolve Blue Nile’s past and current conflicts thus very much
reflect Sudan’s existential dilemma as to how best it should define itself.
RECOMMENDATIONS
To save lives and cope with massive displacement
To the government of Sudan:
1. Refrain from linking humanitarian access and ceasefire to political
conditions in the direct negotiations with the SPLM-N.
2. Allow international humanitarian organisations – UN agencies and
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) – full access to both government- and
SPLM-N-controlled areas of Blue Nile, including from across the South
Sudanese and Ethiopian borders; allow those humanitarian actors to conduct
proper humanitarian assessments and deliver aid involving international
staff, with no presence of government security forces unless they demand
otherwise; and consider guaranteeing the neutrality of the operations by
permitting monitoring by independent international observers.
To the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N):
3. Allow international humanitarian organisations to conduct humanitarian
assessments and deliver aid involving international staff in
SPLM-N-controlled areas, including from government-controlled areas, with no
SPLM-N military or intelligence presence, unless the humanitarian
organisations demand otherwise; and ensure, within its capabilities, that
all humanitarian aid goes to civilians and that combatants are separated
from civilians and not based in refugee camps.
To address the local dimensions of the Blue Nile conflict
To the government of Sudan and the SPLM-N:
4. Negotiate a ceasefire in the “two areas” of South Kordofan and Blue Nile
to facilitate both humanitarian operations and negotiations, including at
the national level.
5. Resume the popular consultation process in Blue Nile where it was left
at the outbreak of the conflict so that it can serve as a basis for state-
as well as national-level negotiations.
To the government of Sudan:
6. Acknowledge the popular consultations or any purely local process will
not be sufficient to solve the conflict, and should run in parallel with a
national process including the whole armed opposition.
7. Re-legalise the SPLM-N as a political party allowed to operate in all
Sudan; and reinstate SPLM-N elected officials at their pre-war positions.
8. Allow the SPLM-N to retain its troops for a transitional period,
following well-monitored security arrangements.
To initiate a meaningful national dialogue and transition
To the government of Sudan:
9. Bring the NCP, the SRF, other opposition forces and civil society groups
together in an arrangement to govern for a limited period with well-defined
parameters (based on agreed principles reiterated in previous agreements)
that is intended to lead first to a comprehensive ceasefire and humanitarian
access to conflict areas; and allow the political forces to flesh out a
roadmap for a durable peace process, perhaps taking the 28 June 2011
framework agreement and the 24 April 2013 AUHIP draft Declaration of Common
Intent as a basis for discussion of a national transition that includes:
a) debate and agreement on a system of governance that can end the conflicts
between the “centre-Khartoum” and Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile, as
well as the East and North; and
b) drafting of a permanent constitution.
To the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF):
10. Develop and articulate detailed political platforms and visions that
can form the framework for the transition.
11. Work to broaden the opposition’s grassroots support and popular backing
for a transitional framework, including in Blue Nile.
To assist in ending conflict and building sustainable peace and reform
To all parties:
12. Urge the SRF and other opposition forces to recognise that a managed
transition is much preferable to a coup or violent regime change and their
likely attendant chaos.
To the Republic of South Sudan government:
13. Support the SRF’s efforts to negotiate directly with the Sudanese
government.
To the UN Security Council, AU Peace and Security Council, Council of the
League of Arab States, Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and
the government of Ethiopia:
14. Demand and work for a single, comprehensive solution to Sudan’s
multiple conflicts in a process that runs in parallel with the negotiations
between Sudan and South Sudan but is not conditioned on them; and coordinate
effectively between the two tracks so as to prevent obstacles in one
delaying, or derailing, the other.
15. Support, through training and capacity building, the establishment and
growth of national parties that can represent and articulate the demands of
marginalised constituencies, including populations in the peripheries,
youth, women, nomads and urban and rural poor.
Nairobi/Brussels, 18 June 2013
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Received on Wed Jun 19 2013 - 22:32:51 EDT