A historic peace agreement between the Government of Sudan and the opposition forces of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) was signed on January 9, 2005. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) brought about an end to over two decades of genocidal jihad waged by the National Islamic Front regime against the people of South Sudan, the Nuba Mountains, and other areas of marginalization. Over two million people dead, over five million displaced, tens of thousands enslaved – this was the legacy of the war.
The long-awaited culmination of over two years of grueling peace talks brought new hope to the war-torn country. It was a historic achievement. The United States, and particularly the administration of George W. Bush, should be very proud of its leadership role in the peace process. But, in the words of long-time Sudan activist Professor Eric Reeves, “The international community – including the African Union, the US, the European Union, and China – has not taken implementation of the peace agreement seriously enough for oil-rich Sudan. This has enabled Khartoum to renege on key elements of the agreement with little consequence and to manipulate ethnic, political, and military tensions throughout the region. . . . Increased tensions throughout Sudan make it probable that if the 2005 north/south peace agreement collapses, Darfur’s massive conflict will be but one component of the first nationwide war in Sudan. The potential of such conflict to destabilize the country and the region can hardly be overstated.”
The only chance for continuing peace and justice in Sudan is if the international community, and particularly the U.S. government, immediately begins holding Khartoum accountable, as we have promised in the new Sudan policy put forth by the Obama Administration.
| Sudanese of many ethnicities, North, South, East, and West, and American friends demonstrate for the saving of the CPA at the White House, 2008 |
For those with a passing knowledge of the Old Testament, the struggle of the people of South Sudan to find peace and justice is a quest of Biblical proportions. In the war-filled decades before the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement there were stories of slavery, lamentations over deaths, tales of great warriors, and testimonies of miraculously-won battles. A people that did not even have a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures in their own languages were living out the Old Testament in twentieth century Sudan.
Old Testament names are extremely significant. The ancient patriarchs gave names to places that symbolized the events that took place there. Jacob seemed particularly good at this. For example, when, in Genesis 32, he realized that his wrestling opponent was actually the Lord Himself, he named the spot Penuel, (the face of God). Whether by deliberate choice, coincidence, or Providence, the three main places in which the negotiations of Sudan’s peace agreement occurred had names which, like the Biblical ones, symbolized the events that took place during the peace process.
The Machakos Miracle
The talks began with the signing of the first protocol in July 2002 at Machakos, Kenya. Machakos, a steep, hilly, arid region southeast of Nairobi, had been an unproductive area. The people were described as “drifting to a state of hopelessness and miserable poverty and their land to a parching desert of rocks, stones, and sand.” But then the people of the Machakos District began to transform the situation by returning to their traditional farming practices and incorporating new farming ideas from Europe and Asia to turn the once-eroding hillsides into productively farmed terraces. They were so successful that the area became known as the “Machakos Miracle.”
Is it too much of a stretch to compare this physical phenomenon with the search for peace in Sudan? Any attempts at peace negotiations between the National Islamic Front regime and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) had been arid and unproductive for many years. But a number of changes came together to bring about the climate in which peace talks could possibly be productive. The South, fractured by Khartoum’s attempts to divide and conquer, became more unified. Reconciliation and shared hope came through the efforts of church and tribal leaders in the People-to-People peace making process and through the vision of a New Sudan of Dr. John Garang. The efforts were bolstered by the support of the United States government, and the other members of the “Troika,” the United Kingdom and Norway.
To those who had been hoping and praying for peace talks between the Sudanese Government and the SPLM/A, the commitment to the peace process that began in the summer of 2002 in Machakos was truly a miracle. One group of Southern Sudanese wrote, “Although some have reacted to the protocol with caution other than euphoria because of so many previous agreements dishonored by THE GOVERNMENT OF THE SUDAN (GOS), we whole-heartedly and unreservedly hail this Historical Protocol; which we believe has set the foundation for a comprehensive settlement to SUDAN’S long-standing conflict.”
Rough Water at Naivasha
Later protocols for peace were agreed to at Kenya’s Lake Naivasha. It would be interesting to know what passed through the minds of those who chose this particular location for the final peace talks. Did they think about the fact that Naivasha is a British misspelling of the Masai word Nai’posha, which means “rough water?” On Lake Naivasha storms can arrive with suddenness and ferocity. What an appropriate name for the place where discussions on various points of conflict took place.
The peace talks attempted, sometimes successfully, to navigate through much rough water. There were protocols on power sharing, wealth sharing, the resolution of the Abyei, Southern Kordofan, Nuba Mountains, and Blue Nile area conflicts (dealing with border demarcation and protection of traditional culture), security arrangements during the interim period.
Certain protocols, such as the implementation modalities for the various provisions, seemed unnavigable. Like very rough water, they were avoided for the time being. Now those difficult implementation modalities are causing even more difficulty because they never have been implemented. Khartoum, in its usual fashion, is attempting to force renegotiation of issues that have already been negotiated and supposedly “settled.” The people of Sudan are still faced with crossing very rough waters to achieve peace.
Footsteps Towards Peace
The January 9 signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement took place at Nairobi’s Nyayo Stadium. Nyayo is Kiswahili for “footsteps” or “footprints.” At the stadium signing ceremony, invited African heads of state, then U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, and other world leaders witnessed a beaming Ali Osman Taha, Sudanese first vice-president, and equally radiant John Garang, the late leader of the SPLM/A warmly clasp hands. Millions in Sudan and around the world hoped and prayed that Sudan’s footsteps were leading towards a future of peace, justice, and reconciliation. But even at that moment, the ongoing genocide against black African Muslims in Darfur threatened Khartoum’s credibility.
At the time of the signing in Nyayo Stadium, Fr. Giuseppe Puttinato, director of the Comboni College in Khartoum, declared, “This peace agreement is a gift from God, even if it is partial and limited.” He expressed a serious concern of many, though, saying, “There is hope but not certainty concerning the real application of the accord.” Joy was tempered by realism even then, and by the fear that history would merely repeat itself. Nyayo was not the first place where the Government of Sudan had signed the dotted line for permanent peace.
The Sudanese people who want peace, freedom, and a secular democracy where all equal citizens together, and those American and other non-Sudanese friends who encouraged U.S. Sudan policy leading to the CPA, still believe that the peace agreement is a gift from God. It is a gift that must not be squandered. Now, in the beginning of the sixth year of the peace agreement, and the year of elections that could help bring about the most important and necessary changes in all of Sudan’s history, we must do all that we can to ensure that success not just of the peace agreement, but the success of a New Sudan.
Just as the United States helped Sudan to make the passage through the rough waters leading to the peace process, the United States must now take leadership in ensuring that Sudan navigates those rough waters that are necessary to cross in order to be a transformed society. We must hold Khartoum accountable, as we have promised in the new Sudan policy put forth by the Obama Administration. Dealing with the Islamist regime in this manner may be the U.S. government’s rough water of its own to cross, but cross it must.
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