Commentary from Alex de Waal
Below is commentary from WPF Executive Director, Alex de Waal, regarding the evolving situation in Sudan. April 17, 2019 BBC radio,
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Sudan
Peace and the Security Sector in Sudan 2002 – 2011
The most succinct document of Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) is Chapter VI,11. This paper is based on existing literature and the personal experience of the author, who was involved in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) negotiations as an informal advisor and an external advocate (through the organisation Justice Africa), and in the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) talks and the post-referendum talks as a member of the African Union (AU) mediation teams. For a compendium of the relevant documents, see World Peace Foundation, ‘Sudan Peace Archive’.‘Security Arrangements’. Republic of Sudan and SPLM/A, ‘Comprehensive Peace Agreement’. Signed in Naivasha, Kenya, on 25 September 2003, it runs to a little more than three pages – by far the shortest of the protocols and annexures that comprise the CPA. Nowhere is security sector reform (SSR) mentioned by name. For the Government of Sudan (GoS), the central issue is resolved in Paragraph 7(a), which states: ‘No armed group allied to either party shall be allowed to operate outside the two forces’. Ibid., Paragraph 7(a).
Read morePeace and the security sector in Sudan, 2002–11
This paper examines how contests over military control were played out during peace negotiations and in the implementation of agreements (including the manipulation or violation of the terms of agreements) in Sudan between 2002 and 2011. The cases examined are the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005, the Darfur peace talks which took place from 2003 to 2011, and the post-referendum arrangements talks of 2011. The central arguments presented are as follows: the principal political players consistently sought control over the military as a main component of their political strategies; senior military officers posed a threat to the power of nominally civilian leaders; security arrangements were determined by a combination of the leaders’ calculations over their internal power base along with their expectations of ongoing or anticipated armed conflicts; and external programmes and policies for security sector reform were manipulated and instrumentalised in pursuit of these power goals
Read moreWhy Distrust and Caution Continue to Govern Sudan-Saudi Arabia Ties
In an interview with the editors of the World Politics Review (published April 5, 2017), Alex de Waal addresses relations between Saudi Arabia
Read more“South Sudan: The Road to Civil War” with Professor Mahmood Mamdani
Should we treat mass violence in civil war situations as criminal violence or political violence? Is the individualization of criminal
Read moreA regional approach to the Horn of Africa: The expanded mandate of the AUHIP
The African Union Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) in its 539th meeting held on August 25, 2015, recognized the need
Read moreReview of The Anyanya Movement in South Sudan
The first theme is one that any scholar of the Anyanya Movement is aware of: that the Anyanya were a disparate group of peasant soldiers lacking a central command and a cohesive political ideology. In Western Equatoria, the picture that emerges from Magaya’s book is one of organised and dedicated guerillas, almost akin to the partisans in Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Read moreDebating the history of Sudanese popular protest
What is the history of nonviolent political change in Sudan–under what conditions and with what complications were civil society actors
Read moreSudan’s Hydrocrats – Book Review
But it’s no surprise that the massive spending on infrastructure began after 1999, simply because for the first time the government had the financial means. It should also come as no surprise that Bashir and others have continued to trumpet the same Islamist slogans, proudly showing off the dams as evidence for the regime’s triumphs. There is still an Islamist constituency to keep onside. But to conclude that ‘Mashru Al-Hadhari [the civilization project] is very much alive’ (p. 149) is to mistake rhetoric and manoevre for a genuine state project.
The view on the street, endorsed by the members of the political elite whom Verhoeven cites, is that the central purpose of the DIU was larceny and political finance, and that building an Islamic state was just hot air. Indeed, Verhoeven’s own verdict is that the hydro-transformational project has ended in a ‘mixture of incompetence, myopia and extraversion’ (p. 248).
Read moreSudan’s Elections: Champion Won
Five years ago, the center of Khartoum was dominated by campaign posters showing President Omar al Bashir—and advertisements showing a
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