Marco teórico

Internal crises management policies of African countries, especially in those with a high incidence of disputes and conflicts, are often characterised as resorting to military options before peaceful and legitimate ones to deal with such conflicts (Kalu 2010, p. 10). Thus, the rebel parties in light of the inability of the central government to deal effectively and peacefully with the crisis, and their inability to achieve military success, results in the potential for the development of complex crises.

Therefore, expectations to end the crisis within a peaceful framework seem weak (Niama 2005, p. 327). Because of various countries' failures to reach a comprehensive settlement with rebel movements, this often leads them to resort to the military option. Moreover, rebels usually start searching for external parties to support this trend and maintain its continuity to obtain the objectives of the insurgency (Niama 2005, p. 325). In its quest to eliminate the rebel movements and end the Darfur Crisis, and in an attempt to contain the local, regional, and international fallout of the crisis, the Sudanese government has adopted – since its acknowledgement of the crisis and the existence of political opposition – various mechanisms which are marked with some overlap and complexity. This part of the study focuses on the mechanisms and methods that have been adopted by the regime in Khartoum. It attempts to answer two main questions: does the GoS manage the crisis or manage the crisis by developing counter-crises? Then, how has that contributed to the duration of the crisis? In order to understand this it would be useful to identify the key mechanisms adopted by the GoS to maintain the developments and changes that have accompanied the crisis since its early stages.

It is difficult to differentiate between the parties who manage the crisis for ending the crisis and those who manage the continuation of the Darfur Crisis, because of the overlap between the two behaviours of all local parties in particular (Omar 2008, p.

185). However, despite the difficulty in distinguishing this, it is possible to approach the asymptotic description and to determine the attributes of the style of management of each party through the mechanisms adopted for managing the crisis. Each party tries to influence the crisis in accordance with its own agenda and its strategic

135

objectives that essentially are aimed at winning the conflict. The regime in Khartoum has described the crisis as part of an international conspiracy which seeks to break up Sudan, accusing opposition movements as in-house tools to implement this and provide political cover for it (Salahuddin 15/01/2013). On the other hand, the major rebel armed movements in the province have described the crisis as a turning point towards ending the marginalisation suffered by the province, and the equitable sharing of power and wealth, taking advantage of the human dimension of the crisis to use pressure through the concepts of ethnic cleansing and genocide, as well as deliberate abuses of human rights (Omar 2008, p. 185).

It is noteworthy that this radical difference in describing and understanding the causes and dimensions of the crisis significantly contributed to determining a different method of crisis management by each party of the conflict, which has essentially affected the continuation of the civil war. Furthermore, it has resulted in the adoption of various mechanisms which have had a great impact on the inability of the warring sides to clearly control the crisis and reshape reality in Darfur, in ways that serve the goals and interests of each party. Additionally, it can be contended that relying on the dominant features of the standard behaviour of each internal party to the crisis works to put the GoS on the side that runs the crisis. To address the effectiveness of these mechanisms and their impact on the long duration of the crisis – despite the strong overlap between the mechanisms that the GoS has resorted to in the management of the Darfur Crisis in all its dimensions – this analytical part will focus on the key adopted governmental mechanisms, which have been classified into three main categories: militarising the solution; Sudanisation of the solution; and then Khartoum’s insistence on addressing the crisis in the African context.

 Militarising the Solution

The rebellion in Darfur has been considered an expression of the struggle of the Darfurian people against the inequality in the distribution of power and wealth in the hands of a small group – from tribes that do not have the weight of a large demographic base – in controlling the country. The GoS's first reaction was negative.

136

The Khartoum government initially played down the importance of the rebellion in Darfur, considering it an attempt to undermine the peace process that was going on in Naivasha in Kenya to end the civil war in the south, supported by the USA and the EU. It had ignored the rebel movement’s demands, refusing to recognise them as an opposition movement, and refused to negotiate with these groups (Tar 2005, pp. 107-108). This contributed to an increase in the congestion of rebel groups which led to an escalation in their attacks. These assaults became more dangerous to Sudanese national security and territorial integrity – especially after the SLM and the JEM united their military operations and initiated a series of successful attacks on governmental institutions and forces in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, in April 2003 (Ismail 13/01/2013). This resulted in significant damage to state property, police stations and military infrastructure, as well as significant military losses for the government (Young, Osman and Dale 2007, p. 827).

In this context of a series of mistakes made by the GoS that contributed to fuelling the crisis in the region, is the dealing with the insurgency as a concern of security breakdown. The central government's refusal to open up dialogue with the rebels and to recognise them as an opposing movement but rather to consider these rebel groups as bandits, led it to adopt the military solution to resolving the crisis (Kamel 2009, p.

16). It seems that the Khartoum regime wanted to eliminate the rebellion quickly with minimal losses through a military solution.

This view is confirmed by Sadiq Al-Mahdi (10/01/2013) who claims that one of the reasons that led to the continuation of the crisis is that the GoS had not committed to peace and made significant concessions to the rebels, fearing that could accelerate a change of the composition of the regime in Khartoum. President al-Bashir has been told that the government will crush the rebels and the rebellion by using all military measures. This reaction has reduced the possibility of access to peaceful solutions to address the issue and opened the door to all armed options (Kamel 2009, p. 17).

Another blunder committed by the government in its management of the crisis is its mobilisation of different tribes. The GoS has armed the Janjaweed militia, using it as a counterweight in putting down the insurgency (Young, Osman and Dale 2007, p.

827).

137

According to Abdel Aziz Mahmoud (16/01/2013), a Sudanese journalist and academic at Alzaiem Alazhari University in Khartoum, the government has merged these militias into so-called People's Defence Forces, which are treated as regular forces and provided with arms and money. Furthermore, it is reported that the GoS has employed some elements of the Chadian armed opposition on Sudanese territory (Al Ddla 2007, p. 93). The Janjaweed has become the military arm of the government, with advanced weapons, in Darfur. As a consequence, the Janjaweed transformed from small groups – previously relying on looting, armed robbery and fighting in Jebel Marra to acquire local influence – into an organised and trained militia, under the control of the official Sudanese army (Tar 2005a, p. 109).

Additionally, the government’s response is considered an expression of ethnic strategy and the central government's hidden agendas instead of working to ease ethnic tension, when the Khartoum government armed the Janjaweed at the expense of stable agricultural groups from non-Arab tribes (Tar 2005a, p. 106). Although Sudan has repeatedly insisted that there are no systematic and deliberate assaults against civilians by its regular and other armed groups operating under its control (Olsson and Siba 2009, p. 3), it is widely argued that the measures taken to counter the insurgency in Darfur have been in blatant violation of international law, and Sudan has failed to protect the rights of its own people (Yihdego 2009, p. 12).

So it seems, in light of the above, the GoS has chosen a military solution to crush the rebellion in order to pave the way for a peaceful settlement in the framework of a national conference. Despite military success, Khartoum failed politically, which significantly increased the gap with the rebel groups. With the deterioration of the humanitarian and security situations in the province, the Khartoum government realised the ineffectiveness of its military strategy in ending the insurgency. This has redirected the government and pushed Khartoum to soften its line and adopt greater political and diplomatic options as mechanisms to manage the crisis, as well as opening a dialogue on Darfur with most of the rebel parties, whilst keeping the military option available whenever necessary. The recognition of the existence of political opposition was the first feature, which forms a significant shift in the GoS's attitude towards the crisis and its mechanisms for resolving it.

138