Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Aug 9 2006 (IPS) — Three months after the signing of the U.S.- and U.N.-backed Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA), violence and chaos are once again on the rise in Sudan’s westernmost region, according to aid groups and Sudan experts here.

Instead of pacifying the region, the May 5 accord between the Sudanese government and one insurgent faction has fractured the various African rebel factions, which are now attacking each other.

“This was the objective of (the) Khartoum (government) all along – to stoke so much inter-communal conflict and inter-organisational fighting among the rebels that chaos would ensue,” according to John Prendergast, Sudan specialist at the International Crisis Group (ICG).

“It’s divide and destroy. Khartoum has used the DPA as the latest means to continue that strategy,” he said, noting that the government was providing logistical support to the faction of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) that signed the accord, as well as to the Arab Janjaweed militias that were used by Khartoum to carry out its scorched-earth campaign in which as many as 400,000 mainly African Darfurians are believed to have died since 2003.

The DPA, which was hailed as a major breakthrough by Washington and the African Union, has also fueled tensions among the more than two million people who have been displaced by the violence of the past three years, most of whom are living in vast, overcrowded camps.

That has made it increasingly difficult for humanitarian agencies and their personnel to carry out their work. Indeed, eight aid workers were killed in violent incidents Darfur in July, making it the worst-ever month there in terms of attacks on aid workers and operations.

“The level of violence being faced by humanitarian workers in Darfur is unprecedented,” according to Manuel da Silva, humanitarian coordinator and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s deputy special representative for Sudan. More aid workers were killed in just the last two weeks of July in Darfur than in the previous two years.

“Since the signing of the (DPA), Darfur has become increasingly tense and violent, which has led to the deaths of far too many civilians and aid workers,” said Paul Smith-Lomas, regional director of Oxfam, one of several aid organisations whose staff members have been killed in recent weeks. “A full and comprehensive ceasefire must be implemented immediately.”

In a joint statement released Tuesday, Oxfam and three other major international aid agencies active in Darfur – CARE, International Rescue Committee, and World Vision – reported that 25,000 people fled their homes in northern Darfur last month due to fighting and that the violence was threatening the ability of the world’s largest humanitarian operation to provide vital supplies and services to an estimated 3.5 million people throughout the region who are dependent on aid.

Indeed, the U.N. estimated last month that humanitarian-access levels in Darfur are now worse than in 2004 and that as many as 40 percent of the needy population was not receiving adequate assistance.

In their statement, the aid groups noted that the 7,000-strong African Union force (AMIS) that is supposed to provide security for the displaced appears to have reduced its activity since the DPA was signed.

In a report released last Friday, Annan, who has repeatedly called for more support for AMIS, said a U.N. peacekeeping force that is supposed to take over from AMIS in January will need as many as 18,600 troops to ensure that all sides in Darfur comply with the DPA.

But whether such a force will actually be constituted looks increasingly doubtful, both because of the continued refusal of important rebel factions to sign the accord and because Khartoum itself has repeatedly rejected appeals to permit a U.N. force to deploy.

Despite strong pressure by the AU, the U.N., the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, and some of its western European allies, only one rebel leader, the SPA’s Minni Minnawi, signed the DPA.

Other rebel factions, including SPA dissidents, as well as leaders of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), rejected the deal on the grounds that it failed to provide adequate guarantees for the safe return of the displaced and compensation for their losses, and for the disarmament of the Janjaweed.

After the signing, the rebel movement effectively splintered, creating new alliances that are now at war with each other, in some cases adopting similar scorched-earth tactics to those practiced by the notorious Janjaweed militias, which also remain active in the region despite government pledges to disarm them.

At the same time, Khartoum has become increasingly insistent that it will not accept a U.N. force. Late last month, for example, President Omer al-Bashir warned that Darfur would become a “graveyard” for U.N. forces if they were deployed there.

Most independent experts here believe that these obstacles could still be overcome, provided that the international community and particularly the United States, whose government has accused Khartoum of “genocide” against the African population, are willing to adopt some of the rebel demands as part of the DPA’s implementation and to exert serious pressure on Khartoum to go along.

“The road towards a multinational peacekeeping force for Darfur has been laid out in detail by Kofi Annan,” said Ann-Louise Colgan, acting director of Africa Action, a grassroots lobby group here. “The U.S. must now take new steps to challenge Khartoum’s stonewalling, and it must galvanise new action on this crisis.”

Whether Washington is inclined to do so, however, also remains in question, particularly in light of the priority it has given at the U.N. Security Council to the month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as the departure from the Bush administration of the two senior U.S. officials – former Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick and the president’s top speechwriter, Mark Gerson – who were most concerned about Darfur.

“There’s just a huge vacuum (in the administration) right now,” according to Prendergast, who, along with several aid groups and a number of Democratic and Republican lawmakers, favour the appointment of a special envoy devoted full-time to Darfur. “I’m sure the president would like to do more, but if he’s not getting input from senior people saying ‘We need to do this, we need to that,’ nothing happens.”

Bush has in fact consistently shown strong interest in Darfur, even to the extent of personally phoning al-Bashir – a leader whom he would normally disdain – to press him to send his vice president to sign the DPA in early May.

That al-Bashir also pays attention to Bush was made evident by the fact that he appointed Minnawi as his special assistant for Darfur – a step required under the DPA but which the Sudanese leader had delayed for nearly three months – 10 days after Minnawi was received by Bush at the White House Jul. 25.

The key, according to most analysts, rests with Washington’s willingness not only to re-engage at a senior level through a special envoy, but also, in concert with its western and African allies, to put real pressure on Khartoum.

“As far as Khartoum is concerned, if they can hang on and survive the scoldings from toothless diplomats, why should they change their position (on U.N. deployment)?” said Prendergast.

“They’ve got a perfect situation at the moment. Minnawi, who is received at the White House, is now fighting the other rebel groups on behalf of the government. Three years have gone by, the administration calls it ‘genocide’, and still not one punitive measure is imposed,” he said.