Halle Joern Hanssen*

OSLO, Apr 13 2005 (IPS) — Donors pledged a more than expected 4.5 billion dollars to aid Sudan at a conference in the Norwegian capital earlier this week, but it could be years before Sudanese people see the money.

And there is a good deal of cleaning up the Sudanese government will have to do before it sees any money at all.

”With that kind of money it could easily take four or five years for it to come through the pipeline,” Greg Austen from the London-based Foreign Policy Centre told IPS. More importantly, he said, ”the U.S. government has said that its aid is dependent on the government of Sudan doing something to end the violence.”

It would be unreasonable for the Sudanese government to accept aid while its forces continue to rape, pillage and murder, Austen said.

Participants at the donors’ conference for Sudan Apr. 11-12 pledged the money in humanitarian assistance, reconstruction and development over period 2005-2007. This was better than the expected pledges of around 3.6 billion dollars. But delays are routine with such pledges, nor does all the money come through as promised.

Of the money pledged, about 2 billion dollars is for reconstruction and development assistance. This came as a response to needs documented in the report by the Joint Assessment Mission.

The report was prepared by the two Sudanese parties to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed Jan. 9 this year – the government in Khartoum and the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM) – and by the United Nations and the World Bank. The rest of the money is mainly for humanitarian and emergency assistance.

”I am very pleased with the amount that has been pledged as this demonstrates that the concern for Sudan is truly international,” Norwegian international development minister Hilde Frafjord Johnson said at the end of the conference.

Similar views were expressed by many other heads of delegates. Sudan vice- president Ali Osman Taha said the amount pledged would help his government speed up the peace agreement. SPLM chairman Dr. John Garang de Mabior said the pledge would make it imperative for the parties to start providing for basic needs for their war-torn people soon.

But while the surface mood among delegates at the close of the conference was one of satisfaction with the results, there were strong undercurrents of concern, and fear for the future of the peace agreement.

Darfur is the burning issue that has the potential to destroy the peace agreement. The violence and atrocities there continue, and the Africa Union peacekeeping force of some 2,400 men is too small to control the situation in a territory as big as France.

Many voices of concern over Darfur were raised at the conference. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged all parties to do their utmost to end hostilities. Dr. John Garang felt that it was both a political and moral obligation for the parties to the peace agreement to do everything in their power to secure peace in Darfur.

UN special envoy on Sudan Jan Pronk struck a more optimistic note, saying that he believed the Darfur conflict could be ended before the end of this year.

Civil Society representatives from Sudan who came to Oslo spoke of bad experiences with the present rulers in Khartoum. Several from North Sudan said their members had been imprisoned and tortured. Newspapers and associations had been banned, they said.

Women’s groups who marked a strong presence in Oslo said they were being treated as second class citizens. Violation of basic freedoms and human rights are still are the order of the day in the North and in particular in capital Khartoum, they said.

Many expressed the fear that the present government in Khartoum with its fundamentalist ideology and dictatorial ways would be unable to honour the peace agreement and to develop Sudan into a truly democratic society.

But while the women made a strong case for participation in decision- making, including a 30 percent reservation in political and official jobs, their demands are not likely to be a priority at present, Austen said.

”That’s not the sort of thing that works,” he said. ”It is hard enough for the U.S. government to have a robust dialogue with the government of Sudan. It will be enough to get the Sudanese government to respond to the basic demands first.”

Civil society representatives from the South expressed concern over the militaristic traditions of the SPLM, but they also said that their ongoing discussions with the SPLM leadership about democratisation and the role of civil society had been positive and constructive.

*Additional reporting by Sanjay Suri in London.