President's Corner: Negotiating for Peace in Darfur

Last week I made a quick trip to Sudan with Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who went on behalf of the Save Darfur Coalition in an effort to jump start peace talks to end a four year civil war in Darfur.

We made good progress. After two meetings with the president of Sudan, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, and meetings with several rebel leaders, the government agreed to a 60-day ceasefire if the rebel factions also agree. The rebel leaders we talked to said they wanted a ceasefire. However, since the meetings, some rebel groups have backed away from the commitment. It is now up to the United Nations and the African Union to work with government and the rebel groups to make the pledges a reality.

Other significant commitments from the government, which were summarized in a joint statement, will depend entirely on the government keeping its word. Some of these commitments involve making it easier for humanitarian workers to do their jobs in Darfur, protecting women from sexual violence, and expanding news coverage of the violence and humanitarian conditions in Darfur, where an estimated 400,000 people have died of war-related causes and 2.5 million have been displaced.

On paper the agreements between the government of Sudan and Gov. Richardson are a real step forward, but it won’t be clear for some time whether they are worth the paper they are written on. The government of Sudan has violated every ceasefire it has signed in Darfur, and the rebel groups are becoming increasingly strong and destructive.

Still, the agreements Gov. Richardson got exceeded what most people thought would be possible during the short visit. How did he do it?

First, it is very clear that groups that have accused the government of Sudan of genocide in Darfur and launched a massive public campaign against the Khartoum regime are having an impact. President al-Bashir was clearly annoyed by the Save Darfur campaign, which is running newspaper and TV ads in the U.S. to highlight the genocide and is now beginning to run the ads internationally. This is a credit to Save Darfur, as well as to student groups, editorial writers and columnists like New York Times' Nicholas Kristof, President Bush, Members of Congress and all the NGOs, like Refugees International, who have worked so hard to highlight and stop the violence in Darfur. The government denies that it is committing genocide and calls the fighting a series of tribal conflicts. The knowledge that the anti-genocide campaign is irritating President Bashir and his government is important. We must keep the pressure on.

(One example of the public concern will occur at Carnegie Hall in New York City on Monday, January 22, when musicians will perform Verdi’s Requiem for the benefit of the people of Darfur. See: www.requiemfordarfur.org.)

Second, at a time when the US, the UN and others are trying -- and failing -- to persuade Khartoum to accept UN peacekeepers in Darfur, Gov. Richardson saw that the most important issue was moving toward a political settlement to end the war. Without an end to the fighting, it would be difficult for any group of peacekeepers to stop the war. Thus, Gov. Richardson proposed a ceasefire as a way to start a political process.

Finally, since he coordinated with but did not represent the Bush administration, Gov. Richardson was able to negotiate with more flexibility, using his time to find common ground rather than stressing differences for diplomatic reasons. The fact that Mr. Richardson had an established relationship with President Bashir, with whom he had twice negotiated the release of detained Americans over the last 11 years, was also a huge help.