China and the US can shove each other....

As it turns out... other countries and military threats aren't actually needed to help bring an end to conflict.* Africans solving African problems.....its beautiful:

The "Framework Agreement between Government of Sudan and Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (North) on Political Partnership between NCP and SPLMN, and Political and Security Arrangements in Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan States" was signed yesterday and should hopefully bring an end to the violence in the region.

Now this is only a framework agreement, which means a lot of negotiating still needs to be done and that there is still a high chance of violence breaking out. Abyei has been in negotiations for like forever and still escalates to violence when things go sour at the table. Nonetheless, negotiations are definitely better than bombs.

The agreement only consists of 2 sections, political arrangements and security arrangements. Some highlights of the agreement:

2. The Parties affirm the right of the SPLMN to continue as a legal political party in Sudan.

4. The Parties shall convene the Joint Political Committee immediately. The issues of governance in Southern Kordofan shall be discussed and resolved amicably by the Joint Political Committee within thirty days.

5 c. Without prejudice to the bilateral discussion between the two Parties on issues to be addressed through the process of popular consultation, the Popular Consultation process shall be extended beyond 9 July 2011 through an agreed amendment by the National Assembly.

9. The Parties agree on the following principles, which shall be the basis for the work of the Joint Security Committee:

a. Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of the Sudan and the inviolability of its national borders.

b. Securing sustainable peace and stability and ensuring the safety and security of communities of Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan.

c. SPLA members from Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile are citizens of the Republic of the Sudan and their future lies in the Republic of Sudan.

d. The Republic of Sudan will have one national army.

e. The SPLA forces from Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile shall be integrated, over a time period and with modalities to be agreed, into the Sudan Armed Forces, other security institutions, and the civil service, or DDR.

f. Any disarmament shall be done in accordance with agreed-upon plans and without resorting to force.

The full document is available here thanks to John Ashworth (Let me know if that link fails). Here is some Sudan Tribune coverage too

*Yes, I do realise that the NCP may not have signed the agreement if the US had not gone ahead with its carrots and sticks policy, but I like to dream.....also there is this too:

NCP slams U.S. “carrot-and-stick” policy

Separately, Qutbi Al-Mahdi distrusted promises by the U.S. administration to help relieve Sudan’s hefty external debts in exchange for de-escalating the situation in the country’s North-South border state of South Kordofan, where the Northern army has been fighting elements aligned with South Sudan army.

Al-Mahdi told reporters in Khartoum on Monday that the NCP does not pay any attention to U.S. promises whether on the debt issue or other issues because the government realises that the U.S. administration “spews such promises to achieve particular ends then reneges on its commitments.”

“The failure to fulfill promises and commitments is a moral issue and we know to which extent does America honors its promises,” the ruling party official said.

Al-Mahdi went on to fulminate against the U.S. policy know as the “carrot-and-stick,” saying that no free people would accept to deal with America in accordance with this “nefarious” policy.

“That’s why we in Sudan do not afford America’s promises any attention,” he added.

The U.S. Administration is currently in the process of removing Sudan’s name from its blacklist of countries sponsoring terrorism, but the administration has warned Sudan government that the process of normalisation of ties would be jeopardised if the Northern army does not withdraw from the contested region of Abyei which it seized last month.

ouch.

Khartoum: "Take your carrot and shove it!"(Updated - I was wrong)

Alex Thurston on Christian Science Monitor (with some editing by me):

Yesterday President Barack Obama released a statement praising a peace
agreement in Abyei, another Sudanese border region, and condemning the
violence in Southern Kordofan.....

"...With a ceasefire in Southern Kordofan, alongside the agreement to deploy peacekeepers to Abyei, we can get the peace process back on track. But without these actions, the roadmap for better relations with the Government of Sudan cannot be carried forward, which will only deepen Sudan’s isolation in the international community....."

This statement highlights one of the biggest potential leverage points Washington has with Khartoum: the “carrot” of normalized relations. Yet as author Bec Hamilton wrote on Twitter, the perceived value of this “carrot” may be disappearing: “That’s no longer leverage since Khartoum doesn’t believe it will ever happen (and they are probably right).”

Read the rest of the post, he raises an interesting question at the end of it.

Setting aside my disdain of Khartoum's current military policy, I think that they have every right to no longer trust those American carrots. I've previously discussed the failings of enticing Khartoum with the prospects of removing it from the State Sponsors of Terrorism List. Insignificant Block also has a post covering more examples of American Carrots that lie.

The track record of the carrots is basically; the US asks Khartoum to do something and promises to normalise relation if Khartoum completed the task. Khartoum does that thing. The US doesn't normalise relations and decides to up the ante on what it wants from Khartoum. While Im totally in support of getting your carrot's worth, there really is only so far you can push it.

With US carrots becoming more and more redundant, China's role has become more significant than ever. That is why I don't think this is a fantastic idea:

"The United States should press China to rescind its invitation for Bashir to visit China and dispatch a senior administration official to develop joint diplomacy in support of a peace deal, including pressures and incentives to leverage that agreement."

Guess who? Yup..... .....Prendergraaaaaaaaaaast!!!!

At this point, if China is willing to do what it can to bring an end to this conflict it can't risk associating itself with the US camp.

Update:

He also reiterated that the successful experience of Sino-Sudanese relations should be attributed to mutual respect and non-intervention in each other's internal affairs.

"China does not intervene in the internal affairs of others. The success of Sino-Sudanese cooperation has encouraged African countries to search for their real and loyal partner."(China Daily)

Oh how naïve I was to think China would act otherwise.

OK...New plan. Give Prendergrast, Clooney, the Machine Gun Preacher and Ninja in Afghanistan anti-air missels to shoot down Bashir's plane on the way back.

Tomorrow: Sticks.....can that also be shoved?

Why I dislike Prendergast?

People are always asking me, "Why do you hate the Enough Project and John Prendergast so much?"

Well folks, this morning I came across an example of why it is that I want to stab pencils in my ear and wash my eyes out with bleach every time Prendergrast utters a word.

Speaking about the current violence in Abyei and South Kordofan, Prendergast made this brilliant suggestion:

the Enough Project, an advocacy group, called for the U.S. to provide air defense systems to southern Sudan to help the region protect itself and deter escalating violence in the north-south border region, where the north has attacked on multiple fronts. (Link)

At the risk of sounding like an even bigger hippy than Prendergrast, handing out weapons to one side of a conflict is not really a great path to peace. South Sudan is not engaging in combat for a reason. Its not because they don't have the capacity, but rather because they have experienced Enough! fighting and violence and want to simply resolve the issue diplomatically. By providing them with air defence and telling them to use it, you will merely be committing the SPLA further into the conflict, which will then demand a response from the Khartoum, leading to full scale war. People are tired of wars, and as horrible as it might be to count the casualties of Khartoum's air raids, it can't be worst than sending the entire region back into war where casualty numbers will dwarf those of the current air raids. As nice as it is to fantasize about killing the evil doer, it just isn't how the world works. So instead of making these awful emotionally plagued policy suggestions, why don't you, Clooney, the Machine Gun Preacher and that crazy American Ninja in Afghanistan go start a club for maverick superhero wannabes and take down dictators across the globe.

Prendergast: Clooney! How did you get to be Batman AGAIN? And why the hell am I wonderwoman?!!

F******* Peacekeepers

*******WARNING - There is some obscene language in the following*********

Photo credit

My nomination for the next Nobel Peace Prize has definitely got to be those useless fucking Peacekeepers in the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS). Reason being that even Gandhi wasn't this much of a pacifist.

Now if you didn't know, there has been an eruption of violence throughout the border regions of Abyei and South Kordofan as the Northern SAF have moved into major towns with ground forces accompanied by tanks and heavy artillery. Reports are coming in likening the situation to ethnic cleansing of the non-Arab population of two regions as well as anyone believed to be supporters of the South. The UN Peacekeepers tasked with errr, keeping the peace and protecting civilians have done a phenomenal job of staying in their compound and cowering like a bunch of……(I was going to come up with some clever metaphor, but anger blinds me. So...) fucking pussies.

In Abyei, the Zambian peacekeepers, behaving like teenage stoners, "locked themselves up for a couple of days...They were then instructed to come out of their barracks and start patrolling, but they had already lost a crucial 48 hours". And the 150,000 residents had already run away to the South. Similarly, the Egyptians in South Kordofan “fear for their lives. Official position of UNMIS is to stay calm and threat will pass but personal advice shared is to get out and sooner the better.”

Yes, absolutely brilliant strategy. Just chill…... hopefully SAF will soon be done with wiping out the entire native population of the two regions and then they’ll go back to Darfur or just go for a nap. Otherwise, we can throw some children at them while we make a quick get away in our helicopters.

Here are some highlights of peacekeeping failure from various reports coming in the from the 2 regions:

· The 10,000 civilians who have sought security at the
UNMIS base in Kadugli are desperately short of water and facing
growing security risks. Many have already left Kadugli, and the town
of Dilling to the north is reportedly deserted.

· UNMIS in Kauda totally lost credibility with locals who also
feel they collaborating with north (partly due to policy to only
evacuate via north). Locals mistrust extends to not giving UNMIS
credible information. This adds to unreliability of UN information.
UNMIS peacekeepers in Kauda accused of staying in compound, late with
patrols, have poor communication facilities (computers infected) and
often rely on news of unrest in their vicinity to come from Kadugli
section leader.

· Now heard from 2 different sources that local black people
perceived to support SPLM/A being pulled out of UNMIS compound in
Kadugli and executed in presence of peacekeepers. No protection from
them.

· The UN Peace Keepers are standing idly by and
civilians have been killed right in front of their eyes and there
hasn't been any intervention on their part. They are there to protect
civilians but they give no protection to the people. And they are not
Zambians who were blamed also for not protecting the people. They are
Egyptians!!

· A reliable source reports that Khartoum’s fearsome
Military Intelligence forced its way into UNMIS headquarters in
Kadugli and took many suspected SPLM sympathizers. This source also
reports that a "disabled man in a wheelchair was found killed outside
the UNMIS compound after he sought protection [there]." This has had
an understandably chilling effect on those looking to UNMIS for
protection, and many who had originally gathered at the UNMIS base are
melting away. A number of those caught and labeled "SPLM
sympathizers" have almost certainly been executed.

· There are also reports of UNMIS allowing SAF soldiers to stop the UNMIS buses filled with people evacuating the area and searching through their belongings to help identify possible SPLM supporters.

So yeah, a total fuck up of a fucked up system. At least they were aware of their errors:

“The UN has admitted peacekeepers were wrong to stay in barracks during
recent fighting between northern and southern Sudan that left scores
of people dead and caused tens of thousands to flee.”

And I admit that I was wrong for raping your mother’s face. Oh no wait, that was also UNMIS:

“Dalman also directed criticism at UNMIS and accused the Egyptian contingency in the area of raping six women. He said the incident took place after civilians fleeing the fighting took shelter at the headquarters of the peacekeeping force.

This comes on the heels of a statement issued by Al-Hilu this week in he which he said that the Egyptian peacekeepers are complicit in the attacks by SAF in the state revealing that a letter was sent to them asking for clarifications”

They do have a pretty good excuse for their failure to protect though:

“The UN Missions in Sudan (Unmis) troops were themselves under fire at
their base… In terms of the physical protection of
civilians, it must be recognised that most civilians left the area
before the peak of the crisis and that Unmis troops and civilians were
themselves in imminent danger as the Unmis compound itself was hit.”

Oh no, oh poor babies. Your trained SOLDIERS were shot at during a WAR?! Oh how awful. Don’t these nasty people know that you were just there to earn your home country a bit of extra cash? Not to actually engage in any conflict. Next thing you know people are going to expect the UN DDR to actually do DDR stuff?

Although UNMIS must be pretty pissed off as they probably expected it all to be a Rwanda-like situation,where only the local population were targeted and the peacekeepers got to just stand there and watch.

Maybe Im being too harsh. UNMIS has provided some good to Sudan. In Juba, they have provided lovely fields for us expats to play our stupid expat games on. They have also taken lead on the reporting of the serious psychological trauma of Equus africanus asinus.

Now all these reports have not been properly verified, so maybe we should see what our nerds in space have to say about all this:

“The Satellite Sentinel Project said a group of former U.S. civilian
and military officials had affirmed the group’s visual evidence that
the Sudanese government had “allegedly committed war crimes during its
occupation of the disputed region of Abyei.””

Oh shut the fuck up you wankers…..