What About the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA)? (1)
Dr. Bakheet Ahmed Omer
The International Community reaction against the international crimes (war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and crimes of aggression) that have taken place in several member-states during the past hundred years was ever weak and never exceeded urging humanitarian assistance and calling warring parties to stick to ceasefire allowing humanitarian convoys to get access to victims. Therefore, International Community commitments to end genocide or wide scale crimes against humanity in Darfur, as well as holding the perpetrators of these crimes accountable were all dropped or neglected immediately as there is growing economical and intelligence cooperation evolving between some of the security council’s led countries and the dictator regime of Bashir in Sudan. No doubt that this kind of deal over bloods and suffering of civilians in Darfur considers one of the most disappointing developments for the humanity and the free world.
Did the International Community ever retreat its commitments toward the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) which was signed four years ago in the Nigerian capital Abuja? Do any of the parties to the agreement were held morally responsible from the failure of the agreement to fulfil the Darfuri common interests?
Is anyone of the DPA parties (Government of Sudan and SLA-Mini Minawi) has been judged publicly for not giving enough attention to the real demands of people in the region?
If anyone has seen the current rushing toward Doha forum for peace in Darfur he would think that there is no agreement in place. Instead of having couple of hundreds of rebels and international community representatives in Doha wasting millions of dollars pushing the hopelessness, better yet for the international community to finagle solutions like the deteriorated humanitarian situation, getting the expelled INGOs back and pressuring the government to stop abduction activities and the ongoing summary execution practised by Mini Minawi’s troops and its new allied militiamen of Mustaf Al-Jumaili in West Darfur.
Rushing to Doha would be acceptable if all the peace partners in Darfur have abolished the DPA. But unfortunately there is still a so called DPA, which is totally manipulated by small group of people blindly loyal to Mini Minawi and mistakenly belief that the agreement is a war reward for those who fought with him and not the whole of Darfuri.
The International Community’s key responsibility as witnesses and grantors for the DPA is to keep an eye on the positive implementation of the agreement, support the rehabilitation and development projects and make sure that positive developments were achieved at the ground level before pushing civilians back to the villages.
However, the whole international community got tied up with other commitments as soon as the DPA had signed, which has left behind thousands and thousands of civilians with naked hands against not only uncontrolled militiamen all around the place, but also with the former rebels yet semi-government troops of Mini Minawi.
The force return programme that was launched secretly through a cooperation project between the Transitional Darfur Regional Authority (TDRA) of Mini Minawi and the Arab League is getting more and more civilians exposed to imminent attacks of militiamen and former rebels of Mini Minawi. That was already happened few days ago in Abuhamra (North Darfur), when Minawi’s troops attacked and disband a group of civilians who were gathered to receive the Arab League delegation arrived in Darfur for the opening ceremony of a model village in the region.
All through my articles that will follow under the above title I will try to highlight the current situation in Darfur and the mistakes that put the civilians in front of a very miserable situation.
Dr. Bakheet Ahmed Omer
