Crucial Conference Begins Today in Washington
As concerns mount over the durability of the peace deal that brought decades of war in Sudan to a close, the Obama administration called together more than 30 key players today with the goal of reviving the faltering agreement and restarting implementation.
Delegations from the North’s National Congress Party, or NCP, and the South’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, or SPLM, will meet in Washington today at a conference organized by Special Envoy to Sudan Major General Scott Gration. The conference is intended to re-engage the original signors and backers of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, and get Sudan on track to implement key provisions of the peace deal.
Yesterday afternoon, Darfur advocacy groups, including Enough, commended the Obama administration for leading efforts to revisit the CPA.
For too long, the international community has been slow in responding to the sputtering pace of CPA implementation and the NCP’s attempts to undermine the agreement. The conference shows a welcome renewed commitment from the United States to lead the international community in re-engaging with the CPA
With delegations from over 30 stakeholders in attendance, the conference presents a promising occasion to address some of the challenging aspects of the CPA, namely, North-South border demarcation and treatment of the contested Abeyi area; the use of Joint Integrated Units, which were intended to promote cooperation between northern and southern armed forces; 2010 national elections; and wealth sharing arrangements.
As Enough, GI-Net, and the Save Darfur Coalition pointed out:
CPA implementation should be reprioritized as part of a comprehensive approach to ending Sudan’s conflicts. This approach must also recognize that Sudan’s complex conflicts have a common core: flawed governance by a center that exploits and marginalizes an underdeveloped periphery.
The high-level meeting comes at a time when Sudan advocates have become increasingly vocal with the criticism that President Obama has lost the resolve he expressed on the campaign trail. Remarks last week from Special Envoy Gration fueled this frustration and highlighted apparent fissures within the administration about how to proceed. Today’s conference represents an encouraging step toward international re-commitment to supporting CPA implementation.
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tribalism, violence, rape, and global greed
Global business has a powerful amoral streak, no matter what country of origin. China seems to be the worst offender in Africa, but not the only offender. Greed, wealth, and status drives business interests in Africa, and those interests will work with whomever is in power, no matter what their crimes against humanity may be. I'm pretty cynical about making any impact on this global culture of greed. Perhaps someone needs to find a way to convince countries doing business in Africa into believing that reinforcing peace, democracy, and human rights will be much better for their financial bottom line than the current situation. They will change only if there is something in the change for their financial benefit.
Tribalism, clannism, and intertribal violence (including systemitized rape) have been a pretty consistent characteristic of the human species. This is a developmental stage in human cultural "evolution" that must be left behind as individuals and cultures become psychologically mature.
The perpretrators of these crimes in Africa must be stopped and imprisoned, but this is only a first step. Nothing will change if these men do not receive gender re-education and accept more constructive ways of expressing their masculinity. Being a warrior is probably a biologically driven tendency in the human male, as territoriality and aggression are programmed into other mammalian males. The task is to channel these drives into constructive activities. How to achieve this is the question.
Massive gender re-education, combined with severe financial sanctions and loss of business opportunities that must be supported by the business interests active in Africa, in my humble opinion, is an essential first step. We must help these violence and rape addicted men move beyond their arrogant tribalism and dysfunctional masculine identities. This can only happen psychologically, backed up with financial consequences if the dysfunctional behaviors persist and continue to be taught to the next generation of young men.