Strategy Papers

Stealing an Election In Slow Motion: Time for Real Consequences

Submitted by Patrick Furey on December 18, 2009 - 11:38am.

Sudan’s national elections scheduled for April 2010 will be neither free nor fair absent significant international pressure to dramatically change the electoral landscape.

Author:

John Prendergast

Dec 21, 2009

Activist Brief.pdf

Enough Co-founder John Prendergast explores the many challenges facing the 2010 Sudan election season.

The deputy police commissioner of Duk Padiet, left, and a police describe an attack on their village. (Photo / Maggie Fick)

Sudan’s national elections scheduled for April 2010 will be neither free nor fair absent significant international pressure on the ruling National Congress Party, or NCP, to dramatically change the electoral landscape. The crackdown by the NCP on December 7 and 14 2009, involving the arrests of senior opposition politicians and the use of tear-gas on protestors, is yet another demonstration that the basic requirements of credible elections, including freedom of expression and assembly, have yet to be met. Despite recent progress over key components of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, little has been done to change the electoral environment, and many of the national-level reforms included in the CPA have been ignored by the NCP with little outcry from the international community.

Explore our interactive timeline of the elections in Sudan.

In the wake of this crackdown, and in the face of what the Obama administration calls “ongoing genocide,” the United States has yet to impose genuine consequences on NCP officials and others who are obstructing peace in Sudan. If nothing changes before April, U.S. taxpayers will have spent nearly $100 million to support the election of an indicted war-criminal and legitimize the iron-fisted rule of one of the world’s most oppressive regimes.

The current efforts of the United States and the broader international community to end the atrocities in Darfur and prevent all-out war in Sudan are failing. Despite clear signs that the CPA is in jeopardy and continued atrocities against civilians in Darfur and southern Sudan, the Obama administration has yet to impose consequences on those behind the violence.

No consequences for commission or orchestration of crimes against humanity.
No consequences for the brutalization of political opposition and silencing of independent voices.
No consequences for the failure to establish conditions for a free and fair national election.
No consequences for the non-implementation of existing agreements, including the CPA.

A stolen election would be the beginning of the CPA’s end, as the NCP would almost certainly exploit what it would quickly claim was newfound “democratic legitimacy” to prevent southern Sudanese from holding the self-determination referendum scheduled for 2011. If that happens, it would be fanciful to think that anything short of full-scale national war would result. In this context, it is time to alter course in bold and specific ways in order to avert what could be the deadliest conflagration in Sudan’s war-torn post-colonial history.

_________________

Credible elections in Sudan? Not even close

The April 2010 national elections are a central pillar of the CPA, the peace deal that ended the North-South war. But in order for elections to truly achieve the democratic transformation that was intended in the CPA, conditions for holding credible elections must be in place. These conditions include a new security law to reduce the government’s broad powers of arbitrary arrest and detention, an independent electoral commission, clear steps to allow independent media coverage, and unrestricted access for international observation teams. Not one of these preconditions has been met to date. These are the basic freedoms that must be in place for any election to meaningfully reflect the will of the people and for opposition politics to have a chance of challenging the status quo. If they are not there, elections can further inflame the crisis, rather than ameliorate it, and to date the international community has been overwhelmingly focused on technical support for the elections without recognizing that the underlying conditions for a free and fair election are not in place.

Until the NCP agrees to conditions that will allow for credible elections, the United States and other donors should suspend all electoral assistance. Un-free and unfair elections should not be financed and legitimized by American taxpayers. If the Sudanese parties decide to continue with elections without the establishment of these basic standards, the U.S. and the broader international community should not certify its outcome as a credible one.

However, efforts to put in place the conditions for the January 2011 referendum should continue. Not holding the referendum on time is the most certain trigger for all-out war.

The risks of ignoring electoral prerequisites and holding non-credible elections are enormous, with consequences ranging from the humanitarian to the political. Non-credible elections will:

Fuel violence and divisions, particularly in the South and Darfur;
Undermine the CPA’s aim of democratically transforming the country;
Disenfranchise millions of Darfuris;
Provide false legitimacy to an indicted war criminal, Omer al-Bashir, and to his ruling NCP;
Badly discredit international electoral assistance programs;
Reinforce to the NCP that it can ignore key provisions of the CPA such as national political reforms; and,
Waste nearly a hundred million dollars of American taxpayers’ money.

Darfur is particularly vulnerable to flawed elections at this time. Rampant insecurity and attacks on civilians, the absence of a credible peace process, a disputed census, and the displacement of the majority of Darfur’s population are key obstacles to holding truly democratic elections. The displacement of Darfur’s population alone could conceivably lead to myriad problems. Many displaced Darfuris lack proper identification papers or cards, which not only complicates the voting and registration process but also creates ripe opportunities for electoral rigging. Elections in Darfur could formalize displacement; i.e., by registering Darfuris to vote in displaced camps, the NCP may well argue that the individuals who registered in camps have forsaken their legal claims to the lands from which they were driven. The NCP has also routinely encouraged the immigration of non-Darfuris into areas cleared out by the violence, raising questions of whether an election would truly be representative of the region’s people. Elections on these terms will only create new opportunities for the NCP to further exploit the population and hand the ruling party an easy, illegitimate victory. In short, it is almost impossible to imagine a fair election in Darfur in four months, and any national election that does not include Darfur will sorely lack legitimacy.

In the South, piecemeal and ad hoc attempts by the international community and the southern government to address significant security concerns related to the elections are a cause for concern even if the NCP does agree to pre-election reforms. If the elections occur in the current climate, where legitimate elections are impossible, they will fan the flames of simmering inter-communal and political tensions in the South. Elections in the South represent risks that will be all the more threatening if reforms by the NCP do not occur now.

The urgent need for consequences

The U.S. and other donors to the electoral process need to stand up and conclude that the Emperor is as naked as he ever was, and blow the whistle now on this deadly charade.

To be clear, we are not calling for a postponement of the elections, per se, but rather for the creation of conditions for free and fair elections as envisioned in the CPA. The CPA was built upon a clear sequence: national reforms first, to be followed by nation-wide elections and a referendum. If the international community does not condition its continued financial and logistical assistance on substantial reform of the electoral environment, the results will be predictably unfortunate. If the international community lets the NCP gloss over the provisions that would allow for fair elections, without consequences, this will demonstrate once again the lack of international will to enforce crucial CPA components, and will signal to the NCP that it can wriggle out of additional CPA requirements, thus further imperiling the fragile peace in the South. We are calling for full implementation of the CPA. Rushing toward elections without the proper conditions in place will end badly for all involved, and further embolden the NCP to undermine the next major CPA process: the referendum.

Un-free and unfair elections in Sudan and its potentially violent aftermath will continue to undermine efforts toward democratic reforms throughout Africa as a continent. With several countries -- including Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Chad -- holding elections next year and all undermining the underpinnings of democracy in varying degrees, the conduct of credible elections in Sudan is pivotal to countering this negative regional trend. The U.S. rarely pulls the plug on its support for an electoral process, no matter how non-credible it is. Doing so in Sudan would set a positive precedent that the substance of democratic transitions matter to the United States.

There is a reason Sudan is facing this make-or-break scenario. Until now, the parties – particularly the NCP – continue to trample the agreement because there has been no cost for not implementing key parts of the CPA. It is time for President Obama to implement his administration’s own benchmark-based policy. Flouting the establishment of conditions for a credible election and referendum should trigger immediate consequences. The U.S. should work within and outside the U.N. Security Council to develop a coalition of countries willing to impose consequences on the NCP for its obstruction of basic conditions for peace. Consequences should include ratcheting up targeted multilateral sanctions, enforcement of the arms embargo, denial of debt relief, and greater support for further International Criminal Court investigations and indictments. Similar consequences should await senior SPLM officials and Darfur rebel leaders if they are found to be undermining peace as well.

These consequences that allegedly reside in the Obama administration’s confidential annex to its policy are the only instruments that can prevent an all-out national war in Sudan. Consequences, or the meaningful threat thereof, have altered the calculations and behavior of the NCP in the past. They led to the expulsion of Osama bin Laden, the end to slave raiding and aerial bombing in the South, the acceleration of intelligence cooperation after 9/11, and the CPA itself.

There is a path to peace for the parties in Sudan. The United States has a major role to play. But to contribute to peace, the U.S. needs to stand for peace with principle, and back principle with real leverage in the form of credible multilateral consequences in support of genuine democratic processes and verifiable commitment to peace. The first step surely is to suspend U.S. taxpayer support for the unacceptably flawed electoral process, signaling the beginning of a strategy in which fundamental human rights and civil rights violations have real and escalating costs.

From Mine to Mobile Phone: The Conflict Minerals Supply Chain

Submitted by Patrick Furey on November 4, 2009 - 12:22pm.

Sasha Lezhnev Enough experts lead you down the path of the 3Ts—tin, tantalum, tungsten—and gold from the mines of Eastern Congo all the way to your cell phone.

Author:

Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast

Nov 10, 2009

MineToMobile.pdf

Enough experts lead you down the path of the 3Ts—tin, tantalum, tungsten—and gold from the mines of Eastern Congo all the way to your cell phone.

Conflict Minerals, Congo

^{Tin ore. Source: Grassroots Reconciliation Group / Sasha Lezhnev}

At present, the only system that the exporters use to avoid buying conflict minerals is verbal assurance: they simply ask, “Did you get this from a conflict area?”

Increasing pressure on electronics companies to ensure that their products do not contain illicit minerals from the killing fields in eastern Congo is beginning to have a significant impact. With bills on conflict minerals moving through Congress, the electronics industry has spent about $2 million per month lobbying Senate offices to relax the legislation, which would increase transparency in the supply chains for tin, tantalum, and tungsten, or the 3Ts.[1]

These mineral ores, as well as gold, are key elements of electronics products including cell phones and personal computers, and also are the principal source of revenue for armed groups and military units that prey on civilians in eastern Congo. Congo’s mineral wealth did not spark the conflict in eastern Congo, but war profiteering has become the fuel that keeps the region aflame and lies beneath the surface of major regional tensions.[2]

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton highlighted the link between armed conflict, sexual violence, and minerals when she visited eastern Congo in August 2009, arguing that the world needs to do more “to prevent the mineral wealth from the DRC ending up in the hands of those who fund the violence.”[3]

The most effective way to achieve this goal is to ensure transparency in the consumer electronics supply chain to certify products as conflict-free. But many electronics companies maintain that their supply chains are too complex for this, because of the sheer number of actors involved in moving minerals from mines in Congo all the way to the gadgets in our pockets.

We traveled to eastern Congo shortly before the Secretary’s trip to better understand how the 3Ts and gold make their way from conflict-ravaged areas in North and South Kivu all the way to cell phones, laptops, MP3 players, and video game systems. From this ground level view, the conflict minerals supply chain is far less intimidating than the industry would have consumers believe. In fact, the journey from mine to mobile phone can be broken down into six major steps that make the supply chain relatively easy to understand.

View Full Slideshow

^{Source: Grassroots Reconciliation Group / Sasha Lezhnev}

STEP 1: THE MINES

A Gold Rush with Guns

^{Kaniola gold mine, South Kivu.}
^{Source: Grassroots Reconciliation Group / Sasha Lezhnev}

“This region [eastern Congo] has so much of this coltan, you just dig on any hill and you find it.” -Denis, miner, Bukavu, South Kivu

“When the FDLR come to a mine, the first thing they do is get the girls and abuse them. Then they force many people to work and kill those who don’t want to work.” -Jacques, former militia commander, Nyangezi, South Kivu

The journey of a conflict mineral begins at one of eastern Congo’s many mines.[4] A recent mapping exercise by the International Peace Information Service, or IPIS, identified 13 major mines and approximately 200 total mines in the region.[5] Many geologists and companies believe that there may be a much greater abundance of minerals below the surface in eastern Congo, but decades of war have precluded large-scale geological exploration.

Of the 13 major mines identified by IPIS in eastern Congo, 12 are currently controlled by armed groups. Some of the mines are controlled the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR—a Rwandan militia led by organizers of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Other mines are managed by the Congolese army as a means of personal enrichment—a flagrant violation of Congo’s mining laws, which prohibit the presence of the army in the mines. The soldiers, many of whom were militia fighters who only just recently integrated into the army, illegally “tax” miners, abuse the population—particularly the women and girls—and pay workers very poor wages. Both the United Nations and IPIS estimate that armed groups and military units control of over 50 percent of the 200 total mines in eastern Congo.

Armed groups control the mines in different ways. For example, at some mines the FDLR forces people to work, while at others their relationship to the local population is more strictly commercial.[6] Working conditions at the mines are abysmal. As a leading minerals expert from the region described, “In the FDLR mines in Burinyi, the local population is there, but they are like slaves.”[7] There are no health and safety standards for miners in the area from which the 3Ts and gold originate. The average wage for a miner is between $1 and $5 a day, and as the World Bank has documented, the mines are also filled with child laborers between the ages of 10 and 16, now missing out on precious years of school. Ben, 15, told us that he had worked in a mine since he was 10 and narrowly avoided a mine shaft collapse last year, a common occurrence. The conditions are slightly better in some of the mines, but as Robert, a local youth leader and civil society activist told us, “Overall, mine workers get very little from mining; in the armed areas it is only worse.” Meanwhile, the armed groups rack up the profits at the mines, earning up to 90 percent of the profits in some areas.[8] Every dollar captured by the armed groups is a dollar that does not go into improving Congolese lives through better schools, health care, or jobs.

_{John Prendergast explains how the militias control the mines.}_{CBS' 60 Minutes highlighted Congo's deadly trade of gold.}

STEP 2: TRADING HOUSES

Looking the Other Way

^{Mineral trading house in Bukavu, South Kivu.

Source: Grassroots Reconciliation Group / Sasha Lezhnev}

Minerals dealer: “Look, this cassiterite [tin ore] is from one mine, and this on the right is from another mine.”
Government inspector: “Yes, and this one is from Shabunda, in the area where the FDLR is.”
-Dialogue at a minerals trading house, Bukavu

From the mines, the minerals get transported to trading towns and then on to the two major cities in the region, Bukavu and Goma. For the gold trade, Butembo and Uvira are also key trading hubs.

The 3Ts are brought by individuals—called negociants in French, or buyer-transporters—on their backs, by large trucks, and/or by planes in sacks the size of small garbage bags. The minerals are then sorted by trading houses called “maisons d’achat,” or trading houses, which process the minerals. The majority of these traders are paid in advance by the exporters to whom they sell the minerals (see Step 3).

Gold is much more valuable by weight compared with the 3Ts. Illustratively, the going price of processed tin is just under $7 per pound, whereas gold is currently valued at more than $15,000 per pound. So while the 3Ts are hauled around in heavy sacks, gold can easily be concealed in a backpack or pocket. As a result, it is very easy to smuggle gold.

For more detailed information on the trade of conflict gold in Congo, read Appendix A: Congo's Gold Trade.

In the case of the 3Ts, because they trade in much larger volumes and have to be transported out of Congo by trucks or planes, the 3Ts are harder to conceal, making them potentially easier to register, document, and regulate. But on the whole, the majority of the transporters and trading houses currently operate in violation of Congo’s mining laws without proper licenses and registration. Part of the problem is that the government charges $500 for licenses, which the association of traders told us was a prohibitively high price to pay. We were informed that only one in ten transporters in Bukavu were officially registered with the government, meaning that 90 percent operate illegally. However, people who know the business, such as government inspectors, told us that such dealerships and transporters are widely known: there are approximately 100 trading houses each in Bukavu and Goma.

^{A minerals dealer compares tin ore from a rebel-held mine and a government-controlled mine. Source: Grassroots Reconciliation Group / Sasha Lezhnev}

Contrary to what some companies allege, we found that it is fairly straightforward to tell from where the minerals originate, as both dealers at the buying houses and government mining inspectors demonstrated to us. Each sack of minerals had different coloration and texture, depending on which mine it came from.

But it is a dangerous business to provide transparency to this trade. One leading merchant told us that he would be killed if he went on camera to talk about how the trade works.

Armed groups control much of the transport from the mine to the buying house. They either take a large percentage of the profit from transporters—up to $40 per sack—or they transport the minerals themselves. According to our estimates, the armed groups generated approximately $75 million from mineral transport last year, out of the total of $180 million earned by armed groups from the mineral trade.

STEP 3: THE EXPORTERS

Minerals Enter International Markets

^{An exporter cited by UN experts as purchasing minerals from the FDLR.

Source: Grassroots Reconciliation Group / Sasha Lezhnev}

“The comptoirs [exporters] ask us if we buy minerals from the FDLR, but it’s easy to lie and get around that. They don’t check.” -Thomas, trader, Bukavu

Export companies then buy minerals from the trading houses and transporters, process the minerals using machinery, and then sell them to foreign buyers. These companies, known locally as comptoirs, are required to register with the government, and there are currently 17 exporters based in Bukavu and 24 based in Goma. Just as the exporters provide financing to their suppliers, the majority of them are paid in advance for their minerals by international traders from Belgium, Malaysia, and other foreign countries.

In 2008, the U.N.-appointed experts tasked with monitoring the links between natural resources and conflict in eastern Congo identified several major exporters as actively purchasing minerals from mines controlled by the FDLR and other armed groups. Although the associations of exporters in both North and South Kivu have denied these accusations and insist that they only purchase minerals through legal channels, there are many loopholes that still allow conflict minerals to enter into the supply chain at this state.

At present, the only system that the exporters use to avoid buying conflict minerals is verbal assurance: they simply ask, “Did you get this from a conflict area?” If the seller says no, without providing any proof of where the minerals came from, then the exporter goes ahead with the purchase. According to our interviews, there has not been a single case where an exporter refused a batch of minerals because they believed it originated in a conflict mine. Also, the laws prohibiting exporters from buying minerals from unregistered traders are weakly enforced, making it all too easy for minerals of dubious origin to enter the market. So smugglers, even armed fighters themselves, can easily walk into an exporting company and sell the minerals without difficulty.

There are also massive concerns with the gold trade. According to Congolese government sources, in 2008 Congo legally exported only 270 pounds of gold, compared with an estimated 11 thousand pounds of production.[9] This means that the lion’s share of the profits for the gold trade accrues to the armed groups, further fueling the cycle of violence in Congo.

STEP 4: TRANSIT COUNTRIES

Origins Obscured

^{Gold powder is tested and weighed within dealerships.

Source: Grassroots Reconciliation Group / Sasha Lezhnev}

“The border patrols don’t check when you come across from Congo. Then you sell at one of two houses here [in Uganda]. They never ask for papers about where the gold comes from. Then they sell to Dubai. This business is very big, millions of dollars.” -Frank, former minerals smuggler, Kampala, Uganda

From the exporter the minerals are sent mainly by road, boat, or plane to the neighboring countries of Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi.[10] Some minerals are legally exported, with taxes paid to the Congolese government, while others are smuggled across Congo’s porous borders. Either way, conflict minerals form a major portion of the trade.

Vast inconsistencies in the statistics recorded by neighboring countries attest to the scale of the smuggling, as minerals from Congo are labeled as having originated in Uganda, Rwanda, or Burundi. For example, Uganda officially produced less than $600 worth of gold in 2007, yet exported over $74 million worth of gold.[11] Similarly, Rwanda produced $8 million worth of tin ore but officially exported at least $30 million of tin.[12]

Congolese sellers either working independently or sent by the exporting companies work with buying houses and companies in Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi. In Uganda and Burundi, these shops are unmarked houses. In Rwanda, buying companies mix Congolese minerals with those produced by Rwandan mines. In all three countries, the companies’ proprietors rarely ask questions about where the minerals come from.

In Uganda and Burundi, buying shops also work closely with officers in the security services—the army and police of the country—so that their investments are “protected.” Military officers receive cuts from this trade, and use their security connections to keep business flowing smoothly. This climate of repression and the real threat of violence is enough to dissuade most whistleblowers. Some of these traders have been put on United Nations sanctions lists for trading in conflict minerals, so they maintain underground profiles to avoid the spotlight and further sanctions.

There is nothing inherently wrong with neighboring countries importing and exporting Congolese minerals, but given the history of regional governments direct involvement in the illicit minerals trade, linkages between these governments and business and military elites who dominate the trade, and the continuing lack of transparency and due diligence on the part of these governments, much greater scrutiny of this step in the trade is necessary. These countries should insist that verifiable documentation accompanies the minerals, documenting the chain of custody to ensure that they are conflict free, and that they have been legally taxed by the Congolese authorities. Moreover, they need to start holding smugglers to account. The government of Rwanda has recently started a program to certify the origin of much of Rwanda’s domestic mineral production. This is a step in the right direction and full implementation of this policy by all minerals companies in the country, as well as in Uganda and Burundi, should be encouraged.

STEP 5: THE REFINERS

Minerals to Metals

^{Inside a tin smelter.

Source: AP Photo / Dado Galdieri}

“Minerals used to create the metals in electronics products are often mixed from various sources and exchanged in ways that prevent tracing.” -Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition statement on minerals used in electronics products.

In order for the minerals to be sold on the world market, they have to be refined into metals by metal processing companies.[13] These companies, based mainly in East Asia, take the Congolese minerals and smelt or chemically process them together with metals from other countries in large furnaces.[14]

For tin, the most lucrative conflict mineral in eastern Congo last year, 10 main smelting companies process over 80 percent of the world’s tin, almost all of which are based in East Asia.[15] For tantalum, four companies make up the overwhelming majority of the chemical processing market, based in Germany, the U.S., China, and Kazakhstan. For tungsten, there are several processing companies in China, Austria, and Russia. The main destination for Congolese gold is Dubai in the Middle East, though recent records indicate that Switzerland, Italy, and Belgium may also be processing gold from eastern Congo.

When it comes to tracing supply chains back to their sources, refiners are the critical link. After the mineral ore is refined into metal, it becomes impossible to distinguish tin or tantalum that originated in Congo from other sources, and supplies from all over the globe are mixed together at this step in the chain. This is why it is essential that these companies take pains to document where they are sourcing from and make their records subject to independent audits.

The International Tin Research Institute, or ITRI, a membership association consisting of major tin smelters, has developed an initiative to improve due diligence for tin from eastern Congo. Together with certain metal traders and Congolese exporters, they have developed a three-step approach to developing a more traceable supply chain. So far, the measures taken remain insufficient, but with a more robust system of independent audits that would ensure that companies are not responsible for policing themselves, this initiative could positively impact the trade.[16] The U.S. Congress, led by Senators Sam Brownback, Russ Feingold, and Dick Durbin, has also proposed legislation that would require companies to trace the 3T minerals sourced from Central Africa back to their original mines. The House of Representatives, led by Rep. Jimv McDermott, is working on a similar bill, which would put in place audits of refining facilities to help ensure they are conflict free. These are all welcome steps in the right direction, although their success will depend on the results they deliver on the ground.

STEP 6: ELECTRONICS COMPANIES

Conflict Minerals in your Phone

^{Tin solder is used to affix components to circuit boards.

Source: flickr.com / quapan}

“I hear these minerals are used in mobile phones, but I don’t know how. Why don’t the big companies make sure they are not buying from the FDLR? They have that power and money, surely.” –Robert, youth civil society activist, Bukavu

Finally, the refiners sell Congo’s minerals onto the electronics companies. The electronics industry is the single largest consumer of the minerals from eastern Congo. The now-processed metals usually go through a few sub-stages here—first to circuit board and computer chip manufacturers, then to cell phone and other electronics manufacturers, and finally to the mainstream electronics companies such as Intel, Apple, Nokia, Hewlett Packard, Nintendo, etc. These companies then make the products that we all know and buy—cell phones, portable music players, video games, and laptop computers. Because companies do not currently have a system to trace, audit, and certify where their materials come from, all cell phones and laptops may contain conflict minerals from Congo.

The electronics industry is not the only one that uses the 3Ts and gold, but it is the largest. Other industries with a significant stake include tin can manufacturers, industrial tool and light bulb companies for tungsten, and aerospace and defense contractors, as well as the banking and jewelry industries in the case of gold.

_{Jeweler Brian Leber makes it a priority to know to that his precious metals come from only recycled materials.}_CBS'_{60 Minutes}_highlighted_Congo's_{deadly trade of gold}_.

Steps Toward a Solution

These six steps connect our cell phones and computers to the conflict in eastern Congo. This connection presents an opportunity for consumers to make a difference by demanding that companies sell us verifiably conflict-free products.

A recent Enough Project strategy paper provided an overview of a comprehensive policy to end the trade in conflict minerals, incorporating corporate responsibility, security measures, governance reforms, and livelihoods initiatives.[17] Consumers and companies have a critical role to play, by demanding three steps to enable Congo’s minerals to benefit its people rather than the armed groups that prey upon them:

Trace: Companies must determine the precise sources of their minerals. We should support efforts to develop rigorous means of ensuring that the origin and production volume of minerals are transparent.

Audit: Companies should conduct detailed examinations of their mineral supply chains to ensure that taxes are legally and transparently paid to the Congolese government and guard against bribery and fraudulent payments. Credible third parties should conduct or verify these audits.

Certify: For consumers to be able to purchase conflict-free electronics made with Congolese minerals, a certification scheme that builds upon the lessons of the Kimberley Process will be required. Donor governments and industry should provide financial and technical assistance to galvanize this process.

What You Can Do:

Your cell phone doesn't have to fuel the deadliest war in the world. Use it to change the equation for Congo. It’s your call to make.

Call, email, or meet with your Senators and urge them to both cosponsor and help strengthen the Congo Conflict Minerals Act of 2009 (S.891). Talking points can be found at www.raisehopeforcongo.org or you can dial the U.S. Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121.
Help us increase demand for conflict-free electronics. Visit www.raisehopeforcongo.org to email the biggest buyers of Congo’s conflict minerals—major electronics companies—and let them know that you want to buy conflict-free products. The message is clear: “If you take conflict out of your cell phone, I will buy it.”
Stay in touch! Text the word “Congo” to 228488 (spells ACTIV8) to get updates and actions from RAISE Hope for Congo.

[1] There is also currently a House bill being drafted by Rep. McDermott, which would require audits of minerals refining facilities, and which some electronics companies have reportedly supported. Jonathan Broder, “In the Business of Change,” Congressional Quarterly, September 14, 2009.

[2] For a background on the crisis, see John Prendergast and Noel Atama, “Eastern Congo: An Action Plan to End the World’s Deadliest War,” (Washington: Enough Project, 2009).

[3] Janine Zacharia, “Clinton Calls on Congo to Stop Mineral Wealth Funding Conflict,” Bloomberg News, August 11, 2009.

[4] The 3Ts are produced from mineral ores: tin from cassiterite, tungsten from wolframite, and tantalum from columbite-tantalite, known throughout Congo as coltan. To the untrained eye, these minerals look like ordinary rocks, and are often found together in the same ore. For gold, there are three types of mines – underground, in which miners carve out a section of a mountain and dig tunnels beneath the earth; pit, in which miners dig in open ditches; and alluvial, which is panning for gold in rivers, similar to the methods used during the California gold rush over a century ago. See also Dan Fahey, “Le Fleuve D’Or: The Production and Trade of Gold from Mongbwalu, DRC,” (L'Afrique des Grands Lacs Annuaire 2007-2008).

[5] This includes North and South Kivu, and the major mines are identified as Minembwe, Misisi, Mpofi, Bisie, Gakombe, Bwina, Benzia, Wamiti, Lugushwa, Kinyinya Millimani, Ihana group, Bibatama – Rive Gauche, and Mugerero, each of which have over 500 workers at the mine site. See, “Interactive map of militarised mining areas in the Kivus (August 2009)” available here.

[6] At the mines that are not controlled by armed groups, civilians work together with local chiefs to exploit the minerals. In addition, there are sizeable mines located outside of the conflict zone in the neighboring provinces of Katanga and Maniema, whose trading routes pass through the Kivus. See also, Steven Spittaels and Filip Hilgert, “Accompanying note on the interactive map of militarised mines in the Kivus”, available at http://www.ipisresearch.be/fck/file/20090810_mining_kivus.pdf.

[7] Interview with civil society mining expert, Bukavu, June 10, 2009

[8] Interviews with mining inspectors and civil society representatives, June 10, 2009

[9] Cadet Abedi, “La RDC perd 70 millions $US à cause de la fraude du métal jaune,” AllAfrica.com, July 15, 2009, available here.

[10] Sometimes this stage is skipped, and the minerals are flown directly to refiners in Step 5. In other cases, metals trading companies based mainly in Europe buy the minerals from Congo and Rwanda and sell them onto refiners.

[11] “Uganda Ministry of Energy and Minerals, Annual Report for 2007”.

[12] The official price reported in Rwanda in 2007 was US$7.09 per kg of tin ore, but the world price for tin in 2007 was US$14.10. While allowing for lowered prices of tin ore before it is smelted, there is still potentially a price discrepancy here, meaning that the real value of exported tin ore from Rwanda could be higher. There is a vast discrepancy between what H.C. Starck paid for tin ore from Rwanda (an average of $12,410 per ton in 2007) and what other companies paid (an average of $7,603 per ton). The overwhelming majority of these minerals came from eastern Congo. See Nicholas Garrett and Harrison Mitchell, “Trading Conflict for Development: Utilising the Trade in Minerals from Eastern DR Congo for Development,” (Resources Consulting Service LLC, 2009).

[13] The refiners sometimes also have related companies which process the metals into alloys and solder, in order for them to be usable in electronics and related products.

[14] Some of the minerals, such as tantalum, are chemically processed using a heated salt mixture rather than smelted into metals. There are currently no smelting or chemical processing facilities in Central Africa, although there is a tin smelting plant in Gisenyi, Rwanda that may soon reopen.

[15] The top 10 companies produced 259,711 combined tons of tin in 2007, and the United States Geological Survey estimates that world tin production in 2007 equaled 320,000 tons. ITRI, “Review of Tin Use and Recycling for 2007”; United States Geological Survey, “Report for Tin,” 2009.

[16] ITRI Fact Sheet, “Tin Supply from the Democratic Republic of Congo,” available here.

[17] The Enough Project with Grassroots Reconciliation Group, “A Comprehensive Approach to Congo’s Conflict Minerals,” (2009), available here.

Appendix A: What Should Be Done About Congo's Gold Trade?

Author: David Sullivan

CBS' 60 Minutes highlighted the deadly trade of gold from the mines of Congo. Enough experts detail how to track the supply chain of conflict gold, and how you can ensure your jewelry is conflict-free.

^{Miners bring gold powder to gold dealerships, where it is weighed and tested.

Source: Grassroots Reconciliation Group / Sasha Lezhnev}

Concerted consumer action has enormous potential
to clean up these supply chains.

A powerful segment on CBS’ 60 Minutes demonstrated with stark clarity how the trade in conflict gold is a major source of funding for armed groups that target civilian populations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Gold also plays a key role in electronic devices, making up two-thirds of value of the metals inside cell phones and personal computers. A jewelry industry spokesperson interviewed for the show seemed genuinely perplexed about how to ensure that gold does not finance the conflict in eastern Congo. Yet the supply chain in gold can be made conflict-free through the same three steps that Enough has recommended for other conflict minerals:

1)    Trace: Companies must determine the precise sources of their minerals.
2)    Audit: Companies should conduct detailed examinations of their mineral supply chains. Credible third parties should conduct and/or verify these audits.
3)    Certify: In order for consumers to be able to purchase conflict-free electronics and jewelry made with Congolese minerals, a certification scheme that builds upon the lessons of the Kimberley Process will be required.

The gold trade differs from that of other minerals in several important ways:

•    Gold is much more valuable by weight compared with other minerals. As a result, it is easier to smuggle small amounts of gold that are valuable.
•    Gold is easier to refine than the other minerals and can be smelted into metal earlier in the supply chain, making it more difficult to trace.
•    Because of gold’s importance as a store of value in the international financial system, legislative efforts to curb the import of gold into the United States are more complicated than in the case of other minerals.

These complications do not mean that that a transparent supply chain is impossible, but consumers will have to generate sufficient pressure on the industry to take the necessary action. Because more than 80 percent of gold in the United States is used in jewelry, and nine percent of worldwide gold is used in electronics, concerted consumer action has enormous potential to clean up these supply chains.

How does U.S. legislation address Congo’s gold trade?

Gold is cited as a source of financing for armed groups in eastern Congo in both the Senate (S.891) and House (H.R. 4128) versions of legislation on conflict minerals. But because of the complicating factors described above, gold has not been included in the sections of the legislation that mandate more traceable and transparent supply chains. However other critical aspects of legislation, including a U.S. government strategy to address this issue, the mapping of militarized mining sites, and ensuring that State Department human rights reports cover the issues related to the trade in conflict minerals, do incorporate coverage of the gold trade.

Can I buy conflict-free jewelry?

The No Dirty Gold campaign is an effort to end destructive impacts of gold mining, including the sourcing of gold from conflict areas, such as eastern Congo. A list of retailers that have signed on to support their 10 Golden rules is available here.

Tiffany & Co.: According to their website: “The majority of the gold and silver used in Tiffany & Co. jewelry workshops is obtained from a single U.S. mine that meets high
standards of social and environmental responsibility.”

Wal-Mart: Wal-Mart’s Love Earth jewelry line is a completely traceable line of jewelry that allows consumers to trace the supply chain for their jewelry online, back to specific mines of origin. However this is only one line of products, and Wal-Mart’s current target is to make 10 percent of its diamonds, gold, and silver traceable by 2010.

Fair Trade Gold: The Alliance for Responsible Mining, or ARM, has pioneered a set of standards for fair trade artisanal gold. For more on this effort, visit their website.

8 comments

A Political Settlement for Darfur: A Practical Roadmap

Submitted by Zack Brisson on October 13, 2009 - 11:15am.

The Darfur peace process is at a crossroads. Until now, the mediation team has not produced a credible peace proposal and key external actors have not generated the necessary pressures and incentives to achieve an agreement. International efforts to restart negotiations in the coming weeks must avoid the mistakes of the past and instead focus on substantive peace proposals and backing the mediation team with the requisite leverage.

Author:

Omer Ismail, Colin Thomas-Jensen, Maggie Fick, and John Prendergast

Oct 13, 2009

A political settlement for Darfur: A practical roadmap

By Omer Ismail, Colin Thomas-Jensen, Maggie Fick and John Prendergast

The meeting of international experts this week in Doha, Qatar, and of Darfur civil society groups later this month are opportunities for the mediation to table a draft peace plan that can jump-start real negotiations and drive reluctant rebels into a process with the promise of real progress. United Nations-African Union mediator, Burkinabé diplomat Djibril Bassolé, should work with key countries to outline a vision for an end-state and initiate a genuine dialogue between all major stakeholders on the issues that matter to the people of Darfur. The United States and other key external actors must provide sustained high-level backing to drive the peace process toward a successful outcome.

Efforts by President Barack Obama’s special envoy to Sudan, Major General Scott Gration, have not effectively advanced peace in Darfur because General Gration, Bassolé, and others continue to labor under the false notion that the peace process is stalled largely because of divisions within the rebel groups. This is simply not the case. Even a fully unified Darfur rebel movement (itself highly unlikely) would consider the current process as a non-starter. Bassolé has lacked clear direction and has failed to put substantive proposals on the table for the parties to discuss. The international community, including the United States, has not provided robust support and focused leverage. Despite a near consensus view that the people of Darfur must have a direct say in their political future, there has been no clear forum for legitimate Darfur civil society groups to participate in the process. The United States is also misguidedly seeking to wrap up the process by the end of 2009 to allow for elections in Darfur—a compressed timeline that could lead to further conflict (and a very flawed election).

Bassolé’s weakness and the lack of high-level support for his mediation efforts has helped embolden Egypt and Libya to launch parallel peace efforts or otherwise undermine the Doha process. Doha right now is less a venue for talks than it is a powerful symbol of the international community’s failure to construct a single, viable peace process. Worse, the revelation in The Washington Post on September 30, 2009, that Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party, using Qatar as an intermediary, has been working with former U.S. National Security Advisor Bud McFarlane to help “restore a normal relationship” between Sudan and the United States casts into sharp doubt the efficacy of Qatar as a neutral convener.[1]

The inevitable conclusion is that much work needs to be done to get the process moving in the right direction. If the United States is serious about helping to end the Darfur conflict and the crisis in Sudan more broadly, the Obama administration must now seize the opportunity presented by meetings in Doha this week and later this month to build high-level multilateral backing for a revitalized peace process that is closely linked to a broader effort to fundamentally alter Sudan’s untenable and deadly status quo. This paper outlines the necessary steps to achieve a lasting political settlement in Darfur.

The role of the mediator: Put substance first

Bassolé has fallen into the same trap as his predecessors: he engages in repeated consultations with important stakeholders without substantive peace proposals as a focal point for discussion. Rebel groups and ordinary Darfuris felt betrayed by the peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria, that led to the moribund 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement, or DPA, and were broadly disappointed by subsequent peace efforts. While it might be tempting to use the DPA as a starting point for negotiations, that agreement failed to deal adequately with many core demands and, when it was signed by only one faction of the Sudan Liberation Army, or SLA, the agreement actually contributed to the fragmentation of rebel groups and worsening security in 2006 and 2007.

The recent U.S. efforts in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in support of unification of non-signatory factions of the SLA could prove useful, but attempts to engineer new SLA leadership without consulting more closely with the key political and military actors in Darfur could lead to more violence. In particular, General Gration’s goal to replace SLA-leader Abdel Wahid—who lives in Paris and refuses to participate in direct talks with the government until the security situation in Darfur is stabilized—could split Wahid’s Fur constituency and further complicate Darfuri efforts to rally around a common political platform for the talks. The best mechanism for driving Darfur’s squabbling rebel factions into the Darfur peace process is for the mediation to put forth a credible peace proposal that actually addresses the root causes of Darfur’s conflict.

Rather than the DPA, the Declaration of Principles, or DOP—a document signed by all of the important rebel groups in July 2005—should be Bassolé’s starting point. The DOP offers the best way forward because it reaffirms commitment to all previous agreements, including U.N. resolutions and ceasefire agreements starting with the April 2004 ceasefire signed in the Chadian capital N’djamena. Therefore, any peace process based upon the DOP would bypass discussion of the applicability or enforcement of previous agreements because it could be argued that all parties have already agreed to their full implementation.

The DOP is a good place to start, but rebel groups and ordinary Darfuris will remain wary of peace efforts until the negotiations are anchored by a clear set of proposals on the issues that matter to them. Fortunately, pulling these proposals together sounds tougher than it is; between lessons learned from the Abuja talks, discussions with Darfur’s rebel groups, and the extensive deliberations of legitimate Darfur civil society organizations, Bassolé should present a draft peace proposal that includes the following:

Wealth sharing and power sharing proposals based on figures from the 1992 census that showed Darfur to be 20 percent of Sudan’s total population. This particular recommendation is based on the agenda of the seventh and final round of the Abuja talks, which interpreted the DOP as a commitment by all parties to agree on wealth and power sharing based on the 1992 figures. Since the 2009 census is controversial and flawed, the best way forward is to use a measure that parties have previously agreed upon.

The creation of a single region of Greater Darfur. The question of how Darfur should be administered—and whether it should remain as three states or establish a regional government, as was the case until 1989—is at the center of political negotiations over Darfur’s future. The DPA establishes a transition period before a regional vote on Darfur’s status to be held no later than mid-2010 (a date that would obviously have to be revisited). However, some rebel factions continue to demand an immediate return to a regional government, while others have openly called for self-determination and even independence. The mediation team must work with the parties to establish consensus on the question of autonomy before moving on to the specifics of power sharing.

Establishment of a semi-autonomous government in Darfur with meaningful decentralization but without the provision for a referendum on self-determination. This is the only way that Darfuris would accept a comprehensive peace deal. Darfuris who are not a member of Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party, or NCP, should constitute the majority in such a government.

Restitution that includes individual as well as community compensation, addresses the safe return of internally displaced persons and refugees to their original homelands, and holds the perpetrators of crimes to account. Compensation, or diya, is a central part of traditional conflict resolution in Darfur. The primary purpose of compensation is to recognize the harm done to a community and (partially) satisfy the victims’ demand for justice. In Darfur, this can only occur when the Government of Sudan, as the party most responsible for systematic killing, rape, torture, and looting, adequately compensates victims. Moreover, compensation for Darfur must be separate and distinct from any reconstruction and development funds that may be offered once peace is achieved. The DPA authorized a compensation fund of $30 million for Darfur. Using a very crude calculation, equal distribution among the 2.5 million displaced people would amount to a $12 payout for each victim. Given the scale of the economic losses in Darfur and the complexity of determining and distributing compensation, the Government of Sudan must allocate substantially more funds and agree to an international monitoring mechanism ensure that those funds are dispersed fairly.

The complete dismantling of the structures of violence: the Janjaweed and other proxy militias and the various rebel factions. The people of Darfur will simply not accept any agreement that fails to establish a clear, internationally monitored process to disarm the militias that have marauded with impunity for more than six years. Simply arguing for greater state control over law and order in Darfur, as the U.S. special envoy has recently done, is insufficient and unlikely to deal with the root causes of earlier bouts of violence. The DPA holds the Government of Sudan responsible for disarming its own proxies, a responsibility that the government has pledged to honor and then ignored on at least six occasions. Instead, the mediation should seek agreement on an internationally monitored process to assemble irregular armed groups, collect their heavy weapons, and implement an aggressive program to disarm, demobilize, and repatriate combatants. Moreover, the process must take into account the realities on the ground. Although weapons have flooded the region since the crisis began in 2003, many farmers and herders in Darfur have carried rifles for years to defend their land and livestock. Disarmament programs should seek to take apart the militias without disrupting the traditional livelihoods of civilians.

A comprehensive security arrangement that will address all the above as well as end the proxy wars across the border and stop the spillover of violence and resulting counter violence that would threaten the fragile, newly signed peace. Elements of this arrangement should be drawn from the DPA and updated to reflect current security realities. Most importantly, security arrangements must include an internationally supported mechanism that allows for the safe and voluntary return of the nearly 3 million displaced Darfuris to their homes.

A stronger and better resourced United Nations mission in Darfur, or UNAMID, will be critical to overseeing any agreement’s implementation. UNAMID’s role must be clearly articulated in any final peace agreement, particularly the force’s specific responsibilities to help ensure that civilians who want to return to their villages of origin can do so safely and with dignity. Full deployment of a robust force with a competent lead nation, an experienced division-level headquarters staff, and a clear command-and-control structure will be critical to ensure that all sides adhere to their commitments.

A draft agreement that lays out a clearly defined vision for an end state that resonates with Darfur’s civilian population would break the pattern of previous rounds of negotiations, in which the government and rebel groups exploited the lack of vision and stuck to intransigent positions.

The role of the U.S.: Build leverage and multilateral support for an inclusive mediation effort

In addition to the substantive proposals outlined above, the peace process as must be revitalized and reconfigured to address numerous structural flaws.

Building leverage and support for the peace process

The lack of a high-level supporting cast for Bassolé—a group of senior diplomats from key countries to provide leverage and additional support for the mediation—is far and away the peace process’ most glaring deficiency. Of course it is easier—and therefore tempting—for the United States to either act unilaterally or engage at a working level with traditional partners such as France and the United Kingdom. However, the challenging task of constructing a group that includes important actors such as Egypt and Libya and ensuring that they engage in the process at the highest level is a necessary one: Sustained investments in diplomacy by the United States and its partners are necessary to jumpstart the process.

The structure should be similar to the talks in Naivasha, Kenya, that produced the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA. In those talks, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Norway constituted a “troika” that supported the mediator, Kenyan General Lazaro Sumbeiywo, with focused leverage and, at times, intervened directly to forge consensus on the thorniest issues.[2] Because Darfur is in northern Sudan and the conflict there more directly impacts a different set of actors, we believe that the core group of countries should be the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Egypt, Libya, and potentially China. The United Kingdom is a guarantor of the CPA and a traditional U.S. partner on Sudan. France has a vested interest in Darfur, particularly as the conflict there has negatively impacted its interests in neighboring Chad.[3]

It will be challenging to secure the buy in of other necessary partners, but not impossible. Darfur is Egypt and Libya’s backyard, and each has sought to establish a parallel peace effort to the Doha process. Libya’s motivation is to maintain its influence in the Chad/Darfur region, while Egypt views the domestic crisis in Sudan through the lens of its need to maintain unimpeded access to the Nile River.[4] Both resent the Qatari mediation effort and have worked to undermine it. The United States should press both countries at a high level to support a single process. If, as we suggest, Bassolé lays out clear peace proposals that foster genuine discussion between the parties, Egypt and Libya are more likely to play a constructive role.

China has predictably demonstrated virtually no interest in securing peace in Darfur, but continued war in Darfur will negatively impact China’s $8 billion investment in Sudan’s oil sector. Darfur rebels have already attacked oil installations in neighboring Kordofan, and continued war in Darfur and/or a collapse of the CPA and resumption of the North-South conflict would almost certainly impact oil production negatively. The United States need to engage China on these interests and encourage Beijing to use its leverage with Khartoum.

The United States can help build its own leverage on several fronts through focused, deliberate incentives and pressures. On the incentive side, phased cooperation with and—ultimately—normalization with the United States is the largest carrot the Obama administration has to offer. Removal of certain unilateral sanctions and penalties could be undertaken after verifiable changes on the ground in Darfur and the South. Full normalization should only occur once the Sudanese government adheres to its obligations under various peace agreements and to international justice. Any negotiating process must be guided by the reality that Khartoum has a long history of snatching carrots and then failing to follow through on the most important commitments.

General Gration’s approach thus far in dealing with the Sudanese government has emphasized unilateral incentives, but the regime responds much more readily to concerted multilateral pressure. President Bashir may have weathered the storm of the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant, but that only highlights the need for international isolation. The ICC’s most enthusiastic backers—particularly those in Europe—have been deafeningly silent as President Bashir has thumbed his nose at the Court. And the United States’ recent tough talk on ending impunity in Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and elsewhere is remarkably absent in its public rhetoric on Sudan.

Rhetoric alone, however, will not alter Khartoum’s calculations, and the United States must urgently explore how to put greater multilateral pressure on the regime—for both peace in Darfur and implementation of the CPA. The U.N. Security Council has authorized sanctions against top Sudanese officials responsible for atrocities in Darfur, and the United States should push with its partners for those to be implemented. The United States does have strong unilateral sanctions on Sudan, but the possibility of broader multilateral economic isolation—working closely with allies in Europe and Asia—has not been pursued at a senior level. And given the compelling evidence that weapons from other nations—including China and Iran—are finding their way to the frontlines in Darfur, a comprehensive arms embargo on offensive weapons against Sudanese government should be imposed by the U.N. Security Council. The embargo should include a robust international monitoring mechanism to ensure its effectiveness. A recent report from the Small Arms Survey notes that the greatest source of weapons for armed groups in Darfur and southern Sudan is likely the Sudanese army itself, and the U.N. Panel of Experts should, as a matter of urgency, investigate the internal trade in ever more sophisticated arms used in attacks against civilians.[5] Efforts by the NCP to more heavily arm proxy militias in southern Sudan could trigger the resumption of a broader North-South war.

Including missing stakeholders at the negotiating table

The international community continues to make a critical mistake by limiting participation in political talks to the Khartoum regime and the armed groups in Darfur. A strong civil society presence will reduce the likelihood that the peace process will be hijacked by armed groups whose interests are not the same as those of the nearly three million people still living in camps in Darfur and eastern Chad today. The glaring absence of a legitimate civil society presence from Darfur at any of the previous peace negotiations on Darfur—notably the DPA—helps to explain the limited progress and outright failures of past efforts. The Sudanese government understands the critical role that civil society would play in a meaningful negotiation, and for this reason it has worked to stifle a process to organize Darfuris around a common platform.[6]

Meaningful participation by Darfuri civil society will be essential to broadening support for the peace process among Darfuris and in ensuring ownership of the process and its outcomes among the people of Darfur, and the meeting that Bassole is convening later this month is a necessary first step. However, a new process must not merely “give voice” to civil society groups at some point in the series of negotiations; civil society must be at the table from day one, and their presence should be coordinated in advance through public, statewide consultations and a conference that brings together legitimate Darfuri community leaders, representatives from displaced persons and refugee camps, and members of women’s groups in Darfur to articulate a negotiating platform and select representatives to the talks.[7] The United States and the rest of the international community must not tolerate the roadblocks put up by Khartoum in order to prevent coordination of civil society. Therefore, a top priority of the international community on Darfur must be obtaining guarantee from the Sudanese government that future civil society coordination efforts will not be blocked.

Ending the Chad-Sudan proxy war

The Government of Sudan’s deliberate destruction of Darfur has had profound consequences for its neighbors, particularly Chad. Chadian President Idriss Déby’s decision in 2005 to break with Khartoum and overtly back Darfuri rebel groups sparked a vicious proxy war between the two countries. Darfur’s rebels went from somewhat ambiguous allies to the indispensable agents of the Chadian government’s strategy, repelling attacks on Chadian soil and engaging Chadian rebels within Darfur. The Chadian government’s embrace of the JEM has been especially intimate, and many JEM soldiers have been incorporated into units of the Chadian army. Khartoum responded with overt support to Chadian rebel groups and backed two full-scale assaults on N’Djamena in April 2006 and again in February 2008. In recent weeks, however, the Chadian government has shown more willingness to put pressure on JEM to enter the peace process and is cooperating with U.S.-led efforts to forge greater unity among other Darfur rebel groups. The United States and others should continue to encourage N’Djamena to support a political settlement in Darfur.

At the same time, a comprehensive approach to peace in Darfur by definition must deal aggressively with the persistent internal turmoil in Chad. Ad hoc efforts by the European Union and others to drive a process of political reform have not made effective use of significant available leverage. The United States has largely steered clear of Chad’s internal crisis, opting to focus on counterterrorism cooperation and humanitarian assistance. Yet, the Obama administration is in a unique position to forge partnerships with key actors—particularly France and Libya—to coordinate pressure on President Déby to enact genuine political reforms, including overhauling its justice and security sectors and decentralization of power from elites in N’Djamena to Chad’s politically marginalized periphery. Although the United States has traditionally taken a back seat to France in Francophone Africa, France’s changing posture across Africa and Libya’s erratic policies toward Chad open the door for the United States to adopt a leadership role.[8]

Conclusion: Darfur, elections, and an all-Sudan approach

The fates of Darfur and the South are deeply intertwined. Darfuris took up arms in 2003 because of the deliberate political marginalization of the Darfuri people by the government in Khartoum. The Sudan People’s Liberation Army, or SPLA, supported the rebels early on with arms and training, and recent reports of renewed SPLA support for some SLA factions demonstrate the need, yet again, for a comprehensive political solution to the hoarding of wealth and power in Khartoum.[9]

The CPA was intended as a vehicle for democratic transformation of the country, what the late SPLM Chairman Dr. John Garang called the “New Sudan.” As CPA implementation has faltered, its international backers now seem to have abandoned transformation of the country. Instead, the NCP seeks to secure a veneer of domestic and international legitimacy through national elections in 2010. Southern Sudanese, on the other hand, are more focused on securing their independence through the 2011 self-determination referendum—a process that the NCP seeks to undermine.

Where, then, does Darfur fit? The current U.S. strategy seeks to secure a peace agreement quickly in order to allow Darfuris to participate in national elections next April. The logic is that by ending the conflict quickly and allowing Darfuris to vote with the rest of their countrymen, Darfur can overcome its political and economic marginalization and the CPA can be fully implemented. This is a flawed approach for several reasons.

First, the rush to reach a peace deal on a deadline will almost inevitably lead to a flawed agreement. This was the case at the talks that resulted in the DPA; the Sudanese government made few concessions and the international community resorted to bullying tactics to press rebel groups to sign. Second, the compressed timetable for elections preparation, failure to conduct a census in Darfur, continued violence and intimidation by militia, and NCP dominance of the media and other state organs virtually ensure that an election in Darfur will not be seen as credible by many residents and thus could be a catalyst for further violence. (The conditions for free and fair elections are absent not only in Darfur, but throughout the entire country. At a meeting hosted by the SPLM in Juba from September 26 to 30, some 20 Sudanese political parties threatened to boycott the 2010 elections unless the Sudanese parliament passes a number of key laws by November 20, 2009.)

Third, the electoral process could perversely consolidate ethnic cleansing in Darfur. Many Darfuris—particularly those who have been driven from their homes and their land—feel directly threatened by the voter registration process. Under Sudanese land laws, registering as a resident of a camp for displaced persons could cause the victims of the genocide to lose the legal rights to their abandoned property. Given that the NCP has fiercely resisted implementing those elements within the CPA that would have created a free and fair environment for elections, strong international support for deeply flawed national elections will surely backfire.

Putting the election cart before the peace horse in Darfur could undermine efforts to prevent a return to full-scale war throughout the country. The United States and other concerned nations should press for elections in Darfur to be postponed until a political settlement has been reached, volatile land-tenure issues have been adequately resolved, and a proper census conducted.[10] The NCP will certainly push back, as national elections without the participation of the significant electorate in Darfur will deny them the legitimacy they crave. But it is almost impossible to imagine a free and fair election taking place in Darfur in April 2010, and the international community needs to have the courage to acknowledge this fact and press for a necessary postponement.

Endnotes

[1] Dan Eggen, “A Cold War Man, a Hot War and a Legal Gray Area,” The Washington Post, September 30, 2009, available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/29/AR2009092903840.html.

[2] This was the case at Naivasha, when the United States drafted and brokered the Abyei Protocol.

[3] See Enough’s strategy papers “Chad’s Domestic Crisis: The Achilles Heel for Peacemaking in Darfur,” July 27, 2009, and “Nasty Neighbors: Resolving the Chad Sudan Proxy War,” April 22, 2008, available respectively at http://www.enoughproject.org/publications/chads-domestic-crisis-achilles-heel-peacemaking-darfur and http://www.enoughproject.org/publications/nasty-neighbors-resolving-chad-sudan-proxy-war.

[4] For analysis of Egypt’s interest in Sudan, see Colin Thomas-Jensen and Maggie Fick, “The United States and Egypt: A common cause in Sudan,” The Huffington Post, August 18, 2009, available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/colin-thomasjensen/the-united-states-and-egy_b_261888.html.

[5] Mike Lewis, “Skirting the Law: Post CPA Arms Flows to Sudan,” Working paper 18 (Small Arms Survey, September 2009), available at: http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/files/portal/spotlight/sudan/Sudan_pdf/SWP-18-Sudan-Post-CPA-Arms-Flows.pdf.

[6] In May, Mandate Darfur, a unique Darfuri-led initiative largely underwritten by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, was set to convene a conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to engage Darfuri citizens—including refugees in eastern Chad and internally displaced people throughout Darfur—and help empower them to coordinate their participation as stakeholders in a future Darfur peace process. The Sudanese government, however, denied the Darfuri delegates from Sudan the right to travel to the conference, so it was cancelled. This clear obstruction by the Khartoum regime will continue to be an obstacle to the organization of civil society.

[7] Women’s participation is of particular importance. They have unique perspectives, experiences, ideas and values that are vital to building a sustainable peace. Darfuri women have also demonstrated time and again an ability to come together across ethnic, geographic, and political lines to find common ground. To learn more about the important role that women play in peace processes, please visit the Institute for Inclusive Security’s website at http://www.huntalternatives.org/pages/7_the_initiative_for_inclusive_security.cfm.

[8] See Enough reports on Chad for more detailed policy recommendations to resolving Chad’s internal crisis and the Chad-Sudan proxy war. Available at http://www.enoughproject.org/conflict_areas/chad.

[9] Akhbar Al-Youm reported thisin the article, “SAF captured SPLA soldier in Korma in Darfur.”

[10] There is a precedent for postponing elections for a region of Sudan in times of war. National elections in 1965 were not held in parts of southern Sudan—especially Equatoria—because of lack of security. By-elections were held in the south 1967 to complete the parliament. Even then, however, the results were largely unrepresentative of southerners’ political views, as the voters were mainly northerners living in the South.

Chad's Domestic Crisis: The Achilles heel for Peacemaking in Darfur

Submitted by Zack Brisson on July 24, 2009 - 10:03am.

The United States has largely steered clear of Chad’s internal crisis, but the inadequacies of crisis management in Chad will continue to negatively impact the situation in Sudan, where the United States has invested heavily in peace. It’s time to get serious about Chad, and the Obama administration is in a unique position to coordinate pressure on President Déby to enact genuine political reforms.

Author:

Enough Team

Jul 27, 2009

Chad's Domestic Crisis.pdf

Chad Podcast.mp3

Chad’s Domestic Crisis: The Achilles heel for Peacemaking in Darfur

By Enough Team[1]

Less than a week after Chad and Sudan inked a formal agreement to set aside their differences this past May, the Sudanese government gave Chadian rebels the green light to launch a cross-border attack from their rear bases inside Darfur. Having repelled Sudan-backed rebel offensives that reached the capital N’Djamena in 2006 and 2008, the Chadian military was well prepared. Chadian forces routed the rebels near the border, chased them back into Sudan, and launched cross-border airstrikes against those who tried to regroup.

This latest bloody bout of proxy conflict should not have surprised anyone. Multiple attempts to mediate an agreement between the two capitals have failed to address the primary source of the crisis: the internal rot at the center of each country.[2] Twenty years after coming to power in a coup d’état in Sudan, the National Congress Party in Khartoum shows no signs of loosening its grip on power. Across the border in N’Djamena, Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno pays lip service to political reforms and cracks down violently on legitimate political opposition.

While international efforts to address Sudan’s internal crisis are ongoing, parallel efforts in Chad are virtually nonexistent. A comprehensive approach to peace in the region by definition must deal aggressively with the persistent internal turmoil in Chad, where the precedent of armed rebellion as the sole vehicle for political opposition has been established through decades of brutal governance and violent regime change. Ad hoc efforts by the European Union and others to drive a process of political reform have not made effective use of significant available leverage. The United States has largely steered clear of Chad’s internal crisis, opting to focus on counterterrorism cooperation and humanitarian assistance. But the inadequacies of crisis management in Chad will continue to negatively impact the situation in Sudan, where the United States has invested heavily in peace. For example, short-term humanitarian efforts absent a political process to end the Chadian crisis can institutionalize long-term displacement and can inadvertently support armed groups. In eastern Chad, Sudanese rebels systematically divert food aid from refugee camps in support of the war effort.[3]

It’s time to get serious about Chad, and the Obama administration is in a unique position to forge partnerships with key actors—particularly France and Libya—to coordinate pressure on President Déby to enact genuine political reforms, including overhauling its justice and security sectors and decentralization of power from elites in N’Djamena to Chad’s politically marginalized periphery. Indeed, diplomacy will continue to bear rotten fruit until the international community adopts a regional approach that includes credible efforts to address the internal crises in Sudan and Chad. This requires strategic vision and leadership, which the United States can provide.

Lost in the Sahel

Despite Chad’s relevance to long-term stability in Sudan, Washington’s approach toward N’Djamena remains uninspired. Absent the vision or resources to address the root causes of Chad’s crisis, the U.S. policy is driven by two primary interests: fighting terrorism and supporting humanitarian operations. Through a regional counterterrorism initiative called the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Partnership, or TSCTP, the United States trains Chadian soldiers to fight Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists who may traverse across Chad’s isolated northern region. Although this initiative holds the promise of linking counterterrorism efforts with much-needed development programs in the Sahel, TSCTP has yet to strike a balance that could succeed in addressing the root causes of instability and extremism in the region.[4] Meanwhile, in eastern Chad, American taxpayers have spent nearly $112 million so far in 2009 to underwrite a sprawling humanitarian operation to feed and shelter 250,000 Darfuri refugees and 167,000 internally displaced Chadians.[5] But until the United States puts more muscle and critical thinking behind longer-term efforts to build democratic institutions in Chad, the violent and repressive status quo will grind on.

Chad’s domestic troubles

Sustainable regional peace is simply not possible without a radical change to a coercive Chadian political system that has long been dominated by the rule of the gun. Rather than negotiate with rebel groups, President Déby’s government consistently opts for military confrontation or simply buys off the most venal rebel leaders. Focused exclusively on thwarting the next coup attempt, the Chadian government marginalizes the so-called “unarmed” political opposition and avoids efforts to address a root cause of the conflict—its own authoritarianism. [6]

Political negotiations have thus far amounted to doling out ministries to rebel leaders and political strongmen, a strategy that only entrenches Chad’s factionalist political system. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2008 democracy index ranks Chad 166 out of 167 countries, ahead of only North Korea. A European Union-led effort to establish meaningful dialogue with the unarmed opposition has failed to gain momentum, and the government continues to rely on strong-arm tactics.[7] Rather than invest resources into much-needed development, the Chadian government channels disproportionate funds into a seemingly never-ending military build-up. For several weeks following an attempted coup in February 2008, bodies were found floating down the Chari River, which runs alongside the capital city of N’Djamena, some of them decapitated and many having been executed with their hands bound. Members of President Déby’s Presidential Guard and of the ANS, the domestic intelligence agency, rounded up opposition politicians, one of whom, Ibni Oumar Mahamat Saleh, is still missing and presumed to have been killed while in government custody. It is no wonder that most Chadians—80 percent of whom survive on less than a dollar a day—remain disenfranchised and fearful of their government.

France: Charting a new course?

Chad was France’s colony from 1900 to 1960 and Paris traditionally maintains good relations with N’Djamena as an anchor within a sphere of political influence in French-speaking Africa. The French military has some 1,100 soldiers on the ground in Chad under Opération Epervier (Sparrowhawk), and the French armed forces provided decisive support to the Chadian government during Sudan-backed rebel attacks in April 2006 and February 2008. French military sources told Enough that the French armed forces share intelligence on rebel movements with their Chadian government counterparts such that the Chadian army does practically no reconnaissance of its own.

France has lent this support despite Chad’s woeful human rights record and wanton and well-documented state corruption, and in the face of the French public’s increasing criticism of its government’s Africa policy. Support for corrupt and undemocratic leaders like Déby is increasingly regarded in French political circles as financially untenable and morally suspect.

French President Nicholas Sarkozy could represent a break from the past. He is the seventh French president to intervene militarily in Chad, but he does not have the same close personal relationships with African strongmen as his predecessors and seems less willing to use his own political capital to support them. And while some within the French political and military establishment do not want France’s sphere of influence to diminish in sub-Saharan Africa, a June 2008 government white paper on military policy proposed abandoning France’s bases in Chad and reducing its military footprint on the continent. France did little to assist the Chadian government during the most recent Chadian rebel invasion in May, and it sent a strong message of the changing state of Franco-Chadian relations by sending its Breguet Atlantique surveillance aircraft out of the country, denying the government a source of intelligence on Chadian rebel movements.

The French government’s attention to the crisis in Darfur is also a break from past practice: Sudan is neither French speaking nor a former French colony. While France’s concern over Sudan is in part a reaction to its threatened interests in Chad, French policy in Darfur is also shaped by the prerogatives of foreign minister Bernard Kouchner. Kouchner, a dedicated humanitarian who helped found the well-respected relief organization Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), remains involved in conflict resolution efforts in Darfur due in part to his relationship with Darfur rebel leader Abdul Wahid al-Nur.[8] Indeed, France’s role in pushing for multinational forces in eastern Chad had as much to do with stabilizing Darfur as with protecting Chadian civilians.[9]

Sarkozy has said he wants to bring about a “healthier relationship” with Africa.[10] Whether or not the French government is willing to press for real change in how Chad is governed is an early test of his resolve.

Libya: Striving for influence

Constantly striving to maintain Libya’s regional influence and international relevance, head of state Muamar Quaddafi has engaged in territorial disputes and meddled in Chad’s internal politics since seizing power in Libya in a 1969 coup d’etat. Quaddafi supported Chadian rebel groups in the 1970s and 1980s, and thus has a complicated relationship with President Déby. For his part, Déby led the Chadian armed forces against Libyan-backed rebels in the mid-1980s, but then fled to Libya after falling out with his boss, former President Hissène Habré. Libya and Sudan then backed Déby’s rebel group, the Patriotic Salvation Movement, which took power from Habréin 1990. Both countries jockeyed for influence in N’Djamena until Déby fell out of favor with the Sudanese government in 2005 over his support for Darfuri rebels. Libya has sided with Chad against its regional rival Sudan, and currently strives for influence over events in Darfur and Chad through support for the Justice and Equality Movement, or JEM, as well as certain factions of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army, or SLM/A.[11]

Yet despite thinly veiled support for belligerents on both sides of the border, Quaddafi also considers himself a regional peacemaker. Libya has presided over multiple negotiations between Chad and Sudan, was a “facilitator” at the 2006 African Union mediation that led to the Darfur Peace Agreement, and hosted a subsequent round of Darfur peace talks in 2007. As current chair of the African Union—to which he provides considerable financial support and over which he thus has considerable leverage—Quaddafi continues to pursue grander international ambitions, including the creation of a “United States of Africa.” The only certainty with Libya’s engagement in Chad and Sudan is Quaddafi’s desire to maintain influence over the outcome. If he does not feel adequately involved in the solution, he can easily become a spoiler.

The United States: A case for leadership

The United States has traditionally taken a back seat to France in Francophone Africa, but France’s changing posture and Libya’s contradicting policies open the door for the United States to adopt a leadership role. And although France and Libya have influence over Déby, the Obama administration is not without carrots and sticks of its own. As is the case in Sudan, Chadian officials want a close relationship with the United States, and the Obama administration must be clear about the necessary steps to get there. Chad is a U.S. ally on counterterrorism, and U.S. Special Forces instructors have trained anti-terrorist commandos in Chad through the TSCTP.[12] The United States holds additional leverage because Chad is eager to purchase C-130 aircraft that could provide strategic lift capacity for Chad’s armed forces that competing arms merchants such as France and China cannot match. The expectation of strong U.S. leadership to resolve the crisis in Sudan coupled with Washington’s traditional hard line toward Khartoum adds to U.S. clout in N’Djamena. The Obama administration’s moves to engage with the Sudanese government have raised eyebrows in Chad, but the United States is still considered an essential guarantor of regional peace.

Chadian officials are also eager for access to U.S. development funding. However, Chad is not eligible for some of the biggest pots of money, and rightly so. Chad is ineligible for grants through the Millennium Challenge Corporation, or MCC, because of its abysmal track record on human rights and governance. Additionally, legislation adopted by the U.S. Congress last year restricts the provision of U.S. International Military Education and Training, or IMET, foreign military financing, and other defence-related assistance to countries identified in the State Department’s annual human rights country reports as recruiting or using child soldiers. The Chadian government has long been notorious for conscripting child soldiers, and thankfully the Chadian armed forces should soon be ineligible for American military support. In June, State Department’s Trafficking in Persons office dropped Chad down to Tier III status, the worst possible classification in America’s system of identifying human trafficking hot spots. This may obligate the United States to withhold all aid save for humanitarian assistance, and would make it compulsory for the United states to vote against Chad in international foray. Chad now has 90 days to comply with a set of benchmarks for improved accountability on prevention of trafficking before tough penalties kick in.[13] The United States is thus in a strong position to press N’Djamena on human rights and governance concerns and should lay out concrete steps Chad must take to prevent a downgrading of relations.

Toward a diplomatic strategy for Chad

Peacemaking efforts in the region have moved on multiple tracks. There have been numerous attempts to mediate the conflict between Chad and Sudan, an African Union and then joint AU-U.N. mediation effort for Darfur, an EU-backed effort to broaden the limited political space for Chadian opposition parties, and haphazard talks between N’Djamena and Chadian rebel groups. The tangible impact of these efforts on the ground for civilians in Darfur and Chad is negligible, and in at least one instance—the 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement—international mediation actually made the situation worse.

Although unsuccessful, previous mediation attempts have laid a partial foundation for a re-vamped diplomatic push. The Tripoli Agreement of February 2006 called for a joint security force to police Chad and Sudan’s common border and the Dakar Agreement of 2008 created the Dakar Agreement Contact Group to oversee the process of normalizing relations. The Qatari mediation of May 2009 adds another crucial element: financing to establish the border force, courtesy of the Emir of Qatar.[14] Plans for border security and coordinated regional pressure on Khartoum and N’Djamena are necessary but insufficient. The joint Chad-Sudan border patrols agreed to in Tripoli in 2006 are impossible to realize until the countries resolve their political differences.

Likewise, regional pressure is inadequate to achieve a lasting détente. Key actors in the region are in fact waiting for the United States to reinvigorate multiple peace processes that have been shot through with cynicism. To its credit, the Obama administration has begun to demonstrate more leadership on Sudan: President Obama’s special envoy to Sudan, retired Air Force General J. Scott Gration, convened a major conference last month to focus international efforts on implementing the faltering Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA.[15] As part of U.S. attempts to kick-start a peace process for Darfur, General Gration has traveled to Chad to meet with Chadian officials and Darfuri rebels.

Yet while the international approach to Sudan will necessarily include steps to deal with the problems in Chad as they relate to Darfur, efforts to bring peace to the region will not succeed without a concurrent multilateral effort to end Chad’s chronic internal crisis once and for all. Political reforms are critical in this regard, but ending armed conflict in Chad requires policymakers to abandon the faulty logic that progress on political reform obviates the need for political talks with armed opposition groups.

Key steps toward a comprehensive approach include the following:

Forge diplomatic partnerships with France and Libya

As discussed above, France and Libya have each sought to keep Chad within their respective spheres of influence and in doing so have frequently pursued counterproductive and contradictory policies. France has pursued stability through the misguided support of a political system that is inherently destabilizing, and Libya seeks control in the region by backing insurgent groups with independent agendas. Yet when Déby is under threat, mutual interest has led to cooperation.[16] For example, when Chadian rebels appeared to be on the verge of toppling Déby’s government on the night of February 2, 2008, France asked Libya to transport tank ammunition to beleaguered government forces.[17]

Developing a close working relationship with France and Libya is essential to diplomatic efforts in Chad. And while Chad is certainly not at the top of the Washington’s bilateral agenda with Paris and Tripoli, an agreement between the three countries on a joint approach to Chad’s internal crisis would pay dividends to the Obama administration’s efforts to stabilize the region. Moreover, there are direct openings for engagement. Quaddafi wants access to U.S. oil technology and the United States is in the midst of negotiating a Military Memorandum of Understanding with Libya. [18] It would not be unreasonable for the United States to ask for Libya’s cooperation on Chad, including greater pressure on Déby to negotiate in good faith with armed opposition groups. It makes less sense to work with Libya to press for political reform inside Chad, as Qaddafi’s four-decade rule has hardly embodied representative government. However, U.S. diplomats can and should place issues of political reform in Chad high on the agenda with France, framing progress on this front as central to resolving the interlocking conflicts in the region.[19]

Prioritize political reform

Political reform will require structural changes, starting with the reversal of the amendments to Chad’s constitution in June 2005 that enabled President Déby to stay in power indefinitely and prompted most opposition groups to boycott the following year’s elections. Unfortunately, the agreement on elections brokered by the European Union in 2007 hones in on highly desirable credible elections, but it unfortunately ignores the profound political reforms needed for elections to be meaningful.

Many observers have called for an inclusive dialogue that brings together the armed and unarmed opposition in talks with the Chadian government. Déby refuses to engage in genuine dialogue with armed groups, but political talks with all opposition groups are central to a lasting solution. Further, while dialogue is surely the way forward, power sharing deals with warlords will only perpetuate the conflict. Talks must be inclusive. This means bringing the South into the equation, where 90 percent of the population resides and watches a few northern nomadic tribes take turns pillaging the state. Civil society needs to be brought up from the grassroots, restrictions on the media must be rolled back, the wobbly justice system must be bolstered, and the notorious security sector is badly in need of reform.[20]

Déby’s long-standing policy of decentralizing the state administration, which has previously been used as a divide-and-conquer instrument, could be used to devolve genuine power, as well as money, to the periphery as a way to eliminate the incentive to rock the boat. Money now spent on weapons could conceivably be spent on poverty reduction. However, not everyone will welcome an end to chronic warfare. One member of President Déby’s inner circle told Enough that senior government officials purchasing weapons in Ukraine and China insist on standardized kickbacks. “They don’t want this war to end,” he said. Make no mistake: Genuine reform will not come easily, and it will require hard-nosed diplomacy from the U.S. that is strategically coordinated with France and Libya.

Use the United Nations more effectively

The U.N. Security Council authorized a peacekeeping force to train Chadian police and protect civilians in the East, but the United Nations has shied away from engaging with the Chadian government on political issues. France in particular is reluctant to cede its influence with President Déby to the United Nations, preferring bilateral and European Union channels. However, as discussed above, French interests in Africa are shifting. France can protect its longstanding interests in Chad by working with emerging stakeholders such as the United States and China to define a more robust role for the U.N. peacekeeping force in Chad, called MINURCAT, in addressing the internal political dynamics that fuel recurrent warfare in Chad. Toward that end, the Security Council should give MINURCAT a mandate to work with Chadian authorities to promote human rights and the rule of law in eastern Chad and begin putting structures in place to support disarmament, demobilization and reintegration, or DDR, of ex-combatants.[21] In addition, the U.N. Department of Political Affairs should establish a strong presence in Chad and work with the European Union to prepare for presidential elections in 2011.

To build leverage for peace efforts, the Security Council should also impose targeted sanctions against individuals who provide arms and other material support to Chadian and Darfuri armed groups. This is not difficult: Several individuals already named by the U.N. Panel of Experts for breaching the arms embargo have not been held accountable.[22] As a further demonstration of renewed intent, the Security Council should authorize dedicated arms embargo cells within MINURCAT and the U.N. Mission in Sudan, or UNMIS.

Conclusion: an integrated, regional approach

Enough believes that the lack of a viable peace process for Darfur remains the single largest obstacle to a more effective diplomatic approach to ending the Chad-Sudan proxy war and forging regional stability.[23] Yet while building a credible Darfur peace process is a necessary first step, a lasting regional peace also requires a strategy to deal with the authoritarian governance and state weakness that render Chad inherently predatory and unstable. Concurrent multilateral support for negotiations between Chad and Sudan should seek to build confidence slowly between the parties rather than force another quick-fix peace accord. So long as their respective internal conflicts smolder, domestic calculations will drive the agenda in N’Djamena and Khartoum and stoke cross-border antagonisms.

Endnotes

[1] This report was drafted by a consultant who travels frequently to the region.

[2] Despite an abundance of international peacemakers, warmongers prevail in both capitals. In February 2006, Chad and Sudan signed a peace accord in Tripoli, brokered by the Libyan government. In March 2007, Chadian and Sudanese representatives met in Tehran to continue talks to normalize bilateral relations. With Saudi Arabia’s facilitation, Sudan and Chad signed yet another agreement in May 2007. Qatar helped broker goodwill agreement between the Sudanese government and the Chad-backed Justice and Equality Movement, or JEM, in February 2008. March 2008 brought the signature of the Dakar Agreement.

[3] Sudanese rebel groups manipulate registration drives wherein refugees are counted for the purpose of determining levels of humanitarian assistance. Manipulating figures upward can result in food surpluses that are diverted to the war effort. A statistical analysis commissioned by UNHCR in 2006 concluded that two of the 12 camps in eastern Chad had unusually high reported populations when measured against indices such as birth and death rates. While underreporting of deaths could have accounted for such anomalies, it is probable that populations in the two camps in question, Oure Cassoni and Am Nabak, had been artificially inflated. Both are JEM strongholds.

[4]See “Foreign Assistance Follies in Niger”, by Colin Thomas-Jensen and Maggie Fick, CSIS Online Africa Policy Forum, September 2007.

[5]Figures are for fiscal year 2009 and also include funding for Central African refugees in southern Chad. For an overview of U.S. humanitarian assistance to Chad see the U.S. Agency for International Development fact sheet at http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/humanitarian_assistance/disaster_assistance/countries/chad/template/index.html.

[6] For an analysis of Chad’s internal crisis, see Enough’s strategy paper “Is Anyone Serious About Ending the Political Crisis in Chad?” by Colin Thomas-Jensen, February 2008.

[7]The European Union brokered a political agreement between the government and the majority of Chad’s opposition parties in 2007. The August 13 Agreement paves the way for competitive parliamentary elections later this year, and mandates an independent national electoral commission, revised electoral lists, and a place for the opposition in government that speak to many of the concerns that prompted the opposition to boycott the 2006 presidential election.

[8] See “Understanding French policy toward Chad and Sudan? A difficult task,” by Roland Marchal, June 7, 2009. Available at http://blogs.ssrc.org/darfur/category/darfur/france/

[9]A French diplomat told Enough that Kouchner proposed a “humanitarian corridor” to Darfur his first day on the job, only to learn from advisors that the security conditions that would have made that idea relevant no longer existed. (The humanitarian corridor is a well-established French foreign policy principal, starting in Biafra during the civil war in 1967-68 and continuing after a 1988 earthquake in Armenia and more recently in Bosnia.) French officials were then forced to work within the framework of Kouchner’s comments in devising a European Union-led civilian protection force that eventually became the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad, known as MINURCAT. For more on EUFOR and MINURCAT, see “Toward Effective Peacekeeping in Chad,” by Omer Ismail and Maggie Fick, CSIS Online Africa Policy Forum, November 17, 2008

[10] The New York Times “France to overhaul policies toward Africa,” February 28, 2008

[11]Libya backs a faction of SLA-Unity led by Ousman Bushra and Abdallah Yahya, Zaghawa from the North Darfur towns of Hashaba and Amarai, respectively.

[12]A Defense Department source told Enough that the U.S. military deployed Army civil affairs and psychological operations teams to Chad as part of TSCPT in 2006 and 2007, though they were ultimately withdrawn as a result of turf wars inside the State Department over how to allocate a limited number of U.S. Special Operations forces in Africa.

[13] For more information on American classifications of countries with human trafficking problems, see http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2009/index.htm.

[14] The seventh meeting to finalize the establishment of the Observation Mission and the mechanism of troops’ deployment was scheduled to be held in Khartoum in January but never took place. The border force budget amounts to $21 million.

[15]It remains to be seen, however, whether the meeting leads to greater coordinated diplomacy to overcome the significant challenges to the agreement’s implementation. To learn more, see Enough’s recent strategy papers on the Sudan.

[16] France and Libya have forged a closer partnership in recent years, signing arms deals and agreements on nuclear energy that France considers part of Libya’s reward for renouncing weapons of mass destruction. “France and Libya Sign Arms Deal,” BBC News, August 3, 2007; “France, Libya sign agreements on arms, reactor,” Elaine Ganley, The Associated Press, December 10, 2007.

[17] Libya did so reluctantly, frustrated with President Déby’s refusal to take its peace initiatives seriously.

[18] Current State of U.S.-Libya Bilateral Relationship Fact Sheet, Office of the Spokesman, Washington, DC, September 2, 2008, available at http://merln.ndu.edu/archivepdf/NEA/State/109051.pdf

[19]Sudanese government strongmen Nafi’e Ali Nafi’e, Mustafa Osman Ismail and Salah Abdul Mohamed Gosh visited Paris in May to ask France to use its influence in Chad to contain the JEM in Chad. Though France demurred, Khartoum showed its cards by sending such a high-level delegation: France has something that Khartoum wants, and the United States should make every effort to ensure that French and American pressure is applied in concert, rather than as counterpoints. See “Who Shoots First?” Africa Confidential, volume 50, number 9.

[20]The Chadian government empanelled a Commission of Inquiry in the wake of the February 2008 coup attempt. It concluded that senior government officials had been implicated in serious crimes, including the disappearance of opposition leader Ibni Oumar Mahamat Saleh. The Commission of Inquiry, which included officials from the European Union as well as Chadian civil society, called on the government to continue investigations until specific perpetrators could be identified and brought to justice. The follow-up body, established by decree in September 2008, was packed with cabinet ministers, however, and it included neither international observers nor members of civil society. Pressure from France was instrumental in compelling Chad to set up the initial investigation, but when it came time to push for prosecutions, Chad opted not to take the process seriously and Paris said nothing.

[21]Neither N’Djamena nor Khartoum has yet agreed to carry out comprehensive disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration programs, or DDR, encompassing paramilitary groups on both sides of the border, including Chadian and Sudanese rebel groups, Janjaweed militias and so-called “Tora Bora” self-defense groups.

[22]Suliman Bishara, a JEM spokesman, has been named by the U.N. Panel of Experts as one such embargo-buster. See U.N. Security Council, “Report of the Panel of Experts established pursuant to resolution 1591 (2005) concerning the Sudan,” S/2008/647, November 11, 2008, p.48. President Déby himself has also been implicated in embargo violations, and contacts in the JEM have informed Enough that former Chadian Defense Minister Mahamat Saleh Abdullah provided weapons and vehicles that were used in JEM’s May 2008 attack on Omdurman, adjacent to Khartoum.

[23]See “President Obama and Darfur: A Blueprint for Peace” Enough Strategy Paper, April 30, 2009

Abyei: Sudan's Next Test

Submitted by Zack Brisson on July 15, 2009 - 9:43am.

This week’s legal decision on the boundary of Abyei—an oil-rich and contested region along the disputed North-South border within Sudan—is the first major test of recent commitments made in Washington by the two parties to Sudan’s 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA. The international community—in particular the United States, which played a critical role in negotiating the Abyei Protocol—has a responsibility to ensure that the ruling is respected and that the residents of Abyei and the affected surrounding areas are protected from violence.

Author:

Colin Thomas-Jensen and Maggie Fick

Jul 20, 2009

Abyei - Sudan's Next Test.mp3

Abyei_Paper.pdf

Abyei_Activist_Brief-1.pdf

Abyei Award Map.pdf

Abyei: Sudan’s Next Test

By Colin Thomas-Jensen and Maggie Fick

We are confident that [the Abyei Arbitration Tribunal’s] decision will be grounded on the facts and the law, and will result in the settlement of the dispute that currently divides the parties.

--Ambassador Dirdeiry Mohammed Ahmed, Government of Sudan, closing remarks to the Abyei Arbitration Tribunal, The Hague, April 23, 2009

The SPLM/A wants to affirm to this Tribunal its commitment to implement your decision and hopes that the [Government of Sudan] will also honor its commitment to implement your final award.

--Riek Machar, Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and Vice President of the Government of Southern Sudan, closing remarks to the Abyei Arbitration Tribunal, The Hague, April 23, 2009

The countdown has begun in Sudan. This week’s legal decision on the boundaries of Abyei—an oil-rich, contested region along the disputed North-South border within Sudan—is the first major test of recent commitments made in Washington by the two parties to Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA. Although senior representatives of the ruling National Congress Party, or NCP, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, or SPLM, have committed themselves to accept the ruling, how each side responds is a crucial litmus test of each side’s will to implement the CPA, and, by extension, a barometer for the efficacy of the Obama administration’s engagement on Sudan.[1]

Abyei is the ancestral land of the Ngok Dinka and also hosts the grazing and seasonal migrations of the Misseriya and other nomadic whose livelihoods depend on the area’s rich resources. The 2005 CPA created the Abyei Boundary Commission, which issued a “final and binding” ruling on Abyei’s boundary in July of that year. The NCP rejected the ruling, and a three-year stalemate ensued. The dispute erupted into violence in May 2008, when Sudanese armed forces razed Abyei town and forcibly displaced an estimated 60,000 people—the majority of the town’s population.[2] As is too often the case in Sudan, international diplomats rushed to broker a solution after the damage was done. Following weeks of negotiations, representatives of the NCP and SPLM agreed to refer the boundary dispute to international arbitration (See the Annex for a detailed explanation of this process).The arbitrators’ decision should ultimately determine the final boundary. It is also a real chance for the people of Abyei to finally receive the “peace dividends” promised to them in the CPA in 2005, and to begin consolidating the fragile peace that has been put on hold by the battle over the CPA’s Abyei Protocol.

Last month, the United States hosted a major conference on the CPA that shone much needed attention on the agreement’s implementation. The State Department has also issued a strong statement calling on both sides to prepare for implementation of the Tribunal’s ruling. These are positive steps. However, this week’s ruling on Abyei will occur against a backdrop of increasingly hostile relations between the parties over a number of unimplemented CPA provisions, including stalled preparations for the general elections in April 2010 and the referendum on southern self-determination scheduled for 2011. Abyei is potentially an insurmountable roadblock: If the parties do notaccept the tribunal’s ruling, CPA implementation will be effectively stalled. The CPA’s “guarantors”—those states and organizations that witnessed the signing of the CPA and agreed to support its implementation—must not tolerate intransigence from either party. The NCP’s reckless rejection of the July 2005 ruling was the cause of the current impasse.

The potential that the ruling could provoke violence in Abyei is very real. The international community—in particular the United States, which played a critical role in negotiating the Abyei Protocol—has a responsibility to ensure that the ruling is respected and that the residents of Abyei and the affected surrounding areas are protected from violence. A concerted multilateral effort in the coming weeks and months that combines increased short-term security provisions with diplomacy and international aid to reach a durable political solution to the Abyei dispute is necessary to defuse one of Sudan’s most dangerous flashpoints and prevent a return to all out war. If the Abyei dispute relapses into stalemate and violence, the already fragile CPA will be pushed to the breaking point and peace and stability throughout Sudan, including Darfur, will be ever more elusive.

Local dynamics, national significance

The history of the Abyei region is complex, but an important theme is its tradition as a “bridge” at the crossroads of Northern and Southern Sudan as well as a critical grazing area to both Misseriya Arabs and Ngok Dinka. The Misseriya and Ngok coexisted in the Abyei area for centuries, with the Misseriya traversing through portions of the Ngok grazing areas during their seasonal migrations as well as a number of other groups, such as the Twich Dinka. The British colonial decision in 1905 to transfer the nine Ngok chiefdoms to Kordofan—allegedly to address slave raiding and place victim and perpetrators under the same provincial administration—has had extended and unintended consequences. The Misseriya and Ngok developed hardened “Northern” and “Southern” identities respectively during Sudan’s North-South civil wars, which in turn raised the stakes for the key questions today: What are Abyei’s boundaries? Who is a “resident”? And, ultimately, is the territory part of the North or the South?

This area—rich in grasslands, forests, swamps, and river systems—also sits atop significant oil reserves which both the Northern and Southern governments seek to control.[3] The ongoing Abyei border dispute will have significant repercussions for long-term wealth-sharing arrangements and the sustainable livelihood of all groups that have traditionally come to depend on its lands and resources. Resolution of the key questions at stake in the Abyei debate will likely continue to plague the Sudanese parties in the remaining months of the CPA interim period, but acceptance of the tribunal’s ruling is a crucial step in getting these discussions on track in order to secure a peaceful and credible 2011 referendum and a stable transition thereafter no matter the outcome.

As Enough noted in a 2008 strategy paper on Abyei, the history of the region in the context of the two North-South civil wars also highlights the Sudanese government’s consistent pattern—across several past regimes—not only of signing agreements with Southern adversaries and then failing to implement them but also of trying to manufacture crises on issues which earlier had been “resolved” at the negotiating table.[4] One example is a referendum promised to the population of Abyei in the 1972 Addis Ababa agreement that ended the first North-South war. Abyei residents were to have voted in a referendum whether to remain in the North or be integrated into the territory of Southern Sudan; this referendum never occurred. The CPA has now guaranteed the residents of Abyei the right to vote in a similar referendum in 2011 at the same time Southern Sudanese will go to the polls to vote in their own referendum. A vote to join southern Sudan in 2011 potentially places Abyei within the borders of an independent South.[5]

Abyei is an issue fraught with intense emotion for the NCP and the SPLM. Ultimate control over coveted oil reserves certainly plays a critical role in this dispute. However, the issue is also linked to the NCP’s repeated promises to Misseriya groups and distinct party constituencies that it would deliver Abyei to the North and secure the permanent inclusion of its lands and resources within a united Arab Sudan. Likewise, many senior SPLM cadres are Ngok Dinka from the region. The Ngok Dinka fought along with the SPLA for their right to see their lands and people rejoined with the South. It is a mistake to view Abyei as merely a fight over oil, as a purely Misseriya-Ngok Dinka conflict, or a project of interest only to Ngok Dinka in the SPLM or the Government of Southern Sudan leadership. The dispute over Abyei is also directly linked to the future of Sudan as a unified or separate state, to the possibility of a stable North-South border in 2011, and to the imperative of a central government in Sudan that does not exploit its peripheral populations. Most importantly, the people of Abyei and its surrounding areas deserve reconciliation and peace—they suffered greatly during Sudan’s civil war and have seen few of the promised “peace dividends.” It is in this context that Abyei’s future is tied so closely to the future of all of Sudan.

During recent discussions in Washington, D.C., the parties reaffirmed their commitment to implement the tribunal’s award and agreed to several key steps: to demarcate the boundaries as per the decision, to disseminate information about the award to local communities, to ensure that the United Nations peacekeeping force in Sudan, or UNMIS, is at full capacity to fulfill its mandate, and to take measures to enhance security, prevent violence, consolidate peace even through the creation of local conflict mitigation processes. But regardless of these recent commitments, the fundamental calculus of the NCP and the SPLM remains the same: Both sides seek to strengthen their positions prior to the 2011 self-determination referendum without forcing the premature collapse of the CPA.[6] The fear, therefore, is that the tribunal’s decision could spark a reaction by one or both of the parties, their proxies, or other spoilers acting with or without the parties’ consent. Any such spark—even if not intended to provoke a return to full-scale civil war—could nonetheless deepen mutual mistrust and increase the possibility of renewed conflict before 2011.

The warning signs are clear. Recent military confrontations between the Sudanese army and the southern army, or SPLA—including the heavy fighting in Malakal earlier this year—demonstrate clearly that both sides are on a hair trigger. Moreover, the NCP’s actions related to the Abyei Protocol, from its rejection of the ABC’s report in 2005 to its arguments before the tribunal in April 2009, suggest that if the tribunal’s ruling does not meet with its interests it could reject the ruling outright.[7] Sudan’s ruling party could also follow the example of the government in neighboring Ethiopia, which accepted a boundary commission’s “final and binding” ruling on its border with Eritrea but has since doggedly refused implementation. Accepting an agreement and then slow-rolling its implementation is a tried and true NCP tactic. The NCP may try to keep the issue of Abyei open to gain concessions from international negotiators on other fronts. If the international community does not keep the pressure on, building peace in Abyei could be paralyzed at precisely the time when all parties and the international community need to be focused on the CPA’s other key benchmarks—particularly elections, popular consultations in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, and the 2011 self-determination referendum.

Balancing priorities and objectives on Abyei: Enough’s recommendations

Abyei is Sudan’s next test. Recent efforts to reinvigorate CPA implementation will be wasted if the international community does not work assiduously to prevent violence in the wake of the tribunal’s announcement and to quickly reach a durable political settlement on Abyei and other outstanding issues. The CPA’s guarantors, including the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (the East African regional organization that helped negotiate the CPA) and the Assessment and Evaluation Commission (the body formally charged with overseeing CPA implementation), should coordinate their efforts closely. If all of the Sudanese and international parties view the Abyei ruling as a chance to break an enduring political impasse and move forward with resolve to consolidate peace and promote development in the area, then CPA implementation could progress with a much greater chance of success. Given the critical role that the United States played in negotiating the Abyei Protocol, the Obama administration must now play a leading role in enacting the following recommendations:

Bolster the United Nations in Abyei

Enough and Human Rights Watch both documented the robust failures of the Sudanese government of national unity—which has the legal responsibility to protect civilians—and UNMIS to protect civilians in the aftermath of the May 2008 violence.[8] However, in response to the severe intercommunal violence that has rocked the South in the past six months, UNMIS has stepped up its efforts to deploy high-level civilian personnel immediately to the site of clashes. UNMIS deserves credit for responding quickly in the aftermath of violence, but UNMIS should be anticipating violence in Abyei and taking preventive action. Deploying civilian monitors in the wake of violence is simply not enough. UNMIS can make a difference on the ground now in Abyei in several crucial ways:

UNMIS should immediately increase support for the existing Abyei police and Joint Integrated Units, or JIUs—military units created by the CPA and comprised of both regular Sudanese army and the SPLA—in order to increase their mobility and overall capacity to keep the peace throughout Abyei. UNMIS should also deploy monitors to Sudanese army and SPLA compounds outside of Abyei to reduce the likelihood of minor provocations that could lead to larger outbreaks of violence between these forces.
Recent reports indicate that some Sudanese army units that are not legitimately part of the JIUs are currently within the interim Abyei Roadmap boundaries, putting them in clear violation of the agreement. The international community should back UNMIS in urging the parties to recommit to the security provisions of the Abyei Roadmap which are explicit in authorizing only UNMIS forces, the Abyei JIU Battalion and the Abyei Police to be present within Abyei’s interim boundaries. UNMIS should call for the removal of any other forces—local militias, “oil police,” or other armed groups—by the Parties prior to the ruling.
In anticipation of further instability in Abyei, UNMIS should deploy additional battalions to the region and establish a greater civilian presence on the ground not only through the elections in April 2010, but through the 2011 referenda. Abyei will continue to be a flashpoint, and UNMIS’ presence will be more effective if it establishes longer-term programs and mechanisms to mitigate future violence. UNMIS should consider setting up a demilitarized buffer zone in Abyei to separate the two militaries and mitigate future clashes.[9]
Based on its role as a full-time on-the-ground presence in Sudan, UNMIS can signal to the rest of the international community that the tribunal’s ruling should be viewed not just as a flashpoint for war but as a potential chance for peace if the ruling is accepted by the parties and ifthe CPA’s guarantors opt to infuse significantly more programs, personnel, and resources to Abyei in the immediate aftermath of the award. Abyei could become a potential model for development, peace, and reconciliation that could spread along the other North-South border areas, but only if it receives sustained attention and resources from the Sudanese parties, UNMIS, and the rest of the international community.

Maintain high-level international presence in Abyei

General Scott Gration, the U.S. special envoy for Sudan, and Ashraf Qazi, the head of UNMIS, have announced their intent to travel to Abyei for the announcement of the ruling. These commitments are commendable, and all guarantors to the CPA, as well as other stakeholders, should follow their lead. High-level presence should be constant until real commitments and activities toward implementation of the Abyei Protocol are under way, and diplomats from key CPA guarantor nations should be detailed to the area to observe and report on the progress the parties have made on the border demarcation.

Encourage local understanding of the tribunal’s ruling

Misinformation and lack of information surrounding the release of the initial ABC report—particularly by the NCP within Misseriya communities—helped to fuel spoilers and secure support for the NCP’s decision not to implement the ABC’s findings in 2005. In the Abyei Arbitration Agreement, the parties agreed to several provisions to increase transparency. The international community must now work with the parties to establish and implement a strategic communications plan that ensures full dissemination and consistent public education about the tribunal’s decision. This includes both written materials, community meetings, and radio broadcasts in appropriate languages.

Establish a plan for border demarcation and follow it up

The international community should work with the parties to establish a clear strategy for demarcation of the border by the joint survey team, as called for the in the ABC report.[10] This should include securing clear commitments and contributions from the NCP and the SPLM and relevant stakeholders, setting fixed deadlines which permit the Sudanese people and international community to hold the parties accountable and monitor progress, and establishing clear penalties for obstruction of the process. The failure to establish clear international penalties for a failure to implement key CPA provisions has been a clear drag on the agreement.

The Assessment and Evaluation Commission, or AEC, should conduct a monitoring and fact-finding mission within weeks after the decision of the tribunal is issued in order to report on the progress that the parties are making on implementation and make recommendations for improvements. The AEC report should be delivered to the parties, to the joint survey team, to UNMIS, and to the CPA guarantors.

The Abyei Arbitration Tribunal’s decision could resolve the most contentious issue in Abyei: the definition of the region’s borders. However, its implementation is only the first step toward lasting peace. Security will be enhanced in Abyei if the parties commit to initiating development and reconstruction projects to benefit the residents of Abyei as well as all those who seasonally migrate through the Abyei Area and also if the parties deliver the overdue funding due to the Abyei Area Administration so it can provide basic services. (Regardless of the tribunal’s award, the historic grazing rights of the Misseriya and other nomads are protected by the Abyei Protocol and should not be affected by the tribunal’s decision). Additional agreements should include provisions to ensure security in areas of grazing and migration and, as appropriate, may include additional guarantees to clarify and protect the rights of migratory populations (such as certain citizenship rights in the event of secession). A concerted effort must be made to ensure legitimate representative leaders of the traditional peoples of the area participate in the development of these agreements so that they are not merely the product of political negotiations in the capitals.

Conclusion

The international community, with leadership from the United States, has begun a welcome renewed diplomatic push to secure renewed commitment from the SPLM and NCP on CPA implementation. Focusing on Abyei now is the first step in making these commitments real in the lives of ordinary Sudanese, and the upcoming ruling represents an opportunity to promote sustained peace and development in one of the most tense areas along the disputed border. However, Abyei will continue to be a flashpoint, and sustained attention, including negotiations between the parties on long-term wealth-sharing arrangements related to Abyei’s oil reserves, are the only way to mitigate the risk that Abyei will unravel the North-South peace.

Annex: The Abyei arbitration process explained[11]

Why was the Abyei Arbitration Tribunal established and what does it do?

During the negotiations over the CPA’s Abyei Protocol, which was signed in May 2004, the Government of Sudan and the SPLM agreed to the establishment of the Abyei Boundary Commission, or ABC. The ABC is a group of international experts, representatives of the local communities, and the local Abyei administration mandated by the CPA’s Abyei Protocol to “define and demarcate the area of the nine Ngok Dinka chiefdoms transferred to Kordofan in 1905” (a province which is now divided into two states, Northern Kordofan and Southern Kordofan).[12] The five international “impartial experts” on the ABC were selected by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and approved by the Sudanese parties.

The ABC delivered its report to the Sudanese Government of National Unity, or GoNU, presidency in July 2005, at the end of the CPA’s pre-interim period. The Abyei Protocol required that upon presentation of the ABC report, the GoNU would “take necessary action to put the special administrative status of Abyei Area into immediate effect.”Instead, President Bashir and his government in Khartoum categorically rejected the ABC’s findings, refused to publish their report or implement its decision, and reportedly said that the ABC experts should “dilute [their report in water] and drink it.”[13]

The official complaint of the Government of Sudan is that the ABC “exceeded its mandate.” The Sudanese government continued to reject the ABC report for more than two and a half years, and in doing so denied the area of governance, its share of oil revenue originating from the area, the safe and dignified return of the displaced, and the security and development that others around Sudan had begun to experience, albeit tentatively (and, of course, excluding Darfur). The lack of international attention to the implementation of the Abyei Protocol obstructed any resolution to the standstill, and virtually guaranteed the continued militarization of the area.

Finally, after the large-scale fighting between the Sudanese army and SPLA forces and destruction of Abyei town in May 2008, the NCP and the SPLM signed the Abyei Roadmap on June 8, which provided, among other things, for security arrangements in Abyei, the establishment of the special administration, the return of internally displaced persons, and a final and binding settlement of the dispute over the ABC experts’ report by an international arbitration tribunal. Following the signing of the roadmap, the NCP and the SPLM penned the Abyei Arbitration Agreement that established the Abyei Arbitration Tribunal.

The tribunal is comprised of five well-known and respected jurists who were chosen by the parties themselves. Each jurist signed declarations of independence and impartiality. It is a temporary, ad hoc decision-making body based on an agreement between the Sudanese government and the SPLM, and its rules, procedures, and mandates were entirely defined by these two parties. The tribunal is markedly different from permanent international tribunals and courts such as the International Criminal Court, or ICC, in scope, statute, and composition, and it would thus be difficult for the Government of Sudan to credibly criticize the Abyei Tribunal in the same manner in which it has attacked the ICC.

What is the Permanent Court of Arbitration and what is its mandate?

The Permanent Court of Arbitration, or PCA, is located in The Hague. It is not a “court” per se, but is the world’s oldest and best-known arbitral dispute settlement organization. Sudan has been a member of the PCA for over four decades. In accordance with the Abyei Arbitration Agreement, the Government of Sudan (in practice the NCP) and the SPLM agreed to have the PCA act as the “impartial registry” for the Abyei arbitration process and provide to administrative and technical support to the parties and the Abyei Arbitration Tribunal.

What is the mandate of the Abyei Arbitration Tribunal?

It is the tribunal and not the PCA that will issue a decision this week. That same decision will be copied to all witnesses to the CPA and to the chairman of the Assessment and Evaluation Commission, or AEC, and made publicly available on the same day.[14]

The core question that the PCA’s Abyei Tribunal will answer with its ruling is whether or not the ABC exceeded its mandate to define and demarcate the areas of the Nine Ngok Dinka chiefdoms transferred to Kordofan in 1905.If the tribunal finds that there was no excess, the parties’ agreement requires them to the “full and immediate implementation of the ABC report.” If an excess is found, it will proceed to define and delimit the boundaries of the Abyei area based on the submission of the two parties during the arbitration process.

The parties designed the arbitration process and the tribunal’s mandate so that it will result in a decision that determines the final boundaries of the Abyei area. The process also explicitly affirms that the decision will not in any way affect the traditional grazing rights of the Misseriya and other nomads that are already protected and guaranteed by the Abyei Protocol. Regardless of the outcome, these rights are guaranteed. The decision will also not define who is a “resident” of Abyei for purposes of the voter eligibility in the Abyei Referendum of 2011—it will only settle what the boundaries of Abyei are on a map.

While the decision of the Abyei Tribunal is meant to be final and binding, so too were all of the provisions related to CPA’s Abyei Protocol, as well as the original findings of the Abyei Boundaries Commission itself. Without the parties and the international communities’ strongest commitment to guarantee that the arbitral award is implemented, the tribunal’s decision will mean no more than the unimplemented provisions of the protocol and ABC report.

Endnotes

[1] The parties to the Abyei Protocol and the arbitration decision are technically the SPLM/A and the Government of Sudan. However, as the Government of Sudan is now known as the “Government of National Unity,” or GoNU, and dominated by the NCP, Enough will refer to the parties in this paper as the SPLM and NCP.

[2] For more information on Abyei, see Enough’s three reports on Abyei: “Abyei: Sudan’s ‘Kashmir’” (January 2008), “Sounding the Alarm on Abyei” (April 2008), and “Abyei Aflame” (May 2008). Also see International Crisis Group, “Sudan: Breaking the Abyei Deadlock,” October 12, 2007. For more on the CPA’s Abyei Protocol, see also Douglas H. Johnson, “Why Abyei Matters: The Breaking Point of Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement?” African Affairs (, 2008);, and Douglas H. Johnson, “The Abyei Protocol demystified” Sudan Tribune, December 11, 2007. The text of the Abyei Protocol is found in “Chapter IV: The Resolution of the Abyei Conflict” of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

[3] During the abortive January 2003 session on the Three Areas, research was presented indicating that the Ngok Dinka had been part of Bahr el-Ghazal Province until transferred to Kordofan in 1905, and this date was incorporated into the later American draft protocol, specifically defining Abyei as “the area of the nine Ngok Dinka Chiefdoms transferred to Kordofan in 1905.” The exact definition of that area was left to a Boundaries Commission which was to “define and demarcate” the area following the signing of the CPA.The year 1905 therefore became a date of significance to both parties: to the SPLM because it validated their claim that Abyei was once part of the South, and to the NCP because they were convinced that the area so transferred was less than the area the SPLM was claiming.

[4] See Enough, ”Abyei: Sudan’s Kashmir.”

[5] To learn more about challenges to the referendum, see Gérard Prunier and Maggie Fick, “Sudan: the Countdown,” Enough Strategy Paper (June 2008).

[6] See Prunier and Fick, “Sudan: the Countdown” and Adam O’Brien, “Sudan’s Elections Paradox” Enough Strategy Paper (June 2008).

[7] In his response to the ABC report in 2005, Dirdeiry Mohammed Ahmed, the head of the NCP delegation on the Abyei Boundaries Commission (and also the head of the NCP delegation in the Abyei arbitration process), threatened to go back to war if the ABC did not accept the government’s position during the GoS presentation of its case in the first meeting of the ABC. During the April 2009 tribunal hearing in The Hague, SPLM counsel highlighted that when read to their logical conclusion, the NCP’s (technically the government’s) arguments before the tribunal as made during the hearing and in their written briefs basically assert that if the tribunal defined Abyei in the same way as the ABC defined it, the government would see the tribunal as exceeding its mandate as well. Thus, while the NCP has not explicitly said that they would reject the tribunal’s ruling, they have implied that they would not accept a ruling by the tribunal that affirms the ABC’s report. See Abyei Arbitration Hearing Transcripts available at the PCA website, day 1 (April 18) p. 167-68 and day 2 (April 19) p. 52-55.

[8] For more on the fallout from the Abyei violence in May 2008, see Roger Winter, “Abyei Aflame: An Update From the Field,” Enough Strategy Paper (May 2008), and the Human Rights Watch report “Abandoning Abyei: Destruction and Displacement” (July 2008).

[9] In the 2007 report “Sudan: Breaking the Abyei Deadlock,” the International Crisis Group called for UNMIS to work with the Sudanese parties to establish a demilitarized buffer zone in Abyei, but this recommendation has not been implemented. The report also noted that “while the focus should initially be on Abyei, a demilitarized zone could eventually be extended along the entire North-South border.”

[10] As per the ABC report, at a minimum the team can be comprised of “three professional surveyors: one nominated by the National Government of the Sudan, one nominated by the Government of the Southern Sudan, and one International surveyor nominated by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the East African regional organization. The survey team [can] will be assisted by one representative each from the Ngok and Misseriya, and two representatives of the Presidency.” This body should also include a representative of the neighboring states (chosen by IGAD or a member of the AEC) to ensure and an individual to represent other neighboring states as well as an individual to represent the other groups who seasonally migrate through the area. Abyei Boundaries Commission Report, p. 22, paragraph 4. The full text of the ABC report, released in July 2005, is available on the Sudan Open Archive.

[11] More information on the Abyei arbitration process, including complete transcripts of the oral hearings and written submissions and press releases from both parties, is available on the PCA website.

[12] The Abyei Protocol, which details the mandate of the Abyei Boundaries Commission, is found in “Chapter IV: The Resolution of the Abyei Conflict” of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. See also Douglas H. Johnson, “Why Abyei Matters: The Breaking Point of Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement?” African Affairs (2008).

[13] President Bashir’s statement made at a ceremony commemorating the 18th anniversary of the Popular Defense Forces in Wad al-Madeni in northern Sudan. See “Sudan president orders paramilitary forces mobilization, rejects Abyei report,” Sudan Tribune, November 18, 2007.

[14] The ruling will be made immediately available on the PCA website, www.pca-cpa.org.

Sudan: The Countdown

Submitted by Zack Brisson on June 22, 2009 - 11:14am.

The myriad challenges and risks facing Sudan in the next 19 months cannot be addressed and mitigated unless the international community adopts a new approach to the crucial final stages of CPA implementation. Robust, coordinated, and high-level engagement is essential from all, not just a few, of the CPA’s “guarantors”—those states and organizations that witnessed the signing of the CPA and agreed to support its implementation. The United States and other key guarantors should play a lead role in driving this multilateral, multi-track approach, since the scale of the challenges over the coming months merit the engagement of all of the international actors who committed four years ago to supporting implementation of the CPA. The Washington conference is a positive start, but should be followed-up with efforts that penalize failure to implement key provisions of the agreement.

Author:

Gérard Prunier and Maggie Fick

Jun 22, 2009

SudanCountdown File.mp3

sudan_countdown.pdf

By Gérard Prunier and Maggie Fick

Crucial deadlines are nearing in the interim period of Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, which ended a 22-year civil war between the North and the South. And as the deadlines grow closer the international community is at risk of sleepwalking toward the coming 2010 elections and the following southern referendum without mustering the necessary energy to stop the looming threat of war. The Obama administration is to be congratulated for bringing together key signatories and more than 30 countries and organizations in Washington this week in an effort to reinvigorate CPA implementation, but much more will need to be done. Recent events in southern Sudan highlight the many problems with the current approach to the complex and ambitious project of implementing the agreement. Increasingly hostile relations between the National Congress Party, or NCP, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, or SPLM; a recent spate of intercommunal violence throughout the South; and an array of abandoned or unimplemented CPA provisions threaten to derail the CPA before 2011, when the semiautonomous South will likely vote for its independence from Sudan, marking the end of what is commonly referred to as the interim period. Perhaps most importantly, parties to the CPA, particularly the NCP, have not faced any cost from the international community for a failure to implement key provisions of the agreement. Until the international community changes this fundamental dynamic, no conferences or consultations will change the basic facts on the ground.

With less than 19 months remaining before the end of the CPA interim period, the international community can no longer afford to half-heartedly address these worrisome dynamics. Renewed Sudanese civil war could bring wholesale violence on a terrible scale while further destabilizing the entire region. A renewed diplomatic push in the waning period of CPA implementation built around the use of principled and direct penalties and incentives could prevent Sudan from relapsing—but this strategy will have to be more sustained, coordinated, and strategic than prior efforts, which have failed to adequately respond to recent challenges and opportunities. If there continues to be no cost for flouting key provisions of the agreement, renewed conflict is likely.

The rough road to 2011: Challenges and dangers

When the CPA was signed over four and a half years ago elections were a key element of the internationally supported strategy to set Sudan on a path toward democratic transformation. Elections offered hope of altering the predatory relationship between the repressive government in Khartoum and its marginalized peripheral populations, a dynamic that has plagued Sudan for much of its 52 years of independence and that remains at the root of its interlocking crises. Elections were also seen as a means to make administrative structures in the South more accountable and effective. Today Sudan’s coming elections are not as a whole a cause for hope, but instead a sobering microcosm of the challenges facing Sudan in the run up to the 2011 referendum. The elections still mark the beginning of a process that will durably alter the country’s history, but considering the current state of play, this process might lead to the violent dissolution of the Sudanese state.

Huge hurdles and bad precedents: The elections and the referendum

Enough recently argued that while the prospect of wholesale democratic transformation in Sudan through the 2010 elections is no longer realistic, holding elections on time and in a safe environment remain essential for avoiding the outright collapse of the CPA.1 However, as delays continue to plague the electoral process and deadlines pass largely without comment or action by the ruling parties, the prospect of holding these elections at all grows more daunting. Moreover, theses challenges set a dangerous precedent that directly affects the all-important final benchmark of the interim period of CPA implementation: the referendum for the self-determination of southern Sudan.

Daunting legal and logistical obstacles currently impede the electoral process. The National Elections Act, enacted in July 2008—more than two years after the date agreed to in the CPA—is vague on the policies and procedures for the elections and draft regulations have yet to be finalized. The National Assembly recently adopted highly questionable reforms to the Press and Media Law, and it has yet to amend the National Security Act, a law that bears directly on the safeguarding of civil liberties during the electoral process. Voter registration remains an enormous logistical challenge, as it will now be held during the rainy season, a time when most of the rural and remote areas of Sudan are largely inaccessible by road. With less than nine months remaining before the polling period begins, 20 million potential voters must be registered in a voter registration process that has not yet commenced. These voters, the majority of whom are illiterate and many of whom have never voted before, will then be asked to complete a complex and confusing series of ballots, casting their vote in local, regional, and national elections.

Meanwhile the ongoing dispute between the northern and southern governments over the results of Sudan’s census has blocked progress on the elections timetable and deepened the impasse between the North and South on the crucial issue of wealth and power sharing after the referendum.

One international specialist working on Sudan’s elections told Enough, “No one is paying attention [to the elections] right now, but in six months, people will be ringing the alarm bells. By then it will be too late.”

Potentially perilous elections will directly affect the self-determination referendum for southern Sudan, which politicians in both the North and South rightly view as an event with enormous ramifications. Unlike the elections, which were reluctantly accepted by the Sudanese parties at the behest of the international community (particularly the United States), the 2011 self-determination referendum for southern Sudan is the provision of the CPA that resonates most deeply with the southern Sudanese people. Although popular perceptions around elections are mixed, the National Democratic Institute’s focus group research, which has tracked opinions in the South since the CPA was signed in 2005, shows a consistent and overwhelming desire among southern Sudanese to vote for secession in the self-determination referendum. Southerners living in remote villages do not know the exact date when they will be able to vote in the referendum—in fact, this date has not yet been set because the referendum law has not been passed—but they know that the referendum “is coming” and significant delays are a potential trigger for future violence.

The consistent delays and lack of transparency in the electoral process have set a precedent that bodes poorly for timely organization of the referendum. The referendum law is unlikely to pass in Sudan’s National Assembly before the general elections, which opens the possibility of the NCP using a new and perhaps northern-dominated body to manipulate provisions of the CPA and further forestall the referendum. Elections would then give way to an increasingly tense and potentially explosive period: the “homestretch” between the elections and the referendum. At this point progress on the preparations for the referendum will indicate whether or not the NCP is likely to act as an honest broker and allow the referendum to occur without manipulation or interference. During this period power-sharing discussions with the South now occurring under the radar might come to a head, further increasing the stakes for both the NCP and the SPLM.

Future flashpoints: Unimplemented CPA provisions

Abyei: Abyei, the hotly contested, oil-producing zone which straddles the (as yet undemarcated) North-South border, is the subject of a distinct protocol in the CPA and has been considered a threat to the fragile North-South peace since the CPA was signed in 2005.2 Abyei has also been the site of multiple violations of the CPA-mandated ceasefire, most notably in May 2008, when an incident between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, or SPLA and the Sudan Armed Forces, or SAF, led to a heavy bombardment of Abyei’s civilian areas, looting of markets and homes by SAF forces, and the displacement of the entire civilian population—an estimated 90,000 people—from the town itself. The NCP then took a particularly hostile attitude when it rejecting the findings of a commission created to determine Abyei’s contested border. On July 23, two years after the Abyei Boundary Commission issued its report, the Court of Arbitration in the Hague will issue its decision on the validity of the commission’s finding, a much-anticipated ruling that has implications for future wealth sharing between the North and the South and will determine who can vote in the referendum.

North-South border demarcation: Delayed demarcation of the border between northern and southern Sudan is further amplifying the pressures between the NCP and the SPLM. This provision of the CPA, which also involved an expert commission to determine where the North-South boundary should be drawn, has been delayed and disputed because of its direct impact on future oil revenue sharing between the North and the South. In the absence of border demarcation, a military build up has taken place in both the North and the South. Any decision on the border, which snakes through many of Sudan’s oil fields, will provoke strong reactions not only from the NCP and the SPLM, but also from armed tribal militia elements stationed along the demarcated line.

Joint Integrated Units, or JIUs: In February the NCP’s Sudan Armed Forces and the SPLA clashed in Malakal, a tense town in southern Sudan near significant oil reserves. The fighting highlighted flaws in the Joint Integrated Units, or JIUs, which were created by the CPA to encourage cooperation between the northern and southern armed forces. The JIUs were yet another belatedly implemented provision of the CPA and were never given joint doctrine or command-and-control structures. In places like Malakal, where the JIUs are largely composed of former warring militia who fought on opposite sides during the North-South conflict, their presence has led to greater violence, instability, and civilian casualties.

Intercommunal tensions and pervasive insecurity in the South

In the first half of 2009 more than 1,000 people have been killed and more than 135,000 displaced by interethnic and interclan fighting in southern Sudan. The death toll in the South now exceeds the number of violent deaths in Darfur during the same period, and as elections draw closer, violence and instability may well increase. Deadly cattle raids in Jonglei state, clashes between the nomadic Misseriya and Rizeigat in South Kordofan’s Nuba Mountains, and Bari-Mundari fighting outside the South’s capital, Juba, are indicative of the sharp uptick in both the scale and scope of the violence in recent months. Road banditry throughout the South, criminal activity in Juba, and the destabilizing presence of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Western Equatoria state further illustrate the myriad internal and external destabilizing factors threatening the increasingly fragile peace in southern Sudan.

Intercommunal violence is not a new phenomenon in southern Sudan. Cattle raiding and conflict over land and grazing rights frequently took place during the North-South war, when local conflict resolution mechanisms broke down. The CPA calls for a review of land policy and the creation of a land commission to address the enduring issues of land access and ownership at the root of much of the insecurity that persists in southern Sudan. Almost no progress has been made on implementing these provisions, and land and resource tensions remain at the heart of interethnic conflict. What’s worse, reports indicate that the violence now indiscriminately targets women, children, and the elderly, a disturbing shift in cultural behavior given that cattle raiding had traditionally occurred between young male warriors.

These tribal clashes occur among a heavily armed civilian population that the poorly disciplined southern army has proved incapable of securing. In a territory almost twice the size of France, which has not yet recovered from over two decades of war, it is difficult to overstate the challenges facing the fledgling Government of Southern Sudan on every front. Without a much more stable security situation, GoSS will continue to be incapable of making progress on building infrastructure and of improving its efforts to provide the “peace dividend” promised to its population by the CPA.

GoSS President and SPLM chairman Salva Kiir and other top GoSS officials have attributed the recent upsurge in violence to the NCP, claiming that the northern government is arming proxy militias throughout the South in an attempt to undermine the CPA. This development is not surprising given the NCP’s strategy of eroding confidence in the CPA through calculated and destabilizing actions. Furthermore, the accusations and back and forth regarding the recent violence have exacerbated the increasing tensions between the SPLM and NCP.

Meanwhile, the GoSS’ security problems are made worse by steadily declining oil revenues, which have cut the southern government’s budget—over 98 percent of which comes from oil—by more than half. Salaries for soldiers, teachers, and other civil servants have gone unpaid for the past several months. Even without the financial crisis, the remaining funds that might have been available for building much-needed infrastructure in the South, from roads to schools, are now likely being siphoned off in support of the central driving strategy of the GoSS: preparation for a serious confrontation—namely a return to war—with the northern government.

In this climate of insecurity, the United Nations Mission in Sudan, or UNMIS, has struggled to operationalize its core mandate: monitoring the ceasefire and security arrangements of the CPA. UNMIS has neither anticipated the recent outbreak of violence in the South, nor responded adequately in its aftermath. UNMIS’ relative timidity has gone beyond the limits of reasonable prudence, contributing to missed opportunities to use the mission’s extensive resources to coordinate local-level responses before, during, and after violence occurs, and to build local capacity to respond to these issues in the future.

Motivations and strategies of the parties

Enough has consistently argued that both the NCP and the SPLM will seek to use the elections to strengthen their positions prior to the 2011 referendum without precipitating a CPA’s premature collapse. These strategies may persist if both parties are able to achieve their desired outcomes without causing the other side to escalate in the tense run-up to the referendum. Recent actions by the NCP, however, have demonstrated a dangerous tendency toward brinksmanship. During confrontations in both Abyei and Malakal, the NCP seemed to be “testing” the limits of the SPLM, trying to determine how far they could push the Southerners without triggering an outright explosion. Unless the international guarantors of the CPA explicitly discourage such behavior on the part of Khartoum, war could easily result from unilateral defiance pushed one notch too far—a situation that neither of the two parties desires.

National Congress Party (NCP)

As the NCP approaches its twentieth year in power, the Khartoum regime continues to exercise its well-practiced “divide-and-rule” and “delay-and-distract” tactics to great effect. By creating multiple crises and challenges to distract and confuse both the SPLM—its “partner” in the CPA—and the international community, the NCP succeeds in stymieing efforts to fully implement the CPA without resorting to obvious signs of obstruction. The NCP’s subtle but persistent policies of intransigence are paying off in its success in delaying the electoral process, border demarcation, the referendum timeline, and other key provisions. These delays amount to a deliberate sabotage of the crucial CPA benchmarks that could prevent a return to war.

President Bashir recently criticized the SPLM for attempting to stifle political opposition in the South in the upcoming elections—a criticism that is mostly unsubstantiated. He threatened to punish the SPLM for its supposed repressive practices in the South by preventing the party from campaigning in the North. Bashir’s remarks served two purposes. First, Bashir anticipated criticism of a new political party in the South, a so-called “splinter” group of the SPLM led by Lam Akol, a former SPLA commander whose relations with the Khartoum regime during and after the war led to his falling out with the mainstream SPLM. Bashir opened space for Akol’s new party, called “SPLM-Democratic Change,” to begin a campaign to openly criticize and undermine the SPLM. This effort is unfortunately well positioned to take advantage of the SPLM’s widespread criticisms for large-scale corruption. Second, Bashir threatened the SPLM’s legitimate right to campaign in the North under the pretext of concern about the ability of opposition groups to campaign in the South.

The NCP is more constrained than ever due to the International Criminal Court’s recent issuance of an arrest warrant for its leader, President Bashir. However, the warrant has not slowed the NCP’s efforts to remain the one and only electoral partner of the SPLM in the North . The NCP’s eagerness for political partnership with the SPLM, which is closely related to their desire to marginalize the Northern opposition parties, should be used to extract from the Islamist party a minimum engagement toward electoral freedom next year. At present there is no sign that any of the main actors has adopted this strategy.

Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)

The SPLM is outwardly campaigning for the elections as a national party that has a legitimate chance of winning the Government of National Unity presidency. By aiming to wrest control of the central state from the predatory NCP, the SPLM argues that it can preserve its former charismatic leader John Garang’s vision of unity in a “New Sudan.” This vision, however, is unrealistic for a number of reasons, central among them that most southerners no longer support the concept of unity and are unlikely to support it as the SPLM’s political strategy. The deep-seated anger and historical resentment of southerners toward the NCP has not changed significantly during the CPA’s interim period.

In the North, regardless of widespread dissatisfaction with the NCP, the majority Muslim population is unlikely to vote for the SPLM, a party viewed in the North as Christian. Regardless of its external posturing, it is less than sure that the SPLM will push its leader, Salva Kiir, into the national presidential race. A presidential race in which the SPLM was represented by a symbolic candidate without realistic hope of victory would only reinforce the feeling of southern alienation and separateness. At present, everything points to a disconnect between the SPLM political elite—who still pursue a dream of winning a national victory—and a southern public which either does not believe its party can win nationally or does not care about the elections and only aims for meaningful participation in the self-determination referendum.

Preventing a return to war: recommendations

The myriad challenges and risks facing Sudan in the next 19 months cannot be addressed and mitigated unless the international community adopts a new approach to the crucial final stages of CPA implementation. Robust, coordinated, and high-level engagement is essential from all, not just a few, of the CPA’s “guarantors”—those states and organizations that witnessed the signing of the CPA and agreed to support its implementation.3 The United States and other key guarantors should play a lead role in driving this multilateral, multi-track approach, since the scale of the challenges over the coming months merit the engagement of all of the international actors who committed four years ago to supporting implementation of the CPA. This week’s Washington conference is a positive start, but should be followed-up with efforts that penalize failure to implement key provisions of the agreement. Engagement must avoid a myopic focus on the current problems and instead consider longer-term policy objectives that, after the referendum, will help prevent a violent collapse of the Sudanese state.

The international community must direct renewed energy and commitment in the remaining interim period of CPA implementation toward the following strategic priorities:

Treat Sudan’s problems holistically and prioritize CPA implementation as the central means of addressing the roots causes of Sudan’s conflicts. The framework of the CPA was designed to address the root causes of Sudan’s interrelated conflicts, and it is the only existing agreement that addresses disparate but interconnected issues, from land conflict to armed militias, in a coordinated manner. Prioritizing CPA implementation today means understanding that Sudan’s problems are not isolated from each other. Pursuing an all-Sudan solution means working to build the peace fostered by the CPA between the North and South while simultaneously engaging in coordinated diplomatic efforts to end the war in Darfur and enable internally displaced people and refugees to return home. Furthermore, the international community should make it clear that there will be costs if the parties to the CPA, particularly the NCP, do not abide by their commitments. Without movement on this issue, the basic facts on the ground will not change.

Encourage passage of the referendum law before the elections. Applying pressure on the Government of National Unity to urge the National Assembly to review and pass the law on the southern referendum before the elections could reduce tensions between the parties after the elections and enable preparations for the referendum to begin now. Once the law is passed and the Referendum Commission is created, potential disputes, such as questions over whether or not certain populations—such as southerners in Khartoum—are eligible to vote, can be addressed before tensions escalate in the immediate run-up to the referendum.
Focus U.N. efforts on establishing security at the local level through robust monitoring and coordination. UNMIS should play a much more proactive role in monitoring ceasefire violations by engaging with local actors to prevent violence through more robust conflict resolution programs and through rapid response teams that can quickly deploy in instances of outbreaks of violence during the electoral process. By improving information sharing and analysis at the local level and establishing dynamic military and civilian presences in tense areas, UNMIS can better develop response and protection strategies to prevent and mitigate future violence. The United States should lead efforts within the Security Council to strengthen UNMIS’ ability to support the CPA, but this support must be matched with clearer strategic vision by UNMIS on how it can best allocate its resources to operationalize its mandate amidst ongoing security threats throughout the South. Other guarantors of the CPA can support UNMIS’ efforts by contributing to coordinated programs such as security sector reform within the SPLA and by providing donor support to other programs to enable GoSS to address multiple internal security challenges.
Develop coordinated short-term and long-term policy strategies on key questions. Each guarantor of the CPA must answer several important questions regarding their government’s or organization’s policy on the remaining CPA interim period and any post-referendum scenarios. Convening policy task forces in each country and reconvening the guarantors frequently to discuss priorities and areas of concern in the remainder of the period can help clarify strategies. Coordination and regular communication with the Assessment and Evaluation Commission—a group composed of representatives from the NCP, SPLM as well as Kenya, Ethiopia, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Norway, and Italy tasked with monitoring CPA implementation—is essential to monitoring progress and breaking developments on the ground, as will regular ad hoc consultations at a more senior political level. Existing diplomatic resources, such as U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Major General Scott Gration and his counterparts in the United Kingdom among other partners, should be mobilized to lead these coordinating efforts and present a united front in negotiations with the NCP and SPLM.
Encourage negotiations between the NCP and SPLM on long-term wealth-sharing arrangements before the 2011 referendum. Track-two diplomatic efforts can get both parties to consider various scenarios for wealth sharing after the referendum and mitigate the likelihood that these discussions will short circuit into a zero-sum game leading directly to conflict after the referendum. Discussions of access to land for populations with diverse needs and livelihoods and planning for mutually beneficial development of oilfields in the contested border region could ease current tensions over border demarcation and generate momentum for further cooperation.

Sudan's Election Paradox

Submitted by Zack Brisson on June 10, 2009 - 8:42am.

The United States and other key actors need to lower their expectations for the upcoming February 2010 national elections in Sudan and develop a multilateral strategy to press the Government of National Unity—the ruling National Congress Party in particular —to enact meaningful reforms regardless of who wins in 2010, revitalize CPA implementation, and establish a framework for talks in Darfur that are consistent with the power-sharing provisions of the CPA.

Author:

Adam O'Brien

Jun 10, 2009

Strategy Paper (PDF)

Audio (MP3)

Activist Briefing (PDF)

By Adam O’Brien

In February 2010, Sudan is scheduled to hold its first democratic elections in 24 years. General elections are required by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, which the ruling National Congress Party, or NCP, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, or SPLM, signed in 2005 to end a second civil conflict between northern and southern Sudan that lasted two decades, killed 2 million people, and displaced 4 million more.

Sudan’s upcoming national election poses a series of thorny questions for the international community, and, to date, these questions have not been acceptably resolved:

The NCP is notorious for ignoring the rule of law, persecuting dissenting Sudanese voices, breaking existing agreements, and using ruthless force against civilians. Why should international diplomats believe the NCP will behave any differently during the course of an election, and what guarantees and safeguards will be put in place to prevent cheating?

How can a credible election take place in Darfur at a time when the international community is struggling to maintain even bare minimum levels of lifesaving aid there and more than 3 million people are still internally displaced or refugees?

How can the national election be credible if a ballot does not take place in Darfur given its significant portion of Sudan’s total population?

How do elections fit into a broader strategy of promoting the ultimate goals of power-sharing, governance reform, and the political empowerment of larger numbers of Sudanese citizens?
How can the national election be effectively administered given the complexity of the voting systems, the challenge of conducting voter registration during the South’s rainy season, and the slow pace of voter education efforts?

When the CPA was signed over four years ago, credible elections in Sudan were a central element of a multilateral strategy to help the Sudanese people fundamentally alter how their country is governed. It was hoped that credible elections would force Sudan’s ruling party—a group that has waged ruthless war on its citizens for over 20 years—to make a choice: change its behavior and compete at the ballot box or maintain the status quo and be voted from power.

However, four years of selective CPA implementation and declining trust between the NCP and SPLM have badly eroded expectations and fundamentally altered both parties’ political calculations. Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir is now also wanted on war crimes charges for his actions in Darfur. Both the NCP and SPLM view the election with a jaundiced eye. President Bashir and his NCP only see the election as useful if it can be sufficiently manipulated to create some NCP claim to popular legitimacy while keeping threats to the party’s rule weak and divided. The SPLM and many in the South see the election as a distraction from the far more important self-determination referendum in 2011. The challenges of holding a safe and credible election in Africa’s largest and perhaps least- developed country are truly daunting, and the threat of election- related violence—particularly in the South and marginalized areas of the North—is very serious.

Holding timely and safe elections would be a welcome step toward keeping the CPA on track and could provide many communities a much- needed outlet to express popular will. However, given the NCP’s reluctance to embrace free and fair elections that could displace it from power at the national level, elections are unlikely to serve as the main vehicle for radically improving governance and achieving lasting stability in Sudan. Indeed, in light of the numerous delays in key aspects of CPA implementation, the conflict in Darfur, and the international community’s failure to date to harmonize its strategic approach for securing a lasting peace across all of Sudan, the election could prove to be a fiasco.

The United States and other key actors, operating on a tight timeline, need to lower their expectations for the election and develop a multilateral strategy to press the Government of National Unity—the ruling NCP in particular —to enact meaningful reforms regardless of who wins in 2010, revitalize CPA implementation, and establish a framework for talks in Darfur that are consistent with the power-sharing provisions of the CPA. There also has to be a clear and unified international posture with regard to addressing the issue of Darfur, given the near -impossibility of holding a free and fair ballot there.

The international community should use the process of moving forward with the election as an opportunity to press for greater political freedom and participation no matter what the outcome is. The election should be supported as a way for local and regional entities to contest for power, and as an instrument for people to choose their own representatives as a step on the path toward democratic governance—not as a silver bullet that will produce genuine democratic governance.

Deadlines, delays, and decisions

The CPA radically restructured Sudan’s political landscape by creating a multi-tiered power-sharing system of government during a six-year interim period that was supposed to culminate in a 2011 referendum on self-determination for southern Sudan._¹

By the end of interim period’s fourth year, the CPA calls for voters to cast ballots in executive and legislative races for the Government of National Unity and state governments, and for southern Sudanese to vote in elections for the semi-autonomous Government of Southern Sudan, or GoSS._²

Election timetable

See the timeline in Full Screen

The CPA aims to end Sudan’s bloodiest conflict as well as address deep-seated economic and political disparities at the center of the state’s many conflicts through its extensive wealth- and power-sharing arrangements. National general elections, it was hoped, would provide a seal of democratic credibility and popular legitimacy to an institutional arrangement that had resulted from bargaining between Sudan’s two most powerful parties rather than balloting among the broader population. A fair vote would ensure that the CPA’s power-sharing structures would evolve from appointed positions to elected offices, with candidates pledging to uphold the CPA. The elections were also seen as a way to broaden the support base by involving groups excluded from the agreement’s negotiations in the broader political process. Ultimately, it was hoped that democratic elections would help make unity attractive to the South by changing the nature of governance in Khartoum and thereby encouraging nationwide political reform.

The CPA divided representation in the new government structures based on proportions agreed to by the NCP and SPLM during negotiations. The National Elections Act─ a CPA-mandated law passed by the national assembly last year that provides the rules and guidelines for governing the upcoming elections ─calls for a new proportional allocation scheme._³

Under the current arrangement, members of government are political appointees. Elections would be the first time that the Sudanese people would directly determine who holds these offices. Additionally, state elections in South Kordofan and Blue Nile—two flashpoints along the border between northern and southern Sudan—are designed to initiate “popular consultations,” a vague process in which these states will decide whether to accept, reject, or renegotiate the CPA and its application to their areas.

Both the NCP and SPLM were initially reluctant to hold competitive elections during the interim period, but the international community—particularly the United States—pushed hard to include the elections as a vehicle to entrench and expand peace during CPA negotiations. And while the intentions were admirable, the relative failure of both the signatories and the international community to keep CPA implementation on track now means that the 2010 elections present a myriad of political and operational risks.

On April 1, 2009, Sudan’s National Electoral Commission announced that nationwide executive and legislative elections would occur in February 2010, seven months later than called for by the CPA. Although this was another item on a growing list of missed CPA deadlines, the electoral commission’s decision to delay the historic vote by seven months did not come as a surprise.

Even under a best-case scenario, holding elections on the CPA’s original schedule would have been a tough logistical and operational challenge. Sudan is a massive country, and other than in a relatively small radius around Khartoum, it lacks basic infrastructure and critical services. During the summer months when elections were supposed to occur, intense rains swamp large swathes of the South, rendering remote villages inaccessible and isolated populations stranded. Voter registration and polling are made more difficult by the large number of semi-nomadic pastoralists who migrate with the seasons as well as the lingering effects of displacement caused by decades of conflict. Low literacy rates and little experience with democratic elections compound the problem of voter education for the complicated election process, which in some areas will present voters with as many as 12 ballot papers for races on six different levels. Such a complex procedure—one that would require a sophisticated voter education effort in even the most developed of nations—is a very poor fit for Sudan.

Much of Sudan remains plagued by pervasive insecurity. Clashes in Darfur remain very well and rightly publicized, even as violence has spiked up in numerous localities across southern Sudan. President Bashir’s decision to expel 13 western aid organizations from Darfur, as well as the so-called “Three Areas” of Abyei, Blue Nile, and South Kordofan, has ratcheted up humanitarian and security pressure in exactly those areas where election-related violence is of the greatest concern._⁴

In the South, the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, unleashed a new wave of attacks and abductions following a botched regional military strike, spearheaded by the Ugandan Army in December 2008, against the rebels’ jungle bases in northeastern Congo._⁵

In April, hundreds of people were killed in interclan clashes over cattle, access to resources, and local power politics in Jonglei state. These events highlight the combustible mix of weak government structures, stunted development, ineffective security forces, and heavily-armed civilian populations that creates the potential for even greater instability in much of southern Sudan.

The sputtering pace of CPA implementation, elections preparations, and required legal reforms sealed the need for postponing elections. The National Elections Act, which was supposed to be enacted by January 2006, was not passed until July 2008. Five months later—and four months late—President Bashir appointed a committee to lead the National Electoral Commission, which is mandated by the Elections Act to oversee the voting process. The electoral commission formally asked the United Nations for electoral assistance in February, but the broad request led to little actual activity on the ground because the NEC lacked an operational structure beyond its nine-member executive committee and had not set a timetable for the vote. With four months to go and no plan or preparations for a vote, the electoral commission had little choice but to delay the elections. Further, changes proposed by the NCP to laws governing media and security will make free and fair elections even more challenging. Particularly worrisome draft laws currently under parliamentary review would allow Sudan’s security services to detain citizens for 30 days without charge and expand press censorship. Free and fair elections can only plausibly occur in an atmosphere of reduced repression, which has yet to be achieved.

The political calculus of elections

The technical hurdles remain considerable, but the core problems that have hindered elections preparations are political. The premise and promise of elections—democratic transformation, consolidating the peace, and making unity attractive—have been marred by the NCP’s four-year pattern of obstructionism, which has stalled progress on CPA implementation and sapped good will between the parties. The original aspirations of the agreement are no longer is synch with actors’ current agendas, and the tunnel vision of short-term interests and zero-sum calculations has replaced long-term goals of political partnership and national unity.

Both the NCP and SPLM want to use the elections to strengthen their positions prior to the 2011 referendum without precipitating a premature collapse of the CPA or exposing their own internal weaknesses. In many ways the fate of the elections will remain hostage to other CPA implementation issues—including the status of Abyei, border demarcation, referendum preparation, and long-term, wealth-sharing agreements—and whether any progress is made on these matters before February 2010.

The National Congress Party

The NCP is propelled by an instinct for survival and a strategy of opportunism, and its overriding interest is self-preservation. Since the CPA was signed, NCP hardliners have attempted to delay, undermine, or ignore the implementation of any provision that might loosen the party’s grip on power. With two years remaining in the interim period and the growing probability of an independent South, the NCP faces the looming possibility of losing one-third of its territory, many of its oilfields, and control over upstream access to water from the Nile. Continued conflict in Darfur, tense uncertainty in Abyei and South Kordofan, international war crimes charges against the president, and declining oil revenues all risk corroding the NCP’s control beyond Sudan’s riverine core. President Bashir has attempted to hunker down and rally the base after the International Criminal Court’s issuance of an arrest warrant against him for war crimes in Darfur, but the charges have further isolated the NCP internationally and increased internal friction between pragmatists and extremists within the party.

The NCP, under heightened pressure, views elections as both a threat and an opportunity. The party is broadly unpopular and has much to fear from any ballot that genuinely open’s Sudan’s constricted political space. However, the NCP agreed to elections during CPA negotiations in hopes that they could head a political partnership with the SPLM that would draw democratic support and gain international legitimacy while simultaneously subordinating the SPLM’s national ambitions and reducing SPLM presence in power-sharing institutions. As deteriorating confidence in CPA implementation led to dwindling prospects for an electoral partnership, the NCP resorted to its default fallback tactic of obstructionism by neglecting passage of the election law.

The ICC’s arrest warrant against President Bashir altered the NCP’s calculations and once again endowed elections with potential utility as an instrument of legitimacy and control. After the court announced its decision, NCP officials offered the SPLM a deal: if the SPLM agreed to presidential elections in July, the NCP would rapidly push media, security, and other legislation necessary to bringing national laws into conformity with the CPA and enabling fair elections. The SPLM declined, but the NCP’s proposition demonstrates President Bashir’s revived interest in elections as a means to polish his image abroad and purge the party of potential rivals who eye the warrants as an opportunity to push Bashir aside.

The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement

The SPLM has three main interests in the elections. First, the SPLM does not want elections to interfere with the South’s ability to decide its fate through a fair and timely referendum on independence by February 2011. Unimplemented CPA provisions and unrealized peace dividends have reinforced popular perceptions in the South that the NCP is not a reliable peace partner and unity is not a viable option. For many in the South, the CPA’s hopes have been reduced to holding the referendum on schedule and ensuring that the South has an accurately demarcated border and secure access to the oil wealth flowing from the fields that line the region dividing North and South.

Elections potentially cast a shadow over the referendum in several ways. Holding elections in July, during the deluges of the South’s rainy season, would have made it extremely difficult for southerners to vote, for organizations to provide adequate support, and for observers to monitor the fairness of the entire process. Coupled with concerns that the census results—used to determine national power-sharing proportions—dramatically understated the South’s population, some in the SPLM worry that the NCP will use elections to gain a stranglehold in the National Assembly and thwart the referendum. While the SPLM wanted elections during the southern dry season—roughly November to May—to avoid mass disenfranchisement, it also can not allow elections to continue sliding down the same slippery slope of delays that has tripped up CPA implementation. With only two dry seasons remaining before the end of the interim period, the SPLM needed elections to occur during the first dry season to ensure that the second dry season remained reserved for the referendum. Finally, the SPLM does not want the political competition of elections to trigger a military confrontation that could endanger the CPA just when the referendum is within grasp.

The SPLM’s second main interest is to bolster its base in the run-up to the referendum. While smaller political parties in southern Sudan are too weak and fragmented to present a real threat of opposition to the SPLM’s dominant position within GoSS, the SPLM enters the final crucial phase of CPA implementation facing numerous challenges that could be exacerbated by the elections. Southern Sudan is riddled with politicized ethnic divisions among a heavily-armed civilian population that can escalate into destabilizing violence easily exploitable by the NCP. In June 2008, GoSS launched an ineffective civilian disarmament campaign in large part motivated by a desire to neutralize remaining tribal trouble spots prior to elections.

GoSS President and SPLM Chairman Salva Kiir has done an impressive job under difficult circumstances to create a cohesive governing structure that reflects the South’s diversity and responds to its needs, but disappointment with GoSS’s performance remains significant. The GoSS has struggled to deliver a substantial peace dividend to poor, remote regions where access to water, food, health care, economic markets, and education remains elusive for the majority of southerners. The dreadfully slow dispersal of development assistance pledged by Western donors and declining oil revenues have depleted GoSS’s budget, making it more difficult to invest in development, purchase patronage, and pay an army in need of training and modernization. Corruption and the siphoning off of oil funds for personal profit is a serious problem that has bred resentment and disillusionment among desperately impoverished southerners, and understandably chilled enthusiasm among development donors. GoSS’s current push to decentralize will in theory place more power and resources at the disposal of state authorities, increasing the stakes for these seats and potentially accelerating the centrifugal forces. Elections could focus local-level ire at GoSS’s uneven performance, aggravate deep ethnic divisions, and pose a threat to prominent individuals with vested interests in holding onto power.

The SPLM is composed of a mosaic of actors and a variety of interests that reflects the South’s complexity. The SPLM has historically struggled to reconcile its own competing visions for Sudan, the “South-first” strategy of secession and John Garang’s “New Sudan” strategy of national unity through democratic transformation. Salva Kiir has worked to ensure that both factions are represented within GoSS, but the vying visions have not been reconciled and will likely come into sharper focus as the referendum approaches. Some spoilers who fought against the SPLA during the war and joined GoSS for the spoils may be biding their time until they have an interest and opportunity to bolt. For the SPLM, elections, and the rapidly approaching referendum run the risk of exposing these rifts and hastening a reckoning or realignment of interests within the party.

Finally, the SPLM’s third main interest—at least among the South-first bloc—is to develop the building blocks of a new state that will have internal stability and international support. The GoSS government elected in February 2010 will be responsible for steering the South during the referendum period and beyond. The vast majority in the South seems eager to vote for independence were the referendum held today, while a fledgling state in southern Sudan will face immense economic, political, and security challenges: poor but endowed with the mixed blessing of oil, sprawling but landlocked and bordering numerous security vacuums, and uneasily united in opposition toward NCP misrule but divided by internal schisms. Establishing democratically elected institutions will strengthen the South’s standing as well as claims for recognition and assistance among the international community.

Thus far, the SPLM’s strategy toward elections reflects the diversity of its multiple, moving parts. Publicly, many SPLM officials claim that the party will use the general elections to mobilize the marginalized masses across Sudan, unseat President Bashir, and replace the NCP’s majority in the National Assembly with a coalition of the periphery led by the SPLM. This, they argue, is not only consistent with Garang’s vision, but is also supported by secessionists who think that the only way to ensure the referendum is to gain control of the National Assembly. While the threat of reaching out to northern constituencies and expanding the SPLM’s existing presence in the north may have utility as a bargaining chip with the NCP to build leverage and gain concessions in other contentious CPA areas, this is unlikely to become reality. Pushing for the presidency or attempting to capture Khartoum by the ballot would be a high-risk strategy that could provoke a showdown with the NCP—remains in a strong position in relation to northern opposition parties —while bringing little benefit for the majority of southerners who would prefer to exit rather than fix Sudan.

The SPLM will also need to decide which candidate to run against President Bashir. GoSS President Kiir, who is also vice president the GNU, cannot run for both the presidency of GoSS and GNU. For those loyal to Garang’s approach, elections may be the last chance to argue that a unified Sudan serves the South’s interests. If the NCP stifles elections and further marginalizes the South, then the staunchest advocates of the New Sudan strategy may reach the point where they no longer see the practicality of any path other than independence.

What about elections in Darfur?

The ongoing catastrophe in Darfur poses one of the greatest challenges to national elections. The volatile security environment and contested census results (most accounts suggest that the census in Darfur was even less comprehensive and representative than in the South) cast serious doubt as to whether elections can even be held. And National elections can hardly be considered credible if 7 million people—more than 17 percent of Sudan’s estimated population of 41 million—are disenfranchised. If the decision is taken to hold elections in Darfur, the obstacles are overwhelming. Aside from resolving disputes over the census and logistical and security hurdles, overcoming pervasive distrust of the government poses a serious challenge. For example, many displaced Darfuris are deeply concerned that registering as residents of internally displaced persons’ camps will delegitimize their land rights outside these camps. In this charged atmosphere, elections could actually lead to more violence and, potentially, give the government an excuse to forcibly close displaced persons camps. The international community, which remains eager—at least rhetorically—for elections to stay on track, has not made clear their position on how the issue of Darfur and the elections should be addressed, and this gap remains a yawning one.

Rewards and risks

Democratic elections are still vital to the fate of the CPA and the future of Sudan, but it will take more than a poorly managed election to address the root of Sudan’s crisis—the hoarding of wealth and power in Khartoum at the expense of a marginalized periphery. It is important, then, to manage expectations and have realistic goals that reflect the current challenges and constraints. Elections will not magically transform Sudan, but pushing to complete elections peacefully in February 2010 could provide impetus to clear the cluttered backlog of delayed CPA benchmarks and help identify the major challenges to holding a credible referendum in 2011.

Postponing the vote until February was a first step to adequately prepare and support the electoral process, but major risks and concerns remain. The new election timetable announced by the electoral commission leaves many problems unanswered and raises many new questions. On May 23, the electoral commission announced plans to establish state committees throughout the country. Six days later, it signed an agreement with UNDP that paves the way for $68.7 million in electoral assistance. However, the electoral commission does not yet have operational structure in place, and it will take months at best for it to establish regional offices, hire and deploy staff, and begin functioning effectively on the ground. If the electoral commission doesn’t build basic capacity by the beginning of June, according to some observers in Juba, it is unlikely that they will be able to hold and manage elections—credible or not—during the next dry season.

The electoral commission’s decision to conduct voter registration during the South’s rainy season is also potentially problematic. Just as there were concerns that polling during the rainy season would lead to disenfranchisement, attempting to register during the same period could lead to large numbers being left off the voting rolls in the South. Lastly, citizens will not be able to campaign and participate in the electoral process without fear of censorship, repression, and human rights abuses, unless the National Assembly amends and alters existing legislation—including the press and security laws—to provide adequate safeguards for civil liberties.

The very challenging security environment in which these elections must be held is equally daunting. Absent swift implementation of a political settlement in Darfur—something that looks exceedingly unlikely absent much stronger U.S. leadership—elections can simply not be held in that region of the country, which is home to approximately 7 million people. In other marginalized areas—particularly in the South—the potential for ethnic manipulation and violence is high. Elections will bring political competition and confrontation within heavily militarized and mutually suspicious populations and give the NCP an opportunity to stoke intercommunal violence. Small sparks on a local level from tribal power politics or local grievances can spiral out of control rapidly and state security forces have little capacity to provide security or contain conflict. And if large numbers of people are disenfranchised by logistical complications or political manipulations, electoral losers may become peace spoilers.

Finally, the GoSS has rejected the recently released results of Sudan’s national population census, which is supposed to be used by the electoral commission to delineate constituencies for the elections. According to the census results, the South comprises 21 percent of Sudan’ total population and only 520,000 southerners live in the North. Comparatively, under the CPA’s pre-election power-sharing proportions, the South is currently allocated 34 percent of seats in the National Assembly, and GoSS officials had previously declared that they would reject the census and could boycott elections if the results did not give the South 30 percent of the population. The continued impasse over the census results could derail not only the elections preparations but the entire CPA.

How to address elections

The landscape in Sudan has changed in the four years since the CPA was signed, and the international community has to adjust its expectations for the elections and recalibrate its strategy to revive CPA implementation. In many ways, the slow pace of CPA implementation to date, and the likelihood of a badly flawed election mean that the international community will enmesh itself in a very difficult game of damage control and limitation.

Elections are a litmus test for international engagement more generally, which must be more consistent, coordinated, and resolute to prevent Sudan from plunging back into war. All involved must remember that elections are one element of a much larger peace process—not the other way around. The goal of international support should be an overarching peace for all of Sudan accompanied by a peaceful vote that helps create creating momentum and builds confidence for implementing the remaining major CPA provisions, particularly how to hold a credible self-determination referendum. The United States plans to spend $95 million to support the elections—its third largest commitment to electoral support behind Iraq and Afghanistan—and the United Nations and other donors are also prepared to provide substantial financial and technical assistance. This eagerness to support elections is not surprising, but donors must be wary about stamping a seal of approval on a process that could embolden President Bashir as he faces war crimes charges and continues to practice divide and rule tactics in Darfur and the South. The international community should make clear that it will not unconditionally support elections that do not meet baseline standards such as a level playing field for political parties to compete and an opportunity for all entitled individuals to freely exercise their right to vote.

The main priorities for the international community must the following:

1. Building capacity

Ensure that the electoral commission has an operational structure in place as soon as possible: While it now has a framework and funding, the electoral commission still lacks the necessary field infrastructure and capacity—including functional offices, trained staff, and physical supplies—necessary to adequately prepare and conduct elections during the next dry season. The pace of the electoral commission’s development has been slowed by a lack of political will in Khartoum, and the commission’s leadership must be open and its decision-making transparent to build confidence in the electoral process.

Educate voters: The elections process as determined by the CPA is extraordinarily complicated and many Sudanese have never voted before. In southern Sudan, for example, voters will be asked to complete twelve separate ballots. Low literacy rates—only 24 percent in the South—add to the challenges of ensuring that voters understand how the election will work. Donors should support basic voter education programs so that Sudanese can participate meaningfully in the election, and have a greater understanding of their fundamental rights even if the election does not come to pass.

2. Mitigating violence

Bolster the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Southern Sudan, or UNMIS: In an ethnically charged environment, national elections have the potential to further destabilize parts of the country and could be the spark for further conflict. At this late point, the safety of the elections must take priority, and UNMIS should be bolstered from the pre-election period to prevent and resolve emerging conflicts that will arise or be stoked in the context of the electoral process. The ability to get U.N. personnel on the ground in real time—even in remote locations—to monitor and report after local clashes will be essential to preventing small incidents from blowing up into large ones.

Postpone elections in Darfur:_⁶
Holding elections in Darfur without an inclusive political settlement will not contribute to peace in the region and could make things worse. A more autonomous regional government and new arrangements for wealth and power sharing are core demands of most Darfuris. Thus, a majority of Darfuris would reject not only any outcome that legitimizes the current political leadership in Darfur, which is drawn almost exclusively from the NCP, but also the very structure of governance in the region. The priority for Darfur right now must be the negotiation of a peace agreement that meets the core demands of Darfuris for representative wealth and power sharing and allows displaced persons to return home voluntarily and safely. Elections should only be held once that fundamental goal has been achieved.

Target election support to the Three Areas: The Three Areas have not received a meaningful peace dividend from the CPA. In South Kordofan and Blue Nile, where there is little understanding of the CPA, high levels of militarization, and no option for a referendum as an exit strategy should the NCP continue to quash meaningful political participation by the nation’s periphery. In Abyei, which will vote in 2011 whether to stay with the North or become part of the South, the elections are seen as a dry run for the referendum. Working toward more credible results in the Three Areas is thus critical.

Support conflict prevention and management programs: Recent clashes in Malakal and Jonglei demonstrate the potential for destabilizing bloodshed and the need to expand support for local-level conflict resolution initiatives that identity flashpoints and encourage community participation in peace-building activities to prevent violence during the elections.

3. Focusing on the big picture

Press for comprehensive governance reform: The process of moving forward with the legal framework for elections should be used as an opportunity to revise existing national laws, such as those governing the press, that make both fair elections and more accountable government extraordinarily difficult. In the South, the international community has an important opportunity to stress that continued (and vital) assistance is dependent on practical steps by the GoSS to combat corruption and establish sensible plans for tackling key development challenges that reflect community input.

Initiate a diplomatic push for progress on the remaining major CPA challenges and end the war in Darfur: Support for elections must be part of a sustained international strategy of incentives, disincentives, and leverage that will help prevent Sudan from relapsing into a third North-South war, allow the South to hold a credible self-determination referendum in 2011, and help achieve a political settlement to end the war in Darfur and allow refugees and internally displaced persons to return home._⁷

END NOTES

1. Abyei, an oil-rich and ethnically-charged area along the contested north/south border, will also hold a referendum on whether to be part of northern or southern Sudan. For a background on Abyei, see “Abyei, Sudan’s ‘Kashmir’,” by Roger Winter and John Prendergast, available here. return

2. The Government of National Unity has a bicameral legislature composed of the Council of States, which has 2 representatives from each of Sudan’s 25 states, and the National Assembly.return

3. Under the CPA, the president of the unity government is from the NCP and the First Vice President is from the SPLM, while in the National Assembly, the NCP has 52 percent of the seats, the SPLM 28 percent, other northern political forces 14 percent, and other southern political forces 6 percent. In contrast, in the post-election National Assembly, 60 percent will be elected to represent geographical constituencies, 25 percent will be women elected by proportional representation from party lists, and 15 percent will be political parties elected by proportional representation from party lists. return

4. The disputed border between northern and southern Sudan, lined with oilfields essential to the both areas budgets, is tense. Clashes in February between the SPLA and Sudanese army in Malakal, which killed 60 soldiers and civilians, demonstrate how quickly the situation can flare out of control. return

5. According to estimates by the U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the beginning of April, LRA-related incidents in the southern Sudan states of Western and Central Equatorial have displaced 37,000, killed 160, and lead to the abduction of 83 children and adults. As a result of LRA attacks in Congo, 17,695 refugees have spilled over the border into Sudan. For Enough’s recommendations on how to end the threat posed by the LRA see “Finishing the Fight Against the LRA”, by Julia Spiegel and Noel Atama, available here. return

6. There is a precedent for postponing elections for a region of Sudan in times of war. National elections in 1965 were not held in parts of southern Sudan (especially Equatoria) because of lack of security. By-elections were held in the south 1967 to complete the parliament. Even then, however, the results were largely unrepresentative of southerners’ political views, as the voters were mainly northerners living in the south. For a history of elections in Sudan, see “Elections in Sudan: Learning from Experience”, available here.return

7. For Enough’s comprehensive strategy for peace in Sudan see “President Obama and Sudan: A blueprint for Peace”, available here. return

Finishing the Fight Against the LRA

Submitted by Pete Johnson on May 11, 2009 - 7:26am.

Operation Lightning Thunder did not end the threat of the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, and sparked harsh reprisals by the LRA against civilians in Congo. Given the U.S. role in this operation and its appalling consequences for civilians, the Obama administration now has a responsibility to help finish the job and finally bring an end to the LRA’s devastating reign of death and destruction in central Africa.

May 12, 2009

Strategy Paper (PDF)

Audio

Silde Show

By Julia Spiegel and Noel Atama _¹

Operation Lightning Thunder did not end the threat of the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, and it sparked harsh reprisals by the LRA against civilians in Congo. Yet, it would be an even greater tragedy for civilians if key states in the region and the international community lost their collective will to end the threat of the LRA once and for all. What is needed now is a second Ugandan-led operation against the LRA. This new operation must place civilian protection front and center. In addition, it will require stronger and more effective support from the United States and the international community, and the full commitment from the Congolese government and army to complete the job in a reasonable timeframe and operate in all LRA-affected areas of northeastern Congo. If the United States takes the lead in supporting a new Ugandan military operation, as Enough believes it should, it must provide solid planning, intelligence, coordination, and logistical support—and take greater responsibility for the execution and outcomes of the operation.

The hard lessons of “Lightning Thunder”

In the months since the armies of Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and southern Sudan launched Operation Lightning Thunder, a joint military offensive against the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, the threat to civilians in the region has dramatically intensified. Efforts to negotiate a political solution with the LRA ran aground in late 2008, and prospects for a peaceful end to the conflict are nonexistent as long as LRA leader Joseph Kony refuses to sign the deal that remains on the table._² Unless Joseph Kony and the LRA’s other top commanders are apprehended or otherwise removed, the group’s campaign of terror will continue.

Cooperation between Uganda, Congo, and southern Sudan in addressing the LRA as a shared regional threat is a major breakthrough, and should be welcomed by the international community. However, due primarily to domestic political pressures and concerns about the lengthy presence of a foreign military on his soil, Congolese President Joseph Kabila recently requested the withdrawal of the Ugandan army from northeastern Congo—the primary locus of the LRA’s current predations and regional efforts to end them. Many Ugandan troops, however, have stayed in Congo and continue to conduct “intelligence operations” against the LRA. Some low-scale fighting between the remaining Ugandan troops and the LRA has been reported, but these largely below-the-radar efforts are likely insufficient to corner the LRA leadership._³ Moreover, the Ugandan military, the Congolese army, and the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo, or MONUC, have not demonstrated the capacity to effectively protect civilians or pursue the LRA in these remote forests. Genuine military pressure on the LRA will require the involvement of external actors. Given the United States’ support for the poorly executed “Lightning Thunder” and that U.S. leadership and investment is critical to planning and executing an operation with a greater chance of success, the Obama administration now has a responsibility and opportunity to help finish the job.

This will not be easy. While the LRA is on the run, it is dispersed in small groups over a vast expanse of challenging, intermittently populated terrain._⁴ Although scattered, the LRA continues to conduct highly coordinated and ruthless attacks against civilians. Since mid-December 2008, the LRA has brutally murdered more than 1,000 people in northeastern Congo and southern Sudan and abducted nearly 250 children. In at least one case in northeastern Congo’s Orientale province an entire village was pillaged and burned to the ground._⁵ More than 180,000 Congolese have been forced from their homes, while in southern Sudan, a further 60,000 have been displaced._⁶ Because of poor planning, insufficient logistical support, and far too few U.N. peacekeepers and Congolese soldiers (those forces tasked with civilian protection in “Lightning Thunder”), local communities and the masses of internally displaced people are highly vulnerable. Humanitarian access in these remote areas is limited; the displaced are living hand to mouth in and around towns and villages, and scarce supplies of food and medicine are quickly being exhausted._⁷

Absent any genuine opportunity for a political settlement, the international community has few attractive options to end this conflict, yet the need for action is urgent. Doing nothing will result in more death and destruction, and the LRA is already using the current space to reorganize and rebuild its military strength. The longer the international community waits, the more time the LRA will have to regroup and further wreak havoc—erasing the relative gains made by the three-month operation. The Congolese army is incapable of either protecting civilians or defeating the LRA, and Congolese forces themselves are regularly responsible for appalling human rights abuses, although they have been somewhat more disciplined in the northeast to date. MONUC is stretched near to its breaking point and principally preoccupied with the fragile situation in North and South Kivu provinces. The United Nations is unlikely to contribute much more than limited tactical support to Congolese forces operating in the area.

Launching a new military operation without closely examining what went wrong with “Lightning Thunder” and applying lessons learned will only result in greater civilian casualties and displacement while squandering valuable resources and political will. However, a revitalized and revamped military operation focused on apprehending the senior LRA leadership while simultaneously protecting civilians is the best way to defeat the insurgency and allow displaced civilians to return to their homes. The most likely practical option for success is more robust Western support for a second Ugandan-led operation. Shifting political winds in Kinshasa in recent weeks have opened the door for the Ugandan army to return in full force and with proper consultation and planning by the Congolese government. For a second Ugandan-led military operation to have a chance at success, however, it must have strong support from the United States and the international community, and the full commitment from the Congolese government and army to complete the job in a reasonable timeframe and operate in all LRA-affected areas of Congo—including Faradje.

Uganda also must provide credible assurances that Congolese fears about ulterior Ugandan motives (such as illegal extraction of Congolese resources) will not become reality. Regional armies and MONUC must make civilian protection an indisputable priority—from careful planning to acquiring necessary resources to executing regular patrols. The Congolese army should deploy proactively with MONUC support in civilian areas that have so far evaded attacks by the LRA, and the Congolese army and MONUC must also deploy to the main civilian centers to protect civilians and the large groupings of displaced people around these towns while the Ugandan army carries out operations to track and fight the LRA.

If the United States takes the lead in supporting a new Ugandan military operation, as Enough believes it should, it must provide solid planning, intelligence, coordination, and logistical support—and take greater responsibility for the execution and outcomes of the operation. (While it would be ideal for the United States or a European-led operation to apprehend Kony—given his status as an indicted war criminal—unfortunately there seems to be very little appetite in Western capitals for fully owning such an operation at this time.)

Operation Lightning Thunder

A few positives

The joint operation demonstrated a level of communication and cooperation between the governments of Congo, Uganda, and southern Sudan that is unprecedented in recent history, particularly in addressing regional security threats. This is a significant and welcome step toward regional peace and cooperation that should be further encouraged by the United States and others concerned about peace and stability in the region. The regional armies destroyed some of Kony’s main camps; rounded up various stores of food, ammunition, and communication equipment; rescued several dozen abductees; and killed some rank-and-file fighters._⁸ These gains are not sufficient to bring an end to the LRA—especially since its leadership is still at large and on the attack—but they did impose short-term costs on the rebels, while making their day-to-day operations more precarious. It is also possible that dislodging the LRA from its existing camps has opened up some leadership tensions within the LRA.

And finally, the Ugandan army’s presence in northeastern Congo temporarily improved security in some areas. And although the Ugandan army’s primary mission in Congo was to capture or kill LRA leader Joseph Kony and his top commanders, the mere presence of Ugandan forces proved a strong deterrent against LRA attacks and thus provided civilians with a modicum of security in some areas where the Ugandans were present. Obviously, in areas where the Ugandans were absent, the LRA felt free to exact reprisals on civilians. Every person interviewed by Enough in and around the Doruma and Dungu areas of Haut-Uele district in Orientale Province said that the Ugandan army should not withdraw until they have successfully captured or killed Joseph Kony and the senior leadership of the LRA._⁹ As one man in Doruma said ominously the day before the Ugandans began withdrawing, “if the UPDF leaves now, we are done.” Indeed, the impact of the Ugandan army’s absence in the Faradje region has been clear, where the Congolese blocked Ugandans forces from deploying since early January and the bulk of LRA attacks in the past several months have occurred._¹⁰

What went wrong?

Although “Lightning Thunder” did achieve some relative gains, several major shortcomings seriously hindered the operation’s effectiveness.

Poor operational planning

Key Ugandan military personnel involved in the development and execution of the offensive openly admit that they thought “Lightning Thunder” would only take one month, but that due to “unpredictable” factors such as weather, the lack of roads in the area, wide rivers, and other largely foreseeable logistical difficulties, it took over a month just to move all of the forces into place._¹¹ Contingency plans and strategies to deal with various logistical factors and possible scenarios should have been mapped out prior to the operation’s launch._¹² This oversight resulted in repeated delays in troop deployments and slow responses to LRA attacks on main civilian centers in Haut-Uele, and contributed to the failure of the operation to capture or kill any of the LRA’s key leaders.

A disjointed, sometimes dysfunctional, collaboration

Another major shortcoming was the fact that “Lightning Thunder” was not particularly “joint” in nature. Although the collaboration between Congo, southern Sudan, and Uganda to address a shared security threat is encouraging, in reality the offensive was run and executed by the Ugandan army. And where responsibilities were divided or shared, capability shortfalls, coordination gaps, territorial restrictions, and information-sharing snags undermined the operation’s overall effectiveness.

First, Congolese and southern Sudanese forces did not have the manpower, resources, or logistics to fulfill their basic roles in the operation. The Congolese army’s primary responsibility was to protect civilians in Dungu and Faradje territories, with support from MONUC. But as noted above, this effort was generally reactive and ineffective. Sources within the Government of Southern Sudan acknowledged that Sudan’s border with Congo is simply too large and too unpopulated, and that their force numbers were too few to actually be able to monitor and seal the border—the key piece of the operation they had agreed to fulfill._¹³ The LRA has been able to exploit this operational weakness by moving back and forth across the Congo-Sudan border, evading capture and targeting civilians.

Second, the Congolese army’s lack of a clear command structure, inadequate logistical support, and its poor division of responsibilities have greatly weakened its effectiveness on the ground. Three different Congolese units are deployed in the area, and it is unclear who controls what or who answers to whom. Also, reports of Congolese army abuses against civilians are on the rise. Congolese soldiers frequently prey on civilians when they are not paid or provided with sufficient food and shelter. The FARDC in Haut-Uele has been better behaved than it has often been in the past, but the conditions are ripe for army abuses.

Third, none of the joint forces established a focal point for registering and reintegrating LRA abductees who had been captured or rescued by one of the regional armies._¹⁴ This is a serious operational oversight that may have had severe consequences for those LRA captives who did return and did not receive proper psychosocial, medical, and other forms of basic support following their rescue from rebel captivity.

Fourth, territorial restrictions imposed by the Congolese government and enforced by Congolese forces seriously limited the Ugandan army’s ability to track the LRA. In early January, the Congolese army forced two Ugandan companies to leave Faradje—the epicenter of LRA activity—because Congolese officials did not trust Ugandan forces to deploy beyond MONUC’s base in Dungu. Thereafter, Faradje was off limits to the Ugandan army._¹⁵ Facing only the weak Congolese army, the LRA stepped up attacks in Faradje territory throughout January, February, March, and April._¹⁶

Finally, lack of trust and confidence between the various armies involved in “Lightning Thunder” remains persistent. Ugandan, Congolese, and U.N. officials all told Enough that critical intelligence was not shared amongst the joint forces and this reluctance to fully disclose information limited the extent to which the regional armies worked together in a variety of areas.

Insufficient and reactive protection of civilians

The protection offered by Ugandan, Congolese, and U.N. forces was limited, and “Lightning Thunder” provoked devastating reprisal attacks against civilians—the LRA’s well-documented modus operandi in the immediate aftermath of a military offensive. As stated above more than 1,000 people in Congo and southern Sudan have been killed and nearly 250 children abducted since the launch of “Lightning Thunder.”_¹⁷ And these numbers keep rising. The response to many of these LRA attacks by the Congolese army—with some support from MONUC—has been slow. The Ugandan military has only provided de facto civilian protection in areas where it is present in significant numbers. After the Doruma-area massacres on December 24 and 25, the Congolese army did not arrive in the area until at least two days after the attacks had occurred, at which point the LRA had already moved elsewhere. Congolese officials attributed the delay to poor communication networks and difficulty in transporting troops to the area, as the Congolese rely heavily on the United Nations for logistical support. Initially, part of the problem appeared to be due to MONUC’s limited forewarning about the offensive, which led to delays in providing the requisite lift to Congolese forces to deploy effectively. But the prevailing problem thereafter was simply insufficient MONUC personnel and logistics to move and support the Congolese army in a way that would maximize protection and deterrence in main civilian areas._¹⁸

Now that many Ugandan troops have left Congo, MONUC is facing tremendous local and international pressure to provide even more support to fill the security gap. Yet despite MONUC’s calls for reinforcements in late 2008 to address the deteriorating situation across eastern Congo, the European Union rejected a deployment and the 3,000 additional U.N. peacekeepers authorized by the Security Council have yet to arrive. Absent additional support, MONUC officials acknowledge that the mission lacks the personnel, resources, intelligence, and logistics to alter the status quo. Not only are civilians increasingly at risk of LRA attacks, but due in large part to insufficient security provisions (such as the capacity to provide MONUC escorts in areas such as Doruma and Faradje), international aid agencies cannot access those civilians most in need of assistance. Since the Ugandan withdrawal, MONUC has stationed an additional 120 soldiers in Dungu, and it is planning to set up a base in Duru, but these expansion plans are not likely to effectively materialize for months and still would be too little, too late._¹⁹

Because MONUC and Congolese forces have failed to protect civilians, populations throughout northeastern Congo and southern Sudan are now exposed to yet another risk: local self-defense units. These groups of armed civilians—often equipped with old hunting rifles, machetes, or bows and arrows—have formed to try to fill the security void. In some instances, such as in the town of Bangadi, they have effectively pushed back the LRA. These local militias have even taken control over some of the localities they are protecting after local officials and police fled from the scene._²⁰ None of these informal forces, however, have received any training. They do not operate according to any codes of conduct, and they do not have to answer to any higher authority. While they have played a role in protecting civilians and providing intelligence on the LRA to the Congolese and Ugandan armies, there is a significant risk that they will organize and fashion themselves into new predatory groups in the future, as has happened repeatedly in Congo—unless the government finally fulfills its responsibility to protect its citizens.

Congolese politics and Ugandan intervention

Over the last few months, Congolese politics has been dominated by disputes over the involvement of Ugandan and Rwandan forces in military operations on Congolese soil. Based on Enough interviews with officials in Kinshasa, President Joseph Kabila’s refusal to extend the offensives against the LRA and FDLR—a Rwandan rebel group based in North and South Kivu—is driven more by his own domestic political considerations than fears of a repeat of the predations that Ugandan and Rwandan forces inflicted on Congo during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Kabila is foremost afraid of losing political support in eastern Congo, where he won a majority in the 2006 election. Members of parliament from the east, who hold the majority in the assembly, opposed Uganda’s involvement in “Lightning Thunder” because of the Ugandan army’s history of violence and exploitation in eastern Congo. Faced with the possibility that his political base will further abandon him, Kabila is clamping down on internal dissent. He recently forced the resignation of the president of the National Assembly, Vital Kamerhe. Kamerhe is from South Kivu and a popular politician in eastern Congo (and elsewhere in the country) with plans to challenge Kabila for the presidency in 2011.

Equally problematic for Kabila, “Lightning Thunder” was seen by many in Kinshasa as testing the political waters in advance of Rwanda’s much more controversial military operation earlier this year. With both the Ugandan and Rwandan forces officially withdrawn from eastern Congo, many Congolese officials believe that if Kabila decides to allow the Ugandan army to fully return, the Rwandans will be next. Despite a warming of relations between Kabila and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, and the Rwandan forces’ relatively good behavior during recent operations in eastern Congo, Congolese mistrust of Rwanda is acute and a second joint operation would likely come at some political cost for Kabila—making it all the more essential that any subsequent operation be successfully conducted.

It is understandable that President Kabila is considering his political position and does not want to lose points in the East. Yet as unpopular as a second Ugandan-led operation may be right now, ending the LRA’s predation on Congolese civilians almost certainly carries greater political benefits in the long term. Moreover, the more civilians who die at the hands of the LRA, and the more that are displaced and abandoned, the more the spotlight will shine on Kabila and his moribund army. In the wake of Kamerhe’s dismissal and with Kabila threatening to dissolve the National Assembly, an increasing number of Congolese members of parliament—including many who are strongly opposed to Ugandan and Rwandan intervention—have begun calling more openly for President Kabila to consult with them on a plan for future joint operations.

The United States’ strategic role and responsibility

The Bush administration had a major role in encouraging and supporting regional military operations against the LRA, and the U.S. military was directly involved in “Lightning Thunder.”

Political pressure: Support for a Ugandan-led operation inside Congo has been near the top of bilateral discussions between the United States and the Congolese government for over a year, and U.S. pressure influenced Kabila’s decision to move forward with the joint offensive.
Operational support: For years, the U.S. army has been training Ugandan special forces for operations such as “Lightning Thunder.” The United States has provided the Ugandans with the equipment to listen in on the LRA’s satellite phones and triangulate their positions. U.S. military advisors provided the Ugandans with satellite imagery and maps to plan out “Lightning Thunder.” U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM, reviewed the operational plans, provided advice on its execution, and some U.S. advisors voiced concern about the initial military plans. However, after providing inputs, various U.S. officials claimed that the Ugandans moved forward as they saw fit._²¹ There have also been allegations that AFRICOM did not make available the planning capacity to offer substantive support and advice during the planning and execution phases of the operation. And when the operation encountered significant difficulties, U.S. officials disassociated themselves from the operation rather than trying to salvage what they themselves had helped to initiate.

Given the U.S. role in “Lightning Thunder” and its appalling consequences for civilians, the Obama administration now has a responsibility to help finish the job. American involvement will also be critical to ensuring that the Ugandan army does not stray from its mission of dismantling the LRA from the top-down, and that coordination and information-sharing snares and poor planning do not hinder future military pursuits. International reassurances and engagement will be absolutely critical to keeping mutual Congolese-Ugandan suspicions in check and ensuring that any future operation is only targeted at ending the LRA threat. With the support of U.S. planning, intelligence, and logistical capabilities, this operation will also have the best chance of success at apprehending the LRA leadership while protecting civilians.

Finishing the fight

The Ugandan army is the only force in the region that can quickly mobilize to finish the fight against the LRA, though a second Ugandan-led operation must obviously avoid the mistakes of “Lightning Thunder.”_²² It is thus critical that the United States and other concerned actors work with the governments of Congo, Uganda, and southern Sudan, as well as the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations, to plan and execute a military operation aimed at apprehending the LRA leadership in northeastern Congo. The United States and others should provide much greater support for this operation, from planning to possibly including U.S. boots on the ground for direct action against the LRA. Real-time information on the whereabouts of Kony and his henchmen will be absolutely critical so that the Ugandan army, with strong logistical support (in particular air transport), can respond quickly and precisely. The United States and other operational allies must also use their diplomatic muscle to ensure that the Ugandan army is given access throughout Faradje as well as Dungu, and that the Congolese government will provide its full support and commitment throughout the offensive. Changing winds in Kinshasa will only hurt the operation and provide weaknesses for the LRA to exploit. The planners must consider the following when discussing and planning for renewed military action:

Focus on civilian protection first

The second time around, regional armies and MONUC must make civilian protection an indisputable priority on all fronts—from careful planning to obtaining sufficient resources to executing regular patrols. The Congolese army should deploy proactively with MONUC support in civilian areas that have so far evaded attacks by the LRA, such as Niangara territory and Ndedu locality just south of the town of Dungu. These areas encompass the only access road to Dungu. If the LRA attacked along this southern route, road access to Dungu would be entirely cut off and a humanitarian disaster would undoubtedly unfold._²³ Given that the LRA typically responds to military operations by lashing out against civilians, the Congolese army and MONUC must also deploy to the main civilian centers in Haut-Uele, such as Doruma, Bangadi, Duru, and Faradje, to protect civilians and the large groupings of displaced people around these towns while the Ugandan army carries out operations to track and fight the LRA. U.S. leadership at the U.N. Security Council will be absolutely critical to ensuring that MONUC receives the additional 3,000 troops it has been promised since November 2008; without a capacity boost, civilian protection will undoubtedly fall by the wayside again. Those European forces coming out of Chad, if added to MONUC as an E.U. contribution, could be the most expedient response to MONUC’s capacity gap. Additional attack and transport helicopters will also be critical.

MONUC must also increase its ability to provide escorts to humanitarian agencies trying to reach civilians in isolated areas since airlifting is too expensive: To fly food stores from Beni (just below Dungu) to Doruma, which is 150 km northwest of Dungu, it would cost the United Nations over $1 per granule of food._²⁴ And no international donor is ready to foot that bill. Consequently, the World Food Program has had a large storage of food sitting in Dungu because they have been unable to reach remote areas._²⁵ Meanwhile, the needs of the local population and the degree of human suffering continue to mount. It is therefore imperative that MONUC beef up its ability to provide escorts—or support the Congolese army in providing escorts—to areas that are difficult to access, such as Duru, Doruma, Faradje, and Aba.

Coordinate and streamline the rescue and return of former LRA abductees

To date, there has been nearly no coordination among the regional armies on facilitating the return of LRA captives who return from the bush._²⁶ The result has been an ad hoc and poorly coordinated effort to deal with returnees on a case-by-case basis. It is critical that the regional governments establish a central reception center, working with international agencies, to ensure that returnees are given the basic support and provisions needed to begin what is often a lengthy and difficult reintegration process. There also must be much more emphasis on protection for children who have recently been demobilized. Since neither the Congolese nor the Ugandan army is in any position to address these concerns, UNICEF ought to be playing a bigger role. The joint forces should also set up additional reception centers throughout Dungu and Faradje to help facilitate the return of LRA members who are struggling to overcome the many logistical and security hurdles to escaping. Moving reception centers closer to high LRA activity areas would at least help to reduce some of those barriers, and help ensure that those in forced captivity do not get caught up in the battle to catch or kill LRA fighters and commanders.

Maintain a focus on accountability for crimes against humanity

The International Criminal Court, or ICC, should investigate ongoing LRA attacks in northeastern Congo and southern Sudan and continue to pressure signatory governments to help apprehend those LRA leaders already indicted by the court. Given the extreme nature and scale of the LRA’s attacks over the last few months, the ICC should continue its investigation of LRA leaders responsible for these atrocities. Based on their findings, they should expand the charges against those LRA leaders with indictments already hanging over their heads and/or bring cases against other LRA members with command responsibility for these recent attacks.

Conclusion

Abandoning the mission to end the LRA now will have disastrous consequences for civilians throughout central Africa. An angry, hungry, and violent LRA is on the loose, preying on civilians with frightening efficiency. Although Operation Lightning Thunder has not dismantled the LRA leadership or seriously undermined the force’s ability to inflict harm, stopping the hunt now will result in more lives lost and communities destroyed in the months and years to come. As a result of the LRA’s recent predations, over 1,000 people have perished and nearly 200,000 people have been forced out of their homes and into squalor, with millions of dollars spent for limited return. The longer regional and international powers wait to figure out what to do next, the more time the LRA will gain to regroup and rebuild. Now is the time to redouble and reinvigorate international and regional efforts to finally bring an end to the LRA’s devastating reign of death and destruction.

Endnotes

1 The authors conducted field research for this report in northeastern Congo in March 2009. return
2 Although the last 2.5 years of peace talks have failed to end the war, the United States should support any genuine, concrete steps by Kony to disarm and abide by the negotiated agreement. return
3 Enough interviews, Ugandan military officials with firsthand knowledge of ongoing operations in Congo, Kampala, April 16-17, 2009. return
4 Orientale Province is 89,000 square kilometers where as all of Uganda is 92,000, although the LRA is not operating throughout all of Orientale. return
5 Enough interviews, Civil society members, local administration authorities, United Nations and international aid agencies, Dungu and Doruma, March 10-17, 2009. return
6 Gap Analysis for LRA Response, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, March 4, 2009. In the few months prior to the operation, an additional 168 people in northeastern Congo were killed, and around 300 children abducted. return
7 Enough interviews, International aid agencies, Dungu and Bunia, March 9 -18, 2009. return
8 Enough interview, Ugandan army official, Dungu, March 12, 2009. Ugandan government and army sources vary on the exact numbers of LRA killed and rescued during Operation Lightning Thunder. In a press conference in Kampala on March 25, 2009, Uganda’s Chief of Defense Forces Aronda Nyakairima stated that 98 LRA fighters and 14 rebel “commanders” had been killed, and that 195 abductees, mostly from Congo, had been rescued; “12 Soldiers Killed in Congo Operation,” New Vision, March 25, 2009. In a previous statement by Ofwono Opondo, the deputy spokesman for Uganda’s ruling National Resistance Movement, the government claimed that Ugandan ground forces had killed 197 rebels during the operation; “Was the UPDF’s withdraw from the DRC premature?” Sunday Vision, March 22, 2009. Other government sources in interviews told Enough that the actual figures for LRA fighters and commanders killed are closer to two or three dozen. return
9 Enough interviews, Religious, cultural, and civil society leaders, humanitarian organizations, U.N. staff, Dungu and Bunia, March 9-18, 2009. return
10 After repeated LRA attacks on civilians in Faradje territory, Ugandan commanders did send troops to Faradje but Congolese army officials asked them to return to Dungu. Enough interviews, military officials involved in the operation, Dungu, March 12 and 14, 2009. return
11 Enough interview, Ugandan army official, Dungu, March 12, 2009. return
12 Problems working out deals with contractors for helicopter pilots and other logistical intermediaries also reportedly caused delays at the outset of the operation. return
13 Enough interview, Government of Southern Sudan official, Kampala, February 3, 2009. return
14 A Ugandan commander involved in the day-to-day operations of the offensive told Enough that in one instance Congolese abductees were recovered by the Ugandan army. When the Congolese army was asked about the status of these returnees—former captives who were from their own country—the Congolese commanders had to look in the local papers to find out. Enough interview, Dungu, March 13-14, 2009. return
15 Enough interview, High-level Ugandan commander, Dungu, March 15, 2009. Ugandan and Congolese officials both confirmed this restriction of Ugandan operations in interviews with Enough. return
16 Most recently, Enough received a report from a priest in Faradje who said the LRA attacked last week and looted the villages of Awago, Makoro, Babirigwa, and Kialo. They also kidnapped 26 children and forced them to wear military uniforms. Government forces simply didn’t respond to the attack. Enough interview, April 9, 2009; As stated by a former LRA commander who helped lead the rebel group’s first foray into Congo, “The LRA do not fear [the Congolese army]; they know they can do whatever they want because [Congolese forces are] more afraid of them than they are of it.” Enough interview, Former LRA commander, March 2009. return
17 Human Rights Watch reports that 865 civilians were killed and 160 children were abducted in northern Congo since the beginning of the joint offensive. “The Christmas Massacres: LRA attacks on Civilians in Northern Congo,” Human Rights Watch, February 2009, p. 4. This report also does not include a number of small-scale attacks that have occurred on nearly a daily basis, particularly in the Faradje territory of Haut-Uele district, since the report was published; U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance, or OCHA, in Sudan reports that 147 people in Central and Western Equatoria have been killed by the LRA, and 83 children have been abducted. Gap Analysis for OCHA Response, March 26, 2009. return
18 Although both forces initially deployed in July 2008 to protect vulnerable communities and ensure the LRA didn’t move deeper into civilian territory, they have been slow to intervene on the ground, largely because of a lack of basic logistics and troop numbers. When Dungu town was first attacked by the LRA in September 2008, MONUC forces based roughly 10 kilometers from town did not leave their barracks because they had not moved a large enough number of personnel and many of their weapons were still not on site, according to U.N. officials and military officers. return
19 Enough interviews with Senior MONUC officials in Bunia, March 17, 2009. MONUC won’t be able to establish its base in Duru or provide escorts to aid workers until the road from Dungu to Duru has been completed—and it has taken many months just to complete 10 kilometers of it. Once they have established themselves in Duru, they will try to move a few soldiers over to Faradje. This expansion plan, however, is clearly far too little, and won’t materialize until much too late. return
20 Associated Press, “Congo Town Mounts Own Defense Against Rebels,” February 12, 2009; and Enough interviews in Dungu, mid-March, 2009. As one local leader told Enough, “The state does not exist, except in Dungu town, and local administrations don’t have the means to play the role of the state. So now the SDUs are stepping in to fill that gap.” In Bitima, for example, the police commander was chased away by the local population after the few police in the town ran away when the LRA appeared. In all of Dungu territory, there reportedly are only 50 policemen in total, and even they don’t have the proper equipment numbers or training to provide security. return
21 Enough interviews, December-February, 2008-2009. return
22 Even John Holmes, the U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, who recently lambasted regional militaries for failing to adequately protect civilians, argued that the armies that got themselves (and civilians) into this mess will have to find a constructive way out of it. return
23 Enough interview, Dungu, March 13, 2009. return
24 Enough interview, MONUC official, Bunia, March 18, 2009. return
25 Enough interview, Dungu, March 13, 2009. return
26 The LRA is now not only regional in threat but also regional in nature. While the high command remains mostly northern Ugandan, rank-and-file LRA members now hail from Congo, southern Sudan, and the Central African Republic. This makes reintegration all the more complicated, and a formal process for dealing with returnees all the more critical. return

Beyond Piracy: Next Steps to Stabilize Somalia

Submitted by Pete Johnson on May 7, 2009 - 8:28am.

The Obama administration must not allow the politics of the piracy problem to distract it from putting in place a long-term strategy to help Somalis forge a state that, with measured external support, can fight piracy, promote peace and reconciliation, and combat the threat of terrorism within its borders.

Author:

Ken Menkhaus, John Prendergast, and Colin Thomas-Jensen

May 7, 2009

Strategy Paper (PDF)

Audio

For the first time in a long time, Americans are paying attention to what their government does in Somalia. Following last month’s hostage drama off the coast of Somalia, President Barack Obama is under increasing political pressure to address the threat of piracy in the Gulf of Aden. While short-term measures to curb pirate attacks are certainly necessary, the Obama administration must not allow the politics of the piracy problem to distract it from putting in place a long-term strategy to help Somalis forge a state that, with measured external support, can fight piracy, promote peace and reconciliation, and combat the threat of terrorism within its borders.

Historically, the international community’s engagement with Somalia has more often made matters worse for both Somalis and external actors. Rather than invest in the time-consuming and undoubtedly frustrating process of helping Somalis forge consensus and build functioning state institutions, the United States, the United Nations, and others have often backed governments based on narrow coalitions, or they have opted to partner with questionable nonstate actors in pursuit of near-term counterterrorism goals. This approach has frequently stoked further conflict and human rights abuses. Fourteen attempts in the past 19 years to reconstitute state authority in Somalia have failed, with ordinary Somalis bearing the brunt of these ill-advised, poorly executed, underresourced efforts. The latest effort—a five-year transition to democratic elections administered by a Transitional Federal Government, or TFG—nearly collapsed after two years of Ethiopian occupation and brutal counterinsurgency warfare. Ethiopia has now withdrawn, and a new, more broad-based TFG offers some hope, but the human rights crisis in Somalia remains acute and continues to deepen, the threat of Islamist extremism that the U.S.-backed incursion sought to neutralize persists, and piracy continues despite the deployment of a multinational armada.

Although the situation on the ground remains critical, we believe that the election of a new president, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, and the establishment of a moderate Islamist government under his authority—“TFG version 2.0”—are potentially the best chance Somalia has had to pull itself out of nearly two decades of state collapse. For this effort to succeed, however, the Obama administration must resist calls for immediate, unilateral military action against terrorist and pirate targets on Somali soil and chart a new course in its approach to Somalia that privileges Somali-driven political processes, prioritizes inclusive governance, and respects Somali preferences. It not only needs to reshape U.S. policies toward Somalia, but must also press other external actors not to proceed with policies that are either flawed or intentionally destructive. This short paper describes the current state of international engagement with the TFG and offers recommendations for improvement.

Analysis: The current state of play

The establishment of a new TFG in January 2009 featuring a more broad-based coalition and moderate Islamist leadership is a significant step forward. That, along with the withdrawal of Ethiopian occupying forces in January, was a setback for the jihadist group al-shabaab, which had emerged as the strongest insurgency force against both Ethiopian forces and the TFG. The shabaab continues to control the largest swath of territory in southern Somalia, but it has been unable to exploit the vacuum left by the departing Ethiopians, and faces growing armed resistance from clan militias. While many Somalis were skeptical that the new TFG could succeed, they recognized that Sheikh Sharif and his newly formed government were more closely aligned with their long-term interests than the shabaab.

However, the TFG has thus far enjoyed only limited progress in establishing itself as a functional authority. Its main successes have been in negotiating alliances with clan militias and authorities—which have helped to block the shabaab—and developing a more accountable, transparent customs revenue collection system at the seaport, which has earned support from businesspeople and generated at least a modest flow of revenues to pay some TFG salaries. It is also reaching out to elements of the shabaab and other Islamist rejectionists in the hopes of broadening its coalition and weakening the jihadists. But the government’s civil service has yet to become functional, and crime and insecurity remain high. Armed groups which were supposed to be integrated into a joint security force continue to remain separate militias answering to separate commanders. Shabaab insurgents, whose numbers now include foreign fighters, continue to launch attacks on the African Union mission in Somalia, or AMISOM, protecting key government installations in the capital.

Meanwhile, one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters continues to unfold. Three and a half million Somalis need emergency assistance (nearly as many as in Darfur), and humanitarian access is terrible: Forty-nine aid workers have been killed in 2008 and 2009 and scores more kidnapped. The TFG is still, for the most part, a government on paper, and would face difficulty remaining in Mogadishu without the protection of AMISOM forces.

International actors have rhetorically committed to making the TFG work, and the U.N. Special Representative Ahmedou Ould Abdallah has been especially active in generating external support for the TFG. A major donor conference on Somalia was held on April 23 in Brussels, where these priority needs were discussed and donors pledged more than $200 million to support AMISOM and strengthen TFG security forces. The key question for policymakers is how to condition and monitor the dispersal of those funds. In a report from the U.N. secretary general to the Security Council this week, the United Nations emphasized the need for strong donor support to the TFG, especially in the security sector. This is a priority shared by the TFG leadership. The United Nations is specifically calling for the international community to provide funding for training and equipping the TFG police and security forces, and for stipends for 10,000 police officers.

Significantly, the secretary general’s report does not recommend replacing the 4,000-strong AMISOM force with a 23,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping operation. A proposed U.N. force has been on the table for well over a year, but although the proposal had strong backing from the Bush administration, the Obama administration’s support has been lukewarm, and rightly so. The United Nations itself concluded that such a force would be counterproductive at this time, by catalyzing armed insurgents and thereby endangering rather than protecting the TFG. The TFG’s security against the shabaab will have to come largely from its own capacity to recruit and maintain the loyalty of its own security forces, albeit with generous external financial backing.

Establishing security: Challenges and policy implications

The immediate policy dilemma for international donors is one of sequencing: Must a security force first create conditions in which a civil government can survive and operate? Or must government authorities first establish a capacity to control security forces? Some may see a preference for checks and balances—and constraints on government security forces—as a normative agenda for human rights groups. But in Somalia it is also a cold realist calculation—abusive security forces will undermine, not protect, the TFG. And as in 2007 and 2008, such forces will strengthen public support for the shabaab and other opposition and extremist groups.

The international community has already had one calamitous experience providing direct salary support to the TFG police in 2007 and 2008, when the government was under different leadership. The TFG police under then-President Abdullahi Yusuf committed grave human rights abuses against the Mogadishu population. The police commissioner during this period, Abdi Qeybdid, is still in place despite a track record of abusive behavior, lack of confidence among ordinary Somalis, and protests by human rights groups. Moreover, key branches of the transitional government—the judiciary, the interior ministry, and others—that are supposed to exercise oversight of police and other security forces are not yet functional. What the United Nations and some donors are proposing, then, is the strengthening of security forces in a context where the new government appears to lack the ability to hold them accountable. The U.N. secretary general’s report is clear on this, identifying its strategic objective as “to assist the TFG in creating security conditions in which the process of building the country’s state institutions can take root.”

The good news is that the TFG has made some progress on its own, and the international community may finally have a more credible partner than the previous TFG or its predecessors. A bank account has been established in Djibouti and an interdepartmental financial oversight body has been established to monitor the use of funds. Revenues from the port are reportedly now flowing to the central government, and although corruption has not been eliminated, it has been reduced. From these funds, the TFG announced this month that it had begun to pay salaries to its security forces. The key challenges for the United States and other external actors in the immediate term are help to ensure that the TFG continues to pay its security forces, provides training and nonlethal equipment conditioned on their improved conduct, and establishes oversight mechanisms to ensure that funding does not support abusive forces or political score-settling.

This daunting task is further complicated by the diversity of security threats facing the TFG, which include the following:

Insurgency by the shabaab and other radical groups

The shabaab and other Islamic extremist movements in Somalia are an existential threat to the TFG and a major security concern for neighboring states and the West. As noted above, these extremist groups have lost much of their credibility in Somali circles now that Ethiopian occupying forces have withdrawn and the old TFG leadership has been replaced with new, moderate Islamist leaders. A portion of the shabaab—some argue most of the movement—are not ideologically committed hardliners, but rather tactical allies who could be negotiated with and brought into an expanding TFG power-sharing circle. If this group can be successfully weaned from the shabaab through negotiations, it would leave the recalcitrant hardliners exposed and weakened, and easier to defeat outright.

This is the two-pronged approach that President Sharif and his supporters are seeking to employ, and the TFG has reportedly already enjoyed some successes in pulling some armed groups away from the insurgency. The most important contribution the international community can make to this effort is to protect and expand political space for Sharif to negotiate—even with individuals who might raise eyebrows in some corners. Ethiopia’s security concerns are especially important to address in this regard. The United States and its allies must avoid the temptation to arbitrarily “redline” individuals and groups to whom Sharif will attempt to reach out. The acceptability of Somali armed opposition groups should be judged principally on their positions on a few core positions: Do they accept peaceful coexistence with their neighbors, especially Ethiopia? Do they reject affiliation and alliance with Al Qaeda? Do they renounce terrorist attacks and assassinations against domestic rivals and foreigners?

Even as it negotiates with part of the insurgency, the TFG will unavoidably have to fight to defeat the most hardline, foreign-backed wing of the shabaab. Direct external aid to TFG security forces is seen by many as unavoidable if the TFG is to defeat the hardliners and expand its authority in south and central Somalia, and the United Nations has asked donors to provide training, equipment, and stipends to the emerging TFG security forces. However, this places the United Nations and other external actors again in the position of a direct backer of one party in an ongoing civil war, a fact which contributes significantly to the targeting of international humanitarian aid workers by insurgents. External donors must be very clear about what they are doing if providing direct support to national security forces: They are choosing sides in a war.

Fragmentation of ad hoc militia

The TFG has forged alliances and understandings with a range of local, mainly clan-based militias that have resisted the shabaab encroachment but that remain outside the TFG military. Bringing these groups into the formal TFG national security forces is a high priority, as they otherwise are vulnerable to defection to opposition groups and pose a potential armed obstacle to extension of TFG authority. To maintain these fragile alliances the TFG primarily needs cash to provide regular salaries. This should mainly be the responsibility of the TFG, not external donors. External donors should ensure that their funding does not provide salary support for clan paramilitaries, which are largely unaccountable.

Criminal violence and lack of public order

Reducing criminality and establishing public order is a critical matter of legitimacy and credibility for the TFG in the eyes of the Somali public, and it is the principal yardstick that Somalis will use to assess the TFG’s performance. A more effective police force is a necessary first step. The international community already has established police support, and is likely to provide stipends as well, but the burden rests with the TFG to ensure that the police are a source of order and not predation. Under the old TFG, the police were a menace to the public. Until Police Commissioner Abdi Qeybdid is removed from office, it is not clear that citizens of Mogadishu will have any confidence in the police force. International donors must press hard for accountability in the ranks of the Somali police as a precondition for aid.

The TFG is likely to relax rules on the operation of private security forces employed by businesses, which in the past have been important sources of security for neighborhoods adjacent to the business compounds. Additionally, the TFG may opt to encourage the re-establishment of nonradical, local Islamic courts, which were the foundation for the dramatic improvements in security under the Islamic Courts Union in 2006. Under the courts’ brief rule, Somalis were willing to trade some of their personal freedoms for greater security. Donor states can play a constructive role by protecting political space for Sheikh Sharif and his government to pursue this option if they so choose, rather than reacting in alarm at the prospect of courts based on sharia law. At the same time, donors can support Somali-driven efforts to reduce the incompatibilities of sharia court proceedings and rulings with international judicial and human rights standards.

Piracy

The lowest order of threat to the TFG, the Somali people, the region, and the United States is actually the security item enjoying the greatest attention right now—piracy. Even so, the continued epidemic of piracy off the Somali coast is a problem and a test of the capacity of the TFG to extend its authority. Proposals to provide external assistance to the TFG for the establishment of a coast guard are premature, do not reflect the security priorities of the Somali people, and are unlikely to work. Indeed, training up coast guard officers could easily produce unintended consequences, as that new skill set will be more valuable in the piracy sector than in the public sector, producing defections from the coast guard. A more appropriate approach for the TFG will be to tackle piracy onshore. That will require time, funds, and extensive negotiations. External actors will have only limited roles to play in this internal Somali process.

Antipiracy measures would attract much greater support among Somalis if those efforts were accompanied by international action to end illegal fishing off Somalia’s coast. Like the shabaab during the Ethiopian occupation, pirates have managed to cloak their criminal agenda beneath a veil of Somali nationalism. Although illegal fishing has undoubtedly decreased due to the effectiveness of Somali pirates, international commercial fishing boats have for years violated Somalia’s territorial integrity and severely disrupted local Somali livelihoods.

Upending the status quo: Next steps for the Obama administration

Given the significant national security interests that the United States has in Somalia with respect to counterterrorism, and the international political and commercial pressure generated due to piracy, the Obama administration should more deeply engage in Somalia’s state reconstruction. The United States should appoint a senior diplomat along with a small diplomatic team to work with the U.N. mediation team. The American officials can provide focused, low-key support to this process of state reconstruction through the TFG. If this support is too visible or forceful, it will undermine President Sharif’s efforts to reach out to disaffected clans and constituencies. In this space, the United States should work within the already established International Contact Group to maintain the focus on the transition and help ensure that President Sharif does not embark on a failed attempt at empire-building like so many before him.

The immediate priorities and recommendations for the United States should be the following:

1. Improve security: Support locally owned efforts to improve security and public order and reduce the threat posed by armed insurgents.

Somalia’s most urgent need is unquestionably improved security. There are multiple security threats in Somalia, each of which requires a distinct response. Some security threats in the country are amenable to carefully calibrated external support—others are not. In all cases, local ownership of security policies is essential if those responses are to be sustainable, effective, and viewed in the eyes of local communities as legitimate. External aid is important, but it must not be allowed to overtake local responsibility to finance essential security operations. Moreover, direct support to the Transitional Security Forces must be conditioned on increasing inclusiveness of the TFG and effective steps to curb human rights abuses, including a commitment to investigate allegations of abuse and removal of officials implicated in serious abuses. The United States and other donors should establish oversight mechanisms under the auspices of the Joint Security Committee and AMISOM and must be prepared to halt funding if, as was the case last year, TFG forces engage in widespread human rights violations and other forms of criminal behavior.

2. End impunity: Support Somali efforts to seek justice for war crimes and end a culture of impunity.

The Ethiopian intervention in late 2006 calcified a brutal insurgency that in turn provoked a heavy-handed and vicious counterinsurgency campaign. Without fear of punishment, all sides committed atrocities against civilians. Continued impunity is an affront to the victims and fuel for further conflict. A necessary first step is a credible investigation of crimes committed. As a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, the United States should call for a U.N. Commission of Inquiry to investigate and document war crimes and crimes against humanity. Ultimately the question of how to hold perpetrators accountable must be answered by Somalis themselves, but a credible external investigation must occur to begin the process.

3. Focus on the transition and governance: Help President Sharif refocus on transitional tasks and improve governance in order to enlarge participation in the political process and defuse armed opposition as Somalia prepares for possible elections in 2011.

Under former President Abdullahi Yusuf, the TFG ignored the “T” (transition). Yusuf and his allies (including the Ethiopians) sought to destroy their enemies without building functioning Somali institutions or advancing key transitional tasks. The success of the transition now depends on whether President Sharif can establish credible, inclusive, and consultative national commissions to complete the transition.

As with transitional governments in other settings, the TFG will face complex problems related to constitutional choices on systems of representation, central and local government division of labor, checks and balances, and many other matters that will have a powerful impact on the question of “who rules” in Somalia in the future. It will also face daunting technical challenges with regard to other key transitional tasks, especially those related to the work of the electoral commission. Here the outside world has considerable experience and expertise that can be offered to Somali representatives. Again, donors must be careful not to erode Somali ownership of decision making on these matters by overloading the transitional process with outside consultants and preset templates that may not fit in a Somali political setting.

4. Manage external spoilers: Somalia is a theater for regional meddling and proxy conflict, and the United States must seek to end cross-border adventurism and neutralize sources of support for groups inside Somalia seeking to undermine the peace process.

Eritrea, Libya, Qatar, and Iran, among others, are actively supporting groups that oppose the TFG, and the Obama administration should construct a diplomatic strategy to erode that support. The Security Council has already authorized sanctions against individuals and groups that obstruct the peace process, and as an immediate first step the United States should work with other members of the Security Council to build consensus for sanctions against those individuals and groups identified by the U.N. group of experts to be implemented if they become spoilers to the peace process.

Ethiopia’s cautious support for Sheikh Sharif is promising, but there will be great temptation for Ethiopia to intervene again if the shabaab and other extremist elements make further gains, or if the TFG’s outreach to the opposition includes figures Ethiopia deems unacceptable. Renewed Ethiopian military activities in Somalia would undermine and likely collapse the TFG and fuel the insurgency. Simmering tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea continue to destabilize the subregion and undermine Somalis’ state-building efforts. The United States should resume serious efforts to fully implement the Ethiopia-Eritrea peace deal, demarcate the Ethiopia/Eritrea border, and normalize relations between the two countries. Without a resolution of the Ethiopian-Eritrean impasse, Somalia is likely to remain a site of ongoing proxy war between the two.

Conclusion

Somalia has become the poster child for transnational threats emanating from Africa. By sea, pirates much more dangerous than their predecessors from centuries past prowl the Indian Ocean and Red Sea waterways and make tens of millions of dollars in ransom. By land, extremist militias connected to Al Qaeda units ensure that Somalia remains anarchic and the only country in the world without a functioning central government.

In fighting terrorism on land and piracy at sea, U.S. national security interests will be better secured if we aligned ourselves more with the interest of most Somalis in better security and effective governance. Helping to build the house and using the back door will be much more effective than barging into the front door of a house that has yet to be built.

A Comprehensive Approach to Congo's Conflict Minerals - Strategy Paper

Submitted by Pete Johnson on April 23, 2009 - 2:06pm.

Author:

The Enough Project Team with the Grassroots Reconciliation Group

Apr 24, 2009

Audio

Armed Groups Profits - 3Ts and Gold 2008

Comprehensive Approach to Congo's Conflict Minerals.pdf

Introduction

The Enough Project is sounding the alarm. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, scene of the deadliest conflict since World War II, remains the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman or a girl—in significant part because of the international demand for electronic products that requires minerals found in the eastern Congo. While eastern Congo is a complex crisis—fueled by tensions over land, rights, identity, regional power struggles, and the fundamental weaknesses of Congo as a state—the trade in conflict minerals remains one of the key drivers of the conflict. The same armed groups that reap enormous profits from the mineral trade in eastern Congo regularly commit conscience-shocking atrocities as they jockey to control the region’s most valuable mines, transportation routes and opportunities to impose extortionary ‘taxes’ on those involved in this trade.

Companies that produce electronics that could contain conflict minerals from eastern Congo have a responsibility to ensure that their business dealings are not inadvertently helping to fuel atrocities. This is not an easy task, but it is achievable. Electronics companies can pressure their suppliers and trace the minerals they use to ensure they do not originate from mines that are financing armed groups and criminal interests. Consumers and global citizens have a critical role to play in demanding that companies and governments exercise leverage over the supply chain to end the trade in Congo’s conflict minerals.

Bringing transparency to the consumer electronics supply chain will be a significant first step toward transforming Congo’s rich mineral resources, from a fuel for violence into an engine of empowerment for the millions of people caught up in the conflict and all those dependent upon the meager livelihoods they earn in mines throughout eastern Congo. The United States and other policymakers and activists can decisively alter these dynamics by focusing their attention on the international dimension of the trade in conflict minerals, and by ensuring that peacemaking efforts address the long-neglected political economy of the conflict.

To truly overcome the conflict minerals curse in eastern Congo, a more comprehensive approach will be necessary; one that embraces a significant, sustained, and long-term investment in Congo’s security, governance, and livelihoods over a multi-year timeframe.

A comprehensive strategy to end the trade in Congo’s conflict minerals should consist of four main parts:

Shining a light on the supply chain.
Identifying and securing strategic mines.
Reforming governance.
Supporting livelihoods and economic opportunities for miners.

Finally, any effort to address the conflict minerals problem must be wed to a broader strategy to generate the political will in Congo and among its neighbors to find diplomatic solutions to the local, national, and regional tensions that have proliferated over the past 15 years. Transparency and accountability must extend across borders to include other governments in the region. Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi (to a lesser degree) have profited enormously from the illicit minerals trade and Congo’s continued instability—to which they have directly contributed at times. By the same token, Congo’s neighbors have legitimate security concerns and economic interests in eastern Congo, and a more even-handed approach to these regional actors from the United States and its allies is vital to address these security concerns, ending the prominent role these states continue to play in the destructive conflict minerals trade, and promoting the rule of law in Congo and beyond.

The conflict minerals supply chain: From Congolese mines to worldwide markets

The majority of the violence in eastern Congo has been carried out in mineral-rich areas of the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu and Orientale. This is no accident. In remote areas that remain beyond the control of the Congolese state, the armed groups that perpetrate the violence also control much of the minerals trade. The Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda, or FDLR (Rwandan militias led by some of the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide), autonomous or renegade units of the Congolese Army, Mai Mai groups, and other militia groups control many mining areas, while the rebel National Congress for the Defense of the People, or CNDP (the rebel group previously headed by Laurent Nkunda and supported by Rwanda), has profited from its control of border posts and taxation of the trade in these minerals.^₁

What minerals are traded? The 3Ts and gold

The armed groups trade in the 3Ts—the mineral ores that produce the metals tin, tantalum, and tungsten—as well as gold. The percentage of world production of these minerals coming from Congo varies by substance. Congo produces an estimated 6 to 8 percent of the world’s tin, making it the sixth largest producer.^₂ Additionally, Congo accounts for 15-20 percent of the global production of tantalum, which has recently increased due to the closure of Australian tantalum mines that had been the largest world producers. In a statement announcing its closure, the Australian mining company Talison attributed its decision to the inability to compete with cut-rate production from Central Africa, particularly from the Democratic Republic of the Congo where the trade in conflict minerals thrives._³ For tungsten, Congo remains a minor player at only 2 to 4 percent of world production. However, this mineral is a growing source of financing for armed groups. Similarly, Congo’s gold production is less than one percent of global production, but is a critical source of financing, especially for the FDLR. For more detail, see Appendix 1.

Estimating the profits that armed groups earn from the minerals trade is a challenging endeavor, given the difficulty of obtaining reliable data for a trade that is rife with smuggling and deliberate efforts by those who profit from the illicit trade to cover their paper trail. However, based on available data, we estimate that in 2008 armed groups in Congo earned approximately $185 million from the trade. In many ways, this is a well-educated guess, and we hope that this figure and our calculations can initiate a broader, more detailed exploration that leads to greater transparency. For a detailed breakdown of the calculations used to arrive at this estimate, see Appendix 2.

Mining sites are spread across a vast swathe of eastern Congo and run the gamut from large-scale operations such as Bisie mine in Walikale territory, which employs approximately 2,000 miners, to scattered holes in the ground mined by just a handful of workers. All of the mining in conflict areas is artisanal—it uses manual labor, simple tools, and only the most basic of technologies. This is the case throughout much of Congo. Even in Katanga province, home to the copper and cobalt mines that dominate the mining sector, much of the current production is artisanal and large-scale industrial operations remain predominantly in the exploration phase. Unfortunately, under the current Congolese legal framework, all artisanal mining in eastern Congo is technically illegal, because none of the mining areas have been officially designated as artisanal mining zones. This lack of a viable legal framework for even legitimate mining efforts complicates efforts to deal with the predatory armed groups that dominate, but do not entirely control, the sector.

Congo’s other mineral wealth

The 3T and gold minerals represent one key part of Congo’s vast mineral wealth, which consists of more than 1,100 mineral substances spread across 2.3 million acres, according to the World Bank. Other key areas rich in natural resources include Katanga, which has large-scale copper and cobalt mines, and the diamond-rich Kasai province. These areas are not currently experiencing armed conflict, and thus their products are not considered conflict minerals.

The challenges related to harnessing all of Congo’s natural resources for the benefit of its people are enormous and vital to the country’s long-term development. The mining sector is also controversial, especially given the high profile role of Western and Chinese investments. The Congolese government has been conducting a comprehensive review and renegotiation of all mining contracts since 2007. This was scheduled to be completed in April 2009, but was extended for an additional six months.

The 3Ts: Minerals or metals?

Before they are refined further up the supply chain, the minerals that are mined in eastern Congo are in ore form. In this form, they are often given a different name.

In eastern Congo:

Tin ore = cassiterite
Tantalum ore = “coltan” or columbite-tantalite
Tungsten ore = wolframite

Once processed or smelted, the mineral ore becomes metals.

Armed groups profit from the minerals trade in two primary ways:

Controlling the mines, forcing miners to work in desperate and dangerous conditions while paying them a pittance -- an average of $1 to $5 per day._⁴ The extent of the presence of armed groups at the mining sites and the degree of coercion they utilize varies by site and by armed group.
Exacting bribes and taxes from transporters, local and international buyers, and at border controls. This begins with road blocks just outside the mining sites, but also includes co-opting those state institutions that are present in eastern Congo as well as local traditional authorities.

The link between armed groups and the mineral trade has been extensively documented by the United Nations and NGOs. The latest U.N. Group of Experts report in December 2008 cited that the FDLR controls the majority of mines in South Kivu. The former CNDP, now allied with the government after a March 23, 2009 peace accord, never directly controlled many mines, but was able to dominate much of the trade through its control of key border posts._⁵ Africa Confidential reported that in March 2008 two tons of minerals were seized at Goma airport from Congolese soldiers and militias._⁶ The Pole Institute has documented extensive FDLR involvement in the tin, tantalum, and gold mines._⁷ Global Witness reported that the FDLR and Congolese Army were working together to trade minerals in September 2008._⁸ Furthermore, recent research regarding Bisie mine in Walikale territory in North Kivu, which accounts for 70 percent of the cassiterite ore exported from Goma, suggests that the military, business, and political elites who control the trade gain 70 percent of the benefits of the cassiterite mining, with little profits flowing to the actual miners or transporters._⁹

Flowchart: Congo's Conflict Minerals Supply Chain

From eastern Congo, minerals are transported through neighboring countries including Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi. Because export taxes from eastern Congo are much higher compared with those of its neighbors, the buying houses—or “comptoirs”—that export minerals have a strong incentive to underreport the quantity of minerals they process or, at times, smuggle them across poorly regulated and often corrupt border crossings._¹⁰ The British Department for International Development, or DFID, estimates that official Congolese government figures represent less than 30 percent of the actual trade in tin ore.^₁₁ International traders frequently misreport these resources as having originated in Rwanda, Uganda, or other countries in the region, to avoid the taint of “conflict minerals” from Congo. Illustratively, Rwanda reported 2,679 tons of tin exports in the first half of 2008, yet its major mine at Gatumba produces only five tons of tin per month._¹²

From the region, minerals are shipped via the ports of Mombasa, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, mainly to Asia, where multinational smelting and processing companies in Malaysia, Thailand, China, and elsewhere process the minerals into metals._¹³ American and German-based tantalum processing companies, as well as Belgian metals trading companies, may also be purchasing minerals from the other armed groups in eastern Congo, the CNDP, and the Congolese Army._¹⁴ These metals are purchased by companies that manufacture electronics components such as capacitors and circuit boards. In turn, these components are supplied to the makers of electronics devices, including top-selling devices such as cell phones, portable music players, video games, and digital cameras._¹⁵

Why are current efforts falling short?

Actions to address the conflict in eastern Congo have largely been reactive and incommensurate to the scale of the problem. The international community has spent billions on elections and peacekeeping, but despite the extensive documentation of Congo’s war economy by two separate U.N. investigations, existing peacemaking efforts have failed to address the economic drivers of the conflict. There hasn’t been a coherent approach to alter the incentive structures of Congo’s conflict mineral trade and its devastating impact in helping to keep Congo’s institutions weak and dysfunctional. Efforts to date have either focused exclusively on sanctioning individual malfeasance or on piecemeal capacity building for institutions. Some of these initiatives have the potential to contribute to developing much needed legitimate economic opportunities in eastern Congo, but they have thus far sorely lacked the coherence and diplomatic momentum necessary to alter the status quo. As a result, ordinary Congolese remain trapped, their livelihoods dependent on an exploitative minerals trade. Violent armed groups remain well-financed as they rob the state of resources that belong collectively to Congo’s people. Meanwhile, western consumers continue to purchase electronics products, unaware that their devices may be fueling this viscous cycle of despair.

The Congolese government: Leadership and capacity deficits

The Congolese government lacks meaningful control over the mineral-rich areas of the Kivus and neighboring provinces. There remains a significant discrepancy between the legal framework that ostensibly governs mining and trade in Congo and practices on the ground. Although Congo’s Mining Code was revised in 2002 to bring it in accord with international standards, it is effectively disregarded in eastern Congo, or, even worse, as Mining Expert Nicholas Garrett argued, it is “used by the powerful to exploit artisanal miners through manipulation, harassment, and extortion.”_¹⁶ An intricate patchwork of government agencies and regulatory bodies are responsible for oversight and taxation of mining and trade in mineral wealth. The Pole Institute has documented 25 different Congolese government agencies that have a role in regulating the minerals trade in Goma._¹⁷ To the extent that these bodies are actually present in mining areas, trading hubs, or at border crossings, they function more as a means of collecting ‘taxes’ which never make it in to government coffers rather than as legitimate public institutions._¹⁸

Although Congolese authorities may need resources and expertise to help ensure that the country’s mineral wealth benefits the state and its citizens rather than armed groups and criminal networks, capacity is only part of the story. The U.N. Panel of Experts concluded in 2002 that, “The most important element in effectively halting the illegal exploitation of resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo relates to the political will of those who support, protect, and benefit from the networks.”_¹⁹ Government, businessmen, and civil society must work together to forge the political will to legitimize Congo’s mineral wealth.

Incoherent international efforts

A range of international efforts have endeavored to address Congo’s conflict minerals. Beginning in 2001, the U.N. Security Council authorized the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo—usually known by the more manageable “Group of Experts” title—which produced a series of reports that illustrated the extent of the war economy operating on all sides of the war in Congo. In 2004, following the imposition of an arms embargo and targeted sanctions regime for Congo, the Security Council established a second Group of Experts with a more narrow focus on monitoring the provisions of the sanctions regime. The series of in-depth investigative reports produced by both U.N. expert bodies illustrate the continuous economic underpinnings of insecurity in eastern Congo, despite the political progress the country has experienced during this period. The specific measures recommended by these groups have varied over time, ranging from an embargo on select conflict minerals to more attenuated measures such as a traceability system for mineral supply chains or due diligence requirements for companies buying minerals from the region.

The prospect of imposing sanctions on minerals emanating from conflict-ridden areas of eastern Congo has proved controversial. In 2006, the U.N. Group of Experts recommended that the Security Council “declare all illegal exploration, exploitation, and commerce with the natural resources of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to be a sanctionable act.”_²⁰ A subsequent U.N. report examined the potential humanitarian fallout from such sanctions and warned that such sanctions could hurt the livelihoods of as many as 2 million artisanal miners and their families because all of these miners operate outside Congo’s formal legal framework under current conditions.^₂₁

A potentially promising long-term initiative has been championed by the German government and the G-8: the development of Certified Trading Chains, or CTCs, with legitimate mining sites linked to international purchasers. This initiative is connected with scientific efforts to “fingerprint” specific minerals to their geological origin and enable their traceability._²² The German government has bilateral assistance programs with both Congo and Rwanda to help develop such a system for tantalum, with possible expansion to also include the other minerals. Other private companies have also stated that the technologies exist to trace tin and other metals, utilizing isotope testing. However, implementing this initiative would entail huge challenges in terms of logistics, political opposition, and costs. The United Nations and other major donor governments like the United States have remained skeptical of a CTC approach, and thus it probably only has promise over a much longer period of time than would be ideal.

In addition to the above efforts to break the link between conflict and trade in natural resources, substantial international assistance has been directed toward building the capacity of Congolese institutions. The World Bank has developed a comprehensive plan for Growth with Governance in the Mining Sector, and donor agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, and DFID have developed a joint initiative known as Trading for Peace, which seeks to use the trade in natural resources to build peace in the region. Trading for Peace has recently published a reform agenda that encapsulates many of the elements necessary to help legitimize regional trade, but such development efforts will have to be married to a viable political strategy if they are to achieve critical mass. USAID has also funded the NGO PACT, which has piloted work in partnership with international mining companies to improve conditions for miners and their dependents in the Katanga and Ituri regions, but no such efforts have yet targeted the Kivus.

Certification programs and development efforts hold out the possibility of technical or developmental solutions, but they must be implemented with the understanding that the problem is fundamentally a political one. Certification is the only long-run solution to distinguish between ‘conflict’ and ‘clean’ minerals, but it will require political buy-in to function effectively, and a dysfunctional certification scheme could prove worse than none at all. Likewise, if development efforts are not coupled with a political strategy to isolate the more egregious actors and make trading with rights abusers’ unacceptable behavior, they risk legitimizing the status quo and harming the civilians they seek to help. These initiatives can and should complement a political strategy, but they cannot act as a substitute for it.

The regional dimension

Regional politics complicate the question of Congo’s conflict minerals but also offer the best prospects for a long-term solution to this issue. Eastern Congo’s mineral wealth travels to international markets via well-documented trading routes through neighboring states, notably Rwanda and Uganda. From 1998 to 2003, both states occupied and systematically looted large swathes of the Congo. Legal cases at the International Court of Justice ruled that the Congolese government should be paid billions of dollars in reparations for the illegal activities undertaken during that period.^₂₃ The recent operations by both the Rwandan and Ugandan armies in Congo have understandably sparked suspicions that actions against both the FDLR and the LRA could lead to continued foreign military control of Congo’s mineral wealth.

However, regional states stand to gain from a more cooperative future approach, which partly explains why, in December 2006, 11 regional heads of state committed to a Protocol Against the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources as part of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region.^₂₄ Although regional cooperation on this issue has moved at a glacial pace, it offers a potentially innovative, locally-driven mechanism for establishing cross-border collaboration in the development of trading mechanisms that could contribute to a more enabling climate for international investment. The German government has now situated technical advisors on mineral certification within the secretariat of the conference in Bujumbura, Burundi, a commendable first step toward encouraging a regional approach.

Toward a comprehensive strategy

There is no silver bullet solution to Congo’s conflict minerals. But if the Congolese and regional governments, the international community, and the private sector can align their efforts on the common goal of a revitalized legitimate mineral trade in eastern Congo, it would have a major impact in resolving the conflict. Although the United States has played an important leadership role in facilitating political negotiations aimed at resolving chronic conflict in eastern Congo, it has largely abdicated responsibility for addressing the economics that perpetuate the conflict. A new strategy must tackle the political economy of the conflict head-on.

The reform of Congolese institutions is a long-term goal, but critical prerequisites and first steps can be undertaken in the next 12 months. Action must be taken to prevent the flight of investment away from Congo and to harness the potential of the private sector to contribute to recovery in the East. Although the effects of the global economic downturn pose a threat to Congo at the moment, they also present an opportunity to sow the seeds of reform. In the face of political pressures generated by the commodity boom, prior government efforts, including the review of mining contracts and the Lutundula Commission, failed to achieve significant reforms._²⁵ Now, while the Congolese government needs outside capital, there is a window of opportunity to implement improved governance and economic policies. These policies will help to ensure that benefits from the country’s mineral wealth accrue to the miners and their families, not to criminal enterprises.

There are four intertwined components to a new strategy to reduce the trade in conflict minerals and help empower the Congolese state and its citizens that should be carried out in conjunction with vigorous enforcement of strengthened sanctions against the individuals and middlemen buying minerals from armed groups.

1) Shine a light on the supply chain

Transparency is the first step toward altering the conflict economy in Congo. The ability of end users to trace and audit the supply chains for the metal components in their electronics products is a critical step to channeling international demand away from armed groups and toward legitimate sources.

Building leverage via end users

The electronics industry is the principal end user of the four main minerals mined in eastern Congo and the link in the supply chain over which the United States has the most leverage.^₂₆ Profit maximizing pressures from the electronics industry have driven demand for Congo’s conflict minerals, produced cheaply as a result of the medieval conditions in which they are mined and the illicit networks that funnel them out of Africa._²⁷ A number of other industries also use the 3T minerals: for tin, this includes the food, aerosol, and pet food can industries;_²⁸ for tungsten, industrial construction—for drill bits and industrial cutting equipment—and light bulb industries;^₂₉ for gold, jewelry and banks—which purchase gold as investments and for reserves.

Lessons from other campaigns show that when pressured, these end user companies can dramatically influence middle companies further down the supply chain (suppliers, smelters, etc). Wal-Mart, for example, was able to influence its suppliers in China to change their packaging practices. Campaign strategists have further highlighted that campaigns focusing on consumer companies and visible brands resonate with a much wider public and therefore have a higher chance of success. An effective public campaign on the electronics industry should have a multiplier effect on the other key industries in changing their calculations.

International advocacy and corporate engagement on this issue has already started in Europe thanks to the work of the NGO coalition, Make IT Fair. Largely due to their advocacy efforts, an electronics industry corporate social responsibility association, the Electronics Industry Citizenship Coalition, or EICC, commissioned research on the metals supply chain in 2008._³⁰ Following the report, the EICC agreed to initiate a supply chain transparency model for tin, tantalum, and cobalt and issued a statement recognizing that “they can influence standards throughout the supply chain and within the wider industry.”^₃₁ This is an important admission, but industry-led efforts have thus far fallen short on the level of transparency necessary to make a difference. Companies currently only provide vague written assurances from suppliers that they do traffic in Congo’s conflict minerals. There is no mechanism to undertake independent verification or audited chains of custody. Advocacy efforts must ensure that companies do not simply paper over concerns with anodyne reports and statements. Declarations by electronics company suppliers that they are not buying from illegal mines in Congo are a beginning, but they do not provide proof that consumer electronics do not contain conflict minerals.

Building on these efforts, consumers and activists need to demand independently verifiable supply chain audits to ensure that products are indeed conflict-free. This should not be a boycott of Congolese minerals, but rather more stringent requirements for purchasing of minerals so that consumers can be credibly assured that armed groups are not benefiting from illicit activity or the subjugation of local populations. Numerous industry sources have confirmed in interviews that tracing these minerals is possible. For example, Wal-Mart’s “Love Earth” jewelry line has proved that it is possible to implement a system that places a FedEx-like tracking number on gold shipments from the mine of origin all the way to the shopping mall, tracking each step along the way. Setting up such a system will be a challenge: it will entail significant costs, and the incentives to falsify documentation must be addressed as part of this effort.

There are two keys to an effective system: compelling the key players in the supply chain to work together to create a tracing system, and implementing credible monitoring of the system by independent third parties. To develop this tracing system, the electronics industry should work together with its suppliers—from solder manufacturers to tantalum processing companies to tin smelters—who have more information on the sources of the minerals used. This will entail a multi-sector, cross-supply chain effort. Independent third-party verification is more challenging. The example of the Kimberley Process for diamonds has fallen short in this regard, with industry “self-policing” and the lack of independent audit requirements leading to gaping holes in diamond transaction declarations. For example, a U.S. State Department report recently discovered that Lebanon was grossly misreporting the prices and sources of its rough diamonds, which may have resulted in illicit financing of Hezbollah._³² We need to improve upon this decidedly-mixed track record. Mine-of-origin declarations and supply chain audits should be verified by third-parties with the skill-set to properly monitor metals transactions, such as forensic accountants, or the U.S. Customs Department, which has supply chain specialist teams. The German mineral fingerprinting initiative, if properly implemented, would be extremely helpful in this regard.

Ramping up pressure on key middlemen

Although altering the risk calculations and business practices of companies along the supply chain has the potential to positively impact the economic incentives that sustain the conflict, it also runs the risk of unanticipated consequences. If international companies simply walk away from Congo and the market for all its minerals dries up, this could make the situation on the ground worse. Out–of-work miners could be tempted to swell the ranks of the armed groups in order to secure their livelihoods. Mitigating these effects requires not only comprehensive support to legitimize the mining sector in Congo, but also outreach to those companies in the supply chain who have a vested interest in the survival of the market for Congolese minerals.

Companies operating at the critical chokepoints in the mineral supply chain will need to feel the costs of continuing the status quo in order to embrace the benefits of more responsible behavior. The Congolese, regional, and international actors working as “comptoirs,” traders, and brokers moving minerals from Congo onto world markets are currently operating across both licit and illicit economies. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1857, passed following the release of the latest Group of Experts report, has significantly increased international pressure on these actors, widening sanctions criteria to include “individuals or entities supporting the illegal armed groups... through the illicit trade of natural resources.” The resolution also encourages governments to submit information to the Security Council on targets for sanctions, and to take measures to ensure that the companies involved in the minerals supply chain exercise due diligence regarding their purchasing of minerals. The Security Council and regional governments must signal to these companies that they have a choice: become part of the solution by severing all ties to the armed groups and supporting reform efforts on the ground or face sanctions. Providing the correct mix of incentives to keep these players from driving the trade further underground will be a crucial component of providing legitimate economic opportunities in the formal economic sector in eastern Congo.

The following measures would have a lasting impact on increasing transparency:

Industry should trace and audit their supply chains: Companies, particularly those in the electronics industry, should trace the 3Ts and gold in their products down to the mine of origin. It is understandable that end user companies may not currently have this information, but they should work closely with their suppliers and smelting companies to obtain this information, as the alternative is continued demand for conflict minerals. They should also have independent audits conducted of their supply chains that show chain of custody for each step along the 3T mineral supply chain.
Governments should buttress supply chain action: The United States and other governments should vigorously support implementation of the Security Council Resolution 1857. This should include increased targeted sanctions, as well as legislation to require independent audits, tracing of minerals to mine of origin, and other stringent due diligence. Legislation should be backed with strong monitoring and oversight by U.S. government agencies, including the Homeland Security and State Departments, to guard against misreporting.

2) Identify and secure strategic mines

The U.N. Group of Experts has documented how armed groups on all sides of the conflict, including the Congolese military, profit from resource exploitation and threaten the local population. They control mines, tax commerce, and prey upon civilians involved in the trade. State mining inspectors are intimidated or co-opted by armed groups and are incapable of reigning in these activities. While MONUC’s mandate has recently been broadened to monitor illicit resource flows, it will take a much more concerted international investment to truly change the security calculus in the mineral-rich areas.

Changing this situation requires physically securing the major mines and wresting them away from the control of armed groups. This is an urgent priority, but has thus far been ignored by the UN and other actors. The recent joint Congo-Rwanda military operation—ostensibly against the FDLR, though direct engagements with the FLDR were infrequent—removal of CNDP leader Laurent Nkunda, and incorporation of CNDP into the local political and military authorities in North Kivu has jolted the status quo. A mutually acceptable security context around the mineral trade in eastern Congo is a critical component of a lasting détente between Kinshasa and Kigali, and the international community has an opportunity in the wake of recent events to support solutions that benefit ordinary Congolese.

Different strategies must be employed for armed groups with diverse origins and agendas. Former CNDP, Mai Mai groups, and non-integrated army brigades may be best dealt with via security sector reform. These efforts are unlikely to completely demilitarize the mining sector in the short-run, but have the best prospects of shifting the status quo toward fostering legitimate trade in the medium-term. In contrast, operations against the FDLR will require much more military strength in a concentrated effort to weaken the FDLR leadership, deny them access to minerals wealth, encourage defections, and protect civilians from reprisals.

In the short-term, poorly planned action by ill-disciplined Congolese forces incapable of protecting civilians or actually holding FDLR territory will only compound already dire circumstances in Congo. But the identification of strategic mining sites can begin now. MONUC should collaborate with the government of Congo in identifying key mining sites under the control of armed groups. Such efforts should not focus on any one militia, but instead should be selected based on size, proximity to transit routes, and the ability of MONUC or trained and vetted Congolese forces to maintain their security.

Securing critical mining sites

There are hundreds of mines controlled by gunpoint in eastern Congo. But these following mines are particularly key to armed groups:

Bisie Mine, Walikale District, North Kivu: Produces the lion’s share of tin ore in North Kivu. Recently shifted hands from the non-integrated 85th Brigade of the Congolese Army—a de facto Mai Mai militia—to an integrated brigade under the command of a CNDP commander, Colonel Manzi. It is unclear whether the new soldiers are physically present in the mines, but they are already active at checkpoints and are taxing miners._³³
Lueshe Pyrochlore Mine, Rutshuru District, North Kivu: Now under the control of the Congolese Army and CNDP. One of the few industrial mining sites in the Kivus, produces Niobium, which is closely related to Tantalum. One of the sites most immediately conducive to start-up of industrial operations.
Bisembe, Mwenga Territory, South Kivu: Mines around Mwenga are controlled militarily and economically by the FDLR, who have established a mini-state in this region of South Kivu. Securing this area will require significant efforts to sever the FDLR’s military and administrative control, and should only be considered with ample planning, including provisions to protect civilians.

Other important mining areas include the Misisi gold mine in Fizi, South Kivu, tin, tantalum and gold mines in Ziralo, Kalehe South Kivu and the gold mines around Ksugho in North Kivu’s Lubero territory.

Properly integrated Congolese security forces—supported by MONUC and international military observers—should secure these mining sites and the transit routes associated with their trading chains, including select airfields, ports, and border crossings. To the maximum extent possible, this should be carried out via negotiation and with positive incentives for commanders willing to relinquish their hold over these sites and enter into DDR programs. Such initiatives will require a far more robust approach than prior Congolese demobilization programs, which have wound up providing cover for continued coercive minerals exploitation without reducing its militarization. With thorough vetting to screen for human rights abusers, and following a significant training process, the rank-and-file from armed groups should become eligible for integration into security services. Together with a strengthened MONUC, such a force could provide the immediate physical security necessary to regulate the trade in minerals, from these specific mines to markets to export points in eastern Congo. This approach must be grounded in a more comprehensive and coherent effort to support broad security sector reform in Congo.

3) Reform governance structures

Congo’s mineral wealth enriches networks composed of local and international businessmen, militia leaders, and politicians who benefit from resources that should form the basis for a legitimate state authority. State building efforts in eastern Congo have focused on the most basic aspects of extending the writ of the state – putting select roads under the control of government authorities. While this is an important first step, such efforts will prove unsustainable without a revenue base for local and provincial authorities. Bringing part of the mining economy under state control could provide this much-needed base of support and would develop a highly visible legitimate mineral trade upon which substantial international support could be focused. In an assessment of North Kivu’s cassiterite trade for the World Bank, Consultant Nicholas Garrett refers to this concept as “Islands of Integrity, with positive spillover effects in other regions.” Because of the severity of the corruption challenges and the extent to which Congolese mining officials are at the mercy of armed groups, an intrusive but temporary internationalization of the mining sector will be required to assure that sufficient revenues from mining and trade flow back to official government coffers.

The international community should work hand in hand with the Congolese government to forge the political will and capacity to exercise control over mining and commerce in eastern Congo. The building blocks of such an effort are outlined in the World Bank strategy, but require a greater focus on the particular dimensions of the resource conflict in the eastern provinces. Congo’s endemic corruption and the highly sophisticated networks that dominate the mineral trade are sizeable obstacles to reform. But with the Congolese government on the verge of a balance-of-payments crisis and sorely in need of emergency funds from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and donor governments, the international community has an opportunity to press for not just commitments but demonstrable reforms to the regulation of mining, commerce, and taxation regimes.

The following policy initiatives would have a lasting impact in reforming governance structures:

Dialogue to forge political will for reform: The United States and MONUC should work with international and Congolese partners to begin an inclusive process of dialogue around mineral trade reform in eastern Congo. Such a process needs to include a broad range of stakeholders—representatives of mining communities, civil society organizations, comptoirs, and the business community, as well as local, provincial, and national governments.^₃₄ Political talks via the Tripartite Plus process are encouraging, but must be only the first part of a wider, inclusive process.
Donor coordination around a joint effort to support reform: Piecemeal reform and uncoordinated interventions should give way to coordinated international cooperation to support legitimate trade in minerals. The Certified Trading Chain concept developed by the German government provides a useful frame for such an initiative, but prioritization of locally led efforts and Congolese institutions must be the priority.
The establishment of a Transitional Mining Authority in eastern Congo alongside government capacity-building: Given corruption’s potential to undermine mining reform, a time-bound internationalized effort to provide greater transparency and accountability appears necessary. This authority could be made up of Congolese and international technocrats and oversee the provincial mining authorities in North and South Kivu. Over a three- to five-year period, a mining authority would provide greater regulation of the mineral trade, improve revenue collection, and work with existing government agencies to develop a cadre of mining and customs officials capable of handling these tasks on their own. The exact nature and extent of such an initiative must flow from dialogue and coordination. Options could run the gamut from as comprehensive a system as the Governance and Economic Management Assistance program in Liberia to more limited options such as the Crown Agents/Department for International Development customs reform in Mozambique._³⁵
Regional export harmonization to remove incentives for smuggling via neighboring countries: Due to drastically different tariff rates, exporting a container of tin ore from Rwanda costs $200 in taxes, while exporting the same container from the DRC costs $6,500. This creates incentives for smuggling, and therefore a need to harmonize export regimes. Each Great Lakes country has a large potential interest in a legitimate minerals trade, and the United States and international community should work with these states to build mutually reinforcing export tax regimes. This could be developed under the Great Lakes Regional Pact and Protocol on Natural Resources, a legislative instrument signed by all the relevant heads of state.

4) Support livelihoods and economic opportunities for miners

Impoverished Congolese miners and their families are often entirely dependent on their meager income from mining, and they currently have few viable economic alternatives to lift them out of this indentured servitude. Miners also face incredibly difficult and dangerous physical conditions in carrying out their work. These factors make it all the more important to manage reform efforts in such a way that it does not make life even more difficult for these miners and their families. Efforts to end the trade in conflict minerals absolutely must be accompanied by international support for livelihoods and economic opportunities in eastern Congo. This should include:

Creating legal, organizational space for artisanal miners: Artisanal mining is often illegal in the DRC, which marginalizes the sector and further perpetuates poverty. Donors should work with the Congolese government to reform the DRC Mining Code to formalize artisanal mining and enable artisanal miners to form cooperative societies and customary mining groups. This would also allow for greater legal investment in artisanal mining.
Infrastructure: The World Bank and donor countries should work to help reconstruct the roads that will reconnect eastern Congo with trade routes to western Congo and the Rift Valley so that other sectors can benefit from trade. Infrastructure projects with guaranteed labor at decent wages can help lure miners out of conflict mines and create opportunities for demobilized combatants.
Private investment: Larger firms can raise miners’ living standards if independently verifiable mechanisms are put in place to ensure that the corporations are not contributing to armed groups, and health, safety, and labor standards are observed at mining sites. Private investment can be a part of the solution if a tracing mechanism is in place and appropriate standards are observed.
Alternative livelihoods: International investment should be stepped up in agricultural development initiatives in eastern Congo, which mining has displaced in recent years. Good models for agricultural investments in mining areas exist in Sierra Leone. These have involved innovative public-private partnerships, such as that between USAID, the jeweler Tiffany, and the Foundation for Environmental Security and Sustainability. Other livelihood initiatives, such as small business development projects, should also be promoted. All projects should be designed in close partnership with miners themselves, and should also be followed up with education initiatives for miners.

Conclusion

The Congo conflict minerals problem is complex, but the roadmap to a solution exists. The four key parts of this strategy—a transparent supply chain, secure mining sites, improved governance of mining and trade, and improved livelihood options for miners—are all realistic policy goals. Achieving them will require coherence and commitment from both the Congolese government and the international community. But efforts won’t succeed unless individual consumers in the United States and around the world step up and demand a change. Absent focused pressure on companies and governments alike, the best we can expect is half-measures that perhaps provide a semblance of reform but allow the coercive exploitation of Congo’s natural wealth to continue. Calling or emailing top electronics manufacturers and telling them to ensure that their products are conflict-free will help to create the conditions necessary to end the war in Congo. You can also ensure that your voice is heard by endorsing our Conflict Minerals Pledge online.

Breaking the stranglehold of corruption and violence in eastern Congo will not be easy, nor will helping Congolese build legitimate institutions that represent their interests. But consumers and their elected representatives have the opportunity to decisively alter the dynamics of conflict in the Great Lakes Region by finally focusing international attention on the economic drivers of this human rights catastrophe. By demanding transparency and accountability from the world’s largest electronics companies, consumers can fundamentally change the logic of Congo’s conflict and end the scourge of conflict minerals.

David Sullivan of the Enough Project and Sasha Lezhnev of the Grassroots Reconciliation Group were the lead researchers on this report.

###

Appendix 1: Percentages of the 3Ts and gold that come from eastern Congo: 2008

Tin: between 6-8 percent_³⁶

Estimated production from eastern DRC: 24,592 tons._³⁷
Estimated world production in 2008: 350,000 tons._³⁸

Tantalum: between 15-20 percent_³⁹

Estimated production from eastern DRC: 155 tons_⁴⁰
Estimated world production in 2008: 815 tons.^₄₁

Tungsten: between 2-4 percent

Estimated production from eastern DRC: 1,300 tons._⁴²
Estimated world production in 2008: 54,600 tons._⁴³

Gold: less than 1 percent

Estimated production from eastern DRC: 6.5 tons._⁴⁴
Estimated world production in 2008: 2,330 tons.^₄₅

Appendix 2: Methodology for estimating the profit of armed groups

It is our hope that continued dialogue and consultation on the profits reaped by armed groups from the conflict minerals trade will help researchers, policymakers, and industry develop more accurate, transparent, and reliable figures. The calculations provided here are well-educated estimates, and we welcome any insight others can provide on the topic.

The data on armed groups' profits from the conflict minerals trade is estimated based on four main sources. We start with a recognition that this trade is difficult to track with precise detail because of the frequent underreporting of both quantity and price by official Congolese government official agencies—as numerous research reports have documented. That said, extensive field research has been conducted on this issue over the past three years, which we believe provides the basis for a reasonable estimated range of profit sharing. The data takes into account that three main armed groups—the FDLR, the CNDP, and renegade units of the Congolese Army—are profiting from the trade in two main ways: controlling a percentage of the mines and controlling a percentage of the transportation of the minerals from mine to point of export.

As a starting point for the 3Ts, we use the official 2008 Division of Mines data for North Kivu and Private Sector Federation data for South Kivu as a starting point for the 3T minerals, as reported by Garrett and Mitchell in April 2009. As the Pole Institute and others have highlighted, the majority of the 3T minerals are not smuggled, but rather are underreported. Second, we use Garrett and Mitchell's rate of 35 percent underreporting of amounts of export by weight for the 3Ts. This is a conservative estimate—previous estimates by the Pole Institute, the Initiative for Central Africa, DFID, and others had put the rates at 40-130 percent—and assumes that official data collection has improved over the past three years. The 35 percent rate is also partially based on the discrepancies between firsthand observations of the tin ore coming from Bisie mine by the Pole Institute, DGM Kilambo, and Garrett, on the one hand, and dramatically lower data for the same tin ore being exported at Goma. Third, for estimates of the percentage of mines and transport routes controlled by armed groups, we use the U.N. Group of Experts data from December 2008 as well as independent reporting by Africa Confidential and minerals traders from the region. Finally, interviews with the U.S. Geological Survey and metals traders have provided excellent information on the minerals supply chain and estimated pricing along the chain. Although the gold trade is more difficult to track because of much more extensive smuggling, the Pole Institute and Pact have provided useful research on this which we use as a basis here. Recognizing the possible variations in percentages for several of the variables, we provide a range of estimates for the profits—high, medium, and low.

View the data

Endnotes

1 For our analysis of the joint Rwanda/Congo operations see “Congo’s Dangerous Crossroads,” January 30, 2000; for information on the recent deal between the CNDP and the Congolese government, see Enough’s forthcoming report. For recommendations on removing the FDLR from eastern Congo, see Rebecca Feeley and Colin Thomas-Jensen, “Past Due: Remove the FDLR from Eastern Congo,” Enough Strategy Paper, June 2008.

2 Daniel Magnowski, “Tin price spike shows Congo’s growing origin role,” Reuters, October 30, 2008, available at http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLU661455.

3 Talison Minerals, “Talison to Suspend Wodgina Tantalum Operations,” Press Statement, November 26, 2008.

4 Nicholas Garrett, “Artisanal Cassiterite Mining and Trade in North Kivu: Implications for Poverty Reduction and Security,” Communities and Small Scale Mining, June 2008.

5 “The Group estimates that FDLR controls the majority of the principle artisanal mining sites in South Kivu, which are mostly cassiterite, gold, and coltan mines. In North Kivu, FDLR controls many gold-mining pits based in the jungle west of the town of Lubero. The rebel group is also involved in trafficking minerals by road from Walikale and controls the vast majority of territory in the mineral-rich Kahuzi Biega National Park.” See U.N. Security Council, “Final Report of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo,”,S/2008/773, available at http://www.un.org/Docs/journal/asp/ws.asp?m=s/2008/773, p. 20.

6 “How Smuggling Pays for Killing,” Africa Confidential, 49 (23) (November 14, 2008).

7 According to Africa Confidential, the Pole Institute published this information in 2008. “How Smuggling pays for killing,” Africa Confidential, 49 (23) (November 14, 2008).

8 Global Witness, “Control of mines threatens peace efforts in eastern Congo,” (September 2008), available at http://www.globalwitness.org/media_library_detail.php/663/en/control_of_mines.

9 Nicholas Garrett, Sylvia Sergiou, and Koen Vlassenroot, “Negotiated Peace for Extortion: The Case of Walikale Territory in eastern DR Congo,” Journal of East African Studies 3 (1) (March 2009).

10 Aloys Tegera and Dominic Johnson, “Rules for Sale: Formal and Informal Cross-border trade in Eastern DRC (Polé Institute, June 2007).

11 Nick Bates and Hilary Sunman, “Trading for Peace: Achieving security and poverty reduction through trade in natural resources in the Great Lakes area, (DFID/USAID/Comesa, October 2007).

12 For export statistics, see National Bank of Rwanda, “Export Statistics” (August 2008), available at http://www.bnr.rw/statistics.aspx. For mine production, see “MPA to Step up Rwanda Investments,” ITRI News, February 2009, available at http://www.itri.co.uk/pooled/articles/BF_NEWSART/view.asp?Q=BF_NEWSART_310329.

13 See U.N. Security Council, “Final Report of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” p. 22-23; Nicholas Garrett and Harrison Mitchell, “Congo Rebels Cash in on Demand for Tin,” Financial Times, March 5, 2008.

14 H.C. Starck, based in Goslar, Germany and with offices in Ohio, Michigan, and Massachusetts, and Cabot Corporation, headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, are the two largest tantalum processing corporations in the world. Several metals trading companies are also named in DRC government data and U.N. reports as buying tin and tantalum from eastern Congo, including Belgium-based Trademet, Belgium-based Traxys, and the UK-based Afrimex (though Afrimex informed the United Nations that it was no longer importing Congolese minerals in 2008). U.N. Security Council, “Final Report of the Group of Experts,” p. 22-23.

15 Consumer Electronics Association, “CEA Market Research” (January 2007), available at http://www.ce.org/Research/Sales_Stats/1219.asp.

16 Garrett, “Artisanal Cassiterite Mining and Trade in North Kivu: Implications for Poverty Reduction and Security,” p. 21.

17 Tegera and Johnson “Rules for Sale,” p. 37-29.

18 “Tegera and Johnson “Rules for Sale”; Bates and Sunman, “Trading for Peace.”

19 United Nations Security Council, “Final Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” S/2002/1146, October 2002, p. 28.

20 United Nations Security Council, “Report of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” S/2006/525, July 2006, p. 33.

21 United Nations Security Council, “Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to paragraph 8 of resolution 1698 (2006) concerning the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” S/2007/68, February 2007.

22 See Frank Melcher and others, “Fingerprinting of conflict minerals: columbite-tantalite (“coltan”) ores,”,Society for Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits News, June 2008.

23 The International Court of Justice ruled in 2005 that Uganda should pay reparations to the Congolese government for violating the principles of nonintervention with its armed forces from 1993-2003. The DRC government estimates that these reparations should amount to over $6 billion. There was a similar case against the Government of Rwanda. See http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?p1=3&p2=3&code=co&case=116&k=51.

24 International Conference on the Great Lakes Region Pact on Security, Stability, and Development in the Great Lakes Region. December 2006. See http://icglr.org/common/docs/docs_repository/pactsecuritystabilitydevelopment.pdf

25 Correspondence with political analyst based in Kinshasa, April 2009.

26 John Prendergast, “Can You Hear Congo Now? Cell Phones, Conflict Minerals, and the Worst Sexual Violence in the World,” Enough Strategy Paper, April 2009

27 Talison Minerals

28 International Tin Research Institute, “Review of Tin Use and Recycling for 2007,” available at http://www.itri.co.uk/pooled/articles/BF_NEWSART/view.asp?Q=BF_NEWSART_308811.

29 International Tungsten Industry Association Newsletter, December 2008, available at http://www.itia.org.uk/Default.asp?Page=31; Interview with U.S. Geological Survey, March 2009.

30 GHGm, “Social and Environmental Responsibility in Metals Supply for the Electronics Industry” (June 28, 2008), available at http://www.eicc.info.

31 Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition/Global e-Sustainability Initiative Statement, February 2009.

32 Chaim Even-Zobar, “Lebanon-Guinea Axis Emerges as a Major Diamond Laundering Route,” Diamond Intelligence Briefs, March 10, 2009.

33 Correspondence with Global Witness

34 For a much more detailed description of such a process, see Nicholas Garrett and Harrison Mitchell, “Trading Conflict for Development: Utilising the Trade in Minerals from Eastern DR Congo for Development,” Resources Consulting Service LLC, April 2009.

35 Learn more about the GEMAP at http://www.gemapliberia.org/.

36 Tin production in DRC has been lower in previous years (likely closer to 20,000 tons in 2007) but the real figure could be higher due to misreporting by DRC government agencies. Similarly, the world tin production for 2008 ranges from 330,000 to 350,000 tons. We therefore use a range of 6-8 percent.

37 These figures are based on officially reported figures from the Division of Mines of the DRC Government, or DM, plus an estimated 35 percent rate of underdeclaration by the official agencies.

The DM reports 12,502,000 kilograms for North Kivu and 4,196,000 kgs for South Kivu for the first 11 months of 2008. The figures of 18,412,000 and 6,180,000 factor in one additional month and the 35 percent underdeclaration rate. The 35 percent underdeclaration rate is based on several sources. INICA estimates that underdeclaration for natural resource exports is between 30-135 percent. Furthermore, the underdeclaration of tin from Bisie, North Kivu's largest mine, was over 40 percent in 2006 and 2007. Bisie's official capacity is 10,600,000 kgs per year, and the official Congolese authority DGM Kilambo witnessed 10,309,000 kgs as leaving the Bisie-Walikale mining area for Goma, yet DM sources report 44 percent lower numbers.

The reasons for this fraud are described in detail in the Pole Institute report. For 2007, Garrett cites 12,754.56 tons from North Kivu based on six plane-loads per day carrying two tons each leaving the Walikale mining area for Goma, and a further 4,115 tons arriving in from Goma from other areas of North Kivu. The Polé Institute, and then Bates and Sunman based on Polé’s research, cite 16,870 tons as a total for both North and South Kivu for 2006. The 2007 official export figures from the Congolese Ministry of Mines are 10,175.2 for North Kivu and 4,731 for South Kivu. However, these official figures must be revised, taking into account that it is 65 percent grade tin, and approximately 44 percent was nondeclared by customs, according to Garrett. That would make for 17,363 tons total.

Bates estimates a higher rate of underdeclaration by customs officials for 2006: approximately 67 percent. However, interviews on the ground reveal that data collection has improved somewhat, and hence we use a more conservative underdeclaration figure of 35 percent.

Nicholas Garrett and Harrison Mitchell, "Trading Conflict for Development(DFID, April 2009); Nicholas Garrett, “Artisanal Cassiterite Mining and Trade in North Kivu: Implications for Poverty Reduction and Security” (CASM, June 2008); Aloys Tegera and Dominic Johnson, “Rules for Sale: Formal and Informal Cross-Border Trade in Eastern DRC” (Polé Institute, June 2007), p. 52-54; Nick Bates and Hilary Sunman, “Trading for Peace: Achieving Security and Poverty Reduction Through Trade in Natural Resources in the Great Lakes Area” (DFID/USAID/Comesa, October 2007); Official export data for the DRC Ministry of Mines, 2007; Interviews with U.S. Geological Survey specialists in tin, Central Africa, and tantalum, February 2009; Interview with Resource Consulting Services, February 2009.

38 ITRI, “Review of Tin Use and Recycling for 2007”;,The U.S. Geological Survey cites a slightly lower figure of 330,000 tons. U.S. Geological Survey Mineral Commodity Survey for Tin (2009), available at http://www.usgs.gov.

39 This was lower in the mid-2000s—one-third to half of current production—as tantalum production in the DRC was lower due to depressed prices and insecurity at that time. Future percentages could fluctuate from 10-25 percent as well depending on prices, production in other areas of the world such as Australia, and corporate buying patterns.

40 The official DRC Ministry of Mines reports 56,000 kgs for North Kivu and 295,000 kgs for South Kivu for the first 11 months of 2008. Factoring in the underdeclaration rate of 35 percent, this totals 517 tons for the Kivus. At 30 percent ore content, this is 155.1 tons total. Garrett and Mitchell, "Trading Conflict," p. 31.

41 U.S. Geological Survey Mineral Commodity Survey for Tantalum (2009), available at http://www.usgs.gov.

42 These are conservative estimates, with the real figures likely higher. The official DM reports 441,000 kilograms for North Kivu and 56,000 kgs for South Kivu for the first 11 months of 2008. Factoring in the underdeclaration rate of 35 percent, this totals 880,000 tons for the Kivus. However, the DM officially reported 767,000 kgs for North Kivu in 2007, and other government agencies reported even higher figures, meaning that the real amounts could be up to 1,500 tons. Conservatively, we therefore use 800 tons for North Kivu. Garrett and Mitchell, "Trading Conflict," p. 31.

43 U.S. Geological Survey Mineral Commodity Survey for Tungsten (2009), available at http://www.usgs.gov.

44 These figures are estimates based on several sources. PACT, based on the U.N. Group of Experts' estimates, assesses that North Kivu produces 1.5 tons of gold per year. Bates and Sunman, who in a major report for DFID based on Pole's research, estimated gold export from South Kivu to be around 5,000 kgs. Bates and Sunman, "Trading For Peace"; Pact, “Natural Resource Trade Flows—DFID/USAID/COMESA Study” (June 2007), p.. 35-36: Tegera and Johnson, "Rules for Sale," p. 75-78.

45 U.S. Geological Survey Mineral Commodity Survey for Gold (2009), available at http://www.usgs.gov.

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Strategy Papers

Enough Co-founder John Prendergast explores the many challenges facing the 2010 Sudan election season.

At present, the only system that the exporters use to avoid buying conflict minerals is verbal assurance: they simply ask, “Did you get this from a conflict area?”

STEP 1: THE MINES

A Gold Rush with Guns

STEP 2: TRADING HOUSES

Looking the Other Way

STEP 3: THE EXPORTERS

Minerals Enter International Markets

STEP 4: TRANSIT COUNTRIES

Origins Obscured

STEP 5: THE REFINERS

Minerals to Metals

STEP 6: ELECTRONICS COMPANIES

Conflict Minerals in your Phone

Steps Toward a Solution

What You Can Do:

Appendix A: What Should Be Done About Congo's Gold Trade?

Concerted consumer action has enormous potential to clean up these supply chains.

Endnotes

The rough road to 2011: Challenges and dangers

Huge hurdles and bad precedents: The elections and the referendum

Future flashpoints: Unimplemented CPA provisions

Intercommunal tensions and pervasive insecurity in the South

Motivations and strategies of the parties

National Congress Party (NCP)

Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)

Preventing a return to war: recommendations

Deadlines, delays, and decisions

Election timetable

The political calculus of elections

What about elections in Darfur?

Rewards and risks

How to address elections

The hard lessons of “Lightning Thunder”

Operation Lightning Thunder

A few positives

What went wrong?

Congolese politics and Ugandan intervention

The United States’ strategic role and responsibility

Finishing the fight

Focus on civilian protection first

Coordinate and streamline the rescue and return of former LRA abductees

Maintain a focus on accountability for crimes against humanity

Conclusion

Analysis: The current state of play

Establishing security: Challenges and policy implications

Insurgency by the shabaab and other radical groups

Fragmentation of ad hoc militia

Criminal violence and lack of public order

Piracy

Upending the status quo: Next steps for the Obama administration

Conclusion

Introduction

The conflict minerals supply chain: From Congolese mines to worldwide markets

What minerals are traded? The 3Ts and gold

The 3Ts: Minerals or metals?

Why are current efforts falling short?

The Congolese government: Leadership and capacity deficits

Incoherent international efforts

The regional dimension

Toward a comprehensive strategy

1) Shine a light on the supply chain

Building leverage via end users

Ramping up pressure on key middlemen

2) Identify and secure strategic mines

3) Reform governance structures

4) Support livelihoods and economic opportunities for miners

Conclusion

Appendix 1: Percentages of the 3Ts and gold that come from eastern Congo: 2008

Appendix 2: Methodology for estimating the profit of armed groups

Endnotes

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Concerted consumer action has enormous potential
to clean up these supply chains.