Publications

Sudan: The Countdown

Zack Brisson — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:14:35 -0400

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

Zack Brisson — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:42:10 -0400

By Adam O’Brien

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.

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

Confronting Rape and Other Forms of Violence Against Women in Conflict Zones—Spotlight: DRC and Sudan

Pete Johnson — Wed, 13 May 2009 13:44:33 -0400

Testimony of John Prendergast, Co-founder of the Enough Project, Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

Let me first thank Chairwoman Boxer, Senator Feingold, Senator Kerry, Senator Lugar, and all other members of the committee for holding this hearing on a difficult topic and an extraordinary challenge for the international community: how to end the scourge of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan. These two conflicts are characterized not just by appalling death tolls—nearly 8 million and counting since 1983—but also by widespread crimes against humanity. Indeed, heinous crimes against women and girls occur with numbing regularity in Congo and Sudan, where rape has become the tool of choice of many of the armed groups as a means to control, subjugate, humiliate, intimidate, and ethnically cleanse.

So let’s be absolutely clear: measures to deal with rape as a weapon of war in isolation will fail and fail miserably. If we truly want to end this scourge we must move from managing conflict symptoms to ending the conflicts themselves.

Yet rather than trying to end the conflicts in Congo and Sudan, most international efforts deal with symptoms. We spend billions of dollars a year on humanitarian efforts and peacekeeping, while the root causes of the violence remain inadequately addressed. This is irresponsible and deadly—costly in lives lost as well as costly to American taxpayer.

How revolutionary would it be to deal with the causes rather than the symptoms? Why can’t we focus our policy on ENDING these wars rather than simply dealing with their consequences? From our meeting with President Obama a few weeks ago at the White House, he clearly understands the importance of such a strategic objective. But will his administration organize structures, personnel and assets to achieve these objectives, or will the pursuit of lasting solutions remain largely rhetorical? And will Congress support a sustained interagency effort to end these wars, or will the resources needed to ramp up diplomatic efforts be siphoned off for other ends?

We at the Enough Project believe that the game changer, to use the president’s favorite term, would be a commitment by the Obama administration to make the strategic objective of U.S. policy the resolution of the wars that cause this scourge of gender-based violence.

A comprehensive strategy for protecting women and girls would include the following elements:

Protection: Reorient efforts of peacekeeping forces in Congo and Sudan—MONUC, UNMIS and UNAMID—to focus on protecting women/girls where they are most vulnerable: camps for internally displaced persons, firewood collection routes, major water points, check points, etc.
Accountability: Support efforts to prosecute rape as a war crime in both Congo and Sudan. This includes support for police and judicial reform, access to justice programs, and legal training. At the international level, investigations should be intensified into the chain of command that either encourages or allows rape to be utilized as a war strategy.
Treatment: Expend additional resources on supporting the efforts of Congolese, Sudanese, and international organizations that are supporting the survivors of sexual violence.
Peace: Over the long term, the United States and other concerned countries must work to change the calculus of the armed groups committing crimes against women and girls and re-invest in diplomacy to help bring these conflicts to an end.

Because my time is limited, I will focus my remarks on this fourth point, the crucial steps that the United States can take to promote lasting peace in Congo and Sudan.

A. Congo—Collapsing the war economy

In my 25 years of working on African conflict resolution, Congo is by far the most complex war I have witnessed. But one of the biggest drivers of the conflict—and on in which most Americans are unknowingly but directly involved—has long been clear: competition over the extraordinary natural resource base. If we don’t address the economic roots of violence, we will only be finding temporary respites from the logic of continued war and exploitation.

Conflict minerals

Sexual violence in Congo is often fueled by militias and armies warring over “conflict minerals,” the ores that produce tin, tungsten, and tantalum—what we call the “3 Ts”—as well as gold. Armed groups from Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda finance themselves through the illicit conflict mineral trade and fight over control of mines and taxation points inside Congo.

But the story does not end there. Internal and international business interests move these conflict minerals from Central Africa around the world to countries in East Asia, where they are processed into valuable metals, and then onward into a wide range of electronics products. Consumers in the United States, Europe, and Asia are the ultimate end-users of these conflict minerals, as we inadvertently fuel the war through our purchases of these electronics products.

Based on calculations by researchers at Enough, the 3T’s and gold together generate as much as $183 million annually for the armed groups that torment women and girls in eastern Congo. One of the biggest money makers in this trade is the FDLR, a Rwandan militia whose high command includes persons responsible for the Rwandan genocide in 1994. The FDLR and other armed groups force miners to work in desperate, dangerous conditions for an average of $1-$5 a day. Without alternative sources of income, these miners and their families remain virtually enslaved to armed groups and the conflict minerals trade.

A comprehensive approach to conflict minerals

There is clearly no silver bullet solution to the conflict in eastern Congo. However, if the international community and regional actors work in conjunction with the private sector to align their efforts around the common goal of a revitalized legitimate mineral trade in eastern Congo, long-term efforts could have major impact in resolving the conflict. There are four main components to a new strategy for such efforts:

Shining a light on the supply chain. Push electronics companies—the principal end-users of the 3T’s and gold—to change the way they practice business by working together with their suppliers to create a tracing system paired with credible monitoring of the system by independent third parties. This would provide a critical step towards demanding greater accountability for corporate behavior and transparency. With 80 percent of consumer electronics companies trading on U.S. stock markets, U.S.-based activists have some of the most powerful opportunities for leverage on this part of the supply chain.
Identifying and securing strategic mines. The United Nations should collaborate with the Congolese government identify key mining sites under the control of armed groups. Properly integrated Congolese security forces, supported by U.N. peacekeepers, should secure these sites and transit routes. This approach must be grounded in a more comprehensive and coherent effort to advance broad security sector reform in Congo, and a well-planned and resourced counter-insurgency effort to eliminate the FDLR as a security threat to the region. Non-military measures, particularly robust support for defections and voluntary disarmament and repatriation to Rwanda of the FDLR’s rank-and-file forces, are vital.
Reforming governance. The international community should work hand in hand with the Congolese government to force the will and capacity to exercise control over mining and commerce in eastern Congo. With Congo sorely in need of international funds, there is an opportunity to press for not just commitments but demonstrable reforms to the regulation of mining, commerce, and taxation.
Supporting livelihoods and economic opportunities for miners. Impoverished Congolese miners and their families are dependent upon their meager incomes and have few viable economic alternatives. 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 legal reform, and investments in both infrastructure as well as alternative livelihoods such as agriculture and manufacturing. The sooner the illicit conflict minerals trade is eliminated; the sooner the people of Congo will actually enjoy the benefits from their own resources.

In addition, any effort to address the link between minerals and ongoing violence in eastern Congo 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.

Support legislative efforts

The United States Senate has a crucial role to play in advancing these objectives. By introducing the Congo Conflict Minerals Act of 2009, original co-sponsors Senators Brownback, Durbin, and Feingold have demonstrated important leadership and welcome dedication to the cause of peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and should be congratulated for their efforts. The Enough Project supports this bill and I urge each and every member of this committee to sign on as a co-sponsor to this legislation. This bill would direct the State Department to support multilateral and U.S. government efforts to break the link between the trade in minerals and armed conflict in eastern Congo, require companies listed on U.S. stock to disclose the origin of their minerals to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and expand U.S. efforts to improve conditions and livelihoods for communities in eastern Congo who are dependent upon mining.

B. Sudan—Building a peace surge

In Sudan, crises in Darfur, the South, and the East continue to place civilians in great peril. Women and girls are especially vulnerable. Concentrating peacekeeping assets on the protection of civilians, particularly women and girls, is an achievable objective that would produce a tangible improvement in the security of populations in areas where the UNAMID forces are deployed. However, ending the violence and cultivating lasting peace throughout all of Sudan is critical to ending violence against civilians once and for all. Doing so means focusing on the root causes of Sudan’s violence, addressing the political causes of war, and doggedly pursuing and implementing credible peace processes.

As you are well aware, activists all over the world and from all walks of life continue to press their governments to help end the deplorable suffering in Sudan. Some may scoff when public figures use their fame to help bring attention to a crisis, but I don’t think we can question the commitment of my friend Mia Farrow, who just completed a 12 day fast for the people of Darfur. And that effort is continuing. Others are following Mia’s example, and Richard Branson, Peter Gabriel, Pam Omidyar, and even your colleague from the House, Representative Donald Payne, are either fasting now or have pledged to fast in the coming days and weeks.

These activists and millions of people around the world are pushing for one thing in Sudan: peace. And in my more than two decades of closely observing the situation in Sudan I have rarely seen as big an opportunity as we have right now to fundamentally alter that country’s downward trajectory. Here it is: a global consensus exists for peace in Sudan, even if there is not agreement on the best path to achieve this goal. China, the Arab League, the African Union, the European Union, and the United States all want peace, but little has been done to build the necessary infrastructure to help bring it about.

What is the missing ingredient? The Enough Project has held meetings with a number of key actors in the past several weeks—from the French and Norwegian governments, to the United Nations and African Union, to the Sudanese warring parties themselves—and the answer is nearly universal. What has long been missing in Sudan is America’s strategic leadership. The rebels, the ruling party, Sudan’s neighbors, and other key actors have all been waiting for President Obama and his team to engage.

The Obama administration must lead in constructing a multilateral strategy for peace by establishing an inclusive peace process for Darfur, re-vitalizing implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the dangerously neglected Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement, and ending Sudan’s proxy war with Chad. Toward that end, General Gration should focus on building a multilateral coalition of countries with significant leverage. At the same time as the processes are being constructed, the United States should work assiduously to create the necessary unilateral and multilateral carrots and sticks to press the parties in the direction of a peaceful and comprehensive settlement of Sudan’s multiple, interlocking conflicts. It is vital that the administration work closely with other key governments in dealing with Sudan; a reliance on bilateral diplomacy will provide Khartoum the opportunity to play one party off against the other, as it has historically done with great success.

The key tasks are as follows:

Darfur peace process: The structure should be similar to the Naivasha talks that produced the CPA, and some of the ingredients are already in place. As did Kenyan General Lazaro Sumbeiywo with the Naivasha process, AU/UN mediator Djibril Bassolé should lead the Darfur process, which can be based in Doha, Qatar (although Qatar’s recent diplomatic support for Bashir in the wake of the ICC indictment has impaired its credibility as a facilitator of negotiations). He must be supported by a strong team of diplomats and regional experts and backed by a small group of countries with leverage, high-level support, and full-time representation at the talks. We believe that this inner circle should consist at a minimum of the US, UK, France, China, and Egypt. An outer circle group of countries and multilateral organizations (UN, AU, Arab League) should also be engaged in a formal manner to discourage spoilers, and other key nations such as Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa would need to be thoroughly consulted.
CPA implementation: The Assessment and Evaluation Commission established by the CPA is clearly insufficient to monitor and press the parties to implement the deal (largely because it lacks sufficiently senior representation and clear reporting guidelines). As a matter of international peace and security, CPA implementation should be at the forefront of the U.N. Security Council’s agenda and the Council should back a new ad-hoc mechanism to guide implementation. The Obama administration should quickly work with other Security Council members, relevant U.N. agencies, and the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, to establish core benchmarks for the parties, a clear timeline, and genuine penalties for failure to meet deadlines. An international meeting on CPA implementation could provide a vehicle for reenergizing efforts around the CPA and provide the launching pad for the creation of the ad-hoc implementation mechanism.
Chad/Sudan peace process: The Sudanese government continues to seek a military solution for Darfur through regime change in Chad, and Chad continues to back the JEM in response. The Obama administration should work with France and China to support high-level negotiations in Libya aimed at reducing state support for foreign armed groups and eventual normalization of relations.
Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement monitoring: Eastern Sudan remains volatile. The Obama administration should work with its international partners (particularly the UK and Norway) and with the Eritrean and Saudi governments to establish a monitoring group for the agreement that will report on implementation and make recommendations for improvements.

Building the necessary leverage

A serious peace process with credible mediation putting forward fair proposals will secure a deal for Darfur. A competent and higher level oversight mechanism with the involvement of countries with influence will ensure the implementation of the CPA. Having the right balance of meaningful pressures and incentives will ensure that prospects for success are much greater.

In broad strokes, the U.S. should present the Sudanese regime with a choice:

Behind Door One: if the Sudanese government permits unimpeded humanitarian access, removes the indicted president, and secures peace in Darfur and the South, a clear process toward normalization will be mapped out. Almost all of the incentives for Sudan come in the form of more normal relations with much of the world, the lifting of sanctions, a return to more normal patterns of trade and diplomacy, and the other benefits that would naturally flow from Sudan achieving stability as a result of more equitable power and wealth sharing.

Behind Door Two: if President Bashir and his party remain defiant by continuing to undermine efforts at peace for the country, a series of escalating costs will ensue, including diplomatic isolation, targeted economic sanctions, an effective and expanded arms embargo, and, if necessary to stop massive loss of civilian life, eventual targeted military action.

If the benefits of Door One and the consequences of Door Two are meaningful, the chance for peace in Sudan increases dramatically. The missing ingredients in efforts to date for Darfur and CPA implementation have been adequate leverage and lack of strategic vision for resolving comprehensively the country’s conflicts. Without real sticks and carrots, the warring parties in Sudan will remain focused on military confrontation. The international community needs to help change the incentive structure in Sudan from war to peace.

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 in response to 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. Any negotiating process must be guided by the reality that Khartoum has a long history of grabbing carrots, then failing to follow through on commitments.

On the pressures side, there seems to be an erroneous belief that there are no meaningful pressures left to use. In fact, a number of points of leverage are available. Until now, however, most sticks have been unilateral and have had limited effect on the regime’s calculations. Substantial and focused multilateral pressures have not been tried and should form the basis of the new administration’s strategy. Clearly, equally robust pressures and incentives should be developed and applied impartially to the rebel factions and SPLM to the degree to which their actions may warrant these measures.

I am happy to discuss the available pressures in greater detail in the Q and A.

The United States should now begin stronger and more sustained efforts to build a coalition for peace. But this effort will only be successful if we treat the situation in Sudan as a strategic priority, build the necessary leverage, and invest in the diplomacy critical to achieve an equitable and lasting solution.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify and I look forward to your questions.

Finishing the Fight Against the LRA

Pete Johnson — Mon, 11 May 2009 08:26:33 -0400

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

Finishing the Fight Against the LRA (Activist Brief)

Pete Johnson — Mon, 11 May 2009 10:33:19 -0400

Operation Lightning Thunder,_¹ the joint military operation against the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, did not succeed in its goal of ending the LRA threat. Instead, it sparked harsh reprisals by the LRA against civilians in northeastern Congo, the site of the LRA’s current atrocities in central Africa._² However, 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 for once and all. What is needed now is a second Ugandan-led operation against the LRA—with strong international backing and operational support.

Enough’s latest strategy paper argues that the United States should take the lead in supporting a new Ugandan-led military operation by providing solid planning, intelligence, coordination, and logistical support, as well as by taking greater responsibility for the execution and outcomes of the operation.

“The only way to finally bring an end to the LRA’s terror is by apprehending or otherwise removing those key LRA leaders responsible for ongoing atrocities, says Julia Spiegel, Enough’s Uganda-based LRA researcher and one of the paper’s co-authors.

TAKE ACTION: Elected officials must hear from their constituents in order to make addressing the crisis caused by the LRA a top priority. Call your Senator today by dialing the Capitol Hill switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Tell them to urge President Obama to help end the reign of terror of the LRA. You can also join Enough and our partners at Invisible Children and Resolve Uganda in participating in Lobby Days, June 22-23 in Washington, D.C. Click here for more information.

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.’ The Obama administration now has a responsibility and opportunity to help finish the job, which can be successfully accomplished through a combination of political pressure and operational support for a new Uganda-led initiative to eliminate the LRA with a top-down approach.

The hard lessons of ‘Lightning Thunder’:

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, the operation failed to apprehend or remove Joseph Kony and key LRA leaders, and has only exacerbated the threat against civilians. Though the LRA is largely dispersed and on the run, more than 1,000 people have been brutally murdered and nearly 250 children have been abducted since mid-December 2008.

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. 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, but much more is needed to successfully end the reign of the LRA instead of just causing setbacks.

What went wrong?
Although ‘Lightning Thunder’ did achieve some relative gains, several major shortcomings seriously hindered the operation’s effectiveness and must be addressed before a second military effort is undertaken. Poor operational planning, dysfunctional collaboration among the major players, and insufficient prioritization for the protection of civilians ultimately doomed the success of this operation.

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.’ Any future attempt must focus on prioritizing civilian protection, coordinating and streamlining the rescue of LRA abductees, and ensuring accountability for crimes against humanity.

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. Now is the time re-double and reinvigorate international and regional efforts to finally bring an end to the LRA’s devastating reign of death and destruction.

“Abandoning the mission to end the LRA now will have disastrous consequences for civilians through central Africa,” said paper co-author Noel Atama, an Enough researcher based in Congo. “Now is the time to re-double and reinvigorate international and regional efforts to finally bring an end to the LRA’s devastating reign of death and destruction.”

Endnotes

1 For more information on Operation Lightning Thunder, see Enough’s joint statement with Resolve Uganda, “No Excuses: The End of the Lord’s Resistance Army is in Sight.” return
2 For more than 20 years, the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, and its leader Joseph Kony have wreaked havoc on civilian communities across central Africa. What began in 1989 as a rebellion based in northern Uganda has morphed into a regional insurgency that now terrorizes civilians in southern Sudan, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic. Learn more about the LRA on Enough’s special page. return

Beyond Piracy: Next Steps to Stabilize Somalia

Pete Johnson — Thu, 07 May 2009 09:28:16 -0400

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.

President Obama and Sudan: A Blueprint for Peace

Pete Johnson — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:47:58 -0400

This is the third installation in a series of open letters to President Obama spelling out a practical roadmap to end the crisis in Sudan.

On March 30, key activists met with President Obama and his Special Envoy for Sudan, Major General Scott Gration, in the West Wing of the White House. President Obama made it clear that his administration would work vigorously to bring an end to the war in Darfur and help implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the North and South. After extensive consultations with members of President Obama’s team, UN officials, diplomats from other key countries, and Sudanese actors, this paper is an attempt to put forward a blueprint to achieve President Obama’s objective of a comprehensive peace for all of Sudan. The good news is that this is a goal shared widely throughout the international community. The key missing ingredient for its achievement is strategic leadership from the United States.

In this paper we lay out the structures we think are necessary to achieve peace in Darfur and implement it in the South, East, and transitional zones between the North and South, all areas of active or potential conflict. We also lay out a set of focused and meaningful sticks and carrots necessary to leverage the various parties to find a peaceful solution to the interlocking conflicts within Sudan and regionally.

In Darfur, the expulsion of key humanitarian aid groups and closure of Sudanese aid organizations have created increasingly precarious conditions for the 2.7 million internally displaced camp dwellers, although some arrangement to expedite the resumption of some aid operations appears to be pending. Brutal harassment of Sudanese human rights defenders has silenced internal voices of dissent. President Omar el-Bashir’s use of starvation as a weapon of war is an attempt to distract the world from the real issues of accountability in Darfur, the elections in Sudan early next year and the implementation of the CPA. The Government of Sudan should face clear costs from the international community for so blatantly abrogating its responsibility to protect its own population.

In the South, there is a mere one year and nine months left before the scheduled date for an independence referendum, and implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, is grinding to a halt on key benchmarks. Meanwhile, localized violence demonstrates both the South’s institutional fragility and vulnerability to traditional divide-and-conquer strategies directed from Khartoum. If left unchallenged, Bashir will continue to view efforts to foment violence, instability, and displacement in the South and Darfur as his most effective instruments of control. Bashir’s use of proxy militias (the Janjaweed in Darfur, the Murahaliin in North-South border areas, and other militias throughout the South) has served as an effective means for him to maintain power in Khartoum, but it has also unleashed the centrifugal forces that could violently rip Sudan apart.

President Obama must be firm in responding to the impending humanitarian crisis, promoting protection of civilians and accountability, and working toward a viable long-term peace that includes both Darfur and a reinvigorated CPA. If the expulsion of key groups from Darfur and elsewhere was suddenly lifted by Khartoum, the situation on the ground would improve greatly. But the essential dynamics of the situation would remain unacceptable — with no clear peace process for Darfur, the CPA fraying, UNAMID ineffective, civilians desperately vulnerable, and President Bashir still a wanted fugitive from international justice.

FORGING A MULTILATERAL PEACE STRATEGY

Here’s the opportunity: a global consensus exists for peace in Sudan, even if there is not agreement on the best path to achieve this goal. China, the Arab League, the African Union, the European Union, and the United States all want peace, but little has been done to build the necessary infrastructure to help bring it about. What has long been missing in Sudan is America’s strategic leadership. The rebels, the ruling party, Sudan’s neighbors, and other key actors have all been waiting for President Obama and his team to engage.

The CPA itself was reached after a sustained investment in diplomacy, led in part by the United States, supported by relevant regional and international powers, and backed by significant incentives and pressures. That hard-won agreement would not now be in jeopardy if the investment in diplomacy had been maintained and the international community had continued its pressure to ensure that the agreement was implemented. It is not too late for the United States to re-invest in ensuring that the outstanding issues preventing full implementation of the CPA are addressed, and the Obama administration must take these steps or watch the possible violent disintegration of Sudan and destabilization of the broader region over the next several years.

The Obama administration must lead in constructing a multilateral strategy for peace by establishing an inclusive peace process for Darfur, re-vitalizing implementation of the CPA and the dangerously neglected Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement, and ending Sudan’s proxy war with Chad. Toward that end, General Gration should focus on building a multilateral coalition of countries with significant leverage. At the same time as the processes are being constructed, the United States should work assiduously to create the necessary unilateral and multilateral carrots and sticks to press the parties in the direction of a peaceful and comprehensive settlement of Sudan’s multiple, interlocking conflicts. It is vital that the administration work closely with other key governments in dealing with Sudan; a reliance on bilateral diplomacy will provide Khartoum the opportunity to play one party off against the other, as it has historically done with great success.

Darfur peace process: The structure should be similar to the Naivasha talks that produced the CPA, and some of the ingredients are already in place. As did Kenyan General Lazaro Sumbeiywo with the Naivasha process, AU/UN mediator Djibril Bassolé should lead the Darfur process, which can be based in Doha, Qatar (although Qatar’s recent diplomatic support for Bashir in the wake of the ICC indictment has impaired its credibility as a facilitator of negotiations). He must be supported by a strong team of diplomats and regional experts and backed by a small group of countries with leverage, high-level support, and full-time representation at the talks. We believe that this inner circle should consist at a minimum of the US, UK, France, China, and Egypt. An outer circle group of countries and multilateral organizations (UN, AU, Arab League) should also be engaged in a formal manner to discourage spoilers, and other key nations such as Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa would need to be thoroughly consulted.
CPA implementation: The Assessment and Evaluation Commission established by the CPA is clearly insufficient to monitor and press the parties to implement the deal (largely because it lacks sufficiently senior representation and clear reporting guidelines). As a matter of international peace and security, CPA implementation should be at the forefront of the U.N. Security Council’s agenda and the Council should back a new ad-hoc mechanism to guide implementation. The Obama administration should quickly work with other Security Council members, relevant U.N. agencies, and the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, to establish core benchmarks for the parties, a clear timeline, and genuine penalties for failure to meet deadlines. An international meeting on CPA implementation could provide a vehicle for reenergizing efforts around the CPA and provide the launching pad for the creation of the ad-hoc implementation mechanism.
Chad/Sudan peace process: The Sudanese government continues to seek a military solution for Darfur through regime change in Chad, and Chad continues to back the JEM in response. The Obama administration should work with France and China to support high-level negotiations in Libya aimed at reducing state support for foreign armed groups and eventual normalization of relations.
Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement monitoring: Eastern Sudan remains volatile. The Obama administration should work with its international partners (particularly the UK and Norway) and with the Eritrean and Saudi governments to establish a monitoring group for the agreement that will report on implementation and make recommendations for improvements.

BUILDING THE NECESSARY LEVERAGE

In broad strokes, the U.S. should present the Sudanese regime with a choice:

Behind Door One: if the Sudanese government permits unimpeded humanitarian access, removes the indicted president, and secures peace in Darfur and the South, a clear process toward normalization will be mapped out. Almost all of the incentives for Sudan come in the form of more normal relations with much of the world, the lifting of sanctions, a return to more normal patterns of trade and diplomacy, and the other benefits that would naturally flow from Sudan achieving stability as a result of more equitable power and wealth sharing.

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 in response to 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. Any negotiating process must be guided by the reality that Khartoum has a long history of grabbing carrots, then failing to follow through on commitments.

On the pressures side, there seems to be an erroneous belief that there are no meaningful pressures left to use. We have spelled out a number of points of leverage that are available. That reflects our view that the Sudanese government responds much more directly to pressures than they do to incentives. Until now, most sticks have been unilateral and have had limited effect on the regime’s calculations. Substantial and focused multilateral pressures have not been tried and should form the basis of the new administration’s strategy. Clearly, equally robust pressures and incentives should be developed and applied impartially to the rebel factions and SPLM to the degree to which their actions may warrant these measures.

We believe leverage for peace in Sudan can best come from the following actions. Some of these initiatives should occur immediately to build leverage for negotiations, while others should be utilized only if the situation in Darfur deteriorates as a result of ruling party actions or intransigence.

IMMEDIATE POINTS OF LEVERAGE

Isolate Bashir: Although Bashir is experiencing a short-term surge in support from Arab and African governments in the aftermath of the arrest warrant, this will erode quickly in the face of longer term trends that include his use of starvation as a weapon, continuing support for Hamas, and Khartoum’s warmongering, which puts Chinese and Arab investments at risk. Private diplomacy can explore ending Bashir’s tenure and finally addressing the impunity that has reigned throughout his two decades in power. There are already telling signs that support for Bashir in key Arab and African states is more rhetorical than practical, with a number of senior leaders increasingly seeing him as a distinct liability. Bashir’s actions are making Sudan’s fragmentation more likely, not less, and that is an outcome that key players in the region should hope to avoid. Personal and direct diplomacy by President Obama will be crucial in shaping regional attitudes toward Bashir.
Reinforce the Government of Southern Sudan: The main deterrent to the resumption of war between the ruling party and the South is a strong GOSS. That requires investing in good governance, anti-corruption measures, agricultural production, and the modernization of the South’s army (the SPLA). This includes providing the air defense system that President Bush promised to the GOSS well over a year ago in order to neutralize the ruling party’s one military advantage: air superiority.
Support the elections and referendum: The national elections recently re-scheduled for 2010 and the 2011 referendum could trigger a return to war in the South if they are unilaterally undermined by the ruling National Congress Party. International support should be directed to holding fair and transparent processes that allow the Sudanese people to choose their leaders and decide their fate. Sudan’s multiple crises all stem from a failure to establish reasonable power-sharing mechanisms in this large and incredibly diverse country, and a great deal of attention needs to be put into ensuring that elections can be conducted in an environment of safety and security.
End simmering regional conflicts: Conflicts and rivalries throughout the broader region of East and Central Africa make it much harder to resolve Sudan’s internal wars. Multilateral efforts should focus chiefly on the simmering conflicts between Ethiopia and Eritrea, on ending the threat posed by the Lord’s Resistance Army, and on ending Chad’s destabilizing civil war.
Re-contextualize counter-terrorism cooperation: Khartoum has for years used its cooperation with the United States on counter-terrorism to deflect serious pressure over human rights and implementation of the CPA. Consistent with its stated policy, the Obama administration must make clear to the Sudanese government that cooperation on counter-terrorism is not a chit it can trade for U.S. compromises on human rights and peace efforts.
Secure the support of key diplomatic players: As stated above, some of Bashir’s staunchest supporters have new reasons to back away slowly from their despotic ally. If the CPA collapses and the North-South war resumes, China and Egypt would be among the biggest losers. Former southern rebel commanders indicate that if they are forced to go back to war, the first targets they will hit will be Chinese oil installations. And if they go back to war, some of the southerners will fight for independence this time, rather than their previous vision of unity, and previous divisions within southern communities would likely be stoked in a violent fashion by Khartoum. Egypt’s worst fears of a potentially hostile new state in the Nile Basin could be realized. These two countries, along with key African countries, Saudi Arabia and other Arab League states, should be engaged to become part of the solution in Darfur and the South. President Obama should also make clear to relevant nations that ending blind support for Bashir to the detriment of the peace process is a priority for his Administration and has the potential to affect bilateral relations with the U.S. if not addressed.
Military planning: Military planning should begin to develop ways to ensure delivery of humanitarian aid if the regime continues to deny aid as a weapon of war. It would be irresponsible not to prepare for worst case scenarios.

FUTURE STICKS IF THE SITUATION DETERIORATES

Strengthen multilateral, targeted economic pressures: President Obama should work through the U.N. Security Council to bring on board a larger collection of nations with targeted sanctions against those individuals and parties most responsible for violence in Sudan, whether they are government or rebel actors. If the Security Council fails to pass these broader sanctions, then the U.S. should build an international coalition to bring this pressure, working particularly with the European Union, individual European countries and Japan. Along with the ICC, these instruments can create much higher legal, financial, and political costs to those who are responsible for violence against civilians and preventing progress toward peace.
Expand the arms embargo: Given the Sudanese government’s continued attacks against civilians in Darfur and compelling evidence that weapons from other nations, including China, are finding their way to the frontlines, a comprehensive arms embargo on offensive weapons against the Bashir regime should be imposed by the U.N. Security Council. The embargo should include a robust international monitoring mechanism to ensure its effectiveness.
Protect civilians: UNAMID is failing to achieve its central goal of protecting the civilian population in the region, but the question of how to bolster UNAMID’s ability to protect civilians seems to have fallen off the international community’s radar screen in recent months. Much of this failure can be traced directly to the practice of giving the Sudanese government—the prime perpetrator of the genocide—a de facto veto over the mission’s composition and operations. This has to change. A robust force on the ground in Darfur with a competent lead nation, an experienced division-level headquarters staff, and a clear command-and-control structure is essential for saving lives, creating an environment amenable to the peace surge, and establishing the international credibility required to ensure that a broader peace strategy succeeds. Galvanizing the political will necessary to build this capacity could finally give UNAMID a chance to succeed in protecting civilians. The effort to fully staff the U.N. force in Darfur at 26,000 should be accompanied by a shift in the U.N. force’s mandate that would allow it to protect civilians who want to go home to their villages of origin, which should be the ultimate goal of our Darfur policy.
Effectively end offensive military flights: President Obama and other key members of the administration have taken a robust position in the past regarding the need to counter Sudan’s aerial attacks on civilians in Darfur, and have voiced support for enforcing a no-fly zone. Continued Sudanese aerial attacks in Darfur—there were over 40 last year—have rightly generated considerable attention, as has the expulsion of key relief agencies. The U.N. Security Council has demanded an end to offensive military flights several times, most recently in Resolution 1769, which authorized UNAMID. UNAMID has not enforced that demand. It is clear that the administration and the U.N. Security Council need to consider how best to counter these continuing aerial attacks.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: BUILDING THE COALITION FOR PEACE

President Obama and members of his administration have spoken passionately about their intention to act boldly to end the crisis in Darfur and promote international efforts toward a peaceful future in Sudan. Now they have the chance to do so at a crucial juncture in Sudan’s history.

But the United States can’t do it alone, and the Obama administration’s engagement and close coordination with other key governments is essential. Special Envoy Gration can lead U.S. efforts toward peace in Sudan, but he must recognize the need to work closely both with U.S. allies and with those leaders who continue to back Bashir following the ICC arrest warrant issuance.

President Obama should now begin stronger and more sustained efforts to build a coalition for peace. But this effort will only be successful if the President himself treats the situation in Sudan as a strategic priority, sets objectives for U.S. policy, builds the necessary leverage, and invests in the diplomacy necessary to achieve an equitable and lasting solution.

President Obama and Sudan: A Blueprint for Peace (Activist Brief)

Pete Johnson — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:35:15 -0400

From President Obama's appointment of a special envoy for Sudan to the expulsion of 16 aid groups from Darfur, the past several weeks have brought both welcome first steps and the development of a potential humanitarian disaster to the situation in Sudan. Many activists have grown understandably and increasingly frustrated given the seeming lack of urgency and relative silence from the Obama administration in addressing the looming humanitarian crisis in Darfur. As Enough has recently noted on our blog, we think a quiet approach by the Obama administration may make real sense if it is backed by genuine leverage and sustained pressure, but the clock continues to tick in camps, and the need for genuine and bold leadership from the White House has never been greater.

In this report, the third in a series of open letters to President Obama, the Enough Project and our partners at the Save Darfur Coalition and the Genocide Intervention Network lay out a detailed blueprint for achieving lasting peace in Sudan. If President Obama is firm in his response to the impending humanitarian crisis, promotes international justice, and works diligently toward a viable long-term peace that includes both Darfur and a reinvigorated Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, hope remains that peace in Sudan can be achieved. From our own meetings with Special Envoy Gration and key members of the Obama administration, we believe that this administration is willing and able to make the strong and sustained efforts necessary to build an international coalition for peace. However, these efforts will only be successful if the activist community takes action to ensure that the President himself treats the situation in Sudan as a strategic priority.

This is where you come in.

TAKE ACTION:

Visit http://action.savedarfur.org/campaign/jointletter_enough to send a letter to the White House supporting the policy recommendations outlined in the third open letter from the Enough Project, the Save Darfur Coalition, and the Genocide Intervention Network to President Obama spelling out a practical roadmap to end the crisis in Sudan.
Keep the pressure on the Obama administration by calling the White House at 1-800-GENOCIDE. Ask that Special Envoy Gration immediately get the staff and resources he needs to effectively carry out his work.
Contact the ombudsmen at major media outlets or write a letter to the editor of your local paper to ask why no questions have been asked about Sudan at the last two Presidential press conferences. For more information on media outreach, visit http://www.enoughproject.org/take_action/newspaper.

FORGING A MULTILATERAL PEACE STRATEGY
A clear global consensus exists for peace in Sudan, even if there is not agreement on the best path to achieve this goal. China, the Arab League, the African Union, the European Union, and the United States all want peace, but little has been done to build the necessary infrastructure to help bring it about. What has long been missing in Sudan is America’s strategic leadership. Learning from the successful lessons which brought about the CPA in Sudan, the Obama administration must lead in constructing a multilateral strategy for peace by establishing an inclusive peace process for Darfur, re-vitalizing implementation of the CPA and the dangerously neglected Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement, and ending Sudan’s proxy war with Chad.

BUILDING THE NECESSARY LEVERAGE
General Gration and the Obama administration must strike the right balance between incentives and pressures in order to lay the foundation for a political solution to the situation in Sudan. In broad strokes, the United States should present two options to the Government of Sudan:

Behind Door One: if the Sudanese government permits unimpeded humanitarian access, removes the indicted president, and secures peace in Darfur and the South, a clear process toward normalization will be mapped out. Almost all of the incentives for Sudan come in the form of more normal relations with much of the world: the lifting of sanctions, a return to more normal patterns of trade and diplomacy, and the other benefits that would naturally flow from Sudan achieving stability as a result of more equitable power-sharing.

If the benefits of Door One and the consequences of Door Two are meaningful, the chance for peace in Sudan increases dramatically. A menu of possible actions resulting in increased leverage over Sudan includes: isolating Bashir, strengthening crucial regional players, expanding economic sanctions and the arms embargo, effectively banning offensive military flights, and many more. The problem has never been about a lack of leverage, but rather the unwillingness to exert it.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: BUILDING THE COALITION FOR PEACE
President Obama and members of his administration have spoken passionately about their intention to act boldly to end the crisis in Darfur and promote international efforts toward a peaceful future in Sudan. If the President himself treats the situation in Sudan as a strategic priority, sets objectives for U.S. policy, builds the necessary leverage, and invests in the diplomacy necessary to achieve an equitable and lasting solution, the administration has the chance to work for peace at a crucial juncture in Sudan’s history.

As outlined in this letter, the opportunities exist to fundamentally change the history of Sudan and bring about an era of peace and stability to a region of the world that has far too long been rife with conflict. President Obama has the tools at hand, but the anti-genocide movement also has an important role to play in order to provide the political will needed to carry out the bold course of action required.

Take action today by sending a letter to President Obama asking for his urgent leadership to address the immediate humanitarian crisis in Darfur and to achieve long-term peace through a political solution for all of Sudan. Click here to take action by sending a letter to President Obama supporting the policy recommendations outlined in this third open letter, which maps out a practical blueprint for ending the crisis in Sudan. Continue to put pressure on President Obama by calling the White House by dialing 1-800-GENOCIDE to demand additional resources for the special envoy, and urging major press outlets to make sure that Sudan is represented and covered in the press.

A Comprehensive Approach to Congo's Conflict Minerals - Activist Brief

Pete Johnson — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:54:27 -0400

Demand for minerals that are key ingredients in consumer electronics products continues to fuel conflict and crimes against humanity in eastern Congo. In this latest paper from the Enough Project and our partner, the Grassroots Reconciliation Group, we describe the link between the violence in eastern Congo, the mining and trade of key minerals, and the electronics corporations that are the largest end-users of these natural resources. Building off of John Prendergast’s recent report, “Can You Hear Congo Now?,” this paper describes how a comprehensive approach must be taken to transform Congo’s mineral resources from a key source of funding curse for armed groups into an engine of empowerment for Congolese civilians who have been victims to the conflict and are dependent upon the meager livelihoods they earn in the mines.

The conflict minerals supply chain

The majority of violence in eastern Congo has been carried out in mineral-rich areas of the eastern provinces. 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. Largely beyond the authority of the Congolese government, armed groups who perpetrate violence against innocent civilians control these areas and directly profit from the trade in mineral ore. The four most profitable ores produce the metals tin, tantalum and tungsten—the 3T’s— and gold, which together generate as much as $183 million annually for armed groups. These armed groups force miners to work in desperate, dangerous conditions for an average of $1-$5 a day. Without alternative sources of income, these miners and their families remain virtually enslaved to armed groups and the conflict minerals trade.

Why are current efforts falling short?

So far, efforts to address this conflict by the international community, the Congolese government and Congo’s neighboring states have been largely reactive and incommensurate to the scale of the problem. The international community spends billions of dollars on elections and peacekeeping in Congo but continue to ignore the primary economic driver of the conflict. There has been no 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. The Congolese government lacks the capacity and political will to combat corruption and legitimize their mineral wealth, and Congo’s neighbors—including Rwanda and Uganda—have often encouraged continued instability in Congo because they also profit from the illicit trade. A renewed cooperative approach between Congo and its neighbors in establishing legitimate trading mechanisms could offer the best prospects of a long-term solution.

Toward a comprehensive strategy

The complexities surrounding this conflict prove that there is no silver bullet solution. However, if the international community and regional actors work in conjunction with the private sector to align their efforts around the common goal of a revitalized legitimate mineral trade in eastern Congo, long-term efforts could have major impact in resolving the conflict. There are four main components to a new strategy for such efforts:

Shining a light on the supply chain. Push electronics companies— the principal end-users of the 3T’s and gold—to change the way they practice business by working together with their suppliers to create a tracing system paired with credible monitoring of the system by independent third parties. This would provide a critical step towards demanding greater accountability for corporate behavior and transparency. With 80 percent of consumer electronics companies trading on U.S. stock markets, U.S.-based activists have some of the most powerful opportunities for leverage on this part of the supply chain.
Identifying and securing strategic mines. The United Nations should collaborate with the Congolese government identify key mining sites under the control of armed groups. Properly integrated Congolese security forces, supported by U.N. peacekeepers, should secure these sites and transit routes. This approach must be grounded in a more comprehensive and coherent effort to advance broad security sector reform in Congo.
Reforming governance. The international community should work hand in hand with the Congolese government to force the will and capacity to exercise control over mining and commerce in eastern Congo. With Congo sorely in need of international funds, there is an opportunity to press for not just commitments but demonstrable reforms to the regulation of mining, commerce, and taxation.
Supporting livelihoods and economic opportunities for miners. Impoverished Congolese miners and their families are dependent upon their meager incomes and have few viable economic alternatives. 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 legal reform, and investments in both infrastructure as well as alternative livelihoods such as agriculture and manufacturing. The sooner the illicit conflict minerals trade is eliminated; the sooner the people of Congo will actually enjoy the benefits from their own resources.

Congo’s conflict minerals problem is complex, but the roadmap to a solution exists. The four key parts of this strategy— a transparent supply chain, securing mine sites, improved governance of mining and trade, and improved livelihood options for miners— are all realistic policy goals. But efforts won’t succeed unless individual consumers in the United States and around the world step up and demand a change. 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.

Take action now:

Sign Raise HOPE for Congo’s Conflict Minerals Pledge: http://www.raisehopeforcongo.org/conflictminerals_pledge
Call the White House comment line at (202) 456-1111 and urge President Barack Obama to appoint a Special Envoy to the Great Lakes region.
Call the Capitol Hill switchboard at (202) 224-3121 to connect with your legislators’ offices and urge them to join the Congressional African Great Lakes Caucus.

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

Pete Johnson — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:06:19 -0400

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.

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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.