DARFUR CONFERENCE: ITALIAN INPUT

C O N F I D E N T I A L ROME 001125

SIPDIS


E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/20/2014
TAGS: PGOV PINS PREL PHUM NO SU UK CD IT
SUBJECT: DARFUR CONFERENCE: ITALIAN INPUT

REF: SECSTATE 58545

Classified By: POL M/C Tom Countryman for reasons
1.5 (b) and (d).


1. (C) MFA East Africa Office Director, Stafano Dejak
expressed great interest in the Darfur Conference. He
reported that the level of EU support was being discussed
and, although he could not speak for the EU, he was sure
that, at a minimum, the EU delegation would consist of the EU
representatives in Ndjamena (France) and Khartoum
(Netherlands). Dejak attributed the GOS's acceptance of the
humanitarian cease-fire negotiations to "intense
international pressure" and provided PolOff with a written
document outlining Italy's views on the Chad Conference.


2. (U) Text of the document prepared by Dejak follows
(paragraphs 3 to 14).


3. (C) The GoS acceptance of an international observation of
the cease-fire negotiations in Chad is a welcome outcome of
the intense international pressure. It is also helpful that
Minister Ismail seems not to rule out entirely an
international observation of the ensuing political process,
which the GoS still views as an all-Darfur conference.


4. (C) The mandate of the Chadian talks will need to be the
first topic on the table. Two aspects need to be clearly
distinguished in what is referred to as 'humanitarian
cease-fire', the military component and the humanitarian one.
One possible scenario is that the GoS might not be ready to
agree to an international military monitoring of the
cease-fire, alleging that insecurity is an internal
law-and-order issue but accepting in principle an OLS-type of
pattern for monitored humanitarian access. Likewise, the
Darfurian rebels, just like the SPLM/A in the past, might be
willing to accept a mechanism of jointly agreed humanitarian
access while not feeling in a position to commit themselves
to any military monitoring of a cease-fire, thinking that
military pressure is the only way of keeping the GoS to the
negotiating table. In either case, since the political and
military platform for the solution of the crisis is still
unclear, the only domain where the international community
has an uncontested mandate is the humanitarian one. Every
effort should be focused on securing in the first few days of
discussion a transparent and reliable mechanism for
internationally monitored access into Darfur, including
rebel-held territory and including from Chad. It remains to
be seen whether a mechanism owned by the two parties might be
more palatable to them than an externally-imposed one, like
the JMC or the VMT.


5. (C) Lessons learnt from OLS by the international community
should obviously be incorporated into the background support
that US and EU are willing to provide. It will be important
to make sure that all parts of Darfur be accessibile from
wherever it is safest to access them, that no area be left
behind, that any repatriation from Chad or from inside Sudan
be strictly voluntary, that encampment be avoided as far as
possible and that any food assistance be provided to village
communities, rather than to displaced camps. A
peace-camp-like, or garrison-town-like scenario, as has long
been the case in the South, should be averted as much as
possible as it would actually play, at this early stage, into
the scorched-earth policy of the Janjaweed militias. UN
presence at experts' level might be regarded as productive.


6. (C) The ideal outcome for the negotiations would be that a
fully-fledged cessation of hostilities can be brokered in
N'Djamena. However, another possible scenario of the Chadian
talks would be for the parties to agree on humanitarian
access and then talk down the next steps forward, the GoS
being likely to ask for a complete standstill and disarmament
as a pre-condition for inviting rebels to the all-Darfur
conference and the rebels refusing it, and also presumably
refusing a conference in Khartoum to start with.


7. (C) As to the All-Darfur conference, its real character is
worth recalling at this stage. It is little more than a PR
exercise that could merely end up in the buy-off of some
Darfurian politicians. The very fact that the GoS is sticking
to Khartoum as its venue tends to show that there is an
attempt to cut the rebels off their opposition constituencies
in exile outside Sudan, while the many covert sympathisers
living in Khartoum or even holding political positions would

be exposed by the rebellion. Furthermore, it seems quite
likely that the SLM/A and SFDA only, not the JEM, would be
invited to the conference. There is no reason for the
international community to openly disavow the All-Darfur
conference, but there are very few reasons as yet to support
it either. What the international community may want to do is
just waiting for this PR exercise to follow its course, to
take stock of who is co-optable by the GoS under these
conditions (likely to be very few) and then to urge the GoS
to do the remaining work with the many Darfurian stakeholders
that will remain outside the process.


8. (C) On the other side, the SLM/A is also quite likely to
be under the guidance of the SPLM/A, looking for
intra-Sudanese ways of dealing with the crisis. This accounts
for their successful application to the NDA, to which the
SFDA was already a party whereas the JEM (and the PCP) is
not. The SLM/A might want to counter the GoS proposal for a
Khartoum-based Darfur conference with a proposal to extend
the power-sharing negotiations of the GoS with the SPLM/A at
Naivasha to the whole NDA - thereby supporting a request made
by the SPLM/A itself. A political deadlock would ensue, which
would endanger both the Darfurian process and the Naivasha
talks.


9. (C) To avoid this, the international community would need
to insist on the need to wrap up the Naivasha talks as soon
as feasible and to urge the GoS to take the resulting
opportunity for the opening-up of the political dynamics
inside Sudan and the inclusion of the Darfurian rebel parties
in this wider process. From this perspective, the Naivasha
talks and the Darfur crisis are not at all colliding, but
rather complementing each other. Sustained pressure is still
crucial on the GoS (and the SPLM/A) for a quick breakthrough
at Naivasha. In the meantime, it is important for the
international community to abstain from recommending, or
endorsing, separate political processes in Darfur unless they
clearly turn out to be agreeable to all stakeholders within
Darfur. This would get us as close as possible to the ideal,
though unsustainable, scenario for the international
community, which would be to just freeze the Darfur conflict
and to come back to it as soon as an agreement is reached
between the GoS and the SPLM/A.


10. (C) It is easy to overstate the role of inter-community
reconciliation and traditional conflict-resolution
mechanisms. It is the very collapse of these mechanisms due
to unchecked flow of weapons, climate changes and political,
mainly GoS-instigated, tinkering with the intertribal balance
in Darfur that has sparked off the present crisis. What is
needed in Darfur is to restore the confidence of the
population in the government as a neutral entity, rather than
a faction among others. Accordingly, NGO-led grassroots
processes are too fragile a tool, especially as bloodshed
continues unabated. If at all useful in the road-map for a
solution of the Darfur crisis, the initiation of
inter-community reconciliation should be subordinate to the
successful completion not so much of the constitutional
review process as of the power-sharing debates between the
different stakeholders and the retrieval of fresh national
consensus and unity of purpose within Sudan. It is also
subordinate to a satisfactory solution of the Janjaweed
problem, therefore to a detailed political blueprint for
disarmament, demobilisation and re-integration of combatants.
The only priority would be to start a feasibility study for
DDR, and for it to be successful, low-key consultations with
stakeholders are appropriate.


11. (C) About the all-inclusive delegations. We may want to
try and avoid mixing together military and political
delegates. The more so as politicians and military have
different interests in Darfur. They may not even have met
before N'Djamena. Encouraging political participation at this
early stage opens the door to the manipulation of the
humanitarian process by external agendas.


12. (C) That the parties are prepared to talk military
issues, including a rough breakdown of forces and the order
of battle: we neever quite managed to obtain them from the
GoS and the SPLM/A in two and a half years, how do we expect
the opposition in Darfur to be persuaded in two days to
provide this data? On the other hand, the GoS may not be able
at all to provide information about tribal militias, how many
are there, where are they, which weapons they have etc. The

main difficulties in controlling the militia are their
unresponsiveness to pre-determined military strategies as
well as the erratic, unpredictable character of their raids.


13. (C) About the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue: it would
be a good option. On the other hand, it would be useful to
keep in mind that the professional experience in negotiationg
and monitoring humanitarian cease-fires is one of the
specific areas of professionality of the United Nations.


14. (C) I also wish to stress that pressure should be brought
to bear on the GoS to agree to a small humanitarian corridor
from outside Sudan (perhaps Abch?) There is no intention to
replicate the mixed experience with Lokichoggio in Kenya, but
since the GoS itself admits not being in a position to
control the Janjaweed, it is only fair to say that it does
not seem realistic to distribute aid to opposition-controlled
areas except by air and from Chad, once we manage to limit
the effect that such an option may have on engrossing
influxes of refugees from Darfur into Chad.
MINIMIZE CONSIDERED
SEMBLER


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2004ROME01125 - Classification: CONFIDENTIAL