SUDAN PEOPLES' INITIATIVE - DAY TWO

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KHARTOUM 001549 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR AF A/S FRAZER, AF/SPG, SE WILLIAMSON, NSC FOR BPITTMAN AND CHUDSON E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/18/2018 TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL AU UN SU SUBJECT: SUDAN PEOPLES' INITIATIVE - DAY TWO REF: A. KHARTOUM 1532 ¶B. KHARTOUM 1530 ¶C. KHARTOUM 1520 Classified By: CDA Alberto M. Fernandez, reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) Summary: Embassy attendance at day two of the ongoing and unprecedented dialogue by a wide range of Sudanese stakeholders, as part of President Bashir's Sudan Peoples' Initiative (SPI),revealed a credible process covering the right issues and incorporating a wide range of voices, including many critics of the regime. But the meetings have yet to transcend anything more than a public gripe session and underlying tensions were not hard to find. The dialogue in the agricultural town of Kenana moved to formal working groups late on October 18 after almost two days of venting by several hundred Sudanese leaders, more than half of them from Darfur. End summary. ¶2. (SBU) On October 18, CDA Fernandez and the other P-5 ambassadors plus selected Arab League diplomats (ambassadors of Libya, Egypt, Qatar, and UAE) were invited by the Sudanese Office of the Presidency to travel to the sugar mill town of Kenana to observe the ongoing deliberations by a wide swath of Sudanese civil society as part of the Sudan People's Initiative (SPI) inaugurated by President Bashir on October 16 (reftels). The Kenana sessions began on October 17 as open-ended "brainstorming" or venting sessions by a range of Sudanese leaders invited to participate in coming up with practical solutions for the Darfur crisis. ¶3. (SBU) Upon the early morning arrival in Kenana, the diplomats were transported to a local guest house complex on the grounds of which two large tents were set up, one for eating and one for meeting. Breakfast introduced the heterogeneous and wide-ranging character of the gathering: 250-300 Sudanese leaders, about 60 percent from Darfur according to SLM official Muhammad Tijani, representing a multiplicity of views and agendas. Sudan's political leadership was represented by President Bashir, FVP Salva Kiir, VP Taha, Presidential Assistants Nafie Ali Nafie, Ghazi Salahuddin, and Bona Malwal, former PM Sadiq al-Mahdi, and former President Suwar al-Dahhab. ¶4. (SBU) Most of Sudan's political parties (with the exception of the Communist Party and Hassan al-Turabi's Popular Congress Party) attended with the SPLM represented by its Secretary General Pagan Amun (in addition to Kiir). Darfur representatives were heavily skewed towards Darfuri "native administration" (tribal and traditional noble leaders) and included such critics of the regime as the Fur Shura Council (usually seen as pro-Abdul Wahid Nur) and the elderly and virulently anti-regime Maqdoum of Nyala, Ahmed Adam Rajal. The representatives of Darfur's Arab tribes included notorious janjaweed commanders such as Musa Hilal and Juma Dagloo, but also present was former General Ibrahim Suleiman of the Darfur Civic Dialogue, the man who threw Hilal in prison in 2001 to try to stop the genocide (and who was cashiered in 2003 by President Bashir as North Darfur Governor as the violence began). The "senior-most" Darfuri was Senior Assistant to the President and SLM leader Minni Minnawi who only returned from a self-imposed internal exile in North Darfur on October 15. ¶5. (C) SLM official Muhammad Tijani and SPLM SG Pagan Amun gave CDA Fernandez some of the flavor of the previous day's proceedings. Tijani described the meeting as a "very good beginning" and noted that some of Darfur's tribal leaders had, behind closed-doors, laid into the National Congress Party (NCP) of President Bashir "as ultimately responsible for the Darfur crisis." Amun noted that Bashir had accepted the personal criticism but urged that the participants find solutions to the problem, not just complain. A jubilant Sadiq al-Mahdi crowed that the meetings represented a sea-change for the NCP which had spent five years excluding the political opposition, and even the SPLM, from the Darfur file. Tijani was less sanguine but noted that the presence of many "mild to moderate critics of the regime's Darfur policies" was better than he had hoped for. Abdul Muhammad of the UN's Darfur-Darfur Dialogue and Consultation (DDDC) also commented favorably on the "positive change in attitude" of the regime, "they invited people who they used to stop participating in our programs." He said that the authorities had promised full cooperation to DDDC holding workshops and meetings to elicit inputs from an even wider range of Darfuri civil society, including the all-important IDP (Internally Displaced Person) Camp population, the survivors of Darfur's killing fields (who were not directly represented) and KHARTOUM 00001549 002 OF 003 probably the regime's harshest critics of all. ¶6. (SBU) After breakfast, Bashir called the meeting to order, resuming the list of speakers from the previous day and urging that remarks be kept to 3-5 minutes per speaker. Imam Ahmed al-Mahdi (Sadiq al-Mahdi's uncle and the leader of a rival Umma Party splinter group) proceeded to launch into a 20 minute self-congratulatory speech about the town of Kenana, Sudan's tribes, and the original, 19th century Al-Mahdi, the upshot of which seemed to be "tribes can be a basis for the solution of Sudan's problems." He was followed by the Wali of West Darfur State, a former SLM-AW rebel, who mildly criticized the lack of implementation of past agreements by the Sudanese Government. ¶7. (SBU) Speaker followed speaker with empty verbiage and obsequiousness for Bashir mixed with some real insight. Sara Abdullah of Sadiq al-Mahdi's Umma noted that "the nature of the violence has changed since the conflict started, it is more confused, but more widespread." She noted that rebel groups have metastasized from two to 30, tribes and rebel groups turn on each other without regard to politics, the nature of IDP camps have also changed as they become more permanent and more lawless. She called for the SPI's committees to emphasized both reconciliation and justice, "you can't have one without the other." Abdullah added that the conflict has four dimensions: the rebels, the government, the people of Darfur and the international community and all have a role to play in solving the crisis. ¶8. (SBU) Another speaker highlighted the example of South Sudan under the SPLM as a model for Darfur as there is "true power-sharing and wealth-sharing going on there, unlike Darfur." The Fur Dimangawi (a Fur tribal title) of Zalingei said that this initiative was "a last opportunity for us to get our own house in order, if we don't it, will be done for us by others." If the SPI is credible, then the rebels will be eager to become a part of it. The stridently pro-regime Wali of South Darfur said that the heart of the problem of Darfur is one of development - lack of investment, the collapse of trade and agriculture, and unemployment - these are the factors now driving the conflict. He complained that Sudan's federal system needed to be overhauled to make it more responsive to local needs. A former Darfur governing council member next spoke and focused on the factors which have caused displacement and refugees. "Why do we keep holding reconciliation conferences, supposedly solving the problem, only to have the cycle of violence constantly repeated?" He blamed the lack of State support for development, reconciliation and "not fully paying blood money to compensate the victims" as key issues. After almost three hours of uninterrupted speechifying, the session broke up for lunch. ¶9. (C) Lunch with the participants was enlightening as, in a rare show of diplomatic cordiality, the diplomats were parceled out among the dignitaries. The UAE (dean of the diplomatic corps) and Qatari Ambassadors sat with Bashir while CDA Fernandez drew Minni Minnawi, West Darfur Governor Abu Gasim, and Presidential Advisor Ali Abdallah Masar, a former Umma politician from Darfur and one of the intellectual fathers of the janjaweed. It soon became abundantly clear that despite the open dialogue and supposed spirit of concord, Darfur's realities were very close to the surface as Minnawi, Masar and Abu Gasim sparred repeatedly with the two Darfuri Africans (Minni and Abu Gasim, Zaghawa and Fur, respectively) joining forces to bait Masar (who belongs to the Southern Rizeigat Arab tribe). When Masar noted that the two had come to power through the barrel of a gun, Minni grinned that "your master, Bashir, came to power through the barrel of a tank." ¶10. (C) CDA noted that it was a shame that such a conference could not have been held 3 or 5 years ago, Masar joked that 3-5 years ago, Minni and others "were little criminals, not like the important criminals of today who we have to pay attention to." Minni compared the 2006 DPA to the end of the Cold War, saying to Masar that "you should still reveal the catalog of all your crimes, plots and spies now that the war is over, just like the East Germans did after the fall of the Berlin Wall." When Minnawi advisor Muhammad Tijani joined the table, Masar scoffed that he represented the "soft Minnawi" while Minni's fighters in the field, supposedly involved in banditry and looting represent the true face of the former rebel movement. ¶11. (C) Minnawi subsequently was chosen to chair the SPI's Reconciliation Committee. He told CDA Fernandez on October 19 KHARTOUM 00001549 003 OF 003 that he would leave Kenana that day as he traveled back first to Khartoum and then El Fasher to see if the NCP had moved to fulfill its side of the September 19 El Fasher agreement to implement the DPA. While some decrees and appointments had taken place, the question of funding was still unresolved. He intended to return to Kenana and resume his chairmanship of the Reconciliation Committee in a few days. He expected that the conference would produce a statement of general principles to resolve the conflict, and a longer list of options, which then the regime would seek to shop to the international community and, especially, to rebel leaders Abdul Wahid Nur and Khalil Ibrahim to try to entice them to an international conference in Doha in November. ¶12. (C) Comment: The Sudanese Government deserves a little bit of credit for belatedly holding perhaps the most inclusive meeting yet convened on Darfur. This included the regime dropping previous fiercely-held objections to the involvement of other political parties, such as Umma and SPLM, in the business of Darfur. If indeed, IDPs are to be involved, without regime hindrance and harassment, in the process through DDDC, this is another positive sign. But to date, this Initiative is still about process not results and a long way from tangibly improving the situation on the ground in Darfur. If the SPI is actually a legitimate and sincere process (and the jury is still out on whether it is legitimate),the question remains whether it is "too little, too late." With the shadow of the ICC looming and the rebels fragmented (and pawns of neighboring Libya and Chad),it will take major early concessions by Khartoum to entice them to the negotiating table, even if the Sudanese regime is, at the 11th hour, sincere about resolving the crisis. After so many squalid years of duplicity and denial by Khartoum, the regime's sincerity will be hard to prove. End comment. FERNANDEZ