Foreign Affairs Committee on May 28th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Good afternoon, my dear colleagues.

Good afternoon. This is a special meeting at a special time for our committee. It's an informal meeting held at the convenience of our guest witness, who was available only to us today, and we're very glad that she was available.

Some our members have had previous commitments with the change in day, but there will be a few more joining us a little later on.

We have as a witness today, Fabienne Hara, who is the vice-president of the International Crisis Group.

We thank you for making the time to present us with your information. As you know, Madam, our committee is reviewing the key elements of Canada's foreign policy, and we're also conducting hearings on the Great Lakes region of Africa, so we look forward to your comments today. I recognize that there will be a briefing on the situation in Sudan to our committee.

After that, we'll also have some time for questions and answers, if that would be all right.

We look forward to your comments.

[Fabienne Hara, Vice-President, Multilateral Affairs, International Crisis Group]

Thank you very much, and good afternoon.

My name is Fabienne Hara. I am the vice-president for multilateral affairs of the International Crisis Group. I am based in New York.

I am sure you are familiar with the International Crisis Group. It's an organization focusing on conflict prevention and conflict resolution, covering more than 62 conflicts on the five continents.

We have been covering Sudan for six or seven years now. I was the acting political director of the UN Mission in Sudan in 2006 and 2007. I will speak to you also in that former capacity.

The situation in Sudan is not very stable. Right now there is no real prospect of peace in Darfur. You may have seen recent fighting at the border with Chad and Sudan between Chadian opposition groups and the Chadian army on the one hand, and between Darfur rebel groups and the Government of Sudan on the other. There is of course a lot of debate and polarization over the ICC indictment of President al-Bashir of Sudan.

There has also been a multiplication of tribal security incidents in southern Sudan in the last couple of months. And overall there is no real enthusiasm for the political process that was created by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed by the north and the south in 2005. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement includes a program of reforms, including national elections that are now scheduled for February 2010, and a referendum on the self-determination of southern Sudan, which is scheduled for 2011.

The ICC indictment has of course been welcomed by many in the NGO community, including the International Crisis Group, but it has also brought a certain degree of uncertainty to Sudan politics. With the ICC indictment, with the issue of elections approaching very soon, and with the referendum coming in two years, there is even more uncertainty. In fact, there is a risk of serious destabilization of the whole country or the whole region.

I would also say, as an introductory remark, that the international community has a lot of introspection to do. The three peacekeeping missions dealing with Sudan and Chad: UNMIS in the south, UNAMID in Darfur, and MINURCAT in Chad have been established without proper linkages to political processes. With the exception of the mission in the south, UNMIS, which is supposed to assist with the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, UNAMID and MINURCAT are both missions without political processes or a political framework and therefore no exit strategies at this stage.

I would like to make a few comments about Darfur, the aftermath of the ICC indictment, the expulsion of the 13 international humanitarian organizations, and then a few comments also about the north-south process.

In Darfur, the NGO expulsion has of course affected the livelihood of 1.1 million people. It has also of course affected the planning of the humanitarian operation for the near future, especially now that the rainy season is coming. It was obviously a political response from the government in Khartoum to the ICC indictment. In fact, when John Holmes, the UN humanitarian coordinator, went to Sudan recently he was told that this was a mild response to the ICC indictment. The response, in other words, could have been much worse. It could have involved kicking out diplomats or UN peacekeeping missions, but instead the government decided to go for the expulsion of NGOs.

It has of course created a very hostile security environment for humanitarian organizations. The environment has been hostile for many years. As you know, NGOs have been harassed, UNAMID has been attacked, and there have been many security incidents in the last few months against both the UN and NGOs. And it has also created tensions in the IDP camps. As you know, 2.7 million displaced people are in the camps in Darfur.

The government in Khartoum has also mobilized the international community, the region, against the ICC, to a certain extent successfully, but to a certain extent it has failed to do so, in particular because the expulsion of the NGOs was seen as a mistake by many of the allies of Sudan, including the Arab League and the African Union.

Now what are the prospects for peace in Darfur? I referred to the recent fighting at the border between Sudan and Chad. It is a proxy war. In fact, there has been a proxy war between Sudan and Chad for the last six years, with Chad supporting the Darfur rebels and Sudan supporting the Chadian rebels. This shows no sign of appeasement.

There is also more fighting and military buildup, in fact, on the side of JEM, one of the key Darfur rebel movements, which has recently attacked the Sudanese armed forces in north Darfur. The Sudanese armed forces have retaliated. So there is a lot of violence going on.

Yesterday there was a resumption of the peace talks in Doha, Qatar, between JEM and the Government of Sudan. But in this context, it's difficult to see where the peace talks will go.

It's also important to understand that the aim of such a process is essentially cessation of hostilities or ceasefire, but not exactly an inclusive political process to resolve the situation in Darfur. In fact, there's very little confidence among experts, observers of the situation in Sudan, that this process could lead to an inclusive and sustainable peace in Darfur, in part because JEM represents a certain military capacity but doesn't really represent the Darfuris, and certainly not the 2.7 million IDPs in camps.

So the question then is, what will bring peace to Darfur? This is a question that I believe is now on the table in Washington and elsewhere. The new special envoy for Sudan, Scott Gration, appointed by President Obama, is now, as we speak, looking at an all-Sudan strategy that would include Darfur and the north-south.

On the north-south peace agreement, called the CPA, there are a number of really important questions that I would like to raise today. Of course, there's a lot of political work that has not been done. If we look at the timeframe, the calendar of the CPA, with elections next year and the referendum on self-determination in 2011, some of the important steps that were supposed to be taken have not been taken.

One is, briefly put, the implementation of new laws that would allow democratic freedom. These laws have not been passed. Therefore, the environment for elections will not necessarily be as free and fair as we would have wished.

Secondly, there is a demarcation of the border between the north and the south, a process that is necessary to complete before the elections. That process has not been completed. The status of the three transitional areas at the border between the north and the south—Abyei, southern Kordofan, and Blue Nile—have not been determined.

Finally, and importantly, wealth-sharing arrangements have not been found. When I talk about wealth-sharing arrangements, I talk about oil and water. Oil is in the south in Sudan, but the pipeline exporting that oil is in the north. There is strong economic interdependence between the north and the south. It's the same with water. The Nile flows from the south through the north. There will have to be an arrangement between the north and the south, but also with other countries of the Nile, what we call the Nile countries, about the sharing of the waters.

We have elections coming next year, but we in the International Crisis Group are very concerned about the prospect of elections in this context, in this environment. Let me raise four or five points of concern.

Before I do that, I should say, of course, that elections are part of the CPA. They are a milestone of the CPA. They were supposed to happen in the middle of the interim period, which was six years, and they were supposed to be a rehearsal for the referendum on self-determination. Of course, not having elections would risk derailing the CPA, but to have them is also a problem in the current context.

First of all, the census results, and the census process that's been conducted recently, have been challenged quite significantly. The southerners, in particular, believe that the count of the southern population is not accurate, that it underrepresents the southerners.

The other important question related to the census is who will vote in these elections. Some of the populations in the south, some southerners in the north, some people in the transitional areas at the border between the north and south, and, more importantly, most of the Darfuris have not been counted in the census. So there is a very great risk that large chunks of the population may not vote.

Of course, if you look at the situation in Darfur and the current setup of the camps, the fact that more than a third of the population is in camps and that two-thirds of the population need food assistance from the UN, it's extremely difficult to imagine elections taking place in this environment.

So who will vote in this election is one question.

What this election will achieve is another big question. Certainly in the current context, where the National Congress Party controls all the instruments of power in the north, and the SPLM controls most of the instruments of power in the south, it's very unlikely that these elections will bring democratic transformation. It's more likely that they will confirm the status quo.

But if some important stakeholders, such as the Darfuris, or perhaps even the opposition parties in the north, don't agree with the elections, then it means they will just be partial elections. Therefore, the legitimacy coming out of these elections will not be as much as....

There is also a risk of violence, especially in the south. I've said before that there are lots of tribal incidents these days. The elections could be very divisive in the context of serious ethnic tensions.

Finally, will President al-Bashir run in the elections? That's an open question at this stage. At this stage, he is the candidate for the National Congress Party, but he's also an ICC indictee. He has not been tried; therefore nothing can prevent him from running. But it's a question, I think, that we as an international community have to ask ourselves. Should we support the process that would lead to the legitimization of an ICC indictee? There is very little chance that if the NCP organizes the elections, the Government of Sudan will lose them.

So the big question for us now is who will be responsible for doing the political evaluation. Will the Secretary-General of the United Nations go to the Security Council and ask, will these elections happen in a context that is favourable, and should we or should we not support this process? The UN, as some of you may know, has been asked to support the process.

These are the few comments I wanted to make on Darfur and on the north-south issues.

To conclude, I would just say that I think the big question we all have in front of us right now—and I'm glad to see the new special envoy from the U.S. government is trying to address the same question—is how do you connect the pieces? How do you connect Darfur to the national reform program included in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement? Is it possible to connect the two? If there is a peace process in Darfur a year before elections, is it worth it for the Darfuris? Do the elections, in other words, close the door to power-sharing negotiations with the Darfuris? If indeed we insist on power sharing and an inclusive peace process for Darfur, should we postpone the elections, on the other hand?

Anyway, I'm just trying to say that one process will impact the other and that we need to think through what an all-Sudan strategy, a national strategy, would look like. If we don't, it means that the two tracks will continue separately, that there will be a north-south track, and that Darfur will be left without a solution. It could be so for quite some time.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Ms. Hara.

We'll move into the first round.

Mr. Pearson, for seven minutes.

[Glen Pearson, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Ms. Hara, thank you very much for coming. I've been anxious to get an update on the situation there.

As far as south Sudan itself goes, I realize that there has been an awful lot of tribal tension occurring in the last year. I also realize that Salva Kiir is trying to keep a lid on that, because he wants to run for the presidency, with an al-Bashir who's kind of stained as a result of the ICC.

I'm also aware that so much emphasis has been placed on Juba, Rumbek, the development, and so on and so forth, that up in the border areas, which were really the regions hardest hit during the civil war, very little development is taking place. Much of the CPA money never went up there. As far as a lot of the people there go, they hardly even know that Juba exists. Even the civil society leaders who were supposed to come up there don't want to go that far into the north. So what you have there are a number of people, right at the border region, who have just been at war recently, without really much in the way of administrative control, help, or standards.

I wanted to ask you about another thing, as well. I'm also aware that the SPLA was bringing all sorts of IDPs out of south Darfur into north Darfur, especially in the rural east area, the Twic County area, for the census. I understand the reasoning for that, but the problem is that there were not the social services and things like that necessary to house some of these people. I know that in one area there are 130,000 of these people who are settling in, and they've overrun what is available.

I realize that people want to talk about the referendum and the elections that are coming up, but it seems to me it's imploding, kind of on the inside, across regions, across tribes, and even between peoples like the Dinka and Nuer. Is it your sense that we're not paying enough attention to that? As we spend our time focusing on Darfur and the ICC, is the very thing we thought had come together as a result of the CPA now all breaking apart at the seams?

[Fabienne Hara]

Thank you very much for your question. It's a very pertinent question.

I would say two things. First of all, the CPA, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, is a recipe to end the war between the north and the south, but it never focused on the south. The south, as we know, has very few institutions. There is no state structure to talk about. So the CPA is definitely not the road map to do state-building in south Sudan. Yet this is exactly what's needed. So the next step should be--in fact, it should start now--to look at south Sudan and try to consolidate institutions in south Sudan. Consolidate the army, consolidate the police, and consolidate the rule of law, and try to establish an authority in Juba that reaches out to the various regions and decentralizes the little power it has.

There is already a plan for decentralization in the south, but it needs to go further. There's no question about that. But it's all being done in a very, very difficult, intense environment. As you know, the SPLM/SPLA has been a guerrilla movement for more than 20 years, and they have to face a number of challenges at the same time. One is to build a state in south Sudan. Another is to transform into a political party. And the third is to resist Khartoum's attempt to destabilize the CPA and to destabilize the south. The international committee has also put a fourth task on their shoulders, which is to help resolve the Darfur process.

It's a lot for one government. It's a lot for one new government. Very few people within the SPLM have government experience. I've witnessed that myself. Many, many of the officers actually are illiterate, and they have been absorbed into the administration. It doesn't make the administration particularly efficient.

The other thing I wanted to say is that I think you made a very good point about too much attention being focused on Darfur and not enough on the south. Even when I was at the UN, the message I was really trying to convey to my counterparts in New York was that more political capital and more political investment has to be put into the north-south, because the north-south peace process is the bedrock of peace. It's the only agreement that is holding in Sudan. It's holding Sudan together. If that collapses, they will be returned to war, and the return to war has cost in the last few years in the south as many lives as in Darfur. It has been extremely violent. It will be extremely violent.

You see Sudan now; it's holding together. The ceasefire is by and large maintained. Darfur is allowed to drift away. If the north-south process collapses, there will be no Sudan to talk about. As a UN official said to me recently, Somalia will be like a piece of cake compared to Sudan if Sudan implodes.

[Glen Pearson, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

I still have some time, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You do, sir.

[Glen Pearson, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

What's of interest to me is that when the CPA was signed there was a strong feeling up in the border regions, which is where a lot of the strife had taken place, that this was kind of the solution that was going to apply to them. They were hearing about oil revenues coming in their direction, teachers, schools being built, and so forth. And I know that many of the CPA donors from the western countries also helped to add to some of that illusion.

What you have now is that the people who are far away regionally, up in the border areas, are looking down at the south and seeing all the development that's happening in Juba, Rumbek, and the other places that I've talked about, and they are now growing resentful of the CPA because it didn't deliver. But they're not only resentful of that, they're resentful of their leadership for not delivering. They're also quite resentful of the fact that Salva Kiir spends a lot of his time in Khartoum. That bothers them as well.

I'm still trying to get an answer to that side of it. It seems to me that regardless of what happens about Darfur, the division in south Sudan between north-south Sudan and the southern part of south Sudan—I'm not including the other regions—is now becoming more and more frayed as the people are not getting their services.

I understand what you're saying, that CPA was never really designed in many ways for that, but they were led to believe that was the case, which is why they supported the CPA in those northern regions. Do you have a view on that?

[Fabienne Hara]

I think people supported the CPA for one very simple reason, which was that it would lead to self-determination. Southerners are very much attached to the idea of self-determination, and I think that's the only thing they saw in the CPA. After six years they would have their referendum and they would be free from the northern domination. That's what I think 99% of the southern Sudanese feel.

But you're absolutely right. There is a problem of distribution of income within south Sudan, and there's also a problem of perceived equality and fairness from the Juba government, and there's also an ethnic dimension to it, of course. The SPLM/SPLA is very much seen as Dinka-dominated, dominated by one of the major ethnic groups in south Sudan.

But there are a great many ethnic groups in south Sudan. The big ones and the small ones actually are very resentful of the Dinka rule, which is also another consideration for the election in fact, and this one is more pro-election than anything else. If the SPLM cancels the election or postpones the election or is seen as the party postponing the election, many of the communities in south Sudan will actually see it as a way of consolidating Dinka rule. So they have to, to a certain extent, be seen as going through the motions of an election to be seen as open to challenge, essentially.

The question you ask is very important for all of us. We've just had the same debate on the Congo very recently. How do you build a state in a place like south Sudan? This is perhaps something that should be discussed with the authorities of south Sudan.

We are all focused on 2011. What happens the day after? Even if they get their independence, what happens the morning after the referendum? So far, there's been extremely little debate about this. And perhaps this is something that we, even us as the Crisis Group, should think about.

[Glen Pearson, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Hara.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Pearson. We certainly recognize the interest you have in that area. Thanks for those questions.

Madame Deschamps.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you very much for your information, Ms. Hara.

We may be getting ahead of ourselves. You mention 2011, although a number of things still need to be done. You said that an election in 2010 and a referendum in 2011 have created a climate of uncertainty. In addition, the indictment issued by the International Criminal Court against the president of Sudan has poured more oil on the fire.

You also say that, in the last year, the climate of insecurity, even violence, has become stronger and broader. More humanitarian groups working on the ground have had to be withdrawn. The situation is not a very happy one. You also tell us that there is still a lot to be done politically. The agenda is full and there is a lot of uncertainty.

Canada has just put Sudan back on the list of priority countries. In the short term, amounts of money are probably going to be sent, but how are they going to get into the country? How can they be used to set up projects that have a chance of producing quick results, given that the NGOs are not in place? How can we get those people back there and guarantee their safety?

[Fabienne Hara]

In the case of Darfur, some negotiations have already been held by the American special envoy, and by John Holmes, with a view to restoring some level of humanitarian assistance and to filling the gaps left by the departure of the 13 international NGOs.

As well, there have been negotiations with the Sudanese government for an assessment to be done jointly by the government and the United Nations. For one thing, these two parallel negotiations have produced a monitoring system that will be at a very high level with the oversight committee that the new agreement has established. That has also produced an agreement for some humanitarian organizations to return. They will not necessarily be the same as the ones that left, or possibly they will be the same, but with different logos. For example, if Oxfam was expelled, it may not be Oxfam GB that will go back, but perhaps Oxfam Spain may be accepted and welcomed.

There is a little progress on that front. Now we shall see what actually happens. We cannot know exactly how the government will react. It is certain that humanitarian assistance, aid for victims of the war, has served political ends. In particular, I would say that the issue was blown out of proportion because the Obama administration was just taking office and it became the starting point for negotiations on other more political and more serious matters such as the indictment against President al-Bashir. It was not exclusively that, but that was part of it.

The first stage of the negotiations will be the longest one. The big question today is where they will lead. Will we or will we not have, as I said earlier, a national strategy for all Sudan, bringing together humanitarian, political and security concerns – peacekeeping and politics, in particular – and Darfur, the east of the country and South Darfur into the same national strategy?

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

You are an expert in conflict prevention and resolution. What is your message to the Canadian government about its priority for rapid action? You talked about investment, but that can take many forms.

[Fabienne Hara]

The priority must be political investment, meaning that we must demand that the international response to the crisis in Sudan be strategic. As we said earlier, we must have a political strategy with clear objectives, which has absolutely not been the case up to now. Our response has been to the current situation, especially in Darfur. We have responded significantly to questions of human rights, but we have no political strategy for Sudan as a whole.

The first issue is to know what we want from this government. As we said earlier, the conflict between north and south needs more attention than Darfur. The north-south conflict is really the crux of the issue. Canada has to exert more pressure on the governments in Khartoum and Southern Sudan at the Security Council so that the process stays on track and so that the political work is done before 2010 or 2011.

The next issue is that, in terms of peacekeeping, the three missions presently in the area really have no political mandate, no operational mandate and no coordination mechanisms. For example, there is almost no coordination between the mission in Chad and the one in Darfur, and that is really quite curious.

One of the questions that could be raised might be for the Security Council to demand a joint report from the two missions on the situations in the east of Chad and in Darfur and a joint report on Sudan in general.

At the moment, the way in which problems are being handled is extremely fragmented.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

It is certainly peculiar, given that the two missions are working in parallel, that there has been no international request for reports that could provide an assessment of how they are working together. That is peculiar.

[Fabienne Hara]

It is a symptom of the problem.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Do I have any time left, Mr. Chair? Can I go on all day?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Go ahead. In about 22 seconds.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you very much. Do you have anything quick to add?

[Fabienne Hara]

Discussions on a strategy are going on.

There is a strategy being discussed right now between the U.S., the Chinese, the French, the U.K., the Arab League, the African Union, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. I don't think Canada participates officially, formally, but this is the time to influence the process. It will be too late in a couple of weeks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Lunney and Mr. Abbott will be splitting their time.

Go ahead, Mr. Lunney.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I'm just looking at the numbers here. We know that the UNAMID forces--the 7,400 forces, I gather--that were over there were not overly effective. I gather they're under agreement to ramp up supposedly to 26,000, but they're only partway through achieving that ramp-up, with maybe 15,000 forces there. They don't seem to be significantly better organized at this stage.

As my first question, are you aware of whether the increased forces are making any difference at this juncture?

My second question is on behalf of the people in those camps who are very vulnerable to those Janjaweed forces and so on. I guess AMID used to withdraw to their bases at night, leaving people unprotected during the night. Is that still the case in Sudan?

I have a third question before I turn it over to my colleague. In the February 2009 justice and equality movement, one of the rebel groups signed a declaration of intent, I gather, with the Sudanese government. I wondered whether, to your knowledge, this agreement was a positive sign. Were there any signs of encouragement that this was reducing the conflict in the area, or had hopes of contributing to more stability?

[Fabienne Hara]

Thank you very much.

Your first question was about UNAMID. About 13,000 peacekeepers have been deployed, out of about 20,000. They still lack very critical equipment. For instance, there has been this debate about helicopters being sent to UNAMID to make it an effective protection force. They need to be mobile, highly mobile, and to be highly mobile they need helicopters. Yet for the last few years they've been asking for helicopters and no countries have come forward. Recently Ethiopia has volunteered a few helicopters, but it's nowhere near enough. So that's from the protection point of view.

Are they making a difference? According to the last report of the Secretary-General on UNAMID, they are doing what they can to protect the IDPs. They have a very strong mandate, but they're also under attack themselves. There's a multiplication of armed groups in Darfur. Patrols of UNAMID have been attacked many times. The number of incidents in recent months has been unbelievable. Compounds of NGOs, compounds of the UN, have been looted or burned. Humanitarian workers have been kidnapped.

So it's a very insecure environment for both the UN mission and the humanitarian actors. Unfortunately, this is the result of fragmentation in Darfur, the multiplication of armed groups, and also political agendas, obviously. But it's not only the political agenda from the Government of Sudan; there's also a lot of banditry, a lot of criminal activity. As I said earlier, without the political process, there will be no prospect for an exit strategy, and the difference they can make on the ground will be only marginal.

On the agreement with JEM in February 2009, yes, it was called a goodwill agreement. The agreement was essentially about an exchange of prisoners of war. But after the 4th of March, when President al-Bashir was indicted by the ICC, the Government of Sudan expelled 13 organizations and JEM suspended negotiation. They just resumed yesterday, officially, but as I said at the very beginning of the meeting, there's been a lot of fighting in north Darfur. JEM has attacked and taken possession--although this is challenged by government spokesmen--of one of the cities in north Darfur.

In this environment, it's unlikely that the peace talks will go anywhere soon. They may eventually, but not immediately.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Abbott.