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Darfur Crisis

I am glad to join in this debate, and I thank the Government for bringing this subject before the House. Not only do Members of Parliament have a great interest in this issue, but the British public are increasingly taking an interest, too. The public are rightly preoccupied with issues such as that campaigned for by Make Poverty History and with trade, aid and debt, but Darfur is now coming on to the radar screen. We as MPs will need to account to them for what is happening, as well as reflecting their interest in this debate. We are at a tense and fragile moment for peace in Darfur. We all applaud the peace agreement signed in Abuja last week by the Sudanese Government and the largest of the rebel groups, the SLM faction led by Minni Minnawi. That is a significant achievement. We also join in the congratulations to the African Union on its leadership. By chance, I had a brief word with the Secretary of State shortly after he returned from Abuja, and he talked strongly about the effectiveness of the African Union in this situation, in moving discussions forward and providing a frame for an effective process. We congratulate him and the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw). The United States, in the person of Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, has also always played a role. However, I remain very concerned that the two smaller rebel factions have not signed this agreement—most significantly the faction led by Abdel Wahed, who has the widespread support of the Fur people. We often forget that Darfur is the land of the Fur, and Abdel Wahed is a Fur. Although he has relatively few fighters at his command, having split with Minni Minnawi about a year ago, he has overwhelming support within the Fur community. His refusal to sign the peace agreement was based on the issue of compensation, and there have been riots across Darfur—in the west, the south and the north—in the past few days over compensation. We must be clear that people who lost their villages and livestock, either to the Janjaweed with the Government in complicity or directly to the Government through aerial bombing, are looking for restitution, and the restitution offered under the peace agreement is relatively modest: $300,000 as a one-off payment and an additional $200,000 over two years. People will say, ““Look, there is international aid, which will be coming in to support recovery, so this will not be the only money in play,”” but I understand from people close in on the ground that because of the suffering that is put at the doorstep of the Government, many of the Fur people feel that it is imperative that the restitution comes from that Government, as that would in a sense be an admission of the damage they have suffered and, so to speak, a down-payment on a different future. I wanted to raise that issue and to ask the Secretary of State to tell us more—if he is unable to do so now, then whenever that is appropriate—about the compensation issue and how that obstacle can be overcome. The peace agreement also sets up a structure for power sharing, with the rebels now to play a role in government. Sometimes such arrangements work, and sometimes they do not, but the rebels will now have the opportunity to have, in effect, a vice-president, a senior assistant to the President. However, if I understand correctly—perhaps the Secretary of State will help me if I am wrong—that is likely to be Minni Minnawi, and Mr. Minnawi is a Zaghawa. He is not Fur, and I do not know how this arrangement would be adjusted if the Fur were to come into the agreement, but we have surely largely missed the point if the largest ethnic group does not play a role in the Government structure. I have serious issues to raise about that. We know that the rebels will have guaranteed seats in the national state assemblies and will be involved in the Ministries, but how will those jobs be divided up between the many factions? Has any of that been resolved? We know from the example of Iraq that it is easier to appoint members to a Government than to turn them into a Government. I have also been troubled that whereas the discussions in Abuja pretty much engaged the national and regional leadership, from what I understand of Darfur and Sudan more generally, tribal leaders are key participants in what happens. Nazir Saeed Madibu heads the most significant or important tribe in Darfur and has managed to keep most of his people out of the conflict by creating pacts with neighbours and taking a different, individual stand. There are others like him and I should be interested to know how those people will be brought into the process. The Darfur-Darfur dialogue seems a long drawn-out, distant process, which is what troubles me. It seems critical that the individuals concerned should buy into the peace process as soon as possible, if things are to move forward. How realistic is the idea of planned elections by July 2009? Can they be delivered? How willing will the Khartoum Government be in three years’ time to hold a referendum leading to an autonomous region of Darfur? Security is a key precondition of the peace that we hope for. The peace agreement calls for the disarmament of the Janjaweed. Most of us would probably believe that all groups should be disarmed and that a reformed Sudanese military is needed—or one whose leadership is committed to a very different role. Otherwise arms and conflict will not be taken out of the situation. How realistic is the idea of integration of the rebel forces into the Sudanese military, given the history on both sides? Once again, Iraq is an example of a place where such an issue has been discussed from day one, and has proved nearly impossible to implement. Any hope of security requires the transfer of peacekeeping authority from the struggling African Union, which has inadequate resources and about 7,300 troops, to a UN peacekeeping mission. What is the likelihood that the Sudanese Government will fall in line with that idea?