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Sudan: Darfur Diaspora Champions Peace Agenda
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The East African (Nairobi)
17 March 2008
Posted to the web 17 March 2008
Zachary Ochieng
Nairobi
Diaspora community can often prove invaluable in finding solutions to conflicts in their home countries, a US peace institute has said.
The US Institute of Peace (USIP) says in its latest peace briefing, Engaging the Darfur Diaspora for Peace, that in general, diaspora communities have not been formally engaged as a constituency in official negotiations to resolve conflicts in their home country.
"However, there is increasing acknowledgement of the ways in which diaspora communities are directly affected by and impact conflict dynamics back home," says Susan Hayward, the briefing's author.
Recognising their stake in and influence on the political negotiations in Darfur, the Preparatory Committee of the Darfur-Darfur Dialogue and Consultation (DDDC) is seeking to engage with Darfur's diaspora communities.
The consultation held at USIP headquarters in Washington with the North American diaspora community is similar to those being held in Europe and the Middle East, all of which will feed into the future DDDC process and political negotiations in Darfur.
In partnership with Concordis International and the Preparatory Committee for the DDDC, USIP held consultations with approximately 30 members of the North American Darfur diaspora community from February 12-14 this year.
Representatives of Darfur's constituencies, this group of Darfurians travelled to Washington from around the US and Canada in order to address a broad range of issues related to the conflict in their homeland.
Through small-group brainstorming and plenary session debates, the group developed a set of consensus recommendations aimed at creating the conditions necessary for a sustainable, safe and secure environment to prevail in the troubled region.
These consultations are one piece of the larger mediation effort in Darfur, led by the United Nations and the African Union, which is seeking to renegotiate the Darfur Peace Agreement signed in 2006.
Several themes repeatedly emerged throughout the conference. First, participants reiterated the need for civil society and local Darfurians to be engaged to the fullest extent possible by those negotiating the parameters of Darfur's future.
This request extended not only to the government of Sudan (GoS) and the armed actors in Darfur, but to the AU, UN, and other international actors operating in the region such as non-governmental organisations.
This sort of engagement with the grassroots is necessary to begin to address the historical marginalisation of Sudan's local communities in governance. It will also create the roots for a culture of democracy to emerge from the ground-up, ensure appropriate policies and programmes are created that address the real needs of those most affected by the violence and develop local capacities to address present and future needs.
"In order for civil society to become more actively engaged beyond mere consultations, however, a more secure environment must prevail. The limited measures taken in the past have failed to create meaningful security," the briefing says.
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Participants at the consultation insisted that the joint AU/UN peacekeeping mission be deployed immediately as called for in UN Security Council Resolution 1769, with a robust mandate and equipment necessary to carry out this mandate.
In addition, an immediate ceasefire agreement should be negotiated between all armed actors, as well as military buffer zones to separate armed actors and UN-protected safe zones in which security can be guaranteed for civil society to convene and organise.
Participants lamented the destruction of traditional culture and customary practices in Darfur and called for projects to reinvigorate these institutions and traditions. Measures to protect and nurture the diverse manifestations of religion and ethnicity throughout Sudan must be pursued, including the elimination of structural discrimination in governance, legislation, the judiciary, and other formal institutions.
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