Social Science Research Council

In the wide-ranging discussions on justice conducted by the AU Panel, three general points about justice stood out. They are, first, a strong consensus that justice must be done; second, a broad understanding about what justice is; and third, divergent views on prosecutions.
A Consensus that Justice Must be Done
Every participant who spoke in every hearing [...]

Speaking in Addis Ababa a few days ago, President Thabo Mbeki, Chair of the AU Panel on Darfur, did not divulge what the Panel’s position would be on the question of how best to bring justice to Darfur. Throughout the consultations and hearings over the last months, when talking on this point, Pres. Mbeki has [...]

I have spent many hours in Darfur observing how outsiders ask questions and listen to the answers they are given. It is easy to end up with the answers they expect and want, often unconsciously putting words into people’s mouths. (Quite often, in a rush to record a definite answer or opinion, they literally put [...]

The AU Panel hearings witnessed some heated exchanges on the land issue including divergent interpretations of the traditional hakura system. One of these was in Zalingei.
Dimingawi Fadul Seisi Mohamed Ateem, the most senior Fur chief in the historic province of Dar Diima, now known as the eastern localities of West Darfur State, spoke at length [...]

One of the most encouraging outcomes from the last few weeks of consultations and hearings in Darfur and Khartoum, conducted by the African Union Panel, has been to highlight the extent to which there is a consensus about the kind of peace process needed and the issues that need to be discussed and resolved. There [...]

Across Darfur and in Khartoum over the last month, well over 2,000 leaders and representatives have interacted with the African Union Panel headed by President Mbeki. This was by far the most extensive cross-section of the Darfurian population which has ever engaged with an international figure, and included representatives of civil society, native administration, IDPs, [...]

Any human rights activist who has worked on Sudan is familiar with the name Kober prison, the century-old British building which was ‘Cooper Prison’ for its first half century, and which has ‘graduated’ entire classes of Sudanese political leaders, from the early nationalists to the entire parliamentary, trade union and civil society leadership in 1989-90. [...]

Just how credible are UNAMID monthly mortality figures? The unhappy truth is that UNAMID is weak, ineffectual, widely despised by Darfuris, and has a clear interest in minimizing mortality so as to make its failure less conspicuous. I regard 98 “violent deaths” as a deeply misleading figure to cite in assessing current mortality in Darfur. All the acts specified in the 1948 Genocide Convention continue to take place in Darfur and eastern Chad.

The three former presidents who head the African Union Panel on Darfur are no strangers to conflict and controversy. President Pierre Buyoya made this clear to a meeting of IDPs in Hamadiya camp, on the outskirts of Zalingei, today. He said, “I come from a country that has been through civil war and genocide.” He [...]

The AU Panel has spent between six and ten hours each day, for the last week, in meetings with large delegations from Darfurian civil society, native administration, IDPs and pastoralists, as well as national political parties. Today, at a hearing with civil society groups in el Geneina, Justice Florence Mumba asked, “Why are there no [...]