Comments on: “There Is Nothing to Do But To Sit Around The Table.” The AU Panel and Civil Society

By: Alex de Waal

Alex de Waal — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:08:58 +0000

I am more hopeful about the AU Panel and its public hearings than any other process over the last three years. I should add that the hearings (and the extensive preparatory sessions) were actually organized by the DDDC, which now has the funds to reinvigorate its activities, with these hearings serving as the catalyst.

By: CR

CR — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:11:27 +0000

This seems like a perfect opportunity to restart a civil society process that will hopefully be more dynamic than the DDDC and more carefully thought out than the Mo Ibrahim Initiative. Apparently the DDDC has no money as its accounts were frozen when AMIS ‘left’. Mo Ibrahim unfortuntely alienated the government before anything could develop. Perhaps this Mbeki process could kickstart a new civil society process which with more credibility and hopefully the right approach. Something like that is definitely needed.

By: Jibreel Mohamed

Jibreel Mohamed — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:06:14 +0000

On the same day that this historic civil society hearing was taking place in Khartoum, the “chief mediator” for Darfur, Mr. Djibril Bassole, flew to Al Fashir supposedly to meet with Darfurian civil society. Too little, too late: although he has been in his job for a year he has not yet made any contacts with civil society and somehow assumed they would just turn up at his summons! To avoid embarrassment at this no-show, he decided to brief UNAMID staff instead. I am sure that UNAMID staff appreciated this spur-of-the-moment update on a peace process whose non-progress they had all followed in the newspapers. If Mr. Bassole is to salvage anything from this debacle he had better repeat the trick he turned in Cote d’Ivoire: get President Mbeki to do the heavy lifting and then turn up in a sharp suit at the last moment to claim the credit.