US embassy cable - 04ROME1125

C O N F I D E N T I A L  ROME 001125 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/20/2014 
TAGS: PGOV, PINS, PREL, PHUM, NO, SU, UK, CD, IT 
SUBJECT: DARFUR CONFERENCE: ITALIAN INPUT 
 
REF: SECSTATE 58545 
 
Classified By: POL M/C Tom Countryman for reasons 
1.5 (b) and (d). 
 
1. (C) MFA East Africa Office Director, Stafano Dejak 
expressed great interest in the Darfur Conference. He 
reported that the level of EU support was being discussed 
and, although he could not speak for the EU, he was sure 
that, at a minimum, the EU delegation would consist of the EU 
representatives in Ndjamena (France) and Khartoum 
(Netherlands). Dejak attributed the GOS's acceptance of the 
humanitarian cease-fire negotiations to "intense 
international pressure" and provided PolOff with a written 
document outlining Italy's views on the Chad Conference. 
 
2. (U) Text of the document prepared by Dejak follows 
(paragraphs 3 to 14). 
 
3. (C) The GoS acceptance of an international observation of 
the cease-fire negotiations in Chad is a welcome outcome of 
the intense international pressure. It is also helpful that 
Minister Ismail seems not to rule out entirely an 
international observation of the ensuing political process, 
which the GoS still views as an all-Darfur conference. 
 
4. (C) The mandate of the Chadian talks will need to be the 
first topic on the table. Two aspects need to be clearly 
distinguished in what is referred to as 'humanitarian 
cease-fire', the military component and the humanitarian one. 
One possible scenario is that the GoS might not be ready to 
agree to an international military monitoring of the 
cease-fire, alleging that insecurity is an internal 
law-and-order issue but accepting in principle an OLS-type of 
pattern for monitored humanitarian access. Likewise, the 
Darfurian rebels, just like the SPLM/A in the past, might be 
willing to accept a mechanism of jointly agreed humanitarian 
access while not feeling in a position to commit themselves 
to any military monitoring of a cease-fire, thinking that 
military pressure is the only way of keeping the GoS to the 
negotiating table. In either case, since the political and 
military platform for the solution of the crisis is still 
unclear, the only domain where the international community 
has an uncontested mandate is the humanitarian one. Every 
effort should be focused on securing in the first few days of 
discussion a transparent and reliable mechanism for 
internationally monitored access into Darfur, including 
rebel-held territory and including from Chad. It remains to 
be seen whether a mechanism owned by the two parties might be 
more palatable to them than an externally-imposed one, like 
the JMC or the VMT. 
 
5. (C) Lessons learnt from OLS by the international community 
should obviously be incorporated into the background support 
that US and EU are willing to provide. It will be important 
to make sure that all parts of Darfur be accessibile from 
wherever it is safest to access them, that no area be left 
behind, that any repatriation from Chad or from inside Sudan 
be strictly voluntary, that encampment be avoided as far as 
possible and that any food assistance be provided to village 
communities, rather than to displaced camps. A 
peace-camp-like, or garrison-town-like scenario, as has long 
been the case in the South, should be averted as much as 
possible as it would actually play, at this early stage, into 
the scorched-earth policy of the Janjaweed militias. UN 
presence at experts' level might be regarded as productive. 
 
6. (C) The ideal outcome for the negotiations would be that a 
fully-fledged cessation of hostilities can be brokered in 
N'Djamena. However, another possible scenario of the Chadian 
talks would be for the parties to agree on humanitarian 
access and then talk down the next steps forward, the GoS 
being likely to ask for a complete standstill and disarmament 
as a pre-condition for inviting rebels to the all-Darfur 
conference and the rebels refusing it, and also presumably 
refusing a conference in Khartoum to start with. 
 
7. (C) As to the All-Darfur conference, its real character is 
worth recalling at this stage. It is little more than a PR 
exercise that could merely end up in the buy-off of some 
Darfurian politicians. The very fact that the GoS is sticking 
to Khartoum as its venue tends to show that there is an 
attempt to cut the rebels off their opposition constituencies 
in exile outside Sudan, while the many covert sympathisers 
living in Khartoum or even holding political positions would 
 
be exposed by the rebellion. Furthermore, it seems quite 
likely that the SLM/A and SFDA only, not the JEM, would be 
invited to the conference. There is no reason for the 
international community to openly disavow the All-Darfur 
conference, but there are very few reasons as yet to support 
it either. What the international community may want to do is 
just waiting for this PR exercise to follow its course, to 
take stock of who is co-optable by the GoS under these 
conditions (likely to be very few) and then to urge the GoS 
to do the remaining work with the many Darfurian stakeholders 
that will remain outside the process. 
 
8. (C) On the other side, the SLM/A is also quite likely to 
be under the guidance of the SPLM/A, looking for 
intra-Sudanese ways of dealing with the crisis. This accounts 
for their successful application to the NDA, to which the 
SFDA was already a party whereas the JEM (and the PCP) is 
not. The SLM/A might want to counter the GoS proposal for a 
Khartoum-based Darfur conference with a proposal to extend 
the power-sharing negotiations of the GoS with the SPLM/A at 
Naivasha to the whole NDA - thereby supporting a request made 
by the SPLM/A itself. A political deadlock would ensue, which 
would endanger both the Darfurian process and the Naivasha 
talks. 
 
9. (C) To avoid this, the international community would need 
to insist on the need to wrap up the Naivasha talks as soon 
as feasible and to urge the GoS to take the resulting 
opportunity for the opening-up of the political dynamics 
inside Sudan and the inclusion of the Darfurian rebel parties 
in this wider process. From this perspective, the Naivasha 
talks and the Darfur crisis are not at all colliding, but 
rather complementing each other. Sustained pressure is still 
crucial on the GoS (and the SPLM/A) for a quick breakthrough 
at Naivasha. In the meantime, it is important for the 
international community to abstain from recommending, or 
endorsing, separate political processes in Darfur unless they 
clearly turn out to be agreeable to all stakeholders within 
Darfur. This would get us as close as possible to the ideal, 
though unsustainable, scenario for the international 
community, which would be to just freeze the Darfur conflict 
and to come back to it as soon as an agreement is reached 
between the GoS and the SPLM/A. 
 
10. (C) It is easy to overstate the role of inter-community 
reconciliation and traditional conflict-resolution 
mechanisms. It is the very collapse of these mechanisms due 
to unchecked flow of weapons, climate changes and political, 
mainly GoS-instigated, tinkering with the intertribal balance 
in Darfur that has sparked off the present crisis. What is 
needed in Darfur is to restore the confidence of the 
population in the government as a neutral entity, rather than 
a faction among others. Accordingly, NGO-led grassroots 
processes are too fragile a tool, especially as bloodshed 
continues unabated. If at all useful in the road-map for a 
solution of the Darfur crisis, the initiation of 
inter-community reconciliation should be subordinate to the 
successful completion not so much of the constitutional 
review process as of the power-sharing debates between the 
different stakeholders and the retrieval of fresh national 
consensus and unity of purpose within Sudan. It is also 
subordinate to a satisfactory solution of the Janjaweed 
problem, therefore to a detailed political blueprint for 
disarmament, demobilisation and re-integration of combatants. 
The only priority would be to start a feasibility study for 
DDR, and for it to be successful, low-key consultations with 
stakeholders are appropriate. 
 
11. (C) About the all-inclusive delegations. We may want to 
try and avoid mixing together military and political 
delegates. The more so as politicians and military have 
different interests in Darfur. They may not even have met 
before N'Djamena. Encouraging political participation at this 
early stage opens the door to the manipulation of the 
humanitarian process by external agendas. 
 
12. (C) That the parties are prepared to talk military 
issues, including a rough breakdown of  forces and the order 
of battle: we neever quite managed to obtain them from the 
GoS and the SPLM/A in two and a half years, how do we expect 
the opposition in Darfur to be persuaded in two days to 
provide this data? On the other hand, the GoS may not be able 
at all to provide information about tribal militias, how many 
are there, where are they, which weapons they have etc. The 
 
main difficulties in controlling the militia are their 
unresponsiveness to pre-determined military strategies as 
well as the erratic, unpredictable character of their raids. 
 
13. (C) About the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue: it would 
be a good option. On the other hand, it would be useful to 
keep in mind that the professional experience in negotiationg 
and monitoring humanitarian cease-fires is one of the 
specific areas of professionality of the United Nations. 
 
14. (C) I also wish to stress that pressure should be brought 
to bear on the GoS to agree to a small humanitarian corridor 
from outside Sudan (perhaps Abch?) There is no intention to 
replicate the mixed experience with Lokichoggio in Kenya, but 
since the GoS itself admits not being in a position to 
control the Janjaweed, it is only fair to say that it does 
not seem realistic to distribute aid to opposition-controlled 
areas except by air and from Chad, once we manage to limit 
the effect that such an option may have on engrossing 
influxes of refugees from Darfur into Chad. 
MINIMIZE CONSIDERED 
SEMBLER 
 
 
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 2004ROME01125 - Classification: CONFIDENTIAL