Africa News blog

Darfur – when peace talks cause conflict

It’s well-known that peace talks can cause fighting. I remember before every round of doomed negotiations on Darfur since 2003, either the govenment or the rebels would start a military campaign to gain ground ahead of any potential settlement.

But the violence in the past week in the camps that are home for two million Darfuris displaced by conflict is different.

It would be easy to blame the mediators who convinced more than 400 members of civil society groups to join a peace talks in Qatar which the two main rebel groups are not presently attending.

Some Darfuris, after seven years in the camps, decided the rebel leaders were unable to represent the interests of their people and went to make sure their voices were heard.

It was their return to the rebel-dominated Kalma Camp in South Darfur and the camps around Zalingei in West Darfur that caused fighting that claimed at least eight lives, injured dozens and drove thousands to flee the camps they had sought refuge in years ago.

But to blame only the mediators would ignore the problems they inherited — which pretty much amount to a mission impossible.

Rebel commanders have for years been forming factions by the dozen. They were disillusioned with their leaders, most of whom were young and inexperienced before being propelled into the international limelight as Darfur’s conflict went global.

How should Nigeria’s windfall oil cash be managed?

Nigeria’s revenues from oil exports have reached unprecedented levels as global crude prices rally, yet the majority of its 140 million population remain mired in poverty. Africa’s top oil producer set up an “excess crude account” five years ago to save windfall oil earnings and try to help promote long-term economic stability.

But infighting among the three tiers of government — federal, state and local — on how the revenues should be shared out has seen them squandered.

The country is starved of electricity, the roads in even its plushest suburbs are pitted with potholes, and nine out of 10 people live on less than $2 a day, according to U.N.statistics.

How should Nigeria’s oil revenues be managed? Why is the country’s infrastructure so dilapidated when its state budgets are so high? Should the country set up a sovereign wealth fund? Would it be any better managed than the existing arrangement?