Unpacking the Mystery of Mediation in African Peace ... - Swisspeace

Sudan, North-South Comprehensive Peace Agreement
South negotiations were an example of the multiple
use of facilitative, formulative, and manipulative
mediation, where approaches involving both
pressure and dialog were combined. During the
negotiations, pressure and assertiveness were used.
However, this pressure did not come alone, but
together with a relationship of trust that had been
built up in the pre-negotiation phase, thus making
it far more acceptable. Without some degree
of pressure, it is very unlikely that the parties
would ever have come to the negotiation table.
While concrete solutions were proposed, these
only followed careful study and communication
with all the conflict parties – a process that took
many years. The role of the third parties consisted
not in offering solutions, but rather in being receptive,
listening, understanding, and then reflecting
perceptions of common ground – complemented
by a degree of openness on the part of
the conflict parties to agree to modifications. The
mediation efforts were team efforts, involving
both Africans and Westerns. The team nature of
mediation is noteworthy: at least ten people were
involved in the Nuba ceasefire negotiations, and
11 in the CPA negotiations. In addition, a variety
of roles were involved, such as that of the lowprofile
facilitator in the pre-negotiation phase, the
chief mediator acting as moral guarantor in the
negotiation phase, and the mediator dealing with
the nuts and bolts during the negotiations.
Negotiations are only possible with a certain degree
of power symmetry between the parties.
Knowledge is one form of power; thus, when the
mediators perceived an asymmetry in knowledge
about certain issues to be negotiated, they slowed
the process down and introduced external experts
to coach both parties. This helped to bring the
parties up to the same level of expertise, to then
resume negotiating on a level laying field. External
experts were used a lot: for oil, banking, land
issues, military questions such as DDR, etc.
Participation and Inclusiveness
The main conflict parties, the GoS and the
SPLM/A, were included in the negotiations.
SPLM was part of the National Democratic Alliance
(NDA), thereby in part representing or at
least informing the Northern opposition parties.
By dealing with a variety of topics (such as land
tenure), the inclusiveness of the process was
partly, as stakeholders had to be brought in to
discuss the issue. In this way, traditional leaders
and women could – at least in part – be consulted.
In short, the process was very inclusive in
terms of topics, but less inclusive in terms of actors.
Efforts by the parties to make the process
more inclusive in terms of actors were rejected by
the conflict parties.
Key Aspects of the CPA 207
The key issues dealt with in the peace process and
agreed in the 260-page Comprehensive Peace
Agreement (CPA), signed in 9 January 2005, included
the relationship between religion and
state, wealth- (oil) and power-sharing (interim
government, asymmetrical federal system), the
three contested areas (Blue Nile Hills, Abyei, and
Nuba mountains), human rights, and security
(armed forces, SSR, DDR) issues. In particular,
the parties agreed on the following:
1. Autonomy: the South to be given autonomous
status for six years and a referendum to be
held in 2011 regarding secession from Sudan.
2. Security and armed forces: separate armed
forces, as well as integrated units of 21,000
soldiers (half GoS, half SPLA troops). If after
the interim period of six years the South
should decide not to secede, both sides to
unify into a 39,000 strong force.
3. Wealth-sharing: Oil to be shared in equal
parts between the GoS and the SPLM/A.
Two per cent of the revenues go to the region
producing the oil.
4. Economic issues: two currencies in a dual
banking system.
5. Administration: positions in the central transitional
government are split 50-50. In the
three disputed areas (Abyei, Nuba Mountains,
and Blue Nile), the ratio to be 55-45 in
favor of the GoS. Al-Bashir to be head of
207 Summarized from: Hottinger, Julian: “Mediating the Burundi
and Sudan North-South Peace Agreement”, working paper of
the “Peace Mediation Course”, Swiss Federal Department of
Foreign Affairs and Mediation Support Project (Center for Security
Studies, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
(ETH)/swisspeace), unpublished (2008).
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