Friday, July 20, 2007

Can Water Bring Peace to Darfur?

Neela Ghoshal

A BBC article on the revelation of a vast underground lake in Darfur sent waves through the Darfur advocacy community yesterday.  According to geologist Farouk El-Baz, “Access to fresh water is essential for refugee survival, will help the peace process, and provides the necessary resources for the much needed economic develoment in Darfur.” His comments seemed to provide the upside to a report issued last month by the UN Environment Programme, which noted that without addressing environmental degradation, violence in Darfur is unlikely to subside.  That point was also emphasized in the video posted below by an audience member at last week’s performance of “In Darfur” in Central Park.

But just as quickly as hopes were raised, they were partially deflated with the publication of a second BBC article in which French geologist Alain Gachet indicates the lake in question has likely been dry for thousands of years.  And even if substantial water reserves are present, acknowledges El-Baz, it will take at least three years to access them. Lack of resources, particularly water, has surely contributed to Darfur’s woes.  Rebels rose up in 2003 due to political marginalization and the correlated economic underdevelopment of the region.  Arab pastoralists were susceptible to mobilization into Janjaweed militias in part because ousting black Darfuri farmers seemed a viable solution, at least in the short term, to their own economic desperation.

But while geologists battle out the hypotheticals and prepare for the drilling of 1000 wells in Darfur that will eventually clarify the truth, Darfur analysts question any solution that presents itself as a panacea.As Julie Flint, co-author (with Alex de Waal) of Darfur: The Short History of a Long War, reminds us, characterizing the Darfur crisis as a resource conflict “whitewashes the Sudan government,” which has brutalized its people across two decades and throughout the country in an attempt to maintain a strangehold on power.  Better access to water in Darfur might placate many would-be rebels and Janjaweed members.  But it will not address the grievances of those determined to struggle against a regime that is fundamentally anti-democratic, not will it strip the ruling National Congress party of its repressive methods.

A long-term solution to conflict in Darfur will need to address political power-sharing as well as access to resources.  And environmental solutions must go beyond the drilling of wells in Darfur to address broader issues of climate change and drought, or they will be mere bandaids.