ANALYSIS:Twelve weeks on and there is still no sign of the two aid workers abducted in Darfur being released, writes MARY FITZGERALD
THREE MONTHS ago today, eight heavily armed men stormed a compound run by Irish aid agency Goal in Kutum, a dusty town in north Darfur that is no stranger to the conflict that has roiled the region for the past six years. After overpowering the security guards, they made their way to the house shared by Sharon Commins (32) from Clontarf, Dublin, and her colleague Hilda Kawuki (41) a nutritionist from Uganda. The gunmen bundled the two women into waiting vehicles and sped off.
Twelve weeks on, the women remain in captivity and their kidnapping has stretched into the longest-running abduction of foreign aid workers ever to take place in Darfur. It has proved a major challenge for the teams of Irish diplomats, officials, and Army negotiators tasked with securing the women’s release.
Delivering Ireland’s annual address to the UN General Assembly last week, Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs Peter Power highlighted the women’s plight and expressed hope their release is not far off.
But the mood among officials in Khartoum and Dublin is subdued. Hopes of an imminent release have been raised several times since July only to later evaporate. Some worry that the longer this drags on, the more likely it is that what once appeared to be a relatively straightforward case of kidnapping for ransom gets pulled into a wider and more tangled web of intrigue.
Convulsed by violence since 2003, Darfur is riven by ethnic and tribal rivalries and plagued by banditry. Shifting loyalties among rebel groups and those who pledge an often tenuous allegiance to Khartoum guarantee an extremely volatile environment. For outsiders the region’s complexity can render it almost impenetrably opaque.
From the outset, Irish officials working on the kidnapping have remained largely tightlipped about the delicate negotiations that have taken place. Ireland has maintained a constant presence of diplomats and negotiators between Khartoum and Darfur since July, including Gerry Corr, the Irish Ambassador to Egypt who also has responsibility for Sudan. Irish Aid and Goal officials have also shuttled back and forth.
Based on what Sudanese officials have said publicly, the kidnappers are believed to be members of a nomadic tribe in north Darfur who are demanding a ransom in exchange for the women’s release.
Khartoum, however, is adamant that it will not contemplate the payment of a ransom to people it brands “bandits”, fearing this could encourage a fresh spate of abductions. At the beginning the Sudanese government appeared confident that by liaising with tribal elders and exploiting the important role of honour in local culture, they could press for the women to be freed within a short period.
After making what they said was direct contact with the kidnappers, Sudanese officials announced they were considering offering them legal immunity if they agreed to hand over the two aid workers. There was talk that something might happen before the holy month of Ramadan ended. But Ramadan came and went, and there were few positive signals. At one stage it appeared the Sudanese government’s original approach had run into difficulties resulting in the Sudanese breaking off direct contact with the gang.
The entire episode has been clouded by countless rumours – most of them largely groundless – that have made their way into certain sections of the Sudanese, Ugandan and Irish media. One report claimed the women had been moved to neighbouring Chad; and another – which was swiftly denied by Sudanese officials – claimed they had married their captors. Other rumours point at a possible link between the kidnappers and those who abducted two civilians working for the joint UN and African Union mission (UNAMID) in late August but last week a senior UN official told Newstalk’s Breakfast Show there was no evidence to suggest this was the case.
Some of the more recent speculation hints that cracks may be appearing within the ranks of the kidnappers as they disagree over what their next step should be.
The emergence of Zouhir Latif, a Tunisian journalist based in London who built up extensive contacts while working in Darfur, has added yet another twist to what has become a deeply complicated situation. Latif says he is in regular contact with the kidnappers. Last month The Irish Times listened to a tape of Latif speaking to Commins by satellite phone. The brief and garbled conversation was later reported in a Sunday newspaper. Irish officials believe the recording is genuine, but are wary of any attempt by the kidnappers to open a channel through which they could pressure the Dublin Government. Others question Latif’s motives.
Though foreign aid workers in Darfur have been subjected to numerous robberies, carjackings, beatings and even rape, kidnappings were unheard of before March, when four Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) workers were seized by armed men only to be released three days later. The abduction occurred just a week after MSF found itself on a list of 13 international aid agencies ordered to leave the country. The expulsion order followed the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision to issue an arrest warrant for Sudanese president Omar al Bashir for alleged war crimes committed in Darfur. The 13 organisations were accused of providing the ICC with evidence to help build its case against Bashir. In April two women from French NGO Aide Medicale Internationale were held for almost four weeks.
The UN says that of the 700 or so foreign aid personnel who were working in Darfur in January, at least 200 left after the March expulsion order. Kidnapping and other security fears have prompted other NGOs to pull out or dramatically scale back their operations in a region, which, with its hundreds of thousands left displaced by years of violence, is considered one of the world’s gravest humanitarian crises.
Mary Fitzgerald is Foreign Affairs Correspondent