What the West gets wrong about peacemaking in Sudan

The war in Sudan is causing relief, fear and déjà vu in Juba, the capital of its southern neighbour. Relief because South Sudan, which seceded from Sudan in 2011, seems somewhat insulated from the chaos. Fear because Sudan’s violence may nevertheless spill over the border between the two, exacerbating the conflicts that still rage in the world’s newest country. And déjà vu because what is happening in Sudan today looks like a repeat of events in South Sudan in its years after independence, when the West’s well-intentioned attempts at peacemaking and state-building ended in war and anarchy.The complex causes of wars in the two Sudans date back decades, if not centuries. The men who choose to butcher their countrymen are most directly responsible. Yet since two rival armies went to war over Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, on April 15th there has been a tsunami of criticism of the diplomacy employed by the West and regional governments in their failed bid to avert conflict. Much of it has been self-recrimination, with diplomats and former officials agonising over missteps and whether they could have done things differently. But a feeling is afoot that the very model of “conflict resolution” widely employed in such cases is flawed. If these mistakes are not addressed, the latest efforts to silence the guns in Sudan, which began in Saudi Arabia on May 6th, are doomed.