This is a conflict about “livelihoods”. It is a conflict about the right to live. It is a conflict that has ceased to be concerned with humanity and compromise, but is now about banditry, crimes of opportunity, and impervious impunity. Livelihoods will come in all forms, from the looting of villages to the grazing of camels on abandoned and fallow fields.

For the past month 135 Tribal leaders, both Arab and Fur have met behind closed doors in Nyala, in South Sudan to discuss the crisis in Darfur and identify ways to encourage IDP Return. The media was not invited and now Musa Hilal and Fur Leaders are traveling to the three Darfur States to talk about their suggestions and discuss ways to encourage the “cooperation” of the humanitarian community. The Native Administration in Darfur has been greatly weakened by the creation of these “Three States” that did not exist before 1994. Omdas, Sheiks and Sultans have taken on titles with old names, but dress in new clothes. The GOS has played at the periphery of these processes and the messages are at best unclear and at worst muted by the skirmishes in the field between rebel forces, the Janjaweed and the SLA, or the people and their predators.

One would like to see all “Peace Processes” as encouraging, a sign of local capacities being respected, and traditional methods emerging. But at this time and in this place there is more distrust and disdain than discussion. It has already found a cynical media presentation in Reuters and even the New York Times. From the desert to the halls of UN headquarters these processes are dissected.