The negotiations about the possibility of negotiations between Sudan’s leaders and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), Darfur’s largest rebel organization, have gone about as well as can be expected, assuming you know enough to keep expectations low. One of the problems is that while JEM is crucial to any peace prospects, its presence at negotiations is necessary but not sufficient, and the lack of other prominent rebel factions at the talks, and at future negotiations, probably does not bode well for a long-term resolution.
As I have written before, one has to wonder whether peace would have been easier if action had been taken sooner. If the west had forced Khartoum to cease its murderous ways in, say, 2005 could things have been different? One has to assume so.
