John Prendergast, Co-Founder of Enough, has a new Op-Ed in The Washington Post. The key section:
“Obama administration officials and international diplomats often argue that all available pressures aimed at the regime — including sanctions, embargoes and diplomatic isolation — have failed, so it’s time to use carrots rather than sticks. [Scott] Gration, the [Sudan] presidential envoy, told The Washington Post that “kids, countries — they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk.” Yet, in the 20 years since the regime in Khartoum came to power, it has compromised only in response to the threat or application of meaningful pressure from abroad, such as when it expelled Osama bin Laden from the sanctuary it was providing, stopped supporting slave-raiding militias in the south and struck a peace deal with southern rebels. There are plenty more pressure tactics that could be deployed through the Security Council or other coalitions, such as tightening the asset freezes on the ruling party’s nouveau riche leaders, providing greater support to the International Criminal Court’s cases against Sudanese officials, denying the regime debt relief and expanding the five-year-old U.N. arms embargo.”
President Obama pledged to impose severe consequences against Sudan’s genocidal government. In the face of ongoing impunity, what are he and his administration waiting for? Help us turn words into action.
In Wake of Pre-Election Human Rights Violations by Government, Sudan Advocates Ask President Obama to Impose Consequences
Merely condemning NCP’s actions not a sufficient consequence, say advocates
December 15, 2009 – Today 50 organizations representing Sudan advocates and Sudanese expatriates from around the country, together with actress Mia Farrow and Sudan expert Eric Reeves, sent an open letter to President Obama calling on him to impose immediate consequences on the Government of Sudan for public violations of human rights in advance of the elections [in Sudan] and for the eroding situation on the ground.
The letter recommends that President Obama 1) Lead the United States and the broader international community in applying the pressures necessary to ensure that the conditions for credible elections mandated by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) are enacted and implemented without further delay, 2) Act immediately to secure multilateral asset freezes and travel bans on National Congress Party (NCP) leaders, multilateral support of the International Criminal Court cases against key Sudanese officials, multilateral enforcement of the UN Security Council arms embargo; and denial of multilateral debt relief, 3) Direct Special Envoy Gration, the State Department and USAID to conduct and make public an assessment of the current status of humanitarian services and 4) Direct Special Envoy Gration to promptly brief the appropriate House and Senate committees on the contents of the classified documents that are part of the Administration’s Sudan policy.
According to the letter, the Administration’s Sudan policy review promised a balanced approach of both incentives and pressures. “The policy will lack credibility if no consequences are imposed now, particularly after the very public violations of human rights on Dec. 7 and 14 and the eroding situation on the ground. There is no need to wait further to impose consequences on Sudan for these clear and critical violations. These actions by the Government of Sudan illustrate the importance of the United States acting with a fierce urgency to deliver the promised consequences. Merely condemning the NCP’s action is not a sufficient consequence,” the letter states.
On Sunday, the NCP and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and south agreed to the terms of a controversial referendum on southern independence on Sunday. However, according to Mohamed Suleiman, a Darfuri and a spokesman for the group, the NCP has a consistent track record of breaking its agreements. “The fact that the government violently quelled a peaceful demonstration the day after announcing this agreement demonstrates that it will not honor the reform of Sudanese laws necessary for credible elections, including freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and association, and freedom of speech,” he said.
The letter cites Obama’s recent address in Oslo where he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize. “Those regimes that break the rules must be held accountable. Sanctions must exact a real price. Intransigence must be met with increased pressure — and such pressure exists only when the world stands together as one,” President Obama said in his speech there.
[The text of the letter can be downloaded here (PDF) or viewed below.]
In case you missed it. In a speech yesterday entitled “Remarks on the Human Rights Agenda for the 21st Century,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said:
“Now, we have to continue to press for solutions in Sudan where ongoing tensions threaten to add to the devastation wrought by genocide in Darfur and an overwhelming refugee crisis. We will work to identify ways that we and our partners can enhance human security, while at the same time focusing greater attention on efforts to prevent genocide elsewhere.”
“In the man-bites-dog story of the year, the U.N. last week took the Obama Administration to task over its lax efforts to enforce the [Darfur] arms embargo, while praising the Bush Administration. “In contrast to that leadership of 2004 and 2005, the United States appears to have now joined the group of influential states who sit by quietly and do nothing to ensure that sanctions protect Darfurians,” Enrico Carisch, who was the top U.N. investigator of violations of the arms embargo until October, said in written testimony before a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa.”
- In a Huffington Post Op-Ed, John Prendergast urges President Obama to live up to his Nobel promises. Here’s the relevant section from Obama’s Oslo address last week:
“Those regimes that break the rules must be held accountable. Sanctions must exact a real price. Intransigence must be met with increased pressure — and such pressure exists only when the world stands together as one.”
Really, then? Where are the strong sanctions against the Sudanese government, then? What pressure is being imposed to stop genocide?
Rewind that tape. Here’s an April 25, 2006 Charlie Rose interview with then-Senator Barack Obama:
The future President talks about the need to impose international pressure on the Sudanese government in order to stop the genocide in Darfur.
Fast forward three years. Now that he has the power to create change and hope for the people of Darfur, what is President Obama doing on Sudan? Where is the public condemnation — why did he stay silent when Khartoum expelled thirteen vital humanitarian aid organizations from Sudan earlier this year? And most importantly, why isn’t he demanding pressure NOW?
The U.S. needs to lead the international community in imposing targeted multilateral sanctions against the Sudanese government’s top leaders. Based on his public statements and promises during these past few years, it’s clear that President Obama knows his Sudan policy — he knows what will stop Sudan’s mass murderers. So what is he waiting for?
In a live webcast event on Tuesday, November 10, 2009, Save Darfur Coalition President Jerry Fowler and STAND Student Director Layla Amjadi will sit down with Special Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration and NSC Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs Samantha Power to discuss the administration’s plan for Sudan and ask them your questions.”
This is a great opportunity for Sudan advocates to ask General Gration and Samantha Power some tough questions about the Obama administration’s Sudan-related plans.
In an unflinching blog post published last month, Will Inboden over at Foreign Policy’s Shadow Government blog tore apart the Obama administration’s new Sudan policy review document.
We don’t agree with all of his criticisms, but one of them is definitely spot-on:
“…[T]he Obama administration seems rather obtuse about the lessons of history, even the recent past. Such as remembering that [Sudan's President] Bashir, besides presiding over the serial murder of his own people, is also a serial violator of negotiated agreements. Or that it was only under the pain of sanctions (and a poignant awareness of American military might in the wake of 9/11) that Khartoum came to the negotiating table with then-Special Envoy John Danforth to eventually end the North-South war and forge the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in early 2005. Or that the Bush administration’s efforts in its latter years to end the Darfur genocide included a series of positive inducements offered to Bashir by numerous presidential envoys — such as upgraded diplomatic relations, removal from the terrorism sponsor list, cessation of sanctions, etc. — that ultimately did not avail in changing Bashir’s behavior.”
The upshot: history proves that the Sudanese government only responds to concerted pressure.
President Obama should remember and should not repeat the previous U.S. administration’s Sudan failures. He should remember that President Bush tried a strategy of laying out a red carpet of incentives for the Sudanese government — a strategy that undeniably failed.
FYI: In response to the U.S.’s Sudan policy rollout last week, Stop Genocide Now has posted some simple but important actions that you can take to keep the pressure on the Obama administration. As many within the Sudan advocacy movement have pointed out, it’s one thing to state intentions. It’s another thing entirely to act in order to save and protect lives.
“Many critical humanitarian services that Darfuri civilians relied on have been cut back or halted since the Sudanese government expelled key aid agencies after the president was indicted by the International Criminal Court in March this year. For women and girls, the situation is particularly dire. The organizations expelled were the ones that provided medical care, and psychosocial and legal services to women and girls who had been raped—something that happens with depressing regularity whenever they try to leave the outskirts of the camps.”
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