Since the start of the Obama administration, Sudan advocates have been pushing hard on the new President to appoint a high-level and full-time Presidential Envoy for Sudan with the stature, mandate, and authority necessary to deal with Sudan’s huge crises.
So, it’s with some definite concern that we noticed this exchange [...]
Last week, Khartoum launched new attacks in Darfur. This came literally one day after it signed a confidence-building measure with the Justice and Equality Movement.
Enough sums it up best in this blog post title:
“Khartoum’s Strategy: Sign Then Bomb (Again)”
That’s about right.
A Retuers article published earlier this week discusses some of the difficulties with the recent agreement between Khartoum and the rebel Justice and Equality Movement. The big issue is that, at this point, the Sudanese government can’t be expected to honor the document meaningfully. Countless broken ceasefires and the failed 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement prove [...]
Nearly 700 phone calls — that’s how many were made to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this past weekend about the need for the Obama admin to appoint a high-level Special Envoy to Sudan.
Kudos to the Genocide Intervention Network and STAND for spearheading this successful grassroots campaign. Here’s hoping that others will follow this example [...]
Earlier this month, The Baltimore Sun published a great Darfur Op-Ed by Raj Purohit (an international law expert and professor at American University’s Washington College of Law) and Howard Salter (a former senior public affairs officer at USAID in the Clinton administration).
I wanted to call out this paragraph from their piece:
“Taking advantage of ICC action [...]
Enough Project Co-Chair John Prendergast on the need to pursue justice in Sudan:
“Part of the reason there is no resolution in Sudan is because there has been no accountability…If we take accountability off the table again, they [Khartoum] will put that in their pocket and continue with their policy of divide and destroy.”
The Sudanese government continues to block the free movement of the UN-AU peacekeeping force that’s charged with protecting Darfuri civilians. The Sudan advocacy movement realizes this. The United Nations realizes this. And the Obama administration realizes this … here’s UN Ambassador Susan Rice from earlier this month:
“…the bombardment [by Khartoum] continues and the government of Sudan has prevented UNAMID personnel from moving into the area to investigate, impeding the freedom of movement of these personnel which is a violation of the status of forces agreement between UNAMID and the government.”
So, the question is: What are we waiting for? Khartoum’s most recent bombing campaign is preventing an already limited peacekeeping force from shielding and saving lives. How can those in power allow this to continue? When there are sticks that we can use — targeted sanctions, air strikes against Sudan’s military installations, etc. — to stop the violence, it’s nothing short of tragic to see us act and react so slowly.
Why should President Obama end the genocide in Darfur?
While the moral argument here is all he really needs to consider, there’s also something to be said on the political side of things. If the President really wants to regain international trust and instantiate a new era of human rights enforcement, then he has every reason to stop the genocide. As Save Darfur Coalition Executive Director Jerry Fowler writes in a recent Op-Ed in The Philadelphia Inquirer:
“Obama is facing innumerable pressing issues. But a sustained effort to end the first genocide of the 21st century in his first months in office would be a dramatic but feasible way to realize his vision of renewing America’s international standing and leadership. And he would have the support of a broad and growing constituency of conscience, comprising Americans from all walks of life, ages, and political, religious and ethnic backgrounds.”
President Obama still needs to put in place a high-profile and outspoken diplomatic team to drive Sudan policy. As The American Prospect’s Mark Leon Goldberg writes (about the particular need for a Darfur envoy):
“Unfortunately, the Obama administration has not yet signaled that it intends to treat Darfur as a top-tier foreign-policy priority. Within 48 hours of his inauguration, President Obama appointed Richard Holbrooke as special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan and George Mitchell as his special envoy for Mideast peace. Clearly, these are two of the highest-stakes international crises facing American foreign policy. Still, one sign that President Obama would close the previous administration’s gap between rhetoric and policy is to appoint a similarly high-profile diplomat to oversee the Darfur portfolio.”
UPDATE: As some of our readers have reminded us, the presence of Susan Rice and Samantha Power on Obama’s foreign policy team is a hopeful sign. But the President still needs to appoint two top-notch diplomats (working under a new Special Envoy for Sudan) that can own and champion the Darfur and Comprehensive Peace Agreement portfolios at State.
