“March 4, 2010 — One year ago Thursday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, on charges of crimes against humanity. Now, on the first anniversary of the arrest warrant, fighting is raging in Darfur – the war-torn Sudanese province that is the source of much of the case against Mr. Bashir.”

“…On Wednesday, the US State Department issued a statement saying it is “extremely concerned” about reports of new government offensives against rebels in Darfur. According to United Nations officials, the result has been a new spike in civilian deaths.”

Reuters, March 4, 2010 — “We know that weapons continue to flow into Darfur, acts of sexual and gender-based violence continue unabated and with impunity, military over-flights and offensive actions continue,” U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice told reporters after a closed-door meeting of the U.N. Security Council.”

“A 2005 U.N. embargo bans the transfer of military hardware to Darfur, a remote region in western Sudan about the size of France. Khartoum can import arms, but not for use in Darfur.”

“The blatant disregard of the will of the council is undermining stability rather than fostering it, which was the aim of the [sanctions] regime in the first place,” Rice said.”

His words:

“It is asking Africa to sign a suicide pact, an incineration pact in order to maintain the economic dependence of a few countries…It is a solution based on values that funneled six million people in Europe into furnaces.”

This coming from an official whose government is responsible for perpetrating genocide against its own citizens.

Here’s the video:

“Obama’s approach to Sudan has been hobbled from the beginning by deep divisions between senior officials — especially [Scott] Gration, the special envoy, and [Susan] Rice, the U.N. ambassador — on how best to handle Khartoum, sources said. Gration is said to be big on carrots, while Rice prefers sticks. [Deputy Secretary of State Jim] Steinberg is also said to lean towards a harder line, which the advocacy community also favors.”

“In 2006, Rice coauthored an article saying, “History demonstrates that there is one language Khartoum understands: the credible threat or use of force.’”

“ABC News reported that Rice was “furious” in June when Gration said that Darfur was experiencing only the “remnants of genocide.” The State Department quickly confirmed that its official position is that genocide is ongoing.”

Our thoughts: How is someone like Gration still controlling the Sudan portfolio? And why can’t the Obama administration execute a strong and coordinated Sudan policy?

Among other things, President Obama has promised to impose consequences (targeted multilateral sanctions, etc.) if the Sudanese government fails to improve conditions on the ground in both Darfur and Southern Sudan.

Well — those measurable improvements have not been seen. So what is President Obama waiting for now?

“In front of amped up students smeared with blue and gray paint, a sold-out arena, and President Obama and his entourage, students and alumni from Georgetown and Duke universities kicked off their partnership today with the Darfur Dream Team.”

“It was one of the most highly anticipated college basketball games of the season, made all the more exciting with the VIPs in the audience. But about 12 minutes into the game, all eyes turned toward the NBA’s Tracy McGrady, who flew in from Houston to lend his star-power to the launch of the joint project. McGrady, who co-founded the Darfur Dream Team with Enough’s John Prendergast after a trip together to Darfuri refugee camps in 2007, helped direct attention up to the Jumbotron, and here’s what they saw…”

We first called for such action a few years ago. Now, in 2010, the Sudan movement’s bullhorn is still very much on — and we don’t think it’s worse for wear. Omar al-Bashir continues to kill Darfuris. He has decimated the medical support system for Sudanese rape victims. And he is rigging the upcoming national elections in Sudan in his favor. The voices of many Sudan activists might be tired, but we can’t stop now. Not while there is an urgent need to organize and speak out for the rights and dignity of millions of Sudanese citizens.

Pushing the U.S. government to “impose severe consequences” on the Sudanese government might appear too technocratic to some — why are activists demanding that the Obama administration take the narrow action of imposing asset freezes and travel bans against Sudan’s dictators, anyway? The answer, as Enough pointed out recently, has to do with practical precedent:

“These consequences [e.g., multilateral sanctions] that allegedly reside in the Obama administration’s confidential annex to its policy are the only instruments that can prevent an all-out national war in Sudan. Consequences, or the meaningful threat thereof, have altered the calculations and behavior of [Bashir's National Congress Party] in the past. They led to the expulsion of Osama bin Laden, the end to slave raiding and aerial bombing in the South, the acceleration of intelligence cooperation after 9/11, and the CPA itself.”

History is revealing here: we know that there is a policy strategy that has been effective in stopping impunity in Sudan on multiple occasions.

The primary issue at hand isn’t whether or not the Obama administration will heed the lessons of history, given the promises contained in its heavily (self-)advertised Sudan policy document. Rather, the issue is us: Will we (the OurPledge team included) step up and give our elected officials holy hell for not doing enough for the people of Sudan? We have great hope for a new year of intense activism, but ultimately, the extent and effectiveness of the Sudan movement’s work in 2010 aren’t guaranteed. The book hasn’t been written yet.

This inaugural new year’s post comes late, but we have to say: thank you for sticking with us. We look forward to working with you this year on behalf of the people of Sudan.

“Few prospects for Africa are more alarming than a renewed civil war throughout Sudan. Not only would such a scenario have devastating humanitarian consequences throughout the country, but it would also likely spill over and destabilize the neighboring countries and wider region. For these reasons, I believe that the Obama administration has been right to focus on getting the CPA back on track. But in order to be both effective and credible, our diplomatic engagement must be coupled with meaningful leverage. The administration and our international partners must demonstrate a readiness to hold the parties, especially Khartoum, accountable for any foot-dragging that occurs on core commitments.”

As we begin a new decade — hopefully one that brings peace, security and growth to Sudan — the SF Bay Area Darfur Coalition (SFBADC) would like to thank you for your past participation, activism and support and urge you to remain committed in the upcoming crucial year for Sudan. We also want to highlight a few of our 2009 activities, emphasizing awareness, education and advocacy.

Our awareness events — always free and open to the public — included talks by Omer Ismail of Enough, a panel discussion with Adeeb Yousif, a Darfuri human rights activist in Darfur and in the U.S., a screening of The Reckoning, (a film following the work of ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo), Exhibit Darfur at the San Francisco State University downtown campus, and a San Francisco Civic Center rally organized by our summer interns. We obtained thousands of anti-genocide pledges in the the Genocide Intervention Network’s Pledge2Protect campaign.

We made numerous presentations to middle and high school students, colleges, civic organizations, and faith-based groups, including at Aragon High School in San Mateo, Larkspur Library in Marin County, Las Positas College in Livermore, Kipp King Collegiate Prep High School in San Lorenzo, Mercy High School in San Francisco, the Board of Directors of the SF Chapter of the Red Cross, University of San Francisco, and many more. Our President, Mohamed Suleiman, spoke at several venues in Redding in collaboration with our dedicated friends of Genocide No More – Save Darfur.

SFBADC leadership continued to build our relationship with members of Congress. In addition to writing letters throughout the year, we met with aides to Senators Feinstein and Boxer, Speaker Pelosi and Bay Area Representatives Eshoo, Honda, Lee, Lofgren, Miller, Speier, Stark, and Woolsey both in the local and Capitol Hill offices. We also met with staff in the office of the US Special Envoy to Sudan, General Scott Gration.

Senator Feinstein, a leader in the Senate on issues of genocide and mass atrocities, signed on to a Senators’ letter to UN Ambassador Susan Rice regarding enforcement of the Darfur arms embargo and co-sponsored bills requiring disclosure by US importers of Congo minerals (S.891) and developing a strategy for ending terror in Sudan, Congo and Central African Republic by the Lord’s Resistance Army (S.1067). Senator Boxer, a longstanding advocate for Sudan on the Hill, co-chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Human Rights, Democracy, and Global Women’s Issues hearing on “Confronting Rape and Other Forms of Violence against Women in Conflict Zones Spotlight: DRC and Sudan.”

Speaker Pelosi continued her commitment to the people of Sudan in highlighting Darfuri refugees in Chad and internally displaced persons in Sudan in her statement on World Refugee Day on June 20. Congresswoman Eshoo signed a Congressional letter to President Obama asking him to raise the issue of Sudan on his visit with President Hu of China. Congresswomen Lee and Woolsey, members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and early pioneers in advocating for Sudan, questioned the US Special Envoy to Sudan during his tetimony before the House Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health. Congresswoman Woolsey was one of only two members of Congress who spoke at a Darfuri rally at the White House in July 2009.

We pledge to you that we will continue our work in 2010 and ask that you participate whenever possible, including taking the weekly Darfur Friday actions. If you have suggestions of any kind for us or would like to volunteer, please email us at info [at] darfursf.org.

Again, thank you for all you do.

SF Bay Area Darfur Coalition
www.darfursf.org

“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.”

50 human rights organizations; the bipartisan Congressional Caucus on Sudan; former high-level UN officials; the Save Darfur Coalition, ENOUGH, and Genocide Intervention Network; and countless people of conscience across the world all agree — President Obama isn’t doing enough to end impunity and ongoing genocide in Sudan.

Tell President Obama to fulfill a promise that he made on the campaign trail: he must lead the international community in imposing strong multilateral consequences on the Sudanese government.

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

CITIES NATIONWIDE – 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.]

“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.”

- A Wall Street Journal Op-Ed on Sudan sheds some light:

“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?

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.

Click here to submit your questions — they’re due today. Alternatively, STAND has prepared some questions that you can vote on right now.

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.

Click here for an example action.

“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.”

The Obama administration’s new Sudan strategy document includes the following promise:

“The United States will work to strengthen the UNAMID [the UN peacekeeping force in Darfur] by…strengthening multilateral resolve to impose consequences on actors obstructing UNAMID operations, access, and performance.”

Already, the Sudanese government is putting this promise to the test. From a UN release earlier this week:

“The joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID) today voiced grave concern over a significant surge in the number of Government and rebel troops in the war-ravaged western region of Sudan.”

Any military build-up in Darfur should be considered a direct obstruction of UNAMID’s operations, since it prevents UNAMID from protecting civilians and securing areas for the delivery of vital humanitarian aid.

Such escalation is yet another act of impunity. The new Sudan policy document promises consequences for continued Sudanese government “backsliding,” but it’s clear that the time to impose consequences is now.

As Enough, Genocide Intervention Network, Save Darfur, and others have pointed out, the policy roll-out constitutes just a small bit of what’s urgently needed from the United States.

We’ve been openly critical of the Obama administration recently for its on-the-record statements about Sudan. Namely, we were dismayed when the U.S. Sudan Envoy publicly supported the use of “gold stars” and “smiley faces” in his diplomacy, which was his bizarrely symbolic way of justifying the value of offering unearned incentives (e.g., normalization of relations, etc.) to the Sudanese government’s genocidaires.

Given the above, the new policy provides a tiny measure of relief. It contains some good on-paper commitments and positions, including:

“Assessments of progress and decisions regarding incentives and disincentives must not be based on process-related accomplishments (i.e. the signing of a MOU or the issuance of a set of visas), but rather based on verifiable changes in conditions on the ground.”

“Accountability for genocide and atrocities is necessary for reconciliation and lasting peace.”

We’re glad that the Obama administration intends to use verifiable on-the-ground changes as the key metric for judging Khartoum’s behavior. And we’re also glad that, contrary to what the administration has signaled previously via its Sudan Envoy, it is insisting now that “[t]here will be no rewards for the status quo, [and] no incentives without concrete and tangible progress” (to mention the words of UN Ambassador Susan Rice from a State Department press conference today).

All this said, there are already on-the-ground developments that demand President Obama’s attention, and which will test his promise to use appropriate pressures (including multilateral sanctions) to change Khartoum’s behavior. In a Los Angles Times Op-Ed today, Enough’s John Prendergast draws attention to Omar al-Bashir’s apparent attempt to delay or cancel an important Sudan independence referendum through the use of state-sponsored violence in Southern Sudan — more info and explanation can be found in the Op-Ed.

So, in the face of this and other current Sudanese government abuses, the key question is: What is the Obama administration going to do right now to combat this impunity? If it fails to act on the fierce urgency of now, it will completely lose the faith of the Sudan advocacy movement, and much more importantly the millions of Darfuris whose lives are hanging on a bare thread right now.