April 18th, 2008 - OurPledge.org (AADG)  Permalink  View & Add Comments

ACTION: Tell President Bush - Don’t Normalize Ties with Khartoum

[Apr. 23, 2008 Update: This is a key action alert, so please keep calling! Thank you. -Nikki]

How: Call the White House comments line (202-456-1111), and leave this message with the operator on the other end:

“The U.S. must NOT normalize ties with the Government of Sudan. If anything, our administration should do the opposite in order to pressure the perpetrators of the Darfur genocide. Namely, the U.S. should lead the international community in imposing targeted multilateral sanctions against Khartoum’s senior leaders.”

Why: Now’s not the time to let up. Last week, The New York Times reported that the U.S. is considering normalizing ties with the Sudanese government and lifting the unilateral sanctions that are currently in place against it. This would be in exchange for Khartoum’s acceptance of Thai and Nepalese peacekeepers into Darfur, among other things.

Here’s the problem, though: Sudan has already formally agreed to let these UN peacekeepers in.

The U.S. cannot take this conciliatory approach to stopping genocide. If anything, the current administration needs to do the exact opposite — it needs to ramp up the pressure by helping to impose targeted multilateral sanctions against Khartoum’s senior leaders.