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 yesterday between State Department spokesman Robert A. Wood and an unidentified journalist. (Thanks to Save Darfur and Eric Cohen at Investors Against Genocide for highlighting this.) The key back-and-forth:
[QUESTION: ...the idea of a special envoy along with other Darfur advocates, like Save Darfur – I mean, this has been a long, you know, kind of standing thing since – I think since the day the President was elected that Darfur advocates have been calling for a special envoy. So is Secretary Clinton considering something like that?
MR. WOOD: Well, look, the idea of an envoy for Sudan is something that the Administration will have to consider. No decisions have been made with regard to whether we want to go with that approach, so we’ll just have to wait and see.]
Some news reports put out this week indicate that President Obama is getting close to naming an envoy, so perhaps our worries here are misplaced. Perhaps Mr. Wood just didn’t know the right answers to the reporter’s questions.
We just wish, however, that the administration would act more quickly in formulating a nimble and comprehensive Sudan policy. It’s not like Obama’s team is suffering from any kind of knowledge deficit: as indicated by her previous testimony, UN Ambassador Susan Rice, among others, fully understands the economic and military pressures that need to be implemented in order to stop the slaughter and forced starvation in Darfur.
