Daily Darfur: Obama on a Fool's Errand?

by Michelle

categories: Daily Darfur, Obama Administration

Published July 31, 2009 @ 04:34AM PT

The Sudan-fest on Capitol Hill has come and gone, leaving in its wake little to indicate exactly how the Obama Administration plans to approach peace efforts in Africa's largest country. In his testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations yesterday, US Special Envoy Scott Gration outlined his goals in terms of "four pillars":

1. End conflict and "gross human rights abuses" in Darfur and ensure justice for its victims
2. Keep the peace between North and South
3. Ensure a stable government in Khartoum able to peacefully include or coexist with South Sudan
4. Increase Sudanese cooperation with counter-terrorism efforts

His objectives are in order, but how he plans to achieve them is still of concern, and his testimony gives little insight. His comments during the Q&A sessions, however, were a tad worrying at points. For example, he stated that there is no evidence that Sudan is a state sponsor of terrorism, and its designation as such by the US government is a purely "political decision." (comments that the Enough team "suspect[s] that the administration may end up doing some damage control around.")

I do think that it is legitimate to ask if sanctions have their desired effect --- I've had more than one conversation, with non-politically aligned individuals, about the negative impact of sanctions on the Sudanese population, rather than on the government. Sanctions also do not prompt overnight change --- so how do we know if attempts to build pressure over a longer period of time are in fact working?

The key problem, though, with offering incentives to Khartoum before securing progress towards key objections is summed up by another Enough recap of the hearing:

"But it is also telling that when Feingold asked for practical examples of how Khartoum has acted in good faith, Gration did not offer any specific examples other than some vague language on the humanitarian situation."

That's precisely it --- for the last year in particular, but really for its entire life, the government in Khartoum has succeeded in distracting the international community while continuing to rule as it pleases in Sudan: Declaring ceasefires and then bombing Darfur three days later, attending summits and signing goodwill and cooperation documents and then breaking them before the ink is dry, making a show of initiating a domestic peace initiative then shaping and ultimately ignoring its recommendations, paying lip service to the CPA while delaying or outright violating many of its tenets, accusing critics of its human rights records of being Zionist conspirators while detaining and torturing human rights activists and thwarting freedom of the press.

We need to recognize when pressure points against Khartoum are failing, but we also need to not be foolish in our expectations of a brutal regime.

Quickies

A coalition of over 130 African civil society and human rights groups released a statement yesterday condemning a recent African Union resolution on non-cooperation with the ICC arrest warrant for Bashir.

The UN Security Council voted yesterday to extend the mandate of the joint UN/AU peacekeeping for in Darfur, UNAMID. Mark at UN Dispatch points out the positive impact of UNAMID in Darfur, despite the force's slow and still-not-full deployment.

Updated satellite images show even more destruction in Darfur than was previously documented.

Aid agencies are meeting with Darfur rebel groups for talks on improving security for the region's humanitarian operations.

Radio Dabanga reports that IDP camp leaders refusing to cooperate with the government's "voluntary" repatriation program were arrested by local security forces.

Finally: A bit of venting on critics of an independent South Sudan, courtesy of Michael Kevane.

[Photo from AFP: An African Union Mission in the Sudan (AMIS) peacekeeper from South Africa mans the gun on a Mamba fighting vehicle before sunrise at the Mission's base in the north Darfurian town of Kutum.]