Sudan on the Stand
A series of important hearings this week on Sudan. The full run down is here.
This is a very important opportunity for members of Congress and the activist community to weigh in with their concerns about the Obama administration’s approach to Sudan. Over the last two months we have seen a series of conflicting signals from the administration on how it is approaching Sudan, and there are credible suggestions that there are some sharp divisions within the administration on how best to approach the issue. This has also bogged down the release of the long-anticipated Sudan policy review being conducted by the administration.
Perhaps most important, this week gives Congress and the broader community the chance to convey some key points.
- Almost no one opposes engaging with Sudan on peace talks. But credible engagement requires pressure on Khartoum and not just the offer of incentives and a path to normalization for President Bashir’s government. Until and unless serious pressure is put on Khartoum, the Sudanese government will not change its behavior.
- Refugees and the displaced from Darfur will not return home unless security improves substantially, and that requires a much more robust peacekeeping force on the ground, a viable peace deal, and practical efforts to disarm the janjaweed. Any deal that does not create sufficient security for displaced people to return to their homes is not a deal worth having.
- Justice cannot be set aside. Accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity must be part of a lasting peace for Sudan.
- The Comprehensive Peace Agreement continues to falter in large part because while the international community did an excellent job exerting coordinated and concerted pressure in negotiating the deal, it largely abandoned that approach with respect to the agreement’s implementation. As long as parties are allowed to violate the agreement cost-free, the greater the risk to the peace process.
- Any lasting solution needs to look at Sudan as a whole, and understand that many of its problems stem from the fundamental unwillingness of the country’s ruling elite to share power with other groups in the north, south, east and west of the country.
As senators, President Obama, Vice President Biden and Secretary Clinton were all very tough on Sudan – and rightly so. Now is the time for them to stand firm in their commitments. Contact your member of Congress and ask them to ask tough questions about the direction of Sudan policy, and to make their voices heard.
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The simplest thing that the
The simplest thing that the national unity government should have done for example was to rehabilitate the national projects that existed in the south so as to prove to the citizens in the south that it was sincere about healing the wounds and opening a new page. But none of this happened.
Re: Sudan & A Responsibility to Protect
The history of the West in Africa has unfortunately revealed a strong willingness to draft peace agreements, but an unwillingness to act on them. Documentation is drawn up in international courts on a weekly basis that is intended to protect humanity and it is often backed by spokespeople of the world's superpowers. These pieces of paper are full of promises and commitments to peace and prosperity, but they are rarely, if ever, enacted. It is easy to express how we feel but all the more challenging, for whatever reason, to act on it. Perhaps it is because we pretend these situations, like the genocide in Darfur, are more complicated than they are. Acts of violence such as these are not random, they are systematically implemented and often begin because corrupt leaders in the past have relied on the west placating them into apparent peace with gifts of arms and such. Sudan is a prime example of this. How long did it take for John Prendergast to convince the international community that it would probably speed up the peace process if they stopped allowing Sudan to buy weapons? The solutions are often quite simple, but leaders are too afraid of unpopularity on the international stage to make the hard decisions that these situations require. What will become of the remaining citizens of Darfur is yet to be seen, but it won't magically cure itself and that is a given.