Policy Essay

Enough Project Policy Alerts provide a reaction and set of recommnendations to a significant development designed for policymakers, advocates, and other influential people participating in the policy making process.

On August 22, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, adopted regulations for Section 1502, the provision of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law that deals with conflict minerals from the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC. The trade in these minerals fuels a conflict that continues to cause suffering among the people of eastern Congo.

Recently, the government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, or SPLM-N, signed separate memoranda of understanding, or MOUs, with the so-called “Tripartite Partners” comprised of the United Nations, the African Union, and the League of Arab States. While challenges remain, the MOUs are a positive step forward in securing unfettered access for international humanitarian aid organizations to conflict-affected populations in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

On June 7, yet another round of negotiations between officials from Sudan and South Sudan broke up without the conclusion of any concrete and sustainable agreements. This last round of talks centered, in large part, on discussions of the ill-defined international border that divides the two countries and related security issues.

Prior to South Sudan’s independence in July 2011, Sudan was the largest country in Africa, bordering nine other states. Today, the two Sudans share a diverse and critical geopolitical sub-region that links the Sahara, the Sahel, the Horn, and the Great Lakes. In this report the Enough Project examines some of the two countries’ most important neighbors and regional relationships.

If the first decade of the new millennium bears a single enduring political lesson,
it is this: Intervention strategies that plan the war but not the peace will fail.
Indifference to or wishful thinking about the crafting of a post-intervention political
order guarantees disorder, and can leave both the occupied country and the
intervening power worse off than before.

The combination of current internal, regional and international variables could provide a real catalyst for future peace in Sudan. Demonstrations earlier this year, inspired by Arab Spring initiatives in neighboring countries, were ruthlessly crushed with draconian regime tactics—including rape of women involved in protests.

After a decades-long deadly struggle for freedom, South Sudanese celebrated for days over the realization of their dream of independent statehood. A new U.S. policy—rooted in the international responsibility to protect civilian life and democracy promotion—is desperately needed for these two new Sudans.