Africa Action: Activism for Africa Since 1953
Talking Points on Darfur & All Sudan
Introduction
Since the beginning of his presidency, President Obama has taken two important strides in his commitment to peace and justice in Darfur & all Sudan. The first positive step was the appointment of a full time U.S. Presidential envoy charged with pursuing diplomatic efforts recommended by the human rights community, including Africa Action.
Secondly, in October 2009 the administration announced a new policy strategy toward Sudan that aims for a more comprehensive approach. This strategy’s rhetoric encourages a renewed "focus on ending the suffering in Darfur, and building a lasting peace." Furthermore, the new policy includes a call of "accountability for genocide and atrocities [as] necessary for reconciliation and lasting peace."
Tragically, it is unclear how the U.S. will strike a balance between “incentives” and “disincentives”. During the Bush administration, incentives were purely short-term strategic interests.
The American people must hold the administration to an “all Sudan” strategy that promotes human rights, peace and justice.
Nearly 3 million people remain displaced. According to UN figures at least 300,000 have died as a result of the conflict in the region. While the serious massacres of 2003-2004 are no longer commonplace, 4.7 million people today are affected by the conflict in Darfur. The Sudanese government deliberately restricts humanitarian access to these victims. Despite lulls in the violence, recent field research by Human Rights Watch and civil society activists highlight ongoing violence, including military aircraft bombings in rebel-controlled areas where civilians reside as recent as September 2009. Civilians, particularly women, work hard to live with dignity in the sprawling urban communities that IDP camps have become, but a climate of lawlessness, violence (including rape) and impunity for human rights abusers persists.
Darfur has not burned for six years because of a lack of global attention. On the contrary, the international community has mounted the world’s largest humanitarian aid operation there. Over 13,000 humanitarian workers and one hundred relief agencies operate in the region, providing lifesaving support for civilians, but are unable to address the root causes of conflict and poverty.
This Africa Action resource outlines a plan of action for the current administration to break from the failures of the past and achieve peace, human security and justice for the people of Darfur and all Sudan.
The U.S. president should NOT pursue a parallel track of counterterrorism intelligence sharing with Khartoum.
For years U.S. policy toward Sudan has relied heavily on classified information and ambiguous incentives and disincentives depending on verifiable progress. It is unclear how these will be balanced. During the Bush administration, incentives were purely short-term strategic interests such as counterintelligence considerations.
This classified policy’s lack of clear implementation guidelines risks making major concessions in exchange for minor steps toward peace. The U.S. must prioritize human rights, the full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and peace and justice in Darfur over normalization of U.S. policy. The State Department should disclose in more detail when and what incentives would be employed.
The Obama administration should make human rights, not the so-called “war on terror,” the unambiguous top priority in U.S.-Sudan relations. Bilateral and U.S.-led multilateral diplomatic pressure has little credible effect when Sudanese officials know that despite critical State Department statements, U.S. intelligence agencies will continue to coddle them. Negotiators struggle to build leverage against Khartoum only to be undercut by senior national security officials eager to maintain friendly intelligence sharing relations with the regime. Such a two-faced policy is outrageous, unacceptable, and should be reformed immediately.
The U.S. must actively pursue an all-Sudan strategy where both Darfur and the CPA are top priorities.
A return to war between North and South Sudan would be a humanitarian disaster and would doom hopes of peace and security in Darfur. The CPA stipulates that Sudan hold national elections by July 2009 though they were postponed to April of 2010. Serious challenges emerged while conducting the national census and affected the fair representation of the citizens of Darfur and South Sudan in these polls. Even SPLM candidate, Yassir Arman, withdrew from the presidential race in the North citing flawed registration, electoral rigging, and fraud. Adherence to the CPA’s timeline is of particular importance to Southerners because of the 2011 referendum on whether South Sudan will remain part of the country or secede as an independent nation.
The U.S. observed and supported the elections by way of special envoy Scott Gration and organizations such as the Carter Center and National Democratic Institute. However, there is little indication that the elections were fair and credible. Voting in Darfur was hardly a reality. Although there were attempts at including Darfur in a free and fair manner, there were few institutionalized mechanisms to thwart instability. As expected, Al-Bashir ultimately won the vote in the North as Salva Kiir did in the South. In spite of the poor state of the elections, the U.S. government must continue to encourage negotiations between Darfuri rebels, the government, and civil society leaders in order to help Darfuris gain a voice in their governance structures.
In addition to the UNAMID force in Darfur, the U.S. should focus on improving the effectiveness of the separate UN peacekeeping operation in Southern Sudan known as UNMIS. UNMIS failed miserably in protecting civilians along the border region of Abyei when violence displaced some 50,000 people there in May 2008. The U.S. should work diplomatically and logistically to secure and implement a more robust mandate for UNMIS that will allow it to enforce demilitarized zones in the sensitive North-South border areas of Abyei, the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile.
While Darfur and the CPA should be the top U.S. priorities in Sudan, this administration must also do a better job of anticipating conflicts in other marginalized regions, such as the Northern state where communities have been forcibly displaced to accommodate hydroelectric dam construction. The international community should also put pressure on the Sudanese government to better implement the 2006 Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement.
Real diplomatic resources must be devoted to the pursuit of peace.
U.S. diplomacy needs to be better coordinated with the international community, including European allies, Arab and African states, and other countries that hold key leverage over Sudan such as China. Economic pressure such as sanctions won’t be effective in changing Khartoum’s behavior unless it is coordinated. The decline in U.S. international standing due to terrible foreign policy decisions, including the over-emphasis of short-term strategic goals over long-term sustainable progress, over the past eight years has weakened U.S. ability to build effective multilateral coalitions. This administration should seek to reengage with the full range of international actors in pursuit of peace for Darfur and all of Sudan.
The U.S. President should renew his commitment to pursue peace and security for all the people of Sudan by addressing women’s rights in the region where rape has been part of a systematic campaign of violence. A strong move towards “unstinting resolve” would include using all of the U.S.’ diplomatic leverage to coordinate its policy with the international community, including the protection of women as a fundamental pillar and ensuring their participation in ongoing and future peace negations.
The U.S. must do everything in its power to strengthen success for UNAMID.
The United Nations Security Council has twice authorized UN-led peacekeeping missions for Darfur, and even with less than three-fourths of its 26,000 personnel in place as of November 2009, the hybrid African Union-UN force known as UNAMID is the world’s biggest peace operation. Yet these forces have been unable to effectively fulfill their mandate of protection.
In 2008, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said that the UN aims to reach 65% deployment of the 26,000 person UNAMID peacekeeping force by the end of that year, and 80% deployment for March 2009. As of November 2009, only 72% of the 26,000 mandated personnel are on the ground. Going beyond these benchmarks to get the full force on the ground as quickly as possible in 2009 and sustaining an effective presence for as long as necessary will require stronger U.S. leadership in the international community.
While it is true that some responsibility for the force’s exceedingly slow deployment rests with the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, it is unfair for the UN’s most powerful member state and presidency of the United Nations Security Council to pass the blame to UN bureaucracy without doing more to solve the problem itself. The U.S. should continue to engage with the “Friends of UNAMID” working group to match troop-contributing countries (TCCs) with appropriate training and logistical support from donors. These support efforts should see TCCs through every stage of the deployment process.
As president of the UNSC, President Obama needs to build upon what the UNAMID is doing effectively and enable it to fulfill its mandate by asking our allies in the international community to do more to provide the helicopters and other vehicles and equipment that UNAMID lacks. U.S. financial support for UNAMID so far has been robust – President Bush authorized $100 million for the force. President Obama must ensure that this commitment continues and is matched with diplomatic pressure on the government of Sudan to stop obstructing the mission’s deployment and free operation. Even in a time of increasing economic uncertainty at home, U.S. funding for UNAMID should not come at the expense of support for other peacekeeping missions in Africa and worldwide – or other foreign assistance programs.
Keeping the promise to protect
Congress has shown a deep interest in Sudan, including several Congressional hearings in 2009 and passing the landmark Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act. However, it takes strong executive leadership to exercise the diplomacy and international pressure that the U.S. must use to effectively help bring peace to Darfur and all Sudan.
President Obama has pledged to pursue peace and security for the people of Sudan with “unstinting resolve.”
Political Justice and the International Criminal Court (ICC)
Even though the ICC arrest warrant of Bashir fell short of specifying genocide charges against Bashir, it further pressures an end to the killings and displacement in Darfur. With this indictment, President Bashir becomes the first sitting head of state to be issued an arrest warrant. This decision by the ICC will only be meaningful if the international community is able to pursue the indictment with concrete steps to ensure that Bashir is held accountable for the war crimes and crimes against humanity. Failure by the international community to follow-up and enforce this indictment will severely undermine the ICC’s authority and engender a culture of impunity by other oppressors.
Today rhetoric must evolve to incorporate action as a means of stopping the violence and protecting the people in Darfur and all Sudan. At present, over six years after the government of Sudan began its genocidal onslaught in Darfur, there is no political peace process for the region of which to speak of. The U.S. Government should work with the UN Security Council and use the indictment as vital leverage on Khartoum.
Predictably, the Sudanese government reacted to the arrest warrant by targeting local and international humanitarian organizations working in Darfur. According to Sudan’s Humanitarian Aid Commission, at least thirteen organizations have been expelled and almost 40% of humanitarian workers have left the country. Further, the Sudanese government has served notice on all remaining international organizations to leave within a year. Millions of Darfuris depend on these humanitarian organizations for food, clothing, shelter, health and other basic needs. The U.S. and the rest of the international community must not fail the people of Darfur.
As important as it is to condemn the expulsion of humanitarian organizations from Darfur, the point must be made clearly that the long-term solution to the crisis in Darfur is not the presence of humanitarian organizations. The killings and displacements must stop so that the people of Darfur have space to work for themselves and benefit from independent secure livelihoods. In the meantime, the government of Sudan must fulfill its sovereign responsibility to provide the necessary socio-economic security to protect the people of Sudan, and also allow the unhindered full deployment of UN peacekeeping missions.
The U.S. administration can provide new opportunities for peace in Darfur. Shortly after the arrest warrant was issued, President Obama met with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. He denounced the expulsion of humanitarian organizations, calling it ‘not acceptable .” Susan Rice, U.S. representative to the UN, said that the ‘reckless decisions ’ by Bashir and his regime endangers millions of lives in Darfur. The administration must follow up these words with concrete actions to bring about peace.
Since the beginning of his presidency, President Obama has taken two important strides in his commitment to peace and justice in Darfur & all Sudan. The first positive step was the appointment of a full time U.S. Presidential envoy charged with pursuing diplomatic efforts recommended by the human rights community, including Africa Action.
Secondly, in October 2009 the administration announced a new policy strategy toward Sudan that aims for a more comprehensive approach. This strategy’s rhetoric encourages a renewed "focus on ending the suffering in Darfur, and building a lasting peace." Furthermore, the new policy includes a call of "accountability for genocide and atrocities [as] necessary for reconciliation and lasting peace."
Tragically, it is unclear how the U.S. will strike a balance between “incentives” and “disincentives”. During the Bush administration, incentives were purely short-term strategic interests.
The American people must hold the administration to an “all Sudan” strategy that promotes human rights, peace and justice.
Nearly 3 million people remain displaced. According to UN figures at least 300,000 have died as a result of the conflict in the region. While the serious massacres of 2003-2004 are no longer commonplace, 4.7 million people today are affected by the conflict in Darfur. The Sudanese government deliberately restricts humanitarian access to these victims. Despite lulls in the violence, recent field research by Human Rights Watch and civil society activists highlight ongoing violence, including military aircraft bombings in rebel-controlled areas where civilians reside as recent as September 2009. Civilians, particularly women, work hard to live with dignity in the sprawling urban communities that IDP camps have become, but a climate of lawlessness, violence (including rape) and impunity for human rights abusers persists.
Darfur has not burned for six years because of a lack of global attention. On the contrary, the international community has mounted the world’s largest humanitarian aid operation there. Over 13,000 humanitarian workers and one hundred relief agencies operate in the region, providing lifesaving support for civilians, but are unable to address the root causes of conflict and poverty.
This Africa Action resource outlines a plan of action for the current administration to break from the failures of the past and achieve peace, human security and justice for the people of Darfur and all Sudan.
The U.S. president should NOT pursue a parallel track of counterterrorism intelligence sharing with Khartoum.
For years U.S. policy toward Sudan has relied heavily on classified information and ambiguous incentives and disincentives depending on verifiable progress. It is unclear how these will be balanced. During the Bush administration, incentives were purely short-term strategic interests such as counterintelligence considerations.
This classified policy’s lack of clear implementation guidelines risks making major concessions in exchange for minor steps toward peace. The U.S. must prioritize human rights, the full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and peace and justice in Darfur over normalization of U.S. policy. The State Department should disclose in more detail when and what incentives would be employed.
The Obama administration should make human rights, not the so-called “war on terror,” the unambiguous top priority in U.S.-Sudan relations. Bilateral and U.S.-led multilateral diplomatic pressure has little credible effect when Sudanese officials know that despite critical State Department statements, U.S. intelligence agencies will continue to coddle them. Negotiators struggle to build leverage against Khartoum only to be undercut by senior national security officials eager to maintain friendly intelligence sharing relations with the regime. Such a two-faced policy is outrageous, unacceptable, and should be reformed immediately.
The U.S. must actively pursue an all-Sudan strategy where both Darfur and the CPA are top priorities.
A return to war between North and South Sudan would be a humanitarian disaster and would doom hopes of peace and security in Darfur. The CPA stipulates that Sudan hold national elections by July 2009 though they were postponed to April of 2010. Serious challenges emerged while conducting the national census and affected the fair representation of the citizens of Darfur and South Sudan in these polls. Even SPLM candidate, Yassir Arman, withdrew from the presidential race in the North citing flawed registration, electoral rigging, and fraud. Adherence to the CPA’s timeline is of particular importance to Southerners because of the 2011 referendum on whether South Sudan will remain part of the country or secede as an independent nation.
The U.S. observed and supported the elections by way of special envoy Scott Gration and organizations such as the Carter Center and National Democratic Institute. However, there is little indication that the elections were fair and credible. Voting in Darfur was hardly a reality. Although there were attempts at including Darfur in a free and fair manner, there were few institutionalized mechanisms to thwart instability. As expected, Al-Bashir ultimately won the vote in the North as Salva Kiir did in the South. In spite of the poor state of the elections, the U.S. government must continue to encourage negotiations between Darfuri rebels, the government, and civil society leaders in order to help Darfuris gain a voice in their governance structures.
In addition to the UNAMID force in Darfur, the U.S. should focus on improving the effectiveness of the separate UN peacekeeping operation in Southern Sudan known as UNMIS. UNMIS failed miserably in protecting civilians along the border region of Abyei when violence displaced some 50,000 people there in May 2008. The U.S. should work diplomatically and logistically to secure and implement a more robust mandate for UNMIS that will allow it to enforce demilitarized zones in the sensitive North-South border areas of Abyei, the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile.
While Darfur and the CPA should be the top U.S. priorities in Sudan, this administration must also do a better job of anticipating conflicts in other marginalized regions, such as the Northern state where communities have been forcibly displaced to accommodate hydroelectric dam construction. The international community should also put pressure on the Sudanese government to better implement the 2006 Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement.
Real diplomatic resources must be devoted to the pursuit of peace.
U.S. diplomacy needs to be better coordinated with the international community, including European allies, Arab and African states, and other countries that hold key leverage over Sudan such as China. Economic pressure such as sanctions won’t be effective in changing Khartoum’s behavior unless it is coordinated. The decline in U.S. international standing due to terrible foreign policy decisions, including the over-emphasis of short-term strategic goals over long-term sustainable progress, over the past eight years has weakened U.S. ability to build effective multilateral coalitions. This administration should seek to reengage with the full range of international actors in pursuit of peace for Darfur and all of Sudan.
The U.S. President should renew his commitment to pursue peace and security for all the people of Sudan by addressing women’s rights in the region where rape has been part of a systematic campaign of violence. A strong move towards “unstinting resolve” would include using all of the U.S.’ diplomatic leverage to coordinate its policy with the international community, including the protection of women as a fundamental pillar and ensuring their participation in ongoing and future peace negations.
The U.S. must do everything in its power to strengthen success for UNAMID.
The United Nations Security Council has twice authorized UN-led peacekeeping missions for Darfur, and even with less than three-fourths of its 26,000 personnel in place as of November 2009, the hybrid African Union-UN force known as UNAMID is the world’s biggest peace operation. Yet these forces have been unable to effectively fulfill their mandate of protection.
In 2008, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said that the UN aims to reach 65% deployment of the 26,000 person UNAMID peacekeeping force by the end of that year, and 80% deployment for March 2009. As of November 2009, only 72% of the 26,000 mandated personnel are on the ground. Going beyond these benchmarks to get the full force on the ground as quickly as possible in 2009 and sustaining an effective presence for as long as necessary will require stronger U.S. leadership in the international community.
While it is true that some responsibility for the force’s exceedingly slow deployment rests with the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, it is unfair for the UN’s most powerful member state and presidency of the United Nations Security Council to pass the blame to UN bureaucracy without doing more to solve the problem itself. The U.S. should continue to engage with the “Friends of UNAMID” working group to match troop-contributing countries (TCCs) with appropriate training and logistical support from donors. These support efforts should see TCCs through every stage of the deployment process.
As president of the UNSC, President Obama needs to build upon what the UNAMID is doing effectively and enable it to fulfill its mandate by asking our allies in the international community to do more to provide the helicopters and other vehicles and equipment that UNAMID lacks. U.S. financial support for UNAMID so far has been robust – President Bush authorized $100 million for the force. President Obama must ensure that this commitment continues and is matched with diplomatic pressure on the government of Sudan to stop obstructing the mission’s deployment and free operation. Even in a time of increasing economic uncertainty at home, U.S. funding for UNAMID should not come at the expense of support for other peacekeeping missions in Africa and worldwide – or other foreign assistance programs.
Keeping the promise to protect
Congress has shown a deep interest in Sudan, including several Congressional hearings in 2009 and passing the landmark Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act. However, it takes strong executive leadership to exercise the diplomacy and international pressure that the U.S. must use to effectively help bring peace to Darfur and all Sudan.
President Obama has pledged to pursue peace and security for the people of Sudan with “unstinting resolve.”
Political Justice and the International Criminal Court (ICC)
Even though the ICC arrest warrant of Bashir fell short of specifying genocide charges against Bashir, it further pressures an end to the killings and displacement in Darfur. With this indictment, President Bashir becomes the first sitting head of state to be issued an arrest warrant. This decision by the ICC will only be meaningful if the international community is able to pursue the indictment with concrete steps to ensure that Bashir is held accountable for the war crimes and crimes against humanity. Failure by the international community to follow-up and enforce this indictment will severely undermine the ICC’s authority and engender a culture of impunity by other oppressors.
Today rhetoric must evolve to incorporate action as a means of stopping the violence and protecting the people in Darfur and all Sudan. At present, over six years after the government of Sudan began its genocidal onslaught in Darfur, there is no political peace process for the region of which to speak of. The U.S. Government should work with the UN Security Council and use the indictment as vital leverage on Khartoum.
Predictably, the Sudanese government reacted to the arrest warrant by targeting local and international humanitarian organizations working in Darfur. According to Sudan’s Humanitarian Aid Commission, at least thirteen organizations have been expelled and almost 40% of humanitarian workers have left the country. Further, the Sudanese government has served notice on all remaining international organizations to leave within a year. Millions of Darfuris depend on these humanitarian organizations for food, clothing, shelter, health and other basic needs. The U.S. and the rest of the international community must not fail the people of Darfur.
As important as it is to condemn the expulsion of humanitarian organizations from Darfur, the point must be made clearly that the long-term solution to the crisis in Darfur is not the presence of humanitarian organizations. The killings and displacements must stop so that the people of Darfur have space to work for themselves and benefit from independent secure livelihoods. In the meantime, the government of Sudan must fulfill its sovereign responsibility to provide the necessary socio-economic security to protect the people of Sudan, and also allow the unhindered full deployment of UN peacekeeping missions.
The U.S. administration can provide new opportunities for peace in Darfur. Shortly after the arrest warrant was issued, President Obama met with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. He denounced the expulsion of humanitarian organizations, calling it ‘not acceptable .” Susan Rice, U.S. representative to the UN, said that the ‘reckless decisions ’ by Bashir and his regime endangers millions of lives in Darfur. The administration must follow up these words with concrete actions to bring about peace.
