Pressure Sudan to end violence in Darfur

Obama promise on genocide in Darfur is still in the works

Updated: Friday, June 19th, 2009 | By Angie Drobnic Holan

We've received several e-mails from readers who say President Barack Obama isn't keeping his promise for rapid action on ending genocide in Darfur.

Since Obama took office, he has taken some actions to halt genocide in the Darfur region of the country of Sudan. On March 18, he appointed retired Air Force Major Gen. J. Scott Gration as his special envoy and ordered up a new policy review for the region. Raised in Africa and fluent in Swahili, Gration was an early adviser to the Obama campaign on national security issues, and traveled with Obama to Kenya in 2006.

Since being named envoy, Gration has gone on three major overseas trips. He visited Sudan, traveling to Darfur, Juba, Abyei and the capital of Khartoum. He also did a tour of Sudan's regional neighbors, visiting Doha, Qatar; Cairo, Egypt; and N’Djamena, Chad. Finally, he visited London, Paris and Beijing. Gration will attend a major conference next week aimed at maintaining peace between warring factions within Sudan.

The readers who e-mailed us, though, are impatient. Gration's language in negotiating with Sudan has been too accommodating, they say. The policy review has still not been made public, even though it has been in the works for several months. And Obama hasn't used the bully pulpit to personally talk enough about Darfur.

The International Criminal Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes on March 4. Bashir responded by kicking out humanitarian groups that were offering aid to about 2.5 million refugees inside Sudan. Those groups are starting to re-enter the country, but progress has been slow.

We asked Alex Meixner, the senior director of policy and government relations of the Save Darfur Coalition, an advocacy group that promotes peace and stability in Darfur, if he thought Obama was shirking his promise by not taking decisive enough action on Darfur.

"The tough thing here is this," Meixner said. "Obama and the Unites States don't have the power unilaterally to make everything better. Almost all the tactics that will build toward a solution require multilateral action."

Meixner praised Gration for working long hours and traveling so much. The peace conference next week is important, and the policy review will be another significant marker, he said.

Meixner said he would be watching for depth and scope in the policy review, particularly how it lays out both carrots and sticks for dealing with the regime in Khartoum. The Obama administration needs to get other countries to join in a credible threat of economic sanctions against the Sudanese government, he said. Getting the international community on the same page in terms of messages to Sudan would be another good step.

If Obama introduces the policy review personally, that would also be a good sign, Meixner said. If it's introduced by a low-level State Department official at 5:30 p.m. on a Friday, not so much.

"It will be apparent if there is a full effort or not," he said.

As for the genocide, Meixner said that mass killings have stopped for the time being. But the government is still trying to keep people in refugee camps so it can repopulate abandoned villages with its supporters, and intermittent violence and rapes continue to be reported.

Gration, the envoy to Darfur, addressed the concerns about Darfur during a State Department news conference on June 17 by reiterating the goals of the Obama administration: "We want to make sure that this situation is stabilized, and so we’re taking efforts to make sure that the humanitarian assistance is there, that we’re able to facilitate and help coordinate a cease-fire, an end of hostilities, and then we want to make sure that there’s political processes in place in Darfur and these other places, so the will of the people can be brought and so that they can have democratic principles and mechanisms."

Obama's last remarks on Darfur himself were when a reporter questioned him on the matter in Germany on June 5, 2009.

Obama said the United States had been working "diligently" to get humanitarian groups back into Darfur and mentioned its efforts on peace conference between the Khartoum government and rebel groups. "So we've been very active on this issue," Obama said. "It may not have received the attention in the press that some of the other issues have, but we are spending a lot of time trying to make sure that we make progress and that the people of Darfur are able to return to their homes and live in peace."

We understand readers' concerns that Obama's promise was for swift action in Darfur. But it seems to us that the administration is still moving toward fulfilling the promise. Gration's work, while not universally praised, appears to be ongoing and substantive. So for now, we leave this promise In the Works.

Sources:

U.S. State Department, Current Status of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and Recent Travels, Scott Gration, Special Envoy to Sudan , June 17, 2009

Interview with Alex Meixner of the Save Darfur Coalition

The Associated Press, Obama's Darfur policy lacks clarity, advocates say, June 19, 2009

The White House, Remarks by President Obama and Chancellor Merkel of Germany , June 5, 2009

The White House, Remarks by the President after meeting with Sudan Special Envoy Scott Gration, Sudan advocates, and members of Congress , March 30, 2009

The White House, President Obama Announces Major General Scott Gration as U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan , March 18, 2009

Human Rights Watch, Darfur and the ICC: Myths versus reality , March 27, 2009

Newsweek, Meet the General who lends gravitas to Obama , Aug. 2, 2007

Special envoy to Sudan sent to restore aid, explore peace talks for Darfur

Updated: Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 | By Robert Farley

On a day when the headlines were dominated by stories about President Barack Obama's plan to reshape the auto industry, Obama took some time on March 30, 2009, to weigh in on Sudan.

"Obviously on a busy news day, I wanted us to make sure that we weren't losing sight of something that has been an ongoing international crisis, and that is the situation in Darfur," Obama began. "As many of you know, there has been a longstanding humanitarian crisis there, prompted by displacement and genocide that has been taking place. There have been a series of negotiations around resolving this crisis in Sudan. It has not gotten resolved, and it is now worsening."

Obama said Gen. Scott Gration, his special envoy to Sudan, will travel to Africa to address the crisis related to "the Khartoum government's expulsion of nongovernmental organizations that are providing aid to displaced persons inside of Sudan. And we have to figure out a mechanism to get those NGOs back in place, to reverse that decision, or to find some mechanism whereby we avert an enormous humanitarian crisis."

Gration also will be assigned to "reinvigorate the North-South agreement, make sure that it's implemented in an effective way, and that we are also exploring a mechanism whereby we can get talks between rebels and the Khartoum government that could help, once and for all, resolve the Darfur situation."

"This is going to be a very difficult task," Obama said. "It will be a time-consuming task. We don't expect any solutions overnight to the longstanding problems there." But, he said, there is a "bipartisan interest on the part of members of Congress around this issue — that I actually think that America can speak effectively with one voice and bring the moral and other elements of our stature to bear in trying to deal with this situation."

Obama said Gration would return and "report to me very shortly about what he's found there and additional steps that we can take to deal with this situation."

This is just an early step in what Obama acknowledges will be a long and difficult task. But the remarks show the issue is on the president's radar, and that he is committed to taking action toward trying to resolve the situation. In other words, this one is In the Works.

Sources:

WhiteHouse.gov, Remarks by the President After Meeting with Sudan Special Envoy Scott Gration, Sudan Advocates, and Members of Congress , March 30, 2009