"Obama softens approach to Sudan; Has stepped back from tough talk; Some cite danger of gentler policy" by Farah Stockman, Globe Staff | September 19, 2010
Isn't the headline perfect?
The war paper would see danger in being gentle (meaning peaceful).
WASHINGTON — On the campaign trail, Barack Obama pledged to get tough with Sudan, a regime accused of committing genocide in Darfur and waging a relentless war against its citizens in the south. He harshly criticized what he called the Bush administration’s “feckless’’ compromises with the regime.
But in the White House, Obama has adopted a far gentler approach.
This is one promise of political rhetoric I'm glad he broke.
His special envoy J. Scott Gration has called the regime in Khartoum his “friends’’ and has shied away from tough talk or new sanctions. This past week, the Obama administration announced a package of incentives for Sudan, including normalized relations, if Khartoum chooses peace. Gration said there would also be consequences if Sudan turns to war, but he didn’t detail what those would be.
The friendlier approach has alarmed some activists and former and current US officials who say the country could fall back into bloodshed and civil war unless the Obama administration strongly pressures Sudan to fully implement the peace agreement between Khartoum and the south brokered under former president George W. Bush.
The deal, one of Bush’s foreign policy achievements, man dates a vote in January on whether the southern half of the country will become an independent state. Khartoum has threatened to resume the war if the south breaks away.
Yeah, Bush was a real success. Sigh.
Just wondering why what is good for Sudan isn't good enough for Kashmir.
State Department officials acknowledge that they have taken a softer approach but say that the administration is now intensifying its diplomatic efforts. Obama is expected to make a strong statement on Sudan at a UN meeting Friday.
But some human rights activists and former US officials are still skeptical, saying the administration has been too reluctant to consider harsh actions — such as additional sanctions, no-fly zones, or naval blockades — to deter bloodshed.
Those are ACTS of WAR!! So WHO are the WAR MONGERS?
“Every envoy thinks they are going to be the one that the Sudanese government is going to deal with in a straightforward fashion,’’ said Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary of state for African affairs under Bush. “But then typically they learn that the regime responds mainly to pressure — credible pressure.’’
Then why don't we TRY THAT on ISRAEL!
Globe couldn't find anyone else as an expert either?
The new incentive package immediately loosens restrictions on agricultural equipment and would lift non-oil-related sanctions on Sudan if the vote takes place on time. Sudan would get debt relief, the lifting of more sanctions, and the restoration of full diplomatic ties if it supports the outcome of the vote, and resolves the conflict in Darfur.
Where is YOUR DEBT RELIEF, Americans?
The softer line on Sudan has been surprising, given that Obama’s foreign policy team is made up of advocates of tough measures — even military action — on Sudan.
(Blog editor just sighs in disgust)
Gayle Smith, cofounder of the Enough Project, which aims to end genocide, is the senior White House official on development; Susan Rice, who argued for airstrikes to protect people in Darfur, is ambassador to the United Nations; and Samantha Power, former head of Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and winner of a Pulitzer Prize for a book about President Clinton’s failure to stop genocide in Rwanda, is a senior aide on refugees.
She was the one who was booted from Obama's campaign for saying Hitlery is a monster. They both are to me.
An exception was Gration, a retired Air Force major general with little diplomatic experience, as his special envoy. Gration has worked tirelessly, traveling 20 times to Sudan, but he has become a controversial figure.
Here I am having to applaud a general because he is making peace not war.
Those who favor a tougher approach accuse him of being too trusting of the Sudanese regime and veering off the course plotted by the previous administration.
Well, WE DID ELECT CHANGE -- or thought we did!!
“We were in the final stretch of a 10-year process . . . and they absolutely made a U-turn,’’ said Roger Winter, a former special representative on Sudan who now serves as an unpaid adviser to the southern Sudan leadership.
Does he direct the weapons ring, too?
Rice, Power, and Smith declined to comment or did not return calls. Several US officials said privately that infighting between Gration and more hawkish officials had paralyzed the administration.
That's the best condition for them to be in when it comes to the rest of the planet.
A State Department official who was not authorized to be quoted acknowledged that it had taken time to get on the same page but that all are now working together intensely to avoid the resumption of war in Sudan. He defended Gration’s approach, contending that building trust is more effective than threats.
Unless that nation is named IRAN!
“There is absolutely no question that the guy is a firm believer in the power of positive thinking,’’ he said. “That is just in his DNA. His primary interest is maintaining his access to the regime, because access equals results. That is the Scott Gration mantra.’’
He noted that Khartoum is already facing the prospect of losing a third of its territory and up to 80 percent of its oil revenue if the south breaks away, so there is little that additional US threats would accomplish.
Oh, I CAN SEE WHY BUSH made the DEAL!
Yeah, SOMEHOW their is ALWAYS OIL underneath the PLACES the CORPORATE MEDIA really cares about!
Too dad Kashmir doesn't have any oil!
Asked after a press briefing last week if his policy is all carrot and no stick Gration said: “We have a policy that gives the north a pathway to better bilateral relations. If they don’t take it, that’s already a stick.’’
I like that kind of policy. Some hungry people there.
US presidents have wrestled for decades how to handle Sudan, an oil-rich country that has been consumed by war since its independence in 1956. The conflict broke out when Arab Muslims in the north tried to impose Islamic law on the Christian and animist African tribes in the rest of country. They rebelled, sparking one of Africa’s longest civil wars. A 1972 peace agreement gave southerners autonomy, but the Sudanese government failed to carry it out, plunging the country back into war.
When President Bush came into office in 2001, he took a personal interest in the plight of the Christians in the south, a cause célèbre for his evangelical base. Bush met at least three times with southern rebel leaders at the White House and become a hero in refugee camps, where babies were named after him.
Sigh.
Bush appointed a series of special envoys who painstakingly midwifed the peace agreement in 2005. But making sure both sides follow through with the deal has been a challenge....
They totally skipped the fact that the southern rebels were the ones that rose up.
I can't imagine why!
Another complication has been a separate conflict in the western region of Darfur that erupted in 2003 when rebels demanded their own peace agreement. Khartoum responded by arming militias that are accused of exterminating villages, leaving some 300,000 people dead from attacks, starvation, or disease.
Yeah, that issue seems to come and go.
Last week, Gration praised the Sudanese government for its new plan to spend $1.9 billion on highways and other infrastructure in Darfur. “It’s impressive,’’ Gration said. “They really want this thing to succeed.’’
But Salih Osman Mahmoud, a human rights activist in Darfur who offers pro bono legal assistance to the victims of attacks, said the plan was another empty promise.
We are used to them in America, aren't you?
Mahmoud, who was in Washington lobbying for a tougher Sudan policy, said that government-backed militias opened fire in Darfur’s Tebra market two weeks ago, killing about 80 people.
“They will never spend that money’’ on development, he said. “The only person who believes it is Gration.’’
--more--"Also see: Standing firm for the people of south Sudan
Related:
".... Sudan (a Muslim nation with an independent foreign policy which supports Palestinian rights). To an overwhelming degree, the propaganda campaign behind the so-called “Darfur genocide campaign’ is the Israeli state and its political apparatus in the US, namely the Zionist Power Configuration. Most of the media celebrities, led by prominent Hollywood Zionist director Steven Spielberg, have engaged in an exercise of selective moral indignation – supporting Israel, while ignoring its starvation blockade of Gaza, supporting the US occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq while attacking China for its ‘immoral’ oil contracts with the Sudan.
The CPMAJO has focused on the Darfur ‘genocide’ because by doing so it favors the brutal separatists in southern Sudan, armed and advised by Israel, as a means of depriving pro-Palestinian Sudan of a large oil rich region in the south of the country. The Darfur campaign deliberately and systematically excludes any mention of the Israeli Supreme Court’s approval of Israel’s food and fuel blockade and deliberate prevention of the movement of medical personnel in Gaza and the West Bank, its approval of Israel’s practice of torture (‘forceful interrogations’), armed assaults on the vital infrastructure and civilian population centers of Gaza. Hollywood’s Darfur sideshow is a sham propaganda effort at selective humanitarian concern...."
"Some US officials fear the cargo aboard the MV Faina, which was seized by pirates Thursday, could end up in the hands of Al Qaeda-linked militants in Somalia.... But US officials, arms analysts, and maritime officials say the more likely original destination was southern Sudan, where the former rebel group Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement, now governs an autonomous region...."
"Vadim Alperin was once quoted to be a "Mossad brother" running a number of clandestine front companies including one Kenyan Meat export company enjoying "good trade" with middle eastern countries covertly used for gathering intelligence from countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia"
Also see: Sudan: Israel arming Darfur rebels
After a while the one-sided, agenda-pushing news "coverage" becomes tiresome.
