31 March 2009
Obama Dispatches Special Envoy to Sudan
Darfur faces “immediate crisis” without international aid, White House says
Washington — President Obama is sending his special envoy for Sudan, Scott Gration, to urge Sudan’s leaders to let over a dozen humanitarian aid groups resume services to families driven from their homes by the crisis in the country’s western Darfur region.
“We have an immediate crisis prompted by the Khartoum government's expulsion of nongovernmental organizations that are providing aid to displaced persons inside of Sudan,” Obama said at the White House March 30. (See “Remarks by Obama After Meeting Special Envoy for Sudan.”)
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir was charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) March 5 with war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. He immediately ordered 13 international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) expelled from the country in retaliation.
The aid groups, including the U.S.-based CARE, Britain’s Oxfam and both the French and Dutch branches of Doctors without Borders, were not affiliated in any way with the ICC’s actions, but were providing about 4.7 million people with foreign assistance for food, shelter and protection. (See “Sudan’s Bashir Should Be Held Accountable, Says Clinton.”)
“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,” Obama said.
The United States is the leading international donor to Sudan, contributing more than $5 billion in humanitarian, development, peacekeeping and reconstruction assistance. It has actively supported a U.N.-African Union mediation initiative in Darfur, as well as efforts to implement the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended a 12-year civil war between northern and southern Sudan.
The ICC seeks to prosecute Bashir for his government’s alleged targeting of civilians during its 2003–2008 campaign against rebel groups in Sudan’s western Darfur region. At least 300,000 people have been killed by military forces and government-backed militias in the conflict and 2.7 million others have been driven from their homes, according to the United Nations. American officials have joined many in the international community in calling Bashir’s actions “genocide.”
“What's happened in Darfur has touched so many people around the world,” Obama said. “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.”
Bashir has defied the ICC arrest warrant by traveling to Eritrea, Libya, Egypt and Qatar, where he arrived March 30 to attend an Arab League summit in Doha. The Obama administration criticized the 22 nations’ decision to express support for Bashir as inappropriate under the circumstances, and said that Arab leaders should work to convince the Sudanese leader to reverse his ban on the aid workers.
Gration, one of Obama’s top advisers, spent much of his childhood in Africa and accompanied then-Senator Obama to Africa in 2006, where they visited Darfur refugees in a camp across the border in Chad. (See “Obama Names Special Envoy for Sudan.”)
Gration will travel to Khartoum, Darfur and southern Sudan for consultations aimed at ending the Darfur crisis by urging Khartoum to engage with rebel forces in Darfur, and reinvigorating diplomatic efforts to push for progress toward implementing the agreement ending Sudan’s North-South conflict. Gration’s findings will help shape the administration’s new strategy for Sudan and the Darfur crisis in particular.
“Sudan is a priority for this administration, particularly at a time when it cries out for peace and for justice. The worsening humanitarian crisis there makes our task all the more urgent,” Obama said March 18.
