From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Thu Aug 27 2009 - 14:15:15 EDT
Washington expected to shift policies toward Sudan
www.chinaview.cn 2009-08-27 23:24:49 Print
by Shao Jie
KHARTOUM, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- Special Envoy of U.S. President
Barack Obama to Sudan Scott Gration will hand over to the U.S.
president and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, on Saturday a
report suggesting the next steps to be taken by the U.S.
administration to address the problems in Sudan, the independent
Al-Sahafa daily reported Thursday.
Gration have been touring Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt since last
week amid wide speculation that Washington was considering a shift of
its policies toward Sudan, which could include an ease of sanctions
imposed by the U.S. on Sudan over one decade, or lifting the African
country's name from the blacklist of states sponsoring terrorism as
what Khartoum is hoping for.
The Arabic-language Al-Sahafa quoted an adviser of Gration as
saying that the U.S. president's envoy would "submit a good report" no
mater whether on the 2005 peace agreement between northern and
southern Sudan, or the general elections scheduled for April 2010 in
Sudan or the democratic transition in this country.
On Aug. 17, the same day that Gration was leaving for Africa, the
U.S. administration announced that it was finishing up its
comprehensive policy review of Sudan that would determine its conflict
resolution strategy for the largest country in Africa.
"I think we are getting close to the point where we will announce
a new policy approach on Sudan. I would expect that in the next couple
of weeks," the Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Philip Crowley told
reporters at a daily press briefing in Washington.
In a testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on
July 30, Gration said that there was no evidence to back up the U.S.
designation of Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism, adding that
Khartoum had been helpful in stopping the flow of weapons and in
dealing with key members of the terror group al-Qaida.
Calling the U.S. sanctions on Sudan a "political decision",
Gration noted that the sanctions hurt the work he and others were
trying to do to rebuild and help people suffering in the war-torn
country.
Two weeks before the testimony, Gration told reporters at a
briefing in Washington that the Sudanese government was no longer
engaging in a "coordinated" campaign of mass murder in Darfur, saying
that "what we see is the remnants of genocide."
The Sudanese government immediately responded, warmly and
unsurprisingly, to Gration's remarks, and called on the U.S.
administration to make out a timetable for formalizing its ties with
Khartoum.
However, Gration revised his position some one week later after
the testimony, claiming in a press interview that the remarks he made
to the lawmakers had been misunderstood and that he was only
suggesting limited changes to sanctions that would contribute to the
development of southern Sudan.
U.S. media said the revision came because of differences inside
the administration on the policies toward Sudan, while Sudanese
officials believed that Gration had been subdued by lobby groups which
were hostile to Khartoum.
But Gration was apparently not the only person in Washington
proposing changes of the U.S. policies on Sudan.
In a more implicit manner, Chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee John Kerry also called for a comprehensive
approach in dealing with Sudan.
"When I visited Sudan in April this year, I came away convinced
that we need to build a strategic framework that moves beyond simple
oppositions like carrots versus sticks or the South versus Darfur.
Instead, we need a nuanced, comprehensive strategy for Sudan as a
whole," Kerry said.
"Our primary goals in Sudan are: helping to achieve peace and
security in Darfur and the surrounding region; maintaining and
strengthening peace between North and South Sudan; expanding
cooperation on counter-terrorism; and promoting democracy and conflict
prevention throughout the country," said Kerry, the former
presidential candidate of the Democratic Party.
The so-called "comprehensive review" on the Sudan policies in the
U.S. administration came in view of a background that since the '90s
of last century, the U.S. had been stuck in a self-designed trap which
it was unable to extricate itself.
Washington froze its normal contacts with the Sudanese current
regime after Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in a military coup
overthrew the former government which had been backed by the Western
countries.
In 1993, the U.S. administration added Sudan's name to the
blacklist of states sponsoring international terrorism, and in 1997
imposed the comprehensive economic sanctions on Sudan.
On Aug. 20, 1998, the U.S., in retaliation for repeated terrorist
attacks on its overseas diplomatic establishments, bombed a
pharmaceutical factory in central Khartoum under the pretext that the
factory had been involved in making chemical weapons.
In recent years, the U.S. has accused the Sudanese government of
committing so-called "genocide" in Darfur, and in March this year,
after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant
against Bashir, Washington immediately announced that Bashir was
persona non grata.
Local analysts believed that the first reason why the U.S. had to
conduct a review of its policy toward Sudan was that Obama changed the
tough diplomatic style of his predecessors in dealing with the Islamic
world including the Arab countries and the African continent as a
whole.
The second reason was that the U.S. realized that its long-term
Sudan policies of containment and sanctions had not achieved the
desired results but Sudan had made remarkable achievements in the
political, economic and social fields for nearly 10 years to become an
example of achieving success without the U.S. influence.
Only by a radical adjustment of its policies, the U.S. could
resume its influence on Sudan, the analysts believed.
Editor: Yan
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