From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Tue Nov 03 2009 - 03:21:24 EST
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articlePrint.aspx?ID=4527
In Sudan, the Pitfalls of Advocacy-Led Foreign Policy
Alan Boswell | 30 Oct 2009
As the highly publicized rollout of the new U.S. policy on Sudan made
clear, Sudan has become an unlikely foreign policy priority for the Obama
administration. For this, the Sudanese can thank the Darfur advocacy
movement, which effectively put the nation on the map for the American
public over the past six years.
Sudan certainly deserves every bit of attention it receives. If Africa's
largest nation again implodes, it threatens to further destabilize what is
already an unstable region of the world.
But the internal tension hidden within President Barack Obama's newly
formulated Sudan policy is that Darfur is no longer the main attraction.
Not even close.
To be sure, the Darfur conflict is not yet resolved. But the crisis is no
longer actively boiling over either. Instead, a fragile equilibrium has
emerged, in which clashes between Khartoum-linked militias and the
splintered rebel forces have become few and far between. The Darfuri
people, meanwhile, lack a definitive voice, and the numerous feuding rebel
groups make any chance to forge a political peace deal elusive.
Millions of Darfuris remain in refugee camps across the border in Chad and
the Central African Republic. They point to the ongoing insecurity back
home to explain why they are not returning. While there's truth to that
rationale, the underlying and often unspoken reality is that there is now
little for them to go back home to. While this is certainly an unpleasant
situation, it is hardly a unique one in a continent filled with unresolved
refugee and IDP issues. By this measure, Darfur no longer demands the
urgent priority it once deserved.
Meanwhile, the growing rift between North and South Sudan becomes a graver
threat all the time. With the exception of an 11-year lull, the North-South
civil war raged from 1955 until the 2005 deal known as the Comprehensive
Peace Agreement (CPA), and by its end had killed more than 2 million
people. The CPA ended the hostilities, creating an interim joint government
between the two sides, with provisions for national elections and
ultimately an independence referendum in the South. The elections have been
delayed twice and are now scheduled for April 2010. The independence
referendum -- the climax of the entire six-year process -- is a mere 14
months away. By all accounts, the nation is on a path to fatally fail both
critical tests should the current climate of escalating tensions continue.
South Sudan holds most of the country's vital oil fields, a fact which
makes Khartoum unlikely to just let the South walk away without further
intense wealth-sharing negotiations. Whether the 2005 agreement was an
actual "peace agreement" or simply a ceasefire remains to be seen. But with
both sides actively upgrading their arms in anticipation of renewed
clashes, a new Sudanese Civil War could quickly dwarf all other conflicts
on the already troubled continent.
The ticking North-South time bomb inevitably became Scott Gration's top
priority as the Obama administration's newly appointed special envoy to
Sudan. Given the unenviable task of trying to prevent the complete
deterioration of North-South relations, the former general has found it
necessary to engage with an administration many back home consider the
expression of pure evil.
But Americans know little about the CPA or the Sudanese civil war. So to
justify spending such diplomatic capital on another failing African state,
at a time when vital American interests are being actively threatened
elsewhere, the new policy document squeezes mediating the North-South feud
in between "saving" Darfur and preventing Sudan from regressing back into a
terrorist haven -- two familiar objectives for the U.S. media and public.
At the press conference unveiling the new policy, Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice followed the published
document's lead, discussing the humanitarian situation in Darfur before
moving on to the CPA talks. But the man on the ground, Mr. Gration, flipped
this order, an indication that he clearly considers the North-South
hostilities his main focus.
The reality of U.S. domestic politics when it comes to Sudan has put
Gration in a thorny situation. The pragmatic necessity to treat the
ICC-indicted Khartoum regime as a legitimate player has proven difficult
for the Darfur advocacy groups to swallow -- even as they, too, try to
adjust by shifting their focus increasingly to the North-South split. But
giving effective support to the behind-closed-doors, high-stakes diplomacy
necessary to prevent a war is a very different kind of campaign than that
of mobilizing the political will to end a genocide and demand justice
against its perpetrators. Advocacy groups are well-suited for the latter.
Whether they can succeed in constructively engaging the former remains to
be seen.
Whatever the international community's approach to Sudan, its effectiveness
will largely be determined by the degree to which the Sudanese players hear
a single, coordinated voice from their foreign interlocutors. As analysts
for the Center for Strategic and International Studies note, the new policy
of pragmatic engagement brings the U.S. approach closer in line with that
of the other main international players, such as the U.K., the EU, and
Sudan's African neighbors.
Preventing a new humanitarian disaster in Sudan will require a sustained
intervention from now through the scheduled referendum in early 2011 -- and
beyond. The new U.S. policy gives Gration a flexible framework and some
breathing room in which to work. His overall effectiveness, however, may
largely depend on whether he is granted the same space to breathe from his
critics back home as well.
Alan Boswell is a journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya, covering the eastern
Africa region. He can be reached at alandboswell [at] gmail [dot] com.
Photo: Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, January
2009 (U.S. Navy photo by Spc. 2nd Class Jesse B. Awalt).
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