Saturday, October 17, 2009

Obama to Announce New Sudan Policy Oct. 19


The U.S. will engage Sudan to achieve its goals:
The new U.S. policy, which will be formally unveiled Monday, calls for a campaign of "pressure and incentives" to cajole the government in Khartoum into pursuing peace in the troubled Darfur region, settling disputes with the autonomous government in southern Sudan and providing the United States greater cooperation in stemming international terrorism, according to administration officials briefed on the plan. It also provides Khartoum with a path to improved relations with the United States if it begins to address long-standing U.S. concerns.

The public rollout of the policy brings an end to months of contentious internal debate on how to confront a government headed by an indicted war crimes suspect, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, and blamed in the deaths of more than 300,000 people in Darfur, according to U.N. estimates.

In what is intended as a show of unity for the new policy, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, will announce it at the State Department with President Obama's special envoy to Sudan, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration. Rice and Gration had battled fiercely over the direction of the new policy, with Rice pressing for a tougher line and Gration calling for easing U.S. sanctions. Read more at WaPo
The violence in Darfur will be called genocide:
The review also addresses a long-standing dispute between Rice, who has argued that there is an "ongoing genocide" in Darfur, and Gration over how to characterize the violence in Darfur. From now on, the United States will maintain that genocide "is taking place" in Darfur, officials said. The agreement on genocide represents a setback for Gration, who argued publicly in June that Sudan is no longer engaged in a campaign of mass murder in that region. "What we see is the remnants of genocide," he told reporters.