Brains Like a Shoe

Part two of this important, and at times incredibly funny, conversation can be found here.

It’s great also to see how much coverage the J Street conference received this week.  The New York Times today reported:

J Street has only a small fraction of the resources and membership of more established pro-Israel groups, like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and it remains unclear how potent it will be in presenting itself as an alternative. Nonetheless, it has had great success in quickly becoming a major reference point in the complicated debate over President Obama’s Middle East policy as well as the more emotional issue of the appropriate role for American Jews in supporting Israel.

I will be blogging about the African Union Panel for Darfur’s report and recommendations as soon as I have time.  For now though, I want to point everyone to a new post by Jerry Fowler, the president of the Save Darfur Coalition, at Huffington Post.

Its his thoughts about current U.S. policy toward Sudan now that the official Sudan Policy Review has been completed.  He also gives a shout-out to my blog from last week on the necessity of immediate implementation.

While the new administration policy has many of the right elements, there are concerns, many of which were recently raised on the Save Darfur blog. The biggest strategic level concern is that those elements of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) focused on opening up political space in Sudan not be traded away for conflict resolution in Darfur or conflict prevention in southern Sudan.

The most important long-term need facing Sudan is the creation of a political space in which Sudanese can resolve the country’s issues without the use of extreme violence. The CPA presents a framework for creating that space, but the CPA elements crucial to that framework are the ones whose implementation is most seriously lacking. Now, elections are six months away and there have been no meaningful steps toward permitting freedom of the press, freedom of association, and freedom of movement or curbing the arbitrary powers of the security services. Judging from the travesty of the census, the ruling NCP does not intend to fulfill its CPA obligation to open up political space. This is a status quo that must be changed if peace is to be promoted.

Tactically, the biggest concern is how much of a priority Sudan is for President Obama. He said all the right things while he was in the Senate and during the campaign, including pledging to bring “unstinting resolve” to Sudan policy if elected.

For the new policy to work, General Gration can’t go it alone. The President must lead in creating a real coalition of key heads of state to support the strategy laid out last week and push for concrete and lasting change in Sudan. Now is the time for him to show the resolve he promised.

Rumors have been circulating for a few weeks that elements of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) were taking their looting and horrific terrorist activities from Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and south Sudan to Darfur. Major-General Kuol Diem Kuol of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), in fact, was unequivocal:

We have confirmed that the LRA are there and they have clashed with the local population…The LRA is in Darfur for two purposes…They are travelling with their families, wives and children, and have taken them there for protection. They are also wanting ammunition and weapons from the [main] Sudan army.

Others were less sure.  Rob Crilly appropriately questioned the motivations behind SPLA accusations:

So the evidence comes from rebels who spent 20 years fighting against Khartoum, who are allied with the Darfuri rebels, and who themselves are no strangers to using child soldiers, stealing food aid and targeting civilians in their struggle. Lower down they resurrect their claims that Khartoum is resupplying the LRA.

Concern grew this week when the LRA raided a camp for displaced Darfuris in southern Sudan looking for supplies.  Major-General Diem is again the main source quoted in the western press about the raid, as well as a subsequent SPLA mission to free 46 abducted Darfuris. These stories followed a report of clashes with Sudan’s northern army on the South Darfur-Central African Republic border earlier this month.  As Skyle Wheeler and Opheera McDoom point out, “[a]ny LRA presence in Darfur would add to the chaotic mix of armed groups roaming the region, terrorising aid and commercial convoys and hundreds of thousands of Darfuris who fled to makeshift camps.”

So what are Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s National Congress Party (NCP) and others in Khartoum saying about these rumors and reports?  Yesterday, an article in Al-Ray Al-Aam (an Arabic-language, NCP-leaning newspaper) said that the Darfuri bloc in parliament reported that there was absolutely no LRA presence in Darfur.  This group, whose members all belong to the NCP and therefore would be expected to tow the government line, promised that they would seek more information from the government of South Darfur and then report back to parliament.

More interestingly, there were two op-eds published in Wednesday’s Al-Ray Al-Aam on the issue.   Ismail Adam chronicled the LRA’s history and noted that it would be “strange” for the LRA to now go to Darfur.  Nevertheless, he said that it was necessary that the SPLM and NCP fight together against this “pandemic.” On the other hand, Rashid Abdel-Raheem argued that the SPLM and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni are working hard to convince the international community of this “illusion.”  He blamed Museveni for wanting to distract attention from his failed handling of the LRA and to demonstrate his support for the International Criminal Court (LRA’s leader Joseph Kony has 33 outstanding charges against him).  Likewise, Abdel-Raheem blamed the SPLM for wanting to distract attention from its failed policies to protect civilians in the South – as well as its desire to exploit the issue of Darfur for its own political ends.  He concluded that the LRA crisis originated in the area between Uganda and south Sudan and the crisis remains there today – and therefore: “the Sudanese people will not be fooled” by the SPLM or Museveni’s claims.

These reactions do not tell us too much more about whether the LRA is or is not in Darfur, but they do tell us a lot about Sudanese politics.  As expected, some in the NCP (or connected to it) will find a way to use the disturbing presence of the LRA in south Sudan and rumors of their move to Darfur as a device against their political foes – and some within the SPLM may also be doing the same thing.  As with other issues, the simple paradigm is that Khartoum will blame Juba for not handling problems in the South, and Juba will blame Khartoum for being secretly behind these problems.  I will keep monitoring the reactions and commentary, as well as any third-party reporting on the issue, to give future updates.

With all that said, this analysis of the politics should not take away from the very real fact that the LRA is without doubt operating in south Sudan – regularly attacking villages and displacing tens of thousands of civilians in 2009 alone.

First, a powerful photo essay at Foreign Policy of Somalis fleeing the carnage of Mogadishu for the safer northern parts of the country, including Puntland and Somaliland.

One of the pictures from Somalia by ROBERTO SCHMIDT

Second, a piece by Bec Hamilton in The New Republic on “why aid for Darfur’s rape survivors has all but disappeared.”

Third, Jim Zogby reports on Arabs and Jews coming together in Washington for peace.

And finally, breaking news from Sudan’s Second Vice President Ali Mohamed Osman Taha,  ”The devil (has been contained) in Darfur”!  He made this declaration after a reconciliation meeting yesterday between two Darfuri tribes, the Misseriya and the Rizeigat.  One tribe agreed to pay the other tribe the traditional blood money – and both agreed to peaceful relations going forward.  For Taha, this was evidence that the devil’s doings may finally be stifled in Darfur.  Its convenient of course to blame the six years of chaos on the devil – and not, of course, Taha’s friends in the Sudanese government.

First posted at Save Darfur…

Are African countries that are state parties to the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court playing a shell game with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir?  Since the issuance of his arrest warrant by the ICC in March 2009, Bashir has repeatedly received invitations from African leaders to attend summits and conferences that eventually result in the dispatching of non-fugitives of international justice to serve in Bashir’s stead.  Were these recent invitations from countries like Uganda and Nigeria in good faith?  Or have there been pre-arranged deals cut that a public invitation would be extended with the understanding that Bashir would not accept them?

Last week provides the most recent example of a possibly well-choreographed diplomatic dance.  On Thursday, Amnesty International broke the news that the African Union had invited Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir to participate in the AU Peace and Security Council meetings on Darfur in Abuja, Nigeria.  They urged the AU to rescind the invitation and, if Bashir made the visit, the Nigerian government “to arrest President Omar al Bashir and hand him over to the ICC.”  After a day of headlines and ambivalent statements from Nigerian and AU officials about their commitments to fulfill obligations under international law, the Sudanese government announced on Friday that Second Vice President Ali Osman Taha would lead Sudan’s delegation to the AU meetings.

But it’s not just international or Western human rights groups that are offended by the invitations issued by African capitals.  Last week, an uproar on the matter occurred for the second time this year in Uganda before Bashir turned down an invitation to attend the Special Summit of Heads of State and Government on Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons in Africa.  The Sudanese government eventually sent only two junior officials in a pattern of events that closely mirrored another Ugandan invitation in July.  At that time, a senior Ugandan foreign affairs official told Reuters:

“The invitation still stands … (but) we will handle it through diplomatic channels to avoid embarrassment and inconvenience to anybody…It’s a codeword for an agreement that President Bashir delegates another senior cabinet-ranked person. That was agreed.”

Likewise, the Nigerian based NEXT online news portal quoted “reliable diplomatic sources” in Abuja as saying that the government does not want to break ranks with the AU yet seeks to fulfill international obligation:

“My reasoning is that [the] government is merely inviting Sudan as a country with a veiled message that someone higher in the Sudanese government but not Bashir would be the welcomed guest,” said the source.

What would be the motivations behind such deals? By extending the invitations to Bashir, these governments can play to a vociferous current in pan-African politics that rejects the ICC proceedings on Darfur and case against Bashir.  In July, the AU approved a resolution to abstain from cooperation with the ICC over extraditing Bashir.  Many at the time complained that such a resolution was pushed unfairly by Libyan leader Colonel Muamar Gaddafi. Yet by going along with the resolution, many African leaders have placed themselves in a position where in order to reflect African solidarity and preserve the legitimacy of an AU decision purportedly made on behalf of the entire continent, they must make decisions regarding Bashir that may lack support amongst their own constituencies. By reaching pre-arranged deals with Bashir that he will not take up their invitations, these countries could be craftily avoiding the full weight of international pressure calling for their enforcement of international law.

In the cases of Uganda and Nigeria, what is ‘good’ for the AU does not seem to translate necessarily into what is in the national interest, as expressed by local civil society and media.  For instance, Nigerian human rights groups have said that they would protest any visit by Bashir. “The invitation is an insensitive display by the president of Nigeria,” said Innocent Chukwuma, head of the CLEEN Foundation.

As for President Bashir and the National Congress Party (NCP), the invitations from other African heads of state send the public message that the Sudanese president still retains legitimacy in the eyes of his continental counterparts.  It helps, furthermore, Bashir and the NCP make the case domestically that the president can still carry out the full function of his responsibilities – a matter questioned by some within the NCP since the issuance of the arrest warrants.  In fact, Bashir and the party’s chief interlocutor with the international community, Ghazi Salah Al-Deen, in a moment of honesty acknowledged last month that the court’s decision is “limiting the movement of the president…He has to study of course any particular (travel plan) on its own merits.”

All of this diplomacy is testing whether a head of state can effectively perform his functions while wanted on an outstanding arrest warrant. Are these countries really ignoring the decision of the ICC, or are they diplomatically circumventing it in order to avoid acting in what may be their own national interest?  Countries are parties to the ICC because they have determined, independently of the AU, that its presence serves a warranted and legitimate role in the promotion and protection of international law. Some, including Uganda, have openly acknowledged the potential role of the Court in addressing their own crises.

Even if these countries know that Bashir will pass on their invitations, Nigeria and Uganda degrade the force of public condemnation and isolation that the ICC arrest warrants have had on President Bashir and the NCP.  Of course, the stances of these countries are better than non-ICC members like Egypt, Ethiopia and Eritrea that have welcomed and hosted Bashir.  Yet these countries should be clear about their commitments to fulfill international law and follow the lead of South Africa and Botswana. If it turns out that they are intentionally playing such a shell game with Bashir, they must realize that they are directly weakening the efforts of those within Sudan fighting to make Bashir’s arrest warrant – and inability to perform his position – an important issue in the upcoming national elections.

This op-ed originally appeared in the Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review in Turkey on October 20, 2009.

No time to relieve Sudan’s debt, by Sean Brooks

The global economic crisis has once again raised the issue of the sovereign debt of countries in the developing world.

The large public debt taken on by many states, especially those that benefited from this decade’s escalating oil prices, is making it especially difficult for them to recover now that boom has turned to bust. These countries need access to foreign capital both to jump-start their economies and to continue making investments to ensure long-term growth.

Large debts owed to the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, and other lenders make it very difficult to raise this capital. Enabling countries to do so was a pressing economic issue for the IMF and World Bank meetings two weeks ago in Istanbul. But how this is done will be a critical part of ensuring that dramatic economic cycles are replaced by more sustainable growth and responsible state-building.

An example of a country struggling with a large debt burden and facing longer-term growth issues is Sudan. The East African nation’s external public debt has increased from $13 billion in 1989, when President Omar al-Bashir and the National Islamic Front engineered a coup and came to power, to $34 billion today. During that time period, the Sudanese government has received $4 billion in new public medium- and long-term loans and an estimated $5 billion in new private medium- and long-term loans.

Sudan collected more than $2 billion in new loans from international lenders, almost half of this sum from non-Paris Club bilateral loans, between 2001 and 2006 – when it was still waging war in south Sudan and orchestrating what has been termed “genocide” in Darfur.

In 2007 and 2008 alone, Sudan contracted another $1.44 billion in new loans, mostly from Arab multilateral and non-Paris Club creditors, such as China and India. In the early 1990s, Sudan refused to pay its IMF debt and came close to becoming the first country to be expelled from the fund.

Due to a combination of some economic reforms, rising oil revenues and external loans, the country’s Khartoum-based economy has boomed over the last decade. But the decline in oil prices, combined with the global recession, has hit the country hard. Economic growth has slowed dramatically and, with it, government revenues.

Like other countries, Sudan has sought a debt-relief package from its creditors to overcome its current challenges. The Sudanese government wrote to the IMF recently, saying that it continued to hope it would receive the kind of debt-relief package “provided to other countries in similar circumstances.”

In the short term, Sudan is seeking to reschedule its debt-servicing agreements with its foreign creditors. This summer, for instance, Japan wrote off $28 million in debt and Sudanese cabinet officials raised the subject with the British on two occasions. This week, Sudan Minister of Finance Dr. Awad Ahmed Al-Jaz will lead his country’s delegation to Turkey, and securing a plan for debt relief is at the top of the agenda.

Sudan’s total external debt roughly matches that of Nigeria’s before it signed a debt-relief package with the Paris Club in 2005 that reduced its external debt from $38 billion in 2004 to roughly $8 billion today. There is no doubt Sudan needs debt relief to invest in long-term peace and build the economic foundation for a prosperous future. It is for this reason that the international community discussed debt relief as an incentive for both the government of Sudan and the Southern People’s Liberation Movement, or SPLM, after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005.

Over the last four years, however, Bashir’s National Congress Party has not shown the requisite willingness to commit itself to investing in its people. Instead, the regime financed a campaign of death and destruction in Darfur and strengthened the national-security apparatus that maintains its tight grip on power.

Therefore, any debt-relief plan considered by international creditors must directly tie relief to the resolution of the Darfur crisis, adherence to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the larger process of democratization and judicial reform in Sudan. This approach should be based on the assumption that the debt the Sudanese regime has incurred over the last two decades should be classified as “odious.” This means that it was contracted without the consent of the people and not spent in the interests of the people, and that the creditors were aware of the adverse use of these funds.

There is precedent for employing this type of international economic leverage with a hard-line regime in order to achieve dramatic changes in behavior that result in peace, stability and, ultimately, foreign investment. During the late 1990s, the Clinton administration blocked Serbia from receiving urgent loans from the IMF and other lenders because of Slobodan Milosevic’s policies in Kosovo. This kept Serbia from servicing much of its debt during this period.

After Serbians removed Milosevic and turned him over to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the U.S. participated in a debt-reduction agreement with Serbia that rescheduled the country’s $4.5 billion Paris Club government debts in 2001 and its $2.8 billion London Club debts in 2004.

Similarly, in 2008, a number of countries worked with the World Bank and IMF to make Liberia – a nascent democracy recovering from decades of internal strife – eligible for the Highly Indebted Poor Countries, or HIPC, Initiative. Its participation had previously been blocked under the disastrous and ruthless leadership of Charles Taylor.

The Sudanese government in Khartoum currently has a choice: It can choose to go the direction of Liberia by ending its conflict and rebuilding its economy to serve the interests of its people, or it can continue to perpetuate the conflicts in Sudan and leave its citizens with no hope of climbing out of wretched poverty with the help of the international community.

As the situation of debt relief in Sudan makes clear, political, financial and business realities are necessarily intertwined and interdependent. Any discussions of debt relief for Sudan and other societies in or recovering from conflict must acknowledge these realities and be directed toward using debt relief to influence governments to promote peace, security and justice for their citizens in addition to implementing sustainable macro-economic policies.

Down that path lies a more peaceful and prosperous world.

In an interesting development yesterday, all the major political groups in Sudan showed a moment of “rare unity in welcoming [the] US policy.” The Save Darfur Coalition and other groups also welcomed the administration’s emphasis on a balance of incentives and disincentives for peacemaking in Sudan – but stressed that implementation would be critical to the policy’s success.

This unusual moment of cohesion demonstrates why effective implementation of the American plan will be paramount in achieving the objectives set out in the policy review. When all sides praise your plan, despite having contradictory interests and motives, you must realize that your work has only just begun.  What will shape these actors long-term interpretation of the Obama administration’s policy are not the principles or strategies found in the review, but the very next steps in the engagement process.

For instance, Sudanese presidential adviser Ghazi Salah Al-Deen told the Sudanese news agency that the lack of any reference to military intervention “is important” and that the plan constitutes a “new spirit” for the Obama administration.  At the same time though, he criticized the administration’s description of Darfur as a “genocide” and said that the Sudanese government would not respond to a “policy of pressure” which it considers disrespectful and reflects “old mindsets” that found their way into the policy review (article in Arabic).  The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) deputy secretary-general Anne Itto remarked simply: “The policy is in line with the SPLM position.”

As for the Darfuri rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) led by Abdel Wahid Al-Nur hailed the affirmation of the “genocide” label for the Darfur conflict and said that the administration’s calls for “conflict suspension and providing security to civilians” were completely in line with the SLM position.  However, he then criticized the efforts of Gration thus far stating that the special envoy had turned these principles “upside down” by making “genocide legitimate” (presumably by engaging with Sudanese officials) and “creating new [rebel] groups.”  A spokesperson for the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) also said the policy “show[s] a good direction to resolve the conflict,” but then urged Washington to realize that Khartoum only want to buy time and lacks “the will to achieve peace.”  The spokesperson concluded: “The US must press Khartoum to respond positively to genuine international will looking to bring peace.”

Of course, Gration and the administration will make critical decisions soon that upend this consensus about the tone and substance of American policy toward Sudan.  All parties have expressed a desire for U.S. leadership, but they have different expectations and fears regarding what American engagement actually means.  From the first day of implementation (today!), Gration and others in the administration must remain clear about their intentions and objectives – as well as their expectations for Sudan’s leaders.

Such an approach will mean that the United States immediately:

• Holds the Sudanese government accountable for ongoing human rights abuses in Darfur – such as its refusal to acknowledge the widespread incidences of rape, its obstruction of the provision of humanitarian assistance and the full unhindered deployment of UNAMID, and the use of disproportionate force by the Sudanese Armed Forces
• Pressures the National Congress Party to create an atmosphere suitable to holding free and fair elections, and then make public the measures by which the administration will judge the credibility of elections
• Pushes the National Congress Party to pass critical pieces of legislation pertaining to the national security laws, freedom of press, freedom of association, and the 2011 referendum
• Condemns the Sudanese government’s ongoing harassment of Sudanese human rights defenders
• Urges the Government of South Sudan to tackle potentially explosive corruption issues and to coordinate with UNMIS to enhance police and SPLA capacity to ensure civilian protection
• Encourages the Darfuri rebel movements to adopt a unified negotiating stance for upcoming talks that includes a role for civil society representatives, including women

Emergencies and crises will arise in the next few months that will fully test the administration’s commitment to its stated policies of resolving Darfur and implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.  By taking the above steps now, the U.S. can assure all sides of the seriousness and substance of its policy – and, equally important, it can clearly demonstrate what is expected of Sudan’s leaders as the country and its people wrestle with the significant challenges before it.

First posted at Save Darfur….please also see my colleague Robert’s post with our initial reaction to the Sudan Policy Review.

This morning Secretary Clinton, Ambassador Rice, and General Gration all spoke of the “sense of urgency” in dealing with Sudan’s interlocking crises.  Two breaking headlines from Sudan today confirm the urgent necessity of finding a durable solution to Darfur and preventing the collapse of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).

First, Bloomberg News is reporting that the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement announced today that it will boycott parliament for a week to pressure the country’s ruling party to amend bills including one that gives “unlimited powers” to intelligence services.  This move comes after a weekend where the National Congress Party and SPLM reached a tentative compromise on the referendum.Yet, this progress was not enough to meet the SPLM’s ultimatum last week that gave parliament a week to make significant progress on a number of pieces of critical legislation:

“We want to see a parliamentary schedule for the discussion of all the nine laws,” Yasser Arman, head of the former rebel group’s northern sector, told reporters today in Khartoum. “The current security law allows for detention, search and arrest, and gives a lot of immunity to the security body. And this is against the constitution.”

Arman goes on to say that the NCP now has until October 26; otherwise the SPLM will boycott the remaining sessions in parliament that run until November 30.

The other troubling news comes from UNAMID, the African Union/United Nations Hybrid operation in Darfur, which released the following warning about a noticeable increase in military activities in Darfur:

UNAMID personnel in the field have recently observed a sizable and unusual increase in military activities by the Government of Sudan (GoS) and Sudan Liberation Army/Abdul Wahid Faction (SLA/AW) forces, notably in the areas of Sortony and Kabkabiya in North Darfur. UNAMID is gravely concerned by this build-up as it may signal the impending start of a new cycle of armed confrontations in the area.

UNAMID wishes to emphasize that armed clashes invariably result in casualties and fatalities among combatants and in dire consequences for the civilian population, with loss of life, destruction of property, and massive displacement, thus negating the gains made so far in attempts to restore peace to Darfur.

UNAMID solemnly calls on all parties involved to refrain from resorting to violence and reiterates its conviction that the only way for a peaceful resolution of the conflict is through dialogue and negotiations.

These troubling reports demonstrate why – as Secretary Clinton remarked – the conflicts and issues in Sudan “cannot be ignored or willed away” and why the U.S. government must immediately begin implementing a policy that “empowers the people of Sudan to solve their own problems.”  The status quo no doubt portends the worse for Sudanese.  The complex diplomatic tasks at hand require – as we have called – the full leveraging of every relevant piece of the U.S. government and the generation from the administration of multilateral, coordinated support.

Cross posted from SSRC’s Making Sense of Darfur blog

Mr. Badawi in his recent post “Indebted to the Save Darfur Coalition?” plays loose with the numbers and the definition of Sudan’s “odious” debt. In addition, he mischaracterizes the objectives of the Save Darfur Coalition’s position related to how the international community should deal with Sudan’s debt crisis and ignores the coalition’s support thus far of the Obama Administration’s engagement strategy with Khartoum.  We have repeatedly called for the U.S. to offer Sudan’s leaders with a choice between earned incentives for durable peace and escalating costs to those who obstruct efforts to resolve Sudan’s interlocking crises.  It is necessary, as Mr. Badawi argues, for the international community to rid the Sudanese people of this burdensome and “odious” debt accumulated by multiple regimes in Khartoum – but the burden of proof first lies with Sudan’s leaders to demonstrate that they have finally committed to extinguishing the flames of decades of conflict in Sudan.

To begin with the facts, Mr. Badawi is just plain wrong when he states that the “explosion [in debt] has been almost solely [due] to a build-up of repayment arrears to bilateral and multilateral creditors.” From 1989 until today, the Sudanese government has received an estimated $4 billion in new public medium and long-term loans and an estimated $5 billion in new private medium and long-term loans (information via Economist Intelligence Unit, a past employer of Mr. Badawi).  Much of this new debt is even more recent.  Sudan accumulated over $2 billion in new loans from international lenders (almost half of it from non-Paris Club bilateral loans) between 2001 and 2006 when it was still waging war in south Sudan and orchestrating its campaign of death and destruction in Darfur. In 2007 and 2008 alone, Sudan contracted another $1.444 billion in more loans mostly from Arab multilateral and non-Paris club creditors, as well as from China and India.

This data reveals that many in the international community continued to give to the Sudanese regime while it was waging war and genocide against its own people.  Sudan’s arrears certainly did balloon during this period by $12 billion to bring its total arrears to $18 billion (half of its estimated debt load of $36 billion), but NIF/NCP leaders also contracted new irresponsible loans to finance their destructive policies.  From their own reporting,Sudan imported weapons worth $76.3 million between 2004 and 2006, not including fighter jets and combat aircraft.  The cost of Sudan’s purchase of 20 MiG-29s and 26 attack helicopters from 2004 to 2008 is unknown but most experts conservatively estimate the price-tag at hundreds of millions of dollars.  Recent reports, furthermore, allege that this advanced military buildup continues.

These figures lead me to Mr. Badawi’s second slight of hand.  While designating the Nimeiri regime’s debt as “odious,” he shows absolutely no willingness to apply the same standards to President Bashir’s twenty-year old regime. Any amount of intellectual honesty should have led him to consider this $9 billion in new loans as “odious” as well.  This financing certainly did not go to improve the lot of the war-battered Southern Sudanese and Darfuris over the last two decades.  In making the case for immediate debt-relief for Sudan, Mr. Badawi argues that “the pattern of inequitable development in Darfur, south Sudan, and other areas of the ‘periphery’… lies at the heart of Sudan’s history of instability.”  With that said, his argumentation implies that such marginalization was a product purely of the Nimeiri regime – certainly an absurd historical account given that the civil war with the SPLA escalated in the years after the 1989 coup and such marginalization was a chief motivation of the Beja rebellion that began in the late 1990s and the Darfuri rebellion in 2003.

It is also questionable whether the vast majority of northern Sudanese have seen their conditions improve.  Their political rights, as consistently protested by northern opposition parties and democracy and human rights activists, continue to be severely curtailed.  Last week, in fact, the Mo Ibrahim Index of Governance ranked Sudan 49^th out of 54 countries, noting that Sudan “scored well below the continental average in the categories of Safety and Rule of Law, Participation and Human Rights and Sustainable Economic Opportunity.” And even on strictly economic grounds, Sudan has not yet met the pre-conditions for theHeavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative.  Most notably, the Sudanese government has yet to complete its National Poverty Reduction Strategy paper in consultation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Given its track record, the current Sudanese government should not be surprised that advocates for peace and human rights in Sudan fail to take their argument about being unfairly burdened with Nimeiri’s debt and the related arrears seriously. President Bashir and Hassan al-Turabi took direct ownership of this debt when they carried out their unconstitutional coup in 1989 and usurped all vestiges of state power. Flouting the international community, they ignored the arrears that piled up as they instituted their reign of terror in the 1990s.  Bashir and the NCP then, as shown above, have used billions in new loans this decade to finance not only crucial infrastructure for the new oil economy – but continuing repression, civil war, and even genocide.

Severely affected by the global financial crisis, the Sudanese government currently seeks assistance from the international community to avoid a financial meltdown.  Recent hubris underpinned by the Khartoum-boom now makes way for urgent appeals for debt-relief. Save Darfur’s campaign intends to remind the international community of the odious character of this debt contracted by a regime that remains in power and continues to obstruct peacemaking efforts in Darfur and the democratic transformation set forth in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.  International financiers should not subsidize the continuation of such policies, orchestrated by a government with an indicted war criminal at its head, that are leading the country toward even further chaos and ruin.

Save Darfur has also begun educating American policymakers and Sudan’s other major creditors on the real opportunity that debt-relief provides to incentivize peacemaking in Sudan in a multilateral, coordinated manner.  Of course, it’s useful for those defending the Sudanese government, in the name of “ordinary” Sudanese people, to treat Save Darfur’s advocacy (for this specific initiative and in general) as a simplistic campaign to punish those in power in Khartoum.  It’s also useful for these writers to conflate activist campaigns like “Fast the Eid” – to which Save Darfur had no relation – with the serious policy proposals put forward by the organization.

Mr. Badawi’s description of Save Darfur fundamentally mischaracterizes the coalition’s approach to the Obama Administration’s engagement strategy. Up until now, we have supported the active efforts of the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan General Scott Gration to revive the constantly-adrift Darfur peace process and to help facilitate the ongoing negotiations surrounding the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.  In fact, we have urged Gration to do even more to help create space, opportunities, and incentives for Sudanese to solve their own problems, such as sponsoring civil society mechanisms for non-combatants to participate in the Darfur negotiations.

With Sudan at a dangerous crossroads, we have consistently called for President Obama to present those in power in Khartoum with a choice between earned incentives or serious consequences.  To that end, the U.S. should put forward a clear but conditioned process toward normalization of relations with Sudan if, and only if, the government of Sudan provably: permits unrestricted humanitarian access; secures peace in Darfur; fully implements the Comprehensive Peace Agreement; ensures free and fair elections throughout Sudan; and removes the president who is a fugitive from justice.  On the other hand, the U.S. should make clear to President Bashir and his party that if they renege on humanitarian commitments and continue to undermine efforts at peace, escalating costs will ensue.

With this strategic approach to providing incentives and disincentives to those in power in Khartoum, the Obama Administration should utilize the ready-made multilateral stick/carrot of debt-relief.  Mr. Badawi chose to ignore the political conditions that Save Darfur has set out for the provision of debt-relief to Sudan.  In our public statements, we have said that if the government demonstrably changes its behavior to the benefit of all of Sudan’s people,the U.S. should lead the way in facilitating a debt-relief package for Sudan with the international community.  On the other hand, if the Sudanese government fails to match its rhetoric for peace with proven action, then the U.S. should make it clear to Sudan that it will use its role at the IMF, as well as its position in the Paris Club, to block any potential debt-relief package.  The American message should be simple: the international community will not help Sudan with its economic crisis unless the Sudanese regime takes concrete and lasting steps to resolve Darfur, implement the CPA, and enact true reform to the benefit of its citizens.

These are the internal political solutions – outlined most recently by a cross-section of Sudanese political parties in the Juba Declaration – which the Obama Administration must support in its engagement with the Sudanese government.  Indeed, these should be the parameters for – as Alex de Waal writes – “a more constructive political and economic engagement with Sudan, precisely because that will help shift the political centre of gravity in Sudan away from the sterile military/militaristic polarization to a civil-political process that nurtures democracy.” Without first achieving these political solutions and implementing these reforms, debt-relief now for Sudan would give unearned incentives to a regime that has shown no clear and demonstrable signs of finally kicking its murderous and odious ways.

Andrea and I have less than an hour left in Turkey (actually posting from the airport).  While we wish we had more time in Istanbul, the European Capital of Culture for 2010 , we definitely feel that that the trip to attend the International Monetary Fund/World Bank annual meetings was a success.

See the story in The Sudan Tribune today: “Save Darfur Coalition wants US to fight debt relief to Sudan.”

On the debt-relief front, the Syrian Minister of Finance did call for the international community “to help unburden Sudan of [its] debt problems.” However, we did not perceive any strong willingness from Sudan’s largest creditors to take immediate steps to give such a reward to Sudan’s leaders before durable peace in Sudan takes hold.  This does not mean though that the international community recognizes yet the value of debt-relief as a significant carrot/stick for peacemaking in Sudan.  We need further advocacy and education to convince countries of what a powerful tool they have in their hands.

Indeed, a number of delegations, international economists, and civil society leaders supported our view that debt-relief for Sudan should be tied directly to concrete and lasting progress toward peace in Darfur, the full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and significant structural reforms that fundamentally change the repressive systems in Sudan.  Some of the strongest support came from leaders of debt-relief organizations that have been fighting for debt-relief for impoverished countries for decades.  Many admitted that dealing with the ‘odious debt’ of brutal regimes still in power requires a coordinated approach from the international community.   A Serbian democracy activist, and former opponent to Slobodan Milosevic, also told me that the denial by the United States of emergency loans to Milosevic helped put additional pressure on the genocidal regime.

On the way home, I will put together some further posts on other Sudan-related topics covered in sessions on the sidelines of the meetings – such as the importance of accountability in Sudan’s oil sector and building state-capacity in conflict-affected countries.