Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Egypt on Sunday to begin an important weeklong trip to Africa. Before his departure from Washington, the Save Darfur Coalition sent Mr. Biden an urgent appeal to make the dangerous situations in Sudan a top priority during his scheduled meetings with Egyptian, Kenyan, and South African leaders.

These three African powerhouse countries all have a stake in the future of Sudan. As neighbors, Egypt and Kenya would feel the direct impact of increased instability throughout the country, and especially the renewal of the North/South war. Egypt’s primary concern is the free flow of the Nile, although like Kenya it also fears a flood of refugees that would flee any new conflict. On the other hand, in the event that the Southern Sudanese choose independence next January in the referendum, Cairo and Nairobi could also reap considerable benefits from a peaceful separation. Investors in both countries, for example, are eyeing attractive business opportunities in a newly sovereign South Sudan that will be built from the ground up.

It is not surprising, therefore, that Egypt and Kenya have long played a role in regional peacemaking efforts to resolve Sudan’s decades of conflict. As a leading country within the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (a seven-country regional development organization for East Africa), Kenya provided the chief mediator and critical political support to the negotiations that resulted in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in 2005 between the National Congress Party and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M). During the North/South civil war, Egypt also attempted to broker talks and allowed both the SPLA/M and northern opposition to meet regularly in Cairo. As a continental diplomatic powerhouse, South Africa also consistently pressed both sides to end the war, and now South Africa chairs the AU Ministerial Committee on Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development in the Sudan (PCRD) and former South African President Thabo Mbeki now leads the African Union’s High Level Implementation Panel on Sudan.

While all three countries have sought to help Sudanese handle their recurring crises at different times in the past, not all of their contributions have been positive, nor coordinated. Most recently, Egypt has allegedly obstructed progress in the Darfur peace talks in Doha out of envy that the Qataris were taking the lead in the negotiations. With a declared preference for unity rather than separation, Egyptian officials have also sent mixed signals about whether they will recognize the results of the referendum. The situation of tens of thousands of Sudanese refugees living in Egypt has also grown more precarious as Egyptian security have at times arbitrarily harassed, detained and threatened refugees with illegal deportation.

Since the signing of the CPA, Kenya has firmly supported its full implementation.  A recent International Crisis Group report states: “For the most part, Kenya long managed to be pro-South without being anti-North, though its inclinations are now well known in Khartoum.”  With that said, Kenya has played a role in furthering a dangerous arms race between Juba and Khartoum by serving as a conduit for unreported and potentially illegal shipments of tanks and other arms to the Government of South Sudan.

As for South Africa, its diplomats at the UN Security Council, UN Human Rights Council and African Union during the past presidency of Thabo Mbeki often protected Khartoum from official condemnation and other resolutions attempting to apply pressure on the Sudanese government for its actions in Darfur. Current President Jacob Zuma’s strong support of the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for President Omar Al Bashir, as well as criticism of the recent elections, suggest that the country’s foreign policy has shifted considerably.

Given this mixed history of involvement by each country and their ongoing relationships with key actors in Sudan, the U.S. must collaborate closely with Cairo, Nairobi and Pretoria over the next six months and beyond to confront the multiple challenges in Sudan. These capitals also are influential in shaping regional policy approaches through the African Union and all have contributed troops to the United Nations/African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID).

In Save Darfur’s letter, we specifically asked that Vice President Biden seek commitments from these countries to cooperate with the U.S. in the following:

• Sending a unified message to all parties in Sudan that attempts by any party to delay, disrupt, or undermine the implementation of the final stages of the CPA will be met with serious multilateral consequences;

• Supporting the peace process in Darfur by pressing the Sudanese government and all belligerents to commit to a cease-fire and return to the negotiating table;

• Encouraging UNAMID to expand its footprint in Darfur so that it is able to cover more areas and protect more civilians at risk of violence;

• Seeking justice for victims and accountability for the perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Darfur; and

• Demanding respect for all political and civil rights of Sudanese per the Interim Constitution by using unilateral and multilateral mechanisms to apply appropriate pressure on the governments in power in Khartoum and Juba.

Securing regional buy-in on these initiatives is critical in helping the Sudanese create an environment where they can tackle the interlocking political crises and challenges without a resort to deadly violence. Equally important, the current trip represents an ideal opportunity for the Obama administration to demonstrate to it’s African partners and other international stakeholders that the U.S. is ready to lead those in the international community committed to working together toward a final end to the conflict in Darfur, a peaceful referendum period, and the protection of human and political rights across Sudan.

Over the last two days, Secretary Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner have led a U.S. delegation to Beijing for the second joint meeting of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue. The meetings focused on a range of economic and political issues of mutual concern for the two countries. As Secretary Clinton remarked on Sunday, “Few global problems can be solved by the United States or China acting alone. And few can be solved without the United States and China working together.”

How the international community deals with the interlocking crises in Sudan is no exception. Therefore, I was pleased to hear that Sudan was on the formal agenda of the two days of talks. It reportedly was one of only two non-regional issues that will be discussed. With that said, it’s unclear whether the discussions are making any progress on Sudan as the issue went unmentioned in the State Department’s recently released statement on outcomes from the dialogue.

Last fall, during President Barack Obama’s trip to China, I wrote on the close relations between Khartoum and Beijingand how the U.S. should appeal to Chinese national interests on the issue:

From the outside, it sure looks like [Premier] Hu has a convenient excuse not to take any dramatic steps to challenge Khartoum’s deadly policies in Darfur, failure to implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and enact true political reforms. Yet, this is the very reason why Save Darfur has urged President Obama not only to use moral suasion with the Chinese but appeal directly to their own national interests: keeping oil freely flowing (something impossible, for example, if war erupts again between the North and South).  This type of realist case for tying incentives for the NCP directly to sustainable peace in Sudan has the real potential to influence even Khartoum’s closest supporters…

More recent reports include a story at The Wall Street Journal that points out that Sudan is a key part of China National Petroleum’s $60 billion international push aimed at increasing its overseas oil production. The article states:

China National Petroleum has been selling assets to PetroChina that aren’t already part of the listed unit, but it keeps assets in politically sensitive countries like Iran and Sudan out of PetroChina to avoid backlash from international shareholders.

For those interested, Global Witness has produced very valuable reports on the need for transparency in Sudan’s oil industry to avoid a return to conflict between the North and the South. The organization, furthermore, urges China to use its significant influence in Sudan to implement key recommendations from the report.

On another issue, dealing with Sudan’s enormous external debt is an area where the U.S. and China could have the opportunity to work together. China currently serves as Sudan’s most significant creditor. The Sudanese government, in fact, has used Chinese loans to expand significantly the oil economy over the last decade, as well as finance its wars in South Sudan and Darfur. And in 2007 on a trip to Khartoum, President Hu Jintao “cheerily waved away $80 million in debt.”

In a paper last December, I explained how the United States could work with the international community to use Sudan’s debt burden as a leverage point for peace:

If the Sudanese government demonstrably changes its behavior to the equitable benefit of its people, the United States should be prepared to 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 United States should make it clear to Sudan that it will use its role at the IMF and World Bank, 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 proven and substantive steps to resolve Darfur, implement the CPA, and enact true reform to the benefit of its citizens.

Last week, the Sudanese government made clear once again that obtaining debt-relief is a major policy priority. On Friday, the Sudanese government announced that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) finally agreed to start talkson relieving Sudan’s debt.  The Minister for Finance and National Economy Lual Deng described this approval as “serious movement” and a “promising start.”

Nothing can be gleaned yet from the conversations in Beijing over the last two days about Sudan from either U.S. or Chinese officials. Hopefully, this silence means that both sides are working aggressively to build a common strategy that is not at this time ready for public consumption. It would be troubling though if the silence pointed instead to ignoring the importance of a united front toward Sudan or, even worse, to disagreements on how to approach the critical challenges ahead.

Sudan’s Dangerous Trajectory

A new military offensive in Darfur, the arrest of political leaders, and the shutting down of newspapers in Khartoum: election season must be over in Sudan. Emboldened by electoral “success,” Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir and his National Congress Party (NCP) are sending troubling signals about their philosophy that will guide post-election governance.

The push last Friday by the Sudanese Armed Forces to regain control over a stronghold of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in West Darfur kicked off seven days of violence and repression. The army reported that it killed 108 JEM fighters in the assault. Elsewhere in Darfur, JEM allegedly attacked a tanker truck killing 20 Sudanese police officers. Continued clashes between nomadic tribes and the kidnapping of humanitarian aid workers – including an American – have only heightened tensions throughout Darfur.

Commenting yesterday on these recent developments before the United Nations Security Council, the Joint Special Representative for the United Nations/African Union peacekeeping mission (UNAMID) stated that continued fighting in Darfur has “caused substantial civilian casualties, the displacement of communities, and hampered the delivery of humanitarian assistance.” The U.S. State Department earlier in the week also condemned the “recent offensive actions in Darfur” and “urged both the Government of Sudan and the Darfur rebel movements to refrain from any further actions that would undermine the Darfur peace process or endanger civilians.”

Yet, blithely ignoring the deteriorating conditions in Darfur, an NCP leader told Darfuri students this week that his party was seeking to deepen peace and foster a culture of national unity (article in Arabic). Most people in Darfur instead fear that the faltering peace process, government offensive, and continuing crisis in Jebel Marra proffer a new post-election reality.

Critics and opposition leaders in Khartoum share such concerns…

Read the rest here

Also, two nights ago I spoke with WSCOC-TV out of Charlotte, North Carolina about the kidnapping of three aid workers – one of them American – in Darfur with the organization Samaritan’s Purse which is based in Boone, NC. Today, I heard that the two Sudanese men kidnapped were released, but the American woman remains held hostage.

Workers For Boone-Based Charity Kidnapped In Africa

BOONE, N.C. — Samaritan’s Purse, based in Boone, said three of its workers were kidnapped at gunpoint Tuesday in the Darfur region of Sudan.

Evangelist Franklin Graham, CEO of Samaritan’s Purse, said he’s in contact with the U.S. and Sudanese governments and is seeking their help in securing the safe return of the workers — a woman from California and two Sudanese men.

The three were in a two-vehicle convoy and were confronted by a group of armed men, according to a statement from the charity.

Channel 9 spoke with a senior policy analyst for the Save Darfur Coalition Tuesday, who said kidnappings have become more common in the region.

“The last two years have been the most dangerous for aid workers in Darfur than at any time since the genocide in Darfur began in 2003,” Sean Brooks said.

Samaritan’s Purse says it has provided $83.7 million in assistance to Sudan over the past decade.

On Wednesday, U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the challenges facing the forty million people of Sudan. General Gration gave a sobering and honest assessment of the post-election situation in Darfur, where violence has been on the rise, and of the potential roadblocks to a peaceful and transparent referenda process early next year.

The Senators pressed General Gration on the administration’s plans and available resources to respond effectively to “all possible scenarios.” As Senator John Kerry noted, the international community is in a rare position to have “a map of the fault-lines” of a crisis. While General Gration seemed to be surprisingly comfortable with the current resources at his own disposal within the State Department, he acknowledged the magnitude of the challenge. For example, General Gration agreed with the recent assessment by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair that South Sudan is currently the area of the world most at-risk for mass killing or genocide. He also highlighted the key issues that could be triggers for conflict during the referendum period – most notably the demarcation of borders and oil sharing.

On Darfur, General Gration stressed for the first time in unequivocal language that general insecurity and lawlessness remains his chief concern.  Rather than once again touting gains from the protracted peace talks in Doha or the diplomatic rapprochement between Sudan and Chad, he stated bluntly that such progress on the strategic level “has not changed the lives of people on the ground…[who] don’t have a way out.” Specifically, he noted as unacceptable the continuing offensive in Jebel Marra, the continued aerial bombardments by the Sudanese Armed Forces, and the breakdown in the ceasefire between the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudanese government.  His frank acknowledgement of the unfilled gaps in services for victims of gender-based violence since the expulsion of 13 humanitarian aid organizations in March 2009 was also particularly noteworthy.

To make progress on comprehensive security in Darfur, General Gration described his efforts to push the United Nations/African Union peacekeeping force to “get out of the [major] towns” and to patrol the roads and the rural areas. This appeal carried the caveat that it is the Government of Sudan that has the ultimate responsibility to provide protection to its citizens and that they continue to fail miserably. In highlighting the unchanged mentality of the regime, he noted that the walis (governors) and local government leaders in Darfur have done very little to put in legal systems to identify those who commit crimes and then to bring them to justice.

With such disturbing realities in Darfur and potential for violence in the South, the Senators wanted to know how the United States could increase its leverage in Sudan. Some, like Senator Roger Wicker, accurately questioned whether Secretary Hillary Clinton or Ambassador Susan Rice should be making this more of a personal priority. He even noted a series of ads by Save Darfur and some of our partners making this case. In response, General Gration felt that the current level of involvement of Clinton and Rice was sufficient. With that said, he also announced that he would be sending a senior level diplomat to Juba next month to lead a diplomatic surge before the referendum.

It was also refreshing to hear General Gration agree with Save Darfur’s position that the international community as a whole is not coordinated, nor doing enough – and that this must change. This point relates to another critical statement by Gration: that continuing to marginalize the regime in Khartoum can be an effective pressure point. This was his response to a question from Senator Russell Feingold on what tools the United States would have available if Omar al-Bashir and his National Congress Party attempted to disrupt the 2011 referendum. General Gration would not reveal specific decisions that could be made by Obama’s National Security Council, but he said the United States would not tolerate any “messing” with the referendum. And then he importantly added that our forms of pressure can be more effective if we can get other nations to go along with them.

This revealing conversation then begs the question of what is the administration doing to make its incentives and pressures on the Sudanese government multilateral. The United States clearly did not attempt to sync closely its response to the fraudulent elections with other countries. So while a State Department spokesperson said the elections would not bestow legitimacy on the Bashir regime, there was not a coordinated message coming from our partners in Europe or important countries in Africa and the Arab world – some of which actually made statements suggesting the elections did meet certain standards of acceptability.

Going forward, if multilateral pressure is the most effective foreign policy tool, what are General Gration and the administration doing to establish a unified international plan on the following sticks and carrots? Here are a few areas that should be explored:

• Non-toleration for a Disrupted Referendum: while General Gration says a disruption will not be tolerated by the United States, it certainly could be by others in the same way the elections were accepted. What standards for success and consequences for failure are being jointly planned with European, African and Arab partners?
• Oil and wealth sharing: a critical issue for the Chinese and Japanese, the largest importers of Sudanese oil. Are the United States, China, and Japan coordinated in pressuring the North and South to reach a deal before the referendum?
• Border demarcation: both the African Union Panel on Darfur and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development are involved in the mediation of this issue. What consequences would other African countries have for either the North or the South if their actions were identified as obstructionist in finalizing the demarcation?
• Debt-relief: a carrot that the Sudanese government wants desperately. What conditions has the United States set and is it working with global partners on this issue?
• International Criminal Court: the non-cooperation of the Sudanese government and the indictment of Bashir will continue to make it a pariah state for many countries. Are the United States and its partners still clearly sending this message?

So what else happened in Yemen last week? A lot – and it’s quite troubling for the Yemeni people as well as American foreign policy objectives in this Arabian peninsular state and the region.

To begin, new clashes between Yemeni soldiers and the Houthi rebels in the north – the most recent evidence that a truce signed between the two parties in February may be fraying. As part of this military jockeying, both sides are seizing schools in the Sa’ada region – parts of which remain inaccessible to the United Nations and humanitarian organizations. These worrying reports come as the International Committee of the Red Cross stated that hundreds of thousands of people continue to suffer from the effects of the last round of fighting.

Moving to the south, political tensions continue to fester. On Thursday, Yemen’s deputy prime minister for internal affairs escaped an assassination attempt, after an exchange of gunfire between his guards and armed militants. Two people also died when the military intervened to end a dispute over water rights. As this Reuters story points out, the incident underscores how a looming water crisis – Sana’a could be the world’s first capital to run dry because of a chronic shortage of ground water – could exacerbate existing and unresolved political grievances.  

On the human rights front, the Committee to Protect Journalists called on the Yemeni government to end its campaign of intimidation, violence, and politicized prosecutions against journalists in the wake of yet another prison sentence for a journalist. This appeal came after the Press and Publications court in the capital found the editor of Sana Press guilty of  “undermining national foundations, the revolution, and the republic” and sentenced him to one year in prison. Meanwhile, the United Nations Committee Against Torture urged Yemen – along with Syria and Jordan – on Friday to investigate what it called numerous and credible allegations that their police and prison authorities routinely tortured detainees. The ten independent experts of the committee also voiced concern about violence against women and children in Yemen.

Unfortunately in the media and in the policy conversations in Washington, these stories go barely mentioned. Human rights and poor governance complicate the messaging of our number one goal in Yemen: hunting down and destroying Al Qaeda and their associates. As such, I was grateful this week for Sheila Carapico’s piece at the Middle East Channel. Providing a different take than most, she writes:

Yemenis and Americans who once imagined that Barack Obama’s administration would pressure the country’s longtime ruler, President Ali Abdullah Saleh, to respect freedom of the press, stick to a regular elections schedule, respect human rights, and abide by the rules of war have had their hopes dashed. Washington has seemingly rewarded arbitrary arrests of journalists reporting from two domestic war zones, indefinite postponement of elections, brutal tactics against protesters as well as armed rebels, and a wave of heightened repression during the past 12 months in the name of counterterrorism. The United States seems to be backing the Saleh government with military assistance not only in its war against a few hundred al Qaeda militants, but also in its suppression of the popular uprising in the former South Yemen as well as the al-Huthi rebellion in the North. This short-term approach will only harm U.S. interests and values in the long run.

A few other analysts have also been beating this drum – but whether or not American policymakers are listening and developing a multi-faceted approach to Yemen, beyond a purely counter-terrorism prism, is not at all clear.

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.