US diplomacy on Darfur to continue as other options are prepared

By Daniel Van Oudenaren

December 19, 2008 (WASHINGTON) – The Bush administration will seek to build a diplomatic platform for President-elect Obama to test with Sudan when he takes office in January even as other options are prepared, said President George W. Bush’s Special Envoy to Sudan, Richard Williamson.

In remarks at the Heritage Foundation in Washington on Thursday, Williamson made clear his view that unless the major rebel movements are included in a serious dialogue on Darfur, the United States is prepared to be more forceful.

The envoy advised the Obama team to “test the diplomatic openings that exist” while developing “actionable options including robust steps.”

These preparations would put the Obama administration “in a position to move to the robust steps immediately at such time as they may determine there won’t be progress diplomatically.”

Washington’s exasperation with the Sudanese regime, which is engaged in a civil war in its westernmost region of Darfur, stems in part from decreased humanitarian access this year even as more people have fled the conflict, as well as delays in the deployment of peacekeepers.

“The conflict has been brutal, barbaric, it’s been merciless, savage, inhumane,” said Williamson.

Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington on Wednesday, the chief U.S. diplomat adopted a similar end-of-term tone. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the situation in Darfur “the most disappointing international response” that she has witnessed in her eight years in the administration.

The search for a political solution to the conflict has yielded few results. Peace talks in Nigeria broke down in 2006 when the government refused to accede to rebel demands. Subsequent talks in Libya were boycotted by the main rebel groups. More local initiatives have not embraced the national scope of the crisis.

Ambassador Williamson voiced very limited optimism. He distrusted the recently concluded Sudan People’s Initiative, which the Sudanese government convened in response to the pressures over the Darfur conflict.

He called the 2005 north-south peace agreement “a leaky boat.” The agreement between the regime and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement brought peace to southern Sudan even as conflict raged in Darfur.

Then Williamson predicted that elections will not take place in 2009, as mandated by the 2005 peace deal. Lastly, he admitted “I’ve never worked on a more discouraging project, and my first ambassadorship was 25 years ago. This is devilishly difficult.”

Representatives of the Sudanese government watched silently at the event Thursday as the special envoy lambasted the government for having “opened the gates of hell.”

Similar frustrations have culminated in hawkish suggestions from certain policy advisors and politicians who are now senior members of the Obama team. “There’s a sense that they’re going to increase the heat, and that has Khartoum concerned,” said Williamson.

Following Obama’s election win, Sudan urged the president-elect not to pursue a “policy of arrogance and hostility and disrespect to the sovereignty of states and the international law.”

But senior Obama advisors have dismissed the concept of unquestioned sovereignty and on Wednesday the secretary of state belittled the UN Security Council’s response to the Darfur conflict. “I was in those camps in Darfur and it’s awful. And if the international community cannot respond better, through the Security Council, to the unwillingness of the Sudanese government to respond to the mandates for peacekeeping forces, I don’t think it reflects very well on the Security Council,” said Rice.

Williamson also revealed Thursday that it was President Bush himself who determined to defeat Sudan’s diplomatic efforts to halt the International Criminal Court proceedings against Sudanese President Omer Al Bashir, who is indicted on ten counts of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. In meetings with his special envoy on July 14, the day the charges were made, and again in September on the same topic, Bush was “unequivocal” that that the U.S. should veto attempts in the Security Council to suspend the proceedings.

“In fact I met with the president earlier today and we discussed this again,” said Williamson, who suspects that an arrest warrant for Al Bashir will be issued in late January or early February.

Yet the special envoy urged some restraint in dealing with Sudan’s ruling party, which came to power in a military coup in 1989. He emphasized that Djibril Bassole, the African Union-United Nations joint mediator, should be an integral part of mediation as a Qatari-led peace initiative moves forward. Bassole, the former Foreign Affairs Minister of Burkina Faso, took up his peacemaking role in Darfur this summer.

Washington has previously shown some lack of enthusiasm for the Qatari initiative, pointing to the importance of results rather than process and to Qatar’s lack of credibility among Darfuris.

But on Wednesday the U.S. diplomat conversed with Qatar’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Ahmed bin Abdullah al-Mahmoud, who recognized the role that Bassole should play in the peace process. Williamson and Bassole met earlier this month in Paris and remain in touch.

“I do think—with all due respect to (Former Special Envoy Andrew Natsios) and myself—having fresh eyes and the new energy of the new administration is not necessarily a bad thing,” said the U.S. diplomat. “But I do think engagement and trying to test the window that exists now over the next six months is critical.”

(ST)