What the new US envoy can do for Sudan
Editorial, The Sudan Tribune
Sept 19, 2009 — Welcome to the new US President envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios. However, US Administration should know that Sudanese people do not want an envoy who works for the interest of the White House only. They hope to see an envoy working for the realization of peace and democracy in their country.
We need peace in Darfur: Obviously, the Darfur Peace Agreement did not bring peace in the war-torn region of Sudan as it was expected. It does not respond to the aspirations of the Darfur people. It does not meet the demands of the rebel groups. So why insisting to implement this DPA in its current form? To deploy UN troops? We see the Sudanese ruling party rejecting this deployment.
The nomination of the American envoy is not an objective as such; it means to contribute to find a sustainable solution to Darfur crisis. If this is the finality of the White House, Washington should not repeat the errors of the former envoy to Sudan John Danforth or the former US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick.
Danforth putted pressure on the SPLM during Nivasha talks to accept many solutions today we see they are not applicable: Abyei commission, on the wealth sharing and the oil files also. And if we had a look to archive of Naivasha talks we can see how much Danforth was in hurry for a quick deal, for a trophy to his president before the presidential election.
Unfortunately, Zoellick did the same during the last week of Abuja talks. He went to the avenue of talks in Abuja to frighten Darfur rebel leaders and obligate them to ink the proposed deal. If we have the current situation: a former rebel leader in the presidency without any impact on the ground and without peace in Darfur, this because Zoellick menaced Minawi and succeeded to obtain his signature. He did this not to resolve the Darfur crisis but to put an end to the mounting pressure from the American civil society organizations. Fortunately, he did not succeed.
In the two cases, we see US officials looking for the interest of the White House whatever it costs to the Sudanese people. Moreover, every time the “magical solution” leads to enhance the regime.
For Andrew Natsios, we say it is legitimate to work for the interest of the US president but Sudanese could not accept to see him acting only for this objective. In principle, the man is different from the previous envoy. He also has a strong personality and knows the Sudanese Islamist style very well.
He should first know that his task would not be limited to Darfur only as some think. He soon would be also confronted with the shaky implementation of the CPA.
For Darfur, the better thing he can do is to start from nothing, to engage contacts with rebel groups and to visit the IDPs camps to understand why they reject the DPA.
This could be a good start for the interest of the humanity.