US Administration still weighing Sudan options – WP
By Michael Abramowitz and Glenn Kessler
April 18, 2007 (WASHINGTON) — President Bush will use an appearance today at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to address the crisis in Darfur. But as of late yesterday, administration officials were still weighing how far the president will go after a last-minute gambit by the Sudanese president that seemed designed, at least in part, to head off coercive U.S. action, the Washingto Post said today.
The administration has for months been debating its response to the crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan, where attacks by government-sponsored militias have left as many as 450,000 people dead, thousands of villages burned and about 2.5 million people living in camps. Although the Bush administration described the situation as “genocide” nearly three years ago, the United States and other world powers have been unable to end either the conflict or the humanitarian crisis.
Anticipating the president’s speech this morning, a coalition of churches and nonprofit groups that have been pressuring the administration about Darfur will run full-page ads in The Washington Post and the New York Times, quoting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from September 2006: “The time for stalling has passed. The time for action has come.” The ad pictures a young Darfurian thinking to himself, “What are they waiting for?”
The White House has for months been working on a “Plan B” for Darfur, which contemplates tough financial sanctions and other measures to pressure the government of the Sudanese president, Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan al-Bashir, if it does not comply with international demands to allow a robust peacekeeping force into Sudan.
In August, the U.N. Security Council approved a plan to expand a beleaguered African Union force of 7,000 to more than 20,000 soldiers and police officers to protect civilians in Darfur. But the plan has been on hold for months as U.N. and U.S. officials have haggled with Sudanese officials over the conditions for the force, which would be composed of both U.N. and African Union personnel.
Bashir’s government told U.N. officials this week that it would accept an initial deployment of about 3,000 heavily armed peacekeepers, but skepticism remains within the Bush administration that Khartoum will follow through on that promise.
Still, the last-minute promise appears to have complicated the administration’s plan to announce a new Darfur plan today. Until last night, the administration had been planning for the Treasury Department to begin blocking U.S. commercial bank transactions connected to the government of Sudan. The administration has also been planning to subject three individuals to personal financial sanctions for their alleged role in the violence — one junior government minister, one military official and, in an effort to show balance, senior rebel leader Khalil Ibrahim.
Bashir, in a recent letter to Bush, complained that much of the blame for the violence in Darfur belongs with the rebels, not the government. Ibrahim has not been blamed for atrocities, but he has adamantly rejected the Darfur Peace Agreement promoted by the administration.
Sudan, meanwhile, was accused by a U.N. panel of transferring fighter jets, helicopter gunships and weapons into Darfur in violation of a U.N. arms embargo. The confidential report, made available by a U.N. Security Council diplomat yesterday, also charged Sudan with operating white helicopters and aircraft in Darfur without government markings, including one plane that bears the markings used by the United Nations.
President Bush has dispatched various envoys, including Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte this week, to try to arrange a permanent peace deal between the Sudanese government and increasingly factionalized rebel groups in Darfur. Many U.S. officials believe that only a workable political arrangement can bring long-term stability to the troubled region.
Bush has publicly and privately voiced great frustration over conditions in Darfur and has reportedly pressed his advisers to come up with a more aggressive plan of action. But he has been unable to marshal an effective international response, according to his critics on Capitol Hill and the outspoken advocacy coalition of churches and nonprofits that have worked to raise public consciousness about Darfur.
“Our experience is that the president’s actions have not kept pace with his words,” said David C. Rubenstein, the executive director of the Save Darfur Coalition. “We are counting on the president to do what he can to end the crisis.”
(Washington Post)