US Special Envoy to Sudan criticized over Save Darfur statements
By: Wasil Ali
September 11, 2007 (WASHINGTON) — The Save Darfur coalition said today that they have no intention of easing their campaign aimed at pressuring world governments to end the Darfur crisis.
Larry Rossin, a board member of the Save Darfur Coalition and a former U.N. official told Sudan Tribune that “pressure by civil society is just as important as diplomatic pressure by officials such as Natsios in bringing peace to Darfur”.
Rossin was responding to statements made by the US presidential envoy to Sudan Andrew Natsios to the Boston Herald in which he said that efforts by Darfur activists such as Save Darfur coalition were “more useful eight to 12 months ago” but are now outdated.
Natsios also suggested that the campaign by Darfur activists saying it may hurt behind the scenes diplomatic efforts that are finally bearing fruit.
However Rossin said he is not sure how work by Save Darfur coalition could have a negative impact on diplomatic efforts underway.
“If we were to lift pressure many parties may lose interest in the Darfur crisis as a result of fading world attention” he added.
Eric Reeves, an American academic and long time expert on Sudan condemned Natsios’s remarks in unusually strong terms describing him as “an arrogant fool, evidently intent on blaming advocacy groups for the failure of the Bush administration to make policy sense of its genocide determination”.
“It is not the advocates that are making peace more difficult: it’s the attitude of appeasement and accommodation represented by Natsios that is the real obstacle to peace.” he added.
Save Darfur Coalition is a coalition of over 160 faith-based, humanitarian, and human rights organizations dedicated to ending what they believe is genocide in the western Sudanese region of Darfur.
International experts estimate some 200,000 have died and over 2 million have been driven from their homes during 4-1/2 years of fighting in Darfur. Sudan puts the death toll from the conflict at just 9,000.
(ST)