Sudan praises US envoy for backing diplomacy over coercive measures
December 21, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — Ali Sadiq, the Spokesperson of the Sudanese Foreign Ministry, praised US Special Envoy to Sudan Richard Williamson for his knowledge of Sudan after the diplomat made a speech suggesting that the incoming Obama administration should test diplomatic options with Sudan before moving to “more robust steps.”
The Sudanese ambassador also told the official SUNA news agency that the U.S. envoy had said that the Darfur rebel movements have a share of responsibility for the failure to reach a final solution to the Darfur crisis.
Although Williamson did endorse testing several diplomatic platforms for addressing the Darfur crisis, he in fact had indicated that he viewed normalization talks with Sudan earlier this year as a mistake that had not provided the kind of leverage that Washington is seeking.
“Looking back we didn’t have the kind of success that we were hoping for,” explained Williamson, saying that US sanctions made the Sudanese regime uncomfortable but did not cause any sense of urgency or pain.
The US diplomat moreover had appeared to endorse the hard-line interventionist policies advocated by members of the Obama team, but also pointed to three critical developments in Sudan that he believed had increased pressure on the regime, opening the door for possibly winning concessions through diplomatic rather than military means.
He considered these pressures to be, first, the rebel assault on the capital in May, which weakened the government’s standing. Second, he argued, is the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s move arrest Sudanese President Omer Al-Bashir on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Third, Williamson pointed to the election of Barack Obama, who openly endorsed a no-fly zone over Darfur. Senior members of the Obama team, including Vice President-elect Joseph Biden, suggested tougher measures.
Biden argued for using US or allied troops for “shutting down the janjaweed now.” Meeting with NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander and other military advisers, Biden came away with the impression that 2,500 Western troops could destroy the government-backed janjaweed militias implicated in the killing and displacing of Darfuri civilians.
Speaking in the Senate last year, Biden referred to the unilateral American intervention in Bosnia and said, “I think we can embarrass our European allies into acting more responsible.”
He added, “I think it’s time to put force on the table and use it, and use it now.”
Speaking at the Heritage Foundation, Williamson said, “There’s a sense that they’re going to increase the heat, and that has Khartoum concerned.” He then demanded that the Khartoum government take radical steps to improve the humanitarian situation in Darfur, disarm the militias, provide restitution to victims of the conflict, come to the negotiating table with the major rebel movements and implement the 2005 north-south peace agreement.
The diplomat, who was at the White House on Thursday, voiced very limited optimism during his speech that day, saying “I’ve never worked on a more discouraging project.”
But the Sudanese official, apparently referring to Williamson’s diplomatic approach, hoped that the observations made by Williamson would be heeded by the new U.S. administration.
Sadiq also stated, “Sudan was not in the priorities of the new administration during Obama’s election campaign,” though in fact Obama made a number of statements on Sudan during his campaign and during his time in the Senate, even appearing at a 2006 rally of the Save Darfur coalition.
(ST)