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Sudan Tribune

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Yes, the U.S. is selling Southern Sudanese ‘Down the River’

By Roger Winter

February 28, 2010 — In an article published in the Sudan Tribune of May 27, 2009 I explained the American expression of ‘selling someone down the river’ and pondered rhetorically if that kind of betrayal was what the Obama Administration was doing to Southern Sudanese. I decided that, at the time, it was too soon to come to that conclusion, but there were reasons to be seriously concerned. That is now very ancient history. It has been for some time now very clear that, knowingly or not, selling-out all of Sudan’s marginalized people is exactly what President Obama’s Administration is doing. The Agent of this tragedy is President Obama’s Special Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration; his Controller is, obviously, President Obama himself.

As far back as last September 29’s Washington Post, journalist Stephanie McCrummen analyzed the charade the Obama Administration was performing regarding Sudan, purporting to be engaged in a serious Administration-wide policy review process because of disagreements with the preceding Administration’s Sudan policy, while all the time Obama’s Special Envoy on Sudan was already creating and actually implementing a entirely new policy on the ground and under the radar. The new official, written policy, once released, seemed to be a good policy; I and many others publicly said so in many fora. However, a written policy is only as good as the quality and faithfulness of its implementation. On neither count should anyone except Khartoum’s infamous National Congress Party be optimistic.

Special Envoy Gration has demonstrated on many occasions that he finds ‘those guys’ in Khartoum ‘so easy to deal with’. His NCP interlocutors have been in their roles in Khartoum for two decades; they know very well how to read American special envoys to Sudan. On the February 24, SE Gration is quoted in the Khartoum press after meetings in the Presidential Palace as saying, speaking of the ‘big men’ in the National Congress Party, “It is wonderful to be able to meet with the people that I have gotten to know as the leadership but also as friends”. In this statement he is praising a corrupt leadership cabal that came to power in Khartoum by coup, overturning an elected government; that provided the opportunity for Osama bin Laden to mature as an international terrorist; that is responsible for the deaths of two-and-a-half million ‘marginalized’ Southern Sudanese and the physical destruction of most of the South, Nuba Mountains, Abyei, Southern Blue Nile; that perpetrated genocide in Darfur with the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives; that has largely stolen control of the entire economy of Sudan; that has a 100% perfect record regarding the agreements it signs with others, that is, it never, ever keeps its word; and, finally, which is led by the only sitting head of state that has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for overseeing a program of mass killing of Sudanese people. The number of deaths at Khartoum’s hands is holocaustic.

Americans are beginning to understand the implications of SE Gration’s approach to the NCP. At first, many in the American population who follow Sudan were reluctant to criticize the ‘new’ U.S. Administration. That is changing. In the November 5, 2009 The New Republic, a magazine some have characterized as supporting ‘liberal social and social democratic economic policies’ said “Scott Gration is an embarrassment…Since taking over the job, Gration has gone about ingratiating himself to the Sudanese government—an odd choice given that the government is a genocidal one. He seems interested only in offering Khartoum incentives, even though it has provided him basically nothing in return.’ At the opposite side of the political spectrum the American Spectator on February 15 in an article entitled “Obama’s Dreadful Sudan Policy” said “Nowhere has the gap between Obama’s campaign talk and his administration’s actions been greater than on Sudan…Bashir and his cronies clearly do not see Obama as a credible threat. After Obama’s election, Sudan’s ambassador to the U.N. dismissed his promises of a tough Sudan policy as ‘only election slogans.’ Sudan advocates are slowly coming to the same conclusion”. On February 18 thirty-five organizations interested in Sudan in an open letter to President Obama called on the President to relieve Special Envoy Gration of his duties based on an ‘off-the-record’ meeting he held with expatriate Darfuris that some of the Darfur leaders said intimidated them and in which he seemed to be trying to pit Darfuris against Southern Sudanese (see http://allafrica.com/stories/201002181073.html).

America still has a strong active broad-based and bipartisan constituency on behalf of the ravaged people of both Darfur and South Sudan. That constituency has reluctantly but increasingly moved to a position of public criticism of General Gration’s naïve ‘candy, cookies and gold stars’ approach to Khartoum’s junta. But they are wrong to do so as Gration is just the flak-catcher. The real problem is President Obama. Gration reports to the President. Gration’s erratic pattern of making public statements and later denying he made those very statements, including in on-the-record Senate hearings, has been highly visible. The internal disputes on Sudan policy at senior levels of his Administration guarantee that the President is fully aware of what the Special Envoy is doing. That is clearly a major factor in why Vice-President Biden, Senator John Kerry, Secretary Hillary Clinton, have all now all turned on their own public record on Sudan of years past.

While the radical Islamists of Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party and the radical Islamist rebel leader of the Darfur-based Justice and Equality Movement are now moving toward collaboration, the clamor has now begun to postpone not only the already thrice-postponed national elections scheduled for this coming April but also ‘the Referendum’, the ‘Holy Grail’ for Southern Sudanese, won in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement(CPA) when it was signed on January 9, 2005. It is almost universally expected that, in a free and fair vote, the people of the South will vote overwhelmingly for independence. The CPA, in substantial degree the product of serious American diplomacy, sets the timing of the Referendum as January 2011, just over ten months from now.

Sudan has been at war internally for about 80% of the time since independence from the British on January 1, 1956, including twenty-one years of producing mass death in the South and allied areas such as Abyei, Southern Blue Nile and the Nuba Mountains. The two and a half million Sudanese who died were overwhelmingly people of ‘African’ ethnicity and heritage, in Sudanese terms meaning not ‘Arab’. Some northern Sudanese use the term ‘slaves’ for southern Sudanese.

The American phrase ‘selling someone down river’ is thought by many to derive from America’s tragic history of slavery. The concept was that slavery as practiced in the Deep South was often harsher than slavery elsewhere. ‘Uppity’ or otherwise problematic slaves might be punished by being ‘sold down river’.

In The New Republic article cited above, the editors posed and answered a key question; “Is Gration a cynic? A lightweight? We suspect worse: He is a man with an almost utopian theory about international relations.” It is my view that, through his naïve approach to Khartoum, he is essentially selling Southern Sudanese down the river. This time, though, the phrase does not refer to the south-flowing Mississippi, but rather the Nile which flows from Southern Sudan into the very heart of Khartoum in Sudan’s North. If that is where current Administration policy leads, the tragedy that results will necessarily have to be laid at President Obama’s feet and his failure to apply serious diplomacy to the Sudan portfolio. There is precious little time to change our policy course.

Roger winter is former USAID manager and former US State Department special envoy for Sudan assigned to follow Darfur dossier and implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement

20 Comments

  • Time1
    Time1

    Yes, the U.S. is selling Southern Sudanese ‘Down the River’
    You know Mr Roger winter you and only a few others probably the only few people in Washington who understand the Sudanese problem much broder and clearer. Actually i am not sure if Obama really is serious about his policies here in Africa, he has so far not accomplish anything significant here in Africa in his first term since taking office, but we trust in Obama and believe he will do it, but he needs to keep his eyes ont he ball (the situation), he seems to be completely out of touch with the situation on the ground as everyday pass, considering he is an African himself and with some connections even here in Sudan. however Gen Gration could be walking a thin line between trying to please NCP and trying to make them cooperate with him, Gration it seems does not know some of the partiers here in Sudan very well but he will soon find out the hard way if he does not stay in check, he policy of giving and taking is good but as long as if does not affect and take away from other parties involved, it will be like taking money from someone and giving it to another leaving the first person broke again, its better you just divide the money equal or you will create another problem by solving another. Marginalise people will continue to work with Rogersa nd many other good Americans who have stood by the marginalised Sudanese true patriotic stand and help achieve their rights and freedom, Obama need to be serious that is all, even if he doe snot talk alot about Sudan as long as he is keeping the situation on check and monitoring developments then that should not be a problem, Obama has to make sure during his term that CPA in completed to the end as agreed upon during bush time untill the interim period end, then the results could give him something to claim success over in Africa. As for the peace in Darfur it has to be handled with care, as the records of peace implementation is know, the record of previous violations is also know, so caution is required while pushing for peace on all sides.

    Obama and his administration should stay focus on the overal objective and mission that will see a peaceful and satisfactory end on all sides in the Sudanese problem.

    Reply
  • Dinka Boy
    Dinka Boy

    Yes, the U.S. is selling Southern Sudanese ‘Down the River’
    Roger Winter,

    I agree with you in your intellectual article that you compose on the issue of South Sudan. As was said by our hero Dr John Garang de Mabior that the Khartoum government is deform and that make them not to reform.

    In fact, the current administration of Obama seem deminishing the obvious critical problems of South Sudanese in the brutal NCP management for decades. Certainly, the Bush’s and Bill’s administration would be frankly knowing the problem of South Sudanese and other marginalize tribe in the entitre Sudan than the Obama one.

    As far as I know, USA and many others international communities who cares about the brutal death and suffering of innocents seem reluctant especially for the case of South Sudanese in which they should value and support the decission of South Sudanese in 2011 whereby NCP leaders Bashier will not make its as a just fade away deal, never in their mind; it will be more test to CPA implementers and the south Sudanese themselves because they know money and their allies can do withou option.

    We will thanks Bush and Bill adminstration because they make the world aware about the South problems by welcoming lost boys and many SPLM leaders to narrated their problems against the North/Arab for centuries.

    The US envoy works closely with the khartoum government in most case because that is the dwealing place for him ever since though he seems talking on peace in Sudan.In fact, if we have more people like you then the issue of South Sudanese would be an excellence move in 2010 and in 2011.

    We Southeners don,t trust NCP by all means because they are manipulators and they are against the South Sudanese. Last year, Bashier governments pure lots of guns in the South to many militia and money lovers to destabalized the peaceful South abd to destroy the CPA through ethnics violent and that really cause alot of death in the South;in fact, the world powerful nations must condemned Bashier for that ill impositions.

    Finally, the current adminstration has no much power about the ICC against Bashier because the Khartoum goverment is against the US too. Yes, Bush and Bill make more progress in the South than the current adminstration. God bless you Winter for sharing you views with the world.
    Thanks

    Reply
  • murlescrewed
    murlescrewed

    Yes, the U.S. is selling Southern Sudanese ‘Down the River’
    Mr Winter is clearly a guy who understands NCP well than any other person in Washington. From the start, Obama administration has been dithering and dealing hands in glove with one of the nastiest regime to ever show up on the African continent. It is just puzzling why they are doing this. One logical thing that would come to mind is that the American administration in untrustworthy. Given choice between getting some shoddy intelligence from former handlers of Osama bin Laden and holding NCP regime accountable, the Americans will ultimately choose intelligence cooperation. We really don’t know the value of that intelligence but Obama has been ‘briefed’ that it is more important that his own promises.

    The choice of Gen. Scott Gration to be the special envoy to Sudan was just as puzzling. They guy has no background in Sudan. He only lived in Congo when he was a child and has no had experience dealing with people with bloody hands like the NCP. So for Obama to just appoint this guy as special envoy just sent a wrong message to the Sudanese people. He has already been compromised.

    Reply
  • Oduck Bol
    Oduck Bol

    Yes, the U.S. is selling Southern Sudanese ‘Down the River’
    I would love to kiss my own ass,but my mouth will not reach it.

    It is very painful thing man.

    Reply
  • Oracle
    Oracle

    Yes, the U.S. is selling Southern Sudanese ‘Down the River’
    Finally!!! Someone is awake!!!

    Reply
  • AAMA
    AAMA

    Yes, the U.S. is selling Southern Sudanese ‘Down the River’
    The article is true and valid to a great extent, but it is bias too.
    The American policy towards the south of Sudan problem has been different from the rest of the Sudanese problems (including Nuba Montains and Blue Nile, Darfur ……..).

    The American policy when it comes to south Sudan is mainly stirred by NGOs from church organizations and the Jewish lobby and mainly appeared after the NCP coup and for pure political reasons. All the American successive administrations know that the south problem goes back to the 1800s when northern slave traders used to raid southern tribes and enslave their people (by the way, this phenomenon is not confined to Sudan, but the whole continent was suffering the same tragedy of tribes enslaving other tribes). After that, north and south where blocked from each other for a while during the colonial times, but the tragic memories didn’t fade away from southern people minds. After independence, the British united Sudan and automatically the northerners replaced the British administrators in the south, because, at that time there were no enough southerners to do the job. Those northern who went to work in the south were shocked by the amount of inherited hate the south had for them.
    A series efforts in trying to fix the south situation started by the north and in the process, lots and lots of mistakes were committed and the hate of the south to the north continues up to date.

    Now, America and the west know these fact and they understand that the northerners today cannot pay the price of what some of their ancestors did in the south more than 100 years ago. However, they can complain very loudly about Darfur for example as it’s a mistake by a hostile government for them. For example, people who died in the south are much more than those who died in Darfur, but in the south, the world blames both sides (south for the hate that should have been expired and the north for the mistakes done in the process of solving the problem). Off course, the arrival of the NCP changed many things on the ground.

    Regarding Gration, people should know that he was born and raised in Africa in the Congo, he acts as a son of Africa who cares for its people and he understands its complexities. That’s way many in the US who don’t know the reality on the ground in Africa think he is an embarrassment because he is not bias to the main stream NGOs propaganda who promote Arab/Islamophobia and try to find hateful allies with them. Obama is also a son of Africa and is much more open mined towards the world than most of those confined critics who don’t know much about anything in the world beside their own country. Obama was not easy with the NCP on Darfur, but he won’t be harsh to the north (NCP or a newly elected gov.) when it comes to the south, especially if the south separates as the blame is shared by both sides (south for the overwhelming hatred and north for the continuous mistakes).

    Peace.

    Reply
  • Time1
    Time1

    Yes, the U.S. is selling Southern Sudanese ‘Down the River’
    I just believe let Gen Gration be left to do his job, he knows what he is doing and knows that his ideas has to fall inline with the over objectives of CPA, peace and stability.

    Reply
  • Angelo Achuil
    Angelo Achuil

    Yes, the U.S. is selling Southern Sudanese ‘Down the River’
    I think Obama & Gration had to be more careful. Khartoum had more experience in mass killing, manipulation, and signing brilliant documents (agreements) that they never intend to follow more than they.

    Reply
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