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POLITICS-SUDAN: Bush Pledges to Act “Soon” on Darfur

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Apr 18 2007 (IPS) - U.S. President George W. Bush pledged Wednesday to impose new sanctions against Sudan “in a short period of time” if Khartoum did not permit the deployment of some 20,000 UN and African Union (AU) peacekeepers to Darfur.

Speaking at Washington’s Holocaust Museum, Bush warned that current efforts by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to persuade Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to go along with the deployment represented the regime’s “the last chance…to meet the just demands of the international community.”

“If President Bashir does not meet his obligations to the United States of America, we’ll act,” he declared, listing a series of long-anticipated steps – widely known as “Plan B” – Washington will take, including the possible imposition of a no-fly zone over Darfur to prevent Sudanese military aircraft from attacking civilian targets.

The speech, whose harsh tone against Khartoum was unprecedented for Bush, nonetheless disappointed Darfur activists who had expected the president to use the occasion to announce the actual imposition of sanctions, rather than to issue new threats.

“The Save Darfur Coalition was disappointed that…President Bush failed to announce the immediate imposition of tough sanctions against the Sudanese regime aimed at leveraging an end to the genocide in Darfur,” said David Rubenstein, the executive director of the alliance of more than 100 U.S. religious, humanitarian and human rights groups.

“The president also failed to fix a specific deadline for the imposition of these sanctions in the event of continued Sudanese genocidal actions in Darfur and stonewalling the international community,” Rubenstein added.

John Prendergast, a Sudan expert at the International Crisis Group (ICG), was somewhat less diplomatic. “After the build-up the administration itself gave this speech, I frankly found it pretty shocking that he delivered a marshmallow,” he told IPS. “While his threats were more specific (than in the past), without action, they mean nothing.”

Bush’s remarks came amidst a flurry of diplomatic activity around Darfur following Khartoum’s announcement earlier this week that it would permit 3,000 armed UN peacekeepers, backed up by six attack helicopters, to join the roughly 7,000 AU monitors who were first deployed to the increasingly anarchic region nearly three years ago.

While UN chief Ban hailed Khartoum’s agreement to the additional deployment as a major step toward compliance with the UN Security Council’s resolution last August authorising the deployment of up to 21,500 international troops and police to the France-sized region, observers here, including Bush himself, have been much more reserved.

“The world has heard these promises from Sudan before,” Bush said, noting Khartoum’s latest concession. “The time for promises is over – President Bashir must act.”

The violence in Darfur dates from early 2003, when rebels from several African tribes attacked an Army garrison, and the government responded by unleashing a “scorched-earth” counter-insurgency campaign spearheaded by Arab militias, called Janjaweed, and aimed primarily at the African civilian population across the region.

Between 200,000 and 450,000 people are believed to have died as a direct or indirect result of the violence, while as many as 2.5 million have fled their homes.

Following the lead of the U.S. Congress, the Bush administration first accused Khartoum of “genocide” – a charge the president repeated several times in his speech Wednesday – in 2004.

While other western governments and major international human rights groups, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have not themselves endorsed the term, they have repeatedly called for stronger action by the UN to stop the violence, including the imposition of tough sanctions against the regime and government-backed Janjaweed leaders.

In the past year, the violence has spread across the border into Chad, where more than 200,000 Darfurians have taken refuge, and into Central African Republic. At the same time, the humanitarian situation in Darfur has deteriorated, mainly as a result of the fragmentation of rebel groups, one of which signed a U.S.- and U.N.-backed peace agreement with the government last May.

It was after that accord broke down that the Security Council authorised a beefed-up peacekeeping force with a strong mandate to protect civilians. But Bashir has so far refused to permit it to deploy.

Frustrated by the impasse, Bush’s special envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios, warned last November that Washington would impose tough new sanctions if Bashir did not go along. “On January 1st, either we see a change or we go to Plan B,” he said, without specifying what those sanctions would be. But, to the disappointment of Darfur activists, Jan. 1 passed without any announcement.

Since then, the administration appears to have placed its hopes in intensified diplomatic efforts, particularly by the newly-installed Ban and by China, the biggest customer by far for Sudan’s burgeoning oil industry and a veto-wielding member of the Security Council.

Last month, Ban asked for Washington to hold off on imposing new sanctions, and in testimony before Congress last week, Natsios credited Beijing’s “subtle diplomacy” with helping move Bashir into a more accommodating stance.

Still, the administration apparently intended to use Bush’s appearance at the Holocaust Museum, whose board has also declared Darfur a case of “genocide” to announce the implementation of Plan B. According to sources, however, that plan was derailed at the last minute by Bashir’s acceptance of the UN’s 3,000-peacekeeper deployment, which also coincided with a visit to Khartoum by Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte.

“As with every single diplomat who goes to Khartoum, Negroponte obviously thinks he’ll be the one to get traction on this issue,” said Prendergast. “Both (former Secretary of State Colin) Powell and (Secretary of State Condoleezza) Rice visited Khartoum, and not one of the promises they thought they got there has ever been implemented.”

“There’s a pattern here,” said Gayle Smith, a top Africa aide under former President Bill Clinton currently with the Centre for American Progress. “For years, Khartoum has refused to budge and, when the pressure mounts, it offers something up that is far short of what is really necessary. But then the international community backs up, and Khartoum gets more time. Agreeing to 3,000 UN troops is a very, very tiny step,” she said.

Still, it appears to have had the desired effect. “I have made a decision to allow the Secretary General more time to pursue his diplomacy,” Bush said, adding, however, that if Bashir does not “in a short period of time”, permit the larger deployment, end his support for the Janjaweed, resume talks with rebel leaders, “stop his pattern of obstruction once and for all,” Washington will implement sanctions.

He said they would include blocking all dollar transactions involving Khartoum or any of the companies owned or controlled by the government; targeting financial sanctions against specific individuals deemed responsible for the violence; and pushing for a new Security Council resolution that, among other measures, would expand an arms embargo against Khartoum and prohibit it from any offensive military flights over Darfur.

According to a confidential UN report leaked to the New York Times Wednesday and noted by Bush in his speech, Sudan has been flying arms and heavy military equipment into Darfur in violation of Security Council resolutions and painting Sudan military planes to disguise them as UN or AU aircraft.