Meanwhile, Darfur

Darfur continues to struggle

Date published: 11/6/2009

WHILE WE GROPE our way through the fog of health care reform and emerge groggily from another election season, the people of Darfur may have slipped from our thoughts. They continue to suffer, languishing in camps in dusty Western Sudan, vulnerable to rape, haunted by the 300,000 of their brethren killed by Janjaweed militia since 2003. More than 2.7 million people have been made homeless by fighting between dark-skinned Darfurians and lighter-skinned Arab Sudanese, and no resolution is in sight.

President Bush declared the slaughter of the Darfurians a genocide, and the International Criminal Court has indicted Sudan's president for war crimes, but President Obama has decided on a kinder, gentler approach. Last week, he formally extended American sanctions against the Sudanese government, but he has refrained from tightening the screws.

While a candidate, Mr. Obama said, "The international community must, over the Sudanese regime's protests, deploy a large, capable U.N.-led and U.N.-funded force with a robust enforcement mandate to stop the killings." Now, as president, he proclaims, "if the government of Sudan acts to improve the situation on the ground and to advance peace, there will be incentives; if it does not, then there will be increased pressure imposed by the United States and the international community."

In that, he is following the advice of retired Air Force Major Gen. J. Scott Gration, his special envoy to Sudan. Mr. Gration told The Washington Post, "We've got to think about giving out cookies Kids, countries--they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement."

Well, we all know how well that's worked with, say, North Korea's Kim Jong-Il, or Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. For now, however, that's the tack the Obama administration is on.

But even when it comes to existing sanctions, there seems to be wiggle room. Among other things, the sanctions ban trade with and investment in oil-rich Sudan. Recently, Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Fairfax, reacting to a report in the Post, sent a strongly worded letter to the president urging strict compliance with the sanctions. Apparently, Robert B. Crowe, a fundraiser for Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry, is attempting to secure U.S. approval for a lobbying contract with Khartoum, certainly a type of "trade."

Last month, a coalition of U.S. groups interested in Darfur sent Mr. Obama a letter urging removal of Mr. Gration, saying, "The good-intentioned yet soft approach of the general toward the Government of Sudan is abused and exploited by a regime that has continued to rule Sudan with fire and blood throughout the last 20 years."

Save Darfur, another activist group, is urging Mr. Obama to make Darfur a priority and increase sanctions up to and including "targeted military action" if necessary to save the struggling Darfurians.

That's a lot more realistic than gold stars and smiley faces. But we'll see.

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Date published: 11/6/2009