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Author: John Norris

Our New Envoy

As most as you have seen by now, President Obama has appointed retired Air Force General Scott Gration as the U.S. envoy for Sudan. A couple thoughts. First and foremost, I don’t think this appointment would have been made as quickly as it was without the significant activist pressure we have seen from all quarters calling for a special envoy. This is why activism has never been more important. What to make of the pick? There are some clear positives. Gration is a friend and confidant of Obama's. As a former Air Force general he should carry real weight with ...

Tough Words from Clinton

Some very tough language from Secretary of State Clinton today on President Bashir and the situation in Darfur. This is the strongest language we have heard to date from the administration, particularly this line: "The real question is what kind of pressure can be brought to bear on President Bashir and the government in Khartoum to understand that they will be held responsible for every single death that occurs in those camps..." What this means in policy terms remains unclear, but it is encouraging that the administration does not seem to be cowed by either Bashir's rhetoric or his tactics ...

Bashir’s Best Buddies?

Bashir’s Best Buddies?
There were great signs of unity from President Bashir’s National Congress Party, or NCP, in the immediate wake of the arrest warrant from The Hague. That was to be expected. Now we are starting to hear rumors that the inner circle in Khartoum is getting a bit more wobbly. It makes sense. (Don’t be fooled by their public statements. These guys will proclaim their undying loyalty to Bashir even as they drive him to the airport for a flight to The Hague.) With the decision to kick key relief agencies out of Darfur and elsewhere across the country, Bashir is ...

The New President

The New President
An interesting and encouraging piece in the Washington Post about Somalia’s new President, Sharif Ahmed. Two things really struck me. First, Sharif Ahmed appears to be taking the business of consultation very seriously, something we here at Enough have long argued is essential to constructing a lasting peace in Somalia. Second, he appears to be rather deliberately thinking about practical steps that signal a willingness to compromise and help take the wind out of the sails of the extremists. Lots of hard work ahead, but this is a good start ...

Bashir Faces Saudi Criticism

Bashir Faces Saudi Criticism
Interesting. A number of well-known Saudi columnists have been quite critical of President Bashir and his continued practice of terrorizing the people of Darfur. This article has a good roundup of the views from Saudi columnists, and I think these perspectives offer a powerful reminder that the debate about Sudan is ultimately about the rights of the people on the ground. A second article notes that a number of Arab states fear considerable “international embarrassment” if President Bashir attempts to visit ...

Bashir Bludgeoning His Way Toward Reelection?

Bashir Bludgeoning His Way Toward Reelection?
Over the weekend, I heard an interesting take on President Bashir’s decision to expel key humanitarian relief agencies working in Sudan from a colleague. He noted that Bashir may well see winning the upcoming national election in Sudan as his best hope for staving off the arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. The decision to expel aid agencies may be directly designed to break apart some of the largest displaced persons camps in Darfur, where the U.N. has declared that more than one million people are now at risk of a grave humanitarian emergency. For Bashir, this population represents ...

China Votes for Instability

With their decision to effectively block a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Sudan's expulsion of relief agencies, the Chinese are playing a dangerous game and essentially voting to destabilize Sudan. The Chinese insisted on including language in the draft resolution that would have condemned the International Criminal Court arrest warrant for President Bashir- a position the U.S., UK and France would obviously not support. So what will China have to show for this approach to diplomacy? First, it makes it far more attractive for the United States and others to go around the United Nations in exploring the imposition of ...

Poking the Bear

Poking the Bear
President Bashir of Sudan has more in common with former Liberian President Charles Taylor and former Yuoglav President Slobodan Milosevic than a penchant for committing war crimes. President Bashir, like both Taylor and Milosevic, has grown accustomed to defying the international community through outrages both large and small; a practice I refer to here as ‘poking the bear.’ All three men genuinely came to believe that they could continue to defy the world without paying any substantial cost, in large part because the international reaction to their actions had been so weak for so long. All three men genuinely came ...

Reading the Tea Leaves

Reading the Tea Leaves
With the dramatic developments out of Sudan during the last several days, the reaction from the Obama administration has been notably restrained. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that if President Bashir believed he was wrongly accused, he could "have his day in court." When asked about the expulsion of major NGOs from Darfur, the State Department spokesman indicated that a “number of countries are trying to convince the Sudanese Government to reconsider this action…both on the ground and in New York.” The fact that the administration’s public response has not been more forceful is not necessarily a problem in ...

The Response

The situation in Sudan continues to unfold rapidly, and with the expulsion of key humanitarian organizations, President Bashir is making clear that the world will have to deal with the crisis in Sudan sooner rather than later. Our friend Michael Kleinman has tough words for us over on his blog, some of which I take exception to. When we wrote yesterday about humanitarian agencies being booted out of Darfur, it was indeed unclear if this was an empty threat or would actually happen. Some of this is the danger of trying to write and report in real time and in ...