UPDATE: Read a blog post by Enough’s Laura Heaton on the report card, up today on Change.org’s Human Rights blog.
An independent review by six leading human rights and Sudan advocacy groups, including Enough, reveals that the Sudanese peace processes for Darfur and southern Sudan show no significant progress. They are at best stagnating and at worst backsliding toward complete failure and a return to full-scale, national war.
The report released today, “A Benchmark Report Card for Sudan,” analyzes 28 leading indicators of progress, concluding that 17 indicators show significant worsening of the situation on the ground, while the remaining 11 indicators show a stalemate.
Here’s the snapshot:
“The report card for Sudan reveals an absence of progress,” commented Enough’s John Norris. “This clear-eyed, transparent, and independent analysis makes painfully clear how much work remains to be done and how dire the situation remains on the ground. The administration indicated it would apply pressures if the parties failed to make progress. Well, the parties have slowed to a halt and are sliding backward in critical areas.”
One of the key indicators – the recent elections in Sudan – was reportedly marred by fraud, censorship, and voter intimidation. Now the regime in Khartoum is certifying as winners candidates such as Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal – who should have never been allowed to run for office in the first place.
The Report Card demonstrates that, despite the initially encouraging signs that the administration was committed to seeing verifiable change in Sudan, there has been a lack of change since the administration’s policy was put into place. President Obama should empower Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice to personally step up and make sure that the regime in Khartoum is held accountable for a lack of progress and for backsliding away from peace.
TAKE ACTION NOW:
Email your senators at http://action.savedarfur.org/campaign/benchmarkse to ask that President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, and U.N. Ambassador Rice be directly involved in the full implementation of the Sudan policy and be ready to respond with multilateral pressure when Sudan’s dictator Omar al-Bashir fails to make progress towards peace.