Word: darfur
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Supporters of President Obama have learned this year that the realities of government rarely live up to expectations. One group particularly angered by the White House's lack of action are activists and lobbyists for Darfur, who backed him in last year's election and wanted quick action to end the killing and start fixing the humanitarian disaster in the troubled Sudanese region. Frustrated by the absence of an official policy, groups such as the Save Darfur Coalition, the antigenocide advocacy organization the Enough Project, and Humanity United, a California foundation that provided a significant portion of the money behind...
...Perhaps the President read one of those newspapers. On Oct. 19 the White House released its much delayed Sudan policy. It proposes a series of "incentives and pressures" designed to encourage the government of Sudan to end the slaughter of civilians in Darfur and credibly implement the 2005 peace agreement between the Arab north and the animist and Christian south. While the exact carrots and sticks remain classified, advocacy groups have responded to the overall approach with cautious optimism. The Save Darfur Coalition released a statement saying it cautiously welcomes the new policy but that "its success will depend...
...some ways, the Darfur activists' problem over the past few months hasn't been Obama so much as his special envoy to Sudan, Scott Gration. A decorated soldier who commanded the no-fly zone in northern Iraq for 2½ years, Gration campaigned for Obama last year, giving him much needed cachet among the military set. But his Africa experience consists of being raised by American missionaries in the Congo, from where they were evacuated three times - he likes to remind his African interlocutors that he too was once a refugee...
...time diplomat, Gration hasn't exactly been careful with his choice of language. Before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee in late July, Gration testified that sanctions on Sudan should be loosened, a statement he had to retract within days. Earlier, he asserted that only "remnants of genocide" remain in Darfur, provoking fury from Darfur advocacy groups and directly contradicting his boss's position: Obama has said three times since January there is currently a genocide in Darfur. (See pictures of solar cookers for Darfuri refugees...
...Kenya. Rice was an early supporter of Obama, and when he won the election last November, her proximity to the President sent a shock of fear into the small coterie of men who rule Sudan. As some in the Sudanese capital say, in the past 50 years, only the Darfur rebels and Susan Rice have attacked Khartoum. But working from her U.N. office in New York City, Rice has largely been sidelined from the policy debate. (Read "No Moral Clarity in Darfur...