[Mb-civic] A US plan for Darfur - Wesley Clark, John Prendergast - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

  A US plan for Darfur

By Wesley Clark and John Prendergast  |  April 10, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

ONCE AGAIN, the drumbeat is intensifying for stronger action to end the 
untold human suffering in Darfur, Sudan.

Senator Hillary Clinton recently sent a letter to President Bush, 
warning that ''our continued inaction will enable the killings to 
continue." A senior UN official told us that the international community 
is ''keeping people alive with our humanitarian assistance until they 
are massacred." After leading a bipartisan congressional delegation to 
Darfur recently, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi stated, ''We all 
went to Darfur with a sense of deep concern, and we all left with a 
sense of outrage and urgency." The question now is whether all this 
noise will translate into concrete measures to protect the people of Darfur.

For nearly three years, President Bush has watched from the sidelines 
while senior officials in his administration have searched for solutions 
to the catastrophe in Darfur. So the president took a lot of people by 
surprise -- especially members of his own foreign policy team -- when he 
recently called for NATO to help protect civilians and stabilize the 
security situation there. But Bush's unscripted remarks on Darfur are 
consistent with his erratically implied policy of siding with oppressed 
people against their oppressors.

His administration has yet to form a united front on Darfur because of 
competing interests at the State Department, the Pentagon, and the CIA. 
Bush needs to pull together these disparate players and create a real 
policy to end atrocities, punish human rights violators, and create 
sustainable peace.

Now that Bush has finally admitted that his administration needs to do 
better, he should appoint an envoy to harmonize US policy toward Darfur 
and demonstrate his personal resolve to end the suffering. The 
president's previous envoy to Sudan, former Missouri senator Jack 
Danforth, was critical to ending the 22-year war between Khartoum and 
southern-based rebels. Darfur deserves the same level of engagement.

While Bush did call for NATO to oversee a UN peacekeeping mission, the 
African Union buckled to pressure from Khartoum to delay any sort of UN 
transition until at least October. Meanwhile the people of Darfur 
continue to wait, and the security situation along the Chad-Sudan border 
is deteriorating into a regional conflagration with grave humanitarian 
implications. Bush needs to ensure an accelerated AU handover to the UN 
and identify a capable nation to lead a UN-mandated stabilization force 
to immediately buttress the AU's civilian protection efforts and help 
secure the border.

Military planners at the Pentagon need to work closely with this lead 
nation to plan the mission and provide military assets that enhance the 
force's ability to respond quickly and aggressively to attacks against 
civilians. Like many policies, there are countervailing interests and 
concerns. The US military is heavily committed in Iraq and Afghanistan, 
but there are still some resources available. A choice must be made to 
do our part to protect innocent people from tyrannical leaders, ethnic 
cleansing, and human rights abuses in this part of the world too.

The CIA also will have concerns, though for different reasons. Since 
Sept. 11, 2001, Sudanese military intelligence officials have cooperated 
to some degree with the United States on counterterrorism. No doubt, 
they had their reasons for doing so. In fact, these same officials -- 
notably the head of military intelligence and friend of the CIA, Salah 
Abdullah Gosh -- have orchestrated a terror campaign against civilians 
in Darfur. The Bush administration has called this organized slaughter 
genocide.

Gosh was Osama bin Laden's handler when the Al Qaeda leader lived in 
Sudan in the 1990s, and he is no doubt useful. But Gosh is also very 
likely a war criminal whose policies are responsible for the deaths of 
thousands of Darfurians.

To build even greater leverage for cooperation, the Bush administration 
should focus on accountability. The United States has the best signal, 
satellite, and human intelligence in the world. The United States should 
share what it knows about crimes committed in Darfur to the 
International Criminal Court, the body charged with punishing those who 
commit atrocity crimes in Darfur. In addition, the United States should 
press much harder for UN Security Council sanctions against government 
and rebel officials most responsible for the crisis. Properly executed, 
such a policy would strengthen cooperation from the government of Sudan.

President Bush has opened the door for stronger US action in Darfur. Now 
it's time for him to follow through by leading a focused diplomatic and 
military effort to end the crisis.

Wesley Clark is former Supreme Allied Commander for Europe and a board 
member of the International Crisis Group. John Prendergast is a former 
director of African affairs at the National Security Council and a 
senior adviser to the Crisis Group.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/04/10/a_us_plan_for_darfur/
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