Talk Radio News Service: News, Politics, Media

Travis Martinez, University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News

Members of Congress today urged the Obama administration to fully implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), a 2005 peace treaty between the Sudanese government and a rebel movement aimed at easing tensions in the troubled region.

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) suggested that the CPA is on the verge of unraveling. He noted that the Sudanese government is falling apart with corrupt elections and an ongoing genocide.

“It seems to me that the CPA is on life support. It’s in grave danger of unraveling,” said Smith. “This administration has to get much more serious than it has been or the killing field will continue. The Nobel Peace prize winner needs to use the gravitas that he has gained from that great award and say 'Sudan is my priority. I’m not going to let the CPA unravel.'”

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) called on President Barack Obama to make good with his campaign promises to ensure tougher sanctions on Sudan “if the government didn’t shape up."

“The time is now for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama to personally and actively engage Sudan,” said Wolf. “During the campaign, then candidate Obama said, ‘the Bush administration should be holding Sudan accountable for failing to implement significant aspects of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, imperiling the prospects for the scheduled multiparty election in 2009.'”

Wolf pointed to recent testimony by a former top U.N. investigator Enrico Carisch at a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee hearing on Africa, wherein Carisch testified that the U.S., along with other nations, have relaxed efforts in Sudan.

”In contrast to that leadership of 2004 and 2005, the United States appears to have now joined the group of influential states who sit by quietly and do nothing to ensure that sanctions work to protect Darfurians,” said Carisch.