Talk Radio News Service: News, Politics, Media

By Michael Combier-Talk Radio News Service

The Obama Administration is working on new foreign policy initiatives to strengthen relations between the U.S. and Sudan.

The press conference organized yesterday by the Salam Sudan Foundation stressed that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in 2005 ended a fifty year long conflict between the North and South of Sudan and that it was supposed to normalize U.S.-Sudan relations something that has not yet been done.

“We must engage more honest conversations here, in Sudan and globally about how to connect our increasingly diverse communities across differences of race, class, religion, politics and culture,” said Dr. Hashim El-Tinay, President of the SSF. He added that the international community should “let the Sudanese show the world, as the Americans have done, their commitment to justice, peace, democracy, human rights and development.”

Since the 9/11 attacks, the Sudan has cooperated with the U.S. in its fight against international terrorism yet it remains on the state sponsors of terrorism list. In 2007, economic sanctions were voted on Sudan after the Bush Administration considered the country to be accomplice in the violence occuring in the Darfur region.

“The policy gap could only be addressed if adequate knowledge is received,” said Sulayman Nyang, Professor at Howard University, adding that “the Darfurian issue should not be used against the Sudanese government.” Getting information from organizations like the SSF would help and change the debate in Washington and elsewhere.

The rest of the conference was devoted to the criticism of external groups to the conflict which are bringing more harm than help to the Sudanese people. For example, when the U.S. based Save Darfur Coalition (SDC) charged the government of Omar al-Bachir with intending to carry out genocide against the insurgents, it brought hostility and skepticism from the local population to foreign entities.

Mae King, another Professor from Howard University, observed that the U.S. is the only country to have declared that a genocide was being committed in the Darfur region of Sudan. “No one would question that there has been serious violations of human rights in Darfur, of course there have,” said King, and pointed out that the African Union as well as the United Nations have not found evidence of genocide.

For these reasons, Professor King complained that the indictment of Omar al-Bachir by the International Criminal Court was more of a political act than a legal one.