Members Of Congress Urge Full Implementation Of Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement

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.

U.S. Envoy To Sudan Requests Lifting Sanctions

By Mariko Lamb - Talk Radio News Service

Major General Scott Gration, a U.S. special envoy to Sudan, discussed a comprehensive strategy for that nation in preparation of UNAMID’s 2011 peace referendum and Sudan’s April 2010 elections.

“We want a country that is governed responsibly, justly, democratically, a country that’s at peace with itself and its neighbors, that’s economically viable, a country that works together with the United States in common interests,” Gration said in an address to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Thursday.

In order to meet these objectives, “we need some space on sanctions,” he said, calling on Congress to help lift sanctions that restrict access to certain Sudanese ports. Such sanctions, he said, block access of trains carrying essential equipment and personnel for health care and education. They “are hindering me from being able to bring development to the south,” he added.

Gration said he believes that by establishing an environment that helps leaders in the north and south of Sudan reach twelve areas of agreement of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the U.S. can help Sudan reach a major milestone on the road to peace. “We created the environment so that the two parties, NCP and SBLN, could make the agreements,” Gration explained.

“It’s getting significantly better, but that doesn’t mean that we need to stop our efforts,” he said.

In addition to lifting sanctions, “we need more people,” Gration said. He recently requested three additional full-time employees from the U.S. State Department of State to assist him in fostering peace in Sudan.

US Works to Change Of Relations With Sudan Must Be A Priority

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.