Analysts say US Must Do More to Maintain Sudan Peace [PART 4 OF 5] | Voice of America - English
The former special representative of the United States to Sudan, Roger Winter, says the United States has a ?special responsibility? to ensure peace in the African country. He attributes this to the fact that in 2005 he and other U.S. diplomats wrote significant parts of a deal that ended two decades of devastating war between the Sudan People?s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and President Omar al-Bashir?s Khartoum government. But Winter says the current U.S.
Winter says the U.S. has been ?unique and key? in Sudan?srecent history. He points out that it was Washington diplomats who finallypaved the way towards peace three years ago when they broke a deadlock betweenthe al-Bashir government and the SPLM, specifically pertaining to Abyei. ?The U.S. team on which I served?itself drew up the text ofthe Abyei Protocol and then presented it to both parties, with the SPLM signingfirst and then ultimately the Khartoum government. So the U.S. was very key instructuring the whole part of the CPA that President Bashir has never actuallyproceeded to implement. I would say we have a special responsibility in theUnited States because of that,? Winter says. According to Winters, the United States, like many in theinternational community, effectively stopped monitoring the implementation ofthe CPA in 2003, when it switched its focus to the conflict in Darfur. Wintersays this ?created the space? for Khartoum to maintain political and militarycontrol of Abyei. The SPLM says the Sudan government has consequently kept allof the region?s oil profits for itself, and has refused to comply with a decisionmade by an international boundaries commission that defined Abyei as part ofsouthern Sudan, in violation of the peace agreement. In a report for the Enough Project in Washington D.C.,Winter?s criticism is even more vehement. He writes: ?When it comes to Sudan,the United States is in meltdown mode and Khartoum knows it. The veryadministration that energetically created the environment that enabled theCPA?now stands by watching the CPA stagger and twitch. Although the U.S.literally wrote the Abyei Protocol, the Bush administration has since shownlittle interest or understanding of the issues?. Winter does, however, acknowledge that Washington had?very good reasons? to focus on Darfur, when Arab militia allegedly allied toKhartoum began killing black Africans in the region. But he maintains that theU.S. shouldn?t use Darfur as an excuse for ?ignoring? Khartoum?s violations ofthe CPA. ?Because of a lack of presence and a lack of interest anda lack of pressing the government in Khartoum to actually implement [the AbyeiProtocol of] the CPA, I think it [the U.S.] helped create a situation thatenabled the bad guys to produce what we have now seen. And that is thedestruction of Abyei.? Jason Small, deputy director of the Sudan Programs Groupat the US State Department and a spokesman for Washington?s current specialenvoy to Sudan, Richard Williamson, responds that Winter himself ? when he wasa senior U.S. diplomat ?played a major role in focusing the present USadministration?s attention on the Darfur tragedy. ?We are very much behind efforts to support the ComprehensivePeace Agreement. We have a program to support the southern Sudan securitysector and transforming the SPLA [Sudan People?s Liberation Army] into aprofessional military; that?s about $40 million a year?. I don?t even need tomention the hundreds of millions of dollars that [the U.S.] continues to spendeach year to build roads in southern Sudan, to build schools, to provideassistance to the government of southern Sudan institutions that are justbeginning to be [established], as well as to prepare the groundwork in Sudanfor elections in 2009. These are elections at every level and this is one ofthe key pieces of the CPA that we need to start focusing on.? Winter also criticizes Washington for ?actively engaging?in a ?policy of appeasement? with Khartoum by holding ?normalization? talkswith the al-Bashir administration? earlier this year. ?The talks really can?t go anywhere, unless there are verifiableimprovements by Khartoum on the ground. In addition to that, there has to beaccountability for two and a half or more million deaths [during the war insouthern Sudan]. We [the U.S.] can?t just blink and say, ?Okay, now we?re goingto regularize our relationship and we?ll just forget that two and half to threemillion people have died at the hands of this government. In response, Small emphasizes that as soon as violenceerupted in Abyei, Washington ended its talks with the al-Bashir government andthe SPLM. As the devastation in the area became clear, Special Envoy Williamsonstated: ?The U.S. is suspending talks with Sudan. At this point the leadershipof either side is not interested in meaningful peace.? Says Small, ?The timing of the special envoy?s last visitto Sudan ? following the outbreak in Abyei and what he witnessedthere?obviously changed the perspective on the seriousness by which theseparties ? both the north and the south ? were prepared to engage with theUnited States on serious issues of improvement of relations. And so I think theSpecial Envoy made the decision that it was time to put those talks on holduntil such time as these parties could demonstrate seriousness about solvingsome of these thorny issues between them.? But Williamson?s apportioning of blame to both the SPLMand Khartoum for the death and destruction in Abyei has grated analysts and thesouthern Sudanese alike. Winter says it?s unfair to the SPLM. ?I think there?s a very important point here that I wouldsay on a personal level that Special Envoy Williamson is missing here and thatis that there is no moral equivalency between the two parties here. We have inKhartoum a government that came to power by coup. It kicked out ademocratically elected government. Since then it?s produced several milliondead Sudanese. For much of that time it?s been on our list of states thatsponsor terrorists. It birthed [al-Qaeda leader] Osama bin-Laden during the1990s and its history is replete with conflict in Darfur, conflict in thesouth, conflict with Chad, conflict in the Nuba Mountains, conflict in easternSudan and so on.? Winter stresses that the SPLM is ?not perfect? but seemsto be doing everything in its power to entrench democracy in Sudan. ?They are not responsible for two-plus million deaths,they are not responsible for the damage done to Abyei by the [Sudan ArmedForces] 31brigade; they are not the moral equivalent of the crowdin Khartoum.? But Small responds: ?Both parties do bear a degree of responsibilityfor what happened [in Abyei]. We?ve looked very carefully at what happened inthat area.? Small says US investigations into the Abyei conflict haverevealed that SPLM forces also played a role in the violence. But, at the sametime, he maintains that the US government recognizes that the southern Sudanesehave for decades ?suffered a lot? at the hands of Khartoum. ?By no means are we making any moral equivalency betweenthe two parties. But I think it is important in this circumstance that we lookvery carefully at who?. shares responsibility and who is needed to correct thisissue and to move the ball forward,? he says. The manager of a Sudanese NGO in Abyei, Daniel Jok Deng,also criticizes the U.S. for taking actions he says are ?detrimental? to peace inhis homeland. ?It seems that the U.S. is not 100 percent clearon its foreign policy pertaining to Khartoum, because of certain otherinterests that it has as a country in cooperating with people that might giveintelligence on terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda,? he says. Small respondsthat it?s ?absolutely false? that Khartoum is providing informationabout terrorists in Sudan to Washington in exchange for the U.S. governmentignoring the al-Bashir government?s violations of the 2005 peace agreement, andthe ?severity? of the situation in Darfur. ?The American government needs to decide on a clear messageand policy towards Sudan and not give [Khartoum] the room to be able to findloopholes and hiding places and to peddle intelligence in order to continueperpetrating genocide,? he says. Small maintains the U.S. is not in the business of?trade-offs? and reiterates that the current US administration has and in thefuture will do all it can to ensure there?s peace in both Darfur and southernSudan.