Photo by Martha Bixby

“Obama believes this is America’s moment to confront the crisis and lead the way toward an end to this four year-old genocide.” – Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign plan for Darfur

Time and time again, President Obama has stated his commitment to ending the crisis in Darfur. As a U.S. Senator, he visited a camp near the border between Sudan and Chad in 2006 to meet with Darfuri refugees. As a presidential candidate in 2008, he and fellow candidates Senators Hillary Clinton and John McCain released a joint statement on the ongoing atrocities in Darfur. They promised,

“If peace and security for the people of Sudan are not in place when one of us is inaugurated as President on January 20, 2009, we pledge that the next Administration will pursue these goals with unstinting resolve.”

While going through old files in preparation for welcoming the staff of Genocide Intervention Network to the Save Darfur offices, an SDC staffer came across Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign plan for ending the conflict in Darfur. On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama assumed the presidency and the powers that office would accord to him. So how has President Obama done with respect to the goals for Darfur he set for himself as a presidential candidate?

Presidential Candidate Barack Obama’s 2008 Plan for Darfur:

• Deploy an International Force: “deploy a large, capable UN-led and UN-funded force with a robust mandate to stop the killings”
  • Is UNAMID “capable”? UNAMID has been the international peacekeeping force in charge of protecting civilians in Darfur since taking over operations in Darfur for the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) in 2007. Despite its mandates to protect Darfuris as well as protect the administration of humanitarian support, there have been reports of the Government of Sudan impeding its work which has compromised the force’s ability to fulfill its obligations and attacks on unprotected civilians continue.
• Pressure the Khartoum Regime: “there are immediate economic, military and covert steps the U.S., the international community, and our allies in Africa must take to show Khartoum that we will not tolerate continued genocide”
  • What steps has he taken to show Khartoum he will not tolerate genocide? Most recently, President Obama sent Massachusetts Senator John Kerry to Sudan to meet with government officials to offer to take Sudan off of state terrorist list early, by July 2011, if referendum on Southern secession goes ahead. However, this offer (which has been rejected by members of the National Congress Party) is not directly tied to the Government of Sudan’s performance in Darfur. Instead, the Obama administration has made the lifting of economic sanctions and normalization of diplomatic relations contingent on progress in establishing peace in Darfur, as well as on holding the referendum.
• Implement More Effective Sanctions
  • What has President Obama done with regards to sanctions on Sudan? On November 1, 2010, the Obama administration renewed sanctions that have been in place since 1997. The administration has also reportedly proposed that new sanctions be put into effect if the Khartoum regime is not fully compliant with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). However, the White House has offered an easing of sanctions as an incentive for progress on the referendum. Such an adjustment needs Congressional approval to come into effect because they are part of Darfur Peace and Accountability Act.
• Provide Humanitarian Aid
  • Has the U.S. helped the people of Darfur receive humanitarian aid? The United States is providing humanitarian support through USAID. The agency has assisted programs to train leaders of nongovernmental organizations in Darfur as well as provided food to civilians in Darfur with help from the World Food Program. However, as is the case with UNAMID’s lack of access, the insecurity that plagues most of Sudan combined with the Government of Sudan’s actions to impede organizations’ access to certain areas has made the effective operation of humanitarian aid agencies difficult and left some without access to the help they so desperately need.
• Implement a No-Fly Zone: to protect civilians in Darfur & to put pressure on the Government of Sudan
  • What is the status of Obama’s proposed no-fly zone?: Numerous prominent members in the Obama administration, including Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and U.N. Ambassador Sudan Rice, have called for the necessity of a no-fly zone over Darfur. However, no such no-fly zone has been put in place. According to a piece in The Washington Post co-authored by General Merrill A. McPeak, co-chair of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and former Air Force chief of staff, humanitarian groups opposed this proposal because they feared it would further impede their mobility in the region.

• Increase Diplomatic Efforts
  • Who does the U.S. have working with Sudan? President Obama has appointed Scott Gration as Special Envoy for Sudan and added Princeton Lyman to the U.S. diplomatic team to help ensure full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. However, as the Genocide Intervention Network/Save Darfur Coalition has pointed out, the U.S. needs to have a diplomat charged with focusing on peace negotiations in Darfur.
  • What has President Obama done in the international arena? This past September, President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton attended a special summit on Sudan while at the United Nations General Assembly. At the high-level meeting, President Obama again voiced his commitment to peace in Darfur:

“And even as we focus on advancing peace between north and south, we will not abandon the people of Darfur… [N]ow is the moment for all nations to send a strong signal that there will be no time and no tolerance for spoilers who refuse to engage in peace talks. Indeed, there can be no lasting peace in Darfur — and no normalization of relations between Sudan and the United States — without accountability for crimes that have been committed.  Accountability is essential not only for Sudan’s future, it also sends a powerful message about the responsibilities of all nations that certain behavior is simply not acceptable in this world; that genocide is not acceptable.”

• End Investment in Sudan: supports efforts for people to divest in companies doing business with Khartoum
  • In 2007, Barack Obama sold his own investments that were linked to an oil company that was doing business with Sudan. Socially-responsible investing has seen an increase recently. According to The Wall Street Journal, the amount of assets classified as socially-responsible has increased and the ongoing genocide in Darfur is behind most of the decisions of institutional investors to divest from certain companies.

President Obama needs to keep Darfur on his radar as his administration prepares to deal with the aftermath of the referendum on southern secession, whether the vote goes on as scheduled and is free and fair, or not. The U.S. should appoint a high-level diplomat to deal exclusively with the crisis in Darfur and use its upcoming U.N. Security Council presidency to keep member states’ attention on Sudan, and Darfur in particular.