Read the Save Darfur Coalition’s statement to the committee here.

Today, Special Envoy for Sudan Scott Gration testified before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health.  The hearing, Chaired by Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ), a long-standing co-chair of the Sudan Caucus, underscored the urgency of the situation and highlighted the significant number of unanswered questions that remain about the Obama administration’s policy.

The tone of the hearing became clear when General Gration faced pointed questioning from Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS), who was a special invitee of the committee.  Senator Brownback, author of the original Senate resolution declaring genocide in Darfur, made clear the type of people the administration has chosen to engage with by getting General Gration to admit that he has been negotiating with the same people who are directly responsible for an ongoing genocide.

Elections were also on the minds of the subcommittee members, with a number, particularly Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) and Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC), questioning whether the political environment exists for credible elections to take place in Sudan in April 2010.  General Gration sidestepped the critical question of political environment, choosing to focus on the logistical issues that Sudan faces and the importance of the 2010 election in order to have a free and fair 2011 referendum on the succession of South Sudan.

Gration did acknowledge, for the first time publicly, that the United States (which is providing $75 million for election administration) is discussing with international partners where to draw the line where it becomes clear that credible elections cannot be held in Sudan and what to do if that line is crossed.  However, with his insistence that elections in 2010 are critical for the 2011 referendum to take place, Gration appears to be favoring electoral compromise on the 2010 elections in exchange for the referendum moving forward.  We at Save Darfur have consistently said such a trade-off would be unwise.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) questioned the amount of cooperation China is providing on Sudan, and noted that President Obama did not publicly mention it during his recent travel to Beijing.  Gration indicated that Obama did raise Sudan, but admitted that he had no further details about the conversation.

Rep. John Boozman (R-AR), pointedly questioned what progress had been made in exchange for its new engagement policy, noting that the situation in Darfur remains no better than on the day President Obama was elected, that the Darfur peace process is moribund, and that insecurity is on the rise in the South.  General Gration pushed back on all three points, noting that in particular, humanitarian groups had been allowed back into the country following the now-infamous March 4^th expulsions; Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) rightly pointed out that the regime should not get credit for finding a half-solution to a crisis that it itself created in the first place.  Nevertheless, the General’s comments perhaps foreshadow his position going into the quarterly review of Sudan policy that is due in January – Gration apparently feels progress has been made.

If there was a bombshell today, it was that the much talked about “classified annex” to the policy review does not actually exist.  In an exchange with Ranking Member Smith, General Gration said he had no knowledge of such an annex, despite Congressman Smith repeating Secretary of State Clinton’s assertion during the policy roll-out that a list of incentives and pressures were included in a comprehensive annex (which was also subsequently referred to in a background briefing by senior administration officials).  This will come as news to the activist and Congressional communities who took on faith the administration’s assertion that it had prepared such a document and had just been reluctant to share it – a number of Members of Congress had asked to see it – and now we’re told it never existed in the first place, beyond a set of what the General referred to as a set of “working papers” from the National Security Council.

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