Sudanese Tete' A Tete'

Sudan is a pitiful place - despite tons of resources like oil and natural gas or the biggest hood in all AFRICOM - bordering 9 nation states, the literacy rate is just over 60% (don't laugh! Way better than Pakistan's!!) ravaged by diseases, militias, civil wars, genocide, artocities, Chinese trading consortiums and the world's only sitting President Field Marshal For Life with a warrant on him for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

44's current Bad Girls have been unapologetic about Sudan and the need for - how would the daemoneoconically H0T! avatar of America Unbound put it - changing the nature of Sudan.

Changing nature can be done several ways just like changing regimes. The old school way at the point of the world famous M16 and a thousand cruise missiles - or the fun friendly way like "Democratic Imperatives" implies.

A few hours after news from a blogger roundtable with Great Satan"s Envoy to Sudan, Scott Gration, filters out a few things, members of the advocacy community spoke out with FP about their reactions:

ON MEETING WITH SUDAN'S PRESIDENT OMAR EL-BASHIR

John Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough Project and former director of African affairs at the National Security Council

[I]f the U.S. collapsed under the weight of perceived expediency and sold its moral authority for some belief that meeting the big man, the strong man, would actually be dispositive in moving the peace process forward, I think it would be a tragic mistake. It would undermine what leverage the United States has, which is rooted in part in moral authority and in part in its advocacy for those victims and survivors of the wars in Southern Sudan and Darfur."

Jerry Fowler, president of the Save Darfur Coalition

I'm glad to hear that General Gration doesn't plan to meet with President Bashir. U.S. officials as a general matter should refrain from meeting with indicted war criminals and should pressure other governments to do likewise."

Sam Bell, executive director of the Genocide Intervention Network

What's worrying [about the idea that Gration doesn't rule out a meeting with Bashir] is that we're going to play this on Bashir's terms. And his interests aren't necessarily the interests of
the rest of Sudan. The advocacy community that I'm a part of is not suggesting, and never has suggested, that the special envoy should not talk with the government of Sudan. But that doesn't have to be done with Bashir."

ON U.S. SUDAN POLICY

John Prendergast

[We believe that U.S. policy, implemented by Gration, is] heading into dangerous territory in both Darfur and in the North-South process...[On the North-South issue,] a dangerous mistake that's being made is to allow the U.S. government to be part of a process that includes the [ruling] National Congress Party, [Southern] SPLM, and United States talking about renegotiating elements of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

This allows us to be perceived as willing to renegotiate certains things that have already been agreed upon...instead of renegotiating things that are hard, we need to demand strict implementation [of the peace process] and work to build a multilateral coalition that is willing to impose consequences for non-implemention."

Sam Bell

What makes us nervous is this narrative that Darfur is solved, Sudan is solved, and that all we need to do is talk to the two sides, and the conflicts will iron themselves out."



Reportage - Elizabeth Dickinson

Art -" A young Nuba woman at a dance after the fighting contest in Sudan" by Leni Riefenstahl