Wednesday, October 9, 2013

DR Congo's M23 rebels cannot be defeated militarily: UN



Good People,
 

It can be done..............Congo must be free, so it must be done since M23 is an illegal Militia Group formed with a purpose of insurgency to invade and terrorize Congo for the benefit of Corporate Special Business Interest who have ties with Kagame and Museveni........... where, Congo Wealth Resources goes to Kagame and Museveni instead of benefiting the Congo people. M23 is a terror group engineered to gain ground inside Congo to do the unthinkable in Congo land. Where is Justification in this statement???
 
African people must begin to talk and demand some justifications from the UN Representatives to Africa. Secretary Ban-Ki-Moon too must explain to the world what actually is going on in Africa. It cannot be so hard to negotiate fairly for the benefit of Congo people and not a rip-off..........Logically there is no way that M23 can be of any good to the people of Congo or the Great Lakes of East Africa. 
 
Africa and the world must be explained why UN are in support of Kagame and the M23 occupation of Congo land ??? What is so special about M23 even after volumes of reports on extra-judicial killings with atrocities and genocide and as well hijacking children to fight along M23 in the bush. What good is M23 bringing on the table why UN are in their support??? With this kind of burning questions, are UN doing good to Congo or harm???

This brings us to dig deeper for some answers why the likes of Alexis and Jendayi Frazer behaviours towards Africa are very suspecious........and because of this, we believe, something is not right. .......... more specifically when on the other page, they are lobbyists; so I am asking myself, lobbyists to gain what and to whose interest ???


Lamek claims, "There is no military solution" but Africans know best that this is the only language Kagame and Museveni understands..........Fire with Fire............. How can you sanely argue that M23 use fire and DR Congo use mouth................where is the balance Mr. Lamek.............where did M23 get the fire? is it not from the proliferation of the illegal gun sale that United Nations knows about............why look the other way and pretend those Africans are damn stupid who dont understand anything..........
 

These statements belong to the medium of Special Business Interest circles who engage in architects of conspiracies who enjoy African Government rip-off by the World Bank and IMF in equally cases such as facilitating and doing African Government budgets for African Leaders for example; which is why, there were high level of corruption with impunity in Finance Ministry’s and altogether crime became toll over, with Militia Groups popping up and mushrooming to protect and give security to special interest.........which at the end, takes control to intimidate Government Functionability process and muddles up democracy when it comes to matters of Public Interest.
 

Are these the back-bone support for Ban-ki-moon why he is not acting as he should? Why Ban-ki-moon looks the other way and pretend not to see what people are saying about Kagame and Museveni??? Are these the reasons why United Nations under Ban-ki-moon is still financing Museveni and Kagame even after too many complaints………??? Does this not mean that Ban-ki-moon has his fingers dipped in the honey jar from injustices of the genocide and atrocities of crimes, violation and abuse of human rights in Africa???
 

If people of the world don’t call a spade a spade and stand their ground to protect public interest, the influx of invasion shall never be controlled. How do you negotiate with those who are bend on translating the People's Government facility to be under the control of the unreasonable selfish greedy who are after expanding the illogical gap between the RICH and POOR.........This does not make sense..........Where will Africans be in the next 50 years???
 

If Ban-ki-moon want a fight, let the world know so we can square it out……….because this utterances from his associates and comrades do not spell right………
 
African people, when you see danger looming, ran......................


Watch this Quote: ............................
 
"Only a political solution is a way out of this situation," Alexis Lamek, France's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, told the press.
 

Aint this juicy stuff that no one can buy.................aint Alexis Lamek trying to instigate proxy war in Africa.......As a matter of fact, there is no need for this kind of statement Alexis is making, since the military temporary resolve have taken place on the side of the DR Congo Army pushing out M23 from Congo land......... it is now left for ICC Hague to take over. Wasting time after Kabila have brought the matter before UN in New York, the kind of Alexis Lamek team are pushing it back to Nyangau, under the watch of a Mr. Museveni who should be answering charges at the ICC Hague do not make any sense.............
 


People like Alexis are instigators and provokers who are asking People of Africa descent in the world to rise up and challenge their likes..........since he is beginning to play childish game that are lacking intelligence and wisdom, instead of allowing us to move forward.
 
 

Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com




Check Out Foot Note:..........!!!



Fast forward 2013, Ms Jendayi Fraser is on record as protecting interests and supporting people fingered by the ICC, in essence encouraging impunity............Encouraging select people to act on behalf of civilized nations does not make the world secure even if it may achieve a short term American interest. The four points Ms. Frazer suggested by Ms Fraser do not have one African interest, and then during the recent elections in Kenya (March 2013) she went ahead to contradict President Obama Administration’s official line of duty on Kenya and kept on interjecting in opposing President Obama's Diplomacy overriding Johnny Carsons statements in Kenyas elections of March 2013.....and all these proved that, her agenda for Africa was based on some vested special interest and not those of the people of Africa thus the negativity compared to what President Obama want for Africa.
 


Dr. Jendayi E. Frazer, former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs is now working as a lobbyist on behalf of Museveni, the Ugandan government, where she lobbies Obama Administration for Uganda. Does this explain something ???
 






The leaders of Uganda and Rwanda were among those designated as African Renaissance leaders by President Bill Clinton. Their proxies have been responsible for carrying out the very atrocities which Hillary Clinton condemned during her term in State Departnment..




President Obama's approach of requiring Africans to chart their own destiny and take their own responsibility under and have a place on the table in the world MarketPlace instead of depending on spoon-feeding from others is right on point......... as opposed to theories of Ms Fraser prescription of dependency and security.


The world can only be peaceful and secure when everyone negotiate to invest in its own security and survival plan.

 



------------------------------------------------------





ENOUGH Project (Washington, DC)

Congo-Kinshasa: UN General Assembly Sessions Fail to Stop Violence in Congo


 
Heading into the United Nations General Assembly, stakeholders involved in bringing peace and stability to the Great Lakes Region had high hopes for a breakthrough in ceasing ongoing violence between Congo and the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group.
In a closed-door meeting convened on the margins of the General Assembly by both the U.N. and the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, or ICGLR, several heads of state were to discuss multiple ongoing regional peace processes and solutions to end violence and further institutional reforms in Congo and, to find ways to increase regional development as a means to create stability.
Yet if one judges from the public addresses given by regional leaders at the General Assembly, there is a long way to go to achieving peace. During his address on September 25, Congolese President Joseph Kabila condemned Rwanda’s “never-ending aggression” in Congo’s restive eastern provinces, and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, scantly mentioned the conflict in eastern Congo, instead touting Rwandan accomplishments based on the Millennium Development Goals, and condemning the International Criminal Court for serving to “humiliate Africa and its leaders.”


As one of the most brutal and sustained conflicts on the planet rages on in eastern Congo, high expectations for progress in peace-making at the United Nations appear to have landed short. Furthermore, efforts by both regional actors and the international community to protect civilians, secure peace, and to create growth remain woefully behind the situation on the ground. African leaders, the U.N., and other international partners must resign themselves to put sustained pressure on regional political bodies as well as Uganda, Congo, and Rwanda to agree to commit to a single negotiation process that is transparent, inclusive, and includes mechanisms to enforce agreements and commitments made therein.


Growth and stability require peace and security. While efforts by U.N. Special Envoy, Mary Robinson, and her international partners focused on setting benchmarks for future peace on the margins this year’s General Assembly, they failed to produce agreements on delivering an immediate cessation of violence.


One of the main causes this problem is addressing the continuation of parallel peace processes in the region that allow both states and illegal armed groups to maneuver against one another through multiple and un-coordinated political processes. This allows states to make high-level commitments with no enforceable conditionality attached with the U.N., while at the same time, on a local level, engage in the kind of non-inclusive, non-transparent deal-making of the past that could easily undermine the broader U.N. process. For example, commitments in official communiqués from Congo and Rwanda condemning current violence, in this case, do not translate to taking any action to stop it.

Current efforts to mitigate conflict in eastern Congo have been divided into multiple processes, each with its own sponsor and agenda. In Kampala, Uganda, the ICGLR continues to push forward a regional peace process between the government of Congo and the M23 rebel group, without any official representation from the government of Rwanda and despite a 14-day ultimatum to finish the talks in advance of the U.N. General Assembly by the ICGLR Heads of State—which they did not meet.


In Congo, the government of Joseph Kabila has begun a national “consultations” process that has very narrow participation and is being interpreted by many analysts and observers as a hollow effort at national reconciliation, and rather a bid to divide political opposition and ensure he remains in office for a third-term.


Finally, and perhaps most promisingly, the U.N. and its regional and international partners have been proceeding with the Peace, Security, and Cooperation Framework for Congo and the Region, or U.N. PSCF, led by U.N. Special Envoy Mary Robinson in conjunction with a team of Special Envoy’s from the U.S., E.U. and A.U., and signed by 11 regional states and four multi-lateral bodies. This process is meant to represent a broader process to create peace in eastern Congo that focus on commitments made to both address core drivers of conflict, such as respect for national sovereignty, as well as incentivize growth and stability by prioritizing regional economic integration.


None of these processes have been able to stop the ongoing-armed conflict necessary to create the political space for political stability, institutional reform in Congo, or regional economic integration÷ that the U.N. and the new Special Envoys hope to achieve.


The U.N. Special Envoy, in close partnership with African leaders, and the U.S. and E.U. envoys must take immediate steps to create a single, coordinated peace process under the umbrella of the U.N. PSCF, or otherwise risk having disparate regional dialogues undermine their own Framework as well as ensure the failure to address the root causes of the conflict or achieve a cohesive peace in the Great Lakes.
Aaron Hall is a Nairobi-based field consultant for the Enough Project at the Center for American Progress.



___________________

 


DR Congo's M23 rebels cannot be defeated militarily: UN






Sunday, October 6th 2013



AFP
19 hours ago

Kinshasa (AFP) - The Democratic Republic of Congo's M23 rebels can only be defeated by political means and not militarily, a member of a UN Security Council delegation visiting the African country said Saturday.
"Only a political solution is a way out of this situation," Alexis Lamek, France's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, told the press.
The M23 was founded by former Tutsi rebels who were incorporated into the Congolese army under a 2009 peace deal.
Complaining the deal was never fully implemented, they mutinied in April 2012, turning their guns on their former comrades and launching the latest rebellion to ravage DR Congo's mineral-rich and conflict-prone east.
The UN and various rights groups have accused the M23 of atrocities including rape and murder in a conflict that has caused tens of thousands of refugees to flee.


The UN also accuses Rwanda and Uganda of backing the M23, a charge both countries deny.


"There is no military solution" to the crisis, said Morocco's UN representative Mohammed Loulichki, but he added that there was "undeniably a dynamic for peace in DRC and the region".
"We must not miss this opportunity."

The two diplomats were referring to talks between the DR Congo government and the rebels in the Ugandan capital Kampala that resumed last month but then stalled.
One of the negotiators for the Congolese government, Francois Muamba, told AFP on Wednesday that the talks got bogged down over the issue of an amnesty for rebels suspected of war crimes, crimes against humanity or serious human rights abuses and their reintegration in the national army.

The political future of M23 leaders was also controversial, he said.
Congolese authorities have published a list with the names of about 70 rebels, including key M23 leaders, who would not be granted an amnesty or incorporated into the army if a peace deal is signed.

"There are questions where it is difficult to give in," said Lamek.


The Security Council delegates met Congolese President Joseph Kabila and members of his government on Saturday.

They will travel to Rwanda late Sunday and to Uganda on Monday.
 
 

____________________________________
 



Check this out to compare notes and for heads up...................!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 





Wikileaks - Jendayi Frazer's Role In The Ethiopian Invasion Of Somalia


More shenanigans from the Clinton/Bush/Clinton foreign policy machinations in East Africa. Keep in mind that Ethiopia/Kenya are physical springboards for an invasion of the Sudan. Just as Uganda/Rwanda were a physical springboard for a US/UK presence in the Eastern DRC (where coltan and a lot of other minerals come from). Also, if they are prosecuted, a lot of this illegal and destructive foreign policy will come to light.Also, if Africa is going to be economically and politically independent, we have to put a stop to AFRICOM, and the militarisation that flows from it.


WikiLeaks Reveals U.S. Twisted Ethiopia's Arm to Invade Somalia
Tue, 12/21/2010 - 13:59 — Rob Prince
by Rob Prince
U.S. officials were lying when they claimed to have attempted to restrain Ethiopia from invading neighboring Somalia in late 2006. Newly unveiled documents show that “the Bush Administration pushed Ethiopia to invade Somalia with an eye on crushing the Union of Islamic Courts,” which had established relative peace in much of the country. The U.S. also tried to assemble a “coalition of the willing” to overthrow Robert Mugabe’s government in Zimbabwe.

WikiLeaks Reveals U.S. Twisted Ethiopia's Arm to Invade Somalia
by Rob Prince
This article previously appeared in Znet.


“The cable exposes a secret deal cut between the United States and Ethiopia to invade Somalia.”


By mid 2007, the 50,000 Ethiopian troops that invaded Somalia in late 2006 found themselves increasingly bogged down, facing much fiercer resistance than they had bargained for as Somalis of all stripes temporarily put aside their differences to stand together against the outside invader.


As the military incursion turned increasingly sour, then US Under Secretary of State for Africa, Jendayi Frazer, who taught at the University of Denver's Korbel School of International Studies in the 1990s, insisted that, prior to the invasion, the United States had counseled caution and that Washington had warned Ethiopia not to use military force against Somalia. Frazer was a close collaborator with former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, for whom there also is a strong University of Denver connection. Frazer certainly tried to distance the United States from responsibility for the Ethiopian invasion in a number of interviews she gave to the media at the time.


But one of the released WikiLeaks cables, suggests a different picture, one that implicates Frazer in pressing Ethiopia's President Meles Zenawi to invade its neighbor. The content of the cable is being widely discussed in the African media. It exposes a secret deal cut between the United States and Ethiopia to invade Somalia.


“The cable suggests that Ethiopia had no intention of invading Somalia in 2006 but was encouraged/pressured to do so by the United States.”


If accurate -- and there is no reason to believe the contrary -- the cable suggests that Ethiopia had no intention of invading Somalia in 2006 but was encouraged/pressured to do so by the United States which pushed Ethiopia behind the scenes. Already bogged down in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at the time, the Bush Administration pushed Ethiopia to invade Somalia with an eye on crushing the Union of Islamic Courts, which was gaining strength in Somalia at the time.


At the time of the invasion there was little doubt that the Ethiopian military incursion was "made in Washington." Like so many other WikiLeaks cables, this one merely puts a dot on the "i" or crosses the "t" on what was generally known, although it does give specific information about Jendayi Frazer's deep involvement in the affair.


According to the cable, as the main U.S. State Department representative in Africa, Frazer played a key role, spearheading what amounted to a U.S.-led proxy war in conjunction with the Pentagon. At the same time that she was pushing the Ethiopians to attack, Frazer was laying the groundwork both for the attack in the U.S. media and for a cover-up, by claiming that although the United States did not support Ethiopian military action, she could understand "the Somali threat" and why Ethiopia might find it necessary to go to war.


Frazer spread rumors of a possible jihadist takeover in Somalia that would threaten Ethiopian security. Turns out that media performance was little more than a smokescreen. The U.S. military had been preparing Ethiopia for the invasion, providing military aid and training Ethiopian troops. Then on December 4, 2006, CENTCOM Commander, General John Abizaid was in Addis Ababa on what was described as "a courtesy call." Instead, the plans for the invasion were finalized.


“The U.S. military had been preparing Ethiopia for the invasion, providing military aid and training Ethiopian troops.”


At the time of the Somali invasion, Zenawi found himself in trouble. He was facing growing criticism for the wave of repression he had unleashed against domestic Ethiopian critics of his rule that had included mass arrests, the massacres of hundreds of protesters and the jailing of virtually all the country's opposition leaders.


Quote:

[None of which occurred in Zimbabwe, but you would not think so going by the mainstream media and it's 10 year villification campaign against Zimbabwe - really, against effective land redistribution and the threat it posed to the diamond trade monopoly, but that's another discussion. There is a lot of mining industry money behind the "War Against Land Reform", which is what it should be called. If you want to read the source of this opposition, check out this 2003 article which describes the redistribution of the Debshan 'Ranch' owned by Anglo-American De Beers. - MrK]

By the spring of 2006 there was a bill before the U.S. Congress to cut off aid to Zenawi unless Ethiopia's human rights record improved. (His human rights record, by the way, has not improved since. Given how the United States and NATO view Ethiopia's strategic role in the "war on terrorism" and the scramble for African mineral and energy resources, Western support for Zenawi has only increased in recent years).


In 2006, dependent on U.S. support to maintain power in face of a shrinking political base at home -- a situation many U.S. allies in the Third World find themselves -- and against his better judgement, Zenawi apparently caved to Frazer's pressure. Nor was this the first time that Frazer had tried to instigate a U.S. proxy war in Africa. Earlier as U.S. ambassador to South Africa, she had tried to put together a "coalition of the willing" to overthrow Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe, an initiative that did not sit so well with South Africa's post-apartheid government and went nowhere.


“Frazer had tried to put together a ‘coalition of the willing’ to overthrow Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe.”


The 2006 war in Somalia did not go well either for the United States or Ethiopia. Recently a State Department spokesperson, Donald Yamamoto, admitted that the whole idea was "a big mistake," obliquely admitting U.S. responsibility for the invasion. It resulted in 20,000 deaths and according to some reports, left up to 2 million Somalis homeless. The 50,000 Ethiopian invasion force, which had expected a cake walk, instead ran into a buzz saw of Somali resistance, got bogged down and soon withdrew with its tail between its legs. The political result of the invasion was predictable: the generally more moderate Union of Islamic Courts was weakened, but it was soon replaced in Somalia by far more radical and militant Islamic groups with a more openly anti-American agenda.


As the situation deteriorated, in an attempt to cover both the U.S. and her own role, Frazer then turned on Zenawi, trying to distance herself from fiasco using an old and tried diplomatic trick: outright lying. Now that the invasion had turned sour, she changed her tune, arguing in the media, that both she and the State Department had tried to hold back the Ethiopians, discouraging them from invading rather than pushing them to attack. The WikiLeaks cable tells quite a different story. In 2009, the Ethiopian forces withdrew, leaving Somalia in a bigger mess and more unstable than when their troops went in three years prior. Seems to be a pattern here?
Rob Prince is the publisher of the Colorado Progressive Jewish News.

- See more at: http://www.thomhartmann.com/forum/2010/12/wikileaks-jendayi-frazers-role-ethiopian-invasion-somalia#sthash.6nqiC0op.dpuf

 


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------



So How Come We Haven't Stopped It?

John Prendergast, The Washington Post | 19 Nov 2006

Early in his first term, President Bush received a National Security Council memo outlining the world's inaction regarding the genocide in Rwanda. In what may have been a burst of indignation and bravado, the president wrote in the margin of the memo, "Not on my watch."
Five years later, and nearly four years into what Bush himself has repeatedly called genocide, the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region is intensifying without a meaningful response from the White House. Perhaps Harvard professor Samantha Power's tongue-in-cheek theory is correct: The memo was inadvertently placed on top of the president's wristwatch, and he didn't want it to happen again. But if Bush's expressions of concern for the victims in Darfur are genuine, then why isn't his administration taking real action?
The answer is one of the great untold stories of this young century, one in which human rights principles clash with post-9/11 counterterrorism imperatives. During my visits to Darfur in the past few months, I've heard testimony from Darfurians that villages are still burned to the ground, women are still gang-raped by Janjaweed militias and civilians are still terrorized by the Sudanese air force's bombings. As Darfur descends further into hell, all signs explaining the United States' pathetic response point to one man: Osama bin Laden.
In the early 1990s, bin Laden lived in Sudan, the guest of the very regime responsible for the Darfur atrocities. At the time, bin Laden's main local interlocutor was an official named Salah Abdallah Gosh. After 9/11, however, Gosh became a more active counterterrorism partner: detaining terrorism suspects and turning them over to the United States; expelling Islamic extremists; and raiding suspected terrorists' homes and handing evidence to the FBI. Gosh's current job as head of security for the government also gives him a lead role in the regime's counterinsurgency strategy, which relies on the Janjaweed militias to destroy non-Arab villages in Darfur.
The deepening intelligence-sharing relationship between Washington and Khartoum blunted any U.S. response to the state-sponsored violence that exploded in Darfur in 2003 and 2004. U.S. officials have told my colleague Colin Thomas-Jensen and me that access to Gosh's information would be jeopardized if the Bush administration confronted Khartoum on Darfur. And since 2001, the administration had been pursuing a peace deal between southern Sudanese rebels and the regime in Khartoum - a deal aimed at placating U.S. Christian groups that had long demanded action on behalf of Christian minorities in southern Sudan. The administration didn't want to undermine that process by hammering Khartoum over Darfur.
The people of Darfur never had a chance.
The term "genocide" became a point of contention in the 2004 presidential campaign, with Democratic candidate John F. Kerry and a united Congress calling on Bush to use it. Finally, on Sept. 9, 2004, then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that "genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility - and genocide may still be occurring."
Powell continued: "[N]o new action is dictated by this determination. We have been doing everything we can to get the Sudanese government to act responsibly."
Everything? The U.N. convention on genocide - which the United States signed in 1948 and ratified 40 years later - requires signatories to seek to prevent and punish the crime of genocide. But instead of being tried for war crimes, Gosh was flown to Langley last year to be debriefed by CIA officials. As a U.S. official told the Los Angeles Times, "The agency's view was that the Sudanese are helping us on terrorism and it was proud to bring him over. They didn't care about the political implications."
In the eyes of many intelligence officials, Gosh and other Sudanese informants have become more valuable for U.S. counterterrorism objectives over the past six months because of the unfolding political upheaval in Somalia. The CIA has long pursued al-Qaeda affiliates implicated in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa. To this end, Washington began secretly funding warlords in Somalia to pursue terrorism suspects. But this strategy backfired: Somali Islamists have taken control of much of southern Somalia, with hard-liners protecting al-Qaeda affiliates. Many leading Somali Islamists have ties to Gosh, a fact Khartoum exploits to strengthen counterterrorism links with Washington.
U.S. inaction on Darfur has continued in the face of the most energetic campaign by U.S. citizens on an African issue since the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. But so far, mobilization by Christian, Jewish, African American and student groups has failed to move the administration's policy.
Indeed, Washington's constructive engagement with the Sudanese regime is as ineffective and morally bankrupt as the Reagan administration's approach to the apartheid regime in South Africa. During Bush's first term, the State Department wanted increased dialogue with Iraq, Iran and North Korea, but lost out to the Pentagon and Vice President Cheney. As consolation, the department took the lead on Sudan, shifting from the Clinton administration policy of isolation and pressure to one of engagement.
That policy has endured as Darfur continues to burn. Along with Powell, former deputy secretary Robert B. Zoellick and Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, remained staunch advocates for engaging with Khartoum. In August, Frazer told reporters: "We believe that President Bashir and the Sudanese government want peace in Darfur." U.S. government sources have said that administration officials recently offered to lift some unilateral trade and investment sanctions imposed during the Clinton administration and move toward normalizing relations in exchange for Sudan's acceptance of U.N. peacekeepers. Khartoum refused.
Now, as the mayhem in Darfur escalates, Bush may have run out of patience. Administration officials say he regularly complains to national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley that more must be done. But to address both the administration's counterterrorism and human rights goals will require overcoming policy inertia and ignorance about the nature of the Khartoum regime - two requirements perhaps beyond the reach of Bush's current team.
Consider prior efforts to influence the regime in Sudan. In 1995, Sudanese officials were implicated in the attempted assassination of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Responding to the regime's failure to extradite terrorism suspects, the U.N. Security Council imposed travel restrictions on Sudanese officials and sanctions against Sudan Airways. Feeling pressured, the regime dismantled terrorist training camps and revoked passports given to known terrorists. And when the regime faced the prospect of a united armed rebellion in 2005, it signed a deal with southern-based rebels.
Clearly, diplomatic, economic and military pressure can have an impact - both in pursuit of an end to the Darfur crisis and in the ability to access important counterterrorism information.
Last week, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, the United States and other governments moved closer to a deal with Khartoum allowing for a stronger peacekeeping force in Darfur. However, the regime retains control of the timing of new deployments. The likely result is that a few hundred more observers will arrive in the next six months. More peacekeepers will help only if there is a new peace deal and the Janjaweed militias begin to be dismantled.
The problem remains leverage. Possible pressure points include the threat of sanctions on Sudanese companies owned by ruling party officials doing business abroad; capital-market sanctions on foreign firms dealing with the regime; NATO planning to deploy forces to Darfur; and sharing information with the International Criminal Court to accelerate indictments of Khartoum officials for crimes against humanity.
Khartoum has taken the measure of the United States; it understands that from time to time the president may use the word "genocide" and that the State Department may issue a strongly worded statement to mollify religious activists. But walking loudly and carrying a toothpick only emboldens the regime to escalate its attacks in Darfur.
President Clinton often says that the biggest regret he has about his presidency was not responding effectively to the Rwandan genocide. If Bush does not change course, he may someday echo Clinton, lamenting that hundreds of thousands of Darfurian lives were needlessly extinguished - on his watch.
John Prendergast, senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, was director of African affairs at the National Security Council during the Clinton administration.

No comments: