Category: US

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Bush’s obfuscation

During a recent interview with the BBC’s Matt Frei, President Bush talks about his upcoming trip to Africa and his stance on the genocide in Darfur. Even though one might be inclined to applaud Bush for his African AIDS policy (which I do think is admirable, particularly for this administration), his response on the Darfur issue is ridiculous with regards to both content and his unceasing negative characteristic of the left, who are the most ardent supporters of a peaceful end to the violence in Darfur.

Frei: You were very tough in your speech about Darfur. And, yet again, you called what’s happening there genocide?

Mr Bush: Yeah.

Frei: Is enough being done by your administration to stop that?

Mr Bush: I think we are. Yeah. You know, I had to make a seminal decision. And that is whether or not I would commit US troops into Darfur. And I was pretty well backed off of it by – you know, a lot of folks – here in America that care deeply about the issue. And so, once you make that decision, then you have to rely upon an international organisation like the United Nations to provide the oomph – necessary manpower… You know, I read – did call it (SOUND GLITCH) genocide, and I think we’re the only nation that has done so. Secondly, I did remind people that we’re sanctioning leaders. That we have targeted [Sudanese] companies and individuals, including a rebel leader, who have yet to be constructive in the peace process. We [are] beginning to get a sense of these things as they’re affecting behaviour. We’re trying to ask others, by the way, to do the same thing. Some of who are reluctant; some who aren’t. And then, finally, I pledged that we’ll help move troops in. And yeah, and as I also said you might remind your listeners, that I’m frustrated by the pace.

Frei: I’ll get on to that in a minute. But, I mean, genocide is just a loaded – it’s such an important word. And you have committed troops – American troops around the world in other cases throughout… Afghanistan. Why not in this case?

Mr Bush: Well, that’s a good question. I mean, we’re committing equipment, you know? Training, help, movement. I think a lot of the folks who are concerned about America into another Muslim country. Some of the relief groups here just didn’t think the strategy would be as effective as it was. I mean, actually, believe it or not, listen to people’s opinions. And chose to make this decision. It’s a decision that I’m now living with. And it’s a decision that requires us to continue to rally the conscience of the world and get people to focus on the issue. You know, you’re right. I mean, we sent marines into Liberia, for example, to help stabilise the country there. And Liberia’s on my itinerary where I’ll meet with the first woman, you know, elected president in Africa – history. And – but, I just made the decision I made.

Frei: Yesterday, Steven Spielberg – the Hollywood director – pulled out of the Beijing Olympics over Darfur. He said the Chinese aren’t doing enough to stop the killing in Darfur. Do you applaud his move?

Mr Bush: That’s up to him. I’m going to the Olympics. I view the Olympics as a sporting event. On the other hand, I have a little different platform than Steven Spielberg so, I get to talk to President Hu Jintao. And I do remind him that he can do more to relieve the suffering in Darfur. There’s a lot of issues that I suspect people are gonna, you know, opine, about during the Olympics. I mean, you got the Dali Lama crowd. You’ve got global warming folks. You’ve got, you know, Darfur and… I am not gonna you know, go and use the Olympics as an opportunity to express my opinions to the Chinese people in a public way ’cause I do it all the time with the president. I mean. So, people are gonna be able to choose – pick and choose how they view the Olympics.

Personally, I find it difficult to take the President’s position on Darfur seriously. Even though he’s admitted that genocide has taken place in Darfur, his continued lack of pressure on Sudan, and his fairly obvious disinterest in committing military personnel gives his entire position a hollow, political feeling. Not unlike Clinton’s stance and repeated obfuscation on the Rwandan genocide.

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Holocaust surviving Congressman passes away

Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust Survivor ever to serve in Congress, passed away on Monday at the age of 80 from complications of cancer.

A champion of civil liberties, Lantos founded the Congressional Human Rights Caucus and supported human rights struggles against both right-wing and left-wing regimes in China, Russia, Myanmar, Darfur and wherever official pressure could, as he put it, “prevent another Holocaust.” He also was passionate about animal rights, working to stop seal hunts, dog killings in foreign countries, and horse slaughter, bear baiting and the operation of puppy mills at home.

He also used his post as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to highlight human rights violators. He argued that nations with bad records had no place on the U.N. Human Rights Commission, that Beijing should not be awarded the 2008 Olympics because of its human rights record, and that corporations had an obligation to protect individuals and press freedoms. When executives of Yahoo Inc. appeared before the committee last year to defend their role in the jailing of a journalist by Chinese officials, Lantos said, “While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are Pygmies.”

The first legislation Lantos sponsored upon being elected in 1980 was to give honorary American citizenship to Raoul Wallenberg, the diplomat who saved thousands of Jews, including the Congressman and his aunt.

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Save Darfur restructuring

Save Darfur, the organization that has been hugely successfully in rallying support for the crisis in Darfur, has recently fired their executive director and is in the process of reorganizing their board of directors. Even though the Sudan Tribune goes through a laundry list of complaints about a few of the practices of the organization, John Prendergast who serves on the board, said:

…the changes that the board decided to make were part of an effort to reorganize and re-energize the movement along the lines of its earliest conception: to be a broad, permanent alliance of many different types of organizations working together to prevent atrocities and genocide.

“The growth was so fast in the coalition, as was interest in the issue of Darfur and in the budget, that it was hard to kind of manage the difference between an organization and a coalition,” Mr. Prendergast said. “People felt that the time had some to go back to the roots of the coalition of groups that is so rich and so diverse.”

Having worked for non-profits for years, I can say that it’s often healthy for these organizations to restructure themselves. I might also add that non-profits have a tendency to create themselves with a certain agenda in mind and then wind up having to change directions because whatever issue they’re attempting to address winds up evolving.

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Reactions to Bush’s new sanctions

As reactions to President Bush’s announcement to increase sanctions against the Sudan government begin to mount, John Prendergast, Colin Thomas-Jensen and Julia Spiegel of the ENOUGH Project took some time yesterday to respond to the rather toothless nature of this new rhetoric. Not only did they point out what’s wrong with this new initiative they also outlined what we ought to be doing:

We at ENOUGH will continue to hammer home the point that Plan B – punishment – is the right direction, but what is required now is a Plan B with teeth – multilateral, escalating, and biting. This would include:

* Multilateralized Sanctions Against Sudanese Companies Supporting the Regime: The U.S. should work with the UN Security Council to impose sanctions against the Sudanese companies already targeted unilaterally by the U.S. Unless the current U.S. list of 161 is made multilateral, these sanctions will be meaningless. A UN Panel of Experts should also be established to further investigate which companies are conducting the business necessary to underwrite Sudan’s war machine.

* Pressure on International Banks to Stop Doing Business with Sudan: U.S. officials should engage with a number of international banking institutions to strongly encourage them to stop supporting oil transactions with Sudan, with the implication being that if such business continues, then all transactions conducted by those banks with U.S. commercial entities (and those of other countries willing to work with us) would eventually be banned.

* Reinforcement of Divestment Efforts: President Bush should sign an Executive Order putting into law all of the legally possible elements of existing Congressional bills in support of divestment. The executive should be supportive of efforts across the U.S. to pressure university endowments, municipal and state pension funds, and private mutual funds to sell equity holdings in a targeted list of companies whose business bolsters the operations of the Sudanese regime.

* Support for the ICC Indictment Process: The U.S. should provide information and declassified intelligence to the International Criminal Court to help accelerate the process of building indictments against senior officials in the regime for their role in orchestrating mass atrocities in Darfur. The U.S. has the most such intelligence and should come to agreement with the ICC about what information to share.

* Accelerated Credible Military Planning: The U.S. also should develop credible plans for decisive military action, not only to enforce a no-fly zone, but to protect civilians with ground forces without consent from Khartoum should all else fails. This military planning is both a practical necessity, and a means to build and utilize leverage against the regime.

One of the things that I’ve always loved about John Prendergast (and that I’m beginning to love about the ENOUGH Project) is his positive-activist approach to pushing government in the right direction. Which is why it’s not surprising to find a list of steps at the end of the article that everyone can take:

Concerned individuals should also write letters, send emails, set up meetings in home districts, and call 1-800-GENOCIDE to leave a message for President Bush, your Senators and member of Congress to tell them to:

* push for the U.S. to introduce – and diplomatically invest in – a UNSC resolution that imposes targeted sanctions on key leaders and on the companies already sanctioned by the U.S.;

* urge President Bush to provide information and declassified intelligence to the International Criminal Court; and

* call on President Bush to put credible plans in place for a no-fly zone and non-consensual force deployment to protect civilians if the situation deteriorates in Darfur and the Sudanese regime continues to block the UN-led hybrid force.

I would also recommend one additional step which you’re hopefully already taking – educate yourself. Knowing about these issues is no doubt what brings you to a site like this, but continue to read, discuss, debate, and learn. That’s the only “magic bullet” for preventing these kinds of atrocities in the future.

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US to up santions against Sudan

The Bush Administration is set to announce it will be imposing stiffer sanctions against the Khartoum regime in response to the ongoing bloodshed in Darfur. As everyone no doubt knows at this point, the violence has been continuing unabated for the better part of six years without a particularly substantive response from the international community.

Fortunately, advocacy groups have been pushing Washington, the United Nations, and various corporate interests non-stop since 2003 in an attempt to leverage a more dramatic stance against the crimes that President Bush himself has previously referred to as genocide.

U.S. lawmakers and advocacy groups, meanwhile, have criticized the Bush administration for a tepid response to Darfur despite tough rhetoric from the president, and it was uncertain last night whether they would welcome the long-awaited implementation of what has come to be known as “Plan B” for the region. Religious and humanitarian groups, which have pressed states, universities and corporations to disinvest from Sudan, have criticized as insufficient the elements of Plan B.

Bush has been under intense pressure from these groups to do something about the violence in Darfur, which began in 2003 when government-sponsored Arab militias attacked African villages in an effort to quell a rebellion. Eventually, about 2,000 villages were burned, as many as 450,000 people were killed and more than 2.5 million were displaced in continuing violence. The United States labeled it a “genocide” in 2004.

Under the new sanction plan to be announced today, 30 companies owned or controlled by the Sudanese government will be added to the 130 already blocked from using the U.S. financial system. The senior administration official said that the U.S. government has devoted considerable resources in the past six months toward figuring out how to bring greater financial pressure on Sudan, and he noted that with today’s announcement most of the joint ventures responsible for oil production will be under sanctions.

It was reported that Bush was supposed to announce the new sanctions last month while he was speaking at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum but was asked to hold off by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, who wanted more time to negotiate with Khartoum.