What We're Asking of the Obama Administration

President Obama’s campaign was all about change. Now we are asking the Obama administration to live up to its promises and make some serious changes to the way the US responds to genocide and mass atrocities. This needs to include notable shifts in how the US is dealing with Darfur and the implementation of structural measures that will improve our response to similar situations in the future.

On Darfur, virtually the only part of the Bush administration’s strategy we think President Obama should maintain is US opposition to invoking Article 16, which would suspend the international criminal court investigation against Sudan’s president.

Other than that, President Obama and his team need to up the ante in pressuring Sudan and rethink the U.S. approach to dealing with the crisis.

First, we need to make sure we have the necessary structures in place to engage effectively. President Obama should immediately appoint a high-level envoy, two senior diplomatic aides, and a well-staffed diplomatic cell in the region, all of whom must be given the resources to work on this issue.

Second, we need to recognize that we can’t do this all by ourselves. The absence of coordinated international pressure so far has allowed the government of Sudan to get away with genocide. The Obama administration should lead multilateral efforts to show Khartoum that this will no longer be tolerated. This means working to ensure that the UN ban on offensive military flights over Darfur is actually enforced, working with other countries to expand the arms embargo on Sudan and make sure it’s effectively monitored, and working toward increased multilateral sanctions targeted against the Khartoum regime.

While this pressure is being levied, the peacekeepers on the ground need to be well-trained, well-equipped, and well-led in order to protect the civilians being harmed, ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid, ensure implementation of the Darfur Peace Agreement, and monitor ceasefires.

And, while President Obama and his team are doing all they can to bring an end to the genocide in Darfur, we also need to set up mechanisms to prevent genocide and mass atrocities in the future. In order to do this, we are asking President Obama to invest $250 million in crisis prevention and response and to facilitate open communication among the various agencies in the government to make sure that all relevant information pertaining to potential genocide is shared across the diplomatic, defense, development, and intelligence communities.

Genocide prevention, like genocide intervention, is a venture that cannot be taken alone—President Obama needs to create an international information-sharing network to maximize access to relevant information that could save lives.

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Make the peacekeeping force in Darfur, UNAMID, effective by ensuring that it is properly funded and well-equipped

UNAMID, the joint United Nations-African Union Peacekeeping Force in Darfur, was authorized by Resolution 1769. The force, which was supposed to be 26,000 personnel-strong, was given a Chapter VII Mandate, which means it was authorized to use force to protect civilians from harm. However, UNAMID encountered incredible problems from its creation: it struggled to find countries who would donate soldiers or even equipment, and those who did volunteer could be (and were) rejected by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir at a whim. UNAMID has been so under-funded, under-equipped, and under-staffed that not only could it not protect the civilians it was mandated to protect – it could barely protect itself. UNAMID has been subject to attack from all sides – rebels, Janjaweed militias, government forces, and even random criminals and children.

UNAMID is currently just over 12,000 personnel. UNAMID lacks a multi-role logistics unit, a medium-transport unit, a heavy transport unit, an aerial reconnaissance unit, light tactical helicopters and 18 medium-utility helicopters. In its first year of operation, it lost 21 personnel.

To find out more about UNAMID, visit UNAMID’s official site. To learn more about the challenges facing UNAMID, look into reports by ENOUGH, joint NGOs,

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Appoint a high-level Sudan envoy with senior diplomats—one responsible for Darfur and one responsible for the Comprehensive Peace Agreement

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement is the landmark agreement that ended the 4 decade-long Civil War between North and South Sudan. It was comprehensive in that it covered power sharing, wealth sharing, demobilization, border demarcations, etc. It was not comprehensive, however, in that it left out every other marginalized region in Sudan, including Darfur.

Despite this oversight, the CPA still is very important to the fate of Darfur, and Darfur is very important to the fate of the CPA. The CPA represents one of the best potential paths forward for all of Sudan’s marginalized people, and is one of the only agreements that addresses the systemic problems of oppressive governance and lack of representation that truly underlie the Darfur conflict. At the same time, the CPA will have a hard time following its path to peace when there is a war raging in Darfur.
The fate of the two are intertwined and any diplomatic efforts the United States takes must take into account both the Darfur peace process and the Comprehensive peace Agreement.

To find out more about the CPA and its relevance to Darfur, look into these reports by Chatham House, the International Crisis Group, ENOUGH, and the Woodrow Wilson Center.

To read the Comprehensive Peace Agreement itself, click here.

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Ban offensive military flights

One of the tactics the Government of Sudan has constantly employed over the years since the conflict began has been the aerial bombardment of villages. The Government has engaged in countless aerial bombing campaigns against Darfuri civilians and rebels – even currently as this is being written in mid-January, the Government of Sudan has begun a brand new aggressive air strike campaign.

This is all despite the fact that such bombing has been forbidden under the terms of the Darfur Peace Agreement, countless UN resolutions, and even a recent ceasefire that Omar al-Bashir declared this past November (which was also violated within 72 hours). The Government has even been known to paint its offensive aircraft white, deliberately disguising itself as a United Nations aircraft.

This clearly demonstrates that the Government of Sudan is not serious about a commitment to ending military flights, which means the responsibility falls to the international community to protect Darfuri civilians from such attacks.

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Expand the arms embargo and ensure that there are international monitoring mechanisms

Darfur is awash with weapons, both small and large arms, which continue to fuel the violence and instability. Russia supplies the majority of large arms to the Government of Sudan, and China is responsible for the majority of the small arms that are sweeping Darfur.

Not only do both the rebels and government-backed Janjaweed militias have access to weapons, but this increased militarization has trickled down into the general population. Internally Displaced Persons camps are now home to large quantities of small arms, the frequency and deadliness of tribal fighting has increased due to the access to small arms, and banditry has become so ubiquitous that even UNAMID, the UN Peacekeeping Force in Darfur, has been subject to attacks by bandits and the safety of humanitarian goods and workers has become significantly threatened.

With such a high number of armed factions, the widespread presence of small arms makes reaching a comprehensive and inclusive peace in Darfur incredibly more difficult.

To read a report on China’s role in the arms situation in Darfur, look at these reports by Human Rights First, the Small Arms Survey, and Amnesty International.

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Ensure that there are an appropriate amount of foreign service officers for the region

Sudan is geographically the largest country in Africa, and within those broad borders is an incredible and diverse array of identities, experiences, histories, politics, and priorities. Sudan’s complex present state reflects and long and complicated history that one must have a solid understanding of if one is to truly understand Sudan’s current conflicts.

Therefore, it will take a team of dedicated foreign service officers with a deep understanding of and comfort with the complexities of Sudan to create concrete intelligent steps towards a viable and sustainable peace in this troubled country.

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Invest $250 million for crisis prevention and response

Prevention is always less expensive and less painful then response, and the longer the response is delayed, the more complicated the problem is to solve. This is true across almost all of the conflicts across the world where the international community must consider the Responsibility to Protect civilians.

In Darfur and the DR Congo, the current state of affairs is inching ever slowly more towards chaos. Every day that passes without effective global response simply entrenches the violence further, splits groups into more armed actors, and increases incentives to continue fighting, not to mention permit countless more civilians to be displaced or killed every day. In both conflicts, the world missed several critical opportunities to prevent or respond to the violence early on, and both Congo and the international community are suffering the consequences of that inaction now.

Whether violence is happening in Sudan or Somalia, Sri Lanka or Burma, Congo or Chad, it is nothing short of when the world ignores its Responsibility to Protect civilians across the globe and fails to act with urgency and unity.

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Create international information-sharing network for preventing genocide

It is naïve to think that conflicts happen in a void: every major conflict both has an impact on and is impacted by other actors in its region. Each conflict exists in context of the complex web of politics and history of its region – and as the world becomes increasingly interdependent, it has never been more true.

Thus, if the international community recognizes that genocide and mass atrocities are a global issue, it needs to recognize that genocide and mass atrocity require global cooperation to solve. The simplest first step the world can take towards this is to share information relating to mass atrocities with each other, which would not only build bonds of trust and working relationships in the fight against genocide, but would facilitate the formation of a more complete global picture and a more timely global response.

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Create an interagency mechanism within the US government for sharing information and coordinating preventive action

Information is power: our nation relies on the close cooperation, coordination, and collaboration between various government agencies around issues such as national security to keep us safe and secure. It then follows that our various government agencies should be collaborating around issues such as the prevention of and response to mass atrocities to keep our world safe and secure.

For the reasons mentioned above, time is always of the essence when confronted with any atrocity across the globe: the longer the United States delays because of lack of coordination or information, the harder it is to find a resolution to a conflict and the more innocent civilians suffer.

As a global leader, the United States has the potential to set an example for how the rest of the world monitors, prevents, and responds to genocide and mass atrocity. The first step towards setting a positive example for the outside world is to set a positive example within our own government.

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