The Answer to Darfur
March 28, 2007, Washington DC - "The Answer to Darfur", the first in a series of strategy papers to be released by ENOUGH, a joint initiative of the International Crisis Group and the Center for American Progress, presents a comprehensive plan for resolving the ongoing crisis in Darfur.
Authored by Senior Advisor to the International Crisis Group John Prendergast, the paper calls for intensified U.S. and international engagement to resolve the ongoing crisis in Darfur, backed by a series of punitive measures that go beyond the Bush administration’s vague and as-yet toothless "Plan B" threats.
"After four years of failure, there are finally signs of a pulse within the international community," Prendergast said, "but this is just the beginning – and no one single initiative will be sufficient for success."
Prendergast highlights three cases in which the regime in Khartoum was persuaded to change its course of action as a result of international pressure: its transformation from a state sponsor of terrorism in the early 1990s to a partner in the Bush administration’s war against terrorism; its acceptance of a peace agreement with rebels in Southern Sudan in 2005; and its almost total abolition of slave-raiding in the 1990s.
These historical examples, Prendergast argues, demonstrate that high-level diplomacy coupled with credible threats and punitive measures can change the calculations and actions of the Sudanese government.
Policies that have not and will not work, he argues, include haphazard "part-time and drive-by diplomacy;" "constructive engagement" with the regime whereby carrots are unaccompanied by credible sticks; and a stove-piped approach to Sudan which deals separately rather than comprehensively with the three main issues of counterterrorism, the Southern Sudan peace process, and Darfur.
Prendergast outlines a policy "Rubik’s Cube," all six sides of which must be aligned in order to resolve the crisis. The U.S. and the international community, he argues, must:
Support rebel unity so that a common rebel negotiating position is achieved, without which no peace agreement can be brokered or sustained.
1-Build an effective peace process focused on resolving the unaddressed issues driving the conflict led by high-level U.S., UN, EU and AU officials and supported by coordinated, multilateral diplomatic efforts, that would necessarily address issues of wealth and power-sharing, individual compensation and janjaweed militia disarmament.
2-Secure full-time, high-level U.S. diplomacy to support the peace process, modeled on the diplomatic effort that successfully negotiated a peace agreement in Southern Sudan.
3-Accelerate military planning and action for protection to provide much needed diplomatic leverage now, and the means to exercise these options later, if warranted. Much more pressure must be placed on Khartoum to accept a larger force with a civilian protection mandate, and simultaneously planning should accelerate for coercive military options such as a no-fly zone and non-consensual force deployment.
4-Impose punitive measures now, including implementation of targeted sanctions against key leaders and companies, support for ICC investigations and indictments and pressure on international financial institutions to cease doing business with the government of Sudan.
5-Ramp up global citizen activism to advocate for specific, focused measures that governments can take to reach a solution to the crisis.
Ultimately, ENOUGH concludes, with the right policies and increased levels of engagement on the issue, there is potential for Darfur to be stabilized within a year. "If not," Prendergast said, "it is almost a foregone conclusion that hundreds of thousands more will be killed on our watch in 2007."
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ENOUGH is a joint initiative of the International Crisis Group and the Center for American Progress to resolve and prevent genocide and mass atrocities. For additional information please visit www.enoughproject.org.
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