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 Testimony of Jonathan S. Gration The President’s Special Envoy to Sudan
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Testimony of Jonathan S. Gration, Maj Gen, USAF (Ret)
The President’s Special Envoy to Sudan
before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
July 30, 2009
Chairman Kerry, Ranking Member Lugar, Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
thank you for the opportunity to be here today to discuss our strategic objectives in Sudan and
to outline what we are doing to make them a reality.
Mr. Chairman, let me begin by acknowledging your leadership on these issues. We greatly
appreciate your commitment to finding solutions to the many challenges confronting the
people of Sudan. That commitment is widely shared by the members of this committee,
including Senator Feingold, Chairman of the Africa Subcommittee, with whom I have recently
met, and Senator Isakson, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee. We are especially grateful to
you, Mr. Chairman, and Senators Corker and Isakson for participating in the State Department’s
Forum for Supporters of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which we held here in
Washington last month. I will say more about those proceedings in a few moments, but I want
to thank you now for your support.
The great human tragedies that have occurred in Darfur and the rest of Sudan are deeply
embedded in our memories. Many people in Sudan suffer terribly from the pain and loss
brought by conflict, , and it is these people who deserve our support.
We have made progress in recent months, but we have much work ahead. From my visits to
Sudan, the region, and throughout the international community, I have found the challenges in
Sudan to be complex and our timeline compressed. Because of the complicated nature and
urgency of the tasks at hand, we have helped to craft a strategic approach that blends all
elements on national power and a methodology that is integrated, comprehensive, and based
on a policy of dialogue and engagement.
I want to take a moment to discuss our engagement. Engagement is not something we pursue
for its own sake, and it is not about accommodating the status quo. Engagement does not
mean the absence of pressure, or doling out incentives based on wishful thinking. On the
contrary, it is about working to change conditions on the ground. Engagement means frank
dialogue about what needs to be accomplished in the months ahead, how we can help make
those accomplishments happen, how the bilateral relationship could improve if conditions on
the ground transform, how the Government of Sudan could become even more isolated if it
does not act now, and how we ensure that all parties are held accountable.
First let me tell you what we want to achieve. We want a country that is governed responsibly,
justly, and democratically, a country that is at peace with itself and with its neighbors, that is
economically viable, and a country that works together with the United States on common
interests. We want an inclusive and durable peace in Darfur. We want full implementation of
the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and a peaceful post-referendum period whether as a
single, stable, and unified Sudan or a Sudan that divides peacefully and orderly into two
separate states. We want only what is best for the Sudanese people.
This is our vision. Now let me tell you how we’re going to make it a reality. We are using
diplomacy, defense, and development—all the elements of national power—to achieve our
strategic objectives.
We are engaging directly with all of the relevant parties inside Sudan to bring peace and
stability to the country. This includes the two main parties of the Government of National Unity
(GNU)—the National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement
(SPLM), as well as other political parties and movements and civil society. We have traveled to
the country three times since my appointment in March, and returned just a few days ago from
our last trip. We were in Khartoum to facilitate trilateral talks to advance timely
implementation of the CPA and in Darfur to review our progress on facilitating humanitarian
assistance and to promote the Doha peace process. I visited several camps for internally
displaced persons, met with camp leaders, and saw firsthand the day-to-day struggles these
Darfuris must face. Ultimately, the Government of Sudan must be accountable to its people
and bear responsibility for peace within Sudan’s borders.
To achieve our goals, we must also engage with Sudan’s neighbors and the international
community. This is why we have traveled around the world to Chad, China, Egypt, France,
Libya, Norway, Qatar, and the United Kingdom to meet with key leaders who share our
common concern and want to work together toward shared objectives. This is why, at the end
of June, we convened the Forum for Supporters of the CPA here in Washington to bring
together representatives from over 30 countries and international organizations to renew the
global commitment to seeing a peaceful and stable Sudan. We are confident that this
multilateral group will work closely together to achieve a lasting peace in Sudan by keeping
Sudanese parties positively engaged in implementing the peace agreement and preparing for
the future, increasing the capacity of the Government of Southern Sudan, and helping to keep
all Sudanese government institutions accountable to their people.
We are dedicated to carrying this vision to success. I have built a team of sharp and dedicated
individuals who, along with our colleagues based in Sudan, are working tirelessly to achieve our
objectives. My role is to guide our vision, and I will do all that is in my power to see this vision
come to fruition. I report regularly to President Obama and Secretary Clinton about our
progress and have visited Congress to exchange views with you and a number of your
colleagues. I look forward to speaking with many more of you in the weeks ahead. We are
committed to working together as a strong and united team to achieve our objectives of a
politically stable, physically secure, economically viable, and peaceful Sudan.
Now let me tell you more about the four pillars required to support this vision of Sudan. Most
urgently, we want a definitive end to conflict and gross human rights abuses in Darfur and
justice for its many victims. We can never forget the lives needlessly lost in the last five years,
and the millions who continue to be displaced. As I witnessed last week, families still crowd
into makeshift housing in IDP camps, women continue to gather firewood in fear, and children
grow up without hope for a better tomorrow.
To resolve this humanitarian tragedy, we believe only a negotiated political settlement
between the government of Sudan and all parties to the conflict will bring sustainable peace to
Darfur. Our goal is to conclude an agreement that will allow people to go back to their home
villages or a place of their choosing to resume their lives in safety, stability, self-sufficiency, and
security.
Past peace negotiations have faltered, and we have learned from these experiences. We are
collaborating with the African Union and United Nations joint chief mediator, Djibrill Bassolé, to
ensure that the peace process is inclusive and that it adequately addresses the grievances of
the people of Darfur. We are engaging with the fragmented movements in Darfur to help them
unite and to bring them to the peace table with one voice. We are working with Libya and
Egypt to end the proxy war between Chad and Sudan that has ignited further conflict. We are
supporting the full deployment of the African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur
(UNAMID) as a critical mechanism for protecting Darfuri civilians. We are determined to work
toward a peaceful Darfur where displaced families can resettle and reestablish their homes.
We must act without delay—innocent Darfuris have suffered for too long.
Our second pillar focuses on sustaining peace between the North and the South. In January
2005, the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement signed the
Comprehensive Peace Agreement, ending a 22-year war. Four and a half years after the signing
of the CPA, peace remains fragile. In just eight months, Sudan will hold national elections in
April 2010 and referenda in Southern Sudan and the Abyei region beginning nine months later
in January 2011. Our timeline is so very short; it is urgent that we act now to support the full
implementation of the CPA.
This will not be easy. Just over a week ago, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague
announced its arbitration decision on the Abyei border delineation—a highly sensitive and
emotional issue for both parties to the CPA. Before the boundary decision was handed down,
we spent a significant amount of time with the parties, working to ensure the decision would be
accepted and fully implemented. Tensions in Abyei remain high and the international
community must continue to be vigilant. As we have seen before in that area, tensions
between the Ngok Dinka and Misseriya can quickly erupt into violence, resulting in a conflict
that could bring the SPLM and NCP into direct confrontation and threaten to derail the CPA.
We will also need to continue support for the UN Mission in Sudan, help the parties prepare for
elections in April, and ensure legitimate popular consultations in Southern Kordofan and Blue
Nile states. Collectively, we must assist the parties as they prepare for the January 2011
referenda and their consequences. These are just a few of the major challenges ahead as we
help the parties implement the remaining milestones in the CPA.
It is critical that we work with the parties to begin the process of democratic transformation
and decentralization, so that in January 2011, the voices of the people of Southern Sudan will
be heard and we can witness a unified and peaceful Sudan or a Sudan that is on an orderly path
toward becoming two separate and viable states at peace with each other. Resolving the issues
of North and South is critical to tackling challenges in Darfur and other parts of the country.
These twin challenges must be addressed with equal attention and vigor.
The third pillar calls for a functioning and stable Sudanese Government, and one that will either
include a capable Government of Southern Sudan or coexist peacefully with an independent
southern Sudan. Our strategy seeks to help the South improve its security capacity to defend
against external and internal threats while striving to ensure a potentially independent
Southern Sudan is politically and economically viable.
Our fourth and final pillar is to seek increased and enhanced cooperation with the Sudanese
government to counter terrorism and to promote regional security, consistent with—and not at
the expense of—our overall objectives of peace and security in Sudan. We also seek an end to
Sudan’s efforts to weaken or marginalize opponents abroad or align with negative state and
non-state actors.
Our whole-of-government approach is integrated and comprehensive. It is firmly founded in
the belief that engagement with all of Sudan, the region, the international community, and civil
society is essential if we are to secure our vision of a Sudan that is ruled more justly and
democratically, is at peace with itself and with its neighbors, is economically viable, and works
together with the United States on our shared interests. Further, our strategy is deeply rooted
in a conviction that we must do all we can to end the human suffering in Sudan.
As you can see, we are aiming high, thinking big, and expecting much. We do so because we
believe innovative concepts and ideas, coupled with detailed planning and sufficient resources,
are the only way to achieve big results. Big results are exactly what we need in Sudan at this
critical moment.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I would like to thank you for your leadership
and support on efforts to end the suffering in Darfur and the rest of Sudan. Again, thank you
for allowing me to be here today to discuss these issues that are so important to us all, and
especially to the Sudanese people.
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Re: Testimony of Jonathan S. Gration The President’s Special Envoy to Sudan (Re: Deng)
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Chairman Kerry Opening Statement For Hearing On Sudan
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry made the following statement at today’s hearing titled, “Toward a Comprehensive Strategy for Sudan”.
Full text as prepared is below:
Today’s hearing explores America’s need to craft a comprehensive strategy for Sudan. For years, the urgency of either the situation in Darfur or the long war between North and South Sudan drove U.S. policy strongly in one direction or the other.
Over time, the result has been a bifurcated policy. However, today most understand that we cannot and should not pursue either of these challenges as if it existed in a vacuum. As the Save Darfur Coalition affirmed in a statement for the record, “policymakers have too often focused on the South to the detriment of Darfur, or Darfur to the detriment of the South.”
At the same time, many discussions of U.S.-Sudan policy here in Washington continue to center on the question of whether we should use carrots versus sticks—i.e. rewards or punishments—to influence Sudan’s leaders in Khartoum.
When I visited Sudan in April of this year, I came away convinced that we need to build a strategic framework that moves beyond simple oppositions like carrots versus sticks or the South versus Darfur. Instead, we need a nuanced, comprehensive strategy for Sudan as a whole.
We should begin by identifying our objectives. Our primary goals in Sudan are: helping to achieve peace and security in Darfur and the surrounding region; maintaining and strengthening peace between North and South Sudan; expanding cooperation on counter-terrorism; and promoting democracy and conflict prevention throughout the country.
Those are our objectives. The question is how best to achieve them. I believe that the ongoing consequences of the genocide in Darfur and the onrushing potential tragedy of a renewed north-south war together create a dynamic that demands high-level and sustained engagement.
As the President’s special envoy, Scott Gration has already traveled to the region multiple times. Last week, General Gration was in Abyei, Sudan, at the center of North-South tensions. His presence on the ground when The Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration announced a decision on Abyei’s borders symbolized America’s recommitment to the peace process.
We must make the same commitment to finding peace in Darfur. Almost five years ago, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell testified before this Committee that the United States had found a “consistent and widespread pattern of atrocities’ that constituted genocide. He recommended that America “increase the number of African Union monitors.” Today, the African Union monitoring mission has been merged into the United Nations peacekeeping mission, UNAMID. It is making a difference, but it has yet to be fully deployed or to acquire full tactical mobility.
Millions of people remain in camps—under conditions made even worse when Khartoum expelled 13 humanitarian organizations, placing over a million people in potential jeopardy. General Gration was right to make his first priority as special envoy the restoration of life-saving assistance. But we must go further: When I was in Khartoum, I emphasized to the Sudanese that restoring lost aid was imperative, but also insufficient: our goal should not be to re-create the conditions that existed before the NGO expulsion, but to move beyond them.
Maintenance of a miserable status quo is not the answer. I strongly support the efforts of the African Union, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, and others to bring the voices of civil society into the discussion, and particularly to ensure that women are heard.
At the same time, we must recognize that even as we work toward peace in western Sudan and eastern Chad, the clock is relentlessly ticking down the hours between now and 2011. That is when the Comprehensive Peace Agreement allows Southern Sudanese to vote on the question of unity or separation from the North. If the people of Sudan are to transform a ceasefire and an uneasy power-sharing agreement into lasting peace, we need to think of the CPA as an ongoing process stretching into the future, not an event in the past.
Today, crucial elements remain unresolved, including borders; citizenship; and revenue sharing. A central focus of my visit to Sudan was to convince both sides to embark on a series of tripartite discussions with the United States to tackle these remaining challenges. Rising violence in the South is also a matter of growing concern and underscores the need for a tangible peace dividend. But even as we move forward, we must not fix our gaze on the 2011 referendum alone. We also need to consider what Sudan could look like in 2012 and 2015.
All of these issues and more, including complex regional forces, must be balanced within a comprehensive United States strategy for Sudan.
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Re: Testimony of Jonathan S. Gration The President’s Special Envoy to Sudan (Re: Deng)
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U.S. Diplomat Urges Revised Sudan Policy
Inclusion on Terrorism List Challenged
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 31, 2009
President Obama's top Sudan envoy said Thursday that there was no basis for keeping Sudan on the U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism and that it was only a matter of time before the United States would have to "unwind" economic sanctions against the Khartoum government.
Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Scott Gration's remarks before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee represented the most forceful critique yet by a U.S. official of the long-standing American effort to put economic and political pressure on Sudan's Islamic government. Sudan, which has harbored members of al-Qaeda, including Osama bin Laden, was designated a terrorism sponsor in 1993.
Gration's comments Thursday raised concerns among activists and Sudan's critics in Congress that the administration is offering to reward Sudan without securing assurances that the government will take steps to end conflict in the Darfur region and in the south.
The president's national security advisers have been locked in dispute over the right mix of rewards and penalties to persuade the Khartoum government to pursue peace in those regions. Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has been pressing for a tougher approach, citing Khartoum's history of violating agreements.
The interagency feud became public last month, when Gration told reporters that Sudan's government was no longer engaging in a "coordinated" campaign of mass murder against Darfurian civilians. Two days earlier, Rice had said that Sudan was engaged in a campaign of genocide in Darfur.
"There is a significant difference between what happened in 2003, which we characterized as genocide, and what is happening today," Gration said Thursday.
Gration came under fire from human rights activists, who accused him of saying too little to the committee about the brutality of the Sudanese government, whose leader, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, stands accused of war crimes in Darfur.
Also Thursday, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, in partnership with Google Earth, released a State Department analysis of U.S. satellite imagery showing that more than 3,300 Darfurian villages were damaged or destroyed between 2003 and 2005, more than twice previous estimates. The images also showed that most of the destruction in Darfur occurred before 2006, with only a small number of villages apparently destroyed since then.
Gration told the Senate committee that the administration would "roll out" a new, comprehensive strategy on Darfur in the next few weeks that would include "both incentives and pressure" for Khartoum. The administration' s priorities, he said, include negotiating a durable political solution in Darfur and averting a collapse of a U.S.-brokered 2005 peace accord ending a war between Khartoum and southern-backed rebels.
But Gration hinted at the tensions over strategy, noting that the State Department had rejected a proposal to fund more U.S. diplomats or private contractors to help support American mediation efforts in Sudan. He said he would raise the issue at a higher level.
Gration said U.S. economic sanctions had undermined American efforts to help implement the 2005 accord, barring the delivery of heavy equipment needed for road and rail projects in southern Sudan. He said the provision of such assistance would be vital in ensuring that southerners can establish a viable government if, as expected, they vote to secede from Sudan in a 2011 referendum.
"We're going to have to unwind some of these sanctions so that we can do the very things we need to do to ensure a peaceful transition to a state that is viable in the south, if they choose to do that," he said.
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Re: Testimony of Jonathan S. Gration The President’s Special Envoy to Sudan (Re: Deng)
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US should not normalize relations with Sudan now – SPLM
Friday 31 July 2009.
July 30, 2009 (WASHINGTON) — The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) Secretary General has urged the United States to not normalize bilateral relations with Sudan and to maintain sanctions till the full implementation of a peace deal the former rebels signed with the government in 2005.
Pagan Amun, the secretary general of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), (AFP) Pagan Amum was speaking before the US House Committee for Foreign Affairs on Wednesday July 29. His call comes at a time where the US envoy to Sudan recommended before US Senators today to ease economic sanctions and to remove Sudan from terrorism list.
Mr. Scott Gration said sanctions on Sudan are hampering efforts to bring peace to the country, including giving South Sudan the economic help to promote its autonomy.
Amum who opposed the lift of sanctions, said the "normalization of relations with Sudan should come as a result of the full implementation of the CPA, the achievement of Democratic transformation, through the conduct of a fair and free elections, and after the ending of the war in Darfur through a negotiated peace settlement."
Pagan warned the US legislators that the National Congress Party (NCP) "want to use the new posture of dialogue put forward by the Obama Administration to get the lifting of Sanctions, and the removal of Sudan’s name from the list of States Sponsors of Terrorism and to normalize relations with United States of America."
He further requested that the lifting of economic sanctions on Sudan can be considered if the NCP implements the following: "the demarcation of borders; the adoption of the referendum law and a National Security Act that respects freedoms; the lifting of press censorship; the institution of a transparent oil sector; the implementation of the PCA decision of Abyei, and the achievement of a monitored Ceasefire in Darfur."
Last June Washington hosted an international meeting to discuss the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The two parties renewed their commitment to the full implementation of the deal and formed a tripartite committee with the US envoy to tackle their differences.
(ST)
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Deng
حيدر حسن ميرغني
فيس بوك
تويتر
انستقرام
يوتيوب
بنتيريست