How Should America Approach the Crisis in the Sudan?

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.)

Sudan continues to suffer civil wars, with the Darfur region along the western border now enveloped in one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent history. As government-sponsored militias continue to terrorize the population, Sudan seems to be returning into a haven for terrorism despite claims of reform. Experts gathered at an August 6 AEI conference to examine how Sudan fits into the war on terrorism.

The United Nations estimates that between 30,000 and 50,000 Sudanese have been killed in ethnic cleansing carried out by janjaweed militias, nomadic Arab militias that many characterize as a proxy for the government. Sudanese foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail recently challenged these figures, and UN debate continues as to whether to classify the bloodshed as “genocide.” At AEI’s event, John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group argued that the international community must do more to improve humanitarian aid that currently reaches only one-third of the affected Sudanese population; provide for civilian security by funding the pledged deployment of African Union troops in the region and offering financial assistance to French paratroopers along the Chad-Sudan border; punish companies that place Sudanese government officials on boards and restricting travel by these officials; and coordinate diplomatic efforts in Darfur.

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.)

Congressman Frank Wolf (R-Va.) did not hesitate to term the militia attacks “genocide” and concurred with the estimate of USAID’s Andrew Natsios that “as many as 300,000 might die in the months ahead” unless something is done to stem the janjaweed violence that has left ten of thousands dead, untold numbers of women raped, and thousands more women and children seeking relief in disease-ridden refugee camps.

AEI’s Thomas Donnelly warned of the implications for broader U.S. policy in the Middle East: “If the United States is serious about speaking out in favor of free speech in Saudi Arabia and human rights in Egypt, it must be equally serious about the murder of 30,000 Muslims in Sudan.”

The panelists placed the Suda-nese problem within the context of the U.S.-led war on terror. Ronald Sandee of the Ministry of Defense of The Netherlands, speaking as a private citizen, traced Sudanese support for terrorism back to the arrival of Osama bin Laden in Sudan during the 1990s. Bin Laden and his followers established a network of training camps and a financial network to support terrorist attacks, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard also established camps while the Sudanese regime created the Popular Defense Forces (PDF) that have now taken part in the ethnic cleansing in the Darfur region. Although Prendergrast contended that Sudanese support for terrorism has diminished since the United States listed Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism, Sandee noted that Sudan has once again become a place where al Qaeda and mujahedin fighters train in the techniques of guerilla warfare, even as the level of official support from the regime for such activity remains unclear. In June 2003, nineteen al Qaeda suspects were arrested and deported to Saudi Arabia, and two Sudanese and one Syrian were convicted of running terrorist training camps in western Sudan for Palestinian and Saudi fighters.

William Kristol of The Weekly Standard argued that despite misgivings about the timing of action in Sudan due to possible “Iraq fatigue” and the upcoming U.S. presidential election, the troubled Darfur region requires the kind of U.S. attention already applied to similar circumstances in southern Sudan. Calling the Sudanese crisis “political” as well as “humanitarian,” Kristol argued that the United States must bring more international pressure to bear against the regime in Khartoum and that such pressure must be backed up with the possibility of deploying U.S. troops in the area. Delaying action until after the November election or justifying inaction with U.S. involvement in Iraq, according to Kristol, will only invite further attacks against U.S. national security interests.