Darfur Update: A to Zoellick
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Sarah Burrows is a Legislative Assistant at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. She is a graduate of George Washington University |
Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick, the administration’s chief diplomatic figure in Darfur, resigned from his position this week to join the Wall Street investment firm Goldman Sachs.
While serving as Deputy Secretary of State, Zoellick personally played a role negotiating the peace agreement between the Sudanese government and the Darfur rebel groups. He paid several visits to the troubled region, met with representatives from both sides of the conflict, urged America’s allies across the globe to take action, and made the genocide in Darfur a priority in U.S. foreign policy.
Zoellick’s role as an advocate for the people of Darfur within the Bush Administration was fundamental to the efforts to bring peace and stability to the war torn region of Sudan. Now that he is leaving, it is vital that we continue to put pressure on President Bush to make Darfur a priority in the months to come. Most importantly, we must ask President Bush to appoint a special US envoy to the region and to press for a UN peacekeeping force to be on the ground in Darfur no later than October.
Furthermore, the President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, made comments this week vowing that a United Nations peacekeeping force will not be allowed into Darfur as long as he is in power. He went on to blame Jewish organizations for pushing for such a deployment of troops, and compared the U.N. peacekeeping forces to colonial forces, claiming that the purpose of this mission would be to colonize sub-Saharan Africa. Although the President has proven his reluctance to a U.N. mission time and time again, this is without a doubt his most forceful and ill-conceived rejection of an international peacekeeping force.
These deplorable comments are obviously of great concern. Unfortunately, the situation in Darfur is one that cannot be ignored by the international community, as well as by Jewish organizations. As many as 400,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives since the outbreak of violence in 2003, and over 2.2 million have been displaced from their homes as a result of the continued attacks by the government backed Janjaweed militias. Although a peace treaty was signed between the Sudanese government and at least one Darfurian rebel groups on May 5, violence continues to rage. In fact, there are reports that the violence has increased since the signing of the peace treaty, and it has continued to spill into the neighboring country of Chad. As the largest country in Africa, peace in Sudan is vital to long lasting stability in the greater sub-Saharan region. The goal of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Darfur is not the colonization of Africa, but rather to reinforce and strengthen the 7,200 African Union troops who are already in Darfur but lack the resources and support that is necessary to stop the violence. Without intervention by the international community, the humanitarian crisis will continue worsen and spread, resulting in the deaths of millions more.