Obama weighing options on Darfur
Some in Sudan say a tougher policy expected
NAIROBI - If the election of Barack Obama has been greeted with glee across much of Africa, there is at least one spot where the mood is decidedly different.
In the Sudanese capital of Khartoum these days, political elites are bracing for what they expect will be a major shift in US policy toward a government the United States has blamed for orchestrating a violent campaign against civilians in the western Darfur region.
"Compared to the Republicans, the Democrats, I think they are hawks," said Ghazi Suleiman, a human rights lawyer and member of the Southern People's Liberation Movement, which has a fragile power-sharing agreement with the ruling party. "I know Obama's appointees. And I know their policy toward Sudan. Everybody here knows it. The policy is very aggressive, and very harsh. I think we really will miss the judgments of George W. Bush."
While the Bush administration most recently advocated the idea of normalizing relations with Sudan as a carrot approach to ending a crisis it labeled a genocide, Obama's foreign policy appointees have pushed for sticks.
Secretary of State nominee Hillary Clinton has called for a NATO-enforced no-fly zone to "blanket" Darfur in order to prevent Sudanese bombing of villages.
Newly appointed UN Ambassador Susan Rice - a key Africa adviser to the Clinton administration during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when then-president Bill Clinton was sharply criticized for failing to act - has pushed for US or NATO air strikes, and even a naval blockade of Sudan's major port to prevent lucrative oil exports. Rice has vowed to "go down in flames" advocating for tough measures.
Vice President-elect Joe Biden, who was chosen for his foreign policy experience and pressed early for US intervention to stop the genocide in the Balkans, was blunt during a hearing last year: "I would use American force now," he said.
But it remains unclear how those pre-election views will square with the president-elect, who has outlined a pragmatic, coalition-based approach to foreign policy, while also speaking of America's "moral obligation" in the face of humanitarian catastrophes of the sort that are plentiful in Africa.
So far, Obama himself has been more cautious on Darfur than some of his appointees, advocating tougher sanctions against Khartoum, and a no-fly zone that might be enforced with "help" from the United States. He has not called for direct US intervention.
Obama intends to keep on Bush's Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, who has already suggested the United States would not provide much-needed helicopters to a struggling peacekeeping mission in Darfur, because the United States is stretched too thin in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Obama has also nominated as national security adviser retired Marine General James Jones, former NATO supreme allied commander, who has suggested NATO's role in Darfur should be training and support to the current peacekeeping mission, rather than direct intervention.
And specialists close to Obama's presidential campaign said that more generally, the new administration sees a need for diplomatic approaches to security crises across the continent.
"We don't have the capacity to pacify these places militarily," said John Prendergast, a Darfur activist and former White House aid during the Clinton administration, citing Sudan and the worsening conflicts in Congo and Somalia. "We need political solutions." 