Damanga Newsroom

PRESS RELEASE

Damanga: Special Envoy Natsios' Comments Undermine the Security of Darfur's People

February 13, 2007

The Damanga Coalition for Freedom and Democracy today expressed astonishment and extreme disappointment following remarks made by Special Envoy Andrew Natsios in a speech last week in Washington, DC. In an address to students at Georgetown University, Mr. Natsios stated that the situation in Darfur can no longer be accurately characterized as ‘genocide.’ While Mr. Natsios acknowledged that the situation on the ground in Darfur remains extremely dire, his assertion that genocide is no longer occurring suggests that the conflict has been ameliorated.

According to Damanga, at the very least, this constitutes a serious semantic blunder. The Sudanese government has proved to be very skillful at winning a war of words, thus forestalling decisive action to protect civilians in its territory. It will be very easy for the government of Sudan to point to Special Envoy Natsios’ comments as evidence that the severity of the crisis in Darfur no longer warrants international intervention.

Worse yet, the Coalition states, Natsios’ comments may signify a dangerous shift in US policy toward Sudan in regard to Darfur, a policy that has already resulted in the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, even after the official recognition of the crisis by President Bush and former Secretary of State Colin Powell in 2004. In the weeks prior to Natsios’ recent comments, he made a high-profile trip to China, and subsequently criticized the Chinese government for failing to pressure the Sudanese government to act responsibly in Darfur. Combined with his recent comments denying genocide in Darfur, Mr. Natsios’ actions suggest that the Bush administration is trying to minimize the perception of the severity of the crisis, and to place responsibility on China to stop whatever human rights violations may occur in the future.

The Executive Director of Damanga, Mohamed Yahya, said today, “Someone in Mr. Natsios’ position should place utmost importance on transparency and clarity. Colin Powell’s assessment of the atrocities in Darfur as genocide was correct in 2004, and it remains correct today. If anything, it has become even more apparent since then that the Sudanese government is sanctioning the genocide against its own people. Mr. Natsios’ change in tone suggests that rather than taking a tougher stance, this administration wishes to backpedal from its commitments to the international community by engaging in word games.”

Mr. Yahya noted that since the beginning of his current job, Mr. Natsios has taken an unacceptably soft tack with the Sudanese government. In a briefing that Mr. Yahya attended at the State Department after Mr. Natsios’ first visit to Sudan in his new post, Natsios stated that the government of Sudan had “changed its tone,” and suggested the US should thus change its tone as well. Several months have followed during which rapes and murders have occurred in Darfur on daily basis, with the full knowledge and complicity of the Khartoum regime. “Mr. Natsios said he was very familiar with President al-Bashir’s government, and that he had worked with them for a long time,” Mr. Yahya said. “If this was the case, he should have known that the only thing he would hear from Khartoum would be more lies.”

Damanga asserts that the only reason the United States can have for failing to play a decisive role in ending the first genocide of the 21st century is that it continues to maintain a strategic partnership with the government of Sudan. As documented in a recent article in The Economist, the US government is currently building what will be the largest embassy in Africa in Khartoum; this complex will include a significant CIA listening post. As has been documented elsewhere, the Bush administration has made concessions to Sudan because of information the latter has provided in the past on terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda. According to Damanga, such a relationship undermines the credibility of the United States, as does the willingness of Special Envoy Natsios’ to soft-peddle his discussions of the harsh realities in Darfur. These actions have allowed the government of Sudan to claim legitimacy, even as it continues to slaughter its own people.