Sudan's Leaders Brace for U.S. Shift - Obama Team Seen As Tough on Darfur

[Pirate Smile]

Source: Washington Post

By Stephanie McCrummen and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 8, 2008; Page A01

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.


U.N.-African Union peacekeepers drive through the Kalma refugee camp in Sudan's western region of Darfur, racked by violence since 2003. (By Sarah El Deeb -- Associated Press)

In the Sudanese capital of Khartoum these days, political elites are bracing for what they expect will be a major shift in U.S. 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 towards 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.




Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

[Hulk]

1. Gosh...you mean they won't get to keep slaughtering innocent women and children??

What a bummer. The monkey-shit that resides in the WH today didn't give a rats ass about brown people. I'm thinking things are going to change.

Saddam was bad.....what are these guys?

[BunkerHill24]

2. Obama administration would be wise

not to get involve in Sudan's 100 year old war hasty....Sudan's war is much more than meets the eye, imo.

[Winterblues]

4. Obama would be wise to work with the UN against any country that practices Genocide.

Even if those people happen to be black. I know that goes against everything Republicans stand for but I have seen nothing they stand for as being good.

[ohio2007]

3. China will protect their "vital interests" and side with Sudanese govt.

just keep the cheap oil flowing and the status quo remains in power

not really