PRESIDENT OBAMA: MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION ON SUDAN

Breaking news reports over the past two days suggest a new strategy for U.S. policy on Sudan has landed on President Obama's desk.

But this is the wrong plan to bring peace to Darfur and all of Sudan.

Tell President Obama to say NO to rewarding Sudan's dictator Omar al-Bashir.

Key Sudan advisors for the President met last week and reports indicate they were badly divided on how to approach Sudan. Special Envoy Scott Gration and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recommended focusing mainly on the upcoming referendum to determine whether Sudan will split into two nations – while putting resolution of the violence in Darfur on hold and dropping the application of additional pressures on Sudan despite a long list of recent abuses by the brutal regime.

Ambassador Susan Rice was reportedly “furious” and advocated a tougher position—consistent with the approach promised in the Administration's Sudan Policy Review last year—in which the U.S. government would keep the humanitarian and security crisis in Darfur a top priority by applying strong U.S. and multilateral pressure on Sudan.

Sudan's recent track record does not deserve to be rewarded. Al-Bashir's brutal regime will respond only to a smart mix of incentives for steps toward peace and firm consequences and pressures. President Obama must say "no" to taking such pressures off the table.

Since last April alone, the Government of Sudan has presided over rigged national elections, cracked down on human rights, detained political opposition figures and human rights activists, censored Sudanese media, and targeted news outlets and journalists.

Moreover, Sudan has threatened humanitarian aid workers and peacekeepers with immediate expulsion, severely restricted peacekeepers' movement and effectiveness, deliberately prevented humanitarian aid groups from accessing a major IDP camp, and failed to act in good faith to prepare for the January 2011 referendum.

Millions of lives are at stake. Urge the President to keep Darfur a top priority now.

We must let President Obama know that we are closely watching his decision. Now is the moment for him to implement a Sudan policy which, as he promised in 2008, leads a process for peace in Darfur, helps prevent another deadly war in Africa, and holds those responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity to account.

Contact the President at:

Comment line White House: 202-456-1111

White House FAX: 202-456-2461

Leave a comment for President Obama at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Thank you for all you do for the people of Sudan.

Source of Information: Save Darfur Coalition