House members urge Bush to send envoy to Sudan

WASHINGTON – The U.S. needs to make a “renewed effort” to calm the civil wars and genocide in Sudan, two House members said Tuesday.

They called for the Bush administration to create the post of special U.S. envoy to Sudan and to appoint someone to fill the job. The House members also urged the administration to use $250,000 included in the Emergency Supplemental Act to establish the U.S. envoy to Sudan post and to support staffing and travel for the envoy.

“The supplemental’s been signed, and still we have absolutely no activity by the State Department,” Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., said. “The deployment of a special envoy would send a clear message to Khartoum that the United States is committed to trying everything possible to bring peace.”

He said that since 2004 there has been a bipartisan effort to get an envoy to Sudan.

“Men are still being killed, women are still being raped, children are growing up in refugee camps and the world has been paralyzed to stop it,” he said. “Today we call on the administration for the immediate appointment of a special envoy for Sudan.”

Wolf has visited Sudan five times and said there is an “immediate” need for an envoy “to focus like a laser beam on this issue.”

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., chair of the House subcommittee on Africa, global human rights and international operations, has also visited Darfur and called the situation “a matter of utmost urgency.”

The genocide in Darfur began in 2003 and has left as many as 400,000 people dead and more than 2 million displaced. The United Nations reported Tuesday that 25,000 North Darfur civilians were displaced over the last three weeks due to clashes between Sudanese government forces, allied militias and rebel groups.

Two landmark peace agreements in the region were signed earlier this year, but progress in enforcing them has slowed.The Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed in January by the Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement. The other, the Darfur Peace Agreement, was signed in May by the Sudanese government and the Sudan Liberation Army, only one of three major groups involved in the civil war.

Wolf said “key provisions” in both acts were being ignored, and Smith said a U.S. envoy would “shepherd, promote and ensure” the implementation of the two agreements.

Wolf said the resignations of Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick and Roger P. Winter, who was named special representative of the deputy secretary of state for Sudan just before his resignation, means no one person is “focusing on Sudan.”

“Who would you call today?” Wolf asked. “Who would anyone call?”

Wolf and Smith agreed that Tony P. Hall, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Agencies for Food and Agriculture in Rome, would be a good Sudan envoy.

Hall, a Democrat, represented Ohio in the House of Representative for more than 20 years.Wolf and three other House members, all co-chairs of the Congressional Caucus on Sudan, wrote Bush in late June urging that he appoint the envoy. More than 160 House members signed the letter, according to Wolf’s office.

Last week, Wolf and Smith met with Salva Kiir Mayardit, Sudan's first vice president and president of Southern Sudan, and had what Smith called “candid” talks about international relations.

“He is concerned that there is a lack of intention on the part of the international community, including the United States,” Smith said. “Whether it be the problems in the Middle East or the problems with North Korea, there’s always something clamoring for attention, but in Darfur, every day men women and children die needless deaths.”

The State Department declined to comment.