Obama draws on African roots as he steps onto global stage with Sudan
Monday, July 18, 2005
Printable FormatCHICAGO SUN-TIMES
BY LYNN SWEET SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Freshman Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) visited the United Nations on Friday, taking his first steps to use his unique position -- the son of a Kenyan, the only African American in the Senate -- to pressure African countries and China to do more to stop the genocide in Sudan.
With the U.N. trip, Obama is opening a new phase of his Senate career.
After spending his first six months in the Senate focusing on domestic affairs, Obama will be turning more to the portfolio he holds as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.
He leaves for Russia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine on Aug. 24 with Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the chairman of the panel. Obama is tentatively scheduled for travel to Iraq, Israel and Arab nations in January. Obama told me his visit to U.N. headquarters in New York -- he had never been in the building, despite living in the city as a student -- was to lay the groundwork for an African trip next year.
I talked to Obama after he met with Sudan's ambassador to the U.N., Elfatih Mohamed Erwa.
The message Obama said he gave Erwa was blunt: "The genocide that has taken place is unacceptable. That we are glad some of the wholesale slaughter has diminished in the last several months and we want to be encouraging of negotiations that are starting to take place between Khartoum [the Sudanese capital] and the rebels but that the status quo of 2-1/2 million people in refugee camps who remain vulnerable to rape, murder, is simply unacceptable.''
Asking China to step up
The world needs to pay attention to the crisis in Sudan. Since February 2003, the U.N. estimates at least 180,000 Sudanese have lost their lives in genocidal slaughter and more than 2 million people have been uprooted, with hundreds of thousands in refugee camps in neighboring Chad.
Ten years ago, the nations of the world largely stood by and ignored the genocide in Rwanda. To say "never again'' to genocide is one thing; to get the will of the world behind those words is something else.
The roots of the killings in Darfur, in Sudan's western region, are in conflicts between Arab herders and African farmers that deepened in 2003. To strengthen its hand, the Sudanese government turned to Arab Janjaweed militias, who wiped out the African rebels who oppose the current regime.
Last fall, the U.N. and Congress stepped up efforts to help the Sudanese after being prodded by Secretary of State Colin Powell. On Sept. 9, as the U.N. was debating and stalling over whether to take action in Darfur, Powell significantly called the slaughter in Sudan a genocide. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) have also been pressing Congress, with Jackson getting millions of dollars added to a humanitarian assistance package.
Progress is slow.
Against this backdrop, Obama decided to meet with U.N. officials.
Obama met with Chinese U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya because the Chinese are "the primary bankrollers of the Sudanese oil industry'' and China, one of five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, has been "the most resistant in avoiding sanctions towards Sudan.''
"I tried to emphasize to the ambassador, stability can't be purchased at the cost of 10,000, 20,000, 100,000 killed.'' Obama also said he told the ambassador "there has to be pressure from the Chinese government on the Sudanese government'' to "diminish and ultimately eliminate the use of the Janjaweed militia to attack noncombatants.''
'I've got a special interest'
The African Union, a coalition of African countries including Kenya, Rwanda and Senegal, has a peacekeeping force in Darfur, and on Friday Obama met with representatives from these nations.
Last April, the African Union decided to expand its troop level to 7,700 from 3,320, but the personnel is not yet on the ground.
"They are still in their infancy,'' said Obama, and part of his message to them is that the U.S. wants to encourage them, and "be a helpful partner in providing them training and logistical support. We also want to see them ramp up their troop deployment a little more quickly.''
I asked former U.N. Ambassador Richard S. Williamson, who served under President Bush before returning to Chicago, for his take on Obama's initial U.N. visit.
Not all that many members of Congress have an interest in Africa, Williamson said. So to see a freshman senator "who has a seat on the Foreign Relations Committee and who has an interest in African affairs is very significant.''
I asked Obama if who he was, the son of a Kenyan who has written about a search for his own African roots -- made a difference to the people he met Friday.
Obama replied, "I think most people are aware of my biography and I think appreciate the fact that not only as the African-American senator but also a senator whose father was from the African continent that I've got a special interest in these issues.''
Lynn Sweet is the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times.