wfn.org | Episcopalians: Danforth's report to President Bush urges international efforts for compromis

[dmack@episcopalchurch.org]

May 16, 2002

2002-124

Episcopalians: Danforth's report to President Bush urges 
international efforts for compromise in Sudan

by James Solheim

(ENS) Former Missouri senator John Danforth has concluded, after 
two difficult trips to the Sudan as President George W. Bush's 
special envoy, that the United States should support 
international efforts to push both sides in the civil war 
towards a compromise.

The war between the mostly Christian and animist rebels in 
the south against the Islamic government centered at Khartoum in 
the north has claimed 2 million lives. Danforth said that the 
United States could not serve as an effective broker in ending 
the 18-year war but should lend support to countries that have 
been working for some kind of resolution.

"The principal conclusion of my mission is that the war is 
not winnable by either side in terms of achieving their present 
objectives," he wrote in his report. He said that both sides 
"have given sufficient indications that they want peace to 
warrant the energetic participation of the United States" in the 
peace process. That will require an enhanced American diplomatic 
presence, he argued.

Danforth also said that the Sudan should remain a high 
priority for receiving humanitarian aid from the U.S. and that, 
"if the prospects for peace improve, we should consider removing 
restrictions on the form of aid we offer to the north."

Sudan has more than a billion barrels of oil reserves, some 
estimates ranging as high as 5 billion barrels. Danforth said 
that "the fair allocation of oil resources could be the key to 
working out broader political issues if it were possible to find 
a monetary formula for sharing oil revenues between the central 
government and the people in the south." That would, in effect, 
offer a carrot for peace.

Bush appointed Danforth as his envoy last September and the 
senators visits in November and January exposed him to some 
staggering degrees of human suffering. His report said that it 
was clear that "the government arms and directs marauding 
raiders who operate in the south, destroying villages and 
abducting women and children to serve as chattel servants." He 
also noted that he "met many Sudanese who were struggling to 
hold to their faith in the face of privation and attack." An 
ordained Episcopal priest, Danforth attended an open-air 
Episcopal service near a church in the south that had been 
bombed.

A tentative agreement by the government not to intentionally 
attack civilians was shattered a few days later when a 
helicopter strafed a World Food Program feeding site, killing 17 
people.

In an interview after the release of the report, Danforth 
said that he was pushing for initiatives that would "get people 
thinking about what peace would look like--and how it could 
improve the lives of people."

The 15-page report will be released after the White House has 
taken a closer look and agreed on an official response.

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--James Solheim is director of Episcopal News Service.