Letters to the Editor

What Congress can do in Sudan

In an age of satellite television and advanced communications technology, fatal decisions, stemming from our shortcomings as human beings, might be made. Exaggerating problems to attract attention, sometimes for noble motives, could be disastrous.

The issue here is the situation in the Darfur region of western Sudan. No one seems to have time to understand the complexity of the situation.

The Sudan Campaign, an umbrella of many organizations and individuals in the United States, is busy with daily demonstrations at the doorstep of our embassy in Washington.

It is a hasty and nonstop campaign that pays little or no attention to the root causes of the conflict or the genuine measures taken so far to solve it.

The campaign encourages members of Congress to travel to Sudan, not to verify what they hear about gross human-rights violations and then confront the officials in Khartoum with their findings, but to “dramatize” the situation there.

From a visit approved by the government of Sudan to several camps, they concluded that “what is going on there is a genocide.” In fact, even before they arrived, they reached that conclusion, based on unverified accusations collected by organizations that became famous only by tarnishing the image of Sudan.

This hasty cooking has created the perception in Sudan that in an election year, many people here in the United States are trying to take advantage of their suffering and plight to get elected or attract attention and claim importance for themselves.

In our troubled world, the perception prevailing in Sudan and in the region is that the U.S. Congress is motivated by hatred and bias against Muslims and Arabs.

For political reasons, this august body ignores many conflicts and tragic situations around the world and singles out Sudan for its wrath.

The Sudanese people are more worried now than before that their dreams of realizing peace based on the agreements signed between the north and the south may be in jeopardy and that because of the Sudan Campaign, the entire country might become another Somalia.

Some brag about the bipartisan or even nonpartisan nature of the current campaign against Sudan on the issue of Darfur. Public opinion in Sudan as well as in the region perceives that as a fallacy. The Sudan Campaign is perceived as an attempt of a politically oriented element to mobilize the massive might of the sole superpower of our time against a small and impoverished Third World country like Sudan.

It’s like pitting a heavyweight champion against a child. To the hostile group, Sudan is an easy target without a constituency in the United States to defend it.

I believe the U.S. Congress is capable of doing better than that. First, it should rely on dispassionate academicians to understand the complexity of the situation.

They should know that the entire population of Darfur is African. Some speak only Arabic, and some speak both Arabic and non-Arabic dialects.

All are Muslims bound by blood through interethnic marriages. Many are nomads who have no villages to be burned or destroyed; others are farmers living in permanent villages and hamlets.

It also should be known that the region has been saturated for decades with firearms because of instability in the neighboring countries.

After Islamic leader Hassan al-Turabi was sidelined by President Omar al-Bashir, many of his followers joined and organized bandits in the region and refocused their objective: bringing down Mr. Bashir’s government, accusing it of marginalizing the region.

Politicians of other orientations joined other bandits for the same goal of disrupting the peace process in the south and toppling the government in Khartoum.

Immediately after the government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army signed a memo of cessation of hostility in February 2003 that technically stopped the fighting between the north and south for the first time in two decades, the two rebel groups attacked urban and rural centers in Darfur.

They attacked and destroyed 400 police stations and killed every police officer they found.

That caused a huge vacuum in security. Old wounds and the bitterness were reopened, and rival tribes went on a rampage. Because rebels are drawn from non-Arabic-speaking tribes, Arabic-speaking nomads perceived the rebel groups as tribal gangs, and a war of killing, rape, looting and burning has been out of control.

Arabic-speaking nomads, camel and cattle herders have no villages to be burned, but they suffer killing and losses of herds. Evidence of this is available.

Public opinion, reflected in the daily newspaper in Khartoum, including that of opposition elements, is that it is unfair on the part of many Americans to ignore the starters of fire in Darfur — the two rebel groups, and the atrocities they have been committing to this very day.

Many in this country overlook the concrete measures taken recently by the government of Sudan, such as arresting and putting on trial the Janjaweed militias, redeploying more than 6,000 policemen, re-establishing the destroyed police stations and suspending all bylaws and customs regulations to guarantee the flow of humanitarian aid. This is only feeding a growing feeling that the U.S. Congress is seeking to destabilize a relatively stable nation.

Congress has a chance to resolve the conflict in Darfur by joining hands with the government of Sudan and the international community to consolidate the measures taken by the government.

Mounting pressure and bashing can only lead to a failed state that is the largest in Africa, roamed by different brands of terrorists and death squads. It is obvious that it will be a tragic mistake that will not be in the interest of either Sudan or the United States.

KHIDIR HAROUN AHMED

Ambassador

Embassy of Sudan

Washington

Finding homes

In Cheryl Wetzstein’s informative July 5 article on child welfare, an advocate was quoted as saying the volume of cases “delays permanency” for children waiting to be adopted (“Child-welfare system flooded,” Nation). A useful resource is available to help address this problem.

In July 2002, President and First Lady Laura Bush unveiled an adoption photo-listing service on the Internet called Adoptuskids.org. The Web site features pictures and descriptions of children in foster care who need permanent homes, thereby creating new opportunities for children to be matched with families. So far, nearly 3,000 adoptions have resulted from this valuable resource.

Mr. Bush has described adoption as “an extraordinary act of love” that “reveals the good heart of America.” There are many children and youths in the foster care system waiting to have adoptive parents welcome them into their homes, lives and hearts. I invite interested readers to log onto the Web site.

WADE F. HORN

Assistant secretary

Administration for Children and

Families

Department of Health and

Human Services

Washington

Unfounded assertions

In his Sunday Commentary column “The process did it,” Paul Craig Roberts falsely asserts that the Department of Defense established “an unofficial ’Iraqi intelligence cell’ to produce propaganda to justify an invasion of Iraq.”

The September 11 attacks plunged the United States into a new kind of war — a war against a network, rather than against a state — and we urgently needed a better understanding of what that implied. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith set up a small team to review existing intelligence on ties between foreign governments and terrorist networks in order to help understand the terrorist threat and help formulate strategies for dealing with it.

Mr. Roberts’ conspiracy theories rely on sloppy reporting and unfounded assertions rather than facts. Had he attempted to check his facts or to speak directly with Mr. Feith, he would understand the matter much better than his piece reflects.

LAWRENCE DI RITA

Principal deputy assistant secretary for public affairs

Department of Defense

Arlington