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Envoy Wades Into Delicate Mission

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The New York Times

Published: March 21, 2009

President Barack Obama appointed a close adviser and retired general to be his special envoy to Sudan as the administration ratchets up pressure against the government in Khartoum for expelling humanitarian relief organizations from the ravaged region of Darfur, administration officials said Wednesday.

Obama named Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration - a Swahili-speaking retired Air Force officer who grew up in Africa as the son of missionaries - to take on one of the most delicate diplomatic missions of his presidency.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton escalated the administration's oratory on Tuesday, vowing to hold President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan responsible for the expulsion of aid groups.

"This is a horrendous situation that is going to cause untold misery and suffering for the people of Darfur, particularly those in the refugee camps," she told reporters. "The real question is what kind of pressure can be brought to bear on President Bashir and the government in Khartoum to understand that they will be held responsible for every single death that occurs in those camps."

The latest crisis began March 4 when the International Criminal Court in The Hague charged Bashir with seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the slaughter of 300,000 people in Darfur, the first such indictment of a sitting head of state by the tribunal.

Bashir then expelled 13 nongovernmental organizations, including Doctors Without Borders, CARE, Oxfam Great Britain and Save the Children, accusing them of spying for the court. Some groups had offices raided and equipment seized.

As a result, relief groups said, more than 1 million people are without adequate food, clean water and health care as a meningitis outbreak looms. U.N. workers remain, but Bashir said Monday that he wanted all foreign relief organizations out within a year. The Obama administration denounced the expulsions.

After a meeting with Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. secretary general, Obama called the Darfur crisis one "that we care about deeply" and said it was important "to send a strong, unified, international message that it is not acceptable to put that many people's lives at risk."

Three foreign aid workers were abducted March 11 in the lawless Darfur region, but they were released unharmed three days after their capture at gunpoint.

On Wednesday, a defiant Bashir rallied Arab supporters in Darfur by saying no war crimes court or the U.N. Security Council can touch even "an eyelash" on him despite an international order for his arrest.

Speaking to thousands at a rally near the southern Darfur town of Nyala, Bashir denounced the West for seeking to "create chaos in Sudan" and trying to split Darfur from the rest of the country.

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