Transcript
ROBERTA COHEN: This is Brookings' fourth briefing on Darfur over a three-year period. The purpose is to keep attention focused on one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world and also to stimulate solutions to the crisis. It has become commonplace to note but it nonetheless horrifying that hundreds of thousands of people have died in Darfur, 2.5 million are uprooted from their homes, and 4 million people are totally dependent on the international community for survival. The conflict has also spilled over into Chad and the Central African Republic bringing more displacement and death in its wake, and it threatens to upset implementation of the North-South Peace Agreement in Sudan and the integration of millions of displaced people in the South.
Allow me to recall that at our first briefing in 2004, we asked three questions of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, Senator Jon Corzine, and Ambassador Francis Deng: What should the United Nations and the United States do to effectively stop the killings and displacement? Beyond diplomatic pressure, would sanctions and military actions be effective in this case? How can the international community best engage the government of Sudan in a political process to resolve the conflict?
These questions still remain pertinent today.
Among the recommendations emanating from the 2004 briefing and from a subsequent one in 2006 with Deputy Secretary of State, Robert Zoellick, were the need for political settlement, for a strengthened African Union force but also for its transition into a United Nations force, the need for increased U.S. financial and diplomatic support especially in engaging China and the Arab League, and for the appointment of a full-time U.S. envoy on Sudan and Darfur. There has been movement on some of these proposals, but the security and humanitarian situation which improved in early 2005 has worsened with military operations going on right now, with large areas inaccessible to the United Nations, and with relief workers under attack.
Today's panel presents an opportunity to look at what steps the United Nations and the United States should be taking to fulfill the international responsibility to protect the people of Darfur.
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