home > by region > africa > african union > SUDAN RILES AU, THREATENS PEACE
Email
| Prepared by: |
|---|
Refugees from the Abu Shouk camp in North Darfur
Sudan’s government in Khartoum is under fire for its bid to chair this year’s African Union Summit in Khartoum, which would make Sudan the organization’s next leader. Five of the organization’s fifty-three leaders have asked Sudan to withdraw its bid (Reuters), saying the country’s ongoing civil war and record of human rights abuse in its northern Darfur region would damage AU efforts at reform (Independent). Sudan has said it is prepared to drop its bid to chair the summit (BBC) to avoid splitting the organization.
More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2 million people displaced in the northern Darfur region in the past three years; the conflict is profiled here by journalist Samantha Power in the New Yorker, who was also a panelist on a CFR meeting on Sudan last spring. Although seven thousand AU troops are currently stationed in Darfur—a dry, undeveloped area the size of Texas—tens of thousands of Darfurians are still threatened by violence (CSMonitor). A recent AU report (PDF) says the organization has had to work with “about half the logistical capacity” necessary. Experts also fear the discord created by Sudan’s decision to chair this year’s AU summit could disrupt the shaky peace deal signed by the Muslim government and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement, a rebel movement from Sudan’s largely Christian south, last January. The agreement ended a war that had raged for more than two decades, claimed 2 million lives, and left some 4.5 million southern Sudanese homeless.
Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.
CFR offers a variety of email newsletters about up-to-date CFR.org material on what’s happening around the world.
Enter your email address and click 'Go' to subscribe.
CFR Experts are based in CFR’s New York and Washington offices. Each expert's bio page contains his or her contact information, professional and educational history, links to publications and current research, a downloadable one-page biographical narrative, and a high-definition photo.
Identifying international threats and acting on them may be the most difficult job for U.S. policymakers. This report
provides an actionable road map for managing international threats before they erupt into crises and makes a strong case that preventive action is not a luxury but a necessity.
For more than a decade, the United States has mostly watched from the sidelines as Asian countries organize themselves into an alphabet soup of new multilateral groups. In this report, the authors review the relationship between pan-Asian and trans-Pacific institutions and suggest policy guidelines for a new U.S. approach to this new Asian landscape.
Complete list of Council Special Reports
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.
Global Economy 