* The next three cables were overlooked earlier.
US State Department cables from places I have served plus items from my time as a UN peacekeeper. To increase public awareness of how diplomacy and peacekeeping are (were) actually done. All cables cleared by USG FOIA procedure. Cables are mostly those sent under my name from my posts but also others in which I was directly involved. UN documents and other items will also include occasional notes and background. Most recent in series on top with cables under the new series of UN documents.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
04 Khartoum 0108: Supporting Human Right and Democracy*
Labels:
Bashir,
cable,
conflict,
CPMT,
Darfur,
government,
human rights,
jinjaweed,
JMC,
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military,
Nuba,
relations,
SPLM,
US,
USAID
Saturday, July 11, 2015
04 Khartoum 0254: Darfur Diplomacy Update
From my journal of March 2:
"Had
a pleasant and productive lunch with the Foreign Minister at his Blue
Nile-side residence. With British ambassador and Dutch charge.
Lasted three hours. We refined the formula for the meeting in Chad.
When I got back, learned that USAID is still doing some free-lancing,
except since they are in charge, they think it's me doing the
free-lancing. But we appear to be on track. In the end, may have to
bow out and let them take the seats and – they think – the glory.
The way we do foreign policy has degraded mightily in the years I
have been in the business."
Monday, July 6, 2015
04 Khartoum 0252: Government and Darfur Rebels Accept Chad Plus Meeting
Also, see note below.
Note: The reference to an "external player" mentioned in para 2 was to political appointees from USAID. They were trying to prevent a Darfur negotiation from moving forward unless it was folded into the North-South peace process. These USAID officials were pro-SPLM and very much opposed to the Khartoum regime. They saw bringing the Darfur conflict into the wider negotiations with the government as a way to increase pressure on it and perhaps further dismember Sudan. These USAID appointees came from the Christian fundamentalist NGO community supportive of the SPLM as Christian black Africans vs Islamic Arabs. They originally sought to keep Darfur off our agenda because they saw it as a distraction to the "main show."
The following is from my journal entry for March 8. The "perfect storm" I was hoping to avoid was the reaction from USAID Washington to our joint EU/US effort to get Darfur talks going without bringing in extra issues.
Note: The reference to an "external player" mentioned in para 2 was to political appointees from USAID. They were trying to prevent a Darfur negotiation from moving forward unless it was folded into the North-South peace process. These USAID officials were pro-SPLM and very much opposed to the Khartoum regime. They saw bringing the Darfur conflict into the wider negotiations with the government as a way to increase pressure on it and perhaps further dismember Sudan. These USAID appointees came from the Christian fundamentalist NGO community supportive of the SPLM as Christian black Africans vs Islamic Arabs. They originally sought to keep Darfur off our agenda because they saw it as a distraction to the "main show."
The following is from my journal entry for March 8. The "perfect storm" I was hoping to avoid was the reaction from USAID Washington to our joint EU/US effort to get Darfur talks going without bringing in extra issues.
"I
think missed a weekend somewhere. I had 15 minutes of free time in
the office today and didn't know what to do with it. Started at 8:15
with the UK ambassador and wound up at 8pm after a two hour meeting
with a senior official. Along the way, spent another 1½ hours with
the French Ambassador. Got home to a dark house and microwaved one
of the dishes James left for me. Of course, at least I have a cook
and don't have to clean my own dishes.
I've
been doing a bunch of stuff – to avoid a “perfect storm” –
without DC reaction. Won't have any until tomorrow given time
difference. Another consequence of not having a weekend."
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
04 Khartoum 0215: The Darfur Rebels Call*
Friday, June 19, 2015
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Journal Entry for March 5, 2000: Notes from a Trip Down the Nile
Just finished
unloading pictures (see below) from my Nile Trip. Was really incredible. I
joined for three days the First Nile Expedition. The expedition,
headed by Pasquale Scaturro and with Gordon Brown, left the source of
the Blue Nile high in Ethiopia on Xmas Day 2003 for the first trip
all the way to the mouth of the Nile in Alexandria Egypt. (The Blue
Nile carries 85% of the water of the Nile.) While going down the
river, they were taking part in making an IMAX film. The Expedition
arrived in Khartoum on February 16. After two weeks of rest and
re-stocking, plus filming at some sites near Khartoum, they left on
Monday (the 1st)
to begin the second half of their journey and I went with them. I
spent three days and two nights traveling about 210 kilometers to the
next big town downriver, Shendi.
Being
on the Nile was a real trip. Long ago, the wildlife disappeared from
the river. There are no hippos or crocs. Competition with the
people was just too intense. That’s because the Nile creates a
thin strip of life through the desert. (Every drop of water we went
by fell as rain hundreds of miles upstream in Ethiopia and Central
Africa.) We passed 100’s of small water pumps lifting water from
the river up to the fields on the flood plains. Fields of sorghum,
groves of date palms, fields of tomatoes and other produce are
everywhere that people can get to. All along the shore, men in their
white jellabiyas, women in brightly colored clothes, bashful girls and
playing children waved or ran or asked us – mostly in hand signals
– who we were and where we were going. Despite that lack of big
animals, the Nile reminded me of the Zambezi except usually bigger.
It meandered along sometimes seeming more like a big lake
with no end rather than a stream rushing to get anywhere. We used
two rafts that were necessary for running the upstream rapids. Each
had an outboard motor at the back that was connected to a long handle
that we used to steer. I was allowed to take the “wheel” and
spent many outstanding hours guiding us through the river. Simply no
way to describe how cool that felt. The first great river that man
ever traveled on over a million years ago and I was on it.
The
wind blew most of the time and until we reached the deep desert just
south of Shendi, it blew cool and comfortable. The water was muddy
and lots of things floated in it, including dead cows, goats and
donkeys. The guys washed in the river and our two Sudanese helpers
drank it. I did neither. But I did get into the river in a shallow
to help reposition the motor. It was cool and probably safe enough
since it was flowing rapidly. At night, we made camp on sand bars
that were under the river just several weeks ago. These were lovely
spots of sand and scrub. We pitched tents while dinner was cooked.
I brought along some beer and cigars. We ate under the stars as the
moon crawled through the sky and the water pumps went off. I slept
in a tent that was mostly just a mosquito net. Both nights it was
cool enough to use a cover.
By
the third day, I was getting into the rhythm of the river. Waking
up, breaking camp, setting out, cruising until late afternoon, making
camp, eating, talking till late and then sleeping again. If I stayed
another day, I might never have left.
Friday, June 12, 2015
Journal Entry for March 4, 2004: An evening with the Sufi -- Sophist Night
Tonight I went
to a “Sophist Night” in old Omdurman. The occasion was to mark
the death of the founder of a school of Islamic jurisprudence who was
also the progenitor of the extended clan that traced their descent
back to him. A prominent human rights activist and secularist –
Ghazi Sulieman – was this year’s organizer of the celebration and
invited me. The sophists came out of a 9th
century movement within Islam to base one’s relationship to God on
reasoned knowledge of the Koran. Various schools of thought
developed over the centuries and there are many, many schools that
differ in ways that I’ll never understand. Sufism came from this
movement.
The
celebration took place outside and started at 8:30 pm. I was a bit
late but no matter and I was escorted to a place of honor and
supplied with drink and food throughout the evening. The field was
decorated like a country fair, with lights and a bandstand. But
there were no rides and the bandstand was for the speakers and
leaders of prayer. Rows of seats circled the stand but with a clear
space in front. Various people went to the microphone to make
speeches about the founding teacher (sheik), pray or chant. All
during the evening, groups from other schools came to pay their
respects (thus “Sophist Night”). As they arrived, Ghazi would
dance over to them with his ceremonial stick held high in his right
hand, pumping it up and down as he went. (The fist or stick pumped
this way while dancing by all the men to be greeted is the custom in
Sudan for important gatherings.) The group would then dance by “in
review.” They dressed colorfully – some all white, some green or
red – and usually had percussion sections. The schools reminded me
very much of the traditional samba schools of Brazil. And the
chanting often reminded me of blues music. Indeed, both the samba
schools, the blues and Sufi schools share a common African culture.
The Sudanese Sufi’s are Islamic by faith but African by impulse.
The Sudanese in prayer can barely refrain from dancing and some don’t
even try. I saw little children – it was a family get together
although the women sat on the side and did not take part in the
ceremonies – breaking into a spontaneous dance that clearly served
as precursor to the grownup version called worship. Once the schools
danced through, they went over to the side where some really got into
the spirit of things through chanting and dancing to their own music.
The
evening was warm but not oppressive and the people were very
friendly. Ghazi was dressed in his trademark white pants with blue
suit-jacket. His hair slanted upwards as usual and I often saw him
dancing with his stick in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Two
teenage girls (his daughters?) wore jeans and no head-coverings and
seemed to serve as his messengers, running here and there. At the
end of the ceremony, a small group of people gathered around me to
talk. One was a retired general who had trained in the U.S. in the
70s. Another was an opposition politician. Ghazi explained to me
that what I had seen that evening was Sudan’s “civil society”,
a people united by a shared faith that was their own, varied and
apolitical. He also explained that he had dressed in his suit to
make a point to the government that a secularist could be a sheik.
The small group I was with all agreed that the radicals who mixed
religion with politics have to go because they are “alien” to
Sudan. On Sophist Night, I could feel what they mean.
Sunday, June 7, 2015
Journal Entry for February 26, 2004: Trying to Catch Up with USAID
Started the day running a bit late because I actually slept until my
alarm. Checked the email, used my exercise bike and took a shower,
leaving a bare 15 minutes for breakfast. At ten, I met the leaders
of the new SPLM office in Khartoum. They were clandestine but now
the youth and women’s section had become open. I made them feel
welcome (and reported same). Bright, committed and focused. It was
a pleasure to meet them. For lunch, I went to [my military attaché's]
house to meet a couple of Sudanese generals and the local military
attaches. Spent some time talking with the PLO attaché. He was
polite and likable. I am glad I don’t defend US policy on
Palestine for a living. Spoke to Pasquale a couple of times by phone
to do him a favor – get extra pages into his passport – and about
leaving for the Nile on Sunday. Did some office work and eventually
wound up at the British ambassador’s place to hear from him – he
was just back from Kenya – what USAID policy on Darfur is. What I
mean by that, is that USAID – one part of the USG – is not
telling the State Department – another part of the USG – what it
is doing about meeting Darfur rebels but is talking to Her Majesty’s
Government. After leaving, and on the way to the Japanese
Ambassador’s for dinner, I managed to call Nairobi via Washington
and transmit the intelligence on USAID to my State Department boss
soon to arrive in Kenya. (He had earlier called me from Amsterdam to
see what I knew.) Dinner was quite excellent Japanese food including
sushi and tempura. The Ambassador had actually brought a Japanese
chef with him, the only one to apply for the job. Also at dinner
were the Libyan, quite jovial, and his wife, a UN person from Yemen
and the Greek Ambassador. The Greek looks dour all the time but is
simply Greek – cynical about everything but also with a happy
appreciation of the absurd. The Yemeni had a simply endless list of
problems that would make the peace process in Sudan “much more
difficult than everyone believes.” Another day in the life.
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
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