(CNSNews.com) – Following months of debate and mixed messages, the Obama administration on Monday unveiled a new policy on Sudan, which appears to recognize the likelihood that Africa’s biggest country will break apart in the years ahead.
 
Whether the partition between the Arab Muslim north and mainly Christian and animist south occurs peacefully or otherwise, experts say, will depend in large part on how the international community handles the situation in the coming months.
 
They say that apart from the humanitarian issue, Sudan’s future matters because failure will destabilize a vast and volatile region already grappling with conflict, terrorism and in the case of Somalia, near-anarchy.
 
The Obama administration’s “comprehensive” new policy aims to work with Khartoum, rather than isolate it, in facing the challenges ahead. Advocacy groups greeted the policy change cautiously, saying it was critical that the U.S. build a multilateral coalition to push its implementation.
 
“This will require a more robust and realistic U.S. diplomatic effort than we have seen to date,” said Randy Newcomb, president of Humanity United, a member of the “Sudan Now” coalition.
 
The plan commits the U.S. to address in parallel the unresolved crisis in Darfur and the unfolding process of implementing the comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) between the Khartoum government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in the south.
 
The violence in Darfur in recent years has largely diverted attention from the CPA, which in 2005 brought to an end a bloody 20 year-long north-south civil war. But the CPA implementation timeline looks set to change that.
 
The peace pact provides for a referendum in January 2011 on whether the south should secede or remain part of a united Sudan. After much wrangling the two sides agreed last week that a simple majority vote will secure a decision one way or another – rather than 75 percent as demanded by the ruling National Congress Party in Khartoum.
 
Observers expect most southerners to vote for secession, and some advocacy groups have long warned that the civil war, which cost some two million lives, could re-erupt as Khartoum seeks to prevent the loss of the south and its oilfields.
 
Despite arms embargoes, researchers have since 2005 tracked growing transfers of weapons to the Sudanese military and, to a lesser extent, the SPLM. Increasing violence in the south this year has already resulted in more than 1,000 deaths.
 
The referendum is only 15 months away, but before that comes another crucial test – presidential and national elections next April, the first in two decades.
 
Fears of violence, unhappiness over the redrawing of constituency boundaries and claims of doctored census figures have raised concerns about how free and democratic the exercise will be.
 
The new policy unveiled Monday will include U.S. support in the run-up to the election for voter registration and education, balloting and monitoring of the poll itself.
 
The U.S. also will work with international partners to provide assistance for the 2011 referendum, with the goal of “a peaceful post-2011 Sudan or an orderly transition to two separate and viable states at peace with each other,” according to a document outlining the policy.
 
It also will support efforts for the “timely and transparent demarcation of the north-south border,” and to develop a post-2011 wealth-sharing agreement between the two parties, an important element of the CPA.
 
Rep. Donald Payne (D-N.J.), who chairs a Committee on Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, welcomed the new policy, saying that it “rightly recognizes the possible outcome of a two-state scenario after the 2011 referendum.”
 
“We must be prepared for that outcome now and do what we can to help prepare for the existence of two countries in peace,” he said in a statement.
 
John Prendergast, co-founder of the anti-genocide Enough Project, said that unlike U.S. policy up to now, “the new policy appears to be more honest about the overwhelming likelihood that southern Sudanese will opt for independence, and that U.S. efforts should be designed to support a soft and peaceful landing for the new state that would be created in the aftermath of the referendum.”
 
‘Incentives and disincentives’
 
Announcing the policy Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the objectives were to end abuses in Darfur and implement the CPA “simultaneously and in tandem,” and ensure that Sudan does not become a haven for terrorists.
 
The U.S. would take measures to prod the parties along, “incentives and disincentives” which will be decided upon based on verifiable developments on the ground.
 
“Backsliding by any party will be met with credible pressure in the form of disincentives leveraged by our government and our international partners,” Clinton said.
 
Exactly what those measures are have not been disclosed – they are contained in what Clinton called a “classified annex” to the plan. A State Department official in a background briefing later said they were “quite serious” and “involve all elements of national power.”
 
Clinton was accompanied at Monday’s briefing by what she described as “two of the principal architects of the strategy” – Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice and President Obama’s special envoy to Sudan, Scott Gration.
 
Rice and Gration are also the two officials whose diverse approaches to Sudan have generated considerable debate among human rights and anti-genocide activists this year.
 
Rice has pressed for a firm stance against Khartoum and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir – who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes in Darfur – while Gration has suggested normalizing relations and easing sanctions.
 
Rice has referred to “ongoing” genocide in Darfur; Gration appeared to contest that by saying in June that the region was experiencing “remnants of genocide.”
 
Gration, a retired Air Force major general, was quoted late last month as saying in reference to Sudan that countries, like children, “react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement.”
 
The remark drew derision, with Jerry Fowler of the Save Darfur Coalition commenting, “It’s jarring to hear talk of ‘gold stars’ and ‘smiley faces’ for a regime headed by an indicted war criminal.”
 
In response to a question at the briefing, Clinton said that everyone was “fully on board in our going forward” and Gration also said that he supported the strategy “fully.” (John Norris, executive director of the Enough Project, called the presentation “a carefully choreographed show of internal unity.”)
 
‘No rewards for maintaining the status quo’
 
The administration appeared keen to preempt criticism about the engagement element of the policy.
 
“There will be no rewards for the status quo, no incentives without concrete and tangible progress,” Rice said. “There will be significant consequences for parties that backslide or simply stand still. All parties will be held to account.”
 
Obama said earlier in the day he would renew existing sanctions against Khartoum in the coming days, and the State Department official on background also stressed that the U.S. would not work directly with Bashir.
 
“We firmly believe that he should get himself a good lawyer, present himself to the ICC, and face the charges that have been leveled against him,” the official said.