Washington – 7 Sept 2001 – President Bush named former Sen. John Danforth yesterday as a special envoy to help broker a peace agreement in Sudan’s civil war, injecting the United States into one of Africa’s most gruesome conflicts at a time when the administration has stepped back from high-level involvement elsewhere in the world.
The appointment of Danforth reflects the White House’s keen awareness of the passionate interest taken in Sudan by a domestic coalition of evangelical Christians, African Americans and human rights activists.
While naming Danforth, an ordained Episcopal priest with strong conservative credentials, the administration also unveiled about $5 million in agriculture and education programs for southern Sudan, home to black Christian and animist groups fighting the Khartoum government, dominated by Arab Muslims from the north.
His selection comes after a lengthy search that saw several candidates — including initially Danforth, who retired in 1995 after 18 years as a Republican senator from Missouri — balk at the daunting assignment to try to end the 18-year war in which the southern Sudanese are seeking greater autonomy.
“This is an issue that is really important,” said Bush. “It’s important to the world to bring some sanity to the Sudan.”
In accepting the task, Danforth cited the record of misery and atrocities in Sudan, including 2 million killed, the displacement of thousands of civilians and the alleged enslavement of thousands of southerners by the government in the north.
The selection of Danforth, who won national attention in 1991 for shepherding Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court nomination through the Senate, won plaudits from conservative Christian groups as well as liberal and civil rights groups.
Danforth “has the courage, the creativity and the stature necessary for the difficult job of promoting a just peace in Sudan,” said Jerome Shestack of the U.S. Holocaust Museum.
The challenge confronting Danforth is reconciling the compromises required to bring peace to Sudan with the expectations of Bush’s supporters, who are anxious for the United States to intervene on behalf of the southern Sudanese.
“My last admonition to Sen. Danforth is not to equate the two sides in this conflict,” said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who has supported the southern cause. “They are not equal. The south’s principles resonate with our own, including their life-and-death stand for democracy and religious liberty. The actions of the northern government include terrorism and human rights atrocities.”