Thanks for this Mitayo.
The rightwing's fixation on oil and a Christian/Zionist crusade is what infernally drives the Bush
crowd's Sudan policy. For donkeys years, some of us have been pointing out how the tragedy of Sudan
is fueled more by the Khartoum regime's racist ideology of Arab supremacy than Islamic fundamentalism
(which is only a secondary factor in the war).
vukoni
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-------- Original Message --------
Subject: ugnet_: 'Our' man in the Sudan of war-lord John Garang.
From: "Mitayo Potosi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Fri, June 11, 2004 11:03 am
To: undisclosed-recipients@, @
John Danforth - Bad Choice for U.N. Ambassador
By Marjorie Cohn
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Friday 11 June 2004
Cheers went up on both sides of the aisle last week when George W. Bush
nominated John Danforth to be the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Easy confirmation is expected for the former Republican senator from
Missouri who has much experience brokering agreements in the Senate.
Coincidentally, Danforth, an ordained Episcopalian minister, was also
tapped to officiate at Ronald Reagan's funeral Friday, as Billy Graham is
hospitalized. With millions of Americans watching that emotional event, the
senators who will vote on Danforth's nomination would be hard-pressed to
oppose it.
Hail fellow, well met. Danforth is popular among his brethren in the
Senate.
Unfortunately, John Danforth "doesn't know much about the U.N.,"
according to former ambassador Robert Oakley. William H. Luers, president of
the United Nations Association, said Danforth would be hampered by his lack
of knowledge about the U.N. "He hasn't had any great experience in
diplomacy," said Oakley. "But," he added, "knowing how to work the crowd in
the U.S. Senate teaches you how to work the crowd anywhere."
So how will Danforth work the crowd at the United Nations? He voted
against imposing sanctions on South Africa for its system of apartheid in
the mid-80s, and for cutting funds for U.N. peacekeeping in 1990s.
But most telling is Danforth's vote to limit U.S. support for
international family planning - the litmus test for a Bush nomination. With
the premier international peacekeeping organization at a crucial crossroads
in this "preemptive strike" period, Danforth's anti-abortion pedigree does
not qualify him to take the United States seat at the Security Council.
Danforth is a right-wing zealot in moderate's clothing. By his own
account, he ferociously rammed Justice Clarence Thomas' imperiled nomination
to the Supreme Court through the Senate in 1991.
In his cathartic book, Resurrection: The Confirmation of Clarence
Thomas, Danforth wrote he was "ashamed" by his unchecked emotions and the
methods he used to discredit Professor Anita Hill, who had accused Thomas of
sexual harassment. Aware of Hills' charges, Danforth didn't tell the
senators, instead trying to force a vote before the Senate had been able to
hear Hill's accusations. He also threatened to refuse to support a civil
rights bill if moderate Democrats opposed Thomas.
"In my years in the Senate," wrote Danforth, "I had never witnessed an
explosion of uncontrolled anger like mine." Danforth admitted, "I completely
lost my temper in a table-pounding, shouting, red-in-the-face profane rage."
Even Sen. Strom Thurmond was shocked. "You are a minister," Thurmond told
Danforth. "You shouldn't take the Lord's name in vain."
Aside from Danforth's irascibility, the book reveals his poor judgment
in supporting a paranoid and unstable future Supreme Court justice who
thought people were out to kill him long before Hill came forward with her
allegations. Danforth characterizes Thomas in a state of hysterical
withdrawal, nearly catatonic, clenched in a fetal position, hyperventilating
and sobbing convulsively. Frightening allegations about one of the judges
who sits on the highest court in the land, albeit silently, during oral
arguments.
Danforth asserts disingenuously, "Clarence did not want to be nominated
to the Supreme Court," a claim belied by Thomas' own frequent statements to
the contrary. Danforth also admits using questionable methods to tarnish
Hill's credibility, with conduct so unprincipled that some of his own staff
threatened to quit. Rob McDonald, Danforth's top aide, thought Danforth "had
to win at any cost."
"Ms. Hill was outspoken and argumentative," wrote Danforth. "In
Clarence's words, 'She was certainly not a Republican. She was not part of
the Reagan team.'" Indeed, Clarence had campaigned for Reagan in 1984.
Often referred to as "Saint Jack," Danforth describes praying with
Thomas and playing "Onward Christian Soldiers" for him just before Thomas'
final defense in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "And when Clarence
left my office for the Caucus Room," Danforth wrote, "it was not as a martyr
with his eyes fixed on heaven. It was as a warrior doing battle for the
Lord."
Most alarming, Danforth expressed a fear several times that Thomas's
denials might subject him to perjury charges and possible impeachment.
Aside from Danforth's questionable judgment on domestic matters, what
about his international experience?
Shortly before September 11, 2001, Bush appointed Danforth to be his
special envoy to Sudan. In the past year, Sudan's government and its allied
death squads have killed an estimated 30,000 people in the Darfur region of
western Sudan.
Mukesh Kapila, the U.N. resident coordinator for Sudan, said, "In my
view this is the world's greatest humanitarian crisis and possibly the
world's greatest humanitarian catastrophe ... There has been systematic
burning of villages and displacement of the population. There are reports of
women being raped, other men and women disappearing."
Danforth helped broker a peace agreement between the Sudanese government
and rebel forces. But if Danforth had engaged the United Nations in this
conflict in a meaningful way, the ethnic cleansing in Darfur might have been
prevented.
An editorial in the Washington Post earlier this week said, "The tragedy
is that aggressive diplomatic pressure would have a good chance of working
... The United States and its allies should press for a U.N. Security
Council resolution demanding full and humanitarian access ... And they
should authorize the use of military escorts for emergency aid." But,
according to The Post, "The United States is overcommitted militarily in
Iraq and elsewhere."
Carroll Bogert, associate director of Human Rights Watch, wrote in the
Post last month, "The U.S. should take the lead in the U.N. Security Council
- where members are reluctant to take a stand in the face of a strenuous
lobbying by the Sudanese government - to lay out a schedule for the reversal
of ethnic cleansing."
Moreover, John Prendergast, special adviser on Africa to the
non-partisan International Crisis Group, described Danforth's "lack of
engagement in details of the [peace] negotiations" in Sudan, "which he left
to staff people." Prendergast sees this as a possible "liability at the
U.N."
John Danforth is uniquely unqualified to serve as U.S. ambassador to the
United Nations.
But he has other qualities besides his dogmatic religiosity that would
endear him to Bush, defender of corporate interests. Danforth is now
reincarnated as a corporate lawyer who sits on the Boards of Directors of
The Dow Chemical Company, Time Warner, General American Life Insurance
Company, Cerner Corporation and MetLife, Inc.
He is also a former senator from Missouri, an important battleground
state. Every victorious presidential candidate has won Missouri.
Bush expects Danforth's nomination to sail through the Senate. But John
Danforth's spotty record should give us pause about how he would behave on
our behalf in the Security Council in these most perilous times.
Marjorie Cohn, is a contributing editor to t r u t h o u t, a professor
at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, executive vice president of the National
Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the
American Association of Jurists.
-------
Mitayo Potosi
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