Peace missions for Rice
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is trying to shore up one fragile peace accord in Africa while preserving hopes for another in the Middle East.
Rice is making her first trip to Africa since becoming secretary of state, with two stops in Sudan, where a new reconciliation government has emerged from decades of north-south fighting. The new government is still a work in progress, and there is plenty of suspicion among the former rivals.
Even while congratulating Sudan for ending one conflict, Rice will press for an end to what the Bush administration calls genocide taking place in the vast nation’s western Darfur region. She departed on her trip today.
Rice’s hastily scheduled visit to Israel and the West Bank will follow.
She will make direct appeals to the Israelis and Palestinians to end violence and remain committed to a peaceful withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip, and she will be a go-between to resolve last-minute snags.
Her weekend meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders mark her third trip to the region since taking office in January. It is a measure of US worry over the shattered cease-fire that Rice rearranged and cut short her African trip to do it.
Rice will also attend an African trade summit in Senegal on Wednesday that is meant to increase exports from Africa to the US.
Sudan, however, will dominate the Africa portion of Rice’s trip.
Rice will be the most senior US official to visit Sudan since the country’s rival political and militia forces joined under a US-backed interim constitution this month.
“I’ll try to say to people that there is hope, that nobody is forgotten, that we are working very very hard,” Rice said of her planned visit to Darfur.
“I’ll talk to the non-government organisations that are on the front lines,” she said. “And I’ll say that even the darkest moments in any country can be overcome. It’s a very horrible situation.”
War-induced hunger and disease have killed more than 180,000 people and driven more than two million from their homes since rebels from black African tribes took up arms in Darfur in February 2003, complaining of discrimination and oppression by Sudan’s Arab-dominated government.
The government has been accused of responding by backing a counterinsurgency by Arab militia known as the Janjaweed that provoked international outrage. Khartoum denies involvement in the violence.
Washington has long kept the former Sudan government at arm’s length. Rice is expected to use the possibility of better relations with the US to urge the new government to hold together and keep its promises.
Rice had intended to visit several other countries in Africa and give a policy speech along the lines of those she has delivered in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Those stops will be rescheduled, the State Department said.
