U.S. Involvement in Sudan's Civil War and Darfur Crisis
This paper explores the United States' multifaceted involvement in Sudan's protracted civil conflicts and the Darfur genocide. Beginning with background on Sudan's geography, economy, and religious divisions, the paper traces the country's history of civil war, the emergence of the Janjaweed militias, and the United Nations' interventions. It then examines the turbulent history of U.S.-Sudan relations, the factors that drew American attention to the crisis — including celebrity advocacy — and the specific U.S. roles in brokering the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, shaping UN Security Council resolutions, and conducting ongoing peace negotiations through 2010 and 2011. The paper concludes with a critical assessment of American and UN responsiveness to the genocide.
- Introduction: Overview of U.S. involvement in Sudan crisis
- Background on Sudan: Geography, economy, and demographics of Sudan
- Sudan's Civil Wars and UN Interventions: Civil war history, Darfur violence, and UN response
- History of U.S. Involvement in Sudan: Decades of strained U.S.-Sudan diplomatic relations
- Why and How the United States Became Involved: American values, celebrity advocacy, and public pressure
- U.S. Role in Peace Accords and Security Council Resolutions: U.S. diplomacy, CPA facilitation, and UN Security Council votes
- Depth of U.S. Engagement in Peace Negotiations: U.S. special envoys, incentives, and ongoing negotiations
- Conclusion: Assessment of U.S. and UN adequacy in stopping genocide
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper grounds its argument in concrete data — population figures, GDP estimates, trade partners, and troop counts — which gives the policy analysis a credible empirical foundation.
- It balances official U.S. government sources with outside perspectives (Time, the Enough Project, USIP), allowing for a mildly critical assessment of American involvement rather than simple endorsement.
- The inclusion of direct quotations from Secretary of State Powell, Secretary Clinton, and actor-activist George Clooney adds rhetorical variety and illustrates how public pressure and elite diplomacy operated simultaneously.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates source triangulation: it cites U.S. State Department materials and then explicitly flags their promotional bias ("State putting the best foot forward"), then cross-references those claims with independent organizations such as the Enough Project and the Peterson Institute. This transparency about source limitations is a valuable critical-reading skill for undergraduate research writing.
Structure breakdown
The paper moves from macro context (Sudan's geography and economy) to historical context (civil war timeline) to bilateral relations (U.S.-Sudan history) to issue-specific analysis (Darfur advocacy, Security Council votes, peace negotiations). Each section builds logically on the previous one, culminating in a conclusion that steps back to evaluate the adequacy of both U.S. and UN responses.
Introduction
The recent past has seen violence and heartbreak in the African nation of Sudan. In order to avoid the bloodshed of another major civil war between the North and the South, the United Nations — with involvement from the United States — has intervened. What has the United States' involvement been with reference to this matter? This paper explores the ways in which the U.S. has been involved in the Darfur and Sudan issues, the reasons why the U.S. should be involved, and how the U.S. became drawn into this crisis.
Background on Sudan
The African country of Sudan is the largest country in Africa at approximately 2.5 million square miles — roughly the size of the continental United States east of the Mississippi River, according to the U.S. Department of State (2010). As of July 2009, Sudan's estimated population was 41,087,825. The main religions practiced in Sudan are Islam (the official religion), various indigenous beliefs, and the Black African/Christian faith tradition. Sudan has an estimated GDP of $92.81 billion with an estimated annual growth rate of 3.8% (Dept. of State).
As for natural resources, Sudan possesses modest reserves of oil, natural gas, gold, iron, copper, and other industrial metals. The country grows cotton, sesame seeds, sugarcane, millet, peanuts, and sorghum. Its industries include cement production, edible oils, motor vehicle assembly, and cotton products. Major export markets include China, Japan, Indonesia, Egypt, the UAE, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Malaysia, generating an estimated $8.464 billion in export revenue. Sudan imports oil and petroleum products, oil-pumping and refining equipment, wheat and wheat flour, chemical products, foodstuffs, tea, agricultural machinery, and manufactured goods — primarily from China, the EU, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, India, and Malaysia (Dept. of State).
Sudan's Civil Wars and UN Interventions
In January 1956, Sudan received its independence from Anglo-Egypt — a period during which Britain still held significant political and colonial influence in Egypt. In 2005, Sudan signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), establishing power-sharing between North and South. National elections followed in April 2010. Before that agreement and those elections, however, civil war was the norm rather than the exception in Sudan. Seventeen years of war occurred between 1955 and 1972; the primary driver of that conflict — and the spark that continues to ignite subsequent wars — is a "protracted conflict rooted in deep cultural and religious differences," as the Dept. of State explains. The Northerners, traditionally the more politically and militarily powerful group, are Islamic and practice Arabism, while the Southerners are mainly non-Muslim and are considered marginalized peoples (Dept. of State).
Another reason for the ongoing antipathy between north and south is that the profits from exploiting oil, water, and land in the south flow "mainly to the Northern Sudanese elites," not to the Southern Sudanese (Suliman, 1994, p. 2). Meanwhile, "the majority of Southerners suffered the accelerated breakdown of social structures which had already been weakened through years of neglect," Suliman writes.
In Darfur, a marginalized region of Sudan, reports of attacks on civilians — especially those targeting non-Arab tribes — began to alarm observers in 2003. While a peace settlement was being negotiated between north and south, violence raged in Darfur with little international media coverage. According to the Dept. of State (p. 8), two rebel groups — the SLM/A and JEM, collectively known as the "Janjaweed" — composed mainly of Arabized Black African Muslims who herd livestock, operated with the support of Sudan's Armed Forces and killed hundreds of thousands of people in Darfur. Secretary of State Colin Powell testified before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee that "genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the Government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility" (Dept. of State).
In order to stem the tide of violence, the United Nations moved to broker a peace arrangement in 2005. On March 24, 2005, the UN Security Council voted 15-0 to establish a mission in Sudan (UNMIS) consisting of up to 10,000 military personnel and an appropriate civilian component, including up to 715 civilian police personnel. The elections held in April 2010 were "largely peaceful," according to the Dept. of State, although "widespread irregularities" were reported during both the polling and counting periods.
History of U.S. Involvement in Sudan
The history of the United States in Sudan has for the most part been one of contentiousness and strained relations. Sudan has maintained ties with countries and organizations that are hostile to the U.S., including North Korea, Libya, and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. In 1967, during the Arab-Israeli War, Sudan severed diplomatic relations with the U.S. Relations warmed somewhat by 1976, when Sudanese President Nimeiri negotiated the release of ten American hostages in northern Ethiopia. Additional tensions emerged in 1985 and 1986, and in 1989 U.S. development assistance was halted following a military coup in Sudan.
During the 1990s, Sudan backed Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and provided sanctuary for Osama bin Laden and other terrorist organizations. By 1996 the U.S. had suspended embassy operations in Khartoum, and in 1997 the U.S. imposed comprehensive economic, trade, and financial sanctions against Sudan.
Despite the strained relationship, the U.S. has also provided humanitarian aid to Sudan, averting widespread starvation by delivering 100,000 metric tons of food in 1989 (Dept. of State). As of 2009, President Obama's official U.S. strategy toward Sudan was threefold: (a) achieving a definitive end to conflict, gross human rights abuses, and genocide in Darfur; (b) full implementation of the CPA, which advocated an orderly path toward two separate and viable states at peace with each other; and (c) ensuring that Sudan would not provide safe haven for terrorism or terrorists (Dept. of State).
Conclusion
Did the United States insist — directly or indirectly — on a resolution that would bring an end to the civil war in Sudan? The answer is yes. The U.S. put tremendous pressure on the world community, including the UN and allied nations, to create peace between the North and the South and to bring an end to the ethnic cleansing in Darfur. By asserting itself at the UN Security Council level, the U.S. was able to achieve results — though, in the view of this writer, those results may not have been too little, but they were too late to stop the slaughter in Darfur. The George W. Bush Administration must bear some accountability for not acting more forcefully within the world community. Bush's focus on regime change in Iraq allowed the horrific, unconscionable mass killings in Darfur to fall below his administration's radar.
The United Nations also failed to act as quickly as it could have. The UN has struggled to call genocide by its proper name. In a report issued in February 2005, the UN acknowledged that Sudan's government was responsible for "mass killings, rape and other atrocities in the Darfur region," yet it stopped short of declaring that the Sudanese government had "actively supported genocide." The "critical element of genocidal intent appears to be missing," the report stated. Whether the killings were intentional, premeditated, or spontaneous, the fact that the Sudanese government aided those committing the mass murders is evidence enough of their culpability. As documented extensively by international observers, the scale and character of the violence in Darfur demanded a stronger and swifter international response.
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