Slaughter denied visa for Darfur

Wilson School Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter '80, a member of the Congressionally-backed Task Force on the United Nations (U.N.), has been denied a visa to participate in a fact-finding mission in the Sudanese region of Darfur.

Slaughter was scheduled to leave on March 4 to lead a team of foreign policy experts investigating atrocities in the region, where the U.S. government says genocide has occurred.

The Republic of Sudan's embassy in Washington declined to issue visas to any member of the group, despite U.N. and State Department support for the mission. The embassy did not return several calls Tuesday.

Task force co-chairs Newt Gingrich, former Republican speaker of the House, and George Mitchell, former Democratic Senate majority leader, said they are "deeply distressed" over the Sudanese government's decision to deny the group visas.

"Despite having had more than ample time, the Government of Sudan failed to act on visa applications by task force members and experts, making the travel . . . impossible," Gingrich and Mitchell said in joint statement Monday.

"Barring the travel of Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter, the distinguished dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University, and accompanying experts will not contribute to the resolution of the serious problems that exist in Sudan," the task force co-chairs added.

Slaughter, who could not be reached for comment, is currently doing work for the task force in Brussels and will be traveling to The Hague soon, according to Steven Barnes, assistant dean for external affairs at the Wilson School.

"This [trip to Brussels and The Hague] was an element of the trip; however, the main component of the investigation was to be conducted in the Sudan," Barnes said.

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Slaughter is expected to meet with several groups in The Hague, including officials of the International Criminal Court.

"They have a number of discussions with key people, as you would expect," Gary Matthews, associate director of the task force, said in an interview. "She would be talking to people who are concerned with human rights issues."

Matthews said it remains unclear why the delegation's visas were not approved, and that there has not been "any communication that I am aware of" between the Sudanese government and U.S. officials. State Department officials who work with the Sudanese embassy were unavailable for comment.

Studying genocide

In December 2004, Congress directed the U.S. Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan and independent federal agency, to create the Task Force on the United Nations. The group, led by Gingrich and Mitchell, was then directed to assess the extent to which the U.N. is fulfilling its purposes as stated in its charter and provide a full report to Congress.

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The fact-finding trip to Darfur was part of the group's mission to study "preventing and responding to genocide and gross human rights violation."

Despite the Sudanese government's decision to deny visas to the task force's delegation, Matthews said the group would still like to visit the region. "There's a keen interest in the terrible things that are happening in Darfur," he said. "It's the Sudanese side that needs to be heard from here."

The cancellation of the Darfur mission, however, will not delay the release of the task force's report to Congress, which must be submitted by June 6, Matthews said.

The same day the news broke that the group's visas had been denied, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan convened the Security Council, saying he is "worried" that the council is "not moving fast enough" to address atrocities in the region, according to a statement issued by his office.

"We keep getting reports which show that the killing and raping and burning are still going on," Annan said Monday, adding that he welcomes "pressure from the public and the media for stronger and faster decisions on this issue."

The Security Council has been reluctant to take action thus far. The United States supports sanctions against Sudan, while Russia and China, both veto-holding members, oppose them.

Call for action

Last month, Slaughter joined a group of 55 prominent U.S. and European foreign and national security policy experts — including Joseph Nye '55, former dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and University professors G. John Ikenberry, Andrew Moravcsik and Michael O'Hanlon — in urging action on the Darfur crisis.

The document, titled "A Compact Between the United States and Europe," was released Feb. 17. In it, the scholars called for the United States and European nations to impose sanctions on and withhold economic assistance from Sudan unless the Sudanese government stops the killings in Darfur.

They also called for stronger Security Council and NATO support for the African Union peacekeeping force in Sudan and proposed policy recommendations on issues including Iraq, China, nuclear proliferation and the International Criminal Court.

The group deemed trans-Atlantic cooperation on such issues imperative because "our common future depends on it."