VZCZCXRO1015
OO RUEHGI RUEHMA RUEHROV
DE RUEHKH #1662/01 3191111
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 141111Z NOV 08
FM AMEMBASSY KHARTOUM
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 2314
INFO RUCNFUR/DARFUR COLLECTIVE
RUCNIAD/IGAD COLLECTIVE
RHMFISS/CJTF HOA

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KHARTOUM 001662 
 
DEPT FOR AF A/S FRAZER, SE WILLIAMSON, AF/SPG, DRL 
NSC FOR PITTMAN AND HUDSON 
ADDIS ABABA FOR USAU 
DEPT PLS PASS USAID FOR AFR/SUDAN 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ASEC PGOV PREL KPKO SOCI AU UNSC SU
SUBJECT: IRC AT WITS' END AT REGIME ATTRITION TACTICS 
 
REF: KHARTOUM 1579 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: While presenting a surface image of humanitarian 
cooperation, Sudanese authorities have succeeded in constraining IRC 
operations in Darfur to the point that the organization is tentative 
about its future in Sudan, IRC staff told CDA.  With stay permits 
granted for only one quarter of its program staff, and continued 
government meddling in IRC affairs, the international humanitarian 
organization has received new obstacles in place of access, and 
threats in place of dialogue while HAC officials pay lip service to 
both the spirit and letter of the 2007 Joint Communique.  End 
Summary. 
 
¶2. (SBU) On November 12 CDA Fernandez met with Justine Brett 
(protect), Program Director for International Rescue Committee (IRC) 
Sudan, and Alan Paul (protect), Deputy Directory of Programs for 
Darfur, to discuss continued Sudanese bureaucratic impediments to 
IRC's operations in Sudan. According to Brett, the Government of 
Sudan (GoS) has steadfastly refused to grant stay permits and Darfur 
travel permits to most of IRC's international staff, especially 
those who come from Western countries, leading the NGO to despair 
about its future in Sudan. IRC is hemorrhaging staff as the GoS has 
informally denied stay permits for both Brett and Paul; IRC's Darfur 
health advisor; its Darfur capacity-building manager; its deputy 
director of field operations; and its Darfur-based security manager. 
Additionally, IRC's Child and Youth Program Advisor was forced to 
leave Sudan on November 7 due to the government's refusal to grant a 
stay permit. Currently, only three out of IRC's twelve Darfur 
program staff have stay permits and continue running IRC's day-today 
operations in Darfur.  However, even the three staff members who 
have thus far avoided the government's harassment could be forced to 
leave Sudan on or by January 31, 2009 when the Moratorium on 
Restrictions a.k.a. "Fast Track" expires.  "At the moment we can 
still guarantee program quality, but it's getting more and more 
constrained," Brett said of the regime's "expulsion by attrition" 
strategy. 
 
¶3. (SBU) As part of the GoS's "successful wearing-down strategy," as 
Brett described it, the GoS Humanitarian Affairs Committee (HAC) has 
entangled itself even further in IRC operations in Khartoum and 
throughout Darfur.  Currently, the HAC is haggling with IRC over the 
content of technical agreements within each state in Darfur to 
extract major concessions unfavorable to the NGO.  And although IRC 
continues to implement its water and sanitation program and health 
program in Darfur, they do so with no technical agreements having 
yet been signed by the HAC.  Brett remains concerned that the HAC 
intends to bully IRC into signing technical agreements that, should 
IRC conclude it is unable to operate in Darfur, will give HAC 
permission to seize IRC assets in Darfur, including vehicles, 
computers and satellite phones.  Paul predicted that IRC could 
continue to deliver services in Darfur for one to three months 
following the departure of international staff, "but it leads us to 
the question of what IRC stands for." 
 
¶4. (SBU) Government-controlled newspapers in Khartoum have begun a 
coordinated campaign linking UNAMID and the IRC with the 
International Criminal Court (ICC) (reftel). For example, on October 
28 Akhir Lahza published a 2005 internal memo, now discarded and 
discredited by IRC, which suggested that the NGO cooperated with the 
ICC.  Brett said her office submitted to the HAC a simple press 
statement on IRC's mandate and details of its programs in Sudan, but 
the HAC refused to permit release of the press statement to the 
media. The HAC agreed to call off the defamation campaign now once 
the damage has already been done. 
 
¶5. (SBU) Brett and Paul agreed that at this sensitive moment, IRC 
would not be keen for Post to release its own press release on IRC's 
operations but asked that the international community keep pressing 
the authorities on humanitarian access.  They noted that if the 
regime can do this with a large, well-respected, US-based NGO, they 
can do so with anyone. They noted that pressure from CDA Fernandez 
and UK Special Envoy O'Niell in October had resulted in the 
authorities agreeing to talk to IRC again and to take a few cosmetic 
steps, but there has been no change in the inherently hostile and 
legalistic attitude of the HAC.  The authorities realize that 
outright expulsion has negative consequences so they pursue this 
strategy of attrition to wear down aid workers and the institutions 
themselves. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Yet as IRC prepares for contingencies that include 
shuttering its programs in Sudan, complications inherent in 
cooperating with GoS authorities show that leaving Sudan will also 
be fraught with difficulty.  Brett reported that in October, 
internal downsizing of its Nyala program forced IRC to let go of 
seven drivers, but the South Darfur HAC intervened and claimed that 
 
KHARTOUM 00001662  002 OF 002 
 
 
IRC could not lay-off any local employees (in the end IRC got its 
way.)  Additionally, IRC is caught in the catch-22 that even if it 
does choose to depart Sudan, technically it cannot; with pending 
legal cases before Sudanese courts, IRC legally must remain in Sudan 
until those cases are resolved. 
 
¶7. (SBU) Comment: As IRC's case sadly highlights, the government of 
Sudan has been spectacularly successful in contracting humanitarian 
access in Darfur to the point that NGOs spend their time 
investigating ways to protect their assets in the field and respond 
to bureaucratic demands instead of implementing programs to reduce 
suffering in Darfur.  As part of its orchestrated campaign to keep 
the pressure on NGOs, the GoS is meticulously and slowly squeezing 
out from Darfur the international staff most technically-qualified 
to implement humanitarian aid programs, forcing NGOs to decide 
between closing out their programs or providing poor quality 
assistance.  Even if the government proceeds with the November 25 
renewal of the Moratorium on Restrictions (which we expect them to 
do as a highly publicized gesture towards UN U/S for Humanitarian 
Affairs John Holmes), post is skeptical that the GoS is serious 
about assisting international NGOs in Darfur anytime soon, despite 
its claims to the contrary at the Sudan People's Initiative.  They 
will certainly refrain from overtly and openly hostile acts, such as 
expulsions, while seeking to accomplish the same results a little 
bit at a time all the while presenting the veneer of an (eventually 
hollowed out) international humanitarian presence. 
 
FERNANDEZ