July 9, 2011
Letter to the Editor
New York Times
In its July 9 editorial on the emergence of an independent South Sudan, the NYT makes a serious error in characterizing the Obama administration’s Sudan policy:
“The Obama administration, correctly, is not taking Sudan off its terrorism list and normalizing relations until Khartoum fulfills the peace deal and ends the conflict in Darfur.”
In fact, last November a senior administration official explicitly and publicly “de-coupled” the genocide in Darfur (Obama’s campaign characterization) and the issue of Khartoum’s longstanding place on the US State Department list of terrorism- sponsoring nations. This was, and remains, a serious error in judgment.
Eric Reeves
Smith College
Northampton, MA 01063
413-585-3326
[Eric Reeves is author of A Long Day’s Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide (2007)]