A Policy Learning Moment from the West Africa Ebola Outbreak and Sanctions on South Sudan

Despite much consideration during last week’s Congressional hearings, a travel ban will not make for an easy fix to contain Ebola in West Africa.  The decisive factor in an effective government response is resolve and it can only come from leadership at the top.  Analysis of the  pro-activity and a proper sense of urgency along the timeline of this Ebola outbreak may reveal an absence of such leadership at key nodes in some government bureaucracies.  However, inefficiencies in American bureaucracies are traditionally overcome in times of crisis when the President of the United States is determined to do so.  In cases of experienced leadership, such things tend to be addressed before or at the early onset of a crisis.

There are two fluid situations that offer new data on the ability of the U.S. government to work effectively in Africa without such resolve at the top.  In the first case, that of the West Africa Ebola outbreak, the State Department dismissed urgent warnings in favor of a non-crisis diplomatically-correct approach and they had no indication to do otherwise from higher up.

The U.S. State Department stood at the front line of the Ebola outbreak at embassies in Liberia and Sierra Leone at least as far back as March of 2014.  On August 7, Bisa Williams, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of African Affairs testified before the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations. In addition to describing the factors of the outbreak to the four members in attendance, her diagnosis of the core challenge was a lack of national capacity in Liberia, Sierra, Leone, and Guinea to handle the crisis and a warning that the outbreak would effect those African state’s ability to contribute to stability operations in Somalia citing a cancelled deployment of Sierra Leonean peace keepers.

The emphasis back in August was on capacity building.  Williams’ testimony ended on an awkward note when Virginia representative Frank Wolf asked her when, precisely, she had first learned of Ebola infections in Liberia.  Williams was unable to answer and offered to check and follow up.

On the same panel, Tom Freidan of the CDC began his August 7 testimony by saying,

In the second case, the U.S. announced sanctions against individual leaders in South Sudan while the Sudan regime in Khartoum continues planning large scale operations against civilian populations and the arming of factions of the conflict in the South.  On October 9th, the U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan, Ambassador Donald Booth, gave a major policy speech on the civil conflict in South Sudan to announce the sanctions.

In the speech, Ambassador Booth listed the State Department’s version of the cause of conflict in the South and included unresolved tensions then later, with heavy emphasis, elite power struggle.  While attempting to sound neutral, it was difficult not to interpret this as veiled blame directed at the South Sudanese president Salva Kiir.

That is significant because among the many and diverse marginalized groups who united with Dr. John Garang and Salva Kiir to fight the North it is well know that Secretary Kerry had signaled a preference for South Sudan’s vice president, Riek Machar whose split with Kiir led to the horrific civil war in South Sudan in December of 2013.  Machar had at one time led a rival faction and had received support from Khartoum.  Later in the speech,  Ambassador Booth worked in a passive but very intentional dismissal of rumors of U.S. favoritism.  The State Department needed to go on record because many believe that the known preferences of personalities within the State Department agitated and emboldened the split between South Sudan’s president and vice president.

Ambassador Booth spoke in hopeful terms regarding the projected impact sanctions would have to deter further violence.  Appearances of being productive in the peace process in the South may be a welcome distraction from the failure to deter the genocidal leader Omar Bashir in Khartoum from launching a full scale conventional war and genocidal attrition from early on in South Sudan’s creation until now.  In 2012, the U.S. President made a video statement to the people of South Sudan articulating what would be the State Department’s new policy.  It was a policy that a plain spoken person would call moral equivalence.

That is to say that the victims of genocide in the South, after decades of violent struggle to win their freedom from a genocidal Islamist Totalitarian regime, the U.S. implied that all sides had shed blood and and both side were responsible for the conflict.  The President urged the South against war with the North but did nothing to deter or challenge Khartoum.  The genocide continued in places like Blue Nile through 2012 and 2013 but the U.S., having voted present for peace, put forth no tangible incentives or dis-incentives to Khartoum.

A Smith College professor, Eric Reeves, has well chronicled the failure of U.S. policy in Sudan and South Sudan and the unexplainable disconnects between diplomatic statements, cause, effect, and results.  He attributes the lack of resolve by the President and the State Department to intelligence sharing deals between Khartoum and the U.S. intelligence community.

Statements put out by the State Department have indicated at different times that they see Sudan as a potential partner in counter-terrorism though Sudan remains on the State Sponsor of Terror list.  Though President Obama is on the record as one who would challenge Khartoum dating back before his presidency in campaign videos, no such resolve has been transmitted to the State Department in a way that has yielded results or stopped Khartoum from killing innocents by the thousands.  The power of the U.S. to get results from Khartoum is precedented by the 2005 peace agreement that led to the referendum and creation of South Sudan to begin with.

In both cases non-U.S. government actors provide a clear-eyed assessment of actualities on the ground.  Such assessments are prerequisite to any effective outcome  by U.S. government action.  The State Department prefers their own assessment of the situation in Sudan and South Sudan but has not been able to translate their approach into results that save lives.  The same can be said of the August 7 testimony by both CDC and State.  Perhaps the recent appointment of a former White House staffer as the new Ebola Czar can be considered resolve or at least an acknowledgement of the severity of the outbreak.  In neither case have we yet seen leadership from the top with a clear directive to solve problems leading to a positive outcome.