Several dozen local rights groups in the United States concerned about Darfur are urging the US Senate to reject President Obama’s choice of the next American ambassador to Kenya.
The advocacy groups charge that the nominee, retired Air Force Major-General Scott Gration, will likely be unable to address effectively “the significant risk of genocide or mass atrocities” in connection with Kenya’s 2012 election.
Open opposition to an Obama administration high-level appointee is unusual among US human rights organisations, which generally support the President’s policies and personnel.
That remains at least partly true in this case. Prominent groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are not among the 33 Darfur-focused signers of an April 1 open letter urging senators to withhold confirmation of Maj-Gen Gration.
He is scheduled to appear on Tuesday before a Senate committee reviewing President Obama’s choice of a replacement for Ambassador Michael Ranneberger, who has held the Nairobi post for the past five years.
With members of Mr Obama’s Democratic Party in control of the US Senate, it seems unlikely that the President’s nominee will be spurned.
The groups based in a number of US states that opposed Maj-Gen Gration’s appointment claim his “lack of experience and failures in diplomacy make him unqualified to serve as US Ambassador to Kenya.”
“Given the millions of additional lives at risk in the complex societies in the Horn of Africa, and the implications for US national security, we respectfully request that the committee work with the administration to fill this critical position with an experienced, skilled and proven diplomat,” the letter concludes.
Maj-Gen Gration is said by these critics to have made many “missteps” while serving as President Obama’s special envoy to Sudan.
The groups point to the envoy’s move to “de-couple” charges of genocide against Sudan’s president from his negotiations with the Khartoum government about the US designation of Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Other examples of Maj-Gen Gration’s alleged soft approach on Darfur are cited.
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