African Arguments

Top Menu

  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Climate
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • Think African [Podcast]
    • #EndSARS
    • Into Africa [Podcast]
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Africa Science Focus [Podcast]
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Debating Ideas
  • About Us
    • Our philosophy
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

logo

African Arguments

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Climate
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • Think African [Podcast]
    • #EndSARS
    • Into Africa [Podcast]
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Africa Science Focus [Podcast]
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Debating Ideas
Politics
Home›African Arguments›Politics›Princeton Lyman resigns: the future of US diplomacy in the Sudans – By Aly Verjee

Princeton Lyman resigns: the future of US diplomacy in the Sudans – By Aly Verjee

By Uncategorised
December 12, 2012
2502
0

Princeton Lyman - outgoing US Special Envoy to Sudan.

Princeton Lyman, US special envoy for Sudan and South Sudan, is stepping down. A White House source characterised Lyman’s departure as “the kind of personnel change that is normal at the end of a president’s first term and start of a second.”  President Obama appointed Lyman as special envoy on March 31, 2011.  He is the fifth holder of the post, following John Danforth (September 2001 – June 2004, when he was appointed as US ambassador to the United Nations; from New York, he continued his involvement in the negotiations that led to the CPA), Andrew Natsios (October 2006 – December 2007), Richard Williamson (January 2008 – January 2009) and Scott Gration (the first Obama appointee, March 2009 – March 2011).

In a long series of envoys, Lyman was the most successful since Danforth.  First appointed in 2010 to help negotiate post-secession arrangements between north and south, he played a key role in bolstering the efforts of his one time boss, Gration, at the critical juncture around the referendum.  As envoy, Lyman was in charge as the CPA ended and Sudan’s split was peacefully achieved.  He was able to continue a relationship with Khartoum without sycophantically cosying up to the regime – as did Gration – or being unnecessarily antagonistic towards the NCP in public, as were Natsios and Williamson.  In short, he was a better diplomat.

Lyman’s appointment was a relief after the somewhat erratic Gration.  I remember Gration telling me on Referendum Day in 2011 that the independence vote so far had been a “˜disaster’, because voters were being processed very slowly (we tried to explain that it was unrepresentative to measure progress by the few mega-polling stations in Juba, with thousands of registered voters, compared to the majority of more reasonably sized polling places in rural areas, and that with six more days of voting ahead, there was plenty of time, anyway).

Relations with South Sudan have historically been much easier for all the envoys, although the events of the last year (support to the SPLM-N in South Kordofan and Blue Nile, the invasion of Heglig, the oil shut down) have complicated what was once an unequivocal US position towards the government in Juba.  Overall, the envoy’s brief has become more difficult: the end of the CPA and its subsequent replacement by a host of patchwork agreements that two squabbling states have broadly failed to honour, and which have little popular legitimacy, is a lot more difficult to implement.

In recent years, many of the leading lights of the US foreign policy establishment have been engaged with Sudan and South Sudan: in the George W. Bush era, Colin Powell visited Darfur and deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick talked to Khartoum, in addition to envoys Natsios and Williamson; during the Obama administration, then deputy secretary of state James Steinberg visited Khartoum and Juba for talks.  Former Democratic nominee for President, John Kerry, as chair of the senate foreign relations committee, was involved in key stages of bilateral talks prior to the South’s independence.  Most recently, secretary of state Hillary Clinton visited South Sudan, encouraging Juba to resolve the oil dispute with Khartoum.  This is to say nothing of senior officials from USAID, who have routinely visited Sudan and South Sudan.

This high-level commitment appears set to continue, despite the loss of a competent envoy in Lyman.  US senior advisor on Darfur, Dane Smith, remains in post with plenty to do, as the latest Darfur Peace Agreement stumbles on.  With war ongoing in South Kordofan and Blue Nile, relations between Khartoum and Juba consistently troublesome, and ongoing liaison with capitals in Addis Ababa, Beijing, Doha and elsewhere necessary, the need for a high-level, full time US appointee continues, in addition to the diplomats that head the US missions – Susan Page in Juba and Joseph Stafford in Khartoum (the latter a former ambassador to Gambia, but appointed in Sudan at the rank of chargé d’affaires.  The last US ambassador resident in Khartoum, Tim Carney, left in 1996).  Smith might be a candidate to succeed Lyman, much as Lyman succeeded Gration.  Or the post could be reinvigorated with a more senior political appointee, as with the Danforth appointment.

Whomever Barack Obama appoints next, it’s hard not to believe that those in foreign policy circles in Khartoum will think that, once again, in pursuit of their own interests and policies, they have outlasted a capable, but relatively short lived diplomatic opponent.  And that they can, and will, do it again.  This, of course, is by no means unique to US representatives in Sudan – every other state with representation in the country, every UN representative, every other special envoy – faces the same fate.  Few diplomats stay long on the Sudan file.  Even then, longevity is no guarantee of success, or of influence over the Khartoum regime.

Aly Verjee is senior researcher at the Rift Valley Institute.

Previous Article

African Arguments top article of the year: ...

Next Article

Faith and Development in Africa: A new ...

Uncategorised

0 comments

  1. Africa Blog Roundup: Media Piracy in Nigeria, Ghana’s 2012 Elections, Malian Politics, and More | Sahel Blog 16 December, 2012 at 14:00

    […] Aly Verjee on the resignation of US Special Envoy to Sudan Princeton Lyman and the trajectory of “US diplomacy in the Sudans.” […]

Leave a reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • Politics

    Will (re)constructing the CAR’s security sector help protect its population? – By Gabriella Ingerstad

  • Uncategorized

    Africa’s Odious Debts

  • Uncategorized

    Pentecostal Republic

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter


  • 81.7K+
    Followers

Find us on Facebook

Interactive Elections Map

Keep up to date with all the African elections.

Recent Posts

  • Senegal’s angry protesters are proud defenders of their democracy
  • We analysed climate research on Africa. Here’s what we found
  • Could the jihadis dismantle the Sahelian state?
  • Nigeria’s Happy City is on the brink of being swallowed by the sea
  • Cameroon: The keyboard warlords of the breakaway republic

Editor’s Picks

Editor's PicksPoliticsSomalia

To counter al-Shabaab, Somalia’s new govt must do something for the kids

President Mohamud must honestly examine why thousands of children have been recruited by the militants, whether forcibly or otherwise. Earlier this month, Somali legislators selected Hassan Sheikh Mohamud to become ...
  • In 2011, mass protests led to the downfall of President Mubarak. In 2013, the military retook power in a coup. Credit: Gigi Ibrahim.

    This is how our revolution in Egypt failed. Sudan, please be warned.

    By Osama Gaweesh
    June 5, 2019
  • The 8 December 2021 protest by the media against state-led press repression in Sudan. Credit: Ayin.

    “Back to the former lies”: Sudan reverts to media repression post-coup

    By Elzahraa Jadallah, Khaled Fathi & Tom Rhodes
    December 16, 2021
  • Some amazing African documentaries, picked with help from Film Africa.

    Amazing African documentaries you’re gonna wanna see

    By Sally Zohney, James Wan, Adam Matan, Oumar Ba & Ketty Nivyabandi
    October 23, 2018
  • Mwai Kibaki shakes hands with opposition leader Raila Odinga during peace talks mediated by Kofi Annan in Kenya, January 2008. Credit: Boniface Mwangi/IRIN.

    The (un)surprising effectiveness of African mediation efforts

    By Allard Duursma
    July 2, 2020

Brought to you by


Creative Commons

Creative Commons Licence
Articles on African Arguments are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  • Cookies
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
© Copyright African Arguments 2020
By continuing to browse this site, you agree to our use of cookies.