WASHINGTON – Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell criticized the government of the Republic of Sudan today for failing to issue visas to a member and staff of the Task Force on the United Nations. In a statement issued today, the co-chairs of the task force said they were “deeply distressed over the failure of the government of the Republic of Sudan to permit the travel.” The two noted that “despite having had more than ample time,” the Sudanese government’s inaction forced cancellation of the trip to Khartoum and Darfur, which was scheduled to begin on March 4.

The task force, which is organized by the U.S. Institute of Peace, was instructed by Congress in December 2004 to issue a report no later than June 6, 2005 examining the extent to which the UN is fulfilling the purposes of its Charter and providing an actionable agenda for the United States on UN issues. The purpose of the task force mission to Sudan was to assess the performance of the United Nations and its agencies in the field of human rights.

In failing to issue visas, the task force co-chairs noted that the Sudanese government effectively denied entry to the country by task force member Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and several experts from leading U.S. public policy organizations, who were accompanying her. Barring entry into the nation “will not contribute to the resolution of the serious problems that exist in Sudan but will make the work of our task force…more difficult,” Gingrich and Mitchell stressed.

The two co-chairs expressed appreciation to the U.S. Department of State and the United Nations for their respective roles in supporting the visa applications and arranging meetings in Sudan.