POLITIC-SUDAN: Lawmakers Attack Bush For Avoiding Oil Sector

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jun 6 2002 (IPS) - U.S. President George W. Bush’s top Africa policymaker has come under blistering attack from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers who want the administration to act more forcefully against the Sudanese government in its war with southern rebels.

Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Walter Kansteiner, was repeatedly taken to task by the international relations committee of the House of Representatives on Wednesday for not supporting pending legislation aimed at Sudan’s lucrative oil sector.

Kansteiner’s assurance that Washington will not ease existing sanctions against the ruling National Islamic Front (NIF) until there is real progress in peace talks, did little to placate the committee.

“As long as the oil revenues flow to Khartoum, there is little that pushes the government of Sudan to negotiate peace,” said the ranking Democrat on the panel, Rep. Tom Lantos, who accused the NIF of “playing the game of peace while conducting a vicious war of annihilation”.

Kansteiner said the administration remains “very opposed” to the Sudan Peace Act (SPA), approved nearly unanimously by the House last year, which would de-list foreign oil companies active in Sudan from U.S. stock markets. The bill has been held up in the Senate at the White House’s behest.

“We feel it is a precedent for political intervention in U.S. capital markets,” said Kansteiner. “It sends all the wrong signals to the bourses all around the world and those who control (them).”

His position provoked stinging exchanges with lawmakers who charged that the Muslim- and Arab-dominated NIF was committing “genocide” against the mostly black, non-Muslim Christian population.

“Isn’t there some point where we say this has gone far enough (to justify capital market sanctions)?” asked Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo.

“I’m sure there is, but this isn’t it,” replied Kansteiner.

Wednesday’s exchanges appeared to mark the end of a truce over Sudan policy between the administration and an unusually broad coalition of critics, including Republicans identified with the Christian Right and Democrats associated with the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and human rights causes.

The truce began in early September when Bush, in order to head off Congressional passage of the SPA, appointed a special envoy to determine what steps Washington could take to end the 19-year-old war between Khartoum and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M).

Bush appointed former Sen. John Danforth who, after making two trips to the region in November and January, submitted his recommendations to Bush two weeks ago.

To test their interest in a negotiated settlement, Danforth asked the two parties to agree and implement four “confidence-building measures” (CBMs), including an internationally monitored cease-fire in the Nuba Mountains and a ban on attacks on civilians by both sides.

According to all parties, the two-month-old Nuba Mountain cease-fire has been a major success, although it also made possible a diversion of government forces to the oil-rich Western Upper Nile (WUN) province. The government offensive there has reportedly driven as many as 200,000 southerners from their homes, and Khartoum has refused to permit humanitarian agencies to deliver relief supplies in the area.

Danforth also called for intensified U.S. diplomatic engagement with several European partners in a peace process launched in the mid-1990s by the Kenya-led Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD). In 1997, IGAD persuaded Khartoum and the SPLA/M to sign a Declaration of Principles (DoP) that guarantees freedom of religion and the southerners’ right to self-determination, including an option to secede.

But two other recommendations made by Danforth angered the SPLA and its supporters.

The envoy specifically recommended against secession as an option, arguing that autonomy for the south within a unified Sudan was preferable. According to the SPLA, this position not only prejudges an issue that is supposed to be negotiated, but also violates the express provisions of the DoP.

Danforth also called for a formula for sharing the proceeds from oil sales. If both sides agreed, he argued, a cease-fire covering the oil-producing regions would be desirable before a final political settlement.

Critics say the SPLA could never accept this plan because attacks on Sudan’s oil infrastructure are the leverage point that is most likely to force Khartoum to seriously address rebel demands for self-determination.

SPLA suspicions about the direction of U.S. policy were further fuelled by Washington’s decision to staff the U.S. embassy in Khartoum with a charge d’affaires for the first time since 1996.

As a result, the Danforth Report, while laying the groundwork for intensified U.S. engagement in peace talks, raised new doubts about Washington’s policy, which Kansteiner repeatedly tried to dispel Wednesday.

He told lawmakers Washington “absolutely” favoured self-determination for the south as provided in the DoP and stressed that any cease-fire encouraged by Washington must “advance the search for a comprehensive settlement”.

His assurances did little to mollify lawmakers, or non-governmental experts who also testified.

Danforth’s proposals “do not yet point to a serious policy by the Bush administration to bring peace to Sudan,” said Michael Young, chairman of the quasi-governmental U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

“(Khartoum) currently has no incentive to end the fighting, and neither Senator Danforth nor the Bush administration has provided one,” said Young. “The only way to get Khartoum’s attention is to curtail its oil revenues” which could be accomplished, he added, through passage of the SPA.

Time is running out, said John Prendergast, Africa specialist at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, and a member of the National Security Council under former president Bill Clinton.

“Senator Danforth’s efforts resulted in moderate successes on symptomatic humanitarian issues,” he said, “but eight months have gone by in which root causes haven’t been negotiated, our leverage is slowly eroding, the positions of the parties are hardening, and the willingness of the parties to compromise is dissipating.”