21 - 27 June 2001
Issue No.539
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 21 - 27 June 2001 Issue No.539 |
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New law, old enemies
As Sudan's armed opposition wins on the battlefield, its stock in Washington rises. But the government is not about to concede defeat yet, writes Gamal Nkrumah
Foreign companies must tell the US government exactly what they're doing in Sudan; the Sudanese opposition gets $10 million; and the Sudanese government is spitting. These are the results of an unprecedented bill, passed by the US House of Representatives last week.The bill forbids foreign companies operating in Sudan to list on US stock exchanges unless they fully disclose their activities in Sudan. The US Congress approved the bill, known as the Sudan Peace Act, by a staggering margin of 422-2. The act also puts $10 million at the disposal of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the umbrella opposition group that includes the main armed opposition force, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA).
Not since Bill Clinton's bombing of Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory, just outside Khartoum, in 1998, have relations between Washington and Khartoum been so tense. But the latest vote by US lawmakers is just one in a series of moves the US has taken against the Sudanese regime. Clinton froze Sudanese assets in the US and barred most trade between the countries. Sudan has been sanctioned by the US since 1997. Since 1983 the US has spent over $1.5 billion in humanitarian aid to Sudan, but the aid is heavily lopsided towards the war-torn south. And for months Washington's lawmakers have been roasting Sudanese authorities over Khartoum's human rights record generally and over reports of slavery in southern and western Sudan in particular. The policy of assisting anti-government forces in Sudan has long been quietly advocated by several key Washington lawmakers. US Secretary of State Colin Powell made Sudan a foreign policy priority, when he pledged to end the Sudanese conflict. Now the voices calling for open assistance to the armed Sudanese rebels grow louder.
Sudanese officials have reacted strongly. "We are not going to take this bullying and gross interference in our domestic affairs lying down," Sudan's ambassador to Egypt, Ahmed Abdel-Halim, told Al-Ahram Weekly. "We are mobilising our people and we seek the support of friendly countries. This move (the new law) is an affront to Sudan and poses a danger to the entire Arab and Muslim world. It is a concerted attack on the interests of Arabs and Muslims the world over and especially in Africa," he said. But the ambassador added that Sudan still pursues peace with Washington, and is searching for ways to end the war in the south.
Predictably, the opposition was happier. Last Sunday, SPLA leader John Garang, speaking to the London-based Al-Hayat, applauded the US lawmakers' move, though he explained that the money is earmarked for the NDA as a whole and not just for the SPLA. Garang stressed that the money has not yet been released and that the recent advances of the SPLA on the battlefield have nothing to do with US help. He said that the rise in SPLA attacks on oil installations was in revenge for government attacks on SPLA positions during the dry season, which began last October. A lull in the fighting is expected when the rainy season begins later this month, bringing transport and communications to a virtual standstill. For the moment, Garang vowed to step up the "armed resistance," targeting oil, on which the Sudanese government depends. "Oil is a weapon, too," he said. If the government is sincere and seriously wants to achieve a peaceful settlement, Garang added, then it should allow international observers to monitor the cease-fire it offers. Garang maintained that "disrupting oil production and targeting oil installations and personnel is legitimate in the struggle for a secular and democratic Sudan."
The Sudanese government, by contrast, did blame Washington for the opposition groups' successes. It accused Washington of patching differences between anti-government forces, spurring them to unite against Khartoum's Islamist-oriented policies and providing the armed opposition with money and weapons. Khartoum believes that it has been defeated on the battlefield because it is facing US force by proxy.
But far from being intimidated, top-level Sudanese officials have been busy canvassing support. Officials scurried to neighbouring Arab countries to plead for help. They have also responded to Garang's battlefield victories by tapping Sudan's large militant Islamist constituency. Government officials have called an all-out jihad, or holy war, against those branded "infidels." Pro-government militias have rallied behind government calls to mobilise. The most important of these are the militant Islamist Popular Defence Forces (PDF) and the South Sudan Defence Forces and allied tribal militias which oppose the SPLA. These are the groups accused by the British-based charity Christian Aid, the American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG) and Christian Solidarity International (CSI) of slave raiding in the south of the country and the Nuba Mountains region of western Sudan.
The official Sudanese opposition seems so far to have sided cautiously with the government. Former Sudanese Prime Minister Sadiq Al-Mahdi, the leader of the Umma Party, whose democratically-elected government was overthrown by Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir in a 1989 coup, warns that accusations of slavery are exaggerated and will drive a wedge between Muslims and Christians in Sudan and sensationalise the Sudanese political crisis. The results of US reasoning, he said, will be "catastrophic." Al-Mahdi has just returned from a tour of the US and warned that the Sudanese people, government and opposition must "contain such harmful currents in American public opinion." Garang scornfully dismissed Al-Mahdi, who is in the opposition, as being the "government's roving ambassador and an unofficial government spokesman."
Yet opposition to Washington's new anti-Sudan posture is not limited to Mahdi and the Sudanese regime which toppled his government. Arab capitals are apprehensive, and even in the US, Muslims worry about the ramifications of the Bush administration's Sudan policy. "American Muslims have grown increasingly concerned that the issue of Sudan is being used by those with anti-Islamic political or religious agendas to stereotype Islam and Muslims worldwide," said Nihad Awad executive director of the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
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