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Misanet.com / IPS, 17 April - Despite rising pressure from grassroots groups and Congress, the administration of President George W. Bush is unwilling for the moment to impose new sanctions or take other actions that could worsen already difficult ties with Sudan, according to knowledgeable sources. The most it will do is begin spending some of the 10 million dollars which Congress appropriated last year for political and technical support for unarmed civil society groups active in the southern part of the country under the control of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). At the same time, the new administration has decided to increase staff at Washington's embassy in Khartoum, although it has no plans at the moment to name a new ambassador there, as urged by some here who believe that only by engaging the National Islamic Front (NIF) government can Washington hope to halt an ever-more destructive war which has killed more than two million people over the past 18 years. Bush has also decided against immediately naming a special envoy for the Sudan, a step urged by both those who seek greater engagement with the NIF and others who want Washington to take stronger measures against the regime. Several names have been mentioned for the post, including former UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke, former president Jimmy Carter, former Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn, and former Republican Rep. Tom Campbell. - They want to get the lay of the land first, one knowledgeable source told IPS. Indeed, Walter Kansteiner III, Bush's pick to become assistant secretary of state for African affairs, has not yet been confirmed in his post. Nor have even his deputies been nominated. The administration's cautious approach appears very much at odds with the growing pressure exerted by church and humanitarian groups on Capitol Hill to tighten the screws on Khartoum or, for that matter, with the concerns expressed by top officials, including Bush himself, who has alluded to the suffering of the southern population twice since his inauguration. That suffering has reportedly worsened as a result of the steady southward push of oil-drilling operations by Sudan's state oil company and a number of foreign partners, including Petrochina, Talisman Energy of Canada, Petronas of Malaysia, and several European oil companies, including Sweden's Lundin Oil, Austria's OMV-Sudan, Italy's Agip, and France's Elf-Aquitaine and Total Fina. According to reports by human rights groups and other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) active in the area, Khartoum is conducting a "scorched earth" campaign covering tens of thousands of hectares around each new drilling site, bombing and raiding civilian targets in the region to force its inhabitants to flee further south. And it is doing so with the help of a steady flow of new weapons - the most ominous of which is a fleet of helicopter gunships - bought with the 500 million dollars Khartoum earned with its oil exports in 2000 alone, according to experts in Washington. - There is perhaps no greater tragedy on the face of the Earth today, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the House International Relations Committee during testimony early last month. Three weeks later, the administration's top policy-makers, including Powell, as well as National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice and other heavyweights, made a formal review of Sudan policy, according to insiders. Apart from beginning to disburse the 10 million dollars and agreeing to resume bilateral talks with Khartoum about ending its alleged support for international terrorism, according to these sources, the foreign-policy "principals", as they are called, decided not to alter the basic approach pursued by Bill Clinton, at least for now. - It's more public relations than policy, said one source about the administration's strong public statements. How long its relatively passive stance can be maintained is another question, however. Public interest in Sudan has mushroomed during the past year, largely as a result of an increasingly potent grassroots campaign led by Christian missionary groups and African-American churches. The result is an unusual alliance of lawmakers identified with the Christian Right in the Republican Party and members of the overwhelmingly Democratic Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). Rev. Franklin Graham, the son of the famous televangelist, Rev. Billy Graham, and a personal friend of Bush's, has made the plight of the mostly Christian southern population a cause celebre, while the two most prominent black churchmen, Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton, are planning trips to the region to draw even more public attention to the issue in the coming weeks. In testimony before a packed hearing room 28 March, a number of witnesses identified with these forces called for the new administration to take much stronger measures against the NIF government in Khartoum. Michael Young, testifying on behalf of the quasi-governmental US Commission on International Religious Freedom, accused the government of "egregious human rights abuses - including widespread bombing of civilian and humanitarian targets, abduction and enslavement by government-sponsored militias, (and) manipulation of humanitarian assistance as a weapon of war." In addition to calling for the appointment of a "nationally prominent individual who enjoys the trust and confidence of President Bush" with exclusive responsibility to negotiate on Washington's behalf, Young called for Washington to increase aid to the southern population and the political opposition in Sudan and launch a major diplomatic initiative to pressure Khartoum to halt its abuses. He also urged Washington to tighten the existing trade embargo against Sudan and deny all foreign companies engaged in developing Sudan's energy resources access to US capital markets - an option made possible under an executive order signed by Clinton last year. While the US oil industry has expressed little interest in Sudan, the administration opposes such a move because it would violate its free-market ideology and create a precedent that could be used by other activist groups against much more economically important targets. Another churchman from California who testified before the panel and just returned from Sudan called for the administration to even further by establishing a "no-fly zone" over southern Sudan to prevent Sudanese aircraft from flying over the region. He and Young argued that the government's attacks may well amount to "genocide", a conclusion, which, if formally reached by the administration, would justify unilateral US action in the war. Until now, Washington has confined itself to saying that some actions by the NIF regime are "genocidal". By Jim Lobe
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