Sudan fights back against US sanctions
Five years after South Sudan excised itself from Sudan, the government in Khartoum is still waiting to be rewarded by the removal of American sanctions against the country.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir had taken a gamble when he allowed the people of South Sudan to vote in a referendum for independence.
It was not easy for him to sell the idea of an independent South Sudan to hardliners in Khartoum.
But he stuck to his guns even though he was fully aware that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the North and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in the South would not favour his country in economic terms.
The Sudanese government made sure that the referendum went very well.
The outcome saw Sudan lose one-quarter of its landmass, one-fifth of its population and, crucially, 75 per cent of its oil wealth – all to the new country of South Sudan.
Given this rather good deal for South Sudan, Khartoum feels it has not received the credit it deserves for South Sudan’s independence.
All sorts of pressure were applied by the US on Khartoum to ensure that it abided by the provisions of the CPA regarding the referendum.
When US President Barack Obama addressed the UN General Assembly in September 2010, he presented Mr. al-Bashir with two options: to either see Sudan regain its place within the international community or remain in isolation if the regime was unwilling to live up to the obligations of the CPA.
Mr. Obama also sent envoys with the promise that his administration was ready to remove Sudan from the State Department’s list of countries allegedly sponsoring terrorism as early as July 2011 provided that the Sudanese government lived up to three major obligations: to conduct a transparent referendum; to respect the results of the referendum; and to implement all the post-referendum agreements relating to, among other things, border demarcation, oil revenue-sharing, currency and citizenship.
Since then, Khartoum has had to watch South Sudanese politicians tear their country apart, while the international community, especially the US, has refused to remove sanctions on Sudan, which have increasingly become harsher.
“Despite the implementation by Sudan of all the terms of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, plus the acceptance of the secession of the south, the US has not fulfilled its promises to lift the sanctions and support the peace process in Sudan,” a Sudanese government spokesman told the GNA.
The US government in 1993 designated Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism and suspended its diplomatic operations in Khartoum in 1996.
In October 1997, the US imposed comprehensive economic, trade, and financial sanctions against the Sudan.
Now supporters of the Sudanese government are backing it in its attempt to remove US economic sanctions, which have been against the country for the past 19 years, and drop the State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST) listing of the country, which has been in place for 23 years.
In January a petition was posted on the White House website calling on the Obama administration to end the sanctions, which petitioners said were “oppressing the poor and innocent”.
The anti-US sanctions campaigners noted on the site: “The poor and helpless in Sudan are bearing the brunt of the economic sanctions imposed on the country by the United States 23 years ago.
“The intended goal of the sanctions might have been to weaken the oppressive government of Sudan, but they are producing exactly the opposite result.
“They are weakening and impoverishing the people of Sudan and strengthening the grip of the regime on the country.
“We plead with president Obama to do the right and humane thing by ordering an immediate end to the Sudan sanctions.”
The site has a threshold of 100,000 signatures for the president to act.
However, a month later, after the deadline ended, there were 117,150 signatures – thus meeting the threshold.
But a statement on the White House website said: “This petition has been archived because it did not meet the signature requirements.”
Nothing more was said, but there had been earlier discrepancies regarding the signatures.
By February 10 the site recorded 93,752, only to come up with a figure of just over 75,000 signatures three days before theFebruary 15 deadline.
The petitioners’ argument was that the unintended consequence of US sanctions on the living standards of ordinary Sudanese had been exceptionally severe.
They noted that in key sectors such as finance, transportation, agriculture, health, and information technology there had been serious “damage to the lives and opportunities of ordinary people in Sudan to free themselves from poverty, wreaked by the US sanctions regime – including the State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST) listing”.
They argued: “Sanctions invariably tend to have a direct proportional relationship with the bottom of the pyramid.
“They hurt the poor hardest.
“Sudan has been no exception to this rule.”
For the Sudanese government, this is just the start of a concerted campaign because Khartoum says it “has a moral obligation to never give up actively trying to get US economic sanctions removed”.
Last April the government went ahead with a referendum in the disputed region of Darfur, as was agreed in the Doha Peace Agreement signed by the government and the Equity and Liberation party on July 14, 2011.
The deal received the backing of the UN, the African Union, Arab League, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the European Union and international partners under the auspices of Qatar.
“The Doha document is consistent with the UN’s charter of international peace and security across the deep commitment to achieving peace and security in Darfur, including human rights and fundamental freedoms,” the Sudanese spokesman told the GNA.
“The agreement represents broad participation by the Darfuris and their representatives and addressed the concerns of the people and the roots of the conflict.
“It establishes foundations of a solid recovery, reconstruction and development plan for the region and also paved the way for the armed groups to be engaged in the peace process in order to achieve a comprehensive settlement.
“The agreement calls for the administrative status of Darfur to be decided through a referendum supervised by a Referendum Commission,” the spokesman added.
After weeks of awareness programmes through the media, the referendum took place in April when voters were asked to select between the five states in Darfur becoming one region or maintaining the five-state system.
The voting was monitored by 17 political parties and 78 national bodies as well as representatives from foreign governments and international organisations such as the AU and the Arab League.
The total number of registered voters, 3.535.281, outnumbered the 2015 general election registration by 121.6 per cent, with officials remarking that this high figure reflected “the remarkable security improvement”.
“The process went on without any security threats,” they added.
In the end the total number of votes cast was 2,944,118, an 83.3 per cent turnout, with 97 per cent voting in favour of maintaining the five states and three per cent favouring a single state.
“The Doha document which approved the administrative referendum in Darfur received the support of many regional and international organisations like the European Union and the UN Security Council but the US has maintained its negative position toward Sudan,” the spokesman said.
“This negative attitude is encouraging the armed movements to continue their violence by refusing to abide by the terms of the document whereby an armed group can convert into a political party.
“But the high turnout for the referendum and the result reflect the desire of the people of Darfur to rule themselves through the states system,” the spokesman added.
Source: GNA