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since Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:04:17.
Lift US sanctions on Sudan
Ahmed Badawi
guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday 12 August 2009
US congressional hearings about Sudan usually follow the same, stale format: a raft of under-informed testimonies focused solely on condemning loudly the behaviour of the Sudanese government in Darfur (and, earlier, the north-south civil war), and demanding the ratcheting up of US sanctions to force the "right" response by Khartoum.
The US's presidential envoy to Sudan, General J Scott Gration, never a man content to kow-tow to public opinion, has just embarked on what his predecessors knew was the correct course, but were too weary to travel on: swallow hard (very hard), face down the fierce headwinds in US government and civil society and make an impassioned plea for Congress to remove US economic sanctions from Sudan.
Gration must have had his full metal jacket on – and reinforced – for the testimony. He also broke the mould by calling for Sudan's removal from the US state department's state sponsor of terrorism list, which comes with a thicket of US economic sanctions below the iceberg.
The general noted that there was "no evidence" for Sudan's inclusion on the list, which he called a "political" (rather than a national security-related) decision; the CIA has referred to Sudan's
strong record on counterterrorism co-operation as having "saved American lives".
Popular in the US he certainly won't be, but stark raving mad or naive he is definitely not: Gration simply realises that US sanctions make steering Sudan on to the right track tougher, not easier, and have actually damaged US interests by inflicting harm on, the very Sudanese people the US seeks to support.
Take just one example of the Medusa-like micro impact of US sanctions. Millions of ordinary Sudanese families and individuals from the north, south, east and west cannot receive directly the lifeline of foreign exchange remittance inflows from family members working abroad in the US, wreaking havoc on the planning and budgets of millions of households for basics like school fees and medical bills.
Remittances sent from the US can only get to Sudan in two expensive – and delay-ridden – ways: 1) remittances are routed to the recipient via regional money exchange bureaux; and 2) remittances are paid directly to the recipient by a local middleman, once the sender deposits the sum in the US bank account of the middleman.
Both options incur costly "processing fees" and amount to a regressive income tax imposed by sanctions on remittances destined for ordinary Sudanese.
Humanitarian items imported from the US are currently exempted from sanctions. But even here, the lengthy, morale-sapping bureaucratic process in getting approval to import spare parts for hospital machinery has led to numerous needless deaths of ordinary men, women, and infants.
The actions of the Sudanese government during much of the early phase of the Darfur conflict (and in the previous and much longer north-south civil war) were undeniably reprehensible – as Sudan's own official investigation into the conflict, published in 2005, readily acknowledged. Nobody, least of all Gration, is asking Washington to reinvent the wheel, however.
Abolishing US sanctions would not mean becoming mute suddenly on Darfur, CPA implementation, human rights or other matters of concern; the US can walk and chew gum at the same time with Sudan. Rather, Washington could air those concerns privately to Khartoum and use its normal global diplomatic communications modus operandi: dialogue to resolve various snafus and reach key benchmarks for normalisation set by the American government, rather than just tub-thumping with one eye on making tomorrow's US news headlines.
Fortunately, the situation in Darfur on the ground has ameliorated distinctly over the last few months, giving Gration headroom to make the call to lift US sanctions the centrepiece of his congressional testimony. Internally displaced Darfuris are returning home in greater numbers.
The humanitarian situation in Darfur also remains stable, with acting USAid head Earl Gast noting in his testimony that the "gaps have been addressed" following Khartoum's expulsion of 13 international aid organisations in March 2009; in short, nobody is dying of starvation in Darfur's tragic and undignified shelters for the displaced. Similarly, conflict-related killings in Darfur fell to just three in June, according to the latest data from the international peacekeeping force.
Yes, Khartoum can – and must – still do more to give Gration the maximum political space he needs to push through with advocating the lifting of sanctions. For starters, it can speed up the return of USAid-funded assets that were confiscated from its expelled partner NGOs and generally get out of the way of the international humanitarian effort in Darfur. Khartoum must also expedite the stack of outstanding visas for the international peacekeeping force in Darfur.
Yet lifting sanctions should not be about punishing or rewarding the government of President Omar al-Bashir; collective economic punishment is never a smart way to win hearts and minds. Sudan is not apartheid South Africa – sanctions have no support among the local population, Darfur included.
So, help change Sudan into the country its citizens want it to become, and Americans wish it was. Lift US sanctions from Sudan, Congress – Gration is right, the innocent of Darfur, and all other
ordinary Sudanese, are victims of them, too.
ahmed.badawimalik@gmail.com
http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/ahmed-badawi
