New York -- The United States government is sending a mixed message to Sudan, with Congress moving forward on punitive legislation while President George W. Bush’s administration follows a more conciliatory path, a former State Department official told The Monitor.

"Congress is reacting politically, while the administration is trying to have a pragmatic outcome," said Herman Cohen. He was U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa during the elder George Bush’s presidency.

The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, J. Dennis Hastert, unexpectedly appointed 15 House members Nov. 15 to serve on a conference committee to resolve differing House and Senate versions of the Sudan Peace Act.

The House version, passed June 13 by a 422-2 vote, punishes any business that develops oil and gas in Sudan by delisting it from U.S. stock exchanges. It also provides $10 million to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), an opposition group which some say is merely a cover for the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). The Senate version of the act is significantly weaker. House-Senate conferencing is unlikely to begin before the end of the year.

This appointment of members to a conference committee was supposed to come Sept. 19, but just before Rep. Tom Tancredo could begin the process, House leadership stopped the move. They were apparently following the wishes of the Bush administration, which was actively seeking the cooperation of the Sudanese government in tracking down terrorist organizations.

However, there is more behind the Bush administration’s mediating approach than the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Bush appointed former Senator John Danforth as special envoy to Sudan September 6, before the attacks. Danforth traveled throughout Sudan for three days recently to meet with Sudanese on both sides of the civil war and to set specific objectives for the peace process to move forward.

Sudan’s civil war has lasted 30 years, claimed two million lives, displaced five million people, and claimed 100,000 to slavery.

The mixed message coming from the U.S. results from the many complex factors which have created strange alliances on both sides of the Sudan question.

On one side, the powerful religious Christian lobby in the U.S. supports the SPLA in its war against the Khartoum government. It accuses the government of trying to Arabize the South and of enslaving Southerners, and it supports harsh legislation against Sudan. Allied with this lobby are human-rights groups and African-American advocacy groups like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

On the other side, oil companies and related business interests have urged a more gentle Sudan policy, partly to gain access to Sudan’s oil resources. Canadian oil group Talisman Energy operates in Sudan, but protests by human-rights protesters have prompted the companies’ executives to consider ceasing operations in Sudan.

This side’s position has been predicated on business interests, but its arguments gained currency as Sudan emerged as a useful potential partner in the U.S.’s so-called war on terrorism.

Sudan remains on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist nations. Khartoum has been cooperating with the U.S. by providing information on terrorist networks that at one time were based in Sudan.

According to Cohen, the government of Hassan Tourabi welcomed Islamic revolutionary groups to Khartoum. But after Omar Hassan Bashir took over the government in 1999, "the government effectively told the organizations they were no longer welcome," Cohen said. "A lot of them closed up shop."

This move was partly intended to relieve world pressure on Khartoum, but U.S. President Bill Clinton’s administration rejected the overture because of continued repression of the southern Sudanese, Cohen said.

This was typical of the Clinton administration’s Sudan policy. Cohen said Clinton imposed unilateral sanctions, which were largely ineffectual, and gave only lackluster support for mediation efforts.

Under the previous administration, that of George Bush, the U.S. attempted mediation from June 1990 to July 1991, Cohen said (Cohen served in that administration). But when Khartoum successfully caused Southern groups to fight amongst themselves, it mistakenly assumed it has won the war and told the U.S. its mediation efforts were no longer needed.

Cohen has worked since 1994 as a consultant on Africa for a private firm, Cohen and Woods International. While he was not traveled to the Great Lakes region for his private work, the well-connected Cohen still keeps close tabs on affairs throughout Africa.

Cohen thinks the Bush administration’s approach in Sudan is pragmatic, and not based on oil interests. "The administration has done a cold analysis and feels the way to end the suffering in the south is to end the war with some sort of an equitable result, where neither side ends up losing everything," he told The Monitor. "I think the administration’s approach is the best way because there’s no way either side can win, and even if you supported the southerners with financial and military aid, it’s very doubtful they could achieve their political objective."

However, it may be equally doubtful that Danforth can help broker a peace deal to end a civil war that has spanned decades. Neither Sudan’s government nor the SPLA is serious about peace, according to Susan Rice, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the Clinton Administration. "They haven’t been serious in years, if ever," she recently told allafrica.com. "I do not believe the conflict in Sudan is ripe for resolution."

Danforth’s statements about the prospects for peace have been ambivalent. At a press briefing in Nairobi after his visit to Nairobi, he said he "wouldn’t bet much on this." However, at a Nov. 26 press briefing in Washington, D.C., he described how, after a heated meeting between Muslim and Christian clergy, people from both sides approached him and said, "That was really a great meeting. You know, we’ve never talked to each other before."

Danforth set four specific peace objectives on his visit. He said they are both important for humanitarian reasons, and "tests of the prospects of peace."

As stated at the Washington press briefing, these tests are:

1. Making the Nuba Mountains available for humanitarian relief, without military action interfering with that relief. Danforth places this proposal at the top of his agenda.

2. Creating zones and times of tranquility, so that for specific dates at specific places, those places could be available for humanitarian efforts, particularly immunizations.

3. The cessation of bombing or shelling of civilian populations.

4. The cessation of the slave trade.

Danforth will travel to Europe in mid-December to meet with counterparts and discuss Sudan. He will then return to Sudan for 10 days starting January 7 and re-evaluate the situation. "If they don’t want peace, they will tell us by inaction," Danforth said in Nairobi. "If that is what happens and it’s clear to me by mid-January, I’m simply going to report to the president that we tried, we did our best and that there is no further useful role for the United States to play."

Khartoum must make an effort to end the war in order to have good relations with the U.S., Danforth said. "It is not going to be possible for Sudan to have a close relationship with the United States so long as the view within the United States is that people are being oppressed," he told the press in Washington.

That view is being promulgated here by the alliance of religious Christian groups and human-rights activists, which pushed hard for the revival of the Peace Act. One Congressional aide told allafrica.com it was pressure from this anti-slavery alliance that caused the House leadership to proceed with the selection of conferees.

On Nov. 19, just after the Peace Act was rehabilitated, a coalition of more than 100 American religious and civil-rights leaders sent a letter to President Bush, urging him to take a harder stance toward Sudan. The letter reminded Bush that he had said in May that crimes of a "monstrous" sort were being committed in Sudan. In late September, however, Bush lifted sanctions against Sudan in exchange for information on Osama bin Laden, suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The letter also criticized Bush for seemingly quashing the Peace Act. "Your administration may have inadvertently signaled that the United States will overlook terrorism within Sudan’s borders," the letter said, "in exchange for gestures and promises from Khartoum not to export it to our shores."
Edith Ssempala, Uganda’s ambassador to the U.S., implied Uganda is firmly in the camp that supports the Act. She, too, accuses Khartoum of committing terrorism against some of its citizens. "You would only compare the Sudan question to apartheid South Africa," Ssempala told The Monitor, "whereby the North wants to Arabize the South, and Islamize forcefully. To force people to be what they don’t want to be is wrong, is a violation of human rights."

"Sudan has made promises but they haven’t kept any," Ssempala continued. "The Sudan Peace Act puts more pressure on Sudan to really honor their commitments."

The Sudanese envoy to Uganda, Mohammed Sirajuddin, recently said his country is willing to supply oil to Uganda, once northern Uganda and southern Sudan are secure. This deal could lower the price of oil in Uganda from sh1,520 to sh600.

However, Ssempala said, "We are not for sale. Sudan should do the right thing. Then we can cooperate." She added, "We are looking forward to a peaceful Sudan that we can economically and otherwise cooperate with."

She issued a strong warning to Bashir: "You have seen the way dictators end up. If they don’t bow to pressure, they end up like [former Democratic Republic of Congo president Joseph] Mobutu.... I’m sure even bin Laden didn’t think his day was going to come, but it is coming, because evil is not sustainable."

However, according to Cohen, the House version of the Act contains measures so extreme, they may hold up passage for some time. He pointed to the clause of delisting companies from U.S. stock exchanges if they engage in oil business in Sudan. "This has never been done before," Cohen said. "It creates a very dangerous precedent."

"Any time you are angry at a foreign government, do you cause companies doing business there to be delisted from the stock exchange?" he asked rhetorically. "It could cause a tremendous amount of anxiety in U.S. financial markets." Cohen thinks the measure could even scare off many companies from U.S. bourses. "Why risk being listed, if one day the U.S. will have a grievance against, who knows, Bangladesh?"

"This controversial issue could slow down the opposition," he added.

Danforth acknowledged the complexity of the oil issue in his Nov. 26 briefing. He said development of oil resources has depopulated the South, and also may provide funds for Khartoum to wage its war in the South. However, he added that economic development was necessary to resolve the war.

Another contentious aspect of the Peace Act is the $10 million it makes available to the NDA. The alliance once consisted of the SPLA and northern opposition groups in exile from Sudan, but, according to Cohen, those northern groups have now returned to the country. "Any money going to that alliance is going to the SPLA now," Cohen said.

According to Cohen, the U.S. has never sent military aid to the SPLA. He said Congress voted funds for logistics and office equipment in fiscal year 2000, but he did not know if that money had been disbursed yet. In any case, "it was not providing arms or anything lethal," he said. "Arms support has come from other African countries."

However, by supplying the SPLA with non-military support the U.S. would be freeing up funds for the rebel group to spend on arms. Furthermore, Cohen said the U.S. never discouraged Uganda from supplying the SPLA with military aid, which could have been interpreted as tacit support. Many in Uganda say the government is still supplying military training and supplies to the SPLA.

At the Nov. 26 press conference, Danforth did not answer questions about the Peace Act, saying he would let other members of the Administration weigh in on that.

But Sudan’s Ambassador to the United States, Khidir Haroun Ahmed, was not so reticent. He recently accused Congress of interfering in Danforth’s peace effort by reviving the Peace Act.

"Congress is sending a very negative signal to Danforth’s mission because the administration cannot send someone with the status of former Senator Danforth to make peace, and while he is still there [in Sudan] start discussing what they call a Sudan Peace Act -- I always call it the Sudan war act," Ahmed told allafrica.com.

"If you read the act you will find that it contains a point in which they are going to provide the rebel movement with ten million dollars," Ahmed continued. "So what kind of peace act is that? How could the administration send someone in order to strike a peace deal and, at the same time, say we are waging war against the country? The United States has again put its credibility on the line."