On 13 June 2001, the United States House
of Representatives passed "An Act to facilitate relief
efforts and a comprehensive solution to the war in Sudan",
also referred to as the 'Sudan Peace Act'. A more explicit
example of confused, distorted and poorly-informed legislation
would be hard to find. It is an Act that while paying lip
service to the need for a "negotiated, peaceful settlement
to the war in Sudan" at the same time provides one side
to the conflict with millions of dollars worth of logistical
assistance. It is an Act that decries the manipulation of
food aid while ignoring the fact that the side it is supporting
has been accused of diverting two-thirds of food aid within
the areas it controls. It is also an act which decries the
abuse of human rights within Sudan but provides millions of
dollars to those accused of appalling human rights abuses
in Sudan.
In so doing the United States seeks to continue foreign interference
in a conflict that has raged since 1955, fought, in its most
recent phase, since 1983 between the Khartoum government and
the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) led by John Garang.
Even a brief examination of attempts to achieve a comprehensive
solution to the conflict in Sudan and relief efforts within
that country reveal the deep flaws within this legislation.
A "negotiated, peaceful settlement
to the war in Sudan"
In any examination of the search for a "negotiated, peaceful
settlement to the war in Sudan", a little should be said
first about those people who drafted this Act. The Act was
drafted by legislators such as Representatives Tancredo, Wolf
and Payne and Senators Frist, Brownback and Feingold, whose
previous involvement with Sudan had resulted in an escalation
in the Sudanese conflict and regional tensions. In April 2001,
former United States President Carter, one of the most respected
and objective commentators on events within Sudan, said of
this period: "For the last eight years, the U.S. has
had a policy which I strongly disagree with in Sudan, supporting
the revolutionary movement and not working for an overall
peace settlement." This echoed earlier concerns voiced
by Carter. In December 1999 he had observed:
The people in Sudan want to resolve
the conflict. The biggest obstacle is US government policy.
The US is committed to overthrowing the government in
Khartoum. Any sort of peace effort is aborted, basically
by policies of the United States.Instead of working for
peace in Sudan, the US government has basically promoted
a continuation of the war.
It is clear, then, that these legislators are hardly the best
qualified group of people to talk about peace in Sudan. Far
from working for peace they have stood by while the United
States militarily and economically destabilised the largest
country in Africa. They helped shape American Sudan policy
from 1993 onwards - precisely the period referred to by Carter.
While they publicly lament the numbers of deaths during this
conflict, they are themselves directly responsible for the
deaths through war, starvation or disease of thousands of
Sudanese. Far from taking Carter's concerns into consideration,
the 'Sudan Peace Act' merely perpetuates the Clinton Administration's
failed and farcical Sudan policies. The United States Congress
has shown itself either amazingly naïve or blatantly
hypocritical in drafting the 'Sudan Peace Act'. In either
case this piece of legislation reflects very badly indeed
on Congress.
This American attitude is all the more regrettable since the
Sudanese government has repeatedly invited constructive United
States involvement within Sudan.
A "Comprehensive Solution to the
War in Sudan"?
While making for good rhetoric, Congressional calls for a
comprehensive solution illustrate either naivety or cynicism.
For a solution there has to be some sort of political objective
on the part of those waging war on the Sudanese government.
The political complexion of the SPLA movement has varied from
professedly Marxist through to now politically identifying
with American Bible-belt Christian fundamentalists. Even on
such a fundamental issue as to whether the SPLA is fighting
for a separate south or a united Sudan, there continues to
be confusion.
The war has always been about the political status of southern
Sudan. While the SPLA appear to be confused, the Khartoum
authorities' approach would appear to be clear. If the SPLA
are fighting for autonomy or even separation this has already
been offered by the government. In 1997, having already introduced
a federal system and exempted southern Sudan from Sharia law,
the Sudanese Government, in the Khartoum Peace Agreement,
also offered, amongst other things, the holding of a free
and fair, internationally-supervised, referendum in which
the people of southern Sudan could, for the first time ever,
choose whether to remain as a part of Sudan or to become independent.
This offer has also been written into the 1998 Constitution,
and repeated on several occasions , most recently during the
June 2001 peace talks in Nairobi. It is an offer that has
also been acknowledged by the SPLA.
The Sudanese government has repeatedly offered a comprehensive
ceasefire. Throughout 2001, the Sudanese government once again
called for a peaceful resolution of the conflict. In April
and in mid-May 2000, Khartoum once more declared its readiness
to enter into "an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire"
and to restart negotiations for the achievement of a comprehensive
peace: it called upon the SPLA to do the same. Khartoum appears
to have sought out every possible peace forum. The Sudanese
government has also repeatedly requested international assistance
in securing a peaceful end to the conflict. It is difficult
to see how much further towards a comprehensive solution the
Sudanese government can go. The SPLA's inability to articulate
what they are fighting for is echoed in its approach to the
peace process. In erratic shifts in position, the SPLA has
both accepted and then refused regional attempts at peace-making,
sometimes within the space of 48 hours.
Its commitment to a peaceful solution is questionable. John
Garang, for example, commenting on the November 1997 round
of peace talks in Nairobi, stated that "We intended not
to reach an agreement with the [Sudanese government]. This
is what we did and we succeeded in it because we did not reach
an agreement."
The 'Sudan Peace Act' has exacerbated an already critical
situation. While professing to wish to see an end to war in
Sudan, the 'Sudan Peace Act' actually authorised the release
of $10 million dollars in assistance to what they called the
National Democratic Alliance. This followed an earlier payment
of three million dollars. All this funding will be channelled
to the Sudan People's Liberation Army. As prominent American
Sudan specialist Stephen Morrison, the head of the Sudan project
at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington-DC,
has pointed out: "The NDA is a bit of a phantom. It is
basically the SPLA and a few elements." Commenting on
the release of American funds for the SPLA, Morrison also
stated: "This package feeds false hopes and expectation
on the part of the southerners and sustains excessive paranoia
in Khartoum."
For all the immediate implications of such clear American
assistance, of even deeper concern is the fact that such aid
serves to encourage the SPLA, already patently without any
clear political objective, to continue with what is an unwinnable
war. Shortly after the announcement of American assistance,
for example, the SPLA launched a concerted offensive in the
Bahr al-Ghazal region of southern Sudan in May 2001. The offensive
continued during a regional peace summit in Nairobi in early
June, with the rebels ignoring further calls for a peaceful
solution to the conflict.
It was thus particularly ironic that Congress passed this
Act at the time it did given that amongst the "findings"
of the Act was the claim that "[t]he Government of Sudan
has intensified its prosecution of the war against areas outside
of its control". The Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA)
rebels had themselves launched this offensive in the Bahr
al-Ghazal region of southern Sudan in late May and June which
had certainly intensified the civil war in that country. In
so doing they had ignored repeated offers of ceasefires by
the government.
This SPLA offensive has resulted in massive displacement of
southern Sudanese civilians. On 8 June, the International
Committee of the Red Cross stated that the offensive had led
to the displacement of at least 20,000 civilians. The Sudanese
Catholic Information Office reported that most activities
within the region had been halted by the offensive: "locations
from Tonj northwards remain no go areas forcing both church
and humanitarian agencies to suspend their flights to the
region." By 11 June, the United Nations estimated that
30,000 civilians had been displaced within Bahr al-Ghazal.
Two days later, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Rumbek, Bishop
Mazzolari, reported that just under 60,000 civilians had been
displaced by the offensive, and that these civilians were
in desperate need of humanitarian assistance. The very humanitarian
access spoken of repeatedly in the 'Sudan Peace Act' has been
disrupted by the SPLA.
History would appear to be repeating itself. Former President
Carter has in the past stated that the millions of dollars
of assistance to the rebels previously provided by the Clinton
Administration had a negative effect on the SPLA's interest
in negotiating a political settlement. The Bush Administration's
financial support for the SPLA has also clearly encouraged
the SPLA to once again ignore calls for a negotiated settlement
of the conflict and to continue with what can only be described
as a no-win war.
Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail accuses the
United States of pursuing a policy that prolongs the Sudanese
war: "Your [i.e. the US] policy will not lead to peace.
It will lead to the continuation of war, the suffering of
the people, the loss of lives in the south . This war, this
problem, will not be settled by fighting. It has to be settled
by political means. The government of Sudan is ready for that".
America's provocative acts take place at a time when the there
have been significant positive political changes within Sudan
itself. The former Prime Minister, Sadiq al-Mahdi, himself
ousted in 1989 by the present government, and a pivotal rebel
leader, was quoted by an April 2001 American fact-finding
mission as saying that: "the United States has been an
obstacle to peace in Sudan and also to unity among the opposition.
The United States' policy has been a problem. He said that
Sudan is like a pregnant woman that is about to deliver and
needs a midwife to help the delivery. They all believe that
the United States could act as a midwife. They all accept
this. But, the United States, instead of helping deliver the
baby, killed it." The former prime minister has also
declared that: "There are now circumstances and developments
which could favour an agreement on a comprehensive political
solution."
Congressional Support for Sudanese "War
Criminals"
What then is the nature of the organisation so enthusiastically
embraced by the United States Congress? Simply put, the 'Sudan
Peace Act' links the United States to a group with an appalling
human rights record. A previous attempt by the American government
in late 1999 to provide assistance to the SPLA had resulted
in considerable concern domestically. In November 1999, for
example, eight reputable US-based humanitarian organisations
working in Sudan, groups such as CARE, World Vision, Church
World Service and Save the Children, no friends of the Sudanese
government, publicly stated that the SPLA has: "engaged
for years in the most serious human rights abuses, including
extrajudicial killings, beatings, arbitrary detention, slavery,
etc." In December 1999, Human Rights Watch stated that:
"The SPLA has a history of gross abuses of human rights
and has not made any effort to establish accountability. Its
abuses today remain serious".
The New York Times, another
outspoken critic of the Khartoum government, was also unambiguously
critical of any assistance to the SPLA:
[C]hanneling assistance to southern
rebels would ally Washington with a brutal and predatory
guerrilla army. One of the tragedies of Sudan's war is
that John Garang's S.P.L.A. has squandered a sympathetic
cause. Though its members claim to be "Christians
resisting Islamization, they have behaved like an occupying
army, killing, raping and pillaging.
It is ironic that the 'Sudan Peace Act' also contains a section
dealing with "the investigation of war criminals"
given that the same Act provides the SPLA, an group accused
of involvement in war crimes, with millions of dollars worth
of American tax-payers money. The
New
York Times, for example, has stated that SPLA leader
John Garang is one of Sudan's "pre-eminent war criminals"..
The U.S. Congress cannot have been unaware of this appalling
human rights record. The Clinton Administration's Sudan expert,
John Prendergast, who served with both the National Security
Council and State Department, and who has briefed many of
these legislators, has, for example, stated on record that
the SPLA "was responsible for egregious human rights
violations in the territory it controlled". Prendergast
also personally placed on record that: "The SPLA has
faced a tidal wave of accusations and condemnation from international
human rights organizations and local churches over its human
rights record."
Prendergast personally recorded SPLA involvement in wide-scale
killings, ethnic cleansing, terrorism, widespread raping of
Equatorian women, systematic abuse of humanitarian aid, corruption
and an absolute disregard for human rights. Prendergast confirmed
the existence of ethnic tensions between the largely Dinka
SPLA, and the Nuer tribe, as well as communities in Equatoria
in southern Sudan, ever since the SPLA came into being in
1983, with the SPLA showing an "absolute disregard for
their human rights". He was also able to confirm that,
in an echo of the war crimes carried out in Bosnia, SPLA behaviour
included the systematic raping of women from different ethnic
groups.
Very significantly, given the Act's desire to make SPLA access
to relief even easier, Prendergast further documented the
SPLA's deliberate abuse of aid and society in those areas
it controls: "The human rights abuses of the SPLA are
by now well-documented.What is less understood is the abuse
and manipulation of humanitarian assistance, the undermining
of commerce, and the authoritarian political structures which
have stifled any efforts at local organizing or capacity building
in the south. These are the elements which have characterized
the first decade of the SPLA's existence."
While Prendergast was advising on Sudan, the SPLA engaged
in ethnic cleansing every bit as murderous as that carried
out in Bosnia or Kosovo. SPLA ethnic cleansing continues to
this day. The BBC and other reliable sources have reported
on SPLA violence towards non-Dinka ethnic groups, groups which
"accused the SPLA of becoming an army of occupation",
exactly the phrase used by Prendergast himself in 1997. It
would appear that the United States would believe that the
human rights of black and brown Africans are not the same
value as those of Bosnians or other white Europeans.
Humanitarian Assistance to Sudan: Operation
Lifeline Sudan
The 'Sudan Peace Act' states and restates concern about the
facilitation of relief efforts within southern Sudan. The
Act is also hostile to the United Nations- administered Operation
Lifeline Sudan. It further repeatedly refers to the manipulation
of food aid by the government of Sudan. Whatever the veracity
of the claims about the Sudanese authorities, what the Act
conveniently ignores is that the SPLA, the organisation it
seeks to logistically assist, and to whom it wishes to make
access to relief aid easier, has been the biggest abuser of
relief aid in this conflict. The human rights group, African
Rights, for example, has clearly stated that: "On the
whole, SPLA commanders and officials of the Sudan Relief and
Rehabilitation Association (SRRA, its humanitarian wing),
have seen relief flows as simple flows of material resources.
The leadership has also used aid for diplomatic and propaganda
purposes." Despite stated concerns about the manipulation
of aid, this did not feature in the Act.
While professing deep concern about urgent humanitarian relief
deliveries within southern Sudan, the U.S. Congress also ignored
that fact that in June 2000 the group they support deliberately
broke a humanitarian ceasefire in Bahr al-Ghazal. This humanitarian
ceasefire had been brokered by the European Union in July
1998 in order to stabilise aid access to southern Sudan's
most famine affected areas. The European Union registered
"its grave concerns regarding the offensive launched
by the SPLM/A in the region of Bahr al-Ghazal".
The recent offensive was launched by the SPLA, still clearly
without any discernible political agenda, despite UNICEF warnings
that the drought situation in drought-affected areas of Sudan
was "fast approaching critical" and that the food
supply outlook was "highly precarious" and likely
to worsen". The World Food Programme has repeatedly warned
of the impending crisis in statements headlined 'Acute Hunger
Set to Hit Sudan as War Continues and Drought Unfolds', 'Major
Food Crisis Looms in Sudan' and, in June 2001, 'Sudan Food
Crisis - On the Brink'. It should be noted that the horrendous
1998 famine in southern Sudan was precipitated by similar
SPLA offensives As much was reported on by CNN in early April
1998 under headlines such as "aid agencies blame Sudanese
rebel who switched sides": "Observers say much of
the recent chaos has resulted from the actions of one man,
Kerubino Kwanying Bol, a founding member of the rebel movement.He
aided rebel forces in sieges of three government-held towns,
which sent people fleeing into the countryside."
Newsweek
magazine (18 May 1998) also reported that: "Aid workers
blame much of the south's recent anguish on one man: the mercurial
Dinka warlord Kerubino Kuanyin Bol".
Humanitarian relief to the war affected parts of Sudan is
provided by Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS). Operation Lifeline
Sudan began in 1989 under the auspices of the United Nations,
and with the approval and cooperation of the government of
Sudan and the SPLA. Operational Lifeline Sudan is a consortium
of aid agencies bringing together the UN World Food Programme
(WFP), the UN Children's Fund and 35 other non-governmental
organisations. It seeks to bring food and humanitarian aid
to those communities in southern Sudan most affected by the
fighting and drought, communities within both government and
rebel-held areas of the south. Operation Lifeline Sudan was
unprecedented in as much as it was the first time that a sovereign
government had agreed to the delivery of assistance by outside
agencies to rebel-controlled parts of its own country. As
the London
Guardian newspaper
observed:
Most of the people affected live
in areas controlled by anti-government rebels and.they
were reached by flights from Kenya. Governments involved
in civil wars usually refuse to authorise cross-border
feeding.
The Sudanese model, developed during the tenure of the present
Sudanese government, has subsequently been used in several
other areas of civil conflict. It is a matter of record that
the number of Khartoum-approved Operation Lifeline Sudan feeding
sites in southern Sudan has grown from twenty in the early
1990s to well over one hundred by 1998. During the 1998 famine,
the number increased to more than 180 locations. So far from
diminishing access to humanitarian relief Khartoum would appear
to have greatly increased access. These increases in food
delivery sites were agreed by the Khartoum authorities despite
it being widely known that the SPLA were diverting very sizeable
amounts of this aid for its own uses, something which itself
serves to prolong the conflict.
Washington's claims about Sudanese non-cooperation with humanitarian
relief are also undermined by the fact that unanimous United
Nations resolutions have acknowledged "with appreciation"
the cooperation of the Sudanese government with agreements
and arrangements facilitating "relief operations".
The strength of Operation Lifeline Sudan is that international
relief aid is delivered by a neutral United Nations structure
in keeping with international humanitarian law. The often
questionable nature of previous non-OLS "humanitarian"
assistance to Sudan has been documented. The American government,
for example, has given millions of dollars in funding to Norwegian
People's Aid (NPA), a non-governmental organisation active
in southern Sudan. A November 1999 Norwegian television documentary,
entitled 'Weapons Smuggling in Sudan', has highlighted the
role played by NPA in logistically and politically perpetuating
the Sudanese civil war. There had always been considerable
speculation as to whether NPA was militarily involved with
the SPLA. This documentary confirmed that the NPA has for
several years organised an air-bridge for the supply of weapons
to battle zones within Sudan. One of the NPA pilots involved
in the gun running stated that on one occasion his plane had
landed at SPLA bases with some 2.5 tonnes of weapons. It was
stated that Norwegian People's Aid had flown between 80 -
100 tonnes of weapons into Sudan in aeroplanes supposedly
carrying humanitarian assistance. Among the tonnes of weapons
flown into Sudan were landmines. The documentary also placed
on record other clear evidence of NPA military involvement
with the SPLA.
Given that Norwegian People's Aid openly states that "[a]
major contributor to our programme in Sudan, is the USAID"
two questions must be asked. The first is how much American
taxpayers money has been used to provide the Sudan People's
Liberation Army with weapons of war, including landmines?
And secondly, was the Administration and Congress aware that
it was in effect funding such operations?
The activities of Norwegian People's Aid have long been of
considerable concern to some of its donors. The Norwegian
government had previously commissioned an independent investigation
into NPA. The subsequent report documented NPA complicity
in the diversion of food aid to the SPLA. It stated that:
NPA's intervention is that of a
solidarity group. It has taken a clear side in the war.
It supports the causes of SPLA/M.NPA's solidarity approach
means that in practice the activities of NPA are closely
related to the political and military strategies of the
rebel movement.
This is the sort of organisation that the 'Sudan Peace Act'
envisages channelling "relief" in southern Sudan
rather than the neutral and accountable UN mechanisms.
The United States Congress cannot be unaware of the SPLA's
systematic theft of humanitarian aid and its diversion for
its own purposes. In July 1998, at the height of the devastating
1998 famine, the Roman Catholic Bishop of the starvation-affected
diocese of Rumbek, Monsignor Caesar Mazzolari, stated that
the SPLA were stealing 65 percent of the food aid going into
rebel-held areas of southern Sudan. Agence France Presse also
reported that:
Much of the relief food going to
more than a million famine victims in rebel-held areas
of southern Sudan is ending up in the hands of the Sudan
People's Liberation Army (SPLA), relief workers said.
There is also a direct link between the supply of food aid
to the SPLA and the war in southern Sudan. The SPLA has been
documented as having clearly engaged in the systematic theft
and diversion of emergency food aid intended for famine victims
and refugees. The SPLA has repeatedly used food aid, and its
denial, as a weapon in their war against the Sudanese government.
In so doing it has been at least partly responsible for the
famines that have resulted in the deaths of so many Sudanese
civilians. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of SPLA food
aid diversion is that there is evidence that the SPLA sells
diverted humanitarian aid, either stolen from civilians or
directly from aid agencies, in order to purchase weapons and
munitions with which to carry on the war. The 'Sudan Peace
Act' seeks to make it even easier for the SPLA to divert relief
aid, directly affecting famine-stricken communities and indirectly
prolonging the war.
What then would be the sort of non-OLS "relief"
situation in southern Sudan? We already have a clear indication
of what this would entail. In February 2000, because of unacceptable
demands made upon them by the SPLA, eleven international non-governmental
aid organisations were forced to leave southern Sudan. These
NGOs included CARE, Oxfam, Save the Children and Medecins
Sans Frontieres. The SPLA had demanded that all aid agencies
active in southern Sudan sign a memorandum which dictated
SPLA control over their activities, and aid distribution,
as well as which Sudanese nationals the agencies employed,
and which stipulated a swath of "taxes" and charges
for working in southern Sudan. The NGOs involved handled about
75 percent of the humanitarian aid entering southern Sudan.
The withdrawal of these NGOS directly affected US$ 40 million
worth of aid programs. The expelled aid agencies stated that
one million southern Sudanese were at risk as a result of
the SPLA's decision to expel the NGOs. The European Union
described the SPLA demands as a serious violation of humanitarian
law and suspended its substantial aid program to rebel-controlled
areas.
One can only imagine the uproar within Congress had the Sudanese
government cut the provision of humanitarian aid to southern
Sudan by 75 percent. Such behaviour by the SPLA does not even
rate a mention by Congress. Not only has the SPLA severely
restricted humanitarian outreach within southern Sudan for
political reasons, but the 'Sudan Peace Act' would make it
even easier for the SPLA to engage in massive food aid diversion.
Conclusion
The flaws of the 'Sudan Peace Act' are there for all to see.
The Act is characterised by cynicism, misinformation and double
standards. While professing deep concern about relief delivery
in southern Sudan, for example, the Act ignores the fact that
the group it is sponsoring has been guilty of diverting two-thirds
of all relief going into the areas it controls, was responsible
for a suspension of 75 percent of humanitarian projects in
southern Sudan by insisting on SPLA control of the relief
aid, and has repeatedly launched offensives within areas that
are already seriously famine and drought affected. The Act
claims to be concerned about war crimes and yet actively seeks
to sustain some of the conflict's worst abusers of human rights.
The most constructive role that the U.S. Congress could play
with regard to the Sudanese conflict would be to bring the
SPLA to the negotiating table. Far from doing this, however,
Congress has sought to encourage the SPLA, a group without
an identifiable political objective, with millions of dollars
in support - in effect encouraging further conflict. When
one has the respected former American president Jimmy Carter,
former Sudanese prime minister and opposition leader Sadiq
al-Mahdi and the Sudanese government all agreeing that the
United States has been the biggest single obstacle to peace
in Sudan it is a concern that must be recognised.
The Bush Administration's Sudan policy can only be described
as confused and uncoordinated. It would appear that a group
of legislators who are at best naïve and at worst dogmatic
religious fanatics, are at present driving America's Sudan
policy. In so doing they are damaging the reputation of the
United States within the international community. The simple
fact is that Sudan has moved on politically, domestically,
economically, regionally and within the international community.
The sooner American policy reflects these changes and works
towards a peaceful solution to Sudanese problems the sooner
Sudan will be at peace.
