July, 2003

The U.S. Vision of Sudan after the Iraq War

Badr Hassan Shafei

There is quite a distance between Baghdad and Khartoum. Yet, since the removal from power in Iraq of Saddam Hussein, events in this country are having a considerable effect on Sudan. The reason: both countries are considered vital to US interests, and the geopolitical importance of southern Sudan is not that dissimilar from that of northern Iraq previously.

The current US administration deems Sudan much more important than the Clinton administration before it did. The change came after the declaration of the IGAD principles in July 1994 regarding the south of Sudan. The US interest in Sudan reached a peak around September 2001, when Washington appointed John Danforth special envoy for peace in Sudan.

The US vision for Sudan is based on maintaining the unity of the country and establishing a single leadership with two systems - similar to the case with Taiwan and China. This vision of a unified Sudan favours giving the south more authority within a secular state.

To realise its goals, the US is applying pressure on Khartoum. The Sudan Peace Act, for example, signed into law by George W Bush on 21 October 2002, gave the two parties in the Sudanese negotiations a six-month grace period, to end on 21 April 2003, to achieve peace and bring the war to an end. This law gave the US president the right, without prior consultation with the Congress, to impose sanctions should there be no progress. This included the possibility of imposing an embargo on Sudanese oil exports, banning the sale of weapons to the country and providing the south with aid of $300m for three years.
Such legislation hardly hides the US bias against the government in Khartoum in favour of John Garang's Sudan People's Liberation Movement -SPLM-, and its keenness to provide the SPLM with concessions with regard to the distribution of authority and wealth. Not surprisingly, the Sudanese government's fear of the application of such sanctions effected its performance before late April, which can be seen in a number of areas:

1- The government held high-level direct negotiations with the SPLM, including a meeting between President Omar Al-Bashir and Garang in Kenya on 2 April 2002. This meeting reflected both the keenness of the government to attain progress and the fear of the SPLM that differences could arise with Washington. Chief among the results was:

- the agreement of both parties on the need to attain a final peace agreement by the end of June 2003

- adherence to agreements reached previously, such as the first Machakos agreement, of July 2002, and the memorandum of understanding on ending hostilities and promoting supervision arrangements

- agreement on the activation of a direct link between Khartoum, Garang and Nairobi in order to follow up on the negotiation process

2- The government made contacts with other opposition groups, notably the Democratic Unionist Party, under the leadership of Mohammed Othman Al-Mirghani, also leader of the National Democratic Alliance - which includes the SPLM/A - and invited him to return from Cairo, where he currently lives.

3- The government made contacts with active regional parties, including Egypt, where President Hosni Mubarak held separate meetings with Garang and Al-Bashir.

4- The government submitted a report to the US administration on the developments of the peace process in order to avoid the application of sanctions.

Certain European countries have also entered the fray, perhaps hoping to further their interests. France submitted a request to be a supervisor to the Machakos agreement, while Britain agreed to pay Sudan's $15bn debts to the World Bank on the condition that Sudan repays London later on. The EU, meanwhile, in the first week of May 2003, announced its allotment of 200m euros for humanitarian assistance in the regions of Sudan afflicted by war. This, in turn, urged the Sudanese government to submit a request to the EU to unfreeze its funds there, which have been frozen for nearly 13 years and now stand at 4.7m euros.

Washington's deferral of the application of the Peace Act can be attributed to two main factors: the progress recently attained by the two parties to the negotiations; and the state of chaos that sanctions could bring. Should the US indeed apply sanctions against Sudan, there would be an increased likelihood of confrontation between the SPLM/A and the government, which would inevitably destroy what progress has been made through negotiation and throw the country into a state of chaos similar to that in Iraq. Such a situation would also cut the US off from Sudanese oil.