U.S. pledges more Sudan aid on condition of peace

By Finbarr O’Reilly

NAIROBI, Oct 30 (Reuters) – The United States pledged on Thursday to increase aid to Sudan to help rebuild the divided country but warned that help hinged on the implementation of a peace deal ending 20 years of civil war.

Sudanese negotiators hope to agree this year on how to share resources and political power in Africa’s biggest country.

“We cannot begin reconstruction without peace,” Andrew Natsios, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, told a news conference in Nairobi in neighbouring Kenya. He said Washington planned a 25 percent increase in aid for next year.

Broadly, the war has set northern Muslims against the south, where there are many Christians and animists. Sporadic fighting has continued this year, killing 7,000 people and forcing 600,000 from homes in the eastern state of Darfur, Natsios said.

The United States lists Sudan, which hosted Osama bin Laden from 1991 to 1996, as a “state sponsor of terrorism” but has been improving its relations in recent years. U.S. officials say Sudan has cooperated in investigations of bin Laden supporters.

Natsios said the U.S. government would shift its spending from humanitarian assistance and direct it instead towards projects aimed at rebuilding Sudan.

“The U.S. has already spent $1.7 billion on humanitarian relief and it’s about time that ended,” he said, adding that the extra money would go to public services and infrastructure.

The U.S. government would increase aid to Sudan to $200 million in 2004 from $160 million this year — already its biggest programme in sub-Saharan Africa — and would open a field office based in Nairobi, Natsios said.

BRITISH AID TOO

Separately, Britain said it hoped to increase spending on relief and other activities in Sudan from 28 million pounds ($47 million) in this financial year once a peace deal is signed.

“Officials are working on plans for substantial increases in the years to follow a peace agreement,” Alan Goulty, Britain’s special representative for peace in Sudan, told reporters in Nairobi. “It’s practical support for peace building and government structures rather than a tremendous shower of money.”

Goulty said a peace deal could also help unlock 400 million euros ($465 million) of European Union assistance that had been frozen since 1991, and provide a fresh incentive for donors to help the government in Khartoum win debt relief.

The United States, backed by Britain, has lobbied hard to bring peace to Sudan, where the government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army have fought since 1983.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell met the negotiators in the Kenyan town of Naivasha earlier this month to encourage them to strike a deal by the end of the year.

Natsios rejected suggestions the United States was only interested in the oil reserves in southern Sudan.

“Colin Powell and President (George W.) Bush have never raised the issue of oil. The reason we’re interested is because two million people have died in this war,” he said.