US holding off on imposing sanctions against Sudan
April 11, 2007 (WASHINGTON) — The United States is holding off on imposing unilateral sanctions against Sudan so that negotiations can take place on Sudanese acceptance of deployment of international peacekeepers for Darfur, a top administration official said Wednesday.
The special U.S. envoy to Sudan, Andrew Natsios, made the disclosure at a sometimes testy Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing at which chairman Joseph Biden, a Democratic presidential candidate, urged use of U.S. force to end the suffering in Darfur.
“I would use American force now,” Biden said.
Natsios said the United States has agreed to a request for a two-to-four-week delay in sanctioning Sudan at the request of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon
Ban met recently with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. As part of continuing diplomacy since then, the State Department’s No. 2 official, John Negroponte, is due to arrive in Sudan later this week. He also will make a stop in Chad, where the spillover effect from the Darfur war has caused widespread suffering.
Natsios said the United States is contemplating sanctions against 29 Sudanese companies. The sanctions, he said, would be of the kind that have been applied with some success against Iran and North Korea.
If the sanctions are targeted against the Sudanese companies, he said, they could lead to the paralysis of some operations.
“It will have an affect on the economy,” Natsios said.
Also planned are personal sanctions against two Sudanese government officials and one member of a Darfur rebel group, Natsios said, noting that all are suspected of committing war crimes. The sanctions would forbid travel by the three to the United States and would lead to the confiscation of any U.S. assets they may possess.
Under U.N.-backed agreements approved last fall, a hybrid force of 22,000 African Union and U.N. peacekeepers are to be deployed in Darfur to protect and provide relief for 2.5 million Darfurians who have been forced from their homes and are now confined to camps.
Biden and other senators expressed impatience with the lack of progress on Darfur four years after civil strife broke out between Arab and black tribes in the western Sudanese region.
“We must set a hard deadline for Khartoum to accept a hybrid U.N.-AU force,” Biden said.
In advocating use of military force, Biden said that senior U.S. military officials in Europe told him that 2,500 U.S. troops could “radically change the situation on the ground now.”
“Let’s stop the bleeding,” Biden said. “I think it’s a moral imperative.”
He added: “I think it’s not only time not to take force off the table. I think it’s time to put force on the table and use it.”
The administration has always rejected use of military force in Darfur, partly because of a possible outcry, particularly in Muslim countries about hostile U.S. action in yet another Islamic country on the heels of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
The hearing featured an angry exchange between Natsios and Sen. Robert Menendez, a Democrat.
Menendez demanded to know whether genocide was still taking place in Darfur and reacted sharply when Natsios said “there is very little violence in Darfur right now.”
“I’m not asking about diminished violence,” Menendez said. The senator and the special envoy argued back and forth in loud voices, each repeatedly interrupting the other.
Later in the hearing, under questioning from Biden, Natsios acknowledged that the violence in Darfur could be classified as genocide even though hostile activity is at a low level at present.
Natsios also said that China, frequently accused of obstructing a settlement in Darfur, has been playing a constructive role lately. He said China may have been responsible for a recent reversal of Sudanese opposition to the deployment, as in interim step, of 3,000 U.N.
peacekeepers to help lay the groundwork for the arrival of the full U.N.-AU force. The 7,000 AU troops now deployed there have been unable to bring stability to Darfur, partly because the force is too small.
(AP)