Ex-Sudanese official calls for export-ban on Gum Arabic to ICC supporting countries

March 7, 2009 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan should stop all exports of Gum Arabic to countries which supported the International Criminal Court (ICC) decision against president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir, a former official said today.

Esam Sideeg who was Bashir’s former economic adviser told official news agency (SUNA) that the Sudanese government should immediately order a ban on Gum Arabic exports to these countries.

The ICC judges will issue their decision on the application submitted last July by prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo in which he requested the issuance of an arrest warrant for Bashir on three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder.

Sideeg also said that Sudan “must implement the US imposed sanctions” by not allowing the US to receive any Gum Arabic.

The US, which buys about one-fourth of Sudan’s annual production of the commodity, has exempted it from its comprehensive economic sanctions that it imposed since 1997 for national security reasons.

The ex-official accused the ICC prosecutor of seeking to stop the flow of Arabic Gum to world countries “after it was recently discovered that it is a cure to contemporary diseases”.

He further said that Ocampo is doing this on behalf of multi-national food and drug companies.

In May 2007 the former Sudanese charge d’Affaires to Washington John Ukec Lueth made similar threats on preventing the US from receiving Gum Arabic exports.

“I want you to know that the gum Arabic which runs all the soft drinks all over the world, including the United States, mainly 80 percent is imported from my country” Lueth said after raising a bottle of Coca-Cola.

Gum Arabic is a resin that is used as an emulsifier in soft drinks, a thickener in candies and jellies, a binder in special-purpose inks and drugs, even a foam stabilizer in beer. Its name derives from the fact that the gum was shipped to Europe from Arabic ports.

(ST)