Sudan says US sanctions bill harmful to peace efforts

KHARTOUM, Dec 25 (AFP) — Khartoum criticised a bill recently signed by US President George W. Bush and imposing sanctions on Sudan as unfair and harming ongoing peace efforts, press reports said Saturday.

The independent Al-Rai Al-Aam quoted Sudanese Charge d’Afaires in Washington Khidir Haroun as saying the Sudan Peace Act sends a “harmful message” to government negotiators currently engaged in talks with southern and Darfur rebels.

On Thursday, Bush signed a 300-million-dollar bill promoting peace and providing aid for displaced people in Sudan, while imposing an asset freeze and requesting a travel ban on senior officials over the government’s failure to stop atrocities in Darfur.

Haroun slammed the bill as “unfair”, saying it would only “prolong the current war and fuel more fires”.

The diplomat argued that the US executive had succumbed to Congress, which has aggressively pushed for sanctions against Khartoum and described exactions committed by the government’s proxy militias in Darfur as “genocide”.

“The US Congress has a history of taking a hard line against the Sudan,” Al-Rai Al-Aam quoted Sudanese Justice Minister Ali Osman Yassin as saying about the law.

“The American law is undue, unjustified and untimely,” the paper also quoted parliamentary peace committee head Abdel Rahman al-Fadni as saying.

Talks in Nigeria between the Sudanese government and Darfur rebel movements have floundered in recent weeks and fresh violence has raged in the region, where more than more than 1.5 million people have been displaced and tens of thousands killed over the past two years from the combined effect of the war and an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.

The government is also engaged in negotiations with southern rebels in a bid to put an end to a 21-year-old civil war. An agreement is expected in the next few days.