Leaders decry “harmful currents” in US

Sudanese President Umar al-Bashir has said the United States is attempting to divide Sudan into two separate states through its backing of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). Sudanese newspaper ‘Al Ra’y al-Amm’ quoted Bashir as saying that the policy of President Bush was no different to that of the Clinton administration. “They are not different, for each of them strives to destroy Sudan. There is nothing that can make us believe that this inclination can be changed in the near future,” the newspaper quoted Bashir as saying on 14 June.

On his return from Washington on Sunday, opposition leader Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi said that public opinion in the US was pressuring the Bush administration into siding with the rebels. Former Prime Minister Mahdi, who met State Department officials and US lawmakers, called for increased Sudanese and Arab efforts to “contain the harmful currents in American public opinion”. Mahdi was quoted by AFP as saying there had been a “great mobilisation” of public opinion in the US against the Sudanese regime, and that this had been reflected in Congressional support for the rebels.