Khartoum condemns hostility at US Congress hearing

The Sudanese presidential peace adviser, Ghazi Salah al-Din al-Atabani, has criticised certain US groups' "enmity" towards the government of Sudan in the wake of the US Congressional hearing on the country on 5 June.

Salah al-Din said in a press statement that certain groups hostile to the Sudanese government wanted to confuse American policy towards the country, and these would weaken any progress achieved by the US peace envoy, John Danforth, the official Sudan News Agency (Suna) reported on Sunday.

The special Congressional hearing, was another effort to help advance the quest for peace in Sudan, according to Henry J. Hyde, chairman of the US Committee on International Relations.

Khartoum had officially asked to participate in the hearing in order to explain its point of view and "reflect facts", according the Sudanese ambassador to the US, Khidr Harun Ahmad, as cited by Suna on Saturday.

The request was rejected on the basis that governments were not usually invited to participate in these sittings, according to Khidr Harun, who said he had hoped to moderate the "flagrant hostility" of most of the participants, and guarantee balance in the session.

Some of the institutions of the US administration were confused or dishonest, and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) had called for "confiscation [erosion] of the sovereignty of the Sudan government", Suna quoted Salah al-Din as saying. The demands included in the USAID testimony to Congress would be rejected by Khartoum, he added.

Roger Winter, USAID assistant administrator, testified at the hearing that Khartoum was erecting bureaucratic and operational barriers to the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Sudan, in a manner "so consistent as to amount to a deliberate strategy".

There was credible evidence that the frequency of attacks on civilians was increasing, and Khartoum had restricted access to western Upper Nile, where veteran aid workers had described the condition of 150,000 to 300,000 internally displaced people as "the worst they have ever seen", he said.

USAID hoped to make use of Washington's political leverage to support the UN in its efforts "to negotiate cross-line access and eliminate government of Sudan access denials", Winter said.

The agency was also exploring ways to revisit the current flight clearance system in order to "move beyond the government's unilateral ability to veto humanitarian flights", often for political reasons, he added.

There have been positive achievements (like a ceasefire in the Nuba Mountains, and progress on the issues of slavery and abductions), but Khartoum still seems to be of two minds, "poised on the edge between a peace and war mentality", according to Winter.

Salah al-Din also criticised proponents of the draft Sudan Peace Act in the US, under which Washington would impose restrictions on oil companies operating in Sudan.

Numerous speakers suggested at the Congressional hearing that the US should move forward with this act (currently languishing in legislative limbo) in order to provide leverage on oil companies involved in Sudan, and thus on the Sudanese government, to engage meaningfully in a peace process.

US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter H. Kansteiner said the White House was opposed to sections of the proposed legislation which would sanction access oil companies active in Sudan, because it would be "a precedent for political interference in US capital markets".

American companies are already barred from investing in Sudan, which remains on Washington's list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Khidr Harun said at the weekend that it was pressure groups intent on distorting the image of Sudan that were pushing for the Sudan Peace Act. Sanctions against international firms engaged in oil production in Sudan would "eliminate even the modest gains in the standard of living of ordinary Sudanese, both north and south", he said, in a note for the record of the US Congress hearing.

Khartoum, he said, was prepared to "adhere to the principles of sharing of power and wealth among all the peoples of Sudan", but bold action by the government of Sudan must be matched by bold action from the US to see through to the end its current peace initiative.