Government warns of dangers of US peace bill

Sudan has called on the US Senate and Congress to reconsider and renegotiate the final form of the Sudan Peace Act to come before them, lest it “encourage the [Sudanese] war and prolong a war that has gone on long enough”. To take such a measure without understanding the issues involved would do a great disservice to the peoples of Sudan, according to a statement from the Sudanese embassy in the US on Friday, 17 August. The embassy cited a statement by the Comboni Catholic Missionaries that “global interests have the Sudanese resources at heart, not the wellbeing of the Sudanese people. Religion is distorted and misused as a means for [serving] other interests.” Sudan welcomed US involvement in the search for a just peace “within the fundamental principles of balance, wisdom and fair play” but the Sudan Peace Act, in its current form, was none of these, the statement added. The US State Department has clearly defined its opposition to provisions of a version of the Sudan Peace Act already passed by Congress, which would prohibit an entity engaged in the development of oil resources in Sudan from raising capital or trading securities in the United States. A different version of the Sudan Peace Act passed by the US Senate does not contain the capital markets provision. Apart from the proposed capital market sanctions, the State Department has said that the Sudan Peace Act is an important piece of legislation, addressing what Secretary of State Colin Powell has called “perhaps one of the greatest tragedies in the world today”. [for more details, see separate IRIN story of 22 August headlined “Khartoum warns against ‘unbalanced’ US legislation”]