Khartoum protests aid for opposition alliance

The Sudanese government has reiterated its opposition to proposals by the United States to provide a total of US $13 million in financial assistance to the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA). "This is an erroneous decision against which we have officially protested, and have communicated our protest to [US Special Envoy to Sudan John] Danforth... It is an undue decision and is clearly biased towards the opposition," AFP quoted the presidential peace adviser, Ghazi Salah al-Din al-Atabani, as saying on Sunday following reports that US President George W. Bush had approved a US $10 million support package. Steven Wisecarver, regional director for east and southern Africa of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), told IRIN on Tuesday, however, that although the US Congress had approved the funding, he had received no notices that the money had been approved for release. "There hasn't been anything new," he said. Peter Claussen, a spokesman for the US embassy in Nairobi, told IRIN on Monday that the US Congress had approved two separate funding proposals to the NDA - $10 million support approved under the previous administration of Bill Clinton, and an additional $3 million for logistical support under the government of George W. Bush. The US Congress had initially approved a $10 million aid package in 2000, and in June 2001 the US House of Representatives adopted the Sudan Peace Act, which included a call for the money to be disbursed. Both funding contracts were intended to provide the NDA - a coalition of northern political parties and southern opposition groups - with a "variety" of support, including political development and training to help southern Sudanese to participate in efforts to come to a peace agreement with Khartoum, Claussen said. However, implementation of programmes thereby to be funded had not yet begun, he added. The Sudanese government has repeatedly urged the US not to give financial assistance to the NDA, claiming that doing so would compromise Washington's role as mediator in the country's 19-year civil conflict. The US government in September 2001 named former US Senator John Danforth as special peace envoy to Sudan as part of its recently stepped-up efforts to help end the conflict. Sudanese President Umar Hasan al-Bashir on 1 January called on the US to show neutrality while facilitating negotiations between the government and southern rebels, the BBC reported at that time. Muhammad Dirdiery, charge d'affaires at the Sudanese embassy in Nairobi, told IRIN on Monday that the US was performing an important role in the peace efforts being made under the auspices of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and should not, therefore, be seen only to be engaging one of the parties. Dirdiery said it was "not fair or just" for the US government to "benevolently reward the opposition" while continuing to impose economic sanctions on Khartoum. The US government in November 2001 renewed for a further year economic sanctions originally imposed on in 1997, with Bush citing concerns over the "prevalence of human rights violations" in the country, CNN reported at that time. "Right now, the US is punishing us on one side while favouring the opposition. We feel this is not fair mediation," Dirdiery said. "We had been looking for a more fair and just administration. As a mediator, we are assuming that the US will be keen on trying to treat both parties equally," he added. Samson Kwaje, a spokesman for the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army, which is a component of the NDA, told IRIN on Monday that US congressional funding had "nothing to do with the war", but was aimed at helping to improve the capacity of the resource-poor opposition movement to negotiate with the Khartoum government. "We don't often have the resources to bring our negotiators to Nairobi. The government of Sudan doesn't need it. They have oil, government resources and aid from the Arab world," Kwaje said. The US government was an "independent country and has a right to exercise its foreign policy as it pleases", he added.