Washington in the works

Hopes are again dashed for a comprehensive peace settlement between the Sudanese government and the main armed opposition group, the SPLA. But Washington stands poised to step in, writes Gamal Nkrumah
It has been a kind of Mission Impossible. Behind the hype, wise heads have always realised that getting Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir and the leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the country's main armed opposition group, to meet face-to-face would be extremely difficult. But at last Saturday's seven-nation Inter-governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) summit meeting in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, five African leaders felt they should try again to bring Al-Bashir and Garang together for a fruitful tête-à-tête. Their efforts achieved precious little.
There is no love lost between the two Sudanese bitter ideological rivals and political opponents. Bashir insists on upholding the Islamist character of the Sudanese state. Garang has taken up arms in order to create a secular Sudanese state. Even when they were in close physical proximity within the confines of the same conference venue, Al-Bashir and Garang pointedly failed to acknowledge each other's presence. But their Kenyan hosts say something was salvaged out of this failure. The Sudanese protagonists agreed in principle to work towards a comprehensive cease-fire, even though they could not agree on an actual cease-fire to end the 18-year-old conflict which has claimed the lives of two million Sudanese and rendered five million homeless. They also pledged to form permanent respective negotiating teams in order to revive the peace talks that failed last year.
But the host, Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi, said a greater degree of sustained commitment was required if peace were to reign in Sudan. He stressed that only by the "separation of religion and state within an appropriate federal constitutional framework," and a "referendum on self-determination" for southern Sudan would peace be won. These are precisely the demands set by the SPLA.
Moi also spoke of the "sharing of resources" between government and opposition. He meant, of course, oil -- the most contentious commodity in Sudanese politics today.
Sudan, which became an oil exporter in September 1999, has proven reserves of over one billion barrels of oil and crude output is expected to double to 400,000 barrels per day by the end of the year from the current 200,000. The SPLA accuses the government of deliberately depopulating oil-producing regions. In the past six months alone, the Sudanese authorities forcibly removed 100,000 people from the oil-producing area of Bentui in Bahr Al-Ghazal Province, southern Sudan.
"The government has to stop evicting the civilian population to make room for oil companies. The cease-fire is not only about stopping the fighting," Garang told Al-Ahram Weekly. More than 50 international humanitarian organisations and emergency relief agencies have launched a global campaign to freeze the activities of oil companies in Sudan.
On the eve of the IGAD summit, the SPLA announced that it had captured the strategic garrison town of Raja in Bahr Al-Ghazal Province. Some 2,000 Sudanese government troops were stationed in and around the town of 35,000 inhabitants, which commands access to oil-producing areas. The SPLA makes no bones of its aim to disrupt the flow of oil by destroying pipelines and oil installations. Garang insists that the Sudanese government be denied the opportunity to replenish its war chest with oil revenues extracted from southern Sudanese fields.
However, these are not the best of times for the SPLA. More to the point, the United States has tempered its traditional hostility to the Islamist Sudanese government. The SPLA's over-confidence concerning tacit US support could be tested by a variety of US policy surprises. On the one hand, oil firms are keen to explore in Sudan, and they have the full backing of a Texan president with international oil interests. However, Christian groups and African American civil rights leaders are vociferously demanding international sanctions against Sudan because of persistent reports of slavery and human rights abuses.
Dramatic changes are afoot in Washington's policy towards Sudan. Everyone is agreed that Washington has put Sudan near the top of its African agenda. What is still unclear is how Washington will make its presence felt more tangibly in Sudanese affairs. The burning question is whether Washington's new Sudan policy is going to be reconciliatory and working towards a political settlement of the Sudanese crisis, or will Washington assist the SPLA and other armed opposition forces to forcibly topple the Sudanese government?
There are some clues to an answer. Significantly, US Secretary of State Colin Powell declined to meet Garang during his visit to Kenya and Uganda last week. Ominously, Powell declared there was "no greater tragedy on the face of the Earth today" than the Sudanese crisis. Moreover, Powell recently asked Chester Crocker, assistant secretary of state for African affairs under former US President Ronald Reagan, and author of Reagan's "constructive engagement" policy with apartheid South Africa, to devise a new Sudan policy.
Another of Reagan's hangers-on, Eliott Abrams, the former president's assistant secretary of state for human rights, is shortly to join the powerful and influential US National Security Council. Abrams is known for his vehement opposition to lifting unilateral US trade sanctions against Sudan. He wants to ban foreign oil companies with investments in Sudan from raising money in US capital markets. It is unclear which interest group, the oil men or the anti-Islamists, will carry the day in Washington. There is a good deal of confusion in both Sudanese government and opposition circles about what course Washington will ultimately take.
The Sudanese Ambassador to Egypt, Ahmed Abdel-Halim, told the Weekly: "The US can't talk about peace in Sudan and support the SPLA simultaneously." Abdel-Halim stressed that Khartoum was keen on an "objective dialogue" with Washington. He also noted that a concerted campaign to impose comprehensive sanctions on Sudan was under way, but that it was having no tangible impact. "Despite these rabid attempts, especially from some lobby groups in the US, Canada and other Western countries, the flow of companies interested in oil, mining and agriculture in Sudan is continually rising," he said.
Not to be outdone, former Sudanese Prime Minister Sadig Al-Mahdi, leader of the Umma Party, Sudan's largest, flew to Washington this week. Al-Mahdi pulled out of the National Democratic Alliance -- the opposition umbrella group which includes the SPLA -- a couple of years ago, but his party still has a discernible popular following in northern and western Sudan. He hopes to garner support in the US for a stronger mediating role for Washington in ending the longest-running war in Africa.
Sudan lies at the heart of a human tragedy which is spreading out of control and threatens to embroil the entire East African region. The Sudanese political impasse does not sit well with other IGAD member states. But IGAD has neither the clout nor the credibility to clinch a Sudanese peace deal. Washington holds all the key cards.
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