SST And America’s Pound Of Flesh
31 May, 2020
Prime Minister Hamdok meets with House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (AFP)
It was attributed to the defunct Ingaz regime the saying that whenever Sudan was about to score a goal in the long running saga of removing its name from the list of States Sponsoring Terrorism (SST), the Americans move the goal posts.
Now ten months after the new transitional government was installed a new reality is emerging that the Americans are not only moving the goal posts, but insist on having their pound of flesh from the Sudanese people.
Technically speaking the basic requirements to delist a country from SST requires a commitment from that country not to engage in any terrorist activity, not to support any such activity financially or logistically. Following a 6-month review by the administration, a delisting decision will be made and sent to the congress for endorsement.
The first part of not engaging in any terrorist activities was made and carried out by the Ingaz regime, who went step further and became partner in fighting terror as the record of the annual state departments reports show.
But because of host of other issues related to Sudan’s domestic problems of peace, access to humanitarian aid and compensating the victims of bombings that Sudan was accused of, all became part of any deal to delist Sudan.
Given the fact that in October 2018 Washington concluded a deal with a time frame to delist Sudan, it was clear then all issues have been ironed out and whenever Sudan carries its part of the deal including settling victims’ issues, the delisting would take place. To demonstrate seriousness a timetable of regular meetings alternating between Washington and Khartoum had been worked out.
Then came the popular uprising against the Ingaz regime and earlier last year Washington announced that it has suspended its dialogue with Khartoum, a move was hailed at the time as supportive of the uprising.
But despite the visit by Prime Minister Dr. Abdalla Hamdok to Washington last December with the main goal of moving the issue of delisting forward and the continuous exchanges with US officials, but there is no official public commitment to any specific timetable yet, only nice words about the new turnaround of the Sudanese-American bilateral relations.
What many Sudanese find puzzling is that Washington did not appreciate the peaceful uprising that toppled the Ingaz regime. That regime did not only provided sanctuary once to Osama bin Laden and some logistics to groups that have targeted American interests as shown in the cases of USS Cole and the bombings of the two US embassies in Nairobi and Dar esSalam, but its threats have reached even Washington itself.
According to Richard Miniter in his book Losing Bin Laden: How Bill Clinton’s Failures Unleashed Global Terror some terrorist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and supported by Khartoum were threatening to assassinate then National Security Advisor Tony Lake and that intelligence service took those threats seriously to the extent that they moved Lake and his family around safe houses in Washington.
Forget about supporting human rights or democratic transformation. It is the appreciation of the popular regime in removing such regime that led many Sudanese to expect a better, more understanding of their plight and the fact that they were the first victims of that regime. Instead of being rewarded or at least ease or speed up the delisting process there is clear feet dragging coupled with insistence to have the pound of flesh to unhook the country from that SST.
And in view of the vagueness surrounding the whole delisting issue, it will not be a surprise to hear that part of the conditions could be to accept a UN force under Chapter Seven or normalize relations with Israel. The game of moving the posts continues to go on.
Three years ago the Atlantic Council issued a report on US-Sudanese relations prepared mainly by a number of ambassadors who worked in Sudan. Two significant recommendations, among others, in that report attract attention. That Washington should look at Sudan on its own and not through the prism of South Sudan and that the US needs to engage with the young generation of Sudanese as it has been absent from the scene for decades.
It is this young generation, who spearheaded the uprising that toppled the Ingaz regime and see the terrorist issue as a barrier to even getting help to fight the Corona virus.
If US wants to invest in the country’s future it needs to engage positively.
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