Sudan removed from arms list
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration moved one step closer Tuesday to lifting an arms embargo against Sudan, even as it decried the government’s role in blocking relief efforts for a huge humanitarian crisis sparked by continuing Sudanese military attacks against civilians.
Secretary of State Colin Powell removed Sudan from a list of countries that cannot receive U.S. arms because they have failed to cooperate with the U.S. on international terrorism. He formally notified Congress of that decision with the publication Tuesday morning of a notice in the Federal Register.
Sudan’s removal from the so-called noncooperative list moves it closer to having the arms embargo lifted, though that cannot happen until its name also is taken off of a separate list of state sponsors of terrorism. The U.S. government maintains the two lists to pressure nations that either maintain formal ties with terrorist groups or do not do enough to help the U.S. go after them.
Later Tuesday, Powell did not mention his action on Sudan as he promised a group of development and relief workers that the administration “will not normalize relations” with the Sudanese military dictatorship until it addresses the humanitarian crisis unfolding in a region of western Sudan known as Darfur.
Speaking to InterAction, an umbrella organization for nongovernmental organizations, Powell said, “We will not reduce our pressure on the government of Sudan regarding Darfur.” He called the situation “one of the most serious crises on the face of the earth now.”
An estimated 1 million people from Darfur are homeless after fleeing attacks on their towns and villages, either by government forces or by government-backed militiamen, according to reports by the State Department, the United Nations and human-rights groups.
An estimated 10,000 people have been killed in the attacks, which have been directed primarily at three ethnic groups. Human Rights Watch recently called it a campaign of ethnic cleansing because new ethnic groups are being moved into areas abandoned by fleeing civilians.
Relief workers who have interviewed refugees, mostly those who fled across the Sudanese border into Chad, report that militiamen armed with rocket launchers and assault rifles have been sweeping across the region on horseback, burning towns, destroying crops and raping and killing civilians. Attacks by the Arab militiamen, known as the janjaweed, are often coordinated with government forces, including through air raids that precede the ground assaults, according to Human Rights Watch.
USAID, the relief and development arm of the State Department, reports that the Sudanese government is blocking nearly all humanitarian access to the region.
Jemera Rone, a Human Rights Watch official who has worked on the Darfur situation, said it was “just appalling” for the U.S. government “to make any gesture toward Sudan like this.” She also predicted the Sudanese government would hold it out to critics as “some sort of U.S. stamp of approval” for its actions.