The Bush administration is preparing to impose economic sanctions against Sudan following the refusal of President Omar al-Bashir to allow deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur.
Andrew Natsios, President Bush’s envoy to Sudan, said Wednesday that pending final approval by the president, Sudanese companies will be subject to sanctions and international transactions involving U.S. dollars will be blocked.
“I don’t want to presuppose the decision that the president is going to make,” he said. “It is pretty clear the president is angrier than anyone else. He gets very upset when he talks to me about the situation. He gets very frustrated by it.”
Natsios spoke during a telephone conference call in which officials from humanitarian groups and other non-governmental organizations participated.
Al-Bashir made known his disapproval of the U.N. plan in a letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, details of which emerged earlier this week. Under the plan a hybrid U.N.-African Union force totaling 22,000 military and civilian personnel are to be deployed in Darfur.
“I was stunned by the letter,” Natsios said, adding it was practically an invitation by al-Bashir saying, “Sanction us, come after us.”
Over the past four years, some 200,000 Darfurians have died and more than 2.5 million displaced from their homes because of civil strife. The United States has said the situation there is “genocidal,” attributing most of the blame to the Sudanese government and government-backed militias. Scenes of the suffering in the region have produced an outpouring of concern and demands for international action to protect the victims and provide relief for them.
Natsios said the sanctions will be imposed unilaterally but the U.S. will seek support from others in the international community. “The sanctions will be much more powerful if other nations join us,” he said.
The humanitarian situation is so grave that some members of Congress, among others, have recommended U.S. military action in Darfur. But that idea appears to have scant support because some Islamic countries would see it as another American power grab in another Muslim country.
Darfur has been the scene of repeated civil strife over the years, but nothing on the scale of the past four years. The violence was triggered initially when black tribes rebelled against what they perceived to be neglect by the Khartoum government.
The rebellion was met with fierce resistance by the government and loyal militias, with innocent civilians enduring most of the suffering.