Sudan hopes to follow the path of Libya

The US's removal of Libya from its list of state sponsors of terrorism today and its restoration of full diplomatic relations with Tripoli represents the culmination of Muammar al-Ghaddafi's efforts since late 2003 to curry favor with the US, renounce all ties to terrorism, and obtain all the perks that friendly relations with the world's superpower (and largest oil consumer) bring with them. This is of course interesting in its own right, but for our purposes, I am sure that Omar Hassan al-Bashir is taking note of the successful road paved by Ghaddafi, the Colonel whose experience in human rights abuses, support for terrorism, and general manipulation of (what he views as) his sphere of influence in East Africa dates back to the days of Bashir's infancy. If a mere three years committment to "fighting terrorism" - coupled with all of the information he has been able to provide US intelligence agencies - can undo 35 years of brazen rogue actions, then, Bashir must be thinking, the almost ten years during which Sudan has been trying to wipe off the stain left by its accomodation of Osama bin Laden in the mid-90's surely will pay off soon. Khartoum has been campaigning actively to repeal the state sanctions levied against it since 1999 and remove its name as a "state sponsor of terrorism" by portraying itself as a friend of the United States and a willing participant in the "war on terror." That a country could attempt to pass itself off as accomodating to the West when its head of state ominously forecast just a few months ago that a portion of his country would become a "graveyard" for foreign troops if they entered his territory is ironic to the point of contradiction. Nonetheless, there are signs that Bashir's two-faced policy - genocide, utter disregard for human rights, and vicious and crafty power consolidation on one side, and smiling appeasement, lies about good intentions, and signing pieces of paper (the Naivasha accords for peace in the South in January 2005 and the recent DPA in Abuja last week) that it has no inclination to uphold on theh other - is satisfying the United States. The degree to which the US is contended by the mere formality and words of DPA, or to what extent it actually intends to pursue viable assurances of actual peace on the ground - will become clear in the following weeks and months, but there are other signs that the US has made other priorities besides taking Khartoum to task for its genocidal policies. For one, the CIA's willingness to host genocidal architect and head of Sudanese security forces Salah Abdallah Gosh belies any commitment to reprimand genocidaires over the countervailing interest of securing terrorism intelligence and cooperation. Perhaps even more appallingly, in October 2005, the US upgraded Sudan's international slavery status to Tier 2, a level that includes countries like Switzerland (see http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=55098), an unacceptable concession given the recent predominance of enslavement as an institutionalized practice of war in southern Sudan and its continued existence today. Sudan has been actively cultivating the strengthened ties that such steps entail, as evidenced by its attempt late last year to skirt regulations and hire Robert Cabelly, a notorious former State Department employee, as a lobbyist to improve Sudan's image in the US (an effort that created such a disgusting taste in people's mouths that legislative and popular pressure, the former led by, among others, Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia (see http://www.house.gov/wolf/news/2005/10-17-Sudan.html), and the latter by the Genocide Intervention Network (see http://www.genocideintervention.net/about/press/releases/2006/02/08/sudan-lobbyist-quits/)), and by its million dollar payment for an 8 page advertisement in the New York Times heralding the prospects of investing in Sudan. This gets at the real source of Sudan's interest in cooperating in the "war on terror;" it is seeking eager investors for abundant, recently discovered and as yet untapped, oil reserves (often in areas, such as the Nuba Mountains region, potentially Darfur, and for strategic reasons in the South and East, where Khartoum has forced local inhabitants off the land to ensure that the (blood) spoils flow directly to their pockets and are not distributed equitably. The attempt to resist these devilish calls to participate in Khartoum's genocidal clockwork, and for American organizations to divest from businesses fuelling the regime, is of course undermined when countries like China unreservedly exploit Sudan's oil resources.