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Vol. 71/No. 23      June 11, 2007

 
U.S. gov’t tightens sanctions on Sudan
(front page)
 
BY SAM MANUEL  
WASHINGTON, May 30—President George Bush announced tighter U.S. sanctions against Sudan yesterday. He also said Washington will press the United Nations Security Council to impose similar sanctions, an expanded arms embargo, and establish a “no fly zone” against the Sudanese military over the country’s Darfur region.

The British government has said it will back Washington’s effort. But Moscow and Beijing, which are also members of the Security Council, have cautioned against it.

The new sanctions add 30 Sudanese-owned or -controlled companies to a list of 130 businesses already banned from access to the U.S. financial system. Three Sudanese individuals—two senior Sudanese government officials, and a rebel leader—will join a list of four people already under a U.S. travel ban and other restrictions.

In addition, Washington and London demand that Khartoum allow deployment of a 20,000-strong UN/African Union (AU) “peacekeeping” force into Darfur. Up to 7,000 AU troops are already there and 10,000 UN troops are in southern Sudan.

Washington and London have taken advantage of Khartoum’s brutal repression of non-Arabic-speaking and non-Muslim’s among Darfur’s population to justify the imperialist-led intervention. According to the UN, some 300,000 people have been killed and 2 million displaced since a revolt led by the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement began in the region in 2003. The peoples in Darfur face widespread discrimination.

Sudan has faced some form of U.S. sanctions since 1997. During the 1991 U.S.-led war against Iraq, the Sudanese government sided with Baghdad and voted in the United Nations to condemn Israeli aggression against the Palestinians. It had close ties with the Libyan government, considered at the time a “terrorist” state by Washington.

In 1993 the Clinton administration declared Sudan a “terrorist state,” claiming Khartoum allowed Palestinian and Lebanese guerrillas to train on its soil.

Following the 1998 car bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Washington struck an industrial area of Khartoum with dozens of cruise missiles. A supposed “chemical weapons” factory destroyed by the missiles turned out to be a pharmaceutical plant.
 
 
Related articles:
Lift all sanctions against Sudan  
 
 
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