Sudan’s attempts to normalise relations with its neighbours are being scuppered by the US, which aims to isolate the ‘Islamic rogue state’ and build up support for the Christian separatists led by colonel John Garang.
Colonel John Garang, leader of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), which has been fighting Khartoum for almost two decades to establish a separate state in the south of the country, has apparently secured US backing for his programme, if the high-level reception and the funding he received during his recent visit to Washington is anything to go by...
To the chagrin of Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir, there is growing evidence to suggest that it makes little difference (perhaps none) in Washington whether Khartoum stands with or against the US-led “war on terrorism.”
John Danforth, the US president’s peace envoy to Sudan, arrived in Khartoum on November 12 with four proposals that favour the southern warlords and seem to be designed for partition of the country rather than for the peace his mission is supposed to be working for.
Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s must have winced earlier this month when he heard that George W Bush, his American counterpart, has decided to extend by another year unilateral US sanctions against Sudan.
The Sudanese government’s determination to mend relations with Washington and its decision to jump on the “war on terrorism” bandwagon have brought noisy demonstrators onto the streets of Khartoum, the capital of the Sudan.
Sudan is cosying up to Uncle Sam to the extent of providing the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with information on Osama bin Ladin, and offering Washington bases on its own territory to be used as airfields during the ‘war against terrorism’, according to reports citing American sources in Khartoum.
The Sudanese mediation game is beginning to look more like the Middle East ‘peace process’, now that president George W. Bush has appointed a ‘peace envoy’ to bring “sanity and compassion” to a land ravaged by decades of civil war; there is even talk of the US being the only country that can bring ‘peace’ to southern Sudan.
Colonel Mu’ammar Qaddafi, Brother Leader of the Revolution in Libya, arrived in Khartoum on July 17 for two days of talks with president Omar Hassan al-Bashir in connection with the peace proposals sponsored jointly by his country and Egypt.
When, on May 3, US president George W. Bush said in a speech to the American Jewish committee that “we must turn the eyes of the world upon the atrocities in Sudan” but only as a “first step”, adding that “more will follow”, he knew what he was talking about.
The Sudanese government, which has been wooing Washington for months to escape US sanctions and diplomatic isolation, is now furious with the Bush administration because it has revealed its position on the civil war, siding completely and unequivocally with the spectacularly misnamed the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).
A Texan politician with oil interests and extensive links with both multinationals and Church groups in the US becomes president in Washington...
Always smooth, Dr Hassan al-Turabi, leader of Sudan’s opposition Popular National Congress (PNC), has been honing his skills lately. But the latest rabbit he pulled out of his turban, the alliance the PNC forged with the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), has landed him and scores of his supporters in prison.
In a new twist to the latest US efforts to internationalise the Sudanese conflict and force the secession of the country’s so-called ‘Christian South’, American aid-agencies have accused Washington of prolonging Africa’s longest and costliest war.
Yemen, in a move reflecting its new close diplomatic and military ties with the US, is offering to mediate between Eritrea and Ethiopia in their territorial dispute, which is threatening to unravel the US’s carefully constructed anti-Sudan alliance in the Horn of Africa
The embattled government of general Omar Hasan al-Bashir cannot but heave a sigh of relief as the escalating border dispute between neighbouring Ethiopia and Eritrea throws into a spin US regional plans for the destabilization of Sudan, and as Uganda, a vital element in those plans, begins to see advantages in settling its quarrel with Khartoum.
Sudan has been dogged in the past eight years by Christian and western inspired propaganda that the Islamically-oriented regime of president Omar Hasan-al-Bashir sponsors not only international terrorism but also slavery...
Having deliberately wrecked the chances of a negotiated settlement of the Sudanese civil war, the US has set the stage for a military assault on Sudan by its Christian-led neighbours, as the recent tour of the region by American secretary of State Madeleine Albright...
Third June last year a group of British experts on Sudan met in London to discuss Sudan -’Sudan in crisis’. Taking part in the closed meeting were officials from the ministries of defence and trade and industry, from the British aid agency, ODA (Overseas Development Administration)...
What do Indonesia, Nigeria and Sudan have in common? They are huge countries, in terms of area and population, which are overwhelmingly Muslim but with Christian minorities and ethnic diversity that the west uses to destabilize these potentially rich and powerful States.
