What's Missing from the Sudan Sanctions
By Douglas Farah
The Treasury Department sanctions on Sudan announced today are an important and long-overdue effort to ratchet up pressure on the Islamist government of that nation to halt the genocide aimed at cleansing the non-Muslim population from Darfur.
The sanctions, part of the much-anticipated and delayed Plan B, target three individuals and 30 companies, cutting them off from doing business through the U.S. banking system and making it illegal for U.S. companies or individuals to do any business with them.
The sanctions were promised last month, only to be postponed at the request of the United Nations, which, despite Sudan's years of reneging on promises, thought the Bashir regime might actually keep its word and stop the murder.
But there is one huge hole in the sanctions regime announced today by President Bush. It is that none of the 30 companies targeted by OFAC in the Treasury Department touch businesses used by the Chinese government to prop up the murderous Sudanese regime.
That is part of the real economic underpinning of the regime, abetted by a Chinese government that cannot see any rationale for imposing conditions on its investments, especially in the energy sector. As a result, China aid and investment has become one of the most corrosive forces on the African continent, a free and almost unlimited supplies of cash for dictators, thugs and murderous regimes. My full blog is here.
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