Problems with Current U.S. Policy.

U.S. relations with Sudan have careened between extremes since the country moved out of the tightly circumscribed orbit of Britain and Egypt, which jointly administered it through the colonial era. When General Nimeiri seized power in 1969--touting a program of Nasserite, pro-Soviet nationalism--Sudan went onto the U.S. enemies list. Then, after an abortive Communist Party coup in 1971, Nimeiri veered right-ward. In 1977, after a pro-Soviet coup in neighboring Ethiopia, Washington's chief African ally since the 1940s, the U.S. carried out a massive military buildup in Sudan.

The country soon became the pivotal state in an anti-Soviet bloc that included Somalia and Kenya. By the early 1980s, Sudan was the sixth largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the world. Bilateral economic aid also soared. At the same time, strains within the country intensified, as the corrupt military government, bloated with new U.S. arms, sought to impose its will on the oil-rich south. During the four years of faction-ridden civilian rule after Nimeiri's ouster, U.S. policy drifted as Sudan slid into chaos, setting the stage for the June 1989 coup. Soon after the NIF seizure of power, the U.S. ended bilateral aid.

However, bridging funds from Afghan war veteran Osama bin Laden and support from Iran enabled the regime to make massive arms purchases. At the same time, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the 1991 overthrow of the Ethiopian government--both of which supported the SPLM--weakened the rebels, who went through a bitter split during 1992-94. Khartoum exploited this by arming rebel splinter groups and tribal "militias," but this was not enough to produce a victory for the government.

Meanwhile the NIF's tilt toward Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War and its growing support for Islamist guerrillas operating in the region and as far away as the Middle East and West Africa triggered breaks with the U.S. and with its immediate neighbors. The Clinton administration prohibited U.S. economic investment, increased anti-Sudan moves in the UN, and isolated Sudan as a "rogue" state. After Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Uganda began to provide military and logistical support to the SPLM, which went back on the offensive, Washington also pledged $20 million in "non-lethal" military aid to these "frontline" states.

The NDA's 1996 launch of military operations in eastern and northern Sudan turned a regional conflict into a countrywide revolt. This threw Washington into a quandary. U.S. policy was strongly influenced by Cairo, which feared that a radical change in Sudan--a north-south split, a Somalia-style breakup, the ascension to power of a non-Arab government--could threaten Egypt's access to the Nile headwaters. Yet Cairo aimed only to alter Khartoum's external relations and curb its support for Islamist "terrorists," not to change the structure of the country. Now, Egypt and the U.S. confronted a multiethnic, national opposition that had no interest in wringing concessions from the NIF--only in overthrowing it.

Last year Egypt and Libya mounted a "peace initiative" designed to defuse the conflict while leaving the present government in place with minor modifications, including a power sharing arrangement with al-Mahdi. This was intended to preempt an African-led peace initiative for more substantive changes under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD), which Washington supported. With the 1998 outbreak of war between two of IGAD's most active members--Eritrea and Ethiopia, both of which sought tactical rapprochements with Khartoum--the IGAD initiative faltered, and U.S. efforts to contain Sudan from this direction hit a wall.

Meanwhile, the strongest lobbies impacting Sudan policy inside the U.S. have been private aid agencies and antislavery groups operating in famine and war-affected areas of the south. Sadly, the advocacy that results from their limited focus--particularly on the issue of slavery--often exacerbates the crisis.

Slavery was formally abolished in Sudan in 1924, but remnants persisted, as Arab tribes in central Sudan raided cattle-herding southern communities for booty and captives. This practice was revived in the 1980s, when then-Prime Minister al-Mahdi armed militias in a bid to undercut the rising revolt in the south. Slavery gained momentum under the NIF regime, which invested heavily in the expansion of these militias, whose raiding parties seized civilian men, women, and children and kept them in servitude.

Rather than ameliorating slavery, the advent of highly publicized "slave redemption" schemes by evangelical Christian organizations--led by the Swiss-based Christian Solidarity International--has actually heightened ethnic and religious tensions and made slavery more profitable for the captors. For this reason, UN organizations, aid agencies, and many human rights groups criticize these "buybacks" as doing more harm than good. They argue that only disarming the militias and negotiating durable peace agreements among the conflicting communities can solve this problem.

In the face of this growing complexity, the U.S. has opted for random actions to pressure the regime, such as the August 1998 bombing of the Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum in reprisal for Sudan's harboring of terrorists suspected of bombing U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. At a meeting in Kampala, Uganda, in 1999, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright also promised SPLM and NDA leaders military help. The rebels say they've heard nothing since, though the pledge was reported in international media. A U.S. offer to provide large-scale food aid directly to the rebels, leaked to the press in late 1999, also never materialized.

Key Problems

* U.S. policy toward Sudan has veered between extremes for decades, driven largely by shifting geopolitical imperatives.

* Random punitive actions aimed at the regime have backfired, strengthening its nationalist credentials rather than weakening it.

* The rising influence of right-wing Christian evangelicals impacting U.S. foreign policy could exacerbate ethnic and religious divisions and obstruct peace.

Dan Connell <[e-mail]> is an independent writer/consultant in Gloucester, Massachusetts.