Revisiting Sudanese-American Relationship: Deeds Speak Louder Than Words

Referring to the remarks made Tibor Nagy, the U.S. Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, in Khartoum early last week, in which he attributed Sudan’s inability to access international financial support and loans to its heavy external debt arrears, issuing thereby by one way or another, a clean slate to the otherwise, devastating and evident impacts of his country’s protracted designation of Sudan as a State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST).

However, taking account of the realities on the ground, such a statement is feared to be yet another blurring and twisting of truth, which hardly holds water.

Many concerned international bodies and think tanks such as the Brussels based, International Crisis Group, which in its report issued on October 28, 2019, entitled “Safeguarding Sudan’s Revolution”, has urged the U.S. to move expeditiously to rescind Sudan’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, which “forbids international financial institutions from issuing loans and impedes other foreign investment”.

According to the independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization, committed to preventing and resolving deadly conflicts, “lifting the designation would help the newly appointed, civilian-led cabinet by giving it an early win and would be an important step toward Sudan’s qualifying for debt relief”.

Historically speaking, the debt distress in many poor countries has been caused mainly by global crises, not necessarily of their making. In Sudan for instance, the significant increase in oil prices in the 1970s and early 1980s , was among the major factors; the fall of Sudan in the vicious debt trap, can be traced back to the failure of Western investments during the era of former President Nimeiri, to effectively support the growth of the national economy, That failure has automatically led to a decline in economic performance in its agricultural, industrial and service sectors, forcing the regime into a cycle of re-borrowing of yet more loans, especially from the World Bank. Accordingly debts rose and reached $ 5 billion in the early 1980s.

As a matter of fact, American economic harassment against Sudan, started pretty early in 1986, at the early stages of the second Democratic and civilian-led era; at the time Sudan was looking forward to seeing western capitals, that have been ranting about democracy day and night, flocking together in support and to stabilize the pillars of its nascent democratic process , in the wake of Sudan’s popular revolution that bravely succeeded in uprooting one of the most tyrannical dictatorship in the region. However, Sudan was instead declared, as country ineligible to receive international loans and grants, under the guise of its failure to pay an accumulated debts to U.S. More annoyingly, it wasn’t long before Sudan was even completely barred of American aid (USAID) by1988.

Ironically enough, history tends to repeat itself, currently at times when the transitional government is painstakingly struggling to manage a crippling and vulnerable economy, chasing forward, backward, inward and outward, to provide basic and simplest necessities of life; food, fuel and medicine, to a wide cross-section of poverty stricken population, the US seems to be preoccupied with totally different agenda.

Mr. Nagy the US senior diplomat picked the worst possible time, to echo Washington’s insistence, that Sudan is bound to pay compensations of over seven billion dollars, for victims of terror attacks, as a priority for the U.S. government. Terror attacks, the substance and validity of which, remains legally and ethically controversial and questionable, leave alone its timing. More importantly, however, the presumed prime suspects in the said attacks, from the members of the defunct regime, are currently held behind bars in Khartoum.

Mr. Nagy kept on sending mixing signals “We are working with international partners to make sure Sudan can succeed, because we see Sudan now as transforming into a country which will promote stability in the region”. In fact many of such pronouncements made by different U.S. officials, in the aftermath of the Sudanese December’s Revolution, highlights in a way or another, the phenomenon of inconsistency between words and deeds, which rather characterized American policy towards the Sudan. Such duality remind us of a widely common Egyptian proverb which states “whilst listening to you pleases me, however, seeing your very subsequent deeds, baffles me”

It's shame that all international appeals to the US to help the transition in Sudan, to meet its uphill challenges, mainly by putting an end to Sudan’s designation as country sponsoring terrorism, were simply disregarded. Such calls were expressed repeatedly loud and clear, by many of the world leaders, including Mr. António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the international organization; do still fall in deaf ears in Washington.

In the aforementioned report, the International Crisis Group for instance, put it more clearly “The benefits of a successful transition are potentially enormous, and the cost of state failure would be vast. Until recently, it was hard to imagine a moment of opportunity like the country now faces. It would be a mistake to squander it.”

Debt trap by definition is a situation in which it becomes difficult or impossible for a borrower to pay back money that they have borrowed, and usually these traps are caused by high interest rates and short terms. Sudan was not an exception; typically high interest payments prevent repayment of the principal debts, it doubled to 20 billion dollars in the year 2000 then to 45 billion dollars in the year 2013 to 54 billion dollars in 2019, of which only 17 billion are the original debt and 37 billion dollars are interest and penalties due to the inability to pay debts on time.

The American politically- motivated positions kept on depriving Sudan of many economic aid and support programs over the years. Strikingly, despite meeting all the technical requirements, Sudan – a country already traumatized by protracted civil conflicts and burdened with millions of refugees from neighboring countries - has been singled out and remained the only country from the group of heavily indebted countries (LDCs), that has not yet benefited from the global initiative of debt relief schemes (HIPIC ).

The HIPC the joint IMF–World Bank initiative launched in 1996, as a comprehensive approach to debt reduction, is mainly designed to ensure that no poor country faces a debt burden it cannot manage. In 1999, however, a comprehensive review of the Initiative allowed the Fund to provide faster, deeper, and broader debt relief and strengthened the links between debt relief, poverty reduction, and social policies. Having stated that, the deliberately deprivation the Sudan of all these privileges, may partly explain why Sudan remains one of the few countries, that failed to make considerable achievements vis-à-vis the SDGs.

Despite around 38 countries or more in Africa and Latin America, were reaping the dividends of the HIPIC initiative; relying on fresh aid-inflow, grants and concessionary loans, to achieve high growth rates, stability and attracting foreign investments, Sudan to this day, for no other than political reasons, continued to be discriminated against, especially when it comes to debt relief.

According to some economic estimates, the total direct economic losses of Sudan due to protracted US sanctions have exceeded 500 billion dollars, whereas, the indirect losses incurred by Sudan as a result of the sanctions are estimated at 4 billion dollars annually at a minimum.

In a further discrepancy, Tibor Nagy, in the very same interview in Khartoum, while urging Khartoum to take advantage of 2017 lifting of economic embargo on Sudan, to freely deal with international financial institutions, he mentions elsewhere in the course of his statement that U.S. laws order its representatives at the World Bank & IMF to vote against any loans or debt relief to countries it proclaimed as states that sponsor terrorism.

Mixed signals and ambiguity can be traced elsewhere; After the famous saga of the US virulent campaign against the French bank BNP in 1914, in which the US sanctions warnings, were fully picked by other banks elsewhere, adding insult to injury, to Sudan’s limited international banking transactions. However in April 2018, the US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing, Marshall Billingslea, in a diametrically different position, pointed out in Khartoum that the US has informed countries of the region that restrictions on Sudanese banks have been lifted, and that Washington is ready to move forward to normalize its ties with Khartoum.

But long it could not be till the U.S. Treasury Department declared in September 2019, that the London-based commercial bank BACB was made to pay $4 million in 2019, to settle allegations that it has circumvented or violated U.S. sanctions on Sudan.

Interestingly, the US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs was particularly pertinent, in the analogy he made, comparing the process of Sudan’s removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, to the “peeling of onions." It truly insinuates to the situation in which the closer you think you are to the final solution, the more bumps and hurdles are placed en route. It’s not a secret that Washington, as it moves according to its plans that serve its national security, does not hesitate to wave the carrot to achieve a temporary and interim goal before lifting the stick again.

Sudan has experienced that in different occasions, for example, but not limited to, during the final stages of the Nivasha Peace Talks in early 2005, which ultimately paved the way for the peaceful secession of South Sudan, the Republican administration during the era of former President George W. Bush, waved to Sudan with the carrot of debt forgiveness and the lifting of sanctions, on the condition that Sudan accepts the result of the referendum. However, no sooner, Washington reneged on its promises, setting instead more political conditions and complications.

Again, and perhaps in the same way; during the Abuja negotiations to resolve the Darfur issue in 2006, the U.S. former Envoy to Sudan, Robert Zoellick, signaled the same promises, but upon signing the peace deal, the very promises went up in smoke. It is regrettable that American promises to Sudan tended to be like a mirage in sandy deserts, which the man parched with thirst mistaken for water; until when he comes up to it, he finds it to be nothing.

by the same token, by the time the new Sudanese leadership is fully engaged in strenuous diplomatic efforts to mend fences with the US, and for the removal of Sudan from the list of SST, in an interaction with positive signals albeit few, from the US administration here and there, the Trump administration - out of the blue - making public this week, the addition of Sudan among other five countries, to its list of nations facing stringent travel restrictions, arguing that all of these countries pose threats to US national security!