Ahead of a July 12 deadline for Sudan sanctions relief, U.S. Reps. Randy Hultgren (R-IL) and Tom Rooney (R-FL) led a bipartisan call on Wednesday for the Trump administration to delay lifting sanctions.
President Barack Obama signed an executive order in January that temporarily suspended sanctions against Sudan for the first time in 20 years. In a letter to President Donald Trump, the lawmakers called for a delay of permanent sanctions relief until the State Department is fully staffed and the National Security Council appoint a special envoy for Sudan and South Sudan.
Hultgren and U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), co-chairs of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, authored the letter along with Rooney and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA).
“At our April Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hearing on Sudan and sanctions, we heard first-hand from experts who were troubled by the negative consequences that could follow by prematurely lifting sanctions on this repressive regime,” Hultgren said. “This bipartisan letter reaffirms congressional commitment to ensure Sudan improves its human rights record before the United States lifts sanctions.”
Rooney said he did not support the executive order when it was issued in January, and he doesn’t believe that the Sudanese government’s actions in the intervening months have warranted sanctions relief.
“The reality is that violence and displacement at the hands of government forces still persists in Sudan, and there has been no credible, widespread evidence of increased humanitarian access to the abused populations,” Rooney said.
The executive order required progress in five areas of engagement between the United States and Sudan, and the lawmakers wrote that they have concerns in three particular areas: cessation of hostilities, unimpeded humanitarian access to regions held by Sudan armed forces and counterterrorism cooperation.
“There has been substantial fighting in Darfur in recent months, including evidence of targeting of civilians by Sudanese armed forces and their affiliated militants, and, as expected, no humanitarian access has been granted to South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, and only limited access to Darfur,” the letter states.
“While the Sudanese government may seem cooperative on counterterrorism efforts, we believe they continue regularly scheduled support for violent non-state armed groups, like the former combatants of the Islamist group, Seleka, the Lord’s Resistance Army and other violent actors operating in northern and central Africa, the Middle East and neighboring countries,” the letter continued.
If the Trump administration allows sanctions relief to become permanent, the letter said, Sudan could expand its financial and logistical support to illegal armed groups across Africa.
“While we welcome stronger U.S. engagement with Sudan, relieving Sudan of sanctions — without having a new phase of engagement in place, along with new, targeted pressures — will not increase or leverage but weaken it while empowering a genocidal regime with additional capacity to acquire more military equipment, train more soldiers to commit more war crimes and further its support for groups like the ex-Seleka,” the letter states.
Delaying permanent sanctions relief, the lawmakers concluded, would ensure that proper personnel are in place to review Sudan’s compliance with the executive order.