[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE QUESTIONABLE CASE FOR EASING
SUDAN SANCTIONS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,
GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 26, 2017
__________
Serial No. 115-21
__________
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida BRAD SHERMAN, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas KAREN BASS, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina AMI BERA, California
MO BROOKS, Alabama LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
PAUL COOK, California TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
RON DeSANTIS, Florida ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
TED S. YOHO, Florida DINA TITUS, Nevada
ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois NORMA J. TORRES, California
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York BRADLEY SCOTT SCHNEIDER, Illinois
DANIEL M. DONOVAN, Jr., New York THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
Wisconsin TED LIEU, California
ANN WAGNER, Missouri
BRIAN J. MAST, Florida
FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
BRIAN K. FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
THOMAS A. GARRETT, Jr., Virginia
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and
International Organizations
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina KAREN BASS, California
DANIEL M. DONOVAN, Jr., New York AMI BERA, California
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
Wisconsin THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York
THOMAS A. GARRETT, Jr., Virginia
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
The Honorable Princeton N. Lyman, senior advisor to the
president, United States Institute of Peace.................... 5
Mr. Brad Brooks-Rubin, policy director, The Sentry............... 13
Mr. David Dettoni, senior advisor, Sudan Relief Fund............. 28
Mr. Mohamed Abubakr, president, The African Middle Eastern
Leadership Project............................................. 41
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Princeton N. Lyman: Prepared statement............. 8
Mr. Brad Brooks-Rubin: Prepared statement........................ 16
Mr. David Dettoni: Prepared statement............................ 33
Mr. Mohamed Abubakr: Prepared statement.......................... 46
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 70
Hearing minutes.................................................. 71
The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress
from the State of New Jersey, and chairman, Subcommittee on
Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International
Organizations: Border Control from Hell report from the Enough
Project........................................................ 72
THE QUESTIONABLE CASE FOR EASING SUDAN SANCTIONS
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 2017
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health,
Global Human Rights, and International Organizations,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m., in
room 2200 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H.
Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Smith. The subcommittee will come to order.
Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome and thank you for
being here. We will be joined shortly by Ranking Member Bass
and other members of the subcommittee but we do have votes
scheduled for 3:15. There will be a brief break for that. Then
we will come back and conclude the testimonies from our
distinguished witnesses.
For most of the 37 years that I've been in Congress, the
House and Senate have been heavily involved in U.S. policy
toward Sudan. For example, I've chaired 12 congressional
hearings including two markups on Sudan since 1996.
My first hearing focused on child slavery in Sudan and we
actually had witnesses who had been slaves there and many
others--NGOs who spoke of this egregious practice--followed by
genocide hearings in the Darfur region, the persistent bombing
of people in the Nuba Mountains, the Khartoum government's
failure to abide by the 2011 agreement that created an
independent South Sudan, and, of course, myriad human rights
violations and the government's historic relationship with
terrorist groups.
The Sudanese Government has long sought sanctions relief in
Congress and successive administrations have considered such
relief as an incentive for Khartoum to reach and abide by
various peace agreements.
When I, joined by Greg Simpkins, our staff director,
personally met with President Bashir in Khartoum in August
2005, I spoke about Darfur refugees and visited two of the
refugee camps, Mukjar and Kalma camp, and spoke almost
exclusively during the 1\1/2\ hour plus meeting about ending
the violence. President Bashir, on the other hand, focused
almost exclusively on sanctions relief.
The Obama administration, in its last days in office in
January, purported to see justification in ending a sanctions
regime built over decades. In its announcement on the easing of
sanctions, the Obama administration declared positive actions
by the Sudanese Government in five key areas. One, rebuilding
counterterrorism cooperation; two, countering the threat of the
Lord's Resistance Army; three, ending negative involvement in
South Sudan's conflict--one of our witnesses will testify later
negative involvement was never really defined; four, sustaining
a unilateral cessation of hostilities in Darfur, South
Kordofan, and the Blue Nile provinces; and five, improving
humanitarian access throughout Sudan.
Missing in this list of positive developments are
improvements in the overall human rights situation in Sudan
including and especially sex and labor trafficking, and I would
remind our friends who are here at this hearing and my
colleagues, Sudan is a Tier 3 country on the State Department's
list. So it is an egregious violator and the narrative in the
report is an indictment, frankly, of both sex and labor
trafficking.
On religious freedom, Sudan continues to get a failing
grade as well from the State Department and has been
designated, again, a country of particular concern, or CPC,
which subjects it to other sanctions.
It is well within the government's ability to meet the
standards in the five areas mentioned and I would hope other
areas as well if it truly has the will to do so.
However, the Government of Sudan has never been known for
its respect of the rights of those not considered Arab, such as
Darfur residents, who were persecuted despite being largely
Muslim, or Sudanese who were not Muslim at all.
There was the case in 2014 of Meriam Ibrahim, a Christian
woman sentenced to death by a Sudanese court for refusing to
renounce her Christian faith. The court also ordered Ibrahim,
who married a Christian man in 2011 and was 8 months pregnant
when she was arrested and imprisoned, to receive 100 lashes for
adultery because her marriage was considered void under Sharia
law.
The couple had a child, a 20-month-old boy, who was also in
detention with her. Imagine that, a 20-month-old boy in
detention next to her, behind bars.
I joined with a group of House and Senate members including
one of our subcommittee's members, Congressman Meadows, in
working with elements of the Sudanese Government in the
eventually successful effort to vacate the sentence and allow
Ms. Ibrahim and her family to come to the United States.
That effort demonstrated and perhaps highlighted that there
are some elements of an internally divided Sudanese Government
with whom we can work with toward a better future for Sudan's
people.
But it also confirms that other elements are viciously
opposed to religious freedom and other fundamental human
rights.
The Obama administration's justification of its decision on
sanctions relief was done in the absence of any congressional
consultation and presented as a fait accompli.
It freed more than $30 million in unfrozen Sudanese assets,
allows commercial transactions in all sectors and singled a new
policy of more positively reviewing licenses to do business in
Sudan.
Commercial transactions prohibited as a result of the
Government of Sudan's designation as a State Sponsor of
Terrorism and Darfur-specific targeted actions are still in
place.
The entire sanctions easing process will be fully effective
6 months from the date of announcement, 6 months from January
13th.
Today's hearing is intended to begin asking the hard
questions concerning sanctions relief in order to facilitate
improved relations between the U.S. and Sudan if that will
benefit the people of Sudan.
Nevertheless, it's incumbent upon the U.S. Government to
honestly consider the conditions under which sanctions easing
is justified.
As stated earlier, the Government of Sudan is fully capable
of meeting the requirements outlined in the January Executive
order but we must be sure of the extent to which that
government is abiding by them and urge them to do more when
necessary.
Various reports indicate that attacks on civilians
including, sexual-based violence, continues by government and
allied forces.
Even though human rights improvement is not one of the
requirements in the Executive order by the former President, we
must not as a government ignore this aspect.
Successful administrations and Congresses have worked hard
to ensure that human rights concerns in Sudan are addressed.
And I would note parenthetically in this room back in the
year 2000 I presided as chairman of this committee over the
markup of the Sudan Peace Act.
This has been a totally comprehensive and bipartisan effort
over the years and, again, human rights is essential if we are
to truly help the people of Sudan. Now is not the time to
abandon decades of work, as I said, by men and women of good
will in our Government and many American citizens who have
supported our efforts.
We must also not forsake the welfare of the people of Sudan
for whom our efforts all this time have been made.
If the Government of Sudan is indeed willing to work with
us to fulfill the aspects mentioned in the executive order and
improve the state of human rights in Sudan, then for the sake
of the Sudanese people our Government should make the effort to
work with them.
But it will do the Government of Sudan and its people no
good if we turn a blind eye to ongoing problems and fail to
press for genuine improvements that are sustainable and that
can be clearly demonstrated.
As we await the appointment of the Trump administration
officials tasked with making the ultimate decisions on these
matters, the clock is ticking.
We have assembled a panel of private sector witnesses who
can give us an expert look, a picture, of the status and the
adherence to the requirements outlined in the Executive order
and human rights in Sudan. We do not have a witness that is
involved in humanitarian activities--we asked a few--because of
their concern, and it's a justified concern, had they spoken
out and done so with the candor that they would do that that
could limit their ability to do business and to provide
humanitarian relief inside of Sudan.
This hearing is only the beginning of Congress'
investigation into the matter. By July 12th, when the sanctions
easing regime fully comes to fruition or into effect, we hope
to know whether there is sufficient justification to approve
this action or whether more work needs to be done.
So this is a timely hearing, I believe. Again, we have a
panel of truly remarkable witnesses who are extremely
knowledgeable and for that I am very grateful for you being
here today.
And I'd like to yield to my friend and colleague, the
ranking member, Ms. Bass.
Okay. I'll yield to Mr. Garrett.
Mr. Garrett. Very briefly, Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to
take this opportunity to articulate my concurrence with your
assessment of the situation but also to note the progress
that's been made on a case that somewhat parallels that of
Meriam Ibrahim and that being the case of Czech pastor Petr
Jasek as well as two Sudanese counterparts, Hassan Abduraheem
and Abdulmonem Abdumawla, who are currently held in the
Republic of Sudan.
I will say that my experience working directly with Maowia
Khalid, the Ambassador of the Republic of Sudan to the United
States, has been extremely fruitful and that the Sudanese
representation here in Washington has been very forthcoming and
cooperative as it relates to our concerns in this instance and
we look forward to a positive outcome in those cases.
That notwithstanding, obviously, there are any number of
steps to be taken, moving forward. But I do believe and I want
to articulate that establishing good faith and positive working
relationships will actually help facilitate progress as Sudan
works to move itself back into the mainstream of nations.
And with that, I would yield back my time and thank you.
Mr. Smith. I would like to yield to Mr. Suozzi.
Mr. Suozzi. Mr. Chairman, I am just waiting to listen to
the witnesses. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Donovan.
Mr. Donovan. Thank you, Chairman. I just wanted to thank
you for conducting this important hearing. With votes coming
sometime within the next 20 minutes I'll yield my time for the
witnesses.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Donovan.
I would like to welcome our witnesses to the witness table,
beginning first our witness up will be Ambassador Princeton
Lyman. He's a senior advisor to the President of the United
States Institute of Peace.
He served as U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan
from 2011 to 2013. As Special Envoy, he led U.S. policy in
helping in the implementation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace
Agreement. His career in government has included assignments as
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, U.S.
Ambassador to Nigeria and South Africa and Assistant Secretary
of State for International Organizations.
He began his government career with USAID and served as its
director in Ethiopia. He has testified several times before
this subcommittee. We always are so glad to welcome him back
and to welcome his insights and his wisdom.
We will then hear from Mr. Brad Brooks-Rubin, who serves as
the policy director for The Sentry and as policy advisor to the
Enough Project. In this capacity, he helps to lead the efforts
of The Sentry to disrupt the corrupt networks that fund and
profit from genocide or other mass atrocities in Africa. From
2009 to 2013, Mr. Brooks-Rubin served as the Special Advisor
for Conflict Diamonds in the United States Department of State.
While there, he also contributed to the U.S. efforts
related to conflict minerals in eastern Congo, particularly in
the area of corporate due diligence.
Prior to joining the Department, he served as an Attorney-
Advisor in the Treasury Department's Office of the Chief
Counsel on Foreign Assets Control.
Then we will hear from Mr. David Dettoni, who is the
director of operations for the Sudan Relief Fund and the
managing director of TSA, a German-based organization, created
to assist the lives of the people of Africa, particularly the
people of Sudan and South Sudan.
Previously, he was director of operations and outreach at
the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and a
senior legislative assistant to Representative Frank Wolf. He
assisted Chairman Wolf in foreign policy, national security,
and global human rights initiatives and was co-staff director
of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus.
And then we will hear from Mr. Mohamed Abubakr, of the
African Middle Eastern Leadership Project. He's a human rights
activist with more than a decade of experience in the nonprofit
sector.
He has founded and served as director for multiple NGOs
focused on humanitarian relief, human rights, youth
empowerment, and peace programs across the Middle East and
Africa. He has been hosted by many universities to address
students on a variety of topics.
In 2016, he launched the African Middle Eastern Leadership
Project, or AMEL, the Arabic word for hope, a U.S.-based
nonprofit organization that seeks to empower young leaders from
the Middle East and Africa to build pluralistic societies.
Ambassador Lyman, please proceed.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE PRINCETON N. LYMAN, SENIOR ADVISOR
TO THE PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE
Ambassador Lyman. There we go. Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman, Ranking Member Karen Bass, other members of the
subcommittee.
This subcommittee has, over the years, been extraordinarily
attentive to the issues of Sudan and South Sudan. For those of
us who work on it, we are very grateful and I know you've had a
major impact on the thinking and the policies in this area.
Mr. Chairman, nothing is easy when it comes to policy for
Sudan. It's not a nice government. It's a government that has
committed major violations of human rights. It restricts free
speech and assembly. It has resisted democratic reforms. It has
carried out actions against its own people in many parts of the
country. Indeed, since its independence it has been ruled in a
system by various governments where power and wealth is at the
center and the outlying areas are marginalized either through
warfare, co-optation or both.
And at the same time, Sudan is a major country in this
area--not just in the Horn, but in northern Africa, in the
Sahel and in spite of the sanctions over many years and over
attempts by rebels to overthrow it, this government is not
collapsing. The future of Sudan is very much in its hands.
So how do we reconcile these things? How do we reconcile
and deal with this almost dilemma? The fundamental problem, in
my view, Mr. Chairman, is that this government has to at some
point find its way to the path of reform without thinking that
that's a zero sum game--that it's not afraid to undertake the
kind of reforms that would bring peace, prosperity, and
democracy to the country.
Other autocratic regimes have done this. South Korea did
it. South Africa did it. Spain did it. Indonesia did it.
Right now, there are some people in the Government of Sudan
who recognize there are a lot of people who don't or don't want
to or think the task is too great--the risks are too great.
So what do we do? Where is our role in this? We have
leverage. We have leverage because of sanctions.
As you pointed out, Mr. Chairman, it's a big issue for the
Government of Sudan. But sanctions are only leverage if they
are not static--if they are used--if they are part of a
process.
Now, I realize that, as you pointed out and I know our
witnesses--very, very knowledgeable people--will indicate the
imperfections not only in this situation but the limitation of
the tracks that you mentioned.
We are talking about--I won't comment on the intelligence
one--I don't have the information on that--the Lord's
Resistance Army--unfortunately, both Uganda and the United
States are pulling back on that.
But the two that are most controversial are the limited
amounts of progress on humanitarian access and the peace
process--the cease fires.
But I look at this differently. I look at this as a very
limited opening of a dialogue. We haven't had a dialogue on
these issues since 2013.
They closed it off after the end of the South Sudan
independence, and we have and the administration have to work
hard to open it.
It's limited on both ends. It isn't the big road map all
the way to perfect relations. We have tried that in the past.
Too difficult, too complicated, too many variables.
It starts limited five tracks that have a lot of
limitations. But the sanctions are also limited that are being
lifted.
Yes, they open up some trade and they do a number of
things. But they are not going to lead to a lot of investment
in South Sudan. There are too many variables. It doesn't
include debt relief. It doesn't include State Sponsor of
Terrorism. It doesn't include all the legislative sanctions
which are in place. So it's limited on both ends and the
Sudanese, they know that, too.
So the question is where do we go with this dialogue?
Obviously, you want them to at least perform on the five tracks
that are put out there.
But the big question, which you've raised, Mr. Chairman,
and others have talked about, is how do you get to the other
issues--the human rights issues, the real peace process
issues--and that, to me, is what we should be working on for
past July, whether they, hopefully, make these and what comes
next and what degree of sanctions additional otherwise one
might move? It has to include human rights and freedom of
assembly. It has to open that door to dialogue and further work
on the peace process.
I would just make two other points. We forget the role of
the opposition. They are players here and they control the
agenda as well.
The Darfur opposition is in disarray. Its leaders are all
in Paris. The SPLM-North is having a split. They have put
restrictions on humanitarian access that I do not find logical.
They are part of the process. They have to agree to
cooperate as well and I think we have to give attention to them
and what their positions are--listen very carefully, because
they have a right to be suspicious, but at the same time
question where we think they are wrong.
I would make one other recommendation, Mr. Chairman. We
have a lot of restrictions on our USAID program in Sudan. It
can work in humanitarian areas. Its development areas are only
along the border in very limited areas.
Supposing you gave USAID a little more freedom, a little
more flexibility, so that these sanctions which allow more
medicine, more agricultural inputs to come in, they could
partner with NGOs in Sudan and other groups.
Make sure that those goods are getting out to clinics in
the outer area, getting out to farmers outside--they don't get
concentrated at the center. So we are opening up the economic
system at the same time we are opening up a little of the
political system.
So I see this as a first step, an opening. It's part of a
dialogue. It's going to be a long way to go. It's more like
Burma than others, and I think in that sense I think it's the
right move even though it's fraught with all of the problems
you raise.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Lyman follows:]
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----------
Mr. Smith. Thank you so very much, and without objection
all of your full statements and anything you want to attach to
it will be made a part of the record.
Mr. Brooks-Rubin.
STATEMENT OF MR. BRAD BROOKS-RUBIN, POLICY DIRECTOR, THE SENTRY
Mr. Brooks-Rubin. Thank you. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member
Bass, members of the subcommittee, thank you for holding this
important hearing and providing the Enough Project and our
financial investigative initiative, The Sentry, with the
opportunity to share our perspective on a country that has long
vexed U.S. policymakers.
As the chairman noted, Congress has a deep and bipartisan
history of leading U.S. efforts to promote peace, human rights,
religious freedom, and counterterrorism objectives in Sudan,
and this is an absolutely critical moment for Congress to
continue that engagement.
It is a critical moment because this past January, as has
been noted, in the waning moments of the last administration an
all-or-nothing choice on economic sanctions on Sudan was
created--either maintain the 2-decades-old comprehensive
sanctions or lift them entirely.
This false choice came out of a limited five-track
engagement plan developed in mid-2016. This plan is
insufficient, as Ambassador Lyman also noted, because it
doesn't address basic governance issues in Sudan, doesn't
include crucial human rights and religious freedom issues, and
removes the bulk of U.S. leverage without requiring any peace
agreement for the multiple wars being waged today in Sudan.
The far more sophisticated nature of the tools of financial
pressure that are available today can be deployed in a much
more nuanced way than sanctions on all of Sudan or no sanctions
at all.
Mr. Chairman, we believe Congress and the Trump
administration must correct this course and do so now by
developing a delinked and independent human rights and peace
track with the Government of Sudan that would supplement but
remain independent of the five tracks.
This new track should focus on the United States' most
pressing policy goals for Sudan: Advancing human rights,
religious freedom, essential democratic reforms, good
governance and, ultimately, a comprehensive peace.
Without addressing these goals, the Government of Sudan
will maintain its longstanding patterns of behavior, advancing
policies that have led to continuous deadly wars, religious
persecution, dictatorship, mass migration to Europe, grand
corruption, and affiliation with terrorist organizations that
have marked its 28 years.
Achieving the bold objectives in this new track will
require tools that are more focused, sophisticated, and
impactful than the dull instrument of comprehensive sanctions.
Instead, we must use state-of-the-art financial pressures
that target key elements of the regime and the corporate and
banking networks that underlie it. The comprehensive sanctions
in place now come from a previous era and were, as was noted by
Ambassador Lyman, never robustly implemented.
They nevertheless impacted the regime's ability to connect
to the international financial system, especially in recent
years, as sanctions enforcement triggered by a different
program, Iran, caused global banks to review their systems and
realize they were still banking Sudan through the correspondent
banking network.
Rather than giving up on this renewed leverage now,
Congress should adopt legislation that ties a new suite of
modernized financial pressures as well as appropriate
incentives to the new human rights and peace track.
The pressures we propose are not just a few more sanctions
or variations on the broad measures of the past. It is a
fundamentally different approach, shifting from one that is
geography-based to one that is conduct-based and using both
sanctions and anti-money-laundering measures.
In this new approach the measures would focus solely on
individuals and entities that are responsible for major human
rights abuse, grand corruption, religious persecution, conflict
gold trading, weapons exporting, and undermining the peace
process. These are the economic sectors that provide the regime
its lifeline and the types of conduct that are most
problematic.
So that is what we should target. Unlike the past, we
should not just use the broadest of measures or try to pick a
few names and never update them as they morph into new
entities. We need to use the best financial intelligence
available, which our initiative, The Sentry, will help provide,
so as to achieve our foreign policy objectives and protect the
integrity of the U.S. financial system.
For example, entities in Sudan like the National
Intelligence and Security Service operate in ways not unlike
entities the United States has targeted in Iran.
In addition, conflict-affected gold and weapons exports
provide much needed off-budget cash that is used to sustain
violence and line the pockets of corrupt elites who have
transformed the Sudanese economy into a private domain for
their own enrichment.
The United States knows now to target these kinds of
systems. OFAC, FinCEN, and the State Department have done so in
relation to Iran, Russia, and Burma, to name a few. We just
need to be willing to do it with Sudan.
Taking this course would be in stark contrast to the five
tracks, which I will address very briefly. As my colleague,
Omer Ismail, recently described in testimony before the Lantos
Commission, some of the violence in Sudan has eased, in part
due to the evolving nature of the use of force in conflict
areas, and we note that Sudan has demonstrated restraint with
respect to South Sudan and likely continued its
counterterrorism cooperation.
At the same time, as Omer and many others have testified,
the restraint in some areas contrasts with continued violence
in the conflict zones. There have been numerous violent attacks
on civilians in Darfur.
Government fly-overs continue to threaten people in South
Kordofan including the Nuba Mountains. Worse, while the
Government of Sudan is allowing cross-border humanitarian
access to areas in South Sudan affected by famine, parts of
Blue Nile and South Kordofan remain restricted.
Acknowledging both progress in areas where the five-track
plan benchmarks are unmet, we believe two things should happen.
The interagency assessment process should continue and an
honest assessment made in July.
Our expectation is that the five tracks will remain
unfulfilled when viewed as an entire package because at least
two of the five tracks will not be in compliance.
If the government is indeed noncompliant on any of the
tracks, then the final step of complete removal of the
comprehensive sanctions should be delayed for a sufficient
period such as 1 year.
In addition, in response to the violence in Darfur and as a
way of reinforcing the need for serious engagement on all five
tracks leading up to July, the administration should use its
authority under the Darfur sanctions, which are not part of
this plan, to impose asset freezes on those responsible for the
violence.
As with other sanctions programs connected to serious
negotiations, the administration should tighten pressure along
the way to reinforce those objectives while also providing
relief.
In the end, the fate of the five-track plan and the
comprehensive sanctions should be a lower priority because it
creates a false policy choice--comprehensive sanctions or
nothing over benchmarks that do not fundamentally alter the
nature of a regime that has wrought havoc within Sudan and the
region for nearly three decades.
Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, Congress should
take the lead in designing a clear U.S. policy approach, one
that deploys the types of modernized pressures that can
generate meaningful leverage for creating real and lasting
change in Sudan through a human rights and peace track.
Thank you for the opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Brooks-Rubin follows:]
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----------
Mr. Smith. Mr. Brooks-Rubin, thank you so much for your
testimony, and Enough over the decades has been ever pressing
for a better Sudan and I want to thank you for your insights
today.
I would like, before we take a brief recess, to catch those
three votes that are on the floor. We have been joined briefly
by Dr. Oscar Biscet, one of the greatest human rights defenders
in the world, who has spent years in the gulag in Cuba.
He was in solitary confinement many times. He's an OB/GYN,
a medical doctor, and a group of us some years back nominated
him for the Nobel Peace Prize because of his extraordinary work
and his courage.
So I want to just acknowledge him and thank him for his
leadership for so many, many years and now that he is free I
would point out that he testified twice before our
subcommittee. One time he did it after he was under house
arrest.
He did it by way of phone hook-up at great risk to himself
while he was still in Cuba and he testified before this
subcommittee and made a very, very strong and powerful
statement on behalf of human rights. Thank you, Doctor, for
being here.
Again, I apologize to our two witnesses. We will come right
back. It should only be about 15 minutes. Then we should have a
big open time to get into Q and A. Thank you. Stand in recess.
[Recess.]
Mr. Smith. The subcommittee will resume its hearing and Mr.
Dettoni, I believe you're next.
Again, I apologize for the delay but we should be clear for
the entire hearing now.
STATEMENT OF MR. DAVID DETTONI, SENIOR ADVISOR, SUDAN RELIEF
FUND
Mr. Dettoni. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bass, other
members of the subcommittee, I want to thank you for your long,
long service on human rights in Africa.
Both of you, I know you've been very involved and your work
here, as I wrote in my written testimony, your constituents may
never know all the lives and the impact that you're making in
the world and I just wanted to thank you for all the service
that you're doing.
We've already mentioned or other people have already
mentioned the five areas that are in the sanctions that the
Obama administration temporarily lifted in January 2017, and
I'm just going to run through those real quickly and then
address my views on if those are a valid rationale and then try
to focus on some recommendations for Congress and the Trump
administration.
First, on the issue of enhancing cooperation on
counterterrorism, I have to say I think that my view is
probably simplistic and I know it's hard line, but the sins of
Bashir and the regime, I just don't see how those sins can be
forgiven.
They hosted al-Qaeda for several years. Attacks occurred on
our Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Thousands of American
lives have been ended because of Khartoum and Bashir's material
support for terrorism, and this isn't even half the story on
their support for terrorism.
They need to be held accountable. You said at the beginning
of this hearing in your opening remarks you've held countless
hearings on human rights, peace, I mean, coming on 15, 20
years.
And so when are they going to be held accountable for these
acts? And it's not like it's just another dictatorship around
the world. These are people who are still in power, some out of
power, who are anti-American, anti-Western and they have--they
have--their actions have had an impact that are diametrically
opposed to the interests of this country.
So the first thing is, I know it's simplistic but I think
that lifting the sanctions for cooperation on counterterrorism
is not forgivable and I think that they need to be held
accountable for their actions.
The nature of this regime in Khartoum is that they kill
their own people. They kill their own citizens. They don't even
blink when they do it.
They didn't blink when they were supporting terrorism or
whatever they are still doing or not doing and they haven't
blinked in killing women and children intentionally,
particularly what I know about is in the Nuba Mountains,
dropping bombs on schools, hospitals, churches.
I've seen them. There are holes in the roofs. Every school,
every hut has a foxhole in it so that the children or the
pastor or priest can run and hide into a foxhole.
I was going to try to bring in some shrapnel from these
bombs that have exploded and that have killed innocent people,
and I didn't want to bring it in because I didn't know if I'd
be able to get it through and have the hassle of it.
But I've got them. Bombs drop and if you're not in a
foxhole and you're within 100, 200 meters of this thing, it's
going to spin hundreds of miles an hour and it's going to cut
off your head, cut off your arm, go right through you.
That's the reality of what they are doing to their own
people and that's the reality of the nature of this regime.
They are still in power, and I know it's a simplistic view
but that's the reality of what they have been doing up until
very recently and they can do again, and to their own citizens.
On the issue of humanitarian access, particularly in the
two areas, to my knowledge, Khartoum has not allowed a single
piece of humanitarian assistance into the two areas. People
haven't planted crops like they would when there is peace and
stability.
The people of Nuba have been attacked and invaded for over
6 years now, since 2011. It's a war zone. So there is little
food. There is no development. There is no building for the
future.
There are virtually no doctors. There is one surgeon in the
Nuba Mountains. Woe to you if you get appendicitis and you
can't reach Dr. Tom Catena, an American serving at Gidel
Hospital.
The humanitarian situation, particularly in the two areas
which I know about, is dire and it's part of Khartoum's
strategy, just like it was in the war with South Sudan, to deny
the two areas humanitarian assistance.
I will say this. I'll acknowledge one positive thing that
I've seen Khartoum do and that is in an ironic twist they've
allowed in South Sudanese, 100,000, 200,000 refugees, and they
have a semblance of safety there. And as well, there are, I
think, between 100,000 and 200,000 Eritreans who have fled the
repressive regime in Eritrea.
Now, Khartoum's doing this because it's in their interest.
I don't think they are doing it because they think it's the
right thing to do.
But ascribing motives is neither here nor there, and the
thing is, though, that they are, I think, using, particularly
with the Eritrean issue, they are using us with the Europeans
to stem the refugee flow and getting money and funding to keep
the refugees in Sudan. So I think that they are gaining some
benefit out of it as well.
In the past several months, hostilities in the two areas
has been greatly reduced. The aerial bombing, to my knowledge,
has ceased.
No major offenses or skirmishes on any sort of scale have
occurred and both sides--the major sides involved, Khartoum and
the SPLM-North, have restrained. However, there is no formal
cease-fire.
There are no mechanisms to enforce a cease-fire, no
modalities, no observers except for maybe the United States
with the sanctions that we have used as leverage, and the
fighting and bombing can begin at a moment's notice.
The Comprehensive Peace Agreement, I need to touch on that
because we keep having hearings and talking about Sudan,
particularly as it concerns the two areas. Khartoum did allow
South Sudan to vote for independence. But on many other aspects
of CPA they just clearly violated the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement of 2005.
In May 2011, Khartoum invaded Abyei, destroying, killing,
looting, displacing over 100,000 Dinka, who are indigenous to
Abyei. And now there is an Ethiopian peacekeeping force that
are preventing any further outbreaks, hopefully.
But that was a Khartoum--clear violation of the
Comprehensive Peace Agreement and it included violence. The CPA
provided for popular consultation for the two areas. The
citizens of Abyei, as we know, were promised a referendum to
decide which country they belong in.
That hasn't happened. But the CPA provided for popular
consultation for the people of the two areas. That hasn't
happened. Instead, what happened?
In May 2011, Bashir gave the SPLM-North 1 week to disarm
their army and my understanding is that CPA provided for 1 year
to integrate security and get security arrangements figured out
between the SPLM-North and Khartoum. Instead, it was 1 week and
then Bashir and his allies attacked and resumed the civil war,
which has been going on within Khartoum and the two areas for
almost 6 years now.
From personal experience, the CPA provided for political
participation and freedom of movement and assembly. When I was
in Khartoum in 2011 when I was a staff member of the U.S.
Commission on International Religious Freedom, several members
of the transitional government and National Assembly were
marching in a peaceful protest on the steps of the assembly to
present their problems and their issues with the way the
government was going.
As we were going out to the refugee camps, we saw thousands
of Interior Ministry troops coming their way and we learned
later that the security forces had arrested these National
Assembly members, beaten them up, kicked them, and we saw the
bruises and we saw the impact upon this.
And this was the beginning of the end of, to me in my mind,
of implementation of the CPA, particularly as it regarded the
two areas.
So what are my recommendations for the new administration
and for Congress? First, President Trump needs to appoint a
high-level Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan.
This person needs to have direct access to President Trump.
The appointing ceremony should occur in the Rose Garden.
President Trump should conduct a press conference.
In his remarks he should note the expectation that the
Special Envoy should travel to the Nuba Mountains, the two
areas, Khartoum, Darfur, Juba, South Sudan, and Sudan.
To my knowledge--correct me if I am wrong, Ambassador
Lyman, no Special Envoy has ever traveled to the two areas to
see for themselves the situation on the ground.
I believe they've gone to Khartoum. They have never gone to
the two areas. This needs to change. Second, the Trump
administration needs to reset relations with South Sudan.
As a signatory to the CPA and as a major stakeholder in the
creation of South Sudan, the United States has a moral
obligation to help the South move off the precipice of total
collapse and President Trump having a personal relationship
with President Salva Kiir might help to improve the conditions
in South Sudan and the region.
Despite being two independent countries, Sudan and South
Sudan's futures are linked. The solutions to both political and
civil war crises must be found and it's in our, America's,
strategic and moral interest to bring peace and stability to
the region and to these two countries.
Third, within 6 months of today, President Trump should
hold a regional conference in Washington, DC, and invite and
have a have attend President Salva Kiir, the President of
Uganda, the President of Kenya, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia
and maybe a few others.
Promote a unified agenda for peace, democracy, stability
and security in the region and finding unified approaches to
the problems in Sudan and South Sudan.
Fourth, working with Congress, President Trump should
either amend the January 2017 Executive order lifting some
sanctions or ask Congress--the President should ask Congress to
draft legislation, or you should just draft it on your own,
concerning sanctions on Sudan.
President Trump, or legislation, should make a lifting of
sanctions reviewable every 180 days or annually, as was
suggested earlier, and there should be a requirement the
executive branch must submit to Congress in writing and to the
President a rationale review for action on sanctions toward
Sudan.
Such a review should be publicly viewable 2 months before
the sanctions should be lifted and it should be written such
that the sanctions are not automatically lifted if the
President doesn't take action, like they are right now.
These sanctions, my understanding, will be automatically
lifted unless the President revokes them or does something to
them. The stoppage in the fighting in the two areas has been a
positive development and needs to be sustained and a sustained
lull can create an environment and a situation more conducive
to lasting peace.
Now, a basic question is why Khartoum has to do something
in their own interest in the sense of making a peace deal and
ceasing to fight and kill its own people.
But if a few select sanctions can be waived 180 days or a
year and it keeps the fighting down and they are negotiated in
good interest I think it's worth trying.
Fifth, the chairman of the full committee, the ranking
member, the chairman, other members, should request a
classified briefing from relevant agencies on Sudan's
counterterrorism assistance to the United States.
In that same briefing, the agencies should provide a report
detailing the involvement of Khartoum and the extent of
Khartoum's meddling and past activity and present activity in
South Sudan and the region.
After receiving this briefing then you could ask those
agencies to give the same briefing to other members of the
committee and other Members in the Senate and the Congress.
I want to give President Trump and his team an opportunity
to build on the fact that the fighting in the two areas has
ceased and the fighting can begin at a moment's notice.
The region is waiting to see how President Trump will lead
and the new Congress will lead and amend, change direction or
build upon the work from previous administrations.
We want to give President Trump the ability to lead in this
volatile region and my belief that--of limiting the lifting for
a little bit of time could lead to a certain transparent,
reviewable and certifiable process that involves the Congress
and congressional approval and might provide leverage and
better behavior from Khartoum.
My hope is for the President to become personally engaged
in the peace process in the Sudans and for the President to
develop a personal relationship with our allies in the region.
I believe it's in the interests of the United States. I
believe it's in the security interests of the United States to
use the resources and leverage of American power to promote
peace, prosperity, and freedom in this troubled region.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dettoni follows:]
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----------
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much for your testimony,
recommendations, and for going there so frequently to be a
first-hand witness. Thank you.
Mr. Abubakr.
STATEMENT OF MR. MOHAMED ABUBAKR, PRESIDENT, THE AFRICAN MIDDLE
EASTERN LEADERSHIP PROJECT
Mr. Abubakr. Ranking Member Bass and members of the
subcommittee, thank you for affording me the honor to testify
before you today and to share my personal observations
regarding the impact of sanctions on the ground in Sudan.
My goal is to provide you with evidence that you need to
act. You have statistics and you have social aggregate data and
you have----
Mr. Smith. If you could just suspend for 1 minute and I
apologize for the rudeness of it. But Mr. Garrett does have to
leave I believe to meet with the Japanese Ambassador but really
wanted to just express a few thoughts and maybe ask a question
and then we'll go right back and take as much time as you want.
Mr. Garrett. Sure, and I apologize specifically to you, Mr.
Abubakr, because I'd love to--I need to hear what you say. I'm
going to take the testimony and notes back with me.
This is a very important subject to me by virtue of some of
the activities that we've engaged in that we alluded to earlier
as it relates to the release of some prisoners currently held
in the Republic of Sudan.
And I really want to also tip my hat to you, Mr. Dettoni,
Mr. Brooks-Rubin as well, Ambassador. Your boss is Frank Wolf,
or your former boss, is a really fine man who I think served
Virginia and our Nation very well and it was my honor to count
him among a distant circle of friends.
What I heard here, and I would welcome the input of anyone,
what I wanted--maybe I heard what I wanted to hear. My efforts
reaching out to the Embassy, the Ambassador and the Republic of
Sudan's delegation here in the United States have been,
obviously, with a clearly articulated goal and that is to win
the freedom of these individuals and even if it means that they
leave the nation.
We've obviously engaged in a relatively one-size-fits-all
series of sanctions and certainly for well-articulated reasons
here today. The question that I have is, and I think you
touched on this toward the end of your testimony, if we might
not be well advised to try to find that carrot as opposed to
the stick, even in very limited measures.
What I've seen in my very micro-interaction is a desire for
an improvement in relations, a willingness to be accommodating
as it relates to moving in directions I think we would all find
desirable where they feel it's in Sudanese interests, right.
And I understand human nature is motivated by I'm willing
to do this if it's the right thing to do and there's something
in it that helps me and my nation. I think I've seen that and I
hope--obviously, President Bashir has been there for a long
time and, certainly, for 11 years in one iteration and since, I
guess, 1989 as President.
But with the cessation of active hostilities and certainly
the dialogue that I have heard that the good-faith comments
that have been made to me might it not make sense to slowly
start to roll back sanctions and see if we don't see
commensurate continued behavior?
I understand the history and certainly Darfur is something
that the world can't turn a blind eye to. What does that mean
in the Nuba Mountain region we don't even know.
But might it not make some sense to try to sort of give a
little to see if we can get something that's in everyone's
collective best interest? And Mr. Brooks-Rubin, you, I think,
are moving to speak.
Mr. Brooks-Rubin. Thank you, Representative Garrett.
I think your point is well taken. I think the important
issue to note is that that's--in some ways that's a five-track
process that's been put on the table.
The comprehensive sanctions and the five-track process,
unless it's completely amended and tossed aside, and we are
recognizing that that process is underway, when that is
completed at whatever point, and those tracks should be
honestly assessed, but at whatever point that happens the
comprehensive sanctions that are in place now being lifted,
that's a significant carrot.
That is a significant development. That takes away all of
the restrictions that are in place now with respect to imports,
exports----
Mr. Garrett. I'm not trying to be rude. My understanding is
that we anticipate the lifting of the sanctions based on the
actions of the previous administration if the current
administration agrees to it and that's all up in the air.
What I think Mr. Dettoni, and I'm not trying to argue with
you because I think we're on the same page here, suggested is
if this is done in a sort of progressive step-by-step fashion
it's--let me paraphrase a better political figure than myself,
trust but verify--that if we give to the Sudanese things
helpful to the Sudanese and continue to do so so long as they
behave in a manner such that we find to be more consistent with
the spirit of human rights, then everybody wins, right?
My experience, in a vacuum, has been wonderful. But I know
there's a whole lot bigger world out there.
Mr. Brooks-Rubin. Yes, I----
Mr. Garrett. But it was an all or nothing, more or less,
right?
Mr. Brooks-Rubin. Correct.
Mr. Garrett. The previous administration said this is what
we are going to do. We are on a 6-month clock right now.
Mr. Brooks-Rubin. It's all or nothing in terms of the
sanctions for what is a limited set of actions by the
government. I think what we are--what all of us are saying in
different ways is we need to get the important issues, the key
issues of peace, human rights, religious freedom on the table
and then let's--that's what we need real incentives for and
there are other incentives that are still on the table, as
Ambassador Lyman noted, with respect to debt relief and State
Sponsored of Terrorism.
But our view is if you're going to put really the rest of
the issues on the table, those core issues of human rights and
religious freedom, that can't just be without pressure.
There also need to be a different level of pressure to get
there and so it's a different idea around what those sticks
are. The stick we have now is a big blunt club from 20 years
ago.
Mr. Garrett. Right.
Mr. Brooks-Rubin. Let's come in with more precision-guided
tools that can get there.
Mr. Garrett. And so we say show me and what I've heard is,
and again, I am looking at a tiny little slice--we want to show
you.
And I think--if I can build on that for a moment--if you
look at the--certainly, there are self-inflicted causes for
your famine in the South Sudan but if you look at
infrastructure and who has access to the Red Sea and ports, et
cetera, and rail facilities, albeit ones in dire need of some
maybe U.S. assistance if everything goes well, it would help us
to have a good relationship with the Sudan to get the food to
the places that don't have----
Mr. Smith. If you could just, out of respect for Mr.
Abubakr. I know you have that----
Mr. Garrett. Yes, sir. And I apologize to Mr. Abubakr.
Mr. Smith. And I would ask all of you to circle back to the
questions, and they are great questions, that Mr. Garrett has
asked. But we'll maybe complete Mr. Abubakr's testimony, then
come back----
Mr. Garrett. Well----
Mr. Smith [continuing]. Because I know you have answers to
these questions.
Mr. Garrett. But I guess if the Sudan plays ball, to use a
colloquialism, it would be in the best interests of the entire
region by virtue of just the ability to distribute food, et
cetera.
Mr. Smith. I think it----
Mr. Garrett. You can nod----
Mr. Smith. Okay. Go ahead.
Mr. Garrett [continuing]. Shake your head no.
Mr. Dettoni. I don't want to be--I don't want to interrupt,
Mr. Chairman, and you haven't spoken so maybe we can talk in
private about this, not on the record.
Mr. Garrett. I would invite you, anybody at the table to
reach out to our office. I would love to speak with you, and I
apologize, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith. And for the record, come back and answer those.
Mr. Dettoni. Sure. Sure.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Abubakr. Thank you.
Mr. Garrett. Thank you. I am sorry.
Mr. Abubakr. My goal is to provide you with evidence that
you need to act. You have statistics and you have social
aggregated data and you have political knowledge.
What I want to give you is my story. My name is Mohamed
Abubakr, civil and human rights activist from Khartoum, Sudan,
born and raised.
Inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I've
done the best I could to be there for those deprived of these
rights the most, at an early age too, as Sudan has that
tendency to force children to grow up way before they should, I
grew up and spent most of my adult life in a comprehensively
sanctioned Sudan.
It wasn't an easy experience by any means. As a citizen I
struggled and as a student I suffered. The unintended
consequences of sanctions that plagued the program put a heavy
load on the average citizen of Sudan and an even heavier load
on the back of civil society in Sudan and, specifically, on
those of us in the humanitarian and human rights sectors.
Despite the exceptions made for organizations working in
this space, while I personally have been outspoken about these
unintended consequences and joined the calls for reformation
and modernization of the U.S. sanction policy, I did not for a
second doubt the importance of having them in place, or the
rationale for their imposition. It wasn't hard to notice the
strong correlation between the regime's financial comfort and
violence.
So against many of our personal interests, citizens and
civil society, we supported the sanctions. We believed they
were about bringing positive change and transformation of the
human rights scene in Sudan, and holding on to the hope for the
light at the end of the tunnel we fully complied and fully
backed the sanctions.
So you can imagine the deep sense of sadness and betrayal
widely shared by many upon hearing about the U.S. intentions to
ease sanctions and on these conditions--conditions that
completely ignored the human rights and for the citizens of
Sudan who suffered in silence for so long.
In my written statement, I argued against the rationale for
easing sanctions against Sudan and whether sanction relief was
warranted to begin with, and I argued against each of the
conditions set forth by the U.S. Government for the easing of
sanctions.
I argued against the legitimacy of Sudan as a partner in
the war against the Lord's Resistance Army and its methods
while the Government of Sudan and affiliated militia are still
engaged in recruitment of children in the exact same fashion.
And I argued against Sudan being a part of the solution to
the South Sudan crisis as that situation in that violent
kleptocracy needs a serious international long commitment in
building South Sudan's nonexistent institutions.
But none of that is as important as what I am about to say.
After the European Union recently dropped the ball on its
commitment for human rights by striking an ethically and
morally questionable deal to stop the African refugees and
economic migrants hailing from Africa to reach Europe and hired
the very same Janjaweed militia that killed hundreds of
thousands of people in Darfur, now rebranded as the Rapid
Response Force, there is absolutely no other champion left in
the corner of those of us in Sudan fighting for human rights
and dignity for the human of Sudan.
The flame of hope is fading away and the way I see it it's
up to the United States and up to this committee to keep that
flame alive.
I see my time is running up and allow me to close my
remarks for this.
Mr. Smith. Don't rush it.
Mr. Abubakr. In the process of thinking what to do with
Sudan and thinking of what conditions could have been better
for sanctions relief, please put yourselves in the
uncomfortable shoes of an activist for human rights or a
journalist who dared to speak truth to power, one of the
thousands and thousands unlawfully arrested, tortured, and
worse.
Think of what would make things better for them and others
like them. Think of me and the thoughts coming through my head
right now and the scenarios and the very plausible scenarios
playing in my head as we speak about the consequences of me
coming here today, for me and for people I care about and love
back home.
It certainly would have been nice if the conditions for
sanctions relief included language that would make me feel a
little less worried and a little more at ease.
Thank you so much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Abubakr follows:]
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----------
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Ms. Bass.
Ms. Bass. Well, let me thank all of you for your testimony
today and also for your patience.
I wanted to get a sense from maybe Mr. Brooks-Rubin when
the Obama administration was determined to ease sanctions. If
you could talk about the benchmarks that they saw. In other
words, we are going to back up a little bit and this is what we
expect to see from Khartoum. And then from Mr. Abubakr, you
were describing what life is like with sanctions and maybe you
could pose some alternatives; if we continue along the
direction we are how do we get the regime to move?
Mr. Abubakr. I absolutely encourage reengagement with
Sudan. It is not something that I'm opposed to, essentially. I
really don't think the comprehensive sanctions is the way to go
and that complete boycott is the way to induce any change.
I do believe, though, the modernized sanctions model put
forth by the Enough Project could be a very effective way to go
and reengage with Sudan.
I also believe when and if sanctions relief is warranted it
should be completely human rights-based as that's, I think, in
my opinion, the way to get to any other interest of the United
States in the long term.
Reengaging right now on these sanctions, I'm afraid, will
just leave the humans of Sudan behind for the very long run and
I'm afraid nothing will ever change should these sanctions be
removed on these conditions.
Ms. Bass. Thank you.
Mr. Brooks-Rubin.
Mr. Brooks-Rubin. Thank you, Representative Bass, and I
think those are the issues that in some ways we would want to
see in benchmarks for any comprehensive listing of sanctions is
addressing exactly the issues that Mohamed and the other
witnesses have testified to.
I think the issues with the five-track plan were that there
weren't clearly established benchmarks. You had five tracks
that were laid out, obviously, on counterterrorism. That's
something that is, unless the classified briefing is held that
Mr. Dettoni referred to for you, this is not something that
anyone's going to have an insight into.
As to the other tracks, the Executive order says that
progress needs to continue. But that's not defined, and in
terms of understanding from the interagency what they're
looking for, it's still an amorphous sense.
So understanding what continued progress on cessation of
hostilities or humanitarian access is leaves too much to the
eye of the beholder and this is a regime and these are issues
that cannot be subjectively evaluated in exchange for a much
larger peace.
If we had established sanctions relief that was measured,
some small piece of the existing sanctions regime in exchange
for some progress on these benchmarks, then there may have been
a different discussion.
But you ended up with limited pieces of the issues mostly
regionally focused, questionable progress on at least two of
them, in exchange for what is at least the entirety of the
economic sanctions program administered by the Treasury
Department.
Without benchmarks, without clear steps that need to be
met, it is impossible, really, for others to engage and really
assess that well, which is, I think, why many are calling for
this extension, at least on the five-track plan.
But from our perspective, wherever that five-track plan
ends up, really, what's important are the big piece human
rights issues that all of us have focused on here. That needs a
much different set of benchmarks and a much different set of
pressures as a result.
Ms. Bass. Ambassador, do you have a viewpoint on this?
Ambassador Lyman. I fully agree, as I said in the testimony
that what's missing in these benchmarks is the focus on some of
the fundamental political issues including and especially human
rights, et cetera, and that has to be the focus of the next
round of discussion, because if you just only stick with these
they're holding positions but they're not definitive.
But then one has to define what those steps are. What are
the steps that you think are both feasible and meaningful? I
think there are a number in terms of political for a space of
stop harassing civil society and arresting people and torturing
them.
There's a lot you can do in that area. It doesn't still
answer the question of a political dialogue that ends the
fundamental problems of the outlying areas. But one can make
some very specific criteria in that area that at least starts
to give space, and then one has to deal with both the other--
some of the others.
So I think that is the key to the next round. But it
doesn't wait until we get to July. In other words, that should
be already part of the dialogue that's going on now so that
regardless of how you come out in July you already have an
understanding and agreement as to where this is going next.
If you don't have an understanding on that by the time we
get to July, you haven't accomplished a great deal and so I
think that has to start now.
Ms. Bass. Mr. Dettoni.
Mr. Dettoni. Well, Congressman Garrett said trust but
verify. I can't allow myself to trust. I mean, given the
history, all the broken agreements that have occurred, I can't
allow--and I don't think we should have as a policy to trust
Khartoum and its current regime.
Ms. Bass. What do you think should be done?
Mr. Dettoni. Well, I do think we need to tie the sanctions
conditionally. I think the Trump administration needs more time
to get their personnel in.
I think that they have been slow to put their people in and
the administration needs to own this.
Ms. Bass. So you think they should put the sanctions back,
the ones that were----
Mr. Dettoni. No. They should--we should extend the
sanctions for 180 days or even a year because, yes, they have
violated almost every agreement to a degree that they've made
with the CPA.
They did allow the South to secede. There is a semblance of
peace and there is some hope, I think, in the two areas in
particular and I think that the new administration and the
Congress needs to try to give this some life.
Ambassador Lyman can speak to this--there was almost an
agreement on humanitarian aid. The Obama administration pushed
very hard for an agreement in the two areas for the delivery of
humanitarian assistance and I think it was just too much too
late, and I think that the people who would not agree with it
saw a new administration on the horizon and said, we just got
to wait and see and we'll deal with the new administration.
So, give the administration some more time. Find these
areas. Get their people in. The administration--they need to
own it because it's--whatever happens in the region it's on
their watch now.
Ms. Bass. Mr. Brooks-Rubin, I know in the Enough Project,
and I think you made reference to--it's the Sentry? Is that
what it's called? And I wanted to know if you could speak about
that in terms of assets that you think are offshore.
Mr. Brooks-Rubin. Thank you, Representative Bass.
Yes, the Sentry is an investigative initiative that the
Enough Project and other partners have launched to get at the
question of if we are going to use all these policy tools we
need to have the intelligence behind it to know who those
targets are and who they should be.
So with respect to South Sudan, we've been able to document
quite a lot of the properties of--and corporate holdings of the
officials that are leading to that crisis and with respect to
Sudan, the same.
So there are properties and assets that we are
investigating around the region, and in other regions and we've
looked extensively also at the banking network and trying to
understand how--as I referenced in the testimony, how the
Government of Sudan even during the sanctions was able to
establish banking relationships that allowed correspondents--
that allowed money to move and ultimately even move through New
York through that system.
So trying to understand where those banking nodes are will
allow FinCEN at the Treasury Department or at other financial
intelligence units and banks to zero in on where that money is
moving and how they can stop it.
Even if the sanctions were to go away, in many cases what
you're talking about are assets that are the proceeds of
corruption. They are stolen from the people.
As that money moves through the financial system, banks can
still go after it. The financial intelligence units can still
go after it because it's money laundering.
The last thing I would say on the assets is looking
extensively at gold. We have a report that we just issued
yesterday called ``Sudan's Deep State'' that looks at the gold
sector, the weapons sector, the land sector, and looking at how
these sectors enable the regime and key leaders, key officials
close to President Bashir, key entities I mentioned in my
testimony, the NISS, an extensive corporate network that is
enabling key members of the regime to move money around. That's
where we can focus our tools.
So with the Sentry's information provided to the relevant
actors, the hope is then they can take and use these kinds of
financial pressures we have used to get at other regimes. We
need to be able to do that for Sudan.
We need to be able to do that for the people of Sudan, to
target those economic sectors and those actors and move away
from this blunt instrument we had in the past.
But you need the information for it. We saw with the Sentry
that there aren't a lot of the resources devoted to gathering
this kind of financial intelligence around east and central
Africa.
We, the U.S. Government, devoted to lots of other parts of
the world. It's needed for east and central Africa and then the
Sentry was the ability to say well, we can collect as much as
we can--we'll turn that evidence over and then hopefully, use
will be made of it.
Mr. Smith. Thank you. Let me ask a number of questions and
then take the ones you would like.
Mr. Brooks-Rubin, you, in your testimony, pointed out that
Sudan has used the provisional easing of the sanctions put in
place in January not to begin the necessary reforms of
structural deformities of the country's economy but instead
order fighter jets and battle tanks from its traditional arms
suppliers in Russia and China.
Do you all agree with that? If you could elaborate on that.
Let me just point out that with the Iran deal, which I thought
was egregiously flawed on multiple fronts including the
procurement and development of nuclear weapons and the means to
deliver them in Iran, sanctions should have been allowed to
stay in place far longer to get a deal that was verifiable and
real rather than allowing them, minimally, after 10 years to
have an industrial state capacity to produce fissile material.
Well, human rights were deliberately left out of that
negotiation and the same thing happened with North Korea. We
had Andrew Natsios, our former USAID Administrator and a man
who wore many hats within previous administrations and an
expert who also heads up a North Korea human rights
organization, testified and he said there, too, in North Korea
human rights are just thrown under the bus. No comments. Just
work on the nuclear issue, and when that didn't materialize
then no progress was made.
Matter of fact, just the opposite. They do have nuclear
capabilities now and they're ever perfecting the means to
deliver them. Human rights were unaddressed and now we have
these five different mutually reinforcing areas where human
rights are deemphasized, to put it mildly.
So if you could speak to the issue of what they're buying
and, of course, what is Iran buying, like, perhaps Sudan--
weapons, surface to air missiles in the case of Iran.
You point out that fighter jets and battle tanks are being
bought. That, to me, would be a gross exploitation of the
easing of sanctions.
Let me ask you, who's in charge? Bashir wanted to go to
Turkey and the European Union asked Erdogan to arrest him and
send him to The Hague, pursuant to the ICC indictment. And yet,
he's travelled some 74 times over the years, although he did
not go to Indonesia because several countries would not allow
overlight airspace traversing by his aircraft.
So that put the kibosh on that. But China had him there, as
we know, and others have as well--South Africa as well, and
there's a court case.
Is he in charge? Maybe you could speak--maybe, Ambassador
Lyman, you might want to speak to that as well. Who really is
calling the shots in Sudan? Are there other people in the
administration who present a more benign face to us, the
Americans and to the Europeans and to the Africans and
everyone, that then can cobble together deals while the master
genocidaire who ought to be at The Hague for crimes against
humanity and the like, continues to pull the strings.
Again, as I said, when I met with him in 2005 along with
Greg we talked humanitarianism, access, Darfur camps, the
ending of the hostilities and supporting the Janjaweed.
And what did he talk about just the entire time? Lift the
sanctions. Lift the sanctions. I met with Secretary Kerry when
he was still Chairman John Kerry when he was still on the
Senate side.
He was asking for sanctions relief there. So another
question would be the origin of this. Was it a good positive,
natural evolution of now is the time to make a deal to try to
help the humanitarian crisis or was this something that was
sought after for a long time that gives us a semblance of maybe
a better situation there but maybe it doesn't?
They're rearming and building up their capabilities like
Iran now, becoming far more menacing and ominous if they get
that capability, buying more battle tanks and fighter jets.
And you, Mr. Dettoni, in your testimony you make reference
to the Enough Project and their new report entitled ``Border
Control from Hell,'' how the new migration partnership
legitimizes Sudan's militia state.
Now, for seemingly a very selfish reasons, the EU is
selling this capability to mitigate the flow of, and here it
is--without objection, we'll put the--parts of it, certainly
the executive summary in--but they're able to mitigate the flow
of refugees when we are providing them a capability that could
be used for far more nefarious purposes. So if you could speak
to that.
And then you make the statement, Mr. Dettoni, and the
others might want to speak to this, on the issue of
humanitarian access to the two areas, South Kordofan and Nuba
Mountains and the Blue Nile State, ``I do not believe any
humanitarian access has crossed the battle lines from Khartoum
into the two areas.''
Is that still accurate as of today, in all of your
opinions? That would be an important part of this. And, again,
why January 13th? Was that the natural time when this came to
fruition for the administration to make this decision?
To hand an incoming administration a well thought-out
policy that came to its natural fruition on January 13th to
promulgate this or was it--should it have been done 6 months
ago or not at all and wait for the new administration? I'm
baffled by the timing of it.
As you're going out the door you say, here, take this. It
may be very well crafted but I would appreciate your insights
on that and these other questions again, like who's in charge
for real in Khartoum. Mr. Brooks-Rubin.
Mr. Brooks-Rubin. Thank you, Chairman Smith.
There's a lot there. I guess let me just try to answer a
couple and if I missed I will keep coming back.
In terms of the purchases that we've seen, reports and
information about what's happening on the ground continue to
come in and we are happy to provide more information on those
purchases of interest.
I think the bigger point is and one of the debates around
the sanctions lifting is is this really going to matter--does
this really change the economic situation on the ground.
And I think one thing that's important and reflective of
purchases like these are it opens up the ability for there to
be one-time purchases like this. Maybe long-term investment
remains questionable because of the overall business
environment in Sudan.
But now the banking channels are open. Now without fear of
transactions being rejected or blocked by a bank along the way.
So you create an enabling environment that then allows the
regime to then decide what it's going to do and, again, from
our assessments so far, although there have been the cessation
of hostilities that's been discussed, the long-term planning
that envisions the sanctions being removed altogether is
looking ahead to the ability to make these kinds of weapons
purchases and really entrench itself further.
What we are doing by this policy is essentially enabling
the regime to just simply entrench itself further without
creating any mechanism to have these discussions about a
broader democratic process and peace process in the country,
which in some way leads me to the Iran question. And you're
absolutely right that human rights have been sort of
consistently left off the table in all of these situations.
I think what's notable in the Iran example is that we still
do maintain a pretty significant level of sanctions. Not all,
and certainly has enabled quite a lot of activity by the
Iranian regime but we still maintain at some level some robust
sanctions in place.
With Sudan, we are talking about still taking these limited
steps but yet giving away the rest of the existing sanctions
program without replacing it with anything, which seems in
inapposite and really, again, as you said, Mr. Chairman, giving
away the concept of human rights.
Your reference to Ambassador Natsios is a useful one. In
preparing for the hearing, I went back and looked at a press
conference that he and Deputy Secretary Negroponte and former
OFAC Director and Acting Under Secretary Adam Szubin had way
back in 2007 when I was at Treasury. When they announced Plan
B, which was the rollout of Darfur sanctions, which was really
supposed to put pressure on the regime to stop what was
happening in Darfur, to stop the genocide, the sanctions that
were announced at those times weren't strong.
We were really just identifying companies that were already
sanctioned, but we were promised, and Ambassador Natsios'
remarks in that press conference really say that we are going
to use pressure and we are going to use robust enforcement to
really get at these critical issues of human rights and that
pressure was the only way to deal with the regime in Sudan and
we never saw that happen.
Human rights was never truly tried to pressure in any
meaningful way and that's what we think needs to happen now and
you need to have these independently verifiable benchmarks
around peace and human rights and religious freedom in order to
get there.
In terms of the question about sort of where did this come
from and where did it originate, obviously, a lot of what was
happening within the administration isn't entirely clear but it
does seem--certainly seemed to us that this was--at least the
decisions at the end about what sanctions relief to put on the
table seemed hastily created and, as you said, handing the next
administration, here, we are leaving you something that you
need to make sure you deal with and to continue the process
going.
Obviously, something was needed in order to keep the
Sudanese engaged. But it certainly did not ever appear to be,
as you were indicating, may have been preferable, a well--a
long, explained and thought out process.
This was something that was really only announced at the
very end and there wasn't the level of deliberation and at
least engagement with the NGO community that we had at the very
end and the Executive order says there has to be consultation
with the NGOs, moving forward.
But what that process was, why we got there wasn't really
ever clearly established. So I think I will stop with those for
now and happy to come back and address the others.
Mr. Smith. Who's in charge? Did you want to touch on that?
Mr. Brooks-Rubin. Who's in charge? I think that's a
question maybe others may be better placed to answer than me
specifically.
I think it is a real question that I think we all struggle
to really understand and I think as we've looked at the violent
kleptocratic network that the regime and its insiders have
established, clearly, you have to deal with President Bashir.
But there are a lot of other key actors, key advisors and
really these entities like the NISS and key corporations that
really also play and important role and I think we haven't
really talked about the impact of the Gulf and the dynamic
between the way the Government of Sudan the shifting alliances
between Iran and the Gulf and the role that the countries in
the Gulf play both in terms of investments that they have, or
if you want to call them investments, essentially giveaways by
the Government of Sudan in exchange for cooperation.
So I think the role of the Gulf is also critical to explore
here in terms of the broader picture of who's in charge.
Ambassador Lyman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me try to deal with some of these questions as well.
Who calls the shots? Well, I think it's always been a mistake
for people to underestimate President Bashir.
He has solidified his control. He's managed to move people
around when they get too powerful. Not long ago he dismissed
two very powerful people, Vice President Taha and Nafi Ali
Nafi, and who knows, they may come back 6 months from now. They
were both very powerful people.
There are two military organizations. There's the regular
military and there's the NISS, which controls the militias, the
so-called Janjaweed. Now it's called the RDF or whatever it's
called. So you have power centers there, all of which the
President uses to, frankly, maintain his own position, protect
his own interests, et cetera. He's appointed a Prime Minister,
Prime Minister Bakri.
Bakri is someone very close to the President. I think he
feels that Bakri is someone who will also protect his
interests.
So you have an autocratic system but with someone who plays
powerful interests against each other. Now, it also is true,
going to another question, that there are people with different
opinions about where the country ought to go.
There are a number of people who understand that the system
that they've been operating for a long time, where you keep the
outlying areas at bay through fighting, through co-optation,
through exploitation, whatever, keeps the power at the center,
is draining the country and will keep draining the country.
They've got people like former Minister Ghazi and others who
have spoken out on this and written about how to democratize
the country, et cetera.
There are also people who want a better relationship with
the United States and understand. There are other people who
feel very, very differently--that all our talk about human
rights and peace, et cetera, is a danger to the security of the
regime.
And as long as they consider human rights and accommodation
a danger to the security of the regime, they're going to fight
against it. And the difficulty for us outsiders is how do you
engage in that situation and you try engage, encouraging the
people who are thinking differently and trying to counter the
arguments of those on the other side and it's going to be slow
and it's going to be a very difficult process and we have to
keep working with it.
Now, the origin of the--actually it's a product of about
2\1/2\ years of debate inside the administration--first,
whether we should have such a dialogue at all, whether the
Sudanese are open to it. And you have to remember that my
successor, Don Booth, couldn't get a visa to Sudan for over a
year.
So the question was how do you relate? It was a long tough
debate and then toward the end what are the elements of the
debate. Got to the end of the administration. They put it out
there and I realize it puts suddenly something on the next
administration.
I think the 6 months is because these are very limited
conditions, very limited benchmarks, and if you had them out
there for a year it could last but not move you any farther, at
least that's my interpretation. You have to ask the people.
Now, I'd like to talk a little bit more about humanitarian
access because some of us for many years have been fighting
this issue of humanitarian access and others have, et cetera.
But it has been a political football by both sides. Okay.
Sometimes the opposition says that is our number-one concern
and sometimes they say well, it has to be linked to the
political dialogue.
There are people in the government who don't want
humanitarian access because they do believe that, you know,
that without it it weakens the opposition. They're also afraid
of weapons being coming in and all of that.
But we are very close to an agreement on--``we'' I say
under Thabo Mbeki--very close to an agreement on humanitarian
access and the opposition said, okay, we are all for it except
it has to come--at least some of it has to come from Ethiopia.
It can't just all come from Sudan.
Now, you can argue as to whether you think that was a
worthwhile condition to hold it all up. The governments didn't
agree with that and both of them are playing games because it's
related to whether they're really willing to move beyond that
to a political dialogue.
And the people who suffer are the people in the two areas,
and I'm personally unsympathetic with both sides on this
particular issue.
But it does go to the complexity of this--of the
negotiations. Humanitarian access really has to be linked to an
understanding in the two areas that it's not a one-time thing.
It's got to be part of a process where you have a cessation
of hostilities and have a political process. If it's a one-time
thing it'll break up in 6 months and it won't have accomplished
more than that immediate----
Mr. Dettoni. Piggy-backing on some of your comments, I
agree, that the cease-fire and the humanitarian assistance have
got to be linked for it to last and I think that's the
justification.
We've seen some hope because the fighting has really slowed
or ceased and for me, we do need to try to give peace a chance.
Unfortunately, we have to incentivize Khartoum.
I also think Khartoum has played America very well. I mean,
very good poker players. I wouldn't go to a casino if they were
dealing and I mean that as respect for their intellect and
their capability and as far as Bashir and the people he's got
in power.
I think that they assume that we forget. I think that they
could overwhelm us with problems and complexities, but at the
end of the day I do agree, who's still in power? Mr. Bashir.
Hassan al-Turabi, who was the intellectual--the power, the
brains, whatever you call it, behind the National Islamic Front
when they--when they took over Bashir and he took over power in
1989. But he's dead. Mr. Bashir's still in power.
And I've heard anecdotally from other people who have been
close to Mr. Bashir that he knows what he's doing. He knows the
people around him. He knows very well how to play them off of
each other and how to stay in power.
I also think that we do need to look at their actions, not
what they say. They'll say what we want to hear. I think
they'll say to diplomats what we want to hear and smart
diplomats, wise diplomats like Ambassador Lyman know that.
For instance, religious freedom, Mr. Wolf said it, you said
it--it's the canary in the coal mine, particularly in regions
like Khartoum and the issues that are going on there.
All we have to do is look at the past several months. You
know, the Czech pastor who was arrested--complicated reasons
why. He snuck in, took footage, they caught him when he was in
Khartoum--not the smartest thing to do, and I don't--but still.
But then they arrested two Sudanese pastors who evidently
were at a religious freedom conference in Addis. The
intelligence network for Khartoum were there videotaping it,
like they're probably in the crowd here videotaping this, and
so they locked them up when they went back to Khartoum.
So for me, the nature of that what's called a government, a
regime, is that they fundamentally, I don't think, believe in
religious freedom. Hassan al-Turabi changed his tune about 10
years ago, started writing about religious freedom because we
were down there talking to him.
Other people were talking to him. He said, you thought I
could curry favour with the West. But I think you have to look
back to the 1990s with what they did to justify their violent
and militant attacks against America and our allies and the
type of people that are willing to do that, and they're still
in power, what are they really about. And I think we need to
know that.
Now, we also need to give peace a chance. We can't just
forget it and walk away, and we led the peace process with
President Bush for the South and for Sudan and we have a moral
obligation but it's also in our security interest to do so.
You had asked about the humanitarian assistance, if
anything has gone in through the battle lines and, to my
knowledge, no--that crossed the front lines, no.
Ambassador Lyman, I think you already touched on some of
the rationale behind it. I've heard that the opposition looked
at what happened in Darfur and they said no way, we are not
allowing that to happen again.
I don't know all the details about what happened in Darfur
but I heard that security really controlled what was going in
and what was going out.
And I know that, like, in a lot of other countries, not
just in Sudan, but Sudan looks at refugees as a security issue
and you don't know which aid workers to the Red Crescent or
whoever else like that is working for their intelligence
service or for some security apparatus there.
If you walk as a Catholic bishop or a Catholic priest with
a truckload of grain or something like that, whatever, that's
pure humanitarian goods and gets to go in, the chances of you
getting that through, in my opinion, all of it through would be
slim.
On the refugee situation, specifically to Eritrea that I
wrote about, I had a European official who works on refugee
issues tell me--I said, oh, you know, I said, oh, you have--you
have a lot of Eritrean refugees coming to Europe--that must--
you must be excited about that, what have you.
And he's, like, no, no, no, we are not--we don't want them.
They can't speak any--they're not--they're very unskilled, very
uneducated. They're traumatized from what happened to them when
they had to perform--serve in the military.
And the report that you all did at Enough, it catalogues
the state that the Europeans don't want the Eritreans coming
because they're a threat to their society to have them there
because they could be lost, they're uncontrolled and that sort
of thing.
Lastly, I think that the--I have great respect--I've never
served as Special Envoy. The pressures that are there are--and
the kind of work that you have to do, very difficult.
I think that Special Envoy Booth--I didn't understand it
but he sort of in a very--cerebral, smart but I think he lost
control when he was at the USIP giving comments before he left
and he singled out the SPLM-North particular for--and blamed
them for the humanitarian assistance agreement falling apart.
I don't think envoys should do that very often and I think
what he said was, these people--and he also was referring to
other--all of the leaders are serving themselves more than
their people.
But then as Ambassador Lyman said in his remarks, the SPLM-
North itself is having some issues right now. One of the top
figures wants self-determination--ill-defined, whereas some of
the others say no, we belong as a unified--John Garang's vision
of a new Sudan--democratic participation.
And so I felt like that they were pushing so hard for
whatever reason--maybe for Mr. Obama's legacy. I don't
understand why. But I think that, you know, whoever takes over
as envoy, whoever inherits his portfolio within the Trump
administration is going to have to walk some of that back.
The other thing--I've said it before but it's--we have a
lot of dedicated career professionals in the State Department
and all over. But, you know, right now our Africa policy and
our Sudan and South Sudan policy is rudderless and it won't
have a rudder until Mr. Trump gets his people in key positions.
And so I don't think if I were Khartoum or if I were the
opposition members I wouldn't--if I got an email from--or a
conversation from somebody in the State Department right now, I
wouldn't pay any attention to it.
I'd say, you know, put a Trump person in there, then I will
deal with you. It'd be the same if it was, you know, a
Democratic administration. You got to have your own people in
to do the work and have some guidance from the top in order to
have the credibility and to get some things done.
So I think we are in a real holding pattern and that's
another reason why I suggest 180-days long or a year because
it's going to take a few more months until we get some key
people in at the White House and in the bureaucracy to handle
these issues.
Mr. Abubakr. I would like to get back to you about all
these points in writing in detail.
Mr. Smith. Sure.
[The information referred to follows:]
Written Response Received from Mr. Mohamed Abubakr to Question Asked
During the Hearing by the Honorable Christopher H. Smith
As always, whoever is footing the bill. Nowadays that happens to be
Saudi Arabia. GoS greatest survival tool/skill throughout the past 27
years has been shapeshifting . By pulling strings of all ideologues in
the region, by sounding exactly like them in their line of thinking
when it's needed, Al-Bashir managed to extort solidarity funds to keep
his regime afloat. There's absolutely no doubt that Saudi Arabia's has
the greatest influence on the decision to ease sanctions on Sudan.
Similarly, Saudi Arabia has everything to do with what will follow in
Sudan internally and its behaviors regionally. Exactly like Iran did
before Al-Bashir sold them out. The new government that will be
announced is to formalize the new direction and ideology adopted by the
regime after they (once more) switched their allegiance.
Truth is, GoS' Alpha and Omega is money. Self-enrichment is what
this government is all about, and it would change its behaviors and
ideology in any way that would grant more access to more funds. While
that's terrible party to engage with, I think it's also one that can be
made to comply, using a very simple quid-pro-quo formula that directly
ties human rights, religious freedom, and civil liberties enhancement
to access to funds would without a doubt work, and work effectively.
The assumption that human rights and religious freedoms will always be
rejected by the government of Sudan is simply wrong. It will be
dismissed if it's on the table along with other items that they can
pretend to deliver on (like peace process, for example).
Mr. Abubakr. But I want to build on one point that was made
about the question of who's in charge.
I definitely agree it's al-Bashir who's in charge and I
think where this is coming from, what is calling the shot at
the end of the day I believe it's not ideology or for power.
I think it's money, at the end of the day, and I think the
only way to get that kind of change in human rights and
religious freedom, as Ambassador Lyman said, if there are
elements in there that will always push and push aside human
rights as something that is part of something on the table and
I think the way to go about it is to make human rights
profitable, to make it the thing on the table, the main thing,
and religious freedom and human rights the thing to negotiate
about, not something additional on the table that they can cast
aside. And that's all I want to say about that.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
We are almost finished because we do have to be out of here
by 5:00. But I just wanted to ask maybe a lightning round here.
Do we need a Sudan Special Envoy again?
I'm thinking of introducing a bill. It shouldn't take a
bill. The President could do it with a snap of his fingers. But
is that needed? Is it a recommendation you would make?
Secondly, Juba and South Sudan--and Greg and I were in Juba
last August meeting with Salva Kiir, pressing these issues of
humanitarian access to end the sexual violence, now, sadly, a
famine.
That has taken the eyes off of Khartoum and put them
squarely to the South. Has Khartoum then exploited that lack of
scrutiny that they are not getting to the degree they used to?
Are the church leaders and that would include Muslim,
Christian, the imams, all the church leaders, are they being
used effectively in any kind of interfaith effort or is that a
nonstarter?
And finally, UNAMID, we met with UNMISS when we were in
South Sudan. The Security Council has made some very
significant changes to their operating procedures, especially
after the debacle in the Terrain compound and when they did not
act and I did have the privilege of speaking to the Security
Council.
I was invited, as I said earlier, by Nikki Haley to be at
the Blair House, be one of four members presenting.
And I pointed out, they were obviously the ones that are in
charge of this ultimately, they made some very significant
systemic reforms. Hopefully, they pan out well, going forward.
But UNAMID, your thoughts on that. Is their mandate
sufficient? Are they doing what they should do? And then
anything you'd want to add please do and then we'll conclude.
Ambassador Lyman. I could start quickly on that. Thank you.
You know, I think the administration is reviewing how many
Special Envoys they ought to have and for what purposes. I
think in this case there should be a Special Envoy, empowered,
as Mr. Dettoni had said, because the kind of negotiations that
need to be done on both Sudan and South Sudan require high-
level attention.
Has to be someone who speaks for the President. People know
he speaks or she speaks for the President and can engage on
hard negotiations in both north and south.
You know, there wasn't this much attention to Sudan lately
as--and thank you for this hearing because South Sudan is such
an overwhelming problem. But I think it's coming back as we
look at this EO and the issues that are being raised and the
kinds of the decisions.
But I do think it's important when you talk about Sudan it
goes to the question Mr. Garrett raised, they are players in
the South Sudan situation. They've pulled back on some of their
support for the opposition. That was part of the understanding
in this track.
But there's much more to be done on South Sudan. IGAD is
divided. They are major players in IGAD. I would like to see
them step up much more constructively.
On UNMISS, I think they have improved in management but
they are limited. Right now, they are overwhelmed with their
protection of the people who are writing those POCs--they're
called protection of civilian areas.
They don't really intercede between the government and the
opposition. The fighting is going on. They don't have quite the
capacity, let alone the mandate.
So they are not--they're relevant and can be more relevant
for protection. They're not relevant, quite frankly, to
stopping the fighting.
Mr. Smith. Thank you all for your expertise. If nobody else
wants to comment, let me just say----
Mr. Brooks-Rubin. Maybe just 2 seconds on the envoy
question. I apologize.
I think we generally would agree with that. I think the
bigger issue is what Mr. Dettoni said is in order to have an
envoy who's going to really make an impact you need a policy
and until there are policymakers clearly in place, an envoy
runs the risk of not being able to advance a clear policy and
not being taken seriously, as Mr. Dettoni said.
So, I think our perspective is if there is a clear policy
and a strong policy and then someone who can clearly and
strongly carry it out with the clear backing of the
administration that is clear to Khartoum has the backing of the
administration as, again, Mr. Dettoni made clear, then that's
important and I think the last point I wanted to make by
jumping in is this is where there is, clearly, a role for
Congress and, clearly, a role for this committee to make clear
what are the priorities and what needs to be done now in this
while there is this uncertainty.
This is really when Congress needs to act and take the
mantle by establishing what are the policies that really matter
and what are the mechanisms and measures we need in order to
achieve them.
So I think that's ultimately where we can move on.
Mr. Smith. Does that mean new legislation or just----
Mr. Brooks-Rubin. It could, yes. I mean, it should--it
should--it should--it should mean legislation. There is a
proposal that I think would have a lot of these measures in
them and outline the diplomatic track that's needed to get at
the human rights and peace track that we talked about.
So yes, it's legislation, it's also clearly indicating to
the administration these are what the priorities are. But we--
--
Mr. Smith. You did say in your testimony it should be
delinked from the five tracks.
Mr. Brooks-Rubin. Yes.
Mr. Smith. Why wouldn't it be incorporated?
Mr. Brooks-Rubin. Well, I think from our perspective, the
five tracks have their own trajectory. They have their own
limited set of issues they're dealing with. What we are talking
about are much bigger issues that need much different
pressures.
And so in some ways let's not muddy the waters on either
side. Let's keep two sets going so----
Mr. Dettoni. Sudan, South Sudan--the whole issue has
traditionally had very good bipartisan support. In a town right
now that's, as you know better than we, it's hard to work with
the other party, whichever party you're in right now.
This is a winner as far as bipartisan approach, and I know
that you're willing to work on the issues with everybody.
But the President and others, this could be a winner and a
good way to develop some relationships because, you know, at
the end of the day, working with the other side of the aisle is
always about relationships, not always about party politics.
I want to underscore what I wrote in the testimony what
Ambassador Lyman said, if a tree falls in North Carolina I'm
not blaming Khartoum.
This was their policy for years and years and years to
destabilize South Sudan. The rebel movements--they were very
good at it in the North, South, call it that war. They have a
network. They have the capability to run everybody and they can
run circles in some ways around and destabilizing South Sudan.
So if you're able to get that classified review I would
really ask to know the history of that to the extent that you
have the time to listen and to know what's halted, in their
opinion, and what's continued.
And this needs to be on the table because the two
countries, they were one country for a long time. They're
linked. Their futures are linked. If they're not getting along
then there's going to be destabilizing and massive humanitarian
issues.
So that's one thing I would not let go of.
Mr. Smith. It's an excellent point. Yesterday, Greg and I
did get a classified briefing. We want to include others and
now that we have even more questions to ask we'll do another
one.
But it's a great idea because we always want to not do
something unwittingly to damage what is being done if it's been
well thought out. So I can't talk about the briefing,
obviously, but we did have one yesterday.
But your point is very well taken about getting Royce,
Engel, Karen Bass and I and others all to do it. Thank you for
that.
I deeply appreciate--we appreciate it at the subcommittee.
Your information, we will get it over to State but, more
importantly, to some of the people at the White House.
Obviously, we benefit from your expertise and wisdom--
Congress and the executive branch. So thank you so very, very
much. The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:59 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Material Submitted for the Record
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Material submitted for the record by the Honorable Christopher H.
Smith, a Representative in Congress from the State of New Jersey, and
chairman, Subsubcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human
Rights, and International Organizations
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