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President Imposes New Sanctions on Sudan
Near the various huts in the Darfur town of Mukjar, Sudan, human bones and skulls lie just a few inches below the surface in a mass grave. A frustrated President Bush has described the violence in Darfur as ongoing "genocide."
(By Nasser Nasser -- Associated Press)
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"The object here is not to stop their oil exports but to impose a real price . . . to make them feel financially isolated," said Adam J. Szubin, director of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
Meanwhile, the likelihood of multilateral sanctions seemed remote yesterday at the United Nations, where Secretary General Ban Ki Moon appealed for more time to persuade Sudan to make political progress.
Ban is seeking Sudan's cooperation on several fronts, and he has been pressing Khartoum in recent days to sign off on a detailed proposal for a United Nations-African Union "hybrid force" that would lead to the deployment of more than 15,000 additional peacekeepers in Darfur.
Ban sent Bashir a private letter on Friday setting out four benchmarks that Sudan must meet to advance the peace process. It calls on Khartoum to accept the peacekeepers, disarm government-backed militias, guarantee safe passage to international aid workers and observe an immediate cease-fire, ending all offensive military operations and aerial bombardment of rebel strongholds.
Senior Russian and Chinese officials seized on Ban's bid for patience, warning that the imposition of sanctions at such a delicate moment could jeopardize Ban's efforts to bring an end to the bloodshed.
"I believe there is some progress," said Russia's U.N. ambassador, Vitaly I. Churkin, citing upbeat accounts by Ban and his special envoy, Jan Eliasson.
A Chinese diplomat stationed at the United Nations, Li Junhua, said that Beijing does not believe sanctions will end the conflict in Sudan. "I won't say the action taken by the United States would help to convince our Sudanese colleagues to move forward," he said.
The Bush administration believes that China may be more sensitive than it publicly acknowledges to the international and regional backlash on the Darfur violence. "The Chinese are attempting to expand their trade and their presence in Africa. This issue is infuriating the Africans, and I think the Chinese know that," the president's special envoy for Sudan, Andrew S. Natsios, told reporters at the State Department. "We have many indications that the Chinese position is evolving. They have been more helpful than may be apparent publicly."
Lynch reported from the United Nations. Staff writer Robin Wright contributed to this report.
