Slow on Sudan: A bill stalls; has AIPAC reneged?(American Israel Public Affairs Committee fails to support Sudan Peace Act)

In June 2001, Nina Shea, the director of Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom, believed she could count on the pro-Israel lobby's support for legislation on human rights in Sudan. At the time, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's top priority for Congress was the renewal of sanctions against foreign oil companies doing business with Iran and Libya. The top priority for Shea's impromptu coalition -- black congressmen, evangelical Christians, Southern Baptists, and social conservatives -- was to punish foreign oil companies fueling Sudan's military campaign against Christians and animists in the country's 19-year civil war.

Shea, therefore, wanted to amend the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) to include Sudan. AIPAC did not want to weigh its legislation down with amendments that might jeopardize its passage. So the two sides reached a compromise: AIPAC's legislative director, Brad Gordon, promised AIPAC's support for the Sudan Peace Act, and in exchange Shea's coalition promised to drop support for the Sudan amendment on ILSA.

An unfettered ILSA passed Congress in July 2001; but -- one year later -- the Sudan Peace Act is in danger of dying a procedural death as it awawaits action in the Senate.

"AIPAC said they would help with this," says Shea, "but I don't think this is a priority for them." Rev. Walter Fauntroy, head of the National Black Leadership Roundtable (affiliated with the Congressional Black Caucus), puts it this way: "We thought we had an understanding. If we did not push Sudan on the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act we could expect help from AIPAC in moving the Sudan Peace Act. This hasn't happened yet."

And time is running out. With only weeks left on the Senate calendar, majority leader Tom Daschle has yet to bring up a motion to appoint conferees on the Sudan Peace Act -- and it doesn't appear that he will. Daschle's spokeswoman, Ranit Schmelzer, said recently that "it would require over a week of floor time to appoint conferees."

None of this bodes well for the Sudan activists who say that forbidding the Canadian, Chinese, Malaysian, and Russian oil companies to do business with Khartoum is the most effective way to force the Sudanese government to end the war. Peace talks are underway in Nairobi, but, according to Shea, "there is no political will [for the government] to sit down in good faith with the opposition. [They] are convinced they can win the war."

Shea has a point. Much of the money Sudan derives from its oil pipeline goes to purchase Russian-made MiG fighters, Eastern European attack helicopters, and other advanced armaments. Indeed, a confidential November 2000 International Monetary Fund report found that Khartoum doubled military expenditures only one year after its oil pipeline became operational in 1999.