Sudan Still Next in Line For U.N. Sanctions

by Ian Williams

The Middle East suddenly leapt back into the headlines at the U.N. As predicted in the last issue of the Washington Report, Sudan is in the sights for sanctions—of sorts. But in the best traditions of diplomacy, the dispute is getting complicated. The Ethiopians, on whose territory the attempted assassination of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had taken place, raised the issue, but Egypt, which is actually on the Security Council (ironically taking the place of already sanctioned Libya), was obviously active, if not exactly prominent in demanding that Sudan hand over the suspects.

With Iraq and Libya already under sanctions, Sudan would have completed the Israeli lobby’s hit list of Arab terrorist states, which is no doubt why the United States came swinging into the fray with evidence of Khartoum’s perfidy. However, Egypt and other non-aligned countries do not want to see the Sudanese people suffering for the faults of their government, and so there was considerable resistance to blunt economic sanctions. The compromise in the end was a slap on the wrist, with restrictions on travel and postings for Sudanese officials, but with the threat of further sanctions when the resolution is reviewed in 60 days.

Ambassador Nabil El Araby of Egypt pointed out that the policy was determined by President Mubarak, “who was farsighted enough to see that the most important thing is not to affect relations between the peoples of Egypt and Sudan. We are certainly advocating any measures possible against the government of Sudan—as long as that does not affect the people of Sudan. It’s a very thin line to walk.”

There was a much thicker line for Ambassador El Araby when he moved another resolution in support of another Moubarak. Lebanese Ambassador to the U.N. Samir Moubarak has tried unsuccessfully three previous times to get the issue of Israeli attacks raised in the Security Council. “It’s been eight years since the last resolution,” Ambassador Moubarak told the Washington Report. And indeed it was eight days between the start of the Israeli attacks and the resolution reaching the vote.

“Children are being slaughtered in ambulances and elderly people, men, women and children in Lebanon are falling every minute for the sole purpose of helping the electoral ambition of the Israeli government. This is pure madness,” he told the Security Council.

However, the Lebanese resolution moved by Egypt was outvoted by the rest of the Council, which passed an American draft on the very evening that the Israeli shelling of a U.N. camp killed over a hundred refugees.

Sudan would have completed the Israeli lobby’s hit list of Arab terrorist states.

The successful resolution was, according to one Western diplomat, “balanced. We wanted to avoid finger pointing.” Ambassador Moubarak, not surprisingly, disagreed, “It’s high time to let Israel know that it is not above International Law.” He said that the defeated resolution had been prepared five days before, and was mild under the circumstances, but even milder in view of the casualty list. “We should have drafted it more strongly. As it is, the successful [U.S.-drafted] resolution did not condemn the Israeli actions, it did not ask it to stop and did not take into account compensation for the damage caused.”

The successful resolution, according to U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright, has “a sense of fairness and balance.” Needless to say, the “balanced” resolution failed to mention that the Council had ordered Israel to quit the “buffer zone” many years ago. No one has suggested sanctions as a result, any more than anyone did over Israeli forces shooting up an ambulance, bombing villages and making half a million people homeless. In fact, most delegates shared Ambassador Moubarak’s view that, insofar as the Israeli onslaught had any purpose at all, it was the re-election of the Israeli prime minister. If there were a Federal Election Commission in Israel, perhaps he would be required to list all those shells and all those homeless and casualties as campaign contributions.

Saving some vestiges of honor for the U.N., Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali “deplored and condemned this shelling in the strongest possible terms.” Similarly the issue of what are effectively Israeli sanctions on the Palestinians was brought up. You may remember that the current crisis began when, in pre-electoral mode, the Israelis blew the head off the “Engineer.” It may well be that he was a terrorist, but the deed that removed him was not exactly to the highest moral standards either. At the very least it lacked due process and, politically, it broke the tenuous truce that Hamas had been observing.

No one at the U.N. condoned blowing up buses in Israel any more than shooting up ambulances in Lebanon. There is nothing religious about gratuitously killing civilians. However, since Hamas has been agnostic, at least about the peace process, one can hardly accuse them of stupidity for taking the bait, even though the issue of who benefits was so clear that it took only a mild degree of paranoia to wonder whether Netanyahu had egged them on.

But the Israeli reaction perplexed many in the Council. Didn’t the Israeli government consider the effect on the peace process of demolishing Palestinian homes and ripping up large chunks of the agreements that had been so laboriously negotiated with the PLO? If so, it did not consider it enough. Nasser El Kidwa, Palestine’s ambassador to the U.N., opened the debate requested by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat with a long catalog of Israeli violations of the agreements that, he said, “represented the destruction of any possibility of creating a viable Palestinian economy.” Kidwa added, “We cannot accept that the sufferings of our people become a commodity in the fever of the Israeli election or in any other form.” His words were echoed by a host of other countries, including almost all of the Arab countries now tied into the peace process.

Unfortunately, once again the U.S. side saw no reason for the debate, and wanted to leave everything to bilateral negotiations. Ambassador Albright “regretted that the discussion of Israeli closure of the West Bank and Gaza was taking place.” To the rest of the world, it is as if the referee in a fight between Mike Tyson and Woody Allen refused to intervene as the latter was beaten to a pulp. Which is why, of course, no resolution was passed and other diplomats raised their eyes to heaven at this latest example of Israel lobby hostage-taking in Washington.

Continuing Stalemate in Western Sahara

These successive examples of U.N. irresolutions in the face of Israeli intransigence do indeed suggest, as Samir Moubarak says, that there is a double standard. However Amnesty International points out that it applies at the other end of the Arab world as well. The human rights organization reports that despite the presence of U.N. forces in Western Sahara, “People are being arrested for the peaceful expression of their views, detainees may be held for weeks or months incommunicado and torture continues to be reported...Hundreds of Sahrawis who disappeared after arrest between 1975 and 1987 remain unaccounted for.”

In May the Security Council yet again considers whether to renew the mandate for MINURSO, even though the major powers will not give the organization the teeth to carry out its mission. It probably will be renewed. And it probably will continue to acquiesce in the charade of a referendum on independence that everyone knows King Hassan will not allow until the dice are heavily loaded in his favor. In the meantime, it seems that, just like Shimon Peres, he can rely on Security Council silence in the face of his defiance.