BREAKING: Trump Administration Delays Sudan Sanctions Decision

ASHRAF SHAZLY/AFP/GETTY (BASHIR) CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY (TRUMP)

Enough Project calls for new peace and human rights track, targeted network sanctions

July 11, 2017 – Today, the Trump administration delayed the decision on whether to terminate the longstanding comprehensive sanctions on Sudan, a process that began during the last days of the Obama administration. The administration extended the deadline for a decision by three months to October 12, 2017.

Enough Project experts are available for comment and analysis.

John Prendergast, Founding Director at the Enough Project, said: "In order to improve on the Obama administration's five track plan and more effectively address the fundamental issues producing violence and state dysfunction in Sudan, the Trump administration should immediately design and enact a new track of engagement with Khartoum that is focused on addressing the core issues that keep Sudan in perpetual crisis and kleptocracy. This new track should be tied to a new set of smart, modernized sanctions that spare the Sudanese public and target those who are most responsible for grand corruption and atrocities, including air strikes on villages, attacks on churches, obstruction of humanitarian aid, jailing and torturing opposition figures and civil society leaders, stealing elections, and undermining peace efforts."

Omer Ismail, Senior Advisor at the Enough Project, said: “The U.S. needs to weigh the costs of making deals and giving up critical leverage with dictators like Omar al-Bashir, whose regime is a state sponsor of terrorism and who himself is wanted for genocide and crimes against humanity. Washington and Europe have powerful leverage they can wield to change the calculations of Sudan's corrupt and brutal rulers, by implementing a modernized program of network sanctions and financial pressures.”

Read Enough Project’s Recent Reports on Sudan:

• The Missing Track: The case for a new policy framework between the United States and Sudan (June 2017)
• Sudan’s Deep State: How Insiders Violently Privatized Sudan’s Wealth, and How to Respond (by Enough Team) (April 2017)
• Border Control from Hell: How the EU’s migration partnership legitimizes Sudan’s “militia state” (by Suliman Baldo) (April 2017)
• Khartoum’s Economic Achilles’ Heel: The intersection of war, profit, and greed (by Suliman Baldo) (August 2016)

In a TIME op-ed last week, George Clooney and John Prendergast, co-founders of the The Sentry, called out powerhouse D.C. lobbying firm Squire Patton Boggs for representing the Sudanese government in its campaign to lift U.S. sanctions on Sudan. Read the op-ed here.

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About THE ENOUGH PROJECT - an anti-atrocity policy and advocacy group

The Enough Project supports peace and an end to mass atrocities in Africa’s deadliest conflict zones. Together with its investigative initiative The Sentry, Enough counters armed groups, violent kleptocratic regimes, and their commercial partners that are sustained and enriched by corruption, criminal activity, and the trafficking of natural resources. By helping to create consequences for the major perpetrators and facilitators of atrocities and corruption, Enough seeks to build leverage in support of peace and good governance. Enough conducts research in conflict zones, engages governments and the private sector on potential policy solutions, and mobilizes public campaigns focused on peace, human rights, and breaking the links between war and illicit profit. Learn more – and join us – at www.EnoughProject.org.