As reported from Machakos and Nairobi (Kenya), peace talks between Khartoum’s National Islamic Front and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) have yielded major success. The fundamental issues of self-determination and separation of religion and state have been tackled and evidently to the satisfaction of the SPLA/M, judging from the public comments of spokesman Samson [...]

July 2, 2002 In response to the obscenely disingenuous commentary from Jim Buckee, CEO and President of Talisman Energy, an Open Letter from Eric Reeves to: The Honorable Henry J. Hyde Chairman, Committee on International Relations US House of Representatives Washington, DC Dear Chairman Hyde, I wish first to thank you for the generous opportunity [...]

Yesterday, before the House International Relations Committee, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill reiterated the Bush administration’s opposition to US capital market sanctions against oil companies complicit in the genocidal destruction of the people of southern Sudan. He could do no better by way of explaining this opposition than other Administration officials: “No one finds the events [...]

Is there no atrocity that will lead to full-throated international condemnation of Khartoum’s National Islamic Front regime? Can Khartoum continue its barbarous aerial assault on civilian and humanitarian targets in southern Sudan without facing meaningful sanctions? The answer appears to be that no action by Khartoum weighs more heavily than its southern oil concessions and [...]

The battle has already begun to “spin” the meaning of what appears to be Talisman Energy’s impending sale of its Sudan asset to India’s ONGC. Talisman is, of course, getting major help from the high-priced Hill & Knowlton public relations firm in putting a happy face on what will be a stinging defeat. But they’re [...]

Despite weeks of opportunity to reverse, at least partially, an accelerating slide toward a massive humanitarian crisis in southern Sudan, both the UN and the United States seem paralyzed. Neither UN leadership nor the US State Department has been able to articulate a coherent or effective policy in responding to Khartoum’s concerted efforts to compromise [...]

The Sudan Peace Act has been considered primarily in terms of the House version of the bill, which contains potent US capital market sanctions against foreign companies complicit in the oil-driven destruction of Sudan. But the bill, in both its House and Senate versions, would also speak powerfully to the present massive and deepening humanitarian [...]

It is now two weeks since Tom Vraalsen, UN Special Envoy to Sudan, negotiated an agreement with the Khartoum regime that fundamentally compromised the principle of unimpeded humanitarian access to the people of southern Sudan. Presented as the best arrangement possible given the brutal terms proposed by Khartoum, the agreement was to have been temporary [...]

“‘Not Acceptable!’” — Andrew Natsios, Administrator, US AID Andrew Natsios, Administrator for the US Agency for International Development, has decisively rejected Khartoum’s bid to undermine Operation Lifeline Sudan relief efforts to southern Sudan: “The principle of Operation Lifeline Sudan since it was created in 1988, was to allow the northern-held areas to be served from [...]

Eric Reeves [May 28, 2002] Smith College Northampton, MA 01063 ereeves@smith.edu 413-585-3326 Yesterday, the National Islamic Front regime in Khartoum precipitated a massive and immediate humanitarian emergency by reneging on the longstanding terms of Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), the tenuous international relief effort that is all that stands between life and death for hundreds of [...]