دعواتكم لزميلنا المفكر د.الباقر العفيف بالشفاء العاجل
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Re: خليل ابراهيم وعوض بن عوف في قائمة العقوبات الأمريكية (Re: ابوهريرة زين العابدين)
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Treasury Designation Targets Sudanese Government, Rebel Leader
The U.S. Department of the Treasury today blocked the assets of three Sudanese individuals, including two high-ranking government officials and a rebel leader, for their roles in fomenting violence and human rights abuses in Darfur. The Treasury also acted today to sanction 30 Sudanese companies owned or controlled by the Government of Sudan, and one company that has violated the arms embargo in Darfur.
"Even in the face of sanctions, these individuals have continued to play direct roles in the terrible atrocities of Darfur," said Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr. "We are working to call attention to their horrific acts and further isolate them from the international community."
Ahmad Muhammed Harun, Sudan's State Minister for Humanitarian Affairs, has been accused of war crimes in Darfur by the International Criminal Court in the The Hague. Sudan's head of Military Intelligence and Security, Awad Ibn Auf, was also designated today, along with Khalil Ibrahim, leader of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), a rebel group that has refused to sign the Darfur Peace Agreement.
Harun and Auf are among Khartoum's senior leadership and have acted as liaisons between the Sudanese government and the Government-supported Janjaweed militias, which have attacked and brutalized innocent civilians in the region. The two individuals also have provided the Janjaweed with logistical support and directed attacks. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than 2.5 million people have been displaced by violence and war since 2003. Previously, Harun served as State Minister for the Interior, and played a central role in coordinating and planning military operations in Darfur between 2003 and 2005. In the 1990s he was responsible for massacres in the Nuba Mountains and was nicknamed "the Butcher of Nuba."
Fighting between the Government of Sudan, the Janjaweed, and splintered rebel groups has continued unabated in Sudan, despite the signing of the African Union-brokered Darfur Peace Agreement in May 2006. The Government of Sudan and the largest rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Movement, signed the agreement, but other rebel groups, including the JEM, declined to do so. The JEM is responsible for violence and suffering in Darfur and Khalil Ibrahim, as leader of the JEM, is personally responsible for rebel activity aimed at further destabilizing the situation on the ground.
Today's action brings to seven the number of Sudanese individuals for whom access to the U.S. financial system is prohibited under Executive Order 13400, which targets perpetrators of human rights abuses in Darfur in western Sudan. Azza Air Transport Company has also been sanctioned under Executive Order 13400 for transferring small arms, ammunition and artillery to Sudanese government forces and Janjaweed militia in Darfur.
An additional 30 companies have been designated today pursuant to Executive Orders 13067 and 13412 because they are owned or controlled by the Government of Sudan. These orders permit the imposition of economic sanctions on the Sudanese government for its continued support for international terrorism, ongoing efforts to destabilize neighboring governments, and human rights violations – in particular with respect to the conflict in Darfur. The United States first imposed sanctions on the Government of Sudan in 1997.
"These companies have supplied cash to the Bashir regime, enabling it to purchase arms and further fuel the fighting in Darfur," added Paulson. "By denying these companies access to the U.S. and international financial system, we will make it harder for the Government of Sudan to pursue its deadly agenda."
Among the companies designated in today's action are GIAD Industrial City, which has supplied armored vehicles to the Sudanese government for military operations in Darfur; Sudatel, the national telecommunications company; and five firms in the petrochemical sector, including Advanced Petroleum Company, RAM Energy Company, Bashaier, Hi-Tech Petroleum Group, and Hi-Tech Chemicals.
As a result of Treasury's designations, any assets these individuals and entities may have that are within U.S. jurisdiction must be frozen, and U.S. persons are prohibited from transacting or doing business with them.
The United States, the single largest international donor of humanitarian assistance to Sudan, has called for an end to the fighting in Darfur and for those responsible for crimes and atrocities to be brought to justice. In particular, the United States, along with the international community, is concerned about recent attacks on humanitarian workers in Darfur.
The United States continues to push for a peaceful political solution that will end the violence in Darfur and allow refugees and displaced persons to return to their homes.
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Re: خليل ابراهيم وعوض بن عوف في قائمة العقوبات الأمريكية (Re: ابوهريرة زين العابدين)
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Bush Looks To Intensify Pressure On Sudan Economic Measures, U.N. Sanctions Planned تقرير من الواشنطن بوست By Michael Abramowitz Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, May 29, 2007; Page A01
President Bush has decided to implement a plan to pressure Sudan's government into cooperating with international efforts to halt the violence in its troubled Darfur region, where his administration said almost three years ago that genocide was taking place.
Administration officials said yesterday that the Treasury Department will step up efforts to squeeze the Sudanese economy by targeting government-run ventures involved with its booming oil business, which does many of its transactions in U.S. dollars. Bush will sanction two senior Sudanese officials and a rebel leader, who are suspected of being involved in the violence in Darfur. The United States will also seek new U.N. Security Council sanctions against Khartoum, as well as a provision preventing the Sudanese government from conducting military flights in Darfur. The United Nations has accused Sudan's government of bombing Darfur villages.
Bush has been considering such steps for months and was set to announce the plan last month at the U.S. Memorial Holocaust Museum. But he held off at the behest of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, who pleaded for more time to conduct diplomacy with Sudan's president, Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan al-Bashir, toward allowing international peacekeepers into the country.
But Bush sees little evidence that the diplomacy is bearing fruit or that Bashir is proving more cooperative in helping halt the violence in Darfur, aides said. As a result, they said, Bush plans to announce the coercive measures this morning at the White House.
"We just haven't seen any movement on the part of the government," said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to upstage the president. The official said Sudanese officials are continuing a long pattern of seeming to promise cooperation while "obstructing" progress in curbing the violence.
Administration officials said Bashir and other senior Sudanese officials have continued to thwart efforts at cooperation even after Bush explicitly warned them of the consequences. The day after Bush's speech at the Holocaust Museum, they said, the government bombed a rebel camp, and officials have continued to give speeches rejecting the full complement of peacekeepers.
The timing of today's announcement appears certain to anger U.N. diplomats, who have been reporting progress in negotiations with Bashir and have been aggressively lobbying U.S. officials to delay sanctions. Sudan's official news agency reported Saturday that Ban has agreed to travel to Khartoum to negotiate a deal on a United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force for Darfur.
U.S. lawmakers and advocacy groups, meanwhile, have criticized the Bush administration for a tepid response to Darfur despite tough rhetoric from the president, and it was uncertain last night whether they would welcome the long-awaited implementation of what has come to be known as "Plan B" for the region. Religious and humanitarian groups, which have pressed states, universities and corporations to disinvest from Sudan, have criticized as insufficient the elements of Plan B.
Bush has been under intense pressure from these groups to do something about the violence in Darfur, which began in 2003 when government-sponsored Arab militias attacked African villages in an effort to quell a rebellion. Eventually, about 2,000 villages were burned, as many as 450,000 people were killed and more than 2.5 million were displaced in continuing violence. The United States labeled it a "genocide" in 2004.
Under the new sanction plan to be announced today, 30 companies owned or controlled by the Sudanese government will be added to the 130 already blocked from using the U.S. financial system. The senior administration official said that the U.S. government has devoted considerable resources in the past six months toward figuring out how to bring greater financial pressure on Sudan, and he noted that with today's announcement most of the joint ventures responsible for oil production will be under sanctions.
"I am very optimistic that we will be able to put on more pressure than we have previously," the official said.
Although the United States has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid and has led calls for action on Darfur, it has been ineffective in marshaling an international response that would bring a lasting peace or provide adequate security to the people of the region, one of Africa's poorest and most remote areas.
The Bush administration helped broker a peace deal a year ago that was supposed to have led to the introduction of thousands of additional peacekeepers. But the deal is in shambles and few troops have been added beyond an overwhelmed 7,000-member force from the African Union.
Part of the problem facing the United States is that it has already imposed strict sanctions on Sudan -- dating to 1997, when Khartoum was targeted for its support of Osama bin Laden. So it is unclear how much more leverage the Bush administration will have without backing from other nations.
China, in particular, has extensive commercial interests in Sudan and has been skeptical of sanctions. Administration officials said they think that Beijing is starting to be more helpful, such as leaning on the Sudanese to allow the African Union force to be better-equipped.
Advocacy groups are trying to shame China by threatening a boycott of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. The senior administration official said he could not forecast how China and other members of the Security Council will react to the new U.S. initiative.
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