U.S. Slates $3 Million for Sudanese Opposition

By Nora Boustany and Alan Sipress, Washington Post, Friday 25 May 2001; Page A28

The State Department has reached an agreement to supply $3 million in logistical support to a Sudanese opposition alliance that includes the main group fighting for autonomy in the African country's war-torn southern provinces, according to government sources familiar with the arrangement.

Under a contract with DynCorp, a Reston government and defense contractor, the Bush administration will provide funding for office space, equipment, radios, vehicles, staff and training in an effort to enhance the political effectiveness of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the sources said.

The goal, they said, would be to strengthen the alliance's position as it confronts Sudan's Islamic government, led by President Omar Hassan Bashir, a general who took power in a military coup in 1989.

While the NDA was constituted as an umbrella organization of opposition groups across Sudan, some analysts, human rights groups and Sudan experts have expressed concern that the aid program could fuel government fears of heightened U.S. support for an 18-year-old rebellion in the south.

“This package feeds false hopes and expectations on the part of the southerners and sustains excessive paranoia in Khartoum,” said Steve Morrison, a Sudan and Africa specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He said the assistance could bolster the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA), a rebel group that since 1983 has been fighting the Khartoum government, which is dominated by Arab Muslims from the north. The rebels seek greater autonomy or independence for southern Sudan's largely black population, mostly Christians or followers of traditional religions.

The SPLA is the main armed group in the National Democratic Alliance, once a coalition that included prominent Muslim and northern opposition figures. But it has “melted down” with the recent withdrawal of former prime minister Sadiq Mahdi, among others, Morrison said.

“The NDA is a bit of a phantom. It is basically the SPLA and a few elements,” he said.

Other human rights activists warned that supplying such assistance without a broader strategy for ending the war would do little but prolong the country's suffering.

A State Department spokesman said yesterday that he had no information about the contract with DynCorp, which previously gained media attention as the leading U.S. government contractor for anti-drug work in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru. A company spokeswoman did not return two telephone calls this week requesting information.

The $3 million program was initially approved during the Clinton administration. It is separate from $10 million in assistance that was added last year to the foreign operations bill by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), chairman of the Foreign Relations subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian affairs. That money, which has yet to be spent, is designated for logistical support for the SPLA and other groups in southern Sudan.

“The $3 million contract with DynCorp is a first step in a good direction, and now the administration should take the second step and spend the next $10 million,” said Brownback's spokesman, Erik Hotmire.