Sudan loses in attempt to win seat on U.N. Security Council


10 October 2000 (Newsroom) — Under intense lobbying from the United States and numerous human rights and religious groups, the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday rejected Sudan’s bid to win a seat on the Security Council.

Mauritius, which had the backing of the U.S. and several south African nations, won the two-year seat on the fourth round of balloting, 113-55. Also elected to two-year rotating seats on the 15-member council were Colombia, Ireland, Norway, and Singapore. They replace outgoing council members Argentina, Canada, Malaysia, Namibia, and the Netherlands, whose terms end in December.

Sudan’s loss “is a huge victory” for activists who have lobbied Washington for years to make the treatment of Christians and other non-Muslims in the North African country’s 17-year civil war a higher priority, said Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes liberty and democracy throughout the world.

“Sudan had committed itself to fighting tooth and nail to get a seat and had regional support,” Shea noted. “It shows that when the U.S. has a policy and weighs in, it can turn the debate around.”

A spokesman from the Sudanese Foreign Mission to the U.N. in New York said no one was available to comment. A subsequent telephone call was not returned.

Sudan has been denounced by the U.S. and various human rights and religious liberty groups for condoning the enslavement of non-Muslims in the south, the bombing of schools, hospitals and humanitarian relief workers, and the forced conversion of Christians and animists to Islam.

The North African nation won the endorsement of a majority of sub-Saharan African governments during a July meeting of the Organization of African Unity.

U.S. Senator Sam Brownback, a Republican from Kansas who visited relief sites in southern Sudan last year, said he was pleased with the General Assembly vote. “Not only is this a nation that engages in slavery and brutal attacks on its own civilian population and one of the premier state sponsors of terrorism, but it would also be the first time that a country under U.N. sanctions, a country which taxes U.N. civilian humanitarian assistance, would get a seat on the council,” the senator insisted. “This is not acceptable.”

Congressmen Donald Payne, a Democrat from New Jersey who is the former Black Congressional Caucus chairman, also was pleased with the vote. “As long as Sudan continues to harbor slaves (and) condone the indiscriminate bombing on its civilians living in the south of the country, the U.S. will continue to list Sudan as ‘a state of concern,’ ” he said.

Payne, who also was part of the congressional delegation that visited Sudan last year, actively lobbied U.N. delegates to choose Mauritius over Sudan. “I support the comprehensive sanctions placed on Sudan by this administration in 1997, and I will continue to support the sanctions regime until I can see substantial change in Khartoum,” he said.

Shea said she met with Sudan’s foreign minister, Mostafa Ossmal Ismail, two weeks ago to discuss her group’s vocal opposition to the treatment of non-Muslims in Sudan. “He told me his job is to keep Sudan out of the international focus,” she recalled. “I gave him five human rights concerns. He promised to stop the bombing the next day.”

There have been no further bombings of civilian targets in southern Sudan since that meeting, Shea observed.

The successful lobbying effort ought to encourage activists who have longed for the U.S. to make human rights, and the war in Sudan in particular, a high priority, Shea said. She also hopes that Sudan will get the message: “This will say to them that they are unacceptable at the table of civilized nations. They will remain a pariah state until they stop the killing. … I hope Sudan will allow food aid to all needy people and that the bombing of relief groups and civilian targets will stop.”

Copyright © 2000 Newsroom.
Used with permission.

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