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.
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