When Sudan Needs a Friend on the Hill, It Turns to Dymally

A year ago, when Sudan was trying to fight off the imposition of economic sanctions by the Clinton administration, it found a willing ally in Mervyn M. Dymally, a former six-term congressman and onetime lieutenant governor of California.

Records show that the Sudanese regime--which rules one of the poorest countries on Earth, a nation of 32 million beset by famine and disease--paid Dymally’s lobbying firm $100,000 to help it win friends in Washington.

Sudan wanted to counteract administration complaints that terrorist groups operate on its territory and that Sudanese citizens who are not Muslims are subject to religious persecution.

“They knew I know my way around the Hill, and I know what to do and how to do it,” explained Dymally (formerly D-Compton), who once chaired the Congressional Black Caucus and a House subcommittee on Africa and now maintains offices in Los Angeles and Washington. “I’m not a traditional lobbyist. I tell them what is in the nature of Congress and what is taking place.”

Dymally was not alone. During the same period, Sudan covered its bases with other constituencies by hiring a conservative commentator and a humanitarian activist who worked in the George Bush administration.

The campaign illustrates how even the poorest governments in the world obtain hired help in dealing with Congress, the White House and the State Department. Their desire for representation has created a niche market for a small cadre of professional lobbyists in Washington.

Several other African governments, including Angola, Togo and Mauritania, also hire lobbyists, consultants or advisors who, they hope or dream, can steer them through the Washington power maze. Although their ability to change the course of U.S. policy is debatable, as demonstrated by Sudan’s experience, it hasn’t stopped them from trying.

“A lot of embassies in Washington do this because Washington is a hard place to do business, and they don’t have a lot of staff,” said Constance Freeman, head of Africa programs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Lobbyists can be useful in negotiating the labyrinth on the Hill.”

Within Washington, those who do the lucrative work of lobbying for foreign governments are an obscure subculture--a tiny network of people whose names often are passed on from one embassy to another.

Dymally, for example, was retained by Sudan after he had done work for the government of Mauritania.

Lobbying for foreign governments is legal, but those who do so must register with the Justice Department and reveal how much they are being paid. Records show that since 1993 Dymally has received a series of $60,000 payments, roughly once every six months, from Mauritania’s Washington embassy.

Sudan’s lobbying campaign in Washington dates back about two years. It began when Sudanese leaders started to fear the possibility that new American sanctions could severely crimp its already strapped economy.

Sudan had been on the State Department’s list of terrorist nations since 1993 because of U.S. complaints that the regime was giving sanctuary to terrorist organizations, including, at the time, Osama bin Laden, the Islamic financier now sought for last summer’s American embassy bombings in Africa.

Assassination Attempt Intensified U.S. Concerns

Washington’s concerns intensified after a 1995 assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in which suspects were based in Sudan. In early 1996, the Clinton administration closed its embassy in Khartoum for security reasons and moved American diplomats to Kenya.

Sudan countered with efforts to appease the administration and moderate its image in the United States. The ruling National Islamic Front required Bin Laden to leave the country. In early 1996, it dispatched a new and polished diplomat, Mahdi Ibrahim Mohamed, as its ambassador to Washington.

Mohamed quickly began to spend money on Americans who might help him appeal to various political constituencies.

In March 1996, he retained a politically conservative lawyer named Bruce Fein, initially for a fee of $10,000 per month. Fein’s task was to meet “with members of Congress, the executive branch, editorial boards of newspapers, think tanks that address United States foreign policy [and] prepare pamphlets, monographs and similar documents” about Sudan, he explained in his disclosure statement.

Fein is known in this country as a regular commentator on MSNBC who usually discusses domestic issues, such as Supreme Court cases or President Clinton’s political travails. But with considerably less fanfare, he has registered with the Justice Department as an agent for foreign governments, including Pakistan and Togo as well as Sudan.

Fein said in an interview that his main work for Sudan had been “trying to help frame a negotiating discourse” that would ease the country’s tensions with Washington.

He said he had traveled once to Sudan and concluded that “the idea that this is a hateful, anti-Western country is obviously exaggerated. . . . The signs you see there are for Pepsi and Coke. I stayed in a Hilton Hotel around Christmastime, and the first thing I saw there was a Christmas tree.”

Meanwhile, Sudan’s ambassador was moving to line up support from Democrats. For that, he worked through Dymally.

In early 1997, Dymally took a trip to Sudan, paid for by the government. He met with President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir and with Parliament Speaker Hassan Turabi, who is Sudan’s most powerful leader. He says he got to know Turabi so well that the Sudanese leader once gave him his Mercedes to use while in Khartoum.

“I was convinced they were serious” about their desire to improve relations with the United States, and I decided to represent them . . . ,” Dymally said in an interview. “I’m sorry to say that [the administration] did not respond to these efforts to reconcile.”

Last year, the Sudanese embassy put another American on its payroll: Janet McElligott, a Washington resident who had once worked in the Bush White House.

McElligott said her work for Sudan began almost randomly, when she ran into Ambassador Mohamed at a Chinese Embassy reception and struck up a conversation with him. Soon afterward, she said, she became an intermediary, helping the ambassador and then-Rep. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.) negotiate the release of three hostages in Sudan, one of them an American.

In the first six months of 1997, records show, the Sudanese embassy paid McElligott $75,000. She told the Justice Department she was trying to arrange a Sudanese cultural exhibit in the United States.

For a time, it appeared that Sudan’s Washington campaign had some hope of success. The Clinton administration conducted an internal review of its Sudan policy.

Some U.S. officials talked about the possibility of adopting a policy of engagement, and sending American diplomats back to Khartoum.

After a few months, however, the administration rejected these ideas, deciding that the Sudanese regime had not taken sufficient action to end its support of terrorism.

Embargo Ends Payments to Lobbyists

Last November, it imposed a near-total embargo on American trade and investment there. The sanctions also applied to lobbyists. As a result, Dymally, Fein and McElligott found they no longer would be getting money from Sudan’s Washington embassy.

Even though they are no longer being paid, the three lobbyists are still pleading Sudan’s cause. McElligott contends the administration has treated Sudan poorly. Fein, who hopes to do legal work for Sudan in the future, complains that the United States failed to respond to Sudan’s overtures for reconciliation.

Dymally laments that he had to give up working for Sudan and contends the country remains a great business opportunity for the United States, one the Clinton administration is missing.

“If you can do business with Russia and China,” he said, “you can sure as hell do business with the Sudan.”