U.S. Suspends Peace Efforts in Sudan After Attack

The U.S. announced Thursday that it was suspending efforts to help broker an end to Sudan’s nearly two-decade civil war after government helicopter gunships attacked civilians waiting for food at a U.N. site, killing at least 17 people.

Wednesday’s attack on the World Food Program depot in Bieh, in the oil-rich western Upper Nile area, was swiftly condemned by United Nations officials and the United States, which has tried unsuccessfully in recent months to get Sudan to halt bombardment of civilian targets.

“We don’t see how we can pursue [peace efforts] if these kinds of attacks are going to continue,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington. “But we want a full explanation.” The Sudanese government offered no immediate comment.

Boucher said the administration would consult with President Bush’s special envoy, former Sen. John C. Danforth, about how he wants to proceed with his peace mission.

On Wednesday afternoon, two helicopter gunships hovered above 4,000 people lined up for rations of beans, vegetable oil and corn porridge for their children. As soldiers in one helicopter kept guard, their comrades in the second aircraft fired at least five rockets into the crowd, according to World Food Program spokeswoman Laura Melo. A soldier in the second helicopter reportedly fired his machine gun indiscriminately at women, children and aid workers.

It was the third such attack on civilians in two weeks.

On Feb. 10, a Sudanese government plane dropped several bombs on the southern village of Akuem, killing two children and injuring 12 others. The bombing occurred as villagers collected food that aid workers had airdropped.

The same day, a Sudanese health worker and four civilians were reported killed in a government bombing in the village of Nimne.

“These attacks raise serious questions about the Sudanese government’s commitment to peace and the lives of its people,” Boucher said. “In addition, we have asked for an explanation of how one part of the government can negotiate with the United States an agreement to end attacks against civilians, while another part of the government is deliberately targeting civilians.”

World Food Program chief Catherine Bertini said its aid distribution had been approved by the Sudanese government. She called Wednesday’s attack “an intolerable affront to human life and humanitarian work.”

“Such attacks, deliberately targeting civilians about to receive humanitarian aid, are absolutely and utterly unacceptable,” she said.

Western diplomats and Sudan watchers say that the latest attack was the most direct assault in recent months against a humanitarian operation and that it proves that Sudan’s government is increasingly targeting civilians who sympathize with the rebels fighting for autonomy in the south.

The helicopter assault indicates that Sudan is pressing the war even as it has been talking peace and attempting to improve its image in the international arena--and especially with the United States.

Sudan has been named by the U.S. as a state sponsor of terrorism. The African nation has recently turned over files on Osama bin Laden, whose Al Qaeda network was once headquartered in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital.

In addition, Sudan had agreed to cooperate with Danforth, who has been trying to bring an end to the country’s nearly 19 years of ethnic and religious warfare.

The conflict--which has claimed an estimated 2 million lives, largely from famine and hunger--pits Sudan’s Islamic government in the north against militias in the mainly Christian and animist south.

Two months ago, Sudan agreed to a limited cease-fire but rejected Danforth’s proposal to halt all bombing of civilian targets and have international monitors investigate such attacks. Investigations into the raids, the government said, would give the rebels a military advantage.

Government troops stepped up attacks in the western Upper Nile, the site of most of Sudan’s oil fields, after a local militia once cordial with Khartoum merged in January 2001 with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, the main rebel group led by John Garang.

Garang and others say Khartoum has used money from oil exploitation, conducted by Canadian, European and Asian companies, to fund its war in the south.

After the United States called the Akuem bombing “horrific and senseless,” the Sudanese government issued a rare apology, saying the attack was a “regrettable accident.”

Western diplomats in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, however, said the Sudanese government was unlikely to abandon its strategy of attacking civilian targets.

“If people die and starve, they don’t make good guerrillas,” one diplomat said. “That’s the government’s strategy--to deny civilians all food resources and safe havens.”