Today's sanctions announcement by the US on #Sudan's Central Reserve Police is, on its face, a welcome, albeit long overdue announcement. It targets clearly one, but by no means all, of those security entities responsible for the violent crackdowns and home.treasury.gov/news/press-rel…
killings of protesters since the Oct coup. While it is better late than never, its also too smart by half. First, it uses an existing authority under Global Magnitsky to target human rights abusers that could have been deployed months ago. It didnt need to take this long.
Second, by not being targeted against individuals, which could have been done under GloMag, the US has targeted an entire organization which will make any effort to deal with them or reform them at a future date that much harder. Third, by not targeting people at least closer to
SAF and RSF leadership, the most notorious and responsible actors for the violence, continue to escape. Fourth, this sanction targets only the symptom of violence that is born from the actual disease of the military coup. Coup leaders have still paid no personal cost. Lastly,
Im sure the @AsstSecStateAF will say that this is merely the first round of sanctions and is privately intended as a warning shot to the big fish that they could be next, but here too, muscle flexing at this stage while the coup is consolidated misses the mark entirely. A new
sanctions regime, intended to target those undermining the democratic transition, could still be months away and will come too late, once again. I dont begrudge diplomats for always thinking there is always a diplomatic solution, but by pulling our punches against the SAF/RSF
in the hopes of maintaining access in order to achieve a diplomatic breakthrough, which is how I read this, suggests a fundamental misreading of who this military junta really is. How bad must the atrocities become before we figure that out? END
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
