By MAWAHIB ABDALLATIF

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US Senators are pushing for penalties against those deemed spoilers in the Sudan transitional project which has stalled for the past three months following a coup that deposed civilian authority.

Bob Menendez, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair, and Jim Rich, the Senate’s top Republican, say the US government should stiffen punishment on those seen impeding the transition and promoting human rights violations in Sudan.

Molly Phee, the US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, said the US had made it clear to Sudan military leaders that Washington was prepared to take additional measures against the military if violence continued.

“We are reviewing the full range of conventional and unconventional tools available to further reduce the funds available to the Sudanese military regime, isolate companies controlled by the military, and increase reputational risks for anyone who chooses to continue to engage in a ‘business as usual’ approach with Sudanese security services and its economic companies,” she added.

The US official indicated that she publicly and privately affirmed that “the violence practised by the security services in the face of peaceful demonstrators since October 25 must end.”

Al Bashir overthrow

The actions by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan on October 25 suspended power-sharing arrangements between the army and civilians that had been negotiated after the overthrow of Omar al-Bashir’s regime in a popular uprising in April 2019.

Ms Phee spoke during the committee session Tuesday on ‘Sudan’s Threatened Transition and American Policy Following the October 25 Coup’, referring to the time the government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was ousted.

Ms Phee said the US is concerned about the military’s call for elections in 2023. Although the military has indicated they will hand power to civilians and are ready to organise elections, the lack of a substantive transitional government following the coup means nothing has moved in three months.

Civilian movements have been protesting in Sudan since the coup. But divisions among them on whether to sit down with the junta or totally reject the military has made it difficult to negotiate.

At least 79 people have been killed and more than 2,400 injured since protests began on October 25 in rejection of measures taken by Lt-Gen al-Burhan, which included declaring a state of emergency and dissolving the sovereign and minister’s councils.

Last month, the United Nations opened consultations with Sudan’s political forces as part of an international initiative to resolve the crisis that has erupted in the country. But some civilian groups refused the idea of negotiating with the junta.