Washington, DC — Advocacy and activist groups in the United States have welcomed President George W. Bush's new sanctions on Sudan but have said they do not go far enough.
At a White House briefing Tuesday, Bush announced measures which toughen existing restrictions on about 100 Sudanese companies and add 31 companies to the sanctions list.
"The people of Darfur are crying out for help, and they deserve it," Bush said (read the full text of the speech).
Reaction to his statement was mixed among Darfur campaigners. Many human rights and religious groups in the United States have made ending the war, which has claimed an estimated 200,000 lives and displaced 2.5 million people, a high priority.
David Rubenstein, the executive director of the Save Darfur Coalition, a coalition of more than 100 religious, humanitarian, human rights organizations, said in a press release that the group "welcomed President Bush's decision" but believed "these measures are too late and too little.
"President Bush must not give further months to determine whether these outlined measures work – the Darfuri people don't have that much time," Rubenstein said.
John Prendergast, Colin Thomas-Jensen, and Julia Spiegel of the ENOUGH Project, a Washington, DC-based group that which aims to combine analysis, advocacy, and activism to end genocide, said in a statement that Bush's announcement "could have been a real turning point," but punishing individuals was not enough. The new sanctions have targeted three individuals - two government officials and a rebel commander.
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"Three people? After four years?" they asked. "And not one of them the real ringleader of the policy to divide and destroy Darfur?"
Human Rights Watch's Peter Takirambudde agreed: "Individual sanctions should not be limited to mid-level government officials but should certainly include senior Khartoum policymakers."
Prendergast, Thomas-Jensen, and Spiegel of ENOUGH were also critical of the decision to act unilaterally: "Once again the U.S. is going alone? This is not leadership."
The U.S. government, however, denied it was is acting alone. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said at a press conference that the United States is asking its friends to "impose financial sanctions that match our own." Negroponte also indicated that in diplomatic discussions European leaders had expressed interest in imposing sanctions.
Lawmakers echoed activists' disappointment. Congressman Donald M. Payne (Democrat-New Jersey), the chairman of the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Africa, called the move a "small step in the right direction but a far cry from what's needed to save the people of Darfur."
