Contrary to the authors’ outrageous assertions, the signs unequivocally suggest that the referendum will take place on time. The Government is not only prepared to recognize the outcome, but has widely called on the international community to witness and engage in the process in order to ensure a fair and transparent exercise. The African Union, in the person of Mbeki and Menkerios the UN representative during a recent visit to DC, while admitting to the enormous logistical challenge at hand, testified to this fact.

On imposing further sanctions on “party officials”, the world knows all too well what that really means. Sanctions are meant to devastate communities wholesale and have never been localized effectively at the individual level. The authors are well aware of that fact. Yet because of their obvious contempt for a government, they’re ready to sacrifice the wellbeing of the average Sudanese, a scenario that will undoubtedly yield the results witnessed in the aftermath of the U.S. imposed Iraqi sanctions, where millions died, over half of whom were toddlers.

As far as the so-called International Criminal Court goes, its U.S. proponents are simply proving Sudan’s point; that this court is a perversion of justice and a mere political tool to accomplish political ends. For how else, could the U.S. exert any influence on a court that it doesn’t even recognize and is not a member to!

The U.S. policy makers would best be served by paying less attention to those interest groups disguised in humanitarian outfits, those that make all the absurd demands on their government on situations they have limited grasp on as epitomized in their rather conceited claim that the hard won peace is one that the “United States ‘Owns’”.