Africa Center Director J. Peter Pham writes for The Hill on the United States’ sanctions against Sudan falling on the vulnerable citizens of the nation instead of the country’s real decision makers:
Two weeks ago, the United Nations Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures, Ambassador Idriss Jazairy, completed an eight-day visit to Sudan with a critique of the sanctions regime:
The reality on the ground has proved that these measures do not have a negative impact on officials or on any elite group. Their full impact is on innocent citizens and on a deepening of the gap in income distribution within the Sudanese society and between provinces. It also resulted in broadening the black market and breaking away from the control of financial transactions. The latter came to avoid the official financial network. This encourages the emergence of a parallel economy which was exposed to a variety of possible illegal practices.