Oil May Allow Sudan to Escape Sanctions’ Pain

[oberliner]

Source: New York Times

The Bush administration’s new sanctions against Sudan aim to squeeze the country’s economy by freezing Sudanese companies out of American financial institutions and curtailing their dollar transactions.

Administration officials described the sanctions as a significant move to raise the pressure on Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Sudan’s president, to bring a quick end to the violence in Darfur.

But the sanctions will do little to stem Sudan’s oil exports, which are the main source of the country’s wealth, analysts said. They also noted that existing sanctions against Sudan, which date back to 1997, have been unevenly enforced.

“Sudan has been quite adept at avoiding sanctions for the past decade, and this is not going to have a lot of bite,” said Philippe de Pontet, a political risk analyst at the Eurasia Group in Washington.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/30/business/worldbusiness/30oil.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin