Yes… I know this is another news that is just outrageous! What about the breaking of the country into two: Sudan and South Sudan… Some of it had been supported or helped by the US and foreign forces… so is there compensation for that? Excerpts below are from an article on the Guardian’s website. All of this makes my blood boil! And weird how all these funky deals are taking place right now in these uncertain times during lockdown. Is it because African economies have been hit by the pandemic, thus are vulnerable, and so the leadership is ready to make blood-boiling deals like these? It’s like the elders made a mistake (by the way, which one?) and the kids are paying for it…. yet, when we talk about compensation from genocide perpetrated on our parents and grandparents, nobody wants to hear! Lastly, why are these deals made without consulting the people?

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A US proposal to remove Sudan from a list of states that sponsor terrorism – in exchange for a $330 million payment compensation to American victims of al-Qaida – has caused anger in the poverty-stricken east African country.

Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, visited Khartoum on Tuesday to underline US support for the new transitional government that took power following the fall of Omar al-Bashir last year, whose 30 year authoritarian rule saw Sudan become an international pariah.

… The US has moved to incrementally restore relations with Sudan over recent years but has insisted that outstanding legal claims are settled before the country is struck from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. …

Sudan has been on the list since 1993, and so faces a range of damaging measures including the denial of much needed financial aid from international multilateral institutions.

The double bombing of embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998 was the work of al-Qaida, then run by Osama bin Laden from Afghanistan. More than 224 people died and 4,000 were injured in the bombings.

Courts in the US have found Sudan guilty of providing essential support to al-Qaida when Bin Laden was based in the country between 1991 and 1996.

But ministers, opposition leaders and ordinary people in the country have expressed their dismay at the prospect of a multimillion-dollar payment to the US. Some complained that it was unfair that the new reformist government in Sudan should suffer for the misdeeds of a fallen dictator.

Activist Mohamed Babiker, 32, accused the US of intensifying Sudan’s problems: “We opposed the regime and overthrew it. Now we have to pay for what it did wrong,” he said.

Shamael el-Noor, a participant in the mass protests that led to Bashir’s ousting, said that the US should have immediately removed Sudan’s name from the list of countries supporting terror once Bashir was gone.

“The terrorism was linked to the former regime’s ideology … It’s unfair to keep Sudan on that list while people revolted against the terrorism of that regime,” El-Noor said.

Others contested the basis for the compensation claim, saying that Sudan had sought to cooperate with the US by expelling Bin Laden and that the attacks had occurred two years after the Saudi-born extremist had left their country.

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