Last week, on October 31, the Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a final rule amending the Sudanese Sanctions to permit exports to the semi-autonomous region of Southern Sudan. These rules implemented Executive Order 13412 issued by the White House on October 13, 2006 which exempted Southern Sudan from the sanctions imposed on Sudan by Executive Order 13067.

Apparently because OFAC’s regulations weren’t revised for almost a year after Executive Order 13412 lifted the export ban for Southern Sudan, OFAC’s staff was insisting that licenses were still required for transactions in Southern Sudan and either weren’t granting them or were granting them after long delays. According to this wire report yesterday from Reuters:

Until now U.S. organisations have still had to go through long procedures with OFAC to get around the 1997 order. “To get an exemption from the comprehensive sanctions imposed in November 1997 was virtually impossible,” added Sudan specialist Eric Reeves, who has been trying to set up schools in the south despite “extremely onerous” regulations. “In some fundamental sense only now have sanctions really been lifted on the south,” Reeves added. …

“It should have been clear from day one that the south would be exempted from the sanctions,” said Sudan expert John Prendergast, currently with the Enough Project. He said the period of confusion arose from what he called U.S. government ineptness.

An interesting anomaly persists in the new regulations. The amended regulations of added a new subsection (g) to the list of exempt transactions in 31 C.F.R. § 538.12 (formerly § 538.11). Subsection (g)(1) exempts transactions in the “Specified Areas of Sudan” which are defined to include large parts of Southern Sudan. However, section (g)(2) says that the exemption in (g)(1) doesn’t apply to food, medicine and medical devices. Apparently, as I read this, you could ship a ton of bricks to Southern Sudan without a license to Sudan, but to send food and life-saving medicines you still need to undergo the delay and expense of a license. That doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense, but I haven’t gone back to see if there is some legislative justification for this in either the Trade Sanctions Reform Act, which governs exports of agricultural products, medicine and medical devices, or in the initial legislation which led to Executive Order 13067.

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