Human-rights activists and observers of the relentless civil war in Sudan will get a long-awaited chance today to discuss America's policy toward Africa's largest country during a joint oversight hearing of the House International Relations Committee.

Dubbed "America's Sudan policy: a new direction?" the hearing will feature testimonies from prominent human-rights activists, including Elliott Abrams, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom; Eric Reeves, professor at Smith College; J. Stephen Morrison, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; and Roger Winter, executive director of the U.S. Committee for Refugees.

The scheduled hearing is a victory for American observers of Sudan's civil war -- professional activists, concerned individuals and even school children who have waged a two-year battle of their own to be heard by U.S. government officials on the atrocities waged by Sudan's National Islamic Front government.

For more than a decade, the extremist NIF has ruled in Khartoum, the nation's capital, forcing dissidents off their native lands and funding slavery rackets that have victimized inhabitants in the southern regions of Sudan. Though the civil war is roughly half a century old, the last 12 years under the NIF have been waged over oil, pitting a ragtag coalition of Muslim, Christian and Animist resistance groups against the smaller but well-armed Islamic regime. The conflict has cost Americans more than $1.2 billion in humanitarian relief efforts and has been filled with detailed accounts of atrocities, including surprise raids, kidnappings, rapes and beatings. It has prompted controversial slave "redemption" efforts by groups such as Christian Solidarity International and gained the attention of the United Nations and Amnesty International.

Last summer, humanitarian groups formed a coalition called the Sudan Campaign and canvassed Capitol Hill as well as the media, drawing attention to the war-torn region through personal testimonies of former slaves.

Questions to be addressed at the hearing include the sustainability of relief efforts, which are continually diverted and instead are possibly being used to reinforce war efforts by both sides of the conflict. Committee members will discuss the establishment of a no-fly zone in southern Sudan, as has been advocated by the Sudan Catholic Bishops Conference and others. The U.S. closed its embassy in Khartoum in 1996 and transferred remaining embassy personnel to Nairobi, Kenya, due to security concerns. The possibility of an ambassador appointment and the restaffing of an embassy will be explored in addition to the general question of the level of U.S. involvement in reaching a Sudanese peace agreement.

Winter draws a clear line between the warring factions: "There's no moral equivalency at all between the combatants. The National Islamic Front government is clearly the primary abuser, and the people of the South in particular are the primary victims. There's no question, I think, at all. And if you look at the record of the National Islamic Front government, it is very clear that [the NIF] is the primary obstacle to achieving a just peace. So in my view, it is very difficult to … be neutral here." He added, "All of that is not to say that the opposition is perfect. It is not, but there is no moral equivalency."

The National Islamic Front government came to power in 1989, the same year a peace accord was signed resolving the political aspirations of the South and dealing with the separation of religion and state, explained Winter.

The NIF "came to abort that peace, because they didn't want the separation of church and state," he said. Now the NIF is reaping financial benefit from an oil industry heavy in U.S. investors.

It's a question of value, say human-rights activists: human life or oil? China's huge government-sponsored oil industry cooperated with Khartoum to construct oil fields, a main pipeline and refineries that produce benzene gas, butane and gasoline for export.

Chinese and Sudanese government forces have driven large segments of the population off the oil-rich land and away from areas surrounding the pipeline running across Sudan to the main seaport on the Red Sea.

The fundamentalist regime reaps tremendous financial benefit from its oil industry, which funds the attacks on dissidents, say observers. Attacks include bombings of civilian targets, such as churches and schools, as well as starvation tactics.

"Once [the NIF] came to power, they manipulated food as a weapon. They allowed agents of international terrorism to use their territory for training and other purposes," said Winter. "They regularly manipulate food access by starving people. In 1998, their manipulation cost tens of thousands of lives." The current government regularly blocks humanitarian relief efforts and bombs humanitarian and civilian centers, notes the House International Relations Committee.

"They are an extremist group," Winter said of the NIF. "In my view, you can't, given their track record, take what they say for granted. They have a history of not living up to what they say publicly. In my opinion, you have to tie any improvement in relations by the American government to that government to demonstrable progress in peace negotiations. Don't give them anything up front."

At the hearing, Winter will emphasize the human-rights violations perpetrated through the bombing of civilian targets. Such bombings must be stopped immediately, said Winter, who will bring charts and documents to the hearing showing locations of NIF bombings.

Winter was in Sudan in January and "saw bomb craters that were of huge dimension. They are using bombing consciously to herd people out of the oil areas. In addition, I've talked to people that were shot up by helicopter gunships that were gained by oil revenues," he told WorldNetDaily. "That kind of bombing doesn't happen in any other government."

But to stop the atrocities in Sudan, the United States needs leverage, and "the leverage that’s available to use is in our capital markets," said Reeves.

Complementing Winter's testimony, Reeves will emphasize the need for capital market sanctions -- that is, removing Sudan-based oil companies from American markets. About 90 percent of PetroChina's initial public offering was "floated in U.S. capital markets," said Reeves. Additionally, British-owned BP Amoco has a major investment in China's oil industry, and the Canadian Talisman Energy, Inc. does a fair-share of business with Khartoum. The two companies have been targeted by activists in the effort to cease oppression by the NIF.

"If they would de-list from the New York Stock Exchange, they would collapse. That would get their attention," said Reeves.

Capital market sanctions stand in contrast to trade sanctions, which make it "hard to target the people you really want to get at -- in this case the Khartoum regime," Reeves noted. "Capital market sanctions are highly focused. They go only after the shares in the American markets. The effect would be immediate and highly, highly consequential."

With China's massive investment in Sudan's oil industry, a collapse of other investors -- such as BP Amoco and Talisman -- through rejection by the United States would prompt the communist nation to lend its ear, believes Reeves.

"China would be motivated to encourage peace in Khartoum," putting an end to the brutality and saving its investments, he reasoned. "If Beijing speaks, Khartoum will listen. … They have enormous leverage with Khartoum," Reeves continued. "They won't do it because they think it's right. They will do it because they are experiencing so much capital pain that they will see it as in their self-interest to force Khartoum into a more responsive negotiating posture."

Only the United States has the necessary weight to pull it off, said Reeves.

"It is peculiarly America's responsibility now to respond to the oil-driven destruction of Sudan," he asserted. Capital market sanctions would be a "shot across the bow that warns them off."

Winter agreed, saying, "You cannot have Europe or Canada take the lead in promoting a just peace. … Because the Canadian and European companies are so involved, you can't rely on them. They're strongly influenced by the oil trade." He continued, "It's only the Americans that can confront the need for a just peace. Only the U.S. is big enough and heavy enough to actually enforce any peace agreement that's reached. Only America is uninfluenced, I would argue, by having oil interests over there."

And the time to act is now, when American interest in Sudan has piqued, say the activists.

"Politically, it's more possible now than ever before. The profile of Sudan in America has never been so strong as it is now," said Winter, who characterized public awareness of Sudan as having reached "an important critical mass."

Said Winter, "I think there is a package there that ought to coax the Bush administration to a strong position with respect to Sudan. By strong, I mean to take resolving the war with a just peace as important and to engage in a way that is very tough with the government in Khartoum."

A "just peace," he said, would "allow for an exercise of self-determination by the South" and include an agreement on the separation of religion and state -- something the fundamentalist Islamic government has rejected. Additionally, a just peace would provide for an equal division of the economic pie derived from oil revenue, ensuring the South benefited from the nation's profits. And the government would have to back away from engaging in involvement with slavery. And, perhaps most critically, "You'd have to have the conduct of military activities, to the extent they occur, to be conducted within appropriate rules of war. Bombing of civilian targets is contrary to international law," he said.

Reeves agreed that the time is ripe for a congressional review of American-Sudan relations. "This, I can tell you, is the defining moment for American policy toward Sudan and particularly toward oil development in Sudan," he remarked. The issue "crosses all the normal fault lines" of political ideology, bringing Democrats and Republicans, blacks and whites, Muslims and Christians together for a single purpose: End the war in Sudan.

Recent comments by House Republican leadership could be a reflection of sentiments in the White House on the issue. Reps. Dick Armey and Tom DeLay condemned the government in Khartoum and expressed sympathy for those suffering in Sudan.

"You don't get the Republican congressional leadership saying this and then ignore it," said Winter, who believes "the story of Sudan, in terms of U.S. policy, is going to be told in the next two weeks."

The first measure of the success of today's hearing, commented Reeves, "will be how much media coverage there is of this hearing. The second will be which congressional voices will be spoken out."

The hearing begins at 2:30 p.m. Eastern time in the Rayburn House office building.

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