Robert "Bud" McFarlane, a former Reagan national security adviser, was involved in negotiations last Fall on behalf of the Sudanese government, according to the Washington Post.
The government of Sudan, eager to curry favor with a U.S. government that accused it of genocide, sought help last fall from an unlikely source: a former Reagan administration official known for his role in the Iran-contra scandal.
The approach by Sudanese officials led to a $1.3 million contract for former national security adviser Robert "Bud" McFarlane...
The story raises a number of issues, the first of which is why the former Reagan aide was dealing with a government facing international war crimes charges.
The unusual talks between Sudan and McFarlane featured meetings in Middle Eastern capitals, clandestine communications with Sudan's intelligence service and a final agreement with the government of Qatar, which is employing McFarlane as part of its peacemaking role in the eastern African region.
The episode puts an old Cold War hand in the middle of the volatile 21st-century conflict in Sudan, whose president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, faces international war crimes charges for allegedly orchestrating a campaign of murder, torture and forced expulsions in Darfur. The arrangement also places McFarlane, 72, close to the edge of U.S. legal requirements, which mandate disclosure of work for foreign governments and which prohibit doing business with Sudan under sanctions first imposed in the 1990s.
WaPo obtained documents showing communication directly between McFarlane and Mohammed Babiker, a Sundanese government official.
McFarlane failed to disclose his activities with the Justice Department.
Neither McFarlane nor his firm, McFarlane Associates, in Arlington, has registered as a lobbyist or foreign agent on behalf of Qatar or Sudan, or received permission from the State Department to do business with Sudan.
Several legal experts said that while this is a gray area, the situation appears to fall under the requirements of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires anyone acting on behalf of a foreign power to file disclosures with the Justice Department. "Once you start talking to U.S. officials, that's what normally would trigger the obligation to register," said Joseph E. Sandler, a prominent Democratic lawyer and FARA expert.
A former aide to Bill Clinton said that McFarlane played a disruptive role during peace talks in Ethiopia this summer.
John Prendergast, a former aide to President Bill Clinton and a prominent Darfur expert, said McFarlane's nebulous role disrupted peace talks in Ethiopia this summer, when, he said, one tribal leader backed by McFarlane asked for $6 million in funding from Gration's office. He said the proposal caused an angry uproar among other Darfur leaders and nearly derailed the summit.
"When a paid consultant engages directly in the process in support of one of the belligerents, with real question marks about whose agenda is being served, that can be destabilizing," said Prendergast, who serves as co-chair of the Enough Project, an anti-genocide group.
Jerry Fowler, president of the Save Darfur Coalition, said McFarlane's activities are an example of the Bashir regime's "no-holds-barred PR strategy."
The report is particularly disturbing given McFarlane’s history of assistance to foreign rebels.
March 12, 1988 - Robert C. McFarlane, President Reagan's former national security adviser, pleaded guilty to four misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress and agreed to serve as a prosecution witness in the criminal investigation of the Iran-contra affair.
Standing before Judge Aubrey E. Robinson Jr., Mr. McFarlane, a former Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, acknowledged in a quiet, somber voice that he had withheld information in 1985 and 1986 about the Reagan Administration's clandestine program to assist the contra rebels in Nicaragua.
"I did indeed withhold information from the Congress,'' Mr. McFarlane later told reporters on the steps of the Federal District Court House here. ''I believe strongly that throughout, my actions were motivated by what I believed was in the best foreign policy interests of the United States."