The Sudanese Transitional Military Council has hired Canadian lobby firm Dickens & Madson for US $6 million in an attempt to influence US policy in favor of the junta government.
Dickens & Madson CEO Ari Ben-Menashe signed the consultancy agreement with Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo who is the deputy head of Sudan’s transitional military council.
Ari Ben-Menashe is a former Israeli intelligence officer who has previously served as a lobbyist for Zimbabwe’s former president Robert Mugabe who was also deposed by a military coup.
In 1989, Ben-Menashe was arrested in the US on 3 November for trying to sell three Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport aircraft to Iran using false end-user certificates.
The Canadian lobby firm says they will attempt to influence US policy in favor of the transitional military council and help secure funding and equipment for the Sudanese army.
Sudan’s military forced former president Omar al-Bashir to resign in April after months of anti-government protests with the promise to hand over power to civilian rulers.
Anti-government protests continue since the Sudanese military refuses to hand over power as negotiations continue with protest leaders and the opposition.
Dickens & Madson intends to lobby on behalf of the Sudanese transitional military council in Russia, Saudi Arabia, the UN, the African Union, and “any other mutually agreed upon country or countries,” according to the filings.
The lobbying contract was published on June 17 by the US Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires companies that lobby the US government on behalf of foreign entities to disclose their relationships and publish those statements online.
Download a copy of the lobbying contract between the Sudanese Transitional Military Council and Ari Ben-Menashe
