Black Minority being slaughtered by Arabs in Sudan

[Y2A]

So far there are 10,000+ dead, over a million refugees, and numberous allegations of Sudan backed militia raping black women in the Darfur region. Journalists do not even have access to places outside of aid camps in Sudan because the situation is to dangerous. The whole thing started because the Sudan government wanted to stop a black rebellion in Darfur. The EU has stepped up and sent aid, but the situation does not seem like it is going to get any better.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3817519.stm

UN faces Darfur dilemma

By Susannah Price
BBC UN correspondent


Senior United Nations officials have condemned the killings in the Darfur region of western Sudan - but have stopped short of describing it as genocide.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40285000/jpg/_40285707_refugees_afp203body.jpg
Tens of thousands of people fled Darfur

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who is due to visit the country in the next few weeks, has said there were massive violations of international humanitarian law being committed there.

However, international aid agencies have accused the UN of being slow to react to the crisis which has left thousands dead and forced more than a million to flee their homes.

The UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Jan Egeland, has said there is ethnic cleansing underway and accused elements in the government from preventing efforts to bring aid to the people of Darfur.

Human rights organisations say government forces and Arab militias have been attacking African civilians from the same ethnic groups as rebel forces in the area.

The Sudanese government says they are not involved and blame the militias.

Protecting civilians

Mr Annan says he did not have any specific evidence but from all accounts the Sudanese government could do something about the Janjaweed militias.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40277000/gif/_40277643_sudan_darfur2_map203.gif
There needs to be really serious pressure because the government is capable of controlling a large amount of this violence


Joanna WeschlerHuman Rights Watch


The UN Security Council passed a resolution earlier this month calling on the parties to use their influence to bring an immediate halt to the fighting.

Germany, Britain and the United States say they are very keen to draw maximum attention to Darfur - but other members such as China and Pakistan were less enthusiastic.

Last month, the Security Council issued a strong Presidential Statement speaking of indiscriminate attacks on civilians, sexual violence, forced displacement and acts of violence and calling for those responsible to be held accountable.

It also called on the parties to protect civilians and facilitate humanitarian access.

Military intervention?

Aid groups say the Security Council must make sure that Sudan complies with these demands and there should be credible threats of action if it does not comply such as sanctions.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40285000/jpg/_40285701_annan_afp203body.jpg
Annan is shortly due to visit Sudan

"There needs to be really serious pressure because the government is capable of controlling a large amount of this violence," said Joanna Weschler, Representative at the UN for Human Rights Watch.

Mr Annan has hinted at the possibility of military intervention although it is not seen as likely.

It is not clear what the next step is likely to be at the UN.

There is a huge effort on the humanitarian side with UN officials warning that with the rainy season about to start, it is a race against time to provide basic services.

On the political front, it appears that the Sudanese will be given some time to show that they are taking steps to control and disarm the militias.

However, 10 years after the genocide in Rwanda, the United Nations knows the world will be watching its actions very carefully.

[life beyond life]

Sudan is also another "hot spot" for oil, it's one of their primary export$ so the country depend$ on it. But whenever we deal w/ re$ource rich nations, we have to take a much clo$er look at the conflict and in this case humanitarian crisis. I wonder, as a conspiracy theorist, if the imperiali$t is instigating a "conflict" and socio-political strife just to create a diversion or weaken the people. Amidst all the chaos, I wouldn't doubt that the imperiali$t is over there trying to make negotiation$ on the oil.

Also, same case w/ Nigeria. A lot of turmoil and murder, and a lot of loose ends. Nigeria is an oil rich country and in a perpetual state of conflict, and "religious" at that. Prior to religious conflict it was tribalism in Afrika, now they "set trip" with Chritistianity and Islam.

In the end though, the likelihood of the UN really serving a purpose is grim.

http://www.sudan.net/news/news.html

http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives..._propaganda.php (http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2004/05/04/defaming_sudan_all_lies_and_propaganda.php)

[fuerzasocialista]

In Nigeria, the bullshit that goes on is between Christians and Muslims. In the Sudan, there is a Muslim majority that includes blacks and arabs yet they are still killing each other. What happened to being brothers bound by the Koran??

[Y2A]

Originally posted by life beyond [email protected] 19 2004, 07:32 AM
I wonder, as a conspiracy theorist, if the imperiali$t is instigating a "conflict" and socio-political strife just to create a diversion or weaken the people. Amidst all the chaos, I wouldn't doubt that the imperiali$t is over there trying to make negotiation$ on the oil.
Yes, the U.$ is evil and thus responsible for this conflict even though it was the U.S that negotiated a peace treaty to keep that country stable. You have to learn not to blame the U.S for every problem in the world. It get's ridiculous and there is no way to debate it.

[DaCuBaN]

I wonder, as a conspiracy theorist

At that point we should be switching off ;)


it was the U.S that negotiated a peace treaty to keep that country stable

The question has to be asked of course: at what cost?

[Y2A]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2004, 03:59 PM
The question has to be asked of course: at what cost?
WTH are you talking about? The peace treaty was to stop the civil war before the Sudan backed Arab militias started taking out the black minority in Darfur. The two have nothing to do with each other. I'm just pointing out that the U.S helped stop a civil war there.

[DaCuBaN]

Easy man... it wasn't an attack, but a question. It's a subject I'm not clued up on, but generally if an intermediary comes in to settle a dispute, one of the parties will feel 'put out' by the conclusion.

[Y2A]

You don't know what you are talking about DaCuban. First of all, the treaty that the U.S made stopped the Sudan government from attacking the south. It has nothing to do with Darfur. Darfur is a region in western Sudan. Some blacks began rebeling in this region and then the government backed militias to stop any rebellion by all means necessary. And now it is no longer about stopping it but rather "get rid" of all the blacks. The U.S has absolutly nothing to do with the situation I was refering to the pervious civil war. And the EU has even sent aid to the aid camps in Sudan for these million displaced people. I would stress the need for UN peacekeepers in the region, but the UN sucks and wouldn't be able to get the job done either way.

[cormacobear]

While this is extremely difficult to do. I have to agree with Y2A. Unless the melovelant rulers of the U.S. have a plan so convoluted that it will take decades to understand, this conflict is not in their best interests. I'm friends with some oil workers who just came back from there because of the violence. The big oil companies are loseing millions every day this goes on.

[Guerrilla22]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2004, 01:44 PM
In Nigeria, the bullshit that goes on is between Christians and Muslims. In the Sudan, there is a Muslim majority that includes blacks and arabs yet they are still killing each other. What happened to being brothers bound by the Koran??
For years, the governmnet, which is fundamentalist has been at war, not with fellow muslims, but with indigeneous tribes, who practice mostly their own indigeneous religions, or in some instances Christianity.



This whole thing is truly disturbing. There are/were peace keepers in the Sudan, apparently they have been unable to prevent this from happening. It was to my understanding that no one, including the UN really knows what is going on inside the Sudan right now, nor the reason for these attacks. It is also not known for sure if the Sudanese governmnet itself is involved in these attacks.

[Hiero]

I would blame the Sudanese government for this whole mess.

I would back a move by US government if they pulled troops from Iraq to move into Sudan for peace keeping mision, but only if it is under full control of the UN.

[Hiero]

Also this thing with Sudan is going to get alot worse then Nigeria.

[Sabocat]

Here's a little backround on U.S. involvement in Sudan. The U.S. "contributions" in Sudan have been less than altruistic.

U.S.'s secret war against Sudan
Why the U.S. bombed Khartoum
By John Parker

The vast African country of Sudan suddenly became a focus of the news here when the U.S. government sent cruise missiles crashing into a pharmaceutical plant in its capital, Khartoum, on Aug. 20. President Bill Clinton told the press he had "convincing information" that the plant had been used to manufacture chemical weapons and was linked to the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on Aug. 7.

This explanation for Washington’s terror attack has convinced few around the world, especially since experts from many countries have come forward to say that the plant couldn’t possibly have been used in the manufacture of such deadly chemicals.

What the U.S. government isn’t talking about is its previous history of hostility and subversion against the Sudan — something that has received virtually no press attention.

The U.S. has imposed economic sanctions on Sudan for many years, but they were stiffened in November 1997 when Clinton signed an executive order blocking Sudan’s assets in the United States and banning bank loans to and commerce with that country.

Support for secessionist
movement

According to the book "Dangerous Liaison" by Alexander Cockburn, collaboration between the CIA and Israeli intelligence to support a secessionist movement in the Sudan can be traced back to at least 1968.

Over the years since then, the U.S. has kept up a campaign to destabilize Sudan. On Nov. 10, 1996, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. would send $20 million in military equipment to Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda, even though these three countries were embroiled in a bloody war in southern Sudan.

The paper said its congressional sources doubted the aid would be kept from rebel forces fighting the Sudanese government — virtually an admission that the aid was for that purpose.

Africa Confidential wrote on Nov. 15, 1996, that "It is clear the aid is for Sudan’s armed opposition" and added that U.S. special forces were on "open-ended deployment" with the rebels.

The group now militarily supported by the U.S. — the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army — had earlier been described by the U.S. State Department, Amnesty International and agencies in the United Nations as an army that primarily utilizes terror against civilians to further its aims.

In 1997 the Sudanese government signed the Khartoum Peace Agreement with several other rebel groups. This agreement confirms the federal nature of the government, accepts a referendum for the south, and offers amnesty to rebel groups that enter a political dialogue.

In February, Riek Machar, a former rebel with the SPLA who now leads a defense force allied to the Sudanese government, said that Uganda was preparing for an attack on Sudan.

Last April, when Clinton toured Africa, Sudanese President Omar el Bashir charg ed that "Clinton’s African tour and his stop in Uganda are to support Uganda where the [Sudanese] rebels have their bases."

There was an influx of U.S. troops into Uganda in 1997. In August that year, standing on Ugandan soil, U.S. Major Matthew Dansbury cited U.S. interventions in Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia as a precedent for the 121 U.S. Green Berets sent to Uganda to train troops there for "peacekeeping" exercises. The 771 Ugandan troops trained in the exercises were to form the "African Crisis Response Initiative."

But the Sudanese government charged that SPLA members were included in those training exercises with the Ugandans.

Link (http://www.workers.org/ww/1998/sudan0903.html)


Clinton set to use food as a weapon in Sudan
By Johnnie Stevens

The Clinton administration announced Nov. 28 that it was considering taking advantage of a small part of a spending bill just passed in Congress to give food to support one side of a 16-year-old civil war in Sudan. Washington will back the so-called Sudanese Rebels' Peoples Liberation Army against the government in Khartoum. The new U.S. law overrides previous legislation that forbade U.S. government food aid to combatants.

While this tactic may seem relatively harmless, it is really another variant of the U.S. cruise-missile attack on the Al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, in August 1998. Even non-governmental organizations like Care USA--a group that donates food to both sides of the civil war--find the new U.S. policy dangerous. And Nils Kastberg of UNICEF said, "There will be greater risk for everyone involved."

The food offensive is clearly a continuation of U.S. intervention in the internal affairs of Sudan.

John Pendergast, special advisor to Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Susan Rice, told the Nov. 29 New York Times that the food aid would enable the rebels to maintain positions in the parched territory where they are fighting the government's Northern Army and the government-backed militias. Rice wants Sudan's government isolated and punished as much as possible, according to the Times.

This latest maneuver recalls the Bush administration's food program in Somalia in the early 1990s. That was Washington's way of sending troops to the Horn of Africa, aimed then at gaining another base from which to control the oil rich fields of the Middle East. There is also oil in the southern part of Sudan where the United States has been supporting the PLA against the Khartoum government of the north.

The U.S. government has applied sanctions to starve millions of people for countries it demonizes like Iraq and Sudan. Now it plans to use a new weapon to achieve its geopolitical aims: giving food away.

France, Britain, Canada and Saudi Arabia, U.S. allies that formerly joined the United States in applying sanctions against Sudan, now seek rapprochement with Sudan. These governments hope to gain in oil trade and investment, especially in Sudan's south.

The Clinton administration is also undoubtedly very angry about China's investment in the Sudan oil industry. The administration is considering this new aggressive step to counter the Sudan government's escape from isolation.


Link (http://www.workers.org/ww/1999/sudan1209.html)


Listing of archived articles (http://www.workers.org/cgi-bin/search/search.pl?match=1&Realm=All&Terms=sudan)

Most likely the real reason the U.S. is interested in a peace deal in the Sudan


US moves to secure African oil supplies
30-09-02 As the US war machine gears up for action in the Middle East its policy makers have quietly begun a different sort of campaign: A calm offensive in Africa. Behind both of these very different exercises lies one common element, some would say the key defining element in US strategic thinking: both regions have large reserves of oil. One year after the September 11 attacks cast a giant stone into the already troubled waters of America's relations in the Middle East, Africa is shaping up as its energy supplier of choice.
The White House, driven on by an oil lobby ever hungry for new opportunities, has seized upon the Atlantic waters of the Gulf of Guinea as a zone of special strategic interest, analysts say. "With the attacks, the Americans realised how vulnerable their reliance on Middle East oil made them. They're turning towards us to diversify supply," says an aide to a central African leader.

While African fields currently account for only 6 % of the world's known oil reserves, the continent has perhaps the best chance of rapid expansion. Of the 8 bn barrels of crude oil reserves discovered by prospectors in 2001, seven were in the offshore fields of the Gulf of Guinea, on west and central Africa's Atlantic coast.
Gulf of Guinea crude is low in sulphur and so easy to convert to motor fuel. It lies a short, safe sea journey from the United States. US firms are already well represented in the region. Politically, the region is also promising for US planners keen to access cheaper, more plentiful oil in the years to come.
Angola and Cameroon are not OPEC members and not subject to the cartel's quota system. Nigeria, still Africa's biggest oil producer despite increasing competition for the title from Angola, has been sounded out by private US lobbyists about leaving the organisation. Against this background, industry experts predict that the proportion of America's oil sourced in Africa will grow from 15 % today to 25 % by 2020.

World oil consumption is expected to rise by 59 % over the same period. This month US President George Bush broke new ground, rolling out the White House red carpet for 10 central African heads of state in recognition of their work on behalf of peace. US Secretary of State Colin Powell had toured oil-rich Angola and Gabon. US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter Kansteiner, who visited Angola and Nigeria in July, is expected in Gabon.
From there he is to visit the small but strategically significant Gulf of Guinea island country of Sao Tome and Principe, home to fewer than 150,000 people. Senior US military personnel have recently visited the tiny country to discuss basing a US naval fleet there, to protect its interests in the region. Despite the attractions and the rewards of investing in African oil, the region does present some political difficulties however, starting with the territorial disputes that divide it.

Nigeria has already settled disputes over its sea borders -- vital in a region where most future oil production is expected -- with Sao Tome and Principe and with Equatorial Guinea. Now it is waiting for the judgement of the International Court of Justice in The Hague on its dispute with Cameroon over the Bakassi Peninsula, a 40 mile (70 km) long spit of swamp jutting out into the Gulf of Guinea.
The end of some of Africa's most bitter wars could also open up new horizons for ambitious oil companies. US relations with Angola -- which already provided just less than a tenth of America's oil -- and with its onetime Marxist President Jose Eduardo dos Santos have improved since the death in February of rebel leader and American protege Jonas Savimbi. Ties with Sudan have also improved, despite the US sanctions levied against Khartoum because of its supposed support for international terrorism. The United States weighs heavily in peace talks between Khartoum and a southern rebellion.

If peace comes to Sudan, its 1.25 bn barrels in known reserves could triple as firms gains access to the disputed south. With hope on so many political horizons, the biggest threat to US oil supplies could come from the internal stability of states in an underdeveloped region.
For that reason, many of the projects currently under way come with demands for democracy and good governance attached. For example, 72 % of local receipts from America's largest investment in Africa -- the $ 3.7 bn Chad to Cameroon oil pipeline and attached developments -- have been tagged for education, health and infrastructure projects.

Link (http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/news/ntn24212.htm)

[Hiero]

Wow lovely post, we all no the imperialist policies of capitalist nations but we are talking about the recent crisis and what to do.

[Sabocat]

Wow lovely post, we all no the imperialist policies of capitalist nations but we are talking about the recent crisis and what to do.

The topic of the peace agreement recently being brokered came up. I am trying to demonstrate that any peace plan the U.S. puts forth, will most likely not help the African population of Sudan in the long run, as it is merely a way to stabilize access to the oil fields. The U.S. has only alterior motives for peace in Sudan. I was providing a bit of history on involvement of the U.S. in Sudan.

Also, while this alleged peace deal is being brokered, the killing continues in the west. One of the stumbling blocks of the peace deal, has been distribution of power, and distribution and management of the oil wealth.


I would back a move by US government if they pulled troops from Iraq to move into Sudan for peace keeping mision, but only if it is under full control of the UN.

I bet you would. Yes, the U.S. is known for their altruistic "peace keeping" missions all over the globe. Like the "peacekeepers" in Haiti perhaps? :lol: All the "peacekeepers" would do, is to secure the oil reserves. They don't care about the massacre of the civilian population, as demonstrated in my earlier post regarding the U.S. bombing of a pharmaceutical plant.