[wvns] Overthrowing Sudan
Destination Darfur: A New Cold War Over Oil
Written by Vijay Prashad
Tuesday, 14 August 2007
In February, George W. Bush announced the creation of a new unified
combatant command for Africa. After several years of deliberation, the
Pentagon finally agreed to create the African Command (AFRICOM), which
will relieve the European Command (EUCOM) and the Central Command
(CENTCOM), which earlier shared responsibility for Africa.
In July, Bush appointed General William "Kip" Ward to run AFRICOM,
which will be based in Germany until it finds an African home
(Liberia, home to an Omega surveillance system from 1976 to 1997, is
openly lobbying to play host). Sensitive to criticism that AFRICOM
seeks military solutions to African problems, the U.S. Assistant
Secretary of Defense for African Affairs, Theresa Whelan, said,
"Africa Command is not going to reflect a U.S. intent to engage
kinetically in Africa. This is about prevention. This isn't about
fighting wars."
Navy Rear Admiral Robert Moeller, who led the Africa Command
Implementation Planning Team, pointed out that "the increasing
importance of the continent to the U.S.," particularly on strategic
and economic grounds, makes this development necessary. The proximate
issues used to push for AFRICOM were the ongoing crisis in Darfur and
the failure of the U.S. to act in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
And the less-talked-about issue is the importance of African resources
for the U.S. economy and for multinational corporations. Oil is, of
course, a central character in this story.
* * *
In September 2002, The New York Times ran an article with a telling
headline, "In Courting Africa, U.S. likes the Dowry: Oil". The article
quoted then Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, who said, "Energy from
Africa plays an increasingly important role in our energy security."
The following year, a senior Pentagon official told The Wall Street
Journal, "A key mission for U.S. forces [in Africa] would be to ensure
that Nigeria's oilfields, which in the future could account for as
much as 25 per cent of all U.S. oil imports, are secure." This figure
comes from the National Intelligence Council's report of 2000 (when
the U.S. imported 16 per cent of its oil needs from sub-Saharan Africa).
Since 9/11, the urgency of a stable source of oil has increased.
Historian John Ghazvinian's new book, Untapped: The Scramble for
Africa's Oil, points out that not only is African oil of high
quality, but it bears other significant political advantages: most
African countries are not Organizations of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) members, their oil is not owned by powerful state oil
companies, and the oil is largely offshore, which means "that even if
a civil war or violent insurrection breaks out onshore [always a
concern in Africa], the oil companies can continue to pump out oil
with little likelihood of sabotage, banditry or nationalist fervor
getting in the way."
Eighty per cent of the oil reserves discovered between 2001 and 2004
come from West Africa, where the U.S. currently procures only 12 per
cent of its total supply. West Africa is a crucial site for U.S.
interests, so much so that the U.S. is willing to be openly
hypocritical about its promotion of democracy and human rights when it
comes to the region.
In April 2006, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warmly
welcomed her "special friend", Equatorial Guinea's man of all seasons
and many decades, Teodoro Obiang. Her own department annually
chastises Obiang's regime for corruption, human rights violations and
electoral fraud. Despite being home to some of the poorest people in
Africa, Equatorial Guinea is the third largest oil producer in the
continent, whose oil the U.S. government hopes will flow across the
Atlantic to power the U.S. The U.S. has been loath to put pressure on
Nigeria for the very same reasons.
For decades, the oil regions in West Africa have been "swamps of
insurgency" (as the International Crisis Group put it in a 2006
report). Wars in the Niger Delta, for instance, claim lives and
communities, as well as barrels of oil. Both the Nigerian and U.S.
governments are concerned about "resource control", and it has been
the task of the Nigerian military to clamp down on dissent. Resource
wars in the Congo (over diamonds and coltan) and in West Africa (over
oil) have set the continent on fire. The U.S. has thus far engaged
with these conflicts through Africa's national armies, who have
increasingly become the praetorian guards of large corporations. None
of this can be justified directly as protection of the extraction of
resources, so it has increasingly been couched in the language of the
War on Terror.
The Pan-Sahel Initiative (created in 2002) draws U.S. Special
Operations Forces to Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. In 2004, the
U.S. extended this to the major oil-producing countries of Algeria,
Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia and renamed it the Trans-Sahara
Counter-Terrorism Initiative (TSCTI). After 9/11, the U.S. moved a
Special Operations Force into a former French Foreign Legion base,
Camp Lemonier, in Djibouti. In July 2003, the U.S. earned the right to
deploy P-3 Orion aerial surveillance aircraft in Tamanrasset, Algeria.
Under the guise of the War on Terror, the U.S. government moved forces
into various parts of Africa, where they trained African armies and
have been able to intervene in the increasingly dangerous resource wars.
If the U.S. government is quieter in its approach, right-wing think
tanks in the U.S. feel no such compunction. The Heritage Foundation
lobbied for the creation of AFRICOM for several years, and arguably
its work moved Donald Rumsfeld to consider an African Command. In a
2003 study entitled "U.S. Military Assistance for Africa: A Better
Solution", the Heritage Foundation argued: "Creating an African
Command would go a long way towards turning the Bush Administration's
well-aimed strategic priorities for Africa into a reality." Rather
than engage Africa diplomatically, it is better to be diplomatic
through the barrel of a gun. "America must not be afraid to employ its
forces decisively when vital national interests are threatened," the
study said. Nevertheless, the U.S. will not need always to send its
own soldiers. "A sub-unified command for Africa would give the U.S.
military an instrument with which to engage effectively in the
continent and reduce the potential that America might have to
intervene directly." AFRICOM would analyze intelligence, work "closely
with civil-military leaders", coordinate training and conduct joint
exercises. In other words, the U.S. would make the friendly African
military forces "inter-operatable" not only with U.S. hardware but
also with U.S. interests. When AFRICOM became a reality, Heritage's
Brett Schaefer welcomed the "long overdue" move.
* * *
At a May gathering of African leaders in Shanghai, the Chinese
government promised $20 billion for the continent's development.
Madagascar's President Marc Ravalomanana enthusiastically said, "We in
Africa must learn from your success." In January, the Chinese Foreign
Ministry released a White Paper that pointed out that unlike U.S. and
European investment, Chinese finance for Africa would be driven by
equity and sustainable development. Technology transfer, the entry of
African goods into the Chinese market without barriers, and the entry
of Chinese finance for development projects are the main elements of
the Chinese strategy (also the main features of the Forum on
China-Africa Cooperation and the Addis Ababa Action Plan of 2004-06).
With the U.S. and European aid at a low point and with resistance from
the U.S. and Europe to compromise on the debt burden of African
states, the Chinese proposal was welcomed in many parts of Africa.
But in Washington, among the U.S. establishment's strategic planners
(such as those in the Heritage Foundation), China's entry into Africa
has provoked concern. For people in the Heritage Foundation and in the
White House, AFRICOM is as much a response to China as it is to the
increased anti-terrorist efforts in the continent.
China is not in Africa for altruistic reasons. A quarter of China's
crude oil imports already come from Africa. African governments are
well aware of the competition between the US and China, and they have
used that standoff to their partial advantage (when the U.S. would not
act fast enough to get Nigeria's armed forces 200 patrol boats and
funds, the Nigerian government turned to China).
A new Cold War over oil has begun in Africa, but the new players are
the U.S. (as the face of global oil corporations) and China. The U.S.
government's response has not been able to match the Chinese
initiative dollar for dollar, partly because it cannot. Instead, the
U.S. government has gone after China for its dealings with the
government of Sudan. China promised to invest $10 billion in Sudan,
and it currently purchases 70 per cent of Sudanese oil (U.S.-based oil
firms cannot trade with Sudan as a result of an embargo in force since
1997). The price for this oil is greater, however, than money.
China blocked votes in the United Nations Security Council on the
ongoing violence in Darfur, although global pressure has now forced
Beijing to appoint a special envoy to Darfur and put some modest
pressure on Khartoum. The close relationship between the US and the
leaders of Equatorial Guinea or Nigeria is repellent but not half as
dubious as that between the Chinese and Sudanese governments. The U.S.
government has, therefore, a potent weapon to wield against Beijing's
claim to be in favor of African development.
* * *
Since 1984-85, the western Sudanese province of Darfur has been in a
prolonged crisis. The drought of those years made it hard for
pastoralists to find grazing ground for their camel herds. Battles
over land went on for two decades before an embattled and split
Islamist government in Khartoum armed the most impoverished of the
tribes (who had begun to regain their self-respect through a
virulently supremacist ideology promoted by a group called Tajamu al
Arabi, or the Arab Gathering).
These tribes began an onslaught against their settled neighbors, with
Khartoum's support. In a few years over a million people were driven
out of their homes to neighboring Chad (the U.N. estimates that around
70,000 have been killed). (These numbers, incidentally, are dwarfed by
the death toll and the population displacement forced by the U.S.
occupation of Iraq.) The U.N. called the Sudan situation a "crime
against humanity", while the U.S., uncharacteristically, labeled it
genocide. For a while the African Union was able to stabilize the
situation, although it did not succeed in crafting a political
solution to the problem. The African Union, created in 1999, has
neither the financial ability to pay its troops nor the logistical
capacity to do the job. The European Union, which paid the troops'
salaries, began to withhold funds on grounds of accountability, and
this gradually killed off the peacekeeping operations.
Professor Mahmood Mamdani of Columbia University (one of the world's
leading experts on contemporary Africa), says of this: "There is a
concerted attempt being made to shift the political control of any
intervention force inside Darfur from inside Africa to outside
Africa". In other words, the U.S. and Europe are eager to control the
dynamics of what happens in Africa and not allow an indigenous,
inter-state agency to gain either the experience this would provide or
the respect it would gain if it succeeds. The African Union has been
undermined so that only the U.S. can appear as the savior of the
beleaguered people of Darfur, and elsewhere.
Meanwhile, it suits the U.S. that the campaigns to save the people of
Darfur concentrate on the role of China and on what is often framed as
an "Arab" assault on "Africans." The Save Darfur Coalition in the
U.S., for instance, has a report on the "Deadly Partnership" between
Sudan and China but says nothing of the role of the U.S. in
undermining the African Union's attempts. The Coalition is more
sophisticated than can fit into the Arab-African stereotypes, but its
members include groups that are less careful (the Vishwa Hindu
Parishad of America, for instance, is an organizational member; it has
not yet tried to distance itself from its parent organization's role
in the Gujarat pogroms).
The Save Darfur Coalition, which is the largest U.S. umbrella
organization, was formed in 2004 through the work of the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Jewish World Service.
People who have been motivated by the efforts of the group are aware
of what is happening in Darfur. This is a worthwhile goal,
particularly if it is able to bring a ceasefire and an eventual peace
settlement in Darfur. But, the movement seems to have no viable
strategy to do this beyond putting pressure on China and pleading with
the U.S. government to take "tough" stands against Khartoum. The
complexity on the ground is irrelevant.
The heads of the Save Darfur Coalition and the Genocide Intervention
Network (set up by the Center for American Progress) are all liberal
Democrats who played some kind of a role in the Bill Clinton
administration. The Darfur campaign enables them to distance
themselves from the excesses of the Bush regime and yet preserve an
essential element of the Clinton foreign policy arsenal, "humanitarian
intervention" (as in the Kosovo war of 1999). For that reason, these
groups have begun to offer the slogan, "Out of Iraq and Into Darfur".
At a forum in New York City on July 15, a young woman asked why the
U.S. could not use its superior firepower to defeat the Janjaweed in
Sudan. At the same event, the documentary film The Devil Came on
Horseback shows the former U.S. Marine Brian Steidle photograph a band
of Janjaweed militia leave a village and wish he could exchange his
telephoto lens for a gun-scope to "end it now". Private mercenary
armies such as the International Peace Operations Association and
DynCorp International clamor to cross the Chad border and conduct
operations against the Janjaweed.
The language of "no-fly zones" and sanctions is not only in the air,
but it is close to becoming a reality. The New York Times' Nicholas D.
Kristof, on July 16, called for the creation of a U.S.-run "no-fly
zone" over Darfur, which would be an entry point into the
militarization of the response to what is, by the authority of the
African Union and Human Rights Watch, a messy political situation (the
rebel groups have split up and are themselves attacking humanitarian
workers).
In May, Bush unilaterally implemented tighter economic sanctions, and
promised to move another Security Council resolution. That the first
head of AFRICOM is the former commander of the battalion that led
Operation Restore Hope in Somalia in 1993 is an ominous sign. Would a
cruise missile strike on Khartoum (a replay of 1998) and an invasion
of Darfur create a solution to the current crisis, or would it only
create an Iraq in Africa?
Vijay Prashad teaches at Trinity College, Hartford, CT. He can be
reached at: vijay.prashad@trincoll.edu This article originally ran in
Frontline (Chennai, India). Photo by Shane Bauer
===
Religion, Nationalism, and Peace in Sudan
U.S. Institute of Peace Conference
http://www.usip.org/religionpeace/rehr/sudanconf/panel6.html
Panel Three: Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy
Speaker: John Prendergast, National Security Council
Speaker: Roger
Winter, U.S. Committee on Refugees
Speaker: Ted Dagne, Congressional
Research Service-Respondent: William Lowrey, Presbyterian Church (USA)
PRENDERGAST : "This has entailed the promotion of three distinct
regional initiatives on the part of the U.S. Government. The first one
is the Front Line States Initiative. We seek to support Uganda and
Eritrea and Ethiopia in their effort to defend themselves from Sudan's
campaign of regional destabilization by providing defensive non-lethal
military equipment to those three countries. We also endeavor to
support the front line states efforts to promote equitable and
sustainable development in order to counter the poverty which is a
breeding ground for extremism and recruitment for some of the groups
that the Sudan government is supporting on the soil of those three
countries. To this end, we have recently made a policy decision to
more closely coordinate and consult with the front line states and
more robustly support these goals of the region which we share."
Now, this is the UNCLASSIFIED public record, and it is 1997, before
DARFUR was ever know to anyone. And it was within 2 years that DR Eric
Reeves began his campaign against Sudan. 

PRENDERGAST: "The second
initiative at the regional Level is the IGADD Peace Initiative. Again,
I want to try to be as clear as possible. The U.S. Government strongly
supports IGADD as the only viable interlocutor for peace talks on
Sudan at this time. We support the IGADD declaration of principles as
the basis for such talks. We do not view the April peace agreement
signed between the government of Sudan and the splinter rebel southern
factions as a viable alternative to peace in Sudan. We have actively
countered the government of Sudan's efforts to utilize other mediators
and the April peace agreement as vehicles to divide international
support for IGADD."

PRENDERGAST: "A third regional initiative is the Greater Horn of
Africa Initiative. The Greater Horn of Africa Initiative has provided
a forum for U.S. policy to begin to look at how we can support
African-led solutions to their own problems. Part of that involves
supporting IGADD's regional development goals, which include regional
infrastructure and promotion of inter-regional trade. Just as in
southern Africa during the apartheid era, a stronger regional economy
surrounding South Africa weakened the apartheid state and bolstered
the efforts of those front line states in countering that abhorrent
regime. The same vision is being developed by the regional leaders in
the Horn surrounding Sudan, and I think it is a laudable goal and we
want to support it."
The above is an example of doublespeak. The US didnt support the
anti-apartheid movement, it mitigated the losses and established a new
government, with a new face, friendly to western interests.

PRENDERGAST: "The third level is the domestic level. At that level,
the U.S. Government has sought an end, obviously, to gross human
rights violations including the official tolerance of slavery, famine,
and authoritarianism. To these ends, we have undertaken the following.
The U.S. Government is the leading provider of humanitarian aid to
war-effected Sudanese civilians. Beyond just providing the aid, we
have vigorously pressed for humanitarian access to populations in need
and respect for humanitarian principles, and that is of all parties in
the conflict. We have sought to build the capacity of Sudanese
organizations, particularly in rebel-held areas, to respond to food
and health emergencies in war-torn areas of Sudan."
The above paragraph is evidence that the "human rights" and
"humanitarian" businesses of the West (UNHCR, UNICEF, CARE, WFP, SAVE
THE CHICKENS) were set about to be used as weapons against Sudan.
PRENDERGAST: "Secondly, the U.S. Government has recently decided to
increase its engagement with the NDA, with the opposition umbrella,
the National Democratic Alliance, to support the non-violent political
objectives of the opposition particularly with respect to their
efforts to promote democratic change. To this end, we have decided to
promote development assistance to opposition controlled areas of Sudan
to promote democracy. In my view, this perhaps could be one of the
most significant actions that we could possibly take at this time. It
gives us an opening to support the development of democratic civil
institutions in areas controlled by the SPLM and controlled by SAF. It
will allow us the possibility to support those in southern and eastern
Sudan to promote the rule of law through the support of local court
systems and civil administrations, something that has already been
going on for some time now."
The above processes today (and then) involve the same kinds of
programs and methos that the CIA used. NDI, NED, IRI -- these
organizations use money and power to co-opt and infiltrate and press a
"peace" agenda -- which is nothing more than absolute military and
economic control achieved by co-option.
PRENDERGAST: "We have engaged in a process which aims to expel Sudan
from the IMF, as I mentioned before, if they don't comply with basic
economic reform criteria.
Oh, they don't want Sudan to be part of the IMF? HUH!!!
"IF THEY DONT COMPLY WITH BASIC ECONOMIC REFORM CRITERIA...."
Well, we all know what that means. Or have people so quickly forgotten?
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