[wvns] Darfurism and African Genocides
DARFURISM, UGANDA & U.S. WAR IN AFRICA
The Spectre of Continental Genocide
keith harmon snow
29 October 2007
www.allthingspass.com
President Bush meets with Uganda's President-for-life Yoweri Museveni
in the White House on October 30, 2007. Meanwhile, a broad swath of
Africa is engulfed in interrelated genocides and covert operations
involving both the U.S. and Uganda, there is a growing demand to probe
the accounts of "Save Darfur" to find out how the tens of millions
collected are being spent due to allegations of arms-deals and
bribery, and the SAVE DARFUR movement has become the false flag action
of the West, supported by most everyone, people who know little or
nothing about what it is they are supporting.
When President George Bush meets with Ugandan President Yoweri
Museveni at the White House on October 30 they will discuss much more
than "Uganda's leadership in Somalia, the Lord's Resistance Army, and
President Museveni's development plan for northern Uganda" or their
"strong partnership to combat malaria and HIV/AIDS in Uganda," as
announced by the White House Office of the Press Secretary.
The role of Yoweri Museveni and his "government" in service to the
Western economic neoliberalism and the shock doctrine of
deconstruction and chaos is greatly misunderstood and deeply
camouflaged by simplified establishment narratives like those above.
Bush and Museveni will discuss the U.S.-Uganda military relations and
bilateral involvement in the wars in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC) and Somalia. The "partnership to combat malaria and
HIV/AIDS" is camouflage language for military vaccination and
bio-warfare programs involving pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer. (A
vaccine for malaria was developed for the U.S. military some time ago
and this is shared only with certain U.S. client state partners.) The
"development plan for northern Uganda" is euphemistic language for the
ongoing depopulation and massive natural resource extraction (oil,
gold, uranium) that today proceeds in parallel with the genocide of
the Acholi people and the militarization in border regions to support
covert programs in Sudan and DRC.
The Darfur conflict rides along the fault line of continental warfare
spread from Eastern DRC ("Congo" from hear on means the DRC) and Chad
to Somalia, and from Rwanda, through Uganda and Sudan, to Eritrea and
the Red Sea. Congo is at war with Uganda and Rwanda. Ethiopia is at
war with Somalia, and poised to reinvade Eritrea. Ethiopia, Uganda and
Chad are the three "frontline" states militarily destabilizing Sudan.
Uganda is internally and externally at war. Ugandan troops have
recently occupied towns in Orientale, Congo, and Uganda has intervened
in Burundi. Rwanda is internally at war, fighting in Eastern Congo,
meddling in Burundi, and has some 2000 troops in Darfur. Khartoum
backs guerrilla armies in Uganda, Chad and Congo.
The U.S. is all over the place, with both covert and over military
programs. All these conflicts are intertwined, and the targeted
populations have allegiances and alliances dictated by the
pre-colonial boundaries demarcated in 1885 by the imperial doctrine of
divide and conquer.
PEACE IS WAR IS PEACEKEEPING
On October 24, 2007, the United Nations awarded Lockheed-Martin
subsidiary Pacific Architects and Engineers a $250 million no-bid
contract to provide "infrastructure" for the United Nations
"peacekeeping" missions now unfolding in Sudan (Darfur), Somalia, and
Chad/Central Africa Republic. The newly announced contract is to build
five new camps in Sudan's Darfur and Kordofan regions for 4,100 U.N.
and African Union personnel. Lockheed Martin is the world's largest
and most secretive aerospace and defense corporation.
This is not Pacific Architects and Engineers' first contract in
Darfur. PAE won the contract for staffing the deeply compromised
"Civilian Protection Monitoring Team" (CPMT) under a U.S. State
Department contract. In 2004 the CPMT office was being run by
Brigadier General Frank Toney (retired), who was previously the
commander of Special Forces for the United States Army; General Toney
organized covert operations into Iraq and Kuwait in the first Gulf War.
Pratap Chaterjee reported in 2004 how "Lieutenant-Colonel Michael
Bittrick, the deputy director of regional and security affairs for
Africa at the State Department, flew to Ethiopia to hammer out an
agreement to support African Union troops by committing to provide
housing, office equipment, transport, and communications gear. This
will be provided via an `indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity'
joint contract awarded to Dyncorp Corporation, and Pacific Architects
& Engineers (PAE) worth $20.6 million." [1]
Meanwhile, the "Save Darfur" advocates pressing military intervention
in Darfur as a "humanitarian" gesture have escalated pressure in the
face of mounting failures, including allegations that millions of
"Save Darfur" dollars fundraised on a sympathy for victims platform
have been misappropriated.
But the players, the private military companies, the arms dealers—and
a handful of missing SRAM missiles armed with nuclear warheads dumped
by an American B-52 before it crashed—are mostly unknown to the
general public. These covert wars all involve different propaganda
strategies to provide cover and deflect attention through "perception
management"—managing the perceptions and creating false belief
systems—of the North American and European public.
Ranking the humanitarian catastrophes, at the top by a long shot is
Eastern Congo, followed by northern Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia,
and—somewhere down the line—Darfur, Sudan. These humanitarian
emergencies involve massive depopulation and death, internally
displaced persons and trans-national refugees, all of which provide a
lucrative business opportunity for Western "relief" and "development"
organizations. Millions of people across the region are dying, while
millions more are homeless, set adrift in a sea of nowhere, with no
rights, no possessions, no protection and very little prospect for
survival; their only hopes come from the false belief that the Western
"humanitarian" AID enterprise is designed to rescue them.
The engagement of the world's premier war-making industries—Lockheed
Martin, Boeing, SAIC—behind a so-called "peacekeeping" platform is not
new, and something is seriously wrong with this picture.
THE SAVE DARFUR NARRATIVE
SAVE DARFUR is the predominant propaganda front running on Africa and
it has overwhelmed the public consciousness with deceptions. In this
establishment narrative Arabs on horseback, the Janjaweed, backed by
the Sudan government seated in Khartoum, are the purveyors of
genocide. This mirrors the establishment narrative of Rwanda, 1994,
which said that the Hutus and the nasty Interahamwe militias committed
genocide against the Tutsis in 100 days of killing with machetes. The
Rwanda genocide narrative—combined with the narrative about
"humanitarian" intervention in Yugoslavia, a NATO bombing campaign
that dismantled the country—set the stage for the Darfur genocide
narrative.
All over the United States, Britain and Canada advocates and activists
who claim to be concerned about human rights, and even those who
otherwise would not get involved, have supported the SAVE DARFUR
movement, a political movement similar to the anti-Apartheid movement
mobilized against South Africa in the 1980's. The SAVE DARFUR movement
has resulted in a huge outpouring of funds, and it has mobilized
support from people in all walks of life, and across the political
spectrum, on the "never again" platform of "stopping genocide."
Hollywood personalities dubbed "actorvists," including Mia Farrow, Don
Cheadle and George Clooney, have helped to whip up the SAVE DARFUR
hysteria. From Elie Wiesel to Barak Obama, people are "outraged" by
genocide that the Bush Administration, we are told, is reluctant to stop.
At a "Voices for Darfur" fundraiser held on October 21, 2007 at Smith
College in Northampton, Massachusetts, for example, the local chapter
of the Congregation B'Nai Israel Darfur Action coalition, raised over
$14,000 for "humanitarian" aid to Darfur. The B'Nai Israel Save Darfur
Coalition had a broad array of public and organizational support,
including other Jewish organizations, Smith College, Northampton Mayor
Claire Higgins, Massachusetts' Senator Stan Rosenberg and
Representative Peter Kocot. The campaign organizers claim that "more
than 90% goes to direct-on-the-ground AID." Working with big
humanitarian groups like Doctors Without Borders and Save the
Children, it is impossible that 90% of funds will hit the ground in
Darfur.[2]
Behind the SAVE DARFUR movement are fundamentalist organizations and
think tanks with a deeply nationalistic, militaristic, religious
fundamentalist agenda. One of these is the Center for Security Policy.
The CSP, for example, supports the "star wars" Strategic Defense
Initiative, Homeland Security—which is nothing more than expanding
militarism and emasculated public rights—and the Biometric Security
Project. The BSP centers around emerging biological technologies that
will be used to register, identify, monitor, track and control each
and every U.S. citizen. They call it "identity assurance," it involves
state-of-the-art recognition equipment, sensors and security
technologies, and it is a central component of the evolving national
security and "counter-terrorism" apparatus. [3]
The Center for Security Policy is the nerve center of the U.S.
military and intelligence apparatus, a deeply nationalist, neoliberal
think-tank and flak organization promoting the all-out attack against
non-cooperative governments—dubbed "rogue states"—peripheral to
Western economic control. These, of course, are primarily Iran, Iraq,
Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, North Korea and Cuba. Zimbabwe is a special
case that has joined the list to some degree. What these states have
in common is that they are all targeted for divestment by the Center
for Security Policy brainchild, www.divestterror.org. Sudan is another
of the rogue states targeted.
Christian and Jewish involvement centers on a long-running but deeply
manipulative narrative about slavery and genocide in South Sudan. The
Holocaust Memorial Museum furthered the establishment narrative about
Darfur in keeping with the genocide theme. No one ever examines the
interests behind the Holocaust Memorial Museum. The new political and
propaganda doctrine of "genocide inflation" is morally ambiguous, it
attacks the crimes of some and passes over the crimes of others, using
as its universal principle the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
and its complementary covenants and proclamations.
Christian organizations involved in Sudan for years include Servant's
Heart and Christian Solidarity International. On Servant's Heart's
"Board of Reference" is British Baroness Caroline Cox, who is also
closely affiliated with Christian Solidarity International (CSI)—one
of the main Christian allies of the SPLM/A war in southern Sudan. The
propaganda system advocates in favor of the "rebels" in Darfur using a
handful of techniques developed in their propaganda campaign behind
the "rebels" in South Sudan. Rebels are supported partly by never
mentioning them, partly by decrying abuses against them, partly by
providing sympathetic one-sided accounts of Khartoum government
attacks, and partly by defending their excesses if and
when—infrequently—the rebel abuses come to light. Christian Solidarity
International (CSI) in 2006 issued press releases claiming that the
Lebanese organization Hezbollah "is using Christian villages to shield
its military operations in violation of international law." [4] It
appears that Hezbollah learned something by studying SPLA (CSI)
tactics in Sudan. Thus we have Hezbollah violating international law,
but the SPLM/A—and the "rebel" groups in Darfur—while doing exactly
the same thing—are not.
The Establishment narrative on Darfur motivates U.S. citizens to take
action to SAVE DARFUR, thus facilitating popular support for
heightened US military involvement. The truth is that the United
States military is already there, in its various incarnations, and it
is involved in atrocities.
THE UGANDA NARRATIVE
In the northern Uganda region—involving South Sudan and northeastern
Congo—another conflict has boiled for over 15 years between the
government Uganda People's Defense Forces (UPDF), led by Yoweri
Museveni, and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), led by Joseph Kony.
This war offers yet another one-sided Western establishment narrative
that says that Kony and the LRA—always described as a Christian
fanatical cult that captures and drugs children—is the primary problem
in northern Uganda. (Usually African savages are not Christian enough
for America's liking; here we find that they are too Christian.)
The establishment narrative has been furthered across the popular
culture, in everything from Vanity Fair to the BBC to America: The
National Catholic Weekly. The newly established ENOUGH Project (ENOUGH
genocide) picked up the mantle of LRA atrocities and, like Human
Rights Watch and Amnesty International, has supported the
establishment narrative which shields the Museveni government from the
kind of criticism and international action that is called for in
keeping with the scale of the atrocities the Uganda government has
committed. In other words, Human Rights Watch has addressed torture in
Uganda, and other problems, but they have not named names or
corporations and they almost never link the conflict or the atrocities
to Western interests. The net effect of these policy positions is
genocide denial on Uganda.
The Museveni war machine and its state terror apparatus have
perpetrated massive atrocities in the region and it has evolved into
genocide against the Acholi people of the north. The indigenous Acholi
people have been forced onto concentration camps over the past 15
years, and these camps have become places of death. In the
establishment narrative, the people are the victims of Kony's "rebellion."
Yoweri Museveni and his business and military partners are responsible
for millions of deaths, crimes against humanity and war crimes in
Eastern Congo. The U.S. military invasion of Zaire (now Congo),
involved with U.S. covert forces, U.S. military communications,
logistical and weapons support, and Ugandan and Rwandan forces.
Humvees, C-130's and black-skinned U.S. Special Forces entered South
Sudan and northeastern Congo through the Gulu and Arua Districts of
Uganda, the heart of Acholiland and the center of atrocities against
the Acholi people.
Ugandan and British interests living mostly in Britain and aligned
with the former dictator Idi Amin have always backed the Lord's
Resistance Army. Support also came from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The
LRA stepped up its military actions in parallel with the UPDF invasion
of Zaire (1996), and the subsequent years of warfare and plunder in
Congo (1998-present).
According to the investigations of the United Nations and the
humanitarian law work of lawyer Karen Parker, the war in Uganda
involves massive rapes, killing, tortures, and extrajudicial
executions as a policy by the Ugandan military. Some 1.3 million
people have been displaced in the Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts of
northern Uganda. There are over 73 camps with from 1000 to 50,000
people in them, all forcibly displaced by UPDF soldiers, with over
350,000 people out of some 400,000 people displaced from the Gulu
district alone.[5]
THE U.S.-UGANDA INVASION OF ZAIRE
The forced displacements of Acholi people began with Museveni's
ascension to power in 1986, but major forced displacements occurred
throughout the 1990's. However, there was a massive displacement
operation in 1996 that occurred appears to have been coordinated in
part with the planned U.S. invasion of Zaire from Northern Uganda and
Rwanda.
The UPDF Army barracks at Masindi and airstrip at Gulu, both in
Northern Uganda, served as the staging grounds for the U.S. invasion
of Zaire. The Museveni government organized the closure of northern
Uganda in October 1996 ostensibly because of heightened LRA attacks.
The UPDF, in chronological coincidence with the U.S. invasion, forced
hundreds of thousands of Acholis into concentration camps in the fall
of 1996, often by bombing and burning villages and murdering, beating,
raping and threatening those who would not comply.
According to testimony from eyewitnesses, on Oct 26, 1996 the top
Ugandan brass behind the invasion of Zaire met at the village of
Paraa, in the Murchison falls National Park, near Lake Albert, in the
Gulu District. At the meeting were: [1] UPDF Brigadier General Moses
Ali—Idi Amin's right hand man who later became Minister of Internal
Affairs, Minister for Disaster Preparedness, and Deputy Prime Minister
in the Museveni administration; [2] Museveni's half-brother Salim
Saleh; [3] then Colonel James Kazini, who later led troops involved in
atrocities against hundreds of thousands of people in Congo; and [4]
Dr. Eric Adroma—head of Uganda National Parks.
The meeting was ostensibly about security and it was announced that
due to a recent LRA rebel attack at Paraa, the UPDF would be placing
parts of Northern Uganda off limits to all non-military personnel. The
main road from Karuma to the border town of Pakwach was closed. This
road apparently served as a primary transport route for Ugandan and
non-Ugandan military—including black U.S. special forces—who invaded
Zaire.[6]
On November 6, 1996, Bill Clinton was elected. From November 21-23
Boeing C-130 military aircraft passed over the region every 30
minutes, 24 hours a day, heading both north and south. The C-130's
apparently landed at Gulu airstrip—closed by the Museveni government
for a two-week period—and offloaded military equipment then moved by
roads—closed by the UPDF—to the border. Some C-130's were charted on a
course believed to take them to Goma, Zaire. Around 10 November 2007
an armored 4x4 Humvee (HUMMWV)—heavily rigged with sophisticated
communications equipment inside and out—was encountered carrying two
black U.S. special forces in the Murchison Falls region: the soldiers
were wearing UPDF uniforms. Two busloads of black U.S. special forces
were encountered at a UPDF checkpoint on the Karuma-Pakwach road;
wearing civilian clothes, with duffel bags, the muscled and crew-cut
"civilians" showed U.S. passports and claimed they were "doctors"
heading to the tiny Gulu hospital. From mid-November to February 1997
access to northwestern Uganda regions was highly restricted. On 1
March 1997 another wave of C-130's passed over the region. The UPDF
used the LRA threat as cover for massive military operations involving
the invasion of Zaire for the United States of America.[7]
The in-country U.S. Ambassador to Uganda at the time was E. Michael
Southwick (October 1994-August 1997). Oil surveys began in 1998 and
the entire Northwestern Uganda region is now designated as oil
concessions controlled by Heritage Oil and Gas, Hardman and Tullow
Oil, three Anglo-American companies connected to British mercenary
Tony Buckingham (founder of he mercenary firms Sandline International
and Executive Outcomes) and his partners.[8] Nexant, a Bechtel
subsidiary, is involved with the trans-Uganda-Kenya pipeline. South
African firm Energem—tied to Tony Buckingham through Anthony Texeira,
the brother-in-law of Congolese warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba—is also
involved. Another Energem and Buckingham affiliated company tight with
the Museveni regime is Branch Energy, involved with the oil pipeline
and mining in Uganda.
The China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Company is also involved in
the Uganda-Kenya pipeline, offering an interesting comparison for
people concerned about China's involvement in atrocities in the Darfur
region. And, after much scrambling, Libya was cut out of the
Kenya-Uganda pipeline deals.[9]
Uganda's representation at the International Criminal Court exploring
war crimes in Congo has involved at least two very high-profile
lawyers from Foley Hoag LLP, an influential Washington law firm deeply
entrenched in the proliferation of the mainstream narratives and the
victor's justice doled out—through the ICTY and ICTR tribunals—on
Yugoslavia and Rwanda,. The Pentagon seconded its lawyers from the
Judge Advocacy General's (JAG) Corp to the ICTR to "try" those
unfortunate "enemies" both arbitrarily and selectively accused of
genocide.[10] The people most responsible for atrocities in the
region—unprecedented human bloodletting, war crimes, crimes against
humanity, and genocide—are protected.
Foley Hoag LLP is also tied to the U.S.-Uganda Friendship Council. On
May 6, 2002 in Washington D.C. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and
wife Janet were special guests at US-Uganda Friendship Council event
sponsored by members Coke, Pfizer and Chevron-Texaco. Coke director
Kathleen Black is a principle in the Hearst media empire, while Coke
directors Warren Buffet and Barry Diller are directors of the
Washington Post Company. Museveni also met with President Bush at the
White House.
Uganda's image is sanitized by one of the world's largest PR firms,
London's Hill & Knowlton. In 2005 Uganda spent some $700,000 on a Hill
& Knowlton contract to facilitate and "encourage dialogue between the
Ugandan government and people like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty,
Oxfam." [11]
THE RWANDA NARRATIVE
Museveni's bush war began in 1980. Paul Kagame, current President of
Rwanda, was Museveni's Director of Military Intelligence in the
mid-1980's. Kagame led the invasion of Rwanda in 1990. The two
military commanders utilized terrorist tactics that assigned blame for
atrocities they committed—against both their enemies and their own
people—on their enemies. They used psychological operations, embedded
international reporters, and fabrication off massacres. These tactics
have continued to the present.
While Rwanda is billed as a major "success story" of recovery and
development after a devastating genocide, the country is ruled with an
iron-fist and a finely tuned intelligence and torture apparatus
involved in political assassinations, suppression of information and
disappearances. Huge areas of Rwanda were entirely depopulated by the
Rwandan Patriotic Front and UPDF as they hammered away at Rwanda
beginning in October 1990. The invasion culminated in a coup d'etat
that succeeded, with broad U.S. military support, in capturing Kigali
in July of 1994.
From 1994 to the present Paul Kagame has used the genocide card and
the establishment narrative to institutionalize repression, further
depopulate rural areas for "development" benefiting corporate interests.
Another member of the U.S.-Uganda Friendship council is the Honorable
Andrew Young, former Mayor of Atlanta and U.S. Ambassador. Andrew
Young and his firm Goodworks International have helped whitewash the
image of the Rwanda government and its state apparatus of terror.
Andrew Young, Quincy Jones and other wealthy Americans have built (are
building) mansions on the shores of Rwanda's Lake Mwazi in areas where
peasants were driven off the land or killed by the Kagame terror
machine before, during and after 1994. This is ongoing along Lake Kivu
and in the Volcanoes National Parks region.
Rwanda gains currency and good press through big HIV/AIDS projects run
by Paul Farmer but funded by the Clinton AIDS foundation. Rwanda was
overthrown by and for the Pentagon on Clinton's watch. Hillary Clinton
toured Uganda in July 1997, wore African clothes, danced African
dances, and spoke about "democracy" and "development" and a
partnership against HIV/AIDS.
The Kagame regime has recently awarded petroleum concessions to
Canada's Vangold Resources for the project titled "White Elephant" in
northern Rwanda—2700 sq. kilometers of land depopulated by the Rwandan
Patriotic Front/Army[12] between 1990 and 2007. Contracted to provide
"feasibility studies" of petroleum infrastructural development in
Rwanda is the San Diego firm Science Applications International
Corporation (SAIC), a deep intelligence and defense entity connected
to U.S. beyond top-secret "black" programs. [13]
Petroleum, defense and mining interests connected to the Dian Fossey
Gorilla Fund International programs in "gorilla conservation" led to
the production of high-tech satellite prospecting data, gathered by
remote sensing over-flights (1994-2000), delivered to the Rwandan
Ministry of Defense.[14]
The Pentagon has been involved in building military bases in Rwanda,
installing military and civilian communications infrastructure, and
training Rwandan Defense Forces; a military-communications radar
installation has been constructed with U.S. support on Mt. Karisimbi.
It is believed that Rwanda Defense Forces (RDF) sent to Darfur on the
African Union "peacekeeping" mission include black U.S. Special Forces
disguised as RDF—just as the black U.S. Special Forces were disguised
as UPDF during the invasion of Zaire.
LOCKHEED MARTIN PEACEKEEPING
Lockheed Martin is a California-based aerospace and defense giant
involved in classified black programs that are beyond "top-secret" and
shielded from government oversight. In September 2003, CNN—a
corporate-military "news" agency deeply embedded with the
Pentagon—reported "[a]ccording to the U.S. Center for Strategic and
Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) classified or black programs account for
about $23.2 billion or 17 percent of the 2004 budget request for the
Department of Defense."
According to United Nations spokeswoman Michele Montas the six-month
Darfur contract with Lockheed-Martin subsidiary Pacific Architect
Engineers, Inc. was awarded without competitive bidding "because of
complex requirements and a short timeline."
Reporting from the United Nations, Inner City Press said the terms of
the contract will not be public and the United Nations has violated
numerous UN charter laws in the tendering of this award.[15]
The no-bid award process followed the United Nation's issuance of an
official "Expressions of Interest" notice on October 9, 2007. "The
United Nations is seeking Expressions of Interest (EOI) from
experienced Multi Functional Logistics Services (MFLS) contractors,"
the UN's EOI notice reads, "for the provision of a wide range of
services at headquarters, logistic bases, military and police camps,
airfields and water resources at various locations in any or all of
the following: the Darfur Region of Sudan, Chad/Central African
Republic (CAR), and Somalia."
Inner City Press reported that the EOI solicitation, made after the
rules had already been waived to allow the transfer of $250 million to
Lockheed Martin for six months in Darfur, is intended to try to clean
up the process after-the-fact.[16]
Another multinational aerospace and defense corporation directly
benefiting from this regional U.S. war is Boeing Aircraft Corporation.
The U.S. military used Boeing Chinook helicopters in the U.S. invasion
of Somalia in 2006. Tom Pickering, former U.S. Under Secretary of
State for Political Affairs, is senior vice president for
International Relations and a member of the Boeing Executive Council
since January 2001. Pickering played a decisive role in the Clinton
Administration overthrow of Rwanda (1990-1994) and Congo (1996-1997).
He is a leading advocate for the SAVE DARFUR propaganda. He is also a
member of the Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa along
with Ed Royce (R-CA), former U.S. Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker,
Donald Payne (D-NJ), and Andrew Young.
While the New York Times reported in December 2006 that the U.S.
invasion began in late December, military involvement of U.S. covert
forces had been ongoing, and was heightened significantly in the early
spring of 2006 when the U.S. Department of Defense and the Central
Intelligence Agency openly complained about cross purposes in Somalia.
Private military companies were all over Somalia, as were known
international arms syndicates, including of course the criminal
networks of John Bredenkamp, one of Britain's fifty richest tycoons
and one of the primary financial backers behind the rise and fall of
Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
John Bredenkamp reportedly acquired three SRAM missiles with nuclear
warheads jettisoned in shallow water off the coast of Somalia by a
U.S.A.F. B-52 that soon after crashed into the Indian Ocean near the
U.S. military base on the island of Diego Garcia. The U.S. invasion of
Somalia is believed to have been partly an aborted attempt to recover
the lost nukes—called "broken arrows" in Pentagon speak. While the
story of the nukes dumped by Cheney has received some attention, no
one has publicly identified John Bredenkamp as the likely weapons
dealer involved.[17]
COVERT OPS IN SOMALIA
The war in Somalia dates back to deep U.S. involvement in the 1980's,
where major oil concessions were awarded to four Western multinational
petroleum giants: Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Philips petroleum. The
infusion of Western "AID" provoked destabilization of Somalia, leading
to the U.S. military invasion that culminated in the October 3, 1993
mission where scores of U.S. Special Operations Forces were killed
when their Blackhawk helicopter was shot down over the capital city,
Mogadishu. The mythology of U.S. involvement was indelibly inscribed
in the popular consciousness through the Hollywood/Pentagon film
Blackhawk Down.
Part of the consistent propaganda on Africa is that "the U.S. does not
want to get involved and potentially face another Somalia."
U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) did not cease Special Ops
deployments in Somalia with the U.S. withdrawal and covert operations
have proceeded on and off, with heightened activity through the late
1990's. The Pentagon confirmed in November 2006 that SOCOM forces were
in Somalia as of October "providing military advice to Ethiopian and
Somali forces on the ground." The U.S. Navy moved "additional forces"
into waters off the Somali coast, where the Pentagon said they
"conducted security missions, monitoring maritime traffic and
intercepting and interrogating crew on suspicious ships." These
included the USS Ramage guided missile destroyer, the USS Dwight D.
Eisenhower aircraft carrier, the USS Bunker Hill and USS Anzio guided
missile cruisers, and the USS Ashland amphibious landing ship.[18] On
June 2, 2007, a U.S. Navy destroyer shelled northern Somalia. Somali
media reported that News media reported that the strikes destroyed
farms, flattened hilltops and killed or injured an unknown number of
villagers.[19]
The British Navy's newest warship HMS Bulwark was also stationed off
the Somali coast in early 2006. The HMS Bulwark deployed to the Indian
Ocean on 9 January 2006 for the first live operation of this "unique
Commando Assault ship" (as it is described by the British Navy).[20]
However, sources in Kenya and Eritrea reported "snatch and grab"
terrorist operations involving massacres and torture that were run by
SOCOM forces inside Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya. There are some 52,000
U.S. special operations forces on active duty and reserve military,
including SEALs, Green Berets and commando-style troops from the 10th
Mountain Division and others.
The establishment narrative was that Ethiopia invaded Somalia to
displace Al-Qaeda terrorists and check the spread of Islamic
fundamentalism, both of which are propaganda themes that misrepresent
the reality of U.S. and allied military interventions. Ethiopia, the
Pentagon's premier partner in the Horn of Africa, has converted
millions of dollars in "AID" to weapons and militarization and seeks
to control Somalia to gain access to a much-needed deepwater seaport.
Ethiopia's oil concessions are contiguous with the oil reserves in
Sudan, Somalia, Kenya and Yemen. Hunt Oil, the Chinese National
Petroleum Company and many others are active in Ethiopia.[21] The U.S.
has several permanent bases in Ethiopia where SOCOM launches operations.
The U.S. military used Ethiopian air bases modernized by infusions of
millions of dollars of "AID" funds to launch attacks against Somalia.
U.S. spy satellites were used provide intelligence to Ethiopian troops
as they swept across the Oganden basin and Somalia. Presidents Bush
and Zenawi both denied that the invasion was coordinated and well
planned, and both denied the involvement of the U.S.
The Ethiopian government retained former U.S. Republican house
majority leader Dick Armey as a lobbyist in Washington to whitewash
the Ethiopian regimes' crimes.[22]
ETHIOPIA'S GENOCIDES
The Ogaden, Oromo and Anuak regions of Ethiopia have seen massive
military occupation and state repression. The Ethiopian government of
Meles Zenawi has perpetrated mass starvation and scorched earth policy
in the region. There has been very little international media coverage
and most is favorable the Zenawi regime or pressing the upside-down
stories about "relief" and "starvation" that serve the Western
"humanitarian" business sector. The Ogaden basin is a bloodbath today.
Applying the same legal standards as in Darfur, all three Ethiopian
regions qualify as ongoing genocides against indigenous people.[23]
Failure to apply the genocide standards constitutes genocide denial.
The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1778 (2007) on 25
September 2007 established the United Nations Mission in the Central
African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT). According to the UN's October
2007 Expression Of Interest, "[i]n it's Presidential Statement of 30
April 2007, the Security Council requested the Secretary General to
`immediately begin appropriate contingency planning for a United
Nations mission to Somalia'. At this early stage it is planned to have
a UN logistics base at Mombassa, Kenya to support the main supply line
from Mombassa to Kismayo, Mogadishu and Hobyo, which will serve as
secondary logistics bases in Somalia. At this early stage the number
and location of these sites is unknown, but it is envisaged that
approximately 24,000 personnel may be required."
Ethiopia's war in Somalia has taxed the government drawing widespread
criticism. The U.S. is pressing for an African Union mission as a
proxy force to replace the Ethiopian troops and further U.S.
interests. Mombasa, Kenya is a U.S. military port. Kenya is also awash
in oil development, poverty and destitute refugees. The U.S. war in
Somalia is ongoing.
In March 2007 the Pentagon deployed an additional 150 SOCOM Forces in
Uganda. The troops were part of the Combined Joint Task Force
Horn-of-Africa, an "anti-terrorist naval force" deployed around the
Horn of Africa with support points in Bahrain and Djibouti. Ugandan
sources divulged that the SOCOM troops would be dispersed "around the
country" to "support UPDF troops" and "provide support to distribute
humanitarian aid." It was openly reported that the SOCOM are "possibly
training the South Sudanese army, which has just signed an agreement
for this with its Ugandan counterpart, strengthening Ugandan capacity
to fight terrorism." The U.S. military has also modernized the old
Entebbe airport for UPDF operations, and the Entebbe airport supports
a small but permanent U.S. military contingent. [24]
It is believed that U.S. SOCOM troops are operating in blood-drenched
Eastern Congo. Ugandan opposition sources have reported that SOCOM
forces in UPDF uniforms have joined the more than 2000
Pentagon-trained UPDF forces sent by Museveni to Somalia. The UPDF
troops operating in Ethiopia behind a "peacekeeping" propaganda front
have been accused of widespread atrocities. More than 1000 people die
daily in Eastern DRC where fighting since 1996 has claimed at least 7
million lives. The Democratic Republic of Congo has seen multiple
genocides, and multiple genocide denials are ongoing.
DARFURISM
The Darfur region of western Sudan has been a hotbed of clandestine
activities, gunrunning and indiscriminate violence for decades. The
Cold War era saw countless insurgencies launched from the remote
deserts of Darfur. Throughout the 1990's factions allied with or
against Chad, Uganda, Ethiopia, Congo, Libya, Eritrea and the Central
African Republic operated from bases in Darfur, and it was a regular
landing strip for foreign military transport planes of mysterious origin.
In 1990, Chad's Idriss Deby launched a military blitzkrieg from Darfur
and overthrew President Hissan Habre; Deby then allied with his own
tribe against the Sudan government. Sudanese rebels today have bases
in Chad, and Chadian rebels have bases in Darfur, with Khartoum's
backing.[GN1] When the regime of Ange-Félix Patassé collapsed in the
Central African Republic in March 2003, soldiers fled to Darfur with
their military equipment. Khartoum supported the West Nile Bank Front,
a rebel army operating against Uganda from Eastern Congo, commanded by
Taban Amin, the son of the infamous Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin, who
heads Uganda's dreaded Internal Security Organization.
Darfur is another epicenter of the modern-day international
geopolitical scramble for Africa's resources. Conflict in Darfur
escalated in 2003 in parallel with negotiations "ending" the south
Sudan war. The U.S.-backed insurgency by the Sudan People's Liberation
Army (SPLA), the guerilla force that fought the northern Khartoum
government for 20 years, shifted to Darfur, even as the G.W. Bush
government allied with Khartoum in the U.S. led "war on terror." The
Sudan Liberation Army (SLA)—one of some 27 rebel factions mushrooming
in Darfur—is allied with the SPLA and supported from Uganda. Andrew
Natsios, former USAID chief and now US envoy to Sudan, said on October
6, 2007 that the atmosphere between the governments of north and south
Sudan "had become poisonous." This is no surprise given the magnitude
of the resource war in Sudan and the involvement of international
interests.
Roger Winter, USAID chief in Khartoum today, is directly linked to the
Rwandan Patriotic Front/Army and U.S. military campaign that
destabilized Rwanda and decapitated the leadership of Rwanda and
Burundi. USAID's affiliations with the Department of Defense are now
openly advertised with the propaganda peddling AFRICOM—the Pentagon's
new Africa Command. AFRICOM combines U.S. CENTCOM, PACIFICOM and EUCOM
operations in Africa; it is nothing new, merely the consolidation and
expansion of widespread and ongoing involvement.[25]
Darfur is reported to have the fourth largest copper and third largest
uranium deposits in the world. Darfur produces two-thirds of the
world's best quality gum Arabic—a major ingredient in Coke and Pepsi.
Contiguous petroleum reserves are driving warfare from the Red Sea,
through Darfur, to the Great Lakes of Central Africa. Private military
companies operate alongside petroleum contractors and "humanitarian"
agencies. Sudan is China's fourth biggest supplier of imported oil,
and U.S. companies controlling the pipelines in Chad and Uganda seek
to displace China through the US military alliance with "frontline"
states hostile to Sudan: Uganda, Chad and Ethiopia.
Israel reportedly provides military training to Darfur rebels from
bases in Eritrea, and has strengthened ties with the regime in Chad,
from which more weapons and troops penetrate Darfur. The refugee camps
have become increasingly militarized. There are reports that Israeli
and U.S. military and intelligence operate from within refugee camps.
African Union (AU) forces in Darfur include Nigerian and Rwandan
troops responsible for atrocities in their own countries. Ethiopia has
committed 5000 troops for a UN force in Darfur. AU troops receive
military-logistic support from NATO, and are widely hated. Early in
October 2007, SLA rebels attacked an AU base killing ten troops. In a
subsequent editorial sympathetic to rebel factions ("Darfur's Bitter
Ironies," Guardian Online, 10/4/07) Smith College English professor
Eric Reeves espoused the tired rhetoric of "Khartoum's genocidal
counter-insurgency war in Darfur," a position counterproductive to any
peaceful settlement. To minimize the damage this rebel attack has done
to their credibility Reeves and other "Save Darfur" advocates cast
doubt about the rebels' identities and mischaracterized the SLA
attackers as "rogue commanders." However, there is near unanimous
agreement, internationally, that rebels are "out of control,"
committing widespread rape and plundering with impunity, just as the
SPLA did in South Sudan for over a decade.
Debunking the claims of a "genocide against blacks" or an "Islamic
holy-war" against Christians, Darfur's Arab and black African tribes
have intermarried for centuries, and nearly everyone is Muslim. The
"Save Darfur" campaign is deeply aligned with Jewish and Christian
faith-based organizations in the United States, Canada, Europe and
Israel. These groups have relentlessly campaigned for Western military
action, demonizing both Sudan and China, but they have never addressed
Western military involvement—backing factions on all sides.
There is growing dissent within the "Save Darfur" movement as more
supporters question its motivations and the Jewish/Israeli link. "Save
Darfur" leaders have been replaced after complaints surfaced about
expenditures of funds. Many rebel leaders reportedly receive tens of
thousands of dollars monthly, and rebels emboldened by the "Save
Darfur" movement commit crimes with impunity. There is a growing
demand to probe the accounts of "Save Darfur" to find out how the tens
of millions collected are being spent due to allegations of arms-deals
and bribery—rebel leaders provided with five-star hotel
accommodations, prostitutes and sex parties.
"Save Darfur" is today the rallying cry for a broad coalition of
special interests. Advocacy groups—from the local Massachusetts
Congregation B'Nai Israel chapter to the International Crises Group
and USAID—have fueled the conflict through a relentless, but
selective, public relations campaign that disingenuously serves a
narrow policy agenda. These interests offer no opportunity for
corrective analyses, but stubbornly press their agenda, and they are
widely criticized for inflaming tensions in Darfur. This is what we
might call Darfurism—a mass movement designed to channel popular
sympathy and agitate people to act on a cause they know nothing about,
but think they do.
The latest Lockheed Martin contract with the United Nations
illustrates the final stage in the transformation of international
conflict whereby military-industrial giants are openly engaged, rather
than clandestinely, as has been previously the case. This development
parallels the rise of Darfurism—a pathological mix of fear,
patriotism, social immaturity, opportunism and unconsciousness akin to
fascism. Under the current climate of apathy, fear and public opinion,
anything goes, and warfare involves humanitarian agencies as active
players in the mix. They are seen as neutral, described as apolitical,
but nothing could be further from the truth.
The United Nations and African Union serve as pseudo-privatized
military forces backing a hegemonic, corporate, political and economic
agenda. The future has arrived, and it uses human rights institutions,
the label of genocide and accusations of atrocities, and the
ever-expanding international AID and charity industry—operating out of
pure profit motives—as pivotal elements in the Western portfolio of
soft and hard weapons used to further the prerogatives of Empire and
clear the land for absolute corporate exploitation. ~
keith harmon snow—www.allthingspass.com—is an independent human rights
investigator and war correspondent who worked with Survivors Rights
International (2005-2006), Genocide Watch (2005-2006) and the United
Nations (2006) to document and expose genocide and crimes against
humanity in Sudan and Ethiopia. He has worked in 17 countries in
Africa, heavily focused on the Great Lakes region, and he recently
worked in Afghanistan.
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