Moral Dilemma or Clear Cut?

What to do in Sudan-- help or wait for another Rwanda?


Sudan Militants Threaten Attacks on Western Troops
Sun Jul 25, 2004 07:29 PM ET

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - A group calling itself Mohammed's army on Sunday called on Muslims to prepare to fight Western forces sent on any mission to western Sudan, where the United Nations says the world's worst humanitarian crisis is unfolding.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has not ruled out military intervention in Darfur, where the U.S. Congress has labeled as genocide a campaign by Arab militias against black Africans.

The United States has also circulated a draft U.N. resolution threatening sanctions against Khartoum if it does not prosecute the leaders of the militia.

"We have seen and heard of the American and British interference in Darfur and there is no doubt that this is a crusader war that bears no relation to the citizens of Darfur," the previously unknown group said in a statement distributed at a central mosque in the Sudanese capital Khartoum.

"We call upon you to speedily head toward Darfur and dig deep into the ground mass graves prepared for the crusader army," it added.

Witness said young Sudanese men were handing out the statements to worshippers at the mosque.

Australia said on Sunday it was likely to contribute troops to any U.N. peacekeeping mission in Darfur, where the U.N. says some 30,000 people have been killed and one million displaced.

Many countries have called on Khartoum to disarm the Arab militias, known as Janjaweed. Britain's top commander has said he could send 5,000 troops to Sudan.

A multi-national force needs to go in there. We have to be careful that it includes Africans and people from the Middle East. No matter what happens, western corporations and governments must be seen NOT to be profiting from the oil in Sudan.

It will be a tough one, but if it isn't stopped and dealt with very carefully, we could throw much of Africa into conflict. This is no place for Tony and George to go playing Risk.

Agreed.

But what happens if UN continues to dilly dally?

At what point does the west pull a France and go into Sudan a la Bosnia?

Agreed.

But what happens if UN continues to dilly dally?

At what point does the west pull a France and go into Sudan a la Bosnia?

The U.N. (read U.S.) is dilly dallying because they're is no strategic value in Sudan. No oil. No resources. No geopolitical advantage by going in.

For perspective, here is an opinion on Rwanda:

Rwanda - a pawn on the geo-political chessboard
Michel Chossudovsky
an excerpt

The Rwandan crisis, which led up to the 1994 ethnic massacres, has been presented by the Western media as a profuse narrative of human suffering, while the underlying social and economic causes have been carefully ignored by reporters.

The brutality of the massacres shocked the world community, but the civil war was preceded by the flare-up of a deep-seated economic crisis. It was restructuring of the agricultural system under IMF-World Bank supervision which precipitated the population into abject poverty and destitution.

What is the responsibility of the West in this tragedy? First it is important to stress that the conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi was largely the product of the colonial system. The objective was to fuel inter-ethnic rivalries as a means of achieving political control as well as preventing the development of solidarity between the two ethnic groups which would inevitably have been directed against the colonial regime. Divide and rule.

While the economic foundations remained extremely fragile, a World Bank mission travelled to Rwanda in November 1988 to review Rwanda's public expenditure. The World Bank presented two policy options. Scenario 2 was adopted. The government had no choice. A 50-percent devaluation of the Rwandan franc was carried out in November 1990. This triggered inflation of 20 percent and the collapse of real earnings. State enterprises were pushed into bankruptcy and public services collapsed.

In June 1992, a second devaluation was ordered by the IMF, leading to a further escalation of the prices of fuel and consumer essentials. The entire agricultural system was pushed into crisis.

Prior to the outbreak of hostilities, in high-level meetings held in Washington between the IMF and a mission headed by Rwandan Minister of Finance Mr. Ntigurirwa. The "green light" had been granted: millions of (aid) dollars came pouring into their Central Bank. These funds had been earmarked for commodity imports, yet it appears likely that a sizeable portion had been diverted for the acquisition of military hardware.

The World Bank had carefully reviewed Rwanda's public investment program and recommended scrapping more than half the country's public investment projects, demanded a significant down-sizing of state investment, the adding of user fees for public services, the lay-offs of teachers and health workers and the partial privatization of health and education.

No sensitivity or concern was expressed as to the likely political and social repercussions of economic shock therapy applied to a country on the brink of civil war.
...
Washington's hidden agenda consisted in establishing an American sphere of influence in a region historically dominated by France and Belgium. Uganda had also become a launchpad for US-sponsored guerrilla movements into the Sudan, Rwanda and the Congo. Major-General Paul Kagame had been head of military intelligence in the Ugandan Armed Forces; he had been trained at the US Army Command and Staff College in Leavenworth, Kansas.

The build-up of the Ugandan external debt under President Musaveni coincided the Rwandan and Congolese civil wars. In fact, Uganda had no outstanding debt to the World Bank at the outset of its "economic recovery program". By 1997, it owed almost 2 billion dollars solely to the World Bank.

Were did the money go? The World Bank was responsible for monitoring the Ugandan budget on behalf of its creditors. The government was obliged to fully reveal the precise location of its budget. Every expenditure was open to scrutiny by the World Bank, yet the donors had allowed defense spending to increase without impediment.

The Ugandan external debt was being used to finance these military operations on behalf of Washington with the country and its people ultimately footing the bill.

A similar process of financing military expenditure from the external debt had occurred in Rwanda under the Habyarimana government. In a cruel irony, both sides in the civil war were financed by the same donor institutions with the World Bank acting as watchdog.

As Washington pumped military aid into Kagame's army, he and his colleagues had designs of their own. Kagame conceived a plan to back a rebel movement in eastern Zaire. Launched in October 1996, soon the rebels were brushing off the Zairian army with the help of the Rawandan forces and marched through Africa's third-largest nation in seven months. Mobutu fled the capital and Kabila took power, changing the name of the country to Congo. US officials deny that there were any US military personnel with Rwandan troops during the war, although unconfirmed reports of a US advisory presence have circulated in the region since the war's earliest days.

At stake in these military operations in the Congo were the extensive mining resources, including strategic reserves of cobalt - of crucial importance for the US defense industry. Mining contracts were renegotiated with several US and British mining companies.

Meanwhile, back in Washington, IMF officials were busy reviewing Zaire's macro-economic situation. The IMF demands were tantamount to maintaining the entire population in abysmal poverty.
...
According to the testimony of Paul Mugabe, Major General Paul Kagame had personally ordered the shooting down of President Habyarimana's plane with a view to taking control of the county (confirmed by intelligence documents presented to a French parliamentary inquiry). He was fully aware that the assassinations of Habyarimana would unleash "a genocide" against Tutsi civilians. Forces had been fully deployed in Kigali at the time the ethnic massacres took place and did not act to prevent it from happening.

"Can Kagame explain to the Rwandan people why he sent Claude Dusaidi and Charles Muligande to New York and Washington to stop the UN military intervention which was supposed to be sent and protect the Rwandan people from the genocide?"

The civil war in Rwanda and the ethnic massacres were an integral part of US foreign policy, carefully staged in accordance with precise strategic and economic objectives.

It was an undeclared war between France and America.

Washington's objective was to displace France, discredit the French government and install an Anglo-American protectorate in Rwanda under Maj-Gen Kagame. Washington deliberately did nothing to prevent the ethnic massacres (the CIA had warned four months before of this very likely outcome).

The ethnic massacres were a stumbling blow to France's credibility which enabled the US to establish a neo-colonial foothold in Central Africa.

While English had become an official language alongside French and Kinyarwanda, French political and cultural influence will eventually be erased. Washington has become the new colonial master of a francophone country.

Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa
an excerpt from, The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order

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What are you talking about?

The US, the UK, Australia, etc have all said theyre ready to go.

Its the UN that isnt playing ball--same way they didnt in Bosnia/Kosovo.

As for Michel Chossudovsky-- well his assertion that "The civil war in Rwanda and the ethnic massacres were an integral part of US foreign policy, carefully staged in accordance with precise strategic and economic objectives.

It was an undeclared war between France and America" seems to be at best, another conspiracy plot.

Get a grip.

"A group calling itself Mohammed's army on Sunday called on Muslims to prepare to fight Western forces sent on any mission to western Sudan, where the United Nations says the world's worst humanitarian crisis is unfolding."

Now, this unknown group is in itself a propaganda to show the world that Moslems are doing all these terrible masscares. Do you honestly believe that a group with a maximum of few thousand soldiers are calling Muslims from all over the world to come and bury the infedels. Saddam tried this and never worked. BOL tried it and did not work. It is an excuse fir the americans to go in and take care of business. Too many plates to handle if they are also pointing fingers at Iran.

There is oil in Sudan, Vista. Exploration for and control of that oil is where some of the recent troubles started. Check out a Canadian company called Talisman Oil...they pulled out under pressure from human rights organisations.

The UN is even more gun-shy than usual right now, researchok. That's part of the fall-out from Iraq.

I think the world, without the US, should go in now. The US is over-extended as it is and any involvement by them will be sure to stir up anti-American/anti-western sentiment in the Muslim world. That's also why I think its important to have Muslim and African troops as part of the force.

Rwanda was very much the result of US and French involvement in Africa. They were both playing one side against the other and they both blocked attempts to send help when Romeo Dallaire called for it. The genocide was set off when the Rwandan president's plane was shot down by US-backed Ugandan paramilitaries using an American surface-to-air missile that was confiscated by the French in Iraq during the Gulf War. That itself points to some pretty deep involvement by both the US and France.

Yes, that's quite right. Although Talisman isn't there now, I do own shares. Oops.

Sadly, the Sudan story has been going on for months. We should have been in long ago.

It's the Sudanese government, and it's not propoganda.

Sudan warns against foreign intervention
Sudan has warned it will use force against any attempt at outside military intervention in the crisis-torn Darfur region, while rebels called for the quick arrival of foreign troops.

Ibrahim Ahmed Omar, secretary-general of the ruling National Congress (NC) party, was quoted by the official newspaper Al Anbaa as warning that force would be met by force.

"Anybody who contemplates imposing his opinion by force will be confronted by force," he said.

"Any power that intervenes in Darfur will be a loser."

But a Darfur rebel movement called for a rapid deployment of international troops to deal with the situation in the western Sudanese region, described by the United Nations as the world's worst current humanitarian crisis.

The US Congress has unanimously passed a resolution last week describing the atrocities committed in Darfur as genocide and called on the White House to lead international efforts to intervene.

A top British general said 5,000 troops could be made ready to go if needed.

The UN says up to 50,000 people have died since a revolt against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum broke out among black African ethnic minorities in February 2003.

"The National Congress firmly rejects any foreign threats targeting Sudan and its people and is opposed to any foreign intervention in Sudan," Mr Omar was quoted as saying, adding that Sudan is capable of solving its problems by itself.

The official called for general mobilisation among the Sudanese people and political parties and organisations to "stand up against this unfair campaign which targets not only the National Congress and the government but all of the Sudanese people and their values."

Khartoum has brushed off criticism that it is not doing enough to help alleviate the situation in Darfur and pledged to improve the access of international aid agencies.

But Abdel Wahed Mohammed Nur, spokesman for the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) said: "We are asking the United States, the United Nations secretary-general, the European Union and the African Union for the urgent deployment of troops in the coming days to ensure the delivery of food aid to millions of refugees."

Contacted by telephone, the spokesman said intervention would "avert a humanitarian disaster of great proportions".

Mr Nur charged that the pro-Government Arab Janjaweed militias were "preventing the arrival of food aid to displaced people and continue to violate the ceasefire, and they regularly rape defenceless women."

More than a million people have been driven from their villages in the conflict pitting government forces and Janjaweed against the SLA and another local rebel group, the Movement for Justice and Equality.

Washington, the United Nations and the EU have demanded that Khartoum immediately disarm the Janjaweed and make them respect a ceasefire signed April 8 after talks in the Chadian capital Ndjamena.

The European Union warned at the weekend that Sudan would face international sanctions if there was not quick progress in ending the bloodshed.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail on Sunday questioned the need for foreign troops in war-torn Darfur, saying his Government was doing all it could to disarm Arab militias.

"Why should we have to rush and to talk about military intervention as long as the situation is getting better?" Mr Ismail told BBC television.

"My Government is doing what can be done in order to disarm the militia."

Meanwhile the United Nations in neighbouring Chad said two Sudanese refugees from Darfur were shot dead in clashes with local security forces amid rising tensions with aid workers.

A spokesman for the refugee agency UNHCR said that weapons caches had been found at the Abeche camp and 19 people had been arrested.

The fatal clashes on Thursday came 10 days after UN and other aid workers were forced to leave the camp of Forchana accommodating nearly 12,000 people in the east of Chad when refugees started throwing stones at them.

-- AFP

I don't know if it's JUST Iraq-- but in any case, it will be curious to see if the UN or anyone for that matter will address the Darfur matter.

I don't see Arab or Muslim involvement-- they have no track record and the Christians would see their involvment as support for the Janjaweed. See --/ for articles by Julie Flint for more on this topic

Also, the 'rebels' are slow to accept Sudan government negotiations-- fearing this would keep international aid away-- they want help now.

'Negotiations' such as they are, have been going on for years-- as have the deaths of over a million 'rebels'.