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The CIA's New Client in Sudan

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  • The CIA's New Client in Sudan

    ZNet, MA
    May 13 2005

    The CIA's New Client in Sudan

    ......... by David Baake May 12, 2005


    It was Woodrow Wilson who called the Armenian Holocaust `sad, but
    necessary to quell an internal security threat.' Today it appears
    that the Bush administration, only eight months after former
    Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that Sudan's pro-government
    militias were committing genocide, has changed its mind and now is
    once again ignoring victims of genocide and allowing a government to
    quell a `security threat.'

    The Las Angeles Times recently reported that the US government and
    the Sudanese government responsible for over 180,000 deaths are
    forming a close intelligence partnership, and that government in
    Khartoum is becoming a `surprisingly valuable ally of the CIA' in the
    war on terrorism, as surprising as that would seem to anyone aware of
    the fact that Sudan harbored Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda a decade
    ago and that Sudan's dictator retained ties with other groups
    classified as terrorists by the US government after Al Qaeda left
    Sudan.

    The Times' report on the US' new ally shows very clearly the
    opportunistic nature of the `war on terrorism' paradigm, which in
    reality has nothing to do with stopping violence or promoting peace
    but is merely a new justification for continuing with the imperialist
    program that the US has pursued since the Second World War. The
    article is full of completely contradictory messages from US
    government officials, and it is difficult to imagine how an
    establishment reader could make sense of them without resorting to
    the use of doublespeak. The first few paragraphs explain that Sudan
    has been charged with committing genocide by the US government, once
    welcomed bin Laden, and has been described as "an extraordinary
    threat to the national security" by the Bush Administration.

    Paragraphs later, the readership is told that `"American intelligence
    considers [Sudan] to be a friend" by a senior official in the
    Sudanese government, and that Sudan could become a `top tier' ally of
    the CIA by a State Department official. In addition, the Bush
    Administration has recently normalized relations with Sudan in light
    of this recent cooperation.

    According to these interviews with US and Sudanese intelligence
    officials, in recent collaborative efforts partaken by the two
    governments Sudan has expelled Islamic `extremists.' This leads one
    to wonder, have they banished themselves from the country? Among
    their other services, they detained Al Qaeda suspects, members of the
    Iraqi insurgency, and other terrorist operatives and gave them to the
    US for interrogation. Unfortunately, no members of the Janjaweed,
    the pro-government militia committing genocide against the civilians
    of Darfur have been detained or disarmed.

    Why has the relationship between Sudan and the US shifted so
    suddenly, and why is the Sudanese government so interested in helping
    the US government hunt down extremists that it used to fund and give
    sanctuary to? Why is the US so ready to normalize its relationship
    with a country involved in a massive campaign of ethnic cleansing, as
    the UN calls it, or genocide, as the Colin Powell called it?

    Washington's radical reversal of relations with Sudan undoubtedly has
    quite a bit to do with Sudan's oil, the majority of which it had been
    selling to China. Washington has been looking for a way to gain
    control over Sudan's oil fields for a long period of time. It is
    likely that the US helped train the two largest rebel groups whose
    attacks elicited the government's counter-insurgency campaign, the
    Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudanese Liberation Army, in an
    attempt to weaken Sudan's government at a time when it was developing
    closer ties with China. When the atrocities began to escalate in
    Darfur and the US Sate Department officially labeled the killings in
    Darfur `genocide', it seemed the US was considering invading Sudan on
    a platform of ending the genocide, disposing of the dictator who made
    the mistake of giving China access to its oil fields, and replacing
    him with a leader who would allow US corporations to funnel oil from
    Sudan.

    However, now that Sudan has proved willing to cooperate with the US,
    new questions arise. Why would Sudan be dealing so comfortably with
    Washington unless it knew that it would not be held accountable for
    its own atrocities in any real sense?

    It doesn't seem altogether unfeasible for the governments of Sudan
    and the US have made a pact stating that the US would use its power
    to prevent action against the genocide in Darfur, in exchange for aid
    in countering `terrorism' and, at some point, access to untapped oil?
    It is hard to think of another explanation for the sudden friendship
    of the two regimes. The US has been considering an attempt to repeal
    the sanctions placed on Sudan, a move favored both by Khartoum and by
    US oil companies.

    Once again, it seems the US is being complicit with genocide and
    making deals with the war criminals responsible, just as previous US
    administrations were complicit with the rise of the Khmer Rouge in
    Cambodia which was engaged in a battle with the North Vietnamese by
    allowing Thailand (then a US client state) to sell arms to Pol Pot
    while he exterminated 1.7 million of his own people. Just as the US
    was silent during the Rwandan genocide and instead focused on the
    bombing of Yugoslavia, the US is again ignoring a massive tragedy in
    Sudan in favor of perusing its immediate imperial interests and
    destroying the resistance in Iraq.

    Of course, just because ties have increased between Khartoum and
    Washington doesn't mean that the US wouldn't abandon the Sudanese
    government if the US feels the alliance is no longer politically
    expedient or if Sudan is insubordinate, but right now it seems like
    the alliance is a win-win situation for both governments; the only
    losers of course being the citizens of Darfur experiencing living
    hell.

    The situation in Darfur is still one the of the worst humanitarian
    catastrophes in the world with nearly 200,000 dead, either due to
    violence or famine, and 2 million displaced. The pro-government
    militias continue to raid the towns of Darfur, killing men, raping
    women, and plundering entire villages, often abducting young women
    and using them as sex-slaves. It is clear that rapid action is
    necessary to save innocent lives and end the mass slaughter.

    The solution to the tragedies in Darfur is most certainly not an
    American or NATO military intervention; such an imperial intervention
    would only augment the suffering felt in Sudan. To protect the human
    rights of Sudanese civilians, it would be necessary for the UN to
    launch a major peacekeeping mission or for the world to come together
    to fund the African Union's peacekeeping campaign. The AU has
    already launched a peace keeping mission, and AU peace keepers have
    been effective in stopping violence in areas where they are
    dispatched. However, the AU does not have the resources to sustain
    the kind of mission necessary to bring any degree of peace to Sudan,
    and has only been able to deploy 3,000 troops to Darfur, a region the
    size of France. In addition to enduring vicious campaigns of
    violence, the people of Sudan are also in dire need of humanitarian
    aid and are experiencing a great shortage in food, medicine, clean
    water, and other life essentials.

    If the international community does not work together to build a
    peacekeeping campaign and the humanitarian aid campaign, the Oxfam
    aid agency predicts that the humanitarian crisis in Sudan will
    continue until October 2006, most likely bringing hundreds of
    thousands of additional deaths. However, it seems the US may present
    an obstacle to such campaigns, as it does not want to offend its
    terrorist ally in Khartoum.
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