A Tangled Web For Resource Control In Sudan

No apologies for posting the whole of this article from a Tanzanian freelance journalist and writer. Each section is inseparably linked and important for grasping the intricacies of the situation. JS

from Countercurrents.org

Sources say the peacekeepers are struggling with equipment problems, poor training of some contingents and the reluctance by some governments to send their soldiers into combat zones. When seven Tanzanian peacekeepers in Darfur, western Sudan, were killed and 17 seriously wounded in an ambush by gunmen, the incident sent shockwaves throughout the country. For the first time public was made aware that all was not well with their men and women deployed in the war-torn Sudan as part of the UN peacekeeping forces. The deadly attack on 13 July this year occurred when the soldiers were in a convoy searching for their vehicles that were reportedly stolen by a rebel group. The Tanzanian soldiers sustained heavy fire from machine guns and possibly rocket-propelled grenades. Among the wounded were two female police officers. No group immediately claimed responsibility. But a UN report in February said that some armed opposition groups are angry about the presence of peacekeepers and have called the force ‘a legitimate target.’

In the Tanzanian official circles scanty information was released, but some local journalists contacted the peace-keepers in Darfur. One of them said, on condition of anonymity, that a week ago unknown assailants attacked members of the army and disappeared with four vehicles. ‘It is really traumatising here; I can tell you the rebels are fully armed with sophisticated weapons,’ he lamented.

Immediately, questions were raised about the United Nations African Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) whose task is to maintain peace and protect civilians from insurgents. Some asked if there was any peace to maintain in the first place.

The Tanzanian contingent of 875 military and police personnel has been stationed in Darfur for some five years as part of the UNAMID, which has strength of 16,500 troops and military observers plus 5,000 international police. Yet the latest casualty was not an isolated encounter by the solders on peace mission in Darfur.

Peacekeepers have been targeted at various times since the international force began its work in the region in 2008. In April this year gunmen shot and killed a Nigerian peacekeeper. Prior to the July attack, 150 people associated with the UN mission in Darfur had been killed while on duty in the region, according to the force's website. Following the latest attack, Tanzania is now seeking a stronger mandate for peacekeepers in the Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region, so as to ‘deal with the current condition.’ The demand is to equip the peacekeepers with heavy weapons such as APC, artillery and helicopters. Army spokesman Colonel Mgawe said, ‘We want our troops to have more capacity to defend themselves against insurgents’. He said currently their rules of engagement, under Chapter 6, forbid the use of ‘excessive’ force. Now they are going to negotiate with UN for Chapter 7 so as to give the troops more fire-power to defend themselves. That means use of heavy weapons as is the case with Tanzanian forces in DRC. In fact some Tanzanians have questioned why give them heavy weapons in DRC and not in Darfur. Whether, with such armaments, they have succeeded in wiping out M23 is another question. 

The pertinent question for Darfur, however, is whether the peacekeepers there are now going to pursue the rebels and fight them on their turf or are they going to fight back when attacked. If it is the former then actually it means there is no peace to maintain and so stationing peace-keepers there is paradoxical

It has been suggested that the better solution for stopping the attack on peacekeepers would be to cut off the supply line of heavy weaponry to the rebels, especially if the supply comes from outside the Sudan.

Meanwhile, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete has asked President Omar al-Bashir to investigate the latest incident and ensure that the perpetrators are apprehended and brought to justice.The question is whether Bashir has the ability to take any action, since he himself has been under attack by the rebels. After having negotiated and signed peace treaty with them, not all have joined the cease-fire. And so his troops have been under attack from time to time. Hence he is hardly in control of the situation in Darfur, which has been described as a civil war. Darfur has over 35 tribes and ethnic groups. Half the people are small subsistence farmers, the other half being nomadic herders. For centuries the nomadic people have been grazing their cattle and camels over sprawling grass lands, sharing water sources. 

The crisis is reportedly rooted in intertribal feuds over increasingly scarce water and grazing grounds in the area hit hard by years of climate change, drought and growing famine, coupled with the encroaching Sahara Desert. The matter became worse when local tribes took up arms in 2003 against the government in Khartoum, which they accuse of marginalising them. Meanwhile, more insurgencies were launched from Darfur. Factions allied with or against neighbouring countries operated from bases inside Darfur, which became a regular landing ground for foreign military transport planes. Thus, Chad’s Idriss Deby launched a military bombardment from the neighbouring Darfur and overthrew President Hissan Habre. French and U.S. forces were then involved in funding, training and equipping Deby, a military ruler, who supported the rebel groups in Darfur. At the same time there were reports of Israelis providing military training to Darfur rebels from bases in Eritrea, while strengthening ties with the regime in Chad, from where more weapons and troops penetrated Darfur. Refugee camps were thus militarized. 

 Darfur was further militarised when the regime of Ange-Félix Patassé collapsed in the Central African Republic and his soldiers fled to Darfur with their military hardware. The situation was not made better when, in August 1998, US President Bill Clinton ordered missile attack on the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. It was producing cheap medications for malaria and tuberculosis, supplying most of the medicine in Sudan. The plant was completely smashed by 19 cruise missiles, for no logical reason. And so Darfur became the hub of international geopolitical scramble for Africa’s resources. The region has the third largest copper and the fourth largest high quality uranium deposits in the world. It produces two-thirds of the world’s best quality gum Arabic, which is major ingredient in cold drinks, pharmaceuticals and candies. Sudan exports 80% of the world’s supply of this commodity.

The country, the largest in Africa in terms of area, is strategically located on the Red Sea, immediately south of Egypt, and borders on seven other African countries. It is situated opposite Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, among the main suppliers of oil. Sudan also has abundance of natural gas and oil, much of it in Darfur. The problem for the West is that it is the Chinese who are pumping the oil. U.S. companies controlling the pipelines in Chad and Uganda are looking for the ways to displace China through the US military alliance with states such as Uganda, Chad and Ethiopia, which are not too friendly with Sudan. Darfur, a western region of Sudan, borders on Libya and Chad, with their own vast oil resources. So it is a likely pipeline route. 

The West is thus pushing for ‘peacekeeping’ mission in Darfur in order to pursue its own agenda. That is why in the end the whole exercise may result into another Iraq or Afghanistan. This is because the United States and its allies look for conflicts, or even provoke conflicts, which they use as pretext to intervene in other countries, militarily or otherwise, directly or through proxies (including the UN). The aim is to exploit and control these countries economically and politically through puppet governments. This way they facilitate, promote and protect the investments of their corporations. This is how the United States and other western powers are working towards political domination in Africa and elsewhere, in order to exploit their resources. 

These are the sentiments that were possibly expressed by chairman of Tanzania’s National League for Democracy (NLD), Dr. Emmanuel Makaidi, when he called upon the government to withdraw Tanzanian peace-keeping troops from Sudan as their presence there is ‘not in the country’s national interest. It is not worth sacrificing our seven soldiers who lost their lives in an ambush laid by insurgents,’ he swiped, adding that Tanzania has an ill-advised foreign policy.

Nizar Visram is a Tanzanian freelance journalist and writer on political and socio-economic issues. He can be contacted at nizar1941@gmail.com

The politics of markets

Socialist Banner is not innocent or naive enough to not suspect that the following story is one purposefully planted in the media by American propaganda psy-ops to discredit Sudan .

However, we know that many nations find that the world market for food-stuffs is more profitable than the the home domestic market and that the export of food while people starve is a well-documented phenomena and therefore feel that the essential elements of the story is more than probably true .

Even as it receives a billion pounds of free food from international donors, Sudan is growing and selling vast quantities of its own crops to other countries, capitalizing on high global food prices at a time when millions of people in its war-riddled region of Darfur barely have enough to eat.

Sudan is growing wheat for Saudi Arabia, sorghum for camels in the United Arab Emirates and vine-ripened tomatoes for the Jordanian Army.
Last year, the United States government, as part of its response to the emergency in Darfur, shipped in 283,000 tons of sorghum, and that is about the same amount that Sudan exported. This year, Sudanese companies are on track to ship out twice that amount, even as the United Nations is being forced to cut rations to Darfur. Many European countries which can buy relief food locally bought 117,000 tons of Sudanese sorghum last year but United Nations officials said they would like to buy more , however Sudanese suppliers could make more money with exports.

Professor Eric Reeves, an outspoken activist who has written frequently on the Darfur crisis, called this anomaly described Sudanese government’s strategy as one to manipulate “national wealth and power to further enrich itself and its cronies, while the marginalized regions of the country suffer from terrible poverty.”

Sudan has 208 million acres of arable land, with less than a quarter being cultivated.

“Sudan could be self-sufficient,” said Kenro Oshidari, the director of the United Nations World Food Program in Sudan. “It does have the potential to be the breadbasket of Africa.”

Blood , water and oil

From the anarchist web resource , Anarkismo , an interesting and provocative take on the Darfur War .


1. The conflict in Darfur is not between “Arabs” and “Africans”.
2. Sudan is not an Islamic fundamentalist state.
3. The cause of the conflict is not only political.
4. The deployment of United Nations peacekeepers will not help.

FULL ARTICLE AT THE LINK

Darfur Sudan and Spies

Sudan hosted the fourth conference of the Committee for Intelligence and Security Systems in Africa (CISSA), which operates under the African Union (AU) umbrella. At least 46 African agencies were present, plus nearly all the main western intelligence agencies.

Khartoum has bent over backwards to provide intelligence to the west, especially on al-Qaeda's penetration of north Africa. In addition, it was reported that Khartoum is providing intelligence on jihadist operations in Iraq. Sudan's National Security and Intelligence Service has been increasingly praised, albeit discreetly, by Washington.

Some of the sentimental "suits" in the US administration may shed real tears for the Darfurians, but the hard-nosed warriors know that Sudan is a vital element in regional security. Even if all US troops in Iraq were suddenly transplanted to Darfur, they would not be able to police a region the size of France. The Sudanese government knows that Islamic extremism threatens the region, and so Washington has to back-pedal on condemnation of Khartoum's policy in Darfur.

Darfur and deaf ears

Protests have taken place around the world to demand an end to the fighting in Sudan's Darfur region. Organisers of the Global Day for Darfur said events were taking place in 35 capitals to mark the fourth anniversary of the conflict. But socialists know only too well that appeals to the compassion and good-will of governments seldom achieve any meaningful or lasting resolution . Prime ministers and presidents are motivated by what is in the best interests of their ruling class and rarely by any humanitarian reason .

Indeed , socialists recognise that the cause of wars can be traced back to economics rather than a racial or religious cause , although these are often cited as a motive for conflict and strife .

The war in Darfur that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions is no exception .

Darfur, which means land of the Fur, has faced many years of tension over land and grazing rights between the mostly nomadic Arabs, and farmers from the Fur, Massaleet and Zagawa communities. Desertification has increased tensions, between everybody, as tribes fight to gain control over precious water points.

According to The Independent what began as a rebellion by three non-Arab tribes against perceived marginalisation by the Arab-dominated Khartoum government has escalated into a complex multi-layered conflict. There are Arabs fighting alongside the rebels and Africans siding with the government. Arab tribes are fighting other Arab tribes - some are even fighting themselves. If it was ever as simple to describe the conflict as a "genocide" of black Africans by an Arab government - and few analysts in Sudan believe it was - it certainly is not now. Sudan's government is arming any group that is prepared to attack anyone connected with the rebels, be they African or Arab. In some cases they have even armed both sides of the same mini-conflict. It is less about ethnic cleansing and more about power. The Khartoum government , argue some analysts, may not even want the war to end. Dr Madawi Ibrahim, a Darfurian expert has said "You keep people busy with a crisis" .

President Omar al-Bashir's regime has more than one eye on winning the general elections due to be held in Sudan in 2009. The government hopes an election victory would give the dictatorship a seal of legitimacy in the eyes of the international community. It would also ensure that Sudan's booming oil revenues remain in the hands of the ruling elite.

Add to this confusion the international dimension .

The Chad governement accuses the Sudan government-backed Arab Janjaweed militia of attacking villagers in Chad and also accuses Khartoum of backing the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD), which is a coalition of small armed groups and army deserters who have launched cross border attacks from Darfur.

Sudan accuses Chad of backing Darfur's National Redemption Front rebels as they carry out cross-border raids. There have also been allegations that many of these rebels have become assimilated into Chad's national army .

The Central African Republic (CAR) says Sudan backs Union of Democratic Forces for Unity (UFDR) rebels who have seized towns in CAR and says the UFDR are operating from Darfur with the support of the Sudanese authorities. French forces have already deployed against CAR rebels in support of the government . Chad says it will send troops to help CAR fight rebels attacking northern CAR. It accuses Sudan of attempting to destabilise both Chad and CAR and has suggested an anti-Sudan alliance.

As stated in the Socialist Standard the Darfur crisis is a vicious resource war between organised armed groups and the consequent murder and displacement of local populations none of whom will benefit economically from any final outcome.