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.