Darfur: The Reality, the Agenda & the Proposed Solution
May 25th, 2007Introduction
Darfur in the minds of different people constitutes and means different things. This is due to the fact that we, the general public around the world are getting exposed to a tirade of conflicting views and information. As that continues, so will our polarization. Therefore, the long and seemingly endless debates will keep stretching and as that happens, innocent lives will continue perishing.
There is hence a need to bring diverging opinions closer together by assessing and analyzing the views on both sides and presenting the results in a non-politicized context as best as possible. This is extremely important if we truly want to appease the situation.
Darfur in the Minds of Westerners
If you ask any person in America or the West who’s heard about the Darfur conflict what they know about it, they’ll most probably tell you, “it’s a genocide being waged by Arabs against Africans†and that “the United States and the UN must intervene to protect innocent livesâ€. That’s about all they know. Why is that?
When it comes to awareness, the massive majority of Americans are only listening to one main organization. The Save Darfur Coalition. It’s their story and narrative that the American people pay most attention to, a story, which doesn’t focus on important root causes such as water shortage and desertification. It’s a story that has made the conflict seem primarily racial in nature when it’s really not. Furthermore, it’s a story that doesn’t accurately portray the true situation and that some say has become politicized.
The Save Darfur Coalition is oversimplifying the Darfur conflict. That doesn’t help because when people don’t understand how complex things are, the solutions applied have a much higher possibility of exacerbating the situation rather than appeasing it.
Sleepless in Sudan, shares a similar view in a blog entry dated back 2 years ago when she was an aid worker in Darfur:
Find out more. The conflict in Darfur may be complex and the context somewhat daunting, but it’s hard to help when you’re ignorant about the issues involved. It’s going to be a lot easier for you to help the people of Darfur if you try to understand the situation and use your knowledge to take certain actions
…No matter how good your intentions, uninformed opinions or arguments will not take you very far.
Understanding the situation is indeed crucial.
Darfur in the Minds of Muslims and Arabs
For most Muslims and Arabs who have heard about Darfur, the conflict is one, which has been over exaggerated by Zionists in an attempt to use it as a pretext for invading Sudan and getting to the wealth of natural resources it possesses. These include oil and uranium. As a result many Muslims and Arabs simply downplay the seriousness of the violence. Others completely deny it even exists. Why is that?
The Khartoum government and their supporters successfully managed to deflect people’s attention away from the reality. They did that by playing “the Israel Cardâ€. In the Arab and Muslim worlds, pointing the finger at Zionists tends to work extremely well.
The True Reality of Darfur
Arabs Vs Africans?
The portrayal of the Darfur conflict primarily as “a genocide waged by Arabs against Africans†is an inaccurate oversimplification. This article will provide you with an idea of what Darfur is really about and the complexity of its state of affairs. It doesn’t stop there though. There’s more and the following stresses it further:
Ahmed Mohamed Haroun is one of the two named by the ICC as suspected war criminals involved in Darfur. This is a picture of him.
Does he look Arab to you?
The Khartoum government is not waging war in Darfur because it’s primarily interested in wiping out certain ethnic African populations. All the Khartoum government mainly cares about is fighting the rebellion and maintaining its solid grip on power in the country. It’s primarily an issue of wealth and power sharing. Only after that do ethnic and tribal factors come into play. The recently settled eastern conflict in Sudan further proves this point. The Khartoum government has marginalized the inhabitants of eastern Sudan just like it has done to Darfur (and Southern Sudan) even though the tribes in eastern Sudan consist of ethnic Afro-Arabs and ethnic Arabs who crossed the Red Sea from the Arabian Peninsula about a century ago.
The recent discovery of oil in Darfur is also a factor. Part 4 of Inside Sudan, by VBS sheds more light on this.
The Scale of Violence
In today’s Internet Age, hiding the death and destruction occurring in Sudan’s western region simply isn’t going to work. There are thousands of videos and pictures available online for anyone to see. Moreover accessing Google Earth and zooming into Darfur via satellite, reveals extra surprises. People can disagree about statistics and numbers but there is no question as to how bad and horrific the situation in Darfur is.
Downplaying the mass violence and pretending it doesn’t exist is morally wrong. It indicates a lack of respect for Sudanese lives. Furthermore, pointing the finger solely at the Zionists and retreating back into a state of denial doesn’t help ease the suffering of millions of women and children struggling in Darfur and in refugee camps.
The Agenda Behind Darfur: The Enablers & Turabi’s Role
The Agenda
It would be very naïve to think that there’s no agenda behind what’s happening in Darfur. One does exist.
We always witness talk in the mainstream media about China and how it’s “the enabler of genocideâ€. It’s a good thing that China is being put under scrutiny for its enabling role in this conflict but… what about the rebels? Who are their enablers? From where are they getting their financing? Which parties are providing it to them and why?
How can the rebels afford their ongoing war against al-Bashir’s NCP dominated Khartoum government? How can they afford their travel expenses in and out of European countries?
Certain groups are providing them with the financial means to do so. The question is who? Moreover and more importantly what is the agenda of those financiers? They certainly have one. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be financing Darfur’s rebels in the first place. In politics, nothing comes for free.
It’s known that Chad allegedly provides the rebels support. It’s also known that wealthy Darfurian businessmen overseas outside Sudan provide support too. What isn’t well known and focused on in the Western mainstream media however is the agenda of regime change some powerful groups have in mind. The influential right-wing organization Project for the New American Century, for example has the following published on their website:
Now it’s time for the threats to end and the consequences to begin. After all, in addition to the humanitarian imperative, the United States has a strategic interest in Sudan. Khartoum is one of seven regimes on the U.S. government’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, and Sudan’s dictatorship has had ties with almost every significant terrorist organization in the broader Middle East. Al Qaeda was based in Sudan during the 1990s, and other terrorist groups continue to operate there freely. This month Die Welt reported that Syria and Sudan have been collaborating in developing chemical weapons and may have used them against civilians in Darfur. Thus, in moving against Khartoum for its human rights abuses, we will also be striking a blow in the war on terrorism.
Al-Bashir’s worries are not baseless. The United States and Israel did after all support the Southern Sudanese militarily and financially against the Northerners during the long and bloody Southern- Northern Sudanese civil war which raged on for more than 2 decades.
That shouldn’t come as a surprise. It was in their interests to destabalize a hostile regime.
Are Darfurian rebels receiving support from the United States and Israel directly or indirectly through neighbouring countries like Chad?
Professional journalists and the Western mainstream media should definitely dedicate more time to answering this question.
Turabi’s Role
Many aren’t aware of Turabi’s role in the Darfur conflict. The following are excerpts highlighting his involvement:
Although analysts have emphasized the racial and ethnic aspects of the conflict in Darfur, a long-running political battle between Sudanese President Omar Hassan Bashir and radical Islamic cleric Hassan al-Turabi may be more relevant.
A charismatic college professor and former speaker of parliament, Turabi has long been one of Bashir’s main political rivals and an influential figure in Sudan. He has been fingered as an extremist; before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks Turabi often referred to Osama bin Laden as a hero. More recently, the United Nations and human rights experts have accused Turabi of backing one of Darfur’s key rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement, in which some of his top former students are leaders.
Because of his clashes with Bashir, Turabi is usually under house arrest and holds forth in his spacious Khartoum villa for small crowds of followers and journalists. But diplomats say he still mentors rebels seeking to overthrow the government.
Dr Khalil Ibrahim, a protege of Islamist hardliner Dr Hasan al-Turabi. Formed in November 2002, JEM is increasingly recognised as being part and parcel of Dr Turabi’s Popular Congress. Time magazine has described JEM as “a fiercely Islamic organisation said to be led by Hassan al-Turabi” and that Turabi’s ultimate goal is “the presidential palace in Khartoum and a stridently Islamic Sudan”. [2] Khalil is a long-time associate of Turabi’s and served as a state minister in Darfur in the early 1990s before serving as a state cabinet-level advisor in southern Sudan. Ibrahim was a senior member of the Islamist movement’s secret military wing.
Proposed Solution
1. A well-informed individual is a more effective and capable individual. Understanding the conflict thoroughly is vital for the achievement of any real long-term peace.
2. Just as al-Bashir’s NCP dominated Khartoum government is playing a war role, so are the rebels. Before any negotiations for a comprehensive and inclusive peace agreement take place, the fighting needs to stop. The enablers on both sides can make that happen (if they’re actually interested).
3. Turabi’s involvement needs to be addressed and dealt with.
4. The peace agreement has to be satisfactory to the rebels and the Khartoum government needs to make some concessions that address some of the key rebel demands. Otherwise any agreement will be a meaningless piece of paper.
Darfur’s innocent women and children have suffered for way too long.
PS: As usual your comments and criticisms are welcome.
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While there is great sorrow and indignation over the suffering and loss of life in the Sudan, early U.S. involvement in the war goes unmentioned. Instead, the U.S. leads an effort to condemn China for buying Sudan’s oil. For years the U.S. had paid for war in hopes to arrange for some eventual control of the oil discovered in Darfur, (all well once well reported in the New York Times). The human crises receives little financial aid from a U.S. government, silently protected from any embarrassment of acknowledging a prime complicity in fomenting war in Darfur.
HistoryNewNetwork, George Mason University published the folloing:
“Early CIA Involvement in Darfur Has Gone Unreported”
http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/34473.html HNN Darfur
as well as Global Research, Operation Sudan of SaveDafur, UK IndyMedia, Ethiopian News, FreeThoughtManifesto, Islamic Forum, Countercurrents, Nicholas D. Kristof, Schema-Root news, jcturner23’s reviews, News Search Tracker, alfatomega, Newsvine, Digg, Netscape, Boreal Access, Newswire, Tailrank, Congo Music News, Zaire, Darfur News from Google, ibrattleboro.com and sundry other sites from the original in OpEdNews, January 23, 2007
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jay_jans_070121_darfur___hand_ringin.htm
There has been a glaring omission in the U.S. media presentation of the Darfur tragedy. The compassion demonstrated, mostly in words, until recently, has not been accompanied by a recognition of U.S. complicity, or at least involvement, in the war which has led to the enormous suffering and loss of life that has been taking place in Darfur for many years.
In 1978 oil was discovered in Southern Sudan. Rebellious war began five years later and was led by John Garang, who had taken military training at infamous Fort Benning, Georgia. “The US government decided, in 1996, to send nearly $20 million of military equipment through the ‘front-line’ states of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda to help the Sudanese opposition overthrow the Khartoum regime.” [Federation of American Scientists fas.org]
Between 1983 and the peace agreement signed in January 2005, Sudan’s civil war took nearly two million lives and left millions more displaced. Garang became a First Vice President of Sudan as part of the peace agreement in 2005. From 1983, “war and famine-related effects resulted in more than 4 million people displaced and, according to rebel estimates, more than 2 million deaths over a period of two decades.”
[CIA Fact Book -entry Sudan]
The BBC obituary of John Garang, who died in a plane crash shortly afterward, describes him as having “varied from Marxism to drawing support from Christian fundamentalists in the US.” “There was always confusion on central issues such as whether the Sudan People’s Liberation Army was fighting for independence for southern Sudan or merely more autonomy. Friends and foes alike found the SPLA’s human rights record in southern Sudan and Mr Garang’s style of governance disturbing.” Gill Lusk - deputy editor of Africa Confidential and a Sudan specialist who interviewed the ex-guerrilla leader several times over the years was quoted by BBC, “John Garang did not tolerate dissent and anyone who disagreed with him was either imprisoned or killed.”
CIA use of tough guys like Garang in Sudan, Savimbi in Angola, Mobutu in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), had been reported, even in mass media, though certainly not featured or criticized, but presently, this is of course buried away from public awareness and meant to be forgotten, as commercial media focuses on presenting the U.S. wars of today in a heroic light. It has traditionally been the chore of progressive, alternate and independent journalism to see that their deathly deeds supported by U.S. citizens tax dollars are not forgotten, ultimately not accepted and past Congresses and Presidents held responsible, even in retrospect, when not in real time.
Oil and business interests remain paramount and although Sudan is on the U.S. Government’s state sponsors of terrorism list, the United States alternately praises its cooperation in tracking suspect individuals or scolds about the Janjaweed in Darfur. National Public Radio on May 2, 2005 had Los Angeles Times writer Ken Silverstein talk about his article “highlighting strong ties between the U.S. and Sudanese intelligence services, despite the Bush administration’s criticism of human-rights violation in the Sudan.” Title was “Sudan, CIA Forge Close Ties, Despite Rights Abuses.” Nicholas Kristof, of The New York Times, won a 2006 Pulitzer Prize for “his having alerted this nation and the world to these massive crimes against humanity. He made six dangerous trips to Darfur to report names and faces of victims of the genocide for which President Bush had long before indicted the government of Sudan to the world’s indifference.” [Reuters] But last November saw the opening of a new U.S. consulate in Juba the capital of the Southern region. (Maybe consider this an example of “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!” especially where oil is involved.)
The point is there is human suffering at mammoth level proportions. Humanitarian activists are trying to pry open the purse strings of an administration and congress willing to spend billions upon billions to get people killed and keep them in their place, namely, at our feet. Reminding Congress of what needs to be atoned for because of past policies of supporting war and human destruction could eventually make present policies of war intolerable. Americans are presently not exactly conscious stricken about dead and maimed Iraqis and Afghans, for commercial media always keeps of most of the human particulars of war crimes modestly out of sight, dramatizing much lesser losses and suffering of American military personal abroad.
Darfur made the headlines again because a governor of presidential timber was building up his foreign policy credentials. Meanwhile we are going to continue to see newsreels of our mass media depressing us with scenes of starving children, basically as testimony of how evil another Islamic nation’s government is, so we can feel good - and want to purchase the products needing the advertising - which pays for the entertainment/news programs - which keep viewers in the dark about THEIR contribution to the suffering brought upon those people all the way over there in Africa.
Just try to put 4 and 2 million of anything into perspective. We are talking about an equivalent to the sets of eyes of half the population of Manhattan. Imagine one of us, whether a precious child ,a handsome man, a beautiful women, - to the tune of, (dirge of), one times four million, half of us dead. Sorry! It has no impact right? We realize that, remembering the words of Joseph Stalin (of all people), “One man’s death is a tragedy, a thousand, is a statistic.” There is absolutely no way we can whip up enough anguish to match a total of four million displaced and two million dead Sudanese, unless we could be of a mind and heart with Martin Luther King dealing with three million dead Vietnamese, also as in this case, over on the other side of the world, far from our living rooms - “So it is that those of us who are yet determined that “America will be” are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.” (MLK, 1967, “Beyond Vietnam”)
This writer remembers reading newspapers articles about the U.S. backing the Southern Sudan rebellion way back then. If we had supported a side that wound up winning, we would be bragging about our having supported ‘freedom fighters’. But we just threw a lot of money and outdated weapons at a John Garang in the Sudan, as we did with Jonas Savimbi in Angola, to the ultimate destruction of millions of people, and they LOST! Like we did in Vietnam, and half-way lost in Korea, and now are mid-way losing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Jesus! Calculating the chances of an investment in human life and money coming to a fruition of sorts - that is certainly the job of any intelligence gathering agency! What we have had is an Agency using its gathered intelligence to do unintelligent things because, as our Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote more than a hundred and twenty-five years ago, “Things are in the saddle and ride herd over men” (trampling others under foot, we might add)
The European Union is under pressure from inside to assure that a United Nations force of 20,000 men will be sent to Darfur as required by Security Council resolution 1706, and to threaten sanctions in order to halt a war the U.S. was originally interested to see begun.
The U.N. Security Council will receive a list from the International Criminal Court of those Sudanese officials who could be charged with war crimes. The list is expected include some members of rebel organizations among Sudanese government officials and Janjaweed militias. There assuredly will be no names on the list of non-Sudanese officials of nations which were known to have involved themselves in this Sudanese civil war contrary to accepted provisions and obligations of U.N. membership. But we can know that the responsibility for war, slaughter, rape and theft in Sudan extends beyond the leaders of those murderously wielding guns and swords.
It will be good if outside influence will now be focused on peace, but citizens best be vigilant of their nation’s foreign policy intentions. The world has heard many protestations that oil is not a reason for war, but blood and oil has been known to mix.
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That now the U.S. use its economic power humanely, to promote peace in the Sudan and give generously to help war victims.
—————————————————–
Appreciatively in advance of possibly hearing something back on this from the cutting edge human rights organization.
Faifully, a baffled Jay Janson
Thanks for that article dude!
Jay Janson, you write †war and famine-related effects resulted in more than 4 million people displaced and, according to rebel estimates, more than 2 million deaths over a period of two decades.â€
[CIA Fact Book -entry Sudan]
When I checked the CIA Fact Book for Iraq, there is no mention of the millions of deaths of Iraqis (in the past couple of decades) or the millions displaced.
Why did you choose to use the CIA Factbook as a source, especially when you are pointing out CIA involvement in Darfur.
Here are two other excellent articles about Darfur, with information you won’t find in the mainstream media.
One is by F William Engdahl at
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/Geopolitics___Eurasia/Oil_in_Africa/oil_in_africa.html
the other is by Keith Harmon Snow at
http://allthingspass.com/journalism.php?jid=165
You hope to ask human rights organization to have the United States use its economic power humanely, to promote peace in the Sudan and give generously to help war victims. Shouldn’t we also be asking when will American war criminals be put on trial? Are government officials from weak and/or developing countries the only ones to be prosecuted? Because officials in our government got away with killing millions in Vietnam, it continues with its disastrous military interventions, unimpeded.
I wrote an essay about this conflict in my English class.
I hope everything becomes alright soon!
not only in Darfur, but in all other countries that have conflicts as well.
This is an interesting post. I have heard before that it is not really an Arab vs. African conflict. This may very well be true, but my understanding is that it is also true that Arab racism towards blacks is both quite common and quite an old attitude in the region. This is ironic as Islam and Christianity are supposed to transcend superficial things like skin color. Perhaps I am wrong about this and am open to correction. If what I am saying is true, I hope that some time on this blog would be spent discussing that issue in a broad sense.
Also the picture that you showed of the man with what appears to be black features does not mean that the genocide is not being promoted by Arabs. There is a long history of various ethnicities using the members of communities they wish to oppress as soldiers against their own people. For examples, enslaved Africans in North America were routinely used as soldiers by slave holders, sometimes attacking communities of freed slaves and runaways.
I agree that this issue is more complex than is being portrayed in the Western media, but it seems that reducing the conflict to politics and economics and suggesting that race is not involved is similarly simplistic.
Phillipe,
The United States used soldiers from economically poor backgrounds to invade Iraq. THe U.S., Britian, and their allies are committing genocide in Iraq so that it can control the oil wealth of Iraq.
THe United States is the number one seller of weapons to Africa. It has sold weapons to both sides of the conflict in the Congo. WHile the Africans are killing each other, the U.S. and other countries are exploiting their natural resources.
The United States and Israel have played a role in fueling the violence in Darfur by providing the rebels with weapons. THe weapons provided are not enough to subdue the Sudanese governmnetr, the weapons provided are just enough to create chaos and perpetuate the violence.
You could say that what the United States, Europe, and Israel are doing in Africa is racism, but the number one motivating factor is greed.
RandallJones Says, to Phillip. The Freedom to openly point out the failures of a specific government or head of state is legitimate. It may help to correct the problem, however, for the maximum benefit the statement need to be factual in a comprehensive manner. Furthermore, it is equally important to keep in mind that the present moral and ethical level of the participant governments is not sufficiently high to ensure that the results are the greatest good for the greatest number. One has to be morally and politically blind not to see the motivating factors in the conflict in Iraq. Equally, one has to be ignorant of the motives and moral bankruptcy of most of the governing regimes of the worlds nations. Those motives and hidden agendas are driven by lust for power, money and self agrandizement if individuals who are unfit to govern. How do they get there? By force of gun powder or by our own doing…we vote them in! Our sins, as Americans, is that we chose to be silent when our responsibility obligates us to speak….the Germans, the Muslims, the Chinese. ditto!
We are, sometimes also, afraid. We can be imprisioned or killed. That is why I bring to your attention the courage of the Midest Youth staff to openly speak.
“The purpose of religion as revealed from the heaven of God’s holy Will is to establish unity and concord amongst the peoples of the world; make it not the cause of dissension and strife. –(from a Tablet of Baha’u'ah.) Embracing the Truth of all the Revelations of the past does not require that we embrace the susperstitions and dogmas that man has added to them. The Golden Rule is central all true faiths…we just don’t or won’t practice it.