History of colonialist intrigue in Sudan remains unabated

[Truth Seeker]

History of colonialist intrigue in Sudan remains unabated

 

Last week US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, announced a visit to Sudan and the Darfur region in particular. This was following on from the NATO summit in Turkey. Several western bodies have dubbed Darfur a flashpoint. However the saddening Sudanese situation should be understood in light of the US backing of the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army), coupled with the pressure placed on the Khartoum government. What also needs to be considered is the threat of US intervention and the plan to divide the country of Sudan on ‘ethnic’ lines. This spells a dire future for Sudan and the region as a whole.

 

Following the blood letting in Iraq the US government seems all the more insistent on its hegemonic ambitions. Its propaganda programs are in motion, planting the seeds for either an invasion or a mighty application of pressure. All this designed to force the Sudanese government’s hand in what is popularly labelled the finalised negotiated settlement. This may more accurately be described as a US enforced final solution that is designed to place control over the land of Sudan with the US, courtesy of agents such as Garang. The Sudanese government are just as, if not more, culpable in this plan. Its actions have provided a pretext to America’s colonialist intent. It has agreed to the American demands and placed the SPLA on a false pedestal of credibility. This has allowed the pushing through of SPLA/US demands. What therefore is the future of Sudan and how can the nightmare vision laid down for it be averted?

 

One of the principal elements of the treachery that the government of Sudan has agreed to be a part of is the complete acquiescence to America’s goals.

 

America aims to deceive the world into believing that it dreams of a magnificent peace through a negotiated settlement. The recent past suggests she is consumed by a rampant desire to impose her will and achieve her post-911 objectives under the guise of fighting terrorism and security global stability. Vice-President Dick Cheney indicated as such when he pronounced that this war will not be completed in ‘our lifetime’, hence a perpetual pretext to intervene and interfere. Just as the world has come to know America’s intentions in Iraq were far from a charitable quest to remove a dictator and free a people. Rather it was a simple invasion and occupation. In a like manner her intentions in Sudan are far from altruistic.

 

As early as 1999 the US revealed her intentions towards Sudan. Although she had plotted prior to this date, 1999 has become a watershed. In October 1999 Madeline Albright the then Secretary of State met with the insurgent John Garang, whose SPLA was engaged in waging a war to force the separation of the South from the North of Sudan. Sudan being the largest country in the continent of Africa naturally attracted the eyes of the world’s leading nation. The existence of its natural resources helped wet her appetite. When Madeline Albright met Garang she extended the hand of friendship and increased “humanitarian aid”. All but the politically illiterate knew this was directed to help the SPLA’s flagging military fund. Some analysts concluded America was aiming to bolster the SPLA’s position, thus making it more important than it actually was. An elevated position may force the hand of the Sudanese government. Albright assured the SPLA that the talks would be exclusively within the framework of talks sponsored by IGAD (the Inter-governmental Authority on Development), this framework which was backed by the Sudanese government accepted the premise of the SPLA which asserts that the conflict in Sudan is built around an ethnic conflict between the North and the South. This placed the SPLA aim of secession of the South from the North on the agenda from the beginning of negotataions.

 

America had bombed Al-Shifa factory in Sudan in 1997 as a cover for Clinton’s stains, the factory was said to be producing chemical weapons and owned by Osama bin Laden, it actually produced human and animal medicines. She was not content with this aggression so she imposed sanctions on her under the claim that Sudan harbours terrorists. This claim was and is correct yet the real terrorists are the SPLA which vowed to make the South ungovernable in accordance with orders from the US.

 

Bush sent former Senator and episcopal minister Reverend John Danforth to Sudan as his envoy. Mustafa Uthman, Sudan’s Foreign Minister immediately committed himself to complete cooperation with Danforth. By December 2001 Danforth had brought the Southern Rebels and the treacherous Sudanese regime together in Sweden. A ceasefire was agreed over the area known as the Nuba Mountains region which has been neglected by successive governments since 1920 and was initially sidelined by the Colonialists, this flared up into war and agression against the citizens of this region leading to the murder of thousands. However yet America has been instrumental in this as well as other conflicts throughout Sudan through its agents. Following on from this agreement US Colonel Cecil Giddens was appointed to police the ceasefire. Simultaneously Sudanese government troops were disproportionately withdrawn in favour of the rebels who America backs in its one-sided crusade. This allowed the US a pivotal position in re-drawing the map of Sudan and consolidated the IGAD framework which legitimised the rebels secessionist claims. This hidden American intervention was backed by all sides including the government despite the fact that everyone is aware of the precedent this sets for future intervention and invasion.

 

Throughout the entire ‘negotiation’ (surrender) process, Garang made it clear that he was looking for a secular settlement that would wipe Islam from Sudan. Although Islam is not actually applied, except in a few minor instances. So, why do the opposition staunchly call towards a secular resolution? The answer lies in the established facts and they are that the SPLA do not possess a will detached from her sponsor the US. The US has been an avowed opponent of political Islam and has sought to discredit it at every juncture; she therefore hates Islam to the extent that it cannot even be raised as a slogan. This is not to say that the SPLA insurgents do not also believe this, as they seek a divided Sudan and therefore champion the patriotic call, yet it is important to understand this is the brainchild of the organ-grinder rather than the monkey.

 

The plans achieved a pinnacle of deception in July 2002 when the two sides met in Machakos in Kenya, the government of Sudan claimed it would establish peace and maintain the unity of the people and territory of Sudan. Yet with everything that has the fingerprint of the kafir colonialist, the reality is far removed from what is touted as fact. The agreement allows the right to self-determination for the South within a period of six years from the agreement, this guarantees the division of Sudan.

 

The Sudanese Presidential Special Envoy Dr Ghazi Salahuddin said following the signing of the Machakos Protocol was signed on Sudanese television,

 

“What we have signed to today is the same thing that we refused in 1994. It is contrary to my own personal convictions but I only execute the state policy. There are new developments in the international arena.”

 

This is because what was signed was to the letter of the American policy envisioned for Sudan and which did not change with successive administrations in spirit. The Machakos Protocol rewarded the criminal John Garang and the reprobate rebels of the SPLA, there is a background to this and this ought to be explored.

 

Unlike what the media would have you believe, the Sudanese ‘civil’ war is not a new one. It began 34 years prior to the establishment of the government of the National Islamic Front (NIF). The US government far from acting as an honest broker has stoked the conflict to achieve the division of Sudan and the ready control over her resources. The SPLA was established in 1983 by John Garang with the intention of gaining independence through terrorist actions. Madeline Albright’s meeting with John Garang in 1998 confirmed publicly what many suspected in private that the US was funding the SPLA. The funding is reported to be channelled through proxy client regimes that neighbour Sudan including Uganda, Eritrea and Ethiopia.

 

the Boston Globe reported on 8th December 1999 “To the peril of regional stability, the Clinton Administration has used northern Uganda as a military training ground for southern Sudanese rebels fighting the Muslim government of Khartoum.” The Sunday Times revealed that the Clinton administration “…has launched a covert campaign to destabilise the government of Sudan... More than $20m of military equipment, including radios, uniforms and tents will be shipped to Eritrea, Ethiopia and Uganda in the next few weeks. Although the equipment is earmarked for the armed forces of those countries, much of it will be passed on to the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), which is preparing an offensive against the government in Khartoum.” [The Sunday Times, 17th November 1996].

 

The relationship between the US and the SPLA has been likened to that with the Contras in the 1980’s few commentators have allowed the similarity to pass, East Africa director of the National Security Council, John Prendegast, wrote: “The parallels to Central America in the 1980s are stark. The U.S. provided covert aid to the Contras and because of domestic public pressure urged numerous reforms on the Contras, especially in the area of human rights and institutional reform [although these pressures were undercut by a U.S. administration not serious about human rights].”

 

The Guardian backed up the analogy in its own inimical way, “Welcome to the 1980s. Long live Ronald Reagan. Remember the scenario - a rebel group being trained and armed by the CIA to topple a sovereign government, cross-border incursions from secluded camps, and the whole de-stabilisation exercise backed by international sanctions and a massive propaganda campaign. It sounds like Nicaragua or Angola circa 1984. In fact it’s Sudan 1998.” [Jonathan Steele, Guardian, 1 May 1998]

 

The conflict in Sudan is blamed on its government, yet the SPLA and its imperial backers the US have singly sought to re-shape Sudan and pressure the government and at times threatening invasion to make the government relent.

 

Foreign Policy in Focus Journal in November 2000 quoted Sudan Specialist Dan Connell who described the reality of the conflict and the toll it has taken upon the people of Sudan including the role of the colonial powers,

 

“Some two million Sudanese - nearly 8% of the country’s population - have lost their lives to war or famine-related causes since 1983, when fighting resumed in Africa’s longest running civil war. Millions more have been displaced, many fleeing to neighboring states. Massive injections of U.S. and Soviet arms have kept the war raging between northern and southern Sudan for nearly a half-century.”

 

The New York Times described the objective of Garang on 3rd March 1996,

 

“ [Garang’s] explicit strategy was to render south Sudan ungovernable, and in that he succeeded. The South today is not only ungovernable but virtually uninhabitable.”

 

And again on 6th December 1999,

 

“[The SPLA] have behaved like an occupying army, killing, raping and pillaging.”

The Economist described the SPLA as “little more than an armed gang of Dinkas… killing, looting and raping. Its indifference, almost animosity, towards the people it was supposed to be ‘liberating’ was all too clear.” [The Economist, March 1998]

 

The United Nations described an incident typical of SPLA conduct, the United Nations records that the SPLA attacked two villages in the southern region of Sudan, ultimately massacring 30 men, 53 women, and 127 children - a total of 210 villagers,

 

“Eyewitnesses reported that some of the victims, mostly women, children and the elderly, were caught while trying to escape and killed with spears and pangas. M.N., a member of the World Food Programme relief committee at Panyajor, lost four of her five children (aged 8-15 years). The youngest child was thrown into the fire after being shot. D.K. witnessed three women with their babies being caught. Two of the women were shot and one was killed with a panga. Their babies were all killed with pangas. A total of 1,987 households were reported destroyed and looted and 3,500 cattle were taken.”[ ‘Situation of Human Rights in the Sudan’, UN Special Rapporteur Gaspar Biro, E/CN.4/1996/62, 20 February 1996.]

 

East Africa director of the NSC John Prendergast, then a development aid consultant with extensive experience in Sudan, thus noted that the SPLA:

 

“… was responsible for egregious human rights violations in the territory it controlled. If conventional human rights standards were applied to the SPLA as a government of the territory it controls (a status it confers on itself), non-humanitarian aid would have been prohibited by the U.S. Congress long ago on human rights grounds.”

 

Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have recorded similar atrocities by the SPLA, yet most revealing is the fact the State Department has also recorded similar abuses in 1991, 1992 and 1993. Despite all this the US has strengthened its links with the SPLA revealing once more that the US slogan of Human Rights is upheld only insofar as it does not interfere with ‘business as usual’.

 

The US has maintained the spotlight of abuse in a partial manner upon the Sudanese government alone. Yet a 1994 Human Rights Watch report catalogued 279 pages of abuse, 169 of which were devoted to Human Rights abuses enacted by the SPLA, the remainder was by the government.

 

As for the claim that the famine in Sudan has been precipitated by the Sudanese regime, even Newsweek magazine dispelled this claim,

 

“Aid workers blame much of the south’s recent anguish on one man: the mercurial Dinka warlord Kerubino Kuanyin Bol.” [Newsweek, 18th May 1998]

 

CNN also reported,

“Observers say much of the recent chaos has resulted from the actions of one man, Kerubino Kwanying Bol, a founding member of the rebel movement. He aided rebel forces in seige of three-government held towns, which sent people fleeing into the countryside.”[CNN, 10th April, 1998]

 

Although this author can never be labelled an apologist for the Khartoum regime, nonetheless the government has been portrayed in a light which only goes to illustrate the US administration’s self-serving appetite for regime change in Sudan. In 1998 Philip J. Clark, the World Food Program (WFP) Representative in Sudan wrote publicly to thank the Sudanese government for its cooperation in helping the aid agencies to deliver food to the South.

 

“Let me take this opportunity to thank the Government of Sudan for its co-operation in facilitating the efforts of the United Nations to meet the urgent food needs of thousands of people in Southern Sudan who require our help.”[ Phillip J. Clarke in a letter to the Sudanese government, 30 April 1998]

 

By all accounts the food is flowing into the South, so why are so many people either dying or threatened by death as a result of hunger and malnutrition? The reality is that a lot of it is being siphoned off by the SPLA for themselves,

 

The Agence France Presse (AFP) reported that: “Much of the relief going to more than a million famine victims in rebel-held areas of southern Sudan is ending up in the hands of the Sudan’s People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), relief workers said.” [Agence France Press, ‘Aid For Sudan Ending Up With SPLA: Relief Workers’, 21 July 1998]

 

A London-based African Rights organization reports:

 

“On the whole, SPLA commanders and officials of the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association (SRRA, its humanitarian wing), have seen relief flows as simple flows of material resources. The leadership has also used aid for diplomatic and propaganda purposes… A large proportion of their consumption was food aid. Sudanese who were in Itang during that period later reported they routinely saw trucks being re-loaded with food at the camp stores: at times on a daily basis. Often they were just going to the nearby training camps, but relief supplies were also sometimes sold, or used on military operations in Eastern Equatoria and Upper Nile. The SPLA ‘taxed’ the supplies for the refugees, reselling substantial amounts of food on the market and earning millions of Ethiopian Birr. This income was used to purchase vehicles and other equipment for the SPLA. Much relief was sold in Ethiopia: traded for cash, clothing, cattle and other items. By 1990, the Itang camp manager was even managing to raise enough revenue to buy vehicles for the SPLA, and was publicly commended by John Garang for doing so.” [ AR Report, Food and Power in Sudan, African Rights, London, 1997, p. 5, 7, 72-73, 76-77.]

 

It has also been reported that the SPLA have shot down a humanitarian aid plane and tried to down even more this has led to a more cautious approach to aid deliveries, this is entirely the fault of the SPLA which has created this environment of fear and insecurity.

 

This all brings us to the current reality in Sudan. This centres on Darfur in the West of the country where world attention has been placed on the deteriorating position. A recent press release from Hizb ut-Tahrir Sudan sets the entire mess into context, the then spokesman of Hizb ut-Tahrir Sudan who has since passed away wrote,

 

The situation in Darfour is deteriorating and increasing in its evil and complexity day after day. Thousands of lives have perished, hundreds of villages have been burned down, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced without a bed or cover other than the earth and the sky. Some fled to Chad hoping to save themselves from the fire of Darfour where there is no sanctity for blood, honour or property in a country whose population is one-hundred percent Muslim.

 

It was mentioned in the news that the government disapproved of the withdrawal of the human rights organisations from Darfour, requesting them to stay and look after the affairs of the citizens. The government, before anyone else, knows that these organisations work to spread the civil war and smuggle in weapons in food parcels and have contact with the centres of the rebellion as we saw happen with the United Nations plane which was impounded while transporting weapons and equipment to the rebels in Darfour and before that we saw the same thing with the Red Cross plane. [The Office of the Official Spokesman of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Sudan, ‘Ali Sa’eed ‘Ali (Abul-Hasan), 23 December 2003]

 

The Press release succinctly identifies the recent for this recent conflict and it is important following this to realize that this is another pretext that the US government is using to advocate its hegemonic ambitions.

 

The Spokesman highlights that the key to the enflaming of the Janjaweed Militias as well as the rotten situation vis a vis the civil war is the labeling of its people Arab and African as a means of division and inciting the various sections upon the patriotic basis. These labels have no place in the vocabulary of the Muslims but are modern constructs advocated by those with vested interests. The governments have done little to destroy this and the SPLA and the Janjaweed Militias base their actions on this rotten basis.

 

Secondly the US and the colonialist nations seek to capitalize from the conflict as a means to threaten invasion. They are using this pretext - as they have used the claim that the Sudanese government harbours terrorists – in order to back the SPLA position and achieve the division of Sudan so that it may be more easily amenable to the US.

 

One proof of the pretext is that America condemns the Sudanese government’s backing for the Janjaweed, but continues to fund and support the SPLA whose abuses have been referred to in part previously.

 

The Sudanese government has since pledged to Kofi Annan and Colin Powell during their respective visits that they will work to disarm the Janjaweed militias and their brutal actions in Darfour. Yet the SPLA will not be disarmed, despite the fact that they are provoking much of the conflict with their secessionist calls.

 

The situation in Darfour and throughout Sudan is a tragedy of epic proportions. The killings, rapes, displacement and the fear and hatred the people harbour towards each other is fed by the existent of the militias both Janjaweed and SPLA. They are in turn being fed by the propagation of the rotten patriotic sentiments upon which the militias and the government are based upon, and outside powers are fuelling this for their own despicable motives.

 

The Patriotic call divides people upon the basis of race, land or tribe. It recognizes the difference between Arab and African based upon the superficialities of skin colour and language. How low can people stoop to the depths of such a shallow link where the decree of the creator of skin colour, familial heritage or land of birth which human beings had no say in are used as the basis for unification. Such a basis only leads to conflict and separation, random killing and depravity. What makes an Arab superior to an African or vice versa? There is nothing that intrinsically elevates or relegates either to a position of superiority or inferiority. What distinguishes humanity from animals are not matters which we possessed no choice over such as the colour of our skin or the family of our birth. What elevates humanity are the conscious decisions we

make regarding the ideas we base our lives upon. What elevates us is grasping the choice to investigate the important questions relating to who controlled whether we would be born white, black or brown or shades in between, or born in Sudan or the Arabian penisular or into an affluent family or amongst a people living hand to mouth.

 

When Islam graced the lives of an arrogant and tribalistic people it changed the prevalent outlook to one rooted in ideas. The idea that changed a people and brought unity between people possessing different skin colours and speaking a multitude of languages were brought together by the idea that the Creator made those differences and set a system to organize both the differences and the everyday matters that required a system for organizing. It set an objective arbiter that rejected patriotism and nationalism and sought to solve the problems of human beings as human beings as only a system from a Creator can do.

 

Today Sudan requires this objective arbiter just like the Muslim and Non-Muslim world are in need of it to ward off the convulsions that are plaguing it as a result of elevating the systems of man over the creator. The government cannot provide this objective arbiter because it bases itself upon a separation of Islam from the rule of state. The rebels too have placed themselves in the position of proxies to America, and are blinded by their lust for power over the land and domination of the people, they too base themselves upon the divisive bond or patriotism. Both parties have forfeited any right to rule over Sudan, they have involved themselves in the killings and neither hold anything resembling an elevated principled position, they have disgraced the people and wronged themselves.

 

Allah subhanahu wa ta’aala says

 

æóáÇó ÊóÑúßóäõæÇú Åöáóì ÇáøóÐöíäó ÙóáóãõæÇú ÝóÊóãóÓøóßõãõ ÇáäøóÇÑõ æóãóÇ áóßõã ãøöä Ïõæäö Çááøåö ãöäú ÃóæúáöíóÇÁ Ëõãøó áÇó ÊõäÕóÑõæä

 

"And incline not toward those who do wrong, lest the Fire should touch you, and you have no protectors other than Allah, nor you would then be helped" [TMQ 11: 113].

 

The Muslims must take back control away from the intervention of America and Britain in our lands, they do not seek anything but the exploitation of our resources and to act as barriers to the resumption of justice through the implementation of Islam

 

He (Subhanahu Wa Ta'aala) said:

 

æóÏøõæÇú ãóÇ ÚóäöÊøõãú ÞóÏú ÈóÏóÊö ÇáúÈóÛúÖóÇÁ ãöäú ÃóÝúæóÇåöåöãú æóãóÇ ÊõÎúÝöí ÕõÏõæÑõåõãú ÃóßúÈóÑõ ÞóÏú ÈóíøóäøóÇ áóßõãõ ÇáÂíóÇÊö Åöä ßõäÊõãú ÊóÚúÞöáõæäó

 

"They desire to harm you severely. Hatred has already appeared from their mouths, but what their breasts conceal is far worse. Indeed We have made plain to you the Ayât (proofs, evidences, verses) if you understand" [TMQ 3: 118].

 

All parties must recognise that America and the colonialist powers are not upholders of freedom and justice, their promises are meant to deceive, can you not see that their deceptive nature has historic backing. They have shown emnity and friendship depending upon where their interests lay at any particular moment in time. Their enemies can be transformed into their friends and vice versa.

 

He (Subhanahu Wa Ta'aala) said:

 

íóÚöÏõåõãú æóíõãóäøöíåöãú æóãóÇ íóÚöÏõåõãõ ÇáÔøóíúØóÇäõ ÅöáÇøó ÛõÑõæÑðÇ

 

"He (Shaitan) makes promises to them, and arouses in them false desires; and Shaitan's promises are nothing but deceptions" [TMQ 4: 120].

 

The only thing that stands in the way of America and her plans designed for the whole Islamic world is the Khilafah state on the way of the Prophethood. Let us strive with all our energies to establish it. We will please Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta'aala) and live in dignity in the world and be from among the righteous in the Akhirah. He (Subhanahu Wa Ta'aala) says:

 

æóíóæúãóÆöÐò íóÝúÑóÍõ ÇáúãõÄúãöäõæäó ÈöäóÕúÑö Çááøóåö íóäÕõÑõ ãóä íóÔóÇÁ æóåõæó ÇáúÚóÒöíÒõ ÇáÑøóÍöíã

 

'And on that Day, the believers will rejoice (at the victory given by Allah). With the help of Allah, He helps whom He wills, and He is the AllMighty, the Most Merciful' [TMQ 30: 4-5]

 

Source: KCom Journal