I recently had an interesting talk with my friend Chenjerai about borders. He is from Zimbabwe and I am from Botswana and so naturally we spoke about borders' cultural impacts pertaining to Southern Africa. ''You see, my brother, look at the map of Zimbabwe - it is like a teapot and you know British people like their tea,'' he joked about why it was in the interests of the first world to keep the borders intact.
He opined that they needed to be erased because they were not drawn by the southern Africans and they divided ethnic groups and were designed to keep the people there under colonial control, and so borders weakened the region's voice in world politics. He called what we know as countries in that region today as ''constructed nation states''. It is the classic divide and rule argument.
This got me wondering about how borders have exclusified languages or dialects...I hope there is such a word as exclusify, but what I mean is if a Shona person spoke Kalanga with a Shona accent in Botswana they would probably get flak for it, and if I as a Kalanga speaker have taken flak for speaking Shona ''funny.'' Shona and Kalanga are in some respects like Texan English and the English one would find in Wales, so they are not completely dissimilar. Once upon a time, they were the same language but a border ran through it and now it lives between them.
Now everyone holds onto their version of the language and makes it an exclusive mode of communication that the speakers of the other versions have no right to. Would this have happened due to natural migration without set territorialism through borders? I don't know. And is exclusivity bad? Does it assert new notions of identity and embrace that new cultures form over time?
I am still ruminating on this subject and what my fascination means, so feel free to scribble your thoughts aboutr borders in Africa...
4 comments:
I love this and can well imagine this conversation between the two of you :) I have always had a fasination with the notion of borders - I see myself as a woman living in / on ? the borderlands of life, nationality, ethnicity, sexuality sometimes here sometimes there. Nation states as they exist today in Africa are constructs created in the interests of the colonial masters but not of the inhabitants of these spaces. Not only were these borders created but the colonials chose to elevate certain ethnic or linguistic groups over others and so the Ndebele were the "Warriors" and the Shona the "farmers" creating rivaliries based on notions of constructed superiority between these borders they created. The Kikuyu over the Luas, Igob over Hausa and so on.
A long conversation my friend. Next time you are in town the three of us can get together over a couple of pints and sort this one out! So till then - here is a piece I wrote about me and my own borderlands
http://www.blacklooks.org/2006/10/blogging_from_the_borders_-_my_blog_and_i.html
PS - keep on blogging
MESSAGE : ON THE QUESTION OF BORDERS IN AFRICA
EUROPEANS STILL EXSERCICE RULE OVER AFRICA THROUGH THE
CONFIGURATION OF THE CONCEPTS LIKE THE TERM " COMMONWEALTH " BROUGHT INTO PICTURE TO CONFUSE THE AFRICAN MINDS :
WHAT IS REALLY THE SORT OF THE TERM COMMONWEALTH TO AFRICA ?
The Article 15 of Berlin Treaty gave the European Colonizers the Legal Right to own the Land and the People and enabled the 400 year-old slave trade (1440-1840) to continue in a modern-day modified system of slavery. The old African Kingdoms were in fact transformed into Slave States, and still today they are kept in the stranglehold of Colonial Power. Some of these powers are Britain, France, Portugal, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and even Denmark who formerly occupied Ghana and later sold it to Britain. The legality of the Berlin Treaty was derived from the Paris Conference which was concluded on 3 August 1875, the aim of which it was to enslave the Africans in their own continent. Under the pretext that slave trade was inhuman, the European and American leaders came to an understanding and concluded that it would be more profitable to enslave the Africans in their own African continent under European administration who would bring the " blessings " of civilization, Christianity and commerce to the " backward " African souls.
This concept was termed " Terra Nullus ", in short the land of the continent of Africa belonged to the European and American Masters, and not to the Rightful Owners, the African People. The procedure for the practical implementation was laid down in the Berlin Conference which started 15 November 1884 and was concluded by signing the Berlin Treaty on 26 February 1885. In fact the Charter of the OAU ( Organization of African Union ) of 25 May 1963 was drawn up in such a way as to keep and maintain the Legal Validity of the Paris Conference of 1875 enshrined in the Berlin Treaty in 1885. This ingenious way of controlling the African people is surpassed only by the Spanish conquestadoros almost five hundred years ago who enslaved the Indian civilizations of Latin and South America and the Carribean Islands, including Cuba. The control is made complete by imposing the language of the Colonizers, i.e. Culture through the instrument of the education system, religion ( Christianity and later Islam ) as well as currency and military. When this was achieved the African was to be brought the idea of independence . The Independence issue which was only given by replacing the European Governors in the already divided countries by the blacks on coming leaders who attended the European education schools . These praised leaders by the Colonial Masters on days of Independence were made first to sign papers that their countries Independence would mean nothing to them as the countries would be / remain under the Suprem Authority of the Colonial Master . Meaning the issue of Soverenity can not be touched by the so called independent African countries . That is why there is no black individual African country still who dares is a Sovereign State in Africa . The best example is : all the English Speaking are tied down under the Soverenity Rights ( Legal Acts ) of the United Kingdom of Britain & Northern Ireland ; today's enlarged World wide Expansion ( Dominium ) of the Mighty United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland and together with these member countries as the CommonWealthwealth countries .
The CommonWealth is being futher subdivided into two : with small ( d ) dominium refering to all black countries and some Asian English speaking countries and the Big ( D ) Dominium refering to countries where the white colour europeans have remained leaders ; such is of the two Domains of the independent countries of Australia and Canada .
Therefore the Role of Commonwealth is still Slave Acts rule upon Africans . The African Countries , in General Political and Dilpomatic Affairs , are simply used to earn Voting powers in General Assembly meetings like in the United Nations meetings and of the other Organisarions to fulfill the Decisions making of the so called Super Powers who by Rights are the Sovereign powers to this countries . Non Sovereign Powers have No Capacity / Priority to make Decisions . This CommonWealth Association therefore can only be contested . By who ? May be General Idi Amin one time President of Uganda was right in dissociating Uganda from the CommonWealth . Africa must open her Eyes to see better in future . The Mother Africa has all the Right to draw her Borders within the essence of a Political Affiliation best suiting to her Mind Thought . How ? For EXAMPLE the Lado History in Africa like the rest of African people have History parts ought to come into picture for discussions amongst all the Africa people . An all round African Confrerence on the Question of Borders in Africa must be established by the African people now .
By Ronald Lulua
THE WAR PICTURE IN ( SUDAN CENTRAL AFRICA ) - LADO ON THE CORCERN BOARDER ISSUE TILL TODATE .
UNITED STATES AND HER ALLIES ( IN AFRICA AND EUROPE ) PERPERTUAL WAR INVOLMENT IN THE SUDAN CENTRAL AFRICA ( LADO ) CONTINUES IN THIS FORM
When food production is disrupted by war there are few defences to natural disaster.WHICH BECOMES A TACTITFUL MILTARY SENSE TO ADOPT TO ELIMINATE A POPULATION OF HUMAN BEINGS IN THE WORLD
Interrelated wars of varying intensity continue in Africa for that and hence such wars in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Chad, Uganda, Rwanda, Congo and much more talked now of LADO . Much of East and Centra Africa is starving. amidst the terrible suffering , we find the United States and Western European World and their principle humanitarian organizations insisting that the Government of Sudan today especially is committing genocide in Central Africa . This was officially decided in 2002 with the Sudan Peace Act and the position is dutifully echoed by U.S and Western European State Government officials and many government funded NGO's, and the U.S. news media.
If nations of the world agreed that a verifiable genocide were occurring, it would allow the U.S and the whole Western World . to occupy Central Sudan ( LADO ) and gain its assets. There is profit for the U.Sand the alliies . in deciding that Sudan's Government has committed genocide in order to appropriate herself in establishing a founded permanent Military Base on Lado Land which is the Heart of Africa over Sudan . The term Sudan in Arabic means Black refering to Territory Land Areas South of Sahara Desert . However The nations of the world do not agree. Typically and in accordance , for example is to The Director of the World Health Organization who stated in last summer it was not a genocide picture seen in Sudan by the Republic Government of Sudan . " Medecins sans Frontières " workers have reported it , is not a genocide. And finally the U.N. decided it wasn't a genocide Yet something terrible happened there and is still happening .
Over four million South Sudanese and Sudanic people of Lado became displaced, according to a 1999 estimate and the subsequent diminished figures suggest the accounts are juggled. In the South of Sudan of which are the Sudanese ( Citizens of the Republic of Sudan ) alone , two million have died from war and starvation brought about by a rebellion and guerilla war. When peace was finally made between the Government of Sudan and the rebel forces in the South Sudanese (SPLM/A), Jan. 9, 2005, the rebels were able to claim the land they won, to negotiate and sell its substantial oil concessions. So the war and rebellion was something described as other than tribal differences or and much pitched as raids for slaves.
The leader of the Southern rebellion, John Garang and the Kins who follow suit , all went to Grinnell College in the U.S. trained at the U.S. Army command school. They bear some similarity to Paul Kagame, the current President of Rwanda, who was also trained at the U.S. Army command school. In 1990 Paul Kagame began attacking Rwanda from Uganda, and in 1994 invaded with well armed troops, a modern weapons army supplied by the West , land forces, precipitating a program of mass slaughters.
Was it a fluke of tribal war that became genocide ? Or was it a carefully planned NATO operation that discounted African population loss ?
The same Paul Kagame and the present Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni , remain under suspicion of having triggered the bloodshed by shooting down the plane of the former president of Rwanda, using a team under his command. After long police investigation French courts are calling him to account, since there were several French nationals on that plane. Nevertheless , In turn Paul Kagame has accused the French of genocide, since there were French advisors in Rwanda's defending army. Paul Kagame remains a strong ally of the U.S.
The death toll of casualties resulting from the U.S. backed invasion, and the French trained defence, and the massacres of the population, settled at 3,150,000 or 40% of the population, by 1997, according to a Rwandan ex-minister of Defence. The more one learns of the Tutsi - Hutu war in Rwanda and Burundi the harder it is to avoid the awareness of a program which brought about the mass murder.
Aside from the lucrative crime of Sudan and Central Africa ( Lado ) there is a pattern of heavy population loss throughout what may be a larger theatre of operations. The Tutsi invasion of Rwanda seemed carefully planned . Kagame's army ordered foreigners out of Rwanda. Then it murdered several bishops who stayed with their congregations, and foreigners who couldn't leave. There were supposed to be no witnesses. Amid the reports of fifth column Hutus who were hunted down were reports of massacres of all and any civilians. A Belgian with family who couldn't get out and in the end was rescued, reported that in his area, the massacres of Hutus were committed by mercenaries serving Kagame's army " the majority of the massacres were carried out with the arrival of those mercenaries who killed whoever they met without any ethnic discrimination, in a clear operation of whole-territory cleansing. One concludes , The Rwandan "genocide" may have been a military tactic . A similar issue which entraped / envolped in the tactical War declared on Lado in the famous Uganda National Liberation Army ( UNLA ) war waged to reoccupy West Region claimed part of LADO which was and still illegally ceased to Uganda in 1913 / 14 .
Such kind of trend sees really Henry Kissinger, whose hand can be seen in the mayhem of the Vietnam conflict, in East Timor, in Pinochet's takeover of Chile, in the Iran - Iraq war, was responsible for long - range planning which produced the U.S. " National Security Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200) " of April 24, 1974. This " identifies population growth in the less developed countries ( LDC's ) of the world as a threat to American security " and perhaps added altogether to the Western European due phylosophy which still if I may quote again is to Prof. David Lutz's essay, " The Ethics of American Military Policy in Africa: " "One of the specific ways in which population growth is seen as a potential threat to American strategic interests is its impact on the availability of minerals."
In southern Sudan and including Lado the war that John Garang provoked and fought killed more people than the Rwandan ' genocide ' but more slowly. Since 1983, most of the two million confirmed casualties died from starvation. The regional population was displaced. As peace was made in the South for Souther Sudanese ( excluding the the Sudanic people of Lado " cf : History of Lado " under pressure from the international community, a new war to distruct the mind of the World people began to open in the West of the Republic State of Sudan ( February 2003 ) , Darfur.
A U.N. report verifies that rebel groups in Darfur were trained by rebels from the South - South Sudanese by Garang and all the Gangesters of the South . And according to a report from the International Crisis Group ( ICG ) the rebel group of Southern Sudan, the SPLA, " trained 1,500 Darfurians near Raja, southwest of the Republic of Sudan , in March 2002 " The article also finds out in a reason out that Darfur rebels were supplied by ( U.S. backed) Southern Sudan rebels with arms through Uganda, Eritrea and Chad.
In adapting the war on civilians to Darfur, small groups of guerillas attacked the Government of Sudan troops, which provoked reprisals against entire towns. Areas outside the Government of Sudan's control would then became eligible for U.S. funding made available by " The Sudan Peace Act of 2002." . As a result , Heavy Reprisals came at the hands of paid marauders ( the Janjaweed ) often followed by the Government of Sudan's army. This beacame where War crimes were widely reported. The war in Darfur and outrageousness of the reprisals seemed to have little purpose but to elicit "humanitarian" aid and outside intervention. What of is happening on the desceet Territory of Lado now . , rests to a Human Mind immagination only !!
The fighting serves to drive people off the oil lands which lies deep in Lado Land . Here therefore you can see . People of " take sides " have committed war crimes, but for no reason that serves the people. And while surrounded by representatives from European - U.S. human rights organizations. Civilians are always the victims.
Reports that when an oil field is developed, for example the Thar Jath in 1999,the [ Islamic] government of the Republic of Sudan burns the villages of the people and murders the inhabitants. If true, is the government of the Republic of Sudan attempting a kind of corporate " favour " ? Should the Swedish Lundin Oil Company be charged with war crimes ? Is it expedient for the mining and drilling corporations to murder all the local people who might one day claim what is in the earth ? Is that the hard deal of selling concessions to what belongs to the people ? If so it is a genocide but we should be more critical of our own societies when looking for guilt. So there is something new at work. Yet it is entirely familiar. Lado 's Independence is called for to the World FACE . ( see Web sites :
http://www.npi-news.dk/page37.htm and http://www.npi-news.dk/lado-english-dead.htm )
It is really very interesting to learn and in Darfur, a current ( 2006 ) U.N. report concedes 1.8 million internal refugees and 200,000 refugees over the border in Chad. The war in Darfur prolongs as an economic mechanism which works effectively in the South Sudan for over twenty years and in Lado which seems perennio . Between 1989 and 1998 the U.S. supplied over 700 million dollars to Sudan calling the amount "humanitarian assistance." By a press conference in February 2006, Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer, said "The United States has spent over a billion dollars on "humanitarian assistance." The USAID web site lists humanitarian assistance amounting to $509,532,362 spent for the Darfur emergency in 2005 alone. Where do you see the implication ?
Catastrophe is business. As Sanctions were applied by the U.S. against the Republic of Sudan, initially by designating Sudan a sponsor of terrorism in 1993, with increased economic sanctions in 1997, then diplomatically applied through the U.N. in 1996 ( the Sudan Peace Act of 2002 is also a mechanism for applying more Sanctions ), a war ravaged people was made to rely on imported foods rather than their own produce. But without terrible suffering there would be no humanitarian assistance. So the war continued requiring more assistance. 22 Non - African countries have made themselves necessary to the survival of the Sudanese people who had no need of them. The population , people of Lado reject such Monkey Tricks anyway .
To quote the U.S.'s 2002 Sudan Peace Act: "The President is authorized to provide assistance to the areas of Sudan that are not controlled by the Government of Sudan to prepare the population for peace and democratic governance... The " Sudan Peace Act of 2002 also provides a mechanism to deny Sudan access to payment from its own oil resources. It was recently discovered and may be in the pretex that Sudan has more oil than Saudi Arabia and Iran together.And the White Nile and Blue Nile conjoin as the water source for nations in a dry region. Early warning of water-wars for these headwaters of the Nile was noted by Enver Masud of the Wisdom Fund as early as 1996, and by Ms. Muriel Mirak of the Schiller Institute. ( see Reports from Institute of Sudanic Studies ) . As desirable as Sudan was, the U.S. could not invade without provocation, and Sudan seems careful not to provoke the United States. In 1998 President Clinton's missiles destroyed half of Sudan's pharmaceutical industry: the El Shifa pharmaceutical factory was a civilian's business and supplied free medicine to fifteen percent of the Sudanese. There was no legal justification of the U.S. action and no compensation offered. Essentially, Sudan did not respond. The U.S. could not take over Sudan without a pretext.
WHERE THE TUG OF WAR LIES -----
So there began a tug of war using the United Nations Convention on Genocide. The Sudanese and Ladoan people were and are still suffering. Crimes against women in these areas of Central Sudan were reported in The New York Times and The New Yorker amid the jewelry ads. The U.N. Convention, if broken, would let the U.S. save the South Sudanese from the Government of Sudan. One would expect the Sudanese to be careful to avoid even the appearance of genocide. So the Government of Sudan has remained at war with outside provocation. Medecins Sans Frontières, whose doctors serve the sick in Darfur, is very careful to avoid any partisan political statement.
Physicians for Human Rights
Is a U.S. NGO and part of the Harvard Human Rights Initiative ? Doctors in the States risk being thought of as venal: not doctoring the poor as a group could be considered a crime against humanity so the concept of Physicians for Human Rights is welcome. From the Physicians for Human Rights January 2006 report, its assessment of the current situation in Sudan: " By eliminating access to food backup support and water and by expelling people into inhospitable terrain and then in many cases blocking crucial outside assistance the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed have created the conditions to destroy the non-Arab people of Darfur in contravention of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide....
As of January 2006 the African Union has nearly 7000 soldiers on the ground trying to keep peace and it is costing 17 million dollars NEARLY PER month A lack of funding is controlling the mission and may close it down . It is likely to "fail" because the U.S. wants European mechanisms to intercede, to assure a lucrative transfer of the rights to natural resources to Western corporate interests. Current U.S. Assistant Secretary of African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, reveals that given the U.S. presidency of the U.N. Security Council [and the African Union's lack of funds] the peace-keeping mission will be transferred to U.N. control and direction, although the Government of Sudan has not acceded yet. There is no Optional to that according to Lado peoples considerations . When asked by many journalists the same question regarding the U.S. position on its finding of "genocide," neither Frazer nor Assistant Secretary of State Silverberg addressed the questions. Conclusion: the tactic of calling Government of the Reublic of Sudan war practices a "genocide," is not tactically necessary if the U.S. can move into Sudan with the U.N..
Facts about Darfur and the entire region which are left out of media reports, may clarify. to start with Idi Amin of Lado who became ruler of Uganda, the country next door Lado and to Sudan, in 1971. Amin like his customary opposition, Milton Obote, Uganda's president at Independence (1962), was raised in Western thought within the world view of a British colonial regiment, which he then joined. As a leader he was noted by Europeans for his fidelity to Africa, and the outrageousness of his human rights violations, slaughtering a hundred thousand African political opponents at a time. Muslim sources considered Idi Amin in league with Israel, a sponsor of his regime for possible use against Sudan. Get facts here for yourself ----------- to know please !
Sudan had supported the Arabs in Israel's "Six Day War," so after Ugandan Independence, Uganda's army was at least in part, Israeli trained . Amin visited Israel and he was an early supporter of rebels in South Sudan which was under General Lagu of Sudanic Lado origin . ( See more facts from reports on the reserch work done by the Bureau Institute of Sudanic Studies ) .
Military tactics of colonialists in Africa tend to drift off the edge of the world, as though Judao-Christian minds when freed from the constraining habitat of numbered streets or picket fences, forfeit sure ethical sense. The Judao-Christian mind was collectively scarred by the Holocaust, and the reality of nightmare. Possibly traditions left behind by colonialists are seen as rituals by people who have no intrinsic interest. Is it fair to say that there is little African history or legend portraying the mass murders which occurred after colonialist training ? It becomes a relevant question with the slaughter in Rwanda, the former Belgian colony. Did Africa know mass murder before King Leopold's genocide of the Belgian Congo ? In the Americas, did one find mass killings before European arrival ? In the Americas I blame the Catholic Inquisition for the fate assigned pagans in mass killing of Native Americans. For the religious massacres of Europe, the fate of the Cathars, the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre etc. one might question the religious basis of European conformity.
Sudan and Uganda were British colonies, and more religiously pluralistic than most African countries. However there are British firms, companies, families, that have been dealing with the oil and mining rights of Sudan, for generations. When John Garang's rebels finally did make an oil deal for their concessions they made it with a small English company called White Nile Ltd. (not White Nile Petroleum). Israel's interest in the region and continuing presence usually remains covert. British East Africa was considered as a feasible site for the Zionist state, before Palestine was chosen.
In about 1982 Roger Winter of the Committee for Refugees, a U.S. "presence" oriented to the State Department, began visiting Museveni and his aide Paul Kagame in the Ugandan countryside. Both were subsequently funded by the U.S.. Museveni became leader of Uganda in 1986, and with Museveni's help, Kagame invaded Rwanda where he became President. Mr. Winter followed his funding to visit with Paul Kagame on occasion during Kagame's invasion of Rwanda, as the U.N. forces' General Dallaire frantically sought international help to stop the inevitable massacres. These victories for U.S. policy were purchased by foreign aid payments to Uganda. Winter was also an early, strong, long-time backer of John Garang's army The U.S. was able to use Museveni and Uganda as a base for expanding its influence in Sudan and Lado .
The funding of the Sudan and Lado operation was difficult to justify since it could signal an aggression against Sovereign State - Nations, so John Garang's guerrilla war was apparently funded with "humanitarian" aid. And today another mushroom growing Rebel forces of Uganda Lords Resistance Army ( ULRA ) is aided by the U .S and are being stationed in Lado Regions called North Resat of Congo with the Aims to slush down the Lado population in the Area in the mechnised pretext that The same once samall U .S backed Uganda Government Soldiers are Bombarding the Rebel Forces there which are there to invade Uganda . Each time the Bombardment is done the Victims are the Ladoan people as the Rebel forces are informed in advance to swift away by their God father U .S military Agents / Advisors who are along side with the Rebels .
Infact the aids go to feed a rebel army of the U.S. selected and trained leaders ,
Such is also seen when the aid which went to feed a rebel army of the U.S selected and trained leaders at war with the Muslim - Faith Government of Sudan. The mechanism appears to be: the suffering of the people to be brought humanitarian aid , which in the end isused to feed and arm an Army. The rebellion rebellion here has dragged on for years because the people's suffering was so awful , that no one can / could stop the humanitarian assistance. In fact , This mechanism secures for the U.S. and those within its sphere, rights to natural resources. Is it possible so many are killed because the inhabitants of each region can claim these rights for themselves? Particularly under true democracies or socialism. In Sudan and Lado , the inhabitants are being exterminated. The sequence of this mechanism was a success and well driven home in the history of North America with displacement of Native Americans, the genocide, the transfer to other reserves, amid lands now used for mining and oil drilling and the profits of others.
If one wishes to find responsibility for "genocide" then, in Sudan and Lado , one might look to the historical record.. What groups have committed genocide before ? Under what historical conditions ? Would they for example, commit genocide for profit ? What some have noted is the propensity of Sudanese in the North, preponderantly Arab and Muslim, to raid for slaves the villages of the south, preponderantly Black and Christian. The U.S. has been able to stand against Slavery in propaganda campaigns against the Government of Sudan. Racial and religious distinctions provided a natural contention to raise when attempting to destabilize a region during early attempts by Israel and then the U.S..
It would be unjust not to remember two points of history which everyone is supposed to forget.
The first is that Sudan's civil war began before independence (1956) to be exact from the Lado - British Wars 1914 - 1919 when it became clear that the post WWII British would not divide the country to honour both the Arab North and Black South. Keeping it together gave power to those who could keep peace between the two. Black army officers revolted in 1955, and a civil war costing 1.5 million lives ended in 1972. The Black forces were called the Anya Nya being Headed by General Joseph Lagu of the Sudanic LADO origin
The second point, almost written out of history, is the Kingdom of Lado which exists, yet without formal recognition of its borders and without American approval. The homeland of its tribes approximates much of the area held by U.S.- selected John Garang's army, and extends over European made borders into neighbouring countries. Many of the tribes have been generally displaced by the use of Southern Sudanese citizens for the strategic interests of other Nations.
Settlement of the historical grievance which has kept the African homeland from its people might include Britain, Sudan north and south, Uganda, Congo-Zaire, Central African Republic, Belgium and France, pledging to guarantee the African Kingdom's integrity as a United Nations protectorate. The Old Kingdom State of Lado must disappear completely on the Face Continent of Africa .
Those with some responsibility for the victory of European-American interests in that Area of Africa during John Garang's funding are: Roger Winter, for years the chief of his own Committee for Refugees, and Susan E. Rice, Assistant Under Secretary of State for African Affairs under Clinton, a protege of then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, of Roger Winter, and work - along with Philip Gourevitch of the New Yorker at that time and John Prendergast and Gayle Smith both of the National Security Council. Ms. Rice was a long time defender of Mr. Garang and U.S. funding. Actual arms delivery to Mr. Garang's forces has been traced to humanitarian groups :
Norwegian People's Aid , (Daniel Eiffe) - stopped in 1998, and the Norwegian Church Emergency Aid . Michael Harari, of Israel's Mossad, was allegedly involved , as well as Alberto Prado Herreros. both men with previous smuggling experience in Nicaragua supplying the Contras . Human Rights Watch has documented some involvement by Bulgaria . Arms shipments to Uganda and Rwandan troops invading the Eastern Congo were allegedly a U.S. State Department operation working under Ms Rice and Ricardo Zuniga and there is some evidence of the gold rich Congo territory being used for weapons purchase after transporting the gold to the coast.
The distribution of millions of dollars in U.S. humanitarian aid to the South was often accomplished by NGO's working directly for U.S. agencies. Food as a weapon of war was a tactic not initiated by the Government of Sudan but by the aggressor. Subsequently in Darfur for example, the Government of Sudan shows reluctance in cooperating with the NGO's which fueled a devastating war against them using the lands and lives of the innocent.
U.S. operations in Southern Sudan could not have been a secret to anyone working the area. The operation was hidden from the world to promote vast humanitarian expenditures for the war. Starvation was a creation of policy. On Nov. 29, 1999 President Clinton signed a bill directly funding Garang's Sudanese People's Liberation Army.
On February 3, 2006, current Secretary of African Affairs Frazer announced brightly to reporters that John Garang's widow, was in Washington for Bush's State of the Union speech
Considering the meaning of genocide then and the laws against it, an objective application of the law endangers the personal freedoms of these mentioned above. Within a context of the American domestic law against genocide several could face the death penalty. A Congressional hearing would reveal where they received their orders.
U.S. information war needs moral ground, to bend hatred of genocide away from outside interference, to the Government of Sudan. But to insist the catastrophes of Sudan are caused by itself is shameful. Sudan seems to have been marked for attempted destruction when it refused to support the Coalition bombing and ruin of Iraq in 1991.
We are experiencing powerful perception management of the war in Darfur and more still in the extended form in Lado . By February 2006 the attempts to take over another third world country seem to be proceeding according to plan. The mechanisms revealed repeat themselves: a powerful country refuses the African Union adequate funding so the mission is ineffective; which requires the UN to place troops from wealthy allies, the countries / corporate hosts which caused the problems. It is a naked policy, if you consider that the cause of the problems is de-stabilization. I'm not sure there is a way to counter a mechanism of making innocent civilians suffer to the extent that intervention is required, other than documentation, and eventual prosecution for the crimes we find unforgivable. Reparations may eventually be available in U.S., European and Israeli courts (currently victims of the CIA's war in El Salvador are finding some restitution in U.S. courts) holding the individuals to account who caused and carried out the crime, but it is less possible when millions are victim, and simply it may be more appropriate to apply the Convention on Genocide. Reparations are not a viable answer. They are a commiseration in mourning. Vengeance is no answer and partakes in endless war. The Convention on Genocide provides some answer; it clarifies our world by making unacceptable what must be unacceptable, offering some hope that those employing genocide for strategic goals will be recognized and prosecuted.
By Lado
INSTITUTE OF SUDANIC STUDIES
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