Attacks
on Sudan slave trade exposed as fraud
Executive Intelligence Review July 16, 1999, p. 65
by Our Special Correspondent
A
renewed intensification of warfare against the elected government of Sudan, was jointly
launched by the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and
three members of the U.S. Congress, on July 1.
At a CSIS forum,
``The Crisis in Sudan: An Assessment from Capitol Hill,'' in the Dirksen Senate Office
Building, Rep. Donald Payne (D-N.J.), who has been the point-man in Congress advocating
the ``overthrow'' of the Khartoum government, rejoiced over new-found Republican support
for his cause. There, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) and Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) were
speakers at the event, along with Payne. All three, who had travelled to Sudan illegally,
in defiance of a sovereign government, over the Memorial Day holiday, recited the
unfounded litany of charges against Sudan, which have been used to whip up support for
rebel leader John Garang, of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA), in his
foreign-backed efforts to split up Sudan through a bloody civil war--a war that would lead
to millions of deaths in the Horn of Africa.
Payne highlighted the
fact that House Resolution 75, which passed on June 16 with only one abstention and no
opposition, called for increased assistance to the SPLA, and to the ``civil
administration'' in SPLA-controlled areas. The resolution also called for stepped-up
enforcement of U.S. sanctions to isolate Sudan, to make it capitulate to Garang (see
{EIR,} July 2, 1999).
Brownback bragged that
the Senate passed the Foreign Appropriations bill (S. 1234) by vote of 97-2, including
``humanitarian assistance to the people of Sudan [i.e., the SPLA] suffering under the rule
of the National Islamic Front (NIF) government.''
Tancredo, a freshman Congressman who knew nothing about Sudan (and
probably Africa) until this, his first official trip, described how he had been opposed to
U.S. military intervention into Kosovo, because there was no U.S. strategic interest. But,
he ranted, intervening into Sudan is different, because the United States has a strategic
interest to stop so-called Islamic terrorism and fundamentalism coming out of Khartoum
from spreading to the rest of the African continent. In this frenzied atmosphere, he
blurted out what many anti-Sudan enthusiasts would like to say (but don't): ``I am not
opposed to the United States giving missiles to Garang'' for the SPLA to use against
Sudan, as long the United States doesn't fire them.
Payne reported on the
support and openings from the U.S. Congress to escalate their attacks against Sudan. In
this mood of flight-forward eagerness, they expect to pull the Clinton administration
along and trap President Clinton in a new military escapade in Sudan and the Horn of
Africa. John Prendergast, now a fellow at U.S. Institute for Peace and an adviser to the
U.S. State Department, who has been leading the charge against Sudan--along with Roger
Winter of the U.S. Committe for Refugees, and Susan Rice, Assistant Secretary of State for
African Affairs--was all smiles, as he reported that Congress and the administration were
on the same page, with only minor differences. He said that the sanctions will be
maintained, and that the policy is to isolate Sudan, while using Deputy Secretary of State
Thomas Pickering to maintain a minimum dialogue with Khartoum.
While
the alleged involvement of the Sudanese government in sponsoring slavery was being
furiously asserted by all three Congressman, the July issue of the {Atlantic Monthly}
exposed the real reason for the rise in slave-trading in southern Sudan: U.S. dollars from
so-called humanitarian organizations. Richard Miniter, who travelled to Sudan, titles his
article ``The False Promise of Slave Redemption,'' and, although he praises British
colonialism in Sudan, he lets slip the truth by identifying Christian Solidarity
International (CSI, Zurich) headed by John Eibner, and Christian Solidarity Worldwide
(London), steered by Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords Baroness Caroline Cox, as the
real culprits for the increase in slavery. Miniter reports that the Khartoum government
has been ``retreating'' in the south, and, since 1995, the SPLA rebels ``have seized an
increasing share of Bahr al-Ghazal, where most of the [slave-trading] raids take place. So
why is slave-taking on the rise? The raiders are privateers; {if the raids did not pay for
themselves, the raiders would stay at home}'' (emphasis added).
Miniter points out
that, since the average wage in Sudan is $500 a year, the $50-100 that ``humanitarians''
pay to ``redeem'' a slave is a huge financial incentive. According Miniter, in January,
Eibner freed 1,050 slaves at $50 each for a total of $52,500, and Cox freed another 325
slaves for a similar per-head amount. James Jacobson, who became CSI's Washington
representative admitted that the huge amounts of money were enticing more poor people to
become slave raiders, to cash in all the humanitarian dollars flooding into
Garang-controlled areas in southern Sudan. One director for humanitarian assistance said,
``But giving the money to the slave-traders only encourages the trade.''
When will Payne and
other members of the Congressional Black Caucus going to be forced to admit these
elementary truths, which, of course, would deflate their phony ``anti-slavery'' crusade
against Sudan?