Hands off Sudan

Sun Jul 25 12:43:24 2004

The new world rulers responsible for most of brutalities, have a serious problem. Because they name themselves the "free world" they have to present themselves as being humanitarian. It is not a simple goal to achieve and it includes several premises:

• "Newspeack" insisting on very simplified concepts (e.g. "right-wrong", "good-bad") reducing that way mental habits and modes of thoughts.
• "Doublethink" meaning "the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously and accepting both of them" (e.g. "humanitarian bombing").
• "Double dealing" corresponding to the activity that aims at making a mess into the enemy's mind and behavior, inciting it to take wrong moves which would serve as a rational for possible "humanitarian attack".
• The "Ignorance is strength" strategy applied to a large public who due to upbringing, education and media, does not know too many things about mechanisms of neo-colonial exploitiation, fabricated rationales, covert actions and the like.
• The canard, or "Duckspeak", a word having, in different circumstances different meanings. "Applied to an opponent, it is abuse; applied to someone you agree with, it is praise" (e.g. during the Gulf War in 1991, Iraqi missiles were always "murderous" and American ones were "elegant, technically perfect, precise" etc.).
• The "State's Secretary of love" ("Ministry of love" in "1984") able to assert to the people under attack (bombing, sanctions, etc.) that it is loved by the aggressor(s).
• The "Ministry of defence" ("Ministry of peace" in "1984") which main characteristic is aggressiveness and main activity the waging of wars. It also produces "peacemakers" and "peacekeepers", human robots assuring the totalitarian dominations all around the world.

Thanks to these premises introduced on the world-wide level by the New Totalitarian Society, "traditional" moral, history, words and institutions completely lost (changed) their sense.

Some questions unanswered

Do you remember the bombing and the claims of terrorism and WMDs against Sudan by the USA under Clinton? Is it just a coincidence that Sudan, like Iraq and Afghanistan, lies within the CENTCOM Area of Responsibility, the main war fighting command of the USA? And how does Sudan fit into the overall war against Islam?

Do you know that Germany has worked hard to expand its influence in the Greater Horn of Africa region and took over command of the 'international' naval forces deployed off the Horn of Africa as part of Operation 'Enduring Freedom' end of May 2003? Is it unreasonable that Germany is supporting insurgency and destabilization in Darfur to promote military intervention and disintegration of Sudan (like with Yugoslavia)? And what are the plans and plots of the USA, Britain and France to expand their influence and control over Sudan? After all, we know they will all sit at the same table dividing the bounty.

Do you know who delivers weapons to whom and what covert operations are running behind the conflicts in and about Sudan? Did Uganda finally cease the policy of supporting and spreading war, to the north in Sudan (directly or through the 'Contras of the Sudan' , the SPLA), and to the south into Rwanda (through the RPF) and afterwards to the east into the DRCongo (invasion by Uganda/Rwanda)? Also, within Uganda the Museveni regime brutally suppressed all efforts of rebel groups resulting in many deaths .

What is the role of the SPLA in the Darfur conflict besides verbal support? Who is behind the Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/M) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the escalation of conflict in Darfur? February 2003 these armed groups launched a wave of attacks against the Government of Sudan and its military forces, which caused counter-insurgency operations by the Sudanese military. Did the SLA/JEM, following the model of the KLA against Yugoslavia, plan with 'humanitarian emergency' to get the 'international community' to intervene on their behalf?

And who are the Janjaweed? "Janjaweed is a colloquial word which means thief or bandit or highwayman," he said. "It means nothing and has been used to mean everything." The term is now used to lump together a variety of different groups for the purpose of de-humanizing all of them. Armed robbers or mercenary forces may be named in a negative way, but what about herding groups threatened by loss and degeneration of grazing land fighting to survive? Don't they have legitimate cause as well?

The rifle began to speak in Darfur only after the Libya-Chad war in the late 1980s, and the Chadian civil war that followed. Robbers have been called janjewid only after Chadian tribes immigrated to Darfur. The term janjewid, originally borrowed from Chad, consists of three syllables: jan means 'man'; je means 'G-3 machine gun', very popular in Darfur; wid means 'horse'. The whole word therefore means 'the man who rides a horse and carries a G-3 machine gun'. The Chadian tribes that had immigrated to Darfur changed the Darfuris' code of conduct and brought new behavior like armed robbery, plundering, and carrying heavy arms into the region. The original native Darfuri was armed simply with the old Enfield rifle, which was used to drive the wolves away from his sheep.

Whatever the national Sudanese power politics and discriminating or oppressive structures and practices, it is exclusively the issue of the Sudanese and to a limited extend people living in certain adjacent border regions. Whoever is not participant and not in close physical proximity of the conflict, has no legitimate business to meddle with it.

Why don't we let the Sudanese peoples decide their own histories and refrain from educating, lecturing, manipulating and intervening into their affairs? Aren't wars an important part of human experience and peoples histories? How much does our long history of trickery and broken treaties, war and genocide, cleansing of whole continents from the indigenous population show the mindset of the Europeans and their diaspora (e.g. USA, Australia)? Can we in any way expect peaceful intentions from the Democratic Totalitarian Societies?

How sad to see the African Union engaged in intervention against their own, instead of combining forces to defend against and fight back the colonial-imperialist Great Powers and the United Nations. And how telling to allow into Sudan Rwandan troops, which in October 1996 and particularly after August 1998 had invaded the DRCongo, committing all kinds of atrocities, systematic economic pillage and environmental degradation which left many hundred thousands of Congolese people dead. Just engaged in mass extermination and still profiting from their Congolese occupation, Rwandan troops are now posing as 'protection force' in the name of the African Union.

These are just some of the immediate questions coming to mind when thinking about Sudan. If you ask yourself, where the 'information' you have about Sudan and the conflict in its Darfur region come from, and what spin it is given in the presentation, you will find that overwhelmingly it originates from sources with a strong interest to advance their own causes painting a picture serving them.

Covert Operations

Information about covert operations, and especially current operations, is highly protected. We cannot know much about the details of active covert operations. But what we know for sure is that the business of war, weapons trade and training, technology and communication, that where there is war, there are covert operations. Lacking crucial information about these operations on the ground, plans and preparations, we can only speculate more or less reasonably. We know about some previous operations and don't know about many others and next to nothing about the current ones. But we know that military capabilities and the level of warfare are manipulated by intervening powers.

Propaganda Campaign against Sudan

Sudan faces a strong active propaganda campaign built upon years of preparatory propaganda. While much of what was put out against Sudan can be relatively easy proven misrepresenting or plain wrong, the effects of propaganda are largely unshaken by those realities and succeeded to bring about the desired effects. The credibility of Sudan's position in the propaganda world is already destroyed before it could even get itself heard.

The template used against Sudan seems very similar to that being used against Yugoslavia, with elements borrowed from other campaigns like those against Afghanistan and Liberia. The propaganda focuses on 'humanitarian emergency' and 'ethnic cleasing', with the Sudanese government being largely declared responsible and the 'Janjaweed' (Arabs, terrorists) demonized beyond recognition, to construct a 'international responsibility' and build justification to pressure and intervene against Sudan.

The main forces working for destabilization and escalation of conflict in Darfur seem to be the USA, Britain and Germany, working hand in hand with NGOs like Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) to promote military intervention with the option of either further submission or disintegration of Sudan.

NGOs and UN targeting Africa

The current Darfur propaganda campaign against Sudan is led by NGOs like AI, HRW and Africa Action, but many others joined in.

These NGOs operate in the area of information/propaganda and lobbying. Structually these organizations are similar in certain aspects to multi- and transnational corporations and multi- and supranational military and political structures, with branches and staff in many countries and a lot of traveling and meetings of the higher ranks, with worldwide interests and reach.

Being multi-million dollar operations, they have to continuously attract volunteers, membership and donations. A successful campaign is one which generates high media visibility and encouragement to financially support the organization. Honest research and reporting are not really part of their agenda nor is balanced and equal application of standards. It's all about effective propaganda which generates money and translates into political power, which is the second major motivation behind their activities.

They are engaged in promoting 'human rights' worldwide, which for them means developing and strengthening supranational legal and justicial structures and enforcement. To achieve their political goals they launch massive propaganda and lobbying campaigns to build up support for

• limiting sovereignty of states and self-determination of peoples,
• using political justice against government officials,
• developing guidelines and procedures of forced regime change,
• establishing broad rules for military intervention and taking over of regions and countries.

With Africa being targeted by intensive destabilization and re-colonization efforts by European countries and the USA, and capitalizing on racist attitudes and disrespect for the integrity and self-determination of African peoples, the favorite prey of their recent major worldwide campaigns were weak African states.

The UN launched its recent propaganda offensive against Sudan on the occasion of the 10 year anniversary of the Rwanda genocide. Since then, we are constantly pounded with the theme of 'genocide' and 'like Rwanda', or 'worst humanitarian crisis'.

Number Propaganda

UN troops out of Africa

UN missions and troop strength

Ethnization and tribalization of conflict

The ethnization and tribalization of conflict and opening of old wounds and claims is a shameful strategy of pitching peoples against each other and throwing fuel in the fire. It is used to distract from foreign intervention and manipulation and more immediate and practical economic, social and environmental reasons of conflict.

Examples are the accusations of slavery against the Sudanese Government without solid proof or even making up stories , or a more or less black skin based racial division of people, and the Arabs against Africans theme. How black does someone need to be and what culture is accepted as African? How many of the Sudanese Arabs are Arabs or Arabized Africans or Africanized Arabs and what would make a Sudanese African or an Arab and African Sudanese? All this seems most ridiculous in the face many generations of racial mixing and social interaction in the same geographical space.

It can be helpful to know about histories, but we should never confuse what happened many generations ago with the immediate realities of today. And while people may define themselves any way they want, it is not acceptable for others to define, speculate and mess with that.

Demonization and sympathy propaganda

We see this kind of propaganda campaign being waged with a clear malicious intent and in preparation and as part of aggression against Sudan. The concept is to present as evil and de-humanize those we are targeting and show suffering victims whom we have an obligation to save and support. We saw examples of this kind of propaganda being waged against Iraq (Saddam), Yugoslavia (Serbs), Afghanistan (Taleban), Liberia (Taylor), or Zimbabwe (Mugabe). This is the demonization propaganda.

Similar in its effects, but a somewhat 'flipped' approach is sympathy propaganda which uses the realities of oppressed victims to generate political support for 'their cause'. Examples of this are E.Timor (Indonesia) or the Kurds (Iraq).

The theme of violence and oppression against woman is often mixed into the streams as supportive propaganda, which seems to be particularly efficient to re-affirm the self-righteous Western societies of their cultural superiority and stir up aggressive emotions.

Suspicious silence and selective application of principles

On other sides, there wasn't much campaigning in support of the two million Iraqis being killed by sanctions and bombing, or the some million deaths caused by the invasion of the DRCongo by Rwanda and Uganda and the resulting war, or the numerous Chechens being displaced and killed by Russian forces, or the Palestinians being killed and displaced, suffering for decades under occupation and apartheid by Israel, or the victims of the US-sponsored and supported civil war in Columbia, or the numerous Muslims all over the places disappeared, assassinated, or otherwise victimized under the war on terror.

And there is much silence about domestic violence in the Western societies, or the dishonorable use of woman bodies in show business and advertizing. Who cares about the many children and youth who are forced and often kept in state institutions for long times, many medicated with psycho drugs and locked up? What are we doing to support our own youth in so called 'bad neighborhoods' against all kinds of racist 'security' watching, restricting, humiliating and mistreating them? What about the hundred thousands members of our societies thrown into prisons for no good reason many of them tortured one way or another?

Reparations, not interventions

Yes, there is war in Darfur. There are numerous people who fled. Atrocities have been committed. Villages have been attacked and some were burned down. Many were killed.

If we look into the more recent history of Sudan, we will find that past and present foreign intervention, and not the lack of it, is largely responsible for civil wars and poverty. More intervention will not do any good. You cannot cure by giving more of the sickening input.

It will help to clean our minds from hierarchical concepts of ways of life, cultures, races and species. Other peoples way of life may seem backward, barbaric or primitive to us, but that is just our perception. The millions who are migrating because of economic pressures are forced displaced people as well. Raiding seems quite low scale violence compared to the transnational division of labor wholesale exploitation for cheap and devaluation of life for profit of corporations and privileges of parts of the dominant societies. Burning down villages is not less civilized than bombing cities.

Different ways of life can conflict. These conflicts have to be resolved one way or another. If there are serious contradictions and in particular when compounded by physical limits of resources or sources of wealth combined with greed, war may be waged and fought. War can only bring a solution when it runs out. That means, either one side wins or both sides realize they cannot win.

Superior forces interventing from outside in a war resulting from genuine local or regional conflict can eventually impose an end to actual warfighting but only through superior force and continuous oppression. Intervening forces can end a war which they themselves largely initiated and carried, when they cut off assistance for their proxy forces, or manipulate markets in a way which devalues certain assets which are contested and fought for. It follows, that the 'international community' can only effectively end war when and only so far as a conflict is based or dependent on its interventions, by the means of ending those interventions.