U.N. rights monitors accuse Sudan of bombing Darfur

[Rhiannon12866]

Fri Sep 22, 2006 7:06am ET

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) - United Nations human rights monitors on Friday accused Sudan's army of dropping bombs on villages in North Darfur, killing and injuring civilians, and driving hundreds of people from their homes.

"People talk about this white plane and bombs being dropped out of the back of the plane. This is a recurrent feature of reports of attacks on villages," U.N. human rights spokesman Jose Luis Diaz told a briefing in Geneva.

"All indications are this kind of attack is continuing."

Monitors also reported continuing rapes and sexual violence against women by military or militia known as Janjaweed around camps for the displaced in South Darfur, Diaz said.

The U.N. monitors' latest report, covering the first half of September, comes as Sudan is under international pressure to allow 20,000 U.N. troops to deploy in the western region to replace 7,000 African Union troops whose mandate has been extended until the end of the year.

In May a peace agreement was signed between one rebel faction and the government but the violence in Darfur has actually increased since then.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-09-22T110632Z_01_L22723882_RTRUKOC_0_US-SUDAN-DARFUR-RIGHTS.xml&archived=False

[Cooley Hurd]

1. Important issue - K&R!

[Dragonbreathp9d]

2. When are we gonna fucking do something about this?

[Cooley Hurd]

3. Sadly, we are on tragedy overload...

...thank to the main purveyors of tragedy in the world:

[pampango]

4. Sadly if we did something about this unilaterally,

my guess is that many would say that it is just for the oil. Plus our putting troops in another Muslim country is probably not the best idea.

Someone else is going to have to handle this one, maybe a group of Muslim countries of some sort, but no one seems to be stepping forward.

[Rhiannon12866]

5. I had a just very similar discussion about this

The belief seems to be that we can't be effective here and that a coalition of Arab nations needs to take leadership on this, but nobody's about to step forward. Most of them are way too busy with their own problems... The mistrust of the West also holds true here. :-(

And George Bush* can't be effective because he has totally lost credibility in the world community. So even if he took leadership on this, nobody else would be ready to follow...;(

[AlanAdam]

7. What does US credibility have to do with ..

Muslim nations banding together to stop the islamic govt in Khartoum from completely erasing a Muslim ethnic group from the earth? The Umma can protest the world over about some ill-advised comments from the Pope, but they make not a peep for several years now about this genocide of their co-religionists? These people in the Darfur are THEIR SPIRITUAL BROTHERS AND SISTERS. With all due respects to you, and you are one of the few here on this board who seems to care about the atrocity, but not everything that happens in the world is driven by the US. It appears that the Umma isn't involved with this crisis because >>> they don't care.

[pampango]

8. If Muslim nations would just say something about the slaughter of fellow

Muslims in Darfur, they might not even have to actually do anything. My question is whether the reaction is only to non-Muslims killing Muslims, or even saying something negative about the religion, or do they care when Muslims happen to be killed by other Muslims?

If you assume all the dead Iraqi civilians are the responsibility of the US, including those resulting indirectly from the unleashing of Muslim (Sunni) on Muslim (Shia), and vice versa, violence, I don't think come close to the number who have died in Darfur. Most of us would believe that most of the civilian deaths in Iraq are a result of Bush's stupidity, criminality, corruption, etc. not the direct targeting of civilian, for the most part, by US forces. It seems apparent that the Sudanese government, on the other hand, is quite effectively intentionally targeting civilians as their strategy.

The two situations, Iraq and Darfur, are, of course, different on some level. But if the killing of innocent civilians is wrong, as I hope we can all agree on, then it is wrong. I don't like the unspoken message that I sometimes perceive that it is alright for a Muslim to kill a Muslim, but it is not alright for a Jew or Christian to kill a Muslim. Killing someone, especially a civilian, is not made more or less serious depending on the religion of the perpetrator or that of the victim.

[Rhiannon12866]

13. My point was that it would be difficult for the US to take leadership in

this, because Bush* has made us lose credibility in the world, particularly among Arab/Muslim nations, but elsewhere, as well. And we're the ones who are expected to take leadership, as we do with most disasters, like the Tsunami or the AIDs crisis in Africa. But we turned to President Clinton for leadership on those...:shrug:

But I take your point, and this was the essence of my recent discussion. Other nations have ignored this, as well, especially the ones who should care the most. But the US is expected to be the world leader and we're not the best qualified, in this case.:shrug:

And I agree with you. Those who should care the most don't seem to. That's what my discussion was about. My friend, a long-time member of DU, told me that he thought any posts on Darfur would gain little attention on DU, compared to any on the I/P crisis, which we both also care deeply about. I wanted to tell him that he was wrong, but I was afraid that he was right...;(

[AlanAdam]

17. Agreed ...

After the holocaust the world said, "never again." The world should have said "again and again and again."

[Rhiannon12866]

20. I know.

Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.;(

[knight_of_the_star]

6. ::groans::

NOW we're saying something about the genocide? That is ridiculous that we've taken this long already.

[Jcrowley]

9. US covert operations underway in Somalia; resource conflict escalates

US covert operations underway in Somalia; resource conflict escalates over Horn of Africa
by Larry Chin

May 27, 2006

According to a May 16 report in the Washington Post, US analysts of Africa policy and officials of Somalia’s interim government say that the Bush administration is secretly supporting secular Somali warlords, whose groups are battling Islamic groups for control of Mogadishu.

While the Bush administration has continued to dodge questions about what appear to be “classic” covert operations (similar to those taking place in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Colombia, etc.), Somali government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari has unequivocally declared “the US government funded the warlords in the recent battle in Mogadishu, there is no doubt about that. This cooperation . . . only fuels further civil war.”

Somalia is considered a "terrorist haven," as well as a potential “hotbed of al Qaeda activity.” It is no surprise that in recent press conferences, new White House spokesman and propaganda mouthpiece (former Fox News pundit) Tony Snow repeatedly referred to “al Qaeda terrorists.”

A senior US intelligence official quoted in the Washington Post article (who asked not to be named) says that Somalia presents “a classic ‘enemy of our enemy’ situation” (but “not an al Qaeda safe haven yet”), while former Clinton administration Africa specialist John Prendergast (now a senior advisor for the George Soros-funded International Crisis Group think tank) notes that “the US relies on buying intelligence from warlords and other participants in the Somali conflict, and hoping that the strongest of the warlords can snatch a live suspect or two" .”

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHI20060527&articleId=2524

The U.S. Role in Darfur, Sudan
Oil reserves rivaling those of Saudi Arabia?

by Sara Flounders

June 6, 2006
International Action Center

What is fueling the campaign now sweeping the U.S. to “Stop Genocide in Darfur”? Campus organizations have suddenly begun organizing petitions, meetings and calls for divestment. A demonstration was held April 30 on the Mall in Washington, D.C., to “Save Darfur.”

Again and again it is said that “something” must be done. “Humanitarian forces” and “U.S. peacekeepers” must be deployed immediately to stop “ethnic cleansing.” UN troops or NATO forces must be used to stop “genocide.” The U.S. government has a “moral responsibility to prevent another Holocaust.”

Outrage is provoked by media stories of mass rapes and photos of desperate refugees. The charge is that tens of thousands of African people are being killed by Arab militias backed by the Sudanese government. Sudan is labeled as both a “terrorist state” and a “failed state.” Even at anti-war rallies, signs have been distributed proclaiming “Out of Iraq—Into Darfur.” Full-page ads in the New York Times have repeated the call.

Who is behind the campaign and what actions are they calling for?

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=FLO20060606&articleId=2592

[pampango]

11. So you are saying that the US is an imperialist war-monger

for even considering intervening in Darfur? If we do, it will be because of the oil, I assume is your position. Just like in Yugoslavia where we are now reaping the benefits of all of their cheap oil.

I understand the cynicism, but is it your position that we were right not to intervene in the Rwandan genocide or does that show our callous disregard for African life when there not any substantial natural resources for us to plunder? Or perhaps that was just intertribal rivalries at play and it was best for us to stay out.

If you don't want anyone to do anything in Darfur, I suspect you will be happy, because it does not appear that the world really cares. Congratulation. I only hope that you don't tell us in the future that the US is evil for abandoning the innocent Black Muslims of Darfur which just shows how cheaply we regard African life.

[Jcrowley]

12. Perhaps

you could, rather than make inaccurate suppositions, point to where it was I said what you said I said.

Condoleeza Rice has called for more troops in Sudan.

Perhaps you could re-read the article and comment on that instead of what you think someone said, falsely at that.

More importantly the answer to your original question which is that the US is an imperialist war-monger period. If you can point to a single situation the Bush administration has been involved with for humanitarian reasons I'd be very interested to see that.

They want the oil and will use humanitarian purposes as the cover. If you trust these people then you haven't been paying attention over the last 6 years.

And let us not forget the most brutal of all wars on the planet in the last 10 years, The Congo. What is overlooked all the time is that indeed the US, and other Western Nations ARE intervening in all of these situations and have been for more than a few decades. The foxes given full sway over the henhouse when they are already supplying much of the weaponry may not be so wise.

And yes of course African lives are considered of little importance in the eyes of US media and citizens for that matter. There are deep reasons for that.

Who are the major arms suppliers in all of these internecine wars and what are the root causes? One and the same. The legacy of colonialism and it's ongoing conquests fueled by Western greed and endless need.

[pampango]

14. Rather than reread your article, I prefer to ask again whether the West

was right not to intervene in the Rwandan genocide. The argument could be made that there was no Western intervention because African life is cheap and there were not valuable natural resources in Rwanda. But do YOU believe that we have should tried to stop the killing, but callously chose not to, or were right to let the the genocide play out the way it did.

I would not put it past the West to "use humanitarian purposes as the cover" to get the oil. China wants oil and is willing to overlook humanitarian concerns in order to get it. Given our experience in Iraq, I hope we have figured out that a military invasion is not a very effective way to increase the flow of oil. Leaving dictators in place to pump oil and enrich themselves, while they impoverish their people, is a much more effective way to keep the oil flowing.

[Jcrowley]

15. The West

was intervening. Not in the way you or I might prefer.

When policy and profit converge

"This is a western syndicated proxy war and, like Sierra Leone, Angola and Sudan, it is war-as-cover for the rapid and unrestricted extraction of raw materials, and war as a means to totally disenfranchise the local people," said Keith Snow, freelance writer and journalist who supplied investigative reports for the panel.

Diamonds, gold, cobalt, manganese, petroleum, natural gas, timber and possibly uranium, he said, are just a few of the major spoils being pillaged behind the scenes as war destroys Africa. "Some of these minerals are almost solely found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," Mr. Snow said.

One of those minerals, columbium tantalite, or "Col-Tan", is a primary example of the role strategic minerals play in sustaining war. This scarce mineral is found almost exclusively in Eastern Congo and used by western nations in everything from aircraft engines to computer chips.

"Economic interests are a significant factor in the fighting in the DRC," said Bill Hartung, of the World Policy Institute in New York. In his co-authored report "Deadly Legacy Update: U.S. Arms and Training Programs in Africa," the researcher acknowledged the significant role economic interests play in the fighting in the DRC and throughout Africa.

"Africans need western technology, investment and cooperation to transfer minerals. Africans do not process these minerals; they are processed in the west. Africans are not dependent upon minerals used in high-tech industry, sophisticated defense projects, or materials used in space exploration. The west, and particularly the United States, is dependent upon the availability of strategic minerals, many of which the U.S. does not produce. Africa does not have a vibrant market for diamonds, which are cut and distributed in the west," he said.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=116

Central Africa's Ongoing Genocide

Paul Kagame's Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) invaded Rwanda from Uganda in 1990, launching a four-year campaign of guerrilla warfare. Open support for Rwanda's then-Hutu-led government from French paratroopers failed to prevent the RPA victory of August, 1994, following the coordinated genocide of hundreds of thousands of Rwandan Tutsis by hard-line Hutus, Force Armee Rwandaise (FAR) and affiliated Interahamwe (Hutu) militias from April to July. Critics such as Wayne Madsen, author of Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999, assert that Kagame and the RPA orchestrated the April 6, 1994 assassination of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi -- shooting down their plane on approach to Kigali airport with SAM-7 surface-to-air missiles taken from Iraq by France in 1991, then delivered by the US military to Uganda, the base for RPA guerrilla operations against Rwanda prior to 1994.

Evidence was provided at a special hearing held by then Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney at DC's Rayburn House Office Building on April 6, 2001, the seventh Anniversary of the assassinations. Journalist Charles Onana of Cameroon, author of The Secrets of the Rwandan Genocide, also aired claims of RPA involvement in the incident, and was sued for defamation by Paul Kagame. A Paris court found in favor of Onana. Meanwhile, of course, defense attorneys working at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda (ICTR) maintain that the standard figure of 800,000 Tutsis killed in the 1994 genocide is grossly inflated.

Paul Kagame has been a regular visitor at Harvard University, at the James Baker III Institute in Houston Texas, at the White House and the Pentagon. Kagame visited the Pentagon in August 1996, just prior to the Rwandan/Ugandan/US invasion of Zaire. US, European and South African military interests have continued to support various factions in Central Africa, arming militias and rebel groups through proxy armies from Uganda (UPDF), Rwanda (RPA), Burundi and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in south Sudan.

Terror continued in Rwanda under the new RPA government of Paul Kagame, with Amnesty International documenting a pattern of assassinations, arbitrary imprisonment and "disappearances." Nearly all political opponents -- Tutsi or Hutu -- have been labeled "genocidiares", and Amnesty has protested that some trials and executions of accused genocidiare collaborators have been tainted and politically-motivated.

The first Rwandan invasion of its huge neighbor to the west occurred in 1996. According to the influential Africa Confidential newsletter, Major Gen. Paul Kagame visited the Pentagon in August of 1996, conferring with Washington prior to setting in motion a grand plan to unseat Mobutu Sese Seko. While the US public was consumed with the 1996 presidential elections, Rwanda was preparing its war against Zaire -- and it began with the shelling of Hutu refugee camps in eastern Congo with Katusha missiles, killing noncombatant men, women and children. RPA joined with Ugandan People's Defense Forces (UPDF) and the guerilla army of Laurent Kabila's Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (ADFL) in the "War of Liberation" that subsequently ended the decades long reign of President Mobutu Sese Seko in Congo (Zaire). Sources in DRC quickly add that American military personell were seen on the ground advising the joint UPDF/RPA invasion which swiftly moved across the vast forested territory of Zaire. Wayne Madsen reported that the US established major communications and listening stations in Uganda's Ruwenzori Mountains. Witnesses interviewed in Kampala, Uganda's capital, support this claim. Communications equipment was also seen on Idjwe Island in Lake Kivu, on the DRC-Rwanda frontier.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/congo/2004/1210secretwar.htm

And a lengthy document here:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MAD111A.html

I've read all of these and much more. I know what is happening here and the so-called yet very real humanitarian crises are never going to be resolved by those who are causing the crises.

[pampango]

16. Figured that a "yes or no" answer asking too much.

"I've read all of these and much more. I know what is happening here and the so-called yet very real humanitarian crises are never going to be resolved by those who are causing the crises." If it is a good thing that the US did not intervene in Rwanda, because it couldn't "be resolved by those who are causing the crises", I wish Clinton would not apologize for not doing something that you would not approve of anyway. (Of course, you have pointed out many other things that he could have apologized for, but did not.)

We might agree that, other than the occasional speech, the West is not going to do anything about Darfur. Perhaps a group of Muslim countries might be able to put pressure on the Sudanese government to stop the "very real humanitarian crises" directed against the black African Muslims of Darfur. (The fact that the Muslims being impacted here are black, not Arab, may mean that the Arab Muslim government in Khartoum, and perhaps governments throughout the Middle East simply don't care.)

[Jcrowley]

18. Again

The West and the US did intervene in Rwanda, for years, as it is doing throuhout Africa (Sudan included) and as it has for centuries.

You're asking for help from the colonizer. Perhaps that is possible but it would go against every single example in the historical record. Good luck with that.

[pampango]

19. Thanks for the perspective. Can't say that I agree with you,

but it's good to know that some of us have the world divided into guys that are always good and guys that are always bad.

The US had made many mistakes over the years, and pursued many bad policies, but it won't stop me from pushing it to do good things whenever possible.

I realize that your mind is made up, so good luck and thanks for the conversation.

[Jcrowley]

10. Group Slams Janus Face of U.S. Policy

Group Slams Janus Face of U.S. Policy
Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Mar 9 (IPS) - When some 6,000 U.S.-led NATO forces land next June for two weeks of manoeuvres in Cape Verde, will they be rehearsing more for rapid deployment in humanitarian emergencies, as in Darfur, Sudan, or for securing oil supplies and access to other key African resources?

For Africa Action, a grassroots group created several years ago in a merger of the three most important activist groups in the U.S. anti-apartheid movement, that is one of the key questions facing U.S. Africa policy over the next year. Washington, according to Africa Action, whose "Africa Policy Outlook 2006" was released here Thursday, is embarked on two very distinct paths in Africa at the moment.

The first, which is designed to appeal to the public's humanitarian instincts and receives much more attention in the media, includes Pres. George W. Bush's HIV/AIDS programme and his pledges -- so far only partially realised -- to increase development aid and provide debt relief.

The second, which receives far less attention, is aimed at securing more traditional U.S. commercial and strategic interests, particularly defeating radical Islam in the "global war on terror" and securing access to Africa's natural resources, especially oil and gas, by military means if necessary. "This year, when it comes to U.S. relations with Africa, the preoccupation of U.S. officials with oil and guns will stand in stark contrast to the expressed concern of the American people regarding the ongoing genocide in Darfur and global health challenges like HIV/AIDS and the bird flu," according to the report.

http://ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=32447

[Rhiannon12866]

21. Excellent article! Thanks!

On the other hand, Washington has ruled out deployment of its own troops on the ground in Darfur and appears to be forging an alliance with Sudan's intelligence services in the context of its "war on terror", reportedly even building a listening post near Khartoum to gather intelligence in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian peninsula. To the extent that Washington relies on Khartoum's cooperation, its efforts to end the Darfur crisis are constrained.

P)erhaps nowhere is the confusion between the warm façade of humanitarianism and the cold calculations of security concerns more revealing than in U.S. policy toward Sudan," according to the report.

And a belated welcome to DU, Jcrowley! It's great to have you with us!:toast:

Rhiannon:hi: