Stop the U.S. and
Zionist War Against Sudan
by David Rolde, Green-Rainbow Party of
Massachusetts - October 2006
The United States has been waging war against
Sudan for the past 15 years, and we need to stop
it. Just like with Iraq, the U.S. war against
Sudan is a war for oil and a war for Israel. The
proposed invasion of Sudan is based on lies. The
lie of accusing the government of Sudan of
“genocide in Darfur” serves the same
function as the lie a few years ago accusing the
government of Iraq of “possessing weapons of
mass destruction”. The U.S. government, and
its allies the Israeli and UK governments, are
the real world champion purveyors of
genocide and possessors of WMDs.
Sudan, the geographically largest country in
Africa and the home of 35 million people, has
been devastated by U.S. attacks for the past 15
years. In the early 90s the U.S. government
declared Sudan to be a "state sponsor of
terrorism" because the government of Sudan
does not support Israel. The U.S. government
imposed sanctions against Sudan.
The U.S. sanctions and trade boycott escalated
in severity several times during the 90s and 00s
and damaged the Sudanese economy causing immense
human suffering. Throughout the 90s the U.S.
government armed and funded the SPLA rebels in
the south of Sudan in a war against the Sudanese
government, and against rival southern groups, in
which millions of persons were killed or
displaced. Millions of southern refugees fled
from the SPLA and now live in Khartoum, the
northern capital. The culmination of U.S.
support for war in Sudan was the so-called
"Sudan Peace Act", signed by George W
Bush in 2002, which allocated one hundred million
dollars per year to the SPLA.
One notable episode of the US war against
Sudan happened in 1998 when the U.S. government
of Bill Clinton, with a missile strike, destroyed
Sudan's only pharmaceutical plant, the al-Shifa
plant near Khartoum. This rendered Sudan
unable to produce needed human medications to
treat endemic diseases such as malaria and also
veterinary medicines needed by Sudan's livestock
industry which is a major part of the
livelihood of the people of Sudan.
In 2004, during the U.S. presidential election
campaign, the U.S. government started leveling
false allegations of "genocide" against
the Sudanese government in regards to the new
civil war in Darfur in the west of Sudan. The
U.S. media and pro-imperialist “human
rights” organizations (such as Human Rights
Watch which is controlled by billionaire George
Soros and the Council on Foreign Relations)
falsely portrayed the conflict in Darfur as a
slaughter of Black Africans by a "White
Arab" Sudanese government. In reality it was
a civil war among many armed groups, some of
which were supported by the US and Israel,
fighting over limited resources in an
impoverished region. Nearly everyone in Sudan is
a Black African. And nearly everyone in Darfur is
a Black African Arabic-speaking Muslim. The
numbers cited for the “genocide” in
Darfur were inflated estimates of how many people
might die from famine and disease.
This year the propaganda against Sudan in the
United States has intensified again. On April 30,
2006, the U.S. government in conjunction with
U.S. Zionist groups, staged a large pro-war rally
in Washington DC. U.S. congresspersons, as well
as members of the Bush administration, spoke at
the rally calling for the war against Sudan to be
escalated by sending in an invasion force of
U.N., NATO or U.S. troops. Nearly every
pro-Israel group in the USA has anti-Sudan
propaganda on the front of their website. In
Massachusetts an example of a Zionist group
doing pro-war activism is the Jewish
Community Relations Council (JCRC) of Greater
Boston.
The anti-Sudan rhetoric is no different than
the rhetoric that the U.S. government uses
against other countries that the United States is
attacking. One aim of U.S. attacks against Sudan
is to gain or maintain control over
Sudan’s natural resources: notably petroleum
but also uranium, other minerals, gum arabic, and
the Nile River which supplies water to Egypt.
China currently has access to oil from
Sudan, and the U.S. government wants to cut China
off. Destabilizing and impoverishing Sudan serves
American and Israeli hegemonic interests to make
sure there are no prosperous independent
nations in the Middle East and North African
regions.
But within the United States the anti-Sudan
rhetoric is useful for more than just getting
Americans ready for more overt war against Sudan.
Anti-Arab and anti-Muslim rhetoric regarding
Sudan is part of the general anti-Arab and
anti-Muslim propaganda that is used to gain U.S.
domestic support for the war in Iraq, continued
U.S. support for Israel, and the so-called
“war on terror”. Zionist groups in
the United States have been purveying
anti-Arab propaganda regarding Sudan for many
years before the Darfur war, making false claims
about “slavery” in Sudan. Slave
redemption efforts in Sudan have been shown to be
a hoax. Divesting from Sudan is a Zionist
anti-Arab counter-proposal to the idea of
divesting from Israel. Lies about Arabs divert
attention from efforts to end Israeli apartheid
in Palestine.
On September 1, 2006, the US rammed a
resolution through the UN Security Council
calling for tens of thousands of UN troops,
ostensibly "peace-keepers" but really
an imperialist invasion force, to be sent
to Darfur to replace the current smaller
US-puppet African Union force. On September 17,
Zionists and other pro-war Americans held an
anti-Sudan rally in Central Park in New York
City. The keynote speaker at the rally was
Madeleine Albright, Clinton's Secretary of State,
who is infamous for having admitted that the
Clinton administration and the UN had killed half
a million Iraqi children through the sanctions in
the 90s but nevertheless defending the actions
against Iraq as worthwhile. Rally attendees
were asked to wear blue hats to signify their
desire to send "blue helmet" UN
troops to invade Sudan. These UN troops would not
be "peace- keepers". We can see the
likely outcome by looking at Haiti where, in
2004, the US deposed the legitimate government
and then sent in a UN occupation force
which has terrorized the country and brutalized
the Haitian people. When foreign UN soldiers get
to Darfur and can't determine which Black
Arabic-speaking Muslims are the "bad
Arabs" and which are the "good
Africans", the UN troops will kill people
indiscriminately. The Sudanese people will
rightly resist. The situation will escalate. US
warmongers will call for sending more troops,
including US troops, and bringing the war to
Khartoum. It will be a disaster. The US war
against Sudan needs to be stopped and reversed
now.
Anti-war activists are not working hard enough
to stop the US and Zionist war against Sudan. The
current threats against Sudan are just as serious
as the threats against Iran. Anti-war activists
should be focusing more effort to stop the war
against Sudan and to work against US imperialism
in Africa in general - the current war against
Sudan is just one manifestation of centuries of
European colonialism and neo-colonialism in
Sudan and Africa. The situation for the people of
Sudan will improve once foreign intervention in
Sudan stops.
David
Rolde
BAZA Boston Anti Zionist Action
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