Friday, October 19, 2007

Mass Murder In the Horn Of Africa

By a US ally, of course …

Why is the U.S. subsidizing and supporting murder, rape, and systematic ethnic cleansing in the Horn of Africa? The reason: it's all part of our strategy for "victory" in the "war on terrorism."

The village of Kamuda – a remote outpost in the Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia, where the majority are Muslims and ethnically Somali – had some unexpected visitors last June, when a platoon of Ethiopian soldiers showed up, announcing their arrival by shooting their rifles into the air – and demanding to know why the villagers had been providing food and safe haven to rebels from the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF). With no satisfactory answer forthcoming, the soldiers took action: they picked out seven young ladies, between the ages of 15 and 18, and dragged them off into the bush.

Three were later found hanging from trees, beaten to death. The rest simply disappeared.

This "anti-terrorist" activity is funded by you, the American taxpayer. It comes out of the $97 million in aid we sent to Addis Ababa this year, including the military surplus and training we provide to the Ethiopian military, which is rampaging through Somalia as well as the Ogaden region. The invasion of Somalia by Ethiopian troops – held up by the American right-wing as an example of how the U.S. ought to be conducting its own "anti-terrorist" operations – has collapsed into a welter of confusion and looming disaster, as the "government" set up by the Ethiopians implodes and the Muslim insurgency shakes Mogadishu, the Somali capital.

Amid the rising chaos, Somalian "government" troops recently stormed the UN World Food Program headquarters, and detained the chief official, Idris Osman: the reasons for this were unclear, but thuggishness is a general principle with the current U.S.-backed rulers of this desolate, tortured land, and perhaps it was just a reminder to people that no one is immune from random acts of violence by the government.

As the Ethiopian- and U.S.-backed Somalian "government" of warlords and criminal gangs rampages through the streets of Mogadishu, and throughout the country, murdering, looting, and raping, the U.S. signals its approval. Indeed, the U.S. has given its backing to Ethiopia. As the Independent reports:

"America's top official on African affairs, assistant secretary of state, Jendayi Frazer, visited one town in the Ogaden last month. On her return to Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, she criticised the rebels and said the reports of military abuses were merely allegations. "We urge any and every government to respect human rights and to try to avoid civilian casualties but that's difficult in dealing with an insurgency."

U.S. backing for the Ethiopian "former" communist dictator Meles Zenawi – who ordered a "recount" of Ethiopia's last poll until he got a more satisfactory result – was a reaction to the sudden rise of an Islamic court system in Somalia, where complete disorder reigned until Muslim fundamentalists filled the power vacuum and set up their own decentralized system that imposed sharia law, yet made the area liveable once more, and received the support of what remained of Somalia's business community. In faraway Washington, however, this news was received with something less than enthusiasm: al-Qaeda was moving into Somalia, they decided, and it was time to move. U.S. military personnel stationed in Mogadishu are said to be directing the regime's military operations against the Muslim guerrillas, who were pushed out during the Ethiopian invasion but have infiltrated back in and now control much of the capital city.

A phony "national reconciliation accord" has been sponsored by the Saudis, but this is a farce, considering that none of the insurgents were invited. A rival conference, held in Eritrea – which provides safe haven and aid to the insurgents – denounced the proceedings. So much for "national reconciliation."

An equally phony bill that is supposed to call attention to the dire situation in Somalia has been introduced in Congress by Rep. Donald Payne (D-New Jersey): it's phony because it simply addresses the lack of "democracy" in Ethiopia, demands that the Ethiopians submit to foreign overseers who will measure their "progress" and release aid conditional on the "success" of the program, and the deal-breaker is that the legislation has several loopholes in it big enough to drive a couple of Ethiopian tanks through. For one, Bush can simply waive the bill's requirements, and, secondly, the military component of U.S. aid is exempted.

In short, even if the bill passes the Senate – unlikely – those Ethiopian soldiers who terrorized the villagers of Kamuda will still be subsidized and succored by American taxpayers, even as they continue rampaging through the Ogaden, and Somalia.

The history of our intervention in the Horn of Africa is a case study in what not to do, and how to hurt our own interests, in the guise of "fighting terrorism," and I've covered that here, here, and here. The latest chapter in the region's long agony merely confirms the original diagnosis: that U.S. intervention creates new problems instead of solving old ones.

U.S. intervention has put us in the same corner with one of the most savagely repressive governments in Africa, which is saying quite a lot. Ethiopian strongman Mele Zenawi fits in rather neatly with Washington's foreign policy: he's a bit of a neocon himself – a "reformed" Marxist who went from hailing the late Enver Hoxha, the dictator of Stalinist Albania, as the leader of the world revolution against capitalism, to hailing George W. Bush as the world's leader in the "war on terrorism."

Some are comparing the slaughter in the Ogaden and Somalia to what's happening in Darfur, and, ironically, we'll probably be hearing calls by the "humanitarian" interventionist set for the U.S. and/or the UN to "do something," i.e. send in the troops or intervene in some meaningful way. The big flaw in these sorts of proposals is that we've already intervened – our guys are in Mogadishu, directing much of the fighting – and that is precisely the cause of the problem.
The toll taken by our efforts has, so far, been enormous: hundreds of thousands uprooted, tens of thousands killed, and the prospect of worse to come.

There is only one "solution" to the developing genocide in the Horn of Africa, and it is this: get the U.S. out, end all aid to the Ethiopian government, and immediately airlift our aid workers and American civilians out of the area. Will this solve all the region's problems? Hardly. The ethnic, religious, and clan-based conflicts that are roiling the Horn are not amenable to any easy solution, and certainly not one imposed by Washington. Many problems don't have any "solution," and whatever hope exists for the region – longterm economic development, the rational exploitation of oil resources, the liberalization of the neo-Stalinist regimes that infest the area – is gong to be nipped in the bud rather than nurtured by our clumsy attempts to mold events to our liking.

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

Be sure to check out my essay, "Ayn Despite the Randians," written on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Atlas Shrugged, over at Taki's Top Drawer. I had great fun writing it.

1 comment:

Origin and Goals said...

"Early CIA Involvement in Darfur Has Gone Unreported" HistoryNewsNetwork

I once worked on a documentary for an anniversary of the African Development Bank and although never was in Darfur, I was close enough to the Sudan border in Ethiopian and Kenya and have a spot in my heart for the magnificent people of this region. I just knocked out this article when I remembered, (I'm well into my 70s) of U.S. backing the rebels was never being factored in.
By the way, I wonder and ask you as someone more conversant on the Sudan than I, whether or not the U.S. is still actively supporting the rebellion{s}, either materially or diplomatically, either openly or secretly. sentimentally, morally and/or spiritually.?
Appreciativly in advance should you have time to read my article below and comment,
Jay Janson

While there is great sorrow and indignation over the suffering and loss of life in the Sudan, early U.S. involvement in the war goes unmentioned. Instead, the U.S. leads an effort to condemn China for buying Sudan's oil. For years the U.S. had paid for war in hopes to arrange for some eventual control of the oil discovered in Darfur, (all well once well reported in the New York Times). The human crises receives modest financial aid from a U.S. government, silently protected from any embarrassment of acknowledging a prime complicity in fomenting war in Darfur.

HistoryNewNetwork, George Mason University republished the folloing from:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jay_jans_070121_darfur___hand_ringin.htm

"Early CIA Involvement in Darfur Has Gone Unreported"

http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/34473.html HNN Darfur

republished as well by Global Research, Operation Sudan of SaveDafur, UK IndyMedia, Ethiopian News, FreeThoughtManifesto, Islamic Forum, Countercurrents, Nicholas D. Kristof, Schema-Root news, jcturner23's reviews, NewsTrust,News Search Tracker, alfatomega, Newsvine, Digg, Netscape, Boreal Access, Newswire, Tailrank, Congo Music News, Zaire, mideastyouth.com, Darfur News from Google, ibrattleboro.com and sundry other sites from the original in OpEdNews, January 23, 2007

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jay_jans_070121_darfur___hand_ringin.htm

There has been a glaring omission in the U.S. media presentation of the Darfur tragedy. The compassion demonstrated, mostly in words, until recently, has not been accompanied by a recognition of U.S. complicity, or at least involvement, in the war which has led to the enormous suffering and loss of life that has been taking place in Darfur for many years.

In 1978 oil was discovered in Southern Sudan. Rebellious war began five years later and was led by John Garang, who had taken military training at infamous Fort Benning, Georgia. "The US government decided, in 1996, to send nearly $20 million of military equipment through the 'front-line' states of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda to help the Sudanese opposition overthrow the Khartoum regime." [Federation of American Scientists fas.org]

Between 1983 and the peace agreement signed in January 2005, Sudan's civil war took nearly two million lives and left millions more displaced. Garang became a First Vice President of Sudan as part of the peace agreement in 2005. From 1983, "war and famine-related effects resulted in more than 4 million people displaced and, according to rebel estimates, more than 2 million deaths over a period of two decades."
[CIA Fact Book -entry Sudan]

The BBC obituary of John Garang, who died in a plane crash shortly afterward, describes him as having "varied from Marxism to drawing support from Christian fundamentalists in the US." "There was always confusion on central issues such as whether the Sudan People's Liberation Army was fighting for independence for southern Sudan or merely more autonomy. Friends and foes alike found the SPLA's human rights record in southern Sudan and Mr Garang's style of governance disturbing." Gill Lusk - deputy editor of Africa Confidential and a Sudan specialist who interviewed the ex-guerrilla leader several times over the years was quoted by BBC, "John Garang did not tolerate dissent and anyone who disagreed with him was either imprisoned or killed."

CIA use of tough guys like Garang in Sudan, Savimbi in Angola, Mobutu in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), had been reported, even in mass media, though certainly not featured or criticized, but presently, this is of course buried away from public awareness and meant to be forgotten, as commercial media focuses on presenting the U.S. wars of today in a heroic light. It has traditionally been the chore of progressive, alternate and independent journalism to see that their deathly deeds supported by U.S. citizens tax dollars are not forgotten, ultimately not accepted and past Congresses and Presidents held responsible, even in retrospect, when not in real time.

Oil and business interests remain paramount and although Sudan is on the U.S. Government's state sponsors of terrorism list, the United States alternately praises its cooperation in tracking suspect individuals or scolds about the Janjaweed in Darfur. National Public Radio on May 2, 2005 had Los Angeles Times writer Ken Silverstein talk about his article "highlighting strong ties between the U.S. and Sudanese intelligence services, despite the Bush administration's criticism of human-rights violation in the Sudan." Title was "Sudan, CIA Forge Close Ties, Despite Rights Abuses." Nicholas Kristof, of The New York Times, won a 2006 Pulitzer Prize for "his having alerted this nation and the world to these massive crimes against humanity. He made six dangerous trips to Darfur to report names and faces of victims of the genocide for which President Bush had long before indicted the government of Sudan to the world's indifference." [Reuters] But last November saw the opening of a new U.S. consulate in Juba the capital of the Southern region. (Maybe consider this an example of "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!" especially where oil is involved.)

The point is there is human suffering at mammoth level proportions. Humanitarian activists are trying to pry open the purse strings of an administration and congress willing to spend billions upon billions to get people killed and keep them in their place, namely, at our feet. Reminding Congress of what needs to be atoned for because of past policies of supporting war and human destruction could eventually make present policies of war intolerable. Americans are presently not exactly conscious stricken about dead and maimed Iraqis and Afghans, for commercial media always keeps of most of the human particulars of war crimes modestly out of sight, dramatizing much lesser losses and suffering of American military personal abroad.

Darfur made the headlines again because a governor of presidential timber was building up his foreign policy credentials. Meanwhile we are going to continue to see newsreels of our mass media depressing us with scenes of starving children, basically as testimony of how evil another Islamic nation's government is, so we can feel good - and want to purchase the products needing the advertising - which pays for the entertainment/news programs - which keep viewers in the dark about THEIR contribution to the suffering brought upon those people all the way over there in Africa.

Just try to put 4 and 2 million of anything into perspective. We are talking about an equivalent to the sets of eyes of half the population of Manhattan. Imagine one of us, whether a precious child ,a handsome man, a beautiful women, - to the tune of, (dirge of), one times four million, half of us dead. Sorry! It has no impact right? We realize that, remembering the words of Joseph Stalin (of all people), "One man's death is a tragedy, a thousand, is a statistic." There is absolutely no way we can whip up enough anguish to match a total of four million displaced and two million dead Sudanese, unless we could be of a mind and heart with Martin Luther King dealing with three million dead Vietnamese, also as in this case, over on the other side of the world, far from our living rooms - "So it is that those of us who are yet determined that "America will be" are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land." (MLK, 1967, "Beyond Vietnam")

This writer remembers reading newspapers articles about the U.S. backing the Southern Sudan rebellion way back then. If we had supported a side that wound up winning, we would be bragging about our having supported 'freedom fighters'. But we just threw a lot of money and outdated weapons at a John Garang in the Sudan, as we did with Jonas Savimbi in Angola, to the ultimate destruction of millions of people, and they LOST! Like we did in Vietnam, and half-way lost in Korea, and now are mid-way losing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Jesus! Calculating the chances of an investment in human life and money coming to a fruition of sorts - that is certainly the job of any intelligence gathering agency! What we have had is an Agency using its gathered intelligence to do unintelligent things because, as our Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote more than a hundred and twenty-five years ago, "Things are in the saddle and ride herd over men" (trampling others under foot, we might add)

The European Union is under pressure from inside to assure that a United Nations force of 20,000 men will be sent to Darfur as required by Security Council resolution 1706, and to threaten sanctions in order to halt a war the U.S. was originally interested to see begun.

The U.N. Security Council will receive a list from the International Criminal Court of those Sudanese officials who could be charged with war crimes. The list is expected include some members of rebel organizations among Sudanese government officials and Janjaweed militias. There assuredly will be no names on the list of non-Sudanese officials of nations which were known to have involved themselves in this Sudanese civil war contrary to accepted provisions and obligations of U.N. membership. But we can know that the responsibility for war, slaughter, rape and theft in Sudan extends beyond the leaders of those murderously wielding guns and swords.

It will be good if outside influence will now be focused on peace, but citizens best be vigilant of their nation's foreign policy intentions. The world has heard many protestations that oil is not a reason for war, but blood and oil has been known to mix.
-------------------------- end of article-------------------

That now the U.S. use its economic power humanely, to promote peace in the Sudan and give generously to help war victims.
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Published on 5 Jul 2004 by Zaman Daily. Archived on 5 Jul 2004.
Oil Underlies Darfur Tragedy
by Cumali Onal


The fighting in Sudan's Darfur region, which is being reported in the world press as 'ethnic cleansing' and a 'humanitarian crisis', reportedly stems from attempts to gain control over the oil resources in the region, claim Arab sources.

These Arab sources find it interesting that such skirmishes occurred when a peace agreement that would have brought an end to 21 years of north-south conflict was about to be signed. The sources point out that oil fields have recently been discovered in Darfur.