"The Sudanese government has granted oil concessions
throughout Darfur and other parts of the country, eager to
extend beyond its present oilfields where the output is now
peaking. To put such potential oil wealth under UN
supervision and open to exploitation by Western governments
rather than China is a key consideration behind the proposed
peacekeeping intervention."
WSW provides with a good analysis. One element of the story, however, is not
mentioned... This intervention in Darfur is part of a pattern of moves intended
to move us toward a one-world government, under the auspices of an
elite-controlled UN. This pattern involves destabilizing third-world governments
in various ways, getting the public stirred up about the ensuing suffering, and
then sending in the UN cavalry for 'peacekeeping'. By calling it peacekeeping
instead of imperialism, Western populations are manipulated into supporting this
agenda.
Darfur is of particular significance, as it involves UN intervention in the
absence of a peace treaty among the local rivals. This underscores the fact that
the UN comes in these days with heavy weapons, not as a peacekeeper but as a
combatant.
rkm
--------------------------------------------------------
Original source URL:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/aug2007/darf-a07.shtml
WSWS : News & Analysis : Africa
Geopolitical concerns behind United Nations intervention in Darfur
By Chris Talbot
7 August 2007
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author
The United Nations Security Council has unanimously agreed on a resolution to
send a joint UN-African Union (AU) force to the Darfur region of Sudan. Proposed
as the world¹s largest peacekeeping force, there will be 20,000 troops that will
incorporate the present 7,000 AU force already in Darfur plus 6,000 police. It
will be deployed under Chapter 7 of the UN¹s Charter empowering it to use
military force to protect civilians and aid workers. The first troops are due to
be sent in October, but full deployment will probably take much longer.
Most of the efforts in pushing through the resolution appear to have come from
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who
have both used the Darfur issue since taking office to boost their humanitarian
credentials. It has also enabled them to assure President George Bush of their
support. Speaking at the UN after the resolution was passed, Brown personally
thanked Bush ³for his leadership on Darfur.²
There is certainly a worsening humanitarian disaster in Darfur‹a recent UN
report stated that more than half a million people out of a total of 4.2 million
affected were cut off from humanitarian aid. But the driving force behind the
proposed intervention is the interest of the United States and the Western
powers in taking more control over this strategic region and its oil wealth.
It is intended that most of the troops in the peacekeeping force will be
African, but there will be a single UN chain of command giving Western
governments control over operations. The current AU force has suffered from lack
of funding by the West and has remained small and ineffective because it was not
under their direct control.
France has already volunteered to send troops. The conflict in Darfur has spread
into neighbouring Chad and the Central African Republic, where France has troops
in place already and is supporting unpopular regimes against rebel forces (see
³The new Sarkozy government hosts conference on Darfur²).
Britain and France, with the agreement of Washington, dropped a demand for
³further measures² against the Sudanese government and rebel forces for failing
to cooperate. According to diplomats, a more ³conciliatory text² was adopted to
make sure that China did not veto the resolution in the Security Council and
that African countries were kept onside. China buys most of Sudan¹s oil exports
and supplies it with arms, and has previously opposed US and British proposals
directed at the Sudan regime. China has now supported the UN intervention,
apparently concerned that the 2008 Beijing Olympics would be targeted by
protesters.
Pressure from organisations such as the Save Darfur Coalition‹with widespread
support in the US‹has played a role in getting China to agree to a peacekeeping
force. They involve thousands of young people genuinely moved by the plight of
the suffering refugees in Darfur. However, the simplistic view put forward by
the campaign¹s organisers that the problem is merely one of the Khartoum regime
backing Arab Janjaweed militias against the rest of the population has served to
distract attention from the fundamental issue and has been used to legitimise a
military intervention by the major powers.
Darfur is just one tragic outcome of the imperialist domination of the African
continent. It is also naïve in the extreme to imagine that the Bush
administration, responsible for war crimes in Iraq, could be persuaded to carry
out humanitarian measures in Sudan.
The Sudanese regime‹and countless other oppressive regimes in developing
countries that are not at present singled out for US disapproval‹thrives under
an imperialist system that has seen billions of dollars in debt relief exported
to Western banks under International Monetary Fund auspices and huge profits
made from mineral extraction by multinational corporations, but with the vast
majority of the population forced to live in abject poverty. Whatever
anti-Western rhetoric is used for popular consumption, a vital role is played by
such brutal governments as that in Khartoum in maintaining the status quo.
Whilst the Bush administration has applied sanctions to the Sudanese regime and
publicised the use of the term ³genocide² in relation to Darfur, it has combined
this pressure with tacit support for the regime, using its intelligence service
for a source of information and even covert operations (see ³CIA uses Sudanese
intelligence in Iraq²).
Unlike the previous Clinton administration, which gave Sudan a pariah status,
Bush negotiated a peace between the Khartoum regime and the Southern rebels, the
Sudan People¹s Liberation Movement (SPLM), in 2005, the so-called Comprehensive
Peace Agreement (CPA), bringing the longest civil war in Africa to an end. There
are currently some 10,000 UN peacekeepers deployed in maintaining this
agreement. Chief among the considerations in Washington was that in a
power-sharing arrangement the SPLM would be able to take some of Sudan¹s oil
wealth and open up possibilities for Western companies as opposed to China.
Given these considerations, the US did not want a UN intervention in Darfur‹in
fact, Darfur was deliberately kept off the agenda in the CPA negotiations and
the Sudanese regime was allowed to pursue its long-standing policy of using
local militias to kill and drive out villagers. This did not stop the US moving
pious resolutions at the UN on Darfur, knowing that they would be vetoed by
China and Russia.
It may be that there has now been a shift in policy, and the balance has shifted
towards those sections of the US ruling elite, especially in the Democratic
Party, who are demanding a military intervention. Apart from conflicts within
the US administration, there are a number of possible reasons for this that
relate to Sudan.
Firstly, the conflict in Darfur itself has become increasing complex and
violent. The UN peacekeeping intervention has been heralded without any peace
agreement in place. In May of last year, under the auspices of the United States
and Britain, an agreement was reached between the Sudanese government and one of
the Darfur rebel movements, but the two other movements rejected it, leading to
its collapse.
Instead of the conflict taking place between these rebels and the
government-backed Arab Janjaweed militia, much of the fighting this year has
been between rival Arab groups. There are now more than 12 different rebel
groups, some of them with links to the Chad government, which is increasingly
involved in the conflict. These groups have now been invited to talks in Arusha,
Tanzania.
One prominent rebel leader, Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur of the Sudan Liberation
Movement, has refused to attend. Another leader, Suleiman Jamous, is prevented
from leaving Khartoum by the government. It seems unlikely that any meaningful
peace agreement can be reached in the immediate future.
Secondly, the north-south CPA deal is unravelling and it is possible that
conflict between Khartoum and the SPLM could recommence. The Sudanese government
was supposed to pull its troops out of southern areas in July. According to the
International Crisis Group¹s latest report, this failed to happen in the
oil-producing regions. The ICG also notes that the payments from Khartoum to the
regional government in the south, supposedly its share of the oil wealth, are
steadily decreasing.
Thirdly, the Sudan regime itself is increasingly unstable. With huge disparities
of wealth between government circles that benefit from the oil wealth and the
rest of the population, it is increasingly losing any base of support. As well
as Darfur, there are less-publicised conflicts or potential conflicts in several
other parts of the country, the far North, Eastern Sudan and the Kordofan
region.
Whatever the machinations within American ruling circles, the chief concern of
the US and Western governments is how to halt the growing Chinese involvement in
Sudan as well as much of Africa. Unlike the International Monetary Fund‹backed
by the United States‹China has not placed demands on African governments that
they accede to free market policies of ³good governance² before being granted
loans or access to finance. It has also invested in a range of infrastructure
projects and assiduously courted African leaders, avoiding the routine and
hypocritical references to human rights issues made by the West.
As one recent book put it: ³For western politicians and policymakers, China¹s
growing profile in the African oil business is more than just a commercial
threat to western businesses. In particular, Beijing¹s growing reliance on
African oil has put it on a collision course with US political priorities for
the continent. A growing chorus of voices in Washington‹from congressmen to
newspaper commentators‹has been complaining about China¹s willingness to do
business in countries the United States is trying to pressure or isolate.² *
The Sudanese government has granted oil concessions throughout Darfur and other
parts of the country, eager to extend beyond its present oilfields where the
output is now peaking. To put such potential oil wealth under UN supervision and
open to exploitation by Western governments rather than China is a key
consideration behind the proposed peacekeeping intervention.
* Untapped: The Scramble for Africa¹s Oil by John Ghazvinian, Harcourt, 2007.
See Also:
Iraq and Darfur: the politics of war crimes
[9 February 2007]
Copyright 1998-2007
World Socialist Web Site
All rights reserved
--
--------------------------------------------------------
Posting archives: http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/?lists=newslog
Escaping the Matrix website: http://escapingthematrix.org/
cyberjournal website: http://cyberjournal.org
Community Democracy Framework:
http://cyberjournal.org/DemocracyFramework.html
Moderator: •••@••.••• (comments welcome)
