Africa Is Not a British Zoo!
Splitting Up Sudan Is Wrong
by Lawrence K. Freeman
Dec. 30—Sudanese who can prove a lineage to the tribes of Southern Sudan will vote on Jan. 9, 2011, on whether to secede from Sudan to form a new state, or remain as part of one united country. If the referendum takes place, and if Southerners vote for separation, as many predict, the underlying issues between the North and the South will remain unresolved. In fact, the referendum, if it comes off, may put Sudan and the region back on the path to war.
The splitting up of Sudan, the largest country in Africa, which dominates the Horn of Africa and the Nile River system, is wrong: wrong for the people of Sudan, wrong for Africa, wrong for the world. It should not happen. But the British imperialists and their hangers-on demand it. It also has the potential to lead to an expanded, regionalized war, more deadly than anything we have seen thus far, as a result of Sudan's neighbors becoming militarily engaged.
British Colonial Policy
Keeping countries divided, preventing their people from identifying with, and aspiring to, the principle of national sovereignty, has always been the primary goal of British colonial policy.
Beginning in the 19th Century, the seeds of the present conflict in Sudan were planted, and the legacy of those colonial policies is still operating today, to manipulate the nation's people to attack each other, against their own self-interests. This "divide-and-conquer" tactic has included fostering, nurturing, and even creating, when necessary, as was done in Darfur, tribal micro-identities, based on so-called ethnic, religious, and geographical differences. Rwanda, Nigeria, and Kenya are but leading examples of how these so-called "tribal distinctions" have been used to destroy nations from within, by steering the "pleasure and pain" motivation of each "aggrieved people" into deadly conflict against their own brothers and sisters. By the acceptance and defense of their narrowly defined tribal ethnicity as their culture, Africans defeat themselves.
When people are treated like animals, as is the case throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, and struggle just to simply survive under conditions of externally imposed genocide, they are easily blinded from seeing the face of their real enemy. Instead, they strike with a vengeance against an artificial enemy image, identified as those "other tribes" now occupying their farms, never landing a blow against those who are really responsible for their oppressive conditions. Defense of tribal culture and ethnicity is what blinds them. Rage suffocates reason, and always leads to defeat. This is why we witness in Africa arguably the most bestialized, ugly, and brutal wars fought among people of the same nation.
The British Empire, then and now, has never respected the sovereignty of any African nation, because the oligarchs have never viewed Africans as human beings, entitled to the same rights and privileges bestowed on all of the Creator's children. There is no shortage of evidence, of the hard-core racist beliefs towards Africans (among others), espoused by the British oligarchy, through the centuries into the present. They have treated Africans, through the manipulations of these "micro-identities" and tribal cultures, like so many species of animals caged in a zoo, unleashing their built-up rage from being treated like an animal, to kill their fellow countrymen, falsely perceived as enemies, i.e., a competing species.
From this author's travels in Africa, and discussions with Africans, especially those from Sub-Saharan Africa, there is a crippling lack of identification with the nation-state as a unifying institution. Instead, they substitute a fanatical allegiance to a lesser identity, one chained to tribal culture and ethnicity.
The oppressors of Africa fear any form of nascent nationalism as anathema to their ability to control and manipulate the people of that country. Witness the barrage of demonizing attacks usually instigated and coordinated by George Soros's Open Society, against any African leader who represents, if imperfectly, a nationalist sentiment capable of transcending tribal culture in favor of nationhood.
As referenced above, the present-day conflict in Sudan was set up by the British over a century ago, and codified into laws between 1922 and 1925, such as the Passport and Ordinance Act, which forbid the integration between British-created northern and southern Sudan, making it a criminal act for a northerner to travel into closed southern districts. All thoughtful Sudanese familiar with their history have to admit, that the British creation of "two Sudans" in one country, led to the present referendum on separation as the inexorable consequence. It is important not to forget, that in 1955, six months before Sudan's independence from the British in January 1956, war had already broken out between the North and the South in the divided Sudan governed by the British colonial powers.
We must reject as racist the very distinctions so commonly accepted in the debates about Sudan today. I reject the categorization of northerners as "Arab-Muslims"; southerners as African-Christians" and "African-animists"; and Darfuris as "African-Muslims." Let us end this racist profiling based on religion or the blackness of their skin. For those of us who detest, and refuse to accept these racist British zoo classifications, let us proclaim once and for all, as loudly as we can: All the people of Sudan are African and Sudanese!
U.S. Adopts British Outlook for Sudan
In recent decades, the United States—instead of emulating the traditional American "Good Neighbor" policy of promoting economic progress in less-developed nations, which Presdeint Franklin Roosevelt expressed towards Africa—chose to follow in the footsteps of the British. Susan Rice, currently U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, whether consciously or not, has carried the flag for the British policy towards Africa, on American soil. Prior to joining the National Security Council during President Clinton's first administration in 1993, she had already established a thoroughly British pedigree, displaying a peculiar devotion to British colonial thinking towards Africa.
Rice, with a coterie of collaborators, has conducted a political jihad against the government of Sudan, in her multi-decade effort for "regime change" of President Omar al-Bashir. The campaign to oust Bashir was part of a larger British gameplan, whose real intention, was to break up Sudan into several new artificial entities: a state for Southern Sudan; an independent Darfur state in the West; and possibly one or more states in the East, effectively obliterating the nation of Sudan, which would ensure a new Thirty Years War in the Horn of Africa. If this scenario—carving up African nations into multiple divisions, which is what some genocidal lunatics hope to bring about in Sudan—were extended to Nigeria, and other diverse nations, then one could write off Africa, Untold of millions of Africans would be eliminated by war, disease, and famine, as a consequence.
Post-referendum destabilization is already underway. The campaign to dismantle the central government of Sudan has begun, even before the Jan. 9 vote, with British assets from the northern opposition parties already calling for Bashir to leave office, for having failed "to hold Sudan together." There will be efforts to recruit some elements of Bashir's own National Congress Party (NCP) to support calls for his removal. International Criminal Court (ICC) special prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo was, already in 2009, attempting to portray Bashir as a bleeding shark," hoping to encourage defections "by other sharks" in the NCP.
U.S. support for the ICC's fraudulent arrest warrant for Bashir, led by Rice from her pulpit at the UN, and endorsed by President Obama, make clear to all, that the U.S. wanted Bashir to be removed from office, despite the fact that preparations for the referendum were ongoing. Obama's insistence that no U.S. diplomat can even talk to Bashir, has created an additional burden for those involved in negotiations for the Jan. 9 vote, because Bashir, in addition to being the head of state, is the representative for the northern-based NCP, and a signer to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)[1] itself. So much for Obama and Rice's desire for peace.
Rice makes little effort to hide her hatred of the Khartoum government, having preemptively rejected any possibility of meeting with Bashir during her October trip to Sudan as co-leader of the UN Security Council delegation. She shocked her fellow diplomats with her cheerleading encouragement for a pro-secession vote at a rally in Juba, the capital of the South. On the same trip, she also made an ass of herself in refusing to pay a $15 exit fee at the Khartoum airport. So much for diplomacy.
U.S. government activity is myopically focused on ensuring that the referendum takes place, and minimally reflects the "will of the people" of the South. The expectation of a free, fair, and transparent election is barely mentioned by U.S. officials, although this greatly concerns the African Union (AU), since endorsement of the voting process by the AU is essential for international acceptance of the voting results.
The failure of the U.S., is that it has not articulated a vision for the future of Sudan, and for Africa, one that embodies the commitment of the American System to progress, which President Franklin Roosevelt expressed when he envisioned "the greening" of the Sahara Desert, in his wartime discussions about the future of Africa. That optimistic, "can-do" American sprit of transforming nature for the benefit of mankind through large-scale water, energy, and transportation/rail projects, is woefully missing from U.S. strategic thinking today. This is the most glaring, systemic deficiency in U.S. policy, and its omission has deadly implications. If American leadership to develop Sudan had governed our policy over the last 20 years of the recent three U.S. Presidents, instead of following the British mindset, typified by Susan Rice, Sudan would be on the pathway to becoming a unified nation today.
An abrupt change in direction of U.S. policy towards Africa, would be signaled by an American commitment to finally initiate the Transaqua[2] infrastructure project to refurbish Lake Chad with water from the Congo River Basin.
No 'Vote Dividend' from the West
Unfortunately, my friends in the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) will suffer a rude awakening should an artificially created Southern Sudan state come into existence. There will be no economic largesse from the West. The entire trans-Atlantic financial system, led by the demise of Eurozone is already a "dead man walking," and may not even be around when the Jan. 9 vote takes place. Outside of oil-industry and related financial predators, only the Eurasian-Pacific Rim nations will have a desire, and be in a position, to invest in Sudan. Unless the emergency economic reforms stipulated by physical economist Lyndon LaRouche are implemented now, the vicious budgets cuts being proposed by President Obama and his supporters in the Republican Party will virtually eliminate what, in past times, had been considered an acceptable foreign-aid budget.
Despite all the attacks on Khartoum, and Khartoum's admitted shortcomings in promoting economic growth, it has been the policy of the West, since the early 1970s, not to invest in vital categories of hard and soft infrastructure in the developing sector, except to facilitate the removal of natural resources by the extractive industries, that has kept Sudan backward.[3] The idiotic, self-defeating imposition of sanctions against Sudan, affirmed the intent that Sudan would remain undeveloped, subjecting millions of Sudanese to live in some of the most deplorable conditions on the continent.
Despite the mandate in the CPA, requiring the South to be economically developed, no real growth has occurred, with over 3 million people living in the South still considered food-insecure (Sudan's total population is about 44 million, of whom about 8 million live in the South). Nor should anyone expect that conditions of life will significantly improve, if the South secedes. The belief that the South will be showered with tangible economic support as a reward, is a serious delusion affecting too many people in Southern Sudan, and their advocates in the U.S.
Abyei, Flashpoint for War?
Presently, many important issues remain unresolved, including citizenship, Sudan's $36 billion of debt, the demarcation of the - Abyei, Flashpoint for War? -
Presently, many important issues remain unresolved, including citizenship, Sudan's $36 billion of debt, the demarcation of the 2,100-kilometer-long border between the North and South, and the sharing of oil revenues. However, the most contentious issue surrounds the Abyei area: whether it will become part of the North or the South. A separate referendum on Abyei was originally scheduled also for Jan. 9, but was scotched when the two sides remained deadlocked over which tribes would be eligible to vote. It is still up in the air, whether and how the question of Abyei will be resolved in time.
Abyei is a small section of the yet undemarcated border; however, it embodies the tribal-culture conflict discussed above. It is the traditional home to the Ngok Dinka, who are settled there all year round, but it also provides grazing land for the cattle of the nomadic Misseriya for large portions of the year. The Ngok Dinka and Misseriya have generations-old agreements on the use of the fertile pastoral lands in the Abyei region, according to traditions established by their ancestors.
The SPLM insists that only the nine Ngok Dinka tribes be allowed to vote, which would ensure that Abyei will become part of the new Southern Sudan state. Not only is this unacceptable to the North, but it upsets long-held tribal traditions for the Misseriya, who would consider this a violation of their way of life, and their rights to freely bring their cattle south for grazing. There are 6 million nomads in Sudan who roam regions extending between North and South. Abyei and other border areas have already become highly militarized, and volatile.
Many military, as well some non-military people, familiar with Sudan, fear that, if Abyei remains unresolved, armed conflict between North and South will emerge, sooner or later. Abyei has been referred to as the "Kashmir" of Sudan.
The referendum for creating a Southern Sudan state solves nothing, except to create a "new paradigm" for how to tear apart another Africa nation.
[1] The Comprehensive Peace agreement (CPA) was signed on Jan. 9, 2005 by John Garang of the South's Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), and by President Omar al-Bashir on behalf of the northern-based National Congress Party, ending more than 20 years of civil war. It established that in six years, on Jan. 9, 2011, there would be a referendum for the southern Sudanese to vote on whether to remain as part of a united Sudan, or to secede and form a new state. The United States pressured Sudan to make the CPA, but did nothing to help make unity attractive. The CPA is to be officially terminated on July 9, 2011.
[2] See "The Transaqua Project: Making Africa Bloom," EIR, May 1, 2009; and "The Schiller Institute Brings NAWAPA Approach to Chad," EIR, Nov. 12 2010.
[3] The official policy to impose economic backwardness in underdeveloped countries was adopted in the United States, in 1975, under the impetus of U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, in the form of National Security Study Memorandum 200. NSSM 200 outlined a covert plan to reduce population growth, through birth control, and, implicitly, war and famine, allegedly to ensure that the West continued to get cheap raw materials.
