PRESS RELEASE
EIR Exclusive: Plans Made
For Cross-Africa Rail Line
Jan. 19, 2010 (EIRNS)—A meeting of the foreign ministers of Turkey and Egypt, also attended by Secretary General Ihsanoglu of the Organization of Islamic Conference, held on Jan. 2 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, featured a major strategic announcement: The OIC has agreed upon the launching of a cross-Africa rail line, linking Sudan's Port Sudan, with Dakar, Senegal.
This cross-continental line, officially known as the Port Sudan-Dakar Rail Line, would fulfill a dream going back 100 years, by which the African continent would break out of its colonial Balkanization, and move toward integrated industrial and agricultural development.
The cross-Africa rail line has been championed by Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, starting in 2005, and was intensively discussed at a meeting of the African Transport ministers in Khartoum, Sudan in December 2009.
Funding for the project is on the agenda of an upcoming March meeting, under the auspices of the OIC. That meeting is formally devoted to the Darfur crisis. Of particular interest is that OIC head Ihsanoglu announced that the Dakar-Port Sudan railway project is "supported enthusiastically by Russia and China." The Khartoum conference in December was attended by Russian Transport Ministry representatives, in Russia's capacity as an observer in the OIC.
EIR's third issue of 2010 features an in-depth article on this development by EIR's Arabic-language editor Hussein Askary. Askary elaborates not only on the plans, but their significance and promise for bringing Africa into the Four Power agreement which the LaRouche movement is campaigning for.
