In this issue:

NEPAD Alliance Designed To Block—Not Help—Development

Anglo-American Networks Move Against Sudan Peace Plan

Sudan Aids U.S. in Terrorism Arrest

U.S. Congressman Pushes Recolonization of Africa

From the Vol.1,No.15 issue of Electronic Intelligence Weekly
AFRICA NEWS DIGEST

NEPAD Alliance Designed To Block—Not Help—Development

Kenya stands to lose nothing by not being a member of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), said Central Organization of Trade Unions Secretary General Francis Atwoli on June 9. He charged that NEPAD lacks the African leaders' approach to economic development found in the Lagos Plan of Action on Africa's Economic Recovery, issued in Lagos, Nigeria in 1981.

"The original idea for Africa's economic advancement mooted in Lagos," Atwoli said, was scuttled by the World Bank and IMF, as it had the right approach to the economic problems actually facing many African countries. He told the Nairobi-based East African Standard that NEPAD was established to kill the original idea of the African Union, which had set objectives which could have delivered the African continent from its current problems. Atwoli made the remarks just a week after a three-day African trade-union conference in Nairobi, where 100 representatives from 56 trade unions in 44 countries met to work out a continental survival strategy.

Atwoli noted that the initial plan for an African Union, promoted by Libyan leader Muammar Quaddafi, called for the North African countries, which are endowed with oil reserves, to sell oil cheaply to the rest of Africa, while the rest of Africa would sell agricultural produce to the northern states. "This will not be realized, as South Africa is now playing the good boy to the West while jeopardizing efforts by Africa to economically liberate itself through inter-trade within the continent. The NEPAD way is a vicious cycle of exploitation of poor developing countries by the West," said Atwoli.

He alleged that the group of four (G-4), now known as the powerful four—South Africa, Senegal, Nigeria, and Algeria—have been promised $80 billion each, yet Kenya and Libya were being denied this aid, because that would mean giving the two a jump-start in their economic recovery.

Anglo-American Networks Move Against Sudan Peace Plan

Despite months of discussions between the U.S. and Sudan carried out by Bush Administration representative John Danforth, the former Senator, to seek a peace settlement in Sudan, Anglo-American/utopian networks in the U.S. Congress are working to keep Sudan destabilized, and painted as an enemy nation.

The official SUNA news agency in Khartoum reported that Sudan's Presidential peace adviser, Ghazi Salah Al-Din Al-Atabani, criticized certain U.S. organizations for their "enmity" toward Sudan, displayed at U.S. Congressional hearings on June 5. The Sudanese government had officially asked to participate in the hearings, and asked for the participation of Americans of moderate opinions, but was turned down. Sudan's Ambassador to the U.S., Khidr Harun Ahmad, had hoped to moderate the "flagrant hostility" of most of the participants, and provide balance in the session.

SUNA quoted Salah al-Din June 8 as saying that certain groups hostile to Sudan want to confuse American policy towards the country, and derail progress achieved by U.S. peace envoy Danforth. He noted that some of the institutions of the U.S. Administration, such as the State Department's Agency for International Development (AID), were either confused or dishonest. AID had called for "confiscation [erosion] of the sovereignty of the Sudan government," he said. The demands included in the AID testimony to Congress would be rejected by the Sudanese government, Salah al-Din said.

Long-time Sudan-hater Roger Winter, now AID assistant administrator, testified that Khartoum's operational barriers to the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Sudan are "so consistent as to amount to a deliberate strategy."

The deputy director of AID and Assistant Secretary of State Walter Kansteiner both testified, and according to SUNA, "said there is cooperation between Sudan and the United States in the humanitarian fields and progress in the peace field which was achieved through the efforts of Sen. John Danforth," referring inter alia to the ceasefire in the Nuba Mountains and the agreement to protect civilians. Kansteiner said the White House is opposed to sanctions against oil companies doing business with Sudan because it would be "a precedent for political interference in U.S. capital markets," according to UN Integrated Regional Information Networks.

At issue in the Senate hearings was the so-called "Sudan Peace" bill passed by the House of Representatives a year ago, which includes sanctions against Sudan and the oil companies and $10 million in support for the rebel movement in the South.

Sudan Aids U.S. in Terrorism Arrest

Former Clinton Ambassador to Sudan Tim Carney, was quoted in the Washington Post of June 14, saying that Sudan has been totally cooperative with the United States in the war on terror. Sudan has arrested Abu Huzifa, a suspected al Qaeda-linked terrorist, at the request of the United States, in the latest in a string of Sudanese anti-terror operations. Abu Huzifa is now in U.S. custody in a "neighboring country," where he is being interrogated, and is reportedly cooperating. He has detailed his infiltration of Saudi Arabia, to profile vulnerability of U.S. troops to terrorist attack, according to the Washington Post. He described how he fired a SAM missile at a U.S. warplane near the Prince Sultan Air Base, one of the headquarters of the U.S. Afghan military operations.

The Sudanese efforts to stop terrorism create an obstacle to those in the U.S. who want to keep Sudan on a list of "enemy nations" that support terrorism. The anti-Sudan efforts have been centered around private organizations such as the Christian Solidarity destabilizers of British Baroness Caroline Cox, and U.S. Congressmen Frank Wolf (R-Va) and Donald Payne (D-NJ).

U.S. Congressman Pushes Recolonization of Africa

Congressman Ed Royce (R-Calif), who chairs the U.S. Congressional Subcommittee on Africa, says the "Chad model" of recolonization should be applied to Angola. Royce's Subcommittee planned hearings June 10-14, on securing Angolan oil for the United States, working from the National Intelligence Council's Global Trends 2015 (issued December 2001), Vice President Dick Cheney's National Energy Policy Report, and a report of the African Oil Policy Initiative Group (AOPIG) entitled, "African Oil: A Priority for U.S. National Security and African Development."

AOPIG is a consortium of policymakers and oil companies; the Jerusalem-based think tank that also operates in Washington, the Institute for Advanced Strategic & Political Studies (IASPS), run by Robert Loewenberg, Angelo Codevilla, William R. Van Cleave, Alvin Rabushka, and David Wurmser, is also involved. IASPS is a neo-conservative outfit tied to the racist Likud networks in Israel, and is financed by the Richard Mellon Scaife foundations in the United States.

Royce has issued a statement calling for the application to Angola of the model just established in obtaining oil from Chad through the Chad-Cameroon Pipeline Project. There, "the government of Chad has agreed to earmark a large percentage of [its oil] revenue to spending on education, health, and infrastructure. Aggressive outside auditing of the oil books is planned." The World Bank is also involved. It looks as if the U.S. State Department, the oil companies, and the World Bank will effectively control Chad's economy.

Congressman Royce adds, "There appears to be a chance now to counter the Angolan government's pilfering of oil revenues, which has gone on for years."

The Royce Subcommittee also held hearings in 2000 on Africa as a potential major oil producer.

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