In this issue:

Sudan's Ambassador Talks to EIR About Darfur

UN Security Council Passes U.S. Resolution Against Sudan

Sudanese Columnist: Anglo-American 'Heroes' Are the Villains

U.S. 'Observer' Eggs On Sudan Insurrectionists

NATO Moots Support for African Union Troops in Darfur

Arab League To Fund African Union Observers in Darfur

U.S. To Lift Remaining Sanctions Against Libya

U.S. Trains African Special Forces Who Follow Orders

MI6 Chief Has Business Links to Coup Plotter

From Volume 3, Issue Number 39 of EIR Online, Published Sep. 28, 2004
Africa News Digest

Sudan's Ambassador Talks to EIR About Darfur

See this week's InDepth for EIR's interview with Khidir H. Ahmed, the Sudanese Ambassador to the United States.

UN Security Council Passes U.S. Resolution Against Sudan

At an unusual Saturday session Sept. 18, the UN Security Council passed the U.S.-drafted resolution threatening Sudan with sanctions, by a vote of 11 to 0, with China, Russia, Pakistan, and Algeria abstaining. Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya said afterwards that he had not vetoed the resolution, because China did not want to hinder the work of the African Union (AU). The resolution calls for a much larger AU monitoring force. But, according to China Daily Sept. 19, Ambassador Wang "served notice he would veto any future resolution that would impose sanctions. 'That is the message,' he told reporters." The Anglo-American press has so far has either suppressed or softened "the message."

Before the vote, U.S. Ambassador John Danforth viciously attacked Sudan and called the crisis in Darfur "uniquely grave. It is the largest humanitarian disaster in the world." Sudan's Ambassador Elfatih Erwa responded that the resolution—"the worst form of injustice and indignity"—was instigated by a country that kills women and children in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine, and commits torture in prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo. "It believes it is the only conscience of the world and indeed they have the divine right to decide the destiny of all peoples. The emperor has no clothes." Danforth countered that Erwa's broadside was an "unseemly and an uncalled-for attack on the United States"—and off the subject—by a government that attacked its own people with helicopters last month.

Speaker of the Sudanese Parliament Ibrahim Ahmed al-Taher warned Sept. 19 against an intervention in Sudan. "If Iraq opened for the West one gate of Hell, we will open seven such gates," he said, according to the Sudanese Media Center in Khartoum. "We will not surrender this country to anybody," he added.

The Sudanese Embassy in Washington later said Sudan is committed to the resolution, "even though it was unfair and unjust to Sudan," according to the Sudanese newspaper Al-Sahafa, the South African Mail & Guardian reported Sept. 19.

Sudanese Columnist: Anglo-American 'Heroes' Are the Villains

Referencing the "imperial powers" and Darfur, Abdul-Rahman El-Zuma wrote in his regular column in Sudan Vision Sept. 18, that "the 'heroes' are the 'villains' themselves. The 'rescuers' of the victims are in fact the butchers of those victims and the 'defenders' of human rights are actually the most ruthless to human rights." Sudan Vision is a Christian English-language daily published in Khartoum. El-Zuma's column of Sept. 18 was reprinted—as it often is—by the official Sudan News Agency (SUNA).

U.S. 'Observer' Eggs On Sudan Insurrectionists

The U.S. "observer" at the Sudan peace negotiations is pushing the insurrectionists to take tough positions, Sudan's Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail charged Sept. 16, according to Xinhua news service of China. "The U.S. observer in the Abuja talks is close to the rebels and even calls on them to take tough positions," he told the press, after meeting with Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa in Cairo.

NATO Moots Support for African Union Troops in Darfur

NATO has been considering since Sept. 9, a request from UN General Secretary Kofi Annan to provide planning, communications, and logistics for African Union (AU) forces in Darfur, Sudan, according to a Sept. 15 AP story datelined Brussels. Reporter Paul Ames writes that NATO Secretary General Jaap De Hoop Scheffer "raised the prospect of a NATO role, in a speech last week after a telephone discussion about Darfur with ... Kofi Annan." De Hoop Scheffer told a conference in Helsinki Sept. 9, "We have to think creatively [about] how we can work together. For example, by giving logistic or other assistance to the AU, if it would ask." He asked the 26 NATO nations "to respond quickly and positively," Ames writes. This is the first time the UN has come to NATO for help in an African mission.

Ames refers throughout to support for a "peacekeeping" mission rather than to an observer mission.

Louise Arbour—recently appointed as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights—departed for Khartoum and Darfur on Sept. 18 at Annan's request, and with Khartoum's permission, "to see what further measures can be taken by the UN to protect civilians from violence," according to Voice of America Sept. 18. (As Chief Prosecutor of the Rwanda genocide tribunal, Arbour suppressed the UN's own investigation when it indicated the guilt of Washington pawn Paul Kagame, now known to be guilty.) Juan Mendez, the UN genocide specialist, went with Arbour to Khartoum.

Meanwhile, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher confirmed that the U.S. has perhaps "two or four" troops in Darfur supporting the AU military observer mission, AP reported Sept. 15. The U.S. has sent $6.8 million to support an expanded AU deployment and has another $25.5 million ready.

Arab League To Fund African Union Observers in Darfur

Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa told the press in Cairo Sept. 16, that the League would help fund the African Union observers monitoring the ceasefire in Darfur. It will also help cover administrative expenses of the Sudan peace negotiations in Abuja, Nigeria.

U.S. To Lift Remaining Sanctions Against Libya

The Bush Administration lifted some of the sanctions against Libya Sept. 21, allowing commercial air service there for the first time since 1986. The U.S. also released $1.3 billion in frozen Libyan assets, but Libya has to pay at least $1 billion in compensation to 269 families of the victims killed in Pan Am Flight 103, which crashed over Scotland in 1988.

CNN reported Sept. 17 that the U.S. has now told Libya that it has met all its requirements for eliminating its WMD programs. The U.S. and Britain walked off with 1,032 metric tons of objectionable material.

The sanctions have been in place since the 1986 bombing of a Berlin disco in which Libya was blamed. Two U.S. servicemen and a Turkish woman died, and 229 were injured, including many Americans.

While the State Department acknowledges Libya's progress in ending support for the wrong terrorists, Libya will not be removed from the State Department's list of State Sponsors of Terrorism until some remaining issues are resolved.

Administration officials hope Libya's submission will be a model for inducing other "rogue" nations to come out with their hands up.

U.S. Trains African Special Forces Who Follow Orders

The Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorist Initiative (TSCTI) is training African Special Forces on a broad scale. Until recently, known as the Pan-Sahel Initiative, the TSCTI is nominally a U.S. State Department program to train units of the armies of Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Chad to fight terrorist groups in the Sahel and the Sahara supposedly seeking refuge from more accessible locales. U.S. European Command does the training.

The main U.S. concern is supposed to be the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), now only 40 in number in this location, which has reportedly identified itself with al-Qaeda. Of Algerian origin, it has been largely driven out of that country.

Major Suaoua Barmou Moussa of the Niger army told Reuters Sept. 23, "Our fear is that incursions by the GSPC will trigger fresh acts of rebellion such as those we saw a few years ago"—a reference to the so-called Second Tuareg Rebellion (1990s). The Tuareg (their real name is kel Tamashek) are semi-nomadic pastoralists and farmers spread over Mali, Niger, Chad, and other countries. "Experience has shown us that if we do not act in time, various armed groups could be called into working with elements of the GSPC," Moussa said.

EIR notes that the claim of kel Tamashek possibly working with the GSPC seems far-fetched. The kel Tamashek rebellion of the 1990s (partly funded by Libya's Qaddafi) was separatist, and not at all Islamist.

The real purpose of the TSCTI could be to nip another kel Tamashek rebellion in the bud. Some former kel Tamashek rebels declared such a new rebellion earlier this year, and there is a pattern of desertions of kel Tamashek officers from the Niger army who earlier fought in the rebellion. This endangers a major uranium mine near Arlit, operated by France, Spain, and Japan.

The TSCTI strategy is to give satellite intelligence to the newly trained special forces. Sergeant Amadou Ide told Reuters, "This battle is supported by Niger, but directed by the United States.... We have become international soldiers."

MI6 Chief Has Business Links to Coup Plotter

According to the Sunday Times of London Sept. 19, the former business partner of Simon Mann, the British mercenary who is accused of trying to lead a coup against the government of Equatorial Guinea, is the nephew of Sir Richard Dearlove, the former chief of MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence service. Justin Longley, whose mother is Dearlove's sister, was general manager of DiamondWorks, one of the key mining companies that created Executive Outcomes, the notorious mercenary company owned by Mann.

Although Longley is not linked to the coup conspiracy, he did work with Mann in mining, forestry, and other projects in Africa, including in Sudan, where a third person involved was Mark Thatcher. The son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was arrested in South Africa for allegedly financing the coup attempt.

Longley was in Sudan with Mann as recently as December 2002, when he identified himself as a "senior project manager" from "Logo Logistics," which is Mann's company that was key in the Equatorial Guinea coup plot.

Longley's mother is said to be good friends with "Ms. Africa Genocide" herself, Lady Lynda Chalker.

Longley was also manager of Oryx Natural Resources which the UN accused was involved with "blood diamonds" in the Congo, although it was never proved. Longley also worked closely with Greg Wales, who has also been accused of financing the Equatorial Guinea coup attempt. Longley once told the source of the Times article that Wales was a "spook," and had "worked for the CIA and the commercial wing of the Republican Party."

Longley now works for a company called Synchromedia Ltd., which employs another relative of Simon Mann, by the name of Andrew Mann.

All rights reserved © 2004 EIRNS