Africa News Digest
LaRouche: Egypt Is Targeted for Destruction via Sudan
In his webcast from Washington, D.C., on Oct. 6, Lyndon LaRouche discussed the perpetual war scenario unfolding throughout Africa and West and Central Asia. Concerning Egypt and Sudan, he said:
"The way this Darfur thing is being mishandled and misrepresented, including by Kerry, is part of the problem. The target is, of certain people, to try to destroy Egypt, by destroying Sudan. Garang [John Garang, leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army, SPLA] is a U.S. agent. Garang's agents are part of the slaughter. That's the genocide.... The other agent is [Hassan] al-Turabi, who's a British agent, of the Muslim Brotherhood pedigree.... So, you say the Sudanese government is doing it; it is the United States government that's doing it, with the British. They created the situation in which this happened. There is death occurring there. Yes. It should be corrected. But who's doing it? It's the United States government, who is as guilty as anybody else.... The purpose is, they grab the water and oil of the region, from Sudan. And while they grab the water, they're going to collapse Egypt. You collapse Egypt, you want peace? You want Hell on Earth?"
Blair Obtains Agreement in Khartoum
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in two hours of talks with Sudanese President Umar Hassan al-Bashir Oct. 6, obtained agreement to five points: A significant expansion of the African Union observer force and of its protective troops (to 3,500 or 4,000); the government must identify the location of its troops and munitions in Darfur; it must return its troops to barracks in conjunction with a similar withdrawal by the insurrectionists; it must commit itself to reaching a comprehensive peace agreement with the insurrectionists in Darfur and southern Sudan by Dec. 31; and it must abide by the humanitarian accords signed with the UN.
Blair called the talks "frank, open, and I think constructive," the Daily Telegraph reported Oct. 7. Sudan's Foreign Minister Mustafa Usman Isma'il claimed the government had not been put under pressure by Blair, according to the Guardian Oct. 7. "Rather, [Blair] expressed his concern and Britain's concern and the concern of the international community about the situation in Darfur.... And we share the same concern. The conditions in Darfur are not normal."
Blair told reporters at the British Embassy in Khartoum Oct. 6, "The fact that I have come is, I hope, an indication of the seriousness with which we take the situation." He is the first British leader to visit Sudan since independence in 1956, and the highest-level official from a European or North American government to visit Sudan since the Darfur crisis erupted, the Guardian reported. Britain is the largest aid donor to Sudan.
U.S. Proposes UN Security Council Squat Over Sudan Talks
U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Danforth proposed Oct. 8 that the UN Security Council meet next month in Kenya, at the site of the resumed talks between Khartoum and John Garang's Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA).
Blair's talks with Sudanese President al-Bashir Oct. 6, and now this novel proposal, are designed to force completion of the process. "We have at least raised the possibility for council consideration that the Security Council might do something extraordinary, and that is to convene the Security Council at the site of the peace negotiations in Kenya," Danforth said. The U.S. will hold the rotating presidency of the Security Council in November. The Sudan negotiations resumed in Nairobi, Kenya, Oct. 7, with Kofi Annan's envoy Jan Pronk present.
There have been two failed attempts to complete the series of agreements in recent months. The only remaining area of disagreement is security and procedural arrangements in going beyond ceasefire to ending the war.
On behalf of the Anglo-American powers, the International Crisis Group threatened Khartoum with renewed war, in a paper issued Oct. 5: "Unless current dynamics change and the UN Security Council puts more pressure on Khartoum to conclude the ... agreement, war could soon resume across the country," it said.
Pa'gan Amum, one of the SPLA negotiators, told Reuters Oct. 7 that if agreement were not reached, "There would be full war in the South and the East, and Darfur" in the West. This southerner should know about the East and Darfur, since the three insurrections are one.
A Sudanese intelligence official not wishing to be named, told Reuters by telephone from Khartoum, that the head of the Darfur Justice and Equality Movement, "Dr. [Khalil] Ibrahim, and his troops, are parading up and down the border [the Eritrean border, in the East], we have seen him." Reuters then reached Ibrahim by telephone in Eritrea.
Al-Bashir Moves To Outflank Insurgencies
Sudan's President Umar al-Bashir, in a major address opening a new session of Parliament, moved to outflank existing and potential insurgencies. He told Parliament Oct. 4 that he wants to generalize the peace terms offered to the SPLA, to all of Sudan's outlying provinces. He called it a "framework of a new equation aimed at sharing power and wealth between the center and the provinces," and said that, "The agreement for sharing the country's wealth will be considered in the new budget to be issued in the beginning of next year."
Bashir Attacks U.S. for Arming, Training Insurrectionists
In an interview Sept. 30 with Al-Ahram, the Egyptian semi-official daily, President al-Bashir said, "I must again point out that the United States is supporting the rebels in Darfur to the hilt, and highlight its pressure on the UN Security Council" to impose solutions on Sudan. "Who else than the U.S. is behind this?... They took rebels to Eritrea, and set up training camps for them, spent money on them, armed them, and gave them Thuraya mobiles to speak between anywhere in the world.... Eritrea ... was the land used, but the training, spending, and planning was paid for by foreign powers, at the head of them the U.S., represented in its agencies." Al-Bashir said he had documents to prove his charges. He did not mention the fundamental British role that has been setting U.S. policy. According to Reuters Sept. 30, a U.S. State Department official in Washington denied everything. He asked not to be named.
African Union Plans Mini-Summit on Darfur Crisis
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's spokesman announced Oct. 4 that Mubarak has accepted African Union (AU) President Olusegun Obasanjo's invitation to participate in an AU mini-summit on the crisis in Darfur, Sudan. Spokesman Maged Abdel Fattah said the summit was part of AU efforts to "contain the situation in Darfur" and to "fend off the consequences of UN Security Council resolutions and consolidate the role of the AU in dealing with the conflict." The summit would seek a "suitable political solution" that would be "accepted by Sudan," rather than be imposed from outside.
Chad and Libya will also attend. Obasanjo will chair the meeting, to be held in Libya before Oct. 21. Sudan's President will attend, as will "all concerned Sudanese parties," according to Abdel Fattah.
Darfur Insurrectionists Break Into Western Kordofan State
One of the Darfur insurrectionary movements carried out a hit-and-run attack in Ghubeish, perhaps 75 miles into Western Kordofan state over the border from Southern Darfur state, killing and injuring 20 people, apparently on Oct. 1. It is not clear which movement was responsible. State Minister for Foreign Affairs Najib Abdulwahab told Reuters Oct. 2 that it was an attempt "to widen the scope of the conflict into Kordofan." The insurrectionists attacked a police station in nearby al-Majrur Oct. 1, according to the independent Sudanese daily Akhbar al-Youm. It said the attackers told local people they were in control of al-Majrur and would attack Ghubeish.
Proposal for Darfur Would Breach Sudan's Sovereignty
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, having just returned from Darfur, told the UN Security Council Sept. 30 that a large international police force is needed to protect the refugees in camps there, according to a Washington File (U.S. State Department) release of the same date.
Arbour praised the AU monitors, but what she wants is people with police powers. She says the refugees don't trust the Sudanese police and "expressed their faith [in] and total dependence on the international community for protection." "What we see now are individual attacks on a massive scale, i.e., in all the camps where ... women attempt to step out to collect firewood there is very widespread preying on [them]." So, she says, international officers must accompany Sudanese police "to monitor their work and assist them in human rights awareness, community relations, and in reporting." Arbour's proposal would mean a formal breach in Sudan's sovereigntyjust what Sudan has consistently rejected.
The release leaves little doubt that the State Department supports the idea, of which it may be the real author.
Bashir Threatens To Execute Turabi if Guilty of Coup Plot
Sudanese President al-Bashir has threatened to execute Hassan Al-Turabi if he's found guilty in trial of alleged coup plotting, a risky step given Turabi's large following. Turabi's wife, Wisal al-Mahdi, visited him in prison Sept. 25 after returning from Britain, where she met with British politicians and Amnesty International, seeking leverage to get her husband released. She told the weekly online edition of the Egyptian semi-official newspaper Al-Ahram (Sept. 30-Oct. 6), that he wasn't allowed access to news. "He didn't know that al-Bashir has threatened to execute him if found guilty of involvement in the alleged coup," she said.
Turabi has denied any involvement in the March and September coup attempts alleged by the government, or links to the insurrectionists. He does say he sympathizes with some of their demands, such as decentralization of power, BBC reported Sept. 30, after al-Mahdi's visit.
Turabi's Popular Congress Party had earlier denied involvement in any coup plot, saying there were differences within the army, but no plot.
The trial of the 32 alleged March plottersmembers of Turabi's Popular Congress Party, including at least two generalsopened Sept. 30.
UN Security Council Votes Larger Congo Peacekeeping Force
The UN Security Council voted unanimously to add 5,900 troops to the peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo, including a rapid reaction force of 700. Most will go to the East. The current force is 10,800. After the vote, Kofi Annan said that the "minimum required to meet the current challenges in the D.R.C." is a total force of 23,900. The Bush Administration would not agree to the full number, citing cost and the difficulties of finding countries willing to supply the troops.
There are still well-defended Rwandan mining operations to be cleaned out in eastern Congo, which are not only robbing the country of its mineral wealth, but have enslaved local populations to do the workand who then soon die from malaria and cholera because there is no clean water at the mines. Those who avoid this fate, do so by living in hiding in the forest. This is going on within 80 miles of Goma.
Shell Oil Study Behind Concessions to Separatist Asari
A recent study commissioned by Shell Oil was a factor in Nigerian President Obasanjo's unprecedented concessions to armed separatist Mujahid Dokubo Asari. Earlier this year, Shell Oil commissioned WAC Global Services, an international security company, to study security conditions in the Niger Delta. The study concluded, "If current conflict trends continue uninterrupted, it would be surprising if SCIN [Shell Companies in Nigeria] is able to continue on-shore resource extraction in the Niger Delta beyond 2008, whilst complying with Shell Business Principles."
That was before Asari's militia, the militia sent against him by the Rivers State government (Ateke Tom's Niger Delta Vigilante), and federal forces killed 500 people in just a few weeks, and Asari threatened Sept. 27 to launch Operation Locust Feast against the federal government, ostensibly across whole country.
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