Oil
Profits Behind West's
Tears For Darfur
By Norm Dixon
10 August, 2004
Green Left Weekly
For
at least 18 months now, Western governments have quietly stood by as
the non-Arabic-speaking black farmers of the Darfur region in western
Sudan have borne the brunt of a vicious ethnic-cleansing campaign carried
out by state-sponsored bandits known as the janjaweed.
Refugees report
that attacks on farming villages are often preceded by raids by Sudanese
air force fighter-bombers and attack helicopters. The janjaweed, recruited
from Arabic-speaking pastoralist tribes, then routinely murder any male
villagers they can get their hands on, systematically rape or kidnap
the women, and plunder and destroy the villages and crops. The attacks
and their consequences have resulted in the deaths of up to 50,000 people
and the displacement of 1.5 million; aid agencies warn that hundreds
of thousands may die from disease or starvation in the coming months.
Why then have the
governments of the United States and the European Union (EU) only now
begun to express concern over the fate of the people of western Sudan
and demand that the Islamist military regime in Khartoum bring the janjaweed
under control? The answer as it most often is when rich countries
threaten to intervene in the Middle East and Africa is access
to invest in and extract profits from Sudan's burgeoning oil export
industry.
Pressure on Khartoum
Beginning in earnest
in July, Washington, backed by the EU, began to ratchet up the pressure
on Khartoum to rein in the janjaweed. On July 1, US Secretary of State
Colin Powell visited Khartoum, where he sternly warned Sudan's government:
Unless we see more moves soon ... it may be necessary for the
international community to begin considering other actions, to include
Security Council action.
Three days later,
with Powell's threats still ringing in their ears, Sudan's rulers issued
a joint communique with UN secretary-general Kofi Annan in which they
promised to immediately start disarming the janjaweed and other
armed outlaw groups, allow the deployment of human rights
monitors and ensure that all individuals and groups accused
of human rights violations are brought to justice without delay.
The Sudanese government
committed itself to ensure that no militia are present in areas
surrounding internally displaced persons camps and pledged to
deploy a strong, credible and respected police force in all areas
where there are displaced people, as well as areas susceptible to attacks.
It was also agreed that an African Union military force of 300 troops
would be allowed into Darfur to protect AU officials there to monitor
a cease-fire negotiated in April between Khartoum and the main rebel
groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and
Equality Movement (JEM).
In mid-July, Powell
circulated a draft UN Security Council resolution that threatened Khartoum
with unspecified sanctions unless it implemented the July
3 UN-Sudan communique.
Despite the fact
that the draft UN resolution did not authorise the use of military force
and there were no public plans for a UN intervention force in Darfur,
the British and Australian governments added to Washington's pressure
on Khartoum by letting it be known that they were prepared to send troops
to the region if called upon. Britain's top commander, General Mike
Jackson, said on July 26 that he could send 5000 troops to Sudan if
needed, while on July 25 Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer,
claiming to have received a request from the United Nations,
declared that there's a good chance that [Australia] will send
some troops to Sudan.
On July 22, the
US Congress unanimously called on President George Bush to consider
multilateral or even unilateral intervention to prevent genocide
should the United Nations Security Council fail to act.
Agreement on a Security
Council resolution remained stalled until late on July 29 when Washington
finally dropped specific mention of the imposition of sanctions
from the fourth draft. Eight of the UN Security Council's 15 members
including veto-wielding China and Russia had opposed the
specific threat of sanctions.
In its final form,
the resolution warned that unless Khartoum made progress in implementing
the July 3 communique within 30 days of the resolution's adoption, the
Security Council would consider further actions, including measures
as provided for in Article 41 [of the UN Charter]. Article 41
excludes military action but allows economic and diplomatic sanctions.
The resolution was passed on July 31, by a margin of 13-0, with China
and Pakistan abstaining.
Oil
Some left-wing commentators
have interpreted the motive behind Washington's newfound concern for
Darfur as well as the British and Australian governments' volunteering
of troops for a phantom UN intervention force as an effort by
Washington to justify an Iraq-style invasion of Sudan to achieve regime
change and seize control of its potentially massive oil reserves.
While US and European
governments' goal is renewed access by their countries oil corporations
to Sudan's oil wealth, Washington's latest threats against Sudan are
part of a carrot and stick approach that it has pursued
with Khartoum since the 9/11 attacks. Knowing that Sudan is desperate
to normalise relations with the US, Washington is attempting
to lure Khartoum back into the neocolonial fold using the carrot
of promises to lift US economic sanctions imposed in 1997 and the stick
of the threat of further sanctions. Such an approach was successful
with neighbouring Libya.
Washington too is
eager to lift its economic sanctions. Since 1997, US oil companies have
been excluded from profiting from the massive expansion of Sudan's oil
industry since 1999, which has been dominated by Chinese, Malaysian,
Indian, Canadian and some European companies. Fighting in the 21-year-long
civil war in Sudan's oil-rich south, as well as pressure from human
rights activists, has forced Canadian and most European firms to sell
off or suspend their operations in southern Sudan over the last two
years.
Upon coming to office
in 2001, one of the Bush administration's earliest foreign policy objectives
was to secure a peace agreement between the southern-based Sudan People's
Liberation Movement (SPLM) and Khartoum, allowing Washington to lift
sanctions. Bush appointed former US senator John Danforth, now Washington's
UN ambassador, as his special envoy for peace in Sudan.
In July 2002, Danforth,
who led an international Trioka made up of US, British and
Norwegian officials, succeeded with bribes and threats in convincing
the SPLM and Khartoum to sign a draft peace agreement that promised
a referendum six years or so after a final peace agreement is signed
and an autonomous secular government in the south (while Islamic law
would continue to govern the northern two-thirds of the country). An
informal cease-fire agreement was reached in October 2002.
In May this year,
Khartoum and the SPLM agreed that government revenue from the export
of oil from the southern oil fields would be split between the SPLM-dominated
southern regional government and the central government in Khartoum.
All that remained was for further talks, which were scheduled to begin
on June 22, to finalise procedures for an internationally monitored
cease-fire agreement and a timeline for implementing the peace deal.
Since February 2003,
when the Darfur rebellion erupted, Washington and the EU all but ignored
the atrocities taking place in Darfur in the hope that they would not
impact on the main game. Only when the escalating crisis in Darfur threatened
to derail the north-south peace deal and prevent the opening up of Sudan's
lucrative oilfields to Western exploitation did the US start waving
the threat of UN sanctions against Sudan.
According to the
July 23 issue of Middle East International, SPLM leader John Garang
recently warned there would be no deal that ignored Darfur...
Far from completing arrangements for a formal cease-fire by the middle
of July as planned, substantive talks have yet to commence.
Washington's underlying
policy approach was summarised in an article in the June 10 International
Herald Tribune co-written by Chester Crocker, a former assistant US
secretary of state for African affairs in the Reagan administration:
Implementing Sudan's complex, six-year transition agreement will
be far more difficult than negotiating it... The agreement will fly
apart without sustained international attention... Peace will only have
a chance in Sudan if there is active US leadership. The United States
has the needed leverage, including through the potential to lift sanctions
and normalise diplomatic relations. It can also provide serious resources
and play a key role on the UN Security Council.
In this framework,
Crocker recommended that the US address the immediate crisis in
Darfur, while aggressively nailing down the broader north-south peace
agreement.
`African solution'
Apart from a few
face-saving outbursts from Sudanese government ministers and army leaders
soon after the Security Council resolution was passed, the Sudanese
regime seems to have fallen into line. On August 5, Reuters reported
that Jan Pronk, Annan's special representative in Sudan, was already
telling reporters that the government has to be commended for
keeping its promise [on action in Darfur]. We have full access [for
relief supplies]... They have deployed many more police in the region
and they have stopped their own military activities against villages.
That same day, Brigadier
Jamal al Huweris, police commissioner in northern Darfur, told the Sudanese
Media Centre, a pro-government newsagency, that the janjaweed would
soon be disarmed.
Meanwhile, the African
Union announced on August 4 it will send up to 2000 troops, drawn from
Nigeria, Rwanda and Tanzania, to Darfur with an expanded mandate to
protect refugees, disarm and neutralise the janjaweed and
allow the deliveries of aid supplies.
Sudanese foreign
minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told Reuters on August 5 that Sudan would
cooperate with the AU force. The rebel SLM/A and JEM, as well as the
opposition National Democratic Alliance, have also endorsed the African
solution of an AU peacekeeping force in Darfur.