US
Pushes For Larger UN
Intervention In Western Sudan
By Brian Smith and
Chris Talbot
10 March 2006
World
Socialist Web
Only
days after a closed meeting in February with United Nations Secretary
General Kofi Annan, US President George Bush called for the number of
troops in the Darfur region of western Sudan to be doubled. He said
the troops would be “probably under the United Nations,”
but called for a greater role to be played by NATO in planning and facilitating
the intervention.
His statements indicate that
the US administration, after little comment on Darfur for the last year,
has now decided to more aggressively pursue its policy on Sudan.
Until recently, US official
policy had been to support the African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission
in Darfur region (AMIS). In his remarks, Bush said that the AU had failed
to provide security. “The effort was noble, but it didn’t
achieve the objective,” he said.
There is a deteriorating
humanitarian situation in Darfur, with attacks on civilians continuing.
According to the UN, some 180,000 people have died from violence, disease
or starvation since the present conflict began in February 2003. Some
2 million people have fled their homes and are living in camps, relying
on food aid from the UN and NGOs.
Cross-border raids by militias
from Darfur into neighbouring Chad are increasing, with crops and villages
attacked and cattle and livestock looted. Chad and Sudan are accusing
each other of backing anti-government militias, and there is a real
risk of trans-border tribal ties internationalising the Darfur conflict,
with a potential for open confrontation between the neighbouring countries.
The newfound interest of
the Bush administration in western Sudan has nothing to do with humanitarianism,
however, but is bound up with the geo-political interests of US imperialism.
There is growing concern
about China’s influence in the region. For several years the main
recipient of oil from Sudan, China has now increased investment and
is developing its political relations with Khartoum.
A recent Financial Times
article quoted a Sudanese official explaining that China is now important
“not only on an economic level but also a political level.”
According to the article, “China has stepped up sales of arms
including fighter aircraft. The manufacture in Sudan of Chinese weapons
and ammunition complicates the enforcement of a UN embargo on supplies
to militias in Darfur. Chinese-designed arms and radios are reported
to have been used across the border in Chad—where France keeps
a garrison—by rebels alleged to be operating with Sudanese support.”
This is the political backdrop
to the Sudan government’s growing boldness in ignoring Western
criticism of its involvement in Darfur and Chad and, more fundamentally,
its backtracking on the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) for Southern
Sudan.
The US-brokered agreement
between the Sudan government and the southern Sudan People’s Liberation
Movement (SPLM) reached in January 2005 brought to an end the country’s
21-year-old civil war. Especially since last year’s death of long-time
SPLM leader John Garang, the CPA deal has become increasingly shaky.
A key part of the deal was
to allow Sudan’s oil wealth to be shared with the south and open
up possibilities for US and European corporations. Sudan’s oil
reserves are estimated at between 660 million and 1.2 billion barrels.
According to Africa Confidential, the Khartoum regime has blocked oil
revenues going to the south and has also refused to disband the government-backed
militias that operate in the southern area—key parts of the CPA.
The shift in the US approach
to Sudan was evident at the beginning of February, when Washington and
London succeeded in getting an agreement in principle that the UN Security
Council would transform the existing AMIS peacekeeping force into a
UN-controlled mission.
The Security Council envisaged
AMIS being absorbed into the existing UN mission (UNMIS), which was
established in mid-2004 to enforce the CPA. It was estimated that a
UN mission for Darfur would need four years and up to 20,000 soldiers
to complete. AMIS currently has around 7,000 peacekeepers.
Bush’s meeting with
Kofi Annan appears to have been an attempt to speed up the process.
According to Annan, it was agreed that the UN force would need to be
“a much more effective force on the ground”—current
rules of engagement for the AU force preclude active policing operations
that could lead them into conflict with both Sudanese troops and rebel
forces.
In February, US Ambassador
to the United Nations John Bolton, used the one-month US presidency
of the UN Security Council to raise concern over Sudan and press for
the UN peacekeeping force to be sent to Darfur in the immediate future.
He was opposed by all other Security Council members, including Britain,
which advised more diplomacy and waiting for the African Union to make
the official request for transition to a UN force. It is expected that
the AU will agree to the transition, but the fact that the Sudan government
is lobbying hard against it may cause delays.
Bolton also attempted to
get the Security Council to agree to sanctions against key individuals
for their roles in the continuing military conflict in the region. The
UN agreed last year to such sanctions and set up a panel of experts
to draw up a list of individuals to be targeted, including Sudan’s
interior and defence ministers and national intelligence chief. But
China, Russia and Qatar have rejected the panel’s proposals.
NATO was already involved
in providing transport for AMIS, but the US is now pushing for its role
to be extended. Robert Zoellick, deputy to Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice, said that “NATO is needed while the UN prepares its force,”
since the UN force could take up to a year to get off the ground.
Such a role for NATO is not
supported by all the Western powers, however. French diplomats are arguing
that the European Union (EU) is better placed than NATO for an African
operation and have suggested that a NATO mission would reduce the European
Security and Defence Policy’s role and visibility in a vital and
sensitive arena.
Accusations of genocide
For months there has been
virtually no mention by the US administration of “genocide”
taking place in Darfur. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell used
the term in 2004, when there was widespread criticism of the Sudanese
government. According to international law, if genocide has taken place,
the UN must intervene.
In an interview last year
on the BBC’s “Panorama” programme, John Danforth,
the former US Ambassador to the UN, admitted that Colin Powell’s
genocide declaration was made to appease the religious right in the
US in the run-up to the presidential election. Domestic considerations
aside, the Bush administration also sought to use the genocide tag to
threaten and pressure the Khartoum government into signing the CPA agreement.
Subsequently, the hypocritical
feigning of concern about civilian casualties was dropped, and the US
administration was content to see Darfur policed by the ineffective
African Union’s force. The AU relies on donor states for funding,
and the force has been hampered throughout its short existence by a
lack of sufficient funds. The EU currently pays two thirds, whilst the
US cut its share of AU funding from the Foreign Operations Appropriations
Bill.
In April 2005, the US administration
distanced itself from Powell’s genocide comments, with Zoellick
using the UN’s phrase, “crimes against humanity,”
instead. Zoellick also made a point of backing Khartoum’s position
regarding the actions of the so-called Janjaweed militias in attacking
civilians in Darfur. He said, “There are tribal disputes that
may be out of anybody’s control,” contradicting a wealth
of evidence that these militias are backed by the Sudanese government.
Behind the scenes, the US
administration has also been doing good business with the Sudanese secret
service, the Mukhabarat, which has provided the CIA with extensive intelligence
on East Africa.
The Los Angeles Times reports
that the CIA has cooperated with the Mukhabarat since before 9/11 (though
the relationship has deepened since then), and that there has been an
active CIA station in Khartoum since November 2001. The Mukhabarat has
detained suspects and handed them over to the CIA for interrogation,
and has also spied on other countries, including Somalia, on behalf
of the CIA.
Africa Confidential believes
that the US is going beyond intelligence cooperation and wants a vast
new embassy in Khartoum—envisaged as a new base for operations
in North Africa. This revives the “listening-post” the CIA
had previously in Sudan, which was one of its largest.
Now, Washington is once again
seeking to step up the pressure on the Sudan government. Bush recently
resurrected the use of “genocide” in relation to western
Sudan and also proposed $500 million for Darfur as part of his special
military budget request to Congress.
Given the key importance
of Sudan, in terms of both its strategic position linking four geopolitical
subsystems—the Red Sea, the Maghreb, Central Africa and the Horn—and
its oilfields, the US cannot afford to allow China to take advantage
of the growing instability in the region.