Sudan: Storm Over the Nile
06 January, 2011 | By Eric Margolis
--------------------------------------------------------------------
million citizens of northern Sudan and create their own new nation –
South Sudan. The United States has been quietly playing the key role
in engineering the breakup of Sudan.
Many of modern Africa’s borders are artificial: they were drawn by
European colonial powers heedless of the continent’s tribal, linguistic
or economic geography.
Any changes in these borders are likely to unleash dangerous tensions,
even demands for secession across the continent.
One of Africa’s strongest taboos has been that borders inherited from
the colonial era are immutable. A break-up of Sudan, Africa’s largest
nation, will bring into question the continent’s entire geopolitical
architecture.
Sudan extends from the Arab world and the sub-Saharan Sahel into
the heart of black Africa; it was cobbled together by the British
Empire to safeguard the Nile, Egypt’s sole source of water, and to
provide agricultural lands.
Within Sudan is a dizzying collection of almost 600 often feuding
tribes speaking 400 different languages spread over a vast area:
northern, Arabic-speaking Muslims and Nubians; ferocious Beja from
the Red Sea Coast ("Fuzzy-Wuzzies" to the British); wild Bagarra
nomads from Darfur; and Stone Age tribes from the upper Nile.
Anyone who thinks Sudan’s problems are something new would do
well to go back and study Britain’s epic 19th-century wars to conquer
Sudan, and the historic uprising and resistance of its Islamic leader,
the Mahdi. One cannot understand modern Darfur without referring to
its tribal conflicts of the 1880’s.*
It is remarkable that Sudan has held together for so long. A low-
intensity civil war has raged for 60 years between Muslim northerners
and non-Muslim southerners in which two million are said to have
perished. Muslims make up 75% of Sudanese; animists (traditional
African faiths) account for about 20%, and southern Christians some
5%. Islamic law has been applied in the north, but rejected by most
non-Muslim southerners.
Southern Sudan’s Christian secessionist movement has long been
advised and financed by British and US Christian missionaries who
saw the region’s tribes as fertile ground for conversion. Western
"humanitarian" aid groups have played a key role in fostering the south
Sudan independence movement.
American Evangelical groups, including so-called "Christian Zionists,"
who are fiercely anti-Islamic, have been playing an important role in
promoting southern Sudan’s secessionist movement. Since
evangelicals now constitute a key Republican constituency, the party
has been quick to adopt the cause of south Sudanese secession.
South Sudan has been rent for decades by local conflicts between its
three main pastoral Nilotic tribes, the Dinka, Shilluk and Nuer, who
routinely launch raids on one another for cattle and women. Their
feuds are likely to carry over into a new south Sudanese state.
Sudan has also suffered another confusing conflict in the remote
western regions of Darfur and Kordofan between nomadic and
farming peoples. The International Criminal Court in The Hague has
indicted Sudan’s strongman, Gen. Omar el-Bashir, for war crimes in
Darfur’s murky tribal war that has become a cause célèbre in the
West.
Just how much Gen. Bashir’s regime is responsible for alleged mass
killings in Darfur’s tribal mêlée remain uncertain. But Sudan is on the
US black list as a terrorist supporter and under US sanctions.
Independent-minded Sudan, branded a "rogue state" by Washington,
has long been targeted for "regime change." The US media and
evangelical Christian groups have demonized Sudan and Gen. Bashir,
and branded him a dangerous Islamist.
Hysteria in North America over Darfur is exceeded only by the public’
s total lack of knowledge about this remote, complex region that is
deceptively – and quite wrongly – portrayed by media as a simplistic
morality struggle between wicked Muslims and helpless black farmers.
Israel has been very active in arming and supporting the South Sudan
SPLA guerilla movement, and will assume an even more influential
role if southern Sudan goes independent.
Israel has been involved in Sudan since the 1950’s. Israel successfully
bribed the late Sudanese dictator, Jaffar al-Numiery, to allow
Ethiopian Falasha Jews to fly to Israel from Sudan.
Sizeable deposits of oil were discovered in Sudan over the past
decade. They are mostly located in south Sudan but the Khartoum
government controls the export pipeline which runs north to Port
Sudan on the Red Sea. China has become a major customer of
Sudanese oil. Washington intends to elbow the Chinese out of Sudan
if the south breaks away.
Control of global oil plays a primary role on US foreign and military
policy. As a result, the US has become ever more deeply involved in
Sudan’s affairs. Washington has been discreetly working with
southern Sudan to create a government, financial system, police, and
army. South Sudanese officials are being trained in the US. The
number of US diplomats and intelligence officers in Sudan has tripled.
A break-up of Sudan may have an immediate effect on other unstable
neighbors, like Somalia, Chad, and the Republic of Congo. Ethiopia,
itself an unstable amalgam, may get more deeply involved in the region.
Egypt, eternally sensitive about who controls the Nile’s life-giving
waters, is deeply worried about Sudan’s future and fears a new
regime in the south may begin diverting the river’s waters.
Just at a time when the US is increasingly active in Djibouti, Yemen,
Somalia, Mali, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, it finds itself deeply
involved in engineering the break-up of Sudan.
All this may be a bridge too far for the already over-stretched US
military, intelligence services, and State Department, not to mention
the empty US Treasury that now runs on borrowed money.
*Anyone interested in 19th-Century Sudan should read Khartoum by
Michael Asher, an ex-SAS officer and old Sudan hand. A brilliant,
stirring recounting of the Dervish uprising, “Chinese” Gordon, and
Imperial Britain’s river wars up the Nile to Khartoum.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric Margolis [" target="_blank">send him mail] is the author of
War at the Top of the World and the new book, American Raj:
Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West
and the Muslim World. See his website.
Courtesy
06 January, 2011 | By Eric Margolis
--------------------------------------------------------------------
- Sudan is about to face
a dangerous political
storm that may tear
asunder that vast nation
and send tremors
across Africa.
- A referendum is
scheduled on 9 January
in which southern
million citizens of northern Sudan and create their own new nation –
South Sudan. The United States has been quietly playing the key role
in engineering the breakup of Sudan.
Many of modern Africa’s borders are artificial: they were drawn by
European colonial powers heedless of the continent’s tribal, linguistic
or economic geography.
Any changes in these borders are likely to unleash dangerous tensions,
even demands for secession across the continent.
One of Africa’s strongest taboos has been that borders inherited from
the colonial era are immutable. A break-up of Sudan, Africa’s largest
nation, will bring into question the continent’s entire geopolitical
architecture.
Sudan extends from the Arab world and the sub-Saharan Sahel into
the heart of black Africa; it was cobbled together by the British
Empire to safeguard the Nile, Egypt’s sole source of water, and to
provide agricultural lands.
Within Sudan is a dizzying collection of almost 600 often feuding
tribes speaking 400 different languages spread over a vast area:
northern, Arabic-speaking Muslims and Nubians; ferocious Beja from
the Red Sea Coast ("Fuzzy-Wuzzies" to the British); wild Bagarra
nomads from Darfur; and Stone Age tribes from the upper Nile.
Anyone who thinks Sudan’s problems are something new would do
well to go back and study Britain’s epic 19th-century wars to conquer
Sudan, and the historic uprising and resistance of its Islamic leader,
the Mahdi. One cannot understand modern Darfur without referring to
its tribal conflicts of the 1880’s.*
It is remarkable that Sudan has held together for so long. A low-
intensity civil war has raged for 60 years between Muslim northerners
and non-Muslim southerners in which two million are said to have
perished. Muslims make up 75% of Sudanese; animists (traditional
African faiths) account for about 20%, and southern Christians some
5%. Islamic law has been applied in the north, but rejected by most
non-Muslim southerners.
Southern Sudan’s Christian secessionist movement has long been
advised and financed by British and US Christian missionaries who
saw the region’s tribes as fertile ground for conversion. Western
"humanitarian" aid groups have played a key role in fostering the south
Sudan independence movement.
American Evangelical groups, including so-called "Christian Zionists,"
who are fiercely anti-Islamic, have been playing an important role in
promoting southern Sudan’s secessionist movement. Since
evangelicals now constitute a key Republican constituency, the party
has been quick to adopt the cause of south Sudanese secession.
South Sudan has been rent for decades by local conflicts between its
three main pastoral Nilotic tribes, the Dinka, Shilluk and Nuer, who
routinely launch raids on one another for cattle and women. Their
feuds are likely to carry over into a new south Sudanese state.
Sudan has also suffered another confusing conflict in the remote
western regions of Darfur and Kordofan between nomadic and
farming peoples. The International Criminal Court in The Hague has
indicted Sudan’s strongman, Gen. Omar el-Bashir, for war crimes in
Darfur’s murky tribal war that has become a cause célèbre in the
West.
Just how much Gen. Bashir’s regime is responsible for alleged mass
killings in Darfur’s tribal mêlée remain uncertain. But Sudan is on the
US black list as a terrorist supporter and under US sanctions.
Independent-minded Sudan, branded a "rogue state" by Washington,
has long been targeted for "regime change." The US media and
evangelical Christian groups have demonized Sudan and Gen. Bashir,
and branded him a dangerous Islamist.
Hysteria in North America over Darfur is exceeded only by the public’
s total lack of knowledge about this remote, complex region that is
deceptively – and quite wrongly – portrayed by media as a simplistic
morality struggle between wicked Muslims and helpless black farmers.
Israel has been very active in arming and supporting the South Sudan
SPLA guerilla movement, and will assume an even more influential
role if southern Sudan goes independent.
Israel has been involved in Sudan since the 1950’s. Israel successfully
bribed the late Sudanese dictator, Jaffar al-Numiery, to allow
Ethiopian Falasha Jews to fly to Israel from Sudan.
Sizeable deposits of oil were discovered in Sudan over the past
decade. They are mostly located in south Sudan but the Khartoum
government controls the export pipeline which runs north to Port
Sudan on the Red Sea. China has become a major customer of
Sudanese oil. Washington intends to elbow the Chinese out of Sudan
if the south breaks away.
Control of global oil plays a primary role on US foreign and military
policy. As a result, the US has become ever more deeply involved in
Sudan’s affairs. Washington has been discreetly working with
southern Sudan to create a government, financial system, police, and
army. South Sudanese officials are being trained in the US. The
number of US diplomats and intelligence officers in Sudan has tripled.
A break-up of Sudan may have an immediate effect on other unstable
neighbors, like Somalia, Chad, and the Republic of Congo. Ethiopia,
itself an unstable amalgam, may get more deeply involved in the region.
Egypt, eternally sensitive about who controls the Nile’s life-giving
waters, is deeply worried about Sudan’s future and fears a new
regime in the south may begin diverting the river’s waters.
Just at a time when the US is increasingly active in Djibouti, Yemen,
Somalia, Mali, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, it finds itself deeply
involved in engineering the break-up of Sudan.
All this may be a bridge too far for the already over-stretched US
military, intelligence services, and State Department, not to mention
the empty US Treasury that now runs on borrowed money.
*Anyone interested in 19th-Century Sudan should read Khartoum by
Michael Asher, an ex-SAS officer and old Sudan hand. A brilliant,
stirring recounting of the Dervish uprising, “Chinese” Gordon, and
Imperial Britain’s river wars up the Nile to Khartoum.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric Margolis [" target="_blank">send him mail] is the author of
War at the Top of the World and the new book, American Raj:
Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West
and the Muslim World. See his website.
Courtesy
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