Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 23:45:49 +0100
Peacekeepers depend on the Pentagon, in South Sudan, CAR, DRC, Uganda,
Rwanda
By <http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/ann-garrison> Ann Garrison and
<http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/mahdi-darius-nazemroaya> Mahdi Darius
Nazemroaya
Global Research, January 28, 2014
Turning now to news of Africa, the Central African Republic, Democratic
Republic of the Congo and South Sudan all share borders. Each of these three
countries is now engulfed in tribal or religious sectarian violence, and
Uganda, a longtime U.S. military partner, has troops in both the Central
African Republic and South Sudan.
U.S. Special Forces have been on the ground with Ugandan troops in both
countries since 2011, reportedly to hunt for Joseph Kony. KPFA's Ann
Garrison reports on the U.S. rationale for these troop deployments.
Pundits and policymakers daily invoke "the lessons of Rwanda," meaning the
world's failure to prevent the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, as cause for military
intervention by the U.S. and other Western nations and by U.N. peacekeeping
troops. In Africa, all these interventions rely on U.S. military
infrastructure, including bases, air strips, vehicles, planes and
state-of-the-art surveillance tech.
This week U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo carriers began to fly 850 Rwandan
peacekeeping troops to the Central African Republic, where U.S. Special
Forces have been deployed with Ugandan troops since 2011. Ugandan troops
also crossed the border to fight alongside South Sudanese government troops
in that country's civil war.
There is as yet no information as to whether Ugandan troops in South Sudan
are accompanied by U.S Special Forces, though more Special Forces were flown
to Uganda, reportedly to help evacuate American citizens.
Today, negotiators of the South Sudan conflict announced a tentative
ceasefire agreement, which has not yet been signed, but calls for the
withdrawal of all foreign troops. The U.S. State Department has criticized
both sides' resistance to ceasefire terms but has agreed with the faction
fighting President Salva Kiir that the war was not triggered by a coup
attempt in mid-December, because there was no coup attempt.
During last week's Senate Foreign Relations hearing on South Sudan, senators
expressed outrage about the region's ethnic and sectarian violence, in
accordance with the U.S. vow to stop genocide and mass atrocities around the
world.
However, Mahdi Nazemroaya, researcher, foreign correspondent and author of
"The Globalization of NATO," says that U.S. intervention has in fact
promoted ethnic division, sectarian war, and partition or secession into
independent, ethno nationalist states, like South Sudan.
Mahdi Nazemroaya: Yeah, there's a long history behind this process. There is
obviously vilification of the central government in Sudan. George Clooney is
nowhere to be found now.
When there was talk about a possible genocide in South Sudan, that's when
the media stopped talking about the fighting there - when independence
happened. It's very ironic. When the fighting became serious in South Sudan,
between the militias of the people that formed the government fighting each
other for power and basically the spoils of war, the media stopped reporting
about it.
That's when they stopped talking about what's happening in South Sudan, and
they stopped focusing on this country. But before it, they kept on talking
about how genocide and ethnic cleansing was taking place. How there was
humanitarian crisis. They were talking about racial politics. And they were
doing everything to feed ethno-nationalism. And this has been fed for many
decades. It starts with the British.
KPFA: Nazemroaya also said that the neo-liberal privatization agenda is then
imposed upon the targeted nations where the U.S. has exacerbated ethnic
tension. He said that the same thing had happened in every country where the
U.S. had intervened militarily since 2001, including Iraq, Afghanistan,
Libya and Somalia - and now, South Sudan.
Mahdi Nazemroaya: When the United States does move into these countries with
its allies, one of the first things they do is - this neo-liberal paradigm
is imposed on these countries, and their constitutions are changed, where
private enterprise - corporate private enterprise - is allowed to come in,
national assets are sold off and these countries are essentially turned into
economic colonies.
KPFA: The 2009 South Sudan Land Act was passed during the country's
transition to independence from Sudan. McGill University Professor Khalil
Medani, speaking on KPFA's Voices of the Middle East, said that this
legislation opened large tracts of land that had been communally owned, with
grazing and other rights worked out between tribes over time, to private and
foreign ownership. This privatization of communal land, he said, had further
heightened ethnic tension by forcing the country's tribal peoples to compete
for fewer resources.
In Berkeley, for <http://pacifica.org/> Pacifica, <http://www.kpfa.org/>
KPFA and <http://afrobeatradio.com/> AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.
Oakland writer Ann Garrison writes for the
<http://sfbayview.com/tag/ann-garrison/> San Francisco Bay View,
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/09/20/the-israelrwanda-pact/>
Counterpunch, <http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14359>
Global Research,
<http://coloredopinions.blogspot.com/2009/11/commonwealth-human-rights-initi
ative.html> Colored Opinions,
<http://www.blackstarnews.com/news/122/ARTICLE/6960/2010-11-27.html> Black
Star News and her own website, <http://www.anngarrison.com/> Ann Garrison,
and produces for <http://afrobeatradio.net/> AfrobeatRadio on WBAI-NYC,
<http://www.kpfa.org/archive/show/99> KPFA Evening News and her own YouTube
Channel, <http://www.youtube.com/user/AnnieGetYourGang> AnnieGetYourGang.
She can be reached at <mailto:ann_at_afrobeatradio.com> ann_at_afrobeatradio.com.
<http://www.anngarrison.com/audio/2014/01/20/488/The-Pentagons-Peacekeepers-
in-South-Sudan-CAR-DRC-Uganda-Rwanda> This story first appeared on her
website. If you want to see Ann Garrison's independent reporting continue,
please contribute on her website at <http://anngarrison.com/>
anngarrison.com.
AFRICOM
------------[ Sent via the dehai-wn mailing list by dehai.org]--------------
(image/jpeg attachment: image001.jpg)