From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Tue Aug 05 2008 - 07:44:07 EDT
Darfurism, Uganda & US War in Africa: The spectre of continental
genocide (Posted 8/4/2008)
Author: Keith Harmon Snow, AfricaFiles
When President George Bush met with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni at
the White House on October 30 they certainly discussed much more than
“Uganda's leadership in Somalia, the Lord's Resistance Army, and
President Museveni's development plan for northern Uganda” or their
“strong partnership to combat malaria and HIV/AIDS in Uganda,” as
announced by the White House Office of the Press Secretary.
The role of Yoweri Museveni and his “government” in service to the
Western economic neoliberalism and the shock doctrine of deconstruction
and chaos is greatly misunderstood and deeply camouflaged by simplified
establishment narratives like those above. Bush and Museveni will
discuss the U.S.-Uganda military relations and bilateral involvement in
the ongoing wars in Sudan, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo
(“Congo” from here on refers only to DRC). The “partnership to combat
malaria and HIV/AIDS” is camouflage language for military vaccination
and bio-warfare programs involving pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer. (A
vaccine for malaria was developed for the U.S. military some time ago,
and this is shared only with certain U.S. client state partners.)
The “development plan for northern Uganda” is euphemistic language for
the ongoing depopulation and massive natural resource extraction (oil,
gold, uranium) that today proceeds in northern Uganda in parallel with
the genocide of the Acholi people and the militarization in Uganda’s
border regions to support covert programs in Sudan and Congo. And they
will discuss other things they don’t want the American public to be
aware of.
The Darfur conflict rides along the fault line of continental warfare
spread from Niger to through Chad to Djibouti and Somalia, and from
eastern Congo and Rwanda, through Uganda and Sudan, to Eritrea and the
Red Sea. Congo is at war with Uganda and Rwanda. Ethiopia is at war with
Somalia, and poised to reinvade Eritrea. Ethiopia, Uganda and Chad are
the three “frontline” states militarily destabilizing Sudan. Uganda is
internally and externally at war. Uganda has intervened secretly in
Burundi and Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) and recently
re-occupied towns in eastern Congo. Rwanda is internally at war,
fighting in Eastern Congo, meddling in Burundi, and has some 2000 troops
in Darfur. Khartoum backs guerrilla armies in Uganda, Chad and Congo.
The U.S. is all over the place, with both covert and overt military
programs. All these conflicts are intertwined, and the targeted
populations have allegiances and alliances dictated by the pre-colonial
boundaries demarcated in 1885 by the imperial doctrine of divide and
conquer. Conflict involving U.S. covert forces and nomads in Niger and
Nigeria, for example, impacts Sudan: the history of the Sahara revolves
around the Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, a Sudanese man who led the indigenous
resistance against Britian in 1875. ‘Abdallah at-Ta‘ishi, the Mahdi’s
“Khalifah” or successor, who took over as leader of the independent
Sudan when the Mahdi died in June 1885, was a native of Darfur.
PEACE IS WAR IS PEACEKEEPING
On October 24, 2007, the United Nations awarded Lockheed-Martin
subsidiary Pacific Architects and Engineers a $250 million no-bid
contract to provide “infrastructure” for the United Nations
“peacekeeping” missions now unfolding in Sudan (Darfur), Somalia, and
Chad/Central Africa Republic. The newly announced contract is to build
five new camps in Sudan's Darfur and Kordofan regions for 4,100 U.N. and
African Union personnel. Lockheed Martin is the world’s largest and most
secretive aerospace and defense corporation.
This is not Pacific Architects and Engineers’ first contract in Darfur,
or in Africa’s “peacekeeping” missions. PAE won the contract for
staffing the deeply compromised “Civilian Protection Monitoring Team”
(CPMT) in Sudan under a U.S. State Department contract. In 2004 the CPMT
office was being run by Brigadier General Frank Toney (retired), who was
previously the commander of Special Forces for the United States Army;
General Toney organized covert operations into Iraq and Kuwait in the
first Gulf War.
Pratap Chaterjee reported in 2004 how “Lieutenant-Colonel Michael
Bittrick, the deputy director of regional and security affairs for
Africa at the State Department, flew to Ethiopia to hammer out an
agreement to support African Union troops by committing to provide
housing, office equipment, transport, and communications gear. This will
be provided via an ‘indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity’ joint
contract awarded to Dyncorp Corporation, and Pacific Architects &
Engineers (PAE) worth $20.6 million.” PAE also set up MONUC operations
in Congo.
Meanwhile, the “Save Darfur” advocates pressing military intervention in
Darfur as a “humanitarian” gesture have escalated pressure in the face
of mounting failures, including allegations that millions of “Save
Darfur” dollars fundraised on a sympathy for victims platform have been
misappropriated. But the players, the private military companies, the
arms dealers—and a handful of missing SRAM missiles armed with nuclear
warheads dumped by an American B-52 before it crashed—are mostly unknown
to the general public. These covert wars all involve different
propaganda strategies to provide cover and deflect attention through
“perception management”—managing the perceptions, stereotyping and
creating false belief systems—of the North American and European public.
Ranking the humanitarian catastrophes, at the top by a long shot is
Eastern Congo, followed by northern Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia, Chad,
Central Africa Republic and—somewhere in the line but nowhere near
Congo—Darfur, Sudan.
These humanitarian emergencies involve massive depopulation and death,
internally displaced persons and trans-national refugees, all of which
provide a lucrative business opportunity for Western “relief” and
“development” organizations. Millions of people across the region are
dying, while millions more are homeless, set adrift in a sea of nowhere,
with no rights, no possessions, no protection and very little prospect
for survival; their only hopes come from the false belief that the
Western “humanitarian” AID enterprise is designed to rescue them.
The engagement of the world’s premier war-making industries—Lockheed
Martin, Boeing, Bechtel, SAIC—behind a so-called “peacekeeping” platform
is not new, and something is seriously wrong with this picture.
THE 'SAVE DARFUR' NARRATIVE
“Save Darfur” is the predominant propaganda front running on Africa and
it has overwhelmed the public consciousness with deceptions. In this
establishment narrative Arabs on horseback, the Janjaweed, backed by the
Sudan government seated in Khartoum, are the purveyors of genocide. This
mirrors the establishment narrative of Rwanda, 1994, which said that the
Hutus and the nasty Interahamwe militias committed genocide against the
Tutsis in 100 days of killing with machetes. The Rwanda genocide
narrative—combined with the narrative about “humanitarian” intervention
in Yugoslavia, where the final blow to dismember the country came with
the NATO bombing campaign—set the stage for the Darfur genocide
narrative.
All over the United States, Britain and Canada advocates and activists
who claim to be concerned about human rights, and even those who
otherwise would not get involved, have supported the “Save Darfur”
movement, a political movement similar to the anti-Apartheid movement
mobilized against South Africa in the 1980’s. The “Save Darfur” movement
has resulted in a huge outpouring of funds, and it has mobilized support
from people in all walks of life, and across the political spectrum, on
the “never again” platform of “stopping genocide.”
Hollywood personalities dubbed “actorvists,” including Mia Farrow, Don
Cheadle and George Clooney, have helped to whip up the “Save Darfur”
hysteria. From Elie Wiesel to Barak Obama, people are “outraged” by
genocide that the Bush Administration, we are told, is reluctant to
stop. And it is hysteria, in the true definition of the word, but it did
not simply rise out of a sudden concern for a bunch of Africans in some
far off God-forsaken place (as it is portrayed).
At a “Voices for Darfur” fundraiser held on October 21, 2007 at Smith
College in Northampton, Massachusetts, for example, the local chapter of
the Congregation B’Nai Israel Darfur Action coalition, raised over
$14,000 for “humanitarian” aid to Darfur. The B’Nai Israel Save Darfur
Coalition had a broad array of public and organizational support,
including other Jewish organizations, Smith College, Northampton Mayor
Claire Higgins, Massachusetts’ Senator Stan Rosenberg and Representative
Peter Kocot. The campaign organizers claim that “more than 90% goes to
direct-on-the-ground AID.” Working with big humanitarian groups like
Doctors Without Borders and Save the Children, it is impossible that 90%
of funds will hit the ground in Darfur.
Behind the “Save Darfur” movement are fundamentalist organizations and
think tanks with a deeply nationalistic, militaristic, religious
fundamentalist agenda. One of these is the Center for Security Policy.
The CSP, for example, supports the “star wars” Strategic Defense
Initiative, Homeland Security—which is nothing more than expanding
militarism and emasculated public rights—and the Biometric Security
Project. The BSP centers around emerging biological technologies that
will be used to register, identify, monitor, track and control each and
every U.S. citizen. They call it “identity assurance,” it involves
state-of-the-art recognition equipment, sensors and security
technologies, and it is a central component of the evolving national
security and “counter-terrorism” apparatus.
The Center for Security Policy is part of the nerve center of the U.S.
military and intelligence apparatus, a deeply nationalist, neoliberal
think-tank and flak organization promoting the all-out attack against
non-cooperative governments—dubbed “rogue states”—peripheral to Western
economic control. These, of course, are primarily Iran, Iraq,
Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, North Korea and Cuba. Zimbabwe is a special
case that has joined the list to some degree. What these states have in
common is that they are all targeted for divestment by the Center for
Security Policy brainchild, www.divestterror.org . Sudan is another of
the “rogue states” targeted.
The establishment narrative on Darfur motivates U.S. citizens to take
action to “Save Darfur,” thus facilitating popular support for
heightened U.S. military involvement. The truth is that the United
States military is already there, in its various incarnations, and it is
involved in atrocities.
THE UGANDA NARRATIVE
In the northern Uganda region—involving South Sudan and northeastern
Congo—another conflict has boiled for over 15 years between the
government Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF), led by Yoweri
Museveni, and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), led by Joseph Kony. This
war offers yet another one-sided Western establishment narrative that
says that Kony and the LRA—always described as a Christian fanatical
cult that captures and drugs children—is the primary problem in northern
Uganda. (Usually African savages are not Christian enough for America’s
liking; here we find that they are too Christian.)
The establishment narrative has been furthered across the popular
culture, in everything from Vanity Fair to the BBC to the journal The
National Catholic Weekly (America). The newly established ENOUGH Project
(ENOUGH “genocide” and “not on my watch” etc. etc.) picked up the mantle
of LRA atrocities and, like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty
International, has supported the establishment narrative which shields
the Museveni government from the kind of criticism and international
action that is called for in keeping with the scale of the atrocities
the Uganda government has committed. In other words, Human Rights Watch
has addressed torture in Uganda, and other problems, but they have not
named names or corporations, and they almost never link the conflict or
the atrocities to Western interests. The net effect of these policy and
human rights positions is genocide denial on Uganda.
The Museveni war machine and its state terror apparatus have perpetrated
massive atrocities in the region and it has evolved into genocide
against the Acholi people of the north. The indigenous Acholi people
have been forced onto concentration camps over the past 15 years, and
these camps have become places of death. In the establishment narrative,
the people are the victims of Kony’s “rebellion.” Museveni and his
business and military partners are responsible for millions of deaths,
crimes against humanity and war crimes in Eastern Congo. The U.S.
military invasion of Zaire (now Congo), involved U.S. covert forces,
U.S. military communications, logistical and weapons support, and
Ugandan and Rwandan forces. Humvees, C-130’s and black-skinned U.S.
Special Forces entered South Sudan and northeastern Congo through the
Gulu and Arua Districts of Uganda, the heart of Acholiland and the
center of atrocities against the Acholi people.
Ugandan and British interests living mostly in Britain and aligned with
the former dictator Idi Amin have always backed the Lord’s Resistance
Army. Support also came from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The LRA stepped up
its military actions in parallel with the UPDF invasion of Zaire (1996),
and the subsequent years of warfare and plunder in Congo (1998-present).
According to the investigations of the United Nations and the
humanitarian law work of lawyer, Karen Parker, the war in Uganda
involves massive rapes, killing, tortures, and extrajudicial executions
as a policy by the Ugandan military. Some 1.3 million people have been
displaced in the Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts of northern Uganda.
There are over 73 camps with from 1000 to 50,000 people in them, all
forcibly displaced by UPDF soldiers, with over 350,000 people out of
some 400,000 people displaced from the Gulu district alone.
THE US-UGANDA INVASION OF ZAIRE
The forced displacements of Acholi people began with Museveni’s
ascension to power in 1986, but major forced displacements occurred
throughout the 1990’s and again in 2002-2003. However, there was a
massive displacement operation in 1996 that appears to have been
coordinated in part with the planned U.S. invasion of Zaire from
Northern Uganda and Rwanda. The UPDF Army barracks at Masindi and
airstrip at Gulu, both in Northern Uganda, served as the staging grounds
for the U.S. invasion of Zaire. The Museveni government organized the
closure of northern Uganda in October 1996 ostensibly because of
heightened LRA attacks. The UPDF, in chronological coincidence with the
U.S. invasion, forced hundreds of thousands of Acholis into
concentration camps in the fall of 1996, often by bombing and burning
villages and murdering, beating, raping and threatening those who would
not comply.
According to testimony from eyewitnesses, on Oct 26, 1996 the top
Ugandan brass behind the invasion of Zaire met at the village of Paraa,
in the Murchison Falls National Park, near Lake Albert, in the Gulu
District. At the meeting were: [1] UPDF Brigadier General Moses Ali—Idi
Amin’s right hand man who later became Minister of Internal Affairs,
Minister for Disaster Preparedness, and Deputy Prime Minister in the
Museveni administration; [2] Museveni’s half-brother Salim Saleh; [3]
then Colonel James Kazini,; and [4] Dr. Eric Adroma—head of Uganda
National Parks. Salim Saleh is perhaps the leading agent of terror in
the UPDF Zaire/Congo wars, but both Saleh and commander James Kazini led
UPDF troops involved in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and
genocide against millions of people in Eastern Congo (1996-2007).
The meeting was ostensibly about security and it was announced that due
to a recent LRA rebel attack at Paraa, the UPDF would be placing parts
of Northern Uganda off limits to all non-military personnel. (There is
some question of the perpetrators of the Paraa attack being LRA or UPDF
disguised as LRA.) The main road from Karuma to the border town of
Pakwach was closed. This road apparently served as a primary transport
route for Ugandan and non-Ugandan military—including black U.S. special
forces—who invaded Zaire.
On November 6, 1996, Bill Clinton was elected. Around 10 November 2007
an armored 4x4 Humvee (HUMMWV)—heavily rigged with sophisticated
communications equipment inside and out—was encountered carrying two
black U.S. special forces in the Murchison Falls region: the soldiers
were wearing UPDF uniforms. Two busloads of black U.S. special forces
were encountered at a UPDF checkpoint on the Karuma-Pakwach road;
wearing civilian clothes, with duffel bags, the muscled and crew-cut
“civilians” showed U.S. passports and claimed they were “doctors”
heading to the tiny Gulu hospital.
>From November 21-23 Boeing C-130 military aircraft passed over the
region every 30 minutes, 24 hours a day, heading both north and south.
The C-130’s apparently landed at Gulu airstrip—closed by the Museveni
government for a two-week period—and offloaded military equipment then
moved by roads—closed by the UPDF—to the border. Some C-130’s were
charted on a course believed to take them to Goma, Zaire.
>From mid-November to February 1997 access to northwestern Uganda regions
was highly restricted. On 1 March 1997 another wave of C-130’s passed
over the region. The UPDF used the LRA threat as cover for massive
military operations involving the invasion of Zaire for the United
States of America. The in-country U.S. Ambassador to Uganda at the time
was E. Michael Southwick (October 1994-August 1997). Oil surveys began
in 1998 and the entire Northwestern Uganda region is now designated as
oil concessions controlled by Heritage Oil and Gas, Hardman Oil and
Tullow Oil, three Anglo-American companies connected to British
mercenary, Tony Buckingham (founder of he mercenary firms Sandline
International and Executive Outcomes) and his partners.
Nexant, a Bechtel subsidiary, is involved with the trans-Uganda-Kenya
pipeline. South African firm Energem—tied to Tony Buckingham through
Anthony Texeira, the brother-in-law of Congolese warlord, Jean-Pierre
Bemba—is also involved. Another Energem and Buckingham affiliated
company tight with the Museveni regime is Branch Energy, involved with
the oil pipeline and mining in Uganda. On September 5, 2007, UPDF
troops—and rebels reportedly aligned with Jean-Pierre Bemba—had occupied
the DRC’s oil- and gold-rich Semliki Basin on the western shores of Lake
Albert. Heavily armed foreign forces occupied the villages of Aru,
Mahagi, Fataki, Irengeti and the Ruwenzori mountains. The international
press and the United Nations Observers Mission in DRC (MONUC) remained
completely silent about the Ugandan incursions.
By September 8, 2007, Ugandan troops were heavily massed on the DRC
border while Kabila and Museveni were signing oil and gold sharing
agreements in Tanzania. UPDF forces and “rebel” troops alleged to be
Bemba’s remained in DRC as of October 25. The United Nations Observes
Mission in Congo (MONUC) information offices were claiming by
mid-October that UPDF had pulled out, but Congolese citizens in eastern
Congo continued to report a huge UPDF military presence. The China
Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Company is also involved in the
Uganda-Kenya pipeline, offering an interesting comparison for people
concerned about China’s involvement in atrocities in the Darfur region.
And, after much scrambling, Libya was cut out of the Kenya-Uganda
pipeline deals.
Uganda’s representation at the International Criminal Court exploring
war crimes in Congo has included at least two very high-profile lawyers
from Foley Hoag LLP, an influential Washington law firm deeply
entrenched in the proliferation of the mainstream narratives and the
victor’s justice doled out—through the ICTY and ICTR tribunals—on
Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The Pentagon seconded its lawyers from the Judge
Advocacy General’s (JAG) Corp to the ICTR to “try” those unfortunate
“enemies” both arbitrarily and selectively accused of genocide.
The people most responsible for atrocities in the region—unprecedented
human bloodletting, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and
genocide—are protected. These include Yoweri Museveni, Salim Saleh, Paul
Kagame, James Kazini, Moses Ali, James Kabarebe, Taban Amin, Jean-Pierre
Bemba, Laurent Nkunda, Meles Zenawi…a long list of people whose
culpability is without question, many of whom have been named for
atrocities again and again.
U.S. Special Operations forces know what happened and should be deposed
under oath in a legitimate International Criminal Court, which at
present does not exist, and is not in the making. Ditto for Madeleine
Albright, Anthony Lake, Thomas Pickering, Susan Rice, John Prendergast,
General William Wald, General Frank Toney, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld,
Roger Winter, Andrew Young…another short list. Foley Hoag LLP is also
tied to the U.S.-Uganda Friendship Council. On May 6, 2002 in Washington
D.C. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and wife Janet were special
guests at U.S.-Uganda Friendship Council event sponsored by members
Coke, Pfizer and Chevron-Texaco. Museveni also met with President Bush
at the White House.
Coke director Kathleen Black is a principle in the Hearst media empire,
while Coke directors Warren Buffet and Barry Diller are directors of the
Washington Post Company, and these are the media institutions that
whitewash client regimes, corporate plunder and Pentagon actions. Of
course, Coca Cola covets the gum Arabic of Darfur, and Coke is a client
of Andrew Young’s PR firm, Goodworks International (see below). Uganda’s
image is sanitized by one of the world’s largest PR firms, London’s Hill
& Knowlton. In 2005 Uganda spent some $700,000 on a Hill & Knowlton
contract to facilitate and “encourage dialogue between the Ugandan
government and people like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty, Oxfam.”
THE RWANDA NARRATIVE
Museveni’s bush war began in 1980. Paul Kagame, current President of
Rwanda, was Museveni’s Director of Military Intelligence in the
mid-1980’s. Museveni and Kagame led the invasion of Rwanda in 1990. The
two military commanders utilized terrorist tactics that assigned blame
for atrocities they committed—against both their enemies and their own
people—on their enemies. They used psychological operations, embedded
international reporters, and fabrication of massacres. These tactics
have continued to the present.
While Rwanda is billed as a major “success story” of recovery and
development after a devastating genocide—see for example the PR
“documentary” film Rwanda Rising produced by Andrew Young’s Goodworks
International—the country is ruled with an iron-fist and a finely tuned
intelligence and torture apparatus involved in political assassinations,
suppression of information and disappearances. Huge areas of Rwanda were
entirely depopulated by the Rwandan Patriotic Front and UPDF as they
hammered away at Rwanda beginning in October 1990. The invasion
culminated in a coup d’etat that succeeded, with broad U.S. military
support, in capturing Kigali in July of 1994. From 1994 to the present
President Paul Kagame has used the genocide card and the establishment
narrative to institutionalize repression, criminalize or assassinate
anyone who challenges the regime, and further depopulate rural areas for
“development” benefiting corporate interests.
Another member of the U.S.-Uganda Friendship council is the Honorable
Andrew Young, former Mayor of Atlanta and U.S. Ambassador. Andrew Young
and his firm Goodworks International have helped whitewash the image of
the Rwanda government and its state apparatus of terror. Andrew Young,
Quincy Jones and other wealthy Americans are building (have built)
mansions on the shores of Rwanda’s Lake Mwazi in areas where peasants
were driven off the land or killed by the Kagame terror machine before,
during and after 1994. State terror and depopulation is ongoing along
Lake Kivu and in the Volcanoes National Parks regions for methane and
high-end tourism development.
Rwanda gains currency and good press through big HIV/AIDS projects run
by Paul Farmer but funded by the Clinton AIDS foundation. Rwanda was
overthrown by and for the Pentagon on Clinton’s watch. Hillary Clinton
toured Uganda in July 1997, wore African clothes, danced African dances,
and spoke about “democracy” and “development” and a “partnership”
against HIV/AIDS. The Kagame regime has recently awarded petroleum
concessions to Canada’s Vangold Resources for the project titled “White
Elephant” in northern Rwanda—2700 sq. kilometers of land depopulated by
the Rwandan Patriotic Front/Army between 1990 and 2007. Contracted to
provide “feasibility studies” of petroleum infrastructural development
in Rwanda is the San Diego firm, Science Applications International
Corporation (SAIC).
SAIC has ongoing collaborations with Bechtel—another of the world’s most
secretive aerospace technology, energy infrastructure and defense
contractors—both known for their involvement in U.S. beyond top-secret
“black” programs. SAIC works closely with DARPA, the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency. Recent SAIC directors have included: U.S. Navy
Admiral B.R. Inman (Ret.); U.S. Army General W.A. Downing (Ret.); and
U.S. Air Force General J.A. Welch (Ret.).
SAIC also has an ongoing collaboration with the multibillion-dollar
pharmaceutical giant, Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS). Unsurprisingly,
through shared directorships, BMS is economically and politically
aligned with the New York Times Corporation. SAIC has also been flagged
for involvement in highly questionable U.S. mercenary activities and
human rights violations in Africa.
Petroleum, defense and mining interests connected to the Dian Fossey
Gorilla Fund International programs in “gorilla conservation” led to the
production of high-tech satellite prospecting data, gathered by remote
sensing over-flights (1994-2000), delivered to the Rwandan Ministry of
Defense. The Pentagon has been involved in building military bases in
Rwanda, installing military and civilian communications infrastructure,
and training Rwandan Defense Forces; a military-communications radar
installation has been constructed with U.S. support on Mt. Karisimbi in
Ruhengeri Province. The installation is being built by the Rwanda
Ministry of Defense in partnership with the “Rwandan” company, Terracom
SPRL, and Rwandatel. Terracom is owned by U.S. businessman Greg Wyler;
Rwandatel is 99%-owned subsidiary.
It is believed that Rwanda Defense Forces (RDF) sent to Darfur on the
African Union “peacekeeping” mission include black U.S. Special Forces
disguised as RDF—just as the black U.S. Special Forces were disguised as
UPDF during the invasion of Zaire.
LOCKHEED MARTIN PEACEKEEPING
Lockheed Martin is a California-based aerospace and defense giant
involved in classified black programs that are beyond “top-secret” and
shielded from government oversight. In September 2003, CNN—a
corporate-military “news” agency deeply embedded with the
Pentagon—reported “[a]ccording to the U.S. Center for Strategic and
Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) classified or black programs account for
about $23.2 billion or 17 percent of the 2004 budget request for the
Department of Defense.” According to United Nations spokeswoman, Michele
Montas, the six-month Darfur contract with Lockheed-Martin subsidiary
Pacific Architect Engineers, Inc. was awarded without competitive
bidding “because of complex requirements and a short timeline.”
Reporting from the United Nations, Inner City Press said the terms of
the contract will not be public and the United Nations has violated
numerous UN charter laws in the tendering of this award. The no-bid
award process followed the United Nation’s issuance of an official
“Expressions of Interest” notice on October 9, 2007. “The United Nations
is seeking Expressions of Interest (EOI) from experienced Multi
Functional Logistics Services (MFLS) contractors,” the UN’s EOI notice
reads, “for the provision of a wide range of services at headquarters,
logistic bases, military and police camps, airfields and water resources
at various locations in any or all of the following: the Darfur Region
of Sudan, Chad/Central African Republic (CAR), and Somalia.” Inner City
Press reported that the EOI solicitation, made after the rules had
already been waived to allow the transfer of $250 million to Lockheed
Martin for six months in Darfur, is intended to try to clean up the
process after-the-fact.
Another multinational aerospace and defense corporation directly
benefiting from this regional U.S. war is Boeing Aircraft Corporation.
The U.S. military used Boeing Chinook helicopters in the U.S. invasion
of Somalia in 2006. Tom Pickering, former U.S. Under Secretary of State
for Political Affairs, is senior vice president for International
Relations and a member of the Boeing Executive Council since January
2001. Pickering played a decisive role in the Clinton Administration
overthrow of Rwanda (1990-1994) and Congo (1996-1997). He is a leading
advocate for the “Save Darfur” propaganda. He is also a member of the
Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa along with Ed Royce
(R-CA), former U.S. Senator, Nancy Kassebaum Baker, Donald Payne (D-NJ),
and Andrew Young.
While the New York Times reported in December 2006 that the Ethiopian
invasion of Somalia began in late December, military involvement of U.S.
covert forces had been ongoing, and was heightened significantly in the
early spring of 2006 when the U.S. Department of Defense and the Central
Intelligence Agency openly complained about cross purposes in Somalia.
Private military companies were all over Somalia, as were known
international arms syndicates, including of course the criminal networks
of John Bredenkamp, one of Britain’s fifty richest tycoons and one of
the primary financial backers behind the rise and fall of Robert Mugabe
in Zimbabwe.
John Bredenkamp reportedly acquired three SRAM missiles with nuclear
warheads jettisoned in shallow water off the coast of Somalia by a
U.S.A.F. B-52 that soon after crashed into the Indian Ocean near the
U.S. military base on the island of Diego Garcia. The U.S. invasion of
Somalia is believed to have been partly an aborted attempt to recover
the lost nukes—called “broken arrows” in Pentagon speak. While the story
of the dumped nukes “lost” by Dick Cheney has received some attention,
no one has publicly identified John Bredenkamp as the likely weapons
dealer involved.
COVERT OPS IN SOMALIA
The war in Somalia dates back to deep U.S. involvement in the 1980’s,
where major oil concessions were awarded to four Western multinational
petroleum giants: Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Philips petroleum. The
infusion of Western “AID” provoked destabilization of Somalia, leading
to the U.S. military invasion that culminated in the October 3, 1993
mission where scores of U.S. Special Operations Forces were killed when
their Blackhawk helicopter was shot down over the capital city,
Mogadishu. The mythology of U.S. involvement was indelibly inscribed in
the popular consciousness through the Hollywood/Pentagon film, Blackhawk
Down. Part of the consistent propaganda on Africa is that “the U.S. does
not want to get involved and potentially face another Somalia.” But the
U.S. pullout of Somalia occurred in perfect synchronicity with the
heightened military involvement in Rwanda (1994).
U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) did not cease Special Ops
deployments in Somalia with the U.S. withdrawal and covert operations
have proceeded on and off, with heightened activity through the late
1990’s. The Pentagon confirmed in November 2006 that SOCOM forces were
in Somalia as of October “providing military advice to Ethiopian and
Somali forces on the ground.” The U.S. Navy moved “additional forces”
into waters off the Somali coast, where the Pentagon said they
“conducted security missions, monitoring maritime traffic and
intercepting and interrogating crew on suspicious ships.”
These included the USS Ramage guided missile destroyer, the USS Dwight
D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier, the USS Bunker Hill and USS Anzio guided
missile cruisers, and the USS Ashland amphibious landing ship. On June
2, 2007, a U.S. Navy destroyer shelled northern Somalia. Somali media
reported that News media reported that the strikes destroyed farms,
flattened hilltops and killed or injured an unknown number of villagers.
The British Navy’s newest warship, HMS Bulwark, was also stationed off
the Somali coast in early 2006. The HMS Bulwark deployed to the Indian
Ocean on 9 January 2006 for the first live operation of this “unique
Commando Assault ship” (as it is described by the British Navy).
However, sources in Kenya and Eritrea reported “snatch and grab”
terrorist operations involving massacres and torture that were run by
SOCOM forces inside Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya. There are at least
52,000 U.S. special operations forces on active duty and reserve
military worldwide, including SEALs, Green Berets and commando-style
troops from the 10th Mountain Division and others. The establishment
narrative was that Ethiopia invaded Somalia to displace Al-Qaeda
terrorists and check the spread of Islamic fundamentalism, both of which
are propaganda themes that misrepresent the reality of U.S. and allied
military interventions. Ethiopia is considered an essential partner of
the U.S. in its “War on Terrorism” and Ethiopian bases have been used
for attacks on Somalia.
In 2003, the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division (SOCOM) completed a
three-month program to train an Ethiopian army division in
“counter-terrorism tactics”—code language for covert operations.
Operations are coordinated through the Combined Joint Task Forces-Horn
of Africa (CJTF-HOA) base in Djibouti. In January 2004, SOCOM forces
from the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment replaced the 10th Mountain Division
forces at a new base “Camp United” established at Hurso, northwest of
Dire Dawa, near the border with Somalia. Since 2003, under the U.S.
State Department-sponsored Africa Contingency Operations Training and
Assistance (ACOTA) program, CJTF-HOA provided instruction to thousands
of Ethiopian soldiers at a base in Legedadi. CJTF-HOA forces from the
U.S Army's 478th Civil Affairs Battalion also operated in Ethiopia
(Somalia) in and around Dire Dawa, Galadi, and Dolo Odo, among other
areas.
Ethiopia seeks to control Somalia to gain access to a much-needed
deepwater seaport. Ethiopia’s oil concessions are contiguous with the
oil reserves in Sudan, Somalia, Kenya and Yemen. Hunt Oil, the Chinese
National Petroleum Company, and many others are active in Ethiopia. The
U.S. military used Ethiopian air bases modernized by infusions of
millions of dollars of “AID” funds to launch attacks against Somalia.
Ethiopia now has the largest standing army on the continent and this was
achieved through the conversions of millions of dollars in “AID” to
weapons and militarization; even “debt forgiveness”—where foreign “debt”
was canceled—benefited the militarization of Ethiopia.
U.S. spy satellites were used provide intelligence to Ethiopian troops
as they swept across the Oganden basin and Somalia. Presidents Bush and
Zenawi both denied that the invasion was coordinated and well planned,
and both denied the involvement of the U.S. The Ethiopian government
retained former U.S. Republican house majority leader, Dick Armey, as a
lobbyist in Washington to whitewash the Ethiopian regimes’ crimes.
ETHIOPIA’S GENOCIDES
The Ogaden, Oromo and Anuak regions of Ethiopia have seen massive
military occupation and state repression. The Ethiopian government of
Meles Zenawi has perpetrated mass starvation and scorched earth policy
in the region. There has been very little international media coverage
and most is favorable the Zenawi regime or pressing the upside-down
stories about “relief” and “starvation” that serve the Western
“humanitarian” business sector. The Ogaden basin is a bloodbath today.
Applying the same legal standards as in Darfur, all three Ethiopian
regions qualify as ongoing genocides against indigenous people. Failure
to apply the genocide standards constitutes genocide denial.
The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1778 (2007) on 25
September 2007 established the United Nations Mission in the Central
African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT). According to the UN’s October 2007
Expression Of Interest, “[i]n it’s Presidential Statement of 30 April
2007, the Security Council requested the Secretary General to
‘immediately begin appropriate contingency planning for a United Nations
mission to Somalia’. At this early stage it is planned to have a UN
logistics base at Mombassa, Kenya to support the main supply line from
Mombassa to Kismayo, Mogadishu and Hobyo, which will serve as secondary
logistics bases in Somalia. At this early stage the number and location
of these sites is unknown, but it is envisaged that approximately 24,000
personnel may be required.”
Ethiopia’s war in Somalia has taxed the government drawing widespread
criticism. The U.S. is pressing for an African Union mission as a proxy
force to replace the Ethiopian troops and further U.S. interests.
Mombasa, Kenya is a U.S. military port. Kenya is also awash in oil
development, poverty and destitute refugees. The U.S. war in Somalia is
ongoing. In March 2007 the Pentagon deployed an additional 150 SOCOM
Forces in Uganda. The troops were part of the Combined Joint Task Force
Horn-of-Africa, an “anti-terrorist naval force” deployed around the Horn
of Africa with support points in Bahrain and Djibouti. Ugandan sources
divulged that the SOCOM troops would be dispersed “around the country”
to “support UPDF troops” and “provide support to distribute humanitarian
aid.”
It was openly reported that the SOCOM are “possibly training the South
Sudanese army, which has just signed an agreement for this with its
Ugandan counterpart, strengthening Ugandan capacity to fight terrorism.”
The U.S. military has also modernized the old Entebbe airport for UPDF
operations, and the Entebbe airport supports a small but permanent U.S.
military contingent. It is believed that U.S. SOCOM troops are operating
in blood-drenched Eastern Congo. Ugandan opposition sources have
reported that SOCOM forces in UPDF uniforms have joined the more than
2000 Pentagon-trained UPDF forces sent by Museveni to Somalia. The UPDF
troops operating in Ethiopia behind a “peacekeeping” propaganda front
have been accused of widespread atrocities. More than 1000 people die
daily in Eastern DRC where fighting since 1996 has claimed at least 7
million lives. The Democratic Republic of Congo has seen multiple
genocide campaigns, and multiple genocide denials are ongoing.
SOCOM forces have been openly reported in Niger, where operations are
billed as “humanitarian” and “human rights” training of Nigerienne
troops. But the insurgency and “rebellion” by the Tuareg and Toubou
nomads has always been about uranium and depopulation: Exxon (Esso) and
French corporations have exploited the Agadez and Air regions for over
40 years, dumping radioactive sickness and social devastation on another
indigenous population. Yet another genocide?
DARFURISM
The Darfur region of western Sudan has been a hotbed of clandestine
activities, gunrunning and indiscriminate violence for decades. The Cold
War era saw countless insurgencies launched from the remote deserts of
Darfur. Throughout the 1990’s factions allied with or against Chad,
Uganda, Ethiopia, Congo, Libya, Eritrea and the Central African Republic
operated from bases in Darfur, and it was a regular landing strip for
foreign military transport planes of mysterious origin.
In 1990, Chad's Idriss Deby launched a military blitzkrieg from Darfur
and overthrew President Hissan Habre; Deby then allied with his own
tribe against the Sudan government. Sudanese rebels today have bases in
Chad, and Chadian rebels have bases in Darfur, with Khartoum’s backing.
When the regime of Ange-Félix Patassé collapsed in the Central African
Republic in March 2003, soldiers fled to Darfur with their military
equipment. Khartoum supported the West Nile Bank Front, a rebel army
operating against Uganda from Eastern Congo, commanded by Taban Amin,
the son of the infamous Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin, who heads Uganda’s
dreaded Internal Security Organization.
Darfur is another epicenter of the modern-day international geopolitical
scramble for Africa’s resources. Conflict in Darfur escalated in 2003 in
parallel with negotiations “ending” the south Sudan war. The U.S.-backed
insurgency by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), the guerilla
force that fought the northern Khartoum government for 20 years, shifted
to Darfur, even as the G.W. Bush government allied with Khartoum in the
U.S. led “War on Terrorism.” The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA)—one of some
27 rebel factions mushrooming in Darfur—is allied with the SPLA and
supported from Uganda.
Andrew Natsios, former USAID chief and now US envoy to Sudan, said on
October 6, 2007 that the atmosphere between the governments of north and
south Sudan “had become poisonous.” This is no surprise given the
magnitude of the resource war in Sudan and the involvement of
international interests, but the investigation should center on the
involvement and activities of Andrew Natsios and Roger Winter. Roger
Winter, USAID chief in Khartoum today, is directly linked to the Rwandan
Patriotic Front/Army and U.S. military campaign that destabilized Rwanda
and decapitated the leadership of Rwanda and Burundi. USAID’s
affiliations with the Department of Defense are now openly advertised
with the propaganda peddling AFRICOM—the Pentagon’s new Africa Command.
AFRICOM combines U.S. CENTCOM, PACIFICOM and EUCOM operations in Africa;
it is nothing new, merely the consolidation and expansion of widespread
and ongoing involvement.
Darfur is reported to have the fourth largest copper and third largest
uranium deposits in the world. Darfur produces two-thirds of the world’s
best quality gum Arabic—a major ingredient in Coke and Pepsi. Contiguous
petroleum reserves are driving warfare from the Red Sea, through Darfur,
to the Great Lakes of Central Africa. Private military companies operate
alongside petroleum contractors and “humanitarian” agencies. Sudan is
China’s fourth biggest supplier of imported oil, and U.S. companies
controlling the pipelines in Chad and Uganda seek to displace China
through the US military alliance with “frontline” states hostile to
Sudan: Uganda, Chad and Ethiopia.
Israel reportedly provides military training to Darfur rebels from bases
in Eritrea, and has strengthened ties with the regime in Chad, from
which more weapons and troops penetrate Darfur. The refugee camps have
become increasingly militarized. There are reports that Israeli and U.S.
military and intelligence operate from within refugee camps in Darfur.
Israel is all over the Sahara, from Burkina Faso to Ethiopia and Uganda.
Israel’s clandestine actions are partly funded by Israeli-American
diamond magnates involved in Angola, Sierra Leone and Congo, especially
Dan Gertler (G.W. Bush’s unofficial Ambassador to the DRC), Beny
Steinmetz, and Lev Leviev.
African Union (AU) forces in Darfur include Nigerian and Rwandan troops
responsible for atrocities in their own countries. Ethiopia has
committed 5000 troops for a UN force in Darfur. AU troops receive
military-logistic support from NATO, and are widely hated. Early in
October 2007, SLA rebels attacked an AU base killing ten troops.
In a subsequent editorial sympathetic to rebel factions (“Darfur’s
Bitter Ironies,” Guardian Online, 10/4/07) Smith College English
professor, Eric Reeves, espoused the tired rhetoric of “Khartoum’s
genocidal counter-insurgency war in Darfur,” a position
counterproductive to any peaceful settlement. To minimize the damage
this rebel attack has done to their credibility Reeves and other “Save
Darfur” advocates cast doubt about the rebels’ identities and
mischaracterized the SLA attackers as “rogue commanders.” However, there
is near unanimous agreement, internationally, that rebels are “out of
control,” committing widespread rape and plundering with impunity, just
as the SPLA did in South Sudan for over a decade.
Debunking the claims of a “genocide against blacks” or an “Islamic
holy-war” against Christians, Darfur’s Arab and black African tribes
have intermarried for centuries, and nearly everyone is Muslim. The
“Save Darfur” campaign is deeply aligned with Jewish and Christian
faith-based organizations in the United States, Canada, Europe and
Israel. These groups have relentlessly campaigned for Western military
action, demonizing both Sudan and China, but they have never addressed
Western military involvement—backing factions on all sides.
Christian and Jewish involvement in the “Save Darfur” campaign centers
on a long-running but deeply manipulative narrative about slavery and
genocide in South Sudan. The Holocaust Memorial Museum furthered the
establishment narrative about Darfur in keeping with the genocide theme;
no one ever examines the interests behind the Holocaust Memorial Museum,
it is merely some apolitical institution with the championing of
supposed “universal” human rights of all people everywhere as its raison
d’etre.
The new political and propaganda doctrine that uses “genocide” as a
political tool is morally ambiguous, it attacks the crimes of some and
passes over the crimes of others. It uses as its universal principle the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its complementary covenants
and proclamations. On the one hand, however, this involves genocide
inflation, and on the other hand genocide denial. But the USA—with good
Christian and Jewish foot soldiers—is always the final arbitrator:
global cop, judge, jury and executioner all in one.
Christian organizations involved in Sudan for years include Servant’s
Heart and Christian Solidarity International. On Servant’s Heart’s
“Board of Reference” is British Baroness Caroline Cox, who is also
closely affiliated with Christian Solidarity International (CSI)—one of
the main Christian allies of the SPLM/A war in southern Sudan. The
propaganda system advocates in favor of the “rebels” in Darfur using a
handful of techniques developed in their propaganda campaign behind the
“rebels” in South Sudan. Rebels are supported partly by never mentioning
them, partly by decrying abuses against them, partly by providing
sympathetic one-sided accounts of Khartoum government attacks, and
partly by defending their excesses if and when—infrequently—the rebel
abuses come to light.
Christian Solidarity International (CSI) in 2006 issued press releases
claiming that the Lebanese organization Hezbollah “is using Christian
villages to shield its military operations in violation of international
law.” These reports appear to be fabrications to begin with and the CSI
accusation a projection of their own involvement with the SPLA in South
Sudan, where the SPLA for over a decade used the civilian population as
human shields, used the Western AID apparatus (Operation Lifeline Sudan)
as cover for military support, and used food as a weapon.
If Hezbollah did this during the recent U.S.-Israeli invasion they
[Hezbollah] certainly learned it by studying SPLA (CSI) tactics in
Sudan. Thus we have twisted triple-standards where the establishment
propaganda accuses Hezbollah of violating international law, but the
SPLM/A—and the “rebel” groups in Darfur—while doing exactly the same
thing, are never anything but poor, defenseless Christians under attack
in a “genocidal counter-insurgency” run out of Khartoum government.
Who are the rebels in Darfur? Where do they get new uniforms and modern
weapons? It was the same with the establishment propaganda on Rwanda and
the invading Rwanda Patriotic Front/Army from 1990-1994: abuses were
covered up, the government of Juvenal Habyarimana was blamed for
everything, and the “rebels”—backed by Washington, partnered with the
Pentagon—were never exposed for their nasty, outrageous abuses.
There is growing dissent within the “Save Darfur” movement as more
supporters question its motivations and the Jewish/Israeli link. “Save
Darfur” leaders have been replaced after complaints surfaced about
expenditures of funds. Many rebel leaders reportedly receive tens of
thousands of dollars monthly, and rebels emboldened by the “Save Darfur”
movement commit crimes with impunity. There is a growing demand to probe
the accounts of “Save Darfur” to find out how the tens of millions
collected are being spent due to allegations of arms-deals and
bribery—rebel leaders provided with five-star hotel accommodations,
prostitutes and sex parties.
“Save Darfur” is today the rallying cry for a broad coalition of special
interests. Advocacy groups—from the local Massachusetts Congregation
B’Nai Israel chapter to the International Crises Group and USAID—have
fueled the conflict through a relentless, but selective, public
relations campaign that disingenuously serves a narrow policy agenda.
These interests offer no opportunity for corrective analyses, but
stubbornly press their agenda, and they are widely criticized for
inflaming tensions in Darfur. This is what we might call Darfurism.
The latest Lockheed Martin contract with the United Nations illustrates
the final stage in the transformation of international conflict whereby
military-industrial giants are openly engaged, rather than
clandestinely, as has been previously the case. This development
parallels the rise of Darfurism— a mass movement in the West designed to
channel popular sympathy and agitate people to act on a cause they know
nothing about, but think they do. Darfurism is a pathological mix of
fear, patriotism, social immaturity, opportunism and unconsciousness
akin to fascism. Under the current climate of apathy, fear and public
opinion, anything goes, and warfare involves humanitarian agencies as
active players in the mix. Like the Holocaust Memorial Museum they are
seen as neutral, described as apolitical, but nothing could be further
from the truth.
The United Nations and African Union serve as pseudo-privatized military
forces backing a hegemonic, corporate, political and economic agenda.
The future has arrived, and it uses human rights institutions, the label
of genocide and accusations of atrocities, and the ever-expanding
international AID and charity industry—operating out of pure profit
motives—as pivotal elements in the Western portfolio of soft and hard
weapons used to further the prerogatives of Empire and clear the land
for absolute corporate exploitation.
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