Ethnic Cleansing in Sudan

[aerocontrols]

Quote:

ALONG THE SUDAN-CHAD BORDER — The most vicious ethnic cleansing you've never heard of is unfolding here in the southeastern fringes of the Sahara Desert. It's a campaign of murder, rape and pillage by Sudan's Arab rulers that has forced 700,000 black African Sudanese to flee their villages.

...

Western and African countries need to intervene urgently. Sudan's leaders should not be able to get away with mass murder just because they are shrewd enough to choose victims who inhabit a poor region without airports, electricity or paved roads.

The culprit is the Sudanese government, one of the world's nastiest. Its Arab leaders have been fighting a civil war for more than 20 years against its rebellious black African south. Lately it has armed lighter-skinned Arab raiders, the Janjaweed, who are killing or driving out blacks in the Darfur region near Chad.

...

"They don't want any blacks left," he added.

Most refugees have stories like that. "They took the cattle and horses, killed the men, raped the women, and then they burned the village," said Abubakr Ahmed Abdallah, a 60-year-old refugee who escaped to Toukoultoukouli in Chad.

"They want to exterminate us blacks," said Halime Ali Souf. Her husband was killed, and she fled into Chad with her infant

...

"If we have food or water, we'll share it with them," said a Chadian peasant, Adam Isak Abubakr. "We can't leave them like this."

Let's hope that we Americans will show the same gumption and compassion. We should call Sudan before the U.N. Security Council and the world community and insist that it stop these pogroms. To his credit, President Bush has already led the drive for peace in Sudan, doing far more to achieve a peace than all his predecessors put together. Now he should show the same resolve in confronting this latest menace.

In the 21st century, no government should be allowed to carry out ethnic cleansing, driving 700,000 people from their homes. If we turn away simply because the victims are African tribespeople who have the misfortune to speak no English, have no phones and live in one of the most remote parts of the globe, then shame on us.

Source


So... what is to be done about this?

Ideas?



MattJ

[corplinx]

Too bad nukes don't differentiate between civillians and thugs. I can't think of a better statement for telling the world, "no more".

[epepke]

Quote:

Originally posted by aerocontrols
So... what is to be done about this?

Ideas?

Dunno.

All I can predict is that, if the US does nothing, it will be criticized for doing nothing.

If the US does something, it will be criticized for interfering.

If the US does something between the two, it will be criticized both for doing too much and too little.

Whatever it is, if it doesn't work out, it will be an example of US incompetence.

If it does work out, it will be an example of US imperialism.

And if it's a partial success, it will be an example both of US incompetence and US imperialism.

[peptoabysmal]

The Sudan situation has been just beyond awful for too long. Perhaps if the US started making some noise about it, the Sudanese government would back off a bit, but I doubt it.

I guess with the troops already extended in Afganistan and Iraq, we could only send in a minimal force. A small unit of special forces armed to the teeth might be enough, but I have a feeling we'd just be buying time for the blacks to get out of the country and become refugees. On the one hand, that might sound OK, but there isn't enough food to go around for the people of Chad, where the Sudanese are fleeing to.

This has been going on and on while we were all making a big stink about the US and Iraq. It is criminal neglect for the world to stand by and let this slaughter take place.

[Mycroft]

Quote:

Originally posted by aerocontrols
So... what is to be done about this?

Ideas?

Personally, I favor sending in the Marines. If you're going to be damned by world opinion either way, might as well be damned for saving some lives.

[peptoabysmal]

Quote:

Originally posted by Mycroft


Personally, I favor sending in the Marines. If you're going to be damned by world opinion either way, might as well be damned for saving some lives.

Oooh Rah!

[fishbob]

From the Dr. Walter Williams Discusses Saddam and WMD's thread next door:

Quote:

So weigh the difference. Do squat and get more of your own killed. Go all out and worse case scenario keep a few million from being under an oppresive regime that few liked anyhow

According to some posters, allowing oppressive regimes torture and kill unchecked for 15 years is bad, very bad, and probably Clinton's fault. Now if only the Sudanese had tried to assinate a certain US ex-president, the Marines would already be there.

[Grammatron]

Quote:

Originally posted by fishbob
From the Dr. Walter Williams Discusses Saddam and WMD's thread next door:

According to some posters, allowing oppressive regimes torture and kill unchecked for 15 years is bad, very bad, and probably Clinton's fault. Now if only the Sudanese had tried to assinate a certain US ex-president, the Marines would already be there.

And according to some other posters whatever the country does internally is their business and no one has a right to tell them what to do...unless it's USA or Israel then everyone knows what's better for them.

[The Fool]

After all you americans have finished feeling sorry for yourselves you may want to check this thing out...foer a change you can probably blame Canada....or at least a canadian oil company.... I will say no more, I don't want to spoil the surprise.

edited to add: That is, of course, if you are looking for someone outside Sudan to blame...

[zenith-nadir]

Sudan didn't start yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that even. The slavery, ethnic killing and rape/torchure has been happening there since the early 70's...civil war has been raging there since the 80's....and the United Nations is more worried about stopping the suicide bomber wall in Israel, hiding flight data recorders, allowing massacres and covering up the oil-for-food scandal than doing anything about Sudan.

When was the last time Kofi Annan made as much noise about Sudan as he did for Sheik Yassin? NEVER. Sudan need an enema, in a hurry, the U.N. ain't gonna do it.

[a_unique_person]

The UN has tried to do something, it is up to it's members to do it. If they aren't interested, then it is powerless. It was once a democracy.

[Skeptic]

Quote:

Originally posted by a_unique_person
The UN has tried to do something, it is up to it's members to do it. If they aren't interested, then it is powerless. It was once a democracy.

Yes, it was a "democracy" with a automatic majority for third-world dictatorships, under the principle of "one murderous thug, one vote". Shame on the US for ignoring it.

But you got to love "the Fool" and AUP. Their response for the news of a massacre in Sudan? The former blames Canada ("a Canadian oil company"), the latter, the US (for making the UN "importent").

They're nothing if not predictable.

[Badger]

Ah, yes, Fool. Talisman Energy.

They purchased interests from an Arab oil company (arak?) in about 1998, worked them a bit, and sold their interests to a large Indian oil company in 2003.

I hope you don't mean to imply that those 5 years of participation in the development of energy resources in the area are the root cause of the current situation there.

[Jocko]

Quote:

Originally posted by a_unique_person
The UN has tried to do something, it is up to it's members to do it. If they aren't interested, then it is powerless. It was once a democracy.

Please, AUP, we're talking about Sudan, not Iraq.

[c0rbin]

Which European colonial power up and left this part of Africa by the proverbial side of the road with a few proverbial bucks and a hearty proverbial handshake?

[zenith-nadir]

Quote:

Originally posted by a_unique_person
The UN has tried to do something, it is up to it's members to do it. If they aren't interested, then it is powerless. It was once a democracy.

Sudan was NEVER a democracy. More history rewritten for us by A_U_P.

Sudan had a "civilian government " in 1956 to 1958 and 1986-1989 otherwise it has been one coup after the next coup. Sudan is about as democratic as Syria or Saudi Arabia.

[aerocontrols]

Quote:

Originally posted by aerocontrols
So... what is to be done about this?

Ideas?

Mostly we'll be blaming each other for the problem, then?

[aerocontrols]

More news

[zenith-nadir]

Quote:

Originally posted by aerocontrols
More news

Concerning your link Aerocontrols.

I am not turning this into a middle east thread, nor do I wish it to, but doesn't it strike anybody as strange beyong belief that the United Nations is more concerned with condemning Israel over killing Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin than it is over 810,000 African people in Sudan fleeing their homes due to ethnic cleansing?!?!?!


If you never understood the true agenda of the modern United Nations maybe this example should tell you everything you need to know.

[ceptimus]

I was in Sudan a few months ago. I thought I was more likely to be killed on the roads there then by the war - the roads and the driving standards are terrible.

The USA did lob a cruise missile at a factory in Sudan on August 20, 1998. The USA claimed it was a chemical weapons factory, and that the USA was acting in self-defense, but of course this was just the usual lies and bulls**t.

[cbish]

Well, according to a certain AM radio talk show host, I was under the impression that America has never, will never, turn it's back or a blind eye on any type of genocide.

So I'm confused!

[c0rbin]

Who shall weed an untended garden?

From Library of Congress Country Studies

Sudan
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+sd0028)


Chad
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+td0017)

[zenith-nadir]

Quote:

Originally posted by ceptimus
I was in Sudan a few months ago. I thought I was more likely to be killed on the roads there then by the war - the roads and the driving standards are terrible.

The USA did lob a cruise missile at a factory in Sudan on August 20, 1998. The USA claimed it was a chemical weapons factory, and that the USA was acting in self-defense, but of course this was just the usual lies and bulls**t.

Richard Clarke said under oath yesterday in front of the 9-11 peanel that the plant in Sudan was connected to Bin Laden and Al Queda. I always thought it wasn't too.

I'm soooo confused...

[Jocko]

Quote:

Originally posted by zenith-nadir



Richard Clarke said under oath yesterday in front of the 9-11 peanel that the plant in Sudan was connected to Bin Laden and Al Queda. I always thought it wasn't too.

I'm soooo confused...

It was reported to be a pharmaceutical plant, which apparently had chemical weapon precursors in the soil around it (who sampled it, and the means used to analyze it I have no idea). It was my understanding that the plant turned out to be exactly what it said it was, and targeting it was a tragic misapplication of intelligence.

Not our finest hour, but many speculate it was to divert attention away from one of Clinton's finer half-hours. Two cruise missiles under the circumstances are the equivalent of your exterminator showing up armed only with a flyswatter.

[zenith-nadir]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jocko
It was reported to be a pharmaceutical plant, which apparently had chemical weapon precursors in the soil around it (who sampled it, and the means used to analyze it I have no idea). It was my understanding that the plant turned out to be exactly what it said it was, and targeting it was a tragic misapplication of intelligence.Not our finest hour, but many speculate it was to divert attention away from one of Clinton's finer half-hours. Two cruise missiles under the circumstances are the equivalent of your exterminator showing up armed only with a flyswatter.

Day One Transcript: 9/11 Commission Hearing

Quote:

Commission Senior Counsel Michael Hurley -

Please turn to the middle of page 3 where I will now discuss the third example, Osama bin Laden. In 1996, he was based in Sudan. Under the influence of the radical Islamist Hassan Al Turabi, Sudan had become a safe haven for violent Islamist extremists.

Quote:

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright -

When I came in as secretary, which was February 1997, there was no question that we knew about a variety of threats. I had, at the U.N., been involved with some of the issues to do with Sudan, where we were very concerned about the web of terrorist camps and support, et cetera, that were present in Sudan.

On actionable intelligence, I believed, and continue to believe, that the plant in Sudan was connected to this network that Osama bin Laden had had in Sudan and that it was an appropriate strike.

Let me go to the paragraph on the Sudanese choice: More difficult was the question of whether to strike other Al Qaida targets in Sudan. Two possible targets were identified in Sudan, including a pharmaceutical plant at which the president was told by his aides, they believed VX nerve gas was manufactured with Osama bin Laden's financial support. Indeed, even before the embassy bombings, NSC counterterrorism staff had been warning about this plant.

Quote:

Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow -

Let me go to the paragraph on the Sudanese choice: More difficult was the question of whether to strike other Al Qaida targets in Sudan. Two possible targets were identified in Sudan, including a pharmaceutical plant at which the president was told by his aides, they believed VX nerve gas was manufactured with Osama bin Laden's financial support. Indeed, even before the embassy bombings, NSC counterterrorism staff had been warning about this plant.

Yet on August 11th, the NSC staff senior director for intelligence advised National Security Adviser Berger that the bottom line was that we will need much better intelligence on this facility before we seriously consider any options.

By the early morning hours of August 20th, when the president made his decision, his policy advisers concluded that enough evidence had been gathered to justify the strike.

DCI Tenet and National Security Advisor Berger told us that. Based on what they know today, they still believe they made the right recommendation and that the president made the right decision. We have encountered no dissenters among his top advisers.

This strike was launched on August 20th. The missiles hit their intended targets, but neither bin Laden or any other terrorist leaders were killed. The decision to destroy the plant in Sudan became controversial.

I can't find the 9/11 Commission Hearing day two transcript but Richard Clarke DEFINITELY said the plant was not your average asprin factory either.

Are they all lying...under oath? Now I am really confused...

[The Fool]

Quote:

Originally posted by Badger
Ah, yes, Fool. Talisman Energy.

They purchased interests from an Arab oil company (arak?) in about 1998, worked them a bit, and sold their interests to a large Indian oil company in 2003.

I hope you don't mean to imply that those 5 years of participation in the development of energy resources in the area are the root cause of the current situation there.

Of course I blame those sneaky underhanded Canadians. They are commited to a program of world domination. I blame them entirely for everything.

[Jocko]

Quote:

Originally posted by zenith-nadir

I can't find the 9/11 Commission Hearing day two transcript but Richard Clarke DEFINITELY said the plant was not your average asprin factory either.

Are they all lying...under oath? Now I am really confused...

Damned if I can remember where I heard it, it was so long ago... maybe it was the prolonged silence that followed the initial questions that led people to assume it was a misidentified target. My recollection is that the attack was on a bona-fide pharmaceutical plant.

But then I think back 13 years to the Iraqi workers in white coveralls with "baby milk factory" written on the back... in English. I don't know if any solid resolution was ever reached on the nature of the target, but it was certainly never confirmed after the strike.

[epepke]

Quote:

Originally posted by The Fool
After all you americans have finished feeling sorry for yourselves you may want to check this thing out...foer a change you can probably blame Canada....or at least a canadian oil company.... I will say no more, I don't want to spoil the surprise.

Now I'll never get that South Park song out of my head.

[epepke]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jocko
It was my understanding that the plant turned out to be exactly what it said it was,

It certainly was a pharmaceutical plant, and it was making, amongst other things, some HIV drugs without paying royalties. Construction of the conspiracy theory is left as an exercize for the reader.

However, this does not mean that the facilities could not have been used for other purposes as well.

Quote:

and targeting it was a tragic misapplication of intelligence.

At the time, this was my understanding as well, that it was either a misapplication of intelligence or a deliberate act based on an illegitimate justification.

Now, I'm not so sure, because I remember the outcry about this being substantially similar to the outcry about lobbing cruise missiles into Afghanistan in an attempt to kill bin Laden. In retrospect, that action seems like it was a really good idea, only a couple of hours too late.

[Badger]

Quote:

Originally posted by The Fool

Of course I blame those sneaky underhanded Canadians. They are commited to a program of world domination. I blame them entirely for everything.

SHHHHhhhh!!

[ceptimus]

Here's a link to a longish report, produced back in 1998, that seems to debunk the American claims completely. I suppose it is biased. Anyhow, I am prepared to believe it - to me, it seems much more reasonable to me than the American claims.

I visited Khartoum, and that city seems a most unlikely location for a deadly nerve gas factory. The photos of the wrecked building seem to show none of the equipment that would normally be necessary for the production of nerve gas precursors. The doors to the facility opened straight onto the city streets. There is no sign of the isolation and pressure barrier systems that would normally be used to contain deadly materials. Even if fanatical terrorists are prepared to work in an unsafe chemical weapons factory, they still have to ensure they will remain alive long enough to actually make the weapons. And even terrorists have families and friends that they are not too keen on killing by accident.

On top of that we have the testimony of many British engineers and diplomats, who had visited the factory prior to its destruction: they said that the only things being made there were low-tech veterinary medicines and the sort of simple human remedies normally dispensed at a pharmacy.

[epepke]

Quote:

Originally posted by ceptimus
I visited Khartoum, and that city seems a most unlikely location for a deadly nerve gas factory. The photos of the wrecked building seem to show none of the equipment that would normally be necessary for the production of nerve gas precursors. The doors to the facility opened straight onto the city streets. There is no sign of the isolation and pressure barrier systems that would normally be used to contain deadly materials. Even if fanatical terrorists are prepared to work in an unsafe chemical weapons factory, they still have to ensure they will remain alive long enough to actually make the weapons. And even terrorists have families and friends that they are not too keen on killing by accident.

I hear what you're saying. But I also remember Bhopal. And I remember reading the innumerable manuals put out by the US government to tell people how to make highly dangerous weapons under unsafe conditions. And I remember how the Ebola outbreak in Africa was based on several hospitals that didn't even sanitize needles between uses. And I think that a cave in Afghanistan probably seems an unlikely place for someone to mastermind a terrorist strike involving four hijacked commercial airliners.

[Mr Manifesto]

Quote:

Originally posted by The Fool

Of course I blame those sneaky underhanded Canadians. They are commited to a program of world domination. I blame them entirely for everything.

Then you won't be pleased to know that some of <strike>us</strike> them have infiltrated your country to hatch nefarious schemes even as we speak.

You can shoot all the Quebecians. I can give you the address of a self-confessed Quebecian if you like.

[tamiO]

Quote:

Originally posted by epepke


And I think that a cave in Afghanistan probably seems an unlikely place for someone to mastermind a terrorist strike involving four hijacked commercial airliners.

I have heard that the caves that they hang out in aren't exactly the type of caves that spring to the imagination. I recall that the caves are actually shelters with some modern convenience to them built into mountains. I suppose it helps to camaflouge themselves. If what I recall is true.

[peptoabysmal]

Quote:

Originally posted by fishbob
From the Dr. Walter Williams Discusses Saddam and WMD's thread next door:

According to some posters, allowing oppressive regimes torture and kill unchecked for 15 years is bad, very bad, and probably Clinton's fault. Now if only the Sudanese had tried to assinate a certain US ex-president, the Marines would already be there.

I don't really think like that. Yes, Clinton is entertaining to make fun of. No, this is not all Clinton's fault. It is a very complex issue going back a lot further than 15 years. I think that some of Clinton's actions did embolden terrorists, particularly in that when any resistance was encountered, Clinton would just pull back and lob cruise missiles. In the terrorist's eyes, this made the US look very weak and Bin Laden himself makes much mention of it in his uh, "press releases" or whatever you want to call his little video clips.

edited because I can't type worth a ***** today

[zenith-nadir]

From: Annan tells of genocide 'regret' - Friday, 26 March, 2004

Quote:

The UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has said he could have done more to prevent the genocide in Rwanda 10 years ago.

At a memorial conference at the UN, Mr Annan said he feels he personally did not do enough to rally support for international efforts to stop it.

The genocide - in which some 800,000 people died - occurred when Mr Annan was head of UN peacekeeping forces.

Rwandans have accused the peacekeepers who were there at the time of failing to protect them.

One survivor, Specios Kenya Bugoi, described how 4,000 Tutsis took shelter close to Belgian troops hoping to be safe. Speaking through an interpreter she described how the troops left and the killings began.

TRANSLATION:

"We're too busy at the UN passing resolutions over assasinated terrorist leaders and walls to stop suicide bombers to worry about sill things like genocide"

[ceptimus]

Quote:

Originally posted by epepke
I hear what you're saying.

Did you look at the report I linked to that debunked the USA claims? What did you make of that?

[Mike B.]

What is telling is this death toll FAR exceeds the casualties in the Israel/Palestine conflict, and strangely the UN, world opinion, news media coverage in the West, etc. really couldn't care less.

(I am not really surprised of course.)

I just find it funny that those usual socialist fighters for international justice are so concerned about Israeli oppression in the third world, yet we have true genocide going on here and it is zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

[epepke]

Quote:

Originally posted by ceptimus
Did you look at the report I linked to that debunked the USA claims? What did you make of that?

Yes. I read it. It seemed to me a bit shotgun in its approach. A lot of it seemed to be knocking down of things that Clinton said which were bogus in the first place.

The statements of Tom Carnaffin seem overtly the strongest. However, I do not see these as compelling, either. I have some experience with chemical engineering, and I can say that any reasonbly equipped household within walking distance of a chemist could easily produce a variety of nerve agents. There's a big difference between saying that a facility is not particularly suited to the production of nerve agents and saying that it cannot be adapted.

Not that I have not been convinced that the facility was actually producing a precursor of a nerve agent. Merely that I have gone from being fairly certain that the bombing was a war crime to not being certain about it at all.

I don't see any way of increasing the certainty short of sending truly independent investigators to take soil samples and analyze them. Do you?

[ceptimus]

Quote:

Originally posted by epepke
I don't see any way of increasing the certainty short of sending truly independent investigators to take soil samples and analyze them. Do you?

No. But I find it telling that the USA did not accept the offer of the Sudanese government to allow such analysis teams to be sent in soon after the attack. And they have had over five years to do this now. Why the delay?

If the USA administration really believed that nerve agent precursors were present, I think they would have accepted that offer.

If the Sudanese administration really believed that nerve agent precursors were present, I think they would not have made that offer.

So in the absence of hard evidence, I lean towards the belief that the USA attack was both a blunder and a war crime.