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 Re: ما مشكلة ضحايا دارفور لم يتجاوزوا الف قتيل!!!! (Re: أحمد أمين)
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الأخ عبد الرحيم
تحياتي لك
عودونا التلاعب بالأرقام
Sudan agreeable in south, murderous in west
HAROON SIDDIQUI
Sudan evokes images of Muslim fundamentalists and Christian missionaries, the slave trade, oil skulduggery and civil war. Add ethnic cleansing to that unhappy mix.
Sudan is also where George W. Bush has done one of his few good deeds: prodding Africa's largest nation to wind down the continent's longest-running war.
But just as the northern-dominated government in Khartoum and the rebellious south are negotiating an end to their 21-year civil war, a similar conflict has broken out in the west.
Backed by federal helicopter gunships, bombers and troops, local militias in the Darfur region have looted, torched and depopulated villages.
About 10,000 people have been killed, 1 million displaced and 100,000 forced to flee to Chad.
With the rainy season only weeks away, relief agencies are in a race against time. Canada has given $3 million for the refugees and $8 million to the U.N. World Food Program.
Besides aid, what's needed is the glare of international attention. Khartoum does not want to jeopardize its efforts to erase the pariah status it acquired when hosting Osama bin Laden. It also needs foreign help in containing internal strife.
Sudan is the divide between Arab and sub-Saharan Africa. It reflects all the religious, racial, tribal, ideological and economic disputes of its 30 million people.
They have been warring for decades. The most debilitating conflict began in 1983 when Khartoum revoked the autonomy of the south and imposed sharia, Islamic law. The situation got worse after a 1989 coup, when the ruling junta, looking for a populist base, recruited an Islamic party into government.
Southern rebels coalesced around John Garang's Sudanese People's Liberation Movement. Khartoum had its own proxy southern militias.
But the conflict was widely seen as a crusade between Muslims on the one side and Christians and animists on the other.
Western churches, especially evangelicals, ran anti-slavery campaigns. They singled out Arab slave traders, even though abductions of women and children are common among tribes.
Many "slave redeemer" missions were exposed as stunts, with paid people acting out assigned roles. But the tactics did help garner American public and government support.
In 1992, bin Laden landed in Khartoum.
So did other Arab veterans of the 1980-91 anti-Soviet Afghan war. But under Saudi pressure, Sudan expelled him, first offering to hand him and his comrades to the United States.
Foolishly, Washington declined.
Two years later, Al Qaeda bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Bill Clinton landed cruise missiles at a Khartoum pharmaceutical factory. Muslims were outraged.
By then, Sudan was feeling the impact of U.S.-led United Nations sanctions. It also had completed a pipeline to the Red Sea and needed foreign investment.
It was dealing with Talisman Energy Inc. of Calgary (which has since pulled out under public pressure).
Post-9/11, Sudan shared its Al Qaeda intelligence with the U.S.
Bush named a special envoy to help end the civil war. He was said to be pandering to the Christian right, the oil lobby and the black caucus in Congress.
Lost in all the politicking was the irony that the American campaign against an ostensibly religious and racist regime was being orchestrated strictly along religious and racist lines.
But Bush's intervention did pay off. Last December, Colin Powell announced a new deal:
Khartoum was to grant greater autonomy to the south; integrate its troops and the rebel soldiers into a unified national army; share oil revenues and power; even let the south vote in 2010 on possible secession.
Only some details, such as creating a sharia-free zone in Khartoum, remained to be resolved.
But out in western Sudan, trouble was brewing.
Not along religious lines, since both the northerners and westerners are Muslims. Race wasn't much of a factor, since northerners aren't exactly white. Ethnicity was.
Two people inhabit Western Sudan: Arab herdsmen and tribal farmers. For centuries, they have shared the meagre resources of the land.
But recent climate changes and desertification, coupled with poor management of water holes, led to overlapping migrations and conflict.
Two tribal rebel groups made political and economic demands. Khartoum hit back hard, siding with and arming Arab gangs and militias.
This is where parallels with the south are eerily relevant.
In a replay of the 1990s tactics, Khartoum gave air cover to the horse- and camel-riding Janjaweed militias in attacking the Fur, Masalit and Zanghawa tribes. That's what created the current humanitarian crisis.
In massacring fellow-Muslims, even destroying their mosques, Khartoum has unwittingly disproved the decade-long formulation that it was waging a jihad against Christians and animists. Its campaigns against both the south and the west have been wars of brutal federal domination and control of regions.
Still, why would the government that learned to compromise in the south now act so murderously in the west? The answer lies in the divisions within the government.
Its army-dominated security wing is said to believe that civilian negotiators have given away too much in the south. It does not want central authority diluted elsewhere.
There are indications that the hard-liners are being brought back in line. That explains the (sputtering) ceasefire and the decision to let American and United Nations relief officials get in, at last.
Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham has done well to keep up the pressure on Khartoum.
Canada should continue to support the Bush administration, which has the credibility and clout to force Sudan to co-operate in humanitarian relief, allow the return of displaced people, disband puppet militias, and begin peace with the rebels.
Failing that, Sudan should lose its political gains in the south and suffer continued American economic sanctions as well as the opprobrium of the world, including Muslims everywhere.
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