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| Africa: East |
| Sudan plans to use peace in the south to wage war in the west |
| 2004-01-02 |
| Sudanese politics in a nutshell, right down to the sinister plots and Machiavellian designs of Bashir and Co ... I’m beginning to see why they always accuse the West of this stuff, they’re assuming that our leaders behave just like theirs do. The puppet of the Sudanese Arab-Islamist military dictatorship, General Omar Bashir has threatened to wage war against western groups after a large-scale attack earlier this week, a dramatic shift in the government’s earlier policy of dialogue and negotiation to resolve the conflict. Bashir, who is front man for the Islamist power behind the throne, Ali Taha, spoke in Khartoum on Tuesday to thousands of citizens from Kulbus, a city in Darfur province that was attacked Sunday by rebels from the Sudan Liberation Army. The army said it repulsed the attack, inflicting heavy but unspecified losses on the assailants. "Our priority from now on is to eliminate the rebellion, and any outlaw element is our target,’’ el-Bashir said in a speech broadcast Wednesday on state-run television. "We will use the army, the police, the mujahedeen [Islamic fighters], the horsemen to get rid of the rebellion.’’ The SLA rebels have been battling dicatorship troops and militias since February, demanding a greater share in power and better services for the region, as well as military control. "What good are they seeking for region when they displace the citizens and destroy property and establishment?’’ Bashir asked in his speech. According to the government and United Nations, more than 600,000 people have been displaced due to the violence in the area. The U.N. said some 70,000 more have crossed the border into neighboring Chad, and around 3,000 civilians have been killed. A Sept. 3 cease-fire brokered by Chad was to have been formalized earlier this month in Ndjamena, Chad, but talks broke down over intransigence of the Khartoum-based dictatorship. Until Tuesday, the regime had said it remained committed to dialogue. But the scale of Sunday’s attack seemed to have forced the change in policy. "It was a historic battle in which even women took part, going into the trenches carrying ammunition for the troops,’’ said Sulieman Abdallah, governor for the regime in Western Darfur state, in a speech at the same event Tuesday. "We in the state of Western Darfur are determined to eradicate the rebellion in the area.’’ Earlier this week, the government accused neighboring Eritrea (on the opposite side to the east of Africa’s largest country) and one of the many opposition parties, the Popular National Congress (PNC) party of providing assistance and backing the rebellion in Darfur. The PNC leader was the previous power behind the dictatorship, with its Islamist leader Dr Turabi having been overthrown by Ali Taha in an internal coup in the Sudan, retaining the puppet military dictator Omar Bashir as front man for the regime. The PNC has not condemned the SLA, but has said it has nothing to do with events there. Analysts believe that the dictatorship is using the cease fire brought about in the South of Sudan due to the American-sponsored peace negotiations which are meeting with success in Kenya, to divert its resources to fighting the rebellion in the west. The accusation against Eritrea is absurd, given Eritrea is one of Africa’s smallest states, is located on the opposite side of Sudan, is surrounded by two large neighbours Sudan and Ethiopia and the army of Eritrea is dug in the east of that country in defense against belligerant threats from her former occupier, Ethiopia. Recently Sudan and Ethiopia have used the excuse of "fighting terrorism" to not only curry favour with the United States which has pushed Sudan to negotiate peace with the southern rebels, in order to strengthen cooperation between Sudan and Ethiopia against Eritrea. The reality is that Eritrea has in the past been a refuge for many Sudanese from the east of Sudan where a rebellion against the Khatroum dictatorship has also flared up on several occasions in recent years. The Sudan dictatorship appears to be using its relations with Libya, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia and now the United States, to move its efforts to fighting rebels in the east and west of the country, perhaps in an alliance with the former southern rebel movement SPLA, who has no particular love for the African Muslims of Darfur, the west of Sudan, according to Sudanese analysts. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |