Sudan- Change the channel

Published on August 4, 2004 By Roger Sanchez In Politics

For those of you who don`t know theres a huge humanitarian crisis in Sudan right now. I`ll tell you about it but first some background:

Sudan isn`t really one nation its two.

The south is tropical underdevolped and populated by different black ethnic groups. The north is drier, wealthier and populated mainly by Arab muslims (though many of these are of black "race"). However they were lumped together as one country by the Imperial British forces. These two sides started fighting even before the British left in 1956. Apart from an 11 year truce in the 70s they`ve been fighting ever since which makes this the world longest civil war. Its quite hard for me to tell what their actually fighting about.

The north is currently controlled by a small coterie of black people who consider themselves arabs. They rule it from the capital Khartoum and its group that the UN has diplomatic relations with. They've imposed strict islamic laws on the part of the country they control. They aren`t elected and Sudan is not a democracy.

The Sudan Peoples Liberation Army are the rebel faction they don`t seem to keen on democracy and it seems to be more about religion and race. The "rebels" control the land roughly south of the words "upper nile" "al wahdah" and "janub darfur" though the line of control changes every day and there is a huge area of no mans land in between. I`m sorry I can`t find a map of the line I`ll try to make one myself.

The complication of this in recent years has been that $20 billion dollars worth of oil has been found under Sudan in the south. I think theres now a bit of a cease fire because both groups need eachother to get the oil. Currently a huge oil pipeline is being built from the south of the country to the north so they can get the oil. Needless to say the west wants the cease fire to hold so we can get the oil.

Little of this is relevant to the current situation except to point out that the northern rulers are not very nice and the southern fighters aren`t much nicer

The current situation has its routes in a seperate uprising from the darfur area (not by the SPLA). This was by black africans who weren`t muslims and wanted to overthrow the govt. The rebbellion was defeated. However the govt, being evil, decided to set an example and in summer last year sent in the milita it had armed called the janjaweed to systematically commit a reign of terror on the innocent civilians in darfur. I think this mainly took place in and around the area known as gharb darfur in the west of the country. The militawere heavily armed. I believe they used planes to bomb the villages and then went in and killed the men, raped the women, burnt the place down, that sort of stuff. Lots of people fled west some into neighbouring Chad. Its important to note the janjaweed are tools of the govt they were responding to attacks on the govt their basically the govts army. Its also important to note that this isn`t a genocide. The people affected are black africans of mainly traditional african religous beliefs. The perpatrators are black arab muslims. But its not really about race or religion its about a rebellion.

This issue first came into our media attention in the spring which was when I first came to hear about it. Please don`t think I`m a jolly come lately I beleive we should have started doing something back last summer when I would have hoped our PM first heard about it. I really should have written an article back in march arguing for invasion just so I could say I-told-you-so now. We certainly shouldn`t have left it this late untill the media properly caught the story. Thousands of people have already died and thousands more will die when the weather changes.

Currently loads of people are in humanitarian camps being helped by the great organisations of oxfam and co. Unfortunatly these camps need protection still from the janjaweed. They desperatly need a cordon set up around the areas because at the moment the militia are just out side where the people have to go to collect firewood. When the women collect the wood they are raped. The men would go but they might be killed.

Heres my solution to the situation as it seems now:

(However if I`d been PM a years ago we`d already be in there)

We should send troops into humanitarianm areas NOW. Then later on we should use them to reign in the militas and help the people get back to their homes. Then we should send them all over the country as a "peace keeping force". The govt would have no choice but to accept. Then of course we should use them to topple the govt and set up a democratic one. The only problem is the south that would probably need some serious military force.

But this won`t happen in fact Tony wont even send in one squad to protect civilians who are starving. Also the west doesn`t want to upset the shaky north/south truce.

This whole situation just shows what happens when you leave evil govts alone to do what they want. It happens about every decade. It`ll happen in zimbabwe in the next fifty years unless we invade and sort them out.

I know people are tired of war after Iraq. And I know its a tiresome buissness and you can`t sort out the worlds problems in an afternoon but that doesn`t mean you shouldn`t start. Also a war against Sudan would be a war of "choice" and of "regime change". However peoples lives in iraq are better now than they were with Saddam in power. Just ask them. And their lives are going to keep getting better once they have democracy.

I don`t call it regime change either I call it getting rid of evil murdering basterds but whatever. However on another note it was pointless sending British troops to Iraq the Americans would have done it anyway and we`d have more troops left for Sudan.

For people who still say we shouldn`t invade Sudan at all I say this:

Sure lets just ignore it. Its hardly a tourist hot spot and we can just turn over when its on TV. Plus war is always wrong no matter what, it just is.<BR>

Comments

Sir Peter Maxwell

on Aug 04, 2004

"However on another note it was pointless sending British troops to Iraq the Americans would have done it anyway and we`d have more troops left for Sudan."

The political significance outweighed the military significance. British troops played a vital role in Iraq, without the SAS Saddam's sons would never have been butchered, it was only the sly behaviour of our boys that drew them into the firing line.

Survival of the fiittest should be employed in the Sudan, let the death cut away the weak, leaving the strong to rebuild a society.

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