* Sudan has the fastest growing economy in Africa, and, is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. This is due to oil revenue. * “Direct foreign investment has shot up to $2.3 billion this year, from $128 million in 2000, all while the American government has tried to tighten the screws.†* Last August 2009, there was a visible construction boom, which has been continuous since I first went there in 2003. There are Toyota dealerships and a new airport. Bikya Masr has been told BMW is selling cars there, and that Mercedes is going in through a Yemeni contract, but there can be no confirmation of this as of yet. * The US sanctions against the Sudan government have chased-out companies like Canada’s Talisman Energy, though, the Chinese have built nearly a thousand miles of pipeline, and the Chinese are everywhere, including the semi-autonomous region of South Sudan: it was difficult to find lodging in Juba, capital of the south, because the Chinese had bought all the hotels to stable their workers. The civil war in the south is a complicated matter. Here are some broad strokes on the war and violence. The conflict dates back to the 13th Century, and takes place between the Arab Muslim in the north and the Black African, Christian/animist (traditional belief systems) in the south. Arab slave raids in Black African Sudan pre-date the discovery of America. Sudan gained independence from the British in 1955/6 and then came the First Sudanese Civil War from 1955-72. This movement was called anyanya, meaning ‘snake venom’ in one of the tribal languages. There have been ongoing Arabization attempts, to convert the Black African to Islam, and the Arab language is widely spoken, now, by that population. The Second Sudanese Civil War was from 1983-2005. John Garang, the leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, SPLA, was a career military man, with a PhD in agriculture from a US university. He was intensely charismatic. And in fact, Garang was sent by the Khartoum government to the south to quell a rebellion, which he instead encouraged. This started the second anyanya. Garang is from the Dinka tribe, a dominant tribe in the south. Omar Bashir, Khartoum’s current president, and who is under a warrant issued from the ICC for war crimes, took power in 1989, by bloodless coup. He implemented shariat law on the Black African in the south, and started a campaign to kill them off. The bombing raids were brutal. A documentary called, God Grew Tired of Us, gives narrative on these events. [I don’t use the word ‘genocide’ in print, because the Khartoum government dislikes it, and the Khartoum government is still issuing entry permits to me, and I want to keep it that way.] Incidentally, the oil, the livestock and the agriculture are in the south—almost all of it of significant volume, anyway. This is a primary motive for the Bashir government. Unfortunately for the Arab, the Nilo-Saharan tribes of Black African Sudan are not just cattle herders and farmers, they are also warrior tribes who will fight to the death, like the Shilluk. The Black African took to mechanized warfare like a fish to water, and the battles were intensely violent and destructive, including the use of child soldiers by the SPLA. It could be said that some of these Black African young men were from warrior tribes, with a culture of defending their ancestral lands, and fighting, going back one thousand years. Not that children seek war, but they were being invaded and felt a sincere urge to fight back, like they had been taught for generations. Others will tell you differently. And perspectives vary widely. There certainly were atrocities committed by both sides, and the game parks in the south were poached to nearly nil by the SPLA. Essentially, it was a war lasting more than twenty years with two million killed and twice that many displaced. There was absolutely no development in Juba, South Sudan, when I was there in 2008. There never had been any infrastructure. No hospital, no post office, no school, no bank. There are make-shift attempts with NGOs, like Medicines Sans Frontiers. The UN is active in South Sudan. And church people have a presence there, too. In 2005 both sides signed the Comprehensive Peace Accord, CPA, and the SPLA took on a role similar to Sinn Fein of the Irish Republican Army, and is now the SPLA/M (Movement). John Garang took a seat as vice president in Khartoum’s government. And the SPLM has members in parliament. Garang died in a helicopter accident in 2005, and there were riots in Khartoum. Weather was ruled the cause of the accident, and Salva Kiir took Garang’s seat as vice president of Sudan. Kiir, given to wearing hats, lacks the charisma of Garang, and is not perceived as a strong decisive leader. Time will tell. There are ongoing clashes in the south. More people have died from armed conflict in South Sudan than have died in Darfur in 2009. Officials in the SPLA/M government accuse Khartoum of encouraging the local Black African militias and tribes to fight. It is often difficult to travel to the city of Malakal, due to the security problems there. In 2008 Somali pirates seized a Ukrainian cargo ship carrying military cargo, including over thirty tanks, hundreds of RPGs, and many other weapons. The ship, according to its manifest, was to deliver the weapons to GoSS, or the Government of South Sudan. Neither side made much of an issue of this, as they have both been re-arming and massing troops on the borders, in tandem violation of the arms embargo, as stated by the CPA of 2005. A contact in Khartoum Central Security confirmed that the SPLA arms come in through Kenya and Uganda. There is to be a vote for autonomy in South Sudan in a 2011 referendum. The south is expected to seek full independence. And oil sharing rights, though disproportionate to the south, are happening. Khartoum is making concessions, very slowly. The problems in Juba is all the new ministers in the SPLA were career generals whom had been fighting in the bush for twenty years, and did not know much about their relative appointments. This doesn’t mean they cannot assemble a reasonable ministry, though, they are building their palatial villas in Nairobi and Kampala, which sends a message that they don’t anticipate the peace to last. Also, alcohol and prostitution are creeping in, where it wasn’t before. All trade is done by Europeans, Kenyans and Ugandans. The Sudanese seem left out. * Terrorism, security in the Sudan In Khartoum, 2008, an American embassy official was gunned-down in the streets, in the very early hours. It was stated later he was with the NGO USAID, and had been partying late. A group of Islamists was rounded-up and charged with the killing. He was by driving around loaded at five am by his chauffeur, but he may have had tried to recruit an informant from Khartoum Central Security, and this was Khartoum Central Security’s answer to the request. * Carlos the Jackal Carlos the Jackal, Ilich RamÃrez Sánchez, was a terrorist for the Palestinians, inter alia, in the 1970s. In 1994 French paratroopers took him off a Khartoum operating table while he was sedated, and into a French prison for his bombings. It was said the French made a deal with Khartoum for Sánchez, by providing spare military parts for grounded helicopters, and technology for the civil war. An arms embargo had kept Khartoum from accessing the military equipment. Although Egypt’s security apparatus claims to have located him, Sánchez had been living openly in Khartoum, and living a playboy lifestyle, which offended the Bashir Muslim government, who is of strict conservative Islamic belief system. * Osama bin Laden The Bashir government used to contain Hassan al-Turabi, who is even more austere in his Islamic belief system than Bashir. Turabi was instrumental in inviting bin Laden to Sudan. The Saudi Binladin Group was given the contract to build the airport in Port Sudan, on the Red Sea. And bin Laden finally moved to Khartoum in 1992, with his large family. In the Sudan, bin Laden found paradise. It was the happiest time of his adult life. bin Laden opened holding companies, bought gum arabic plantations, ranches with horses and other properties. He imported much needed trucks and machinery from Eastern Europe. At that time, Sudan was one of the poorest and most desolate nations on Earth. And bin Laden built the twenty-million dollar road from Khartoum to Port Sudan. His relationship with Turabi was feigned, and they secretly disagreed to the point of controlled hatred on their visions of re-establishing an Islamic state. But they tolerated each other. bin Laden attended lectures and discussions in Turabi’s salon, but he was said to have left early. In Sudan, bin Laden sired the new vision of al-Qaeda, ran his training camps and conducted activities, like bombings in Yemen and Egypt. And there were reprisal assassination attempts against bin Laden, thought done by Saudi and Egyptian intelligence. Members of his own family spoke out against him, and his criticisms of the Saudi monarchy allowing ‘infidel armies on Muslim soil’, brought an envoy from the Kingdom, whom, revoked his Saudi passport and cut off his allowance. An assassination attempt on Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, in Addis Abba, in 1995, was traced back to Turabi and bin Laden. And in 1996 there were calls to expel bin Laden from Sudan—unfortunately for bin Laden, he had no passport and was welcome nowhere. In an attempt to improve US/Sudan relations, the Sudanis ejected bin Laden, sending him off to war-torn Afghanistan. His investments in Sudan were bought back at a fraction of their worth, by Sudan’s then rulers. And he was never paid for the 20 million dollar, 450-mile road to Port Sudan. * Today, the New York Times regularly runs articles on how the US State Department is getting tremendous co-operation from Sudan in the ‘war on terror’ (this term is no longer used by the Obama administration, incidentally). Also, the CIA has sent private jets to ferry the Sudan intelligence chief to Langley, for meetings on security issues. NB: the intel minister mentioned in a 2005 article has since been replaced. * Hassan al-Turabi, has since fallen out of favor with President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan. And Turabi has been repeatedly jailed. * The ongoing problems in Darfur are the current stalling point for the Obama administration, although, they have expressed a willingness to talk with Bashir, whom, refuses to call Darfur a ‘genocide’, and openly laughs at the warrant issued by the ICC. BM
