The Sudanese government has intensified military attacks on the people of the Darfur, Blue Nile, Nuba Mountain, and South Kordofan areas (people of African descent), so as to segregate and ethnically cleanse. President Omar al-Bashir and the cronies of the regime have been seizing the best land and resources from the Nuba/South Kordofan areas and throughout Sudan since the 1990s.
By Coska Yaser and Martin Ralph
In August, the Sudanese government launched a large-scale campaign to disarm civilians in Darfur and states of Kordofan. Many militias including 12,500 Rapid Support Force are carrying out this attack. Charge d’Affaires Stephen Coates (U.S.) expressed support.
Abdelwahid El Nur, head of the mainstream Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM-AW), considers the disarmament campaign launched by Khartoum “a ruse to dismantle the camps by force”.
On 22 September 2017, Sudan’s President ordered an armed attack against the Kalma camp (resettlement camp of 90,000) in the Darfur region. 28 people were injured and 8 were killed including two women and a child. Attacks continue.(www.dabangasudan.org/en).
It is a continuation of the burning, killing, robbery, and rape that has gone on since the 1990s, “…over 480,000 people have been killed, and over 2.8 million displaced.” [worldwithoutgenocide.org]
Dozens of students have been killed, injured and expelled from universities since 2014 for organizing and speaking out against human rights violations in Darfur. In July 2017, students were prevented from using public transport to travel to a protest against university privatisation in Khartoum, so more than 1,200 Darfuri students from Bakht al-Rida University (White Nile State) marched to Khartoum to deliver their demands to the government: Right to study and participate in student elections; Readmission of 14 expelled students; Stop killing their families and relatives back home
Two students Ashraf Alhadi and Jafar Mohammed were stabbed to death and two others seriously injured in that demonstration, and on 26 September, Aesim Umar was sentenced to death. On 30 September, Kordofan University, 4 students were killed and 13 injured with 20 arrested.
At the same time, Sudan’s repression of migrants and refugees from Somalia, Eritrea, and Ethiopia has escalated – as reported in the Guardian (February 2016),“65 asylum seekers… were lashed 40 times on their backs and the back of their legs with leather whips.”
Opposition to government attacks has led to the organisation of many protests in Sudan, and across Europe and the USA, including the UK (in Liverpool with ‘Justice of Darfur’).
So, considering this, why did the US remove the 20-year-old sanctions policy against Sudan in October 2017? Why is the EU giving millions to al-Bashir? And, why has the UK government done nothing about the Sudanese arms trade operating through London?
EU money supports repression of prison refugees
According to Die Speigel (13 May 2016), to prevent African refugees from reaching Europe, the EU plan to deliver personal registration equipment to Sudan. Yet the President has been charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The arrest warrant against al-Bashir relates to his alleged role in genocide and crimes against humanity in the Darfur conflict.
“For three years, 40 million ($45 million) is to be paid out to eight African countries from the Emergency Trust Fund, including Sudan…The United Nations says that there are currently 4 million people in flight in the area.”th
According to The Economist, “…Sudan indicated its desire to improve its international standing by working with the EU to reduce undocumented migration into Europe…” Thus, the so-called Western democracy of the EU calls on a war criminal to control migration.
Arms deal to Sudan via London
Research released by Amnesty International in September 2017, exposes an illicit US$46m South Sudan arms deal, “…documents seen by AI name a UK company called S-Profit Ltd, registered near London’s Covent Garden… one of the largest single arms deals that the South Sudanese government…since the outbreak of fighting in December 2013.” The UK government did nothing for it profit has always been sacrosanct.
Sanctions removed by the US
The Financial Times reported (23 March 2017) that, “The incoming president’s [Donald Trump] transition team approved an executive order signed by President Obama during his final days in office which suspended sanctions against Sudan…This means Sudan’s rich resource base — with 1.5bn barrels of proven oil reserves, according to BP, and extensive gold and mineral deposits — may be back on the global market after 20 years of US sanctions.”
Investors are moving in from Europe, the USA and South America and the UAE recently agreed to provide Sudan’s central bank with a $400m deposit.
Chinese companies, which control 75 percent of foreign investment in Sudan’s oil will face fierce competition.
Rape and genocide are being fuelled by imperialist and other exploiting countries. A driving force is the desire of the US, like the EU and the UK to exploit Sudan and its oppressed people for economic, political and intelligence reasons.
The Sudanese military attack and kill Darfuris (Nuba mountain communities and others) but after committing atrocities allow humanitarian groups in who deny or under-report the atrocities.
Justice for Darfur
Justice for Darfur campaign in Liverpool has support from UCU University of Liverpool, Liverpool TUC, STAR (Student Action for Refugees) and many others.
It calls on all worker and student organisations to join the campaign and end the complicity of the Tory government and big business in London with the genocidist Omar al-Bashir.
***
Originally published in Socialist Voice #29, by ISL, UK.
