China fights UN sanctions on Sudan to safeguard oil

[DuctapeFatwa]

China IS trying to stop the United Nations imposing sanctions on Sudan over the crisis in the Darfur region to protect its oil imports from the country, say western diplomats.

For the past six years Beijing has been the Sudanese government's main backer, buying 70 per cent of its exports, servicing its $20bn debt and supplying the Khartoum government with most of its weapons.

Beijing oil imports jumped 35 per cent this year and its reliance on a growing number of rogue states to meet its needs is putting it on a collision course with the United States. Sudan and Iran together supply 20 per cent of China's oil imports, and if economic sanctions were applied to either, Beijing would be unable to sustain its high growth rates.


http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=5968

[The Magistrate]

1. Trading Blood For Oil, Sir

Is not just a local phenomenon....

That place is too sad for words.

[Maple]

2. Sudan is just the 'cause celebre' of the week

There are much worse situations elsewhere, but those places don't have much oil...with China using them as a base. So suddenly Sudan becomes an 'urgent' matter.

Nobody worried about Congo or Zimbabwe.

[The Magistrate]

4. Yes And No, Ma'am

The current thing is merely one episode in process of genocidal warfare that has been going on for decades, in which a very high proportion of the people living in the south of country have been killed and displaced. It is, however, an extreme and grotesque episode of it, and so has drawn more eyes than previously.

There is every bit as much Great Power interest in the wealth of the Congo, rich in materials such as uranium and diamonds, cobalt and titanium and other essential metals. It is not easy for observers to get into the place, however, and it is also something it would be very difficult to intervene in militarily. There is nothing but the river for transport, essentially. The killing is on a tremendous scale, that is true. It seems to me the first continental war of Africa; the beginning of a process there similar to that of post medieval Europe, in which the actual boundaries of the nation-states are established, wherein the unfortunate Congo provides both prize and battle-ground for the nmore coherent competitors, as did Germany in the Europe of that earlier day. The cuirrent map of Africa is neither a natural or a rational construction, and it cannot hold long in place.

[livinbella]

6. who is fighting, and why?

this seems almost too sad for me to comprehend

[gottaB]

7. Some background

• Wikipedia has good overview of the Darfur conflict, with a good selection of links.
  
  
• Alex de Waal's Tragedy in Darfur is one of the better recent summaries of the conflict.
  
  
• Ali B. Ali-Dinar's pointed Why Khartoum Wants War in Darfur distills the grievances against Sudan's NIF (National Islamic Front) government. The Sudan Tribune has presented an eclectic mix of views. Search under the rubric "Opinions," and scroll down to see the latest analyses. Objectivity is in short supply, as one would expect, but there are some real gems on those pages.
  
  
• Cedric Mohammad's BlackElectorate.com has a good series of interviews, the latest of which is Asking the Right Questions about Darfur, Sudan, Part XI. Previous installments are linked at the bottom of the piece. Also see Ethnic Warfare as Policy from Mohammad's Black Commentator. BC has positioned itself editorially between criticism of the government of Sudan and criticism of US policy, which is providing some insightful back and forth if nothing else. See the latest issues and the archives for the last few months.
  

To answer you question in a nutshell, the government of Sudan has organized itself in such a way that it has alienated millions of its citizens in Darfur. Faced with an armed rebellion, the government of Sudan reacted by organizing wholesale attacks on the ethnic groups to which the rebels belong.

From the point of view of the government of Sudan, the rebellion has been instigated and/or exploited by the US and Israel through its proxies in Eritrea, Uganda, Chad, and among the SPLM/A, the Southern faction in Sudan's longrunning civil war. I cannot say how widespread or sincere this belief is among the NIF's militant cabal in Khartoum, but it is often expressed. Eritrea, Uganda and the SPLA have serious grievances with the government of Sudan, and relations between Sudan and Chad have deteriorated since the conflict in Darfur began. The US of course has not been friendly with Khartoum, although its explicit policy has been to promote peace between Khartoum and the SPLA, a prospect which is not aided by the conflict in Darfur.

From the point of view of the SLA (Sudanese Liberation Army), the largest rebel group in Darfur, the decision to take up arms was made only after it became clear that the government of Sudan was intent on destroying the "African" (principally Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa) peoples of Darfur. While it is often claimed that hostilities broke out in February of 2003, in fact the DLF (Darfur Liberation Front), which was the precursor to the SLA, announced its intentions to take up arms as early as December, 2002, in response to a series of militia attacks that began in 2001. Leaders of the DLF were drawn from an educated class that had attempted political reconcilation (through the National Democratic Alliance) and a nonviolent redress of grievances to no avail. Dr. Sharif Harir, who has been a lead negotiator for the SLA, had written critically of the governments use of ethnically-based proxy militias as far back as 1993.

Critics of the rebels question their genuine concern for the welfare of the people, and suggest that they have exploited the conflict in order to be included in the peace deal with the SPLA, and so gain a share of Darfur's oil wealth and other concessions. They had to have known that government of Sudan would respond the way they did, and their appeals for international intervention can be seen as manipulative. The legitimacy of the SLA's initial attacks, it seems to me, hinges upon whether or not the government of Sudan had systematically disarmed the "African" tribes, while arming militias drawn from "Arab" tribes and encouraging them to attack "African" villages. Since the government of Khartoum released Musa Hilal from prison to help organize the infamous Janjaweed militia, and since the onset of the campaign of coordinated attacks involving Janjaweed and the Sudanese armed forces, there can be little doubt that the rebels have a legitimate claim to defense by force of arms.

[The Magistrate]

8. Most Basically, Ma'am

The Arab north, dominating the central government at Khartoum, and the African south. As is the case with many countries, Sudan is in fact a petty empire, and the rule of Khartoum over the south, though old, is not the result of natural and national affinity, but of conquest. The north has traditionally raided the south for slaves, and otherwise sought to exploit it. The peoples of the south naturally resent this, and have sought in modern times to break the power of Khartoum over them and seceed. The thing is given greater edge today because the oil of Sudan is mostly located towards the south of the place, though it is only exportable from the north at present. There are additional elements as well that influence the situation. The Khartoum government is one of Islamic fundamentalist radicals, while in the southeast of the country, the African people remain mostly non-Moslem, being either Christian or Pagan, though in the southwest region of Darfur, the current center of atrocity, the Africans also are Moslem.

[gottaB]

9. There are much worse situations elsewhere?

As recently as October 5th, Jan Pronk told the Security Council:

“We are confronted with the worst humanitarian crisis of today”, he said. It was a man-made conflict that, if not properly addressed, could create the conditions for a widening regional or even global confrontation.

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/sc8206.doc.htm

Pronk was hardly isolated in his view, as both Louise Arbour and Kofi Annan expressed grave concerns: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=890914#891307

So what has changed since we last visited this argument? There is more violence in Darfur, and thousands more people continue to flee: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=901141

The death toll in the camps has risen, and the problem is still not being adequately addressed: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=908036

Dr. Nabarro of the WHO is running around Geneva with his hair on fire about Darfur.

"We are running on a threadbare, hand-to-mouth existence, and if the plight of these people in Darfur is as important to the international community as it seems to be then we would have expected more long-term support," Nabarro said. "The price is measured in death."

So far, the United Nations has only received half of the $300 million it needs for Darfur, he said.

"I am personally concerned that we still don't have a significant enough popular perception around the world of the enormity of the suffering experienced by people in Darfur and Chad, where disease and suffering is being experienced on a quite extraordinary and inhuman scale," Nabarro said.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2004/10/16/un_counts_70000_dead_in_darfur_crisis/

[DuctapeFatwa]

3. So who holds all this US debt?

[livinbella]

5. Please explain this to me

I don't get it