Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Lies about Sudan and Darfur

pish | 31.07.2004 22:28

Don't believe the lies about Darfur and Sudan.

The media has, since the early 1990s, been systematically lying about and misrepresenting Sudan. Now with thus Darfur conflict, the media is demanding a "humanitarian intervention", from the Guardian to left-wing magazine Tribune. Judging from previous such expeditions for example in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia, we can naturally expect systematic lies and propaganda, and this is what we've got.

The following article gives an accurate, rather than propagandistic, picture of what has actually been happening in Darfur:

The Darfur Crisis: Looking Beyond the Propaganda:
 http://www.sudanembassy.org/default.asp?page=viewstory&id=285

The article is on the website of Sudan's Washington embassy, so of course should not be trusted blindly, but it sources itself to media reports, and reveals far more information than the typically simplified and propagandistic media reports.

For a good (but long) report on misrepresentation of Sudan from the early 1990s onwards check out this pdf:

Images of Sudan: Case Studies and Propaganda:
 http://www.espac.org/pdf/images_of_sudan.pdf

Their website ( http://www.espac.org/) also has many other - and shorter - exposes of lies about Sudan - for example the claims of state sponsorship of terrorism, chemical weapons, slavery, and so on.

Throughout the 1990s America was prolonging the civil war in Sudan by supporting the brutal SPLA rebels in the South, both overtly and covertly, and through Sudan's neighbours Eritrea, Uganda and Ethiopia, with the hope of undermining and overthrowing the government. The West Darfur rebels currently also have the support of Eritrea.

The US and the "international community" has now given Sudan a 30-day deadline to disarm the Janjaweed militias. Sudan has already in the past been arresting members of such militias, but is still falsely accused of working with them. If Sudan manages to crack down sufficiently to arrest all these Arab militamen and control them (hard when the rebels are fighting and causing chaos), the rebels will then simply find it even easier to take over Darfur, and will most likely still refuse to come to peace talks (a leading Sudanese human rights activist has even said that disarming the Janjaweed militia will simply mean that the rebels slaughter the Arabs). If the Sudanese government then tries to take on the rebels and push them out of their gains they will be accused of launching "ethnic cleansing", just like the Yugoslavs were when they launched a new offensive against the KLA, which had exploited the ceasefire to take over half of Kosovo. The "international community" will then intervene, either by pressure to force the Sudanese government to allow "peace keepers" and so on ala Kosovo, or by a military attack.

Another fact of interest: Western Darfur is the part of Sudan in which the Chienese have the oil concessions.

pish

Comments

Hide the following 13 comments

New Oil frontieer

01.08.2004 11:05

America has been plotting for years to invade Sudan using a proxie dictatorial state like Uganda. Uganda and USA manufactured a christian fundamentalist Army by the Name of Lords Resistance Army. This Army was to be used as a tool to dislodge an entire population from Northern uganda to Concetration Camps. The same christian Army has been used as weapon of terror on the ugandan population.So that clandestine activities could go on un-checked.
Where was the Western media to report on this? T

he same Proxie state (uganda) was used in Congo DRC for a genocide and thieving that has left 5million congolese dead. Where was the Media and its security council?

Uganda sponsored Militias have been operating in western Sudan and southern Sudan for the last 10 years. The uganda state has on many occasion fought with the sudanese state. Where was the media and UN security council?

Today the USA has a permanent military base in Northern Uganda and the Ugandan army is already in southern sudan on the pretext of hunting down the Lords resistance Army.

Shame on all Western Ngos like OXfam, Unicef etc. that continue to benefit from manuctured disasters.

Uganda anarchism
- Homepage: http://www.geocities.com/ugandanarchism//index.html


Sudanese government/Janjaweed links

02.08.2004 00:15

" Sudan has already in the past been arresting members of such militias, but is still falsely accused of working with them."

That's not what Sudanese government documents, obtained by Human Rights Watch, say.
One such document - detailing a Presidential directive - orders an "Increase in the process of mobilizing loyalist tribes, and providing them with sufficient armory to secure the areas."

 http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/07/19/darfur9096.htm

Andrew


LIES

02.08.2004 08:09

THIS ARTICLE IS FAR RIGHT ISLAMIST PROPAGANDA

PLEASE REMOVE

x


reply

02.08.2004 11:44

Far right Islamist propaganda??? Riiight. For your information I am actually pro-Israel and anti-Islamists, and also anti-lies. If I were an Islamist I wouldn't support the Serbs dumbass.

Human Rights Watch has a long history of anti-Sudanese propaganda, and reporting rebel propaganda as fact. That link you provided refers to Sudan's "so-called holy war in southern Sudan", implying that government officials have ever considered or called it a holy war, jihad, whatever, which they haven't. In fact they in 1991 exempted the south, which is mainly animist, from sharia law (incidently in the 1980s the entire country, which is three quarters Muslim, was under a more extreme form of sharia law, and America was allied to the government).

These alleged documents could easily have been faked by rebels, who spout all sorts of propaganda which human rights groups repeat. In fact the quotes are saying that minor offences , for example against civilians supporting the rebellion, should be overlooked, and what happened in "Kutum" - presumably an alleged atrocity, or human rights abuse - not be repeated and be prevented. HRW seems also to be deliberately streching the possible conclusions that can be drawn from the quotes they give.

Anyway, regardless of the accuracy of these documents and their allegations, the fact remains that the rebels are responsible for most of the lawlessness, having destroyed 80% of police stations, and they are preventing peace by having as preconditions that everyone but them should disarm and leave the area and they should take the area over before they will enter talks. HRW should complain about the fact that the rebels are deliberately prolonging the conflict, which could have been settled long ago, as the Sudanese government has been calling from the very start for a negotiated settlement, and have no preconditions for talks.

pish


HWR

02.08.2004 15:00

Actually, Human Rights Watch have written extensively on SPLA attrocities. They haven't attempted to white-wash either side and furthermore they've documented international complicity in Sudanese government/Janjaweed massacres (via oil company investment). One of the more balanced accounts by far.

Are you seriously suggesting that all the many refugees who have witnessed the militias being aided by the government in attacks, are just lying? and that we should simply trust the Sudanese embassy on the matter?

Andrew


reply again

02.08.2004 15:37

Well according to the international media and the human rights establishments all the Albanian refugees in Kosovo said that they had been expelled by Serbian forces who had massacred people and so on. We now know that it was all lies. One factor in the lying was that the KLA terrorists were the people providing the translators and directing the media and so on to the various individual refugees. Could be similar again. Oh and HRW and so on said it was absolutely undeniable that the evil Slobodan Milosevic was in fact directing and arming and so on the paramilitaries in Bosnia and Croatia.

You say they haven't tried to whitewash either side, but why are they going on about "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide", hysterically shouting nonsense, without even mentioning the rebels? And the fact that the Sudanese government has from the very start wanted peace but that the rebels are preventing it? The fact that the rebels are responsible for the security vacuum, having destroyed police stations and massacred policemen? Why is not calling for the rebels to immediately enter into peace negotiations, and then for the disarming of every single group? Why isn't it condeming Eritrea for its role in creating the conflict?

These hysterical claims about genocide don't even make sense. Thanks to the US no longer prolonging the civil war in southern Sudan, there is finally the hope of peace in that long conflict. Why on earth would the Sudanese government, having got peace there at last, and with the US being less aggressive than before and lifting sanctions and finally taking up Sudan's offer of allowing free access everyone for intelligence officers to prove that they aren't hiding anything (terrorists, WMD, etc), would it then launch some genocidal war?

And I didn't say we should trust the Sudanese Embassy either, in fact I said it shouldn't be blindly trusted for obvious reasons. And as far as I can tell the Sudanese embassy did not actually write the article I linked to, it merely posted it. And in fact Sudan over the past decade or so has been telling the truth a lot more than the international media, western governments, human rights establishments, etc.

The general way these human rights groups work is to go on hysterically about ethnic cleansing or something when it suits Western governments, but also, quietly, condemn the atrocities of the terrorists, but always give the picture that the government is evil and ethnic cleansing and the terrorists are largely irrelevant even if they aren't perfect. Oh and HRW is totally balanced in its reporting of Sudan is it? Is that why following SPLA terrorist leader Kuwa's death, Jemera Rone, Human Rights Watch's counsel and Sudan researcher, was quoted as saying:

"He was a thoughtful man, curious and intellectual. He took liberation seriously, understanding that it included respect for the rights of all."

See:  http://www.espac.org/human_rights/eulogy.htm

pish


The truth

02.08.2004 16:34

I never cease to be amazed by the blindness of some contributors here. The facts about Sudan are clear, they have been confirmed by bodies such as the UN, the Red Cross, UNICEF and Oxfam and yet there are those who would argue.

The Sudanese government is an Arab Muslim one it is seeking to establish hardline Arab Muslim rule throughout Sudan.

A sizeable minority of the Sudanese population are Africans who follow a number of faiths none of which is Muslim.

A para military militia funded by the government is attempting to ethnicly clean the sudan of the Africans so as to remove them from the land. They are using tactics such as mass rape, village burning, beatings and murder.

Decide who you think is in need of our support.

Sudan Lover


Divide and Rule

02.08.2004 17:23

Sudanese are all black Africans not White Africans, Yellow Africans, Green Africans.
During colonialism, the flag followed the cross!
Today it's expansionism. Expansionists are now using Capitalistic NGO's as their missionaries-the flag follows the food bowl. You make us sick!

Divide and rule continues to be the norm for western thurgery.: " Arabs are killing Africans" this is the typical talk of a capitalistic criminal using racism to divide brothers and sisters. If the Human Rights Watch Report is that genuine(maybe) how comes the world has not responded to reports about Congo ,Palestine, Uganda, etc. Sudan is the sleeping Iraq of the future. Watch the space!

Uganda Anarchism


Arab ETHNIC CLEANSING of Africans in Sudan

02.08.2004 18:15

TWO ARTICLES THAT SAY 'UGANDA ANARCHY' POSTER IS IGNORANT

Sudan's Darfur crisis and US/European concern
Ayinde

"THE ARABS SHOULD BE CALLED UPON TO PAY REPARATIONS"

Why is the U.S./Europe suddenly concerned about the racist Arab drive to kill off dark-skinned Africans in Sudan?

This should be the question at the forefront of the minds of thinking people. The UN and the U.S. (both partners in crime) are aware that the entire White World policies today were built on the foundation of racism. It is the same racism that allows the U.S. and UK to lie to the world and invade Iraq without the fear that they will be charged as war criminals. Who will charge the U.S. and UK criminals? Certainly not their other European counterparts.

Look how easily France, which 'opposed' the war on Iraq, was able to join the U.S., and supported (to put it mildly) the overthrow of the democratically elected president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. They did this just because he raised minimum wage, and was calling on France to pay reparations. They intend to keep Haiti as a sweatshop under the financial control of a few Whites. It matters not that they installed a Black puppet leader there. The first elected president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was considered unfit by a group of thugs with support from the U.S. and France. They did not care how many ordinary poor Blacks in Haiti elected their president. These racist European misleaders felt it was their decision to make.

We Black Africans, even in the West, know quite well that they get away with these abuses because other people generally do not care about Black kinky-hair Africans. They were conditioned to feel that we are incapable of organizing ourselves and managing our own economic wellbeing. When Whites want to demonstrate their paternalism over Africans, they organize these massive media charities to show they are saving the suffering helpless Blacks -- the same Blacks that both Arabs and Whites exploit, and keep in a desperate situation so they can steal or cheaply acquire labour and resources.

This takes me to my main concern. It should be made clear that the U.S. and other Europeans interest in so-called peace in Sudan, and the sudden mainstream media coverage of the racist, murderous conduct of the 'Arabs' in Sudan, is not driven by their concern for the well-being of Black Africans. As usual, it is to get control of the resources, which in this case is the oil deposits in Darfur and southern Sudan. Once again Africans are being crucified between two murdering thieves, the U.S./Europeans and the Arabs.

"Khartoum's genocidal policy in Darfur and the south is also a grab for resources. The Arab north is arid and barren, but the south is arable with vast oil deposits Khartoum covets and badly needs. In the west, in Darfur, Arabs seeking to escape the spreading desert kill and displace Africans for more productive land." - Makau Mutua

The African Union has stated that they are organizing troops to send to Sudan. This is obviously a tough issue for them to navigate. America is already running the propaganda campaign in an attempt to get to the resources first. Claiming that the AU is doing nothing is to not understand that this is a longstanding issue that the West was never interested in until this present U.S. administration's extreme drive to control all oil supplying regions. The AU will now have to quickly organize funding and troops, while they are being pressured to serve the U.S. interest in and out of Africa. We simply can look at the U.S. conduct in fueling the overthrow of the democratically elected president Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, as another example of how they are operating.

It is important that the African Union does not allow the U.S. and UK to use the racism in Sudan as a pretext to gain Black votes and sympathies, to distract from their Invasion of Iraq, and also to get control of the resources in Sudan.

Here is an important point made by Obi Nwakanma:

"Many Africans have focused singularly on the effects of the European conquest and colonisation of Africa. And Africans have often forgotten that the history of Africa is the history of double penetration: one from the East, and the other from the West."

Obi Nwakanma further explains:

"The Arabs have come to dominate the Sudan, and have consigned the indigenous Negroid population to the lowliest status, treating them as slaves, from a tradition which began as the Arabs moved into this stretch of Africa, which was once the site of Nubia, the great African civilization. Sudan has been mired in civil conflict, with the Christians rallying behind the John Garang led Sudan Peoples Liberation Army, SPLA, fighting for control of the South from the Arabs of the North.

Generally, Sudan has remained in a flux for most of its modern era. It was conquered by Egypt in 1821, which unified the northern part until the rise of the Mahdi, Muhammadu Ibn Abdalla who led a campaign of colonial resistance against the Anglo-Egyptian alliance with his party of the Ansas. This group remains the basis of the Umma party in Sudan to date led by descendants of the Mahdi."

So why the sudden U.S./European concern?

It is important to remember that greed is the root of racism.

In case there are serious Africans reading these comments, please remember that in recognizing that European countries, including the U.S., owe Africans reparations, and not charity, the Arabs should be called upon to pay reparations.

 http://www.africaspeaks.com/articles/2004/1407.html

"REPORTS FROM DARFUR INDICATE THAT ARABS ARE BEING MOVED INTO AREAS THAT HAVE BEEN EMPTIED OF THEIR ORIGINAL, AFRICAN INHABITANTS"

The appointment, a month ago, of Interior Minister General Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein as Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s special representative in Darfur passed without comment outside Sudan. This was a mistake, especially at a time when the Sudanese government was coming under pressure to take meaningful action to halt the destruction of Darfur by the country’s armed forces and its proxy Janjaweed militia.

Although Hussein was never in the public eye in the same way as other regime figures, his hard-line credentials are right up there with the best of them - "shadow head" of the army at the time of the 1989 coup that brought the National Islamic Front to power; after the coup, secretary to the Revolution Command Council that suspended the 1985 constitution, abrogated press freedom, disbanded all political parties and trade unions, and endorsed ethnic militias as a weapon of war. ...

With the Hussein plan, if it is implemented, the government of Sudan would complete its redrawing of the ethnic map of Darfur. African farmers burned out of the countryside by the army and the Janjaweed would be herded into unnatural concentrations where they would exist as a slave underclass under permanent threat of arms. Reports from inside Darfur already indicate that Arabs from Sudan and neighboring countries are being moved into areas that have been emptied of their original, African inhabitants. ...

Hussein’s resettlement plan drew no immediate criticism. It was par for the course in a week in which Annan and US Secretary of State Colin Powell both visited Sudan and refrained from publicly condemning an array of abuses they themselves witnessed - shots fired at students trying to deliver a petition on Darfur; whips used against civilians seeking Powell’s ear in one displaced camp, the forcible evacuation of another on the eve of a visit by Annan. ...

The US has given Khartoum a list of Janjaweed leaders it believes are responsible for war crimes. Without immediate, significant action to disarm and withdraw the Janjaweed, Washington should follow up with a list of government leaders - most importantly, those behind the country’s militia policy and military intelligence. At the UN, it must twist arms, expend diplomatic capital, do whatever it takes to get support for measures including investigations into war crimes, the deployment of an international monitoring and protection force, a ban on arms sales to Sudan and sanctions on Sudan’s oil exports.

What we have seen so far has been little more than a game of bluff. And Khartoum has yet to blink.

 http://kurdishmedia.com/reports.asp?id=2069

KM


Have You been to Darfur?

03.08.2004 16:58

I f you've been to Darfur, whom did you talk to? Who drives around in shinny Landcruiser mounted with machine guns? How many mass graves did you find and if any why din't you tell your mental hospital(CNN)? Do you know when the first shot in Dafur was fired? "We" who are We? How many african Ngos are in Darfur ? And what Vision have you got for africa?

Uganda anarchism


Uganda Anarchism

04.08.2004 07:15

You are an ignorant cunt and your opinion is not even worthy of my contempt. Go fuck yourself, you subnormal piece of genocide supporting shit.

x


.

04.08.2004 09:02

X why not bother resorting to random insults? Uganda Anarchism does indeed appear to be ignorant and strange, given that he claims that the Ugandan government created the Lord's Resistance Army, but he didn't post this, and that fact doesn't mean there's a "genocide" going on in Darfur. Did you say the same thing to people who doubted the official story about Kosovo a few years ago?

pish


Why insults?

04.08.2004 10:46

This is exactly my point, We don't need 21 century missionaries in Africa. We saw what happened in Rwanda. Who organised to stop the genocide? It was Africans in Uganda that formed the Rwandese Patriotic Front. What did the West and their mental institutions like BBC & CNN do? They gave more intertainment to their gullible audience.

When "X" uses insults to reason , then why should we welcome you to Africa. Whe know 90% of Western Ngos are remote controlled by State functionaries like your department of overseas and Exploitation.

What you're failing to understand here, I'm not a fun of governments(regime in Sudan) but the truth should be said because some of us know what game is being played here. My Question to those that claim to know, what's the difference between N Darfur and S Darfur? Who's the sole authority in these two Darfur?
Why has the mental institutions BBC & CNN stage managed their footage?
If You care about children, why let a two year old child carry a 5 kg tin labeled with an Amercan Flag on its head? Do your children carry such loads on their heads? Is this your new form of torture in the interest of intertaing your fat audience?

Uganda anarchism


Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech