Point of view

Referendum for separation in South Sudan

Washington, London, Tel Aviv conspiracy to break up Sudan:

Latheef FAROOK

The weeklong referendum for the Christian South of predominantly Muslim Sudan to decide whether to establish a separate country or remain within a united country is likely to tear apart this largest country in Africa, with unpredictable consequences throughout the continent

Sudan is blessed with such fertile lands that once a prominent Sudanese Minister told me in Bahrain that his country could produce the entire requirement of food for the whole Middle East if only an oil rich Gulf country could invest around a billion dollar.

However no takers? It has a mixed population of 34.5 million- Muslims around 75 percent, traditional African faiths called animists 20 percent and the remaining five percent Christians. It was this Christian population, manipulated by religious and political forces in the United States and Britain together with the Israelis, caused Africa’s longest civil war that killed around two million people.

Separate State

In 2005 Sudan and its separatists in the South reached a peace accord which promised a referendum for South to decide whether to remain within a united Sudan or leave and establish a separate State in South Sudan.

The weeklong referendum began on January 9, 2011 and many analysts predict that the verdict either way could ignite fresh conflicts and destabilize not only Sudan but the entire region, as there are several unsolved explosive issues such as sharing oil revenues after the split.

War crimes

Sudanese President General Omar Al Bashir is an independent minded. He follows an independent foreign policy like President Mahinda Rajapaksa and refused to bow down to US, UK, Israeli dictates as the other dictators in the Middle East have done. Thus he had to pay the price.

United States, Britain and their partners who committed war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and other countries got the International Criminal Court in Hague to indict General Bashir for war crimes in Darfur’s murky tribal war that has become a cause celebre in the West. Sudan is on the US black list as a terrorist supporter and under US sanctions. Sudan, branded by Washington a ‘rogue State’ has long been targeted for ‘regime change.’ The US media and evangelical Christian groups have demonized Sudan and Gen Bashir and branded him a dangerous Islamist.

In an article titled ‘Sudan: Storm over the Nile’ journalist and author Eric Margolis said, “The United States has been quietly playing the key role in engineering the breakup of Sudan.

He added that Southern Sudan’s Christian secessionist movement has long been advised and financed by British and US Christian missionaries who saw the region’s tribes as fertile ground for conversion. Western ‘humanitarian’ aid groups have played a keyrole in fostering the South Sudan independence movement.

Western regions

American Evangelical groups, including so-called ‘Christian Zionists,’ who are fiercely anti-Islamic, have been playing an important role in promoting Southern Sudan’s Secessionist Movement. Since evangelicals now constitute a key Republican constituency, the party has been quick to adopt the cause of south Sudanese secession.

Sudan has also suffered another confusing conflict in the remote Western regions of Darfur and Kordofan between nomadic and farming peoples. Hysteria in North America over Darfur is exceeded only by the public’s total lack of knowledge about this remote, complex region that is deceptively - and quite wrongly - portrayed by media as a simplistic morality struggle between wicked Muslims and helpless black farmers.

Sudanese youth protesting over referendum issue. Picture courtesy: Google

Israel has been very active in arming and supporting the South Sudan SPLA guerilla movement, and will assume an even more influential role if Southern Sudan goes independent. Israel has been involved in Sudan since the 1950’s and successfully bribed the late Sudanese dictator, Jaffar al-Numiery, to allow Ethiopian Falasha Jews to fly to Israel from Sudan.

Control of global oil plays a primary role in US foreign and military policy. As a result, the US has become ever more deeply involved in Sudan’s affairs. Washington has been discreetly working with Southern Sudan to create a government, financial system, police and army. South Sudanese officials are being trained in the US.

US intelligence services

The number of US diplomats and intelligence officers in Sudan has tripled. A break-up of Sudan may have an immediate effect on other unstable neighbours, like Somalia, Chad and the Republic of Congo. Ethiopia, itself an unstable amalgam, may get more deeply involved in the region. Egypt, eternally sensitive about who controls the Nile’s life-giving waters, is deeply worried about Sudan’s future and fears a new regime in the South may begin diverting the river’s waters.

Just at a time when the US is increasingly active in Djibouti, Yemen, Somalia, Mali, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, it finds itself deeply involved in engineering the break-up of Sudan. All this may be a bridge too far for the already over-stretched US military, intelligence services and State Department, not to mention the empty US Treasury that now runs on borrowed money, stated Eric Margolis.

Perhaps, after Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Gaza it is Sudan’s turn to pay the price under the so called New World Order ushered in by champions of human rights in Washington, London, Paris and of course their active partner Israel.