Women and children refugees from Sudan in Chad. The US must accept responsibility for the dislocation of people from western Sudan and inside of Chad.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos.
US Imperialism in Africa
Wednesday, 28 March 2007
By BAR Executive Editor Glen Ford
The flow of refugees now streams both ways on the border of the cauldron of death, Darfur. To the east, the major culprits in the crime against humanity are the rulers of Sudan. To the west, a U.S.-dominated Chadian regime is in charge, firmly implanted in the matrix of the new U.S. Africa Command. Yet tens of thousands flee Chad into the hell of Darfur! Something horrific is afoot, rooted in the historical U.S. strategy of sowing chaos in Africa, to advance its own imperial agenda. The objective: a failed continent, ripe for occupation and exploitation - all under the guise of "humanitarian" assistance.
Chad Now Awash in Blood, Alongside Darfur: U.S. Mischief
By BAR Executive Editor Glen Ford
"The escalating reverse flow of refugees from Chad to Darfur shows the U.S. is a maestro of chaos."
Thousands of refugees are doing the unthinkable: fleeing into the cauldron of death that is Darfur, Western Sudan, from neighboring Chad. The scenario seems so counterintuitive as to make the head swim - unless one understands the continent-wide scope of U.S. military penetration of the region and, most importantly, that the bedrock America strategy in Africa is the creation of chaos.
As the death toll spirals from inter-ethnic fighting, starvation and outright massacre in Darfur - a carnage for which the Sudanese regime in Khartoum bears by far the largest responsibility - the U.S. relentlessly attempts to position itself as the only angel that can save the day: that is, rescue Africans from themselves. However, the escalating reverse flow of refugees from Chad to Darfur shows quite a different reality. Chad's government is a virtual military appendage of the United States, a proud "success story" in the wholesale American penetration of the armed forces of nations across Africa's northern Sahel region. A March 22 report from the IRIN news service, an organ of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, reveals another side of the story:
"An estimated 20,000 Chadians have sought refuge in West Darfur since 2005."
"Thousands of people fleeing conflict in Chad have sought refuge in Sudan's western region of Darfur despite the humanitarian crisis there, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Thursday [March 22]," said the IRIN dispatch. It continued:
"An estimated 20,000 Chadians have sought refuge in West Darfur since 2005, while 16,000 had opted to remain close to the border to access their land. ‘These people are fleeing the conflict in their country to camps in West Darfur where there is food and security,' said Annette Rehrl, UNHCR spokeswoman in Sudan....
"Civilians in Chad have suffered from persistent attacks by armed militias in the east of the country, along the volatile border with Darfur, since 2005. Last year, fighting between government and rebel forces escalated after high-ranking military officers joined rebel forces following President Idriss Deby's decision to amend the Chadian constitution to run for a third term. The unrest has displaced about 120,000 people inside Chad."
The power-play by Chad President Deby, whose minority ethnic-based government in N'Djamena was favored by Washington and American commanders on the ground, plunged the nation into chaos - precisely as intended. With much of his officer corps in rebellion, President Deby is now even more dependent for political and physical survival on the American military, which is embedded at every level of the Chadian armed forces. Such was the desired result of the American military's "general-to-general," "colonel-to-colonel" relationship to militaries all along the swath of Africa that stretches from Djibouti and Somalia on the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, to Mauritania on the Atlantic Ocean coast.
It is significant that the destabilization of Chad is dated to have begun in 2005. On July 26, 2005, the Washington Post reported:
"The Pentagon plans to train thousands of African troops in battalions equipped for extended desert and border operations and to link the militaries of different countries with secure satellite communications. The initiative, with proposed funding of $500 million over seven years, covers Algeria, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Nigeria, Morocco and Tunisia - with the U.S. military eager to add Libya if relations improve."
Remember that refugee flight in Chad began in 2005, at the onset of the U.S.-Chad military relationship, and the acute Chad refugee crisis has come about since the U.S.-backed Deby regime cut the other generals out of the power continuum.
Given its huge resources and dominant influence over the Chadian regime, the U.S. should have been capable of averting a Chad political dislocation that would force tens of thousands into the frying pan of Darfur. But in fact, it was the U.S intention, once its "general-to-general," "colonel-to-colonel" and "wallet-to-wallet" military tentacles had sunk deeply enough, to destabilize the Chadian state. By creating the circumstances for chaos on Chad's eastern border with Darfur, the U.S. seeks to declare an international crisis that will enable it to intervene directly in Sudanese and Chadian territory under the guise of a transnational "humanitarian" mission.
"It was the U.S. intention to destabilize the Chadian state."
The U.S. creates chaos in order to pose as "liberator" and savior. In the process, it creates "failed states" in order to erase restrictions on its own field of operations. This subversive strategy has advanced to the point that the continent now rates its own Africa Command. (See Bruce Dixon, BAR, February 28, 2007, "Africa - Where the Next US Oil Wars Will Be.")
But first, many thousands must die as an excuse for extra-territorial action: thus, the necessity for a refugee crisis in Chad. The now wholly U.S.-dependent government in N'Djamena has predictably come under intense pressure to endorse a U.S. dominated transborder "solution" to the Darfur cataclysm - as no less than the Voice of America reported on March 20:
"A U.S. State Department official says the United States is pressing Chad to accept a U.N. peacekeeping force to help secure regional stability. The official told Congress the violence in the neighboring Darfur region of Sudan has spread across the border into Chad," said the VOA, an organ of the U.S. government.
The "State Department official" is Deputy Assistant Secretary of State For African Affairs James Swann, who told a Senate committee:
"Our primary focus at this point is in supporting a robust U.N. peacekeeping operation for Chad and Central African Republic that would focus both on protecting civilians and also deterring cross-border attack. We believe the presence of such a mission, and particularly the execution of its civilian protection and monitoring mission, would lead to a reduction in violence."
An African ‘Coalition of the Willing'
The Central African Republic (CAR) is the the French neo-colony bordering Chad and Sudan that served as a temporary prison for Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide after his overthrow and kidnapping by the Americans, in 2004 - a perfect African satrap for Amer-Euro imperialism. Naturally, the CAR is eager to please, but Chad's president is a problem, apparently not yet aware that he is hopelessly ensnared in the spider's web, since he owes his very limited powers to the U.S. Africa Command.
"We were disappointed by the Chadian government's recent indications of concern over the military component of the proposed mission, and, specifically, the deployment of an advanced mission," said Swann, the State Department's man on Africa. "We are continuing to engage President [Idriss] Deby to convince him to accept a military force as part of this package."
"The U.S. demands that Chad relinquich what is left of its national soveriegnty to de-facto U.S. military rule under the guise of a United Nations mission."
In other words, the U.S. demands that Chad relinquish what is left of its national sovereignty to accept de-facto U.S. military rule under the guise of a United Nations mission. Cleverly, with full understanding that neither the UN nor the European Union can field a significant force in Africa without the logistical resources of the U.S. Africa Command, the Americans volunteer the "heavy equipment" that they have for years refused to provide to African Union peacekeepers in Darfur. The Voice of America report, continues:
"Swan said, if the international community finds it difficult to contribute large numbers of troops to such a mission, the United States would support a smaller force, backed by heavy equipment. ‘We recognize that, with already 100,000 international peacekeeping troops currently deployed worldwide, that force generation for the Chad-CAR mission is going to be a challenge,' said Swan."
It is a challenge that the U.S. Africa Command will meet with billions of dollars of imperial military investment - and the collateral loss of countless African lives - in the years to come.
Having infiltrated and subverted the national government of Chad through its "general-to-general" military missions, the United States now treats the country as a "failed state" whose national boundaries and sovereignty must be sacrificed - for Chad's own and the region's greater good. Once-imperial France has donated its military-ruled puppet, the Central African Republic (CAR) as a frontline state in the U.S.-led African "Coalition of the Willing."
Ethiopia is already on board, a lowly proxy that deludes itself into thinking its invasion of Somalia enhances its regional power and domestic stability, when in fact the dictator in Addis Ababa is caught as snugly as Chad president Deby in the U.S. spider's imperial web. Kenya, with its large Muslim population, risks setting itself on fire through an alliance with the Americans' bogus "war on terror" on the continent - which is in reality a war on all semblance of national sovereignty in Africa and on the planet.
"Kenya, with its large Muslim population, risks setting itself on fire through an alliance with the Americans' bogus 'war on terror' on the continent."
Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni, a charter member of the U.S. imperial club, volunteers troops for whatever inter-African venture the U.S. proposes - most recently for helping the Ethiopians occupy Somalia - despite the fact that he was not even able to defeat the rag-tag, deluded children-troops of the Lord's Resistance Army on his own territory. The warlord Museveni only makes war for profit. He committed the bulk of his army to looting the Democratic Republic of Congo (DAR) as part of the U.S.-engineered "African chaos" strategy that led to the death of four million people. His ally in Congo plunder, the Tutsi Rwandan regime, has pledged allegiance to any and all U.S. ventures, as long as the money flows.
Africa no longer requires white mercenaries for the success of imperial conquest. There are plenty of Black generals (and colonels and sergeants) standing in line, hoping for a payday and an offshore bank account. What IS required, from Washington's standpoint, is that the rapid spread of "war on terror" imperialism be viewed by Americans - especially Black Americans - as a benign intervention to save Africans from themselves. The reality is that premeditated chaos is central to U.S. strategy. That's why tens of thousands are running away from Chad, a now-non-state hopelessly entrapped in the American madhouse - a theater of mass carnage in which we are demanded to cheer for the cowboy who set the stage for holocaust.
BAR Executive Editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford (@) BlackAgendaReport.com.
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