US Genocide Charge is Bush Election Ploy-Sudan FM

[mourningdove92]

US genocide charge is Bush election ploy - Sudan FM

AFP Photo

Sudan's foreign minister rejected US charges of genocide in the western region of Darfur as a reelection ploy by US President George W. Bush.

Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said the Bush administration was using a humanitarian crisis in the region to distract attention away from the mounting US death toll in Iraq.

"We strongly believe the Bush administration is trying to distract internal and international attention away from what is taking place in Iraq to avoid pressure from the Democrats during the ongoing presidential election," Ismail told AFP in an interview

"They should not use our humanitarian crisis for their own political agenda."

The minister, on a five-day visit to South Korea, was responding to US charges of genocide in the Darfur region, where an estimated 50,000 people have been killed and 1.4 million more uprooted since February 2003.

The Sudanese government has been accused of arming and backing Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, which have rampaged through the western Darfur region.

Bush said in Washington Thursday he was appalled at the violence in Darfur which he said amounted to genocide.

Secretary of State Colin Powell earlier told a Senate hearing that evidence compiled by the United States concluded that genocide had been committed in Darfur and the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bore responsibility.

However Sudan's foreign minister said it was the same Bush administration that claimed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

"Regrettably, now they are saying there is no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, after they invaded Iraq and lost over 1,000 American sons and daughters," he said.

"As we have seen (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld's weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, we are now seeing Powell's genocide in Sudan."

He said the Bush administration was "furious" at the rising death toll in Iraq, and was desperate to deflect attention away from the war there as Bush battles for reelection against Democrat John Kerry.

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/040910/1/3n1ho.html

[seemslikeadream]

1. This administration said not one word about Congo

3.5 million dead since 1998.

oh maybe because georgie sr.'s Barrick Mining is there raping the land.

[Catfight]

2. Bush cut AIDS funding to Africa...he doesn't care about black people,

I think he'd be happy if every black person died.

[bushwakker]

3. the fundies are pushing for this believe it or not

read recent new yorker abouth how the rw fundies have taken up the cause of the violence in darfur. according to their narrative it is a muslim vs christian battle. the violence has been pretty horrific but much of it has been muslim on on muslim violence. as far as i can tell it is more of an ethnic struggle than a religious one.

[seemslikeadream]

4. Here's a little info on that

Christian Pharisees target China, Sudan
Executive Intelligence Review, July 4, 1997, p. 83

On June 23, a gaggle activists ranging from the "religious right" and neo-con networks, to liberal Democrats, held a summit on religious persecution overseas. The meeting, held at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., was to organize a grassroots, church-based movement to target certain nations allegedly persecuting religious minorities. These people are no more interested in protecting religious freedom, than the 1980s' Project Democracy was intended to promote democracy. A look at one of the leading participants, Christian Solidarity International (CSI), shows clearly that what is being organized is a grassroots mob to cover for the foreign policy of the British oligarchy: the destruction of nation-states. The whipping boys for these modern Pharisees are the two premier nation-states of the developing sector, Sudan and China.


The meeting included the London-controlled Freedom House of Leo Cherne (chairman of the Reagan-Bush President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board), the Family Research Council of Gary Bauer (another specimen from the Reagan-Bush White House), Father Richard Newhouse, a radical epigone of Michael Novak, Michael Horowitz from the Hudson Institute, CSI's Jim Jacobson, Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition, and another Catholic radical free-trader, William Bennett of Empower America, among other cheer- leaders for the "Contract on America." The odd Democrat made for ecumenical window-dressing, including co-chair Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.). The event was sponsored by Empower America, and co-chaired by Bennett.

Nina Shea of Freedom House opened the gathering, with a broadside against Sudan, which is de rigueur for any meeting involving Lady Caroline Cox's Christian Solidarity International. Cox is making a career of trying to overthrow the Sudanese government, under cover of saving Christians, and is currently organizing logistical support for Sudanese rebels who, under her influence, have refused to join the government-initiated peace treaty to end the decades-long civil war. Along with Lady Lynda Chalker, Cox is also organizing support for the Ethiopian and Eritrean allies of Ugandan dictator Yoweri Museveni, who are currently attempting to invade Sudan.

Shea's diatribe, a catalogue from her book In the Lion's Den, of hideous allegations of torture, genocide, and enslavement of Christians, made no mention of Sudan's civil war, which was set up by the departing British colonialists between the predominantly Muslim north and the Christian-animist south. Nor did Shea mention the peace efforts between Khartoum and most of the southern rebel groups, culminating in April in the historic signing of a peace treaty-following which Cox's operations were stepped up. Nor did Shea mention that TO miles from Sudan's southern border, in Congo- Zaire, the unparalleled slaughter has cost the lives of at least half a million Rwandan Hutu refugees and of opponents of Laurent Kabila and his backers in Kampala and London.

Sudan has earned itself pride of place on Britain's imperial enemies list (it is the only former British colony that is not a member of the Commonwealth), because of its fight against colonialism and resistance to the International Monetary Fund predators.

more
http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:CmgKgb1Ci5EJ:www.aboutsudan.com/opposition/us/christian_pharisees.htm+Christian+Solidarity+International+bush&hl=en

however I don't believe that is the only thing going on there


International arms trade $800 billion annually - largest business in the world.


Twice the second placed - illegal sale of drugs $400 billion a year


82 armed conflicts between 1989-1999 - 79 took place within national borders - arms not needed for self defense.


Reality is most arms are used on ordinary people by forces in the government or close to it.


159 wars fought since WWII - 9 out of 10 in developing world - more than 20 million people - were civilians.


War brings starvation - Biafra, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Chad, Sudan, Liberia and Somalia.


Until there is a radical reassessment of the arms trade and its consequences, millions more will be directly or indirectly killed by this lethal business.


The bottom line is that there is a lot of money to be made in weapons, and this motivates arms manufacturing.


To add to high profit margins, all arms manufactures are heavily subsidised and protected by their governments.


Free trade agreements - nearly always exempt from military spending


Industrialised countries will always be able to subsidise their corporations through defense contracts and grants for weapons research.