Sunday, December 12, 2010

Splitting Up Sudan

It looks like everyone agrees so I have no right to complain

"[Sudan] has cooperated with the CIA since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks"  

WTF?

"Secret documents confirm massive arms shipments to southern Sudan" by New York Times / December 9, 2010

KHARTOUM, Sudan — It was September 2008 and a band of Somali pirates made a startling discovery.

The Ukrainian freighter they had just commandeered in the Gulf of Aden was packed with weapons, including 32 Soviet-era battle tanks, and the entire arsenal was headed for the breakaway government in southern Sudan. The Ukrainian and Kenyan governments denied that, insisting that the tanks were intended for the Kenyan military.

“This is a big loss for us,’’ said Alfred Mutua, a spokesman for the Kenyan government, at the time.

But it turns out the pirates were telling the truth — and the Kenyans and Ukrainians were not.  

See? GOVERNMENTS LIE!

According to several secret State Department cables made public by WikiLeaks, the tanks not only were headed to southern Sudan but were the latest installment of several underground arms shipments. By the time the freighter was seized, 67 T-72 tanks had already been delivered to bolster southern Sudan’s armed forces against the government in Khartoum....

Bush administration officials knew of the earlier weapons transactions and chose not to shut them down, an official from southern Sudan asserted in an interview, and the cables acknowledge that Kenyan officials had kept US officials informed about the deal. But once the pirates exposed the arms pipeline through Kenya, the Obama administration protested to the Ukrainian and Kenyan governments, even threatening sanctions against them, the cables show....   

Wow, what a LYING, TWO-FACED GOVERNMENT we have here in AmeriKa!!

Huge quantities of weapons have been flowing to both sides, mainly to the north, turning the country into one of the most combustible on the continent. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently called it “a ticking time bomb.’’

While Kenyan newspapers and other publications have written about the arms shipment since the pirate episode, confirmation that the government of southern Sudan was the recipient has raised concerns among diplomats that the news could further inflame tensions.

Southern Sudan, mostly Christian and animist, fought even before Sudan’s independence in 1956 to split off from the Arab government in Khartoum. More than 2 million people were killed and government-sponsored militias, similar to those that raped and pillaged in Darfur, swept across the region, razing villages and massacring civilians. In 2005, the two sides signed a peace agreement, which granted the south autonomy and the right to vote on secession next year. The agreement also allows southern Sudan to buy arms to transform its guerrilla army into a defense force, and the United States said that it has provided communications and other “nonlethal’’ equipment and training to the southern army, called the Sudan People’s Liberation Army.  

So it is a WEAPONS-RUNNING HUB, huh?

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What the NYT and Wikileaks didn't tell you:  

"Vadim Alperin was once quoted to be a "Mossad brother" running a number of clandestine front companies including one Kenyan Meat export company enjoying "good trade" with middle eastern countries covertly used for gathering intelligence from countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia" 

It was his Ukranian-flagged ship that started this whole thing and got the world protecting Israeli arms shipments.  No wonder East Africa is in such terrible shape.  

More: Sudan Shuts Down Israeli Weapons-Smuggling Site

Related:  WikiLeaks - State Secrets or Clever Tactics?

Is Wikileaks a front for the CIA or Mossad?

"WikiLeaks appears to be the "enforcement" mechanism by which Israel is blackmailing the US Government into sending your American children to kill Israel's enemies. Along with the obvious pander to Israel's self-image and the pushing for war with Iran, the WikiLeaks dump did indeed contain some minor embarrassing revelations, and I think the message from Israel to the US Government is clear; "You think that was bad? Do as you are told, or we will use WikiLeaks to rip the lid off of 9-11 and put the entire blame on the US Government, and the public will believe us because the story will come from "independent" WikiLeaks, backed up by the US media Israel bribes with millions of dollars, and we in Israel will have deniability for the expose'!"--  Wake the Flock Up


Wikileaks - The Tel Aviv Connection 

Wikileaks and Espionage - Israeli Style 

WikiLeaks: Advancing an Israeli Agenda? 

Sure seems that way.

Also see: Wikileaking Our Way To War

The AmeriKan Media's Poison Pill

WHAT WIKILEAKS DIDN’T LEAK

Yeah, not a word about that.

What words we do get from the Boston Globe:

"UN peacekeeper abducted in Darfur" by Associated Press / October 9, 2010

EL FASHER, Sudan — A UN Security Council team visiting Darfur expressed deep concerns yesterday over the increase in violence in the western Sudanese region, worries that were underscored by the kidnapping the previous day of a peacekeeper serving with the joint UN-African Union mission in the area.

The UN members are on a fact-finding trip that started in southern Sudan earlier in the week, ahead of a January independence referendum that will determine whether the south will split off from the rest of the country. There are fears the vote could lead to a new outbreak of north-south civil war in Sudan, Africa’s largest country.... 

Mark Lyall Grant, the British ambassador to the United Nations, said the attack didn’t appear linked to the UN visit but that it was a sign of the recent uptick in violence.... 

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Let's send 'em a savior:

Sudan gives Kerry proposal that could bring peaceful separation
The document does not spell out specific formulas for oil-sharing or citizenship, but rather a broad outline for how the north and the south might cooperate on key issues such as security. Negotiations on oil-sharing, citizenship, and borders are already in progress. But Kerry seemed less optimistic about one of the most contentious issues: the fate of an oil-producing border area known as Abyei.    

Related: Vote in doubt in disputed Sudan region

Ever notice OIL is always at the BOTTOM of US INTERESTS (we do what Israel tells us even if it ain't in our interest, but....)?

So what deal did he cut?

"US offers to pull Sudan from terror list; Kerry brings deal tied to Jan. vote" by Farah Stockman, Globe Staff / November 8, 2010

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is offering to remove Sudan from the list of state sponsors of terrorism as early as July 2011 if Sudanese leaders in Khartoum agree to accept the results of a Jan. 9 referendum on independence that will be held in the southern half of the country.

This article is available in our archives:

Good thing I bought a printed paper, huh?

But even if Sudan is removed from the terrorism list, sanctions on Sudan enacted by Congress after the eruption of violence in Darfur in 2003 will remain in place until more progress toward peace is made, US officials said.  

But the more obstinate and belligerent Israel is the more American tax loot they get.

Sudan, one of the most heavily-sanctioned countries in the world, will also not be eligible for debt relief and other assistance until a resolution in Darfur is found.  

Doesn't sound like that good a deal.

Sudanese officials have been demanding for years that the country be removed from the list. Sudan, which once played host to Osama bin Laden, was designated as a state sponsor of terrorism in 1993.

Look at them trot the dead guy out of the grave one more time!

But it has cooperated with the CIA since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks.  

I can $ee why the Globe would want to archive that.

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Well, not really, no -- unle$$ you wanna pay. 

Related: Peace in Sudan’s reach

Sudan starts preparing for vote that could split nation

Also see: Refugees hope to reshape Sudan’s future

Lost Boys of Sudan get a first look at childhood records

Anything else going on in Sudan?

"Tropical disease outbreak kills 300 in Southern Sudan" by Maggie Fick, Associated Press / November 12, 2010

JUBA, Sudan — An outbreak of a parasitic tropical disease has killed more than 300 people in Southern Sudan — and the worst of the health crisis is yet to come, officials say.

The World Health Organization says the outbreak of kala azar, which began in September 2009 and has intensified in recent months, is the biggest health problem facing Southern Sudan.

More than 7,000 cases — many of them in the region’s most remote and insecure areas — have been reported this year by WHO and Southern Sudanese health authorities. The outbreak of cases is the region’s worst since 1991. More than 300 people have died since September 2009, WHO says, but officials fear the disease could spread for several more months.

“We don’t know when it will end,’’ Dr. Abdinasir Abubakar, a WHO medical officer in Southern Sudan, said in an interview this week.

Health officials, he said, are “struggling to respond to the outbreak because it is beyond what we had planned.’’

Transmitted through sand flies, the parasite that causes the contagious disease mainly affects children whose immune systems are compromised by malnutrition. In the recent outbreak, 90 percent of patients were children.

Symptoms include fever or acute malnutrition, and patients are often described as wasting away.

Nine out of 10 patients with kala azar will die if they do not receive treatment, according to Doctors Without Borders. Patients can die within weeks if not treated.

The peak of the outbreak is predicted to occur between December and January, coinciding with Southern Sudan’s plans for a Jan. 9 independence referendum. That referendum is widely predicted to result in the creation of the world’s newest country.

Kala Azar — a Hindi word meaning “Black Death’’ — erupted during Sudan’s two-decade civil war that ended in 2005, killing hundreds of thousands of people in Southern Sudan. Also called visceral leishmaniasis, the disease causes high fever, swelling of the spleen, and massive weight loss. Survivors can be badly scarred.

About 500,000 new cases appear every year in the world, according to the World Health Organization. Most occur in Sudan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Brazil.

Doctors Without Borders has opened three emergency treatment sites in Southern Sudan to respond to the outbreak.

The outbreak is the most severe in several extremely remote and insecure parts of Jonglei and Upper Nile states.

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Just a one-day wonder, folks.