Student Researcher: Curtis Harrison
Faculty Evaluator: Keith Gouveia
The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor announced that they were at last issuing the long-threatened but first ever indictments against a sitting head of state, Omar al-Bashir, the Arab President of Sudan. Following the announcement the story was broadcasted all over the Western media system and into every American living room by day’s end, President al-Bashir ordered the expulsion of ten international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in Darfur. What has not been reported anywhere in the English press is that the United States of America has just stepped up its ongoing war for control of Sudan and her resources: petroleum, copper, gold, uranium, fertile plantation lands for sugar and gum Arabic (essential to Coke, Pepsi and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream). This war has been playing out on the ground in Darfur thorough so-called ‘humanitarian’ NGOs, private military companies, ‘peacekeeping’ operations and covert military operations backed by the U.S. and it closest allies. The struggle to control Sudan manifests through the flashpoints of war for Darfur. There are U.S. Special Forces on the ground in the frontline states of Chad, Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, and the big questions are [1] How many of the killings are being committed by U.S. proxy forces and blamed on al-Bashir and the Government of Sudan? And [2] who funds, arms and trains the rebel insurgents?
Snow notes that the Sudan indictment exposes the ICC as just one more tool of hegemonic US foreign policy.
“Africom’s Covert War in Sudan” Keith Harmon Snow, Dissidentvoice.org, 3/6/2009 http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2009/03/africoms-covert-war-in-sudan
“Aren’t There War Criminals in The US? Legitimacy of Global Court Questioned Over Sudan” Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service, March 9, 2009 http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/03/09-10