Darfur Deception

An Open Letter to Human Rights Colleagues Concerned About Darfur…and Iraq

To my dear and well-meaning
Human Rights colleagues,

The story of displacement and
death in the Darfur region of Sudan is indeed horrific. And, since Sudan
is one of the few countries in Africa which has been off-limits to US
oil deals and capital penetration, the crimes of the Sudanese government
have a special resonance in U.S policy-making circles. Although
it is rare that the Darfur tragedy is put into context, please permit
me to try.

Actually, over the past two
years 1.1 million
Somalis have been displaced by the Ethiopian army1 with the assistance of Rwandan army (both of which have been
funded by our own government with the assistance of US military advisors
and equipment)2and Somalia has displaced Sudan's Darfur, as the world's most
dangerous region, awful as the Darfur crimes might be3. We must also note that the attacks on Muslim
Somalis by "Christian" Ethiopians/Rwandans have
not
been characterized as a "genocide" by US leaders,
despite its larger-than-Darfur scale, although others
have.....
4

The awful number of civilian
deaths in Darfur -- some 400,000 we are told --
has been eclipsed by the 6.4 million deaths
in the Eastern Congo as a result of the invasion of the Eastern
Congo by US/UK-supported armies of Uganda and Rwanda beginning in 19965 which are continuing at the rate of
45,000 a month, today.

An October 2003 UN
experts report describes how the economy and resources of the Congo
have been stolen by Ugandan and Rwandan militaries, and their surrogates,
during the ongoing, decades-long war in Central Africa6 with not so much
as "peep" from western HR advocates. And
the killing is continuing as I write and you read
these words. But no regular reporting has appeared
in the US press. There has been no condemnation of any kind from USG
and no human rights "movement" has materialized to condemn the
invasion or the killing in the Congo, much less Somalia.

And,
European Union Reports from 2003 make clear that the
recent electoral debacle in Zimbabwe in 2008 was merely a repeat of
similar tactics, such as physical attacks, arrests and deportation of
the political opposition that occurred in
Rwanda, when President Kagame was "elected" with 95% of the
vote in 2003.7 Interestingly, Zimbabwe
has been almost completely cut-off from "western" economic aid
-- with the predictable results in the African context.

By contrast, Uganda is Africa's
largest recipient of UK military and economic aid, and Rwanda has a
similar relationship with the U.S. Both countries have become centers
for trading gold, diamonds and coltan (the rare mineral that
makes cell phones possible). Although none
of these resources exist in any quantities in either country, they DO exist in great plentitude in the Congo. US military
aid to Rwanda has ballooned the Rwandan army from 7,000 (before Kagame's
war 1990-1994 to seize power) to 70,000-100,000 to today.8
Rwandan troops are now being "farmed-out" to the U.N. and U.S. allies
for cash, not unlike the mercenaries, called military "contractors,"
being used in Iraq and elsewhere.

And, when we begin considering
who the criminals are in Africa, it is worth noting that Zimbabwe's
Mugabe had the poor judgement to send troops to the Congo to oppose
the completely illegal Ugandan/Rwandan invasions that began in 1996
and are continuing today.

This is not to say that Darfur
does not deserve our concern and attention, but when the
U.S. State Department starts throwing around the "genocide"
label, you can be pretty sure that the targeted African
leaders are NOT favorites of U.S policy-makers. On the other hand,
no matter WHAT crimes are committed by local despots that great-powers
outside Africa support, much, much greater crimes
(such as wars of aggression for economic gain) never get even a mention.

Because I am Lead
Defense Counsel at the UN Tribunal for Rwanda,
I have had access to original UN and U.S. Government documents that
have been suppressed since mid-1994 but which are now in
the record at the ICTR, and many of which are posted on
the website of original source materials I have been creating
to permit researchers to draw their own conclusions rather
than accepting my or our Government's "spin"
on the politics of Africa. Please check out www.rwandadocumentsproject.net.

Also, please note that the
Pentagon established AFRICOM, the first military command
structure for Africa, just last year, a clear signal that
the struggle for the vast resources and undersupplied markets in Africa
is just beginning. AFRICOM joins PACOM (war planning for Asia, including
the Vietnam War); EUCOM (European war planning...the US
segment of NATO); the Southern Command (military planning for interventions
in Latin America) and CENTCOM (responsible for military
strategy in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and...Iran).

The establishment of AFRICOM
in 2007 is undisputable evidence that U.S. policy-makers see Africa
as an area of military contention for the foreseeable future. Africa
is the last continent, with almost unlimited nature riches, over which
all major economies must seek influence to fuel their industrial production.

Before we swallow wholesale
the accepted story of "good and evil" among African leaders,
a careful study of the politics, history and big-power aims in Africa
is probably warranted -- although it is very painful to
face up to the machinations of our own military-industrial complex
because to do so will require fundamental change within our own society,
rather than to look elsewhere for "the problem."

However, as responsible citizens
of the most dangerous Empire the world has ever seen...we must.

The future of humanity hangs
in the balance, not because of violence committed by local
despots, which is, of course, despicable, but because of
the political, economic and military manipulations of the post-WWII
American Empire which benefits from fueling local conflicts
to ensure that its allies (and influence) prevail in every corner of
the globe.

However, there has been
one good recent development on the International Human Rights "front".

The President of Sudan was
indicted for "genocide" and war-crimes by the International Criminal
Court even though Sudan has not signed the treaty, which
is exactly the same legal position in which the U.S. finds itself
because of Bush's rejection of the Clinton's signature on the Treaty
of Rome that set up the Court.

When Bush of other American
leaders are similarly indicted by the ICC, too, we will
be sure that "international justice" is being meted out evenly and
the "Rule of the Powerful" will have been replaced by the Rule of
Law.

But, as it is now, the powerful
decide who among the less-powerful will feel the lash of retribution...or
reap the rewards of co-operation

I realize that the above may
be shocking -- and may call my sanity into question in
some circles -- but facts are facts, and can
re-order our perceptions, if we have the courage to examine
them.

best regards to all,

Prof. Peter Erlinder
Wm. Mitchell College of Law
St. Paul, MN
Lead Defence Counsel-UN/ICTR,
Arusha, TZ
past-President, National Lawyers
Guild, NY,NY

1 CIA World Factbook, Updated September 4, 2008

2 USA Today, January 8, 2007: "A
Christian-led nation...Ethiopia has received nearly $20 million
in U.S. military aid since late 2002. That's more than any country
in the region except Djibouti...the U.S. and Ethiopian
militaries have "a close working relationship," Pentagon
spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter said...[a]dvisers from the
Guam national guard have been training Ethiopians in basic infantry
skills at two camps in Ethiopia, said Maj. Kelley Thibodeau, a
spokeswoman for U.S. forces in Djibouti...There are about 100
U.S. military personnel currently working in Ethiopia, Carpenter
said."

3 "Humanitarian
crisis in Somalia is worse than Darfur", International
Herald Tribune, Nov. 20, 2007. Quoting UN sources.

4 Eritrea: President Accuses U.S. of Genocide in Somalia,
http//allafrica.com/stories, Sept. 7,2008.

5 By 2003, the Congo wars had been going on for 7 years and had killed
more than 3 million Congolese. See, UN Panel of
Experts
Report on the Illegal Exploitation of the Democratic
Republic of the Congo,
October 20, 2003. Since 1998 to the
present, alone, the total is 5.4 million.

6 See, UN Panel of ExpertsReport on the Illegal
Exploitation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
October
20, 2003.

7 Rptr. Colette Flesch, Report of European Observer Mission,
September 2003
; See also, Waugh, Paul Kagame and Rwanda:
Power, Genocide and the Rwandan Patriotic Front
, pp. 185-206
(Mcfarland USA 2004); U.S. State Department 2003 Human Rights Report
on Rwanda, Feb. 25, 2004.

8 See, UNAMIR Reconnaisance Report, September 1993;
https:Wikipedia.org/wik/list-of-countries-by-number-of-active-troops.

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