Ndugu Mitayo,
Here is an update of what your progressive Arab friends in Khartoum are up to now: playing hand-in-glove with the CIA. By the way, how did that demonstration against imperialism that you recently advertised go?
Vukoni
_________________________________CIA uses Sudanese intelligence in Iraq
By Chris Talbot
9 July 2007
(www.wsws.org)
At the same time as the United States has imposed sanctions
and is putting pressure on Khartoum to accept a United Nations
peacekeeping force in Darfur, the CIA is relying on Sudan's
intelligence service to carry out spying activities in Iraq.
In a June 11 article in the Los Angeles Times, anonymous
US intelligence officials and ex-officials explained that the
Sudanese intelligence service, the Mukhabarat, had assembled a
network of informants in Iraq providing information on the insurgency.
The officials declined to say whether Sudanese agents were actually
inside Iraq, but claimed that informants could have been recruited
as they passed through Khartoum.
"If you've got jihadists travelling via Sudan to
get into Iraq, there's a pattern there in and of itself that
would not raise suspicion," said a former high-ranking CIA
official. "It creates an opportunity to send Sudanese into
that pipeline."
A second ex-official is reported as saying, "There's
not much that blond-haired, blue-eyed case officers from the United
States can do in the entire Middle East, and there's nothing
they can do in Iraq. Sudanese can go places we don't go.
They're Arabs. They can wander around."
Sudanese intelligence was also said to have helped the US in
Somalia, building contacts with the Islamic Courts and fingering
alleged members of Al Qaeda.
It is widely known that the US has cultivated its relationship
with Sudanese intelligence, reopening the CIA station in Khartoum
after 9/11. The Bush administration moved away from the previous
US policy of treating Sudan as a pariah state, not only for collaboration
over intelligence but also because of pressure from oil corporations
interested in gaining a share of oil reserves from which they
had been excluded because of sanctions. The then head of Sudan's
National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), General Salah
Abdullah Mohamed Gosh, made trips to CIA headquarters at Langley
and met British Intelligence and CIA officials in London.
The information that this Sunni Muslim state is providing a
link to insurgents in Iraq is new. It ties in with the analysis
provided by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker magazine in
March of this year-that the Bush administration has carried
out a shift in Middle East policy. This "redirection,"
as it is known, involves backing Sunni states and even extremist
groups as a counterweight to Iran and the Shiite majority in Iraq.
(See "The Bush administration's
new strategy of setting the Middle East aflame")
Although the Los Angeles Times article does not
refer to it, the Sudanese government, currently chair of the Committee
of Intelligence and Security Services of Africa (Cissa), held
the fourth conference of this African Union body in Khartoum last
month. It seems that the Iraq connection was made known to journalists
attending the conference. The Sudanese regime was eager to display
its good relations with US intelligence to the world's press.
The event was attended by the intelligence chiefs of over 46
African countries, as well as most Western intelligence agencies,
including senior CIA and British security officials. According
to reports in the South African and Kenyan press, the assembled
spies took part in a junket that involved NISS head Salah Al-Din
Abdulla Mohammed dancing on stage and back-slapping his Western
counterparts.
Journalists were taken on a visit to a refugee camp in Darfur,
although they were not allowed to speak to the inmates. Every
effort was made to play down the Sudanese government's role
in the Darfur conflict, with General Gosh, now the chairman of
Cissa, telling journalists that the Darfur crisis only existed
in America, where it was an issue between Republicans and Democrats.
The importance of Sudanese intelligence to the US, particularly
with the Iraq connection, underlines the futility of the humanitarian
campaign to bring in United Nations peacekeepers to alleviate
the suffering of the Darfur population. It is not possible to
separate American policy in Darfur and Sudan from the imperialist
invasion of Iraq. The Bush administration has found it necessary
to publicly denounce what it terms "genocide" being
carried out by the Sudanese government, whilst working covertly
through their intelligence services to collaborate with the very
regime that is responsible for these crimes against humanity.
In the UN the campaign for sanctions against Sudan, led by
the US and Britain, has been used to wage a propaganda offensive
against China and Russia. China buys much of Sudan's oil
and both China and Russia sell it armaments.
Other major powers are now using the Darfur tragedy to advance
their own agenda. French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his foreign
minister Bernard Kouchner held their own conference on Darfur.
Whilst inviting the US to the conference and presenting itself
as supporting a UN initiative, France has its own concerns in
the Darfur region-particularly its support for the shaky
governments in neighboring oil-rich Chad and the Central African
Republic. (See "The new
Sarkozy government hosts conference on Darfur")
China has also entered the fray. It claims to be playing a
"positive and constructive" role on the Darfur issue,
concerned that any bad publicity will adversely affect the 2008
Beijing Olympics.
China now claims that it has been responsible for persuading
the Sudanese government to accept UN peacekeepers in addition
to the existing African Union troops. It is planned that 20,000
UN and AU troops be deployed in Darfur by 2008. Beijing has appointed
Liu Guijin as a special envoy on Darfur, and claims that talks
between Liu and Sudan's President Omer al-Bashir convinced
the latter to drop opposition to the peacekeeping force. China
has held out the possibility of providing financial backing for
African troops so that the force is not so heavily dependent on
the West.
Several commentators have pointed to the fact that a profusion
of initiatives from foreign governments has only helped to intensify
the conflict within Darfur. Last year's attempt by the US
and Britain to impose an agreement between the Sudanese government
and the rebel groups failed when only one of the groups signed
it. This has encouraged the intervention of neighbouring countries,
particularly Chad, and enabled the Sudanese government to foment
divisions among the rebel factions, said now to number between
9 and 14.
The Financial Times comments that the violence in Darfur
is becoming more intractable: "Aerial bombardments and battles
between Arab militia and rebels are now compounded by inter-rebel
fighting, raids across the Chad-Sudan border, and banditry."
The US has been able to maintain its intelligence connections
with Sudan and continues covert operations with a number of regimes,
such as in the Ethiopian intervention in Somalia. But the debacle
in Iraq and China's growing economic weight in Africa are
undermining its hegemonic role on the continent. In February this
year the Bush administration announced that it intended to set
up, by late 2008, a separate military command for Africa, known
as Africom. At present the responsibility for US operations in
Africa is divided between several commands. The new structure
is designed to reflect the increasing proportion of American imports
of oil and gas coming from Africa.
Ryan Henry, principal deputy undersecretary of defence, led
a delegation to African countries last month asking them to act
as hosts to Africom. He attempted to play down the imperialist
role of such a force, claiming it was primarily concerned with
humanitarian assistance, civic action and training.
The response, even from supposedly pro-US countries, was to
oppose a public Africom presence. Countries opposed included Algeria,
Libya, Morocco and Kenya. According to the Washington Post,
Algeria and Libya were also opposed to Africom being based in
a neighbouring country. The Post quoted Rachid Tlemcani,
professor of political science at the University of Algiers: "People
on the street assume their governments have already had too many
dealings with the US in the war on terror at the expense of the
rule of law. The regimes realise the whole idea is very unpopular."
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