using the income to alleviate the grinding poverty of the people, it funnels THE SUDANESE government has refused to comply with a UN Security Council resolution allow the deployment of more than 20,000 UN troops and military advisers to the Darfur region of Sudan. Instead, it has allowed the African Union's (AU) mandate of 7,000 troops in Darfur to be extended until the end of the year.
It says that it believes that the deployment of UN troops would be an avenue for the West and particularly the US to intertere in Dartur and Sudan's internal affairs. The US government, among others, has repeatedly alleged that the Sudanese government is guilty of genocide in Darfur.
Sudan has just emerged from a bloody North-South CIVil war of over 20 years in which 2 million lives, mainly in the South, have been lost and 4 million people rendered homeless.
The government of the mainly Arab, Muslim North signed a peace agreement with the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) of the mainly African, Christian and animist South in January 05.
The Us and other western governments played a crucial role in the peace process with Washington offering to lift trade sanctions and remove Sudan from its list of "terrorist states".
Under the peace deal, the leaders of the SPLM have become part of a government of national unity. In six years the South can choose by missiles. plebiscite whether to separate or remain part of a unified Sudan. Oil revenues are to be divided between the North and the South.
A major reason for US The government receives $1 million a day in oil revenues but instead of the equivalent amount into arms, helicopters, bombers, tanks and stability or to go beyond fighting single issues.
The idea of spontaneity as the supreme anti-bureaucratic approach is a false dogma that only serves to stifle the development of a broader political consciousness amongst the masses.
Left wing political formations and the SMI itself have the task of developing a progressive political programme that can unite the various facets of resistance into a powerful
From that base it can play a radical role in a South African Social Forum which otherwise stands to be swamped by reformists and opportunists. interest in Sudan and in ending the civil war is the newly discovered oil there. Most of the oil is in the south and existing fields straddle the north-south divide. Darfur, which is part of the North, is also rich in oil. Oil became the driving force in the civil war when the Arabdominated Khartoum govCulu Cul redrew Sudan's boundaries to exclude the oil reserves from southern jurisdiction.
The problem the US faces in exploiting the oil is that it has trade sanctions against Sudan. If it tries to reverse this policy it has to face Congress, ( declared unanimously that there was genocide in Darfur. There will also be the backlash from the Christian right, who are calling for sanctions against Sudan to be extended.
A further complication for the US is that China has invested more than $8 billion in loint exploration contracts in the country, including the building of 900-mile pipeline to the Red Sea. The oil concession in southern Darfur is in the hands of the China National Petroleum Company.
Darfur, in the west of Sudan, is mainly African, Arabic speaking and Muslim. Over the years the authoritarian central government in Khartoum allocated very few resources to this region causing widespread resentment among the people there. Open rebellion against the government broke out in 2003, which the army has tried to put down.
Within Darfur itself there is tension between the farmers
THE PEOPLE OF DARFUR NEED AN HAND FOR CONSTRUCTION AND NOT FOR DESTRUCTION in the villages ano the nomadic tribes as the latter are forced south in search of new pastures as the Sahara desert encroaches on the land. Inevitably, disputes arise as the nomads move onto land claimed by farmers.
The government has exploited this situation by arming the Janjaweed, a militia recruited from the nomads, who have attacked farmers (100 TO e villages. Ferocious armed clashes have developed into a brutal civil war in which women and children have been killed and women systematically raped. Some 200,000 people have been killed and at least 2 million displaced into more than 100 camps in Darfur and neighbouring Chad.
In May the African Union brokered peace talks between Khartoum and the rebels. An agreement was reached with one of the rebel groups that requires the Janjaweed to disarm before the rebels and gives the rebel leaders powers to run the region on their own. This rebel group is now represented in the government.
One of the two rebel groups that did not sign the agreement has formed the National Redemption Front, calling for a federal system to ensure regional self rule and sharing wealth between the various regions of the Sudan. It has vigorously continued the fight against the government and also attacked villagers, who were previously its allies.
The peace deal ending the North-South civil war is a big step forward for Sudan. But how can the civil war 1n Darfur be resolved and can the authoritarian government led by President al-Bashir provide the leadership to unite the country and move it forward to democracy?
The government receives $1million a day in oil revenues but instead of using the income to alleviate the grinding poverty of the people, it mummers the equivalent amount into arms, helicopters, bombers, tanks and missiles.
Underlying Washington's concerns about genocide in Darfur and China's threat to veto any resolution at the UN calling for intervention in Sudan, is an ongoing struggle for control of Sudan's oil. It is this struggle, between the imperialist powers and China and India - which were among the first countries to have obtained oil concessions in Sudan - that has fuelled the civil wars there.