CIA's secret war against Sudan…why the U.S. bombed Khartoum

By John Parker, Workers World, 3 September 1998

The vast African country of Sudan suddenly became a focus of the news here when the U.S. government sent cruise missiles crashing into a pharmaceutical plant in its capital, Khartoum, on Aug. 20. President Bill Clinton told the press he had “convincing information” that the plant had been used to manufacture chemical weapons and was linked to the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on Aug. 7.

This explanation for Washington's terror attack has convinced few around the world, especially since experts from many countries have come forward to say that the plant couldn't possibly have been used in the manufacture of such deadly chemicals.

What the U.S. government isn't talking about is its previous history of hostility and subversion against the Sudan—something that has received virtually no press attention.

The U.S. has imposed economic sanctions on Sudan for many years, but they were stiffened in November 1997 when Clinton signed an executive order blocking Sudan's assets in the United States and banning bank loans to and commerce with that country.

SUPPORT FOR SECESSIONIST MOVEMENT

According to the book “Dangerous Liaison” by Alexander Cockburn, collaboration between the CIA and Israeli intelligence to support a secessionist movement in the Sudan can be traced back to at least 1968.

Over the years since then, the U.S. has kept up a campaign to destabilize Sudan. On Nov. 10, 1996, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. would send $20 million in military equipment to Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda, even though these three countries were embroiled in a bloody war in southern Sudan.

The paper said its congressional sources doubted the aid would be kept from rebel forces fighting the Sudanese government—virtually an admission that the aid was for that purpose.

Africa Confidential wrote on Nov. 15, 1996, that “It is clear the aid is for Sudan's armed opposition” and added that U.S. special forces were on “open-ended deployment” with the rebels.

The group now militarily supported by the U.S.—the Sudanese People's Liberation Army—had earlier been described by the U.S. State Department, Amnesty International and agencies in the United Nations as an army that primarily utilizes terror against civilians to further its aims.

In 1997 the Sudanese government signed the Khartoum Peace Agreement with several other rebel groups. This agreement confirms the federal nature of the government, accepts a referendum for the south, and offers amnesty to rebel groups that enter a political dialogue.

In February, Riek Machar, a former rebel with the SPLA who now leads a defense force allied to the Sudanese government, said that Uganda was preparing for an attack on Sudan.

Last April, when Clinton toured Africa, Sudanese President Omar el Bashir charg ed that “Clinton's African tour and his stop in Uganda are to support Uganda where the [Sudanese] rebels have their bases.”

There was an influx of U.S. troops into Uganda in 1997. In August that year, standing on Ugandan soil, U.S. Major Matthew Dansbury cited U.S. interventions in Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia as a precedent for the 121 U.S. Green Berets sent to Uganda to train troops there for “peacekeeping” exercises. The 771 Ugandan troops trained in the exercises were to form the “African Crisis Response Initiative.”

But the Sudanese government charged that SPLA members were included in those training exercises with the Ugandans.

U.S. INTEREST IN SUDAN'S OIL

In the highly politicized and deceptive U.S. corporate media, it's hard to find what really lies behind the attacks on Sudan. But the bipartisan lovefest in April 1997 between House Speaker Newt Gingrich and President Clinton on U.S. objectives in Africa sheds some light.

That was when the U.S. began its “Partnership for Promoting Economic Growth and Opportunity in Africa,” which would give preferential treatment to countries in Africa that opened their markets to U.S. banks and corporations.

“In an increasingly competitive global economy, the United States cannot afford to neglect a largely untapped market of some 600-million-plus people,” said U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky, referring to the initiative.

“The lowering of tariffs and other trade barriers will help African nations grow,” she continued. “They will also help Americans by opening these markets to our goods and services.”

U.S. imperialist corporations have big plans for profit-taking in Africa. How does this impact on the Sudan?

Back in November 1984, the Wall Street Journal reported that Chevron, after a decade of exploration, had discovered two oil fields in the southern Sudan containing an estimated 300 million barrels of oil. The company then began construction of a 940-mile pipeline costing $1 billion. The Chevron group included Royal Dutch/Shell and Total of France.

But the Chevron consortium began to pull out of the deal after attacks from rebel forces left four of its employees dead.

Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi Arabian financier with extensive assets in the U.S., then agreed to finance the operation in exchange for a 50 percent interest in the venture and 50 percent of all oil-related assets belonging to the Chevron consortium.

Now, according to an article in the Aug. 11 Financial Times of London, written just nine days before the U.S. attack on Khartoum, Sudan has moved ahead in development of its oil fields.

“Sudan has launched itself into oil exploitation with a vengeance, snatching at what officials regard as a possible miracle cure to its deepening economic and social ills.

“By April 1999, if work goes to schedule, a 1,540-km pipeline will link the oilfields of Bentiu, Heglig and Unity to Port Sudan on the coast. By June of that year, Sudan should be exporting 150,000 barrels per day. Six months later it hopes to be refining its own crude. …

“Contracted by 11 Chinese companies, more than 2,000 Chinese laborers are already in the country and by June their numbers will have risen to 7,000. …

“Malaysian, Canadian, British, Argentinean and German companies also belong to the consortium responsible for the 1.6bn scheme, and are covering nearly all the start-up costs in return for the promise of a share of future revenue … simply being relieved of its annual $250m-$300m energy bill, say officials, would make a vast difference to a government embroiled in an expensive military campaign.”

The article further states that this would impact the peace process in the south. Machar, the former rebel now working with the government, explains: “‘If in the interim period we manage to use this oil to redress imbalances and create confidence, maybe the south would then vote for unity,’ he speculates. ‘The south would have made an economic leap forward and some of their fears would have eroded.’ “

But according to the article, the SPLA leader John Garang, now supported by the U.S., has already threatened to target the oil fields. And now Washington has bombed Khartoum in a clear warning to the Sudanese government that it will use extreme force to get its way.