“American warnings that Darfur is heading for an apocalyptic humanitarian catastrophe have been widely exaggerated by administration officials…Washington’s desire for regime change in Khartoum has biased their reports.” Peter Beaumont, The Observer UK

Colin Powell’s claim of “genocide” in Darfur is tantamount to a declaration of war. It paves the way for a steady escalation of repressive measures authored by the Bush Administration and executed by the UN for the ultimate purpose of “regime change”. It is a path that has been traveled before and now looks to be headed in the direction of Khartoum.

The horrific violence in Darfur is no real interest to the Bush Administration.Rather, its attention has been drawn to Sudan by vast reserves of oil and natural gas that are, as yet, not under US control. (The Canadian Oil Company, Talisman, estimates Sudan’s oil reserves are nearly 1 billion barrels, and its natural gas reserves are close to 3 trillion cubic feet.) The killing and displacement of native people is merely a pretext for future military involvement. Bush and his lieutenants fully grasp the requirements of manipulating public sentiment, and are using the human tragedy to promote their own long range goals. Powell’s dramatic proclamation of “genocide” is just a ploy to invoke UN sanctions to stop the vital flow of oil (primarily to China) and to encourage “humanitarian intervention”.

These views are supported by an “all-black panel discussion cablecast Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2004, on C-Span. Characterizing the conflict in Sudan as a ‘civil war’, Akbar Muhammad, a spokesman for the Nation of Islam, asserted that the ‘complex…humanitarian conflict is not about race’. All the panelists agreed on this central point.

“It is not genocide, nor is it ethnic cleansing”, said black activist Imam Khalid Abdul-Fattah Griggs. The “humanitarian crisis” is real, but he says the war is about “unequal distribution of resources”.(Al jazeera)

Humanitarian intervention is a familiar ruse and has been used effectively by both the Clinton and Bush administrations. It was invoked as the justification for US involvement in Kosovo, which led to a ruthless 78 day bombing of Serbian “soft targets”. In reality, it was a hoax designed to establish strategically located bases in the Balkans; bases that are considered by many to be critical to America’s economic future. The Balkans is the crossroads for crucial pipeline routes and a staging ground for control of the resource-rich central Asian region.

Powell’s charges have aroused suspicions among the Sudanese leadership. The administration has shown considerably less interest in addressing the human tragedy unfolding in Iraq, Afghanistan or Haiti. Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir has even suggested that the US may have had a role in instigating the troubles in Darfur. Bashir claims that the US, “helped train and arm rebels from west Sudan who rose up against the Sudanese government last year,” (Reuters) “Who else than the United States is behind this … They took rebels to Eritrea, and set up training camps for them, spent money on them, armed them and gave them Thuraya mobiles to speak between anywhere in the world,”

Bashir told the Al-Ahram daily when asked about foreign involvement in Darfur. (Reuters)

Who could look at the oil-motivated carnage in Iraq and doubt what Bashir is saying? Just last week the Guardian of London reported that the US may have been involved in the coup in Equatorial Guinea. “The Pentagon’s deputy assistant secretary of Defense for African affairs reportedly met twice with a British man who has been accused of being one of the coup organizers…The president of Equatorial Guinea has accused the US of backing the plot but the Bush administration has denied playing any role.” (Democracy Now)

Similarly, the administration’s involvement in the failed coup attempt in Venezuela against Hugo Chavez is now fairly well documented. In that dismal affair, Bush immediately (and illegally) accepted the new Carmona government, even though the “oil executive” quickly disbanded both the Parliament and the Supreme Court in the first 24 hour period of his brief reign. This was, perhaps, the first convincing illustration of the Bush administration’s animus towards democracy and their willingness to do “whatever it takes” to control the world’s dwindling resources.

Oil is the driving force behind the Bush Administration’s foreign policy. Whether that necessitates coups or “humanitarian intervention” or threats from the Congress (as was the case with Mexico’s PEMEX) or the clandestine transferal of stock to US clients (Russia, Yukos oil), or war (Iraq, Afghanistan); oil is at the heart of every policy decision.

The same rule applies in Sudan. The US has no intention of reducing the violence in Darfur. We only need to look at Afghanistan to know that the administration will not put its soldiers at risk to secure the countryside.

For three years the US has made no attempt to challenge the rule of the regional warlords and integrate the nation under a strong central government. It is foolish to expect that there would be a policy shift in Darfur.

In fact, a US intervention would probably insure that Sudan will eventually resemble Afghanistan. In other words, an American client (like Karzai) would be propped up to justify the theft of resources while the violence and suffering outside of the capital would continue apace.Troop commitments would be limited to pacifying Khartoum and for putting Sudan’s wealth under a US economic umbrella.

Hashim Syed Mohammad bin Qasim, representative for Online International News Network (OINN) notes that, “Control of Sudanese oil and gas is certainly at the center of all this attention…..In spite of a similar situation (political freedom struggle) prevailing in Kashmir, Chechnya and Palestine, the UN is turning its eyes away from them. It is thus obvious that the UN (USA + EU) machinery needs oil to run, and may keep away from dry areas.”

Mr. Qasim seems to have uncovered the cornerstone of American foreign policy. The architects of that policy now appear to be zeroing in on Sudan.

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