In this issue:

Obasanjo to Khartoum: Accept AU Peacekeepers, or Else

Rwanda Troops in Darfur Violate Sudan Sovereignty

Will AU and Arab League Join Anglo-American Plans for Sudan?

Chinese President Sends Special Envoy to Khartoum

India Sending 20,000 Tons of Wheat for Darfur

Non-Aligned Movement Backs 'African Framework' for Darfur

Nigeria Brings U.S. in To Train Troops in Delta

Rwanda, Burundi Threaten To Invade Congo After Massacre

U.S.-Owned Congolese Oppositionist Returns From U.S. to Big Welcome

From Volume 3, Issue Number 34 of EIR Online, Published Aug. 24, 2004
Africa News Digest

Obasanjo to Khartoum: Accept AU Peacekeepers, or Else

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has warned Khartoum to accept African Union peacekeepers or face 'extra-African pressure that might not be so gentle.' Remi Oyo, spokeswoman for Obasanjo, told AFP Aug. 12 by telephone, "What has to be made clear is that if Sudan will not yield to gentle, African pressure, it will have to succumb to extra-African pressure that might not be so gentle.... Nigeria remains committed to its decision to send troops alongside other African countries in order to keep the peace in Sudan." The government of Sudan informed the African Union (AU) Aug. 7 that it would not accept an AU peacekeeping force.

Rwanda Troops in Darfur Violate Sudan Sovereignty

Rwandan troops began arriving in Darfur Aug. 14 to serve in the African Union (AU) protective force for the AU's observers. Reuters and AP both report that Rwandan President Paul Kagame said Aug. 14, that his troops will also intervene to protect civilians in danger. Khartoum informed the AU Aug. 7 that, while it would accept the observers and a modest protective force for them, it would not accept any troops in a peacekeeping role.

Rwanda has sent 155 troops. Nigeria is to send troops Aug. 25. There are 118 AU observers at present.

Will AU and Arab League Join Anglo-American Plans for Sudan?

A Financial Times writer sees the African Union and Arab League as potential collaborators in Anglo-American plans for Sudan. In the FT Aug. 12, under the headline, "How Darfur could help heal a global divide," Quentin Peel writes, "The merest hint that British soldiers might become peacekeepers in Darfur has brought demonstrators onto the streets and infuriated much of the Arab press. The U.S. is accused of wanting to grab Sudan's oil.... The only organization that seems capable of providing security is the fledgling African Union. So far it has done very well, persuading Khartoum to allow ceasefire monitors with a protection force [for the monitors] into the region.

"The AU has soldiers but no cash and very little equipment. That is where Europe, the U.S., and perhaps most important of all—the Arab world—can help. A joint AU-Arab League peacekeeping exercise would help heal the very divide that has caused so much misery in Sudan. The U.S. and members of the EU could help with aircraft, helicopters and armored vehicles."

Chinese President Sends Special Envoy to Khartoum

Chinese President Hu Jintao's special envoy, an Assistant Foreign Minister, arrived in Khartoum Aug., 14 with a written message for Sudanese President Umar al-Bashir, according to the Sudan News Agency, SUNA.

India Sending 20,000 Tons of Wheat for Darfur

The Indian government has announced its decision to donate 20,000 tons of wheat for Darfur, while China is sending its second aid shipment. "The Indian government has lauded the steps taken by the Government of Sudan to normalize the situation in Darfur and decided to donate 20,000 tons of wheat as an aid to Darfur. A statement issued by the Indian Foreign Ministry ... said that India and Sudan have remained enjoying traditional close relations," SUNA reported Aug. 18.

China has sent its second shipment of aid, amounting to 5 million yuan ($600,000). Saudi Arabia and Egypt have also sent planeloads of aid.

Non-Aligned Movement Backs 'African Framework' for Darfur

The Non-Aligned Movement of 115 nations, meeting in Durban, South Africa, Aug. 18-19, affirmed its support for the efforts of the Sudan government to restore security and stability in Darfur, and stressed its conviction that African problems should be solved in an African framework and through African mechanisms, according to SUNA Aug. 19. Thus it appeared implicitly to oppose both intervention and sanctions against Sudan based on UN Security Council approval. It expressed support for the agreement between the UN and the government of Sudan for restoring stability in Darfur, and supported the negotiations in Abuja, Nigeria, under African Union auspices, beginning Aug. 23.

Nigeria Brings U.S. in To Train Troops in Delta

The Nigerian Defense Ministry announced Aug. 12 that Nigeria and the U.S. have agreed to hold "joint military training in the Niger Delta," Reuters reported Aug. 13. The Commander of U.S. Air Forces Europe, Robert Foglesong, visited Nigeria earlier the same week and held "private conversations" with Nigerian Chief of Defense Staff Alexander Ogomudia and other defense officials. Foglesong is the second commander of U.S. forces in Europe to visit Nigeria in the past two months.

The Delta is the location of major oil extraction operations. Reuters recalled Aug. 13 that "Well organized and heavily armed criminal gangs, often with the help of Nigerian officials, steal about 100,000 barrels per day of oil from pipelines. They have used the proceeds to flood the region with sophisticated weapons including machine guns, assault rifles, and RPGs." The abundance of weapons has also made ethnic conflicts much more bloody. Reuters says that "About 1,000 people are killed every year" in the Delta and that the Nigerian government has about 5,000 troops there.

EIR notes that draconian IMF policies, far more than the bad behavior of the oil majors and the Nigerian government, has made the U.S. military intervention possible. In light of the asymmetry of Delta warfare, will the U.S. intervention make the situation worse?

Elsewhere in the Gulf of Guinea, the U.S. funded a feasibility study earlier this year for a deep-water port and new airport in Sao Tome e Principe, as another part of the Bush-Cheney Administration's pursuit of its 1,000-year empire. As in Iraq (and Nigeria), oil is important, but subordinate.

Rwanda, Burundi Threaten To Invade Congo After Massacre

Rwanda and Burundi Aug. 17 threatened to invade Congo, ostensibly to get at the perpetrators of the massacre of 160 Congolese Tutsi in a Burundi refugee camp Aug. 13. The victims in the camp at Gatumba were Congolese Tutsi from Bukavu who had sought refuge in Tutsi-dominated Burundi when Rwandan puppet Gen. Laurent Nkunda (a Tutsi) was forced to give up Bukavu in eastern Congo. The Congolese Tutsi fled for fear of ethnic reprisals. The Burundian Hutu rebel group led by Agathon Rwasa, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), operating in Congo and Burundi, has taken credit for the butchery of mainly women and children. The Congo-Burundi border is only 2 km from the camp; Rwanda, Burundi and the mass media assume the FNL came across from Congo.

Who benefits? Rwandan President Kagame, for one. Despite continuing, intense pressure, Kagame has not given up his dream of making eastern Congo into a Rwandan client state. Grands-Lacs Confidentiel newsletter of Aug. 18 proposes that Kagame was, in fact, covertly behind the massacre of his fellow Tutsi, in order to wave the bloody shirt. RCD-Goma, the Rwandan puppet party in Congo, Aug. 15, accused the Congolese army of involvement in the massacre.

But the Katangans of the late Laurent Kabila, in Kinshasa, also want ethnic warfare—to break up the government Joseph Kabila and its transition to inclusive, elected government.

The UN Security Council met in emergency session Aug. 15, to denounce the massacre. Kofi Annan demanded an investigation to identify and apprehend those responsible.

Burundian troops are "reportedly massing on the border" with Congo, according to IRIN Aug. 18

U.S.-Owned Congolese Oppositionist Returns From U.S. to Big Welcome

Etienne ("Tshitshi") Tshisekedi, a U.S.-run Congolese opposition figure, returned from the Democratic Party convention in Boston Aug. 11, and was received in "triumph" at the airport by "a sea of people." The characterizations come from Congolese press not particularly friendly to him. Tshitshi has declared his intention to run for President as the candidate of his Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS, formed 1982) in the elections planned for June 2005.

His welcome was marked by a rock-throwing attack by his supporters on the motorcade of Chairman of Parliament Olivier Kamitatu and his entourage—who happened to be heading for another destination—intersected the crowd welcoming Tshishi. They smashed his windshield and hurled insults and threat. A few people were injured.

In the 1990s, Tshitshi served twice briefly as Prime Minister under President Mobutu, as a result of Anglo-American pressure.

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