April 3, 2007
MA Green Party makes statement opposing anti-Sudan bill before the state senate
Hi everyone. I went to the hearing at the state house yesterday. It didn't feel like a real hearing to discuss an issue. It was more like a media propaganda event against Sudan. JCRC mobilized a couple hundred people to come. They had Mia Farrow speak and show slides. Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray was the first speaker. They had a lot of politicians and JCRC people and professional pro-war agitators speak for a few minutes each for almost three hours. The rhetoric against Sudan and China was inflammatory and extreme. (Someone even accused China of "providing the machetes in Rwanda") The committee members (the Joint Committee on Public Service) praised the speakers, and the committee members who said anything during the hearing were clearly part of the movement to demonize Sudan - I mean they presented themselves as having proudly participated in the process to get to this point where the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is considering taking action against Sudan. Someone said there was a letter signed by Kerry and Kennedy and all 10 Massachusetts US Congressmen in favor of the divestment bills.
I got there before the hearing started. Someone at a table outside told me that I couldn't sign up to speak because all the speakers had been determined in advance. But I went in to the hearing room and asked one of the committee members who told me that I could sign up to speak.
After three hours, once a lot of people had left, they let me speak. Joachim Martillo also spoke in opposition to the bill right after me. Aside from us the only person who said anything in opposition to the bill all day was recently resigned state senate president Robert Travaglini, who manages one of the funds that would be required to divest by the bill. Travaglini said that he opposes divestment on principal that investment should generally be in whatever will make the highest returns, but he waffled and didn't really seem very opposed.
I'm not sure if cooperating with this hearing was the right thing to do. Maybe I should have disrupted the hearing while Mia Farrow was speaking while the TV cameras were still there. The state house cops recognized me and warned me not to. But anyway I did wait and speak and was polite. I gave the committee about 25 copies of a packet including my written testimony, a page of links for info on Sudan, the 2004 GRP Statement on US Imperialism & Sudan, and my article that is in the online version of the Fall 2006 GRP newsletter. The material in the packet is in this email below. In my spoken testimony, I read parts of my written testimony and a little bit of my article and, as Grace suggested, focused more on Sudan and left out most of the hypocrisy section - although I did mention the hypocrisy.
I think this is a very important issue that we need to work on more. It is offensive for our state government to be falsely accusing Africans of genocide and to be cheerleading for regime change in Sudan. We shouldn't accept this quietly.
- David
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Testimony of David Rolde representing the Green-Rainbow Party of Massachusetts
in opposition to Senate Bill 1474: 'An Act Relative to Pension Divestment' and in opposition to House Bill 2556: 'An Act Regulating Divestment in Sudan'
March 29, 2007
The Green-Rainbow Party opposes Senate Bill 1474 (Docket Number: SD01591 filed by Harriette Chandler), House Bill 2556 (filed by Denis Guyer) and all other bills calling for divestment from Sudan that are before the Massachusetts Senate and House of Representatives in General Court.
We oppose the bills not only because divestment would deprive Sudan of revenue and thus be harmful to the people of Sudan, but also because the bills are based on an unjust and offensively racist demonization of the government and people of an African country whose people have suffered greatly from years of US economic warfare and overt and covert US military warfare against them.
Unjust and Hypocritical Demonization of Sudan
US imperialist and Zionist organizations have spent millions of dollars on an anti-Sudan propaganda campaign to vilify the Sudanese government and Sudanese people and to try to convince Americans that the Sudanese government is committing genocide against the people of Sudan's Darfur region. In reality there is no genocide. There has been a civil war in Darfur with many armed factions - some anti-government factions being supported by the US - fighting against each other. The numbers of deaths are often exaggerated. The word "Janjaweed" in Darfur does not refer to a specific organization but refers to any armed group whether they are independant bandits, allied with the government, or allied with one of the anti-government rebel movements. The motivations for the anti-Sudan propaganda campaign are to convince Americans to support war against Sudan in order for the US government to gain control over Sudan's oil and other resources or to install a new Sudanese government more compliant to US wishes. Anti-Sudan propaganda is also part of the general anti-Arab and anti-Muslim rhetoric that is used to gain US domestic support for the war in Iraq, continued US support of Israel, and for the so-called "war on terror".
The anti-Sudan bills before the Massachusetts legislature demonize the government and people of Sudan - the largest country in Africa. The bills serve to amplify the drums of war against Sudan and set the stage for further U.S. imperial war against Sudan. The Chandler Bill cites Colin Powell and George W. Bush and other U.S. government officials - the same persons who lied about Iraq's non-existent "Weapons of Mass Destruction" and "links to Al Qaeda" to promote the invasion of Iraq - as accusing the government of Sudan of "genocide" and of "supporting international terrorism". Accusations like these have recently and historically been used by the U.S. government as pretexts to go to war against many countries. All the bills depend on continuing US state department designation of "genocide" - a designation that can be placed and removed because of Sudanese government compliance or non-compliance with US dictates about other issues and about access to Sudanese resources. International organizations, including the United Nations and the African Union, have not used the term "genocide" in regards to Darfur, have not accused the Sudanese government of genocide, and have criticized all sides in the civil war. International organizations have also estimated fewer deaths in Darfur than the Chandler bill cites and have not blamed the Sudanese government for all the deaths.
The demonization of Sudan as expressed in these bills is hypocritical on several levels. First: the text of the bills blame the Sudanese government for problems that were caused by US intervention.The US has starved Sudan with sanctions and a trade boycott, destroyed Sudan's largest pharmaceutical plant with a missile strike thus rendering Sudan incapable of producing needed medicines for its people and livestock, instigated the civil wars in Sudan, armed the rebels, and then blamed the Sudanese government for all the deaths (whether by violence or famine or disease) and callled it genocide.
Second: people in the USA do not hold the moral high ground to be able to accuse others of human rights violations. The United States government itself supports international terrorism and has killed millions of people with direct warfare in Iraq, Korea, and Southeast Asia and thousands of people in Afghanistan, Panama, Somalia and elsewhere. The US government through covert military support of insurgencies and open military support of brutal regimes has killed thousands - and perhaps millions - of people in Palestine, Congo, Sudan, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Colombia, Haiti, etc.
The US has committed genocide in Iraq, and is supporting a genocidal colonial settler regime in Palestine. But the Massachusetts legislators are not considering divesting from Israel or divesting from US weapons manufacturers. The Sudan divestment campaign is aimed primarily at the Chinese oil company to try to stop China from obtaining oil from Sudan. China's growing economy represents a threat to US global economic hegemony. The US already cut China off from Iraqi oil by invading Iraq. The Massachusetts legislators are not considering divesting from US oil companies who benefit from US imperialist warfare and neoliberal trade agreements forced on other countries by the US government at the behest of US oil companies.
While the crudest anti-Sudan propaganda labels the civil wars in Sudan as race wars, in fact almost the entire population of Sudan are black, and almost everyone in Darfur is an Arabic speaking Muslim. The allegations that the Sudanese government has economically neglected Darfur must be seen in the context that Sudan is an impoverished country with a per capita GDP of less than $2500 per year, that economic development during British colonial rule was regionally uneven before Sudan's independence only 50 years ago, that Sudan has not had the resources to fully recover yet from colonial underdevelopment, and again that Sudan is dealing with civil wars instigated by the US.
Meanwhile in the USA millions of people of color are in prison or live in fear of harassment by the police and court system. There is widespread poverty and lack of equal access to economic opportunities - especially for people of color - in our wealthy country. Indeed the USA was founded on genocide and exploitation of Native Americans and of African slaves.
Divestment would be harmful to the people of Sudan
The U.S. government started limited sanctions against Sudan in the early 90s, accusing Sudan of "supporting international terrorism" because the Sudanese government expressed support for the Palestinian cause and did not support the US "Gulf War" against Iraq.
In 1997 the Bill Clinton administration, with executive order 13067, imposed a complete trade and financial embargo against Sudan so that US persons or companies are not allowed to buy from or sell to Sudan. This embargo or boycott is still in effect. The embargo has damaged the Sudanese economy and caused immense suffering to the Sudanese people. Sudan is cut off from some markets for its exports. Therefore Sudanese exports must be sold for a lower price than they would be in a more competitive market situation, or sometimes no buyer can be found. So Sudanese revenue is decreased and poverty increased.Things that Sudan needs - for instance human and veterinary medications that can't be produced locally since the Clinton administration destroyed Sudan's Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in 1998 - must be bought for a higher price in a market with reduced Sudanese access to vendors, or in some cases needed goods cannot be obtained by Sudan at all because Sudan cannot afford them or because they are only available from the US.
Divestment from Sudan by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts might make it more difficult for Sudan to sell oil to China and possibly other exports to other buyers and thus would further reduce foreign revenue to Sudan. This revenue is needed by the people of Sudan - it provides jobs - and by the government of Sudan to build infrastructure and provide services to the people of Sudan.
US Economic sanctions, (of which Massachusetts divestment from Sudan would be part), are used by the US government to coerce or try to coerce the Sudanese government into following US dictates. The US wants Sudan to support US policies in Africa and the Middle East and to support Israel. The US government, on behalf of US-based corporations, wants unlimited access to and control over Sudan's oil, uranium, gum arabic and other agricultural produce, and other resources. And the US government wants access to Sudan's territory to build military bases and pipelines. US government interests do not generally coincide with the interests of the people of Sudan. The Sudanese government, in order to acquiesce to US demands in hopes of US economic sanctions being removed or in hopes of the US stopping covert military operations against Sudan, would have to act against the interests of the Sudanese people.
Finally, sometimes US economic sanctions against a country are a prelude to overt warfare or an invasion. Demonization and economic sanctions set the stage for war. Iraq is a good example of this. Massachusetts divestment from Sudan would make a US, NATO or US-sponsored UN invasion of Sudan more likely to happen. US troops, including soldiers from Massachusetts, could end up being sent to kill and die in Sudan. This would plunge all of Sudan into warfare and be a disaster for the people of Sudan.
Recommendations
Concern for the people of Sudan is laudable. It is important to understand the US role in Sudan and to understand the conflict in Darfur as a civil war rather than incorrectly as a genocide. Demonization of the Sudanese government and divestment from Sudan are harmful to the people of Sudan rather than helpful. The Green-Rainbow Party urges the Massachusetts legislature to reject Senate Bill 1474 (An Act Relative to Pension Divestment), House Bill 2556 (An Act Regulating Divestment in Sudan) and any other bills calling for divestment from Sudan.
The Green-Rainbow Party has called for removal of all US economic sanctions against Sudan and for normalization of relations with Sudan. The Green-Rainbow Party is opposed to US or UN or other imposed military intervention in Sudan. To help the people of Sudan the Massachusetts state legislature should lobby the US federal government to remove economic sanctions against Sudan, normalize relations with Sudan, stop threatening Sudan, and refrain from arming or supporting any armed groups in Sudan.
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Green-Rainbow Party Statement on U.S. Imperialism and Sudan, November 2004
We reject the racist mischaracterization of the situation in Darfur as genocide being perpetrated by Arabs. In reality, the conflict in Darfur is complex involving several warring armed factions. The US military and economic intervention over the last decade, which has worked to impoverish and destabilize Sudan, has largely caused the humanitarian crisis of civil war and famine in the Darfur region.
We oppose any military intervention in Sudan by the US, the UN, or imposed by any other foreign power. We also oppose the imposition of sanctions on the Sudanese government, particularly since US sanctions since 1997 with selective aid to rebel groups have been used to exacerbate civil war in Sudan and since the world has witnessed sanctions under the UN being used as an instrument of genocide in Iraq.
We recall the unprovoked criminal attack that destroyed the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, launched by the Clinton administration in 1998, and call for the US government to pay reparations for this brutal transgression which rendered Sudan unable to produce needed human and veterinary pharmaceuticals. In 1967 Martin Luther King noted that the United States is the "greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." Given that this fact about the USA has remained true, we condemn the US government declaring Sudan a "terrorist" nation. The US should normalize relations with Sudan.
In the short term, unconditional food aid and medical aid are needed and should be sent to the Darfur region. In the long term, we will work for an end to imperialist and corporate interventions in all their forms in Sudan and throughout Africa as these policies have lead to chronic war and poverty on the continent. African nations should have their debts forgiven, and they should be free to reject International Monetary Fund structural adjustment policies which benefit multi-national corporations to the detriment of local populations.
We strongly condemn the practice of both the George Bush and John Kerry Presidential campaigns for distorting the human tragedy in Darfur for use towards domestic political ends and as a pretext for action to gain control over Sudanese oil that is currently being developed by China and other non-Western countries.
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Stop the U.S. and Zionist War Against Sudan
By David Rolde, Green-Rainbow Party of Massachusetts - October 2006
The United States has been waging war against Sudan for the past 15 years, and we need to stop it. Just like with Iraq, the U.S. war against Sudan is a war for oil and a war for Israel. The proposed invasion of Sudan is based on lies. The lie of accusing the government of Sudan of âœgenocide in Darfurâ serves the same function as the lie a few years ago accusing the government of Iraq of âœpossessing weapons of mass destructionâ. The U.S. government, and its allies the Israeli and UK governments, are the real world champion purveyors of genocide and possessors of WMDs.
Sudan, the geographically largest country in Africa and the home of 35 million people, has been devastated by U.S. attacks for the past 15 years. In the early 90s the U.S. government declared Sudan to be a "state sponsor of terrorism" because the government of Sudan does not support Israel. The U.S. government imposed sanctions against Sudan. The U.S. sanctions and trade boycott escalated in severity several times during the 90s and 00s and damaged the Sudanese economy causing immense human suffering. Throughout the 90s the U.S. government armed and funded the SPLA rebels in the south of Sudan in a war against the Sudanese government, and against rival southern groups, in which millions of persons were killed or displaced. Millions of southern refugees fled from the SPLA and now live in Khartoum, the northern capital. The culmination of U.S. support for war in Sudan was the so-called "Sudan Peace Act", signed by George W Bush in 2002, which allocated one hundred million dollars per year to the SPLA.
One notable episode of the US war against Sudan happened in 1998 when the U.S. government of Bill Clinton, with a missile strike, destroyed Sudan's only pharmaceutical plant, the al-Shifa plant near Khartoum. This rendered Sudan unable to produce needed human medications to treat endemic diseases such as malaria and also veterinary medicines needed by Sudan's livestock industry which is a major part of the livelihood of the people of Sudan.
In 2004, during the U.S. presidential election campaign, the U.S. government started leveling false allegations of "genocide" against the Sudanese government in regards to the new civil war in Darfur in the west of Sudan. The U.S. media and pro-imperialist âœhuman rightsâ organizations (such as Human Rights Watch which is controlled by billionaire George Soros and the Council on Foreign Relations) falsely portrayed the conflict in Darfur as a slaughter of Black Africans by a "White Arab" Sudanese government. In reality it was a civil war among many armed groups, some of which were supported by the US and Israel, fighting over limited resources in an impoverished region. Nearly everyone in Sudan is a Black African. And nearly everyone in Darfur is a Black African Arabic-speaking Muslim. The numbers cited for the "genocide" in Darfur were inflated estimates of how many people might die from famine and disease.
This year the propaganda against Sudan in the United States has intensified again. On April 30, 2006, the U.S. government in conjunction with U.S. Zionist groups, staged a large pro-war rally in Washington DC. U.S. congresspersons, as well as members of the Bush administration, spoke at the rally calling for the war against Sudan to be escalated by sending in an invasion force of U.N., NATO or U.S. troops. Nearly every pro-Israel group in the USA has anti-Sudan propaganda on the front of their website. In Massachusetts an example of a Zionist group doing pro-war activism is the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) of Greater Boston.
The anti-Sudan rhetoric is no different than the rhetoric that the U.S. government uses against other countries that the United States is attacking. One aim of U.S. attacks against Sudan is to gain or maintain control over Sudanâ™s natural resources: notably petroleum but also uranium, other minerals, gum arabic, and the Nile River which supplies water to Egypt. China currently has access to oil from Sudan, and the U.S. government wants to cut China off. Destabilizing and impoverishing Sudan serves American and Israeli hegemonic interests to make sure there are no prosperous independent nations in the Middle East and North African regions.
But within the United States the anti-Sudan rhetoric is useful for more than just getting Americans ready for more overt war against Sudan. Anti-Arab and anti-Muslim rhetoric regarding Sudan is part of the general anti-Arab and anti-Muslim propaganda that is used to gain U.S. domestic support for the war in Iraq, continued U.S. support for Israel, and the so-called âœwar on terrorâ. Zionist groups in the United States have been purveying anti-Arab propaganda regarding Sudan for many years before the Darfur war, making false claims about âœslaveryâ in Sudan. Slave redemption efforts in Sudan have been shown to be a hoax. Divesting from Sudan is a Zionist anti-Arab counter-proposal to the idea of divesting from Israel. Lies about Arabs divert attention from efforts to end Israeli apartheid in Palestine.
On September 1, 2006, the US rammed a resolution through the UN Security Council calling for tens of thousands of UN troops, ostensibly "peace-keepers" but really an imperialist invasion force, to be sent to Darfur to replace the current smaller US-puppet African Union force. On September 17, Zionists and other pro-war Americans held an anti-Sudan rally in Central Park in New York City. The keynote speaker at the rally was Madeleine Albright, Clinton's Secretary of State, who is infamous for having admitted that the Clinton administration and the UN had killed half a million Iraqi children through the sanctions in the 90s but nevertheless defending the actions against Iraq as worthwhile. Rally attendees were asked to wear blue hats to signify their desire to send "blue helmet" UN troops to invade Sudan. These UN troops would not be "peace-keepers". We can see the likely outcome by looking at Haiti where, in 2004, the US deposed the legitimate government and then sent in a UN occupation force which has terrorized the country and brutalized the Haitian people. When foreign UN soldiers get to Darfur and can't determine which Black Arabic-speaking Muslims are the "bad Arabs" and which are the "good Africans", the UN troops will kill people indiscriminately. The Sudanese people will rightly resist. The situation will escalate. US warmongers will call for sending more troops, including US troops, and bringing the war to Khartoum. It will be a disaster. The US war against Sudan needs to be stopped and reversed now.
Anti-war activists are not working hard enough to stop the US and Zionist war against Sudan. The current threats against Sudan are just as serious as the threats against Iran. Anti-war activists should be focusing more effort to stop the war against Sudan and to work against US imperialism in Africa in general - the current war against Sudan is just one manifestation of centuries of European colonialism and neo-colonialism in Sudan and Africa. The situation for the people of Sudan will improve once foreign intervention in Sudan stops.
References and Information Sources
"United States Terrorism in the Sudan" by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
a comprehensive and well-footnoted article about US intervention in Sudan in the 90s
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Ketih Harmon Snow's articles on Sudan
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'Darfur: an open discussion on intervention, regime change & the politics of genocide'
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The Peace and Justice Foundation
"What Concerned Citizens Should Know about the Crisis in Darfur"
by El-Hajj Mauri' Saalakhan
other articles on Sudan from peacethrujustice
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'Darfur, Sudan: Seeking the Truth'
video interview with Minister Louis Farrakhan
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The European Sudanese Public Affairs Council (on Darfur)
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Articles by Sara Flounders of the International Action Center
"The U.S. Role in Darfur, Sudan"
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Articles by Columbia University Professor Mahmood Mamdani
"How Can We Name the Darfur Crisis: Preliminary Thought on Darfur"
"The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency"
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"U.S. Imperialists Increase Efforts to Recolonize Sudan"
by Natividad Carrera
(quotes George Bush as saying The pervasive role played by the government of Sudan in Sudan's petroleum and petrochemical industries threatens U.S. national security and foreign policy interests)
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"Darfur, Imperialist Intevention and Anti-Arab Hysteria"
by Eugene Puryear
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"Myths About the Arab Slave Trade"
by Owen Alik Shahadah
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"Thousands Protest in Darfur against Security Council Resolution for UN Deployment"
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Interview with Sudanese Compatriot Ismail Kamal
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"UN Peackeeping Paramilitarism", by Steve Lendman
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"While
World Capitalists Spend Trillions on Wars, Hunger Kills
18,000 Children Each Day",
by Hassan El-Najjar
Source: togethernet