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Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 20:13:26 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [GlobalAfricanPresence] A Tale of Two
Genocides, Congo and Darfur: The Blatantly
Inconsistent U.S. Position
   http://www.blackage ndareport. com/index.
php?option= com_content& task=view& id=284&Itemid= 37

A Tale of Two Genocides, Congo and Darfur: The
Blatantly Inconsistent U.S. Position
Africa - US Imperialism in Africa
Wednesday, 18 July 2007
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

As many as five million people have died in the
Democratic Republic of Congo. A quarter million or so
have perished in Darfur, western Sudan. Both are
abominations, genocides, crimes against humanity, but
only Darfur rates coverage in the U.S. corporate
media, action by the United States on the diplomatic
and military front, or concerted interest by the
Congressional Black Caucus. The Congolese genocide,
triggered directly by the U.S. and its surrogates, is
masked in silence. In Darfur, "Arabs" who are
indistinguishable from their Black African Muslim
neighbors are demonized as enemies in the "clash of
civilizations. "

Possibly a quarter million people have lost their
lives in Darfur, western Sudan, in ethnic conflict.
The U.S. government screams its head off in
denunciation of genocide, in this case. In the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), as many as five
million have died since 1994 in overlapping
convulsions of ethnic and state-sponsored massacre.
Not a word of reproach from Washington. A human death
toll that approaches the Nazi's annihilation of Jews
in World War Two - an ongoing holocaust - unfolds
without a whiff of complaint from the superpower.

Why is mass death the cause of indignation and
confrontation in Sudan, but exponentially more massive
carnage in Congo unworthy of mention? The answer is
simple: in Sudan, the U.S. has a geopolitical nemesis
to confront: Arabs, and their Chinese business
partners. In the Congo, it is U.S allies and European
and American corporate interests that benefit from the
slaughter. Therefore, despite five million skeletons
lying in the ground, there is no call to arms from the
American government. It is they who set the genocidal
Congolese machine in motion.

Active U.S. Passivity

In 1994, Rwanda was on the brink. The Hutu majority,
which had for a century been oppressed by Tutsi
surrogates for European colonialists, feared that
another massacre of their kin was imminent. There had
been many massacres of Hutus, before, in Rwanda and
neighboring Burundi, also under minority Tutsi
control. Pent-up hysteria exploded in an orgy of
violence that claimed the lives of as many as 800,000
Tutsis and Hutus that did not support the genocide

The U.S. did nothing to interfere, because they had
two actors in the game. Ugandan dictator Yoweri
Museveni was now the Americans' guy in central Africa.
Tutsi Rwandan exiles, headed by Paul Kagame, were an
integral part of Museveni's army. As the genocide
began, Kagame's forces launched an offensive from
Uganda into Rwanda. It did not halt the massacre of
Tutsis, but succeeded in driving the disorganized
Hutus into neighboring Congo. The Americans now had
another player in the African game: the new head of
the Rwandan Tutsi-dominated state, Paul Kagame. His
forces then invaded eastern Congo, chasing the fleeing
Hutus.

All hell broke loose. President Mobutu Sese Seko,
America's man in the Congo, then called Zaire, was
terminally ill. He fled and died in exile in 1997. The
eastern Congo was now up for grabs, and everybody
grabbed some. Eastern Congo is one of the most
minerally rich places on Earth, an extractors'
paradise. According to the CIA's "Factbook," the DRC
abounds with "cobalt, copper, niobium, tantalum,
petroleum, industrial and gem diamonds, gold, silver,
zinc, manganese, tin, uranium, coal, hydropower,
timber." All of these resources are exploited by
European and American corporations that maintain their
own mercenary armies to guard the extraction fields.
For generations they have run their patches of
Congolese land like governments, with the support of
France, Belgium, the United States and other powers.
The so-called civil war effectively gave them full
autonomy in the wake of Mobutu's corrupt demise, as
the power of the central government in Kinshasa,
crumbled. Mass carnage raged around them, but did not
interrupt the extraction process.

Geopolitical Crimes

In the thirteen years since Rwandan Tutsi Paul
Kagame's forces - surrogates for the U.S. puppet
president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni - invaded the
eastern Congo, possibly five million people have died.
President Bill Clinton, the man who stood aside while
the Rwandan genocide took place, then presided over a
far bigger mass murder in Congo. He has apologized for
only one. In a visit to Kigali, capital of Rwanda,
Clinton said:

"We come here today partly in recognition of the fact
that we in the United States and the world community
did not do as much as we could have and should have
done to try to limit what occurred."

But what occurred is not over. The bloodshed spread
rapidly to eastern Congo, unleashed by U.S. surrogate
forces, and continues to this day. Paul Kagame, the
Rwandan president, has served U.S. imperial ambitions
well. He supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and
continues to destabilize Congo with his forces in the
eastern region. Multinational corporations, of course,
operate their own airstrips and communications
networks. Their patches of Congo proceed like business
as usual, while the death toll mounts by millions
among the people, who are overrun by militias of
various ethnicities and Kagame's Rwandan army.

The Congolese genocide is not part of the American
political discussion. When Africa is mentioned at all,
it is about Darfur. A quarter million people have died
there, compared to five million in Congo. Both
holocausts are crimes against humanity, but only the
smaller one, Darfur, is a fit subject for inclusion in
the U.S. political debate. During the June 3 CNN
Democratic debate, moderator Wolf Blitzer demanded
that the candidates "raise their hands" if they
supported the imposition of a no-fly zone in Darfur -
an act of war against the government in Khartoum
according to international law. Only Rep. Dennis
Kucinich and former Senator Mike Gravel declined to
endorse the violation of Sudanese sovereignty. In the
following Republican debate, the consensus was almost
unanimous, except for Rep. Ron Paul: impose a no-fly
regime over the western Sudan.

Imperial Chess Game

The Congressional Black Caucus follows the same script
as Wolf Blitzer. Members have lobbied and demonstrated
against the Sudanese regime, to the applause of the
corporate press. But they have never said a word, as a
body, about the hellacious carnage in Congo. It is a
taboo subject, too close to "vital American
interests." But the Sudanese conflict is fair game,
and so the Black Caucus joins in the general mob
attack. They make common cause with imperial ambitions
in the Horn of Africa, while ignoring the murder of
millions in central Africa.

The preferred narrative of Darfur fits nicely with
that of the Israeli lobby in the United States.
Although all the antagonists are Black Africans and
Muslims, the aggressors are classified as "Arabs." A
regional inter-African, inter-Muslim conflict is made
to appear as part of the "clash of civilizations" -
the new Cold War. The proof is that the Chinese are
partners with the Khartoum regime, having engaged in
oil contracts. The evil Chinese menace threatens
American interests, and it follows that any country
that deals with the Chinese is involved in an
anti-American conspiracy. If they are Arabs (although
black as my shoe), then the narrative is complete.
Arabs have collaborated with Chinese to kill Africans
just as black as themselves. Let's declare war on
them, beginning with a no-fly zone that violates their
sovereignty.

The scenario is the same as Iraq: take control of
their skies and the land beneath it, and bomb at will.
Remove any semblance of government authority, under
the guise of ending genocide. Extend the reach of the
U.S. military's paws in the Sahel region. The African
Union has tried mightily to put an effective
peace-keeping force on the ground in Darfur, but the
United States and the Europeans refused to supply the
logistical forces that are necessary; the C-130s to
reinforce and supply the African troops. The Americans
and Europeans held out until the African contingent
was at the breaking point, and then forced through the
UN Security Council a plan to place 26,000 U.S. and
European-led soldiers on the ground. Another piece of
Africa will pass into foreign hands.

Darfur has been made into a stage-set of anti-Arab
conflict, which perfectly suits the pro-Israel lobby
in the U.S. Congo, where far more people have died,
remains a gargantuan killing field, uncovered by the
corporate media and ignored by the Congressional Black
Caucus and the array of Democratic presidential
candidates. Genocide depends on who is doing the
killing, apparently.

Glen Ford is executive editor of Black Agenda Report.
He can be contacted at
Glen.Ford@BlackAgen daReport. comThis email address is
being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript
enabled to view it .


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