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machinations of the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) that fuels conflicts on the African continent.
Erlinder (2010) noted that the American empire’s political, economic and military manipulations benefit from fuelling local conflicts to ensure that its allies prevail in every corner of the globe. Accordingly the US has stepped up ongoing war for control of Sudan’s resources namely: petroleum, copper, gold, uranium, and fertile plantation lands for sugar and gum Arabic (essential for Coke, Pepsi and Ben and Jerry’s Ice cream. It has been observed that the war in Darfur is being played out on the ground through the “Humanitarian” NGOs, private military companies, “peace keeping” operations and covert military operations backed by the US and its closest allies. The Washington Post of 27 April 2006 pointed out that Sudan has been using its oil for committing a cardinal sin of developing an economy independent of the US. This, the paper continued, is not permissible to the US as any developing nation that attempts to develop an independent economy is considered a pariah state. Sudan has benefitted from its political and business relationship with China to the extent of being able to develop an economy independent of the US.
Considering that China is the biggest investor in the Sudanese oil industry, and that China is the biggest trading partner of the Sudanese government there is a conflict of interest between China and the US that has witnessed both powers fighting proxy Cold Wars in Sudan, starting with Southern Sudan and now in Darfur. The next section examines China’s interests in Darfur and how this influenced the peacekeeping efforts in that region.
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“China’s strategy in the middle East puts us in competition for influence. But the answer is not a confrontational approach over energy interest- it is a more cooperative relationship with the Chinese on energy security” (The World Savvy Monitor 2008:5).
Newly discovered natural resources in Sudan have made that country of great strategic importance to big powers and powerful corporations. Sudan is believed to have oil reserves rivalling those of Saudi Arabia (The International Energy Agency (IEA) (2007:3). It has the largest deposits of natural gas and in addition it has one of the three largest deposits of high- purity uranium in the world along with the fourth-largest deposits of copper (American Bedin, 2008:3). The Chinese oil rights stretch from the southern region to the Darfur region, near the border with Chad and the Central African Republic. US interests in these oil reserves caused it to orchestrate the genocide campaign against the GoS at the same time sponsoring insurgents against the Khartoum government in an effort to promote Darfur’s secessionism as did Southern Sudan (Zhang 2006).
China currently draws an estimated 30% of its crude oil from Africa. This competition over African natural resources has a strong bearing on how peacekeeping missions in Africa are constituted as great powers jostle to ensure that their geo-strategic and economic interests are not undermined by the deployed peacekeepers. China buys two thirds of Sudan’s oil, sells weapons and military aircraft to the GoS and has used its seat on the UNSC to dilute resolutions aimed at pressuring the Sudanese Government to stop the atrocities in Darfur (World Savvy 2008:11). In this regard, China protects Sudan from unwarranted UN attention with its Security Council Veto. It is Sudan’s largest trading partner. One human rights group reported that China was the main supplier of small arms used by government sponsored militias in Darfur (Ibid.).
With the US supplying arms of war to rebels fighting the Sudanese government and the Chinese supplying weapons being used by pro-government rebels in Darfur, it follows that the conflict is a proxy war that is largely fuelled by foreign interests hence its resolution will equally largely depend on the satisfaction of the foreign powers behind the civil war.
6.7.1 Chinese Response to the Darfur Crisis
China has provided political support to the GoS throughout the Darfur crisis whilst also contributing troops to UNAMID. China has opposed the indictment of President Omar Al Bashir by the ICC, a position similar to that of the AU and the Arab League and it has used its veto powers to keep away undue pressure on the Sudanese government (Engdahl 2007:13).
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China insists that it has been unfairly targeted on the Darfur issue since one Chinese spokesman remarked that: “China has been using its influence to the largest extent possible to persuade the relevant parties to resolve the situation in Darfur” (World Savvy Monitor Op.Cit.:11). In an effort to overcome its negative image over Sudan, China has offered to mediate in the Darfur negotiations, it supported the resolution calling for the establishment of UNAMID and has sent 315 Chinese peace keepers equipped with 145 heavy vehicles to Darfur since 2007 (Zhang Op.Cit.:98). China insists that the Darfur crisis is not an “ethnic genocide” as alleged by the US. China believes that the crisis in Darfur is a struggle over natural resources mainly between Arabian and African black tribes complicated and exacerbated by global climatic change (Ibid :100). As such China believes that the Darfur crisis needs international efforts to restore peace and stability and it appears prepared to play an active role in safeguarding its investments whilst championing the AU’s position on the crisis. China has equally cautioned western powers against resorting too easily to imposition of economic sanctions and embargoes; and turning too easily to use of force (Brosché 2008:97). To make matters worse, the AU has allowed individual countries like Libya and Qatar to initiate their own peace talks outside the strategic guidance of the continental organization.54 These parallel initiatives tend to undermine the effectiveness of the AU in addressing the crisis in Darfur.
Gomes (2015) is of the view that the EU and US preferred a purely UN mission in Darfur where some EU countries could donate sophisticated military equipment to be manned by the Europeans themselves in order to advance their self-interests through undermining the host state sovereignty.55 Now that the GoS rejected the deployment of EU or western troops in Darfur, the donor countries have withheld their equipment, thus undermining the operational effectiveness of UNAMID in the process. The refusal by Sudanese authorities to surrender the perpetrators of atrocities in Darfur to The Hague for prosecution, angered western powers who
54 In an interview with Gomez a senior official in Addis Ababa in October 2015, he lamented the practice of AU member states and outsiders usurping the power of the AU and mounting their own initiatives to broker peace talks in Darfur without synchronizing their efforts with the position of the AU. He was of the view that these countries should sponsor AU initiated negotiations as opposed to mounting parallel negotiations that have the potential of undermining the authority and success made by the continental body.
55 Gomes is of the view that a strong UNAMID is undesirable to the western sponsors of the rebel movements fighting the Sudanese government. What the western powers want to achieve is the installation of a puppet regime in Darfur that will give their oil giants unfettered access to the rich oil fields in the Darfur region. It follows therefore that UNAMID is deployed to deliberately mislead the world that a genuine peace settlement is being sought in that region which translates to organized hypocrisy.
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facilitated the indictment of President Al Bashir. In an interview with an African diplomat in Harare on 11 February 2016, he argued that:
Although President Al Bashir was not directly involved in the acts of atrocities, considering that he was the Commander in Chief of the Sudanese Armed Forces and that operations were conducted in line with his policies, he should have surrendered the indicted officials if he felt that they had acted outside his official orders and parameters of waging the war against rebels in Darfur. The fact that he refused to surrender these officials made him an accomplice to the crimes against humanity committed in his name (Interview with an African diplomat in Harare on 11 February 2016).
This was the first time that a sitting head of state was indicted for prosecution at The Hague by the ICJ in clear violation of Sudanese national sovereignty. Sudan’s instability is aggravated by the fact that its security is undermined by several internal conflicts that are linked to regional conflicts that are also fuelled by foreign interests emanating from outside the African continent.
Sudan is located at the centre of a very unstable region with multiple inter-broiled and cross- border conflicts. The porous borders with Chad, the DRC and Uganda are constantly violated by armed rebel groups from these countries escaping from home country security forces in hot pursuit and they end up crossing into Sudan where they aggravate the security situation (Coulon and Liégeois 2010).
The mass atrocities witnessed in Rwanda and Srebrenica’ shocked the “conscience of mankind” and led to the advocacy for the R2P doctrine that was adopted at the world summit in 2005.56 However, in real life situations, ethical and moral considerations play second fiddle when it comes to big powers’ decision making processes regarding peacekeeping responses to crises on the African continent. Whereas Russia and China were protecting their lucrative business interests with the GoS, the US was equally doing the same as well as trying to keep Sudan as an ally in the war against terror. All this was being done at the expense of protecting civilian Darfuris that were internationally acknowledged to be under threat of ethnic cleansing and genocidal attacks by the same government these powers were doing serious business with, paying lip service or little attention towards capacitating the peacekeepers on the ground to discharge their mandate of protecting civilian populations.57
56 The adoption of R2P as a doctrine and international norm was the culmination of several years of research and lobbying for the adoption of such drastic concept that had far reaching consequences on such other international norms as the inviolability of state sovereignty and non-interference in internal matters of UN member states.
57 This was the view of one senior military commander who served with UNAMID. In an interview on 03 April 2016, he declared that, “Do not ever think or imagine that the big powers would ever prioritize the welfare and well-being of African populations sacrificing their own economic benefits in the process, even if it means
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The indictment of President Al Bashir for war crimes, while appearing morally necessary, served to undermine Sudan’s state sovereignty. It has had the effect of derailing any meaningful negotiations the world community has been pursuing with authorities in Khartoum over the regime’s cooperation with UN/AU peacekeepers. The Sudanese government officials view the indictment as a political act, designed to ‘obstruct’ political developments in Khartoum. This development led Krieg (2013:47) to conclude that a combination of colonial legacy and recent experiences of ostensible humanitarian interventions have created fear in former colonies that Western powers employ the humanitarian argument to serve as a vehicle to circumvent the sovereignty principle with the ultimate aim of having unfettered neo-colonial access to exploit a countries’ natural resources.