[WestMALocals] Opposing the anti-Sudan bill (or bills) before the state legislature

[David Rolde]

I testified at the state house last Thursday at the hearing before  
the Joint Committee on Public Service. I testified in opposition to  
the bills to demonize Sudan and divest from Sudan (which mostly would  
mean divesting from Chinese oil companies) and to let them know that  
Green-Rainbow Party opposes these bills.

People can still send written statements (testimony) to the committee  
this week.  The committee's membership and contact info is at http:// 
www.mass.gov/legis/comm/j23.htm .  They are going to make a decision  
next week about sending the anti-Sudan bill to the whole legislature  
for a vote.  It might be more effective to contact your state senator  
and state rep directly to ask them to please vote against any anti- 
Sudan bills.  The legislature should be divesting from "Israel" and  
from U.S. arms manufacturers who make weapons that are being used by  
the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan and from other U.S. war profiteering  
companies.  They shouldn't be hypocritically and  falsely accusing  
the Sudanese government and people of "genocide", and they shouldn't  
be divesting from Sudan.

There is an organized and well-funded anti-Sudan campaign in  
Massachusetts. They brought a lot of people to the state house to  
testify against Sudan and China with outrageous allegations.  It is  
important for us to speak out in opposition to this imperialist pro- 
war demonization campaign against an African country.

Below is the packet of written testimony and other material that I  
gave to the Joint Committee on Public Service along with my spoken  
testimony.

- David



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 petition 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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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
http://www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq16.html#3

Ketih Harmon Snow's articles on Sudan
http://www.allthingspass.com/journalism.php?catid=24

'Darfur: an open discussion on intervention, regime change & the  
politics of genocide'
Hear forum audio at Traprock Peace Center website
http://www.traprockpeace.org/darfur_intervention_070606.html
article summarizing the forum at
http://www.workers.org/2006/world/darfur-0720/index.html

The Peace and Justice Foundation
"What Concerned Citizens Should Know about the Crisis in Darfur
by El-Hajj Mauri' Saalakhan
http://www.peacethrujustice.org/home.htm
other articles on Sudan at
http://www.peacethrujustice.org/sudan.htm

'Darfur, Sudan: Seeking the Truth'
video interview with Minister Louis Farrakhan
http://tinyurl.com/26orav

The European Sudanese Public Affairs Council
http://www.espac.org
http://www.espac.org/darfur

Articles by Sara Flounders of the International Action Center
"The U.S. Role in Darfur, Sudan"
http://www.workers.org/2006/world/darfur-0608/index.html
"Why Sudan Rejects UN Troops"
http://www.workers.org/2006/world/sudan-0914/index.html

Articles by Columbia University Professor Mahmood Mamdani
"How Can We Name the Darfur Crisis: Preliminary Thought on Darfur"
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/24982
"The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency"
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n05/mamd01_.html

"U.S. Imperialists Increase Efforts to Recolonize Sudan"
by Natividad Carrera
http://tinyurl.com/yok5xz
(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)

"Darfur, Imperialist Intevention and Anti-Arab Hysteria"
by Eugene Puryear
http://socialismandliberation.org/mag/index.php?aid=628

on African Holocaust . net
"Myths About the Arab Slave Trade"
by Owen ‘Alik Shahadah
http://www.africanholocaust.net/news_ah/arabslavetrade.htm#MYTHS
"Darfur Truth Report"
http://www.africanholocaust.net/news_ah/darfur%20report.html

"Thousands Protest in Darfur against Security Council Resolution for  
UN Deployment"
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?newsid=19738&cr=sudan&cr1=

Interview with Sudanese Compatriot Ismail Kamal
http://newswire.indymedia.org/en/2006/05/839852.shtml

"UN Peackeeping Paramilitarism"
by Steve Lendman
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2007/02/un-peacekeeping- 
paramilitarism.html

"While World Capitalists Spend Trillions on Wars, Hunger Kills 18,000  
Children Each Day"
by Hassan El-Najjar
http://tinyurl.com/3cuhoz


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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          davidrolde at yahoo.com
from the online version of the Green-Rainbow Party newsletter

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 “genocide in Darfur” serves the same function  
as the lie a few years ago accusing the government of Iraq of  
“possessing weapons of mass destruction”. 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 “human rights”  
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 Sudan’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 “war on terror”.  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  
“slavery” 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.