From The Ramparts

Same Ol' Game

The Same Ol’ Game

“Unsurprisingly, the West dominates the world arms market in terms of sales. Over the last six or so years, the US has towered over the other countries in weapons sales, clocking up $49,271 million worth of sales (at 1990 prices) between 1996 and 2000. Its nearest competitor, Russia, made $15,690 million worth in the same period, but a large majority of these were of second hand weapons. According to SIPRI, just under half of all transfers (movements) of major conventional weapons between 1996 and 2000 came from the US, Russia and France each accounted for 10 per cent, and Britain and Germany each accounted for between five and 10 per cent. The seven following biggest sellers - the Netherlands, Ukraine, Italy, China, Belarus, Spain and Israel - accounted for around 15 per cent of the world total transfers between them. So it is clear that the global arms market is controlled by just a few players. The six biggest arms selling countries - four of whom, ironically, are permanent members of the UN Security Council - accounted for almost 85 per cent of all arms transfers over the last six years.” The Arms Trade by Gideon Burrows http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Weapons/Arms_Trade.html

When we hear of “rebels” attempting to overthrow a sovereign government be it a democratically elected one, a dictatorship or a puppet regime somehow the media never tells us where the guns and supplies came from the “rebels” used or who financed or supplied the logistical support for the rebels? That’s because the media doesn’t want us to know th real deal. For example the fighting and resulting refugee problems in Darfur is now spreading into Chad creating havoc and security problems for the Chad government. A report by the United Nations High Commission of Refugees states, “There is an overall security deterioration in Eastern Chad, with some reports of an increased proliferation of weapons, particularly around the border area. Reports from the border area indicate that cattle theft and other criminal acts appear on the increase. Equally, there is an increased military presence at both sides of the borders. Competition over scarce resources (such as water and firewood) and a poor harvest during the last rainy season are fueling the tensions between the local population and the refugees. UNHCR, ICRC and the Government counterpart are holding regular meetings in Abeche, together with representative of the Chadian police forces to improve the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding for camp security. According to the MOU signed between the Government of Chad and UNHCR, Chadian police forces, including female officers, have been deployed to the camps to improve physical protection of refugees. Local authorities, UNHCR and partner agencies are conducting sensitization campaigns in all camps and surrounding villages to promote more peaceful cohabitation between the local and the refugee communities” http://www.unhcr.org Notice the brief mention of weapons proliferation. If you want to destabilize a whole region one of the things you do is foment wars and conflict and arm both sides. In the case of Chad the refugee problem is being caused by the long running interracial fighting between the Arab militias from Sudan called Janjaweed and the indigenous Africans of the region. The infighting and civil wars in the region is causing displacement of massive numbers of people turning them into refugees, many who have fled to nearby Chad. There have been border clashes between Chad and the Janjaweed. Now Chad is having problems of its own as the government of President Idriss Deby is claiming Sudan is supporting the rebels who recently launched an attack on the Chad capital of N’Djamena. The fighting is causing massive social upheavals in both Chad and Sudan.
Ever wonder who funds and arms these “rebels”, “insurgents” or whatever the Western press calls them? We know it’s not African nations. How can cash poor, resource rich but African nations severely exploited by the IMF and World Bank afford to pay for small arms. munitions and ordnance to wage internecine warfare? The world arms sales tend to be the monopoly of European nations. “From 1989 to 1998, the US provided over $227 million in weapons and training to African military forces. Of this, over $111 million went to governments that have been directly or indirectly involved in the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): Angola, Burundi, Chad Namibia, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
The big seven arms-selling countries in the world - the US, France, Germany, Britain, Russia, China and Italy have all sold arms to states currently involved in conflict including Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Israel, China, Taiwan, India and Pakistan. And they usually show their deadly wares at arms fairs.” http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Weapons/Arms_Trade.html The arms dealers don’t just do it to make money they do it as part of an overarching plan to depopulate and destabilize whole regions so their corporate buddies and partners can come in and rape and pillage the land of natural resources, control large swaths of territory or subdue strategic geopolitical positions. In the cases of Darfur (Sudan) and Chad there are several prizes, namely oil and water. “A consortium led by two US companies has been investing $3.7 billion to develop oil reserves - estimated at 1 billion barrels - in southern Chad. The nation's total oil reserves has been estimated to be 2 billion barrels. Oil production came on stream in late 2003. Chad began to export oil in 2004.” http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook “In 1999, Sudan began exporting crude oil and in the last quarter of 1999 recorded its first trade surplus, which, along with monetary policy, has stabilized the exchange rate. Increased oil production, revived light industry, and expanded export processing zones helped sustain GDP growth at 8.6% in 2004.” http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook
Nowadays where there is crude oil, expect the leeches and parasites to attempt to gain a toe hold in the region! When we connect the dots, we see what is really going on. The Europeans have exploited existing Arab-African tensions in Sudan and have moved to destabilize neighboring Chad in an effort to create massive social upheaval, disruption and human dislocation so they can bum rush the oil and in Sudan’s case the water from the Nile. Here’s where the arms sales come in. You can’t have a war, killing and massive dislocation without arms and weapons. So the leading arms dealers do their thing, sit back and wait for the resulting chaos, death and depopulation. “The ongoing bloody conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), formerly Zaire, has been called Africa's 'first world war'. In 1965 Mobutu Sese Seko became president of Zaire with the backing of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who needed a strategic friend in Africa. Mobutu quickly became one of the continent's most brutal dictators, but was nevertheless supported by the US in weapons sales and military training. Even after the Cold War, the United States continued to supply military support to the Mobutu regime. In 1991, more than $4.5 million of military equipment was delivered to Zaire. In 1996 and 1997, Laurent Kabila and his Alliance of Democratic Forces fought running battles with the Mobutu dictatorship, eventually ousting the despot. The US immediately offered the Kabila regime military training, even as the new president suspended human rights and banned opposition political parties. On 2 August 1998, DR Congo's current brutal conflict began, with nine African nations siding with either the Mobutu faction or Kabila regime in a fight for DR Congo's rich mineral and diamond resources. Foreign troops from Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Angola, Namibia, Sudan, Chad and Zimbabwe have all been drawn into the fight, along with irregular and guerrilla movements from surrounding African states. US, Britain, China, Russia, South Africa and other weapons-selling giants have gathered like vultures, gladly supplying the factions with weapons of death. Even after six of the governments involved were drawn together to sign the Lusaka peace accords in July 2000, the battling continues, supported by Western countries and their arms companies.” http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Weapons/Arms_Trade.html The current situation in Sudan/Chad is merely a variation on the same theme of this ongoing program. When the smoke clears the big US oil companies Exxon Mobile and their consortium partners have the right of ways for the oil and in Chad’s case the right of way for the pipelines since Chad is landlocked. Plus the devils attain another one of their diabolical goals; the death and depopulation of huge numbers of African people. This is the same program they ran on the Native Americans. It’s the same ol’ game being played over and over again and Africans are the big losers.

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posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 7:33 AM