Video from 1998: the people of Indonesia drive away the CIA-installed military dictator Suharto.
From Politics in the Zeros blog in the USA:
This, according to that blog, and this blog, is why the Bush administration does not condemn the killing of civilians in Darfur [see also here] in Sudan harshly; like it also does not condem the Turkish generals.
According to the old US foreign policy maxim on foreign relations: “He’s a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch”.
Like Pinochet in Chile, the Greek colonels’ dictatorship, Suharto in Indonesia, Mobutu in Congo … Uribe in Colombia, Musharraf in Pakistan … etc. … etc. ..
Background on Darfur: here.
British-French colonial rivalry and Fashoda 1898: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
Aug 19, 7:58 AM EDT
Israel Will Turn Away Darfur Refugees
By LAURIE COPANS
Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel said Sunday it would expel refugees from Sudan’s wartorn Darfur region, touching off hot debate over whether the Jewish state, founded after the Nazi genocide, has a duty to take in people fleeing persecution.
Israel has been grappling for months with how to deal with a swelling flow of Africans, including some from Darfur, who have crossed its porous southern border with Egypt’s Sinai desert. Overnight, Israel returned 48 Africans to Egypt.
Israeli government spokesman David Baker said he did not know if any were from Darfur, but that Darfurians would not be immune from Israel’s ban on unauthorized migrants.
“The policy of returning back anyone who enters Israel illegally will pertain to everyone, including those from Darfur,” he said.
Egyptian police said Darfurians were among the 48 – and would be expelled from Egypt to Sudan.
The arrival of Darfur refugees in Israel, a country that grew out of the Nazi Holocaust of 6 million Jews, has hit a raw nerve. Human rights groups and high-profile figures have appealed to the Israeli government to give them a home.
Though the case of the Darfur refugees is unusual – Israel is not a common destination for modern-day refugees – the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin set a precedent in 1977 when he offered asylum to nearly 400 Vietnamese boat people.
That the refugees are from Sudan further complicates matters, because Israeli law denies asylum to anyone from an enemy state. Sudan’s Muslim government is hostile to Israel and has no diplomatic ties with the Jewish state.
The decision to turn back Darfurians contradicts Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s pledge earlier this summer to absorb them.
Fighting between pro-government militias and rebels in the Western Sudanese region of Darfur has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced 2.5 million since February 2003.
Eytan Schwartz, an advocate for Darfur refugees in Israel, said about 400 have entered Israel in recent years. Baker said they would be allowed to live in Israel, and that the ban applied to new arrivals.
Schwartz objected to any ban. “The state of Israel has to show compassion for refugees after the Jewish people was subject to persecution throughout its history,” he said.
But Ephraim Zuroff of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center said the Jewish people could not be expected to right every wrong just because of its past.
“Israel can’t throw open the gates and allow unlimited access for people who are basically economic refugees,” Zuroff said.
An Israeli government official said Egypt has agreed to treat the Darfur refugees well, but acknowledged it might send them back to Sudan. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter with the press.
Israel estimates that 2,800 people have entered the country illegally through Sinai in recent years. Nearly all are from Africa, including 1,160 from Sudan, and many spent months or years in Egypt before entering Israel.
The number shot up in the past two months, apparently as word spread of job opportunities in Israel. As many as 50 people arrived each day in June, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
Harsh threats to expel them have clashed with humanitarian sentiments inspired by the memory of Jews vainly seeking sanctuary from the Nazis.
Israel recently announced it had reached an understanding with Egypt to take back many of the refugees and that they would be treated well. But Egypt has denied any obligation to take them back, and it was unclear what fate expelled Africans would face once returned to Egypt.
Many Sudanese find life difficult in Egypt, a country that struggles to provide jobs and social services for a growing refugee population. Egyptian riot police violently cleared a refugee encampment in central Cairo in 2005, killing nearly 30 people.
Israel has often urged Egypt to step up its surveillance of the border to prevent the illegal flow of goods and people. Egypt has increased its efforts recently, with almost daily reports of African refugees arrested by authorities before entering Israel.
In July, Egyptian police shot and killed a Sudanese woman who was trying to cross into Israel, the first confirmed death of its kind. And earlier this month, Israeli media reported that Egyptian border guards beat to death two Sudanese men in front of Israeli soldiers.
Egypt neither confirmed nor denied the report.
© 2007 The Associated Press
LikeLike
Exclusive book excerpt: A manifesto for principled Darfur activism
— and beyond
Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal publishes — with the
authors’ permission — an exclusive excerpt from Kevin Funk and Steven
Fake’s just published book, Scramble for Africa: Darfur Intervention and
the USA (Black Rose Books).
In Scramble for Africa Kevin Funk and Steven Fake provide a forensic and
astute examination of the Bush administration’s politically cynical and
opportunist exploitation of the people of Darfur’s terrible plight,
using them as pawns to regain access to Sudan’s oil riches and to
promote the self-serving imperialist concept of “humanitarian
intervention”. Funk and Fake reveal the hypocrisy of Washington, which
can in the same breathe declare the Sudan regime’s slaughter of hundreds
of thousands of Darfuris “genocide” while — out of the general
public’s earshot — praise and collaborate with the very same butchers
as allies in its “war on terror”. The mainstream “Save Darfur”
movement’s leadership also comes in for a similar investigation for its
willingness to allow the interests of the people of Darfur to play
second fiddle to Washington’s foreign policy double standards.
* Read more http://links.org.au/node/667
LikeLike
New on http://www.michelcollon.info – Investig’Action
The Darfur crisis:
blood, hunger and oil
Mohamed Hassan
“Understanding the Muslim world” (2)
Interview : Grégoire Lalieu and Michel Collon
Is the first genocide of the 21st century happening now in Darfur? This Sudanese province is the theater of a conflict on which the international opinion is rallying. As for any struggle on the African ground, we receive the same images of misery: men are tearing, children are crying and blood is flowing. Africa is however the richest continent in the world. In this new chapter of our series « Understanding the Muslim world », Mohamed Hassan unveils the origins of the African paradox and remembers us that if Sudan shelters different ethnics and religions, it has above all an abundance of oil.
What are the origins of the Darfur crisis? The American actor Georges Clooney is a member of the association “Save Darfur” and denounces the massacre of Africans by Arabic militias. On the other hand, the philosopher Bernard-Henry Levy also tries to mobilize the international opinion but pretends it is a conflict between radical and moderate Islam. Is the Darfur crisis ethnical or religious?
People saying that the Darfur crisis comes from an ethnic or religious conflict do not have a really good knowledge of that area. In fact, this war is economical. The colonial powers of yesterday and the imperialist powers of today are responsible of the African misfortunes. That big area, going from Sudan to Senegal, had in the past the same cultural background and extremely good resources. It could have been united and developed if the colonialism in the 19th century didn’t have put fake borders in this area. I say this borders are fake because they have been built according to the power struggle between the great powers and not according the reality on the ground or the wishes of the African people. In Sudan, the British colonialists, who applied the “divide-and-rule” policy, have thrown the basis of the conflicts that will tear the country.
Read more : Darfur
http://www.michelcollon.info/index.php?view=article&catid=6%3Aarticles&id=1975%3Athe-darfur-crisis-blood-hunger-and-oil&option=com_content&Itemid=11
LikeLike
Pingback: Sudanese dictator welcome in ‘new’ Libya | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Native North American art and genocide | Dear Kitty. Some blog