Darfur: Why Khartoum can snub the UN (amongst others)

It's all about oil--and those who want in on it.

To understand Sudan’s defiance toward the world, especially the Western world, check out the Ozone Café.

Here young, rich Sudanese, wearing ripped jeans and fancy gym shoes, sit outside licking scoops of ice cream as an outdoor air-conditioning system sprays a cooling veil of mist. Around the corner is a new BMW dealership unloading $165,000 cars...

While one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises continues some 600 miles away in Darfur, across Khartoum bridges are being built, office towers are popping up, supermarkets are opening and flatbed trucks hauling plasma TV’s fight their way through thickening traffic.

Despite the image of Sudan as a land of cracked earth and starving people, the economy is booming, with little help from the West. Oil has turned it into one of the fastest growing economies in Africa — if not the world — emboldening the nation’s already belligerent government and giving it the wherewithal to resist Western demands to end the conflict in Darfur.

American sanctions have kept many companies from Europe and the United States out of Sudan, but firms from China, Malaysia, India [my emphasis - MC], Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are racing in. Direct foreign investment has shot up to $2.3 billion this year, from $128 million in 2000, all while the American government has tried to tighten the screws...

As long as Asian countries are eager to trade with Sudan, despite its human rights record, the American embargo seems to have minimal effect. The country’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, keeps demonstrating his disdain for the West by refusing to allow United Nations peacekeepers into Darfur, despite continued bloodshed and pressure from the United States to let the peacekeepers in...

At times I wonder if Asians do not have even more prejudice towards blacks than many whites.

Khartoum thus doesn't need to worry about repercussions to booting the UN's main man.

THE United States has condemned the Sudanese Government’s decision to expel the head of the United Nations mission to the country and said that international action was needed to contain the worsening conflict.

Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, described as “unfortunate in the extreme” the move to order Jan Pronk, the Dutch head, to leave.

The Sudanese Government said that it had expelled him for saying that its army had recently suffered defeats against rebels in Darfur. Khartoum, already at loggerheads with the international community over moves to send a 22,000-strong UN force to Darfur, was infuriated by comments made by Mr Pronk on his blog...

Meanwhile, well-intentioned but silly Canadians still see a lead role for this country in dealing with Darfur.

Mark C.

Posted by markc at October 24, 2006 05:33 PM