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Tonya
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Username: Tonya
Post Number: 5710
Registered: 07-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 07, 2007 - 03:03 pm: | 
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Sudanese Refugees Head Home
By Noel King
Khartoum
07 June 2007
An estimated four million people fled southern Sudan, during Sudan's 21-year civil war between the nation's ruling Islamist regime and southern rebels. In 2005, a peace agreement ended the war, paving the way for the return of the largest refugee population in the world.
The day begins at dawn. The horns signal that it is time to leave.
Men, women and children hurry from their tents here at the way station, outside of Khartoum, to get on board their assigned buses.
Three hundred and seventy one southern Sudanese are traveling home to the south, Thursday.
Two million southerners left their villages and came north to Khartoum to escape fighting during Sudan's civil war.
Here, they faced racial and religious prejudice, which kept them confined largely to impoverished ghetto areas.
Southern Sudanese are African Christians or Animists.
Northern Sudanese are Muslims and pride themselves on their Arab heritage.
Suspicion and hostility are rife between the two groups.
Passenger Steven Mayik is returning home after 10 years in Khartoum. He explains his problem with northern Sudanese.
"They say that we, the black people, we are not able to rule; we are not supposed to be with them," said Mayik. "But the time has come, we can say to them, 'bye, bye' We don't need anything from them again. All the black people will return back."
A peace agreement was signed by northern Sudan and southern rebels in 2005, ending the war.
However, most southerners had no money to return home.
Now, the International Organization for Migration, in cooperation with the government of Sudan and the United Nations, is returning southerners to their homes in any way possible -- by bus, plane, train and river barge.
The bus trip will take the returnees over 1,300 kilometers of badly rutted roads.
Excitement rapidly turns to frustration.
The buses are cramped and, during the day, temperatures rise above 40 degrees Celsius.
At night, the travelers camp at way stations and sleep in tents provided by the IOM.
Jadranko Bjelica works with the IOM in Kadugli. He greets one of these convoys nearly every day.
"This is the procedure normally: the trucks, buses are coming in. We do have water for collecting, drinking and cooking," said Bjelica. "They can take shower, they can relax a bit, they can cook. As comfortable as possible over the night and then early morning everybody needs to be packed up and continue the journey.
Sixteen thousand people have already been returned from Khartoum by bus.
One hundred thousand refugees have returned from Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.
By the third day of travel, everyone is exhausted. There are complaints about the heat and the lack of food and water.
Several people are suffering from dehydration.
But all is forgiven the following afternoon when the buses arrive at their destination in Bentiu State.
The travelers are greeted by hundreds of local people.
Everyone in this small village has come out to greet the new arrivals.
A young man beats a drum called a bool and women sing a song of welcome.
Travelers greet friends and relatives they have not seen in years.
John Paul Chachim is the deputy secretary of the local welcoming committee. He has just met an old friend whom he has not seen in seven years.
"This one here is my colleague. I know him very well," said Chachim. "He was a young boy, but now he has become older than before."
Officials caution that some returnees may have trouble adjusting to life in the south, after so many years away.
But, for now, it seems most of the new arrivals are simply happy to finally be home.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-06-07-voa25.cfm |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 5715
Registered: 07-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 08, 2007 - 12:01 am: |
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Black Africa must tread carefully over US Africa project
By Basil Okafor
Posted to the Web: Friday, June 08, 2007
In the past nearly five decades since the formation of the Organisation of African Unity, OAU, many Africans have consistently called for closer ties between the nation-states that make up the continent.
After 38 years and feeling it had attained its main goal of African liberation, the 53-nation OAU transformed into an African Union, AU, on October 15, 2001, to ostensibly give the body political and economic teeth, as a first step to greater continental integration and unity.
In furtherance of this ideal, there is a new suggestion to use the forthcoming July 2007 AU summit, to raise the stakes even higher. At the Accra gathering, proponents of the new African continental enterprise are to push for a United States of Africa. In the new arrangement, the entire continent, if the purveyors of this concept have their way, would fuse into one sprawling nation, with one army, one currency (much like the European Union) and free movement of people and goods, with no international borders, as they presently exist.
Clearly, the idea of a “United States of Africa” resonates with the aspirations of Africans everywhere, (both at home and in the diaspora) who desire a better Africa. And predictably, the decision to push for a US Africa at the July summit has drawn spirited responses from the Pan-African public. But it is also instructive to note the respective tones of the varied responses.
In the first ten days of February, following the January 31 announcement of the AU decision, Africans wrote in to a BBC World Service Forum on the topic: “Is African unity a dream worth pursuing?” Of the 32 contributors to the forum, none is actually opposed to unification.
However, they fall into 3 main camps in their attitudes and expectations, namely:
(A) The enthusiasts (12)—who so desperately want unification that they appear blind to, or uninterested in the landmines on the way to it;
(B) The sceptics (5)—who don’t believe it will happen and, for assorted reasons, dismiss it as a ‘mirage’; and
(C) The cautious (16)—who want it, but point out some serious problems that need to be disposed of before unification can succeed.
The 32 contributors to the Forum wrote in from: USA 8; Sudan 6; UK 4; Uganda, Ghana, Tanzania 2 each; and 1 each from Cote d’Ivoire, Canada, Cameroon, Liberia, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria and Seychelles.
It is significant that two-thirds of the contributors draw attention to the obstacles to its attainment. Even more significantly, every Sudanese contributor highlighted some obstacle to be overcome. And Sudan is where the attempt to unite Arabs and Black Africans within one state has caused a bitter race war that has lasted more than 50 years. Perhaps the rest of Black Africa has much to learn from Sudan. Sudan has been an experiment in Afro-Arab unification: its experience augurs badly for the US Africa project.
A key issue raised by the two-thirds majority of the contributors who constitute the sceptics and the cautious, is that of identity. The issues they want to see addressed are as follows: their white kith and kin in Arabia and the Middle East?
Other obstacles to the idea of USAfrica they raised are:
Colourism: the ingrained Arab contempt for Blacks; the conflict between Pan-Arabism and Pan-Africanism and Arab ambitions to impose Islam on Africans and to Arabise Black Africa.
What principles will this USAfrica follow? Would it be Christian, Muslim or other? Will Muslims accept to be ruled by non-Muslims in the USAfrica? How will obstacles to unification – including tyranny, tribalism, mutual distrust and corruption – be removed?
Contributing from Mahe, the Seychelles, Clement Kuol Biong writes, “A veteran Sudanese politician, once compared the Sudan Socialist Union of Jafaar Numeiri’s rule to a shadow tree where we come just to share the shade but what each person under the tree is thinking about is not necessarily the same.
“So how can Africa be united when we are still tribally fragmented and no African leader is interested in uniting his own people? How can African unity become a dream come true when different groupings of the AU have their own hidden agendas?
“The Arabs have never stopped their dream of imposing Islamic culture on African masses by the sword, a practice which is still widespread in Sudan up to today.”
Atina Ndindeng, from Manchester, England, summarises: “African unity is just a mirage because of greed, dishonesty and corruption among the executive whom we hold in such high esteem and should be setting an example, but they are all failures and political demagogues. Shame to most African heads.”
On their part, the enthusiasts, who constitute one-third of the contributors, rest their hope on a dream that, “the United Africa will be a Green Superpower as opposed to a military superpower and eventually be a key player at the table of world affairs instead of a beggar.”
And, as Mark Wood, co-founder of USA4USAfrica, of Greenwood California, puts it, “A United States of Africa can prevent an African apocalypse on the horizon if unification does not happen NOW!”
But what good is any Green Superpower (if ever such utopia is possible for a united Africa) without the military muscle to even defend its farmlands from the sort of marauding invaders that the continent has known since the Arabs conquered and settled in North Africa between 640 and 1400 AD?
Some of the promoters of the USAfrica regard their project as an already done deal. They insist that, despite opposing views, “Africa WILL unite, as one nation. As a matter of fact, it will happen this July at the upcoming African Union summit in Ghana.”
“The tide,” they maintain, “cannot be turned at this point as the unification of Africa is undeniably in motion…all arguments opposing a united Africa are rendered moot at this point because Africans have finally mandated themselves that they will unite and work out the details from a united position as opposed to being divided.”
These promoters have already designed a flag for the USAfrica and chosen its first president for us:
“Our Mandate is for the African Union, in 2007, to form an official United States of Africa with Kofi Annan, (whose term ended December 31st 2006) departing UN Secretary General, being installed as the United States of Africa’s First President in much the same fashion George Washington was ‘installed’ as the first U.S. American President. God willing.”
As the promoters see it, all that is left for them to do is to propagandise and manipulate us like sheep to acquiesce. How? By, according to them:
1. “Organizing Town Hall meetings to get public support for the Federation and to get ideas on how it could be created.
“Town Hall meetings should begin soon inside Africa and outside Africa. Town Hall meetings are [to] provide suggestions on how to implement Continental Union Government (United States of Africa). Not a discussion about the Federation, but how to implement it.”
2. “Recruitment of celebrities to join the cause and give support and voice to the United States Of Africa. From America: recruit Oprah, Obama, Angelina Jolie, Danny Glover.”
3. Contacting “top hip-hop superstars to mobilise for the United States of Africa”.
By proceeding without a known and public mandate from the people of Africa and, especially, by drawing attention only to what they naively consider the potential benefits of USAfrica, and by trying to restrict their town-hall discussions to implementation alone, these promoters are behaving like a used car salesman who doesn’t want the customer to raise awkward questions about faulty aspects of the car.
However, the issues raised by the sceptics and the cautious, the two-third majority on the BBC Forum, suggest that it is time for Black Africans to wake up and do the hard thinking and ask—and honestly answer—the tough questions we have avoided for 50 years about the sanity of unifying Black Africans and Arabs under one continental government.
For example, why is a USAfrica necessary? What problems will it solve for Black Africa that the OAU could not and the AU cannot, solve?
Who are the shadowy godfathers of this USAfrica project and what is their hidden agenda?
The Forum comments indicate that many ordinary Black Africans are doing some of this hard thinking. The AU presidents should follow suit and do, and be seen to do, the same. They should not rush to implement this shady project before they and the public have, together, thought things through and in the greatest detail.
There was no popular debate before the formation of the AU and the adoption of NEPAD by Africa’s presidents. Will there be a full and free debate by the people before this USAfrica project proceeds any further? Will the promoters, seen and unseen, of this USAfrica, allow it?
Regardless of the promoters, let us all debate it, every aspect of it, not just how to implement it. Let us all debate the merits and demerits of continental government and do so for the next five years, or till we arrive at an enlightened consensus.
Let us debate it in light of Black people’s experience in Sudan, Mauritania and the rest of the Afro-Arab borderlands. And, in light of the four decades of the OAU/AU, too. Let the AU summit on it be postponed for at least five years, while the people debate it.
Before we, the Black African people, instruct the AU presidents on how to vote, let us examine the motives, objectives, sponsors – overt, as well as covert – modalities and feasibility of this USAfrica and do so in the context of what Black Africa needs to survive and prosper in this century.
Caution should be our watchword for, as Abednego Majack – a contributor from Rumbek, Sudan – puts it, succinctly, “United States of Africa? The phrase sounds good but the question is, do we really see ourselves as African, regardless of our colonial boundaries, religions and regional groupings?
“The AU must be very serious when considering how to make African unity attractive otherwise the continent will still remain in two halves, sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa and problems will develop along that fault line.” Before this dream of continental union turns into a nightmare for us and our descendants, let us investigate its likely consequences for us, Black Africans. Prevention is better than cure, as they say!
*Basil Okafor, an anthropologist sent this piece from Lagos.
http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/politics/june07/08062007/p808062007.htm l |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 5716
Registered: 07-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 08, 2007 - 12:07 am: |
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Why Africans should oppose US of Africa (1)
By Chinweizu
Posted to the Web: Friday, June 01, 2007
In Accra on Sat, 12 May, 2007 the PanAfrican Global Roundtable on Durban Plus in Addis Ababa(19-22 APRIL,2007) Accra, (10-11 MAY 2007) submitted its report, including 5 recommendations, to the Forum of NGOs of the 41st session of ACHPR for onward submission by the Forum to the African Commission for Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR), then to the AU Council of Ministers and the AU Summit; for onward Submission of the Report to the OHCHRC Prep Comms. for Review of the UN World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) and Programme of Action on or before 2009.
One of these recommendations was that “ The black slavery in Arab lands must end before we embark on the “United States of Africa” project.”
The background to this recommendation follows:
USAfrica & Arab Colonialism Series: Introduction, the Arab Agenda, Action Program, Contents
Do black Africans really want to integrate into a USAfrica with Arabs States that practice racial apartheid and still enslave blacks? That are committed to Islamising and Arabising Black Africa?
Learn about Apartheid & black slavery in Mauritania TODAY Colorism and Arab enslavement of blacks in Sudan TODAY Ethnic cleansing of Nubians in Egypt and Sudan TODAY
The centuries-old Arab quest for Lebensraum [living space] in Africa
Wise parents will look into the promises with which the suitor has been wooing their daughter and find out if they are credible.
If the suitor is already married, it is the business of the girl’s parents to look into how he has been treating his other wives.
All of black Africa is being wooed today by the promoters of the so-called USAfrica that aims to unite the entire continent, Blacks and Arabs together, under one federal state.
So, before this wedding takes place, we of this generation, need to do our parental duty towards all the future generations of Black Africans before we give them into marriage with the Arabs. Here are some fundamental questions we must answer correctly:
Who are these Arabs?
What do we know about their pedigree, their character and their ambitions in making this marriage with us?
Why should Black African states integrate with the Arab states into this USAfrica?
What would this USAfrica accomplish for Black Africa that the OAU could not and the AU cannot?
Have we studied the Arabs like we should, particularly through our dealings with them in the last 50 year?
Are there any black Africans already living with Arabs under one state? What has been the experience of such blacks? Something we should all gladly wish to experience?
What are the promoters of this USAfrica promising it will do for Black Africa? And should they be believed?
Who are these promoters? And who exactly is sponsoring them? Who is the godfather of this their USAfrica? And what is his motive?
Now, we need to examine our long history of living with Arabs on our continent, since they invaded Egypt in 640 AD. From that initial incursion, they have conquered and expropriated and settled on some 1/3 of the African continent.
How have they treated the blacks they overran?
Have they not enslaved and Arabized the countless millions who came under their power?
What is the attitude of Arabs to Blacks in general and to black Africans in particular?
Is it true that Arabs are given to colorism [color discrimination] against blacks and hold blacks in automatic contempt and view blacks as subhuman?
Is it true that Arabs for many centuries raided and enslaved black Africans?
Is it true that Blacks are still being enslaved in Arab ruled countries like Mauritania and Sudan?
Why would black Africans want to integrate with states that still enslave blacks?
Is it true that Arab leaders have vowed to Islamize and Arabize Black Africa?
What would Arabization do to Black Africans? Are there examples to learn from?
How would non-Muslim blacks, Christians and polytheists, fare in this USAfrica?
Is it true that Arabs are ethnic cleansing and grabbing land from Black Africans wherever both populations live together under one state, as in Sudan, Mauritania and Egypt?
If you are a black African, would your being Muslim protect you from Arab enslavers and ethnic cleansers? — i.e. protect you from the treatment inflicted on your Christian and polytheist fellows?
If any of the above is true, would the same treatment not, predictably, be meted out to all of Back Africa by Arabs under this USAfrica? If not, why not?
As for the alleged economic benefits to come from this USAfrica, we shall examine them. The promoters of this USAfrica are voluble on these benefits, and would like us to focus only on them in deciding about this USAfrica. In doing so, let us not be like the stupid child who was lured with sweets into a kidnapper’s bag and hauled off into slavery.
USAfrica- The Arab agenda:
1) We must never forget that, despite Gadhafi’s rhetoric against colonialism, he and his Arab fellows are colonialists in Africa—white settler colonialist who invaded, conquered, expropriated and have settled on 1/3 of Africa beginning in 640.
2) Gadhafi’s hurry to implement his USAfrica is suspect. After he has spent 40 years trying to force Libya’s unification with Sudan, to forcibly annex the Auzou strip from Chad, and sponsoring destabilization in Liberia, Uganda etc. should we trust his intentions? We should be highly suspicious of a project by which he would diplomatically swallow in one gulp all of Black Africa where he has, hitherto, failed to militarily grab bits and pieces.
3) In Gadhafi’s speeches in 2005, where he pushed for the fledgling AU to appoint a Defense Minister, and a Trade Minister etc as matters of priority; and called for a continental army, he also urged the AU countries to compete to host the institutions of the AU/USAfrica. This hurry is all highly suspicious.
Clearly, the Arab countries, awash with oil money and with unlimited back-up from the rest of the oil-rich Arab League, will outbid the poor Black countries, leading to Arab domination of the USAfrica; just as the UN is dominated by the gang of imperialist countries where its key institutions are located—the USA with the World Bank and IMF in Washington and the UN Hqtr in New York, and Europe with Unesco in Paris, the Maritime agencies in London, and other key agencies in Geneva.
If the Gadhafi formula for locating its key institutions is allowed, this USAfrica will become an instrument of Arab colonialism in Africa; and will entrench Arab power over Black Africa.
4) Defense is the last thing a sensible sovereign country surrenders. Note that after 50 years of their merger process, the EU states have yet to do that and appoint a defense minister. Yet Gadhafi wants the AU to start with that! Highly suspicious.
5) The dangers of Arab colonialism are evident in Mauritania and Sudan, and should be studied and heeded.
6) Gadhafi’s arguments about the potential economic benefits of USAfrica are invalid. Continental size is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for becoming an economic power. If it was, Britain, Japan, Germany, France, let alone Switzerland and most of the European countries would be economic midgets, and the Asian tigers too; On the other hand, Antarctica and Australia, as continents, would be economic giants. Gadhafi must believe that he is addressing an audience of economic blockheads!
7) Gadhafi’s Lebensraum statement at the Arab League meeting in Jordan in 2001:
“The third of the Arab community living outside Africa should move in with the two-thirds on the continent and join the African Union ‘which is the only space we have." —Col. Mouammar Gadhafi of Libya, at the Arab League, 2001 should be taken seriously as a clue to his intentions and what he and his Arabs will set about doing to Black Africa once they have us in their USAfrica trap.
8] There is a vital need to think through the Black African interest, and negotiate in detail to secure its requirements, before agreeing to this proposal. After it is signed, the Arabs will, predictably, treat any second thoughts and objections to details as treason.
Black Africans must never again repeat the folly of their leaders in 1973, when the OAU lined up behind the Arabs on the oil embargo, in hopes of getting concessions on oil, without any pre-agreed quid pro quo, and got nothing after the Arabs had exploited African support.
9) Because we are convinced that this USAfrica is a cover for Arab colonialism and Arab expansionism in Black Africa, we urge every Black African president in the AU to vote against it at Accra in July. At the very least, they should vote to postpone any decision on it for five years so that a vigorous debate can be carried out by the people, so they can knowledgeably and democratically mandate their presidents on what to do about it. We could take a lesson from the EU process where key stages of the unification have been preceded by plebiscites in each member country.
10] If this USAfrica is agreed this July at Accra, Gadhafi and all Arabs will be laughing at the dumb blacks whom they have easily duped yet again. Don’t forget their view of Blacks, as enunciated over the centuries, most famously by Ibn Khaldun, Ibn Sena and Osama Bin Laden. See the following quotes:
Ibn Khaldun sees the blacks as “characterized by levity and excitability and great emotionalism” and [says] that “they are everywhere described as stupid” . . .
al_Dimashqi had the following to say: “The Equator is inhabited by communities of blacks who may be numbered among the savage beasts. Their complexion and hair are burnt and they are physically and morally abnormal. Their brains almost boil from the sun’s heat.”
Ibn al_Faqih al_Hamadhani follows the same line of reasoning. To him . . . the zanj [black Africans]. . .are “overdone until they are burned so that the child comes out between black, murky, malodorous, stinking, and crinkly_haired, with uneven limbs, deficient minds, and depraved passions” . . .”
Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406CE) added that blacks are “only humans who are closer to dumb animals than to rational beings.”
Even such luminaries as Ibn Sina considered blacks to be “people who are by their very nature slaves.”
“All African women are prostitutes, and the whole race of African men are abeed (slave) stock. Your people are like rats plaguing the earth” –Osama Bin Laden to the Sudanese-American novelist Kola Boof in Morocco in 1996.
http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/politics/june07/01062007/p801062007.htm l
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Dahomeyahosi
Regular Poster
Username: Dahomeyahosi
Post Number: 256
Registered: 01-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 08, 2007 - 11:42 am: |
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Chinwezu's article is excellent. Thanks for posting it. |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 5729
Registered: 07-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 08, 2007 - 07:47 pm: |
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I'm glad you liked it, Dahomeyahosi. 
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Schakspir
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Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 1042
Registered: 12-2005
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 09, 2007 - 01:43 pm: |
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Any article that makes mention of Kola Boof is automatically suspect. I mean, Chinwezu ought to give Black Africans a lot more credit for defending themselves against Arab colonialism and oppression. He talks as if Africa is just ripe for the picking. I am African-AMERICAN, haven't even been to Black Africa yet, and yet even I can call BULLSHIT.
In 1964, for example, the Arab regime in Zanzibar(which had lasted three centuries) was brutally terminated when James Obote (a Ugandan student) called on the black Zanzibaris to rise up against their Arab oppressors. He spoke these words on the radio(presumably in Tanzania and not in Zanzibar itself)The Zanzibaris responded, and within 3 days, they butchered at least 10,000 Arabs and Persians. The streets of Zanzibar were literally red with Arab blood.
Just about every black African I've encountered has had serious issues with North Africans/Arabs, even those who are friends with them. I have them myself. Does Chinwezu seriously think that Arabs, who are NOT one great monolithic coalition (LMFAO!!)are waiting to pounce(united?!?!?!?!) upon black Africa? He must be on crack, or listening to Kola Boof's shit.
Africa has more to fear from China, not the Arab world. Take a look at how Arabs handle the crisis concerning America and Israel, how they refused to get involved (and even refuse involvement with Sudan on any serious basis), and just stick within their own group. There is so much self-negation and collective self-contempt on the part of Arabs for each other that the Arabs could not even DREAM of colonizing Africa, even if they wanted to. (If they can't stop Israel, which isn't all that big, and which HAS TOO MUCH TO LOSE, how can they even deal with Somalia, which ran the U.S. out in the early nineties, within a year? America is still in Iraq. They are not serious about Somalia, let alone Nigeria.)
Also, much of North Africa is not Arab. Morocco is at least half Berber, and Berbers identify with Africa. Algeria also has a large Berber (Kabyle) population which(like the Moroccan Berbers)is not happy with Arab attempts to obliterate their language/identity. FYI, they usually have extremely unpleasant things to say about Arabs and Arab culture, especially Saudis. More and more Egyptians are starting to see themselves as Egyptian (if not African) and not Arab, though this is a slow development. |
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