Sudan: A New Flamboyant Guest Shows Up For The Honeymoon

It is good to be the king, as Mel Brooks would say.  Here� s IGAD that labored for years to put together a peace treaty and here comes the Sole Superpower, very, very late in the game, and then, as we used to say, �Uno angolo Twiy, Duo angolo dgem�, enda aboy Bashir dergem.   Secretary of State Colin Powell dropped by Kenya to encourage and give momentum to the peace talks.   Sign this treaty, do it, and we will lift sanctions, we promise, he said.  Also, you will no longer be on our list of �state sponsor of terrorism.�  That record will be expunged.     Bush sent a message to Bashir expressing �the desire of his government to fully normalize its relations with Sudan after the signing of a peace agreement,� said Radio Omdurman.  Goes to show you that there is only one boss in the uni-polar world. 

In the United States, the push to bring together the peace deal in Sudan was engineered by a coalition of two unlikely partners: the conservative Christian coalition groups and the progressive Black Caucus.  The breakthrough came about when the Sudanese VP, Ali Uthman Taha and SPLM�s leader, John Garang, invited their colleagues to excuse themselves and had a one-to-one meeting in a closed session for hours.    What is ironic is that in the new transitional Sudanese government, John Garang is expected to be the VP, displacing his negotiator, the current VP.  Sensing peace, the deal makers are hovering all over Sudan:  oil companies �including the Swiss company, Cliveden� have signed an oil drilling agreement with the Ministry of Energy and Mining, according to Sudan�s Al-Sahafa website.    Meanwhile, the Sudan People�s Liberation Movement (SPLM) has signed a deal with a British telecom company, Gemini Satellite Services, according Al-Sahafa.  No, Pfizer is not in Khartoum to rebuild the Al-shifa Pharmaceutical factory�SPLM has already printed its own currency for circulation in the areas it controls.   Soon, they will be buying coffee with the local money and then exporting it�wait, wait, that is a different country.

Meanwhile, as in all weddings, there is always the ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend, sitting lonesome and telling his stories�but nobody is listening.   And so it was that the political boss of National Democratic Alliance, Mohammed Al Mirqani, was wishing the honeymooners, Johan Garang and Ali Uthman Taha, the best of luck�but then added, ��without the participation of NDA and other forces, there would be no place for a real political solution to the war,� according to Al-Khartoum daily.    But nobody was listening...

Meles: Is It Because I Am Black? Is It Because I Am Poor?

Meanwhile, following the Blue Nile to its source, we find ourselves in Ethiopia where the government, having exhausted its moral, legal arguments to sway the Boundary Commission�s decision, actually used a last-defense argument: is it because I am black and poor that you are doing this to me?  That worked well for Ethiopia when it was being asked to divert its meager resources into feeding its citizens instead of arming itself to the teeth: �Are you saying poor nations shouldn�t have the right to defend themselves?� harangued the Prime Minister, and in flowed the weapons in mass quantities�after the so-called arms embargo�

Some of those arms must have found their way to the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) whose Radio Freedom reported on �five colonial Ethiopian soldiers� killed here, another seven there, an ambush in Shygosh district�and so on.  One man�s freedom fighter is another man�s terrorist and, no doubt, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi included them in his topic about his fight against terror, in his discussion with the visiting State Dept official, Mr. Donald Y. Yamamoto.  He was reported to have �exhaustively discussed regional cooperation and the current situation of the Ethiopia-Eritrea border demarcation issue,� according to the Ethiopian News Agency.  The next day, Yamamoto was expected to have another exhaustive discussion with Eritrean president Isaias Afwerki, where he will be told about how the US is �spoiling� Ethiopia.  Imaginary dialogue: Isaias: �You know that list of �state sponsor of terror� you have?  All you have to do is erase Sudan and pencil in Ethiopia.�    Yamamoto: Do you understand the significance of why I, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, the equivalent of Susan Rice, am visiting you while my boss is practically next-door in Kenya, all smiles at Garang and Taha?  This is my first tour in a lengthy shuttle diplomacy��

Here�s a trick question: what do you call 1,000 Eritreans who entered Ethiopia illegally?  If the demarcation process is going well, then they are poor refugees escaping the brutal dictatorship of Isaias Afwerki.  If the demarcation process is not going well, they are Eritrean spies.  �Reliable sources told The Reporter that a number of Eritrean spies had recently infiltrated the country together with 1,000 immigrants,� reports The Reporter.  Meles Zenawi sent a protest letter to UNMEE; UNMEE said, what can we do, we can�t protect every square inch.  Or something like that.

Meanwhile, back in Ethiopia, Bereket Simon, the Minister of Information, toasted the Ethiopian media: �The role of the media is irreplaceable in the building of democratic culture, creation of tolerance�,� according the ENA website.  He reported that Ethiopia has issued �650 licenses� since 1993 and now has �82 weekly newspapers and 32 monthly magazines published and distributed in all over the country.�  What about the criticism of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) about his administration�s treatment of journalists?  He is dismayed by the �unwarranted criticism.�  An imaginary question from the attendants of the international roundtable, where Mr. Bereket Simon gave his speech: �But, sir, generally speaking �a free country devoted to the ideas and principles of the press� does not get bashed by CPJ and only authoritarian governments bash CPJ.  Also, sir, only authoritarian governments have a �Minister of Information�: do you envision a day when your ministry will no longer be required?� 

Somalia: When Things Go Wrong, It is The Jews Fault

Accusing Kenya and Ethiopia of �high-handedness�, Djibouti withdrew itself from IGAD�s technical committee and said that it would not recognize a Somali government that results from this process.  And then�well, we were going to say more but didn�t we already report this before?  It is the exact same story, reappearing three weeks later�

Shaykh Abukar Ahmed Qasim, the chairman of the Horn of Africa Somali Islamic Movement, �issued a statement in which he strongly welcomed the opening speech of Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohammed at the just-concluded OIC [Organization of Islamic Conference] summit meeting in Putrajaya,� according to the Somali website Balcad.   And what exactly did the Malaysian premiere say that so impressed Shaykh Abukar Ahmed Qasim?  According to Slate magazine: " �The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million,� Mahathir said to the gathered leaders at the Organization of Islamic Conference summit, �but today the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.� Press reports indicate he was met by a resounding ovation. What exactly the audience was applauding�indeed, what exactly the Malaysian premier, whose country chairs both the 57-member OIC and the 117-member Non-Aligned Movement, intended by his remarks�remains in hot dispute.�

You can read the controversial speech of the Malaysian premiere at the following url: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/20/1066502121884.html

The question is: what do Jews have to do with the problems in Somalia, a nation with 0% Jewish population?  The Shaykh should listen to what �Al Sharq Al Awsat� had to say: �This is the kind of generalization that we complain about when we are described as terrorists, because only some of us refuse to refrain from killing thousands of civilians and hijacking planes.�  Bingo

And that�s your update for the Nations In The Hood.  And, Ramadan Karim.