http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/24/world/africa/24sudan.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=todayspaperBy JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
Published: October 24, 2006
KHARTOUM, Sudan, Oct. 20 — 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. “I tell people you only live this life once,” said Nada Gerais, a saleswoman.
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, 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.“Khartoum is hot — in all ways,” said Hashim Wahir, chairman of Petronas Sudan, a branch of the Malaysian national oil company.It was 115 degrees outside, but Mr. Wahir was also talking about business.
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. “The government knows it doesn’t need America,” said Abda Yahia el-Mahdi, a former finance minister, now in private consulting. “The only people who are being hurt by the sanctions are the Americans, who are missing out on this huge boom.”
More at the link.
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This should be shown to the American people in all the segments about Darfur. How many people know that while unspeakable horrors happen to those who live in camps at the border, people 600 miles away in Khartoum are living like Kings and Queens? This article made me absolutely nauseated in once again realizing that oil and GREED are indeed one of the chief reasons why this genocide goes on. AND WHERE IS THE WORLD? WHERE IS OUR CONGRESS? WHERE ARE THE VOICES? What candidates running in this election in this country even mention DARFUR? Talk about being afraid of the truth.
I'm also not drinking Coke of any kind, and am boycotting buying ANYTHING in this country that says "Made in China," which excludes almost every damn thing you lay your hands on. How is it that we now are the economic slave to CHINA?! Our economy is strong? BS! When will the American people wake the hell up and see that we have already sold our souls to the Devil regarding this genocide by supporting a country with our dollars that has now aligned itself with those who would do this?
China is one country that is looking the other way while drilling in oil fields where these people in Sudan have been murdered and displaced! I believe that is why Al Bashir does not want the UN in, because they will see what it is really going on... the extermination of those who live on the blocks of land being used for oil exploration in order to keep their luxurious lifestyles.... just a few hundred miles away.
History will indeed judge us ALL very harshly regarding this atrocity, and we deserve it. This government would LIE to the American people to get a war in a country than never attacked us, but won't move one inch regarding a country where those looking the other way while using this country economically are putting our own people at risk? AND WE ARE SILENT? If ANY dictator in this world deserved to be held accountable, it is this one in the Sudan.
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