Sudan Watch (to July 2012)

[Tom Odom]

Many of the readers know of Sudan as primarily the ongoing crisis in Darfur.Between 1983 and January of 2005, Sudan experienced the longest continuous civil war in Africa.*

And in doing so beat its own previous record of 14 years of civil war that ended in 1975 as I recall...

John Garang, the infamous bush fighter turned leader of the SPLA headed up essentially both the SPLA and the SPLM.* Garang was killed in a helicopter "accident" after returning with a meeting in Uganda with its president in July of 2005.

And was the college classmate of my 3rd ex-wife, whom I met while we were in Sudan. Garang is one of those figures who was hero to some and devil to others. He was also labeled both terrorist and freedom fighter.

The US along with Britain have been supporters of the SPLA in part due to the radical Islamic government headed by the current President Bashir in Khartoum.*

In this latest iteration, yes, In the earlier stages when I was there we were trying to walk the line and attempted to discourage the Khartoum government from declaring Shariah in 1983. When that failed we tried to convince Nmeri not to enforce it.That partially restarted the war--what really got it going was US oil exploration in the south and the exploitation of that by the Arab north, The southern rebels shut that down in 1984 when they attacked the camp at Malakal, killing several expatriate workers.

I am not surprised thet Dyncorp couldn't do the job, nor am I surprised that they took the contract. Damn few folks know anything about the Sudan and most are happy to use ignorance as a carte blanche to do what they want according to various agendas.

Tom