No need to celebrate Sudan sanctions and Zoellick

I was trying to piece together the puzzle of today's events when it suddenly hit me that the announcement of US Sanctions on Sudan coincided with the nomination of Robert Zoellick as World Bank President. Then I read an article in the Jewish Sentinel lamenting the treatment of Sudanese immigrants in Israel. It is said that the displaced sons and daughters of Sudan were being treated like criminals in Israel because they are "citizens of an enemy state." A state that is in fact the reason why they are in Israel as refugees in the first place. Some of the Israeli government people are suspicious that some enemy (read as Arab) governments may send their spies as refugees. I understand, but am apalled! And that is why I feel a great sense of biological bitterness over the mockery that I hear in the echoes of those wine glasses and loud sounds of people patting their backs for a job well done on sanctions while the children of Sudan are displaced, dead, and dying. Without a home, they are left to roam the world in search of a sanctuary, while others are basking in the comfort of their "heroic" actions for calling the slaughter of Darfurians a "genocide" and issuing sanctions that have done nothing to stop the killing of innocent people.

Call me pessimistic, but if you were in my shoes you would understand why I am not celebrating over the smokescreen that the US has finally gotten to its senses to call for more sanctions against Sudan. Remember that we listened and celebrated when the world said never again after Rwanda? And it was a lie. So who is supposed to be benefiting from these sanctions if the people of Darfur are still dying?


I wonder what is in store for the motherland and the Sudanese now that the man who was part of the negotiations is in power wielding the greenback instead of just the power of diplomacy. Money talks, the World Bank has a lot of it, and Zoellick is el Presidente. But, do you remember that Zoellick is the man who represented the interests of Wall Street as U.S. trade representative? Remember this is the man who championed the protection of intellectual property rights in a way that systematically and dramatically reduced access to essential medicines for millions of people with life-threatening diseases throughout the developing world? Do you remember that on January 26, 1998, Robert Zoellick was a signatory to a letter that implored Clinton to bomb Iraq to take out Saddam as part of the larger strategy for US domination proposed by the Project for the New American Century? (http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm) In the letter, the signatories endorsed that Iraq should be taken out, " to protect our vital interests in the Gulf." "American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council. If we accept a course of weakness and drift, we put our interests and our future at risk," the man and his people including Wolfowitz claimed. Now Wolfowitz is out, and Zoellick is in, and yet they hatched from the same ideological egg. The US went to Iraq and is still in Iraq.

So, instead of Africans celebrating the sanctions on Sudan, we should be channeling our energies toward encompassing and real sustainable solutions for African peace and prosperity from Cape to Cairo. And this needs to be FUBU because we cannot expect a Zoellick to champion our causes. For as long as Africa is the table top on which the powerful countries arm wrestle, Africa shall know no peace. The solution to our problems lies within us, but we cannot serve two masters at once. It is either Africa or the West.