[Vision2020] Opinion not normally seen on V2020

[Ron Force]

Unfortunately, oil is behind the ongoing civil war in the Sudan. While not a
Saudi Arabia, Sudan produces 250,000 bbls/day. The war started in the 80's
when the government employed Arab horsemen to drive black farmers off the
land, to clear the way for oil development. The story from Human Rights
Watch, can be found at:

  http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/sudan1103/8.htm#_Toc54492556

 "The first export of crude oil from Sudan in August 1999 marked a turning
point in the country’s complex civil war, now in its twentieth year: oil
became the main objective and a principal cause of the war. Oil now figures
as an important remaining obstacle to a lasting peace and oil revenues have
been used by the government to obtain weapons and ammunition that have
enabled it to intensify the war and expand oil development. Expansion of oil
development has continued to be accompanied by the violent displacement of
the agro-pastoral southern Nuer and Dinka people from their traditional
lands atop the oilfields. Members of such communities continue to be killed
or maimed, their homes and crops burned, and their grains and cattle
looted..."
"...Under the George W. Bush administration starting in January 2001, two
domestic U.S. lobbies flexed their muscles in seeking to influence U.S.
policy toward Sudan: one extremely powerful—the oil industry—and one just
beginning to test its foreign policy strength, on Sudan—a conservative
religious grouping concerned about treatment of Christians. This
conservative religious lobby scored a victory over the oil and business
community when the Sudan Peace Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives
by 422-2 on June 13, 2001. This act contained an amendment imposing capital
market sanctions on foreign companies doing oil business in Sudan,
prohibiting them from any access to U.S. capital markets. This would have
required that Talisman Energy be de-listed from the New York Stock Exchange.

The oil and financial industries prevailed, however. The Senate subsequently
passed a version of the bill lacking these capital market sanctions. In
October 2002, in light of Bush administration hostility to any capital
market sanctions, the House passed another version of the Sudan Peace Act,
one which omitted such controversial sanctions. This passed the Senate also
and was signed by the president."

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Ron Force          Moscow ID USA

 rforce at moscow.com
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  While we try to fix a mess we have created in Iraq -- a mess likely to
continue for years with far more innocents dying than if Saddam were in
power (latest news:  Iraq government [installed by us] may fail)  -- over a
million African people may die at the hands of Arab/Muslims insurgents in
the Sudan.  Why have we been so slow to even discuss some sort of
intervention?  Wouldn't an invasion to alleviate the suffering and
displacement of Africans for humanitarian reasons be far more easier to
justify than our invasion of a cruel but hapless Iraq?  (Oh, I forgot.  Oil
has yet to be discovered in the Sudan and the oppressed/slaughtered are only
a bunch of African Native Savages.  Pardon me, how could I be so stupid and
narrow minded.)
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