[A-List] Sudan: oil, imperialism and slaughter

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

Sudanese rebels jubilant after another hollow victory in Africa's
longest war
By Declan Walsh in Kapoeta
The Independent, 13 June 2002

The veteran rebel Dr John Garang was in jubilant mood. His troops had
just captured Kapoeta, a heavily guarded garrison town inside Sudan's
southern border with Kenya. Seated under a tree, he flipped an identity
card on to the table. It belonged to another man in uniform - the
government commander whose bloated remains lay rotting by the town's
dirt runway.

"This was a great defeat, a massive victory," said the well-spoken,
grey-bearded leader.

The capture of Kapoeta on Monday will not win the war for Dr Garang's
Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA). Nevertheless, it represents a
small but strategic victory in Africa's longest-running war, a seemingly
intractable conflict aggravated this year by a deadly oil rush that
Canadian, Chinese and British companies have joined.

Driven by the promise of millions of pounds, government troops in
helicopter gunships have attacked civilian villages to clear
oil-producing areas. In one incident, a gunship crew attacked families
queuing for UN food handouts. Last Sunday, the SPLA responded by taking
Kapoeta, a town it lost 10 years ago.

Rotting corpses still littered the ring of trenches around the town
yesterday. Some were decapitated; others had been stripped to their
underwear. Although the war is often portrayed as a fight between
northern Arabs and southern Africans, many of the fallen government
troops were dark-skinned - possibly southerners conscripted or drawn by
the lure of a wage.

Vultures wheeled overhead as rebel troops rested on captured artillery.
There were few civilians - they had fled hours earlier, after a
government Antonov plane scattered bombs over the town. There were no
casualties.

The Catholic church was in ruins, its blackened walls covered in a
scrawl of Arabic lettering. By the altar, neatly uniformed rebels were
preparing large vats of a porridge-like food. One rebel held a tin of
donated cooking oil. The American government, whose flag was on the tin,
presumably intended it for a hungry civilian, but skimming and the
manipulation of aid have also become part of this war.

Dr Garang offered little hope for peace talks, due to resume next
Monday. Sudan is blessed - or perhaps blighted - with four separate
peace initiatives, variously sponsored by Kenya, Egypt and Libya,
Eritrea and America.

In addition, Dr Garang says he has a "three-pronged approach" of his
own, which combines fighting with talking. "It is a very complex
situation," he acknowledged.

The shifting sands of rebel politics were also illustrated by the man at
his side. Riek Machar was once an SPLA leader, then defected to the
government, where he became a warlord notorious for human rights abuses.
Now he has switched back to the SPLA again.

Although the SPLA claimed to have routed 2,500 troops, it was holding
only 24 prisoners of war, including three traders and a trainee doctor.
The earnest 26-year-old medic explained that he had been due to return
home four days before the attack. Now he is unlikely to return to
Khartoum for a long time.