On 24 January 2007 an international aid worker employed was reportedly raped in Darfur. It was "the first such reported assault in Sudan's west and the latest in a wave of attacks against the world's largest humanitarian operation."
Action Contre La Faim, which fights malnutrition in the vast region, said that one employee was raped, others were sexually assaulted, and there was a mock execution during an attack on their compound in December in rebel-controlled Gereida town, which houses the largest number of refugees in Darfur, with 130,000 encamped in miserable conditions having fled attacks on their villages in the desert region.
The attackers reportedly looted everything, stole vehicles, communication equipment, and beat employees, both local and international staff. The report claimed that "armed men simultaneously attacked all aid agencies" working in Gereida in December. Some 71 humanitarian workers were reportedly evacuated and tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment and all vehicles were reportedly stolen. But was this an accident? No matter how you look at it, some ruthless faction involved in a brutal genocidal war has now added new equipment to support warfare and plunder.
It was not clear who attacked the aid agencies there. Sources in the aid community in Khartoum said [that] they suspected a breakaway faction from Darfur rebel leader Minni Arcua Minnawi.
Darfur and now Chad offer us the world’s largest humanitarian operation. Yet it is a ruse, premised on private profit, violence and deception, offering employment, adventure and growth opportunity in perhaps the fastest growth sector of Western society. It involves private mercenary companies run by retired U.S. generals who have nothing better to do than foment catastrophe all around the world, and which offer annual salaries of $125,000 [DynCorp in Sudan] to professional killers, with special bonuses for a job well done. It was not clear who attacked the aid agencies there.
Innocent people are being hurt, and this is primarily due to the myopic and self-serving foreign policies of the most powerful people in the world.
For those who sincerely wish to help the people of Sudan, the spotlight needs to be turned on the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, Israel and Japan. Dr. Paul Farmer makes this point rather well—though not in reference to Sudan—in his book Pathologies of Power, where he wrote about structural violence:
"As international financial institutions and transnational corporations now dwarf the dimensions of most states, the former institutions—and the small number of powerful states that control them—come to hold unfettered sway over the lives of millions. International human rights organizations, accustomed to looking for villains in the upper reaches of bureaucracies of banana republics, also need to turn their gaze back toward the great centers of world power in which they reside."
Coupled with covert military operations and private military companies, the "humanitarian" relief and international charity industries, backed by multinational corporations and private profiteers, are the very foundations of the Darfur problem. Petroleum is one of the many spoils of this war, but it is not the only spoil.
Listen to the words of U.S. Congressional Representative Chris Smith from a U.S. Congress hearing that he chaired; Donald Payne and Ed Royce also preside over this House Committee:
"I am proud to say that we Americans continue our long tradition of compassion and generosity in responding to these needs. The United States is the primary donor of food aid in the world and the leading donor of food aid to Sudan and Chad. The US Government has contributed a total of $282.2 million worth of food aid thus far in FY2006 to Darfur and the Sudanese refugees in Chad through the World Food Program and the International Committee of the Red Cross. This follows contributions totaling $324.5 million to the same two organizations in FY2005 for Sudan and Chad, in addition to 200,000 tons of wheat from the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust for Darfur."
What is the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust for Darfur?
To understand Darfur, understand where the World Food Program gets its relief foods, who sells these and who buys them, and how the foods are used. Archers Daniels Midland sells grain into the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust, while companies like ADM and Cargill receive massive government subsidies paid by American tax dollars, and the tax dollars back up the WFP and USAID, and provide the funds from which to purchase the "food".
Meanwhile, the WFP has been delivering substandard grains and cereals, and delivering "food" contaminated with all kinds of genetic modification to developing countries since at least 1996, and without informing the recipients.
The United Nations agencies like the World Food Program, and government "AID" departments like DFID and USAID, all serve to undermine food security and domestic food prices in Sudan, while artificially boosting prices in the USA, putting Sudanese farmers out of business and forcing people to become "refugees" in search of food, thereby creating and not mitigating famine; massive relief centers destroy nomadic ways of life, they don’t sustain them.
