France has openly joined the war on terrorism and more specifically has declared war on radical Islams biggest network, al Qaeda. Sarkozy administration policies aimed at curbing the openness of what it views as radical practices of extreme Islam in his country has agitated radical Islamic groups world wide.

The banning of the traditional Muslim female head covering known as the burka enraged one group that is part of the al Qaeda network. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb(AQIM) is based in North Africa and are formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC). The GSPC originated from a sect within the Armed Islamic Group or GIA. Here is where it gets interesting because it was this group, GIA, that was blamed for series of bombings that rocked France in 1995. The Salafist Group for Call and Combat formally merged with al-Qaida in 2006 and spread through the Sahel region — parts of Mauritania, Mali and Niger.

France is the home to the largest Muslim population in Western Europe. France culture has made a stand to remain secular and to promote equality for women. In 2009 French legislators expressed concern that more and more Muslim women were wearing a burqa or a niqab which covers the entire body, sometimes leaving only a gap for the eyes. After French president Sarkozy stated that the Muslim burqa was not welcome in France because they are a symbol of the subjugation of women the radicals abroad began to voice their opposition to what they view as an attack on Islam. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb threatened “revenge” against France for “religious terrorism” over criticism and the banning of Muslim women from their religious obligation to wear the burqa. “It said the French were committing these injustices ‘at a time when their denuded women … flock to our land and occupy our beaches and streets, outrageously defying the feelings of Muslims’.” Al Qaeda’s north African wing threatened revenge against France for launching a “war” against Muslim women who wear full burqas that cover them from head to toe, according to a Web statement posted in the group’s name. It said Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb vowed “before God not to be silent in the face of these provocations and injustices and do all in our power and take revenge at the first opportunity against France and its interests wherever they may be found, for the honour of our daughters and our sisters”.

The Latest Events: The Kidnapping and Murder Of French Aid Worker Michel Germaneau.

In April of this year al Qaeda in North Africa delivered on their threat to France when they kidnapped and held hostage a 78 year old aid worker named Michel Germaneau. Germaneau was taken in Niger by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, and was later taken to Mali, officials said. A French-Mauritanian led raid to free French aid worker Michel Germaneau inside Malian territory has raised tension between the two nations. The 78-year-old engineer Germaneau was killed after the failed attempt to free him. AQIM leader Abdelmalek Droukdel said in a statement broadcast by al-Jazeera that Mr Germaneau had been killed in revenge for a raid in which six militants died. Mr Sarkozy said: “Convinced that he was condemned to a certain death, it was our duty to try to save him from his captors. Unfortunately Michel Germaneau was not there.”

Last year, the group said it had executed the British hostage, Edwin Dyer, and it is still thought to be holding two Spanish aid workers, Roque Pascual and Albert Vilalta, who were seized in Mauritania in November.

In a message today, July 27, 2010, al Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahri said in an audio recording that a bill passed by French lawmakers which could fine women for appearing in public with face-covering veils was “an attack on Islam”. “This is the freedom of the infidels and not the freedom of Muslims who hold fast to their religion,” the Egyptian militant leader said. “France with all its power is unable to expose the head of a nun but it attacks every veiled woman.” “What France is doing…should prompt us to hold on to our true religion in face of their deviant ideologies.

“My Muslim sisters, hold on to your hijab, even if it would cost you your money, education and jobs.

“You are mujahedat (female holy warriors) in the most important battlefield.”

Other European countries, including Belgium and Spain, are considering bills similar to France’s law

Two Saudi clerics have declared Muslim women are exempt from wearing full veils in France, but added they should avoid visiting it as tourists.

Also Read

France Banning The Burqa

Radical Islam In Europe ( July 2008)

Even before the September 11, 2001 attacks on America, Europe had been struggling with assimilating a growing and more vocal Muslim population. The majority of Muslims in Europe have and will continue to live in peace without partaking in violence or supporting it. Many Muslims in Europe have adapted to European life and have…

On Sunday Nigeria bled into the streets in another of a series of brutal attacks that have been occuring in the African country between Northern Muslims and the Southern Christians. On this day over 200 Christians would be savagely slaughtered. Some estimates are as high as 500. Survivors say Christian villagers were trapped in nets and hacked to death by Muslim herdsman. The killers planted nets and animal traps outside the huts of the villagers, mainly peasant farmers, fired weapons in the air, then attacked with machetes, according to human rights lawyer Shehu Sani of the nongovernment Civil Rights Congress, who visited the villages and interviewed dozens of survivors. “People came out of their houses and started falling into the animal traps and mosquito nets and then they were hacked down,” he said. “They were the kind of traps used for wild animals.”

In January over 300 mostly Muslim people were violently killed. Sunday’s attack appears to be a revenge attack as a result of the January massacres. The Northern section of Nigeria is mostly Muslim while the Southern part of Nigeria is predominantly Christian. The violence is occurring in the villages that are in the overlapping range or the center of the country. This religious line is in an area where both Christians and Muslims are hoping to control.

The Rev. Pandang Yamsat, the president of a local Christian group, said he has urged his congregation not to respond violently to Muslims. However, he said he believes Muslims in the area want to control the region and that any peace talks would only give Muslims “time to conquer territory with swords.”

“We have done our best to tell our members, ‘don’t go and attack Muslims, they are your brother,’” Yamsat said. However, “‘if they come to dislodge you in your place, stand to defend yourself.’”

Residents said herders from nearby hills attacked their village at about 3am on Sunday, shooting into the air before using machetes to cut down those who came out of their homes

Thousands have died in these conflicts that have been waged over the last decade. It appears that the violence is not going to stop any time soon in Africa’s most populous country. This year is already becoming one of the most bloody and it is only March.

Nigerian authorities have arrested nearly a hundred people in connection with attacks near the central city of Jos

Update 4/15/2009 Pirates launched a grenade attack against a second US cargo ship off Somalia on Wednesday “in retaliation” for the deaths of their comrades during the rescue of American cargo captain Richard Phillips. Somali pirates were back to business as usual Tuesday, defiantly seizing four more ships with 60 hostages after U.S. sharpshooters rescued an American freighter captain. “No one can deter us,” one bandit boasted. The freed skipper, Richard Phillips, will return home to the United States on Wednesday, after reuniting with his 19-man crew in the Kenyan port of Mombasa, according to the shipping company Maersk Line Ltd. The U.S. and its allies battled Somalia’s pirates on two fronts Wednesday, with French forces seizing a bandit mother ship and Washington seeking to keep the marauders from their spoils. Another U.S. freighter headed to port with armed sailors aboard after pirates damaged it with gunshots and grenades 
Update 4/12/2009 Capt. Richard Phillips was rescued and freed unharmed after being kidnapped by Somali based pirates. Phillips who had been held captive for five days in a life boat by Somalia pirates as U.S. military ships surrounded the area so that the pirates could not escape with their hostage. Captain Phillips was taken when the pirates attempted to seize his vessel the Maersk Alabama. Capt. Richard Phillips’ crew, who said they were safe after he offered himself to the pirates as a hostage, erupted in cheers aboard their ship docked in Mombasa, Kenya. Some waved an American flag and fired a flare in celebration. Three of the Somalia pirates were killed in the rescued and one is being held as a prisoner.

The rescue was a dramatic blow to the pirates who have preyed on international shipping and hold more than a dozen ships with about 230 foreign sailors. But it is unlikely to do much to stop the region’s growing pirate threat which has transformed one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes into one of its most dangerous as a result of the constant hijackings and actions of the Pirates based in Somalia..

Abdullahi Lami, one of the pirates holding the Greek ship anchored in the Somali town of Gaan, said: “Every country will be treated the way it treats us. In the future, America will be the one mourning and crying,” he told The Associated Press. “We will retaliate (for) the killings of our men.” Jamac Habeb, a 30-year-old self-proclaimed pirate, told the AP from one of Somalia’s piracy hubs, Eyl, that: “From now on, if we capture foreign ships and their respective countries try to attack us, we will kill them (the hostages).” “Now they became our number one enemy,” Habeb said of U.S. forces.

How The Conflict Started

On Wednesday Somalia based pirates attempted to seize the crew and cargo of the Maersk Alabama, a US based cargo ship carrying aid for Somalia and Kenya among other containers. The attack began early yesterday when the Alabama was hijacked about 300 miles south-east of Eyl off Somalia’s eastern coast. This is the first U.S. ship and crew that the Somalia Pirates have attempted to hijack. The first encounter with Americans did not go so well for the pirates as the 20 man crew who been trained to deal with such a situation ended up foiling the high seas hijackers that have been so successful in the past.

The four hijackers armed with Kalashnikovs were successful in boarding the vessel but the crew was able to overpower one of the pirates and regain control over the ship. The remaining three fled off taking the captain, Richard Phillips an American as a hostage. A spokesman for Maersk, the largest container shipping company in the world, said that Phillips was believed to be unharmed at that time. His family had gathered at his farmhouse in Vermont waiting for news. The Alabama was the sixth ship to be hijacked off Somalia’s Indian Ocean coast in a week. The surge in attacks has coincided with a return to calm seas after the monsoon period, and has seen the main pirate gangs shift their focus away from their usual hunting ground in the Gulf of Aden, off northern Somalia, which is now patrolled by at least 15 warships in separate EU, US and Nato-led forces.

According to second mate Ken Quinn, who spoke by telephone to CNN, the pirates sank their speedboat shortly after boarding the Alabama early on Wednesday. The crew managed to regain control of the ship from the pirates by “brute force”, according to another crew member’s account. Phillips is reported to have convinced the gunmen to board the lifeboat after agreeing to go with them, in order to secure the safety of his fellow sailors. When the pirates first appeared, the Alabama crew, conscious that the nearest US naval vessel was more than 300 miles away, took evasive action for three to five hours to win time, but the four pirates eventually boarded just before dawn.

On April 8, 2009, the USS Bainbridge was dispatched to the Gulf of Aden in response to a hostage situation. The warship reached the Maersk Alabama early on April 9. The pirates are reportedly floating nearby in the ship’s lifeboat, out of fuel, while they continue to hold the ship’s captain hostage.

It appears Phillips took action as soon as pirates began to swarm aboard. According to conversations with the crews family members Phillips radioed his crew and told them to lock themselves away in a room, then faced the pirates himself. “He said the pirates were desperate,” said Zoya Quinn, the wife of the ship’s second mate. “They were going all over the stairs, back and forth, trying to find them, and they couldn’t.” How Phillips was taken, and then how the crew overpowered the pirates, is still unclear. At some point, the crew ended up capturing one of the pirates and making him their own hostage. “The crew was holding a pirate, and they were supposed to trade for Phillips. The Somalis didn’t go through with their end of the deal. They kept Richard,” another sister-in-law, Lea Coggio, told the Los Angeles Times.

History Of Somalia Pirates

Somali pirates have received over US$150 million during the 12 months prior to November 2008 according to a report done by the BBC. The seizures of aid ships in one of the busiest supply channels in the world has been under increasing threat by both organized and rouge groups that have demanded their ransoms from both governments and private companies that own the vessels. Though piracy off the Somalia and Kenya coast has been an issue since Somalia unrest that followed the civil war in the war torn lawless country the activity has increased drastically in the past few years with 2008 being a bounty year for the high seas thieve.

If you think the average American is fed up with greedy oil companies draining all the loose change out of their jars just to keep the family car on the road you will be shocked at how The Movement For The Emancipation Of The Niger Delta terrorist organization is dealing with what they see is an exploitation by big oil of the people and resources of the Niger Delta along central Africa’s Western Coastline.

Nigeria is Africa’s largest and most complex country, with a population of 120 million people from over 250 tribes. The vast, swampy terrain of the Niger Delta region supports almost 20 million people, many of them in isolated communities only accessible by boat. The Niger Delta serves as the economic nerve center of the Nigeria Federation with its vast oil deposits. Presently, crude oil accounts for about 85% of the nation’s revenue. Oil from the Niger Delta accounts for 20% of oil supply to the US, and has become increasingly important from a strategic perspective as conflicts continue in the Middle East.

This blessing has become a curse for the people of the Niger Delta. They have suffered environmental devastation, economic poverty, and constant conflict. To make matters even worse, political considerations and greed on the part of a corrupt government partnered with some of the biggest names in oil have kept many of the revenue from these vast reserves from returning to the Niger Delta to help protect and restore the damage don to the region.

MAP OF NIGERIA

For the last fifty years since Nigeria declared independence from British colonial rule, oil has been produced in the country. Throughout this period corporate politics has worked with successive dictatorships. Under these dictatorships Nigeria has enacted laws that gave up oil resources and placed these under the control of international oil companies, such as Chevron, and most notably, Shell. The Movement For The Emancipation of the Niger Delta, known as MEND, is fighting for the complete control of the Oil wealth attributed to the Niger Delta’s abundance of the black gold that is creating tensions around the globe as fear grows that future supplies are dwindling. MEND feels that locals in the region have been forced to live in poverty without being provided the simplest of necessities as big oil companies supported by a series of dictators have destroyed their environment and shifted the money to other parts of Nigeria and around the globe. Everyone is benefiting from the resource except for the people of the Niger Delta.

From the point of view of MEND, and its supporters, the people of the Niger Delta have suffered an unprecedented degradation of their environment due to unchecked pollution produced by the oil industry. As a result of this policy of dispossessing people from their lands in favor of foreign oil interests, within a single generation, many now have no ability to fish or farm. Their environment is being overran and ruined.  When oil production activities are intensified or activated in a very dedicated manner, riverbank erosion results, gas flares occur frequently, forests are cut down, rivers and streams are dredged, turned into canals or blocked and then polluted. Farms and sacred lands are not spared either; they may be acquired for oil and gas development or polluted, as production gets under way. Anything that is seen to obstruct or have the semblance of serving as obstruction to the free flow of oil is uprooted and destroyed, whether it is a human being, a community or a stream

Nigeria is one of the world’s biggest oil exporters and yet most Delta residents live in poverty.
While Mend and the other militant groups claim to be standing up for Delta residents, other locals feel they are just oil thieves.  The region is home to a huge industry of stealing oil and selling it on the black market.
This trade is believed to fund the purchase of weapons.

In a January 2006 email MEND warned the oil industry, “It must be clear that the Nigerian government cannot protect your workers or assets. Leave our land while you can or die in it…. Our aim is to totally destroy the capacity of the Nigerian government to export oil

Mend is at war with it’s government and the victim is often the oil companies operating in the country.  The group says it will not quit until all foreign companies leave the Delta and no longer deal with the Nigerian government.

The September 2008 MEND Attacks:

September 19, 2008  Nigeria’s main militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, says it attacked a fifth oil facility in the strife-torn Niger southern Niger Delta. The region has been wracked by five days of stepped-up raids on oil installations since rebels declared an oil war last weekend.

September 17, 2008  Nigerian militants threatened on Wednesday to broaden their “oil war” to offshore oilfields and announced attacks on a crude oil pipeline in the Niger Delta and another Shell-operated facility.  The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), responsible for attacks that have cut a fifth of OPEC member Nigeria’s oil output, said it would launch attacks outside Rivers state for the first time since clashes began on Saturday  The heaviest fighting between militants and security forces in more than two years has spread to about 10 villages in Rivers state, home to oil city Port Harcourt. Some private security sources estimate dozens have died.

September 16, 2008 The most prominent armed group in southern Nigeria said early Wednesday it has destroyed the Orubiri flow station operated by the Shell Petroleum Development Company in Rivers state.  The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said it carried out the attack in cooperation with another armed group, the Niger Delta Volunteer Force (NDVF). “About 2200 (2100 GMT) on Tuesday, September 16, 2008, fighters from MEND and the NDVF in a new alliance attacked and destroyed the Orubiri flow station,” MEND said in an email to the media. There was no immediate comment from Shell, but since MEND first evoked a possible war on the oil industry on Saturday there have already been two attacks on Shell facilities and two “shooting incidents” at facilities operated by US oil giant Chevron.

September 14, 2008  The main militant group in Nigeria’s oil-rich southern region, has vowed massive retaliation for Saturday’s offensive on its positions by the army. Gilbert da Costa has more in this report from Abuja.  The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, is warning oil companies to pull workers out in the next 24 hours or face what it called “a hurricane of retaliation.

The group has threatened to extend its raids to the other major oil states, Bayelsa and Delta and also to attack the country’s two big deep offshore fields, Shell’s Bonga and Chevron’s Agbami.

In June MEND staged an attack on Bonga, a field which had until then been thought safely out of the reach of militant attacks. Since it first emerged in early 2006 MEND, which says it is fighting for a larger share of southern Nigeria’s oil revenue to go to local people, has cut Nigeria’s oil production by more than one quarter.

Swarm-based maneuvers: Guerrillas are using speed boats in the Niger Delta’s swamps to quickly attack targets in succession. Multiple, highly maneuverable units have kept the government and Shell’s defensive systems off-balance defending the sprawling network.  Radically improved firepower and combat training: allowing guerrillas to overpower a combination of Shell’s Western-trained private military guards and elite Nigerian units in several engagements. (One of Shell’s private military operators was captured as a hostage.)  Effective use of system disruption: Targets have been systematically and accurately selected to completely shut down production and delay and/or halt repairs, and the guerrillas are making effective use of Shell’s hostages to coerce both the government and the company.

Movement  For The Emancipation Of The Niger Delta Terrorist Attacks

May 10, 2006, an executive with the United States-based oil company, Baker Hughes, was shot and killed in the south-eastern city of Port Harcourt.

June 2, 2006 a Norwegian rig offshore Nigeria was attacked and 16 crew members were kidnapped. According to the news agency Reuters, MEND has not taken responsibility for this attack.

August 20, 2006, 10 MEND members were killed by the Nigerian military. The members were working on releasing a Royal Dutch Shell hostage. In an email to REUTERS, MEND stated, “Our response to Sunday’s killings will come at our time, but for certain it will not go unpunished.”

October 2, 2006, 10 Nigerian soldiers were killed off the shore of the Niger Delta in their patrol boat by a MEND mortar shell. Earlier that day a Nigerian/Royal Dutch Shell convoy was attacked in the Port Harcourt region resulting in some people being wounded.

October 3, 2006, a militant group abducted four Scots, a Malaysian, an Indonesian and a Romanian from a bar in Akwa Ibom state.

October 4, 2006, Nigerian soldiers attacked a militant camp, in the ensuing battle 9 Nigerian soldiers were killed.

November 22, 2006, Nigerian soldiers attempted a rescue of kidnapped oil workers which resulted in one soldier being killed.

May 1, 2007, MEND seized six expatriate workers from an offshore oil facility owned by Chevron. The group of six consisted of four Italians, an American and a Croat. On the same day, MEND published photos of the captives seated on white plastic chairs in a wooden shelter around the remains of a campfire.

May 3, 2007, MEND seized eight foreign hostages from another offshore vessel. The hostages were released less than 24 hours later, stating they had intended to destroy the vessel and did not want more hostages.

May 8, 2007, three major oil pipelines (one in Brass and two in the Akasa area) were attacked, shutting down oil production and cutting power to a facility run by Italian oil company Agip, part of the ENI energy group. An e-mail statement from a MEND spokesperson said, “Fighters of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) attacked and destroyed three major pipelines in Bayelsa state… We will continue indefinitely with attacks on all pipelines, platforms and support vessels.”

September 23, 2007, a MEND spokesperson named Jomo Gbomo informed, through a letter, that MEND had officially declared war, effective 12 midnight, September 23, 2007, and that they would be commencing “attacks on installations and abduction of expatriates.”

November 13, 2007, MEND militants attacked Cameroonian soldiers on the disputed Bakassi peninsula killing more than 20 soldiers.

May 3, 2008, MEND militants attacked Shell-operated pipelines in Nigeria, forcing the company to halt 170,000 barrels a day of exports of Bonny Light crude.

June 20, 2008, MEND naval forces attacked the Shell-operated Bonga oil platform, shutting down 10% of Nigeria’s oil production in one fell swoop. The oil platform, Shell’s flagship project in the area capable of extracting a massive 200,000 barrels of oil a day, was widely assumed to be outside the reach of the militants due to its location 120km off-shore. This attack has demonstrated a level of prowess and sophistication never before seen by the rebels and it is now known that all of Nigeria’s oil platforms are within range of MEND attack.

Update 9/21/2008: Nigeria’s main militant group has declared a ceasefire, following a week of attacks on oil installations in the country’s oil-rich Niger Delta. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) said it had taken the decision after appeals from tribal leaders in the region. But it warned it would end the truce if attacked by the army again. Mend declared “war” on Nigeria’s oil industry last Sunday after a fierce military raid on one of its bases. Groups such as Mend claim to be fighting for greater control over oil wealth in the impoverished Niger Delta, but they are accused of making money from criminal rackets and trade in stolen oil

Introduction and Historical Back Ground of Sudan and Darfur
Sudan is the largest country on the African Continent. It is about 1/4 the size of the United States. As a former British Colony until 1956, Sudan had been divided into a North and a South Region. Each Region had autonomy in ruling their area. The North is controlled by a Muslim Arab population while the South is populated by non-Arab and characteristically a large black Christian population. The problem occurred after the British integrated the nation under a single administration and tipped the balance of power. The North was already the bigger region and implemented Muslim religion and ideology. The South was a combination of Christian and various tribal code belief systems. The South felt that this gave the Muslim Arabs of the North too much power over their life and culture. In essence, this took away from the autonomy that the locals felt they possessed. In 1946, the North and South were unified and led to one of the longest wars in human history to be fought out. Many say that this was a series of wars, where others including myself feel that this is a war that has changed from Muslim Arab control of a country to ethnic cleansing of the black population that occupied the South Region. The previous wars were merely battles and the original war has never ended and is continuing with increasingly dire consequences today. Genocide. Of course peace treaties were signed and the bulk of the fighting subsided., but the “wars” that followed were a result of no permanent resolution from the first war. The major problems over the entire history of Sudan since this unification has involved the difference of Arab and Non Arab populations and the preferential treatment and needs of the Arab population over the indigenous black pastoral society of the South. The South fought back as rebels, guerrillas, or insurgents. They have resisted against the Khartoum governrnent policies toward them.

The small windows of peace were only times of reorganization for the coming battles. The Arabs wanted a Muslim state under Sharia law throughout Sudan. The South wanted to continue the autonomy they had always possessed in the past. The Northern Arabs possessed greater influence over the Southern non-Arab South who did not want to live under Islamic Law. The uniting of the once separate regions now had created an insurgency that was set to resist the Khartoum Arab Government and had done so since the moment of Independence of Sudan as a nation. The South region including the Darfur rebels have fought for a sovereign state within Sudan for over 50 years. They are fighting to end the oppression they have been facing at the hands of their Northern Arab neighbors.

Sudan Civil War (1955 to 1972)
The Southern insurgency, separatists, and other anti-Khartoum groups united to form the Anyanya Guerilla army that frustrated the Khartoum government by planning attacks against government forces and creating separatist pressures on Khartoum. The original plan was to provide a lot of autonomous self rule in the South, but the new administration was leaning against that approach prior to the start of the guerilla war waged from the South. Sudan’s government was unable to extinguish the insurgency and hundreds of thousands were misplaced due to the conflict and close to a half million deaths resulted from the conflict. The heavy majority of casualties were non-military or rebels. By 1971 all of the rebels united for the first time of the conflict and acted as a single entity. The original conflict ended when an agreement was carved out between the newly formed Southern Sudan Liberation Movement and the Khartoum Government. The South was given large amounts of self rule that they were to be originally granted.

Second Sudan Civil War (1983 to 2005)
The second Sudan civil war began where the first left off. The South was resistant to any infringement on their autonomy in their region. From 1985 through the nineties coups and rebellions resulted from the fragile situation in Sudan. Fuel shortages, starvation and shortages of essential items led also to riots and violence. Governments in Khartoum were overthrown and each time the new administration differed in how to deal with the country’s problems. The biggest effect on the South was each time they thought they were going to be given their autonomy back the next leadership threatened and attempted to mandate Sharia law harshly on the country including the South. In the mid-nineties all non-Muslim judges were removed in the South and replaced with Islamic Muslim judges. This is the same period of time that Sudan’s Islamic government supported Saddam Hussein in the first Iraq War. Osama bin Laden was a guest of the Khartoum Government as well. He assisted the Islamic State by improving Infrastructure through his construction company and in the end turned the companies over to the Sudan Government or to other Sudanese private sector to operate. He built roads and other infrastructure to assist the Islamic government in their quest to rule the entire country under strict Sharia Law an ideology Bin Laden promotes. Through out this time Bin Laden had been funneling money to Islamic extremist groups throughout the region and Africa in attempts to overthrow their current governments and replacing them with Islamic and Sharia based systems as well as planning and conducting terrorist attacks around the globe. I mention this because I want to express the level of Islamic Fundamentalism that the government itself supported in Khartoum during this period. Terrorist camps that operate around the world were in Sudan as guests. It got to the point that US Cruise missiles targeted Sudan along with Afghanistan after the two US Embassies were bombed by the Bin Laden network in Africa. The atrocities against the Southern non-Arab black population reached epic levels as close to 2 million non-Muslims have been killed since the original conflict began in 1956 and nearly four million starving refugees have fled from the war. Reports of nearly 200,000 Nubian Sudanese women and children have been enslaved in the North. In 2005 a peace agreement was signed to end the violence, at least temporarily. The terms were very good for the South if they can actually happen. The terms provided that Oil revenues be shared equally between the North and South, the South will have autonomy for six years at which time a referendum for secession will be held. Sharia law remaining in the South was to be voted on by an elected assembly, along with a few other provisions. All parties signed the agreement. In essence it provided the Khartoum leadership and their Janjaweed henchman six years behind partially closed doors to exterminate the South of the non-Arab population.

So What Started The Current Conflict?
The current conflict in Darfur is a combination of problems arriving at one place at one time. Climate change over the past thirty years have gave way to desertification of the remaining grazing ranges in the North. The herders have moved further South and are now in conflict again with rebel forces, not that the killing has ever subsided since the last peace agreement. Rebels of the South as described earlier are at odds against two groups from the North. The first being the Sudanese Military and the second being the Janjaweed which is financed by the government in Khartoum despite their denying any connection. The Janjaweed is an armed nomadic militia group of African Arabic speaking tribes from the North in Sudan. Their intent is to acquire land and resources from the Southern region. Once again the Khartoum is using these hired thugs to murder, rape and kill the non-Arab population in the Darfur region. The government forces and the Janjaweed reap havoc on villages suspected of providing resources or members to the rebel groups opposing Khartoum and Islamic law and rule. It has been described in many ways but to say this is anything different than a continuation of the first and second civil war described above is a big mistake that will soften the tone of the actual picture of what is going on in Darfur. This is a continuation of policies by an Islamic government to invoke genocide on the people of non-Arab descent in Sudan. The level of urgency has far passed crisis mode in the past few years as the Sudanese Government has arrested reporters, killed witnesses and limited the amount of information that is able to come out of the region. The UN has ordered troops in to support the African Union Forces there but they have been ineffective and efforts have failed to protect the refugees and to further complicate the situation the conflict has been spilling over to Sudan’s neighbors.

The Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly known as Zaire, is the current focal point of the most deadliest conflict since the end of World War II. The Democratic Republic of Congo has been at the mercy of armed groups for more than a decade.

Since the end of the Rwandan genocide, when remnants of the Hutu militias that slaughtered some 800,000 Tutsis fled across the border into what then was called Zaire from neighboring Rwanda. The Hutu, that took up residence on Congo soil after being flushed out by Rwandan Tutsis after the genocide in the 1990’s have organized and threatened the local minority Tutsis in the Congo (DRC).

The current fighting is between the Congo army against rebels loyal to Laurent Nkunda, an ethnic Tutsi. The former general quit the Congolese army several years ago, claiming the government of President Joseph Kabila was not doing enough to protect minority Tutsis from Hutu extremists, whose continued presence on Congolese soil has given him a reason to stand against his government.

A quick history of conflict between the Tutsis and Hutus.
Over six hundred years ago the Tutsis, a tall warrior people moved from Ethiopia southward and invaded the homeland of the Hutus that arrived in the area in the eleventh century in the great lake regions. The term Great Lake region is used for the area lying between northern Lake Tanganyika, western Lake Victoria, and lakes Kivu, Edward and Albert. Though much smaller in number, they conquered the Hutus, who agreed to raise crops for them in return for protection.

By the mid 1800s, the western powers had established colonies all along the African coast. Africa provided a source of cheap labor, raw materials and new markets for these countries, which were going through the Industrial Revolution at that time. These colonizing powers, however, began to compete with each other over control of the resources. They decided to hold a conference to set up ground rules for colonizing Africa. In 1884, leaders from 14 colonial powers, including the United States, Belgium, Portugal, Germany and Spain held the Berlin Conference, where they divided the continent of Africa into 50 countries and claimed them for themselves. These divisions were made arbitrarily and without any consideration of the common culture, history and language shared by different groups of African people.

They often divided an ethnic group or brought enemies under the same government. Many strived to keep their tribal ways in tact despite the colonization’s of their lands and being placed under foreign appointed rule. Rwanda was given to Germany. Following the First world war (WWI) control of Rwanda was given to Belgium. The Belgians colonists divided Rwanda’s unified population into three distinct groups: Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa. They did this to have better control over the people and to separate them from uniting and causing a conflict. The Tutsis were more white looking and were favored by the German and then Belgium occupiers. Based on this “whiter” appearance the Belgiums saw them as the natural leader and they were also in the minority of the population and had the most to gain from the appointments to power. Despite being a minority, the Tutsis were given positions of power over the less desirable and less white Hutus and Twa.

Tensions rose throughout colonial times as Hutus were denied education, land ownership and a voice in government and grew to resent their position as they represented 85% of the population at the time. In 1959 The Hutus grabbed power away from the Tutsis and continued the same racial policies that were used against them against the Tutsis. This back and forth conflict of racial separation has set the stage for numerous genocidal events that have plagued the entire region ever since. The World powers are responsible for the genocides as a result of supplying weapons to those that they can render their influence upon.

“The conflict that is occurring today is the same conflict that America and the rest of the world said after Rwanda would not happen again. Well sure enough it is happening again at a time when the world is preoccupied with other wars, economic turmoil and a new U.S. President is set to take office. The United Nations is not doing enough as the war is widening into the Democratic Republic of Congo from Rwanda. It is hell on Earth for these people”  Terroristplanet.com

The Current Conflict in the Congo

The roots of Congo’s instability trace back to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which hundreds of thousands of minority Tutsis were slaughtered. Tutsi rebels from Rwanda then overthrew the Hutu-dominated Rwandan government in an ensuing civil war, forcing millions of Hutus to flee to the Democratic Republic of Congo which it shares a border with. Among the refugees were top Rwandan army and government officials, as well as militias who together had orchestrated the mass slaughter of the genocide in Rwanda. They later set up bases on Congolese soil, where many remain today. Rwanda invaded Congo twice in an effort to rout the Rwandan Hutu extremists, first in a 1996-1997 war, and again in a 1998-2002 war. Many accused Rwanda of getting sidetracked, however, in pursuit of diamonds, gold and other minerals. Since 1994 the Congo conflict has killed over 4 million people as a result of war, disease and starvation. As the conflict enters an area Congolese are displaced, murdered, raped and if they do survive the initial onslaught are then often victim of the frequent refugee status that has resulted in so many deaths from disease and starvation as is the case in many African conflicts. The military of the Democratic Republic of Congo is at war with one of it’s own. Laurent Nkunda and his National Congress for People’s Defense. Nkunda, an ethnic Tutsi from the DPR and former general quit the army several years ago, claiming the government of President Joseph Kabila was not doing enough to protect minority Tutsis from Hutu extremists, whose continued presence has given him a reason to fight.

Nkunda has accused the Democratic Republic of Congo army of allying itself on the battlefield with the Hutu militias. The government denies the claims. Critics say Nkunda is a proxy of Rwanda’s government and has exaggerated claims there is a serious threat to Tutsis in Congo. Nkunda’s army has been accused of numerous human rights abuses, including rape campaigns and attacks on villages – as have army soldiers and militias. It appears that both sides of the war are committing atrocities against their own society in an all out grasp for control of the riches that fill the region.

Why has violence escalated in recent months? Nkunda’s forces signed a Jan. 23, 2008 peace deal, but the dislike and trust of the two sides run deep because of the atrocities. The agreement call for all armed groups in the region to an immediate cease-fire, followed by the pullback of fighters from key areas that would then become a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone. The rebels have since accused the Congolese army of abandoning positions to Hutu militias that have in their eyes been the culprit of the violent acts against the people in the region. Caught in the middle, villagers have risked and lost their lives trying to escape the bloodshed

In recent days the following reports have come out of the Congo.

Nov. 14, 2008 Husbands and Children Killed as Women Suffer Rape (excerpt from Times Online UK).
The first soldiers kicked down the door to her house, killed her younger brother, his wife and son. Then, as Ngiraganga fled barefoot towards safety, she came across the second wave of soldiers. They asked her for money and when she explained that she had nothing to give they took her clothes, stripping the 42-year-old to her underwear. The third group of soldiers took all she had left. “They beat me and raped me,” Ngiraganga said quietly in Swahili, sitting in the gloomy office of a women’s shelter.  Ngiraganga was forced from her home in Rutshuru, 40 miles (65km) north of Goma, two weeks ago. With rebels closing in rapidly on the town, government soldiers began withdrawing. She said that they went from door to door, killing husbands and fathers then raping the women. Ngiraganga survived by hiding in the bush for two days before walking for four more. She was naked and barefoot. “I was tired and there seemed no way to keep going. My back and belly were sore and my head was hurting from where the soldiers beat me,” she said. Exhausted and dressed in a few simple clothes she had found at the roadside, Ngiraganga reached the relative safety of Goma last week. Now she sleeps on the floor of a school and prays for the safety of the two sons and a daughter left behind in Rutshuru. The tragedy described by the Times (UK) is the fate of the people of the Congo. They are losing their identity and becoming object to either destroy or to use and throw away. Once must wonder where the world moral compass is at as limited resources are being used to stop the conflict. It is another genocide in Africa. It appears that genocide is not acceptable unless it is in Africa.

Nov. 11,2008 UN says Congolese troops raped, pillaged villages.  Hundreds of Congolese soldiers rampaged through several villages in eastern Congo, raping women and pillaging homes as they pulled back ahead of a feared rebel advance, the U.N. reported. .N. peacekeeping spokesman Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich said the army troops had reportedly raped civilians near the town of Kanyabayonga in violent attacks that began overnight that lasted into Tuesday morning. Kanyabayonga is 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of the provincial capital, Goma. Dietrich said 700 to 800 Congolese soldiers then fled Kanyabayonga and went on a rampage through several villages to the north. “They looted vehicles, they looted some houses,” Dietrich said by telephone from Kinshasa, the national capital. A rare nighttime gunbattle erupted late Tuesday between rebels and the army just north of Goma, and the U.N. said it was trying to get the warring sides to move further apart. Mortars were also used during the nearly one-hour fight near Kibati, Dietrich said.

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Tuesday for an immediate cease-fire so aid workers could urgently help “at least 100,000 refugees” cut off in rebel-held areas north of Goma. “Because of the ongoing fighting, these people have received virtually no assistance. Their situation has grown increasingly desperate,” Ban said. The U.N. chief also said he was “very concerned by reports of targeted killings of civilians, looting and rape.” Ban said about 3,000 more U.N. peacekeeping soldiers and police were urgently needed to bolster the 17,000-strong U.N. force in Congo that has been unable to stop the fighting or halt the rebel advance. The U.N. Security Council was meeting Tuesday to take up Ban’s request. A rebel spokesman said any aid workers who wanted to help civilians trapped on rebel-held territory would be safe.

“If there are NGOs who want to come to Rutshuru, they are welcome to come,” rebel spokesman Bertrand Bisimwa said. Congo’s armed forces are notoriously ill-disciplined soldiers, historically better at looting than standing their ground. In recent days, some have been seen manning checkpoints drunk

Nov 10. 2008 GOMA, Democratic Republic of the Congo | It’s said that 5 million people have died due to conflict in Congo during the past decade. If that beggars belief, consider the family of 18-year-old Florence Nirere. Sixteen months ago in Nirere’s village in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, rebel fighters clashed with government troops and sent civilians fleeing. A Congolese soldier shot her cousin — a pretty 25-year-old named Nirabundu — in the head because she didn’t run from the battlefield fast enough, Nirere said. Now the family lives in a camp for eastern Congo’s growing legion of displaced people, a sprawling collection of canvas-covered shacks where hunger and disease are the worst killers. This month, Nirere helped bury an older sister who fell ill from malnutrition. Two days later, her 6-year-old, diarrhea-stricken brother, Habi, lay in a cot in the local clinic, his toothpick arms pierced by tubes pumping nutrients into his motionless body. “We are dying,” Nirere, who has close-cropped hair and stoic, wide-set eyes, said simply.

Nov 8, 2008 Rebel forces are poised to overrun the provincial capital of Goma. Tens of thousands of terrified residents – 60 per cent children – are pouring out of the city, caught between the invading forces and the Congolese army. Emergency workers are struggling to get food to the refugees. There are reports of rape, looting and killing. UN peacekeepers seem helpless.

Nov 6, 2008 Congolese Tutsi rebels went from door to door overnight killing people in Kiwanja, residents said Thursday. Rebel commanders said they had assaulted only pro-government fighters. “They knocked on the doors; when the people opened, they killed them,” said Simo Bramporiki, who said his wife and child were killed. Human Rights Watch said at least 20 people died in the battle for the town.

Nov 1, 2008 They lay strewn across the road, their dried blood soaked into the red clay dust of the African soil. All of them were soldiers, some government, some rebel. One of the dead men lay on his back, inexplicably clutching a plastic jerry can to his chest. Another man, his mouth wide open as if in a contorted, grotesque grin, had lost his left hand; the limb perhaps hacked off or eaten by animals from the bush. Yet another of the dead soldiers lay huddled in a ditch, almost as if he had lain down in the sweltering Congolese heat for a nap from which he would never wake up. The road from Goma to Kibumba is a little over 10 miles long, but it is littered with the debris, death and suffering of the most recent blood bath to have gripped eastern Congo
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Oct 31,2008 Fears are growing for the welfare of 39 wildlife rangers who were reportedly forced to flee into dense forest after their headquarters in eastern DR Congo were stormed by rebels on Sunday. The rangers, who protect some of the world’s last mountain gorillas in Virunga National Park in North Kivu province, are reported to have no food, water or shelter. “Virunga is in an unprecedented crisis,” said Dr Emmanuel de Merode, provincial director of the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN). “The fighting continues to spread in all directions, the rangers have lost control of the southern sector of the park… We urgently need support to protect the rangers and their families.

Christmas Terrorist Attack 12/25/2009
On Christmas Day a Nigerian student attempted to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 as it arrived over Detroit, Michigan airspace shortly before landing. The suspect, 23-year-old Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab is enrolled at the University of London in England as an engineering student. In Nigeria, Abdulmutallab checked no baggage on his trip that originated in Lagos on a KLM flight to Amsterdam, where he changed planes to the Northwest flight, according to Harold Demuren, director-general of Nigeria’s Civil Aviation Authority
The Northwest Flight was arriving from Amsterdam , Netherlands when Abdulmutallab attempted to ignite a small explosive device with a syringe. Federal authorities have been told that Abdulmutallab allegedly had taped some material to his leg, then used a chemical-laden syringe to mix with the powder while on board the airplane, one official said
The facts are still emerging, but there are strong suggestions of a Yemen-al-Qaida connection and an intent to blow up the plane over U.S. airspace,” said Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat who heads the House Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence

People on the flight described a chaotic scene that began with a popping sound followed by flames erupting at Abdulmutallab’s seat. Jasper Schuringa, a Dutch passenger on the flight from Amsterdam, leaped across the aisle to grab the suspect, who according to authorities suffered burns on his legs. “I pulled the object from him and tried to extinguish the fire with my hands and threw it away,” Schuringa said. Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam landed safely in Detroit, Michigan around noon Friday, with several of the 278 passengers sustaining minor injuries in the incident.

Abdulmutallab will remain under treatment in the hospital at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. It was unclear whether Abdulmutallab’s name was entered into the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment list, which includes people with known or suspected contact or ties to a terrorist or terrorist entity.

 I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the suffering of millions, and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty, too, will end.    Ann Frank  (Died in a Nazi Concentration Camp)

Many of our articles deal with controversial issues that paint a picture of radicals or tyrant leaders wreaking havoc on the world or their own people.  This article is different.  This article will shed light on how the very body that empowered themselves at the end of the second world war to ensure future world peace has created conflict after conflict throughout third world nations.  These conflicts have seen women, children and the elderly slaughtered in private wars being fueled or secretly waged from within the Security Council and other wealthy United Nation members.  The United Nations Security council was established to be the center of power and guardian of peace in the world.  To establish peaceful resolutions rather than face yet another world war. It gave the five permanent members undue power based on the fact that they were nuclear nations and possessed the most powerful militaries of that era.  It did not take long for the United Nations and it’s Security Council to become a wrecking ball to the rest of the planet.

International humanitarian law asserts that children’s rights must be respected during armed conflict but children are often torn from their families, pressed into serving as soldiers, held in captivity or simply killed. This does not  mention the devastating results that come into the lives of the surviving children that grow up with memories or scars from conflicts waged for profit or ideologies that they are unaware of. 

Why Child Soldiers?

In impoverished third world countries around the globe children are used as child soldiers in war and conflicts.  There are many reasons that children are ideal for use as soldiers in these impoverished conflicts.  Children are easily manipulated and coerced compared to their adult counterparts.  Child soldiers are less expensive to utilize since their salaries if any are paid are much less.  Child soldiers in the majority of cases only receive food and shelter.  In many war torn third world countries child soldiers are often left with no where else to turn.  The fate of their parents often results in death, missing during refugee movements or they are unable to provide the basic essentials including food and water let alone shelter and safety.  In the movement of a refugee crisis children parish often due to starvation, disease, and butchering militant attacks targeting the overcrowded refugee camps.  In essence some parents simply give their children to the militia to have a better chance of survival.  They have no where else to turn.  Other children are often just kidnapped during round ups and forced into militant groups.  Many children joined armed groups in Cambodia in the 1980s as the best way to secure food and protection. Similarly, in Liberia in 1990, children as young as seven were seen in combat because, according to the Director of the Liberian Red Cross, “those with guns could survive.”

In the past small children were not able to carry and operate the heavy and more difficult to load weapons.  Today’s weapons such as the Ak-47 assault rifle is light weight,  easily operated, and is a durable killing machine.  Kalashnikov Kids as they are called have proven to be some of the most deadliest phenomenon of our time.  Hundreds of thousands of these child soldiers are fighting in conflicts throughout Africa.  In simplest terms, child soldiers are used because a bullet is just as deadly fired from an eight year old as it is from a forty year old adult.  Since their introduction in 1947, around 55 million AK-47s had been sold in a study 12 years ago in 1996.  In some African countries an AK-47  can cost as little as $6 each in U.S. dollars.  The M-16 is just as available, and has been described by one military historian as the “transistor radio of modern warfare.”  With deadly weapons so affordable, available, and dependable combined with conflicts lasting decades children are essential manpower to continue conflicts.  Equipping them with a six dollar weapon makes it even more appealing.

Children And War Atrocities

Children suffer in war in so many ways that it is impossible for those in the West to contemplate the actions and pain endured in these third world countries.  Rape, murder, torture, slow painful starvation and so much more is happening to children throughout conflicts in over 50 countries across the planet according to a new study conducted by researchers at the University of Utah.

Rape in war is an especially scarring and  traumatic event.  In Rwanda, rape has been systematically used as a weapon of ethnic cleansing to destroy community ties. In some raids, virtually every adolescent girl who survived an attack by the militia was subsequently raped. Many of those who became pregnant were then ostracized by their families and community; some abandoned their babies, others committed suicide.  Mass rape is an increasingly sophisticated weapon of war, as used in the Bosnia-Herzegovina conflict and in other conflicts—such as Haiti, Georgia (CIS), and Rwanda.  In fighting in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, it had been deliberate policy to rape teenage girls and force them to bear ‘the enemy’s’ child. A European Community fact-finding team estimated that more than 20,000 Muslim women had been raped in Bosnia by 1992. It  is a fact that a woman born in South Africa has a greater chance of being raped, than learning how to read. One in four girls faces the prospect of being raped before the age of 16 according to the child support group.  Rape and other forms of sexual violence in Darfur are being used as a weapon of war in order to humiliate, punish, control, inflict fear and displace women and their communities.  Sudan’s Darfur crisis has exploded on many fronts — violence, hunger, displacement and looting — but United Nations peacekeepers say the biggest issue now affecting the region is the systematic rape of women and children.  Thousands of women as young as 4 caught in the middle of the struggle between rebel forces and government-backed Arab militias have become victims of rape.

A disturbing cases of lost children has emerged in the civil war in southern Sudan. Apart from the main government and opposition groups, there are also various militias that spread terror by pillaging villages and killing or seizing their inhabitants. Fearing capture or death, at least 20,000 Sudanese young people, mostly boys between the ages of 7 and 17, have fled their homes. Thousands of girls have also been killed or abducted by the raiders, but few have run away from their villages since it is more difficult for girls to envisage life outside their families. These ‘lost boys’ of the Sudan have been trekking enormous distances over a vast unforgiving wilderness, seeking refuge from the fighting. Hungry, frightened and weakened by sleeplessness and disease, they have crossed from the Sudan into Ethiopia and back. Many have died on the journey; most survivors are now in camps in the parched north-western plains of Kenya.

The UN and Security Council Are To Blame

Now that we have established that the world that we live in is not only allowing horrible atrocities to be inflicted upon children, but it is the role that members of the UN Security council members are actually providing the weaponry and financing of the injustices that is ignored.  Of all the the items that the UN should be concerned with no other crime is as unacceptable as those committed against children.  Why does the Media not openly embarrass the members for their roles in these conflicts.

Land Mines

Of all the weapons that have used over the years of war, few are more persistent and more lethal to children than land mines . Hundreds of thousands of children, herding animals, planting crops or just playing too far away from their home have been killed or maimed by these deadly devices. During the Persian Gulf war, the US and its allies laid about 1 million mines along the Iraq-Kuwait border and around the Iraqi city of Basra. And some 3 million were laid in the Balkan war. Some of the largest numbers lie in wait in Africa and Asia. The countries most devastated by land-mines are probably Afghanistan, Angola and Cambodia. Afghanistan has an estimated 10-15 million mines in place.  The United Nations says there are more than 110 million landmines planted in more than 70 countries around the world. The UN estimates that someone is killed by a landmine every 20 minutes.  Countries that manufacture landmines include: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, North Korea, Pakistan, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Spain, U.K., U.S., Vietnam and Zimbabwe. If you notice all five UN Security Council members are on the list of producers.

China:  Africa’s Dealer of Death

The Automat Kalashnikov, or AK-47, reigns supreme. It’s the durable, cheap, usually lethal, Cold War icon of the Soviet bloc and resistance movements across the world. The gun’s familiar silhouette — easily identified by the banana-shaped magazine — has appeared on Mozambique’s flag, Palestinian currency and Russian vodka. An estimated 100 million have been produced in hundreds of factories in dozens of countries during its 60-year history.  The original was a Russian made weapon but China has flooded Africa with the weapon that has a life span of decades.  U.N. stockpiles of captured weapons usually contain a majority of Kalashnikovs manufactured in China.  China supports two of the most deadliest and human rights violators in the world in Sudan and Zimbabwe.  In China’s quest for resources to feed their new gigantic growing economy the need for oil and other precious resources necessary for driving the China machine into the new century.  Africa is full of two things:  resources and corruption.  China is using both to create opportunity for it’s economy.  From Nigeria in the north, to Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Angola in the west, across Chad and Sudan in the east, and south through Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, China has seized a vice-like grip on a continent which officials have decided is crucial to the superpower’s long-term survival. there is a lethal price to pay. There is a sinister aspect to this invasion. Chinese-made war planes roar through the African sky, bombing opponents. Chinese-made assault rifles and grenades are being used to fuel countless murderous civil wars, often over the materials the Chinese are desperate to buy.  Recently, a giant container ship from China was due to deliver its cargo of three million rounds of AK-47 ammunition, 3,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 1,500 mortars to President Robert Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe in the wake of the disputed election in the country that is creating a crisis among supporters and opponents to the government dictatorship of Zimbabwe.  In Darfur, China is supplying the Sudanese government whose President Omar al-Bashir was recently charged by the  International Court With Genocide in Darfur.    China has much to gain by the conflicts in Darfur and other hot spots in Africa. The Chinese – who now buy half of all Sudan’s oil – have happily provided armored vehicles, aircraft and millions of bullets and grenades in return for lucrative deals. China has repeatedly thwarted United Nations denunciations of the Sudanese regime.

The United States, Russia and United Kingdom’s Weapons Foot Print

The United States maintained its role as the leading supplier of weapons to the developing world in 2006, followed by Russia and Britain, according to a Congressional study. Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia were the top buyers of weapons products.  In 2006, the United States agreed to sell $10.3 billion in weapons to the developing world, or 35.8 percent of these deals worldwide. 

The United States has been under pressure as of late for their use of depleted uranium ammunitions that are suspected of causing cancer in children as well as the use of cluster bombs.  Cluster bombs are indiscriminate in that they maim and kill people over a large area. Additionally, a small percentage of the bomblets – often estimated at around 7% to 10%, depending on the type – fail to detonate on hitting the ground. They can be accidentally triggered by civilians years later. The bomblets are often brightly colored, making them attractive for children to pick up.

Russia has been a major supplier of weapons to Iran in past years – including a $700 million deal for surface-to air-missiles in 2005.  Russian agreements with Venezuela in 2006 included the sale of two-dozen Su-30 fighter aircraft valued at more than $1 billion, along with attack and transport helicopters valued at more than $700 million.  Russia also sold Venezuela a large number of AK-series assault rifles in a deal that included a pledge to build a factory in Venezuela to produce those rifles and bullets, together valued at more than $500 million

The Members of the Security Council has used war to sway their influence upon third world countries rich in untapped resources.  These activities have resulted in decades of war in Africa, Afghanistan, the Middle East, South and Central America, Eastern Europe and Asia.  The United States, France, Russia, U.K. and China have waged secret wars through creating markets for their weapons, for the gain of influence with dictators to exploit resources, as well as blatant secret wars against one another as in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation and more than likely the with the current American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.  In efforts to open up new economic markets and to complete strategic defense objectives these countries have backed ruthless and oppressing regimes throughout the world.  They have all used the U.N. Security council to block action against their interests even though millions of lives have been fuelled by their growing needs.  As competition for world resources have escalated and is expected to continue in demand, the future will produce more conflicts.

The result of this embarrassing activities is resulting in the creation of the types of conflicts that we have described earlier in places such as Darfur, Afghanistan,  Sierra Leone,  Somalia, the Congo, and a host of other venues.  Children are bearing the brunt of this greed where the price is too high in consequences to their existence.  As long the Security Council continues to fund and arm conflicts around the globe there will be ethnic cleansing, systematic raping of women and children, child soldiers and all the atrocities that war can bring to the weak , poor and hungry of the third world.

Updated March 4, 2009: In the Hague, Netherlands a warrant was issued today for the arrest of a sitting head of state. President Omar al-Bashir is wanted for charges of war crimes against the people of Darfur, Sudan. The people of Darfur have suffered horribly at the hands of Sudan government’s backed Arab Janjaweed that have slaughtered, raped, and displaced the entire region of African Darfurians.. In the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, the government denounced the warrant as part of a Western conspiracy aimed at destabilizing the vast oil-rich nation south of Egypt. “There will be no recognition of or dealing with the white man’s court, which has no mandate in Sudan or against any of its people,” the Information Ministry said.

ICC spokeswoman Laurence Blairon said that in issuing the warrant for the arrest of al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity, the three-judge panel said he is suspected of responsibility for “intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians, and pillaging their property.” The war in Sudan’s western Darfur region began in 2003, when rebel ethnic African groups, complaining of discrimination and neglect, took up arms against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum

Today, the world took a huge step forward to putting an end to ruthless leaders committing genocide and murder against their own citizens. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court filed genocide charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. It marks the first time that the Hague has issued charges against a sitting head of state. The violence in Darfur is monumental in both loss of life and overall savagery. The Sudanese government has a long history of affiliating with terrorists and in a push to gain control of farmland of the residents of Darfur to provide the Muslim dominated North Arab Nomads with new grazing lands have supported the Janjaweed Militia in the slaughter. Sudan has been under the eye of humanitarian watchdog groups for years. President Omar al-Bashir seized power in a military coup 19 years ago. Mr Bashir responded by saying he did not recognize the court and denied committing war crimes.

“From the beginning we said we are not a member of the court… the court has no jurisdiction over Sudan,” he said, in his first public reaction to the indictment. “Whoever has visited Darfur, met officials and discovered their ethnicities and tribes… will know that all of these things (including ethnic cleansing) are lies.”

Sudan has immediately rejected the charges and protests began in support of the embattled president. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the lead Haugue prosecutor, said he issued the arrest warrant to stop the slow deaths of the 2.5 million plus Darfur refugees that have been forced from their homes fleeing the attacks of the Sudanese government backed Janjaweed Militia. Ocampo stated that “Genocide is a crime of intention and that the world does need to wait until the 2.5 million die. He added that the genocide is ongoing along with the systematic rape which is a driving force in the genocide. Reports of women aged over 70 and little girls as young as 6 are being raped in these brutal episodes.
The charges basically stating that the prosecutors feel that Bashir is the mastermind in the campaign of murder, rape and displacement in an attempt to wipe out the remaining non-Arab African tribes remaining in Darfur.
It would be tough to imagine Sudanese President al-Bashir allowing himself to be arrested and in all likelihood it will take the judges appointed to the case months before they will make a ruling on whether to actually issue an arrest warrant for the sitting head of state. It was reported over the weekend that Bashir had requested an emergency meeting among Arab countries to ask for assistance in stopping the charges from going through. The problem now will be what will this mean for the people of Darfur as Bashir boils over with anger to the charges being brought against him. It is very likely that foreign aid workers will be asked to leave and that the wrath of the Sudanese government will follow. It is possible that even more violence will be subjected upon the already decimated and brutalized people of Darfur. There are an estimated 9,000 African Union peacekeeping forces backed by the UN in Sudan. There is fear that these troops could also become entangled in the violence and create even a bigger situation on the ground.
If the international court judges issue an arrest warrant al Bashir will become a prisoner inside his own country. He will be unable to leave Sudan without being arrested.
It is reported that when women are raped it is not unusual for up to twenty men are involved in the single rape of the woman. Since 2003 over 300,000 people have been killed in the Darfur conflict.
The most striking tone taken within the Sudanese government was by the Al-Bashir’s ruling National Congress Party that warned of “more violence and blood” if an arrest warrant is issued against the president. In all there was a total of 10 charges being brought up against al-Bashir. Three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two murder charges.
The charges are very bold and out of the ordinary. The situation is bound to create a diplomatic nightmare in a region where Muslims already feel they are being attacked by the West. The safety of the people in Darfur is in jeopardy once again. What is the most disturbing about the crisis in Darfur is that as China continues to plan for the hosting of the 2008 Summer Olympics it is their weapons that are illegally being used in the slaughter. China has a very close working relationship with the barbaric leadership of Sudan that once again proves that Islam claim of a religion of peace is ridiculous. Why are there no Muslims nations standing up to Sudan?
An Incredible First Hand Experience of Sudan’s Genocide in Darfur Region

Based on the extremely interesting video about Darfur above it appears that the Sudanese government is not only dividing Arabs( The Janjaweed) and the original African native tribes but they are having a lot of problems with Janjaweed Militants aligning with the people of Darfur because of the continuous broken promises by the ruthless Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. It appears however that the Janjaweed actually use this type of threat of walking away from the government and joining the rebel forces against Khartoum. It the end the government has given in to the Janjaweed militia demands that they were promised. It would be too costly for the Bashir government to deal with the Janjaweed as enemies and desperately need the militia to conduct their genocide. The Janjaweed is like a hired hand doing the dirty work. It is time to end this disaster, but how?

Here Is A Plan For The UN
I have been perplexed by the role of the UN for quite some time. This is not the UN but rather the international court stepping up at last. It appears that UN really does not solve many problems of major importance such as Rwanda and now Darfur. Sanctions are passed but then countries just continue behind the scenes with business as usual. The country that is arming the genocide is none other than the country that was awarded the 2008 Summer Olympics. I know the UN has nothing to do with choosing the site of Olympic Games but it just irks me when I keep hearing that they are fine with supplying the Sudanese slaughter machine with the means to conduct genocide. Lets say however that Bashir is found guilty and a warrant is issued. At this point it is now the UN’s responsibility until he is arrested to protect the people of Darfur from the wrath that will result from his conviction. I didn’t go to West Point, in fact only went to one cub scout meeting as a kid but what if? The UN established a no fly zone around Darfur, similar to the one used in Iraq. It would stop the attack helicopters from doing death runs against the people of Darfur.

I am sure that the country of Chad would be very happy to allow UN sponsored aircraft and helicopters to use it’s border areas to enforce it. The African union has already stepped in admirably, and if we could close Khartoum in until he is apprehended or basically overthrown it would be the first major step by the UN in gaining the type of respect that it was founded on. Secondly UN troops can basically create a safe zone that stops the Janjiweed from traveling to the Darfur region. If they move in their caravans of trucks to do an attack they can be tracked through satellites and stopped before they are able to do harm. I know this possible the technology has been used for years in conflicts. It should be priority one to get this done, how can a single country say that they are not interested in putting an end to this. The world should no longer fear a weak military such as Sudan. If the UN is unable to get troops from throughout the membership to step in and for the first time put an end to a genocide then I just no longer see the need for the organization in general. It is time to start saving the continent of Africa and allow the people of this region to say it was their generation that the rest of the world stepped in to save. It is not only the right thing to do but it is mandatory in order for us to continue to call ourselves intelligent life.

Al Shabaab:  AKA Al Qaeda in Somalia, “The Youth”

On May 1, 2008 a U.S. air strike hit it’s target in Somalia.  It was Aden Hashi Ayro, who led al Shabaab militants that have been blamed for attacks on government troops and their Ethiopian allies that have assisted the Somali government in the past fight against the Islamist militant group.  The death is being taken very hard by members who promise to carry on their fight with a new leader that is chosen.  Somalia-based al Qaeda operatives were suspected of carrying out two suicide attacks in Kenya that killed 224 people at the U.S. embassy in 1998 and 15 at an Israeli-owned beach hotel in 2002.  The embassy attacks led  President Bill Clinton to the final decision to bomb al Qaeda training camps in Sudan and Afghanistan where militants like Ayro later trained and gained expertise in Islamic warfare under al Qaeda central leadership.  President Bush has ordered strikes in the region in the past few years that have targeted personnel as well as other military targets inside Somalia.  The State department has long believed that Somalia, especially the Mogadishu area, is a breeding ground for Islamic terrorist fighters.   On February 29, 2008, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice designated al-Shabaab (aka al-Shabab, aka Shabaab, aka the Youth, aka Mujahidin al-Shabaab Movement, aka Mujahideen Youth Movement, aka Mujahidin Youth Movement, aka MYM, aka Harakat Shabab al-Mujahidin, aka Hizbul Shabaab, aka Hisb’ul Shabaab, aka al-Shabaab al-Islamiya, aka Youth Wing, aka al Shabaab al-Islaam, aka al-Shabaab al-Jihaad, aka the Unity of Islamic Youth) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act

Sheikh Muktar Robow, an al-Shabaab leader, apparently welcomes State’s designation  as he stated to the BBC:

“Al-Shabab feels honoured to be included on the list. We are good Muslims and the Americans are infidels. We are on the right path,” he said.

Who is Al Shabaab?

Al-Shabaab is a violent and brutal extremist group with a number of individuals affiliated with al-Qaida. Many of its senior leaders are believed to have trained and fought with al-Qaida in Afghanistan.  Al  Shabaab is the armed wing of the Somalia Islamic Courts Council that took over most of southern Somalia for six months in 2006, until government troops backed by Ethiopian forces routed it in a two-week war. 

Al-Shabaab has used intimidation and violence to undermine the Somali government and threatened civil society activists working to bring about peace through political dialogue and reconciliation. The group scattered leaflets on the streets of Mogadishu warning participants in last year’s reconciliation conference that they intended to bomb the conference venue. Al-Shabaab promised to shoot anyone planning to attend the conference and to blow up delegates’ cars and hotels. Although al-Shabaab did not carry out these particular threats, the group has claimed responsibility for shooting Deputy District Administrators, as well as several bombings and shootings in Mogadishu targeting Ethiopian troops and Somali government officials. Al-Shabaab’s leader, Aden Hashi Ayrow, has ordered his fighters to attack African Union (AU) troops based in Mogadishu. Ayrow has also called for foreign fighters to join al-Shabaab in their fight in Somalia. Given the threat that al-Shabaab poses, the designation will raise awareness of al-Shabaab’s activities and help undercut the group’s ability to threaten targets in and destabilize the Horn of Africa region.

Leadership of Al Shabaab
The leader of al Shabaab until early this morning was Aden Hashi Ayro (Aden Hashi Farah “Eyrow” (also spelled Ayrow ). He was a member of the Ayr subclan in Somailia. He joined the Islamic Court in the mid 1990’s. He would attend training camps in Afghanistan and was trained in explosives and insurgency tactics that would assist the Islamic Courts Union after his return to Somalia in 2003. Al Shabaab was initially set up to protect leaders and group members of the Somali Islamic Courts and to carry our assassinations of foreign targets. Ayro was hand picked to go to Afghanistan by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys. Aweys was the leader of the Shura Islamic Courts Union of Somalia. This group aim is to create am Islamic state in Somalia that is ruled by Islamic sharia law. Aweys is believed to be part of the group that carried out the bombings of the two U.S. bombings in 1998. The group has looted villages and towns leaving a path of destruction in it’s wake since it began offensive operations. It is thought that Ayro sent hundreds of his Islamic fighters to Lebanon to fight against Israel in 2006. This group has a blend of Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya members that are associated closely with al Qaeda. This fact concludes that a new leader will be named quickly with a revenge attack to follow as a show of force.

A quick video covering the current situation of terrorist groups including al Shabaab and their attempts to continue to disrupt Somalia.  The Islamic extremist groups are attempting to overthrow the current government and to instill Islamic law throughout Somalia.  In their quest they have murdered, looted and left a destructive path wherever they attack.  Islamic Terrorists are growing and well established threat that has been brewing since the early 1990's in Somalia.