Dafur $’s Funding West Bank Settlements

By Thomas C. Mountain writers from Asmara, Eritrea

(March 10, Asmara, Eritrea, Sri Lanka Guardian) Persons working with aid organizations assisting the victims of the Dafur conflict have passed on the news that they have confirmed through their contacts in the so called “Save Dafur Coalition”that millions of dollars raised to help the Dafur refugees have ended up in Israeli bank accounts. These accounts help fund programs that include illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

These sources inside the pro-Israel organizations that control the “Save Dafur Coalition” estimate that over $100 million was raised for Dafur, though the exact amount may never be known due to the murky nature of the financial statements these organizations submit. What is known is that over half the money raised for Dafur was consumed by “operational expenses” for these organizations, meaning bloated salaries, expense accounts and the multimillion dollar publicity campaign that helped generate the donations. Only about 10% of the donations received ever made it to the Dafur refugees, with several millions ending up in Israeli bank accounts.

The Dafur funds were diverted to Israel by either co-mingling the funds with those used to support the Israeli projects or through a more complex system of grants to other “aid” or “relief” organizations that allowed the eventual destination of the funds to be almost impossible to trace.

For some time now aid workers in Dafur have been quietly pressuring the Save Dafur Coalition to turn over more of the tens of millions of dollars they have been collecting on the behalf of the Sudanese people in Dafur. People working inside the organizations that make up the coalition became upset when they discovered that aid raised on behalf of Dafur was being diverted to Israel and began supplying information to the aid workers on the ground in Dafur. Some of these aid workers finally broke their silence on the matter and passed on to us what they had confirmed from these Save Dafur insiders.

As previously reported the so called “Dafur Genocide” was a myth, or more accurately, a fraud, perpetuated by the western media and governments along with the pro-Israel “human rights” ngo’s to raise over a $100 million. UN and international aid workers involved in the Dafur relief effort are quietly proud of the fact that Dafur refugees are the beneficiaries of one of, if not the largest, best run relief works in history. These aid workers also acknowledge the fact that the Sudanese government played a critical role in support of the relief effort, which could not have succeeded without such support. It doesn't add up that on one hand the Sudanese government was committing genocide against the people of Dafur while at the same time playing a critical role in operating the largest best run relief works in history in support of the Dafur people.

As previously reported, a western funded genocide is being committed in the Ethiopian Ogaden by the Ethiopian government, but no genocide has ever been committed in Dafur. The whole “Dafur Genocide” campaign is nothing more than a smokescreen to vilify the Sudanese government in an attempt to promote western military intervention in oil and mineral rich Sudan, Africa’s largest and potentially wealthiest, country as well as to help divert attention from the real, western funded genocide being carried out in the Ogaden by the western cop on the beat in East Africa, Ethiopia.

The brazenness and breadth of this propaganda campaign has even surprised experienced observers of the long, dirty history of aid diversion in the Horn of Africa. Western governments, the UN, the western media, even Hollywood became part of the act with story lines “exposing” the Dafur “genocide” appearing in dramas such as Boston Legal amongst others.

Bernie Maddoff went to prison for his fraud, but it is highly unlikely that an investigation will be launched into the “Dafur Genocide” scam. And only an investigation by the US Justice Department has the power to search, seize and subpoena that will be required to really expose this whole criminal fraud.

So next time you hear about a campaign to “save” Africans be suspicious and remember just how big a lie was told about Dafur and how your hard earned money ended up somewhere you least expected, helping building Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Thomas C. Mountain can be reached at thomascmountain@yahoo.com

In a previous life Thomas C. Mountain was the publisher of the Ambedkar Journal and a founding member of the Phoolan Devi International Defense Committee