| by Thomas C. Mountain
( January 7, 2014 – Eritrea – Sri Lanka Guardian) Ethiopia has been active in destabilizing South Sudan and has been repeatedly caught providing arms to “rebels” in the Jonglei and Unity States in the north of the country during the past year.
Some of these arms are reported to being used against UN peacekeepers on top of the general ethnic based slaughter that the rebels have been committing across South Sudan.
Ethiopia, which has upwards of 10,000 troops (“peacekeepers”) occupying the borders between Sudan and South Sudan (which includes the oil fields) has been hosting the leader of the “rebellion”, Riek Machar, who has been reported to be hiding out in one of his multi million dollar palaces in Addis Ababa.
Riek Machar, nominal leader of the Nuer tribe at the center of the ”rebellion” comprising about 10% of South Sudan, has been accused of stealing over $2 billion of the over $10 billion oil revenues stolen by the South Sudanese leadership in the last 7 years.
He, along with his partners in crime on the South Sudanese cabinet of thieves is blaming President Salva Kiir and his Dinka tribe for why none of the $15 Billion in oil revenues has made it down to the Nuer people. “Thief crying Thief” best describes it.
One of the first demands Riek Machar made post “coup” attempt was that his cronies arrested by the Salva Kiir government be released and flown to Ethiopia. One of his next demands was that all “peace talks” be held in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, though how serious he is can be seen by his demand that Salva Kiir must resign before any serious talks begin.
Ethiopia, a country of 80 million plus, imports all of its fuel needs and spends upwards of 75% of its foreign currency on fuel imports. This past year Ethiopia’s economy saw its total foreign earnings decline due to a plunge in coffee prices (somehow the western media keeps reporting on how Ethiopia’s economy is booming even though its export income has fallen?).
The Ethiopian regime is desperately in need of oil, and Riek Machar’s behind the scene demands for a share of not just oil income but actual oil itself would seem to explain Ethiopia’s destabilizing South Sudan.
And the USA, the real hand behind the civil war in South Sudan, for Ethiopia is Pax Americana’s local enforcer in East Africa, wants to see the end of all Chinese energy projects in Africa, with Sudan being China’s number one project.
But then the USA was the hand behind the creation of South Sudan in the first place. The irony of how John Garang, revered as the founding father of South Sudan was a vociferous opponent of any such thing is completely absent from any discussion of the South Sudanese civil war in the mainstream media as well as the alternative sites.
It was just a few weeks before his very suspicious death in a helicopter crash that John Garang had made his first ever address to the people of north Sudan, speaking before over 1 million people in Khartoum in 2005 (President Bashir has never rallied more than a tenth of John Garangs crowd).
And what did Mr. Garang say that fateful day? That he was completely, unconditionally opposed to severing the nation of Sudan, that Sudan would be reborn with equal rights and justice for all Sudanese when he, John Garang, was elected President of Sudan in the next election. And fatal for his relationship with Pax American, he declared Sudan under his presidency would be independent politically and NOT work with the west on matters economic, preferring to cooperate with China instead. For Africa’s largest, and potentially richest country to take such a course was out of the question and John Garang would die in a fiery helicopter crash within weeks. And in due course South Sudan would become independent, in accordance with the wishes of Pax Americana, and the “Storm Clouds Over South Sudan” would break, flooding the country with ethnic massacres and heartbreaking sufferings, once again, for it’s people.
The Golden Rule in the Horn of Africa is that any major conflict will find its roots in Ethiopian subterfuge and espionage and the present murder and mayhem in South Sudan is no exception. And until the long awaited regime change in Ethiopia comes to pass ($12 billion a year in foreign aid, loans and “investments” helps explain the delay) one would be well advised to expect more depressing images of ethnic violence as the South Sudanese civil war continues to rage.
Thomas C. Mountain, author of “Storm Clouds Over South Sudan” in 2010 and “US Plan To Destabilize Sudan” in 2012 is a life long activist, educator and cultural historian, living and writing from Eritrea since 2006. He can be reached at thomascmountain_at_yahoo_dot_com.
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