Articles

China should revise policies on Sudan

Mahgoub El-Tigani

22\4\06

The Americans and other western administrations have been asking the Chinese leadership to revise policies on Sudan and Iran. But the Sudanese, more than all world powers and economic entities, are the ones most directly affected by the political and economic policies of China on Sudan.

Apart from the nuclear power conflict in the Chinese-Iranian-Western relations, the unabated fears about the Gulf oil, and the other international agenda, what concerns us here is a Sudanese viewpoint on the reasons for the requested revisions on the Chinese policies on Sudan.

There are clear political concerns with the Chinese mechanical support of Sudan in the international arena, especially the United Nations Security Council, as well as major economic questions about the Chinese oil methodologies in South Sudan and other parts of the country.

Of particular importance is the way the revenues of these investments have been used by China to support the repressive rule of Sudan with virtually non-economic or social development projects in the oil-producing region, South Sudan, for almost a decade.

Recently, the Chinese working team on the construction of the Hamadab Dam at the Manasir/Robatab area in the Nile Province of North Sudan faced some forms of popular resistance from the local inhabitants who had been prevented from using the Nile drinking water for their animals by construction provisions imposed by the repressive rule of Sudan in agreement with the Chinese firm.

The Chinese company, however, went as far as inciting the authorities that responded promptly with armed forces to displace the inhabitants and their animals from the dam construction area.

This insensitivity to the local communities of North Sudan was an extension of graver indifferences by the Chinese investors towards many other communities in South Sudan.

The recurrence of the same attitude indicated the unwillingness of Chinese investing groups to appreciate the structure of Sudanese communities. It indicated further the failure of the former socialist advocates to recognize the political and economic functions of “the community,” or to consider the need to show adequate consideration to the social needs of “peoples” with respect to the Sudanese popular movement to gain political support to the cause of democracy and good governance in the war-trodden country.

China blind-eye policies in favor of the National Islamic Front’s (NIF) repressive rule vis-à-vis the Sudanese popular movement characterized the Chinese-Sudanese relations from the first day the China petroleum company assumed massive concessions in the South lakes of oil – a most rewarding prize for the former “socialist giant,” which replaced the American oil companies that discovered the South oil, but never had a chance to produce it under the burning fires of the NIF-escalated wars.

China, however, gave a blind eye to the warring conditions and their disastrous impacts that devastated, above all, the innocent inhabitants of the oil lakes. As a matter of fact, China participated fully in the war efforts of the NIF military rule by producing millions of barrels worth of billions of dollars in the 1990s throughout the 2000s from the ruthlessly protected oil fields by the Sudanese Armed Forces and the NIF brutal militias.

These violations were almost daily exercised, regardless of the gross human rights violations the government troops committed with or against other warring groups against the indigenous population, as reportedly documented by Sudanese groups as well as relief agencies and international human rights organizations.

The blind-eye policies of the Chinese leadership towards the humanitarian situation of the country’s war zones have been compounded by a consistent indifference to the civilized duty conferred by the Sudanese law as well as international norms upon all investing firms to address appropriately the social and economic needs of the hosting community.

The record of Chinese companies in establishing social services, such as hospitals and schools, or extending infrastructure erections, including roads and transport, in addition to communications, and the other tools of modernity is virtually negligible, safe for the military castles and the other monopoly signs that surround the oil fields.

Even today, with peace formally proclaimed in the South, the Government of South Sudan has to start social and economic development “from scratch” in the 50-year depleted region. “Where have all these billions of the South oil gone?” asked the pauperized natives.

Isn’t it a serious political responsibility of China, as well as an ethical liability on the former socialist state, that a new class of irresponsible army generals, blood-thirst militias, and avaricious businesses gained momentum via the Chinese oil politics in Sudan?

Does the Chinese leadership really know how much hurt China did to the Sudanese struggles for democracy and good governance in these passing years?

The biggest issue, nonetheless, is the Chinese most questionable, and yet never answerable support to the NIF military rule in the international arena. This is another form of the blind-eye policies that accompanied the oil fortunes since China began to lay a firm pragmatic anchorage unto the Sudan’s natural resources, irrespective of any humanitarian concerns, let alone a fair far-sighted “progressive” assessment by the side of people.

China protection of the NIF terrorist government exceeds by far the US$ 400 millions a year income that Sudan funnels into the treasury of China with nothing in exchange but a meager percentage of the total revenue of oil for the Government of Sudan.

A sizeable portion of Sudan’s oil returns, however, is regularly converted to the trade balance of China in terms of textiles, especially after the NIF rulers privatized Sudan’s state factories or simply closed their doors and expelled their “working class.” A greater portion of the trade balance then went to the NIF mediators and commissions while the generals got the expensive military equipment and the “training costs” of the Sudanese air force and other units.

These security-based economic and financial agreements disrupted the country’s local industries as well its trade balance in the world economy, to say nothing of the uncompensated losses of Sudanese market relations and tastes for the NIF-Chinese products.

From its part, the Sudanese Armed Forces was unashamedly converted to an aggressive guard of oil investments in the war zones versus the innocent inhabitants, the real owners of the oil wealth.

The NIF terrorist rule is genuinely responsible for the destruction of the professional armed forces of Sudan, as the respectable Commander-in-Chief the late General Fathi Ahmed Ali always said. China’s irresponsible arms deals with the hateful NIF regime through the oil bills and other economic sacking of the Sudanese traditional markets, however, made an effective contribution to that effect.

It is true that the shame on this documented record of non-humanitarian investments in the lands of Sudan is equally shared by the NIF government, which never showed a single sign of concern for the human worth of the people of Sudan all over the 17 years it suppressed the country with primitive politics, civil wars, and ruthless violence.

It is, nonetheless, unforgivable that China, a nation earlier recognized in the early 1970s by the same Sudanese it has been harassing with the terrorist rule of Sudan in the 1990s and the succeeding years, would most likely continue to act indifferently towards the international pressures and the Sudanese popular movement that China never recognized in pursuit of its opportune investments.

On top of these issues is China’s unrelenting support of the NIF terrorism, which has been proved, beyond any doubt, by the self-evident deeds as well as the pronounced confessions of the ruling junta.

The guilt of the ruling regime culminated in clear-cut accusations of crimes against humanity by the United Nations Security Council against top government officials and militia leaders in Darfur. There is no reason, whatever, for China to push aside the interests of the People of Sudan in these international decrees in the short-run or in the future.

Most likely, China would be motivated by its own ambitions to catch up with the other super-powers to maintain the biggest investor’s position in the Sudan’s oil so long as the NIF rulers would stay in the seats of power to suppress the peoples of Sudan, until the indigenous inhabitants of the oil areas would naturally decide to change the oil contracts at some point, as guaranteed by the Peace Comprehensive Agreements.

China, in principle, nonetheless, should not continue to give a blind eye to the shameless crimes of the Government of Sudan.

It is one thing to play the role of a big investing national company, as the China Petroleum Company did with the Sudan and its people. But it certainly is another thing to play the role of a super-power against the interests of suppressed nations or powerless populations.

Also, it is immoral to use the UN-Veto to defend a repressive regime versus the just and fair struggles of a country’s democratic movement.

The UN-Veto is a grandiose privilege that the Sudanese people, among many other nations, enabled China to enjoy. China, then, was a powerless, underdeveloped, and neglected nation that had been desperately seeking international recognition from the Sudan and other UN Member States.

If the old socialist slogans have already given way in China to a primitive form of capitalist investment that cares nothing for the human resources or needs so much as it cares for financial gains and economic benefits, it would be impossible for China to abandon the Sudan’s oil, as some western companies did under decent pressures by humanitarian and human rights groups.

The Chinese leadership, for all purposes, is asked to apply “advanced” capitalist measures in dealing with the Sudan’s natural wealth (in the absence of a popular democratic regime) to curb the “primitive” repercussions thus far obtained.

The oil revenue, for example, should never be channeled again into wasteful military efforts or non-competitive markets of cheap goods, especially after the signing of the Peace Agreements. The Sudanese oil revenues should be strictly used for human investment and real economic development, as all “advanced” firms in global economies.

It is the ruling regime’s obligation to execute such terms. It is equally the oil-producing companies and/or states, as in the case of China, to ascertain that such state obligations are firmly observed.

Regardless of the energy booming crisis that would inevitably generate unresolved inflation rates in China and the entire globe, which is already evident in the sky-rocketed oil prices, China for all good reasons must consider immediate revisions on its economic and political policies on Sudan.