Under the pretext of responding to a humanitarian crisis, the U.S. government is calling for sending a force of several thousand troops to the Darfur region of western Sudan. The soldiers will be wearing UN blue helmets and their official mission will be “peace.” Like all UN-sponsored military interventions, however, this force will serve only one purpose: to enforce the predatory interests of Washington and other imperialist powers—the number one cause of war and exploitation in the world.

“Stop the genocide—save Sudan” is the cry today of liberal capitalist politicians, repeated by middle-class radicals. For the past two years, Democrats from Sen. John Kerry to Rep. Charles Rangel have sought to outdo the Bush administration in calling for an imperialist-organized military force to Darfur. Their argument is that “the world” must do “something” about the tens of thousands of people in Darfur who have been killed by government-backed militias or driven from their homes. This rationalization dovetails with Washington’s argument that Sudan is a “failed state” and thus “someone”—the imperialist powers—must step in and impose “peace.”

The U.S. government and the billionaire families it represents couldn’t care less about the people of Darfur. They do care about the fact that Sudan is the third-largest oil producing country in Africa. The purpose of military intervention will be to ensure greater U.S. control over Sudan’s natural wealth and to edge out Washington’s rivals in the worldwide imperialist drive for resources, markets, and territory. The aim is to pressure the Sudanese government, which has long been at odds with Washington, to get in line with imperialist dictates, as part of the U.S. rulers’ “long war” over the domination of the Mideast, Africa, and other regions of the world.

Under the Clinton administration Sudan was branded a “terrorist state” and its capital was bombed in 1998. The UN Security Council has decreed sanctions against Sudan, and 10,000 UN troops are already there under a pact ending a long civil conflict. Another 7,000 African Union troops are currently in Darfur.

UN military interventions have always served imperialist interests. The bloody record includes the U.S. war against Korea in 1950-53; the UN deployment to the Congo under which Patrice Lumumba, the country’s first prime minister, was assassinated in 1961 by pro-imperialist forces; and more recently, UN contingents in Yugoslavia and Haiti.

The main source of brutality, malnutrition, and disease in Sudan and elsewhere in the world is not “failed states.” It is imperialism, which has blocked the development of the economies of the semicolonial countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. For more than a century the imperialist powers—first British colonialism, today Washington—have fostered divisions in Sudan by language, religion, national origin, and geography.

Only the people of Sudan, who in the past have shown their ability to stand up to colonialism and oppression, can address the crisis in their country and establish a government that represents their interests.

UN or other imperialist-organized troops will only serve to block Sudanese peasants and workers from organizing to win their liberation.

No imperialist intervention in Sudan! End the sanctions!
 
 
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Sudan: U.S. gov’t presses for military intervention  
 
 
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