A Brief History of the CIA’s Dirty War in South Sudan

A Brief History of the CIA’s Dirty War in South Sudan

With the CIA’s Dirty War in South Sudan winding down its time to take
a brief but comprehensive look at the origins and history of this most
secret of Pax Americana crimes in Africa.

It is in the national interests of the USA to deprive China of access
to African energy resources, with the Sudanese oil fields being the
only Chinese owned and operated in Africa. It was no coincidence that
one of the first targets of the “rebellion” in South Sudan was the
Chinese oil fields. It has been US vs China in South Sudan from the
start.

To begin this history we must go back to the origins of the South
Sudan peace process that developed in 2004. This new breakthrough came
about following the East Sudan uprising and subsequent intervention in
Sudan by the Eritrean military in support of the Beja and Rashida
peoples movement in 2003. Eritrean commandos cut the Port
Sudan-Khartoum highway, the lifeline for 25 million residents of
Sudans capital. For two weeks the Sudanese army counterattacked and
ended up utterly defeated by the Eritrean special forces.

Facing critical food and fuel shortages the Sudanese officer core that
was then the base of support for the recently deposed Omar Al Bashir
capitulated and as part of the peace deal agreed to begin good faith
negotiations with the various Sudanese resistance groups, both east,
south and even, supposedly, in the west.

This resulted in John Garang, head of the Sudanese Peoples Liberation
Movement and the President of Sudan Omar Al Bashir sitting down
together to sign a comprehensive peace deal in Asmara, Eritrea late in
2004.

In December of 2004 we flew into Asmara, Eritrea and checked into the
old Imperial Hotel, the Emboisoira, and found ourselves sharing
breakfast with senior leaders of the SPLM. We had a satellite dish
back in the US with EritreanTV so we had seen our breakfast mates on
the news covering the recently signed peace deal in Asmara. They were
all in high spirits, still excited about the prospect for peace in
Sudan.

Later, after returning home to the USA in 2015 we heard of a new peace
deal, this time being signed in Navaisha in Kenya. And this time the
deal was brokered by the USA. The only real difference between the
2004 Asmara agreement and the 2005 Kenya deal was the inclusion of a
clause calling for a referendum on independence for South Sudan.

The USA forced Bashir and Garang to accept this independence
referendum after forcing a new peace “negotiation” and eventual, deal,
in Kenya, away from Eritrean mediation efforts. Carrot and the stick,
inducements and threats by the worlds superpower forced Garang and
Bashir to accept the dismemberment of Sudan and created the conditions
for one of the most brutal civil wars in African history. This was the
doings of the USA from the get go.

After signing the peace deal John Garang, as head of the Sudanese
Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM), held his first public rally in
Khartoum and drew a million people or more, three times the largest
crowd Bashir had ever had. There he made a fateful speech.

John Garang made it clear that he was strongly AGAINST independence
for South Sudan, instead calling on his fellow Sudanese in the North
to help elect him president to build a new Sudan based on equal rights
and justice for all Sudanese.

Garang stated his intent to be politically independent from the
western powers instead looking to China, already in the oil business
in Sudan, to develop Sudans economy. Sudan, as a whole, is the largest
and potentially richest country in Africa and for the USA to lose
Sudan to China wasn’t acceptable to Pax Americana.

John Garang was dead two weeks later in a mysterious helicopter crash
and with him died a unified Sudan.

With in a few years a referendum was held for “independence” for South
Sudan and voila it was a done deal. The irony is that John Garang, who
was vehemently against independence for South Sudan, is now proclaimed
“The Father” of the South Sudanese independent state.

In 2009 my old friend Alexander Cockburn contacted me asking for a
story about what was going on vis a vis Sudan/South Sudan. I had been
living next door in Eritrea for the past few years and I responded
with “Storm Clouds Over South Sudan” which Alex and Jeffrey St.
Claire published on their website “Counterpunch” where I predicted the
upcoming holocaust in the worlds newest “independent” country.

I only wish my words had not come true.

I was repeatedly forced to continue exposing the CIA’s dirty war in
South Sudan over the next few years with titles like “US vs China in
South Sudan”, “The CIA’s DIrty War in South Sudan” amongst others in
an attempt to shine the light of day on this most dirty, and secret,
CIA covert war.

I am not exagerating when I call the civil war in South Sudan the most
secret major covert military operation by the CIA in the Agency’s
history. The proof of this is the fact that not a single writer other
than myself has made this charge. This might be explained by the
lengths prominent western journalists have attempted to point the
blame away from the Agency and instead at the South Sudanese peoples
themselves.

Its been horrific first hand stories by award winning progressive
journalists that painted this dirty war as black on black, African
tribal violence at its worst.

When I pointed out to one of the more prominent journalists that the
rebels were being paid $300 a month salaries, they denied the accuracy
of my claim. In an exchange on Twitter he said that the rebels were
making maybe $300 a year if that, so no need to explain the $6 million
a month it would take to pay 20,000 rebel combatants salaries?

The problem with this assertion is that former South Sudanese rebel
fighters have confirmed being paid $300 a month when they were under
arms. In South Sudan young men join the army because it’s the only way
to get enough money to feed your family, not out of patriotic zeal.
When the money periodically dried up, usually stolen by the rebel
generals, the soldiers start to leave, as my sources had experienced.

Do the math, 20,000 rebels paid $300 a month times 6 years plus food,
fuel and ammo and you come out with over $500 million and counting?
Honestly now, who has a history of coming up with that amount of cash,
entirely secret for that long but the CIA? Must we be reminded of the
CIA’s dirty wars in Angola and Mozambique in support of South African
Apartheid back in the 1970’s and 80’s?

Show me the money, right? How come no one in the international media
has ever asked this question? The rebels have no visible means of
support, where could they be getting their funds from?

This story remains the best kept secret “dirty war” the CIA has ever
operated. Until the Chinese brought in a couple thousand armed
“peacekeepers” to protect their oil fields this CIA operation was
successful, shutting down, temporarily Chinese oil production in South
Sudan. But more importantly, it pretty much shut down Chinese
expansion in South Sudan. That is what this dirty war was all about,
preventing China from gaining a major foothold in Africa’s oil fields.

Show me the money? Show me the ONLY party that benefits from this war?
Thats right, the ONLY party to benefit from this brutal, foreign
funded African holocaust has been Pax Americana, the U.S. of A, by
shutting down Chinese oil production and expansion in South Sudan.

Today peace has broken out in South Sudan, shaky as it may be. The CIA
had been using the former regime in power in Ethiopia, the TPLF, to
funnel their filthy lucre to the rebel armies in South Sudan but with
the “Peaceful Revolution” breaking out in Ethiopia this avenue to the
rebels was cut off. The rebel leadership had no choice but to cut a
deal with South Sudan President Salva Kiir for cash so they could pay
their troops salaries. No money, no honey, you get what you pay for
and without hard CIA cash to pay their troops it became “Give peace a
chance”. Of course corruption remains rife and stolen salaries for
various ethnically based military departments have continued to cause
revolts and instability.

Yet so far the peace deal signed, sealed and delivered in Asmara in
2018 has been holding. The CIA are now almost completely out of the
picture in South Sudan though one should never underestimate the
Agency’s capacity for evil. Its in the US national interest to deny
China access to African oil so it will always continue to be US vs
China in South Sudan, as part of Pax Americana’s designs for Africa as
a whole.

Thomas C. Mountain is an historian and educator living and reporting
from Eritrea since 2006. See thomascmountain on Facebook, tell him Ryan Dawson sent you