Round Round Get Around... 9

They get around.

"On the partition of Sudan a lot can be said. Yes, the Arab North (with Soviet and later, US support) has dealt with the South with a combination of neglect, racism and cruelty. However, Israeli hands have been present in the southern rebellion fom the start. In fact, there has been no secessionist movement in the Arab world in which Israel has not been heavily involved, either in support of the government (as in Oman) or in opposition to the government (as in Iraq, Sudan, Lebanon, etc). The referendum is a sham. This one of the most illiterate areas in the world. The US creates an artificial mark for voter turnout level as a criterion, and then spends lavishly on a PR campaign in favor of secession. No matter how bad successive Sudanese governments have been (especially that of the US puppet and kook, Ja'far Numayri), the point I'm making is that this is all cooked up by the US. Also, there is something very fishy about the behaviour of the tyrant, Omar Bashir. He suddenly accepted the referendum and his ambassador even said that if the South wanted to establish relations with Israel, it was their business. Bashir has received political and/or financial payment from the US for his silence. For a corrupt ruler like Bashir, anything is possible. And what can be more annoying than when he dances with a cane? Oh, and would Obama and Carter have been in favor of a referendum of the US South prior to the Civil War? Just asking." (As'ad AbuKhalil, angryarab.blogspot.com, 10/1/11)

"The Sudan was a part of Israel's extended periphery strategy as early as the 1950s. In 1956, Israel developed contacts with the pro-Western Umma Moslem Party of Sudan. The Umma Party, one of the two traditional leading parties in the Sudan (and winner of the 1986 elections), has always been nationalist, leaning away from close relations with Egypt. Israeli interests in supporting it were quite clear.

"But Israel's most serious intervention in the Sudan took place in the 1960s, and was part and parcel of other Israeli involvements. It was the secret operation in support of separatist rebels in southern Sudan. 'The southern Sudanese, like the Kurds in the Middle East, are a minority ripe for manipulation by more powerful forces in the course of regional power politics'. The southerners, 6 million out of a population of 15 million, are black and mostly Christians, while the northerners are Arabs and Moslems. The south is much poorer. Since the 1960s, frictions between north and south have led more than once to open war. Israel was involved in the civil war in southern Sudan in the late 1960s. The southern rebel movement, Anyanya, was supported by an Israeli military mission, which supplied training and arms, the arms presumably captured during the 1967 war.

"Israeli involvement in southern Sudan was in evidence as early as 1963, through contacts with Israeli embassies in Uganda, Ethiopia, the Congo, and Chad. After 1969, the Israeli support took the form of arms, advisers, and training. There was an Israeli mission in Torit, and 30 Anyanya men were trained in Israel. The Israeli ambassador to Kampala, Uri Lubrani, was in charge of the Anyanya connections. The mercenary Rolf Steiner, who fought with the Anyanya, testified in August, 1971 before a military tribunal in Khartoum that Israel reached an agreement with Uganda in 1970 regarding the use of Ugandan territory to aid the Sudanese rebels. Steiner also stated that Israel was the only effective source of aid to the rebels. Others state that these covert operations were coordinated with the United States.

"The Addis Ababa Agreement on Southern Sudan of 1972 ended the southern rebellion and the Israeli intervention. Between 1972 and 1985, during the regime of Gaafer al-Nimeiry, Israeli contacts with the Sudan were rather friendly, though mostly secretive. The end of the rebellion in southern Sudan led to closer relations. The Mossad has had a station in Khartoum since then. There have been extensive contacts between the Mossad and its Sudanese equivalent in the 1980s. Mossad activities in the Sudan have been coordinated with the CIA, as many sources indicate. In public, Mr Nimeiry was one of the few Arab leaders to support the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in 1979. The coup in Sudan on April 6, 1985, ended the cooperation between Nimeiry and the Israeli government. The new military regime headed by General Abdel Rahman Siwar al-Dahab has been cool toward the United States and has developed closer ties with Libya and Ethiopia." (The Israeli Connection: Whom Israel Arms & Why, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, 1987, pp 47-49)