Warning: This article contains graphic depictions of cruelty.

A Bloody Jihad

In 1989, a coup d'etat by Arab Muslim extremists gained control of the government of Sudan. Soon, the government was dominated by members of the Iranian-backed National Islamic Front, and was engaged in a bloody jihad against African non-Muslims in the south. The fighting is spearheaded by men like Commander Taib Musba, who the Sudanese government wants to decorate as a war hero:

In 1986, Musba entered the Uduk tribal capital of Chali and declared to its Christians: "You are all going to convert from Christianity to Islam today, because here is what's going to happen to you if you don't."

Musba then killed five church leaders in front of the gathered villagers. When they refused to convert, he began killing unarmed men, women and children. Some were herded at gunpoint into a hut then run over by a 50-ton, Soviet-made tank.

He also herded groups of about a dozen people into a hut, where he asked the first person "Do you renounce Jesus Christ?" Anyone who refused was killed by a three-inch nail driven into the top of the head.

Such tactics are typical:

Villagers in several areas of the northeast Upper Nile region say that when women are captured by government forces they are asked: "Are you Christian or Muslim?"

Women who answer "Muslim" are set free, but typically soldiers gang-rape those who answer "Christian" then cut off their breasts and leave them to die as an example for others.

During the jihad, the government has also used mass starvation as a weapon of war. By burning fields and grain storage silos in non-Muslim areas, and then blocking international aid to the starving population, they have created starvation in what was once a land of plenty. Since 1983, two million have starved to death, and another four million have been forced from their homes and land.

During this time, Sudan's government also hosted many Islamic terrorist organizations, including Hezbolla, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood, Osama bin Laden (who was a close friend of the speaker of Sudan's Parliament), and many, many others.

The Sudanese government was also believed to have played a direct facilitating role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and a later attempt to assassinate Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

The French and German Role

How have our noble, peace-loving European brothers helped smooth these troubled waters? According to a recent Boston Globe article (excerpted here), when the US first sponsored UN sanctions against Sudan:

[France and Germany] led the EU in the opposite direction. France provided Khartoum with military intelligence for the prosecution of the jihad, while French and German helicopters have been used for ethnic cleansing in southern Sudan's oil fields. Driving black, non-Muslims out of their homes creates greater security for the investments of oil firms like Total Fina (France/Belgium) and the German engineering giant Mannesmann.

The Sudanese government's role in the revival of the country's once-dormant slave trade formed the greatest single political obstacle to legitimizing the EU's appeasement policy. France and Germany therefore spearheaded a UN whitewash of this crime against humanity. With the rest of the EU and their new East European satellite states in tow, [France and Germany] overcame American objections and easily persuaded the UN Commission on Human Rights to censor any use of the word ''slavery'' from official documents on Sudan and replace it with the euphemism ''abduction'' -- a lesser offense.

The Current Situation

Things have improved recently, though we are not "out of the woods" yet. Even now, one in four children in the southern Sudan are "acutely malnourished". Yet, through international pressure and sanctions, both the northern government and southern rebels have been brought to the negotiating table and are, for the first time, negotiating in good faith, for the moment at least.

What could go wrong?

In a word: France.

With a bit of help from the UN Human-Rights Council.

According to the Institute on Religion and Democracy, France has been continuing its alliance and support of the goals of the Sudanese government, currently by lobbying to remove Sudan's designation as a "human rights problem" (emphases mine):

[T]he government of Libya, current UNHRC chair, is reportedly leading an effort to take Sudan out of the "gross violations" category and to dismiss the U.N. Special Rapporteur to Sudan. According to news reports, a French official in Washington, D.C., has confirmed that France would support Libya's move to change Sudan's human rights status.

(The U.N. Special Rapporteur monitors Sudan's behavior, deterring further human rights abuses. With the Rapporteur removed, the Sudanese government would be able to resume it's jihad outside international scutiny.)

Hey, at least France is keeping good company: Libya!
Just about right.

"Such an upgrade for Sudan would be disastrous, coming at a critical juncture in the peace talks between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement," McDonnell declared. "It would reward the Government of Sudan for its continued violations of the ceasefire agreement signed by both parties. It's obvious that France is more concerned with Total Fina Elf's [a French oil company] investments in Sudan's oil than with effective UN monitoring of human rights in Sudan," she added.

Yep, it's all about oooil, isn't it, Chirac?