Countries
like Yemen, Chad and South Sudan have been devastated by famine and
starvation in recent years, with millions of people suffering despite
a global surplus of food. But the problem is not a lack of resources
- they are starving due to the effects of unending Western
imperialism.
by
Eric Draitser
Part
4 - South Sudan: New country, old story
When
the nation of South Sudan was carved out of what had formerly been a
unified Sudan by the United States and the “international
community,” some argued that civil war was inevitable. Indeed, with
simmering conflicts such as the war in Darfur and periodic clashes in
Abyei Province, South Sudan seemed a likely candidate to become a
failed state within a very short time. And that’s precisely what
happened.
Today,
the country faces mass starvation, and in some areas, famine. Though
the United Nations recently announced that South Sudan is no longer
facing famine, it also highlighted the fact that more than two
million people there are on the brink of starvation, with many more
suffering from malnutrition.
According
to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and South
Sudan’s National Bureau of Statistics, at least six million people,
or half the country’s population, will face extreme food shortages
between June and July this year. FAO representative Serge Tissot
concisely explained, “People are in a catastrophic situation.”
But
why? What has created this catastrophe?
On
the surface, the famine and food insecurity have been caused by a
civil war which seems to be a straightforward power struggle between
President Salva Kiir and his former deputy, Riek Machar. And indeed,
it is. The war has led to political and economic disarray, with all
the attendant problems ranging from forced conscription of children
to the destruction of infrastructure and much worse.
However,
as with all conflicts in Africa, the truth is far more complex and
rooted in neo-colonial interests on the continent. In this case,
South Sudan is merely the latest victim of the curse of oil – the
sad reality that countries with oil resources are always going to be
targets for the U.S.-NATO empire. This is doubly true in South
Sudan’s case, considering the centrality of the Sudan region to
China’s long-term ambitions both on the continent and globally.
Indeed,
by 2011, when the United States and its allies ultimately divided the
nation of Sudan in two, with oil resources having been incorporated
into the new South Sudan, Sudan had become essential to China’s
investment and economic development. In fact, Sudan accounted for 8
percent of China’s total oil imports (China being the recipient of
a whopping 78 percent of total Sudanese exports). This makes it quite
clear that any attempt to divide Sudan into two countries was a de
facto attempt to deprive China of a principal trading partner.
And
with the 2011 partition of Sudan and the creation of the independent
nation of South Sudan, Washington and its allies believed they had
dealt a serious blow to Beijing’s aspirations in Africa. But this
was not to be, as Beijing moved quickly to establish important
economic ties with the newly constituted South Sudanese government
under President Kiir.
Since
2011, Beijing has entrenched itself as the dominant trading partner
and economic benefactor behind South Sudan, with tens of billions
invested, especially in the oil sector. And so, it should come as no
surprise that South Sudan has been plunged into a civil war that has
made it a very tricky proposition for the Chinese as they seek to
expand their economic hegemony in east Africa.
Surely
the deaths of hundreds of thousands, and the misery of millions is a
small price to pay for the profit margins of ExxonMobil, BP, and
Shell. Surely Lockheed, Boeing, and Raytheon are a worthy trade-off
for the lives of untold thousands of infants. Of course,
outmaneuvering China is well worth watching an entire nation slide
into the abyss. Such is the rationale of imperialism and
neo-colonialism.
More
than two hundred years ago, Thomas Malthus articulated the true logic
of British imperialism: the lives of the poor meant little in the
context of the life of the British Empire; famine was just nature’s
way of thinning the herd, so to speak. Malthus laid the foundation
for the imperial logic that has guided the political and geopolitical
considerations of the British and US Empires since. When he spoke of
“premature death” visiting the human race, what he really meant
was that this was good, this was natural. And who could possibly want
to challenge nature?
Two
hundred years later Mike Davis, in his classic work “Late Victorian
Holocausts,” noted that rather than seeing the famines of the Late
Victorian period of the British Empire as merely natural and benign
phenomena, they should instead be viewed as powerful drivers of
imperialism and a world economic system designed around British
commercial interests – capitalism, in other words.
While
climatic changes and other factors have played into those famines,
just as they do today – climate change does remain a principal
driver of famine throughout the Global South – it was imperialism
that used those famines as business and investment opportunities.
Today,
the famines and food insecurity we see around the world can be
directly attributed to the same world system, the same sets of
economic and political imperatives, the same lack of humanity.
Because try as we may to pretend otherwise, we are no better than
those who came before us.
So
long as the Empire and its capitalist economic system continues its
global hegemony, we will continue to see the skeletal faces and
emaciated bodies of children whose only crime was being born in the
wrong part of the world.
***
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