Friday, May 2, 2014

A New Developing Disaster for the Empire

A day after warning that ethnic violence in South Sudan is spiraling toward all-out genocide, Secretary of State John F. Kerry landed in Juba, South Sudan this morning. Kerry's remarks Thursday were the strongest American warning yet that the African nation the United States helped to establish three years ago is at risk of collapse.

International peacekeepers with a U.N. mandate must get on the ground fast to separate the warring factions, Kerry said.

Personal and ethnic rivalries, reports WaPo, between South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and his former deputy, Riek Machar, erupted into warfare in December. The pace and severity of attacks has escalated in recent weeks, raising the specter of a genocidal rampage like the one in nearby Rwanda two decades ago.

More from WaPo:
South Sudan voted in 2011 for independence from Sudan, after decades of civil war and a fragile peace brokered partly by Washington. The United States was instrumental in getting the new government running, and it has pumped tens of millions into diplomatic and economic projects in South Sudan. Kiir has carried the official U.S. stamp of approval despite reservations within the administration and in Congress about his ethnic ambitions and ability to govern....Thousands of people have been killed since the political rupture between Kiir and Machar in December. Kiir is an ethnic Dinka, and Machar is a Nuer. U.S. officials say the two men are stoking ethnic tensions to settle personal scores. A January cease-fire agreement never took hold. Last month, civilians were massacred in mosques and targeted in hospitals.

4 comments:

  1. It's terrible about all those people being killed, but it is interesting that when the people of South Sudan voted for independence they got full support by the US, but when the people of Crimea voted to join Russia, they are outlaws, scoundrels, terrorists, and the election results are illegal!

    I don't know the backstory, but why did the US support the creation of South Sudan? US oil companies with strong ties to the area? Some other reason?

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  2. Separate Rothbardian neighborhoods for the different groups (to the extent that such would make them feel safe and comfortable) plus the NAP is just so THIN and racist.

    This type of ethnic violence and slaughter is the almost automatic result of multi-ethnic socialist democracy where the government controls much or most of the economy. Things always break down upon ethnic lines. I learned that when this Shepsle and Rabushka book was assigned along with "Power and Market" back in 1973. One man, one vote, once (or maybe twice).

    http://tinyurl.com/lg4gxlk

    We don't necessarily need to blame this on "empire". It's the fault of the organic beliefs of 99.999% the graduates of western colleges and universities.

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  3. South Sudan's President Salva Kiir has agreed to fly to Ethiopia for talks and to consider forming a transitional government to try and end four months of fighting in the world's newest nation, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday.

    Kerry, who met the president in South Sudan's capital Juba, said he hoped Kiir would be able to hold a face-to-face meeting with rebel leader Riek Machar as early as next week to settle a conflict which has already killed thousands.

    The top U.S. diplomat did not spell out what form a transitional government might take, or go into any details of what it might mean for Kiir's continued leadership of the oil-producing country........

    Concerns about continued violence, rampant corruption, failure to build political institutions have eroded much of the political goodwill in Washington towards the new country's leadership.


    https://news.yahoo.com/south-sudan-leader-ready-talks-end-bloodshed-kerry-145857032.html

    But EVERYONE knows that a government is what South Sudan needs to solve its problems. Which, of course, are easily solved by having a government, especially one that "manages" its economy. And who could possible provide that better than John Kerry, Obama and Hillary? Just like Detroit.

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  4. Wow, shocking. People 1 step away from mud huts are killing each other? Never. Africa offers nothing to the world but it's natural resources.

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