Propaganda

First of all I’d like to say that it’s getting a bit ‘cooler’ again over here. Or maybe my body has adjusted itself to the heat. In any case, the weather is feeling a lot more bearable these days. Today there is even a welcome breeze flowing through the apartment, making writing this entry as enjoyable and relaxing as before. As long as the temperature doesn’t suddenly go up by 10 degrees, you won’t find me complaining about the weather any time soon again.

At work I’ve also been offered promising perspectives. My new boss told me yesterday that he and I need to discuss what new responsibilities I can assume within the team. He said he wants to accord me more managerial responsibilities! What this means concretely, I’ll find out once we have our talk somewhere early next week. But he did tell me he would like to reshuffle the management of our running human rights project. I would then be managing 5 to 10 of those directly, to alleviate my colleagues somewhat as they are now taking on too many projects to be able to manage all of them efficiently. This is of course excellent news. I will have to educate myself on the projects, after which I will be the person within the Delegation that will monitor every issue of the project (contractual situation, implementation, financial payments, etc.). This will come on top of me staying the manager for the new human rights programme that will be launched – most likely – early April. So I expect I’ll be getting very busy and active at work from then onwards, until the end of the internship. Because April is when the busy period starts for the Section. And it doesn’t stop until the end of the year.

Of course they’ll almost immediately have to miss me for a while because I’m planning my leave for somewhere around mid-April, but I’m sure they will survive without me. By the way, I’ll not be taking my leave in Belgium, so those of you at home who were hoping to (not) see me over the coming months, can have their moment of disappointment/excitement now.

… The wind just made the terrace door slam shut, causing a piece of the wall to fall off. Sudanese-style construction…

The main topic I wanted to write about today is government propaganda again. This will basically be a follow-up to what I wrote earlier about the Sudanese-European Relations Forum.

In the last entry I commented on reporting on the Forum in a Sudanese newspaper. This was an independent newspaper. Yesterday, following the closing of the Forum on Wednesday, the Sudan Vision reported extensively on the Forum. The Sudan Vision is the English government controlled newspaper. I normally don’t read it, because you basically can’t trust anything they write as it is a propaganda tool for the NCP regime. However, sometimes – as in this case – it provides for an interesting study on misinformation and even indoctrination of Sudanese citizens.

On a side note, I can only imagine how much worse it is in the many Arabic newspapers.

First headline on the front page of the Sudan Vision’s edition of Thursday 13 April: “ICC Intervention Prolongs the Crisis in Darfur, Hoile”. Hoile is the Director of the infamous ESPAC I wrote about earlier. Some extracts from the article: “the deployment of UN troops in Darfur is more likely to fuel rebellion rather than bring peace”; “through its support to the International Criminal Court, the European Union has further complicated the situation in Darfur”; “[he] urged the [European] Union to oppose Washington’s calls for escalating the crisis in Darfur”. Hoile – who is a UK citizen! – furthermore insinuates that it are the “rebels” who are obstructing the peace process as they are unwilling or unable to negotiate and that therefore (economic) sanctions against Khartoum are unjustified.

Further on in the newspaper, the Final Statements and Recommendations of the Forum can be found.

The Statement starts as follows: “The Forum aspired to run a national and composed dialogue to explore common factors that will boos these [Sudanese-European] relations and push forth means of cooperation between the two sides to better be able to dedicate efforts of development, establishment of the milestones of comprehensive peace, triggering a positive transformation in the progress of these relations and enhancing the European dialogue via the outcome and recommendations of the Forum. The Forum was also aimed at taking note of the dimensions of Sudanese-European relations, foreign policy trend of the two sides, the feasibility of investigating the prospects of these relations and the creation of political, media-oriented and diplomatic bent that underscores the need for upgrading political, economic and cultural ties between the two sides as well as open outlets with the European Union as an influential group in view of its role in the international community”. Very noble, albeit vaguely formulated, intentions. And they sound promising on paper. Only, there was no dialogue. The Statement gives the impression the EU was actively involved in the Forum. It was not. The ‘European’ co-organiser was a private organisation whose opinions and objectives are completely out of line with those of the EU. In fact, the organisation appears to be nothing more than another pawn – or conspirator – in the hands of the NCP propaganda machine. More than a dialogue, the Forum was a one-sided Sudanese construction, meant to boost the regime’s image.

Under recommendations, the Statement includes the following: “2- Activating the role of the media to undertake its role to reflect the true image of Sudan in order to counter the premeditated distortion of that image by the mechanisms of the international media. 3- [...] maintain a Sudan that is unified in both territory and people [...] 4- [...] exploiting the technical aid via the African-Caribbean Pacific Group. [...] 6- Building a comprehensive national strategy to control and endorse the routes and progress of the national economy. 7 Establishing a balanced and equitable economic and developmental partnership between Sudan and Europe in view of the abundant potential and resources of Sudan and Europe’s need for these potentials and resources.” The message is clear: international media have misguided Europe’s perception of Sudan, which should be remedied so that Europe can re-enter into substantial economic cooperation with a Sudan in which the ruling regime will ensure its full control of the economy and all resources through maintaining a unified Sudan. It also indicates the primary reason for which the ruling regime wants to maintain the unity of the country – the South will hold a referendum on self-determination and thus possible independence in 2011 – namely the presence of rich natural resource (=oil), the majority of which is located in the South.

Further on, the entire text of one of the papers presented at the Forum is printed. The article, entitled “American Influence on the Progress of Sudanese-European Relations”, is written in an apparently academic style, but reveals along its lines a few questionable statements and a general line insinuating a Zionist and Christian conspiracy against (northern) Sudan. Examples are: “The second change was the eruption of the Darfur crisis and the expansion of its scope, which could not have happened without the intervention and pressures made by the same parties [United States, Europe and United Nations]”; “[t]he success of Israel and neo-conservatives in imputing to Sudan the charge of supporting terrorism despite Sudan’s intelligence cooperation with the CIA and President Bush’s persistence of accusing Sudan of genocide at each and every turn is a matter that is difficult to understand. [...] Sudan has become the underdog that can be kicked about whenever the American or European countries elections loomed in the horizon”; “European countries cannot watch passively the loss of markets and resources such as exist in Sudan because of pressures of Zionist lobby and theories of the neoconservatives”.

On the back page, Sudan Vision published pictures taken at the Forum. In colour. Most depicting male or female white ‘Europeans’ attending the Forum. Without indication as to who they are.

Lastly, I would like to mention that, although there were no EU representatives present to my knowledge, the US Chargé d’Affaires to Sudan did attend the Forum and delivered a speech in which he defended US policy towards Sudan.

Unrelated to the Sudanese-European Relations Forum, but a further example of the ‘quality’ of Sudan Vision, is an article entitled “US Foolish Joke no Longer Amusing! Is America Qualified for Talking about Human Rights?”. The article, which focuses on Guantanamo Bay and the US prison system, is clearly a counter-action from the government to the recent publication by the US State Department of its yearly country human rights reports. Obviously Sudan did not score very well in the State Department’s report – by the way, these reports are quite accurate and a good source for general information on the human rights situation in individual countries. So the government of Sudan decided to go for the diminish-the-credibility-of-your-enemy-to-distract-attention-from-your-own-situation strategy. The article is published on the page prior to the one containing the article on “American Influence …”

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While writing this I thought of something related. You might already know this, but for those who don’t – I actually didn’t before I came here –, the official position of the Sudanese government is that only 9,000 people have died in the Darfur conflict since it started in 2003, as opposed to the generally accepted estimate of 200,000 – 250,000 victims.