Random Thoughts    
Darfur, Tibet and Taiwan
by Gaurang Bhatt, MD 

The civil war of genocidal proportions in Darfur has roots in ethnicity and oil. Henry Louis Gates, Harvard professor of African American studies in a PBS documentary about Zanzibar, sarcastically remarked that black persons who look no different from other black persons call themselves Arabs because they are Muslims and look down on slightly darker other non-Muslims as Africans. They speak the same language Swahili. Oman’s conquest and colonization of Zanzibar is the root of this divide.

The Indian caste system or “Varna” means color and had a similar basis. Today in India, despite it being constitutionally illegal, caste discrimination leads to violent conflicts in rural areas of many states, even though the color distinction is no longer a hallmark for caste categories due to the admixture by uncontrolled rampant libido of the invading Aryans of the past. Similar problems still plague the US and Brazil not only between blacks and whites but also within blacks due to difference in shades.

Sudan had a previous civil war between so-called Arab Muslims of the north and animists or Christians of the south. Both look similar and are not easily distinguishable. US Senator Danforth mediated a peace agreement that totters on the brink. Darfur is even more unique in that the Darfurians are Muslims, speak the same language and look almost the same as the Janjaweed who decimate them.

Subtle differences are magnified and the discovery of oil in the region (including neighboring Chad) is the added reason for the conflict. The oil hunger of China leads it to arm and ignore the crimes of the Sudanese central government. India for the same reasons keeps quiet on Darfur and has switched policy toward Myanmar. America’s shrill outrages are not motivated by any humanitarian considerations but by the same oil and Sudan’s connivance at the machinations of fanatic Islamists, as America’s sweeping under the rug of genocides in Rwanda and support of the Khmer Rouge (also by China) prove.

Tibet’s sorry state is a confluence of many factors. A few hundred years ago, one of two warring factions in Tibet sought the help of the Chinese emperor and acknowledged Chinese suzerainty in a minor way. The Dalai Lamas who ruled subsequently never developed the country’s economy or defense capability. The country remained weak and mired in ignorance and superstition.

The British Raj first invaded Tibet, killed a few defenders with superior guns (just as they murdered thousands with a machine gun in Sudan and Amritsar, India). The British expropriated a small part of Tibet and annexed it to India, leading to the present border dispute between India and China.

China has been equally aggressive in Aksai Chin and in claiming Arunachal Pradesh, now that it is strong. In its weak period, it lost territory in Siberia and the east (Vladivostok) to Czarist Russia, Manchuria to Japan, Hong Kong to Britain, Macao to the Portuguese and parts of Shanghai to many European powers.

The British created an equally bad problem between present day Pakistan and Afghanistan with the Durand line. The recent violence in Kenya has partial roots in the British exploiting divisions between the two major tribes. Of course the stupid and corrupt divisiveness of the Kenyans is the major cause. The Problems of Palestine are also of British origins as are their dastardly prior policies of old that caused problems in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia and Ian Smith) and South Africa (apartheid).

The folly of Tibetan fighting factions was also what led to the colonization of Ireland by Britain. Enough people of Northern Ireland were converted to British protestant faith to become a fifth column to create near permanent unrest and division. The foolish rivalry of Indian rulers promoted Muslim conquests and later they seeking the help of the French (Arcot) and British (Oudh) led to the British ruling India. A similar approach by the Muslim conquerors of India who triumphed by internal divisions led to conversion by the oppressed and the greedy and later the fragmentation of the Raj into present India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. An identical ruse was used by the West and Australia to engineer the independence of East Timor and Kosovo. The former has large offshore oil deposits and the latter is a keystone in the oil pipeline from the Trans-Caspian that avoids Russia and Iran, two of America’s arch enemies.

An additional reason for China to grab Tibet and control it is that the headwaters of major rivers supplying water to China, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia are in Tibet. China wants to control its water supply which it is short of, and have a stranglehold on that of its rival India and its potential vassals of Southeast Asia. This is the same as the US wanting to control the oil supplies in the Middle East and Central Asia and keep its vassals like Japan, South Korea, Europe and its enemy China and their jugular in grasp. This is why it created a new Africa Command for West African oil and is desperately seeking a military base and headquarters for it in Ghana or some West African nation.

China with its preference for sticks over carrots (Deng’s massacre at the Beijing square) is unlikely to negotiate with the Dalai Lama and stop maligning him. America, in hock to China and in dire need of its financing, will protest mildly with symbolic gestures of no effect. It has used up its trump cards against China in Darfur and six party talks about North Korea’s nuclear weapons. China made some concessions but will not do so for Tibet or Taiwan.

In my old article on “US, China and Taiwan-a foreign policy case study”, (www.saag.org) I had predicted that the increasing investment by Taiwanese business in mainland China would enhance the reunion of both. It is coming true with the defeat of the separatist and independence minded DPP and the victory of the conciliatory KMT party. China has smartly and slyly used economic pressure on America to rein in and emasculate the independent Taiwan faction and taken a leaf out of Kruschev’s book to steer Taiwan’s capitalists and KMT to sell China the rope to hang them with.

China has always been worried about disorder due to internal dissent. Historically, the loss of the mandate of heaven has been the forerunner of change of ruling dynasties. The latest communist dynasty is worried about the uneven regional prosperity, large pools of migrant labor deprived of their iron bowl of security (state jobs, health and education, increasing inflation), enrichment of corrupt local party leaders by peasant land appropriation and the end of double digit growth due to the looming global recession due to America’s idiotic financial shenanigans.

Some wise man stressed that violent unrest occurs not at the height of deprivation and oppression of the masses, but with marginal improvement of their lot with even faster rising unfulfilled desires and aspirations.

China has reached that stage of ripeness. It also knows that there is no way for America to repay its debt and China’s accumulated reserves could become fool’s gold eventually. This is why it is buying natural resources at exorbitant prices and will use the rest to buy food from America. America will reflate and massively increase food prices as it can grow food in abundance. China is also re-arming feverishly to defend against any American onslaught. America is doing the same to be able to bully its debtors, capture resources (Iraq, Iran) and intimidate its opponents. Russia and the rest of the world are waiting in the sidelines letting America and radical Islam duke it out. 

March 24, 2008

Image under license with Gettyimages.com

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