In/Dependence Day: Foreign Intervention Behind Creation of South Sudan

TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES:

The world welcomed a new nation to the international community last week as South Sudan officially became its own country. Obtaining independence from Sudan on July 9th, the Republic of South Sudan became the 193rd member state of the United Nations in a general assembly vote earlier this week and Africa's first new country since Eritrea became an independent state in 1993.

So far, coverage of the story in the western establishment media has unproblematically portrayed the creation of South Sudan as the hard-won fruit of a valiant and spontaneous liberation movement among the southern, mainly Christian and animist population,who have been engaged in a decades-long struggle against the mostly Arab north, where embattled President Omar al-Bashir has been broadly criticized for his rule. He was indicted last year by the International Criminal Court for genocide in the Darfur region.

However, critics and independent journalists note that Sudan has long been the victim of outside interference by western powers with financial interests in the vast resource wealth of the region. They allege that mainstream western press about South Sudan has gone out of its way to find human interest angles in the story that are conspicuously free of historical context or geopolitical analysis...