Singer, who has extensively studied the role of private military firms in international conflicts, observed the following about Blackwater’s Sudan pitch:
The firms go about talking about how they would save kittens in trees if only the big bad international community would let them, but the situation is just far more complex than that. This kind of lobbying often attempts to confuse folks…. The issue preventing effective action in Darfur is not simply a matter of financial costs. That is, there is not some imaginary price point that only if such firms could come in under, it would solve things. The real problem is that it is a political mess on the ground, there is no effective UN mandate, no outside political will to engage for real, plus a Sudanese government that is obstructionist and effectively one of the sides (meaning if you go in without a mandate, you gotta be willing to kick the doors down, destroy air bases, etc. which no firm has the capacity to do, and sends the issue back to US/NATO/UN), thus far preventing a useful deployment. So even if you got firms willing, you still have to solve those problems.30
But Sudan’s value to Blackwater stretched beyond a single peacekeeping contract or purported humanitarian concerns for the victims in Darfur. It was Blackwater’s ticket into a whole new world of potential growth—Darfur became the rallying cry for a rebranding operation aimed at winning massive international contracts for mercenary firms. Unlike the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which was overwhelmingly opposed by a majority of the world, calls for intervention in Darfur are much more widespread and, therefore, an easier sell for Blackwater and its allies for increasing the use of private soldiers. Indeed, even at antiwar rallies, scores of protesters held signs reading, “Out of Iraq, Into Darfur.”
A quick survey of Sudan’s vast natural resources dispels any notion that U.S./corporate desires to move into Sudan derive from purely humanitarian motives. First off, because of Sudan’s designation by the State Department as a sponsor of terrorism, U.S. corporations are prohibited from investing in Sudan. As a result, China has become the major player in exploiting Sudan’s tremendous oil supplies.31 While Sudan is not a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, it was granted observer status in August 2001, a distinction reserved for significant global oil producers. 32 Four years later, its proven oil reserves had expanded sixfold to 1.6 billion barrels, the thirty-fifth-largest in the world33—all inaccessible to U.S. oil corporations. The China National Petroleum Corporation owns 40 percent—the largest single share—of the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company, the consortium that dominates Sudan’s oilfields.34 Sudan also has a significant natural gas reserve, one of the three largest deposits of high-purity uranium in the world, and the fourth-largest deposits of copper.35 Regime change in Sudan would open up extremely lucrative investment opportunities to U.S. corporations, potentially capturing them from Chinese companies. It would also mean the end of a strong Islamic government that has continued to modernize, despite tough U.S.-led sanctions. Sending in private U.S. forces, under the guise of an international humanitarian mission, could give Washington a major foothold in Sudan for future action.
At the time of Cofer Black’s trip to Jordan, Darfur was very much in the headlines. Black himself had spent a significant amount of time in the country as part of his work for the CIA. “Cofer and I have been speaking about our ability to help in Darfur ad infinitum, and that just pisses off the humanitarian world,” said Chris Taylor. “They have problems with private security companies, not because of performance but because they think that in some cases it removes their ability to cross borders, to talk to both sides, to be neutral. And that’s great, but the age-old question—is neutrality greater than saving one more life? What’s the marginal utility on one more life?”36 In February 2005, the month Black joined Blackwater, Erik Prince publicly raised for the first time the prospect of private peacekeepers at a symposium of the National Defense Industrial Association. “In areas where the UN is, where there’s a lot of instability, sending a big, large-footprint conventional force is politically unpalatable; it’s expensive, diplomatically difficult as well,” Prince told the military gathering. “We could put together a multinational, professional force, supply it, manage it, lead it, put it under UN or NATO or U.S. control, however it would best be done. We can help stabilize the situation.”37 Prince suggested that Blackwater could deploy a “Quick Reaction Force” to protect nongovernmental organizations in Darfur or other conflict areas. “You talk about Darfur: I don’t think you need an 8,000-peacekeeper force,” he said. “If there’s an atrocity in progress, it’s the Janjaweed [militia] that has to be stopped, and we have to move and stop the problem, and solve the immediate threat. Not bring an 8,000- or 10,000-man force.”38
Similar to the company’s use of the Columbine “massacre” to win new business, Blackwater was taking advantage of a global crisis that found parties spanning the political spectrum calling for intervention and decrying the perceived indifference of the UN and other international bodies. Sudan has become a pet cause of many of the right-wing Christian forces Blackwater is in bed with, not the least of which is Christian Freedom International—on whose small nine-member board both Erik Prince and his lobbyist Paul Behrends sit. Christian Freedom, founded by a consortium of well-connected Republican evangelicals, has been accused of using its “humanitarian aid” designation as a cover for missionary activities. Despite operating largely in Muslim countries, the group publicly states, “We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.”39
The leadership of Christian Freedom has had a long relationship with the crisis in Sudan because of the Christian/Muslim conflict. Early on in its work there, CFI engaged in the practice of “slave redemptions”—purchasing Christians it believed to be enslaved—but later denounced the practice, saying the “redemptions” had become a source of funding for rebel groups and that people were “faking their stories of enslavement in an attempt to make money.”40 For years, CFI has cast its vision for Sudan in the very economic terms that have fueled the Bush administration’s global policies and Blackwater’s corporate strategy. “Many Christians in Southern Sudan desire to break free from international handouts and learn free-market principles, useful skills and technologies that will move them from dependence to independence,” wrote Christian Freedom founder Jim Jacobson, the former Reagan official, in a 1999 column. “It’s time to help the Christians of Sudan begin to walk. When this day comes—and it will come—slavery in Sudan will end.”41 Like Blackwater executives, Jacobson has disparaged the work of the United Nations, charging that the UN has a vested interest in keeping refugees impoverished. “I consider a lot of the [UN] organizations to be merchants of misery,” Jacobson said. “The UN welfare organizations need people in miserable conditions to justify their own existence. The more people they have depending on them, the more money they get. We are trying to promote self-sufficiency to get people off handouts.”