"You and I, We Must Change the World"

Sudan doesn't see relations improving after the U.S. election

2008-09-07T16:52:00.000-05:00

From the Los Angeles Times

By Edmund Sanders
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 6, 2008

KHARTOUM, SUDAN -- — The American presidential race and a genocide investigation by the International Criminal Court are propelling Sudanese officials to renew efforts to strike a deal with the U.S. aimed at normalizing relations and improving stability in the volatile Darfur region.

Many in the Khartoum government fear frosty U.S.-Sudanese relations could worsen under the next U.S. president.

Sen. Joe Biden, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, has called for American military intervention in Darfur. Other members of the foreign policy team assembled by presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama are former hawks from the Clinton administration, which lobbed cruise missiles at Khartoum in 1998 after labeling the regime a state sponsor of terrorism.

"We want to do something with the Bush administration before they leave," said Sudan's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ali Sadiq. "Our experience with the Democrats has been bitter."

Prospects under Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, don't appear much better, Sudanese officials say. McCain's key Africa advisor once dismissed leaders here as "thugs," and McCain has called Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir a liar.

Richard Williamson, the U.S. envoy to Sudan, who reopened talks last month, is scheduled to resume direct negotiations in mid-September, Sudanese officials said.

Under discussion is a proposed agreement by the U.S. to not fight Sudan's bid to postpone an impending ICC arrest warrant for Bashir, officials said.

In return, Khartoum would agree to concessions, including accelerated deployment of United Nations peacekeepers, increased anti-terrorism cooperation and improved humanitarian assistance for the western region of Darfur.

Negotiations broke down this summer amid renewed bloodshed and outrage from Darfur advocacy groups and Democrats over the Bush administration's overtures toward Sudan.

"This reckless and cynical initiative would reward a regime in Khartoum that has a record of failing to live up to its commitments," Obama said in April.

The momentum for renewed talks grew in July after the ICC's prosecutor announced that he would seek an arrest warrant for Bashir on charges of genocide.

ICC judges are expected to rule on the request in the coming months, but the Sudanese government has launched a vigorous campaign to press the U.N. Security Council to use its authority to postpone the case. The government argues that an arrest warrant would hinder peace efforts and destabilize Africa's biggest country.

John Prendergast, founder of Enough Project, an anti-genocide advocacy group, said the ICC case strengthened the U.S. negotiating position.

"This gives the U.S. unprecedented leverage," he said. "The U.S. has the chance to do something constructive in the dying days of this administration."

Bush administration officials have been approaching with caution, fearing that further public backlash might hurt McCain's campaign. They've urged Sudanese officials to make bold gestures and demonstrate a commitment to reform so that any deal will be acceptable to the American public and Congress.

There have been mixed signals from Sudan. During a visit to Darfur in July, Bashir announced the creation of a presidential commission to tackle the region's problems, and he appointed a Sudanese prosecutor to investigate ICC allegations.

But it's unclear whether such steps will yield results before the ICC reaches a decision on the arrest warrant or before the issue comes up before the U.N., both of which could occur as early as October. Mistrust is apparent on both sides.

Andrew Natsios, a former U.S. special envoy to Sudan, said any deal with Khartoum would face strong opposition in the U.S. and that it was unlikely one would be reached before the presidential election in November. "Politically, in Washington, it's untenable," he said.

Sudan also accuses the U.S. of reneging on promises to lift sanctions and remove the terrorism designation, even after Khartoum met agreed-upon benchmarks.

"We are very interested in normalizing relations with the U.S.," said Nafie Ali Nafie, a top presidential advisor who is leading Sudan's negotiating team. "But if people believe we are cornered, we won't do it."

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-sudan6-2008sep06,0,2975870,print.story

ICC and Complicity

2008-07-14T16:34:00.000-05:00

At long last, it has happened that charges of genocide and crimes against humanity have been brought against the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court. Undoubtedly and quite unfortunately, these charges will wreak further havoc in the short run for the people of Darfur in the form of reprisal attacks orchestrated by Bashir’s government Ironically, a statement released by Bashir;s National Congress Party through Sudanese state television promising “more violence and bloodshed” in Darfur in the wake of these charges only offer further proof of his leadership role in the genocide. The deadly impact that these reprisals may well have cannot and must not be undermined: if anything, they are a potent reminder of why it is so important to push for peace in the region. Still, the ICC’s charges must be applauded because in the long run, they should mark the end of the international community’s feeble excuse-making for its impotence regarding Darfur and the whole of Sudan. The charges must ultimately be used to provide both the stick and the carrot to draw Bashir to peace talks which will finally halt the genocide.

Charging Omar al-Bashir with genocide represents the most hopeful scrap of news that Darfuris have had for a long time. Ironically enough, however, the United States - the first and only nation to publicly recognize the atrocities in Darfur as genocide - may well serve as a great impediment towards allowing the ICC charges to achieve their full potential as leverage with which to pressure for immediate and lasting peace in Darfur. The US’s generally cold attitude towards the ICC must not be allowed to impede potential progress towards peace. The United States has itself condemned Khartoum for the same crimes that the Court has brought to bear against Bashir: for the U.S. to fail to utilize the great opportunity that these charges represent would amount to a shamelessly continued complicity in the genocide. For if Mr. Bashir is guilty of these crimes - and we are aware of these gross violations of humanity - then how can we, who fail to do all in our power to stop it, help but think of ourselves as bearing the weight of complicity with genocide?

Sudan war crime charges expected

2008-07-14T06:15:00.000-05:00

The Sudanese president is expected to be accused of genocide and crimes against humanity by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Luis Moreno-Ocampo is set to ask judges at The Hague to charge Omar al-Bashir, following investigations into alleged war crimes in Sudan's Darfur region.

Sudan's government has warned the move will undermine the peace process there.

This will be the first time the court's prosecutor has tried to make a case against a sitting head of state.

The three-judge panel is expected to take at least six weeks to decide whether to indict the president.

Sudan does not recognise the ICC and has refused to hand over two suspects who Mr Moreno-Ocampo charged last year, Humanitarian Affairs Minister Ahmad Harun and militia leader Ali Kushayb.

It has also labelled Mr Moreno-Ocampo a criminal, and warned that any indictment could stall peace talks and cause mayhem in Sudan.

The BBC's Laura Trevelyan at The Hague says that while some will welcome this move as a victory for justice, others fear it will undermine the peace process in Darfur and spark further violence.

The UN estimates that some 300,000 people have died as a result of the conflict in Darfur since 2003, while more than two million people have fled their homes.

Sudan's government is accused of mobilising Arab militias to attack black African civilians in Darfur, after rebels took up arms in 2003 - charges it denies.

'Disastrous'

Mr Moreno-Ocampo's office has said he will submit to the ICC on Monday "evidence on crimes committed in the whole of Darfur over the last five years" and seek to charge an individual or individuals.

The prosecutor said last month that Sudan's "entire state apparatus" was involved in an organised campaign to attack civilians in Darfur, and that he would present evidence implicating senior officials.

On Sunday, thousands of people rallied in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to show their support for Mr Bashir and to denounce the anticipated charges.

"With our souls, with our blood we die for Bashir," the demonstrators chanted outside an office where the president was chairing an emergency meeting.

Sudan's representative at the United Nations told the BBC that any charges against Mr Bashir would be disastrous for the security and stability of Sudan.

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this move by this criminal Ocampo," said Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad.

The ruling National Congress party has meanwhile warned of "more violence and blood" in Darfur.

Mr Bashir said he had been angered by talk of his possible arrest, but added that it made him more determined to push for peace.
I'm very worried, but nobody can evade justice
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon

"Our decisive response to them is that our issues are progressing and as before, our programmes are moving, and that this matter only increases our determination and seriousness to progress in the same direction," he told state radio.

"This talk has angered us and prompted us to move this way. We will move forward, God willing. We are committed to remove the country from a crisis."

But a leader of one of the factions of the Sudan Liberation Army rebel group told the BBC it would welcome any action by the ICC.

"The regime in Khartoum committed a big crime… We think the ICC is going the right way," Abdul Khalil said.

Peacekeeping fears

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the French newspaper, Le Figaro, that he was "very worried" about the possible impact of any indictment on peacekeeping operations and the political process, but added that "nobody can evade justice".

Earlier, a UN spokeswoman said it had raised the security alert level for its staff in Darfur.

The joint United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (Unamid), which has 9,000 troops, has been struggling to contain the violence.

It has raised the security alert for its staff to "level four", which stops short of evacuating all staff, but relocates foreign workers who are not directly involved in relief or security operations.

John O'Shea, director of Irish aid agency Goal, warned the Sudanese government and its supporters not to seek revenge against international aid agencies and peacekeepers for the ICC's moves.

"Should the Sudanese government take that type of action, they're in a way shooting themselves in the foot," he told the BBC.

"The NGO community and the UN agencies have done a very good job in the context of looking after hundreds of thousands of vulnerable and desperately poor people."

The ICC was set up in 2002 as the world's first permanent war crimes court.

Other international courts have previously indicted Serbia's President Slobodan Milosevic and President Charles Taylor of Liberia while they were in office.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7504640.stm

Published: 2008/07/14 09:54:04 GMT

Sudan seeks arbitration to solve oil region crisis

2008-06-09T08:25:00.001-05:00

Sun Jun 8, 2008 10:20am EDT

By Andrew Heavens

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan's president and south Sudan's leader said on Sunday they would turn to international arbitrators to solve a bitter dispute over an oil-rich region that many fear could escalate into civil war.

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and Salva Kiir met to agree a package of measures to defuse the most recent clashes over the central Abyei territory that last month left at least 20 soldiers dead and drove tens of thousands from their homes.

But officials from Khartoum and the semi-autonomous south said they had still not resolved their long-standing disagreement over the final borders of region.

The leaders said they would give themselves a month to agree on the best global body to help them reach an agreement over the boundaries and other fundamental issues, the officials said.

The borders of Abyei were left undecided in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended two decades of north-south war and created a national coalition government between the northern National Congress Party (NCP) and the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM).

At stake in Abyei is control over a large part of Sudan's oil wealth -- Abyei town is surrounded by lucrative oilfields connected by a key pipeline that runs through the disputed territory.

Last month, a local dispute escalated into sporadic and often heavy fighting between northern and southern troops in the town.

INTERIM ADMINISTRATION

Bashir and Kiir, who is both President of South Sudan and First Vice President of Sudan as a whole, on Sunday agreed to set up an interim administration in the region, and to respect an interim border for Abyei ahead of the final arbitration, said officials.

Northern and southern troops, who are still in a stand-off in the region, would be replaced by a new "joint integrated unit" made up of soldiers from both sides, they added.

The leaders had also decided to give the United Nations free access to the area to help displaced people return to their homes by June 30 at the latest, the officials said.

"It was an important and historical meeting," Yasir Arman, the SPLM's deputy secretary general told reporters after the discussions between the two leaders.

Arman said the new administration and border would follow the terms of the Abyei protocol, an interim agreement made at the time of the 2005 peace deal that each side accuses the other of ignoring.

The final arbitration cold take up to nine months to complete, said Arman.

Didiri Mohamed Ahmed, the lead northern official in charge of Abyei, said if the sides failed to agree on an international arbitrator after a month, they would turn to the Permanent Court of Arbitration based in The Hague to help them pick an organization.

"We think what has taken place should revitalize all of the CPA (the Comprehensive Peace Agreement) and rejuvenate the efforts of the two parties," he added.

A report by US campaign group Enough in January described Abyei as "Sudan's Kashmir" that could spark another civil war if left unresolved. But south Sudan's Minister of Energy John Luk Jok on Sunday insisted the south wanted to avoid conflict.

"No one wants to go to war, it's the last thing we need in Sudan," he told Reuters on the sidelines of the Asian Oil and Gas Conference in the Malaysian capital.

(Additional reporting by Luke Pachymuthu in Kuala Lumpur; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Oil/idUSL0836159420080608?pageNumber=3&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true

Sudan ‘covering up’ crimes in Darfur - ICC prosecutor

2008-06-07T19:53:00.001-05:00

By Wasil Ali

June 5, 2008 (NEW YORK) – The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) pointed fingers at the Sudanese government and accused it of mobilizing “the whole state apparatus” to commit crimes in Darfur.

Luis Moreno Ocampo, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) during a press conference in the Hague February 27, 2007 (AP)

Luis Moreno-Ocampo delivered his semi-annual report to the UN Security Council (UNSC) today in which he provided his current investigations into the ongoing attacks against civilians in the war ravaged region.

The Argentinean born lawyer also informed the UNSC of his intention to file charges against unidentified Sudanese officials a in a few weeks time. The ICC conducted its investigation without going on the ground in Darfur because of the security situation and the inability to protect witnesses and their families there.

But Ocampo told Sudan Tribune in an interview that he has enough evidence to proceed before the judges next month.

“We have strong evidence. We never move without overwhelming evidence” he said.

The low-key prosecutor stressed that he collected evidence from different sources including the Sudanese government which has refused to cooperate with his office since the issuance of arrest warrants in May 2007 against Ahmed Haroun, state minister for humanitarian affairs, and militia commander Ali Mohamed Ali Abdel-Rahman, also know as Ali Kushayb.

“I have a duty to do an impartial investigation so I got information from a number of sources including the government of Sudan, the Attorney general in Khartoum and the suspects. I have all sorts of evidence. I have insiders, witnesses, victims and UN reports. There are tons of documents” Ocampo said.

“You cannot commit these types of crimes in the entire Darfur region and pretend you can hide these crimes” he added.

But the prosecutor acknowledged that arresting the suspects would be a difficult task. The Sudanese president Omar Hassan Al-Bashir told the visiting UNSC delegation in Khartoum today that he has no intention of cooperating with the ICC. The two suspects Haroun and Kushayb are still at large.

One of the tactics deployed by Ocampo in the cases of Uganda, the Congo and Central African Republic is the issuance of secret arrest warrants which boosts chances that the suspects would be arrested. In late May the ICC managed to nab the former Congolese vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba in Belgium. Bemba’s arrest warrant was not made public until he was actually arrested.

However Ocampo made it clear that he does not intend to mimic the same approach in the coming case next month.

“The second case will be a public application. I think it is important to be transparent and clear in what happened. The Judges will decide the merits of this case” he said.

The ICC is also working on a fourth case against Darfur rebels attacking peacekeepers and aid workers. However he said the case is not complete yet.

Last September armed raiders overran the African Union (AU) base in the southern Darfur town of Haskanita killing 10 AU peacekeepers and injuring many others.

“We are still working on the Haskanita case and getting information about the rebel commanders involved so we can confirm the information. I don’t have enough evidence to go to the judges but I am collecting information” he said.

“I am also considering other crimes against aid workers and peacekeepers and maybe I can add other incidents. We are still doing the investigation and not ready to go to trial” Ocampo added.

HAROUN’S CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY

The first suspect named in the Darfur case Ahmed Haroun seemed to be the main focus of Ocampo when talking to world officials.

Haroun has been promoted by the Sudanese government and was given more responsibilities, particularly handling the relationship with the Southern ex-rebels. The Sudanese TV has also tended to focus the cameras on Haroun in any public event he attends.

Even today the Sudanese minister was supposed to attend meeting between President Al-Bashir and the UNSC delegation but was a no-show.

“From the beginning I focused on those who are most responsible. In first case evidence showed Haroun as the most responsible because he was the head of the ‘Darfur Security Desk’ He coordinated the activities of Ali Kushayb and others” Ocampo said.

Haroun, who was also the state minister for interior, denied any wrongdoings and dismissed the case against him as ‘political’ and that he had a clear conscience. He also said that he is prepared to stand before the world court if his government asked him to.

Ocampo took Haroun’s remarks at face value and called on him to surrender himself to the ICC and guaranteed him a fair trial.

Haroun is wanted by the ICC for 42 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes. The judges they found ‘reasonable evidence to believe’ that he was responsible for persecuting, raping, attacking and killing civilians in four western Darfur villages in 2003 and 2004.

It was also reported that his family was shocked when his name came out as a war crimes suspect and that friends and relatives flocked to his home in Khartoum to offer what almost appeared to be condolences.

No extra security measures have been placed on Haroun since the ICC arrest warrants. Last year Haroun’s cell phone was stolen during a wedding he was attending in Khartoum.

HAROUN’S ESCAPE ATTEMPT

The ICC prosecutor also made the breathtaking disclosure that his office was close to arresting Haroun last December.

Earlier this year a well placed source in Khartoum told Sudan Tribune that Haroun, wanted to fly to Saudi Arabia on a forged passport.

Haroun ended up cancelling his travel plans after the Sudanese government found out, the source added.

Ocampo confirmed this piece of information and revealed more details on the Haroun’s travel plans.

“We were getting ready to divert his plane” he said.

Asked whether he had received help from other states in his attempt to arrest the Sudanese minister, Ocampo said “Absolutely. This is a UNSC resolution so all countries have a duty to support”. However he declined to name these countries.

“Some countries were willing to support and provide information on Haroun [travel] plans. We organized the logistics. Everything was settled” he said.

Ocampo said the Saudi Arabian government was aware of the plans to divert Haroun’s plane.

“The Saudis were informed. We respect states so the information was clear to them. They knew about this” he said.

“As soon as Haroun leaves Sudan he will be arrested. He is a fugitive. Inside Sudan he could have freedom. Outside Sudan he will be in jail” the ICC Prosecutor said.

Ocampo said he is receiving help from countries in tracing the Haroun and Kushayb as to “when they are moving and where are they moving”.

The prosecutor did not rule out the possibility that Haroun might make further attempts to travel abroad.

“He [Haroun] has medical problems so he could attempt. He sometimes he needs to go outside using different passports” he said.

The Sudanese official was in Jordan, the only Arab country who is party to the ICC, for medical treatment when the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo publicly announced charges against him in February 2007. The Sudanese minister returned immediately to Khartoum that day.

Last September Haroun told daily Al-Rayaam newspaper that he is not concerned about the International Police (INTERPOL) red notices distributed worldwide asking for his arrest and he will travel if needed.

ICC INVESTIGATION DANGER TO PEACE IN DARFUR?

Sudan’s U.N. ambassador Abdel-Mahmood Mohamad today lashed out at the ICC prosecutor and accused him of being a threat to peace in Darfur.

“Ocampo is destroying the peace process and we demand that this man be held accountable for what he is doing to the peace process in Sudan," Mohamad said.

The Sudanese diplomat has been one of the most outspoken critics of Ocampo and one point called for him to be tried in a court of law.

"This is very serious and we hold him accountable and responsible for destroying the peace process in our country," Mohamad said. "It revealed his professional bankruptcy, he deserves no respect, not to say cooperation, because we are not going to cooperate with him in any form," he said.

But Ocampo rejected Mohamad’s claims saying that the crimes committed are the obstacle to peace.

“The main obstacle for peace in Darfur today is the crimes that are being committed and also the criminals who committed crimes in positions like Haroun. They are the main obstacle” he said.

“While it is important to provide aid and peacekeepers, we have to be sure that people like Haroun are arrested. If we don’t get rid of the arsonists there will never be enough number of firefighters. The arsonists today are in charge of the fire so we try to arrest them” he added.

COVER-UP AND RESPONSIBILITY OF SUDAN GOVERNMENT

In his report to the UNSC, Ocampo made his harshest condemnation of Khartoum saying that he collected evidence of a “criminal plan based on the mobilization of the whole state apparatus, including the armed forces, the intelligence services, the diplomatic and public information bureaucracies, and the justice system”.

The ICC official also said that his office is investigating who “is maintaining Haroun in a position to commit crimes; who is instructing him and others”.

The statements by Ocampo were taken to suggest that he is going after senior Sudanese officials.

“When you use the state apparatus to commit crimes you are giving instructions to public servants. They have to be sure they will protect them because they are asking them to do something illegal. The state apparatus requires protection. In this sense protection could be used to establish legal responsibility” Ocampo said.

The prosecutor went on to explain the concept of cover up in the case of Darfur by giving an example of an incident that happened in Argentina during the 70’s to two French nuns who disappeared during the rule of the military Junta.

“The navy officers abducted the nuns and they took pictures of them with a sign of the guerilla behind them and they took statements from the guerilla leaders saying they abducted the nuns. This lie was not a mistake. It is a cover up [by government]” he said.

“For example last January when a UN convoy was shot at in Darfur, the Sudanese UN ambassador said that it was the rebels. In Khartoum they said no it was the government. All the state is part of the cover-up. They are minimizing the numbers of rapes and pretend that peacekeepers deployment is moving smoothly. This is all not correct” he added.

But while Ocampo recognized that he can’t charge the whole system and that he is focusing on “few people who are most responsible”.

“The rest will take many years. We start with the most responsible” he stressed.

UN & INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT TO THE ICC

Last October Ocampo criticized the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon for neglecting the issue of justice in his monthly reports on Sudan.

“Justice was not mentioned in the UNSG subsequent reports on Darfur where the UN secretariat developed a three prong approach with a humanitarian, political and security components only” Ocampo said in prepared remarks to the 11th diplomatic briefing at the ICC headquarters in the Hague.

But today Ocampo hailed the efforts of the UN chief on the issue of extraditing the war crimes suspects.

“The Secretary General was very active on this issue and as you know he raised it with President Al-Bashir personally. I think he made great effort.”

The prosecutor also hailed the encouraging remarks made by UNSC during his briefing today.

“At least 9 of the UNSC members were very open and strong about the need to send a clear message that Sudan has to cooperate with the court”.

Sudan has not ratified the Rome Statue, but the UN Security Council (UNSC) invoked the provisions under the Statue that enables it to refer situations in non-State parties to the world court if it deems that it is a threat to international peace and security.

(ST)

http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?page=imprimable&id_article=27428

ICC Prosecutor : Darfur is a huge crime scene

2008-06-06T08:29:00.001-05:00

The Hague, 5 June 2008

Today in New York, International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo informed the United Nations Security Council that he will present in July a second Darfur case before the ICC judges.

“The entire Darfur region is a crime scene. For 5 years, civilians have been attacked relentlessly. In their villages. Then into the camps. They cannot return. Their land has been usurped. To plan and commit such crimes, on such a scale, over such a period of time, the criminals had to mobilize and coordinate the whole state apparatus, from the security services to the public information bureaucracies and the judiciary. Cover up of crimes by Sudanese officials, pretending that all is well in Darfur, blaming crimes on others, is a characteristic of the criminal system at work. We have seen it before, in Rwanda, in the former Yugoslavia, in my own country Argentina during the military dictatorship’.

“The victims are being attacked by the Sudanese officials who have to protect them. If the international community is persuaded to look away and fails to recognize the situation for what it is - the execution of a massive criminal plan to destroy entire communities in Darfur - it would be a final blow to the victims.” The Prosecutor said, asking the UNSC to issue a statement requesting full cooperation of the Sudanese with the Court.

He also mentioned that one year after the first arrest warrants were issued by the ICC, the Government of Sudan has not complied with Resolution 1593, has not arrested Ahmed Harun and Ali Kushayb, a militia Janjaweed leader. They remain free and involved in criminal acts against civilians in Darfur.

“They are fugitives from the ICC” the Prosecutor said. ‘Ahmed Harun is still Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs; he is a member of the committee overseeing the deployment of UNAMID peacekeepers. Impunity is not an empty word. Ahmed Harun is attacking civilians; he is hindering the delivery of aid and the protective functions of the peacekeepers. The international community is sending firefighters and the Government of the Sudan is promoting the arsonist’ added Luis Moreno Ocampo.

“As long as Harun and Kushayb remain free in Sudan, the criminal system will remain at work. Girls will continue to be raped. Schools will be attacked. Land will be usurped. Entire groups will disintegrate. Impunity emboldens the criminals.”

The International Criminal Court is an independent, permanent court that investigates and prosecutes persons accused of the most serious crimes of international concern, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes if national authorities with jurisdiction are unwilling or unable to do so genuinely. The Office of the Prosecutor is currently investigating in four situations: The Democratic Republic of Congo, Northern Uganda, the Darfur region of Sudan, and the Central African Republic, all still engulfed in various degrees of conflict with victims in urgent need of protection.

http://www.icc-cpi.int/press/pressreleases/375.html

Displacement in Abyei is a remake of Darfur – rebel chief

2008-06-05T22:23:00.000-05:00

Wednesday 4 June 2008.

June 3, 2008 (PARIS) — Speaking about the massive displacement of civilians from the disputed Abyei, a Darfur rebel leader said what has been done in Abyei is a remake of what Khartoum did in western Sudan.

Abdel-Wahid Al-Nur

The International Organisation for Migration said 50,000 to 60,000 people had fled to Agok, 25 km south of Abyei, and neighbouring villages, while another 10,000 were believed to have walked south toward the town of Turalei.

Abdel-Wahid al-Nur the leader of Sudan Liberation Movement condemned the displacement of Abyei population saying “world have to think twice about dealing with the government of the National Congress Party.”

Al-Nur accused Khartoum of deliberately igniting violence in the disputed Abyei in order to change the demographic composition of the region and the settle Arab tribes to ensure its control over oil fields in the contested area.

The rebel leader further said what Khartoum did in Darfur with regard to the displacement of civilians and the settlement of Arab new comers from neighboring countries is now implemented in Abyei.

He said that this "Islamist government" extrapolated this policy to other parts of Sudan in order to ensure its hegemony on the country. He cited the forcible relocation of Kajabar population and the projected settlement of Egyptian farmers in central Sudan stated of White Nile.

Al-Nur added that the Sudanese government proves again through the non implementation of Abyei Protocol that it has no consideration to the signed deal and do not recognise the authority of the international institutions. "They just know the language of violence and not admit democracy because it will exclude them." He said.

The rebel leader also said the US envoy Richard Williamson had a very instructive stay in Sudan where he had the occasion to verify the true nature of the ruling National Congress Party.

He further exhorted the US administration particularly and the international community generally should learn from this experience that their current approach with Sudanese government has failed.

The U.S. has suspended talks to normalize relations with Sudan, U.S. and Sudanese officials said Tuesday.

(ST)

http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?page=imprimable&id_article=27405

Europe is willing to consider sanctions against Sudan over ICC

2008-06-05T22:21:00.000-05:00

Thursday 5 June 2008.

June 4, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — The European Union is willing to consider penalties against Sudan should Khartoum continue to harbor suspected Darfur war criminals charged by the world court, a top diplomat said Wednesday.

French ambassador to the United Nations, Jean-Maurice Ripert, whose country assumes the rotating E.U. presidency next month, criticized Sudan’s refusal to surrender two alleged war criminals to the International Criminal Court.

Ripert was speaking after a meeting with presidential advisor Nafie Ali Nafie. He was traveling in a U.N. Security Council mission, which held talks Wednesday with the Sudanese government during a 10-day tour of African troublespots.

"France and the European Union are ready to consider additional measures against the government of Sudan if it continues to refuse to cooperate," Ripert told reporters in Khartoum.

"All the Europeans present supported me. It’s the first time that six European countries (those in the U.N. Security Council) state clearly that this U.N. resolution must be respected," he added.

Three years ago, the Security Council referred Darfur justice to the ICC, and human rights watchdogs used the U.N. visit to Khartoum Wednesday to again urge the delegation to persuade Sudan to hand over suspects facing arrest warrants.

Sudan has consistently ignored ICC arrest warrants for secretary of state for humanitarian affairs Ahmed Haroun and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kosheib, and says it has established its own court to try Darfur cases.

"It is time to respond to Khartoum’s flagrant obstruction with a clear resolution reminding Sudan of its obligations to the court and to the victims," said Niemat Ahmadi from the faith-based Save Darfur Coalition.

Thursday, the U.N. Security Council mission is to travel to Darfur - the same day that ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo will unveil details of a second case against senior figures in the five-year Darfur war.

The ICC issued arrest warrants for Haroun and Kosheib April 27, 2007. They are charged with 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including acts of murder, persecution, torture, rape and forcible displacement.

The 15 U.N. ambassadors Wednesday met Foreign Minister Deng Alor and Vice President Ali Osman Taha as well as Nafie.

Alor, who belongs to the southern former rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement that has shared power with the National Congress of President Omar al-Beshir since the end of a 21-year civil war, said his party favored cooperation.

"I am not talking as a minister of foreign affairs. In this particular issue I’m speaking as SPLM and SPLM calls for cooperation. That’s what I said in my briefing with the ambassadors," Alor said.

But Sudan’s ambassador to the U.N., Abdalmahmood Mohamad, said Khartoum would never extradite any Sudanese to The Hague and launched a stinging attack on ICC prosecutor Ocampo.

"We are not a member of the ICC. They have no jurisdiction over us. We will never submit any Sudanese citizen to The Hague," he said.

In July 2007, Sudan told the U.N. Human Rights Committee that it was handling cases against soldiers and police officers accused of crimes in Darfur.

"He (Ocampo) is one of the major destroyers of the peace process in Sudan. It reveals his professional bankruptcy because he is dealing with an activist not a jurist," the U.N. ambassador told reporters.

"He is serving certain agendas to keep this country in an intensive care unit," he added.

Last year, Sudan highlighted more than a dozen cases against soldiers or "senior officers" in Darfur which resulted in the death penalty, jail sentences and damages paid to victims’ families for murder, torture and rape.

The U.S. has called on the European Union to match U.S. financial sanctions against Sudan in order to force Khartoum to accept the deployment of a U.N.-led peacekeeping force in Darfur.

The U.N. says that up to 300,000 people have died and more than 2.2 million fled their homes since the Darfur conflict broke out in February 2003. Sudan says 10,000 have been killed.

The conflict began when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated regime and state-backed Arab militias, fighting for resources and power in one of the most remote and deprived places on earth.

(AFP)

http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?page=imprimable&id_article=27412

'Whole state' behind Darfur crime

2008-06-04T18:55:00.001-05:00

The "whole state apparatus" of Sudan is implicated in crimes against humanity in Darfur, the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor has said.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo's report into the crisis in western Sudan, due on Thursday, coincides with a visit to the region by the UN Security Council.

Sudan's ambassador to the UN said the comments were "fictitious and vicious" and harmful to the prospects of peace.

The UN ambassadors are in the country to try to end the conflict.

In the report on the situation in Sudan, to be delivered to the UN Security Council, Mr Moreno-Ocampo repeats his earlier call for the council to demand that Sudan hand over two men who face charges of crimes against humanity.

Time for sanctions

The treaty that created the International Criminal Court (ICC) was intended to hold individuals, not entire states, responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

By accusing Sudan's "whole state apparatus" of helping shield criminals, correspondents say, the prosecutor is implicating some of the highest officials of the government.

The Sudanese ambassador to the UN responded angrily that his country will not bend to the will of the ICC.

"We will never submit any of our citizens to be tried in The Hague," Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamed said.

"Ocampo is destroying the peace process and we demand that this man be held accountable for what he is doing to the peace process in Sudan."

Mr Moreno-Ocampo's report comes as the Aegis Trust campaign group released a 17-minute film featuring harrowing eyewitness accounts of the war crimes allegedly committed by the two men whom the ICC accuses the Sudanese government of harbouring.

During the five-year conflict, pro-government Arab militias stand accused of committing atrocities against black Africans.

It is a conflict that has claimed an estimated 200,000 lives and caused 2.5m people to flee their homes.

Ali Kushayb, a leader of the Janjaweed militia, and Ahmad Harun, Sudan's current Humanitarian Affairs Minister, are both charged with 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including acts of murder, persecution, torture, rape and forcible displacement.

Dr James Smith, Chief Executive of the Aegis Trust, said the time had come for the Security Council to increase the pressure.

"It is time the Security Council placed targeted sanctions - travel bans at least - on those in Sudan who harbour those wanted for war crimes."

France's ambassador to the UN, Jean-Maurice Ripert, who is taking part in the visit to Africa's trouble spots, said Europe would be willing to penalise Sudan if it did not cooperate with the ICC.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/africa/7436472.stm

Published: 2008/06/04 22:33:41 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

An Up-close View of Brutality in Darfur

2008-06-03T06:56:00.001-05:00

Christian Science Monitor, May 12, 2008
Monday, May 12, 2008 - 12:17 AM

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0512/p09s02-coop.html

By Eric Reeves

NORTHAMPTON, MASSACHUSETTS - The brutality of the Khartoum regime's military actions in the Darfur region of western Sudan continually forces a question that seems to have no morally intelligible answer: Is there no act of civilian destruction so cruel, so savage, that the international community will finally respond vigorously and unambiguously?

On May 4, at about 4 p.m., a school was bombed in the village of Shegeg Karo in North Darfur; one classroom was destroyed, killing six students and injuring others. The village marketplace was also bombed, killing several people and destroying most of the shops in this vestige of a shattered agricultural economy.

The plane that dropped the bombs was an Antonov. It's not a bomber by design, but a retrofitted Russian cargo plane from which crude, shrapnel-loaded barrel bombs are simply rolled out the back cargo bay. There is no bombing guidance system, so Antonovs are useless as true military weapons. But they are exquisitely suited for their real purpose in Darfur: civilian terror.

Khartoum refuses to acknowledge or accept responsibility for the attacks, even as it refused to allow UN personnel to evacuate badly wounded children. But only Khartoum flies military aircraft in Darfur, so there can be very little doubt that the attacks were authorized by the military command of the National Islamic Front. As Human Rights Watch has conclusively demonstrated, Khartoum's chain of command – both military and civilian – is powerfully hierarchical. This was not the action of a rogue commander, but almost certainly an act of deliberate civilian destruction countenanced by senior officials.

Highly reliable sources report that the Antonov hovered over Shegeg Karo for a while before finally dropping its bomb load. There could have been no mistaking the civilian nature of the target.

This is hardly surprising. We have countless reports of similar bombing attacks in Darfur as well as during Sudan's earlier north/south conflict. Indeed, in southern Sudan, Khartoum repeatedly and deliberately attacked the sites of humanitarian operations.

This bombing attack, on a conspicuously civilian target, violates not only international law but a ban on all military flights in Darfur, nominally imposed by UN Security Council Resolution 1591 in March 2005. Khartoum has shown nothing but contempt for both, and the international community has watched with nothing but idle words and unctuous hand-wringing – a fact not lost on the regime's génocidaires as they calculate the costs of their continuing campaign of civilian destruction.

Who are the victims of this international cowardice? Who suffers when the world refuses to demand justice of those who would deliberately kill children? Let's at least grant the dignity of names to the victims of this most recent barbarism:

•Fatima Suleiman Adam Omar, 3rd grade, 10 years old

•Fatima Ahmad Bashir, 2nd grade, 8 years old

•Mubarak Mohammed Ahmad, 3rd grade, 10 years old

•Yusuf Adam Hamid, kindergarten, 5 years old

•Munira Suleiman Adam, 2nd grade, 7 years old

•Adam Ahmad Yusuf, 4th grade, 11 years old

How would Americans respond if terrorists acting on behalf of another country deliberately killed, with complete military impunity, six young children in one of our nation's schools? Outrage would bring the country to a halt. It would change the very nature of the presidential campaign. News coverage would be unending. Washington's response against the offending nation would be swift and destructive.

And yet in Darfur, an act all too analogous barely registers here. Darfur's victims are people whose lives have long since endured a ghastly moral discounting. These are not "our children," these are not "our problems," this is not "our responsibility."

The whole world should respond vigorously to a nation that barbarously bombs kindergartners such as Yusuf Adam Hamid. Instead, we lamely bow in deference to Sudan's "national sovereignty." Do we have the courage to accept the stark implications of our refusal to hold accountable those responsible for his death? The answer is painfully, disgracefully obvious.

[Eric Reeves, a professor of English language and literature at Smith College, is the author of "A Long Day's Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide"]

CORRECTION:

May 13, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
UPDATE ON SHEGEG KARO BOMBING

Shegeg Karo village in North Darfur was bombed repeatedly by an Antonov aircraft on Sunday, May 4th. The bombing happened between 2-3pm, not at 4pm as reported in the May 5 press release from “Darfur Diaries”.

The Shegeg Karo market was hit directly and was completely burned, as confirmed by a UNAMID press release on May 10th. The school facilities, which had been reported as hit in the May 5 press release, we are now informed were unaffected. We have since been told that the six school children who were killed had already left the school and were in the adjacent market when the bombs dropped.

On Tuesday afternoon, May 6th, after waiting for 48 hours for medical help from UNAMID or a humanitarian organization the villagers drove cars with the most severely wounded in search of medical treatment. The four most severely injured civilians were reportedly taken to Bir Maza, a four hour drive away, including an unconscious eight year old girl they believed had a broken back and a fourteen year old boy they believed had a broken arm and leg and who had lost a lot of blood. A further eight more moderately injured civilians were driven by the villagers to Bahai, Chad to seek medical treatment.

Shegeg Karo received no help from UNAMID or humanitarian organizations until Wednesday, May 7th, when the ICRC came by land to treat the wounded.

A UNAMIS assessment team did not arrive to the village until Thursday, May 8, four days after the bombing, although the World Health Organization and the UN Department of Safety and Security had been notified just hours after the attack and UNICEF health division notified the following morning.

The Shegeg Karo school is funded by the Darfur Diaries project in cooperation with the Darfur Peace and Development Organization (www.darfurdiaries.org)

For more information, please contact:
Jen Marlowe, Darfur Diaries, or 1.202.375.3492
jenmarlowe@hotmail.com
www.darfurdiaries.org

http://www.sudanreeves.org/Article214.html

Sudan "on brink" of north-south war - southern official

2008-05-26T19:36:00.000-05:00

By Andrew Heavens

KHARTOUM, May 26 (Reuters) - Sudan is on the brink of a new civil war following more than a week of north-south clashes in the disputed oil-rich town of Abyei, a senior southern official said on Monday.

Pagan Amum, secretary general of the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), told reporters northern troops were building up around the remote central town, with southern troops likely to follow.

Amum said the way to avoid a full-scale conflict was for all troops to leave the town, to be replaced by a U.N. peacekeeping force or, eventually, joint north-south military units.

"We are on the brink of war as we speak. Clashes have already happened and forces are building up," he said before a news conference in Khartoum.

Sudan has witnessed sporadic, sometimes fierce fighting in recent weeks in the Abyei region, which is claimed by both Khartoum and the southern government.

Some 21 northern Sudanese army soldiers and an unknown number of southerners were killed last week in fighting that followed a week of skirmishes sparked by a local dispute. The clashes have displaced tens of thousands of people.

A two-decade-long civil war fought by Sudan's government and southern rebels and complicated by issues of ethnicity, ideology and oil ended with a 2005 peace deal and a coalition government formed by the SPLM and the northern National Congress Party (NCP).

But ties have been strained by the failure to agree on borders or a local government for Abyei. At stake are a nearby oil pipeline and installations that produce around half of Sudan's daily output of 500,000 barrels of oil, and grazing grounds and territory coveted by northerners and southerners.

Amum said northern government forces had been building up positions close to the town since last week's heavy clashes.

"I'm sure this will get a response from the SPLA," he added, referring to the armed wing of the SPLM -- now the army of Sudan's semi-autonomous southern government.

Amum said the south was doing all it could to avoid war. "For us, war is not an option ... Moving forces out of the area is the most important step now," he said.

"The only logical common sense is to demilitarise the area, deploy U.N. forces into the area, then after that we can proceed to deploy fresh joint integrated forces into the area."

"If the parties cannot agree to form a joint administration, let there be an international administration," he said.

Amum accused northern forces of starting the clashes to clear the area's population and claim the land as their own.

"(They) might have thought they could find a final solution to the problem of Abyei by replacing the population of Abyei."

He said the SPLM condemned "this barbaric act" by the Sudan government. "This was an act perpetrated by SAF (northern Sudan Armed Forces) under the direct leadership and command of the National Congress Party," Amum said.

Didiri Mohamed Ahmed, the NCP official in charge of Abyei, said he would not respond to Amum's comments ahead of a meeting of military officers and senior officials from both the north and south, due to take place in Khartoum on Tuesday.

He said he was also waiting for the results of a U.N.-led investigation into who sparked the latest clashes in Abyei. "When we know the culprit, hopefully both sides will have the courage to take the culprit to account," he added.

Sudan's ruling party last week denied southern accusations Khartoum was sending more troops to Abyei.

http://www.reuters.com/article/africaCrisis/idUSL26564278?sp=true

© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved

"They Shot Us As We Fled": HRW

2008-05-24T20:06:00.000-05:00

In their most recent report on the situation on the ground in Darfur, Human Rights Watch outlines the massive human scale of the war crimes that were committed in West Darfur in February 2008 (as well as in attacks in April). The political and militaristic relations between Chad and Sudan are explored and analyzed in terms of its effects on the conflict in Darfur. HRW calls on the UN to impose targeted sanctions on individuals responsible for violating international human rights laws, as well as pressing for the ensured full-equipped deployment of UNAMID peacekeeping troops to the region. Not only is it the imperative of international law to fully address these crimes: it is also the imperative of humanity to ensure that the hell described below can never occur again.

"The attacks were carried out in a similar pattern in all locations, using aerial and
ground forces that included airplanes, helicopters, ground troops and large numbers
of Janjaweed militia on horse and camels. Working in concert, these forces killed,
assaulted, raped, and abducted civilians, destroyed their homes and villages, and
looted and destroyed their property, including food and water stores. The
government forces targeted civilians, particularly men, as they fled. In two cases
documented by Human Rights Watch, attackers shot at fleeing women with babies
on their backs, killing the babies. Humanitarian organizations, including clinics,
were robbed and vandalized."(The full report can be found in various forms at http://hrw.org/reports/2008/darfur0508/)

Darfur crisis reaches Sudanese capital: Amnesty

2008-05-24T18:56:00.000-05:00

23 May 2008
Amnesty International is gravely concerned by the Sudanese security forces’ crackdown following the incursion into Khartoum, by an armed group. The crackdown has been characterized by serious human rights violations including hundreds of arbitrary arrests, cases of ill-treatment, as well as extra-judicial executions. These violations have mostly been targeted at Darfuris.

On Saturday 10 May 2008, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), a Darfur based armed opposition group launched a military attack on the outskirts of Khartoum. The attack marked the beginning of a new phase of the conflict in Darfur, with an armed opposition group reaching the edges of the capital for the first time since the conflict’s inception in 2003. Many members of the JEM were reportedly killed during the attack and scores were arrested.

The government’s response to this military attack has since included hundreds of arbitrary arrests and some cases of extra-judicial executions. These have been carried out by the Sudanese police and National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) and targeted at Darfuris, particularly from the Zaghawa ethnic tribe. Since the Sudanese forces repelled the attack a curfew was installed in Omdurman and check points were set up throughout the streets of the capital, allowing the arrest and detention of people travelling in buses and cars, while the NISS and the police have been raiding houses of Darfuris and their families.

“Civilians, mainly youths, have been brutally arrested in the streets, in their homes, and taken to yet unknown places of detention. The arrests in public places have been mostly based on their appearance, age, accent, and the colour of their skin.” With these words, a prominent Sudanese lawyer expressed his concerns to Amnesty International over the arbitrary nature of arrests – with individuals arrested on the basis of their ethnicity and age -, the associated ill-treatment and the lack of information about the places of detention. He told Amnesty International that young men, including minors, were more at risk because the JEM is known by the government to partially rely on young recruits. Eyewitnesses reported that those under threat of arrest were asked to pronounce certain words, to judge whether they were Darfuris or not.

The arrests include Darfuri men and women as well as entire families. Amnesty International further received reports of lawyers, journalists and at least one human rights activist having been arrested over the past week.

As of 21 May 2008, five members of the Popular Congress Party (PCP), a political opposition party, remain in detention after its leader Hassan Al Turabi and other members of the PCP were released.

Amnesty International condemns the arbitrary arrest of hundreds of people and urges the Sudanese Government to immediately and unconditionally release all those that were solely detained on the basis of their ethnicity or for the peaceful expression of their opinion.
Amnesty International asks the Sudanese Government to charge all other detainees with a recognizable criminal offence, or else release them immediately.

Eye witnesses spoke to Amnesty of the ill-treatment experienced by some of those arrested by the police and NISS during the arrest. One lawyer, who was released two days after he was detained, described how he and members of his family were dragged from their home and how he was beaten with rifles on his head and legs, leaving him with several serious injuries. Other witnesses spoke of extra-judicial executions of men and at least one woman in public in Omdurman. According to various reports, the woman was shot on 11 May by the NISS in the streets of Umbada in Omdurman, after she had protested against the arrest of her younger brother.

According to reports from his family, a 31 year old man from the White Nile was arrested by the NISS on either 16 or 17 May and taken to a NISS detention centre. He had already been arrested and released one day before, after he was accused of giving shelter to members of the JEM in one of his houses. On 19 May, when a relative went to inquire about his place of detention, he was informed by the NISS that the person in question had died of kidney failure whilst in detention. The NISS informed the relative that the condition had occurred on his first day of detention and that they had sent him to a NISS hospital, where he died after which he was transferred to a morgue. On 19 May, his family requested the morgue’s doctor to perform a forensic examination before taking delivery of his body. The examinations revealed that he died from a heavy internal bleeding as a result of several severe injuries and bruising on different parts of his body.

Amnesty International calls on the government of Sudan to condemn and investigate all allegations of ill-treatment, torture and all extra-judicial executions that have taken place in the aftermath of the JEM attack.

Although a number of detainees, according to reports, might be held in Kober prison in Khartoum, the whereabouts of most of those arrested remain unknown. In the case of many, namely those who were arrested in the streets, their detaining authority is also unknown. Families of those arrested consider them as missing. Amnesty International is concerned that many may have been subject to enforced disappearance.

The numbers and circumstances in which people are being arrested, the uncertainty surrounding their whereabouts and the ill-treatment associated with the arrests all lead to serious concerns over the fate of those detained. Amnesty International is gravely concerned over those held in incommunicado detention, possibly in non-recognised detention centres, with no access to lawyers or relatives, putting them at increased risk of torture and extra-judicial killings.

Amnesty International is further concerned over the fate of persons without identification living in the capital. The arrests are widespread and taking place throughout the city and on public transport, putting those who are unable to provide a proof of their identity more at risk.

Amnesty International received unconfirmed reports of mass graves following the attack by JEM on 10 May, one of them allegedly in Western Omdurman. Amnesty International demands that these possible sites are identified and secured so that independent investigators, with the requisite expertise, can examine them.

Amnesty International further urges the authorities to repeal Article 31 of the National Security Forces Act, which allows detainees to be held for up to nine months without access to judicial review.

Amnesty International reminds the Government of Sudan of its past commitment to grant Human Rights Officers from the United Nations Mission in Sudan access to places of detention and urges the Sudanese Government to immediately account for the whereabouts of all those in custody and to grant total access to Human Rights Officers, family, lawyers and doctors to places of detention.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/darfur-crisis-reaches-sudanese-capital-20080523

Horseback raid on Darfur troops

2008-05-23T20:44:00.000-05:00

Armed men on horseback have attacked and stolen the weapons of Nigerian UN peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur region.

The joint UN-African Union troops were ambushed by up to 60 men armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades on Wednesday, the Unamid peace force said.

It is not clear who was behind the attack, which has been made public for the first time.

The UN took joint control of the force in January but has not been able to bring peace to the region.

It has just 9,000 of the planned 26,000 troops.

"We are a peacekeeping organisation but there is no peace on the ground to keep," Unamid spokesman Noureddine Mezni told Reuters news agency.

He said the incident had been kept quiet while attempts were made to identify the attackers.

"We have bandits and we have armed groups and we have the [rebel] factions. With our very limited number of troops, it is not an easy job."

The attack happened near the West Darfur capital, Geneina.

The conflict began five years ago, when rebels took up arms in protest at alleged government discrimination against the region.

Pro-government Arab militias have been accused of widespread atrocities against the black African population.

But the rebel groups have split into numerous different factions, making a settlement difficult.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7416961.stm

Published: 2008/05/23 13:02:05 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

Chad rebels 'cross from Sudan'

2008-03-13T07:09:00.000-05:00

Heavily-armed rebels have entered the east of the country from Sudan, Chad's government is saying.

An announcement on national radio reported that "mercenaries crossed the border in the area of Moudeina", north of the border town of Ade.

A rebel attempt to overthrow President Idriss Deby's government was thwarted last month.

Mr Deby is due to sign a non-aggression pact in the next few hours with President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan.

There is no independent confirmation of the incursion, but it was reportedly denied by the leader of the main Chadian rebel alliance, Mahamat Nouri.

According to the AFP news agency, General Nouri accused Chad's government of looking for "an excuse" not to sign the peace agreement with Sudan.

"There is no fresh offensive", it reported him as saying. "Nothing in particular is going on."

Accusations

Chad has accused Sudan of supporting Chadian rebels.

These charges are denied by Khartoum, which in turn accuses Chad of backing rebels in Sudan's Darfur region.

The two leaders were expected to meet on Wednesday, but President Bashir failed to turn up, blaming a headache after a long journey to get to the meeting in the Senegalese capital, Dakar.

They are due to sign a deal to stop supporting rebels in each other's territory, in an agreement overseen by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Previous agreements between the two countries have collapsed.

Coup attempt

In recent weeks Chad has taken steps to prevent attacks from rebels, including digging a deep trench around the capital, N'Djamena, and cutting down trees which could provide cover for attackers.

The government fought off last month's attempted coup in a fierce two-day battle.

Rebel columns in pick-up trucks rode into N'Djamena on 2 February, aiming to overthrow Mr Deby, who took shelter in his palace as street fighting raged.

The attack took place just before the deployment of a European peacekeeping force, to safeguard refugees from Darfur in eastern Chad and the Central African Republic.

A state of emergency was imposed to restore order after the coup attempt.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7293933.stm

Published: 2008/03/13 11:50:10 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

China says ready to work with West on Darfur

2008-03-06T06:54:00.000-05:00

Thursday 6 March 2008.

March 5, 2008 (PARIS) — China’s special envoy to Darfur said Wednesday Beijing was ready to work with Western powers for a peaceful end to bloodshed in the war-torn region, but remains opposed to sanctions against Khartoum.

"There is no fundamental difference between China and Western countries. China is ready to cooperate sincerely, and is not looking for confrontation with the West" on Darfur, Liu Giujin told reporters in Paris.

As Sudan’s main overseas supporter and a key arms supplier, China has come under growing pressure to use its influence on the east African regime to end the six-year old conflict in the western region.

Liu, who was in Paris after travelling to Darfur and neighbouring Chad late last month, said China shared "the same objective" as Western nations, but that its approach was "not the same".

"China is opposed to the arbitrary use of sanctions and an embargo that only worsens the situation," he said.

Western powers including Britain, France and the United States have backed the idea of sanctions against Khartoum for resisting the full deployment of a joint AU-UN mission to keep the fragile peace in Darfur.

"China wants to exert a positive influence over (the Sudanese government). What we want is for the crisis to be solved as quickly as possible through dialogue and negotiation, not by force," Liu said.

He said foreign states must build a dialogue of equals with the "legitimate" government in Khartoum, "whether or not we approve of it".

"We must talk to it as an equal, as a partner, to create a minimum of trust. We must ask it what approach best suits its interests," he said.

Liu repeated a call for Western powers to use their "important influence over rebel groups" in Darfur, and "speak with a single voice" to bring them back to the negotiating table.

One of the main rebel leaders from Darfur, Abdel Wahid Mohammed Nur, whose Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/M) spearheaded a 2003 uprising at the start of the current spiral of violence, lives in exile in Paris.

The Darfur conflict, which the United Nations says has claimed the lives of an estimated 200,000 people and displaced 2.2 million, has raged since 2003 when rebel groups demanded a greater share of the country’s resources.

Pressure for China to use its influence on Khartoum has mounted ahead of the Olympic Games in Beijing in August.

Hollywood film-maker Steven Spielberg resigned last month as artistic consultant for the Games over the conflict, which the United States describes as the first genocide of the 21st century.

Nobel Prize winners and Olympic athletes have also written to Chinese President Hu Jintao, asking him to put pressure on Sudan over Darfur.

Liu argued that it was "unfair" to insist on China’s responsibility as arms supplier to Khartoum, saying it was one of seven weapons suppliers to the regime, and accounted for eight percent of its imports.

"In addition, Sudan is Africa’s third arms producer behind Egypt and South Africa, and is self-sufficient in conventional arms and ammunition," Liu said.

"The country will always find a way to obtain arms. It is unfair to accuse China."

(AFP)

Fighting 'traps' Darfur refugees

2008-02-20T18:23:00.000-05:00

Thousands of people are trapped in Sudan's Darfur region, unable to cross into Chad, amid a government offensive, rebels and aid workers say.

Aid agencies say the civilians took refuge in the Jebel Moun mountains following government bombing of three rebel-held towns earlier this month.

The rebels say Sudanese troops are stopping civilians crossing the border.

Sudan's Foreign Ministry told the Associated Press (AP) news agency it was unaware of any stranded refugees.

But a UN spokeswoman in Sudan, Orla Clinton, told AP at least 8,000 refugees were trapped in the mountainous part of western Darfur.

Aid struggle

Sudanese forces say they have taken control of Jebel Moun and inflicted heavy casualties on the rebels of the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem).

Jem accused the government of indiscriminately bombing civilians and killing 15 people.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon earlier condemned the bombing of a camp for displaced people by Sudanese government aircraft at Jebel Moun on Tuesday.

The camp was empty at the time. Eyewitnesses and rebels said army helicopters, Antonov aircraft and state-backed militias had carried out a three-pronged offensive.

Aid agencies were already struggling to cope with a wave of around 12,000 people who fled Darfur into Chad after bombing raids earlier this month.

More than 100 people were killed in that offensive against three major towns, residents say.

At least 200,000 people have died in five years of conflict between rebels, the army and pro-government militias in Darfur.

France has urged the Sudanese authorities to ensure immediate free access to the area for humanitarian workers.

The BBC's Amber Henshaw in Darfur says Jebel Moun remains out of bounds to aid workers and the UN peacekeeping mission to Darfur, Unamid, raising major concerns about thousands of people living in the area.

Unamid began deploying in January but the force still lacks most of the 26,000 personnel planned for the mission.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7255750.stm

China sells arms to Sudan

2008-02-16T08:46:00.001-05:00

February 15, 2008 (HONG KONG) — China has exported more advanced weapon systems to Sudan.

TV video footage of a military parade during the 52nd anniversary of Sudanese independence last year shows that the country already had new-generation Chinese T96 and upgraded T59D main battle tanks and T92 wheeled infantry fighting vehicles fitted with Russian 2A72 30-mm cannon guns.

China acquired the technology from Russia to produce 2A72 30-mm cannon guns, which is believed to have been used to upgrade the Chinese PLA ground forces’ T86 infantry fighting vehicles, or IFVs. Installing 2A72 guns on T92 wheeled IFVs for export to Sudan is a recent development. So far the T-92 wheeled IFVs have been known to be provided only to the Chinese No.38 Group Army.

This appears to be the first time China has exported T92 wheeled IFVs and T96 MBTs to an African nation. The technological standard of this equipment is far superior to ground force equipment China has previously exported to Africa.

At the International Defense Exhibition and Conference 2007 held in Abu Dhabi last year, China introduced the upgraded variant of the T59D tank. African countries that are now using T59 tanks include Zambia and Tanzania.

In recent years, China has largely reinforced military cooperation with African countries through the strategy of trading oil for weapons. Both Sudan and Nigeria have purchased China-made F7M fighters. In 2005 Sudan exported to China 6.62 million tons of crude oil, about 5.2 percent of China’s total oil imports that year. China has a 40-percent stake in Sudan’s largest international oil consortium.

Other Chinese weapons currently in service in the Sudanese forces include Type 54 122-mm howitzers, Type 59-I 130-mm cannons, Type 81 122-mm rocket guns, Type 59 57-mm air-defense guns, mortars of different calibers, eight J-6 fighters and a number of J-7M fighters.

Sudan has also expressed interest in purchasing 12 Chinese FC1 fighters, and the two sides are now negotiating technical details of the deal. In 1996 Sudan purchased six F7M fighters from China, and another two Y8 transport aircraft are also in service. Western military observers believe that those Chinese weapons were paid for with Sudanese oil.

The Sudan military parade in 2007 had a strong Chinese color, as most of the armored weapons were from China. The same parade revealed that the Sudan air force had Chinese-made K8 military trainers. Three K8 trainers and three MiG-29s flew over the capital during the parade. Images from the parade have revealed to the world that the Sudanese army resembles a second Chinese Liberation Army.

(UPI)

Gunmen block Darfur refugees at Chad Border - UN

2008-02-16T08:42:00.000-05:00

February 15, 2008 (N’DJAMENA) — Unknown armed men prevented humanitarian workers from moving traumatized, new arrivals from Darfur away from Chad’s volatile border with Sudan, the U.N. refugee agency reported Friday.

On Tuesday, gunmen blocked a group of about 1,000 refugees from boarding trucks. They are among some 8,000 refugees who have fled across the border since Sudan bombed three border towns last week.

It was unclear if the move was connected to Chad’s threat on Monday to expel Sudanese refugees if the international community failed to move them out of the Central African nation. Analysts had seen the threat as a ploy to encourage a speedy deployment of a European Union peacekeeping force being sent to protect more than half a million refugees in a volatile triangle where the borders of Chad, Sudan and the Central African Republic meet.

"The newly arrived refugees are exhausted. Women report being raped. Children have been separated from their families," said a statement from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva.

Spokeswoman Helene Caux said the agency had trucks ready to move the refugees to the relative safety of a camp. But they were awaiting permission from Chad’s government, she said.

Caux said it was impossible to say who the gunmen were. Several armed groups operate along Chad’s border with Sudan.

Chadian President Idriss Deby declared a nationwide state of emergency on Thursday, with a midnight to dawn curfew. He also banned most meeting and set limits on what the media can publish, measures he said were needed to restore order after the rebel attacks.

The rebels attacked the capital, N’Djamena, on Feb. 2-3, fighting to oust Deby, whom they accuse of corruption and embezzling millions in oil revenue. After a weekend of fighting in which clashes reached the gate of the presidential palace, Chad’s army repelled the rebels from N’Djamena and pursued them eastward toward the Sudanese border.

Deby said the emergency measures would be in place for 15 days, starting Friday, as allowed in Chad’s constitution. After 15 days, Chad’s national assembly can decide whether to allow an extension.

His declaration also gives extra powers to regional governors to control the movement of people and vehicles.

(ST)

Darfur towns burned in government attacks: U.N.

2008-02-12T17:53:00.000-05:00

By Andrew Heavens
Tue Feb 12, 7:17 AM ET

KHARTOUM, Sudan (Reuters) - A major assault by the Sudanese army and allied militia has left two Darfur towns badly damaged by fire, sources close to a U.N. reconnaissance mission to the region said on Tuesday.

The news came as the International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed one of its staff members had been killed in the offensive. Aid group MSF Switzerland said a small number of its staff had gone missing after the attacks.

Sudan said its forces attacked the western towns of Abu Surouj, Sirba and Suleia on Friday to clear out fighters from the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

The U.N.'s refugee agency said at least 12,000 Darfuris fled into neighboring Chad to escape the violence. Residents, who claimed there were no rebels present in the towns, said 47 people were killed in one settlement alone.

A U.N. assessment mission to Abu Surouj and Sirba found buildings burned to the ground and reports of sustained air and ground assaults.

"Both places were partially burned down," said the source close to the U.N./African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) which took part in the investigation mission that ended its trip late Monday.

"We confirmed that they were attacked on February 8. Helicopter gunships were seen. Antonov aircraft were seen. Witnesses said they were also attacked by men riding on horseback accompanied by vehicles."

Residents left in Sirba had been too scared to talk openly to the investigation mission because of the presence of Sudanese army soldiers, said the source, adding that the team had not managed to visit the third settlement of Suleia.

Chad threatened on Monday to expel any more refugees arriving from Darfur, saying their presence was triggering insecurity.

RED CROSS WORKED KILLED

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Tuesday confirmed earlier reports that one of its Sudanese staff members had died during the assault on Suleia.

The 45-year-old father-of-six was killed inside the ICRC's office in the town, said the organization, adding that it was planning to investigate the incident "as security conditions permit."

"The ICRC extends its condolences to the family of the victim, who was not only a colleague but also a friend," said a spokesperson. "His death is a loss for the entire organization."

Humanitarian agencies on Tuesday said their access to west Darfur had been severely hampered for weeks by increasing unrest.

"This is the biggest and deadliest attack in many, many months," said one aid worker, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A spokesman for MSF Switzerland said the organization was still trying to trace staff that had been based in Suleia. "Most of our workers managed to get into Chad but we haven't been able to confirm the location of a small number of them," he said.

West Darfuris have been caught up in increasingly violent clashes involving Sudan's Armed Forces, insurgent groups, and the forces of neighboring Chad. The Chadian airforce in January bombed positions in West Darfur it said were held by Chadian rebels supported by Khartoum.

The increased Chadian involvement has brought additional turmoil to a region torn apart by almost five years of conflict.

International experts estimate some 200,000 have died and 2.5 million been driven from their homes in fighting since early 2003, when mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in Darfur, accusing the government of neglect.

Khartoum says 9,000 have died and accuses the West of exaggerating the scale of the conflict and the casualties.

(Editing by Keith Weir)

Sudan planes, militia attack Darfur towns-witnesses

2008-02-08T23:30:00.000-05:00

08 Feb 2008 19:17:45 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Adds comment by Amnesty, Eliasson, edits)

By Opheera McDoom

KHARTOUM, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Sudanese government aircraft, army and militia attacked three towns in West Darfur state on Friday, causing heavy civilian casualties, Darfur rebels and witnesses said.

"The government attacked the town of Abu Surouj this morning ... a direct attack with cars and horses and bombardment," rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) commander Abdel Aziz el-Nur Ashr told Reuters from Darfur.

"Now they have continued their aggression to three towns ... including Suleia." He put the initial death toll at around 200 but said it was hard to tell because the army was still there.

The governor of West Darfur state Abu el-Gasim confirmed the armed forces had moved on Sirba, Suleia and Abu Surouj -- the last a city of some 150,000 people that also houses displaced people from other attacks -- to retake them from the rebels.

But he denied any casualties or bombing.

"There were a few houses burned but no wounded and no civilians have been killed. I was following the situation carefully," he told Reuters.

Abu Surouj resident Malik Mohamed said he had escaped during the attack early on Friday. "First of all I saw two helicopters and Janjaweed on horses and camels, after that I saw cars," he said. "The helicopters hit us four times and around 20 bombs were dropped," he said by telephone.

His voice breaking, he said he had no idea where his family was. "I am outside the city and can see burning. They (the attackers) are still inside."

Residents of el-Geneina, the state capital, told Reuters they could hear Antonov planes and had seen helicopters. Darfur rebels said that until the attacks they controlled the area north of el-Geneina, where they have often fought army troops, and which aid workers have been forbidden from entering.

Ashr had said previously the rebels expected the attacks because Khartoum had again mobilised militia groups, known locally as Janjaweed, in the area.

Yehia Abakr, a resident of Sirba, told Reuters by telephone he fled the town centre when the forces attacked.

"They have killed many people," he said.

The militia stand accused of widespread atrocities and the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for a junior cabinet minister and an allied militia leader accused of war crimes. Khartoum refuses to hand them over.

U.N. URGES RESTRAINT

The Sudanese army said it had attacked the area to move JEM out because the insurgents had been ambushing their forces. But it denied killing any civilians.

"The armed forces attacked the areas where the rebels are and they have rid the areas of them totally," a spokesman said.

JEM's Ashr said the rebels had not stationed forces inside the towns since capturing them late last year.

"When we attacked and took Suleia, we attacked the army there but not one civilian was killed," he said.

Two other rebel groups also said the nearby Chad-Sudan border area of Jabel Moun had been bombed.

Commander of the joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID), Martin Luther Agwai, said he was very concerned about the government attack, urging all sides to show restraint.

"In addition to the loss of life and damage to property, there is the potential for displacement of large numbers of villagers, compounding an already critical humanitarian situation," he said in a statement.

The UNAMID force, still awaiting an agreement from Khartoum on its operational rules due to be signed on Saturday says it has only 9,000 of its required 26,000 troops and police.

It also lacks attack and transport helicopters. Ethiopia said on Thursday it would provide five of the required 24.

Rights group Amnesty International said the government attack was a "major test" for the UNAMID mission which began operations on Dec. 31 and called on it to protect the civilians in the area.

"The Security Council ... should call on the government of Sudan to comply with international humanitarian law and ensure that civilians are protected at all times and call on JEM not to endanger civilians by stationing armed men within civilian areas," Tawanda Hondora, Amnesty's deputy Africa director, said in a statement on Friday.

"It looks like a rather large-scale operation," Jan Eliasson, U.N. special envoy to Darfur, said in New York of the latest offensive.

Witnesses said the attacks were similar to those in the early days of the Darfur conflict in 2003, when Khartoum mobilised militias to quell mostly non-Arab rebels who took up arms in western Sudan, accusing the government of neglect. (Editing by Andrew Roche)

AlertNet news is provided by Reuters

Sudan doubles crude exports to China in 2007

2008-01-23T07:13:00.001-05:00

January 22, 2008 (BEIJING) — Crude oil exports from Sudan to China more than doubled last year to top 200,000 barrels a day, with official data showing that China now takes 40 percent of the east African producer’s total output.

Sudan exported 10.31 million tonnes to China in 2007, or 113 percent above 2006, ranking as Beijing’s sixth-largest crude supplier, with 6 percent of the total crude imports to the world’s second-largest oil user, data from the General Administration of Customs showed.

The surge in Sudanese oil was due to the rising production at Block 3/7, which started up in August 2006 and produces a heavy, highly acidic crude Dar Blend, traders said.

State energy group CNPC, parent of PetroChina , is the largest oil investor in Sudan, owning 41 percent of block 3/7 and 40 percent of the 1/2/4 field, which produces Nile Blend crude.

Sudan now stood within striking distance of the fifth-largest exporter, Oman, where sales in 2007 sales went up a marginal 3.7 percent to 270,000 bpd.

Saudi Arabia, Angola, Iran and Russia were the top four exporters, among which Iran recorded the biggest increase — 22 percent over a year earlier, the data recorded.

State refiner Sinopec Corp raised spot purchases on top of term supplies, traders have said.

The data also showed that supplies from Russia came down 9 percent at 290,000 bpd, which traders attributed partly to below-target sales through railways.

For this year, Riyadh is set to remain Beijing’s top oil supplier, as the Kingdom agreed to raise exports by nearly 40 percent to some 720,000 bpd, to feed China’s new refining facilities, Beijing-based traders have told Reuters.

Since Beijing has agreed to raise imports from Tehran by about 100,000 bpd under a one-year supply pact, Iran could soon overtake Angola as China’s No.2 supplier.

(Reuters)

Darfur bandit attacks threaten aid to 2 million: WFP

2008-01-23T06:58:00.000-05:00

By Opheera McDoom

Armed robberies and bandit attacks on aid convoys are threatening deliveries of food to more than 2 million people in Darfur, the World Food Program said on Wednesday.

Around two-thirds of the population of Darfur depend on the world's largest aid operation, but a collapse in law and order in the vast region has made life difficult for humanitarian workers.

Five years of fighting in Darfur has claimed an estimated 200,000 lives and driven 2.5 million from their homes.

So far this year, 22 trucks have been stolen and 18 drivers are missing, WFP officials said, calling on the Sudanese government to make sure the roads are safe.

"Our main trucking companies now refuse to send in more vehicles because of this upsurge in banditry and therefore we have no one to deliver about half our monthly food relief requirement, WFP Sudan country head Kenro Oshidari said in the statement.

"If the situation continues, we'll be forced to cut rations in parts of Darfur by mid-February," he added.

"Attacks on trucks carrying WFP supplies, abductions of drivers and trucks, looting of WFP supplies and drivers' personal property and beatings of WFP-contracted drivers to intimidate them have increased in recent months," the statement said.

In addition to the attacks on drivers under contract, WFP said there were two attacks on WFP staff and vehicles on Tuesday.

Near el-Fasher, Darfur's main town, two vehicles were taken and five staff briefly abducted and threatened with death before being released and walking to safety.

South of el-Geneina, capital of West Darfur state, WFP lorries were shot at. The cab of one vehicle took a direct hit although the driver escaped unharmed.

A joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping mission took over from struggling AU peacekeepers on December 31, but troop levels are unchanged and the government in Khartoum has obstructed deployment of the new mission.

In the absence of an effective peacekeeping operation, the government has also failed to maintain safety on the roads, although local authorities deny any security problems.

"WFP is urging Sudanese authorities to ensure the safety of main routes in Darfur," the statement added.

Mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing central government of marginalizing the region. Khartoum mobilized mainly Arab tribes to quell the insurgency.

Those tribal militias are accused of widespread atrocities against civilians. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for a junior government minister and an allied militia leader accused of war crimes, but Khartoum refuses to hand them over.

(Reporting by Opheera McDoom; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Copyright © 2008 Reuters

Sudan 'bombing rebels in Darfur'

2008-01-15T06:12:00.001-05:00

Sudanese warplanes have been bombing rebel positions near Geneina in West Darfur, rebel commanders in the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem) say.

They say there have been several civilian causalities as people flee villages to shelter from the raids.

Correspondents say Jem has claimed a series of recent victories over government troops in the area in fighting which is hampering aid work.

Some 200,000 people in Darfur have died in the five-year conflict.

More than 2m people are living in camps after fleeing the continued fighting and insecurity in the region.

The United Nations and African Union have so far sent 9,000 troops for a planned 26,000-strong force.

Prison break

"They killed three citizens - two women and one man," Jem commander Abdel Aziz el-Nur Ashr told Reuters news agency.

Another Jem leader told AFP news agency that bombing raids had taken place on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

International sources confirmed to Reuters that government planes had been seen in action on Sunday.

There has been no confirmation from the Sudanese army about the attacks.

There is concern that insecurity in the region is growing.

"All the roads around Geneina are no-go areas right now," Emilia Casella, spokeswoman for the UN's World Food Programme is quoted by Reuters as saying.

In South Darfur, the AP news agency reports that gunmen have stormed a prison freeing at least 90 prisoners.

Reports say the attackers wounded two guards at the Buram prison and took several inmates with them when they fled in pick-up trucks.

A United Nations official was quoted as saying the raid appeared to have been carried out by members of the Salamat community, suspected of belonging to the Janjaweed militia associated with the government.

The Sudanese authorities have promised an investigation.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7188937.stm

China, Russa quash ICC efforts to press Sudan over Darfur crimes

2008-01-13T15:21:00.000-05:00

Saturday 12 January 2008.

By Katy Glassborow

January 11, 2008 (THE HAGUE) — A United Nations Security Council, UNSC, statement calling for the Sudanese government to comply with the International Criminal Court, ICC, by handing over two men suspected of war crimes in Darfur has been scrapped due to opposition from China and Russia.

The countries, two of the five permanent UNSC members, refused to endorse the presidential statement which urged the Government of Sudan, GoS, to cooperate fully with, and provide any necessary assistance to the ICC.

Human rights workers, officials and court representatives are now calling for the UNSC to take a tougher stance.

Back in March 2005, the UNSC referred Darfur to the ICC under Resolution 1593 because it considered the situation in Sudan a threat to international peace and security. The resolution urged all states to cooperate fully with the court.

In April 2007, ICC judges issued arrest warrants for government minister Ahmed Harun, and Janjaweed commander Ali Kushyb. However, the GoS refused to accept the jurisdiction of the ICC over crimes in Darfur, insisting that the Sudanese justice system is capable to trying suspects.

Khartoum refuses to cooperate with the court, and in a show of defiance, Harun has been promoted to minister in charge of humanitarian affairs, and as liaison for the new UN-African Union hybrid peacekeeping force, UNAMID.

The statement calling for greater cooperation from the GoS was drafted after the ICC prosecutor reported in December that a second wave of atrocities was being committed against 2.5 million Darfurians, who had previously been forcibly displaced from their homes and are now living in camps.

In his report, Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo spoke of a "calculated, organised campaign by Sudanese officials to attack individuals and further destroy the social fabric of entire communities", as well as an increasing number of attacks against humanitarian personnel and peace keepers.

He gave examples of the joint attack on the town of Muhajiriya by allied GoS and Janjaweed forces on October 8, 2007 in which 48 civilians praying in a mosque were rounded up and slaughtered, as well as a Sudanese airforce bombing of Adilla in August the same year which displaced a further 20,000 people.

Moreno-Ocampo asked the UNSC to send a strong, unanimous message to the GoS, requesting compliance and the execution of arrest warrants for Harun and Kushyb.

"It would be inaccurate and confusing to convey in any way to the GoS that the arrest warrants and the obligation to comply with Resolution 1593 will go away," said Moreno-Ocampo.

At the time, the then president of the UNSC, Italy’s ambassador Marcello Spatafora, described the contents of Moreno-Ocampo’s report as "very disturbing”. Following the prosecutor’s briefing, he said a UNSC declaration should be drafted.

"We cannot stay silent, and have to send a strong message [to the Sudanese authorities] so we propose this to the members and ask the countries to circulate a draft. It is now under consideration," he said.

Slovakia, Italy, UK, France, and Belgium then proposed a statement, citing the ICC arrest warrants for Kushyb and Harun, and urged Khartoum to cooperate with the ICC "in respect of these individuals".

However, on December 7, after two days of discussions between the 15 members of the UNSC, the statement was suddenly abandoned.

In an apparent about-turn, Spatafora told journalists that a statement was “not needed” because UNSC members had already been “loud and clear” about their views that the GoS should cooperate with the ICC.

UN sources told IWPR that China and Russia felt the presidential statement was not conducive to humanitarian, political and peacekeeping efforts.

UK ambassador to the UN John Sawyers suggested that China was responsible for blocking December’s statement. He said he was "confident that if the Chinese had not taken such a firm line against the statement, it would have been adopted".

ICC watchers, such as David Donat Cattin from Parliamentarians for Global Action, were not surprised the statement was scrapped and feel that it would not have made any real difference to the Darfur crisis.

"It would have been a nice political move, but would not have added anything to the legally binding Resolution 1593," he said.

But representatives of rebel groups in Sudan are disappointed that the UNSC has backed down.

Ahmed Diraige, chairman of the Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance and former head of the National Redemption Front, said in order to stay credible and respected by Darfurians, organisations such as the UN and ICC must prove they are fulfilling their duties.

"The resolve of the international community to bring people in Sudan to justice is a farce. The UNSC and ICC have passed resolutions and indicted individuals, but have no means of enforcing decisions and the government is defying them, and not handing individuals over,” said Diraige.

"One has been promoted to status of minister of humanitarian affairs when he is accused of violating human rights. This is very damaging to the reputation of these institutions. People will laugh and say they do not exist and are only names.”

He told IWPR that the international community must take a tougher stance against the Sudanese authorities.

"People in Darfur have lost faith. Injustices are continuing. The international community, international institutions and heads of state are not doing anything," he said.

Justice minister of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement, JEM, Bushara Suleiman, said that whether Kushayb and Harun end up in The Hague is entirely dependent on pressure from the UNSC on the government, and is calling for further sanctions.

"The UNSC need to impose oil sanctions, which is the only thing which will stop the genocide in Darfur, but [permanent member] China will never allow this,” he said.

"The Chinese have a UNSC veto and also have oil interests in Sudan. So rebels need to control cities like El Genina, El Fasher and Nyala, because any other sanctions will not convince the GoS to comply with the ICC."

China buys most of Sudan’s oil, and rebels accuse the country of indirectly funding Khartoum’s campaign in Darfur by investing in the country’s oil industry and thereby channelling money to the government.

Bushara told IWPR that those who have committed crimes have to be taken to the ICC and that "we will fight until this happens. For us it is clear. We need comprehensive sanctions".

But Sawyers is not confident about the resolve of fellow UNSC members over imposing progressively more hard-hitting sanctions against Sudan.

“If we press for further sanctions, we might find a number of other countries, not just China, but also Russia, Libya, Vietnam South Africa being cautious about applying that pressure,” he said.

Observers point out that the current sanctions imposed against Sudan by the UNSC are not working.

Cattin said that a travel ban currently in place against Harun is short-sighted because "experience tells us that the best way to arrest these people is to allow them to travel and arrest them outside Sudan".

Steve Crawshaw from Human Rights Watch said that blame for the UNSC’s half-hearted response to the Darfur crisis cannot be laid solely at the feet of China and Russia.

He said that right across the UNSC, there has been a lack of will to help the ICC, and added that the body was sending out “confusing signals” to Sudan.

In mid-2007, as the UN negotiated with the Sudanese authorities to send a deployment of hybrid peacekeepers to Darfur, the UNSC did not want to acknowledge the GoS was failing to cooperate with the ICC in case it ruined the deal.

Crawshaw said that Khartoum was praised by the UN for cooperating in discussions over peacekeepers, with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon failing to raise the issue of justice on a trip to Sudan.

"You can’t have Khartoum praised, and not mention that Harun was appointed as the liaison to UNAMID. This is a shameful slap in the face to the UN, and every government has to confront this," added Crawshaw.

Belgium’s UN ambassador Johan Verbeke told IWPR he has "again and again stressed the importance of the fight against impunity in Sudan, particularly in relation to the case of Harun, and succeeded in making an increasing number of UNSC members sensitive to the issue.

"Belgium will not accept Sudan’s utter defiance of its obligations.”

These are welcome words for ICC prosecutors after what they describe as “months of silence from the international community”.

An ICC spokesperson told IWPR that "it is now up to the members of the UNSC to live up to their responsibility and ensure that the GoS respect its obligations under Resolution 1593 and cooperate with the ICC, in particular through the arrest and surrender of Harun and Kushayb".

The Chinese and Russian delegations to the UN declined the opportunity to respond to interview requests from IWPR.

(IWPR)

Chadian planes bomb rebels in Sudan - UN

2008-01-09T06:28:00.001-05:00

07 Jan 2008 19:49:59 GMT
Source: Reuters

(Adds statement from Chadian government in paragraphs 6-8)

By Andrew Heavens

KHARTOUM, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Chadian planes have bombed Chadian rebel positions near the capital of Sudan's Western Darfur state, a U.N. report said of the second reported cross-border incursion in two weeks.

Six Chadian "opposition members" were killed in the attacks on villages in Darfur early Sunday, said the report seen by Reuters on Monday.

Rodolphe Adada, head of the African Union-United Nations force for Darfur, said he was watching growing tensions along the Chad-Sudan border with deep concern and said they could negatively affect the deployment of the long-awaited joint Darfur peacekeeping mission.

In a statement, Adada said he was "concerned that if the situation is not immediately brought under control, great numbers of internally displaced persons and refugees will likely be the first victims of any further escalations."

Relations between Chad and Sudan have been tense in recent years as both try to quell insurgencies close to their long and porous border. They accuse each other of backing rebels trying to overthrow their respective governments.

Chad's government issued a statement saying that Chadian "mercenaries" were integrated into the ranks of the Sudanese army. It said it viewed any attack from Sudanese territory as an attack by the Sudanese army and reserved the right to respond.

"All our air and ground forces are mobilised to guarantee the security of our national territory with the aim of blocking any mercenary presence or bases on either side of the border with Sudan," the statement said.

It made no direct reference to the strikes mentioned in the U.N. report.

SECURITY COUNCIL CONCERN

Sunday's reported strikes came a day after Chadian President Idriss Deby threatened to send his armed forces into Sudan to destroy rebel fighters he accuses Khartoum of supporting.

The U.N. report said the attacks took place on Jan. 6 at approximately 4:30 a.m. on the villages of Goker and Wadi Radi 35 km south of Geneina.

"It has been confirmed that the Chadian air force bombed these two locations killing six Chadian opposition members and injuring four," it said.

It said the injured were being treated in a civilian hospital in el Geneina, capital of Western Darfur state, 1,100 km (680 miles) west of Khartoum.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council expressed "serious concern at the recent upsurge of activities of the illegal armed groups in western Sudan and in eastern Chad, and at the resulting tension between Sudan and Chad."

A statement read to reporters by Libyan Ambassador Giadalla Ettalhi, current council president, said council members "called on Sudan and Chad to exercize restraint and pursue dialogue and cooperation".

The air strikes are likely to enrage Sudan, which has repeatedly denied supporting Chadian rebels and warned Chad not to take military action.

Sudan has accused Chad of bombing parts of Darfur on Dec. 28. But N'Djamena insisted it had targeted rebel units on the border without crossing into Darfur. (Additional reporting by Patrick Worsnip at the United Nations; Editing by Keith Weir)

AlertNet news is provided by Reuters

Sudan paper suspended for "insulting" president

2008-01-09T06:25:00.001-05:00

Tuesday 8 January 2008.

January 7, 2008 (JUBA) — A Sudanese newspaper has been ordered to shut down for two days after being accused of insulting President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the paper’s editor and owner said on Monday.

Nhial Bol said Sudan’s National Press Council had suspended his English language daily The Citizen over an editorial it wrote about armed clashes on the country’s north-south border.

"The National Press Council ... (said) an article was insulting to President Bashir and so they suspended us for two days," said Bol, who estimates he will lose $7,500 on advertising during the shutdown next Saturday and Sunday.

Newspapers have to register with the National Press Council, Sudan’s official press regulator, and cannot publish if their membership is suspended.

Bol said that his paper, which has its newsroom in south Sudan’s capital Juba, had been shut down nine times before by the press council.

"Sometimes they allow you to print and then they come and take all the papers. Comparatively, this is a light punishment," he said.

No one was immediately available for comment from the National Press Council.

(Reuters)

Children mortality remains high in southern Sudan – charity

2008-01-09T06:24:00.001-05:00

Wednesday 9 January 2008.

January 8, 2008 (LONDON) — A British-based international charity, Save the Children, said today that rates of children mortality remain high in southern Sudan. It further warned that thousands of children are still facing death.

A four-year-old Sudanese boy collapses from hunger at a feeding centre run by medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres in the village of Paliang, about 160 km northwest of the southern town of Rumbek, May 25, 2005. (Reuters).

Since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, three years ago, health care conditions for children reach crisis point. One in four children in Southern Sudan dies before the age of five, mainly from easily preventable diseases such as malaria or diarrhoea; said Save the Children.

It added that tens of thousands of families still have very limited access to basic healthcare, with just one trained doctor for every 100,000 people.

The 2005 peace agreement promised to direct proceeds from Sudan’s rich oil reserves to help rebuild the country’s destroyed health and education systems. Yet three years on, communities struggling to survive after the country’s 20 year civil war have seen little change.

The international charity called on southern Sudan government to commit more funding to building up education, health and protection services. Also it urged fundraisers to give more money and advice to the South Sudanese government to protect children.

In a report released at the end of last December, the UN’s children’s agency UNICEF said the number of children who die before their fifth birthday fell below 10 million in 2006, but much more still needed to be done.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report attributed the progress in children’s mortality rates largely to improvements in healthcare.

By comparison, an estimated 20 million children under five were dying every year at the beginning of the 1960s.

But UNICEF’s executive director, Ann Veneman, pointed out that "much more must be done" and "if we do so, we can help create a better world for girls and boys, and for generations to come."

The study also found an appalling lack of basic sanitation, hygiene and drinkable water, which contributes to the deaths of more than 1.5 million children each year from diarrhea and related ailments.

(ST)

US Bush says "deeply troubled" by events in Darfur

2008-01-09T06:23:00.001-05:00

Wednesday 9 January 2008.

January 8, 2008 (WASHINGTON) — U.S. President George W. Bush said Tuesday he was "deeply troubled" by the unending crisis in Darfur and called for rapid deployment of an effective peacekeeping force and dialogue to end the turmoil.

George Bush

He made the statement in conjunction with the third anniversary on Wednesday of the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Sudan, which ended 21 years of civil war in that country.

"I am deeply troubled that innocent civilians continue to fall victim to the scourge of government- and rebel-led attacks in Darfur," Bush said.

"I remain firmly committed to the rapid deployment of an effective peacekeeping force coupled with serious political dialogue between the parties to help end the crisis and the suffering of the innocent people of Darfur," he added.

A new United Nations-mandated peacekeeping mission took over from an African Union mission on Jan. 1 in the western region of Darfur, where some 200,000 people have died and more than 2 million made homeless since ethnic minority rebels took up arms against Sudan’s Arab-dominated regime in February 2003.

The new mission, the U.N.’s largest, will eventually consist of 20,000 troops and 6,000 police and civilian personnel, but only around 9,000 troops and police are currently in place.

Relations between Sudan and the United States have long been strained, most recently over the near five-year Darfur conflict where Washington has accused Khartoum of genocide.

A U.S. diplomat and his driver were murdered on New Year’s day in Khartoum, a day after Bush signed a law aimed at piling economic pressure on the government in Khartoum.

Bush also said Tuesday that Washington remained committed with the implementation of all aspects of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which created a southern autonomous government in Sudan and two separate armies.

North Sudanese troops completed their withdrawal from oil rich areas of the south, a southern general said on Tuesday, heading off the latest brewing north-south crisis.

A joint defense council had given the northern troops until Wednesday to leave after they failed to meet a December 31 deadline that was part of a deal that saw southern ex-rebels return to government after resigning in October.

Their withdrawal from the unity cabinet was the worst crisis to hit the 2005 peace deal that ended Africa’s longest-running civil war. An estimated two million people were killed and another 6 million displaced in the two-decade-long conflict.

"While much progress has been made in forming a government of national unity, sharing wealth, and respecting a cessation of hostilities, many challenges remain to the agreement’s full implementation," Bush said.

He called for efforts to ensure that a nationwide census was immediately conducted to allow national elections to be held on time next year.

"The work of Sudan’s border commission also must be reinvigorated, along with efforts to redeploy troops away from disputed border areas, to reduce the chances of a return to violence," he said.

"The Comprehensive Peace Agreement laid the groundwork for lasting peace and unity for all of Sudan, and its vigorous application will continue to underpin U.S. involvement across Sudan," Bush said.

(AFP)

Sudan attacked UN hybrid force in Darfur – Ban Ki-Moon

2008-01-09T06:22:00.001-05:00

Wednesday 9 January 2008.

January 8, 2008 (NEW YORK) — UN chief has condemned today attack by the Sudanese army against a supply convoy for the hybrid peacekeeping force last night in western Darfur and lodged a protest with Khartoum.

Ban Ki-Moon with members of the UN Mission in Congo (MONUC) (Reuters).

Early Tuesday the UNAMID said in a press statement that a road convoy was attacked on Monday night while it was on a re-supply mission to hybrid force sites in the area between Um Baru, Tine and Kulbus, in West Darfur.

"The Secretary-General condemns this attack in the strongest possible terms and stresses that, for the joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping Operation to be able to perform its mandated functions, the Government of Sudan has to provide unequivocal guarantees that there will be no recurrence of such activities by its forces." Ban Ki-Moon said.

He further added "In this connection, the United Nations is lodging a protest with the Government of Sudan."

The area where the attack occurred has witnessed violent clashes between the government of Sudan and rebel Justice and Equality Movement. Also, the UNAMID air operations have been restricted due to the security concerns.

A Sudanese civilian driver suffered seven gunshot wounds and vehicles were damaged during the attack on the convoy. He was evacuated to UNAMID headquarters in the Darfur town of Al-Fasher for medical care.

The South African peacekeepers protecting the convoy did not return fire, and no UNAMID casualties were incurred during the attack on the convoy. However a tanker truck was destroyed and an armored personnel carrier was damaged.

APPARENT MISTAKE

Sudanese troops apparently mistook the U.N. convoy for Darfur rebels who operate in the area near the border with Chad. "It was night time, it seems the (Sudanese) soldiers lost their calm," a UN official told the Associated Press.

The senior official working with the hybrid force said the Sudanese soldiers stopped shooting after 10 minutes and let the peacekeepers go.

U.N. vehicles are painted white and marked with the U.N. logo to signal their neutrality. It was unclear how the Sudanese soldiers could have mistaken them for rebels, who usually drive camouflaged pickup trucks and don’t have armored vehicles.

The head of the peacekeeping mission, Rodolphe Adada, consulted with Sudan’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday and both sides "agreed to launch an urgent investigation," UNAMID spokesman Noureddine Mezni said.

"The is the first time UNAMID is attacked, and we hope it will be the last," Mezni said. "We are in Darfur to bring peace, not to fight."

REBEL’S CONDEMNATION

The two main rebel movements condemned the attack and describe it as first clear manifestation of Khartoum will to undermine the Longley awaited peacekeeping force to protect Darfur Civilians, they told Sudan Tribune.

Abdelwahid al-Nur the leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement expressed his strongest condemnation of the attack. He further warned "Without security there will no talks with Khartoum government."

While the spokesperson of the Justice and Equality Ahmed Hussein Adam who also condemned the attack said "This precedent shows clearly that Sudanese government working to abort the UNAMID mission and challenge the will of the international community in Darfur."

Both urged the international community to strongly condemn "the Sudanese aggression" against the hybrid peacekeeping force.

Last month in a report to the Security Council, Ban warned that the UNAMID mission was at risk, because the force still lacks crucial components, including a ground transport unit, 18 transport helicopters and six light tactical helicopters meant to provide air mobility and firepower to protect civilians and peacekeepers.

Further Jean-Marie Guehenno, the head of the UN peacekeeping department, told the Security Council in November that UNAMID risked humiliation if it was not provided with the required muscle and firepower. He specifically insisted on the importance of including four key non-African units to the force: a Thai infantry battalion, two Nepalese special forces contingents and a Scandinavian engineering unit.

The U.N. peacekeeping mission that began Jan. 1 is the latest international attempt to end the violence. A poorly equipped African Union force of about 7,000 soldiers was unable to end the chaos and suffered dozens of casualties of its own.

The hybrid force formally took over from the poorly equipped African Union mission aims to restore security and protect civilians and create conducive conditions for peace in Darfur.

According to the UN experts more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.2 million others forced to flee their homes since fighting began in 2003 between Government forces and rebel groups.

(ST)

Some information for this report provided by AP.

UN spokesperson in Sudan calls it quits

2008-01-09T06:19:00.001-05:00

Wednesday 9 January 2008.

January 8, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — The spokesperson for the UN mission in Sudan (UNMIS) Radhia Achouri announced that she will leave the post by the end of this week.

Former UN SG envoy, Jan Pronk, with the UNMIS spokeswoman Radhia Achouri.

“I was privileged to be part of the UNMIS build-up when it was the Mission was at it advance stage” Achouri said in a statement sent by email.

The announcement came as a joint African-United Nations force (UNAMID) took over peacekeeping duties in Darfur last week and existing AU forces switched their green berets to the UN blue ones. The transfer of authority has been largely symbolic.

Sudan not signed off on the Status of Force (SAF) agreement that governs the work of the new force. It has refused to allow night flights — except for medical evacuation — or large U.N. cargo planes.

Additionally, the government has attempted to require the force to give it advance notice of all movements and to ensure that its military can scramble U.N. radio communications when it is conducting operations.

Sudan has also refused to allow non-African units in Darfur including Swedish, Thai and Nepalese troops.

The Tunisian born UN officer was frequently subject to a hostile media campaign and threats by government agencies including the Sudanese army.

The Sudanese government has been irritated by Achouri‘s statements on issues such as obstacles facing humanitarian access in Darfur and lack of compliance by northern troops on withdrawal from the South.

Last May the Sudanese justice Minister Mohamed Ali Al-Mardi warned Achouri not to go down the same road of the expelled UN Special Representative to Sudan Jan Pronk. The latter was expelled by Khartoum in October 2006 for exposing information on the performance of the Sudanese army in Darfur.

Achouri was considered close to Pronk during his time in Sudan.

The UN spokesperson said that she had an “enriching experience” in UNMIS which was mandated with supporting the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the North and South signed in 2005.

Some observers who spoke to Sudan Tribune last year noted that the UNMIS has been severely weakened since the expulsion of Pronk. They also said that UN leadership in New York was not adequately supporting the mission in face of Khartoum’s intimidation.

Nonetheless Achouri said that she wishes that the year 2008 “would be the year of comprehensive peace in Sudan, for the people deserves it”.

(ST)

A Strategy for Success in Sirte

2008-01-05T20:19:00.001-05:00

Date: 11/19/2007
Author(s): Colin Thomas-Jensen and John Prendergast

If not revamped, the Darfur peace process will almost certainly fail. Though hopes were high for talks that convened in early November, the United Nations/African Union joint mediation team made a critical mistake by trying to unify the rebels and assemble them all in one place without a clearly defined vision for an end state that resonates with Darfur’s civilian population. Most of the myriad rebel groups—and all of the significant ones—declined to attend the November talks in Sirte, Libya because they feared a repeat of the Abuja peace process that produced the failed 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement, or DPA.

But it is not too late. The Sirte talks can be rescued when they reconvene in December[1] if the mediation team and its international partners, including the United States, take immediate action to reorient the content, to restructure the process, and to build the requisite leverage needed to compel the negotiating parties to reach a final agreement.

Over the last decade, political negotiations in Sudan have achieved one major success—the increasingly fragile Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA—and resulted in one major failure—the DPA.[2] The international community can draw clear lessons from each process:
Comprehensive Peace Agreement: The Intergovernmental Authority on Development, an East African regional organization, mediated between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, or SPLM. The IGAD mediators articulated a clear vision around an end state that the southern Sudanese population strongly supports: self-determination. Senior diplomats from a “troika” of countries—the United States, United Kingdom, and Norway [3] —supported and coordinated closely with the IGAD mediation team to pressure both parties to make the difficult compromises that ultimately yielded an agreement.[4]
Darfur Peace Agreement: The talks in Abuja, Nigeria that led to the failed 2006 DPA between the government and one rebel faction were also mediated by a regional organization—the AU—but the roles and responsibilities of other international actors were muddled at best. Chad, a country directly involved in the conflict through its support for various rebel factions, was a “co-mediator,” while Libya and Nigeria served as “facilitators.” The United States, U.K., United Nations, European Union, and Arab League were five of the 16 “observers.” The overabundance of actors lacked a cohesive coordinating mechanism and preferred infrequent visits from senior diplomats to consistent high-level diplomacy.

These lessons—clear end state, tight structure, and focused leverage—have not yet been applied to the Sirte talks. A clear strategy for success should reflect the lessons learned from the success of the CPA and failure of the DPA and include new arrangements and approaches on the content, process, and leverage that guide the talks.

A. Content

Recommendation: The joint mediation team should unveil an envisioned end state in the form of a draft agreement that reflects the widely shared concerns of the principal victims of this conflict—Darfurian civilians who have been displaced from their homes.

The issues on the table in Libya are complex, with deep disparities between the positions of the government and the rebel groups. Rather than wait for the parties to come up with their own proposals, the joint mediation team needs to author a draft agreement that begins to bridge this gap by adopting the perspective of a much broader array of stakeholders, particularly the civilian victims of the conflict. A draft agreement that clearly addresses the interests of the people of Darfur and rebel groups will also serve as an incentive for the rebel leaders absent from Sirte to attend the talks when they reconvene in December.

The following four issues must be part of a solution, and the proposals shared widely to build support throughout Darfur.

1) Compensation: Compensation, or diya, is a central part of traditional conflict resolution in Darfur. The primary purposes of compensation are to recognize the harm done to a community and (partially [5] ) satisfy the victims’ demand for justice. In Darfur, this can only occur when the government of Sudan, as the party most responsible for systematic killing, rape, torture, and looting in Darfur, adequately compensates victims for stolen livestock, land, goods, etc. Moreover, compensation for Darfur must be separate and distinct from any reconstruction and development funds that may be offered once peace is achieved. The DPA authorized a compensation fund of $30 million for Darfur. Using a very crude calculation, equal distribution among the 2.5 million displaced people would amount to a $12 payout for each victim. Given the scale of the economic losses in Darfur and the complexity of determining and distributing compensation, the government of Sudan must allocate substantially more funds and agree to an international monitoring mechanism to ensure that those funds are dispersed fairly.

2) Dismantling the militias: The people of Darfur will simply not accept any agreement that fails to establish a clear, internationally monitored process to disarm the Janjaweed militias. By contrast, the DPA holds the government of Sudan responsible for disarming its own proxies, a responsibility that the government has pledged to honor and then ignored on at least six occasions. Meanwhile, a disarmament program must be devised with the goal of formally dismantling the structures of violence in Darfur: the Janjaweed militias and the various rebel factions. The mediation should seek agreement on an internationally monitored process to assemble these groups, collect their heavy weapons, and implement an aggressive program to disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate—a process known as DDR—combatants back into their communities. Moreover, the process must take into account the realities on the ground. Although weapons have flooded the region since the crisis began in 2003, many farmers and herders in Darfur have carried rifles for years to defend their land and livestock. DDR programs should seek to take apart the militias without disrupting the traditional livelihoods of civilians.

3) Darfur autonomy: The question of how Darfur should be administered—and whether it should remain as three states or establish a regional government, as was the case until 1989—is at the center of political negotiations over Darfur’s future. The DPA establishes a transition period before a regional vote on Darfur’s status, to be held no later than mid-2010. However, some rebel factions continue to demand an immediate return to a regional government, while others have openly called for self-determination and even independence. The mediation team must work with the parties to establish consensus on the question of autonomy before moving on to the specifics of power sharing.

4) Political representation for Darfur: The mediation team in Libya must tackle the thorny question of how to broaden the power-sharing arrangements beyond the DPA signatories to include the rebel factions that did not sign, and, most importantly, a broader set of stakeholders and civil society groups from Darfur. The power-sharing provisions in the DPA failed to address a major root cause of the rebellion in 2003: a collective demand by the people of Darfur for greater control over their affairs. Only one of three rebel factions at the talks—the SLA group led by Minni Minnawi, or SLA/MM—signed the DPA under pressure from the mediators and international actors. Encouraged by the international community, the government of Sudan has implemented the agreement’s political provisions and awarded the SLA/MM with positions in the government. Further, in Abuja the Sudanese government’s National Congress Party, or NCP, used the power sharing talks to drive a contentious wedge between the southern Sudanese and the SPLM, on the one hand, and Darfurians, on the other, exploiting the fact that the SPLM opposes a power sharing deal for Darfur because it would reduce the Southerners’ hard-fought political gains under the CPA. The mediation team must preserve the CPA as the national framework for a national political solution, and they must consult directly with the SPLM on the draft agreement to address those concerns.

B. Process

Process Recommendation #1: The joint mediation team must immediately broaden the process to ensure that all stakeholders in Darfur have ownership over the envisioned end state and, eventually, the final agreement.

The Abuja peace talks that produced the DPA were between an unrepresentative government in Khartoum and the three rebel groups recognized by the AU mediators (at least two significant rebel factions were not at the table). The one rebel group that ultimately signed the DPA—Minni Minawi’s SLA faction—lacked and still lacks popular support in Darfur. After the agreement, many of Minawi’s forces became paramilitaries for the government of Sudan, committed atrocities, and engaged in widespread banditry and attacks on humanitarians and peacekeepers.

The AU mediators failed to give the people of Darfur and the victims of the conflict—particularly women, internally displaced persons, and non-aligned Arab groups—an adequate voice at the talks, opting to secure buy in from Darfurians after the agreement was signed through a process called the Darfur-Darfur Dialogue and Consultation. However, the DPA was dead on arrival, rendering moot the Darfur-Darfur Dialogue before it could begin.

Unless of the various stakeholders in Darfur can participate formally in the peace process, any agreement reached will almost certainly lack broad support from the people of Darfur and collapse as spectacularly as did the DPA. The talks must include the following groups:

1) Sudan’s Government of National Unity: The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended the civil war between the government and rebels based in the South, established a Government of National Unity between Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party and the Southern People’s Liberation Movement. The SPLM’s decision in October to recall its ministers from the unity government has cast a spotlight on the ruling party’s failure to implement key provisions of the CPA and sparked a deepening political crisis in Khartoum. Urgent action is needed on the part of the international community to re-engage in the North-South peace process and prevent a return to war in the South, but also to ensure that the Government’s delegation in Libya is genuinely representative of both parties in the Government of National Unity. If the NCP and the SPLM do not share ownership over an eventual agreement for Darfur, the agreement will most likely die during implementation.

2) The rebel signatory to the DPA, Minni Minawi’s SLA faction: As a result of the DPA, Minni Minawi and some members of his SLA faction were formally incorporated into the unity government. The government-led attack in October on forces loyal to Minawi at Muhajaria in North Darfur demonstrates the total breakdown of the DPA and bolsters the argument of some non-signatory factions that the DPA should not serve as a platform for negotiations. Minawi and other members of his faction within the Sudanese government, including the recently appointed governor of West Darfur, could turn out to be the spoilers in Libya. It is conceivable that they will fight even harder than the NCP not to reopen the power-sharing provisions of the DPA in order to protect their jobs. These groups have the “legitimacy” of being signatories to the DPA and can and likely will be used by the NCP to act as front men to provide resistance, from a legal perspective, to substantially reworking the agreement. To achieve new power-sharing arrangements, the mediators will likely need to broker a side deal in which Minawi stands down from his position as Special Assistant to the President and head of the Transitional Darfur Regional Authority, the regional governing body established under the DPA.

3) Non-signatories and other rebel alliances: Most of the rebel groups that did not sign the DPA met in Arusha, Tanzania in August and “presented a common platform on power sharing, wealth sharing, security arrangements, land, and humanitarian issues, for the final negotiations.” [6] While at the time the meeting was hailed as a breakthrough, the divisions within the rebel groups have continued to deepen and some rebel leaders intend to hold the process hostage by their absence. Abdul Wahid of the SLA refuses to join the negotiations until the U.N./AU hybrid force deploys, disarms the Janjaweed, and removes Arab populations that have settled on non-Arab land. Other rebel leaders have rejected Libya as a venue and demanded the replacement of the head of the AU delegation, Tanzanian diplomat Salim Ahmed Salim. Coordinated shuttle diplomacy, whereby envoys travel throughout the region to engage the holdouts, can overcome these obstacles to peace.

4) Civil Society: The U.N./AU mediation team can accomplish three critical tasks by establishing a formal mechanism for other stakeholders in Darfur to have a voice at the Sirte talks. First, greater civil society participation increases the likelihood that a broader section of Darfur will feel ownership of an agreement and help garner support from inside Darfur for both the process and the outcomes. The process of selecting civil society representation must be carefully guarded from outside influence, particularly by the NCP. Many “civil society” participants at the Abuja talks supported NCP positions, suggesting that the ruling party had a guiding hand in deciding who would attend. Second, an assertive mediation can leverage the presence of Darfurian women, displaced persons’ groups, tribal leaders (including Arab groups), and other civil society actors to blunt the impact of rebel divisions. The rebels are fighting with each other for the right to control Darfur’s political destiny, but faced with the active participation of the people they purport to represent, they will face pressure to set aside the personality squabbles on which most of the divisions are based and deal with the core issues on the table. Non-armed Darfurian groups could be represented formally at the talks by distinguished members of civil society, identified by the AU and U.N. as part of their initiative. Third, it raises the helpful prospect that a future administration or local governments in Darfur will not be made up exclusively of rebels and the ruling party, but will include significant representatives of other key sectors in Darfur.[7]

Process Recommendation #2: The countries with the most leverage—the United States, China, France, and the United Kingdom—should deploy full-time and fully staffed special envoys to the region to support the joint mediation.

In conflicts where atrocities are committed on the scale of Darfur, warring parties rarely reach durable peace agreements without sustained external pressure. And pressure does not come via phone calls from Washington, Paris, London, Beijing, and elsewhere. High-level diplomatic presence at the talks is essential, and nations participating at the talks should base senior diplomats with appropriate staff in Libya.

To avoid a repeat of the Abuja talks, where a cacophony of mid-level international voices failed to compel compromise between the parties, the United States, U.K., France, and China should convene an informal “quartet” to support the joint mediation team. All four countries are permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and have senior diplomats focusing exclusively on Sudan. This quartet should agree on carrots and sticks to cajole and nudge the parties toward an agreement and insistently monitor its implementation. [8]

The United States specifically should designate a full-time senior envoy as the point person for a comprehensive strategy for peace in Sudan, including the Sirte talks and implementation of the CPA. At present, there is no clear leader on Sudan within the U.S. government and the policy is incoherent. The lines of policymaking authority for Sudan at the State Department are muddled and competing U.S. policy agendas—Darfur, the CPA, and Sudan’s cooperation on counterterrorism—will only be resolved with strong White House leadership. [9] President Bush should make clear that his special envoy is in charge and ensure that s/he has an experienced field-based staff to implement a carefully calibrated strategy for comprehensive peace.

Process Recommendation #3: The mediation team—accompanied whenever possible by special envoys from the United States, China, France, and the U.K.—need to take the draft agreement on the road and conduct shuttle diplomacy.

Aggressive shuttle diplomacy can address the decisions of key rebel leaders not to attend and counter the negative influence of regional states.

1) If rebel leaders refuse to come to the peace talks, then the mediation team and its international partners have to take the process to them. The most high profile rebel hold-out is Abdul Wahid, a Fur and the founder of the Sudan Liberation Army, or SLA. Despite a minor military presence on the ground (in western Jebel Marra), Abdul Wahid is a folk hero among many internally displaced persons, or IDPs, especially among his Fur people. His decision not to attend peace talks until the hybrid peacekeeping force arrives is popular in the IDP camps, and Abdul Wahid risks political suicide if he buckles to international pressure and travels to Libya. However, he must not be allowed to hold the process hostage by his absence. The mediators and special envoys must work with the French to pressure Abdul Wahid to appoint a representative to attend the talks in Sirte, enabling him to save face publicly but engage politically. If he refuses, the talks should go ahead regardless. Abdul Wahid lacks the military capacity to play spoiler, and if the negotiations gather momentum without him he will likely be compelled to join. Diplomats supporting the Sirte talks must work equally hard to bring other rebel holdouts—including Khalil Ibrahim (JEM), Ahmed Abdel Shafie (SLA), Bahar Idriss Abu Garda (JEM), and Khamis Abdullah Abakar (SLA)—into the process. Though many rebel leaders object to Libya as a venue for the talks, stronger international engagement through senior diplomats and strong draft agreement would serve as an effective carrot.

2) Since the start of the conflict, Chad, Eritrea, and Libya have jockeyed for influence with the rebels and maintain considerable sway over Darfur’s rebel factions. These neighboring states have strong interests in the political future of Sudan and the potential to undermine progress at the negotiating table if they feel their interests are not being met. Eritrea has hosted most of the rebel leadership at one time or another and the Eritrean government has supported multiple initiatives to unify various rebel factions. [10] The Chadian government has openly supported various Darfur rebel factions since early 2006 and developed a symbiotic relationship with rebel commanders who have operated in tandem with the Chadian army in exchange for logistical and materiel support from N’Djamena. Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi has supported nearly all sides of the conflict at one time or another, and retains considerable influence through his ability to infuse the conflict with money and weapons.

The mediation team and its international partners should designate lead nations to use their leverage with the rebels to respect a ceasefire agreement and adopt realistic positions at the negotiating table.

a) Eritrea: The international community should seek to engage Eritrea through an intermediary that President Issayas Afeworki trusts—Norway. Eritrea has long involvement with Sudan’s civil wars, and recently brokered a deal that ended a simmering conflict between the NCP and rebels based in Eastern Sudan. [11] Although Issayas is increasingly isolated internationally and refuses to meet with the United States, the Norwegian government retains good relations with Eritrea; Norwegian diplomats can be the international community’s liaison with Issayas.

b) Chad: Despite the recent accusations of child trafficking against French citizens, the French government retains considerable leverage with Chadian President Idriss Deby. Chad hosts 1,100 French military forces, most of whom will serve as the backbone of a European Union protection force deploying to eastern Chad and northern Central African Republic in the coming months. [12] As a front-line state, Chad has a strong interest in the outcome of the talks and how the rebel factions it supports will be represented in the final agreement on political arrangements.

c) Libya: Because of gradually improving relations between Tripoli and Washington, particularly on counterterrorism issues, the United States is best suited to blunt Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi’s bizarre public statements and his predilection for quick fixes at the negotiating table. Gaddafi has hosted several “peace summits” in Tripoli to mediate between Khartoum and N’Djamena and to resolve the conflicts in Darfur and eastern Chad, and agreements he hails as breakthroughs have universally failed to achieve anything on the ground. Many rebel groups are justifiably critical of Libya as a venue for the talks after Gaddafi’s recent comment that the crisis in Darfur is a “quarrel over a camel.”

C. Leverage

Leverage Recommendation #1: The U.N. Security Council must establish clear costs for parties that obstruct the peace process.

As ENOUGH has consistently argued, the international community must build leverage on all parties to the conflict by imposing and enforcing multilateral penalties on individuals that commit crimes against humanity, obstruct deployment of UNAMID, the U.N./AU hybrid force, and/or obstruct the peace process. Some key actors, including the United States, have argued that punitive actions such as sanctions and divestment could hurt the peace process. Nothing is further from the truth, as successful negotiations require both incentives and pressures. The U.N. Security Council must provide the stick needed to concentrate minds on negotiations and exact concessions from negotiating parties with a demonstrated knack for digging in their heels. The international community’s failure to respond to the recent dramatic upsurge in violence in Darfur and the government of Sudan’s clear strategy to slow deployment of UNAMID is fuelling a sense of impunity on all sides that will ultimately torpedo the peace process.

Leverage Recommendation #2: The United States should provide declassified intelligence to help the International Criminal Court build cases and execute additional indictments against those most responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

Responding to pressure from U.S. citizens, the Bush administration disregarded its strong ideological objections to the International Criminal Court and abstained from the Security Council vote to refer the Darfur case in March 2005. But the United States has not provided information to assist Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo’s investigation. U.S. intelligence services are closely monitoring communications within Sudan, listening to conversations between Sudanese officials and others that could implicate them in crimes committed in Darfur. Earlier this year, a senior U.S. official told ENOUGH that the Bush administration has files that outline the involvement of many senior regime officials in pursuing a policy of scorched earth ethnic cleansing in Darfur. The administration has opted not to hand these documents over to the Court, arguing that the prospect of indictment and arrest could force the regime into “survival mode” and cause it to attack the camps for displaced persons in Darfur. That this argument does not follow is demonstrated most clearly by recent government attacks on camps, the forced relocation of displaced persons, and the expulsion of a senior U.N. humanitarian official in South Darfur. The regime is already in “survival mode.” Deeply unpopular in Sudan, the NCP cannot win national elections scheduled for 2009 without rigging the vote, nor has it backed away from a military solution in Darfur. The United States and others must support the ICC’s investigation. In turn, the Security Council must be prepared to suspend the investigation if a peace agreement for Darfur is signed and implemented.

Conclusion

As noted in ENOUGH’s most recent strategy paper, “An All-Sudan Solution: Linking Darfur and the South,” a strategy for success in Sirte is merely one component of a comprehensive approach to lasting peace in Sudan. The NCP has consistently taken advantage of the international community’s inconsistent focus and failure to articulate a clear path toward peace in Darfur and the democratic transformation of Sudan, as promised by the CPA. While the international focus was ending the war in the South, Khartoum bought itself time to pursue its scorched-earth campaign in Darfur. Facing international condemnation over Darfur and haphazard diplomatic efforts to end the Darfur crisis, Khartoum worked assiduously to undermine the implementation of the CPA. Thus, although the regime is constantly on the defensive, it maintains the initiative, runs circles around the international community’s efforts to resolve both crises, and continues to grind the people of Sudan under its heel.

The only way for the international community to break out of this deadly rut and take the initiative is by devoting significant resources, setting clear objectives, and building the coordinated leverage necessary to achieve a peace agreement for Darfur and the full implementation of the CPA. Another failed peace process for Darfur and an unraveling of the CPA could plunge the Sudan into unprecedented misery. This, at all costs, must be avoided.

enoughproject.org

FEATURE: Darfur rebel Arabs under Sudan assault Wednesday 2 January 2008.

2008-01-05T20:17:00.002-05:00

By Julie Flint

January 1, 2008 (LONDON) — Towards the end of the Abuja talks, an Arab intellectual sympathetic to the Darfur rebels remarked: ‘Ninety percent of the Arabs of Darfur are neutral so far. We cannot continue like this if there is no agreement. We may take a role.’ Eighteen months later they are, slowly but surely, in many ways. In recent weeks the Sudan government has begun responding with predictable force—aerial bombardment, ground attack, arrests of family members. Alex has drawn attention to how the Arabs of Darfur feel abandoned by the international community, collectively demonized for the sins of the government and the Janjawiid. (Re-Visiting North Darfur’s Arabs, 29 November 2007). But there is a new problem today, and one that needs addressing urgently: how are the growing number of Arabs who have chosen to stand against the government to be protected as the government turns its guns on them, in their turn?

The Arab challenge is absolutely critical. Without Arab support, Khartoum could not prosecute its war in Darfur as it is. The regular army is poorly motivated, poorly trained and demoralized by a series of crushing defeats. Much of its officer class dislikes the enforced partnership with the Janjawiid and the abuses that have characterized it, for which the International Criminal Court is now pressing charges.

At the centre of the latest storm is a 31-year-old Arab called Anwar Ahmad Khater, the founder of the Sudanese Revolutionary Front (SRF) that took up arms against the government last year and a member of the Mahamid tribe (Awlad Zeid section) from which most of Musa Hilal’s forces are drawn. At least 26 of his men were killed last week when government forces attacked one of his camps in the Jebel Kengo area north-east of Zalingei. Some escaped on donkeys after their cars were destroyed and were given refuge by local farmers who offered them water, not caring that they were Arabs. As an SRF militant said in reporting the attack: ‘You see how wonderful Darfur is, but for this mess of government policy and individuals spreading hatred.’

A number of Anwar’s relatives have been arrested, including several of his brothers, and children in the family have been interrogated about his whereabouts. A security officer told one of them: ‘We should have killed him when we had the chance. He is more dangerous to us than Abdel Wahid [Mohamed al Nur, the leader of the original Sudan Liberation Army] because he is working in our zone’. In other words, he is active among Arabs—seeking above all to neutralize them, to prevent the government using them for its own nefarious purposes.

Many Darfurians—including Abdel Wahid, who puts great emphasis on good relations with Arab tribes—believe that Anwar Khater is the person best-equipped to unite the Arabs of Darfur. He is educated (a computer engineer) and free of any suspicion of Janjawiidism (unlike the other Arab ‘rebel’ making news at the moment, Mohamed Hamdan Dogolo ‘Hemeti’). The few foreigners who have met him say he has enormous charisma. Most importantly, perhaps, Anwar Khater has cachet among the Mahamid: his father, Ahmad Khater, was an advisor to Hilal Abdalla, the late sheikh of the Mahamid who is as much revered among the Arabs of Darfur as his son, Musa Hilal, is controversial.

Offered a scholarship to the U.S. on completing his studies, but not permitted by the government to take it up, Anwar Khater returned to Darfur from Khartoum in 2004 and immediately began rallying Arabs against the government. He was detained by Security twice in 2004, once after distributing pamphlets in Zalingei denouncing the political and economic marginalization of Darfur. In 2005, he was detained for a month after a similar protest in Geneina. In 2006, as his influence grew, especially among young Arabs, he was detained by Musa Hilal and flown to Khartoum, where he was imprisoned for more than three months. Security chief Salah Gosh told him: ‘The UN [peacekeepers] will fight you as Arabs. If you do not join us you will never survive in Darfur. The international community’s war will be imposed on Darfur.’

Upon his release, Anwar Khater returned to Darfur once more and began to make contacts with internationals to explain the program of the Sudanese Revolutionary Front—a name recently hijacked by Hemeti, with whom Anwar Khater has refused to cooperate, saying ‘I can never put my hand in the hand of anyone accused of killing innocent people’. His main concern, he said at the time, was to combat the government’s efforts to isolate Darfur’s Arabs and make them voiceless. Since then, he has been working, quietly, to bring Arab dissidents from different tribes together in a single, united body. He has forged good relations with several SLA factions including that of Abdel Wahid.

The SRF’s rebellion is just one example of a new mood among the Arabs of Darfur. Another is the mutiny of Hemeti, whom U.S. officials consider one of the most abusive government-supported militia leaders of Darfur, responsible for much burning, killing and rape. When Hemeti mutinied in October, he cited the double betrayal of Darfur’s Arabs: broken promises to provide their nomadic communities with health and veterinary services, and schools and water, and unfulfilled commitments to pay militia salaries and give compensation for war dead. He said he took up arms to defend his tribe after thousands of camels were stolen and scores of his relatives were abducted by SLA Zaghawa rebels. That was then. Today the Zaghawa SLA leader, Minni Minawi, is Senior Assistant to President Omar Bashir—with power, on paper, over reforming Arab militias after becoming the only rebel leader to sign the Darfur Peace Agreement in May 2006.

The significance of Hemeti’s revolt is very different to that of Anwar Khater’s. His record makes him a problematic figure, both for the international community and the rebel movements. But while Anwar Khatar has credibility as a young and educated Arab leader with clean hands, Hemeti has guns. The government gave Hemeti brand-new vehicles, Thuraya telephones, heavy weapons and, reportedly, millions of dollars as the price of participation in an offensive against the rebels after they tried to take the war to Kordofan three months ago. But Hemeti double-crossed them, withdrew with his forces to Jebel Marra, and announced his opposition to Khartoum. In response, the government unleashed its air force and ground forces against him.

Both Abdel Wahid’s SLA and Khalil Ibrahim’s Justice and Equality Movement have signed non-aggression pacts with Hemeti and his militia. Abdel Wahid told me in Paris a month ago, ‘There is no UN force to stop the Janjawiid killing my people and I have no force to stop them, so I have to bring them on my side or neutralize them.’ Neutralization may be as far as he is wiling to go with Hemeti, but he wants Anwar Khater on his side. Anwar, for his part, does not rule out eventual unity, but not until political programmes are clarified and the SLA has put its chaotic house in order.

With only a few hundred armed men, the strategy of the SRF thus far has been to target those responsible for recruiting Arabs into the Janjawiid. ‘Arabs,’ Anwar Khater said last year, ‘do not access humanitarian aid because the international community considers that the Arabs are the perpetrators of all the crimes committed in Darfur. This is not true.’

The SRC believes that Khartoum plans a ‘comprehensive attack’ on its men in the coming days, ‘to finish Anwar during the holidays when UN staff will be on holiday’—and before the UNAMID force becomes operational. Anwar, they say, ‘can be the bridge between Arabs and the international community’ – if he survives.

* Julie Flint is independent journalist who led a Human Rights Watch trip to Sudan. Her report for Human Rights Watch, "Darfur Destroyed". She is the co-author of "Darfur: A Short History of a Long War."

(Sudan Tribune)

Bush says “frustrated” with UN, AU over Darfur force deployment

2008-01-05T20:17:00.001-05:00

Saturday 5 January 2008.

By Wasil Ali

January 4, 2008 (WASHINGTON) — US President George Bush expressed frustration over the slow pace of deploying the UN-AU hybrid force to the war ravaged region of Darfur.

Bush speaks about the injustices present in the Darfur region of Sudan at the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington April 18, 2007 (Reuters)

“I have been frustrated, frankly, with the pace of the United Nations and the AU to get troops in there” Bush told a group of Arab reporters at the White House today.

A joint African-United Nations force took over peacekeeping duties in Darfur on Monday and existing AU forces switched their green berets to the UN blue ones. The transfer of authority has been largely symbolic.

Sudan not signed off on the Status of Force (SAF) agreement that governs the work of the new force. It has refused to allow night flights — except for medical evacuation — or large U.N. cargo planes.

Additionally, the government has attempted to require the force to give it advance notice of all movements and to ensure that its military can scramble U.N. radio communications when it is conducting operations.

Sudan has also refused to allow non-African units in Darfur including Swedish, Thai and Nepalese troops.

Bush stressed that the deployment of the hybrid force is crucial for enforcing security in Darfur.

“My concern is about the individual that’s out in the remote regions of Darfur, maybe going hungry, definitely worried about violence” he said.

He added that the peacekeeping force’s main task is to “help the folks who are living in these dispersed camps have a normal life”.

The US president also signaled impatience with the splintering of Darfur rebel groups saying that it is impeding the peace process.

“There has to be cohesion amongst the rebels and a genuine, real peace process where people sit down seriously — to seriously discuss a better way forward” Bush said.

Major Darfur rebel groups have boycotted the latest round of peace talks in Libya for different reasons including the demand of peacekeeping force deployment.

“The rebel groups cannot take advantage of — continue to take advantage of this notion that they can do what they want without being serious about the peace” he added.

Bush said that the sanctions imposed by the US were not directed at Khartoum only but also to the Darfur rebel leaders.

Last May Bush ordered stiffened sanctions on Sudan that will bar 31 companies controlled by the government from doing business in the U.S. financial system as well as sanctions on four Sudanese individuals, including two senior Sudanese officials and a rebel leader suspected of involvement in the Darfur violence.

“We have participated by sanctioning, to send the signal that we expect the government to participate seriously. And we’re also, by the way, as I told you, we sanctioned a rebel leader, trying to send the same message” he said.

The US president voiced support to the mission of Jan Eliasson, the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Darfur, in trying to unite the rebel groups.

However Bush made no mention of Salim Ahmed Salim, AU envoy for Darfur who is working with Eliasson on the political track. The US president also did not praise the role of the AU as he normally does when speaking about Darfur in the media.

The omission may signal the US administration’s dissatisfaction with the African Union’s leadership.

Last September the US criticized the African Union and accused it of slowing the deployment of the hybrid force in response to statements by AU chairman.

African Union Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare has issued a warning at the time to Western nations saying that “financing is important, but it does not authorize’ intervention”.

But U.S. Ambassador at the UN Zalmay Khalilzad responding to Konare’s statements said that UN members are picking the tab on the hybrid force which means that non-African troops must be included.

“The African Union secretariat needs to move” Khalilzad said.

International experts estimate 200,000 people have died in the conflict, which Washington calls genocide, a term European governments are reluctant to use. The Sudan government says 9,000 people have been killed.

(Sudan Tribune)

Jan. 9 set for northern troops to quit South Sudan

2008-01-05T20:15:00.000-05:00

Saturday 5 January 2008.

January 4, 2008 (JUBA) — Sudanese officials have set a Jan. 9 deadline for northern armed forces to quit the semi-autonomous south after they missed a third redeployment deadline on Monday, southern official Elias Waya said.

A Sudanese soldier is seen in Juba, southern Sudan, August 6, 2005 (Reuters)

Sudan’s northern forces missed the Dec. 31 deadline following on-off fighting last month between former southern rebels and northern militia forces in the country’s north-south boundary area and months of political wrangling.

"Now, it is before January 9," Waya, both a major general in the former rebel southern army and a member of a joint north-south defence body, said on Friday.

"All the time they agree, but when the time comes they will give excuses."

The redeployment is part of a 2005 peace agreement that ended over two decades of north-south Sudanese civil war in which 2 million people died and 4 million were displaced in a conflict fought over ideology and ethnicity, and fuelled by oil.

The former southern rebel movement that now controls the south Sudan government pulled its ministers out of a national coalition government in October, saying Khartoum was failing to implement measures of the 2005 deal that ended Africa’s longest civil war.

One major complaint was the failure of northern troops to quit the south by an initial July 9 redeployment date. Crisis talks between the two sides first set a new deadline for Dec. 15. Further talks moved the date to the end of 2007.

Southern officials accuse northern forces of remaining in southern oil areas to retain control of Sudan’s main export. Khartoum has said it has only 3,600 troops in the south, while south Sudan President Salva Kiir has put the figure at 17,000.

A Sudanese army spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Waya told Reuters on Thursday that northern army officials had earlier said transport problems caused the missed deadline but were now citing the lack of special integrated units of northern and southern soldiers in the oil areas.

Under the peace deal, the joint units are to patrol the area’s that produce Sudan’s vital 500,000 barrels of crude oil a day.

"(Their) transport and equipment are really very weak," Waya said, adding that was why the units had not reached the oil areas earlier.

He said the U.N. mission in Sudan has agreed to airlift three battalions from three parts of the south into oil areas, which would leave some 10,000 joint units concentrated in the south’s two main oil states.

"These are enough. There is no security threat in the area," Waya said, adding that the integrated soldiers are only responsible for "outer circle" security, with state police and security guarding actual machinery and wells.

Fighting between northern militias and the former rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army on the border killed dozens of people in late December, although the situation has since calmed.

(Reuters)

Sudan arrests 36 displaced following Darfur forced relocation - Amnesty

2007-11-02T17:38:00.001-05:00

Friday 2 November 2007.

November 1, 2007 (LONDON) — Sudan Security forces detained 36 people from Otash Camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in South Darfur on the evening of 29 October. In a press statement issued today, Amnesty International said they are in danger of being tortured in detention.

Displaced Sudanese women walk from Kalma camp near Nyala, in South Darfur in Sudan, September 29, 2004. (Reuters)

Following fighting between different ethnic groups in Kalma camp, on 18 October a large number of IDPs fled Kalma Camp, which is near Nyala. Most of those that fled the fighting went to Otash Camp, which is24km from Kalma Camp.

During the afternoon of 29 October police and soldiers went into Otash Camp to remove the recent arrivals and forcibly relocate them to a village named Amakisara, 23km from Nyala.

Members of the African Mission in Sudan (AMIS), including military personnel, observers and AMIS police, went to the camp, but were ordered to leave by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) colonel conducting the operation.

They saw the camp residents fleeing while tents were destroyed and property was carried away in trucks. According to the UN, IDPs were being threatened by soldiers and police wielding sticks and rubber hoses.

The rebel Justice and Equality Movement spokesperson, Ahmed Hussein Adam, who condemned the forced relocation, said Sudanese authorities have taken the children of these displaced and demanded the parents to follow them to Amakisara .

While the leader of the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement, Abdelwahid al-Nur, condemned this “heinous and abject crime” committed against Darfur innocent people. He urged the UN Security Council to sanction Sudan this forced relocation which is clear violation of the international law.

According to UN figures 2.2 million people in Darfur are now gathered in IDP camps. They were driven out of their homes when, in response to attacks by rebel groups, the government armed and supported local militias, known as the Janjawid, as a proxy force.

The government and the Janjawid attempted to suppress the insurgency by deliberately targeting civilians of the same ethnicity as the rebel groups. About 95,000 people have been killed, and more than 200,000 have died over the past four years as a result of conflict-related hunger or disease.

Vast areas of Darfur have been emptied of farmers, and hundreds of villages have been razed to the ground. The UN has issued a statement expressing alarm at the violence against IDPs and the attempted forcible relocations in Otash Camp.

IDPs feel safer in the camps and have consistently resisted government pressure to move out of them into areas which are still dominated by armed members of the Janjawid militias who killed and displaced them. Forcible relocation is prohibited by international standards.

(ST)

Darfur camp eviction 'fabricated'

2007-10-30T09:58:00.000-05:00

Sudanese diplomats have dismissed as "fabrications", reports that hundreds of people were forcibly evicted from a camp near Nyala in southern Darfur.

Sudan's UN envoy, Abdelmahmood Abdelhaleem Mohamed, told the BBC that eyewitness accounts were "irrelevant, unfortunate and unconfirmed".

An un-named UN official on Sunday saw the forced relocation of refugees at gunpoint from Otash camp to Amakassara.

The UN says this "dangerous precedent" could jeopardise Darfur peace talks.

Some 200,000 people are estimated to have died and more than two million displaced during the four-year war.

UN emergency relief coordinator Sir John Holmes said a UN official witnessed Sudanese security forces with sticks and rubber hoses coercing hundreds of refugees, including women and children, to leave Otash refugee camp on the outskirts of Nyala.

Other witnesses told the BBC they saw 10 vehicles with heavy machine guns surrounding people, while eight trucks were loaded with their belongings.

The refugees have been moved into an area where the UN says it is known that the Janjaweed militia operate.

"We are making a fuss because... this is a very dangerous precedent in an area where there are very many thousands of people in camps, where there are security problems," Sir John told the BBC.

He said the UN wanted to send a message to Khartoum that this was not acceptable behaviour and must not happen again.

'No go areas'

Sudanese diplomats contacted by the BBC rejected the reports.

Mr Abdelmahmood said the allegations were "more than fabrications" aimed at "distracting attention from the Sudanese government's announcement of a unilateral ceasefire to accompany the peace talks".

Asked if he was suggesting the UN emergency relief coordinator would make up the reports, Mr Abdelmahmood said: "We do not want to question his credentials but the way he... the timing leaves a lot to be desired."

And in London, Ambassador Khalid al Mubarak said it was for the Sudanese government to make an official statement "after they make their own investigations on the ground".

He said there were armed men in some of the refugee camps which have become "no go areas" for the authorities and aid workers alike.

The governor of South Darfur told the UN it is his intention to close the camps around Nyala, which are home to as many as 90,000 people.

Otash camp alone has an estimated 60,000 refugees, swollen by numbers of people fleeing violence at the Kalma camp, Darfur's largest, a week ago.

Darfur peace talks

This renewed tension comes as international mediators struggle to save peace talks which opened at the weekend in the Libyan town of Sirte with none of the key rebel groups present.

Organisers are striving to avoid defeatism, and are sending African Union and UN envoys to meet absent rebel groups to try to persuade them to get on board.

Leaders of the two main rebel forces - the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem) and the faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement headed by Abdul Wahid el Nur - have called for the talks to be cancelled for the time being.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7068544.stm

Published: 2007/10/30 09:40:58 GMT

Congo rebel fighters fail to turn in as promised

2007-10-24T20:52:00.000-05:00

By Joe Bavier

KINSHASA, Oct 24 (Reuters) - A renegade Congolese general said on Wednesday he would disband some of his rebel soldiers to help bring peace to an eastern province, but U.N. officials said there was no sign of his fighters turning themselves in.

General Laurent Nkunda had said he would send more than 500 of his Tutsi soldiers on Wednesday to a specially prepared camp in Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province, for them to be integrated into the national army.

His announcement appeared to signal that he was willing to participate in the demobilisation process demanded by President Joseph Kabila, who has given the go ahead for an army offensive to forcibly disarm Nkunda's men if they fail to disband.

But as night fell over North Kivu, where Nkunda has fought battles against the army since August when his soldiers abandoned a January peace deal, United Nations officials said there was no sign of Nkunda's fighters coming in from the bush.

"It's getting dark here and unfortunately no combatants have come in," Sylvie Van Den Wildenberg, a spokeswoman in North Kivu for the U.N. mission in Congo (MONUC), told Reuters.

"We're starting to worry that General Nkunda will not live up to the promise he made in a public statement to international media that he would send more than 500 of his men to Kirolirwe integration centre," she added.

There was no immediate word from Nkunda as to why he had failed to send his men for integration as he had promised.

Earlier, the insurgent general, who has led a rebellion since 2004 in defence of the Tutsi community in Congo, said he was in contact with MONUC. He said U.N. peacekeepers had prepared the logistics to receive his men.

"I'm doing this to show the international community that we Congolese want peace ... because civilians are continuing to die without reason," Nkunda said, referring to civilian casualties in recent fighting.

"SEEING IS BELIEVING"

Diplomats said Nkunda had previously made similar public promises to disband his men without following through.

"We'll believe it when we see it. We've seen these promises before," one Western diplomat in Kinshasa said. Experts estimate Nkunda's total forces may number at least 4,000.

MONUC has called on Nkunda's men to make the short trip out of the bush and report to special camps so they can be integrated into the national army as part of a nationwide peace process that followed the country's 1998-2003 war.

Kabila, who has vowed to pacify all of his vast, mineral-rich country since winning elections in the former Belgian colony last year, said last week he had given a "green light" for the armed forces to move against Nkunda.

But the president, who is currently visiting the United States, declined to say when the offensive would start.

Nkunda says he is defending Congo's Tutsi ethnic community against attacks by Rwandan Hutu rebels he says are supported by Kabila's army. The Congolese leader denies such support and says he also plans to disarm the Hutu rebels, who are accused of involvement in Rwanda's 1994 genocide killings of Tutsis.

U.N. relief agencies fear an all-out army offensive will sharply worsen the humanitarian situation in North Kivu, where 370,000 people have fled fighting this year. (Additional reporting by Themistocle Hakizimana in Kigali)

AlertNet news

Six Darfur rebel factions to boycott peace talks

2007-10-24T20:41:00.001-05:00

October 23, 2007 (JUBA, Sudan) — A prominent Darfur rebel figure and five other smaller factions will not attend peace talks due to start this weekend in Libya, leaders said on Tuesday, casting doubt on prospects for a settlement.

Ahmed Abdelshafi

Ahmed Abdel Shafi told reporters at a Darfur rebel meeting in south Sudan’s capital Juba that African Union and United Nations mediators had not heeded rebel requests for a delay to allow them to form a united position and agree on a delegation.

"I was really shocked when people here are talking about unity and the United Nations started distributing invitations," he said.

"It’s ... a matter of sabotaging the process of unity," he said, adding unity talks were going well with more factions joining but more time was needed to complete negotiations.

Without all rebel groups present at the talks which begin in Sirte on Saturday, hopes for a ceasefire look slim.

Mediators had hoped as many rebels as possible would go to negotiate a comprehensive ceasefire in Darfur as a first step towards resolving the conflict.

Since a peace deal signed by only one of three rebel negotiating factions last year, the insurgents have split into more than a dozen groups.

Around 70 rebel delegates are in Juba for talks intended to produce a unified delegation. Lounging under umbrellas in the gardens of the Home And Away cafe to the plangent tones of U.S. Country & Western music, some wore pristine suits while others sported camouflage mesh head wraps and khaki uniforms.

Esam al-Hajj, another SLM rebel figure in Juba, said five other factions from the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) would also not be going to the talks.

"Six factions ... and field commanders ... have agreed not to participate in the current negotiations," he said.

Added to SLM founder and popular leader Abdelwahid Mohamed al-Nur’s earlier refusal to attend the Libya talks, this would mean no rebels representing Darfur’s largest tribe, the Fur, will be negotiating with Khartoum in Sirte.

International experts estimate 200,000 have died and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes in 4-1/2 years of violence, but Khartoum puts the death toll at 9,000.

Abdel Shafi also said African Union and United Nations mediators had taken key decisions without consulting the rebels. They objected to the choice of Libya, a country which has been directly involved in the conflict, as the venue for the talks.

"We have a lot of reservations actually about the mediation," he said. On Libya, he said: "The people of Darfur feel ... that the neutrality is not there."

He said it could take at least a month before the rebels were ready to attend peace talks.

Hajj said another worry was the withdrawal this month of the former southern Sudanese rebels, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), from the national coalition government.

"The government at the moment is not the legal government," he said.

The SPLM has a 28 percent share of government but suspended its ministers, saying the dominant northern National Congress Party was stalling on the 2005 north-south peace deal.

The standoff threatens to derail that peace deal and could also hinder the Darfur talks in Libya.

(Reuters)

Darfur force brings hope, new threats to aid effort

2007-10-20T08:19:00.001-05:00

October 18, 2007 (LONDON) — Aid agencies working in Sudan’s Darfur hope incoming United Nations and African Union peacekeepers will help protect them, but there are also fears they could spark new violence against unarmed relief staff.

The 26,000-person hybrid force is due to arrive in Darfur in the coming months against a backdrop of escalating violence targeting the world’s largest humanitarian relief operation.

Gunman killed three U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) drivers in the last week, while agency compounds have been raided, staff abducted and equipment stolen.

The new peacekeepers — mainly African infantry with a handful of troops from other nations — will replace a much smaller African Union force that has largely failed to halt violence in a region the size of France.

Aid agencies — some of whom have lobbied for years for U.N. peacekeepers — say their situation now is so bad that they have to withdraw from some areas and cut back operations. Some reports suggest malnutrition rates are rising as a result.

"The way it is now for humanitarian agencies cannot continue," former U.N. undersecretary general Jan Egeland, one of the strongest advocates for the force, told Reuters last month.

"When the humanitarians or the refugees themselves say they are threatened, the force has to deploy protectively and defend. And fight, if necessary."

International experts say some 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have fled their homes in Darfur since 2003 when rebels took up arms against the government, which in turn mobilised predominantly Arab militias to squelch the revolt.

Khartoum, which long resisted demands for a U.N. force, says only 9,000 are dead and the crisis has been exaggerated.

While many aid workers accuse the government of trying to frustrate their work, they blame most attacks on rebel groups and bandits intent on stealing equipment and vehicles, a practice experts say has become almost an industry in Darfur.

Aid groups hope more peacekeepers might reduce that risk. But at the same time, if the larger force takes more aggressive action than its AU predecessor it may make enemies — either militia or rebels — who may hit aid workers as a soft target.

KEEPING SEPARATE

"Of course it is possible and you can expect anything," said Francois Grignon, Africa project director for the International Crisis Group. "It is a risk with all peacekeeping operations. They will have to co-operate in terms of security."

He said the new force risked simply being too weak to change the situation on the ground, particularly if peace talks in Libya later this month failed to produce a concrete peace deal.

Former U.N. aid chief Egeland said there had been incidents in the Democratic Republic of Congo and elsewhere in West Africa where aid workers had been attacked or compounds burnt in retaliation for action by peacekeepers.

"We have been discussing that risk for years," he said. "Generally, it has been exaggerated. ... In the short term it may decrease security but in the long-term hopefully it will help."

Experts say it is important the aid effort maintains its distance from the peacekeepers if it is to maintain any impression of neutrality and work with all sides.

After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Western and U.N. aid agencies sent in large missions. Later that year, a truck bomb attack on the U.N. compound killed 22. Other attacks, kidnappings and killings forced most aid groups out.

"I think our mistake our was to send in so many people so fast on the back of an invasion force who looked just like us," Egeland said. "That is one of the reasons it is so important that the force in Darfur looks and feels African."

A much better equipped European Union force will be deployed across the border in neighbouring Chad and Central African Republic, but will not be authorised to cross into Darfur.

Subject to eventual Sudanese approval, there will be a small Western component to the Darfur force, primarily a battalion of 400 Norwegian and Swedish army engineers.

Their main remit will be building camps and bases for the main force. Their commander said they could help with sanitation and construction in refugee camps but would not do so unless asked by the main aid effort for fear of blurring the lines.

" We can’t just walk in and take over their missions," said Lieutenant Colonel Anstein Aasen in Oslo. "They have to to ask us and not the other way around."

(Reuters)

Armed groups carry out daily attack on Darfur Kalama displaced

2007-10-20T08:15:00.001-05:00

Friday 19 October 2007.

October 18, 2007 (NYALA) — Khartoum backed armed groups carry out daily attacks inside Darfur biggest camp in order to spread violence and force internally displaced persons to evacuate the camps, reports received from South Darfur say.

A Sudanese woman refugee arriving from Labado protects herself from the wind at Kalma Camp, near Nyala in Sudan’s South Darfur region 09 January 2005. (AFP).

Kalma camp is the most volatile one, but also the biggest IDPs camps. It is seen as supporting the Darfur rebel Sudan Liberation Movement founder and chairman Abdelwahid Mohamed al-Nur, who refuse to take part in the ongoing peace process demanding security for Darfur civilians before talks.

Since two days armed groups enter to the camp of Kalma in South Darfur state and attack habitants of the camp. Armed militia elements killed on Wednesday a displaced called Mahmoud Ishac, Sudan Tribune has learnt.

Asked by telephone, al-Nur confirmed the reports. He further accused Sudanese government of organizing regular attacks against civilians. "Civilians fear attacks and they are terrorized" he said.

The rebel leader urged the international community to accelerate the deployment of the 26, 000 peacekeepers in the region. He also urged pressures on the Sudanese government to stop the killing of Darfur civilian.

Up to last year, the government backed janjaweed militia attacked the IDPs particularly women who go out the camp to collect wood. The militia were always present out side the camps.

Sudanese forces surrounded and attacked Darfur’s most volatile camp on Tuesday August 21 to flush out rebels they say are behind attacks on two police posts.

International experts estimate some 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million driven from their homes since mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003.

Khartoum agreed to a 26,000-strong joint U.N.-AU force which will absorb the AU mission and try to stop violence which has hampered the world’s largest aid operation in Darfur. Some 500,000 people are out of reach of relief workers.

(ST)

Sudan rivals try to resolve split

2007-10-18T04:36:00.000-05:00

South Sudan's leader Salva Kiir is travelling to meet the president in an effort to resolve a crisis that has threatened to tear the country apart.

Mr Kiir's ex-rebel group withdrew its ministers from government last week saying elements of a 2005 north-south peace pact were being ignored.

President Omar al-Bashir agreed in part to a request for a cabinet reshuffle.

But border demarcations and redeploying northern troops from the south are some of the things yet to be implemented.

The BBC's Amber Henshaw in the capital, Khartoum, says tensions have been brewing for months between the southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the governing National Congress Party.

The two signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) two years ago that ended the 21-year civil war.

Under the CPA, the SPLM controls the southern regional government and participates in the national government in Khartoum.

But the enemies in war have struggled to become partners in peace, our reporter says.

Deadline

Mr Kiir - who is also the country's national vice-president - is travelling to Khartoum for the meeting.

Our correspondent says it is hoped the men can stop the crisis from escalating further.

On Wednesday, Mr Bashir reshuffled his cabinet removing Lam Akol as foreign minister.

Mr Akol, although a southerner, was seen as too close to the NCP.

But the SPLM says not all their suggestions for ministers from the south were agreed to.

After meeting Mr Bashir on Tuesday, Sudan Vice-President Riak Machar told the BBC that parts of the CPA that had not been implemented included:
The redeployment of northern troops from the south, especially from Unity and Upper Nile states
Issues of oil management and marketing
The final border demarcation which means the division of oil wealth cannot be completed
Issues to pave the way for a census in 2011, when the south could decide to split from the north.

Mr Riak said the north had until 9 January 2008, the third anniversary of the signing of the CPA, to resolve these issues.

Some 1.5m people died in Sudan's conflict - Africa's longest civil war - which pitted the mainly Muslim north against the Animist and Christian south before the CPA was agreed.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7050351.stm

SUDAN: Darfur attack "targeted women and children"

2007-10-14T15:17:00.000-05:00

NAIROBI, 10 October 2007 (IRIN) - The recent attack on Muhajiriya town in South Darfur, in which 45 people died and thousands fled their homes, mainly targeted women, children and the elderly, a rebel faction said.

"The government moved forces into the town two days earlier," Mohammed Bashir, spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), said from Khartoum, the capital. "With air cover, they attacked the town, burnt down half of it and killed mainly children, women and the elderly."

The Sudanese army denied involvement in the 8 October attack, saying violence in Muhajiriya was a result of "tribal fighting between the citizens of the area".

Bashir said residents and internally displaced persons (IDPs) who fled their homes were in desperate need of assistance. "They fled into [the bush]," he told IRIN by telephone on 10 October. "Although the town is calm now, they are still scared of going back to their homes."

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), about 45,000 internally displaced people were being assisted in and around Muhajiriya.

National and international aid workers from two NGOs were temporarily relocated after the attack, disrupting humanitarian operations.

"There are 20 wounded civilians who need to be taken to hospital," Bashir said. The SLA faction of Minni Minnawi, who signed a May 2006 peace deal and joined the Khartoum government, controls the area.

Amnesty International said the attack was supported by an Antonov, which had been painted in white UN colours. Since 2005, Sudan has been prohibited from offensive flights over Darfur and has been criticised for painting aircraft white, it said.

But spokesman Brigadier Osman Mohamed Al-Aghbash said the army had nothing to do with the incidents at Muhajiriya, adding that its planes had only conducted reconnaissance missions in Haskanita area under an arrangement with the African Union (AU).

"If these kinds of attacks continue, we will not sit without defending ourselves," the SLA spokesman warned. "It will also destroy trust ahead of the Libya talks."

The talks due to start in Sirte on 27 October are expected to bring together Darfur's armed factions and the Sudanese government to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict in the region. Fears have, however, arisen that recent attacks could force some of the groups to boycott the event.

Amnesty, in a statement, warned that more attacks were imminent in northern Darfur. Sudanese forces, it added, were gathering in large numbers in at least six towns, including Tine, Kornoy, Um Baru, Kutum.

"The northern area of North Darfur is under the control of armed opposition groups and it looks as though the Sudan Armed Forces want to attack this area before peace talks scheduled to take place in Libya before the end of the month," according to Tawanda Hondora, deputy director of Amnesty's Africa Programme.

"We fear that civilians will once more suffer killing and displacement, with no force able to protect them."

The Muhajiriya attack followed an earlier one on Haskanita on 29 September. Ten AU peacekeepers were killed. Aid workers said that attack was carried out by an armed opposition group, but the town was occupied by Sudanese forces afterwards.

A UN assessment mission later found Haskanita had been burnt down. Sudanese authorities said the team had exaggerated its findings, adding that only the market was destroyed by a fire. The AU is investigating.

"The gathering of forces in the north, the burning of Haskanita last week, and yesterday's attack on Muhajiriya show the vital importance of ensuring that UNAMID [proposed UN-AU peacekeeping force] is deployed as soon as possible and has the resources available to protect civilians," said Hondora.

Preparations to deploy the force are ongoing, but the mission still lacks ground transport, light tactical helicopters and transport helicopters, according to the UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Affairs, Jean-Marie Guéhenno.

Aid workers fear the upsurge in violence will further restrict the ability of the few humanitarian workers left in Darfur to reach thousands of vulnerable civilians.

Violence forces MSF to evacuate team from Muhajariya, South Darfur

2007-10-10T19:58:00.001-05:00

October 9, 2007

The international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) evacuated a team of 16 aid workers from Muhajariya in South Darfur, Sudan, yesterday, following an intense attack on the town.

Shooting was first heard in Muhajariya in the morning on October 8. By 1 p.m., it had intensified, and patients started to flee the hospital. The MSF team sought shelter in their compound while shooting and mortar fire continued. One person reached the MSF compound and was treated for a gunshot wound. Some staff members fled in an attempt to get their families to safety.

Early on October 9, shooting started up again in the market area. When the team reached the hospital, the structure was completely deserted. Houses and huts in the neighborhood were also emptied as people gathered their possessions and fled.

Prior to the attack, there were 43 patients hospitalized, including pregnant women about to deliver, 15 children with severe pneumonia, and malnourished children in the feeding center.

An estimated additional 39 wounded people are among the thousands seeking refuge on the outskirts of Muhajariya and further away. MSF medical teams attempted to set up a small treatment center to provide care for the wounded, but with ongoing fighting and rumors of more attacks, it is too dangerous to keep a medical team on the ground.

Since MSF runs the only hospital in Muhajariya, the evacuation of the team means that people are urgently in need of medical care. MSF hopes to be able to return to the area as soon as possible to provide medical assistance.

Since July 2004, MSF has provided humanitarian medical assistance to the resident population and successive waves of displaced people in Muhajariya. With an average of 4,000 consultations a month this year, the hospital provides care for patients suffering from diarrhea and respiratory infections; ante- and post-natal services for women; emergency surgery; and a children's nutrition program for a population of 70,000. Today, Darfur is one of MSF's largest missions with 120 international and more than 1,800 national staff working throughout an area the size of France.

© 2007 Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)

Influential rebel condemns Darfur attack on AU troops

2007-10-01T05:12:00.001-05:00

01 Oct 2007 09:34:42 GMT
Source: Reuters
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Background
Darfur conflict
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By Opheera McDoom

KHARTOUM, Oct 1 (Reuters) - An influential member of a rebel group blamed for the deadliest attack on African Union peacekeepers in Darfur condemned the assault and called on Monday for the group's leaders to withdraw from the area.

Eighteen AU soldiers were killed or injured and 40 were missing after a "deliberate and sustained" assault on the Haskanita base in Darfur on Saturday night by armed men in 30 vehicles, who looted and destroyed the base, the AU said.

It was the worst single attack on AU forces since the 7,000-strong mission was deployed in 2004.

Suleiman Jamous, a member of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) Unity faction which is one of two groups accused of the attack, said if his faction was involved it was a local decision, not ordered by the leadership.

"I have asked the leadership of SLA Unity to withdraw all the troops from the area, to where they can be under the direct control of the military command," Jamous said.

"And I have asked them to investigate to find out who, if any, SLA Unity commanders were involved. They have attacked the mediators and I offer my condolences to the families of the AU soldiers," said the elder rebel who is not in Darfur.

SLA Unity and a breakaway faction of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) led by Bahr Idriss Abu Garda have forces in the Haskanita area. Other JEM commanders said Abu Garda and a SLA Unity commander had the stolen AU vehicles.

While AU convoys and individuals have been ambushed -- around 40 killed in the three years prior to the Haskanita attack -- this was the first time an entire base was targeted.

NO PLAN FOR DEFENCE

AU force commander Martin Luther Agwai said the mission was making contingency plans and reassessing security. But he said little more could be done without getting desperately needed additional equipment and troops into Darfur.

"We've come up with contingency plans, we have to improve," said Agwai, who took up his post only a few months ago. "We are reassessing everything and we have learned some lessons."

After a long day evacuating all the bodies, injured and traumatised survivors, Agwai defended the AU force, whose mission was to stem the violence in Darfur.

"People did deployment on the premise that there was an (peace) agreement and they were coming to inspect and act as observers -- there was no planning for people to be able defend themselves," he said.

The AU mediated a peace agreement between the Sudanese government and Darfur rebels in May 2006 but only one of three rebel negotiating factions signed the deal. Since then, rebels have split into a dozen factions.

The violence, which includes militias and tribal conflicts, has severely curtailed the world's largest aid operation.

The AU has long complained of a lack of equipment, including attack helicopters and rapid response vehicles. They have also said their force was too small to contain the conflict in the vast and arid region.

"I don't know how they want us to do it without the facilities," Agwai said, adding driving normally it would take 4-1/2 hours to reinforce Haskanita and under attack, an entire day.

"We are just 5,000 plus military men scattered in an area as big as France with no roads," he added.

Agwai will command the joint U.N.-AU peacekeeping force of 26,000 troops and police due to absorb the AU mission and remedy the chaotic security situation in Darfur.

SECURE THE AREA

International experts estimate 200,000 people have died in Darfur, with 2.5 million driven from their homes as mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing central government of neglect. Khartoum mobilised mainly Arab militias to quell the revolt.

Emphasising the AU's inability to deal with such an attack, it asked for Khartoum's help to secure the area and evacuate personnel using Sudan Armed Forces planes, the army said.

"We offered all the help we could. We have secured the area and moved the injured," a SAF spokesman said.

The attack is likely to overshadow AU-U.N.-mediated talks due to begin in Libya on Oct. 27. Mediators Salim Ahmed Salim and Jan Eliasson expressed "shock and dismay" at the attack.

"The Special Envoys urge all parties to the conflict to demonstrate a serious commitment to the peace process and to cease hostilities," they said in a statement.

The attack preceded a visit of "elders" to Sudan, including South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, ex-U.S. President Jimmy Carter, veteran peace mediator Lakhdar Brahimi and womens and children's rights advocate Graca Machel.

On Monday they are due to meet Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. The trip to Darfur and southern Sudan is the group's first public mission since its inception this year.

AlertNet news

Eastern Congo: IRC Launches Response in North Kivu, Delivering Medicine to Desperate Village

2007-09-27T17:13:00.001-05:00

Rutshuru, Congo 26 Sep 2007 - The International Rescue Committee’s emergency team has delivered medicine to a village in North Kivu’s Rutshuru District, launching a relief effort that aims to provide lifesaving assistance to tens of thousands of people hit by spiraling violence.

The IRC team brought a month’s worth of drugs to a clinic that had completely run out in the tiny village of Kabaya, where some 4,000 displaced people are seeking refuge—more than doubling the size of the already destitute hamlet.

“The displaced have crowded into the village’s school and church and others are staying with families who hardly have the means to care for themselves,” says Bob Kitchen, who is leading the emergency response operation.

“Aside from a clinic with no drugs and a squalid delivery room, we also found that there are no water points within Kabaya. The women have to walk out of the village to the closest water source, which is unprotected, dirty and also happens to be at the start of rebel-held territory. It’s risky any way you look at it,” Kitchen adds.

Female members of the team met with displaced women who spoke of sexual assaults by all armed forces in the conflict and no where to go for help.

The IRC initially plans to provide technical support and more medical supplies to the Kabaya clinic and similar assistance for two other clinics in the volatile district, as well as aid for sexual violence survivors. The IRC is also preparing to improve water supply and sanitation services in areas hosting displaced communities.

After a brief period of calm, clashes resumed this week between government troops and rebels groups, the largest made up of fighters loyal to General Laurent Nkunda.

Kitchen expressed concern that the fighting is leading to road closures which are severely hampering access to people in need of humanitarian aid.

Eritrea insists Ethiopia implements border ruling

2007-09-26T05:11:00.001-05:00

NAIROBI, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Eritrea maintains its demand that Ethiopia implement a border ruling agreed under a pact to end their 1998-2000 war, a minister said on Wednesday after Ethiopia threatened to call off the peace agreement.

In a letter to Eritrea's Foreign Minister on Tuesday, Ethiopia accused Asmara of violating the deal on several fronts including coordinating "terrorist activity".

Addis Ababa said as a result it was considering terminating or suspending all or part the Algiers agreement that ended the two-year border conflict that killed 70,000 people.

Eritrean Information Minister Ali Abdu said Asmara had no knowledge of any such letter and that it was Ethiopia's concern.

"That's not our business. It's up to them," he told Reuters by telephone.

"What we know is there has been a legal verdict and what we want is the implementation of that. No more, no less."

Relations between the Horn of Africa neighbours plummeted when Ethiopia initially rejected a 2002 ruling by an independent border commission, despite agreeing beforehand to accept whatever the commission ruled as final and binding.

Earlier this month, Ethiopia said its soldiers were just metres (yards) apart from Eritrean troops who moved into what is supposed to be a neutral buffer zone.

Analysts and diplomats say neither country wants to go to war, in spite of the inflammatory rhetoric on both sides. But they worry that an unplanned skirmish could trigger conflict.

The two countries are on opposite sides of the conflict in Somalia, with Ethiopia backing the government and Eritrea Islamists forced out of Mogadishu in December.

Eritrea denies Ethiopia's allegations of support for armed groups. This month, it accused Ethiopia of scuppering demarcation talks on their 1,000 km (620 mile) frontier.

Abdu ruled out any dialogue.

"There was not, there is not and there will not be any direct communication between us," he said.

AlertNet news is provided by Reuters

UNHCR welcomes resolution on Chad, Central African Republic

2007-09-26T05:09:00.000-05:00

NEW YORK – UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres welcomed the adoption today of a UN Security Council resolution establishing a multi-dimensional UN mission in Chad and Central African Republic (MINURCAT) that will help strengthen security in the region.

He looks forward to an early decision of the European Union to send military troops so that MINURCAT can deploy in the coming weeks and months.

Improving the security of the refugees, IDPs and other civilians in danger as well as facilitating the provision of humanitarian assistance will greatly contribute toward stabilizing the humanitarian situation in eastern Chad and may contribute to the return of displaced persons, Guterres said.

This is most urgent given that the humanitarian situation in eastern Chad is "very difficult and serious" and the fear of increasing violence, causing more people to flee, with the approaching end of the rainy season.

He also emphasized the need for a comprehensive and sub-regional approach to the conflicts in the Darfur region, eastern Chad and north-eastern CAR. In the longer term, UNHCR appeals to the international community to provide recovery and development assistance so that the displaced can return and restart their lives as well as rebuild communities, given the heavy burden the people of Chad and CAR face.

Since 2004, eastern Chad has hosted some 240,000 Sudanese refugees in 12 camps who have fled the fighting in Darfur. In addition, Chad is facing a surge in the number of internally displaced persons, now totaling more than 170,000.

North-eastern CAR hosts some 2,660 refugees from Darfur.

Today's resolution establishes MINURCAT for a period of one year, with a mandate focusing on the security and protection of civilians – particularly refugees, IDPs and civilians in danger – and on human rights and the rule of law in eastern Chad and north-eastern CAR.

MINURCAT will consist of three components:

- a UN multidimensional presence, composed of UN police, rule of law, human rights and other civilian officers;

- a special Chadian police/gendarmes unit (some 850) dedicated exclusively to maintaining law and order in refugee camps, sites with concentrations of IDPs and key towns, and assisting in securing humanitarian activities in eastern Chad;

- an EU military deployment (under Chapter VII).

The military contingent would have a mandate to contribute to the protection of civilians in danger, particularly refugees and displaced persons; to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid and the free movement of humanitarian personnel by helping to improve security in the area of operation; and to contribute to protecting UN personnel, facilities, installations and equipment and to ensuring the security and freedom of movement of its staff and UN and associated personnel.

UNHCR news

Darfur: Three ACT-Caritas staff detained and released into police custody in Zalingei

2007-09-26T05:08:00.001-05:00

GENEVA, September 26, 2007--Three ACT-Caritas staff have been released into police custody after they were detained by an armed group over the weekend in Zalingei, west Darfur. The three staff were held for close to 30 hours and work for ACT-Caritas through ACT member, Norwegian Church Aid (NCA).

Immediately following the incident, all non-life saving ACT-Caritas operations in and around Zalingei were suspended and non-essential staff were sent home.

John Distefano, director of the ACT-Caritas Darfur Emergency Response, said, "We are very pleased that our three staff members are safe and we expect them to be in our care as soon as possible. A team is also currently investigating the entire matter."

"We have strict security protocols in place to safeguard our staff and ensure that we don't inadvertently put those we assist at risk, but security is very fluid in this area," added Mr. Distefano.

Over the past two months insecurity had already reduced the ability of the ACT-Caritas operation to provide humanitarian assistance in and around Zalingei.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported in August that insecurity is negatively affecting the quantity and quality of aid to hundreds of thousands of people in Darfur.

Further details on the incident and future operations in Zalingei will be released in the near future.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/222031/119079222693.htm

China sends 250 tons of aid materials to Darfur

2007-09-26T05:05:00.000-05:00

Tuesday 25 September 2007.

September 24, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — A special train carrying 250 tons of aid materials donated by the Chinese government left the Khartoum Railway Station on Monday for Sudan’s restive western region of Darfur.

The aid materials, including generators, water tankers and medical equipment for 30 water stations and 25 rural hospitals, is expected to arrive in Nyala, capital city of the South Darfur State, in five days.

This is one part of a total of RMB 80 million Chinese support to the Darfur region, which have been delayed by anti-government riots and tribal clashes since February 2003.

Besides the humanitarian assistances, a Chinese engineer unit consisting of 315 soldiers will be deployed in Darfur region in early October, to take part in a hybrid peacekeeping operation run by the United Nations and the African Union.

While addressing at a ceremony held for the aid delivery, Sudanese Minister of Energy and Mining Awad Ahmed Mohamed al-Jaz expressed his country’s appreciation for the positions of China and its support for the projects of development and public services in Sudan, especially in Darfur.

He appreciated the Chinese support as critical for the peace and stability in Darfur, saying it would promote the services and encourage the return of the refugees and displaced people to their homelands.

"We will start with the projects of water and health then the ones of education, housing and electricity," the Sudanese minister said.

Ahmed Mohammed Harun, the Sudanese minister of state for humanitarian affairs, also thanks Chinese government for providing such comprehensive support which covered all the vital fields.

He said this support indicated "the depth and solidity of the relations between Sudan and China."

Thanks to the cohesion of the Sudanese people and the support of Sudan’s friends, the Darfur cause was moving steadily forward towards a final solution, said Harun.

This was the third batch provided by the Chinese government and the previous two had been delivered to the Darfur region.

Chinese Ambassador to Sudan Li Chengwen reiterated China’s support to the efforts exerted by the Sudanese government to realize the social and political stability in Darfur for achieving a final and lasting peace in the region.

"We are desirous to push the development process, promote the production, enhance the services and provide the humanitarian assistance for the citizens in Darfur," Li said.

(Xinhua)

Cooperation with China reached "outstanding" stage - Ethiopia

2007-09-26T05:02:00.003-05:00

Tuesday 25 September 2007.

September 24, 2007 (ADDIS ABABA) — Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said Monday the bilateral cooperation between Ethiopia and China has reached an "outstanding" stage.

During his talks with Li Ruogu, chairman of China Exim Bank, Meles said Ethiopia is keen to step up its current relationship with China.

China has been providing support to Ethiopia in various sectors, Meles said, adding that the cooperation in the areas of development projects should further be strengthened.

He also underlined China has been cooperating with African countries, particularly Ethiopia, in various sectors.

Li told journalists after the talks that the cooperation between Ethiopia and China has been gaining momentum from time to time.

The Chinese banker said his country is keen to beef up the development cooperation underway between the two countries.

Li arrived here on Sunday for a working visit.

(Xinhua)

Serious abuse continuing in Darfur - UN experts

2007-09-26T05:02:00.001-05:00

Tuesday 25 September 2007.

September 24, 2007 (GENEVA) — A group of UN experts monitoring Darfur said Monday that serious human rights violations appeared to be continuing in the strife-torn western Sudanese region.

Sudanese Darfur survivor Ibrahim scratching through the dust where he says the remains of 25 of his friends and fellow villagers lie, at the site of a mass grave on the outskirts of the West Darfur town of Mukjar, Sudan, April 23, 2007. (AP)

In a report to the UN’s Human Rights Council, the experts said the Sudanese government was implementing some of their recommendations to prevent violations in the region, although progress on the ground so far appeared to be limited.

"The group of experts reiterates its concern about reports of ongoing serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights by various parties to the conflict," the report said.

It called on Khartoum to address the issue of impunity and ensure that all perpetrators of abuses are brought to justice. The experts did not list the reported incidents.

UN human rights chief Louise Arbour issued a similar warning last week, saying that human rights violations in Darfur were still "of the same nature and largely on the same scale."

She also said there was little indication that the Sudanese government was willing to respond to arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court.

UN envoy Walter Kaelin, a member of the group, on Monday praised Khartoum’s "excellent cooperation" and its efforts to implement measures to stop abuse in Darfur.

But he told the 47-nation Council: "The group reiterates that the ultimate measure of the government’s implementation of the recommendations compiled by the group has to be concrete improvement in the human rights situation on the ground in Darfur."

"It is possible to note at this time that while certain recommendations have been at least partially implemented, it is not in a position to report that a clear impact on the ground has been identified yet," he added.

Kaelin said the experts wanted to give Khartoum "the maximum possible time" to fulfill its undertakings and promised a comprehensive evaluation in December.

Sudan’s delegation at the Council described the report as "very constructive."

In June the experts laid out more than 30 detailed "recommendations" or targets that Sudan should meet — including clear orders to stop attacks on civilians, disarming militia and full cooperation with the ICC.

They also included indicators — such as the numbers of attacks in Darfur or the number of people handed over to the ICC — that would allow an assessment of progress.

The report acknowledged that the multiplication of the number of warring parties was hampering efforts on the ground, but it cautioned that they "cannot be invoked as obstacles" in stopping violations.

Rebels in Darfur have split into different factions, with some rejecting a peace agreement, and are divided over further talks with Khartoum next month.

More than two million people have fled their homes and at least 200,000 have died from the combined effects of famine and conflict since Khartoum enlisted militia allies to put down a local revolt in 2003, according to the United Nations.

(AFP)

Lack of security may force Oxfam to stop Darfur’s operation

2007-09-26T05:01:00.001-05:00

Tuesday 25 September 2007.

September 24, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Oxfam could withdraw from Darfur if security worsens, its country director said on Monday, amid reports of 10 attacks in the past four days in Sudan’s violent and remote west.

Despite a peace deal signed last year by the government and one rebel faction and intense international focus on ending the conflict, Darfur has descended into chaos forcing the world’s largest aid operation to evacuate some areas and work at high risk in others to provide assistance to some 4 million people.

"It’s certainly a strong possibility that if things get any worse Oxfam would have to withdraw," the British aid agency’s country director Caroline Nursey told Reuters.

"Oxfam is operating at the limits of what it can tolerate as an organisation. In most circumstances if the security situation were as bad as it is in Darfur we would withdraw.

"The only reason we are still there is that we are aware of very large numbers of people who are totally dependent on us for services," said Nursey, who has worked on Sudan for four years — the last 18 months based in Khartoum.

Oxfam provides water and sanitation to 500,000 people in Darfur and neighbouring Chad, where the conflict that began in Darfur in early 2003 has spilled across the border.

Two weeks ago an Oxfam vehicle was taken in broad daylight by armed men in South Darfur’s massive and volatile Kalma camp. Nursey said the driver overheard the men debating whether to kill the two Oxfam staff members.

Last year an Oxfam driver was killed in North Darfur and staff faced mock executions in an attack in Gereida, South Darfur.

CHAOTIC SCENARIO

Since the conflict began when mostly non-Arabs revolted, accusing the government in Khartoum of neglect, some 200,000 people have died in Darfur and 2.5 million have fled their homes for sprawling camps run by aid groups.

Around 7,000 African Union police and troops have failed to stem the violence, and have been accused of bias for mediating the 2006 deal which many in Darfur’s makeshift camps reject as inadequate. Only one of three rebel factions signed the deal.

Since the peace deal rebels factionalised into more than a dozen rival groups and mostly Arab militias began fighting each other or the government which had mobilised them to quell the revolt, creating a chaotic security scenario.

Rebels, government-backed militias and bandits have all been blamed for recent attacks. Some violence has also been tribal.

Between Sept. 19-22, a U.N. statement reported eight attacks on aid convoys, compounds and police by unknown armed men in Darfur, a vast, arid area the size of France.

On Monday a government official in West Darfur told Reuters Nertiti, in the central Jabel Marra area, was attacked two days ago. One civilian was killed and four injured.

On Sunday nearby Suloo was also attacked. Four policemen were injured.

After months of negotiations and threats, Khartoum accepted a 26,000-strong joint U.N.-African Union force to absorb the struggling AU mission.

But U.N. officials in New York have said Khartoum and the AU have rejected non-African infantry battalions for the force.

Rebels say they prefer non-Africans as the AU had not managed to control the crisis. They took up arms in early 2003 accusing Khartoum of neglecting the remote region.

Officials have also said Western nations have not come up with the necessary logistical and technical support needed to launch the massive peacekeeping mission.

(Reuters)

Unknown gunmen attack aid workers in Darfur

2007-09-23T10:27:00.000-05:00

Sunday 23 September 2007.

September 22, 2007 (UNITED NATIONS) — Three aid workers are wounded in an ambush staged by unidentified gunmen in South Darfur near Bulbul Timisgo, a small village on the main road between Nyala and Kass, the UN said today.

A convoy from U.S.-based World Vision International, which included eight staff members, was attacked on Thursday September 20. The three wounded aid workers are Sudanese; two of them were transported to Khartoum for medical attention while the third is treated in Nyala due to the severity of his injuries.

Attacks against relief workers increased by 150% from June 2006 to June 2007, the UN said. Since the start of 2007, some 98 vehicles have been hijacked, some 105 staff were temporarily taken hostage, more than 66 humanitarian personnel have been physically or sexually assaulted, and 61 convoys have been ambushed and looted.

John Holmes, the U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, condemned the attack and urged the Sudanese government to find the attackers and to punish them.

“This is a horrifying and brutal attack on aid staff who are working to save the lives of Sudanese people,” said John Holmes, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. “We call on the Government of Sudan to act with all speed to identify those responsible and ensure that they are held accountable for their crime,” he added.

The UN statement didn’t identify the attackers but underscored that "clashes among rival Arab tribes in this area in 2007 have caused significant levels of destruction and displacement."

"The area is also beset by banditry and violence." The UN further said.

World Vision, one of the world’s largest NGOs, provides a wide range of relief assistance in South Darfur, with projects in food aid, nutrition, water, education, sanitation, and agriculture, among others. They employ several hundred staff there.

(ST)

Humanitarian situation in Ethiopia’s Ogaden region worsens - UN

2007-09-19T20:19:00.001-05:00

Thursday 20 September 2007.

September 19, 2007 (ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia) — The United Nations said Wednesday that the situation in Ethiopia’s Ogaden region has "deteriorated rapidly," and called for an independent investigation into the humanitarian issues there.

The U.N. sent a fact-finding mission to the Ogaden in the country’s volatile east from Aug. 30 to Sept. 6.

"The mission observed the recent fighting has led to a worsening humanitarian situation, in which the price of food has nearly doubled," the U.N. said in a statement released late Wednesday in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

The mission also called for a substantial increase in emergency food aid to the impoverished region where rebels have been fighting for increased autonomy for more than a decade.

The U.N. mission was sent after months of fighting that followed a crackdown ordered by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi on the Ogaden National Liberation Front. The government says the rebels, who killed 74 members of a Chinese-run oil exploration team, are terrorists, funded by its archenemy Eritrea.

The rebels have accused the Ethiopian government of genocide - a charge the government denies. In a statement on Sept. 13, the front said the government was punishing civilians for the rebel activities and that the fact-finding mission had not visited areas where war crimes were being committed.

"The Ethiopian regime’s policy in Ogaden continues to be a campaign of state-sponsored terror that largely avoids engagements with ONLF forces and instead focuses on collectively punishing our civilian population," the statement said. "Victims of the regime’s war crimes include victims of rape, torture, gunshot wounds and those fleeing burnt villages," it said.

The front called on the international community to stop "yet another preventable African genocide," and urged the U.N. to investigate further in the region, saying the recent trip had been too tightly controlled by the government.

Bereket Simon, the special adviser to the prime minister, dismissed the rebels’ claims after the statement was issued last week.

"They said it is good that the U.N. has sent the fact-finding mission. And now when the facts from the ground are found to be not supporting their claims, they are fighting the fact-finding mission," he said.

The group is fighting for greater political rights for the region, which is ethnically Somali.

(AP)

Rights violations are contining with impunity in Darfur - UN

2007-09-18T15:41:00.001-05:00

Tuesday 18 September 2007.

September 17, 2007 (GENEVA) — The United Nations top human rights official warned on Monday that rights violations are contining in Darfur and that the Sudanese government has yet to make serious progress on tackling impunity for offenders.

Louise Arbour

"Darfur continues to be a matter of serious preoccupation," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour told journalists.

"Human rights violations continue to be of the same nature and largely on the same scale," she said.

People forced into camps after fleeing their homes continue to be targeted, with women in particular vulnerable to sexual attacks, she said.

Arbour warned that there was "very little progress on national efforts to combat the culture of impunity."

"There is very little indication of a change of attitude for the better on the part of the government of Sudan to respond to the warrants issued by the International Criminal Court," she added.

In May, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Ahmed Haroun, the secretary of state for humanitarian affairs, and pro-government Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kosheib, but Sudan has refused to hand them over.

However, Arbour did say that the "slightly more energised peace process" and the prospect of a joint UN-African Union "hybrid" peacekeeping force give some hope of new momentum towards a peaceful settlement.

"These two initiatives certainly give cause for some optimism that the human rights situation could improve," she said.

Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir met with Italian prime minister Romano Prodi last week and reportedly promised "total cooperation" with a hybrid peacekeeping force.

According to UN estimates, more than 200,000 people have died and some two million have been displaced in Darfur as a result of the combined effect of war and famine since the conflict erupted more than four years ago.

Khartoum disputes the figures and says only 9,000 people died.

(AFP)

Sudan to issue arrest warrants for Darfur rebels

2007-09-12T06:09:00.001-05:00

Tuesday 11 September 2007.

September 10, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan is preparing arrest warrants for six Darfur rebel leaders, accusing them of masterminding a bloody attack on a government base, the Justice Ministry said on Monday.

Khartoum said 41 people were killed when the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) attacked a police base in the town of Wad Banda in Kordofan region, 200 km (125 miles) from the border with war-torn Darfur late last month.

The ministry said in a statement carried by state-run media the attack was "a criminal and terrorist act".

"Arrest warrants would be issued in cooperation with the Interpol against six leaders of the JEM responsible for the attack," the ministry said. It did not name suspects.

JEM claimed responsibility for the August 29 attack, but insisted it was on a military base, manned by 1,700 troops and used for launching government-backed raids against southern Darfur. The government denies the charges.

JEM commanders were not available for comment.

The announcement of the arrest warrants came seven weeks before the start of peace talks between Khartoum and rebel groups, expected to take place in Libya on October 27.

It also coincided with fresh reports of violence and lawlessness in war-torn Darfur.

The United Nations on Monday reported crowds of displaced Sudanese had killed four men who had tried to hijack a U.N. vehicle in south Darfur’s Kalma camp on Thursday. A day earlier, gunmen killed one resident of the nearby Bilal camp and kidnapped another.

International experts estimate 200,000 people have died in more than four years of conflict in Darfur and 2.5 million others have been driven from their homes by rape, looting and killing. Washington calls the violence genocide, a term European governments are reluctant to use.

Khartoum says only 9,000 people have been killed, blaming Western media for exaggerating the conflict.

(Reuters)

Ethiopia blocking civilian access to medicine in Ogaden - MSF

2007-09-04T19:07:00.001-05:00

Wednesday 5 September 2007

September 4, 2007 (NAIROBI) — Ethiopian soldiers have chased women and children from wells in the desert and blocked civilians from getting medical care in an eastern Ethiopian region where a rebellion is brewing, the aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said Tuesday.

Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) militants display their weapons during a 2006 photocall in Mogadishu. (AFP)

Ethiopian officials were not immediately available for comment.

Local and international staff of the agency, also known as Doctors Without Borders, withdrew from most of the Ogaden region in July because of insecurity.

Later, the agency felt security had improved but several attempts to return have failed because authorities said aid groups were being held back for their own safety and would be allowed to return once military operations had ended, said Loris de Filippi, the agency’s operational coordinator for Ethiopia.

Eileen Skinnider of Doctors Without Borders said she saw soldiers driving women and children away from wells in the Ogaden and a team treated several victims of beatings and some civilians with gunshot wounds. Skinnider described driving through roads lined with burnt-out or mostly deserted villages, with elderly and sick inhabitants cowering in their huts.

"They first hid when they heard the sound of vehicles approaching," Skinnider said about a trip to one village. "They told us that they were afraid that if they were still found in their village, it would be burnt."

"In one incident I saw, a donkey that was being used to transport water got stabbed to death by soldiers," said Dr. Sieke Felix, who has not been allowed to return since July. She said she also saw a woman who had been beaten by soldiers when she was looking for her children and a 10 year-old injured by a mine.

Following the withdrawal of Doctors Without Borders and the International Red Cross, which says it was ordered to leave by the government last month, there are no foreign aid workers in the region and no reliable information about what is happening.

De Filippi said that in the three worst pockets of fighting in the Ogaden, 400,000 people share one physician. Doctors Without Borders had not been able to deliver vital drugs for six months, he said, adding that to get help women suffering from complications while giving birth would have to make an arduous journey that takes up to nine hours by car.

Doctors Without Borders said it was impossible to know how many people were hungry or sick in the parched, famine-prone area without being able to do an assessment, but the agency’s staff had seen no commercial trucks carrying food in areas where the fighting was fiercest and had seen several cases of malnutrition before pulling out in July.

Clashes between Ethiopian soldiers and rebels intensified in the region after Ogaden National Liberation Front rebels killed 74 members of a Chinese-run oil exploration team in April.

The Ogaden National Liberation Front, which says it is fighting for the rights of the region’s roughly 4 million ethnic Somali people, has accused the government of burning down villages, blocking food aid and attacking civilians.

The government says the rebels are backed by Ethiopia’s bitter enemy Eritrea in an attempt to destabilize the country.

No journalists or aid workers are currently allowed in the region, although a U.N. assessment team is currently in the region. The rebels have declared a unilateral cease-fire until the U.N. mission completes its work. Filippi said so far the U.N. team had not visited any of the areas worst affected by the fighting.

(AP)

Ethiopia orders Norwegian diplomats to Leave

2007-08-28T06:25:00.000-05:00

Tuesday 28 August 2007.

August 27, 2007 (ADDIS ABABA) — Ethiopia has ordered six Norwegian diplomats to leave the country by Sept. 15, expressing "dissatisfaction" with Norway’s conduct in the Horn of Africa region, the Norwegian foreign affairs minister said Monday.

"We are surprised and regret the Ethiopian authorities’ unilateral decision," Norwegian Foreign Affairs Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said in a statement posted on the ministry’s Web site.

Norway had urged Ethiopia to reconsider its decision, but Ethiopia had maintained its position and so six Norwegian diplomats would be leaving, the statement added.

"This sharp reduction in staffing means that we may not be able to maintain our development cooperation with Ethiopia at the current level," Stoere added. "We regret the impact this will have on our partners."

Junior foreign minister Raymond Johansen told AFP: "The Ethiopian decision was passed to us on August 15 in a totally unexpected manner."

Ethiopia had accused Norway of trying to promote the interests of its enemy Eritrea in the course of its mediation work to bring about peace in the region, said Johansen.

In particular they raised Norway’s contacts with Eritrea in the course of its efforts to work end the conflicts in Somalia and Sudan, he added.

The Norwegian foreign ministry statement however said that the expulsion of the diplomats didn’t "imply" a break in diplomatic relations with Ethiopia.

Norway’s embassy in Ethiopia is also responsible for relations with the African Union, which has its headquarters in Addis Ababa.

Addis Ababa is seen to be wary of Norway’s backing of Asmara, which supports some rebel groups in Somalia and Sudan. Oslo actively backed Asmara during its liberation struggle.

Somalia and Ethiopia allege that Eritrea is trying to destabilize the interim government in Somalia by arming insurgents who have staged some of the worst fighting in the capital Mogadishu in more than a decade.

Asmara denies the charge and in turn says Ethiopia is guilty of breaking international law by "invading" Somalia and interfering with the country’s right to chose its own leaders.

(AFP/AP)

Sudanese forces attack Kalma camp in South Darfur

2007-08-23T05:58:00.001-05:00

Tuesday 21 August 2007.

August 21, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Sudanese forces surrounded and attacked Darfur’s most volatile camp on Tuesday to flush out rebels they say are behind recent attacks on police, an army source and camp residents said.

The move on Kalma camp, home to 90,000 people, follows two attacks in the past week on police posts in South Darfur, one near Kalma and the other inside al-Salam camp. One policeman was killed and eight injured.

"At 6 a.m. the government of Sudan moved 2,000 soldiers to surround the camp — army, police and border intelligence," said Abu Sharrad, a spokesman for Kalma camp.

Sharrad, who called Reuters from inside the camp, said government forces had opened fire but it was unclear if anyone was killed or injured.

"We still cannot tell. They are still surrounding the camp," he added.

An army source said those who attacked the police posts were believed to be in Kalma camp, where rebels have previously taken refuge.

"This is an administrative, organisational operation to restore internal security," he said, adding the army was not involved, only police forces.

The United Nations said it as continuing to monitor the situation. "We are indeed concerned to receive reports of armed activity in the area," said Murizio Giuliano, spokesman for the U.N. Office for Humanitarian Affairs.

Kalma camp is one of Darfur’s most volatile.

Government offices were torched and officials expelled from the camp in 2005. Last year frustrated camp residents rioted, looting an African Union police base in the camps and hacking to death their Sudanese translator.

The 7,000-strong African Union force in Darfur has failed to stem the violence despite a 2006 peace deal. While large-scale fighting has largely ended, rebels and militias have fractured creating lawlessness and uncontrolled banditry.

International experts estimate some 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million driven from their homes since mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003.

Khartoum agreed to a 26,000-strong joint U.N.-AU force which will absorb the AU mission and try to stop violence which has hampered the world’s largest aid operation in Darfur. Some 500,000 people are out of reach of relief workers.

On Tuesday the U.N. rights office said allied government militias had attacked a village in the central Darfur Jabel Marra region, accusing them of mass rape and abductions which could constitute war crimes.

It called on Khartoum to investigate reports that about 50 women were forced into "sexual slavery" after an attack on the rebel-held town of Deribat last December.

The area is seen as supporting the Darfur rebel Sudan Liberation Army founder and chairman Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur, who rejects a May 2006 Darfur peace deal signed by only one of three negotiating rebel factions.

The U.N. report said a "pattern of mass abduction" which began with the Darfur conflict, appeared to be ongoing. The report covered a six-month period ending in May 2007.

(Reuters)

Darfur rebel umbrella to unite armed wings

2007-08-20T20:32:00.001-05:00

Tuesday 21 August 2007.

August 20, 2007 (ASMARA) — An Asmara-based umbrella group of Darfur rebel movements announced Monday it would return to the war-torn western Sudanese region to unify its armed wings into a single force.

Representatives of the United Front for Liberation and Development (UFLD) - an alliance of five factions formed last month - promised that their troops would work to protect aid workers and non-government organizations (NGOs).

"The leaders are going back to Darfur to unify all the armies into one group," UFLD official Abdel Aziz told reporters in the Eritrean capital Asmara.

"They will be protecting civilians and creating a secure area for NGOs doing their work in Darfur," he added.

The move comes two weeks after most Darfur rebel factions met in Arusha, Tanzania for talks sponsored by mediators from the United Nations and African Union to hammer out a common platform ahead of peace talks with Khartoum.

However Abdel Aziz stressed that final settlement negotiations with the Sudanese government could only take place if Suleiman Jamous, a veteran rebel who has been confined to a hospital and seen as a key negotiator, is released.

"No negotiation will take place unless Suleiman Jamous has been released," said Abdel Aziz.

According to the United Nations, Khartoum has agreed to let Jamous travel abroad for treatment. The 62-year-old rebel, a member of the Sudan Liberation Movement, is expected in Kenya.

According to UN estimates, at least 200 000 people have died from the combined effect of war and famine since the start of the Darfur conflict and some two million have been displaced.

Some experts say the toll is higher but Khartoum puts the figure at nine thousand.

The civil war broke out when rebel groups complaining of marginalisation by Khartoum launched a rebellion, which was brutally repressed by the Sudanese government and its proxy militia, the Janjaweed.

(AFP)

Khartoum unwilling to self determination in South Sudan - MP

2007-08-20T20:30:00.000-05:00

Tuesday 21 August 2007.

August 20, 2007 (FREETOWN) — An MP from Southern Sudan has told a Sierra Leone audience that the situation in his country is rapidly deteriorating. He further said that Khartoum seems unwilling to the self determination as it is provided in the CPA, the Freetown based Concord Times reported.

Dr. Peter Adwok Nyaba, a senior representative of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM) in Khartoum told journalists yesterday that the ongoing situation in Southern Sudan is worsening.

Nyaba, who is on a week’s visit in Sierra Leone as a guest of the Africanist Movement, said his mission to West Africa is to help other Africans understand the crisis in Sudan and its implications for the rest of the continent.

"The situation is South Sudan is that of marginalization, exploitation, racial oppression and political exclusion by the north," Nyaba said, adding that the key to the solution of Sudan’s problems is the granting of the right to self-determination to all Sudanese.

He explained that relative peace is being experienced in South Sudan due to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), but the Khartoum government appears unwilling to sincerely allow the Southern Sudanese their right to self-determination as provided in the CPA.

"According to the CPA, the South will have to decide in an international referendum whether they should remain with the north or secede in favor of self-determination," he stated and added that, "key to our struggle is for justice, equality, social reconstruction and democracy for everyone in the Sudan. If we have these, there is no point of struggle." The referendum to determine whether the South will split from the North will be held in 2011.

Earlier in the programme, Africanist leader Chernoh Alpha M. Bah said his group is hosting the visit on the basis of international solidarity.

"We believe in a free, united Africa and African people everywhere," he said, adding that the question of South Sudan is highly complicated and requires discussions and a more profound understanding.

The President of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ), Ibrahim Ben Kargbo said this is the first visit of an official of the SPLM in Sierra Leone.

"I think it is a significant step because Africans need to know about each other’s struggles," he stated.

(Concord Times)

Sudan says informed UK embassy of terrorism risk

2007-08-20T20:28:00.001-05:00

Monday 20 August 2007.

August 19, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan showed understanding to the closure of consular section at the British embassy in Khartoum. Further, the Foreign ministry said it had provided the embassy with information on the risk of terror action against the United Kingdom diplomatic mission there.

Spokesperson of the ministry of foreign affairs, Ali al-Sadiq, disclosed that a security alert from the Sudanese authorities triggered the temporary closure of visa, consular sections of the British embassy in Khartoum.

In a press release, the British Embassy announced yesterday the temporary suspension of public services at the Embassy from 19 August. "The Visa and Consular sections of the Embassy will be closed until further notice." The statement said.

This closure comes after Sudanese police found three weapons caches in the capital during the past week. Police arrested eight Sudanese in connection with the stores, which mostly contained grenades and ammunition.

Sadiq also said that the foreign ministry under secretary Mutref Sideiq, met today with Ambassadors of France, UK, UN and USA, to inform them about the arrest of this terrorist group which had plans to attack the missions of the three countries and the UN.

The spokesperson said that giving such information to UK embassy was aimed at taking caution before bad thing happened to the mission, its property and staff, adding that more security has been provided to the embassy in the framework of the government’s responsibility.

On August 13, an explosion occurred yesterday at a house in the Um-Salma area, south of Khartoum, injuring two people. Sudanese police, which is probing the case, said three people were arrested. Following this explosion the police discovered the three weapons caches.

Also Sudan has banned today the local press from reporting on the weapon caches and the arrested groups. The press had initially reported that foreign Islamists had been arrested but an interior ministry source played down fears of terrorist attacks.

(ST)

Sudan to name presidential assistant as responsible of Darfur dossier

2007-08-20T20:26:00.001-05:00

Monday 20 August 2007.

August 19, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Sudanese president has assigned the dossier of Darfur crisis to Nafi Ali Nafi, a presidential assistant and the deputy leader of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), a pro-governmental newspaper reported today.

Nafi Ali Nafi

Political sources have confirmed that the Presidency has decided to assign the resolution of Darfur crisis to Nafi Ali Nafi, whole will replace the late Majzoub al-Khalifah Ahmad. The sources indicated a decision in this regard will be issued within the next few days, Akhir Lahzah said.

The sources attributed Nafi’s selection to the complexity of the Darfur dossier where the work of the majority of official military, security and political bodies intersected. They further said it was necessary to appoint an influential leader who was capable of taking decisions during and after the forthcoming negotiations with Darfur’s rebel movements.

The question of the succession of Majzoub al-Khalifah was one of the important matters in term of balance of power between the two major streams within the NCP, observers say.

The eventual nomination of Nafi means that the hardliners in Khartoum keep the upper hand over the dossier of Darfur. Nafi and Majzoub are considered among the Al-Bashir’s wing in the ruling party. “It was obvious from the beginning that the vice-president Ali Osman Taha would not be assigned for this mission.”

Since the signing of the CPA with the SPLM Ali Osman is accused of working to replace al-Bashir. He also accused of making a lot of concession to the SPLM during Naivasha talks.

(ST)

Ethiopia claims heavy losses inflicted on Ogaden rebels

2007-08-17T19:18:00.001-05:00

ADDIS ABABA 08/09 - Ethiopian state radio said Wednesday that government troops had killed at least 650 rebels in the predominantly Somali ethnic region of Ogaden in the past two and half months.

But rebels in the restive southern region of Ethiopia dismissed the claims, insisting that Addis Ababa did not have "effective control" of Ogaden.

"The Ethiopian Defence Force, in collaboration with the elders of the area, have killed most of the anti-peace elements since it started its continous attacks on May 21," said state radio.

The defence ministry said Tuesday that it had killed some 200 members of the Oromo Liberation Front, Ogaden National Liberation Front and Al Ittihad groups since stepping up operations last month.

In May, the two separatist groups OFL and ONLF said they had killed 157 Ethiopian troops in the area, a claim denied by Addis Ababa.

Ethiopian claims could not be independently confirmed, since the Ethiopian authorities last month evicted the International Committee of the Red Cross officials from much of the area.

The ONLF, which has been fighting for the independence of Ogaden since 1984, said the government`s was trying to give a false sense of security to oil companies so they did not abandon their exploration plans.

"Pursuing oil and natural gas exploration activities in Ogaden at this stage can only be characterized as gross corporate irresponsibility given the war crimes being committed against our civilian population," the group said.

http://www.angolapress-angop.ao/noticia-e.asp?ID=551405

Sudan lifts a rebel's travel ban

2007-08-16T06:55:00.001-05:00

Sudan is to allow a sick Darfur rebel chief on its wanted list to travel to Kenya for treatment, the UN says.

Suleiman Jamous has been confined to a United Nations peacekeeping base near Darfur for more than 13 months.

He needs surgery and had been threatened with arrest by Sudanese authorities if he left the UN's care.

Mr Jamous has been a key link between rebels in Darfur and humanitarian workers serving families displaced during the four-year conflict.

Some 200,000 people are believed to have died and more than 2m have been left homeless in Darfur since fighting broke out in 2003.

Guarantee

Mr Jamous is suffering from abdominal complications and has been cared for at a UN hospital.

"The government of Sudan has made clear that Suleiman Jamous was free to leave the hospital to undergo medical treatment and subsequently reside with his family under the condition the UN guarantee that he will not return to Darfur to fight," UN spokeswoman Michele Montas told Associated Press news agency.

She said the UN would facilitate his evacuation to the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.

In May last year, Mr Jamous, Sudan's Liberation Army humanitarian co-ordinator, rejected the Darfur peace deal - and was promptly detained by those rebels who did sign.

After a month the UN intervened and flew him to Kadugli for treatment.

Earlier this month, US actress Mia Farrow offered her freedom in exchange for Mr Jamous so he could attend peace talks in Tanzania.

Eight rebel factions, who did not sign last year's agreement, have since reached a common position for talks with Sudan's government.

Troops

Meanwhile, the African Union and UN special representative for Darfur, Rodolphe Adada, says peacekeeping troops pledged by African countries must meet UN standards.

Speaking on the first day of a visit to Darfur, Mr Adada said the deadline for offers of peacekeepers was the end of the month.

The UN Security Council has sanctioned the deployment of the hybrid force composed of 26,000 troops.

AU Commission Chairman Alpha Konare has said Africa will provide all of the required peacekeepers.

The UN had expected to call on Asian troops. Critics say Africa lacks enough trained troops for an effective force.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/6949313.stm

Darfur’s Jamous says may leave UN care Thursday

2007-08-14T06:35:00.003-05:00

Tuesday 14 August 2007.

August 13, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Darfur rebel figure Suleiman Jamous said on Monday if the United Nations did not respond to his request to fly him out of Sudan for medical treatment by Thursday, he would hand himself over to the government.

Suleiman Jamous (reuters)

Jamous, the Sudan Liberation Army’s (SLA) humanitarian coordinator, was the key liaison between insurgents and the world’s largest aid operation helping some 4.2 million people in Darfur.

"I gave them until Thursday," Jamous said.

"If they refuse to take me out, I will just go out to where the government of Sudan is waiting to be detained, and I will consider this a compulsory turning over to the government by the U.N." he told Reuters by telephone.

The United Nations moved him to a U.N. hospital near Darfur more than a year ago without informing Khartoum. Sudan calls him a criminal and had said it would arrest him if he left U.N. care.

Last week Sudan said Jamous could be released for peace talks, but declined to say whether his freedom would be conditional.

Jamous needs a stomach biopsy which cannot be performed in the U.N. hospital. On Monday he left the hospital for the first time in more than 13 months to walk to the nearby U.N. headquarters and ask to be flown out of Sudan for medical treatment.

"They replied they needed time to consult with Khartoum and I have given them until Thursday," Jamous said.

"Now I am becoming indifferent. If I am detained by the United Nations or the government of Sudan it is the same," he said.

The United Nations was not immediately available to comment, but two U.N. sources have said they were unlikely to fly Jamous out of Sudan.

The elderly Jamous is respected in Darfur and considered a consensus builder who could help peace efforts and unify fractured rebels.

Since a 2006 peace deal signed by only one of three negotiating rebel factions, the insurgents have split into more than a dozen groups, creating chaos in Darfur.

Because of increasingly violent attacks against their staff and aid convoys, the humanitarian operation has been scaled down and some 500,000 people are out of reach of vital help.

International experts estimate some 200,000 have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes in more than four years of fighting in Darfur.

(Reuters)

Unity state defends recruitment of Kenyan teachers

2007-08-14T06:31:00.001-05:00

Tuesday 14 August 2007.

August 13, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — The Unity State in southern Sudan has defended its decision to seek teachers from Kenya and Uganda to teach the English language at primary and secondary levels because of the weakness of local cadres.

Addressing a press conference yesterday in Khartoum, the state minister of finance, Simon Jandong, defended his state for resorting to seek teachers from Kenya and Uganda to teach English.

He added that they had noted clear improvements in the capacity of students, and attributed this to the step taken, which he noted was necessitated by the weakness of the southern cadres in teaching the language.

He said there was need to expand education after the realization of peace and this was what made the state to seek foreign teachers.

(ST)

Darfur Arab rebels capture 12 Sudan soldiers

2007-08-14T06:29:00.001-05:00

Tuesday 14 August 2007.

August 13, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — An obscure mostly Arab Darfur rebel group said on Monday it had kidnapped 12 Sudanese soldiers and challenged the government to stop mobilising militias to counter the four-year-old revolt in western Sudan.

The Democratic Popular Front Army (DPFA) said in a statement sent to Reuters that among the captured was officer Ali Mohamed. By way of proof they offered his military I.D. number, 44206.

"This is the first time we have captured government soldiers," DPFA Secretary-General Osama Mohamed al-Hassan told Reuters.

"We have been marginalised by the government. The government took advantage of our sons and paid them and gave them arms and used them to fight against others," he said.

He was referring to the Popular Defence Forces, mobilised by the government to quell revolts in Darfur and during decades of civil war in the south.

"We want them to stop the PDF, to leave people to live their lives and be able to farm and feed their cattle and eat and live in peace," he said, adding the group would continue to fight the government.

Darfur experts called the DPFA stance significant.

"This group is vitally important because it represents a young generation of Darfurian Arabs who refuse to die for a government 1,000 miles away that has always neglected all Darfurians — Arab and non-Arabs," said Julie Flint, co-author of a book on Darfur, who has met the group’s leader.

"The vast majority of Darfur’s Arabs have refused to take sides so far. They may be beginning to come off the fence."

The group said its members came from mostly Arab tribes — the Rizeigat, Habbaniya, Terjem, Beni Halba, Taasha — and the non-Arab Fellata tribe. They are mostly based in West and South Darfur states but had some people in the north too.

DEVELOPMENT NEEDS

The DPFA statement said the attack on Sudanese forces occurred in Soja in Wadi Saleh, in the southern area of West Darfur state, on Saturday.

"Our forces captured eight military vehicles as well as a large amount of weapons and ammunition and are controlling the area," said the statement, which included a British telephone number, an Egyptian number and a thuraya satellite phone number.

A Sudanese army spokesman dismissed the report as false.

"This is lie. There’s no basis to the news," he said.

Mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing the central government of marginalising the remote, arid west. Khartoum mobilised mostly Arab militias to stem the revolt.

A Sudanese analyst who declined to be named said Arab tribes felt they had been largely ignored in peace talks with the government.

"They have development needs too, and feel they are being labelled the bad guys," the analyst said.

Sudan expert Alex De Waal said the government may be worried by this development.

"It’s very significant. Without the Arab militia the government cannot remain in Darfur." But he cautioned not all Arab tribes in Darfur were now anti-government.

One Arab commander, Abu Surrah, was at U.N.-African Union mediated meeting in Tanzania earlier this month as he had allied himself with other mostly non-Arab rebel groups.

Rebel commanders and groups there agreed on a common platform ahead of peace talks due to begin within three months.

But Flint said this attack showed the mediators had not fully understood which groups were key for talks:

"The fact that this group was not invited to the Arusha talks shows how little those organizing the peace process know about where the real power lies in the rebel movements."

(Reuters)

Darfur Arab tribes sign truce after clashes kill 140

2007-08-13T06:21:00.000-05:00

Monday 13 August 2007.

August 12, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Rival Darfur Arab tribes have signed a truce after more than 140 people died in clashes, an official and tribal leaders said on Sunday.

"It’s an agreement to cease hostilities," Mohamed Ahmed Hassan, a Terjem tribal leader, told Reuters of the deal his tribe signed with the Rizeigat on Saturday.

"If the Rizeigat adhere to and respect the agreement, the Terjem will not violate it," he said.

Both are Arab tribes in South Darfur state. Fighting has continued on and off for months between them, but a reconciliation deal signed in February fell apart in July.

Ali Hassan, a Rizeigat tribal leader, said his group was committed to the truce. "We are going around trying to explain it to our people," he said.

Most of the casualties of the fighting were Terjem.

"Around 145 of our people were killed between July 30 and August 8," said Mohammed Ahmed Hassan, adding that 40 people with serious injuries were still in hospital in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur State.

"We have buried them in mass graves," he added. He said the Rizeigat had superior firepower.

South Darfur’s Labour Minister Abdul Rahman al-Zein has previously said three Rizeigat were killed in the clashes.

Each tribe blamed the other for starting the fighting.

The Terjem are a sedentary farming tribe while the Rizeigat are nomadic cattle herders. The latest problems began as the Rizeigat moved north in their seasonal migration, passing close to Terjem territory. The Terjem say the cattle eat their crops.

"The Terjem tell them you cannot pass through here," said Zein. "The government will deploy forces in the trouble spots to ensure compliance."

Ali Hassan declined to comment on the numbers killed.

Fighting over land and resources had been going on in Darfur for decades, before the region’s revolt broke out in early 2003. The conflict has led to a proliferation of weapons, making tribal clashes even deadlier.

International experts estimate 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes in the fighting in Darfur, where mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003, accusing Khartoum of neglecting their arid region.

Khartoum says only 9,000 people have died in the violence.

(Reuters)

ANALYSIS-Cash needed to save south Sudan peace deal

2007-08-12T16:35:00.000-05:00

10 Aug 2007 14:28:46 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Opheera McDoom

KHARTOUM, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Donors have been too slow in delivering funds to develop south Sudan after a landmark peace deal and need to adopt a unified approach to deal with multiple conflicts in Africa's largest country, observers say.

Sudan signed a north-south peace deal in 2005 to end Africa's longest civil war, but the agreement was overshadowed as a revolt in its western Darfur region sparked the world's largest aid operation, diverting donor focus and cash.

"Donor governments, which promised billions of dollars to help with the reconstruction of the south need to make those resources available to ensure that hundreds of thousands of returning Sudanese ... gain greater access to water, medical assistance, education," advocacy group Refugees International said in a report.

It singled out a World Bank-led mechanism called the Multi Donor Trust Fund (MTDF) as being too slow in giving money to the semi-autonomous south Sudan government to develop the war-torn south, one of the poorest areas in the world.

"Half a billion dollars...was committed to the World Bank administered MDTF, a mechanism that has thus far proved to be woefully inefficient, with only about $80 million disbursed to date," it added.

This week south Sudan said it would begin to demobilise some 25,000 soldiers but that support packages including seeds and tools were not guaranteed for them because of United Nations funding delays.

"The money is available," said David Gressly, the top humanitarian official in Sudan. "However, our policy is not to release funds, until the national framework has been agreed."

He acknowledged a new way to deliver cash rapidly to support urgent development was needed to add to the MDTF.

"We do need a new mechanism to fund early recovery projects. We have indeed proposed such a mechanism, and are seeking donor support for it."

FEAR OF FRESH CONFLICT

In Sudan's north-south war, 2 million were killed and at least 4 million fled their homes.

Sudan remains awash with small arms and many worry those who do not see a peace dividend could take up arms again.

State minister of foreign affairs Ali Karti said the international community was to blame for delays in implementing the north-south deal.

"The international community is failing and is unable to meet their obligation," he said. "This is something that we cannot do alone."

Jan Pronk, former head of the U.N. mission in Sudan entrusted with monitoring implementation of the deal, said there was almost no international attention on the north-south problem as negotiations continue on Darfur.

The United Nations last month authorised 26,000 U.N. and African Union troops and police to deploy to Darfur, where experts estimate 200,000 have died and 2.5 million driven from their homes in more than four years of conflict.

A July 9 deadline by which north and south armies were to deploy to each side of the north-south border was missed with no comment from anyone, Pronk said.

"It's as if people didn't care," he said. "They think there are two problems but it is one problem. It is a problem of unity and peace which is in Sudan as a whole."

Rebels from Sudan's outlying regions, south, east and west, all complain of neglect by the Khartoum government, dominated by central Nilotic tribes since independence.

Pronk said democratic elections by 2009, as envisaged by the north-south deal, was the only way forward for Sudan. It also gave southerners the right to vote on secession by 2011.

"They (donors) need to put a lot of pressure on the two parties to have the elections," he said, warning if key elements of the north-south deal were not implemented, the south could separate.

Sudan, rebels resume heavy fighting in Darfur

2007-08-10T07:07:00.000-05:00

Friday 10 August 2007.

August 9, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Heavy fighting in southern Darfur has killed scores of rebels and government forces over the past week, and the Sudanese air force has bombed several villages, rebels and international observers in Darfur reported Thursday.

The clashes began Aug. 1 when a coalition of rebels, including members of the Justice and Equality Movement, captured the strategic town of Adila, where Sudanese troops were stationed to protect the only railway linking Darfur to Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, rebels said.

The Sudanese army and its allied janjaweed militias "were summarily defeated, leaving behind heavy weapons and ammunition," JEM said in a statement. The group said the offensive was led by Abdelazziz Ushar, a Darfur field commander previously fighting a separate rebellion in eastern Sudan.

A senior international observer in Darfur said Thursday that Sudanese forces had recaptured Adila, located near South Darfur’s border with the neighboring region of Khordofan, but reported clashes were ongoing.

"It seems over 100 (Sudanese) soldiers or janjaweed have been killed," the official told The Associated Press on the telephone. At least 10 rebels were killed and 15 injured, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Rebels said they launched the offensive because the janjaweed were burning villages in the area.

The African Union mission in Darfur confirmed there had been heavy fighting, but said it had no further details.

"The zone around Adila is a no-go area for us," said A.U. spokesman Noureddine Mezni.

Rebels and international observers said the fighters seized more than 50 government vehicles and some heavy armament during the offensive.

Meanwhile, Sudan’s air force bombed at least four villages in the area this week, observers and rebels said, but there were no reports of casualties because many of the civilians have fled.

One of JEM’s leaders said his group shot down a government MIG-29 fighter jet on Wednesday that was participating in the bombings, a claim denied by the government and disputed by other rebels.

Abdullahi el-Tom told AP the aircraft’s wreckage had been found 2.8 miles south of Adila, but the pilot had not been located.

Rebels from a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement fighting alongside JEM told international observers the jet crashed because of a mechanical problem.

Army spokesman Gen. Osman Mohamed al-Agbash denied that rebels had downed a government jet, but indicated the military had faced heavy fighting in Adila.

"JEM wants to tell the international community that the army has used air bombing in (the) recapturing of Adila," the Sudan Media Center, a news services deemed close to the government, quoted al-Agbash as saying. There was no comment on military casualties.

Military flights are banned over Darfur by several U.N. resolutions and peace agreements, and Sudanese authorities routinely deny conducting air raids.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir visited Darfur last month and said the region was largely pacified. But the U.N. mission in Sudan said there have been clashes between rebels and the government in northern Darfur in recent days.

The heavy fighting in Adila came as the U.N. and A.U. sponsored a Darfur rebel conference in Arusha, Tanzania, to relaunch talks with the government after a May 2006 peace agreement between Khartoum and one rebel faction last year proved largely ineffective.

JEM’s el-Tom confirmed that rebel delegates attended last week’s conference and were willing to negotiate a peace agreement with Khartoum.

"But for the moment we have no cease-fire," he said. "Fighting will go on until we agree on something with Khartoum."

More than 200,000 people have died in Darfur since ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of discrimination. Khartoum is accused of retaliating by unleashing janjaweed militias, which are blamed for the worst atrocities against civilians in a conflict that has displaced more than 2.5 million people.

The government denies the charges but resisted for months a push for U.N. peacekeepers to replace the 7,000-strong A.U. force in Darfur. A July Security Council resolution provides for a "hybrid force" of 26,000 U.N. and A.U. troops to deploy in Darfur under a compromise deal that could see the peacekeepers in the region by the end of the year.

(AP)

Darfur Rebels Say They Shot Down Government Plane

2007-08-08T07:57:00.001-05:00

By REUTERS

Filed at 6:15 a.m. ET

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Darfur rebel commanders said on Wednesday they had shot down a government MiG 29 plane they say was bombing civilian villages in their areas in Sudan's Darfur region.

"We have downed a plane - MiG 29 around 4.5 km south of Adila yesterday around 5 p.m. (10 a.m. EDT)," commander Adel Aziz el-Nur Ashr from the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality and Movement (JEM) told Reuters by telephone.

Adila is in the far east of South Darfur state. Last week the government accused JEM of attacking the government controlled town.

JEM said the government attacked their areas around Adila ahead of a U.N.-African Union mediated meeting of rebel factions in Tanzania to renew the peace process.

"We are looking for the pilot," said Ashr. "We have the body of the plane."

Neither the United Nations, nor the AU, which is monitoring a shaky ceasefire in Sudan's arid west, could immediately confirm the report.

Sudan's army spokesman was not immediately available to comment.

The rebels have brought down government Antonov planes and helicopters over the more than four years of conflict in Darfur.

A U.N. report said the government had been bombing in Darfur until the end of June, which would violate U.N. Security Council resolutions banning offensive flying.

Sudan unhappy at some Darfur rebel demands

2007-08-07T16:04:00.001-05:00

By Opheera McDoom
Tue Aug 7, 1:29 PM ET

Sudan's government is not enthusiastic about some elements of a joint Darfur rebel negotiating platform agreed during U.N. and African Union mediated talks, U.N. Darfur envoy Jan Eliasson said on Tuesday.

Eliasson and his AU counterpart Salim Ahmed Salim, in an effort to reignite peace efforts, brought many Darfur commanders and groups together for unity talks in Arusha early this week.

They emerged from the meeting in Tanzania with a common platform, including agreement on land issues, power and wealth-sharing ahead of proposed talks with the government.

But Eliasson told reporters after meeting Foreign Ministry officials in Khartoum: "Not all of the points of course are met with great enthusiasm, but it is a basis."

Khartoum says a Darfur peace deal it signed with one of three rebel negotiating factions in May 2006 should not be reopened to address the concerns of rebels, who have since split into more than a dozen factions.

"The government does not want to have a renegotiation of the DPA (Darfur Peace Agreement) so this is a matter we will discuss both with the government and with the non-signatories -- how will we finalize the final agenda," Eliasson added.

He said the U.N.-AU team would to try to bring government and rebel positions together in the coming weeks to reach a final agenda for talks, due to begin in about two months.

Senior Foreign Ministry official Mutrif Siddig said the government welcomed the Arusha talks, but was disappointed not all the factions were present and that the original timeline, which had envisaged peace talks beginning by August, was lost.

LEGITIMACY

International experts estimate 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been driven from their homes during more than four years of rape, murder, disease and looting in Darfur, violence Washington calls genocide.

European governments are reluctant to use the term, which Khartoum rejects. Sudan puts the death toll at 9,000.

The International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued arrest warrants on war crimes charges against a government minister and a militia leader.

On Tuesday ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Khartoum must hand over the suspects.

"Sudan cannot be a pariah country. They know it is important. The government needs legitimacy, so they will respect the law," Moreno-Ocampo told Reuters in Australia.

Sudan says the ICC has no authority in Darfur.

After months of talks, threats and negotiations, the government finally agreed to a joint U.N.-AU 26,000-strong peacekeeping force in Darfur, but said most of the troops should come from Africa.

But Zambia said on Tuesday the continent could not muster enough soldiers to complete the mission and international troops would have to be found from other areas.

"We don't have the means," Foreign Minister Mundia Sikatana told Reuters during a meeting in Malaysia. "Immediately Africa has no capacity to deal with the situation in Darfur."

Andrew Natsios, U.S. special envoy on Sudan, concurred. "We are going to try to recruit from Africa but it is very clear from already talking to African leaders and military that there are not enough African troops that are trained in peacekeeping operations to make up this force."

"I think there is an understanding from the Sudanese government that we are going to have to go outside of Africa. This is a sensitive issue," he told reporters.

The United Nations says the joint force must deploy alongside a renewed political process, as they must have a peace to keep.

REBEL ABSENCES

Analysts said the Arusha meeting's chance of success was hampered by the absence of some important rebel figures, but nonetheless succeeded in boosting unity which has been a major hindrance to talks with the government.

Among those who did not attend was Suleiman Jamous, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) humanitarian coordinator who is seen by experts as key to any lasting peace.

He has been hospitalised outside Darfur and risks arrest if he returns. On Tuesday the government said it would lift that threat if the international community guaranteed he would not rejoin armed groups in Darfur.

Eliasson said a seat at any future talks was also available for Darfur SLA leader and founder Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur, who refuses any talks until an oil-for-food program and no-fly zone is in place in Sudan's remote west.

Nur has few troops on the ground but commands huge popular support among Darfur's largest tribe, the Fur.

(Additional reporting by Clarence Fernandez in Malaysia, Rob Taylor in Australia and Sue Pleming in Washington)

FACTBOX-Major players at Darfur peace talks

2007-08-06T20:49:00.001-05:00

Aug 6 (Reuters) - Darfur rebel factions meeting in Tanzania have reached a common negotiating position and want final peace talks with the Sudanese government within months, international mediators said on Monday.

The African Union and United Nations called the Darfur meeting in Arusha, Tanzania to form a rebel consensus after a May 2006 peace deal was signed only by a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) led by Minni Arcua Minnawi.

Another SLA faction led by founder Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur and the Justice and Equality Movement headed by Khalil Ibrahim did not sign, despite intense international pressure.

The lack of support by other rebels undermined the agreement within days. The rebels have split into more than a dozen factions.

Minnawi became special assistant to Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, but has lost much ground in Darfur and some question whether all his forces there remain loyal to him. Many of his allies have broken away to form their own factions.

Minnawi's forces have been accused of attacking, threatening and killing African Union peacekeepers in his areas in South Darfur as well as in AU head quarters in North Darfur.

The major factions have loose alliances and are in constant negotiations to form new coalitions.

Here are the major players:

* SLA - Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur - Nur has few troops left based in western Jabel Marra. But from Darfur's largest Fur tribe, he commands huge popular support especially in the camps housing more than 2 million people driven from their homes during the fighting. Nur, who is in France, refused to attend the Arusha talks.

* JEM - Khalil Ibrahim - Dogged by splits and with claims by JEM's military leadership that it has overthrown Ibrahim, which he denies, observers say JEM is not a significant power on the ground but is included to avoid the group acting as a spoiler. Ibrahim has been sanctioned by the United States for hindering the peace process. His group was represented at Arusha.

* Jar el-Neby and Suleiman Marajan - Based in North Darfur, these two are important figures with many troops in Darfur. They had wanted a commanders' unity conference before Arusha but decided to attend the meeting.

* SLA-Unity - Abdallah Yehia. Commanders include Ahmed Kubur in Darfur. SLA-Unity loosely encompasses other prominent SLA rebels including Sherif Harir. Yehia said Unity field commanders would not attend Arusha unless SLA Humanitarian Coordinator Suleiman Jamous was released.

* United Front for Liberation and Development - Khamis Abdallah. SLA figure Abdallah, who represented the UFLD at Arusha, and four other smaller factions formed a new umbrella group in Eritrea last month. Each faction alone counts for little on the ground, analysts say, but by virtue of the unification earned a seat at talks.

* Suleiman Jamous - The elderly Jamous has been virtually imprisoned in a U.N. hospital in Kordofan, a region neighbouring Darfur, for 13 months. All agree he is influential and respected among Darfuris and all rebel factions. Khartoum says if he leaves the U.N. building he will be arrested. Eleven prominent activists, including South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, wrote to Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to request his release. Jamous, the SLA humanitarian coordinator, was the liaison between rebels and the world's largest aid operation in Darfur until the United Nations airlifted him to Kordofan for medical treatment last year.

North-south Sudan armies differ over oil areas

2007-08-06T20:46:00.001-05:00

By Skye Wheeler

JUBA, Sudan, Aug 6 (Reuters) - A South Sudanese army official said on Monday that North Sudanese troops still in the south's vital oil areas were now "occupation forces" since they had not left the region as agreed under a 2005 peace deal.

He said his own southern forces had almost finished withdrawing from areas they had to leave under the accord.

The January 2005 deal created separate north and south armies, joint units for main towns and the sensitive oil areas and required both armies to redeploy either side of the 1956 north-south border by July 9, 2007.

But the northern Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) missed the redeployment deadline, and a senior U.N. official said most of the forces still in the south remained in the oil fields, where Sudan pumps some 500,000 barrels per day of crude.

Kuol Diem Kuol, spokesman for the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), said:

"We are not happy. The SPLA is waiting for the orders from the southern Sudan security council on how to handle this issue of occupation forces."

Kuol said some 16,600 northern troops remained in the south's two largest oil-producing states and the still contested oil-rich Abyei area, which under the deal can choose whether to join the south or stay in the north by 2011.

"(They) are staying illegally in a territory that they're not supposed to be in," said Kuol.

The SPLA also missed the deadline to withdraw from two transitional areas, Southern Blue Nile and South Kordofan. The SPLA had said that was because the joint units, supposed to take over after their withdrawal, were not yet functioning.

But Kuol on Monday said that the SPLA were moving out of the two areas as per the peace deal.

"All the SPLA soldiers have withdrawn out of Blue Nile, except for a company of 120 soldiers," said Kuol.

He explained these soldiers were guarding tanks, anti-aircraft weapons and heavy artillery that cannot be transported into south Sudan because of heavy rains.

"Once it is dry we will move them into the south," said Kuol.

Similarly all of the SPLA's troops are currently moving out of South Kordofan State said Kuol, with less than 300 remaining to guard heavy artillery.

The two areas were now under the control of the joint north-south units, known as Joint Integrated Units (JIUs) but Kuol said there were some concerns that they were not yet able to deal with an uneasy security situation in South Kordofan.

"The militias are still active ... are not yet disarmed,. The whole population is not yet disarmed," said Kuol. "(It is) very dangerous".

"They are not trained together, they are not the JIU envisaged by the peace agreement," said Kuol about the units.

Last year 150 people were killed during clashes between the north and south armies in the southern town of Malakal, fighting sparked by northern-aligned militias.

The discovery of oil in south Sudan during the years of war further inflamed the conflict in which 2 million people died and some 4 million were displaced.

INTERVIEW-Rebel disorganisation delays east Sudan peace deal

2007-08-06T20:43:00.000-05:00

By Jack Kimball

ASMARA, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Squabbling among east Sudanese rebels and disorganisation in their ranks are hampering implementation of a deal that ended a decade long insurgency, a former rebel leader said on Monday.

The Eastern Front took up arms against Khartoum in the 1990s, accusing it of neglect in an echo of the grievances expressed by insurgents in Sudan's west and south.

A peace deal mediated by neighbouring Eritrea ended the low-level revolt in October but internal divisions within the group, disputes over posts and lack of political structure have helped cause delays.

"The most important point is that when we started creating the Eastern Front, we didn't finish the hierarchy, the institutions and the political programme," said Amna Dirar, a senior Eastern Front official.

Since the deal, the Front has met in Eritrea -- which has hosted Sudanese opposition figures for years -- hoping to work out divisions over the allocation of positions.

"Self interest has also delayed the implementation of the agreement," Amna told Reuters by telephone. She said the Front planned to leave the Eritrean capital in mid-August.

The former rebels comprise the non-Arab Beja and the pure Arab Rashaidiya tribes.

A power-sharing clause in the peace deal gave the Front one junior minister in Khartoum, an assistant to the president, an adviser to the president and a number of parliamentary seats.

While government posts were decided based on an ethnic quota, divisions arose when fixing positions within the Front.

"Lacking any clear ideology or political agenda, the first fall-back position is ethnic or tribal loyalties ... it creates conflict," said an Asmara-based analyst.

The east is home to the nation's largest gold mine and Sudan's only port. Sudan's oil pipeline runs there, carrying 500,000 barrels per day of crude.

But it has one of the highest malnutrition rates in the country and has little development.

During the conflict, eastern rebels allied themselves with former southern rebels and those from Darfur. But after insurgents elsewhere signed peace deals with Khartoum, the eastern rebels found themselves in a weaker negotiating position.

Darfur war crimes suspect has free rein despite ICC warrants

2007-08-06T16:15:00.001-05:00

Monday 6 August 2007.

August 6, 2007 (AL-FASHER) — For a man accused of masterminding massacres, Ahmad Harun seems quite comfortable in the place he allegedly helped destroy.

Ahmed Mohamed Haroun

He strolls around the grassy compound belonging to the local governor in Sudan’s deeply troubled Darfur region, embracing Arab tribal leaders, soldiers and officials who have come to hear the president.

Harun, a tall 42-year-old with high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes, was in charge of the region’s security during the height of the violent attacks on farm villages that caused millions to flee their homes in 2003 and 2004. He allegedly recruited, funded and armed local militias to root out rebels who had attacked the Sudanese army, sweeping away their villages, families and the intricate fabric of Darfur’s identity along the way.

He publicly relished his command, telling an open meeting of hundreds of officials, tribesmen and soldiers in West Darfur in July 2003 that he had been given "the power and authority to kill or forgive whoever in Darfur."

The rebels are like fish, Harun told a Sudanese committee that was investigating alleged war crimes in 2004, and "the villages are like water to fish." The objective, he suggested, was to eliminate the water.

And yet, on this day three years later, Harun glides unhindered and unapologetic through the parched remains of Darfur. In fact, he is the minister of state for humanitarian affairs in charge of caring for the very people he is accused of displacing. That he holds such a post says much about the limits of international power to cope with a festering crisis.

In May, the Hague-based International Criminal Court charged him and a pro-government militia leader, Ali Mohammed Ali Abdalrahman, better known as Ali Kushayb, with war crimes and crimes against humanity. But Sudan has rejected the arrest warrants, saying that the country is not a signatory to the court and that the charges against Harun are false.

Instead of being put behind bars, as the court asked, Harun still has the power to decide who lives and dies in Darfur. And without Sudan’s cooperation, there is almost nothing the court can do to bring him to justice.

"It is absolutely unacceptable," complained chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, whose team carefully built the case against Harun through interviews with refugees, tribal leaders, colleagues and enemies.

"Harun has to be removed from office, arrested and sent to the court," Moreno-Ocampo said in an interview. "Allowing him to be the humanitarian minister is like putting the fox in front of the chickens."

The trouble, experts say, is that asking the government to hand him over is asking it to indict itself. And charging those with the true responsibility for Darfur means targeting the only ones able to guarantee peace: the president and vice president.

"Harun has been interrogated about the allegations, and there is no case," said Interior Minister Zubeir Bashir Taha, a senior Cabinet minister who also oversees Darfur. "The evidence does not stand scrutiny, and whether it does or not, it is a matter for Sudan to decide and act upon. The prosecutor has no jurisdiction here. He is an intruder."

Further, Moreno-Ocampo’s desire for swift justice competes with the aims of other U.N. bodies trying to bring peace to Darfur. The Security Council can demand that Khartoum make the arrests or face sanctions, but it is also trying to gain the government’s acceptance of a 26,000-strong peacekeeping force for Darfur as well as its cooperation in peace talks.

So the court must rely on the government of Sudan to surrender Harun unless the Security Council were to order U.N. officials to arrest him — a move likely to get U.N. peacekeepers and aid workers tossed out of the country.

The choice does not have to be between peace or justice. The two are intertwined — but perhaps the most effective tool is time, Moreno-Ocampo says. He has translated the indictment into Arabic, in a booklet to take with him on his rounds of neighboring countries, explaining the court and drumming up support to keep an eye on Harun. Sooner or later, Moreno-Ocampo says, circumstances will change or Harun will make a misstep.

"This is normal, this is the process, it will take time," he says. "I don’t know if it will take months or years, but Harun’s destiny is the court."

That’s not Harun’s view. Clad in a khaki safari suit that keeps him cool in the 100-degree Darfur heat, Harun wears his knowledge of the court’s impotence like armor.

"Who gave the ICC this right?" he asks. "It is a matter of politics. It is not an issue of justice."

He denies the allegations that he worked with the militias known as janjaweed to attack villages, and says that he will never go to The Hague to answer the charges. "We are not signatories" to the court, and neither is the United States, he says.

"When you sign, we are going to follow. You go first," he says with a high-pitched guffaw.

Harun faces 42 counts of individual criminal responsibility, including murder, rape, persecution and forcible transfer of population. Militia leader Ali Kushayb, who is accused of participating in the attacks and killing civilians, is charged with 50 counts.

Moreno-Ocampo deliberately chose the two to illuminate how, he believes, the government worked hand in hand with militias to commit massive crimes against civilians not involved in the conflict.

Although the court must rely on Sudan to hand the men over, if either sets foot outside the country, any police officer or Interpol official can nab him. Harun was getting medical treatment in Jordan when the court first named him as a key suspect, causing him to flee home.

Although Harun maintains a high profile at home, the indictment has had an effect. When he addressed a crowd soon after the indictments, a whispered chant rippled through the audience: "Janjaweed, janjaweed." He avoids reporters. But he laughs and jokes with tribal leaders who have come to see the president on a government show tour of Darfur. Many of the leaders have been government allies; some of them are testing the winds.

One Arab tribal chief gives a tight smile when asked whether Harun is really innocent, as he claims. The leader shakes his head, then looks around and lowers his voice. "It is not as he says, and everyone knows what he has done. He will be sacrificed, if he hasn’t been already. He knows he may have little time." One Khartoum insider predicts he will have an "accident" within a year.

For Harun, the time for talking about the international court is up. Instead, he says he wants to talk about the government’s humanitarian work in Darfur.

"The situation in general, based on humanitarian indicators, is good," he says. "There is full humanitarian access, the fast-track systems are functioning." When asked whether he feels a special responsibility for the people in the camps, a slow smile spreads over his face.

"They are our people," he says with a grand gesture toward the ruined land, "and we are taking care of them."

(LA Times)

TEXT: Conclusions of Darfur rebels’ consultations in Arusha

2007-08-06T12:05:00.000-05:00

Monday 6 August 2007.

August 6, 2007 (ARUSHA, Tanzania) — Below the full text of the Chairmen’s Conclusions from the Arusha consultations issued by the AU-UN- special envoy for Darfur on Monday at the end of the three day meeting for Darfur rebel groups.

At the invitation of the AU and the UN Special envoys for Darfur, Dr. Salim Ahmed Salim and Mr. Jan Eliasson, leading personalities of the Darfur Movements held consultations in Ngurdoto, Arusha Tanzania, from 3 to 6 August 2007. The regional countries Chad, Egypt, Eritrea and Libya also participated in the meeting. Several Field Commanders were also present.

The Arusha meeting aimed at creating an enabling environment for the non-signatories to meet and consult amongst themselves, with other participants and the Special Envoys in order to facilitate the preparations for the negotiations.

The discussions focussed on the following issue: (a) Need for a common negotiation platform of the Movements for the resumed talks.; (b) Criteria and level of participation in the final negotiations; (c) Agenda and venue for the renewed talks (d) inclusions of the concerns of IDPs refugees, tribal leaders, women and other civil society groups and (e) Security and humanitarian matters.

The meeting stressed that the conflict in Darfur can have no military solution and that a political solution is of utmost urgency.

The Representatives of Darfur Movements present:

I. Reaffirmed their commitment to the Road-Map of the Special Envoys for reenergising the political process;

II. Expressed their commitment and readiness to fully participate in the forthcoming negotiations under the leadership of the AU/UN in partnership with regional actors, and with the support of the support of the international community.

III. Presented a common platform on power sharing, wealth sharing, security arrangements, land/hawakeer and humanitarian issues, for the final negotiations. The also recommended that final talks should be held between 2-3 moths from now in countries of the regional initiatives or in any other country that the mediation considers suitable in terms of environment and facilities, to ensure the success of the negotiations.

IV. Decided to keep open the possibility for those who were invited but did not participated in the Arusha Consultations, to join their common platform, in order to have an inclusive representation of the movements in the final negotiations;

V. Reiterated their readiness to respect a complete cessation of hostilities provided that all other Parties make similar commitments;

VI. Expressed their commitment to allow free access to humanitarian aid agencies, to refrain from any act of hostilities against the personnel and the assets of African Mission in the Sudan (AMIS), as well as against humanitarian organisations in Darfur.

VII. Welcomed the adoption of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1769 on 31 July 2007, which authorised the deployment of the Hybrid Operation and expressed support for the ongoing political process. They also pledged their full co-operation for the implementation of the Hybrid Operation, bearing in mind that it would contribute to ending violence and insecurity on the ground.

VIII. Urged the Special envoy to continue and finalize their consultations with IDPs, refugees, traditional leaders and civil society organisations, including women’s groups in an effort to develop a mechanism to channel their views and positions into-the final negotiations.

The Special envoys welcomed their common positions as an important development in the preparations for the negotiations. They also commended the representatives of the movements.

With respect to the issues relating to negotiations, inter alia, venue, timing and cessation of hostilities, the Special Envoys will consult the Government of the Sudan and other stakeholders, bearing in mind the views expressed by the representatives pf the movements.

During the Consultations, the representatives of the movements expressed their concern over the situation of Mr. Suleiman Jamous. The Special Envoy recalled that they had taken up this issue on several occasions with the Government of the Sudan. They expressed their intention to pursue the matter in view of the role of Mr. Jamous can play in the political process.

The participants expressed gratitude and appreciation to the Government and People of the United Republic of Tanzania for hosting the meeting and for the generous hospitality extended to the participants.

Ngurdoto, Arusha, 6 August 2007.

Darfur's rebel groups reach deal

2007-08-06T12:04:00.000-05:00

Most of Darfur's rebel groups have agreed on a common position and want "final" talks with Sudan's government within two or three months.

The eight factions have been in talks since Friday to end their divisions - seen as a major factor in the failure to end the four-year conflict.

However, one of the key rebel leaders boycotted the meeting in Tanzania.

The agreement follows last week's decision to send 26,000 UN and African Union peacekeepers to Darfur.

The factions had reached a "common platform on power-sharing, wealth-sharing, security arrangements, land and humanitarian issues, for the final negotiations", they said in a statement.

BBC East Africa correspondent Karen Allen says details of the platforms are being presented in a confidential document, which will now be taken to Khartoum to set an agenda for revived peace talks.

Optimism

Special UN envoy to Darfur Jan Eliasson told the BBC the agreement was an important step forward.

"One of the main problems we have had to reach negotiations has been the split and the splintering among the rebel movement," he said, adding that he was on his way to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, for discussions with the government.

International Crisis Group analyst Hannah Stogdon told Reuters news agency that it depended on who would represent the rebels in talks with the government.

HAVE YOUR SAY
All I need to see is the joint AU and UN forces in Darfur protecting the people
Kulang, Juba, Sudan

"If they can agree on that publicly, that is a good sign."

Rebel leader Ahmed Hussein said the deal would "pave the way for a meaningful and positive new political process to solve the root causes of the conflict in Darfur".

The talks in Arusha were due to end on Sunday but were extended by a day.

One of the key rebel leaders, Abdul Wahid Mohammad Ahmed al-Nur, of the major faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement, boycotted the talks, saying a ceasefire should be agreed before political talks.

Common denominator

The African Union special envoy to Darfur, Salim Ahmed Salim, told the BBC that Mr Nur should take the current opportunity to put aside his differences and join the peace process.

"We are now at the pre-negotiation level, and we hope that the negotiations will begin within the period of two months."

KEY REBEL PLAYERS
SLM: Minni Minnawi's faction signed 2006 peace deal
SLM: Abdul Wahid Mohammad Ahmed al-Nur's faction rejected peace deal
Jem: Khalil Ibrahim, one of the first rebel groups, rejected deal
Rebel negotiator: Suleiman Jamous
SLM Unity: Abdallah Yehia
UFLD: recently formed umbrella group including SLM commanders
Other breakaway SLM commanders: Mahjoub Hussein, Jar el-Neby and Suleiman Marajan
There are estimated to be more than 13 rebel factions in Darfur

"It is not seen as logical to have the government of Sudan negotiating with 10 or 15 difference factions, so we have encouraged all the participants at the Arusha meeting to... find a minimum common denominator among themselves," he said.

At least 200,000 people are believed to have died and more than two million have been left homeless since 2003.

Sudan's government and pro-government Arab Janjaweed militias are accused of war crimes against the region's black African population, although the UN has stopped short of calling it genocide.

The talks follow last week's UN Security Council resolution to send 26,000 peacekeepers to Darfur.

Though the fighters in Arusha have welcomed the announcement that more peacekeepers will be deployed, they know that a political solution is the only way forward, says BBC Africa analyst David Bamford.

After months of wrangling, Sudan agreed to the UN resolution after it was watered down.

(BBC)

Sudan would consider releasing Darfur rebel Jamous

2007-08-02T14:22:00.001-05:00

Thursday 2 August 2007.

August 1, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan said on Wednesday it would consider releasing elderly Darfur rebel Suleiman Jamous, who could be vital to a peace process after the United Nations approved a big peacekeeping force for the region.

Suleiman Jamous (J.T)

Jamous, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) humanitarian coordinator, has been virtually imprisoned for 13 months in the South Kordofan region bordering Darfur. Khartoum has branded him a terrorist.

Foreign Minister Lam Akol said the question of Jamous had never been brought up by envoys from the United Nations and African Union, although U.S. envoy Andrew Natsios mentioned Jamous a couple of months ago but never referred to him again.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ali al-Sadig said Sudan’s government assumed the United States had lost interest.

"We are ready to consider the situation," he said. "We are ready to talk on the issue of Jamous."

The U.S. embassy and African Union were not immediately available to comment. The U.N. mission declined comment.

The United Nations Security Council on Tuesday approved a 26,000 strong force to try to quell violence in Darfur.

Analysts say Jamous is crucial to uniting the military and political leadership of splintered Darfur rebel groups ahead of peace talks with the government.

Diplomats are trying to get a deal between at least a dozen factions at a meeting in Tanzania from Aug. 3 to 5.

Akol said the government was prepared to help the rebels unite, but had not heard a request to release Jamous from U.N. envoy Jan Eliasson or AU envoy Salim Ahmed Salim.

"We never heard from the special envoys...that there was somebody somewhere that was central to the peace process," the minister said.

Jamous, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) humanitarian coordinator, was the main liaison between the world’s largest aid operation and rebels in Darfur, keeping looting of aid convoys down and humanitarian workers safe.

Last year the United Nations removed Jamous from Darfur to a U.N. hospital in South Kordofan without informing the government. The government warned if he left the hospital he would be arrested.

On Tuesday, 11 prominent international activists sent a letter to Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, appealing for the release of Jamous. The rebel urgently needs a stomach biopsy which cannot be performed in South Kordofan.

(Reuters)

Sudan 'will support Darfur force'

2007-08-01T14:38:00.001-05:00

Sudan will co-operate with UN and African Union peacekeepers in Darfur, Sudan's UN ambassador said after the UN Security Council backed a joint force.

The mandate for the 26,000-strong force was watered down to appease critics and it will only be able to protect civilians deemed to be under threat.

The new UN-AU mission head welcomed the move but urged a political solution "as there needs to be a peace to keep".

The warring factions in the four-year conflict are due to meet on Friday.

We will be committed, we will be faithful and honest to our obligations
Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad
Sudan's UN ambassador

Since rebel groups rose up against the Khartoum government's rule in 2003, at least 200,000 people are thought to have died in the region and more than 2m have fled their homes.

Sudan's government and pro-government Arab militias are accused of war crimes against the region's black African population, although the UN has stopped short of calling it genocide.

'Without prejudice'

Darfur's rebel groups have long sought UN peacekeepers and have hailed the resolution

"We very much welcome the UN troops in Darfur any time, without any condition," Sudan Liberation Army commander Abu Jamal Khalil Ali told the BBC.

READ THE RESOLUTION

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Abu Elgasim, field commander for a different SLA faction, also welcomed the UN resolution.

The first peacekeeping troops are due to begin arriving in October.

"We will be committed, we will be faithful and honest to our obligations," Sudan's ambassador to the UN Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad told the BBC.

However, he also warned that the resolution was not a "blank cheque" for the peacekeepers.

The resolution says they can use force "to protect civilians without prejudice to the responsibility of the government of Sudan".

Head of the UN-AU hybrid mission Rodolphe Adada told the BBC the force would be one of "two legs for finding peace in Darfur".

"I'm sure it will be one of the main tools for forwarding peace in Darfur, but it's only a peace operation, you need to have peace to keep," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme.

"This is why the political meeting is of the essence."

The mission, to be known as Unamid - the United Nations African Union Mission in Darfur - is expected to cost up to $2bn (£1.1bn) a year and will be world's largest peacekeeping force.

Mr Adada said the force will mainly be drawn from African countries, a move also hoped to appease Sudan's initial antagonism to the force.

But the resolution says the UN has overall command of the force.

'Disappointed'

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described the mission as "historic and unprecedented".

Humanitarian workers hope the new force will provide security for them to be deliver aid to civilians.

"It is very clear that the humanitarian situation in Darfur is deteriorating, so we're hopeful that we can get back to a situation where we can just get on with our work," Sarah Smith from aid agency Goal told the BBC.

Jonathan Pearce, from the UK's Disasters Emergency Committee, said the peacekeeping force could make a "tremendous impact".

But Democrat Russ Feingold, who chairs the US Senate foreign relations sub-committee on Africa, said: "I am very disappointed that the resolution's co-sponsors have succumbed to pressure from the Sudanese government."

The new force will not have the right to disarm the militias and it does not have the powers to pursue and arrest suspected war criminals indicted by the International Criminal Court.

Furthermore, the resolution does not threaten sanctions against Sudan if it does not comply.

The unanimous vote came after negotiations secured the support of China, which has a veto on the Security Council and strong economic interests in Sudan.

The joint African Union-UN meeting in Arusha, Tanzania, is to try later this week to establish a framework for peace talks between the Darfur rebels and Sudanese government.

One of the numerous rebel groups signed a peace deal last year but the violence has continued.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/6925538.stm

BEIJING’S MOMENT OF TRUTH ON DARFUR

2007-07-29T14:23:00.001-05:00

Friday 27 July 2007.
For Immediate Release

WILL BEIJING SUPPORT CHAPTER 7 MANDATE ON NEW UN RESOLUTION?

July 26 — While the Government of China has been quoted in the past several days as saying the new UN Resolution on a peace support operation for Darfur is “good,” there is growing concern that China will not support a Chapter 7 mandate for the peacekeeping force.

The debate concerns the new draft of a UN Security Council resolution (proposed by Ghana, France, and the UK) to authorize deployment to Darfur of approximately 26,000 civilian police and troops. The Chapter 7 mandate would confer upon the mission enforcement authority: “all necessary means,” including military means, which would be available to police and troops, thereby providing robust rules of engagement for those who threaten civilians, humanitarians, or the force itself. Without such a mandate, the force could not actively protect civilians.

“Anything less than a clear commitment to Chapter 7 authority will weaken the force of the resolution and embolden Khartoum,” said Eric Reeves, Sudan advisor to Dream for Darfur. “We will learn a great deal about whether Beijing intends to play a helpful role, or continue with a mere façade of concern for Darfur.”

Beijing has in the past objected to Chapter 7 authority for Darfur resolutions. Currently, the Khartoum regime---both at the UN and in the regime-controlled news media---is condemning Chapter 7 authority in the current draft resolution. This is so despite the fact that President Omar al-Bashir last month assured UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that he accepted “unconditionally” the proposed African Union/UN “hybrid force” that is the centerpiece of the current resolution.

Under increasing pressure from the international community, including mounting pressure over Beijing’s inconsistent roles as both Olympic host and supporter of the regime in Khartoum, China has taken modest but constructive steps to address the Darfur crisis and to urge Khartoum to do so as well. China has said publically that it is doing everything within its power to resolve the Darfur issue.

“The moment of truth is at hand. Right now, Beijing has a clear opportunity to demonstrate whether or not it is willing to assist those in the international community determined to protect acutely vulnerable civilians and humanitarians,” Reeves said. “Beijing’s actions going forward must be judged in the context of a present decision about Chapter 7 authority for the security force deploying to Darfur.”

For more information, contact Matt Chandler: Matt Chandler: matt@rbistrategies.com / Office: 303.832.2444,x23 / Mobile: 303.523.2855 ###

Olympic Dream for Darfur is a global advocacy campaign, run by the Dream for Darfur organization, which was established in May 2007. Our goal is to secure protection for civilians on the ground in Darfur by focusing advocacy attention on Beijing, as Olympic host, and a government with unrivaled leverage with the government in Sudan.

INTERVIEW-Darfur mediators must not forget rebels in field

2007-07-26T15:41:00.000-05:00

KHARTOUM, July 26 (Reuters) - U.N. and African Union Darfur envoys should unite rebel field commanders to avoid infighting and chaos before any peace deal is signed to end the bloodshed, a senior rebel member said on Thursday.

Suleiman Jamous, the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) humanitarian coordinator, added rebel political leaders who lived outside Sudan's war-torn west should hurry to achieve peace and not forget the millions of civilians suffering because of the revolt.

U.N. Darfur envoy Jan Eliasson and his AU counterpart Salim Ahmed Salim hope to unite rebel factions and agree on a negotiating position and venue in a meeting in Tanzania in August. But Jamous said any deal would be worthless if field commanders were not on board.

"It is better to work towards unity for the SLA at least before ending the peace talks with any sort of agreement," he told Reuters by telephone from a U.N. hospital in South Kordofan, a region that neighbours Darfur.

"It can work simultaneously with the efforts towards the negotiating table but the unification should end before a peace deal is signed."

Dozens of field commanders control the ground in Darfur and have often expressed differences with their political leadership outside the region, who they say do not consult them enough.

During previous talks, the disconnect between the political leaders negotiating and the commanders on the ground hindered discussions on security arrangements because clashes continued.

After a peace deal signed by only one of three rebel negotiating factions last year, the rebels fragmented with infighting between signatories and non-signatories.

SUFFERING

Jamous warned this would repeat itself if there was no field unity conference.

Jar el-Neby, a senior SLA field commander, also wants U.N. and AU support for unity talks before the meeting in Tanzania.

Previous unity meetings have been spoiled as political leaders outside the region did not attend.

"We should neglect our personal agendas for the agenda of the conflict and how to solve it for the sake of the civilians suffering for our years," Jamous added.

"They need to think of the future of Darfur after the peace -- how we can keep our community together with the killing we created."

Jamous has been virtually imprisoned in the U.N. hospital for 13 months after he was rescued from Darfur in need of urgent medical treatment. Khartoum calls him a "terrorist" and says he will be arrested if he leaves the hospital.

However, he is still in telephone contact with commanders and said if were released he could help unite the field.

Jamous said any new peace talks needed to address the weaknesses of last year's deal, which included the disarmament and reintegration of the Janjaweed militias, mobilised by the government and accused of rape, murder and looting.

"Any kind of presence of armed men in undisciplined ranks is the cause of this conflict and the failure of any peace deal," he said.

He said the international community needed to guarantee the implementation of any agreement, especially dismantling the militias. A U.N.-AU joint force under discussion could play that role.

Jamous coordinated access for the world's largest humanitarian operation to hundreds of thousands in need of aid during the conflict. His work earned him the respect of many groups and kept rebel looting of aid convoys to a minimum.

Experts estimate 200,000 have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes since mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms accusing central government of neglect in early 2003.

Growing concern for safety of Sudan opposition leader in custody

2007-07-26T12:57:00.001-05:00

Thursday 26 July 2007 06:55.

By Wasil Ali

July 25, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Supporters of an opposition party in Sudan expressed concern over the well being of their top leaders arrested by security services two weeks ago amid allegations of torture.

Mubarak al-Fadil

Sudanese security services arrested Mubarak al-Fadil, leader of the Umma Reform and Renewal opposition party and his deputy over allegations of planning sabotage actions in the country.

A statement issued by Al-Fadil office slammed the government for not allowing his family and attorney to visit him in prison.

According to the statement three requests have been made to the authorities requesting permission to visit Al-Fadil but that they have received no response as of yet. Several members of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) sought to assist Al-Fadil’s family in securing a visit but were turned down as well.

Sudan banned all media reporting on the case of 17 people accused of trying to overthrow the government.

The government issued a decree establishing a commission to investigate the allegations against Al-Fadil and the other detainees.

However the statement from Al-Fadil’s office claim that a member of the commission informed his attorney that he has not been formally notified by the government to proceed with the investigation.

Sudan’s announcement of thwarting the coup attempt was received with skepticism due to the vague nature of the plot.

Former Sudanese Prime Minister and leader of the opposition Umma party Sadiq al-Mahdi told Sudan Tribune that “this is the fifth time we hear from the government about an alleged coup attempt through the years that turns out to be nothing”.

Al-Mahdi noted that in each of these instances the Sudanese government talks about “incriminating evidence and stocks of weapons found but no details are provided”.

Sudanese officials made contradictory statements regarding the nature of the plot and the extent of foreign involvement.

Sudan said Al-Fadil smuggled weapons into the capital Khartoum in preparation for a coup.

But Sudan’s presidential adviser Nafi Ali Nafi admitted to reporters later that no weapons have been found in association with the alleged plot.

Initially Sudanese authorities accused Al-Fadil of being the mastermind of a sabotage plot in Khartoum and said that he sought support from Libya and the US.

But then Sudanese officials denied any foreign involvement and upgraded charges against Al-Fadil to a full blown coup attempt and said that political assassinations was part of the plot.

Al-Fadil’s supporters speaking to Sudan Tribune said they received information that Al-Fadil and the former Minister of Tourism, Abdel Jelil al-Basha were subject to torture and verbal abuse by security services.

“They [Sudan’s Security services] wanted to force a televised confession from him [Al-Fadil] but he refused so they resorted to torture which left marks on his body. This is why they have not allowed any visits” said one supporter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

However there was no independent confirmation of these allegations.

Al-Fadil was appointed as a presidential adviser for economic affairs in 2002 but was sacked after making contacts with the United States without Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir’s consent.

(ST)

16 people killed as tribal clashes erupt in Darfur

2007-07-26T12:56:00.001-05:00

Thursday 26 July 2007 06:15.

July 25, 2007 (AL-FASHER) — At least 16 people were killed and 20 wounded in a clash between rival Arab tribes in the war-torn Darfur region of western Sudan, local authorities said on Wednesday.

Rzigat Aballa tribesmen fell on a band of Torjum nomads in South Darfur province killing nine, the authorities told reporters, without specifying what day the clash took place.

The tribes, at odds over grazing rights and livestock raiding, have violated a February truce seven times, most dramatically in April when Rzigat tribesmen killed 62 Torjam in their villages.

Darfur came to world attention in 2003 when rebels took up arms against the government to protest at their region’s marginalisation.

The government combatted the rebellion with camel-riding Janjaweed militia, many from the Rzigat Aballa tribe, who have since been accused of atrocities and genocide.

International aid organisations are struggling to address the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, but have been impeded by the widespread violence.

"In the past two weeks, nine food convoys have been attacked by gunmen across Darfur," said Kenro Oshidari, the World Food Programme’s (WFP) Sudan representative.

"WFP staff and contractors are being stopped at gunpoint, dragged out of their vehicles and robbed with alarming frequency," he said, adding that 18 food convoys have been attacked this year, with six vehicles stolen.

Ten WFP staff have been either detained or abducted.

The attacks have prompted the United Nations to declare the road between Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, and Kass town, where fighting between Torjam and Rzigat Aballa has taken place, a "no-go" zone for staff.

WFP’s operation in Darfur feeds two million people a month.

About 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced in the Darfur conflict, according to UN estimates. Some sources say the death toll is much higher.

(AFP)

Life and Death in Darfur

2007-07-23T13:33:00.000-05:00

By Dr. Jill John-Kall

Photo by: Bethany Morehouse
Dr. Jill John-Kall cradling a
young TB patient
Today I arrived in Mujkar, one of our remotest sites in West Darfur. I dumped my gear and went directly to the clinic where I joined one of my colleagues and his team. I always look forward to my field trips because I am extremely proud of our staff. Their hard work and dedication are the backbone of all our programs and without them, innumerable lives would be lost.

The observation room was filled with little patients. The first girl I saw was a 24 month old who was dying of malnutrition. Looking at the way she was breathing and the way she would lapse in and out of “sleep” without even the strength to close her eyes fully, a sense of foreboding slowly crept over me. I tried to reassure her mother that in the morning we could try to transfer her to the nearest hospital, which is four hours away, but in the meantime we could feed her through a naso-gastric tube. I almost believed it myself.

While I started saying a little prayer for her, we were called to see a pregnant woman whose high blood pressure led to convulsions. While we struggled to give her medicine and stabilize her, a staff member came to tell us that the little girl was crashing. My colleague ran to resuscitate her while I stayed with the pregnant woman. In a few minutes he came back, having succeeded in reviving her. Of course, I think we both knew that it was just a matter of time.

After stabilizing the pregnant woman and reassuring her family, we were asked to see a three year old boy that had fallen from a great height. Upon seeing the child, my heart froze – here was a child with a history of a fall, who was limp and “sleeping” in his mother’s arms, taking very shallow breaths. Immediately, we tried to wake the baby. I just needed to hear him cry. I pinched him cruelly while the other doctor applied sternal pressure. He continued silently mocking us. I pinched harder and asked for a needle to give him a little jab. Luckily, he started crying. We were all relieved for a few moments until we realized how shallow his breaths still were. We listened to his lungs and they were tight, lots of wheezing with very minimal air moving. I ran to the office where I had left my inhaler. We improvised making a chamber out of a small plastic medicine bag and having the baby inhale the medicine. The problem was that his heart was already racing trying to cope with the work he was putting in with each breath and if I gave him too much of the inhaler, his heart would race even further pushing him right over the edge. After giving him some antibiotics and steroids, we left him with his mother, hoping for the best. As I type this now, I am waiting for someone to come and tell us that he died. Deep in my heart, I know he won’t last long, not with the way he was breathing…

Photo by: Dr. Jill John-Kall
A baby in the therapeutic feeding center in Darfur

As I stood there in the clinic watching the little boy, I thought that I wouldn’t wish this feeling on anyone on the world, the notion that after seeing a child, you just wait for the bad news. The feeling that as you lay your hands on a child, listen to him breathe, watch his eyes and listen to his heart, you leave him in God’s hands because you know deep inside, that he will not live long. My thoughts are interrupted as the nurse comes to tell us that the little girl with malnutrition has died. The family is distraught, I weakly say to the mother “malesh, malesh-sorry, sorry.” I feel like the lowliest creature on earth. What an inadequate statement to make, “sorry, sorry.” Am I sorry that she lost her child or am I sorry that we didn’t save her? Is my “sorry” in empathy for her or is it asking forgiveness for me? As I hold the crying mother, I can feel her tears on my arms. And then we are called to see the little boy.

He is worse, trying desperately to breathe through his little lungs which are smothered with invisible invaders. I know that he too will not make it and it is unbearable. I am wrestling with my own demons. As a doctor, my hands should be healing hands. My mind should be able to come up with some answers, something to attack the vile bacteria who have invaded his body. An asthmatic myself, I have a soft spot for anyone who can’t breathe and he is no exception. I give him some more of my inhaler and silently beg him to get better. We leave him in the observation room and I head back to the office. It’s 7:15 p.m.

As I start working in the office, I look at pictures of Um Dukum, where I was about two weeks ago. If it’s possible to imagine, Um Dukum is a place even further away than Mukjar, bordering Chad and Central African Republic. I’m looking at these pictures for work but subconsciously, I’m looking at them to remind myself why I’m here in the first place. We have recently taken over a little rural hospital there and it will soon be a beautiful program. It’s currently a little shack of a hospital, give or take 20 beds with a primary health care component. We do outpatient consultations, immunizations, reproductive health, health education, nutrition surveillance and outreach work. I am in love with this little shack of a hospital. It’s amazing how many lives are saved there and how many more will be saved. Women get emergency C-sections, conflict victims get sewn together, children get measles vaccines and we even treat the common cold. This is such an important location because it not only serves the local population but it also serves the IDPs within Darfur as well as the refugees that come in from Chad and CAR in times of their internal conflicts.

This hospital is a Godsend for people in this area because referrals to the nearest hospital – another four hours away – are almost impossible. Any travelers by road are frequent victims of hijackings and theft and in the rainy season, the dirt roads become rivers of mud, impossible to cross. But even though the hospital is simple, it is a shining example of how minimal efforts can go a long way in the midst of Darfur. My mind drifts back to Mukjar. Last year referrals were much easier because the roads were safer. However, since December, more and more aid agencies have been targeted by bandits, hijackers, Janjaweed, government troops, rebels, all part and parcel of any relief team working in Darfur.

Photo by: Bethany Morehouse
An IMC staffer schooling a villager at a new clinic in West Darfur on some basic tenets of primary health care. Initiatives like this one help maintain Dr. John-Kall’s hope that she can make a difference in the lives of people struggling to stay alive in Darfur.

It’s almost 8 p.m. and I’ve just been told that the little boy has died. Inside, I am screaming curses while outside I remain calm since it was expected anyway. My eyes start to water and I can’t see the keyboard anymore. It’s hard when you lose a patient, even harder when they’re kids and today we lost two. I think about the inconsolable families, left with huge voids in their hearts. I think about those little kids who will never see tomorrow. I start questioning myself and what I thought I could ever achieve here. In the midst of this self loathing, self hating mood, the realist in me shouts “I told you so!” The cynic in me shouts “I told you so!” The optimist in me is quiet. I am uncomfortable because I worry that I am slowly losing my soul. I glance over to my pictures of Um Dukum. The optimist whispers, “You can still try.”

Dr. Jill John-Kall serves as Medical Director for International Medical Corps in Darfur, Sudan.

A Godsend for Darfur, or a Curse?

2007-07-22T09:27:00.001-05:00

The New York Times
By LYDIA POLGREEN
DAKAR, Senegal

THE announcement by researchers at Boston University last week that a vast underground lake the size of Lake Erie had been discovered beneath the barren soil of northern Darfur, a blood-soaked but otherwise parched land racked by war for the past four years, was greeted by rapturous hopes. Could this, at last, bring deliverance from a cataclysmic conflict that has killed at least 200,000 people and pushed more than 2.5 million from their homes?

That hope is built upon an argument, advanced by a United Nations report released last month and an opinion article in The Washington Post by Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, that environmental degradation and the symptoms of a warming planet are at the root of the Darfur crisis.

“There is a very strong link between land degradation, desertification and conflict in Darfur,” said the United Nations Environmental Program report, which noted that rainfall in northern Darfur has decreased by a third over the last 80 years. “Exponential population growth and related environmental stress have created the conditions for conflicts to be triggered and sustained by political, tribal or ethnic differences,” the report said, adding that Darfur “can be considered a tragic example of the social breakdown that can result from ecological collapse.”

The idea that more water — unearthed through a thousand wells sunk into the underground lake — could neatly defuse the crisis is seductive. Messy African conflicts, from Congo to Liberia, from northern Uganda to Angola, have a way of defying all efforts to solve them. Instead, they seem to become hopelessly more complex as they drag on, year after agonizing year. A scientific explanation for the problem (environmental degradation) along with a tidy technological solution (irrigation) gratifies the modern humanitarian impulse.

But the history of Sudan, a grim chronicle of civil war, famine, coups and despotism, gives ample reason to be skeptical.

“Like all resources water can be used for good or ill,” said Alex de Waal, a scholar who has studied the impact of climate variation in Sudan and who witnessed the 1984-85 famine that is often cited as the beginning of the ecological crisis gripping Darfur. “It can be a blessing or also a curse. If the government acts true to form and tries to create some sort of oasis in the desert and control who settles there, that would simply be an extension of the crisis, not a solution.”

The droughts that gripped Sudan in the 1980s, and the migrations and other social changes they forced, have doubtless played a role in the conflict by increasing competition for water and land between farmers, who tend to be non-Arab, and herders, many of whom are Arabs. But an environmental catastrophe cannot become a violent cataclysm without a powerful human hand to guide it in that direction.

“These wider environmental factors don’t have impact in and of themselves” in terms of fomenting conflict, Mr. de Waal said. “The question is how they are managed.”

In fact, while different regions and social groups suffer severely, Sudan as a whole has riches to spare, in oil, fertile soil, and even water. Indeed, history suggests that this newly discovered lake is just as likely to become a source of conflict as a solution to the bloodshed.

Successive Sudanese governments and their colonial precursors have adopted agricultural policies that have almost inevitably led to conflict. They have favored large mechanized farms and complex irrigation schemes, controlled by the government and its allies, over the small, rain-fed farms that are the backbone of the rural economy in much of Sudan.

In eastern Sudan, where a rebellion has been brewing for years, the Beja people have nursed grievances since Britain and Egypt ruled Sudan jointly during the first half of the 20th century. Under their rule, irrigation programs for commercial farming deprived the Beja of their prime grazing land.

Post-colonial governments, which in the early years had the blessing of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, took vast tracts of land in the name of agricultural development, turning farmers who worked their own land into wage laborers for the state and its allies.

Some Sudanese have even been pushed off their land entirely. In the early 1990s the Nuba people were forced into “peace villages,” where they provided a steady supply of cheap, captive labor to mechanized farms. In other areas, including parts of Darfur, intensive mechanized farming by the government and investors who were heedless to the need to protect the fertility of the land left large tracts barren.

A vast new agricultural scheme in a largely uninhabited swath of northern Darfur is more likely to fit into this destructive pattern than not, said John Prendergast, a founder of the Enough Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress and the International Crisis Group to abolish genocide and mass atrocities.

“Climate change and the lack of rain are much less important than the land-use patterns promoted by the government of Sudan and the development policies of World Bank and I.M.F., which were focused on intensive agricultural expansion that really mined the soils and left a lot of land unusable,” said Mr. Prendergast, who has been studying Sudan for 20 years. “That was probably the principal impetus for a lot of intra-Darfur migration in the decades leading up to the conflict in Darfur.”

During those years, the government exploited tensions over water and land to achieve its own aims, putting down a rebellion among the non-Arab tribes, who rose up because they wanted a greater share of Sudan’s wealth and power. It armed tribal militias to fight the rebels, and these militias unleashed a tide of violence that ultimately would become, according to the Bush administration and many others, the 21st century’s first genocide.

A report released last year by the Coalition for International Justice on the role that oil and mechanized farming have played in human rights abuses in Sudan concluded: “The predominant root of conflict in Sudan is the instability that results from the systemic abuse of the rural (and recently urbanized) poor at the hands of the economic and political elites of central Sudan.”

In this analysis, the heart of the Darfur conflict, as in all conflicts in Sudan, is the battle for control of resources and riches, but not between farmers and herders, northerners and southerners, Christians and Muslims, or Arabs and non-Arabs.

It is a conflict between those at the center of the country, the elites who have controlled Sudan and its wealth for the past century and a half, and the desperately poor people who beg for scraps from the periphery.

Until that equation changes, many analysts argue, nothing else will.

Ethiopia blocks humanitarian aid to Ogaden region

2007-07-22T00:05:00.001-05:00

Sunday 22 July 2007 00:10.

By Jeffrey Gettleman

July 21, 2007 (NAIROBI, Kenya) — The Ethiopian government is blockading emergency food aid and choking off trade to large swaths of a remote region in the eastern part of the country that is home to a rebel force, putting hundreds of thousands of people at risk of starvation, Western diplomats and humanitarian officials say.

The Ethiopian military and its proxy militias have also been siphoning off millions of dollars in international food aid, and using a United Nations polio eradication program to funnel money to their fighters, according to relief officials, former Ethiopian government administrators and a member of the Ethiopian Parliament who defected to Germany last month to protest the government’s actions.

The blockade takes aim at the heart of the Ogaden region, a vast desert on the Somali border where the government is struggling against a growing rebellion and where government soldiers have been accused by human rights groups of widespread brutality.

Humanitarian officials say the ban on aid convoys and commercial traffic, intended to squeeze the rebels and dry up their bases of support, has sent food prices skyrocketing and disrupted trade routes, preventing the nomads who live there from selling their livestock. Hundreds of thousands of people are now sealed off in a desiccated, unforgiving landscape that is difficult to survive in even in the best of times.

“Food cannot get in,” said Mohammed Diab, the director of the United Nations World Food Program in Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian government says the blockade covers only strategic locations, and is meant to prevent guns and matériel from reaching the Ogaden National Liberation Front, the rebel force that the government considers a terrorist group. In April, the rebels killed more than 60 Ethiopian guards and Chinese workers at a Chinese-run oil field in the Ogaden.

“This is not a government which punishes its people,” said Nur Abdi Mohammed, a government spokesman.

But Western diplomats have been urging Ethiopian officials to lift the blockade, arguing that the many people in the area are running out of time. “It’s a starve-out-the-population strategy,” said one Western humanitarian official, who did not want to be quoted by name because he feared reprisals against aid workers. “If something isn’t done on the diplomatic front soon, we’re going to have a government-caused famine on our hands.”

The blockade, which involves soldiers and military trucks cutting off the few roads into the central Ogaden, comes as Congress is increasingly concerned about Ethiopia’s human rights record.

Ethiopia is a close American ally and a key partner in America’s counterterrorism efforts in the Horn of Africa, a region that has become a breeding ground for Islamic militants, many of whom have threatened to wage a holy war against Ethiopia.

The country receives nearly half a billion dollars in American aid each year, but this week, a House subcommittee passed a bill that would put strict conditions on some of that aid and ban Ethiopian officials linked to rights abuses from entering the United States. The House also recently passed an amendment, sponsored by J. Randy Forbes, a Virginia Republican, that stripped Ethiopia of $3 million in assistance to “send a strong message that if they don’t wake up and pay attention, more money will be cut,” Mr. Forbes said.

Ethiopia’s pardon on Friday of 30 political prisoners who had been sentenced to life in prison could ease some criticism. But Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, is pushing ahead with measures to more closely vet assistance to the Ethiopian military. According to human rights groups and firsthand accounts, government troops have gang raped women, burned down huts and killed civilians.

American officials in Ethiopia said they were trying to investigate the situation but that the Ogaden was too dangerous right now for a fact-finding mission. American officials said they had heard persistent reports of burned villages and that the blockade was putting the area on the cusp of a crisis.

Villagers say that anyone who criticizes the government risks getting killed. According to Ogaden Online, a Canadian-based news service that has been highly critical of the Ethiopian government and covers the region through a network of reporters and contributors, some equipped with satellite phones, four young men who were videotaped by The New York Times at a community meeting in an Ogaden village in May were later tortured and executed.

The claim could not be fully verified independently, but their identities may have been discovered by Ethiopian soldiers who had arrested three journalists for The Times in the Ogaden and confiscated their notebooks, cameras and computers.

“The army is out of control,” said Jemal Dirie Kalif, the member of Parliament who defected.

The blockade has been in place since early June, and thousands of people have already fled on foot and by camel. Two weeks ago, Abdullahi Mohammed, a 17-year-old student, walked from his village deep in the Ogaden to the nearest town with a bus station. He carried with him a few pieces of bread. He said that when he stopped to ask villagers in the Ogaden for food, they asked him for some instead. “They had nothing,” he said.

Though good rains this year have fed the few crops in the area and provided a little cushion, “The most these people can last without facing serious problems is one month, maybe two,” said David Throp, country director for Save the Children UK.

Even if relief trucks are allowed in to all the critical areas, the food might not reach the people who need it. According to humanitarian workers and several former Ethiopian officials, including Mr. Kalif, food aid is embezzled in two stages. First, soldiers skim sacks of grain, tins of vegetable oil and bricks of high-energy biscuits from food warehouses to sell at local markets.

“The cash is distributed among security officers and regional officers,” a former government administrator from the Ogaden region said in a recent telephone interview on condition of anonymity because he still works with government officials.

Then the remaining food is hauled out to rural areas where the soldiers divert part of it to local gunmen and informers as a reward for helping them fight the rebels. The former administrator said he also knew of specific cases in which army officers stole food from warehouses and gave it to the families of women whom their soldiers had raped, as compensation.

Several Western humanitarian officials estimated that 20 to 30 percent of the donor countries’ food aid to the Ogaden — aid that last year was valued at more than $70 million — routinely disappears this way. To cover their tracks, the soldiers and the government administrators who work with them tell the aid agencies that the food has spoiled, or has been stolen or hijacked by the rebels, humanitarian officials said.

Relief workers in Ethiopia have known about these problems for several years, a humanitarian official said, and have tried to set up committees of local elders to oversee distribution. But that did not work either, and aid officials eventually concluded that as long as the majority of the food was getting through, they would not stop the shipments.

When informed about these allegations, Mr. Diab of the World Food Program said, “This is the first I’ve heard of them.”

Mr. Mohammed, the government spokesman, denied that Ethiopian troops were pilfering or mishandling foreign aid. “We don’t do that,” he said.

As the food crisis looms, Western diplomats are also concerned about a separate plan by the regional government in the Ogaden to divert a share of its own budget for development projects — like schools and farming — to the Ethiopian military.

This seems to be part of the Ethiopian government’s strategy to do whatever it takes to crush the rebels, who have deep popular support and, according to the government, are getting arms and training from neighboring Eritrea, Ethiopia’s bitter enemy.

The people of the Ogaden are mostly Somalis and ethnically distinct from the highland Ethiopians who have ruled the country for centuries, and the long battle over the region has been steadily escalating this year. The country director of one Western aid agency, who recently returned from a field visit there, said he saw two villages that had been burned to the ground and several schools that had been converted into military bases, with foxholes.

Humanitarian officials say the military is building up militias and setting the stage for clan-based bloodshed. The rank and file of the Ogaden National Liberation Front tend to be members of the Ogaden clan, and so the government has turned to other clans to form anti-rebel militias. In the past few weeks, thousands of men have been armed.

“Those Ethiopians are smart,” Mr. Kalif, 32, said. “They know Somalis are more loyal to clans than anything else.” Tactics like these, he said, drove him to defect June 20 while attending a conference in Wiesbaden, Germany. He was affiliated with the ruling party, and had been representing an area in the eastern Ogaden for the past seven years.

He described a scheme with a United Nations polio program, which was corroborated by two former administrators in the Ethiopian government and a Western humanitarian official, in which military commanders gave prized jobs as vaccinators to militia fighters, and in the end, much of the polio vaccine was never distributed.

“Army commanders are using the polio money to pay their people, who don’t pass out the vaccines, so the disease continues and the payments continue,” said Mr. Kalif. “It’s the perfect system.” United Nations officials in Geneva said they did not know whether that was happening, but that they would investigate.

When asked how he knew about the polio scheme, Mr. Kalif said: “Everybody out there knows. They’re just too scared to talk.”

“If I don’t get asylum and they send me back to my country, I’m dead,” he added. “But I was sick of being a parrot. I have no regrets.”

Will Connors contributed reporting from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

(New York Times)

Sudan bans reporting on alleged coup plot

2007-07-20T17:17:00.001-05:00

Thu Jul 19, 2007 8:42AM EDT
By Opheera McDoom

KHARTOUM, July 19 (Reuters) - Sudan's justice ministry has banned all media reporting on the case of 17 people accused of trying to overthrow the government, the latest in a string of such restrictions.

Local papers on Thursday said the prosecutor general had issued a decree "banning all media outlets, written or broadcast, from any reporting or comment on the attempted sabotage so as to not influence the course of justice".

State security officials said on Sunday they had arrested 17 people, including opposition politicians and retired army officers, for plotting to overthrow the government and create chaos in the capital.

Similar reporting restrictions were imposed on the cases of the beheading of Sudanese journalist Mohamed Taha last year and demonstrations in the northern region of Kajbar last month where police killed four people.

Justice Minister Mohamed al-Mardi told Reuters the practice was similar to laws from Sudan's ex-colonial power, Britain.

"We said there shouldn't be any comments about the investigation or incident so as not to prejudice the investigation," he said, quoting Article 115 of the penal code.

Sudan's new constitution, drafted after a January 2005 peace deal ended Africa's longest civil war in Sudan's south, enshrines press freedom. Human rights observers say while "some degree of press freedom" followed the deal, there have been numerous instances of censorship and harassment of the press.

Independent daily al-Sudani newspaper was temporarily closed in February after it reported on the beheading of journalist Taha. The justice ministry accused it of breaching criminal law.

Article 115 of Sudan's penal code states: "Any person who intentionally does anything to influence any fair and just legal procedure or any legal matter or procedure connected with it shall be punished by three months in prison or a fine or both."

Deputy head of the parliamentary judicial committee, Ghazi Suleiman, said the ministry could not prevent any publication.

"Let them comment and then instigate a case against them," Suleiman said. "There is nothing in the law which gives the... justice ministry the right to stop comment in the newspapers."

Sudan's state security organ, which made the arrests for the alleged coup attempt, invited media to a briefing and told them they were allowed to publish details they had divulged.

Journalist Mujaheed Abdullah from the opposition al-Rai al-Shaab newspaper was detained without charge last month, a move colleagues said they suspected was linked to the Kajbar killings. Authorities say it was not linked to his reporting.

"We are asking for his release or for him to be charged with something and brought before a court of law," his lawyer Karrar Siddig said. Abdullah's detention has entered its fourth week and neither his family nor his lawyer have been able to see him.

© Reuters

Arabs from Chad, Niger pile into Sudan’s Darfur - UN

2007-07-17T20:01:00.001-05:00

Wednesday 18 July 2007.

By Steve Bloomfield

July 14, 2007 (LONDON) — Arabs from Chad and Niger are crossing into Darfur in "unprecedented" numbers, prompting claims that the Sudanese government is trying systematically to repopulate the war- ravaged region, The Independent reported.

Members of the Um Jalool, an Arab nomadic tribe alleged to be part of the Janjaweed militia, ride their camels 20 kilometers outside the village of Muhkjar in West Darfur, Oct 2004 (HRW)

An internal UN report, obtained by The Independent, shows that up to 30,000 Arabs have crossed the border in the past two months. Most arrived with all their belongings and large flocks. They were greeted by Sudanese Arabs who took them to empty villages cleared by government and janjaweed forces.

One UN official said the process "appeared to have been well planned". The official continued: "This movement is very large. We have not seen such numbers come into west Darfur before."

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, sent a team to the border with Chad at the end of May to interview the new arrivals. Fighting in eastern Chad has been steadily increasing and it was thought that many could be refugees. But only a very small number have required support from UNHCR.

"Most have been relocated by Sudanese Arabs to former villages of IDPs (internally displaced people) and more or less invited to stay there," said the UN official.

The arrivals have been issued with official Sudanese identity cards and awarded citizenship, and analysts say that by encouraging Arabs from Chad, Niger and other parts of Sudan to move to Darfur the Sudanese government is making it "virtually impossible" for displaced people to return home.

James Smith, chief executive of the Aegis Trust, said the revelations proved that the Sudanese government was "cynically trying to change the demographics of the whole region", adding: "If the ethnic cleansing has been consolidated because the land has been repopulated it will become irreversible. The peace process will fall to pieces."

Repopulation has also been happening in south Darfur where Arabs from elsewhere in Sudan have been allowed to move into villages that were once home to local tribes. Aid agency workers said the Arabs were presented as "returning IDPs".

Before the conflict started in 2003, Darfur was home to seven million people, mainly from three African tribes, Fur, Marsalit and Zargahwa. Darfur literally translates as "Land of the Fur". But some 2.5 million have now been forced to flee their homes after attacks by Sudanese troops and planes, and Arab militia on horseback known as janjaweed.

Most are now in camps around Darfur’s main towns, relying on handouts from international aid agencies. About 250,000 have become refugees in Chad. A further 1.5 million have been affected by the conflict, meaning at least four million people are now reliant on the 80 or so international aid agencies in the region. More than 200,000 people are believed to have been killed so far during the four-and-a-half-year conflict.

And if Khartoum is moving Arabs from abroad to replace them, diplomats fear that Darfur rebels may try to remove them forcibly. "It could be quite explosive," said one western diplomat. "It is a very serious situation."

Nomadic Arab tribes have been crossing the border between Chad and Sudan for centuries, long before lines were drawn on a map. It is normal for tribes to follow the rains from west to east and back again, searching for fertile grazing land for their cattle. Straight lines carve out the northern borders of the five countries which spread across the Sahel, taking no notice of traditional tribal links and nomadic routes.

In Mauritania and Sudan, both countries long ruled by Arabs, black African tribes have suffered most. In Mali, Niger and Chad, the Arab and Tuareg nomads have been suppressed.

Towards the end of last year, Niger announced that it planned forcibly to remove more than 150,000 Arab nomads into Chad. Many of the Arabs, known as Mahamid, moved from Chad in the 1970s after a serious drought. Although the government later rescinded the order, it is thought that many decided to return to Chad voluntarily.

Apart from the 30,000 Arabs from Chad and Niger cited in the UNHCR report there have been consistent rumours that a further 45,000 Arabs from Niger have also crossed over. For most nomads citizenship means very little; the lines that separate the countries of the Sahel have not created a sense of nationality. But for the Khartoum regime it could be pivotal. Elections are to be held in two years, the first since President Omar al-Bashir seized power in a coup in 1989.

Although opinion polling is not very advanced, it is thought that no party is likely to win an overall majority. By providing citizenship for the new arrivals, one Khartoum-based diplomat said, President Bashir could be hoping to bolster his election chances.

For the Arabs who have crossed into Darfur there are both push and pull factors. Drought in parts of northern Africa has forced nomads to look further afield for fertile land. Although the spread of desert is rapidly reducing the amount of land available for farmers and nomads in Darfur, much of the area cleared by the janjaweed and government forces is fertile.

(The Independent)