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)
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Gunmen block Darfur refugees at Chad Border - UN
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)
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)
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Darfur towns burned in government attacks: U.N.
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)
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)
Friday, February 8, 2008
Sudan planes, militia attack Darfur towns-witnesses
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
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
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Sudan doubles crude exports to China in 2007
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)
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
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
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
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Sudan 'bombing rebels in Darfur'
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
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
Sunday, January 13, 2008
China, Russa quash ICC efforts to press Sudan over Darfur crimes
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)
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)
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Chadian planes bomb rebels in Sudan - UN
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
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
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)
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
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)
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
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)
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
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.
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
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)
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)
Saturday, January 5, 2008
A Strategy for Success in Sirte
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
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.
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)
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
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)
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
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)
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)
Friday, November 2, 2007
Sudan arrests 36 displaced following Darfur forced relocation - Amnesty
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)
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)
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Darfur camp eviction 'fabricated'
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
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
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