KHARTOUM, July 26 (Reuters) - U.N. and African Union Darfur envoys should unite rebel field commanders to avoid infighting and chaos before any peace deal is signed to end the bloodshed, a senior rebel member said on Thursday.
Suleiman Jamous, the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) humanitarian coordinator, added rebel political leaders who lived outside Sudan's war-torn west should hurry to achieve peace and not forget the millions of civilians suffering because of the revolt.
U.N. Darfur envoy Jan Eliasson and his AU counterpart Salim Ahmed Salim hope to unite rebel factions and agree on a negotiating position and venue in a meeting in Tanzania in August. But Jamous said any deal would be worthless if field commanders were not on board.
"It is better to work towards unity for the SLA at least before ending the peace talks with any sort of agreement," he told Reuters by telephone from a U.N. hospital in South Kordofan, a region that neighbours Darfur.
"It can work simultaneously with the efforts towards the negotiating table but the unification should end before a peace deal is signed."
Dozens of field commanders control the ground in Darfur and have often expressed differences with their political leadership outside the region, who they say do not consult them enough.
During previous talks, the disconnect between the political leaders negotiating and the commanders on the ground hindered discussions on security arrangements because clashes continued.
After a peace deal signed by only one of three rebel negotiating factions last year, the rebels fragmented with infighting between signatories and non-signatories.
SUFFERING
Jamous warned this would repeat itself if there was no field unity conference.
Jar el-Neby, a senior SLA field commander, also wants U.N. and AU support for unity talks before the meeting in Tanzania.
Previous unity meetings have been spoiled as political leaders outside the region did not attend.
"We should neglect our personal agendas for the agenda of the conflict and how to solve it for the sake of the civilians suffering for our years," Jamous added.
"They need to think of the future of Darfur after the peace -- how we can keep our community together with the killing we created."
Jamous has been virtually imprisoned in the U.N. hospital for 13 months after he was rescued from Darfur in need of urgent medical treatment. Khartoum calls him a "terrorist" and says he will be arrested if he leaves the hospital.
However, he is still in telephone contact with commanders and said if were released he could help unite the field.
Jamous said any new peace talks needed to address the weaknesses of last year's deal, which included the disarmament and reintegration of the Janjaweed militias, mobilised by the government and accused of rape, murder and looting.
"Any kind of presence of armed men in undisciplined ranks is the cause of this conflict and the failure of any peace deal," he said.
He said the international community needed to guarantee the implementation of any agreement, especially dismantling the militias. A U.N.-AU joint force under discussion could play that role.
Jamous coordinated access for the world's largest humanitarian operation to hundreds of thousands in need of aid during the conflict. His work earned him the respect of many groups and kept rebel looting of aid convoys to a minimum.
Experts estimate 200,000 have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes since mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms accusing central government of neglect in early 2003.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Growing concern for safety of Sudan opposition leader in custody
Thursday 26 July 2007 06:55.
By Wasil Ali
July 25, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Supporters of an opposition party in Sudan expressed concern over the well being of their top leaders arrested by security services two weeks ago amid allegations of torture.
Mubarak al-Fadil
Sudanese security services arrested Mubarak al-Fadil, leader of the Umma Reform and Renewal opposition party and his deputy over allegations of planning sabotage actions in the country.
A statement issued by Al-Fadil office slammed the government for not allowing his family and attorney to visit him in prison.
According to the statement three requests have been made to the authorities requesting permission to visit Al-Fadil but that they have received no response as of yet. Several members of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) sought to assist Al-Fadil’s family in securing a visit but were turned down as well.
Sudan banned all media reporting on the case of 17 people accused of trying to overthrow the government.
The government issued a decree establishing a commission to investigate the allegations against Al-Fadil and the other detainees.
However the statement from Al-Fadil’s office claim that a member of the commission informed his attorney that he has not been formally notified by the government to proceed with the investigation.
Sudan’s announcement of thwarting the coup attempt was received with skepticism due to the vague nature of the plot.
Former Sudanese Prime Minister and leader of the opposition Umma party Sadiq al-Mahdi told Sudan Tribune that “this is the fifth time we hear from the government about an alleged coup attempt through the years that turns out to be nothing”.
Al-Mahdi noted that in each of these instances the Sudanese government talks about “incriminating evidence and stocks of weapons found but no details are provided”.
Sudanese officials made contradictory statements regarding the nature of the plot and the extent of foreign involvement.
Sudan said Al-Fadil smuggled weapons into the capital Khartoum in preparation for a coup.
But Sudan’s presidential adviser Nafi Ali Nafi admitted to reporters later that no weapons have been found in association with the alleged plot.
Initially Sudanese authorities accused Al-Fadil of being the mastermind of a sabotage plot in Khartoum and said that he sought support from Libya and the US.
But then Sudanese officials denied any foreign involvement and upgraded charges against Al-Fadil to a full blown coup attempt and said that political assassinations was part of the plot.
Al-Fadil’s supporters speaking to Sudan Tribune said they received information that Al-Fadil and the former Minister of Tourism, Abdel Jelil al-Basha were subject to torture and verbal abuse by security services.
“They [Sudan’s Security services] wanted to force a televised confession from him [Al-Fadil] but he refused so they resorted to torture which left marks on his body. This is why they have not allowed any visits” said one supporter who spoke on condition of anonymity.
However there was no independent confirmation of these allegations.
Al-Fadil was appointed as a presidential adviser for economic affairs in 2002 but was sacked after making contacts with the United States without Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir’s consent.
(ST)
By Wasil Ali
July 25, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Supporters of an opposition party in Sudan expressed concern over the well being of their top leaders arrested by security services two weeks ago amid allegations of torture.
Mubarak al-Fadil
Sudanese security services arrested Mubarak al-Fadil, leader of the Umma Reform and Renewal opposition party and his deputy over allegations of planning sabotage actions in the country.
A statement issued by Al-Fadil office slammed the government for not allowing his family and attorney to visit him in prison.
According to the statement three requests have been made to the authorities requesting permission to visit Al-Fadil but that they have received no response as of yet. Several members of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) sought to assist Al-Fadil’s family in securing a visit but were turned down as well.
Sudan banned all media reporting on the case of 17 people accused of trying to overthrow the government.
The government issued a decree establishing a commission to investigate the allegations against Al-Fadil and the other detainees.
However the statement from Al-Fadil’s office claim that a member of the commission informed his attorney that he has not been formally notified by the government to proceed with the investigation.
Sudan’s announcement of thwarting the coup attempt was received with skepticism due to the vague nature of the plot.
Former Sudanese Prime Minister and leader of the opposition Umma party Sadiq al-Mahdi told Sudan Tribune that “this is the fifth time we hear from the government about an alleged coup attempt through the years that turns out to be nothing”.
Al-Mahdi noted that in each of these instances the Sudanese government talks about “incriminating evidence and stocks of weapons found but no details are provided”.
Sudanese officials made contradictory statements regarding the nature of the plot and the extent of foreign involvement.
Sudan said Al-Fadil smuggled weapons into the capital Khartoum in preparation for a coup.
But Sudan’s presidential adviser Nafi Ali Nafi admitted to reporters later that no weapons have been found in association with the alleged plot.
Initially Sudanese authorities accused Al-Fadil of being the mastermind of a sabotage plot in Khartoum and said that he sought support from Libya and the US.
But then Sudanese officials denied any foreign involvement and upgraded charges against Al-Fadil to a full blown coup attempt and said that political assassinations was part of the plot.
Al-Fadil’s supporters speaking to Sudan Tribune said they received information that Al-Fadil and the former Minister of Tourism, Abdel Jelil al-Basha were subject to torture and verbal abuse by security services.
“They [Sudan’s Security services] wanted to force a televised confession from him [Al-Fadil] but he refused so they resorted to torture which left marks on his body. This is why they have not allowed any visits” said one supporter who spoke on condition of anonymity.
However there was no independent confirmation of these allegations.
Al-Fadil was appointed as a presidential adviser for economic affairs in 2002 but was sacked after making contacts with the United States without Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir’s consent.
(ST)
16 people killed as tribal clashes erupt in Darfur
Thursday 26 July 2007 06:15.
July 25, 2007 (AL-FASHER) — At least 16 people were killed and 20 wounded in a clash between rival Arab tribes in the war-torn Darfur region of western Sudan, local authorities said on Wednesday.
Rzigat Aballa tribesmen fell on a band of Torjum nomads in South Darfur province killing nine, the authorities told reporters, without specifying what day the clash took place.
The tribes, at odds over grazing rights and livestock raiding, have violated a February truce seven times, most dramatically in April when Rzigat tribesmen killed 62 Torjam in their villages.
Darfur came to world attention in 2003 when rebels took up arms against the government to protest at their region’s marginalisation.
The government combatted the rebellion with camel-riding Janjaweed militia, many from the Rzigat Aballa tribe, who have since been accused of atrocities and genocide.
International aid organisations are struggling to address the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, but have been impeded by the widespread violence.
"In the past two weeks, nine food convoys have been attacked by gunmen across Darfur," said Kenro Oshidari, the World Food Programme’s (WFP) Sudan representative.
"WFP staff and contractors are being stopped at gunpoint, dragged out of their vehicles and robbed with alarming frequency," he said, adding that 18 food convoys have been attacked this year, with six vehicles stolen.
Ten WFP staff have been either detained or abducted.
The attacks have prompted the United Nations to declare the road between Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, and Kass town, where fighting between Torjam and Rzigat Aballa has taken place, a "no-go" zone for staff.
WFP’s operation in Darfur feeds two million people a month.
About 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced in the Darfur conflict, according to UN estimates. Some sources say the death toll is much higher.
(AFP)
July 25, 2007 (AL-FASHER) — At least 16 people were killed and 20 wounded in a clash between rival Arab tribes in the war-torn Darfur region of western Sudan, local authorities said on Wednesday.
Rzigat Aballa tribesmen fell on a band of Torjum nomads in South Darfur province killing nine, the authorities told reporters, without specifying what day the clash took place.
The tribes, at odds over grazing rights and livestock raiding, have violated a February truce seven times, most dramatically in April when Rzigat tribesmen killed 62 Torjam in their villages.
Darfur came to world attention in 2003 when rebels took up arms against the government to protest at their region’s marginalisation.
The government combatted the rebellion with camel-riding Janjaweed militia, many from the Rzigat Aballa tribe, who have since been accused of atrocities and genocide.
International aid organisations are struggling to address the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, but have been impeded by the widespread violence.
"In the past two weeks, nine food convoys have been attacked by gunmen across Darfur," said Kenro Oshidari, the World Food Programme’s (WFP) Sudan representative.
"WFP staff and contractors are being stopped at gunpoint, dragged out of their vehicles and robbed with alarming frequency," he said, adding that 18 food convoys have been attacked this year, with six vehicles stolen.
Ten WFP staff have been either detained or abducted.
The attacks have prompted the United Nations to declare the road between Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, and Kass town, where fighting between Torjam and Rzigat Aballa has taken place, a "no-go" zone for staff.
WFP’s operation in Darfur feeds two million people a month.
About 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced in the Darfur conflict, according to UN estimates. Some sources say the death toll is much higher.
(AFP)
Monday, July 23, 2007
Life and Death in Darfur
By Dr. Jill John-Kall
Photo by: Bethany Morehouse
Dr. Jill John-Kall cradling a
young TB patient
Today I arrived in Mujkar, one of our remotest sites in West Darfur. I dumped my gear and went directly to the clinic where I joined one of my colleagues and his team. I always look forward to my field trips because I am extremely proud of our staff. Their hard work and dedication are the backbone of all our programs and without them, innumerable lives would be lost.
The observation room was filled with little patients. The first girl I saw was a 24 month old who was dying of malnutrition. Looking at the way she was breathing and the way she would lapse in and out of “sleep” without even the strength to close her eyes fully, a sense of foreboding slowly crept over me. I tried to reassure her mother that in the morning we could try to transfer her to the nearest hospital, which is four hours away, but in the meantime we could feed her through a naso-gastric tube. I almost believed it myself.
While I started saying a little prayer for her, we were called to see a pregnant woman whose high blood pressure led to convulsions. While we struggled to give her medicine and stabilize her, a staff member came to tell us that the little girl was crashing. My colleague ran to resuscitate her while I stayed with the pregnant woman. In a few minutes he came back, having succeeded in reviving her. Of course, I think we both knew that it was just a matter of time.
After stabilizing the pregnant woman and reassuring her family, we were asked to see a three year old boy that had fallen from a great height. Upon seeing the child, my heart froze – here was a child with a history of a fall, who was limp and “sleeping” in his mother’s arms, taking very shallow breaths. Immediately, we tried to wake the baby. I just needed to hear him cry. I pinched him cruelly while the other doctor applied sternal pressure. He continued silently mocking us. I pinched harder and asked for a needle to give him a little jab. Luckily, he started crying. We were all relieved for a few moments until we realized how shallow his breaths still were. We listened to his lungs and they were tight, lots of wheezing with very minimal air moving. I ran to the office where I had left my inhaler. We improvised making a chamber out of a small plastic medicine bag and having the baby inhale the medicine. The problem was that his heart was already racing trying to cope with the work he was putting in with each breath and if I gave him too much of the inhaler, his heart would race even further pushing him right over the edge. After giving him some antibiotics and steroids, we left him with his mother, hoping for the best. As I type this now, I am waiting for someone to come and tell us that he died. Deep in my heart, I know he won’t last long, not with the way he was breathing…
Photo by: Dr. Jill John-Kall
A baby in the therapeutic feeding center in Darfur
As I stood there in the clinic watching the little boy, I thought that I wouldn’t wish this feeling on anyone on the world, the notion that after seeing a child, you just wait for the bad news. The feeling that as you lay your hands on a child, listen to him breathe, watch his eyes and listen to his heart, you leave him in God’s hands because you know deep inside, that he will not live long. My thoughts are interrupted as the nurse comes to tell us that the little girl with malnutrition has died. The family is distraught, I weakly say to the mother “malesh, malesh-sorry, sorry.” I feel like the lowliest creature on earth. What an inadequate statement to make, “sorry, sorry.” Am I sorry that she lost her child or am I sorry that we didn’t save her? Is my “sorry” in empathy for her or is it asking forgiveness for me? As I hold the crying mother, I can feel her tears on my arms. And then we are called to see the little boy.
He is worse, trying desperately to breathe through his little lungs which are smothered with invisible invaders. I know that he too will not make it and it is unbearable. I am wrestling with my own demons. As a doctor, my hands should be healing hands. My mind should be able to come up with some answers, something to attack the vile bacteria who have invaded his body. An asthmatic myself, I have a soft spot for anyone who can’t breathe and he is no exception. I give him some more of my inhaler and silently beg him to get better. We leave him in the observation room and I head back to the office. It’s 7:15 p.m.
As I start working in the office, I look at pictures of Um Dukum, where I was about two weeks ago. If it’s possible to imagine, Um Dukum is a place even further away than Mukjar, bordering Chad and Central African Republic. I’m looking at these pictures for work but subconsciously, I’m looking at them to remind myself why I’m here in the first place. We have recently taken over a little rural hospital there and it will soon be a beautiful program. It’s currently a little shack of a hospital, give or take 20 beds with a primary health care component. We do outpatient consultations, immunizations, reproductive health, health education, nutrition surveillance and outreach work. I am in love with this little shack of a hospital. It’s amazing how many lives are saved there and how many more will be saved. Women get emergency C-sections, conflict victims get sewn together, children get measles vaccines and we even treat the common cold. This is such an important location because it not only serves the local population but it also serves the IDPs within Darfur as well as the refugees that come in from Chad and CAR in times of their internal conflicts.
This hospital is a Godsend for people in this area because referrals to the nearest hospital – another four hours away – are almost impossible. Any travelers by road are frequent victims of hijackings and theft and in the rainy season, the dirt roads become rivers of mud, impossible to cross. But even though the hospital is simple, it is a shining example of how minimal efforts can go a long way in the midst of Darfur. My mind drifts back to Mukjar. Last year referrals were much easier because the roads were safer. However, since December, more and more aid agencies have been targeted by bandits, hijackers, Janjaweed, government troops, rebels, all part and parcel of any relief team working in Darfur.
Photo by: Bethany Morehouse
An IMC staffer schooling a villager at a new clinic in West Darfur on some basic tenets of primary health care. Initiatives like this one help maintain Dr. John-Kall’s hope that she can make a difference in the lives of people struggling to stay alive in Darfur.
It’s almost 8 p.m. and I’ve just been told that the little boy has died. Inside, I am screaming curses while outside I remain calm since it was expected anyway. My eyes start to water and I can’t see the keyboard anymore. It’s hard when you lose a patient, even harder when they’re kids and today we lost two. I think about the inconsolable families, left with huge voids in their hearts. I think about those little kids who will never see tomorrow. I start questioning myself and what I thought I could ever achieve here. In the midst of this self loathing, self hating mood, the realist in me shouts “I told you so!” The cynic in me shouts “I told you so!” The optimist in me is quiet. I am uncomfortable because I worry that I am slowly losing my soul. I glance over to my pictures of Um Dukum. The optimist whispers, “You can still try.”
Dr. Jill John-Kall serves as Medical Director for International Medical Corps in Darfur, Sudan.
Photo by: Bethany Morehouse
Dr. Jill John-Kall cradling a
young TB patient
Today I arrived in Mujkar, one of our remotest sites in West Darfur. I dumped my gear and went directly to the clinic where I joined one of my colleagues and his team. I always look forward to my field trips because I am extremely proud of our staff. Their hard work and dedication are the backbone of all our programs and without them, innumerable lives would be lost.
The observation room was filled with little patients. The first girl I saw was a 24 month old who was dying of malnutrition. Looking at the way she was breathing and the way she would lapse in and out of “sleep” without even the strength to close her eyes fully, a sense of foreboding slowly crept over me. I tried to reassure her mother that in the morning we could try to transfer her to the nearest hospital, which is four hours away, but in the meantime we could feed her through a naso-gastric tube. I almost believed it myself.
While I started saying a little prayer for her, we were called to see a pregnant woman whose high blood pressure led to convulsions. While we struggled to give her medicine and stabilize her, a staff member came to tell us that the little girl was crashing. My colleague ran to resuscitate her while I stayed with the pregnant woman. In a few minutes he came back, having succeeded in reviving her. Of course, I think we both knew that it was just a matter of time.
After stabilizing the pregnant woman and reassuring her family, we were asked to see a three year old boy that had fallen from a great height. Upon seeing the child, my heart froze – here was a child with a history of a fall, who was limp and “sleeping” in his mother’s arms, taking very shallow breaths. Immediately, we tried to wake the baby. I just needed to hear him cry. I pinched him cruelly while the other doctor applied sternal pressure. He continued silently mocking us. I pinched harder and asked for a needle to give him a little jab. Luckily, he started crying. We were all relieved for a few moments until we realized how shallow his breaths still were. We listened to his lungs and they were tight, lots of wheezing with very minimal air moving. I ran to the office where I had left my inhaler. We improvised making a chamber out of a small plastic medicine bag and having the baby inhale the medicine. The problem was that his heart was already racing trying to cope with the work he was putting in with each breath and if I gave him too much of the inhaler, his heart would race even further pushing him right over the edge. After giving him some antibiotics and steroids, we left him with his mother, hoping for the best. As I type this now, I am waiting for someone to come and tell us that he died. Deep in my heart, I know he won’t last long, not with the way he was breathing…
Photo by: Dr. Jill John-Kall
A baby in the therapeutic feeding center in Darfur
As I stood there in the clinic watching the little boy, I thought that I wouldn’t wish this feeling on anyone on the world, the notion that after seeing a child, you just wait for the bad news. The feeling that as you lay your hands on a child, listen to him breathe, watch his eyes and listen to his heart, you leave him in God’s hands because you know deep inside, that he will not live long. My thoughts are interrupted as the nurse comes to tell us that the little girl with malnutrition has died. The family is distraught, I weakly say to the mother “malesh, malesh-sorry, sorry.” I feel like the lowliest creature on earth. What an inadequate statement to make, “sorry, sorry.” Am I sorry that she lost her child or am I sorry that we didn’t save her? Is my “sorry” in empathy for her or is it asking forgiveness for me? As I hold the crying mother, I can feel her tears on my arms. And then we are called to see the little boy.
He is worse, trying desperately to breathe through his little lungs which are smothered with invisible invaders. I know that he too will not make it and it is unbearable. I am wrestling with my own demons. As a doctor, my hands should be healing hands. My mind should be able to come up with some answers, something to attack the vile bacteria who have invaded his body. An asthmatic myself, I have a soft spot for anyone who can’t breathe and he is no exception. I give him some more of my inhaler and silently beg him to get better. We leave him in the observation room and I head back to the office. It’s 7:15 p.m.
As I start working in the office, I look at pictures of Um Dukum, where I was about two weeks ago. If it’s possible to imagine, Um Dukum is a place even further away than Mukjar, bordering Chad and Central African Republic. I’m looking at these pictures for work but subconsciously, I’m looking at them to remind myself why I’m here in the first place. We have recently taken over a little rural hospital there and it will soon be a beautiful program. It’s currently a little shack of a hospital, give or take 20 beds with a primary health care component. We do outpatient consultations, immunizations, reproductive health, health education, nutrition surveillance and outreach work. I am in love with this little shack of a hospital. It’s amazing how many lives are saved there and how many more will be saved. Women get emergency C-sections, conflict victims get sewn together, children get measles vaccines and we even treat the common cold. This is such an important location because it not only serves the local population but it also serves the IDPs within Darfur as well as the refugees that come in from Chad and CAR in times of their internal conflicts.
This hospital is a Godsend for people in this area because referrals to the nearest hospital – another four hours away – are almost impossible. Any travelers by road are frequent victims of hijackings and theft and in the rainy season, the dirt roads become rivers of mud, impossible to cross. But even though the hospital is simple, it is a shining example of how minimal efforts can go a long way in the midst of Darfur. My mind drifts back to Mukjar. Last year referrals were much easier because the roads were safer. However, since December, more and more aid agencies have been targeted by bandits, hijackers, Janjaweed, government troops, rebels, all part and parcel of any relief team working in Darfur.
Photo by: Bethany Morehouse
An IMC staffer schooling a villager at a new clinic in West Darfur on some basic tenets of primary health care. Initiatives like this one help maintain Dr. John-Kall’s hope that she can make a difference in the lives of people struggling to stay alive in Darfur.
It’s almost 8 p.m. and I’ve just been told that the little boy has died. Inside, I am screaming curses while outside I remain calm since it was expected anyway. My eyes start to water and I can’t see the keyboard anymore. It’s hard when you lose a patient, even harder when they’re kids and today we lost two. I think about the inconsolable families, left with huge voids in their hearts. I think about those little kids who will never see tomorrow. I start questioning myself and what I thought I could ever achieve here. In the midst of this self loathing, self hating mood, the realist in me shouts “I told you so!” The cynic in me shouts “I told you so!” The optimist in me is quiet. I am uncomfortable because I worry that I am slowly losing my soul. I glance over to my pictures of Um Dukum. The optimist whispers, “You can still try.”
Dr. Jill John-Kall serves as Medical Director for International Medical Corps in Darfur, Sudan.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
A Godsend for Darfur, or a Curse?
The New York Times
By LYDIA POLGREEN
DAKAR, Senegal
THE announcement by researchers at Boston University last week that a vast underground lake the size of Lake Erie had been discovered beneath the barren soil of northern Darfur, a blood-soaked but otherwise parched land racked by war for the past four years, was greeted by rapturous hopes. Could this, at last, bring deliverance from a cataclysmic conflict that has killed at least 200,000 people and pushed more than 2.5 million from their homes?
That hope is built upon an argument, advanced by a United Nations report released last month and an opinion article in The Washington Post by Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, that environmental degradation and the symptoms of a warming planet are at the root of the Darfur crisis.
“There is a very strong link between land degradation, desertification and conflict in Darfur,” said the United Nations Environmental Program report, which noted that rainfall in northern Darfur has decreased by a third over the last 80 years. “Exponential population growth and related environmental stress have created the conditions for conflicts to be triggered and sustained by political, tribal or ethnic differences,” the report said, adding that Darfur “can be considered a tragic example of the social breakdown that can result from ecological collapse.”
The idea that more water — unearthed through a thousand wells sunk into the underground lake — could neatly defuse the crisis is seductive. Messy African conflicts, from Congo to Liberia, from northern Uganda to Angola, have a way of defying all efforts to solve them. Instead, they seem to become hopelessly more complex as they drag on, year after agonizing year. A scientific explanation for the problem (environmental degradation) along with a tidy technological solution (irrigation) gratifies the modern humanitarian impulse.
But the history of Sudan, a grim chronicle of civil war, famine, coups and despotism, gives ample reason to be skeptical.
“Like all resources water can be used for good or ill,” said Alex de Waal, a scholar who has studied the impact of climate variation in Sudan and who witnessed the 1984-85 famine that is often cited as the beginning of the ecological crisis gripping Darfur. “It can be a blessing or also a curse. If the government acts true to form and tries to create some sort of oasis in the desert and control who settles there, that would simply be an extension of the crisis, not a solution.”
The droughts that gripped Sudan in the 1980s, and the migrations and other social changes they forced, have doubtless played a role in the conflict by increasing competition for water and land between farmers, who tend to be non-Arab, and herders, many of whom are Arabs. But an environmental catastrophe cannot become a violent cataclysm without a powerful human hand to guide it in that direction.
“These wider environmental factors don’t have impact in and of themselves” in terms of fomenting conflict, Mr. de Waal said. “The question is how they are managed.”
In fact, while different regions and social groups suffer severely, Sudan as a whole has riches to spare, in oil, fertile soil, and even water. Indeed, history suggests that this newly discovered lake is just as likely to become a source of conflict as a solution to the bloodshed.
Successive Sudanese governments and their colonial precursors have adopted agricultural policies that have almost inevitably led to conflict. They have favored large mechanized farms and complex irrigation schemes, controlled by the government and its allies, over the small, rain-fed farms that are the backbone of the rural economy in much of Sudan.
In eastern Sudan, where a rebellion has been brewing for years, the Beja people have nursed grievances since Britain and Egypt ruled Sudan jointly during the first half of the 20th century. Under their rule, irrigation programs for commercial farming deprived the Beja of their prime grazing land.
Post-colonial governments, which in the early years had the blessing of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, took vast tracts of land in the name of agricultural development, turning farmers who worked their own land into wage laborers for the state and its allies.
Some Sudanese have even been pushed off their land entirely. In the early 1990s the Nuba people were forced into “peace villages,” where they provided a steady supply of cheap, captive labor to mechanized farms. In other areas, including parts of Darfur, intensive mechanized farming by the government and investors who were heedless to the need to protect the fertility of the land left large tracts barren.
A vast new agricultural scheme in a largely uninhabited swath of northern Darfur is more likely to fit into this destructive pattern than not, said John Prendergast, a founder of the Enough Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress and the International Crisis Group to abolish genocide and mass atrocities.
“Climate change and the lack of rain are much less important than the land-use patterns promoted by the government of Sudan and the development policies of World Bank and I.M.F., which were focused on intensive agricultural expansion that really mined the soils and left a lot of land unusable,” said Mr. Prendergast, who has been studying Sudan for 20 years. “That was probably the principal impetus for a lot of intra-Darfur migration in the decades leading up to the conflict in Darfur.”
During those years, the government exploited tensions over water and land to achieve its own aims, putting down a rebellion among the non-Arab tribes, who rose up because they wanted a greater share of Sudan’s wealth and power. It armed tribal militias to fight the rebels, and these militias unleashed a tide of violence that ultimately would become, according to the Bush administration and many others, the 21st century’s first genocide.
A report released last year by the Coalition for International Justice on the role that oil and mechanized farming have played in human rights abuses in Sudan concluded: “The predominant root of conflict in Sudan is the instability that results from the systemic abuse of the rural (and recently urbanized) poor at the hands of the economic and political elites of central Sudan.”
In this analysis, the heart of the Darfur conflict, as in all conflicts in Sudan, is the battle for control of resources and riches, but not between farmers and herders, northerners and southerners, Christians and Muslims, or Arabs and non-Arabs.
It is a conflict between those at the center of the country, the elites who have controlled Sudan and its wealth for the past century and a half, and the desperately poor people who beg for scraps from the periphery.
Until that equation changes, many analysts argue, nothing else will.
By LYDIA POLGREEN
DAKAR, Senegal
THE announcement by researchers at Boston University last week that a vast underground lake the size of Lake Erie had been discovered beneath the barren soil of northern Darfur, a blood-soaked but otherwise parched land racked by war for the past four years, was greeted by rapturous hopes. Could this, at last, bring deliverance from a cataclysmic conflict that has killed at least 200,000 people and pushed more than 2.5 million from their homes?
That hope is built upon an argument, advanced by a United Nations report released last month and an opinion article in The Washington Post by Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, that environmental degradation and the symptoms of a warming planet are at the root of the Darfur crisis.
“There is a very strong link between land degradation, desertification and conflict in Darfur,” said the United Nations Environmental Program report, which noted that rainfall in northern Darfur has decreased by a third over the last 80 years. “Exponential population growth and related environmental stress have created the conditions for conflicts to be triggered and sustained by political, tribal or ethnic differences,” the report said, adding that Darfur “can be considered a tragic example of the social breakdown that can result from ecological collapse.”
The idea that more water — unearthed through a thousand wells sunk into the underground lake — could neatly defuse the crisis is seductive. Messy African conflicts, from Congo to Liberia, from northern Uganda to Angola, have a way of defying all efforts to solve them. Instead, they seem to become hopelessly more complex as they drag on, year after agonizing year. A scientific explanation for the problem (environmental degradation) along with a tidy technological solution (irrigation) gratifies the modern humanitarian impulse.
But the history of Sudan, a grim chronicle of civil war, famine, coups and despotism, gives ample reason to be skeptical.
“Like all resources water can be used for good or ill,” said Alex de Waal, a scholar who has studied the impact of climate variation in Sudan and who witnessed the 1984-85 famine that is often cited as the beginning of the ecological crisis gripping Darfur. “It can be a blessing or also a curse. If the government acts true to form and tries to create some sort of oasis in the desert and control who settles there, that would simply be an extension of the crisis, not a solution.”
The droughts that gripped Sudan in the 1980s, and the migrations and other social changes they forced, have doubtless played a role in the conflict by increasing competition for water and land between farmers, who tend to be non-Arab, and herders, many of whom are Arabs. But an environmental catastrophe cannot become a violent cataclysm without a powerful human hand to guide it in that direction.
“These wider environmental factors don’t have impact in and of themselves” in terms of fomenting conflict, Mr. de Waal said. “The question is how they are managed.”
In fact, while different regions and social groups suffer severely, Sudan as a whole has riches to spare, in oil, fertile soil, and even water. Indeed, history suggests that this newly discovered lake is just as likely to become a source of conflict as a solution to the bloodshed.
Successive Sudanese governments and their colonial precursors have adopted agricultural policies that have almost inevitably led to conflict. They have favored large mechanized farms and complex irrigation schemes, controlled by the government and its allies, over the small, rain-fed farms that are the backbone of the rural economy in much of Sudan.
In eastern Sudan, where a rebellion has been brewing for years, the Beja people have nursed grievances since Britain and Egypt ruled Sudan jointly during the first half of the 20th century. Under their rule, irrigation programs for commercial farming deprived the Beja of their prime grazing land.
Post-colonial governments, which in the early years had the blessing of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, took vast tracts of land in the name of agricultural development, turning farmers who worked their own land into wage laborers for the state and its allies.
Some Sudanese have even been pushed off their land entirely. In the early 1990s the Nuba people were forced into “peace villages,” where they provided a steady supply of cheap, captive labor to mechanized farms. In other areas, including parts of Darfur, intensive mechanized farming by the government and investors who were heedless to the need to protect the fertility of the land left large tracts barren.
A vast new agricultural scheme in a largely uninhabited swath of northern Darfur is more likely to fit into this destructive pattern than not, said John Prendergast, a founder of the Enough Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress and the International Crisis Group to abolish genocide and mass atrocities.
“Climate change and the lack of rain are much less important than the land-use patterns promoted by the government of Sudan and the development policies of World Bank and I.M.F., which were focused on intensive agricultural expansion that really mined the soils and left a lot of land unusable,” said Mr. Prendergast, who has been studying Sudan for 20 years. “That was probably the principal impetus for a lot of intra-Darfur migration in the decades leading up to the conflict in Darfur.”
During those years, the government exploited tensions over water and land to achieve its own aims, putting down a rebellion among the non-Arab tribes, who rose up because they wanted a greater share of Sudan’s wealth and power. It armed tribal militias to fight the rebels, and these militias unleashed a tide of violence that ultimately would become, according to the Bush administration and many others, the 21st century’s first genocide.
A report released last year by the Coalition for International Justice on the role that oil and mechanized farming have played in human rights abuses in Sudan concluded: “The predominant root of conflict in Sudan is the instability that results from the systemic abuse of the rural (and recently urbanized) poor at the hands of the economic and political elites of central Sudan.”
In this analysis, the heart of the Darfur conflict, as in all conflicts in Sudan, is the battle for control of resources and riches, but not between farmers and herders, northerners and southerners, Christians and Muslims, or Arabs and non-Arabs.
It is a conflict between those at the center of the country, the elites who have controlled Sudan and its wealth for the past century and a half, and the desperately poor people who beg for scraps from the periphery.
Until that equation changes, many analysts argue, nothing else will.
Ethiopia blocks humanitarian aid to Ogaden region
Sunday 22 July 2007 00:10.
By Jeffrey Gettleman
July 21, 2007 (NAIROBI, Kenya) — The Ethiopian government is blockading emergency food aid and choking off trade to large swaths of a remote region in the eastern part of the country that is home to a rebel force, putting hundreds of thousands of people at risk of starvation, Western diplomats and humanitarian officials say.
The Ethiopian military and its proxy militias have also been siphoning off millions of dollars in international food aid, and using a United Nations polio eradication program to funnel money to their fighters, according to relief officials, former Ethiopian government administrators and a member of the Ethiopian Parliament who defected to Germany last month to protest the government’s actions.
The blockade takes aim at the heart of the Ogaden region, a vast desert on the Somali border where the government is struggling against a growing rebellion and where government soldiers have been accused by human rights groups of widespread brutality.
Humanitarian officials say the ban on aid convoys and commercial traffic, intended to squeeze the rebels and dry up their bases of support, has sent food prices skyrocketing and disrupted trade routes, preventing the nomads who live there from selling their livestock. Hundreds of thousands of people are now sealed off in a desiccated, unforgiving landscape that is difficult to survive in even in the best of times.
“Food cannot get in,” said Mohammed Diab, the director of the United Nations World Food Program in Ethiopia.
The Ethiopian government says the blockade covers only strategic locations, and is meant to prevent guns and matériel from reaching the Ogaden National Liberation Front, the rebel force that the government considers a terrorist group. In April, the rebels killed more than 60 Ethiopian guards and Chinese workers at a Chinese-run oil field in the Ogaden.
“This is not a government which punishes its people,” said Nur Abdi Mohammed, a government spokesman.
But Western diplomats have been urging Ethiopian officials to lift the blockade, arguing that the many people in the area are running out of time. “It’s a starve-out-the-population strategy,” said one Western humanitarian official, who did not want to be quoted by name because he feared reprisals against aid workers. “If something isn’t done on the diplomatic front soon, we’re going to have a government-caused famine on our hands.”
The blockade, which involves soldiers and military trucks cutting off the few roads into the central Ogaden, comes as Congress is increasingly concerned about Ethiopia’s human rights record.
Ethiopia is a close American ally and a key partner in America’s counterterrorism efforts in the Horn of Africa, a region that has become a breeding ground for Islamic militants, many of whom have threatened to wage a holy war against Ethiopia.
The country receives nearly half a billion dollars in American aid each year, but this week, a House subcommittee passed a bill that would put strict conditions on some of that aid and ban Ethiopian officials linked to rights abuses from entering the United States. The House also recently passed an amendment, sponsored by J. Randy Forbes, a Virginia Republican, that stripped Ethiopia of $3 million in assistance to “send a strong message that if they don’t wake up and pay attention, more money will be cut,” Mr. Forbes said.
Ethiopia’s pardon on Friday of 30 political prisoners who had been sentenced to life in prison could ease some criticism. But Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, is pushing ahead with measures to more closely vet assistance to the Ethiopian military. According to human rights groups and firsthand accounts, government troops have gang raped women, burned down huts and killed civilians.
American officials in Ethiopia said they were trying to investigate the situation but that the Ogaden was too dangerous right now for a fact-finding mission. American officials said they had heard persistent reports of burned villages and that the blockade was putting the area on the cusp of a crisis.
Villagers say that anyone who criticizes the government risks getting killed. According to Ogaden Online, a Canadian-based news service that has been highly critical of the Ethiopian government and covers the region through a network of reporters and contributors, some equipped with satellite phones, four young men who were videotaped by The New York Times at a community meeting in an Ogaden village in May were later tortured and executed.
The claim could not be fully verified independently, but their identities may have been discovered by Ethiopian soldiers who had arrested three journalists for The Times in the Ogaden and confiscated their notebooks, cameras and computers.
“The army is out of control,” said Jemal Dirie Kalif, the member of Parliament who defected.
The blockade has been in place since early June, and thousands of people have already fled on foot and by camel. Two weeks ago, Abdullahi Mohammed, a 17-year-old student, walked from his village deep in the Ogaden to the nearest town with a bus station. He carried with him a few pieces of bread. He said that when he stopped to ask villagers in the Ogaden for food, they asked him for some instead. “They had nothing,” he said.
Though good rains this year have fed the few crops in the area and provided a little cushion, “The most these people can last without facing serious problems is one month, maybe two,” said David Throp, country director for Save the Children UK.
Even if relief trucks are allowed in to all the critical areas, the food might not reach the people who need it. According to humanitarian workers and several former Ethiopian officials, including Mr. Kalif, food aid is embezzled in two stages. First, soldiers skim sacks of grain, tins of vegetable oil and bricks of high-energy biscuits from food warehouses to sell at local markets.
“The cash is distributed among security officers and regional officers,” a former government administrator from the Ogaden region said in a recent telephone interview on condition of anonymity because he still works with government officials.
Then the remaining food is hauled out to rural areas where the soldiers divert part of it to local gunmen and informers as a reward for helping them fight the rebels. The former administrator said he also knew of specific cases in which army officers stole food from warehouses and gave it to the families of women whom their soldiers had raped, as compensation.
Several Western humanitarian officials estimated that 20 to 30 percent of the donor countries’ food aid to the Ogaden — aid that last year was valued at more than $70 million — routinely disappears this way. To cover their tracks, the soldiers and the government administrators who work with them tell the aid agencies that the food has spoiled, or has been stolen or hijacked by the rebels, humanitarian officials said.
Relief workers in Ethiopia have known about these problems for several years, a humanitarian official said, and have tried to set up committees of local elders to oversee distribution. But that did not work either, and aid officials eventually concluded that as long as the majority of the food was getting through, they would not stop the shipments.
When informed about these allegations, Mr. Diab of the World Food Program said, “This is the first I’ve heard of them.”
Mr. Mohammed, the government spokesman, denied that Ethiopian troops were pilfering or mishandling foreign aid. “We don’t do that,” he said.
As the food crisis looms, Western diplomats are also concerned about a separate plan by the regional government in the Ogaden to divert a share of its own budget for development projects — like schools and farming — to the Ethiopian military.
This seems to be part of the Ethiopian government’s strategy to do whatever it takes to crush the rebels, who have deep popular support and, according to the government, are getting arms and training from neighboring Eritrea, Ethiopia’s bitter enemy.
The people of the Ogaden are mostly Somalis and ethnically distinct from the highland Ethiopians who have ruled the country for centuries, and the long battle over the region has been steadily escalating this year. The country director of one Western aid agency, who recently returned from a field visit there, said he saw two villages that had been burned to the ground and several schools that had been converted into military bases, with foxholes.
Humanitarian officials say the military is building up militias and setting the stage for clan-based bloodshed. The rank and file of the Ogaden National Liberation Front tend to be members of the Ogaden clan, and so the government has turned to other clans to form anti-rebel militias. In the past few weeks, thousands of men have been armed.
“Those Ethiopians are smart,” Mr. Kalif, 32, said. “They know Somalis are more loyal to clans than anything else.” Tactics like these, he said, drove him to defect June 20 while attending a conference in Wiesbaden, Germany. He was affiliated with the ruling party, and had been representing an area in the eastern Ogaden for the past seven years.
He described a scheme with a United Nations polio program, which was corroborated by two former administrators in the Ethiopian government and a Western humanitarian official, in which military commanders gave prized jobs as vaccinators to militia fighters, and in the end, much of the polio vaccine was never distributed.
“Army commanders are using the polio money to pay their people, who don’t pass out the vaccines, so the disease continues and the payments continue,” said Mr. Kalif. “It’s the perfect system.” United Nations officials in Geneva said they did not know whether that was happening, but that they would investigate.
When asked how he knew about the polio scheme, Mr. Kalif said: “Everybody out there knows. They’re just too scared to talk.”
“If I don’t get asylum and they send me back to my country, I’m dead,” he added. “But I was sick of being a parrot. I have no regrets.”
Will Connors contributed reporting from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
(New York Times)
By Jeffrey Gettleman
July 21, 2007 (NAIROBI, Kenya) — The Ethiopian government is blockading emergency food aid and choking off trade to large swaths of a remote region in the eastern part of the country that is home to a rebel force, putting hundreds of thousands of people at risk of starvation, Western diplomats and humanitarian officials say.
The Ethiopian military and its proxy militias have also been siphoning off millions of dollars in international food aid, and using a United Nations polio eradication program to funnel money to their fighters, according to relief officials, former Ethiopian government administrators and a member of the Ethiopian Parliament who defected to Germany last month to protest the government’s actions.
The blockade takes aim at the heart of the Ogaden region, a vast desert on the Somali border where the government is struggling against a growing rebellion and where government soldiers have been accused by human rights groups of widespread brutality.
Humanitarian officials say the ban on aid convoys and commercial traffic, intended to squeeze the rebels and dry up their bases of support, has sent food prices skyrocketing and disrupted trade routes, preventing the nomads who live there from selling their livestock. Hundreds of thousands of people are now sealed off in a desiccated, unforgiving landscape that is difficult to survive in even in the best of times.
“Food cannot get in,” said Mohammed Diab, the director of the United Nations World Food Program in Ethiopia.
The Ethiopian government says the blockade covers only strategic locations, and is meant to prevent guns and matériel from reaching the Ogaden National Liberation Front, the rebel force that the government considers a terrorist group. In April, the rebels killed more than 60 Ethiopian guards and Chinese workers at a Chinese-run oil field in the Ogaden.
“This is not a government which punishes its people,” said Nur Abdi Mohammed, a government spokesman.
But Western diplomats have been urging Ethiopian officials to lift the blockade, arguing that the many people in the area are running out of time. “It’s a starve-out-the-population strategy,” said one Western humanitarian official, who did not want to be quoted by name because he feared reprisals against aid workers. “If something isn’t done on the diplomatic front soon, we’re going to have a government-caused famine on our hands.”
The blockade, which involves soldiers and military trucks cutting off the few roads into the central Ogaden, comes as Congress is increasingly concerned about Ethiopia’s human rights record.
Ethiopia is a close American ally and a key partner in America’s counterterrorism efforts in the Horn of Africa, a region that has become a breeding ground for Islamic militants, many of whom have threatened to wage a holy war against Ethiopia.
The country receives nearly half a billion dollars in American aid each year, but this week, a House subcommittee passed a bill that would put strict conditions on some of that aid and ban Ethiopian officials linked to rights abuses from entering the United States. The House also recently passed an amendment, sponsored by J. Randy Forbes, a Virginia Republican, that stripped Ethiopia of $3 million in assistance to “send a strong message that if they don’t wake up and pay attention, more money will be cut,” Mr. Forbes said.
Ethiopia’s pardon on Friday of 30 political prisoners who had been sentenced to life in prison could ease some criticism. But Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, is pushing ahead with measures to more closely vet assistance to the Ethiopian military. According to human rights groups and firsthand accounts, government troops have gang raped women, burned down huts and killed civilians.
American officials in Ethiopia said they were trying to investigate the situation but that the Ogaden was too dangerous right now for a fact-finding mission. American officials said they had heard persistent reports of burned villages and that the blockade was putting the area on the cusp of a crisis.
Villagers say that anyone who criticizes the government risks getting killed. According to Ogaden Online, a Canadian-based news service that has been highly critical of the Ethiopian government and covers the region through a network of reporters and contributors, some equipped with satellite phones, four young men who were videotaped by The New York Times at a community meeting in an Ogaden village in May were later tortured and executed.
The claim could not be fully verified independently, but their identities may have been discovered by Ethiopian soldiers who had arrested three journalists for The Times in the Ogaden and confiscated their notebooks, cameras and computers.
“The army is out of control,” said Jemal Dirie Kalif, the member of Parliament who defected.
The blockade has been in place since early June, and thousands of people have already fled on foot and by camel. Two weeks ago, Abdullahi Mohammed, a 17-year-old student, walked from his village deep in the Ogaden to the nearest town with a bus station. He carried with him a few pieces of bread. He said that when he stopped to ask villagers in the Ogaden for food, they asked him for some instead. “They had nothing,” he said.
Though good rains this year have fed the few crops in the area and provided a little cushion, “The most these people can last without facing serious problems is one month, maybe two,” said David Throp, country director for Save the Children UK.
Even if relief trucks are allowed in to all the critical areas, the food might not reach the people who need it. According to humanitarian workers and several former Ethiopian officials, including Mr. Kalif, food aid is embezzled in two stages. First, soldiers skim sacks of grain, tins of vegetable oil and bricks of high-energy biscuits from food warehouses to sell at local markets.
“The cash is distributed among security officers and regional officers,” a former government administrator from the Ogaden region said in a recent telephone interview on condition of anonymity because he still works with government officials.
Then the remaining food is hauled out to rural areas where the soldiers divert part of it to local gunmen and informers as a reward for helping them fight the rebels. The former administrator said he also knew of specific cases in which army officers stole food from warehouses and gave it to the families of women whom their soldiers had raped, as compensation.
Several Western humanitarian officials estimated that 20 to 30 percent of the donor countries’ food aid to the Ogaden — aid that last year was valued at more than $70 million — routinely disappears this way. To cover their tracks, the soldiers and the government administrators who work with them tell the aid agencies that the food has spoiled, or has been stolen or hijacked by the rebels, humanitarian officials said.
Relief workers in Ethiopia have known about these problems for several years, a humanitarian official said, and have tried to set up committees of local elders to oversee distribution. But that did not work either, and aid officials eventually concluded that as long as the majority of the food was getting through, they would not stop the shipments.
When informed about these allegations, Mr. Diab of the World Food Program said, “This is the first I’ve heard of them.”
Mr. Mohammed, the government spokesman, denied that Ethiopian troops were pilfering or mishandling foreign aid. “We don’t do that,” he said.
As the food crisis looms, Western diplomats are also concerned about a separate plan by the regional government in the Ogaden to divert a share of its own budget for development projects — like schools and farming — to the Ethiopian military.
This seems to be part of the Ethiopian government’s strategy to do whatever it takes to crush the rebels, who have deep popular support and, according to the government, are getting arms and training from neighboring Eritrea, Ethiopia’s bitter enemy.
The people of the Ogaden are mostly Somalis and ethnically distinct from the highland Ethiopians who have ruled the country for centuries, and the long battle over the region has been steadily escalating this year. The country director of one Western aid agency, who recently returned from a field visit there, said he saw two villages that had been burned to the ground and several schools that had been converted into military bases, with foxholes.
Humanitarian officials say the military is building up militias and setting the stage for clan-based bloodshed. The rank and file of the Ogaden National Liberation Front tend to be members of the Ogaden clan, and so the government has turned to other clans to form anti-rebel militias. In the past few weeks, thousands of men have been armed.
“Those Ethiopians are smart,” Mr. Kalif, 32, said. “They know Somalis are more loyal to clans than anything else.” Tactics like these, he said, drove him to defect June 20 while attending a conference in Wiesbaden, Germany. He was affiliated with the ruling party, and had been representing an area in the eastern Ogaden for the past seven years.
He described a scheme with a United Nations polio program, which was corroborated by two former administrators in the Ethiopian government and a Western humanitarian official, in which military commanders gave prized jobs as vaccinators to militia fighters, and in the end, much of the polio vaccine was never distributed.
“Army commanders are using the polio money to pay their people, who don’t pass out the vaccines, so the disease continues and the payments continue,” said Mr. Kalif. “It’s the perfect system.” United Nations officials in Geneva said they did not know whether that was happening, but that they would investigate.
When asked how he knew about the polio scheme, Mr. Kalif said: “Everybody out there knows. They’re just too scared to talk.”
“If I don’t get asylum and they send me back to my country, I’m dead,” he added. “But I was sick of being a parrot. I have no regrets.”
Will Connors contributed reporting from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
(New York Times)
Friday, July 20, 2007
Sudan bans reporting on alleged coup plot
Thu Jul 19, 2007 8:42AM EDT
By Opheera McDoom
KHARTOUM, July 19 (Reuters) - Sudan's justice ministry has banned all media reporting on the case of 17 people accused of trying to overthrow the government, the latest in a string of such restrictions.
Local papers on Thursday said the prosecutor general had issued a decree "banning all media outlets, written or broadcast, from any reporting or comment on the attempted sabotage so as to not influence the course of justice".
State security officials said on Sunday they had arrested 17 people, including opposition politicians and retired army officers, for plotting to overthrow the government and create chaos in the capital.
Similar reporting restrictions were imposed on the cases of the beheading of Sudanese journalist Mohamed Taha last year and demonstrations in the northern region of Kajbar last month where police killed four people.
Justice Minister Mohamed al-Mardi told Reuters the practice was similar to laws from Sudan's ex-colonial power, Britain.
"We said there shouldn't be any comments about the investigation or incident so as not to prejudice the investigation," he said, quoting Article 115 of the penal code.
Sudan's new constitution, drafted after a January 2005 peace deal ended Africa's longest civil war in Sudan's south, enshrines press freedom. Human rights observers say while "some degree of press freedom" followed the deal, there have been numerous instances of censorship and harassment of the press.
Independent daily al-Sudani newspaper was temporarily closed in February after it reported on the beheading of journalist Taha. The justice ministry accused it of breaching criminal law.
Article 115 of Sudan's penal code states: "Any person who intentionally does anything to influence any fair and just legal procedure or any legal matter or procedure connected with it shall be punished by three months in prison or a fine or both."
Deputy head of the parliamentary judicial committee, Ghazi Suleiman, said the ministry could not prevent any publication.
"Let them comment and then instigate a case against them," Suleiman said. "There is nothing in the law which gives the... justice ministry the right to stop comment in the newspapers."
Sudan's state security organ, which made the arrests for the alleged coup attempt, invited media to a briefing and told them they were allowed to publish details they had divulged.
Journalist Mujaheed Abdullah from the opposition al-Rai al-Shaab newspaper was detained without charge last month, a move colleagues said they suspected was linked to the Kajbar killings. Authorities say it was not linked to his reporting.
"We are asking for his release or for him to be charged with something and brought before a court of law," his lawyer Karrar Siddig said. Abdullah's detention has entered its fourth week and neither his family nor his lawyer have been able to see him.
© Reuters
By Opheera McDoom
KHARTOUM, July 19 (Reuters) - Sudan's justice ministry has banned all media reporting on the case of 17 people accused of trying to overthrow the government, the latest in a string of such restrictions.
Local papers on Thursday said the prosecutor general had issued a decree "banning all media outlets, written or broadcast, from any reporting or comment on the attempted sabotage so as to not influence the course of justice".
State security officials said on Sunday they had arrested 17 people, including opposition politicians and retired army officers, for plotting to overthrow the government and create chaos in the capital.
Similar reporting restrictions were imposed on the cases of the beheading of Sudanese journalist Mohamed Taha last year and demonstrations in the northern region of Kajbar last month where police killed four people.
Justice Minister Mohamed al-Mardi told Reuters the practice was similar to laws from Sudan's ex-colonial power, Britain.
"We said there shouldn't be any comments about the investigation or incident so as not to prejudice the investigation," he said, quoting Article 115 of the penal code.
Sudan's new constitution, drafted after a January 2005 peace deal ended Africa's longest civil war in Sudan's south, enshrines press freedom. Human rights observers say while "some degree of press freedom" followed the deal, there have been numerous instances of censorship and harassment of the press.
Independent daily al-Sudani newspaper was temporarily closed in February after it reported on the beheading of journalist Taha. The justice ministry accused it of breaching criminal law.
Article 115 of Sudan's penal code states: "Any person who intentionally does anything to influence any fair and just legal procedure or any legal matter or procedure connected with it shall be punished by three months in prison or a fine or both."
Deputy head of the parliamentary judicial committee, Ghazi Suleiman, said the ministry could not prevent any publication.
"Let them comment and then instigate a case against them," Suleiman said. "There is nothing in the law which gives the... justice ministry the right to stop comment in the newspapers."
Sudan's state security organ, which made the arrests for the alleged coup attempt, invited media to a briefing and told them they were allowed to publish details they had divulged.
Journalist Mujaheed Abdullah from the opposition al-Rai al-Shaab newspaper was detained without charge last month, a move colleagues said they suspected was linked to the Kajbar killings. Authorities say it was not linked to his reporting.
"We are asking for his release or for him to be charged with something and brought before a court of law," his lawyer Karrar Siddig said. Abdullah's detention has entered its fourth week and neither his family nor his lawyer have been able to see him.
© Reuters
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Arabs from Chad, Niger pile into Sudan’s Darfur - UN
Wednesday 18 July 2007.
By Steve Bloomfield
July 14, 2007 (LONDON) — Arabs from Chad and Niger are crossing into Darfur in "unprecedented" numbers, prompting claims that the Sudanese government is trying systematically to repopulate the war- ravaged region, The Independent reported.
Members of the Um Jalool, an Arab nomadic tribe alleged to be part of the Janjaweed militia, ride their camels 20 kilometers outside the village of Muhkjar in West Darfur, Oct 2004 (HRW)
An internal UN report, obtained by The Independent, shows that up to 30,000 Arabs have crossed the border in the past two months. Most arrived with all their belongings and large flocks. They were greeted by Sudanese Arabs who took them to empty villages cleared by government and janjaweed forces.
One UN official said the process "appeared to have been well planned". The official continued: "This movement is very large. We have not seen such numbers come into west Darfur before."
The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, sent a team to the border with Chad at the end of May to interview the new arrivals. Fighting in eastern Chad has been steadily increasing and it was thought that many could be refugees. But only a very small number have required support from UNHCR.
"Most have been relocated by Sudanese Arabs to former villages of IDPs (internally displaced people) and more or less invited to stay there," said the UN official.
The arrivals have been issued with official Sudanese identity cards and awarded citizenship, and analysts say that by encouraging Arabs from Chad, Niger and other parts of Sudan to move to Darfur the Sudanese government is making it "virtually impossible" for displaced people to return home.
James Smith, chief executive of the Aegis Trust, said the revelations proved that the Sudanese government was "cynically trying to change the demographics of the whole region", adding: "If the ethnic cleansing has been consolidated because the land has been repopulated it will become irreversible. The peace process will fall to pieces."
Repopulation has also been happening in south Darfur where Arabs from elsewhere in Sudan have been allowed to move into villages that were once home to local tribes. Aid agency workers said the Arabs were presented as "returning IDPs".
Before the conflict started in 2003, Darfur was home to seven million people, mainly from three African tribes, Fur, Marsalit and Zargahwa. Darfur literally translates as "Land of the Fur". But some 2.5 million have now been forced to flee their homes after attacks by Sudanese troops and planes, and Arab militia on horseback known as janjaweed.
Most are now in camps around Darfur’s main towns, relying on handouts from international aid agencies. About 250,000 have become refugees in Chad. A further 1.5 million have been affected by the conflict, meaning at least four million people are now reliant on the 80 or so international aid agencies in the region. More than 200,000 people are believed to have been killed so far during the four-and-a-half-year conflict.
And if Khartoum is moving Arabs from abroad to replace them, diplomats fear that Darfur rebels may try to remove them forcibly. "It could be quite explosive," said one western diplomat. "It is a very serious situation."
Nomadic Arab tribes have been crossing the border between Chad and Sudan for centuries, long before lines were drawn on a map. It is normal for tribes to follow the rains from west to east and back again, searching for fertile grazing land for their cattle. Straight lines carve out the northern borders of the five countries which spread across the Sahel, taking no notice of traditional tribal links and nomadic routes.
In Mauritania and Sudan, both countries long ruled by Arabs, black African tribes have suffered most. In Mali, Niger and Chad, the Arab and Tuareg nomads have been suppressed.
Towards the end of last year, Niger announced that it planned forcibly to remove more than 150,000 Arab nomads into Chad. Many of the Arabs, known as Mahamid, moved from Chad in the 1970s after a serious drought. Although the government later rescinded the order, it is thought that many decided to return to Chad voluntarily.
Apart from the 30,000 Arabs from Chad and Niger cited in the UNHCR report there have been consistent rumours that a further 45,000 Arabs from Niger have also crossed over. For most nomads citizenship means very little; the lines that separate the countries of the Sahel have not created a sense of nationality. But for the Khartoum regime it could be pivotal. Elections are to be held in two years, the first since President Omar al-Bashir seized power in a coup in 1989.
Although opinion polling is not very advanced, it is thought that no party is likely to win an overall majority. By providing citizenship for the new arrivals, one Khartoum-based diplomat said, President Bashir could be hoping to bolster his election chances.
For the Arabs who have crossed into Darfur there are both push and pull factors. Drought in parts of northern Africa has forced nomads to look further afield for fertile land. Although the spread of desert is rapidly reducing the amount of land available for farmers and nomads in Darfur, much of the area cleared by the janjaweed and government forces is fertile.
(The Independent)
By Steve Bloomfield
July 14, 2007 (LONDON) — Arabs from Chad and Niger are crossing into Darfur in "unprecedented" numbers, prompting claims that the Sudanese government is trying systematically to repopulate the war- ravaged region, The Independent reported.
Members of the Um Jalool, an Arab nomadic tribe alleged to be part of the Janjaweed militia, ride their camels 20 kilometers outside the village of Muhkjar in West Darfur, Oct 2004 (HRW)
An internal UN report, obtained by The Independent, shows that up to 30,000 Arabs have crossed the border in the past two months. Most arrived with all their belongings and large flocks. They were greeted by Sudanese Arabs who took them to empty villages cleared by government and janjaweed forces.
One UN official said the process "appeared to have been well planned". The official continued: "This movement is very large. We have not seen such numbers come into west Darfur before."
The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, sent a team to the border with Chad at the end of May to interview the new arrivals. Fighting in eastern Chad has been steadily increasing and it was thought that many could be refugees. But only a very small number have required support from UNHCR.
"Most have been relocated by Sudanese Arabs to former villages of IDPs (internally displaced people) and more or less invited to stay there," said the UN official.
The arrivals have been issued with official Sudanese identity cards and awarded citizenship, and analysts say that by encouraging Arabs from Chad, Niger and other parts of Sudan to move to Darfur the Sudanese government is making it "virtually impossible" for displaced people to return home.
James Smith, chief executive of the Aegis Trust, said the revelations proved that the Sudanese government was "cynically trying to change the demographics of the whole region", adding: "If the ethnic cleansing has been consolidated because the land has been repopulated it will become irreversible. The peace process will fall to pieces."
Repopulation has also been happening in south Darfur where Arabs from elsewhere in Sudan have been allowed to move into villages that were once home to local tribes. Aid agency workers said the Arabs were presented as "returning IDPs".
Before the conflict started in 2003, Darfur was home to seven million people, mainly from three African tribes, Fur, Marsalit and Zargahwa. Darfur literally translates as "Land of the Fur". But some 2.5 million have now been forced to flee their homes after attacks by Sudanese troops and planes, and Arab militia on horseback known as janjaweed.
Most are now in camps around Darfur’s main towns, relying on handouts from international aid agencies. About 250,000 have become refugees in Chad. A further 1.5 million have been affected by the conflict, meaning at least four million people are now reliant on the 80 or so international aid agencies in the region. More than 200,000 people are believed to have been killed so far during the four-and-a-half-year conflict.
And if Khartoum is moving Arabs from abroad to replace them, diplomats fear that Darfur rebels may try to remove them forcibly. "It could be quite explosive," said one western diplomat. "It is a very serious situation."
Nomadic Arab tribes have been crossing the border between Chad and Sudan for centuries, long before lines were drawn on a map. It is normal for tribes to follow the rains from west to east and back again, searching for fertile grazing land for their cattle. Straight lines carve out the northern borders of the five countries which spread across the Sahel, taking no notice of traditional tribal links and nomadic routes.
In Mauritania and Sudan, both countries long ruled by Arabs, black African tribes have suffered most. In Mali, Niger and Chad, the Arab and Tuareg nomads have been suppressed.
Towards the end of last year, Niger announced that it planned forcibly to remove more than 150,000 Arab nomads into Chad. Many of the Arabs, known as Mahamid, moved from Chad in the 1970s after a serious drought. Although the government later rescinded the order, it is thought that many decided to return to Chad voluntarily.
Apart from the 30,000 Arabs from Chad and Niger cited in the UNHCR report there have been consistent rumours that a further 45,000 Arabs from Niger have also crossed over. For most nomads citizenship means very little; the lines that separate the countries of the Sahel have not created a sense of nationality. But for the Khartoum regime it could be pivotal. Elections are to be held in two years, the first since President Omar al-Bashir seized power in a coup in 1989.
Although opinion polling is not very advanced, it is thought that no party is likely to win an overall majority. By providing citizenship for the new arrivals, one Khartoum-based diplomat said, President Bashir could be hoping to bolster his election chances.
For the Arabs who have crossed into Darfur there are both push and pull factors. Drought in parts of northern Africa has forced nomads to look further afield for fertile land. Although the spread of desert is rapidly reducing the amount of land available for farmers and nomads in Darfur, much of the area cleared by the janjaweed and government forces is fertile.
(The Independent)
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Spineless on Sudan
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: July 9, 2007
In May 2006, President Bush declared: “The vulnerable people of Darfur deserve more than sympathy. ... America will not turn away from this tragedy.”
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Nicholas D. Kristof.
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Since then, Mr. Bush has turned away — and 450,000 more people have been displaced in Darfur. “Things are getting worse,” noted Mudawi Ibrahim Adam, a human rights campaigner in Sudan.
One of the most troubling signs is that Sudan has been encouraging Arabs from Chad, Niger and other countries to settle in Darfur. More than 30,000 of them have moved into areas depopulated after African tribes were driven out.
In the last few months, Sudan’s government has given these new arrivals citizenship papers and weapons, cementing in place the demographic consequences of its genocide. And if Sudan thinks it has gotten away with mass murder in Darfur, it is more likely to resume its war against southern Sudan — which seems increasingly likely.
Within Darfur, aid groups have increasingly become targets, and in April alone three aid workers were shot and 20 were kidnapped, while hijackers tried to seize aid workers’ vehicles at a rate of almost one a day. As for African Union peacekeepers, seven of them were shot dead the same month — so they’re in no position to rescue aid workers.
The cancer has also been spreading into Chad and the Central African Republic, compounding each country’s intrinsic instability. Last month a 27-year-old French woman, Elsa Serfass, on her first assignment with Doctors Without Borders, was shot dead in C.A.R. as she drove through an area where militias had been burning villages. So Doctors Without Borders has had to suspend much of its work in the area.
Something similar is happening in eastern Chad. Mia Farrow, the actress — who has shown a toughness about genocide that no Western leader has — has just returned from her sixth visit to the region and says that eastern Chad now feels like Somalia.
“Pick-ups with machine guns bolted onto the rear and loaded with armed, uniformed men careen through the dusty streets terrorizing people,” she told me. “No one knows who they are.” While Ms. Farrow was visiting the town of Abéché, an elderly guard at a U.N. compound there was killed and two people were badly beaten.
Then there’s rape. Ever since Sudan began the genocide, it has been using rape to terrorize populations of Africans — and then periodically punishing women who seek treatment on charges of adultery or fornication.
So far this year, at least two young women have been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. As Refugees International puts it in a new report: “The government is more likely to take action against those who report and document rape than those who commit it.”
Much of the news on Darfur has been a bit optimistic lately, because it has focused on recent flurries of international diplomacy. While it’s true that China is belatedly putting some pressure on Sudan to admit international peacekeepers, at the same time China continues to supply Sudan with the guns used to slaughter Darfuri children. China also just signed a 20-year agreement to develop offshore oil for Sudan, and in April China pledged “to boost military exchanges and cooperation” with Sudan.
Let’s hope that athletes who go to Beijing for the Olympics next year will wear T-shirts honoring the victims of the genocide that China is underwriting.
In the burst of diplomatic activity, one person who stands out is Nicolas Sarkozy, the new president of France. Mr. Sarkozy is pushing to send a European Union force, including many French troops, to stabilize Chad and the Central African Republic. If they arrive by October, as planned, they just might pull those two countries back from the brink of collapse.
In contrast, Mr. Bush has been letting Darfur rhyme with Rwanda and Bosnia. For years, Mr. Bush’s aides have discussed whether he should give a prime-time speech on Darfur to ratchet up the pressure; he still hasn’t. Laura Bush just completed a four-nation swing through Africa, but she didn’t include a visit to any of the areas affected by the Darfur crisis.
Ultimately, the only way the genocide will end will be with a negotiated political settlement — but the only way to get that is to put much more pressure on Khartoum.
So how about if Mr. Bush invites Mr. Sarkozy — along with Gordon Brown, Hu Jintao and Hosni Mubarak — for a joint visit to Chad and C.A.R. to meet Darfuri refugees? Maybe Mr. Sarkozy could lend Mr. Bush and the others a little backbone.
Published: July 9, 2007
In May 2006, President Bush declared: “The vulnerable people of Darfur deserve more than sympathy. ... America will not turn away from this tragedy.”
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Nicholas D. Kristof.
On the Ground
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Nicholas Kristof addresses reader feedback and posts short takes from his travels.
Readers' Comments »
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Since then, Mr. Bush has turned away — and 450,000 more people have been displaced in Darfur. “Things are getting worse,” noted Mudawi Ibrahim Adam, a human rights campaigner in Sudan.
One of the most troubling signs is that Sudan has been encouraging Arabs from Chad, Niger and other countries to settle in Darfur. More than 30,000 of them have moved into areas depopulated after African tribes were driven out.
In the last few months, Sudan’s government has given these new arrivals citizenship papers and weapons, cementing in place the demographic consequences of its genocide. And if Sudan thinks it has gotten away with mass murder in Darfur, it is more likely to resume its war against southern Sudan — which seems increasingly likely.
Within Darfur, aid groups have increasingly become targets, and in April alone three aid workers were shot and 20 were kidnapped, while hijackers tried to seize aid workers’ vehicles at a rate of almost one a day. As for African Union peacekeepers, seven of them were shot dead the same month — so they’re in no position to rescue aid workers.
The cancer has also been spreading into Chad and the Central African Republic, compounding each country’s intrinsic instability. Last month a 27-year-old French woman, Elsa Serfass, on her first assignment with Doctors Without Borders, was shot dead in C.A.R. as she drove through an area where militias had been burning villages. So Doctors Without Borders has had to suspend much of its work in the area.
Something similar is happening in eastern Chad. Mia Farrow, the actress — who has shown a toughness about genocide that no Western leader has — has just returned from her sixth visit to the region and says that eastern Chad now feels like Somalia.
“Pick-ups with machine guns bolted onto the rear and loaded with armed, uniformed men careen through the dusty streets terrorizing people,” she told me. “No one knows who they are.” While Ms. Farrow was visiting the town of Abéché, an elderly guard at a U.N. compound there was killed and two people were badly beaten.
Then there’s rape. Ever since Sudan began the genocide, it has been using rape to terrorize populations of Africans — and then periodically punishing women who seek treatment on charges of adultery or fornication.
So far this year, at least two young women have been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. As Refugees International puts it in a new report: “The government is more likely to take action against those who report and document rape than those who commit it.”
Much of the news on Darfur has been a bit optimistic lately, because it has focused on recent flurries of international diplomacy. While it’s true that China is belatedly putting some pressure on Sudan to admit international peacekeepers, at the same time China continues to supply Sudan with the guns used to slaughter Darfuri children. China also just signed a 20-year agreement to develop offshore oil for Sudan, and in April China pledged “to boost military exchanges and cooperation” with Sudan.
Let’s hope that athletes who go to Beijing for the Olympics next year will wear T-shirts honoring the victims of the genocide that China is underwriting.
In the burst of diplomatic activity, one person who stands out is Nicolas Sarkozy, the new president of France. Mr. Sarkozy is pushing to send a European Union force, including many French troops, to stabilize Chad and the Central African Republic. If they arrive by October, as planned, they just might pull those two countries back from the brink of collapse.
In contrast, Mr. Bush has been letting Darfur rhyme with Rwanda and Bosnia. For years, Mr. Bush’s aides have discussed whether he should give a prime-time speech on Darfur to ratchet up the pressure; he still hasn’t. Laura Bush just completed a four-nation swing through Africa, but she didn’t include a visit to any of the areas affected by the Darfur crisis.
Ultimately, the only way the genocide will end will be with a negotiated political settlement — but the only way to get that is to put much more pressure on Khartoum.
So how about if Mr. Bush invites Mr. Sarkozy — along with Gordon Brown, Hu Jintao and Hosni Mubarak — for a joint visit to Chad and C.A.R. to meet Darfuri refugees? Maybe Mr. Sarkozy could lend Mr. Bush and the others a little backbone.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
United Front for Liberation & Development (UFLD)
United Front for Liberation & Development (UFLD)
In response to a kind invitation from the State of Eritrea, partner with the Republic of Chad and the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya in the regional initiative for peace in Darfur; the representatives of resistance movements met in Asmara from May 27th to July 14th, 2007 to reach a unified position at this critical stage of their struggle. The following movements participated in the deliberations:
1- SLA/M – (Khames Abdalla Command). 2- SLM/A – Unity Command. 3- Revolutionary Democratic Front Forces. (RDFF). 4- National Movement for Reform & Development (NMRD). 5- Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance (SFDA).
Following extensive and continuous discussions, the movements agreed on the following steps:-
1. Establishing a united front to deal with the crisis in Darfur and the Sudan; and appeal to all other movements to contribute to unity efforts.
2. Setting-up a unified internal structure for the front with a Leadership Council (LC), specialized departments and Consultative Council to lead negotiations efforts, political and military struggles.
3. Creating a Joint Military Command.
4. Chairmanship of the LC is rotational between Heads of Movements (each for six months duration).
5. The LC will appoint a negotiating team that will be issued a common position.
6. The LC is the highest authority of the ULFD and its decisions are taken collectively.
For the purposes of rendering this agreement operational, the LC decided to assign Cdr Khames Abdalla Abakr to Chair the first round of six month rotation. Moreover the LC has established five specialized departments to shoulder executive responsibilities.
ULFD would to express its gratitude to President Isaias Afwerki and the State of Eritrea together with Libya and Chad, the core group of the regional initiative and under whose auspices our meetings took place. Our deep appreciation is extended to the SPLM/A & GOSS for their continued engagement and kind invitation. Particular recognition is due to the internal community represented by the UN, the EU and the AU for their concern and support.
Asmara, July 14th 2007.
In response to a kind invitation from the State of Eritrea, partner with the Republic of Chad and the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya in the regional initiative for peace in Darfur; the representatives of resistance movements met in Asmara from May 27th to July 14th, 2007 to reach a unified position at this critical stage of their struggle. The following movements participated in the deliberations:
1- SLA/M – (Khames Abdalla Command). 2- SLM/A – Unity Command. 3- Revolutionary Democratic Front Forces. (RDFF). 4- National Movement for Reform & Development (NMRD). 5- Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance (SFDA).
Following extensive and continuous discussions, the movements agreed on the following steps:-
1. Establishing a united front to deal with the crisis in Darfur and the Sudan; and appeal to all other movements to contribute to unity efforts.
2. Setting-up a unified internal structure for the front with a Leadership Council (LC), specialized departments and Consultative Council to lead negotiations efforts, political and military struggles.
3. Creating a Joint Military Command.
4. Chairmanship of the LC is rotational between Heads of Movements (each for six months duration).
5. The LC will appoint a negotiating team that will be issued a common position.
6. The LC is the highest authority of the ULFD and its decisions are taken collectively.
For the purposes of rendering this agreement operational, the LC decided to assign Cdr Khames Abdalla Abakr to Chair the first round of six month rotation. Moreover the LC has established five specialized departments to shoulder executive responsibilities.
ULFD would to express its gratitude to President Isaias Afwerki and the State of Eritrea together with Libya and Chad, the core group of the regional initiative and under whose auspices our meetings took place. Our deep appreciation is extended to the SPLM/A & GOSS for their continued engagement and kind invitation. Particular recognition is due to the internal community represented by the UN, the EU and the AU for their concern and support.
Asmara, July 14th 2007.
Five Darfur rebel groups agree to unite
Sat Jul 14, 2007 2:07PM EDT
By Jack Kimball
ASMARA (Reuters) - Five Darfur rebel groups agreed on Saturday to unite ahead of possible peace talks to end a four-year conflict in the region which so far has defied resolution, in part because of fractious rebel groups.
In a statement to reporters, the new group, the United Front for Liberation and Development (UFLD), called on other rebels in Sudan's western region to join them.
"This announcement of the formation of the UFLD is preparation for that eventuality (the peace talks) once it takes place," said Sherif Herir, a top leader in one of two Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) factions that signed the agreement in Asmara.
"The door is open for any movements to join," he added.
The Darfur rebels fractured into more than a dozen armed groups after an unpopular peace deal last year with Khartoum that only one faction signed.
International experts estimate that some 200,000 people have died in Darfur in what the United States has termed genocide.
The violence flared after mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in 2003 accusing Sudan's central government of neglecting the remote, arid western region. Khartoum mobilized brutal militias, called Janjaweed, to quell the revolt. Khartoum denies supporting the Janjaweed puts the death toll at 9,000.
The new rebel group includes two SLA factions, the Revolutionary Democratic Front Forces, the National Movement for Reform and Development and Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance.
The announcement came one day after the rebels met the U.N. envoy for Sudan, Jan Eliasson, ahead of a meeting in Libya this weekend aimed at advancing peace talks among Darfur's rebel groups.
U.N. and African Union envoys have also set a self-imposed August deadline to launch peace negotiations.
Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki announced on Saturday that Asmara would attend the meeting in the Libyan capital -- scheduled for July 15-16, which would include regional and international envoys discussing the shape of new peace talks.
In talks with Eliasson, Eritrea's leader said more must be done to resolve the conflict in Darfur.
"The president called for stepped-up endeavors so that the Tripoli meeting may reach a joint consensus for the coming forum regarding endeavors to resolve the Darfur issue," said a statement in an Eritrean government newspaper.
Under sustained international pressure, Sudan agreed last month to a combined U.N.-AU peacekeeping force of more than 20,000 troops and police to bolster the cash-strapped AU force of 7,000 already operating in Darfur. The AU troops have failed to stem the violence.
By Jack Kimball
ASMARA (Reuters) - Five Darfur rebel groups agreed on Saturday to unite ahead of possible peace talks to end a four-year conflict in the region which so far has defied resolution, in part because of fractious rebel groups.
In a statement to reporters, the new group, the United Front for Liberation and Development (UFLD), called on other rebels in Sudan's western region to join them.
"This announcement of the formation of the UFLD is preparation for that eventuality (the peace talks) once it takes place," said Sherif Herir, a top leader in one of two Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) factions that signed the agreement in Asmara.
"The door is open for any movements to join," he added.
The Darfur rebels fractured into more than a dozen armed groups after an unpopular peace deal last year with Khartoum that only one faction signed.
International experts estimate that some 200,000 people have died in Darfur in what the United States has termed genocide.
The violence flared after mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in 2003 accusing Sudan's central government of neglecting the remote, arid western region. Khartoum mobilized brutal militias, called Janjaweed, to quell the revolt. Khartoum denies supporting the Janjaweed puts the death toll at 9,000.
The new rebel group includes two SLA factions, the Revolutionary Democratic Front Forces, the National Movement for Reform and Development and Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance.
The announcement came one day after the rebels met the U.N. envoy for Sudan, Jan Eliasson, ahead of a meeting in Libya this weekend aimed at advancing peace talks among Darfur's rebel groups.
U.N. and African Union envoys have also set a self-imposed August deadline to launch peace negotiations.
Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki announced on Saturday that Asmara would attend the meeting in the Libyan capital -- scheduled for July 15-16, which would include regional and international envoys discussing the shape of new peace talks.
In talks with Eliasson, Eritrea's leader said more must be done to resolve the conflict in Darfur.
"The president called for stepped-up endeavors so that the Tripoli meeting may reach a joint consensus for the coming forum regarding endeavors to resolve the Darfur issue," said a statement in an Eritrean government newspaper.
Under sustained international pressure, Sudan agreed last month to a combined U.N.-AU peacekeeping force of more than 20,000 troops and police to bolster the cash-strapped AU force of 7,000 already operating in Darfur. The AU troops have failed to stem the violence.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Sudan 'resumes bombing in Darfur'
Sudan's government has resumed bombing in the country's troubled western region of Darfur, says US special envoy to Sudan Andrew Natsios.
Mr Natsios urged Sudan to stop its campaign and respect a 2004 ceasefire.
He said the bombing was focused on the Jebel Marra region, a stronghold of one of the rebel faction leaders, Abdul Wahid Mohammed Nour.
Some 200,000 people have died in Darfur in the past four years, while 2m have fled their homes, the UN says.
The BBC's Amber Henshaw in Khartoum says no-one was available from the Sudanese government to comment on Mr Natsios' claims.
'Warlordism'
"After a halt in the bombing between the beginning of February and the end of April in 2007, the Sudanese government has resumed bombing in Darfur," Mr Natsios said.
He also accused rebel groups of descending into "criminality and warlordism".
"Some rebel leaders are cynically obstructing the peace process and the United States government is very disturbed by this. It needs to end now," he said.
The US special envoy's comments come as Britain, France and Ghana circulate a draft resolution to the UN security Council for a joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping operation for Darfur.
The Sudanese government finally agreed to allow a 20,000-strong hybrid force into the region after months of pressure from the international community.
There are also moves to get the government and the rebels back to peace talks in the next few months.
Government officials say they are more than ready for talks.
A widely unpopular peace deal was signed last year by one of the three negotiating factions but the groups have now splintered and many are calling for fresh negotiations.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/6898158.stm
Published: 2007/07/13 17:24:18 GMT
Mr Natsios urged Sudan to stop its campaign and respect a 2004 ceasefire.
He said the bombing was focused on the Jebel Marra region, a stronghold of one of the rebel faction leaders, Abdul Wahid Mohammed Nour.
Some 200,000 people have died in Darfur in the past four years, while 2m have fled their homes, the UN says.
The BBC's Amber Henshaw in Khartoum says no-one was available from the Sudanese government to comment on Mr Natsios' claims.
'Warlordism'
"After a halt in the bombing between the beginning of February and the end of April in 2007, the Sudanese government has resumed bombing in Darfur," Mr Natsios said.
He also accused rebel groups of descending into "criminality and warlordism".
"Some rebel leaders are cynically obstructing the peace process and the United States government is very disturbed by this. It needs to end now," he said.
The US special envoy's comments come as Britain, France and Ghana circulate a draft resolution to the UN security Council for a joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping operation for Darfur.
The Sudanese government finally agreed to allow a 20,000-strong hybrid force into the region after months of pressure from the international community.
There are also moves to get the government and the rebels back to peace talks in the next few months.
Government officials say they are more than ready for talks.
A widely unpopular peace deal was signed last year by one of the three negotiating factions but the groups have now splintered and many are calling for fresh negotiations.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/6898158.stm
Published: 2007/07/13 17:24:18 GMT
Friday, June 29, 2007
EU says runs out of cash for Darfur peacekeepers
By Brian Rohan
Fri Jun 29, 1:37 PM ET
European Union funding for an African peacekeeping force in Darfur has run out, and the United States and Arab League should help cover the costs until a replacement force arrives, the EU's aid chief said on Friday.
"At the Commission level we are dry and we cannot find any more additional resources," European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid Louis Michel told a news conference.
The Commission and EU states have given over 400 million euros ($537.8 million) to the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) since it was deployed to Sudan's violent western Darfur region in 2004 to try to ease the humanitarian crisis there.
The United Nations has proposed working with the African Union to send a better-equipped force to the area, but Michel said AMIS still needed cash before the new operation started.
"Other donors besides the Commission must find the resources to make the transition from the AMIS force to the African Union/United Nations hybrid force," Michel said.
"I would like to call on the United States and the Arab League to contribute to financing this transition," he said.
Diplomats say a resolution to send the new international force could come to a vote at the U.N. Security Council next week, but that peacekeepers could take six months to deploy.
Some 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes in the conflict, which began in 2003 when non-Arab rebels took up arms, accusing the government of ignoring their plight in the remote, arid region. Sudan mobilized Arab militias to quell the revolt.
Some militia members, known locally as Janjaweed, embarked on a campaign of killing, pillage and rape that the United States has said amounts to genocide. Sudan denies it supported the Janjaweed, and calls them outlaws.
Michel attended an international meeting on Darfur in Paris on Monday and said he had also discussed funding for the current AMIS mission with President Nicolas Sarkozy this week.
Copyright © 2007 Reuters
Fri Jun 29, 1:37 PM ET
European Union funding for an African peacekeeping force in Darfur has run out, and the United States and Arab League should help cover the costs until a replacement force arrives, the EU's aid chief said on Friday.
"At the Commission level we are dry and we cannot find any more additional resources," European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid Louis Michel told a news conference.
The Commission and EU states have given over 400 million euros ($537.8 million) to the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) since it was deployed to Sudan's violent western Darfur region in 2004 to try to ease the humanitarian crisis there.
The United Nations has proposed working with the African Union to send a better-equipped force to the area, but Michel said AMIS still needed cash before the new operation started.
"Other donors besides the Commission must find the resources to make the transition from the AMIS force to the African Union/United Nations hybrid force," Michel said.
"I would like to call on the United States and the Arab League to contribute to financing this transition," he said.
Diplomats say a resolution to send the new international force could come to a vote at the U.N. Security Council next week, but that peacekeepers could take six months to deploy.
Some 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes in the conflict, which began in 2003 when non-Arab rebels took up arms, accusing the government of ignoring their plight in the remote, arid region. Sudan mobilized Arab militias to quell the revolt.
Some militia members, known locally as Janjaweed, embarked on a campaign of killing, pillage and rape that the United States has said amounts to genocide. Sudan denies it supported the Janjaweed, and calls them outlaws.
Michel attended an international meeting on Darfur in Paris on Monday and said he had also discussed funding for the current AMIS mission with President Nicolas Sarkozy this week.
Copyright © 2007 Reuters
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
The Justice and Equality Movement's self-described "road map for peace in Darfur" demonstrates at once the potential for great progress and great failures. JEM's recognition of the need to 'transcend' the DPA is crucially important. The JEM also points out the "necessity of reaching an agreement that deals with the root-causes of the problem and fully addresses the issue of power and wealth sharing," and that is essential to a successful peace agreement. The acknowledgement of the need for "wide consultations" with all the people of Darfur is extremely significant, but it is not enough.
"Wide consultation" regarding what Darfur's people need is just the beginning: what is also required is (as the International Crisis Group's report on "Revitalising the [Darfur] Peace Process" of April 2007 states) a "reference group of constituencies not part of past negotiations, including representatives of Arab tribes, IDPs [internally displaced persons], women's groups, and civil society," and constant, open contact with these groups must be maintained in order to come to any sort of agreement which would last successfully.
Further, although the JEM and SLM are internationally recognized, the two groups cannot be the only representatives of the people of Darfur. Indeed, the SLM cannot even be said to represent one group, as it has become so splintered since the signing of the DPA in May 2006. Again from the ICG report, "Greater inclusivity [of all Darfur's people]would translate into more buy-in and easier implementation". One negotiating position does not necessarily need to be achieved before serious talks begin, although it is necessary "at least to consolidate into recognizable blocs, with coherent leadership and political positions". In order for this sort of political and social cohesion to be possible, field commanders of different groups must unite and allow such cohesion to occur (ICG).
None of these things are possible if the JEM feels that it is "forced to resume negotiations on unilateral bases" (JEM). Certainly, it would be good if the SLM would "unify itself", but in the event that this does not occur in 45 days, the JEM must not try to negotiate unilaterally. The DPA has failed because it was not representative of the entire people of Darfur: any unilateral agreement would be doomed to similar, catastrophic failure. Not only would a unilateral agreement fail to protect Darfur, but it would give the international community at large yet another excuse to claim that the dire situation of Darfur is improving, when in fact the lives of thousands upon thousands are at excruciatingly high risk of being lost foerever.
http://www.sudanjem.com/en/index.php
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=4769
"Wide consultation" regarding what Darfur's people need is just the beginning: what is also required is (as the International Crisis Group's report on "Revitalising the [Darfur] Peace Process" of April 2007 states) a "reference group of constituencies not part of past negotiations, including representatives of Arab tribes, IDPs [internally displaced persons], women's groups, and civil society," and constant, open contact with these groups must be maintained in order to come to any sort of agreement which would last successfully.
Further, although the JEM and SLM are internationally recognized, the two groups cannot be the only representatives of the people of Darfur. Indeed, the SLM cannot even be said to represent one group, as it has become so splintered since the signing of the DPA in May 2006. Again from the ICG report, "Greater inclusivity [of all Darfur's people]would translate into more buy-in and easier implementation". One negotiating position does not necessarily need to be achieved before serious talks begin, although it is necessary "at least to consolidate into recognizable blocs, with coherent leadership and political positions". In order for this sort of political and social cohesion to be possible, field commanders of different groups must unite and allow such cohesion to occur (ICG).
None of these things are possible if the JEM feels that it is "forced to resume negotiations on unilateral bases" (JEM). Certainly, it would be good if the SLM would "unify itself", but in the event that this does not occur in 45 days, the JEM must not try to negotiate unilaterally. The DPA has failed because it was not representative of the entire people of Darfur: any unilateral agreement would be doomed to similar, catastrophic failure. Not only would a unilateral agreement fail to protect Darfur, but it would give the international community at large yet another excuse to claim that the dire situation of Darfur is improving, when in fact the lives of thousands upon thousands are at excruciatingly high risk of being lost foerever.
http://www.sudanjem.com/en/index.php
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=4769
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Oxfam withdraws from Darfur's largest camp
Sat Jun 16, 2007 10:20AM EDT
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - British aid agency Oxfam said on Saturday it was withdrawing permanently from Gereida in Sudan's Darfur region, home to the largest population of Darfuris driven from their homes over four years of conflict.
In a coordinated attack on three aid agency bases in Gereida in December, an aid worker was raped, an Oxfam staff member badly beaten and others subjected to mock executions.
Since then most operations have remained suspended in the area controlled by the former rebel faction of Minni Arcua Minnawi, the only leader to sign a May 2006 peace deal with the Khartoum government.
"Despite our repeated requests, none of the perpetrators have been held to account, none of the assets stolen in the attack have been returned, and we have not received credible assurances that similar attacks would not take place if we did return," said Caroline Nursey, Oxfam's Sudan programme manager.
Oxfam provided water and sanitation, healthcare and livelihood education to 130,000 Darfuris encamped around Gereida town. The International Committee for the Red Cross will take over the provision of water.
"As usual in Darfur, the people who will suffer most are the civilians who have already been attacked, forced from their homes and had their lives thrown into turmoil. For the last six months they have not had the level of assistance that they need," said Nursey.
The conflict has driven some 2.5 million from their homes.
Sudan last week agreed to allow a joint U.N.-African Union force of at least 20,000 police and troops, mostly African, deploy to the region. But questions over who will command and control the mission remain.
Ambassadors of the Security Council will arrive in Khartoum on Sunday and meet President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.
"The UN Security Council's urgent priority has to be to get all of the different armed groups to stop targeting civilians and aid workers and adhere to a ceasefire with immediate effect," Oxfam said in a separate statement on Saturday.
Diplomats say the ambassadors are likely to press Bashir to accept overall U.N. command and control of the force before they pass any resolution to fund the mission.
Security Council members have discussed the imposition of a no-fly zone and sanctions on Sudan.
Aid agencies have expressed concern that a no-fly zone could endanger their staff who fly around Darfur, the size of France, because many roads are too dangerous.
Mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing central government of marginalizing the remote west. Khartoum mobilized militias to quell the revolt. Those militias stand accused of a campaign of rape, killing and looting.
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - British aid agency Oxfam said on Saturday it was withdrawing permanently from Gereida in Sudan's Darfur region, home to the largest population of Darfuris driven from their homes over four years of conflict.
In a coordinated attack on three aid agency bases in Gereida in December, an aid worker was raped, an Oxfam staff member badly beaten and others subjected to mock executions.
Since then most operations have remained suspended in the area controlled by the former rebel faction of Minni Arcua Minnawi, the only leader to sign a May 2006 peace deal with the Khartoum government.
"Despite our repeated requests, none of the perpetrators have been held to account, none of the assets stolen in the attack have been returned, and we have not received credible assurances that similar attacks would not take place if we did return," said Caroline Nursey, Oxfam's Sudan programme manager.
Oxfam provided water and sanitation, healthcare and livelihood education to 130,000 Darfuris encamped around Gereida town. The International Committee for the Red Cross will take over the provision of water.
"As usual in Darfur, the people who will suffer most are the civilians who have already been attacked, forced from their homes and had their lives thrown into turmoil. For the last six months they have not had the level of assistance that they need," said Nursey.
The conflict has driven some 2.5 million from their homes.
Sudan last week agreed to allow a joint U.N.-African Union force of at least 20,000 police and troops, mostly African, deploy to the region. But questions over who will command and control the mission remain.
Ambassadors of the Security Council will arrive in Khartoum on Sunday and meet President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.
"The UN Security Council's urgent priority has to be to get all of the different armed groups to stop targeting civilians and aid workers and adhere to a ceasefire with immediate effect," Oxfam said in a separate statement on Saturday.
Diplomats say the ambassadors are likely to press Bashir to accept overall U.N. command and control of the force before they pass any resolution to fund the mission.
Security Council members have discussed the imposition of a no-fly zone and sanctions on Sudan.
Aid agencies have expressed concern that a no-fly zone could endanger their staff who fly around Darfur, the size of France, because many roads are too dangerous.
Mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing central government of marginalizing the remote west. Khartoum mobilized militias to quell the revolt. Those militias stand accused of a campaign of rape, killing and looting.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Injustices fuel Chechnya's fires
By Patrick Jackson
BBC News
Russia has recorded no attacks resulting in massive loss of civilian life in the year since pro-Chechen militants seized the school in Beslan.
But in Chechnya itself, civilians continue to suffer as the separatist war grinds on - much of it unpublicised because of Russian media restrictions.
Hardly a night passes without a rebel ambush or a raid by security forces, the latter sometimes only reported by human rights groups.
Chechen refugees may no longer spend the freezing winters in tents. But many remain scattered outside their homeland, dispossessed and often living in atrocious conditions, on former dairy farms, in factories and train carriages.
"There hasn't been a war in Chechnya for three years - the war is over," Russian President Vladimir Putin told foreign reporters late last year.
Yet the violence that has engulfed Chechnya and spread beyond has not receded, and Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who claimed the Beslan attack, does not rule out further mass hostage-takings.
As Beslan remembers its lost children, bitterness on both sides continues to drive a particularly brutal conflict.
Lonely fight
If the war is over for Vladimir Putin, it has only gone into its sixth year for the new appointed leader of the Chechen rebels, Abdul-Khalim Saydullayev.
In a speech released online last month, he said no political step taken in the West regarding Chechnya was comparable in significance to a single attack on Russian soldiers by Chechen fighters.
The wagons stopped and the soldiers came round and asked: 'Are there any dead in there?'
Zulpa
Deportation survivor
"If anybody really thinks the fate of the Chechen people is decided in Strasbourg, Washington or Moscow, they are deeply mistaken," he added.
Mr Saydullayev's speech suggests the rebels now despair of any meaningful outside intervention in Chechnya.
They argue that events like Beslan must be viewed alongside their own civilian losses and accuse Russia of pursuing "genocide".
That term has particularly painful associations after Stalin's mass deportation of Chechens and their Ingush neighbours in 1944 on suspicion of Nazi sympathies.
Tens of thousands of Chechens are thought to have perished before survivors were allowed to return from Central Asia in 1957. The event was a key Chechen argument for declaring independence in 1991, while other regions like Ingushetia and North Ossetia, where Beslan is located, were choosing to remain as autonomous republics.
Russia's indiscriminate bombing and shelling of Chechen towns and villages, particularly during the 1994-96 war, and "dirty war" tactics such as kidnappings, are widely believed to have radicalised Chechens further.
"It is undeniable that 'disappearances', killings, torture and ill-treatment continue to be a frequent occurrence, with abuses attributed to both federal and the various Chechen security forces, as well as Chechen armed opposition groups," Amnesty International's Victoria Webb told the BBC News website.
Adding fuel to the fire, many rebels view the conflict as a religious struggle, regarding themselves as Muslims pitted against a "godless" secular state.
Search for leadership
The death of Aslan Maskhadov in a Russian attack in March meant the loss of a veteran Chechen leader who had negotiated a peace deal before Vladimir Putin came to power.
He denounced the Beslan attackers as "madmen," while arguing that brutality by Russian troops may have driven them out of their senses.
Diederik Lohman of Human Rights Watch (HRW) says the rebels have long appeared to lack strong, central control.
"My sense has always been that it is a lot of loosely affiliated little groups that have more or less the same ideas about what they want to achieve, and use the same methods, but it is not necessarily coordinated," he told the BBC News website.
In his book Inside Putin's Russia, Andrew Jack contrasts Chechen fortunes to those of the neighbouring Ingush, whose success in peacefully forging a republic of their own within Russia he attributes largely to good political leadership at the right time.
Though ever a critic of Moscow's use of force, Ruslan Aushev earned broad respect as Ingush president.
At Beslan, he helped negotiate the release of 26 people, including babies, when he went into the school during the siege.
Minutes before the explosions began on the last day, he was still talking to the hostage-takers by telephone.
Impunity
An avowed aim of the Kremlin in the North Caucasus - "freedom and justice" - rings hollow for many.
COST OF CHECHEN CONFLICT
At least 40,000 civilians killed in 1994-96 war
At least 10,000 civilians killed since 1999
No clear figures for Russian losses but military deaths thought to at least equal USSR's Afghan toll of 15,000
Data on civilians supplied by Human Rights Watch
Chechnya has become synonymous with a sense of impunity, as Beslan mothers demand prosecutions over the authorities' handling of the school siege, Chechens point to the small number of Russian soldiers prosecuted for human rights abuses and Russians demand justice for Russian civilians targeted under Chechen rebel rule.
At least 400 Beslan residents signed an open letter to the world on the anniversary of the siege declaring: "We do not want to live any longer in a country where human life means nothing."
Amnesty's Victoria Webb says the situation in Chechnya may be "one of the effects of a government policy that only pays lip service to human rights principles".
Russian security forces sent to Chechnya are influenced by two stereotypes: Chechens as criminals and Chechens as terrorists.
Chechens have been seen as playing a disproportionate part in organised crime in Russia's cities, while attacks on airliners and other civilian targets made for a summer of fear in Moscow before Beslan.
Next morning it snowed/After all the firing/The snow killed me/Put out a short life
Yuri Shevchuk
lyric from Dead City
Russians who speak of "genocide" in Chechnya usually mean something very different: the fate of the estimated 270,000 Russians and other non-indigenous residents who made up nearly a quarter of Chechnya's population when the USSR broke up.
Largely abandoned by the Russian state, they quickly became scapegoats when the rebels declared independence.
Attempts to properly document the extent of the violence they suffered have run up against a wall of silence in Moscow.
In Chechnya, a few years after the second war began, there were practically no non-indigenous residents left, according to the Russian human rights group Memorial.
Now scattered across Russia, embittered Russian refugees pass on a message of unavenged wrongs.
Incalculable cost
"Next morning it snowed/After all the firing/The snow killed me/Put out a short life."
Dead City, Russian rock singer Yuri Shevchuk's requiem for Grozny, captures some of the horror of a war in which innocence may look out of place.
According to an HRW estimate, gleaned through field work among Chechen refugees in the absence of reliable figures from Moscow, a total of about 50,000 civilians died in the two wars, about a tenth of them children.
Beslan horrified Chechens too, Diederik Lohman points out, but the question many also ask is: "Where was the world when our children were dying under Russian bombs?"
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/4199146.stm
Published: 2005/09/01 17:31:11 GMT
BBC News
Russia has recorded no attacks resulting in massive loss of civilian life in the year since pro-Chechen militants seized the school in Beslan.
But in Chechnya itself, civilians continue to suffer as the separatist war grinds on - much of it unpublicised because of Russian media restrictions.
Hardly a night passes without a rebel ambush or a raid by security forces, the latter sometimes only reported by human rights groups.
Chechen refugees may no longer spend the freezing winters in tents. But many remain scattered outside their homeland, dispossessed and often living in atrocious conditions, on former dairy farms, in factories and train carriages.
"There hasn't been a war in Chechnya for three years - the war is over," Russian President Vladimir Putin told foreign reporters late last year.
Yet the violence that has engulfed Chechnya and spread beyond has not receded, and Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who claimed the Beslan attack, does not rule out further mass hostage-takings.
As Beslan remembers its lost children, bitterness on both sides continues to drive a particularly brutal conflict.
Lonely fight
If the war is over for Vladimir Putin, it has only gone into its sixth year for the new appointed leader of the Chechen rebels, Abdul-Khalim Saydullayev.
In a speech released online last month, he said no political step taken in the West regarding Chechnya was comparable in significance to a single attack on Russian soldiers by Chechen fighters.
The wagons stopped and the soldiers came round and asked: 'Are there any dead in there?'
Zulpa
Deportation survivor
"If anybody really thinks the fate of the Chechen people is decided in Strasbourg, Washington or Moscow, they are deeply mistaken," he added.
Mr Saydullayev's speech suggests the rebels now despair of any meaningful outside intervention in Chechnya.
They argue that events like Beslan must be viewed alongside their own civilian losses and accuse Russia of pursuing "genocide".
That term has particularly painful associations after Stalin's mass deportation of Chechens and their Ingush neighbours in 1944 on suspicion of Nazi sympathies.
Tens of thousands of Chechens are thought to have perished before survivors were allowed to return from Central Asia in 1957. The event was a key Chechen argument for declaring independence in 1991, while other regions like Ingushetia and North Ossetia, where Beslan is located, were choosing to remain as autonomous republics.
Russia's indiscriminate bombing and shelling of Chechen towns and villages, particularly during the 1994-96 war, and "dirty war" tactics such as kidnappings, are widely believed to have radicalised Chechens further.
"It is undeniable that 'disappearances', killings, torture and ill-treatment continue to be a frequent occurrence, with abuses attributed to both federal and the various Chechen security forces, as well as Chechen armed opposition groups," Amnesty International's Victoria Webb told the BBC News website.
Adding fuel to the fire, many rebels view the conflict as a religious struggle, regarding themselves as Muslims pitted against a "godless" secular state.
Search for leadership
The death of Aslan Maskhadov in a Russian attack in March meant the loss of a veteran Chechen leader who had negotiated a peace deal before Vladimir Putin came to power.
He denounced the Beslan attackers as "madmen," while arguing that brutality by Russian troops may have driven them out of their senses.
Diederik Lohman of Human Rights Watch (HRW) says the rebels have long appeared to lack strong, central control.
"My sense has always been that it is a lot of loosely affiliated little groups that have more or less the same ideas about what they want to achieve, and use the same methods, but it is not necessarily coordinated," he told the BBC News website.
In his book Inside Putin's Russia, Andrew Jack contrasts Chechen fortunes to those of the neighbouring Ingush, whose success in peacefully forging a republic of their own within Russia he attributes largely to good political leadership at the right time.
Though ever a critic of Moscow's use of force, Ruslan Aushev earned broad respect as Ingush president.
At Beslan, he helped negotiate the release of 26 people, including babies, when he went into the school during the siege.
Minutes before the explosions began on the last day, he was still talking to the hostage-takers by telephone.
Impunity
An avowed aim of the Kremlin in the North Caucasus - "freedom and justice" - rings hollow for many.
COST OF CHECHEN CONFLICT
At least 40,000 civilians killed in 1994-96 war
At least 10,000 civilians killed since 1999
No clear figures for Russian losses but military deaths thought to at least equal USSR's Afghan toll of 15,000
Data on civilians supplied by Human Rights Watch
Chechnya has become synonymous with a sense of impunity, as Beslan mothers demand prosecutions over the authorities' handling of the school siege, Chechens point to the small number of Russian soldiers prosecuted for human rights abuses and Russians demand justice for Russian civilians targeted under Chechen rebel rule.
At least 400 Beslan residents signed an open letter to the world on the anniversary of the siege declaring: "We do not want to live any longer in a country where human life means nothing."
Amnesty's Victoria Webb says the situation in Chechnya may be "one of the effects of a government policy that only pays lip service to human rights principles".
Russian security forces sent to Chechnya are influenced by two stereotypes: Chechens as criminals and Chechens as terrorists.
Chechens have been seen as playing a disproportionate part in organised crime in Russia's cities, while attacks on airliners and other civilian targets made for a summer of fear in Moscow before Beslan.
Next morning it snowed/After all the firing/The snow killed me/Put out a short life
Yuri Shevchuk
lyric from Dead City
Russians who speak of "genocide" in Chechnya usually mean something very different: the fate of the estimated 270,000 Russians and other non-indigenous residents who made up nearly a quarter of Chechnya's population when the USSR broke up.
Largely abandoned by the Russian state, they quickly became scapegoats when the rebels declared independence.
Attempts to properly document the extent of the violence they suffered have run up against a wall of silence in Moscow.
In Chechnya, a few years after the second war began, there were practically no non-indigenous residents left, according to the Russian human rights group Memorial.
Now scattered across Russia, embittered Russian refugees pass on a message of unavenged wrongs.
Incalculable cost
"Next morning it snowed/After all the firing/The snow killed me/Put out a short life."
Dead City, Russian rock singer Yuri Shevchuk's requiem for Grozny, captures some of the horror of a war in which innocence may look out of place.
According to an HRW estimate, gleaned through field work among Chechen refugees in the absence of reliable figures from Moscow, a total of about 50,000 civilians died in the two wars, about a tenth of them children.
Beslan horrified Chechens too, Diederik Lohman points out, but the question many also ask is: "Where was the world when our children were dying under Russian bombs?"
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/4199146.stm
Published: 2005/09/01 17:31:11 GMT
Zimbabwe 'collapse in six months'
Zimbabwe will collapse within six months, possibly leading to a state of emergency, according to a briefing report for aid workers in the country.
Rampant inflation will mean shops and services can no longer function and people would resort to barter, it said.
"The memorandum is talking about a situation where there is no functioning government or a total breakdown," an unnamed aid worker told the UK Times.
Zimbabwe's inflation is already 3,714% - the highest rate in the world.
Business quotes were now valid for just one day or even one hour, said the report written by consultants and sent to workers at the United Nations and other aid agencies.
Some firms were already partly paying their workers in food, rather than money, it said.
ZIMBABWE CRISIS
Inflation: 3,714%
Unemployment: 80%
4m need food aid
Life expectancy: 37 (men), 34 (women)
Shops were doubling their prices twice a month, so they could purchase replacement goods.
If this continues, "doubling the current inflation for each of the seven remaining months of 2007 gives 512,000% thus the economic collapse is expected before the end of 2007," said the report, according to the AP news agency.
The security forces who have remained loyal to President Robert Mugabe were also feeling the effects.
The report said an ordinary police officer earned less than aid workers paid their domestic staff.
It said power and water suppliers were already near collapse. Electricity was last month rationed to just four hours a day to save power for farmers.
Just one adult in five is believed to have a regular job.
Some 4m Zimbabweans - a third of the population - will need food aid this year, according to the UN World Food Programme.
Mr Mugabe denies responsibility for Zimbabwe's economic problems, blaming a western plot to bring down his government because of his policy of seizing white-owned land.
(BBC)
Rampant inflation will mean shops and services can no longer function and people would resort to barter, it said.
"The memorandum is talking about a situation where there is no functioning government or a total breakdown," an unnamed aid worker told the UK Times.
Zimbabwe's inflation is already 3,714% - the highest rate in the world.
Business quotes were now valid for just one day or even one hour, said the report written by consultants and sent to workers at the United Nations and other aid agencies.
Some firms were already partly paying their workers in food, rather than money, it said.
ZIMBABWE CRISIS
Inflation: 3,714%
Unemployment: 80%
4m need food aid
Life expectancy: 37 (men), 34 (women)
Shops were doubling their prices twice a month, so they could purchase replacement goods.
If this continues, "doubling the current inflation for each of the seven remaining months of 2007 gives 512,000% thus the economic collapse is expected before the end of 2007," said the report, according to the AP news agency.
The security forces who have remained loyal to President Robert Mugabe were also feeling the effects.
The report said an ordinary police officer earned less than aid workers paid their domestic staff.
It said power and water suppliers were already near collapse. Electricity was last month rationed to just four hours a day to save power for farmers.
Just one adult in five is believed to have a regular job.
Some 4m Zimbabweans - a third of the population - will need food aid this year, according to the UN World Food Programme.
Mr Mugabe denies responsibility for Zimbabwe's economic problems, blaming a western plot to bring down his government because of his policy of seizing white-owned land.
(BBC)
Sudanese students flock to learn Chinese
By Lewis Machipisa
BBC News, Khartoum
Products, companies and restaurants from China have flooded into Sudan in recent years and now the Chinese language has become the latest import.
During a recent language competition, Khartoum University resembled a province in China. Everything became Chinese. The students even laughed in Chinese.
The relaxed mood with which the 100 or so students spoke and joked in Chinese at the Chinese Bridge Speech competition suggests that learning Chinese could be the next big thing in Sudan.
First the students had to compete to see who had become the most proficient in the language. In this category the competition was tough.
Then the students had to prove they could even sing in Chinese - most sounded atrocious.
Foreign draw
More than one billion people around the world speak Chinese as their native tongue.
With China's economy rising fast, the country's government believes that 100 million foreigners will soon be speaking their language.
Among those will be Ayat, a student in Khartoum.
"China is now a big country economically. There are lots of Chinese companies in Sudan so there is a big choice for us to work for the Chinese as translators,'' she says, describing Chinese as a "beautiful language''.
Tong Xiaofeng, a Chinese professor at Khartoum University, says most of the Sudanese students in his class are motivated by money.
"Chinese is mostly welcome because nearly 100% of students who graduate from the department get jobs with Chinese companies," he says, specifically in the oil industry, telecommunications and as travel agents.
China's oil interests in Sudan, already substantial, continue to grow.
Sudan sells about 60% of its oil to China, while Sudanese imports currently make up 5% of China's oil and the China National Petroleum Corp owns 40% of the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company - the main player in Sudan.
In addition, another Chinese company is constructing a 1,500km (932 mile) pipeline to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, where they are also building a tanker terminal.
Proven reserves
Sudanese production and export of light, sweet crude oil - the most easily refined, and therefore most desirable, oil - have risen rapidly in the last few years.
When I graduate, I want to go to China and do my masters there
Halid Sulema
Sudan's energy ministry reports production of some 500,000 barrels per day. Sudan has proven reserves of at least 563 million barrels of oil, with the potential for far more in regions of the country made inaccessible by conflict.
It is this projected oil boom, led by Chinese firms, that has caught the eye of many Sudanese students, and there is also a booming telecommunications sector.
The Chinese government is all for using language as a way of spreading its influence around the world.
By 2008, an estimated 120,000 students will travel from abroad to go to college at a Chinese university, up from 8,000 less than a decade before.
It will provide scholarships for good students to go to its universities.
Halid Sulema is one of the students eyeing that chance.
"When I graduate, I want to go to China and do my masters there. I hope to get a good job with a Chinese company in the end."
BBC News, Khartoum
Products, companies and restaurants from China have flooded into Sudan in recent years and now the Chinese language has become the latest import.
During a recent language competition, Khartoum University resembled a province in China. Everything became Chinese. The students even laughed in Chinese.
The relaxed mood with which the 100 or so students spoke and joked in Chinese at the Chinese Bridge Speech competition suggests that learning Chinese could be the next big thing in Sudan.
First the students had to compete to see who had become the most proficient in the language. In this category the competition was tough.
Then the students had to prove they could even sing in Chinese - most sounded atrocious.
Foreign draw
More than one billion people around the world speak Chinese as their native tongue.
With China's economy rising fast, the country's government believes that 100 million foreigners will soon be speaking their language.
Among those will be Ayat, a student in Khartoum.
"China is now a big country economically. There are lots of Chinese companies in Sudan so there is a big choice for us to work for the Chinese as translators,'' she says, describing Chinese as a "beautiful language''.
Tong Xiaofeng, a Chinese professor at Khartoum University, says most of the Sudanese students in his class are motivated by money.
"Chinese is mostly welcome because nearly 100% of students who graduate from the department get jobs with Chinese companies," he says, specifically in the oil industry, telecommunications and as travel agents.
China's oil interests in Sudan, already substantial, continue to grow.
Sudan sells about 60% of its oil to China, while Sudanese imports currently make up 5% of China's oil and the China National Petroleum Corp owns 40% of the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company - the main player in Sudan.
In addition, another Chinese company is constructing a 1,500km (932 mile) pipeline to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, where they are also building a tanker terminal.
Proven reserves
Sudanese production and export of light, sweet crude oil - the most easily refined, and therefore most desirable, oil - have risen rapidly in the last few years.
When I graduate, I want to go to China and do my masters there
Halid Sulema
Sudan's energy ministry reports production of some 500,000 barrels per day. Sudan has proven reserves of at least 563 million barrels of oil, with the potential for far more in regions of the country made inaccessible by conflict.
It is this projected oil boom, led by Chinese firms, that has caught the eye of many Sudanese students, and there is also a booming telecommunications sector.
The Chinese government is all for using language as a way of spreading its influence around the world.
By 2008, an estimated 120,000 students will travel from abroad to go to college at a Chinese university, up from 8,000 less than a decade before.
It will provide scholarships for good students to go to its universities.
Halid Sulema is one of the students eyeing that chance.
"When I graduate, I want to go to China and do my masters there. I hope to get a good job with a Chinese company in the end."
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Aid agencies suspend operations after killing
BANGUI, 12 June 2007 (IRIN) - The killing of a volunteer for Médecins Sans Frontières in northwestern Central African Republic (CAR) has compelled non-governmental organisations in the region to temporarily suspend operations, sources said.
Elsa Serfass, 27, was killed by gunfire during an assessment mission in northwestern CAR on 11 June. She was on her first assignment with MSF-France, working as a logistician in Paoua.
"After a 30 May rebel attack in the town of N'Gaoundal and the government's violent reprisals, MSF learned of the catastrophic health conditions in the area and decided to carry out an assessment," MSF said in a statement. "During that mission, our vehicle was hit by gunfire and Elsa was fatally injured."
Following the incident, MSF-France and other organisations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, temporarily suspended work around Paoua, sources in the CAR capital of Bangui said.
"The tragic death of Elsa Serfass is a terrible shock for MSF and we mourn her loss," the French charity noted. "Our thoughts are with her family and friends."
Sources in Bangui blamed the attack on the Armée populaire pour la restauration de la république et de la démocratie (APRD) rebels who are fighting government forces in the region. The rebels, opponents of President François Bozize, claim he overthrew a legitimate government in March 2003, has mismanaged public funds and divided the nation.
The insurgency has brought suffering to civilians in the region and illustrates the escalating insecurity over the five past years because of armed rebellion and the proliferation of armed bandits, called Zaraguinas.
According to MSF, the local population has been targeted by systematic violence, with many villages along the roadways attacked, pillaged and burned, forcing inhabitants to flee to survive in the bush.
In May, the Italian charity, Cooperazione Internazionale (COOPI), suspended activities in Bozoum, Ouham Pendé prefecture, after the abduction of two health workers. The NGO works in Bozoum, Bocaranga and Ngaoundai, which together have a population of 150,000-200,000.
According to the UN, nearly 300,000 people have fled their homes in the CAR over the past year because of violence.
Elsa Serfass, 27, was killed by gunfire during an assessment mission in northwestern CAR on 11 June. She was on her first assignment with MSF-France, working as a logistician in Paoua.
"After a 30 May rebel attack in the town of N'Gaoundal and the government's violent reprisals, MSF learned of the catastrophic health conditions in the area and decided to carry out an assessment," MSF said in a statement. "During that mission, our vehicle was hit by gunfire and Elsa was fatally injured."
Following the incident, MSF-France and other organisations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, temporarily suspended work around Paoua, sources in the CAR capital of Bangui said.
"The tragic death of Elsa Serfass is a terrible shock for MSF and we mourn her loss," the French charity noted. "Our thoughts are with her family and friends."
Sources in Bangui blamed the attack on the Armée populaire pour la restauration de la république et de la démocratie (APRD) rebels who are fighting government forces in the region. The rebels, opponents of President François Bozize, claim he overthrew a legitimate government in March 2003, has mismanaged public funds and divided the nation.
The insurgency has brought suffering to civilians in the region and illustrates the escalating insecurity over the five past years because of armed rebellion and the proliferation of armed bandits, called Zaraguinas.
According to MSF, the local population has been targeted by systematic violence, with many villages along the roadways attacked, pillaged and burned, forcing inhabitants to flee to survive in the bush.
In May, the Italian charity, Cooperazione Internazionale (COOPI), suspended activities in Bozoum, Ouham Pendé prefecture, after the abduction of two health workers. The NGO works in Bozoum, Bocaranga and Ngaoundai, which together have a population of 150,000-200,000.
According to the UN, nearly 300,000 people have fled their homes in the CAR over the past year because of violence.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Olympic firm admits child labour
By Michael Bristow
BBC News, Beijing
A Chinese company making products related to the Beijing Olympics has admitted it used child workers, despite initially denying the allegation.
Lekit Stationery said children aged 12 and 13 were employed by one of its sub-contractors, although they did not work on Olympic-related products.
The news follows an investigation in Dongguan city, where Lekit is based.
It was launched after an advocacy group claimed four firms making Olympic products were exploiting workers.
Lekit manager Michael Lee told the BBC that a sub-contractor called Leter Stationery had hired a number of children in the school holidays last winter.
They were each paid 20 yuan (about $2.50) a day.
'Unaware'
Because it had a large number of orders, Lekit was forced to hire Leter Stationary to make packaging products, such as labels.
Mr Lee insisted these products were not related to the contract it won last year to produce stationery emblazoned with Olympic symbols.
"We didn't know that they would hire children," Mr Lee said, although the sub-contractor's factory is directly opposite Lekit Stationary.
He added: "We will not use them again, and in future we will make sure that all sub-contractors are qualified."
Mr Lee, from Taiwan, said when he was initially interviewed about the allegation by the BBC at his factory he was unaware Leter Stationery had hired children.
He found out only when Dongguan officials released the findings of an initial investigation into the issue.
A Dongguan official said the children had gone to work at Leter Stationery because their parents had no time to look after them during the holidays.
He said they were only involved in "light work" such as wrapping up products.
"The Dongguan government (will) start a campaign to fight child labour in the city soon," said a report published by Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency.
The report that made the initial allegation, issued by an alliance called PlayFair 2008, said Lekit had hired children who often had to work from 0730 to 2230.
"Some of them were brought to the factory to earn money to pay their school fees," the report says.
It also accused three other factories based in southern Guangdong Province of exploiting workers.
They were charged with ignoring local labour laws, disregarding health and safety and forcing employees to work long hours.
The speed with which Dongguan officials published the results of the initial investigation suggests China is keen to avoid bad publicity in the run up to next year's Olympic Games.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/6747449.stm
Published: 2007/06/13 07:27:01 GMT
BBC News, Beijing
A Chinese company making products related to the Beijing Olympics has admitted it used child workers, despite initially denying the allegation.
Lekit Stationery said children aged 12 and 13 were employed by one of its sub-contractors, although they did not work on Olympic-related products.
The news follows an investigation in Dongguan city, where Lekit is based.
It was launched after an advocacy group claimed four firms making Olympic products were exploiting workers.
Lekit manager Michael Lee told the BBC that a sub-contractor called Leter Stationery had hired a number of children in the school holidays last winter.
They were each paid 20 yuan (about $2.50) a day.
'Unaware'
Because it had a large number of orders, Lekit was forced to hire Leter Stationary to make packaging products, such as labels.
Mr Lee insisted these products were not related to the contract it won last year to produce stationery emblazoned with Olympic symbols.
"We didn't know that they would hire children," Mr Lee said, although the sub-contractor's factory is directly opposite Lekit Stationary.
He added: "We will not use them again, and in future we will make sure that all sub-contractors are qualified."
Mr Lee, from Taiwan, said when he was initially interviewed about the allegation by the BBC at his factory he was unaware Leter Stationery had hired children.
He found out only when Dongguan officials released the findings of an initial investigation into the issue.
A Dongguan official said the children had gone to work at Leter Stationery because their parents had no time to look after them during the holidays.
He said they were only involved in "light work" such as wrapping up products.
"The Dongguan government (will) start a campaign to fight child labour in the city soon," said a report published by Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency.
The report that made the initial allegation, issued by an alliance called PlayFair 2008, said Lekit had hired children who often had to work from 0730 to 2230.
"Some of them were brought to the factory to earn money to pay their school fees," the report says.
It also accused three other factories based in southern Guangdong Province of exploiting workers.
They were charged with ignoring local labour laws, disregarding health and safety and forcing employees to work long hours.
The speed with which Dongguan officials published the results of the initial investigation suggests China is keen to avoid bad publicity in the run up to next year's Olympic Games.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/6747449.stm
Published: 2007/06/13 07:27:01 GMT
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