Showing posts with label Mahamid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mahamid. Show all posts

Monday, May 15, 2023

Sudan: Could Arab tribal chief Hilal undercut Hemeti?

NOTE from Sudan  Watch Editor: I have just visited the archives of this site Sudan Watch 2004. The news headlines at that time seem to show we've gone full circle over past 20 years and are now back to square one. Here is an excerpt from one of the first reports reprinted here in 2004, followed by a recent report featuring the Arab tribal chief Mr Musa Hilal now aged 63.

Sudan Watch - Sunday, August 22, 2004

Janjaweed Leader Moussa Hilal - interview with UK Telegraph and IslamOnline.net


Aug 22: UK Telegraph news report by Philip Sherwell in Khartoum, copied here in full:

 

Tribal leader accused over Darfur says he was acting for government 

The sheikh accused by the United States of co-ordinating Janjaweed militiamen has admitted that he was "appointed" by Sudan's government to recruit Arab tribesmen to "defend their land". 


In an interview with The Telegraph, Musa Hilal scorned calls for his arrest on the eve of this week's visit to Sudan by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, and the United Nations' deadline for Sudan to begin its promised crackdown on the Janjaweed. 


"I don't care what my enemies say about me," he said, jabbing his finger. "I have no concerns about being arrested. I don't think the Sudanese government would be stupid enough to take that decision." 


Mr Hilal has been identified by the US State Department as the most senior of seven Janjaweed leaders allegedly responsible for the ethnic cleansing conducted against predominantly black African villagers by Arab militiamen in the province of Darfur. 


Mr Hilal, 43, a tall man who has three wives and 13 children and leads a tribe of more than 200,000 people, denies the accusation. He was not an "agent" of the government, he said, but acknowledged allegations that the Khartoum government was using the camel and horse-riding Arab militia to suppress the rebellion. 


"I am one of the tribal leaders responsible for collecting people for military service for the country," he said, claiming that he organised his followers to defend themselves against Darfurian rebels. 


"I was appointed by the government to organise people to defend their lands but legally, not illegally. They were defending themselves against the mutineers." 


Read full story: https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2004/08/janjaweed-leader-moussa-hilal.html

________________________

Report from AlJazeera.com

By Mat Nashed


Dated 3 May 2023 - full copy:


Could an old tribal foe undercut Sudan’s Hemedti?


The RSF could be more vulnerable in its stronghold in Darfur, where a rival foe is challenging Hemedti.

PHOTO: Musa Hilal (centre right) celebrates with former President Omar al-Bashir (centre left) at the wedding of the former's daughter [File: Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters]


After two weeks of armed conflict, Sudan’s feared paramilitary leader, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, has fought the army to a deadlock in the capital of Khartoum.


But his Rapid Support Forces could be more vulnerable in their stronghold in Darfur, where a rival has challenged Hemedti for tribal supremacy, analysts and residents told Al Jazeera.


Enter Musa Hilal, a respected tribal chief from the same Arab Rizeigat tribe that Hemedti hails.


Back in 2003, Hilal fought on behalf of the government against mostly non-Arab armed groups, who were rebelling against what they said was the state’s neglect and exploitation of Darfur. According to Human Rights Watch, Hilal’s forces – the Popular Defence Forces, called “Janjaweed” by the rebels – were accused of committing summary executions and using rape as a weapon of war.


Between 2003 and 2009, about 300,000 people were killed in the armed conflict, as well as from disease and famine brought on by the war. But while Hilal was scorned worldwide, he was rewarded back home.


In 2005, Sudan’s former leader, Omar al-Bashir, put Hilal’s fighters under the army’s control and tasked them with protecting Sudan’s frontiers.


Three years later, al-Bashir appointed him as his special adviser and even awarded him a seat in parliament in 2010.


“The thing with these militia leaders is that they start off as proxies [for the central government] and then they end up having their own political ambitions,” said Hafiz Mohamad, a Sudanese researcher for Justice Africa, which advocates for human rights across the continent.


Despite Hilal’s ascension in Khartoum, he eventually returned to Darfur after growing frustrated at the government’s continuing neglect of the region.


The fallout prompted al-Bashir to turn to Hemedti – then a little-known trader and a former fighter – to command a new armed group called the RSF. One of Hemedti’s early tasks was arresting Hilal for refusing to disarm his forces.


Now, Hilal could look to settle scores by helping the army weaken the RSF.


“When Bashir created the RSF, he gave all sorts of resources to Hemedti. That’s really when this rivalry started. Hilal started a rebellion against the government and one of Hemedti’s first tasks was to contain him,” Mohamad said.


Mobilising forces?


In March 2021, Hilal was pardoned after spending six months in prison, before Hemedti and army commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan – the two generals now fighting each other – upended the country’s democratic transition through a coup in October 2021.


Hilal has kept a low profile since his release, yet some analysts believed that the army has been trying to co-opt him – and fighters from his tribe – to undercut Hemedti.


“Hilal has been under Military Intelligence protection since his re-emergence,” one expert, who did not wish to disclose his name for fear of losing important sources and access to Sudan, told Al Jazeera.


Signs of a warm relationship between Hilal and the military have been reported. In June 2022, Hilal and his Revolutionary Awakening Council participated in peace talks with a number of other armed groups from Darfur, according to the latest United Nations Panel of Experts report on Darfur.


Sudan’s army sent the head of military intelligence, Major General Mohamed Ahmed Sabir, to mediate talks between the factions under the auspices of Promediation, a French NGO that assists mediation efforts between state and non-state groups.


The discussion centred around the peaceful return of Sudanese mercenaries, many of whom are loyal to Hilal, from Libya.


Months later, in the lead-up to the war between the army and RSF, Arab activists in Darfur reported that the military was recruiting from their clan in order to form a new border force that could undercut Hemedti.


The military has not denied that it was recruiting from Darfur, yet it did refute that it was coveting fighters from a certain tribe or clan. However, Hilal’s role and whereabouts remain uncertain.


“Rizeigat leaders were warning against an ongoing campaign to recruit fighters. The mobilisation is ongoing, but where Hilal fits in is not clear,” said Suliman Baldo, the founder of the Sudan Transparency and Policy Tracker, a think tank covering political affairs in the country.


“The fact that all these [Rizeigat] tribal leaders were complaining about [recruitment], shows that it was an intense activity,” he added.


From strongmen to politicians


While Hilal and Hemedti are both from the Rizeigat, they are from two different clans within it.


The former is from the Mahamid and the latter from the Mahariya.


But, similar to Hilal, Hemedti evolved from being a militia fighter to having his own political ambitions.


The difference is that while Hilal maintains a loyal following in North Darfur, Hemedti has been able to cultivate relationships with regional backers, such as the United Arab Emirates, Russia and Eritrea.


Those powerful friends give Hemedti and the RSF an outsized advantage against any attempt by Hilal to fight him, said Anette Hoffman, an expert on Sudan for the Clingendael Institute, an independent Dutch think tank.


“If there were no foreign players involved, Hilal would be able to mobilise through his tribal links, including whatever links he has in Chad,” she told Al Jazeera. “But with such powerful backers, Hilal just doesn’t compare any more to Hemedti.”


Despite Hilal’s disadvantages, Hoffman expected him to still try and mobilise fighters, which could make the fighting in Darfur significantly bloodier in the weeks and months to come.


“If we see Hemedti get killed at some point, then we could see a disintegration of the RSF and also of the Rizeigat as an ethnic group,” she said. “Hilal would then play a role that leads to more suffering and more fighting and access to arms. He would help to turn things uglier than they already are.”


For non-Arab communities in West Darfur, the scarier scenario is if Hilal and Hemedti put their differences aside in order to fight the army, said Zakaria Bedour, a local human rights monitor in the province.


She stressed that Mahamid militias and communities are already receiving support from the RSF in order to target non-Arabs in el-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur. The latest violence is due in part to a power vacuum in the region, prompting Arab militias to try and grab control over land and water resources.


The attacks have killed nearly 200 people, according to local doctors. Internally displaced camps sheltering non-Arab communities were also burned to the ground, while markets, hospitals and warehouses belonging to international relief organisations were looted.


“If [Hemedti and Hilal] get along, there will be consequences for the African tribes and the internally displaced people. [Hilal and Hemedti] remember the displaced people as being in opposition to them [in previous wars],” warned Zakaria.


“The consequence would make the [Arab] forces much bigger than the [armed non-Arab groups] in [West Darfur].”


Play Video - Duration 01 minutes 11 seconds

Video posted on social media documents destruction in Sudan


Play Video - Duration 01 minutes 13 seconds

Video shows destroyed Sudanese food market


KEEP READING

list of 4 items

list 1 of 4

What will the war in Sudan mean for Ethiopia?

list 2 of 4

UN refugee agency warns more than 800,000 may flee Sudan

list 3 of 4

Sudan fighting in its 18th day: A list of key events

list 4 of 4

The journey out of Sudan


View original: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/3/could-an-old-tribal-foe-undercut-sudans-hemedti


[Ends]

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Sudan: Darfur lawyers say Musa Hilal's trial is invalid (Part 18)

‘All activities concerning the resisting and opposing the former regime are legitimate and do not constitute crimes’ –Darfur Bar Association

Article from and by Radio Dabanga.org
Dated Thursday 19 September 2019 - KHARTOUM / DARFUR
Darfur lawyers: ‘Hilal Court Martial invalid - resisting Al Bashkir regime is no crime'
Photo: Former Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal (File photo)

The Darfur Bar Association has described the trial by Court Martial of former Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal and his affiliates as invalid and has no legal ground because the alleged crimes relate to the resisting and opposing the former regime, which are legitimate activities that cannot constitute crimes.

Yesterday, a statement issued by the Darfur Bar Association stated that the trial of Musa Hilal and his affiliates for crimes related to the opposing or resisting the former regime confirms the continuation of the policies of the former regime and its organs, which contradicts the goals of the revolution. Thus it is an insult to the role of the Forces for Freedom and Change and the newly formed government. Further, the Bar Association stressed in its statement that all activities concerning the resisting and opposing the former regime are legitimate and do not constitute crimes.

The military court on Monday [16 Sep] prevented four lawyers assigned by Hilal’s family to defend him, from attending the session held at the general army command in Khartoum.

The trial of Musa Hilal, the leader of Mahamid and the head of the Revolutionary Awakening Council, which was postponed twice in this month, is due to resume on Monday [23 Sep].

The adjourned court sessions were accompanied by demonstrations demanding his release in front of the Military Headquarter in Khartoum and other cities in Darfur, including Mystria, Ed Daein, Zalinge,i and El Geneina.

Crowds gathered on Sunday in front of the army command, as well as in El Geneina, capital of West Darfur.

2017 arrest
Hilal was arrested in a raid on his stronghold in Misteriya, North Darfur, in November 2017. His sons, brothers, and entourage were detained as well, in addition to some 2,000 members of his clan.


In July last year, the NISS arrested Hilal’s hearing-impaired son, Ahmed Musa. The next month, several ‘associates of Hilal’ were arrested from a house at Gurrat El Zawiya area in North Darfur.

Atrocities in Darfur
Hilal is held responsible for the atrocities committed in Darfur against civilians after the conflict erupted in 2003. In that year, he was released from prison by the Sudanese government with the purpose to mobilise Darfuri Arab herders to fight the insurgency in the region.

With full government backing, Hilal’s militiamen (janjaweed) targeted villages of African Darfuris. They rarely came near forces of the armed rebel movements.

View original: https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/darfur-lawyers-hilal-court-martial-invalid-resisting-al-bashir-regime-is-no-crime

Thursday, July 25, 2019

Sudan: Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal, master of Mohamed Hamdam “Hemeti” Dagolo during their brutal campaign in Darfur should be tried by ICC


Note from Sudan Watch Editor: When I started reading the below copied news report published at BBC News online on 20 July, I marvelled at its author. The report is so well written and researched I thought the BBC had hired an incredible new journalist. At the end of the report I saw the author’s name: Alex de Waal. I should have guessed, nobody can write about Sudan like Alex can. The report is a must-read. 

Note, beneath Alex's report I have copied and pasted a copy of a BBC news report dated 2017 showing that Musa Hilal and his son were arrested. I am surprised not more has been made of that piece of news. Where is Mr Hilal and his son now, I wonder. The report suggests he was taken to Khartoum. Is he hidden behind the scenes or in the same prison as ex-President Omar Al-Bashir? Musa Hilal was elected into the Sudanese government. Click on the tags for Musa Hilal at this blog, or type in his name in the search box here at Sudan Watch to read reports from the archive. Musa Hilal, along with Hemeti, ought to be put on trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) to answer for their war crimes and crimes against humanity. In my view, they are so ruthless and lacking in fear, remorse and compassion, I believe they are psychopaths who have gotten away with many terrible murders.

Note the following excerpt from Rebecca Hamilton's 3 Dec 2009 article entitled The Monster of Darfur:
"As Hilal explains it, Arabs were forced to flee their villages long before any “zurga” (literally “black,” a derogatory term for non-Arabs). But, he added scathingly, “[W]e would never go to a [displaced persons] camp and be seen as beggars." To solve the crisis in Darfur, Arabs have to be in charge, he continued. "We have the majority in the field. We have the majority of the livestock. There can be no solution without us”. He sat back in his chair and lit a cigarette. “I am not the leader of the Janjaweed. I am the leader of all the Arab tribes in Darfur,” Hilal said, his relaxed confidence returning." [Read more here: https://newrepublic.com/article/71627/the-monster-darfur]

BBC News report
By Alex de Waal
Published 20 July 2019
Sudan crisis: The ruthless mercenaries who run the country for gold
Photo: The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been accused of widespread abuses in Sudan, including the 3 June massacre in which more than 120 people were reportedly killed, with many of the dead dumped in the River Nile Sudan expert Alex de Wall charts their rise. (Photo credit AFP)

The RSF are now the real ruling power in Sudan. They are a new kind of regime: a hybrid of ethnic militia and business enterprise, a transnational mercenary force that has captured a state.

Their commander is General Mohamed Hamdan "Hemeti" Dagolo, and he and his fighters have come a long way since their early days as a rag-tag Arab militia widely denigrated as the "Janjaweed".

The RSF was formally established by decree of then-President Omar al-Bashir in 2013. But their core of 5,000 militiamen had been armed and active long before then.

Their story begins in 2003, when Mr Bashir's government mobilised Arab herders to fight against black African insurgents in Darfur.

'Meet the Janjaweed'

The core of the Janjaweed were camel-herding nomads from the Mahamid and Mahariya branches of the Rizeigat ethnic group of northern Darfur and adjoining areas of Chad - they ranged across the desert edge long before the border was drawn.

During the 2003-2005 Darfur war and massacres, the most infamous Janjaweed leader was Musa Hilal, chief of the Mahamid.
Human rights groups accuse Musa Hilal of leading a brutal campaign in Darfur  Image copyright AFP

As these fighters proved their bloody efficacy, Mr Bashir formalised them into a paramilitary force called the Border Intelligence Units.

One brigade, active in southern Darfur, included a particularly dynamic young fighter, Mohamed Dagolo, known as "Hemeti" because of his baby-faced looks - Hemeti being a mother's endearing term for "Little Mohamed".

A school dropout turned small-time trader, he was a member of the Mahariya clan of the Rizeigat. Some say that his grandfather was a junior chief when they resided in Chad.

A crucial interlude in Hemeti's career occurred in 2007, when his troops became discontented over the government's failure to pay them.

They felt they had been exploited - sent to the frontline, blamed for atrocities, and then abandoned.

Hemeti and his fighters mutinied, promising to fight Khartoum "until judgement day", and tried to cut a deal with the Darfur rebels.

A documentary shot during this time, called Meet the Janjaweed, shows him recruiting volunteers from Darfur's black African Fur ethnic group into his army, to fight alongside his Arabs, their former enemies.

Although Hemeti's commanders are all from his own Mahariya clan, he has been ready to enlist men of all ethnic groups. On one recent occasion the RSF absorbed a breakaway faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) - led by Mohamedein Ismail "Orgajor", an ethnic Zaghawa - another Darfur community which had been linked to the rebels.

Consolidating power

Hemeti went back to Khartoum when he was offered a sweet deal: back pay for his troops, ranks for his officers (he became a brigadier general - to the chagrin of army officers who had gone to staff college and climbed the ranks), and a handsome cash payment.

His troops were put under the command of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), at that time organising a proxy war with Chad.
Some of Hemeti's fighters, serving under the banner of the Chadian opposition, fought their way as far as the Chadian capital, N'Djamena, in 2008.

Meanwhile, Hemeti fell out with his former master, Hilal - their feud was to be a feature of Darfur for 10 years. Hilal was a serial mutineer, and Mr Bashir's generals found Hemeti more dependable.

In 2013, a new paramilitary force was formed under Hemeti and called the RSF.

The army chief of staff did not like it - he wanted the money to go to strengthening the regular forces - and Mr Bashir was worried about putting too much power in the hands of NISS, having just fired its director for allegedly conspiring against him.

So the RSF was made answerable to Mr Bashir himself - the president gave Hemeti the nickname "Himayti", meaning "My Protector".

Training camps were set up near the capital, Khartoum. Hundreds of Land Cruiser pick-up trucks were imported and fitted out with machine guns.

RSF troops fought against rebels in South Kordofan - they were undisciplined and did not do well - and against rebels in Darfur, where they did better.

Gold rush

Hemeti's rivalry with Hilal intensified when gold was discovered at Jebel Amir in North Darfur state in 2012.

Coming at just the moment when Sudan was facing an economic crisis because South Sudan had broken away, taking with it 75% of the country's oil, this seemed like a godsend.
Sudan is one of Africa’s biggest gold producers

But it was more of a curse. Tens of thousands of young men flocked to a remote corner of Darfur in a latter-day gold rush to try their luck in shallow mines with rudimentary equipment.

Some struck gold and became rich, others were crushed in collapsing shafts or poisoned by the mercury and arsenic used to process the nuggets

Hilal's militiamen forcibly took over the area, killing more than 800 people from the local Beni Hussein ethnic group, and began to get rich by mining and selling the gold.

Some gold was sold to the government, which paid above the market price in Sudanese money because it was so desperate to get its hands on gold that it could sell on in Dubai for hard currency.

Meanwhile some gold was smuggled across the border to Chad, where it was profitably exchanged in a racket involving buying stolen vehicles and smuggling them back into Sudan.
Hemeti has loyal supporters outside the capital

In the desert markets of Tibesti in northern Chad, a 1.5kg (3.3lb) of unwrought gold was bartered for a 2015 model Land Cruiser, probably stolen from an aid agency in Darfur, which was then driven back to Darfur, fitted out with hand-painted licence plates and resold.

By 2017, gold sales accounted for 40% of Sudan's exports. And Hemeti was keen to control them.

He already owned some mines and had set up a trading company known as al-Junaid. But when Hilal challenged Mr Bashir one more time, denying the government access to Jebel Amir's mines, Hemeti's RSF went on the counter-attack.

In November 2017, his forces arrested Hilal [ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-42141938 ], and the RSF took over Sudan's most lucrative gold mines.

Regional muscle

Hemeti overnight became the country's biggest gold trader and - by controlling the border with Chad and Libya - its biggest border guard. Hilal remains in prison.

Under the Khartoum Process, the European Union funded the Sudanese government to control migration across the Sahara to Libya.

Although the EU consistently denies it, many Sudanese believe that this gave license to the RSF to police the border, extracting bribes, levies and ransoms - and doing its share of trafficking too.
RSF fighters have fought for Yemen’s government in the civil war which is devastating the country

Dubai is the destination for almost all of Sudan's gold, official or smuggled. But Hemeti's contacts with the UAE soon became more than just commercial.

In 2015, the Sudanese government agreed to send a battalion of regular forces to serve with the Saudi-Emirati coalition forces in Yemen - its commander was Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, now chair of the ruling Transitional Military Council.

But a few months later, the UAE struck a parallel deal with Hemeti to send a much larger force of RSF fighters, for combat in south Yemen and along the Tahama plain - which includes the port city of Hudaydah, the scene of fierce fighting last year.

Hemeti also provided units to help guard the Saudi Arabian border with Yemen.

By this time, the RSF's strength had grown tenfold. Its command structure didn't change: all are Darfurian Arabs, its generals sharing the Dagolo name.

With 70,000 men and more than 10,000 armed pick-up trucks, the RSF became Sudan's de facto infantry, the one force capable of controlling the streets of the capital, Khartoum, and other cities.

Cash handouts and PR polish

Through gold and officially sanctioned mercenary activity, Hemeti came to control Sudan's largest "political budget" - money that can be spent on private security, or any activity, without needing to give an account.

Run by his relatives, the Al-Junaid company had become a vast conglomerate covering investment, mining, transport, car rental, and iron and steel.

Since April, Hemeti has moved fast, politically and commercially

By the time Mr Bashir was ousted in April, Hemeti was one of the richest men in Sudan - probably with more ready cash than any other politician - and was at the centre of a web of patronage, secret security deals, and political payoffs. It is no surprise that he moved swiftly to take the place of his fallen patron.

Hemeti has moved fast, politically and commercially.

Every week he is seen in the news, handing cash to the police to get them back on the streets, to electric workers to restore services, or to teachers to have them return to the classrooms. He handed out cars to tribal chiefs.

As the UN-African Union peacekeeping force drew down in Darfur, the RSF took over their camps - until the UN put a halt to the withdrawal.

Hemeti says he has increased his RSF contingent in Yemen and has despatched a brigade to Libya to fight alongside the rogue general Khalifa Haftar, presumably on the UAE payroll, but also thereby currying favour with Egypt which also backs Gen Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army.

Hemeti has also signed a deal with a Canadian public relations firm to polish his image and gain him political access in Russia and the US.

Hemeti and the RSF are in some ways familiar figures from the history of the Nile Valley. In the 19th Century, mercenary freebooters ranged across what are now Sudan, South Sudan, Chad, and the Central African Republic, publicly swearing allegiance to the Khedive of Egypt but also setting up and ruling their own private empires.

Yet in other ways Hemeti is a wholly 21st Century phenomenon: a military-political entrepreneur, whose paramilitary business empire transgresses territorial and legal boundaries.

Today, this semi-lettered market trader and militiaman is more powerful than any army general or civilian leader in Sudan. The political marketplace he commands is more dynamic than any fragile institutions of civilian government.

Alex de Waal is the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
View the original report plus a video here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-48987901
- - -

BBC News report
Published 27 November 2017
Sudan says militia leader Musa Hilal arrested

Sudanese authorities have arrested a powerful militia leader suspected of human rights abuses in the Darfur region

Musa Hilal was detained after fighting with Sudanese forces near his hometown in North Darfur, state media reports.

He is a former ally of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and led the government-allied Janjaweed militia.

Musa Hilal is subject to UN sanctions for his suspected involvement in the Darfur conflict of the mid-2000s.

His son Habeeb was also detained in the clashes in North Darfur, Sudan's defence minister, Lt Gen Ali Mohamed Salem, said.

"They were arrested after clashes in the area but the security situation there is now stable. They will soon be brought to Khartoum," Gen Salem added.

Musa Hilal was appointed as an adviser to President Bashir in 2008 but they later fell out. His fighters have often clashed with Sudanese forces in Darfur.

The latest fighting started on Sunday when Sudanese troops were ambushed as they oversaw a handover of weapons under a disarmament campaign, the Sudan Tribune reported.

Sudan's Rapid Support Forces said they lost 10 members, including a commander.

Musa Hilal has refused to surrender the weapons held by his militia and has also declined mediation to resolve the dispute, the report adds.

The Darfur conflict erupted in 2003 when black African rebels began attacking government targets, accusing Khartoum of favouring Arabs.

In response, the mainly Arab Janjaweed militia was accused of carrying out a policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide against Darfur's black African population.

Arrest warrants against President Bashir were issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2009 and 2010 on charges of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in Darfur. The conflict claimed at least 300,000 lives.

He denies the charge and has evaded arrest.

View the original report here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-42141938

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

African Sheikh Musa Hilal & Janjaweed - Misseriya and Rizeigat tribes sign peace deal in W. Darfur, W. Sudan

GOOD NEWS. According to news reports published online yesterday (29 June), leaders from the Misseriya and Rizeigat groups signed a reconciliation deal in the West Darfur town of Zalingei on Monday (28 June), said UNAMID (United Nations – African Union Mission in Darfur) in a statement.

The signing ceremony was attended by the Governor of Western Darfur state and nine leaders from different tribes. Fighting between the two communities began in February last year. The chairman of the reconciliation committee, who is the minister of education in Western Darfur state, Abdalla Khamis Mohammed, spoke to SRS (Sudan Radio Service) on Tuesday (red highlighting in this blog post is mine):
[Abdalla Khamis]: “Both parties should abide by the agreement and stop being hostile towards each other. They should open paths for each other, and the rule of law should be attained by stripping tribes of their weapons and ammunition, this will be done in the presence of the nine tribes. The Messiriya was represented by Algomi Al-Tahir Hamid, while Rizeygat was headed by Alhag Khadam Abdulkarim Mohamed.”
See further details and related reports here below, including a copy of Rebecca Hamilton's article regarding her interview with Sudanese Sheikh Musa Hilal, chief of the Rizeigat tribe. Although the interview took place in Sudan and the article was published last December, I held back from chronicling it here at Sudan Watch mainly because I took a dim view of its poor tabloid style content and crazy title: "The Monster of Darfur".

In my view, most of Ms Hamilton's writings on Sudan are dangerously naive and disrespectful. They make me cringe and my blood boil. To my mind, her irresponsible "reporting" and political activism is, like many other people on the Darfur bandwagon, driven by self interest. To be fair, Ms Hamilton is quite a talented writer. I wish I could write half as well as she does. Her training as a lawyer enables her to articulate in a manner that gives people the impression she really knows what she is talking about. If my memory serves me correctly, Ms Hamilton (pictured below) is a New Zealand-born Australian and was educated at Harvard in Boston, USA. According to her recent tweets on Twitter, she has just emigrated from Australia to the US. Incidentally, Sudan Watch receives a lot of visitors located in Australia.

For the record, here below is a sample of Ms Hamilton's tweets. Note that some of her tweets at Twitter have been deleted. After following her writings on Sudan over the past few years, I am amazed that she feels confident about visiting Sudan again. Why she expects to be permitted as a guest in Sudan is beyond my comprehension. Apart from the millions of lives and livelihoods at stake, what upsets me most about her writings is that they bring professional journalists (especially females) into danger and disrepute. Real war correspondents such as Julie Flint have risked their health and lives to report from Sudan. Any person can dub themselves a 'human rights activist' and think it is their right to say and do as they please. Unlike professional journalists, there is no code of conduct for 'human rights activists'. It seems to me that the business of human rights and its related activism is a cash cow concocted by and for lawyers and other opportunists who benefit from peoples misfortunes. Note who is making money from human rights issues and how terrorists and self proclaimed 'freedom fighters' are make a living. Most of them are feeding off the backs of illiterate poverty stricken people, like blood sucking leeches.

As a matter of fact, the Rebecca Hamilton's of this world are doing a disservice to the people of Sudan. Many thousands of officials and experts behind the scenes in and around Sudan know exactly what is going on but because Sudan is a tinder box of a war zone, and for the good of Africa and its residents, they wisely say the least. Surely, irresponsible people such as gobby Hamilton who are not professional war correspondents are either naive or stupid or foolish, or all three. Maybe it's a Harvard thing. It seems to me that when it comes to issues of democracy and human rights, Harvard educated people are brainwashed into a blinkered way of thinking. They all appear to think and speak in the same way, like robots produced in a factory. It reminds me of a sect, i.e. a faction united by common interests or beliefs. Interestingly, the best Western reporters on Sudan are all Brits.

Here is the copy of some of Hamilton's tweets. (Note that her bio on Twitter says "Currently writing book examining impact of advocacy on Darfur policy")
bechamilton: just sunk 2 hrs of my life into getting 2 ppl in kht who have each others ph #s to actually manage to talk
Twitter / bechamilton 30 June 2010 18:07

bechamilton: up at 3am in NY to get Kht business hours. Plse let today be the day a visa comes through . . .
Twitter / bechamilton 30 June 2010 08:11

bechamilton: on plus side, have had time to catch up with my favorite colonel from fasher who is now making the adjustment back to headquarters
Twitter / bechamilton 29 June 2010 21:37

bechamilton: playing waiting game with Sudan consulate
Twitter / bechamilton 29 June 2010 21:35

bechamilton: doing battle with sudanese bureaucratic systems - one of my least favorite activities
Twitter / bechamilton 28 June 2010 19:51

bechamilton: exploring our new country on roadtrip honeymoon. now in kentucky abt to go to bluegrass music festival. i leave for sudan in 4 days.
Twitter / bechamilton 25 June 2010 15:38

Heading to airport. Immigrant visa in passport and brown envelope full of docs. Very excited to be immigrating to U.S.
10:30 PM 13 June 2010 via web

bechamilton: heading out to my "farewell to the hague" drinks!
Twitter / bechamilton 11 June 2010 17:04

bechamilton: It's right to have sticks AND carrots available but #ICC Art 16 shld not be thought of as part of that toolbox: http://bit.ly/cKykfe #IJC
Twitter / bechamilton 11 June 2010 14:48

bechamilton: Wondering what the protocol is for an ICC judge commenting on my blog that he is offended by my language . . http://bit.ly/9FUA0E #IJC
Twitter / bechamilton 11 February 2010 09:26 *

Cool. My @TNR piece on Musa Hilal made the most viewed list.(Wld have prefered the one on services for rape survivors had instead though)
10:56 PM 04 December 2009 via web

* [Copy of comment at Rebecca Hamilton's blog - Posted by Cuno Tarfusser http://bechamilton.com/?p=1641#comments
I had the opportunity to read your comment headed “No Criminal” on the Abu Garda decision of PTC I of the ICC and without going into the merits of the decision itself and your opinion about it, let me just say that I am astonished and I feel offended myself by the offensive language you used defining my colleagues, reducing what has been a serious and extensive legal debate between us to triviality. It is even worse that you present your debatable opinion as if it was mine “But to paraphrase:…”. Therefore I would like to express here my friendship, solidarity and esteem to my two colleagues, discussions with whom on legal issues and otherwise always have been and always will be informed by the utmost mutual respect.

Copy of reply comment - posted by Bec Hamilton:
Dear Judge Tarfusser

I apologize for any implication that you do not have the greatest respect for your colleagues. My “para-phrase” was tongue-in-cheek (I am, at times to my detriment, the product of an Australian culture of irreverence) – the tone of which was inappropriate to impute to you.

For the record, please see amendment in post above.

Best
Bec Hamilton ]
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RELATED REPORTS AND FURTHER READING

Copy of an extract from Wikipedia online, the free encyclopedia:
Janjaweed
جنجويد‎

Dates of operation: 1987 - present[1]
Leader: Sheikh Musa Hilal
Active region(s): Darfur, Sudan
Ideology: Islamic fundamentalism
Status: Active
Size: Unknown (less than 25,000 est.)
The Janjaweed (Arabic: جنجويد; variously transliterated Janjawid, in translation means "Devil on Horseback" ) is a blanket term used to describe mostly armed gunmen in Darfur, western Sudan, and now eastern Chad.[2] Using the United Nations definition, the Janjaweed comprised Arab tribes, the core of whom are from the Abbala (camel herder) background with significant Lambo recruitment from the Baggara (cattle herder) people. This UN definition may not necessarily be accurate, as instances of members from other tribes have been noted.
In the past, they were at odds with Darfur's sedentary population over natural grazing grounds and farmland, as rainfall dwindled and water became scarce. They are currently in conflict with Darfur rebel groups—the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army and the Justice and Equality Movement. Since 2003 they have been one of the main players in the Darfur conflict, which has pitted the largely nomadic tribes against the sedentary population of the region in a battle over resource and land allocation.[3]
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Arab tribes sign peace deal in Sudan's Darfur
Copy of report by Andrew Heavens in Khartoum, Sudan - excerpt:
KHARTOUM - Tuesday, 29 June 2010 (Reuters) - Two rival Arab tribes have signed a peace deal in Sudan's Darfur region, peacekeepers said on Tuesday, raising hopes for an end to fighting that has killed more than 200 people since March.

Leaders from the Misseriya and Rizeigat groups signed a reconciliation deal in the West Darfur town of Zalingei on Monday, said Darfur's U.N./African Union UNAMID mission in a statement.

The two groups have been caught in a cycle of revenge attacks since the killing of two members of the Misseriya group early in March.

UNAMID said hundreds of people had been forced to flee the fighting which one U.N. source has said may also have been based on an underlying struggle for control of fertile grazing land.

The deal came after weeks of meetings between the two groups and officials from the peacekeepers and local government. [...]
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Two rival Darfur tribes sign reconciliation agreement
Copy of press release by United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) - Tuesday, 29 June 2010 (via ReliefWeb):
29 June 2010 - Two Darfur tribes, the Misseriya and Rezeigat Nouaiba, yesterday signed a reconciliation agreement in Zalingei, West Darfur. The ceremony, held at the local University, was attended by the Wali (Governor) of West Darfur, officials from the Sudanese Judicial and Legislative Council, senior military and police officials and members of the Native Authority, as well as officials from UNAMID.

Since the conflict began in early March between the two tribes, more than 200 people have died in clashes and hundreds have been displaced.

A reconciliation committee was established on 29 April involving native administrations and local leaders, with UNAMID and the Darfur Peace and Reconciliation Council (DPRC) in order to assist the tribes in reaching a lasting peace accord. A conference was organized last month in Zalingei aimed at addressing the causes of the conflict and to discuss ways in bringing the two tribes to a peaceful resolution.
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Darfur: UN-African mission welcomes peace deal between warring tribes
Copy of report from UN News Centre - ‎Tuesday, 29 June 2010 - excerpt:
[...] Sporadic clashes between the two groups first erupted in early March, with the most recent outbreak occurring last week in two villages not far from Zalingei. The latest fighting reportedly killed 20 people.

UNAMID, the Darfur Peace and Reconciliation Council and local leaders and native administrations set up a reconciliation committee earlier this year to try to end the fighting, and a conference was also held last month in Zalingei as part of efforts to tackle the root causes of the conflict.
Click on various labels at the end of this blog post to view related reports in the archives of Sudan Watch.
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The forgotten Arab victims of the Darfur Sudan Chad conflict

Among Arab leaders there is growing frustration that they are the forgotten people, accused of being Janjaweed when many families played no part in the conflict, or lost everything when they could ignore it no longer.

They accuse aid workers, celebrities and campaigners with the Save Darfur Campaign of concentrating efforts on the African tribes, neglecting the suffering of Arab communities.

Adam Mohammed Hamid, of the Nomad Development Council of Sudan in Khartoum, said: “People think they know who the Arabs are, but they don’t. They come to Sudan and speak to the African tribes, but no one speaks to the Arabs. Many are not fighting. Some are in the rebels. It is not what people think.”

Without the Janjaweed on board there will be no lasting solution, writes ROB CRILLY, in Otash Camp, South Darfur. Read Full story published at Sudan Watch, March 16, 2010: The forgotten Arab victims of the Darfur Sudan Chad conflict

Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal in North Darfur

Photo and caption from Sudan Watch archives May 2006: Musa Hilal, an Arab tribal chief accused by the United States of leading a dreaded militia in Darfur, rides his horse in Misitiriyha in north Darfur, Sudan, May 10, 2005. Musa told Reuters in an interview that he would not go to a court outside Sudan but would accept a fair trial in the country and added that if national trials for war crimes in the western region were unjust or political, he would fight this with all the means at his disposal. Picture taken May 10, 2005. (Reuters/Beatrice Mategwa Wed May 11, 2005; 2:47 PM ET)

Janjaweed leader Musa Hilal

Photo and caption from Sudan Watch archives May 2006: Musa Hilal, chief of Arab Rizeigat tribe in Mistiriyha, North Darfur, Sudan May 10, 2005 (Reuters/Taipei Times)

Sudanese tribal leaders at Darfur peace talks

Photo and caption from Sudan Watch archives May 2006: Sudanese tribal leaders (from L to R) Ibrahim Abdalla Mohamed, Saeed Mahmoud Madibo, Mostafa Omer Ahmed, Ahmed Alsamani and Mohamed Adam Rijal wait to participate in a meeting with rebel groups during negotiations on a peace plan for Darfur in Abuja, Nigeria Tuesday, 02 May 2006. The government of Sudan has accepted an 85-page draft settlement but three Darfur rebel factions refused to sign, saying they were unhappy with the proposals on security, power-sharing and wealth-sharing. (Reuters/Afolabi Sotunde)

Sudanese tribal leaders

Photo and caption from Sudan Watch archives May 2006: Sudanese tribal leaders attend the Darfur talks at the venue of the Darfur peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria, Tuesday, 02 May 2006. (AP/ST)

Peace

Photo and caption from Sudan Watch archives 26 September 2004: Arab tribal leaders (from left) Ramadhan Daju Hassan, Mohammed Idris Maghrib and former member of parliament Obeid Habullah Dico calling for peace in West Darfur, Sudan.
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"THE MONSTER OF DARFUR" by Rebecca Hamilton

For the record, here is a copy of the article (mentioned above) by Rebecca Hamilton, published on The New Republic (http://www.tnr.com) 03 December 2009; 12:00 am:
The Monster of Darfur
Musa Hilal has the blood of hundreds of thousands on his hands, but the Janjaweed leader claims he's just a peacemaker.

In late February 2004, Janjaweed militias and Sudanese government forces waged a three-day, coordinated assault on Tawila, a village in northern Darfur. Government aircrafts destroyed buildings, while the Janjaweed broke into a girls’ boarding school, forced the students to strip naked at gunpoint, and then gang-raped and abducted many of them. Video footage shows fly-covered corpses strewn among the village's smoldering ruins. And giving orders and distributing weapons during the siege, eyewitnesses say, was Sheikh Musa Hilal.

Hilal's name looms large on the list of perpetrators who’ve committed atrocities in Darfur since violence erupted there in 2003. At Khartoum's request, he organized the Janjaweed, predominantly Arab militias that have operated hand-in-glove with the Sudanese government to cleanse Darfur of its non-Arab population. Hilal, who is now almost 50 years old, is among those most responsible for the deaths of more than 200,000 people and the displacement of another 2.7 million. The U.S. government has sanctioned him, and the United Nations has issued a travel ban and asset freeze against him. In mid-2006, Hilal stopped giving English-language media interviews.

This past August, however, he agreed to meet with me--three years and two months since he had last spent time with a Western journalist. Sheikh Musa, as Hilal is known by his Mahamid clan, said that he wanted to correct the “misperceptions” the world has about him.

At his palatial villa in Khartoum, where paintings of Mecca and Medina adorn the walls, Hilal greeted me wearing a flowing white djellabya and a smile on his lightly freckled face. He escorted me and my translator across his porch, past a group of men sitting cross-legged on mats--Hilal’s relatives, who double as his bodyguards because he only trusts his tribe for security. As we settled into his lounge room, servants offered us chilled Coca-Cola and bottled water. Caramels with “Made in Poland” wrappers sat in small crystal bowls on the coffee tables.

Hilal was hospitable, even charming, as he discussed his career with me, insisting that he is anything but the cold-hearted criminal the world thinks he is. Since January 2008, he has worked as an adviser to the Ministry of Federal Affairs, so he spends his days in an air-conditioned office next to President Omar Al Bashir's Republican Palace on the edge of the Blue Nile. It's a far cry from the deserts of Darfur. But Hilal told me that he didn’t accept the offer of a bureaucracy position immediately. “I said to [the president], ‘I am the leader of my tribe. … I am a very rich man. I know there are some advisers who just sit here to get money, but I want to actually have a job--solving the problem of Darfur!’” he recounted, with a grandiose sweep of his arm. Hilal shifted his embroidered taqiyah, a skull cap, back from his forehead, revealing a receding hairline. “I said, ‘If all I do is sit here--well, I can sit with my tribe. Also, if you think I need this position to make me famous, I don’t. I am already known all over the world.’”

Hilal agreed to the new job when Al Bashir told him that he could be “useful” in Darfur. Leaning forward in his chair, to be sure he had my full attention, Hilal explained that "useful" is all he's ever wanted to be. "All my work," he said, "depends on struggling hard to make peace in Darfur."

Hilal became the leader of some 300,000 Mahamid, an Arab tribe in Darfur, in the late 1980s, as an influx of weapons was seeping into Sudan from Chad and Libya. This ignited Darfur’s troubles, Hilal said, because African tribes started demanding more government representation and support--and they suddenly had the means to fight for it. "They only cared about their own tribes--the Fur, Zaghawa, and Masaleit. They started to attack the Arab tribes," Hilal said, pulling at his faint, graying goatee. "We Arab leaders told them that this way--fighting--was not a good solution.” (He didn't mention his involvement with the Libyan-supported "Arab Gathering," or Al Tajama al Arabi, an ethnically polarizing political movement described by Sudan expert Alex de Waal as “a vehicle for militarized Arab supremacism.”)

Tensions continued to mount over the next several years, and, in late 2002, the governor of North Darfur arrested Hilal because he hoped that removing him from the region would dissipate ethnic hostilities. While Hilal was under house arrest, however, rebel forces in Darfur attacked a Sudanese air base, and Khartoum asked the Mahamid leader to become an ally--specifically, to recruit and coordinate local Arabs to serve in proxy militias for the government. “We accepted this invitation of the government to be armed by them, and, from that time on, we stood with the government," Hilal said.

At the height of the atrocities in Darfur, the Janjaweed that Hilal recruited systematically terrorized, raped, and killed non-Arab civilians. As the militias surrounded villages, the Sudanese air force would destroy homes, schools, and markets with crude bombs. As villagers tried to flee, the Janjaweed were there to complete the destruction.

As Hilal describes it, however, his goal has always been “for all the people who fight to come and sit together to find peace.” When I brought up a 2004 memo that he wrote for Janjaweed commanders and the government’s security and intelligence services, stating his objective to “change the demography of Darfur” and to “rid Darfur of all African tribes,” Hilal scoffed. “False,” he said, claiming that he had never written it. "Why would I want to take the Africans out when I myself am African?” With a laugh, he said that alleging differences between ethnic groups in Darfur is "out of date. No one … today will say ‘I am Arab' or 'I am African.’”

The Sudanese government first promised to disarm the Janjaweed in 2004. But, after meeting Hilal, I traveled to Darfur and saw a group of the militiamen on the outskirts of Kalma, one of the region's largest displaced persons camp. (United Nations staff told me that the Janjaweed are often there.) When the women in the camp leave to collect firewood or seek work in town, they know that they risk being attacked. I was told of one woman who, while walking away from the camp just a few weeks earlier, was approached by a man she described as Janjaweed. He had a young boy with him. The man grabbed the woman, tore off her clothes, beat her, and raped her. When he finished, he said to the boy, “Now it’s your turn with the black woman.”

After my return from Darfur, Hilal agreed to meet with me for a second time. It was late at night and pouring rain. My driver, fearful that Sudan’s ubiquitous national intelligence and security agents might see his car stationed outside Hilal’s house, insisted on parking some blocks away. By the time I got to the front gate, I had waded ankle-deep through Khartoum's muddy streets. (One of Hilal's armed guards rinsed the mud from my feet with a garden hose.)

Hilal stood to greet me, and we entered his lounge-room once again, where servants offered freshly squeezed orange juice. This time, however, he had an English-speaking relative accompany him--presumably a safety net to make sure my translator didn't misconstrue any of Sheikh Musa’s words.

Hilal seemed genuinely slighted that I had traveled to Darfur without him. “Next time you go, I will pay for you to go with me!” he said, with a characteristic sweep of his hand. It was the same invitation he had made to Samantha Power when she was writing a piece for The New Yorker some five years earlier. Now, as then, Hilal also refused to take responsibility for the violence and despair in Darfur. Regarding President Omar Al Bashir's indictment by the ICC earlier this year, he said simply, “I object.” Asked if he is concerned about being indicted himself, he replied dismissively, “I feel the same as Bashir: This court is not our concern.” Still, he flinched the first time I said ICC, even before my question was translated. And he stopped accentuating his words with the open and confident gestures of a man accustomed to respect, instead assuming the closed, cross-armed posture of a man under attack.

Hilal soon steered the conversation back to the rehearsed lines from our first meeting, about how he hopes, particularly in his bureaucratic role, to create dialogue among the people of Darfur. President Al Bashir's decision to appoint Hilal as a formal adviser was likely a signal to the proxy Arab militias that, as the ICC began indicting people suspected of crimes in Darfur, the government wouldn't hang them out to dry. But having the Janjaweed leader on its formal payroll is also sure to be problematic as Sudan seeks to normalize relations with the West.

Hilal, however, is undeterred by such concerns. He told me that the world needs to recognize the real victims of the Darfur conflict: the Arabs. As Hilal explains it, Arabs were forced to flee their villages long before any “zurga” (literally “black,” a derogatory term for non-Arabs). But, he added scathingly, “[W]e would never go to a [displaced persons] camp and be seen as beggars." To solve the crisis in Darfur, Arabs have to be in charge, he continued. "We have the majority in the field. We have the majority of the livestock. There can be no solution without us”. He sat back in his chair and lit a cigarette. “I am not the leader of the Janjaweed. I am the leader of all the Arab tribes in Darfur,” Hilal said, his relaxed confidence returning.

Putting out his half-finished cigarette, Hilal indicated to my translator that the interview was over. I pushed for one more question, and asked if he has any regrets about his conduct in Darfur. He paused to think. “I have an idea for a solution in Darfur, but I have not been able to implement it on the ground," he said, offering no details. “This is the one thing I am sorry for."

Rebecca Hamilton is the author of the forthcoming book The Promise of Engagement. She is an Open Society Fellow and a visiting fellow at the National Security Archives.

Source URL: http://www.tnr.com/article/economy/the-monster-darfur
FURTHER READING

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    Announcing . . .
    FIGHTING FOR DARFUR: Public Action and the Struggle to Stop Genocide
    to be published by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN, Feb. 1, 2011
    If you haven’t written a book before you’d be amazed at just how hard it is to nail down a title that both the author and the sales & marketing department can agree on – so it’s a relief to have reached this point. It’s not the most creative title in the world and I’m still rather partial to The Promise of Engagement (though have long conceded that the risk it poses of attracting those in the spousal market is a totally fair critique!) – however I’m satisfied that what we’ve settled on clearly signals what the book is all about, and am happy to have truth in advertising.
    I’m still in editing lock-down, but hope to resume blogging again over the summer.
    Best, Bec
    The Promise of Engagement 20 May 2010 09:17 Bec Hamilton

    - - -

    Human rights activist Rebecca Hamilton, Australia

    Rebecca Hamilton, Australia

    Rebecca Hamilton est étudiante dans un programme conjoint organisé par la Faculté de droit d’Harvard et par la John F. Kennedy School of Government, où elle est une boursière Knox. Avant de commencer ses études de droit, elle a travaillé au Soudan avec les populations déplacées à l’intérieur des frontières. A son retour aux Etats-Unis, Rebecca a cofondé l’association Harvard Darfur Action Group, laquelle a été impliquée dans la décision historique d’Harvard de retirer ses investissements des compagnies qui soutenaient la campagne génocidaire du gouvernement soudanais. Depuis, elle travaille à la mise en place d’une coalition politique permanente contre le génocide et les atrocités de masse au travers du Réseau d’intervention contre le génocide, et elle intervient régulièrement au travers des Etats-Unis pour parler du Darfour. Elle a rédigé pour le Harvard Human Rights Journal un article intitulé « The Responsibility to Protect: From Document to Doctrine-But What of Implementation? », et elle a récemment coécrit le plaidoyer pour le Darfour « Not On Our Watch », publié dans l’ouvrage War In Darfur and the Prospects for Peace (édité par Alex de Waal). Elle a écrit à propos du Soudan dans des quotidiens tels que The International Herald Tribune et The Boston Globe. En 2005, Rebecca a travaillé pour le Tribunal pénal international pour l’ex-Yougoslavie, et en tant que directrice de rédaction du Harvard Human Rights Journal. Mlle Hamilton a obtenu son baccalauréat en Australie, où elle a reçu la médaille universitaire et les distinctions pour son travail en neuroscience à l’Université de Sydney. (Source: http://efchr.mcgill.ca/InternationalYoungLeaders_fr.php)

    - - -

    Quote of the Day

    "The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." — Albert Einstein
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    News just in - Wednesday, 30 June 2010 at 22:53 GMT UK:

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