Sudan: UN report links Musa Hilal to gold profiteering (Part 6)

Article from Foreign Policy

BY COLUM LYNCH 

Dated 04 APRIL 2016, 8:50 PM

EXCLUSIVE

Russia Blocks U.N. Report Linking Alleged Sudanese War Criminal to Gold Profiteering

A leader of the militia that terrorized Darfur is pocketing $54 million a year from gold sales. Why won’t Moscow release a confidential report documenting his abuses?

Tribal leader Musa Hilal arrives in the village of Kala in the West Darfur region of Sudan on Monday, July 12, 2004. Hilal is accused by U.S. officials of being the leader of the Janjaweed which is accused of atrocities in Sudan. (gsb) 2004 (Photo by Evelyn Hockstein/MCT/MCT via Getty Images)

Musa Hilal, an alleged Sudanese mass killer who helped place Darfur on the map of modern genocides, has added a new title to his resume: multimillionaire gold digger.

A key leader of the Janjaweed, the horseback marauders who terrorized Darfuris in 2003 and 2004, Hilal and his armed crew earn about $54 million a year in profits from Jebel Amir, one of the largest unregulated gold mines in Darfur, according to a confidential report by a U.N. Security Council panel.

But the report’s release has been blocked by Russia, which is seeking to redact key details on the Sudanese gold trade. Russia has also refused to extend the contracts of the panel’s five members, effectively putting them out of work. Neither move has previously been reported.

In December, Russia dismissed the report as “extremely biased” and based on “speculation,” according to a diplomatic source. Moscow said it would only accede to the report’s publication if the “most controversial paragraphs are edited out.”

The United States and its Western allies rejected the Russian demand, saying it would set a precedent that would ultimately undermine the independence of U.N. sanctions panels like the committee charged with overseeing the measures taken against Khartoum after the genocide in Darfur. The panel’s findings highlighted the failure of U.N. sanctions to constrain the ongoing fighting between Sudanese authorities, their armed proxies, and opposition groups that has kept the troubled region mired in a state of chaos and violence for more than 15 years. The panel’s report claims that the gold trade has put more than $123 million into the pockets of armed groups throughout Darfur, in addition to Hilal’s earnings.

Moscow views the panel’s push to scrutinize Sudan’s gold industry as part of a politically motivated campaign to punish and weaken Khartoum, rather than promote peace and security in Darfur. A spokesman for the Russian mission to the United Nations, Alexey Zaytsev, told Foreign Policy by email Monday that Moscow put a “hold” on the publication, “pending further consultations in the council,” but didn’t block it.

“The reports by this panel have rarely been balanced or objective,” Zaytsev said. “But the degree of lopsided, unrestrained, and generally unfounded criticism of the Sudanese authorities in the latest report just ran over the top.”

The report, he added, risked “depriving thousands of Darfuri miners of their means of existence.”

The Darfur conflict has its roots in a 2003 uprising by ethnic minorities against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum. The Sudanese government, working in concert with Hilal’s Janjaweed militia, carried out a scorched-earth campaign that displaced more than 2.5 million people and resulted in the deaths of more than 300,000 Darfuris.

In response, the International Criminal Court charged Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, with three counts of genocide and issued an arrest warrant that has never been executed. Five other Sudanese nationals were accused of multiple counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Hilal was never charged by the court, but in 2006, his name was placed on a U.N. Security Council list of individuals banned from travel outside Sudan and subject to a financial asset freeze for impeding the peace process and attacking civilians.

“We all thought he should have been a real target of an ICC investigation, given the facts we documented in our own interviews and fact-finding,” said Richard Dicker, an expert on the International Criminal Court who heads the international justice program at Human Rights Watch.

The panel found that violence was continuing in Darfur, reinforcing reports by Human Rights Watch that a government-backed armed group, the Rapid Support Forces, committed atrocities, including widespread sexual assault.

The report also documented a 225 percent increase in attacks against the joint U.N.-African Union Mission in Darfur, or UNAMID, in 2015. The Sudanese government refused the panel’s request to interview a suspect in a May 24 attack on the peacekeeping mission in the town of Kabkabiya, where Arab militias opened fire on four Rwandan peacekeepers, killing one. Sudan’s refusal to make the suspect available “adversely affects the panel’s ability to gather information, including biometrics” needed to complete the investigation into the attack, according to the panel report.

The Sudanese Air Force, meanwhile, continues to deploy attack helicopters and Antonov An-26 bombers in violation of a U.N. arms embargo, according to the report. The panel also uncovered “clear evidence” that Sudan has deployed cluster munitions in Darfur.

Hilal’s gold mining gives him access to substantial amounts of money and could mark a new phase in the Darfur conflict.

Gold has become an increasingly vital source of national wealth for Khartoum since South Sudan separated from Sudan and declared independence in 2011, taking with it most of the oil fields.

Unregulated gold mining has emerged as a major source of revenue for Darfur’s armed groups. Between 2010 and 2014, more than $4.5 billion in gold was smuggled from Sudan to the United Arab Emirates, according to the U.N. panel report. In 2008, gold accounted for only 1 percent of total Sudanese exports. By 2014, that number had risen to 30 percent, the report stated.

Hilal seized control of the Jebel Amir mines in January 2013 after the Sudanese Armed Forces withdrew from the site to avoid a violent confrontation with his forces.

The report found that Hilal has since turned the area into a gigantic ATM. He charges gold mining merchants $164 per month to do business at the site while vendors interested in providing services to gold prospectors must pay up to $197 per month to operate a stall. Every butcher on the site, meanwhile, must pay $3.28 to Hilal for every slaughtered sheep. All told, the report found that Hilal and his armed followers make $54 million a year from their control of the gold mines.

Hilal has had a complicated relationship with the Sudanese government since 2003, when he was released from prison and helped to lead a government-backed campaign against rebel forces. In 2008, he was named a special advisor to the president, an appointment that brought him to the center of national power in Khartoum.

Hilal has since returned to Darfur to develop his personal power base. In January 2014, he defected from the ruling National Congress party to form the Sudanese Awakening Revolutionary Council and is believed to have ambitions to become Darfur’s governor. Today, Hilal effectively controls more than 400 mines in Jebel Amir, and his permission is required for prospectors or other vendors hoping to enter the area.

The new U.N. report found that Hilal continues to collaborate with Sudanese forces and engage in millions of dollars’ worth of deals with the Central Bank of Sudan. The panel charges that the bank, which facilitates the gold trade, failed to comply with its obligation to freeze Hilal’s assets while the government also permitted him to travel beyond Sudan’s borders with impunity.

In an interview, Sudan’s U.N. ambassador, Omer Dahab Fadl Mohamed, told FP that Hilal hadn’t sold gold to the UAE through the Sudanese banking system. “He doesn’t have an account and did not export gold through the Central Bank of Sudan,” Mohamed said.

Mohamed said the move to sanction Sudan’s gold trade is the latest in a decades-long effort, led by the United States and its allies, to “deprive us of our natural resources.” Nearly two months ago, Sudan summoned the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Khartoum to protest a move by Washington to include illicit gold prospecting in a U.N. list of activities subject to sanctions.

He said that Sudanese mining statistics show that only 13.3 percent of the country’s gold exports come from Darfur, with only “a limited amount” of that coming from Jebel Amir. He said that the Sudanese government has recently taken control of the Jebel Amir mines, something disputed by the U.N. panel, which has said it believes Hilal is still running them.

As for the panel’s claim that Sudan failed to enforce the U.N. travel ban on Hilal, Mohamed said: “The problem we’re facing with Musa Hilal is that he is leading a nomadic lifestyle. It is difficult for us to track his movements.”

Photo credit: EVELYN HOCKSTEIN/MCT via Getty Images

Colum Lynch is a senior staff writer at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @columlynch

View original:  https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/04/russia-blocks-u-n-report-linking-alleged-sudanese-war-criminal-to-gold-profiteering/

Hat tip:  https://www.dabangasudan.org/en/all-news/article/russia-blocks-un-report-on-darfur-gold-trade

Sudan's Gold: Hemedti's untold power - Hilal’s militia made up to $54m pa controlling Jebel Amer goldmine

Article from Zimfocus.net - African Business Magazine

Written by TOM COLLINS

Dated 08 JULY 2019

SUDAN’S GOLD: HEMEDTI’S UNTOLD POWER

The power of Mohamed “Hemedti” Hamdan Dagolo, who has led the violent suppression of demonstrators in Sudan, is based not only on leadership of a militia but also his control of valuable gold resources. Tom Collins reports

After weeks of peaceful sit-ins outside the military headquarters in Khartoum, the uneasy truce between Sudan’s security forces and thousands of protestors demanding change was finally ruptured at dawn on 3 June. Members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – a militia widely condemned for human rights violations in its suppression of rebels in the western province of Darfur – fanned out across the city and proceeded to kill over 100 demonstrators.

A grim warning had been given just days before by Mohamed “Hemedti” Hamdan Dagolo, the leader of the RSF and vice-president of the Transitional Military Council (TMC), the body that has controlled the country since the overthrow of President Omar al-Bashir in April. “My patience has limits,” he said.

Hemedti, along with the head of the army, Abdul Fattah al-Burhan, has emerged as a key figure within the TMC. With a violent past and control of a paramilitary force estimated to number as many as 40,000, many fear that he has set his ambitions on more than simply preventing Sudan’s transition to democracy.

His reported vast personal wealth – accrued from the gold trade, along with outsourcing his militia to the former regime and Saudi Arabia to fight the war in Yemen – under­pins his power.

In 2017, Sudan produced 107 tonnes of gold, making it the third-largest producer on the continent after Ghana and South Africa. Some 70% of output is estimated to be smuggled abroad, although the true size of the illicit trade is hard to quantify. Through his militia, Hemedti controls one of the country’s most lucrative gold mines – Jebel Amer in North Darfur.

By origin a member of the Rezeigat tribe in the Darfur region, Hemedti rose from humble origins as a trader of cloth and camels. In 2003, he joined the Janjaweed, a local militia that was waging a brutal campaign against Darfuri rebels on behalf of the government under the leadership of tribal chief Musa Hilal. The conflict has left 300,000 dead, according to UN estimates.

Through his role in the war, he gained favour with President Bashir, who in 2014 put him in charge of the RSF, which had been formed as an offshoot of the Janjaweed. The group was given the status of a regular force but retained its violent modus operandi, and Bashir began to use it as a bulwark against the strength of Sudan’s military.

“That’s when Hemedti became quite strong,” says Omer Ismail, senior advisor at the Washington-based NGO Enough Project. “Bashir was not confident in the army because the economy was deteriorating rapidly and there were many problems.”

Yet along with a position of almost unparalleled power, Hemedti’s ascendance was accompanied by access to riches. In 2015, a report drawn up for the UN Security Council found that Hilal’s militia was making up to $54m a year from control of the Jebel Amer goldmine. The following year, Hemedti moved against Hilal, who had come into conflict with the government, and seized control of the lucrative mine. Ismail estimates that his earnings may now outstrip those of his former boss.

With this money, the militia kingpin has been able to recruit jobless youths from the across the Sahel to the RSF, resulting in an ever-growing force which Ismail claims is presently “occupying” Sudan: “I would say that Sudan is occupied now because the troops that he is using to control and monopolise power, most of them are not even Sudanese. They are recruited from Chad, Mali and Niger. They are from the Sahel.”

As the RSF continues to sow terror, much of the gold coming from the Jebel Amer mine, which supports a surrounding settlement of around 70,000 people, is exported clandestinely to various international buyers via a shady and complicated web of smuggling activities.

“Almost everything makes its way east to Khartoum,” says Ismail. “From there it is almost exclusively sold to traders in the UAE.”

With very little capacity for smelting and refining gold in Sudan, the metal travels onwards in rough kilogram bricks to countries including Dubai, which act as a gateway for much of Africa’s illicit gold trade.

Comtrade data shows that the UAE imported $15.1bn worth of gold from Africa in 2016, more than any other country and up from $1.3bn in 2006. The share of African gold in the UAE’S gold imports increased from 18% to nearly 50% over the same period and the industry accounts for approximately one fifth of the country’s total GDP.

The substantial offtake of Sudanese gold in Dubai’s markets suggests that economic considerations are part of the UAE’s chequebook diplomacy, which saw a joint $3bn aid package pumped into Khartoum alongside Saudi Arabia.

Hemedti has close links with both Gulf countries as the agent who recruited around 15,000 of his troops to fight the war in Yemen against Houthi-led militia. Ismail speculates that he may receive anywhere between $2,000 to $3,000 a month per person as payment for outsourcing his troops.

Other gold routes, according to Ismail, include the “40-day route” through the desert, historically used to smuggle slaves and ivory to either Tripoli in Libya or Cairo in Egypt. Ismail estimates that the country has around 440 remote airstrips used in the clandestine trade.

“They put the gold in a Land Cruiser and smuggle the gold outside the city of Khartoum,” he explains. “Then one of the smaller companies who have licences to fly out of Sudan will set up a local flight. They will put the gold in the belly of the plane. The gold will then come back through Khartoum airport and onwards to its final destination.”

RUSSIAN INVOLVEMENT

One of these destinations is Russia. Ramping up its presence across Central Africa and the Horn, Moscow has begun gold mining operations in Sudan over the last two years – predominantly in the northeastern region away from Darfur.

Sim Tack, global security analyst for Stratfor, says that the Wagner Group, a Russian private-military outfit with close links to the Kremlin, has been providing security to Russian companies working in the region.

“Russia has become very involved in mineral extraction in Sudan,” he says. “We have seen big accounts of Russia doing this in the Central African Republic (CAR) but at the same time they are doing it in Sudan. Sudan is the entry point into Africa which Russia is using to support its presence in CAR.” 

Data from the Russian central bank cited by Bloomberg show that its gold reserves have nearly quadrupled over the past 10 years, and that 2018 marked the most “ambitious year yet” for Russian gold-buying.

Much of Russia’s activities across Sudan and the CAR are shrouded in secrecy, and the Enough Project’s Ismail believes there is “no way of knowing” how large the trade is.

As for Hemedti, it’s clear that the vast amount of money earned from his gold-mining activities is a key enabler of the fearsome power he continues to wield in Khartoum and beyond.

SOURCE: http://www.zimfocus.net/2019/07/04/sudans-gold-hemedtis-untold-power-african-business-magazine/