Showing posts with label Wau. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wau. Show all posts

Thursday, May 04, 2023

Mineral Resources CEO in white UN plane from S. Kordofan to S. Sudan at invite of Juba agreed by SAF?

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: I don't know Jon Hutson or what this tweet thread is about. It looks strange. What's brewing in South Sudan, I wonder.

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

S. Sudan: James Aguer Garang one of S. Sudan’s most well-known painters uses art to give trauma therapy


Can South Sudan's men of war lead the country to peace?
Report from Middle East Eye.net
Dated 15 February 2020 09:28 UTC 

The long rivalry between Salva Kiir and Riek Machar exploded into civil war with South Sudan’s independence in 2011. Now a deal could be in sight

South Sudanese artist James Aguer Garang has invited us into his sparsely furnished studio. Propped against the wall is his most famous painting.

On the right side of the canvas is the nation envisaged at the time of independence in July 2011. Blue sky. Cattle grazing in lush grass. A father and daughter walking hand in hand.

The left side of the canvas represents the reality of war: rape, destruction and death. A child tries to suckle milk from its dead mother’s breast. Villagers flee from their burning huts as soldiers advance.

“This is the story of our country,” says Garang, a gentle and serious man in his 40s. With a pen in his shirt pocket and wearing a dark suit, he dresses more like an accountant than an artist.

The picture is personal for him. Aged nine, Garang was one of a force of 20,000 children enlisted by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army to fight in the second Sudanese War, which lasted from 1983 to 2005.

Told by soldiers he would be going to school, instead he was taught to use a gun. He saw combat in one of the most bloodthirsty conflicts of modern times in which more than two million lives - approaching one quarter of the South Sudanese population - are thought to have been lost.

Garang has a scar above his right eyebrow. “We were running from the enemy,” he explains. “We had to cross a river. They were shooting at us so I dived down deep to escape the bullets and hit my head on a rock.”

“Every day when I look in the mirror, I am reminded of that time.”

After five years Garang deserted, making a five-month journey on foot through the Ethiopian bush before reaching a refugee camp in Kenya.

There he learned to paint, following in the footsteps of his father who had been a traditional craftsman, carving sculptures out of wood and cow horn.

Today, Garang is not only one of South Sudan’s most well-known painters, but also uses art to provide trauma therapy to children and adults affected by war.
Photo: Graffiti on walls near James Aguer Garang's Ana Taban street art project in Juba, South Sudan (MEE)

“There is no worse disease than trauma in South Sudan,” he says. “The first thing trauma attacks is your thinking brain. You don’t concentrate. You don’t remember things. You have issues in your personal relationships with people.

“In South Sudan, fighting is the normality. There are no apologies. That’s the life of a traumatised community.”

South Sudan has been in a state of conflict for much of the period since Britain gave Sudan its independence in 1956, ignoring repeated warnings from local people and knowledgeable colonial officials that the south was too distant and underdeveloped to submit to rule from Khartoum.

The first Sudanese rebellion broke out in 1963, and persisted for a decade. An uneasy ceasefire held until 1982 when war broke out again. It lasted 21 years until a peace deal was struck in January 2005.

South Sudan secured independence after a referendum in 2011 only for civil war to erupt two years later.

Most have suffered the loss of family members. Far too often their entire family. Many have themselves committed atrocities. Millions have known the terror of fleeing their homes. There are more than one million South Sudanese refugees in neighbouring Uganda alone.

James Aguer Garang's organisation tries to confront this spiral of violence with street art projects for young people. It is called Ana Taban - Arabic for “I am tired”.

“We in South Sudan are tired of war,” says Garang.

“We need to come to our senses, to prevent ourselves from being victims and aggressors. But it’s hard to change by yourself. That’s why we need programmes for people who cannot stop aggression.”

Garang firmly believes there is the potential for change. “From trauma there can be reconciliation,” he insists.

Scorpions in a bottle

An attempt at reconciliation is under way. Fifteen minutes' walk from Garang’s office is a dusty road beside which men sit in plastic chairs drinking tea.

On one side is the national football stadium, separated from the street by a corrugated iron fence. Opposite is a row of modern hotels. This year these have been home to rebel leaders, warlords, diplomats, government officials and international powerbrokers.

They are there to negotiate a peace settlement between South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and rival Riek Machar. Peace depends on the two men forming a transitional unity government by an agreed deadline of 22 February.

Machar and Kiir started out as comrades nearly 40 years ago in the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, the main rebel opposition to Khartoum, led by legendary guerilla fighter and national hero John Garang.

They became enemies in 1991 when Machar mounted a failed coup against John Garang, with the support of Khartoum. Kiir remained loyal and was named Garang’s successor after he died in a helicopter crash in 2005.
Photo: Salva Kiir (L) and Riek Machar (R), with Sudan's General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo at peace talks in Juba in December (AFP)

The pair reunited in 2011 when Kiir became president and Machar vice president of the newly created Republic of South Sudan. The partnership failed - think scorpions in a bottle - and in 2013 South Sudan again descended into war.

Only this time the war was not between the north and the south. The South Sudanese were fighting each other.

Machar was reinstated as vice president in 2016 in a failed attempt to broker a peace. After three months, fighting broke out between the two men’s forces. Machar fled the capital, pursued by Kiir's forces. There is still no consensus on who started the fighting. All too quickly, the renewed political struggle mutated into a barbarous conflict between the nation’s two largest tribes ("tribe" is the term used by the South Sudanese), Kiir's Dinka and Machar’s Nuer.

Soon the southern Equatoria region, which largely avoided conflict in 2013, was dragged into the fighting. Before long the entire country was at war. Many feared South Sudan would descend into the genocidal violence that overtook Rwanda in 1994.

Under international pressure, South Sudan somehow pulled itself back from the brink. By December 2017 Machar and Kiir had agreed to a ceasefire, and have been dragged back to the negotiating table. Many regard today as the most hopeful moment in South Sudan’s short history.

Negotiations are being led by a trade group of eight east African countries known as the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which was responsible for the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in 2005.

Support is also being provided by the so-called troika made up of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway. Local and international church leaders, including the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury, have played their part.

Every power in the region supports peace. Uganda, (a long-term backer of Kiir) is playing a significant role. Ethiopia, which has often hosted rebel troops, put on the start of the peace talks.

South Africa is pushing for a settlement, which it sees as the perfect start to its term as the new chair of the African Union, a role it assumed in January this year.

Perhaps most significant of all, the ousting of Sudan’s former president Omar Bashir, who waged war against the south for many years, has produced a more positive atmosphere. “The stars are aligned,” one diplomat told us.

The world's youngest country

South Sudan is called the world’s youngest country. The 11 million population is made up of over 60 ethnic groups, none of which are a majority. The largest group, the Dinka, make up around a third of the population. The second largest group, the Nuer, is around half that size.

Some differentiate themselves with facial scars. It is not uncommon to see men with long v-shaped lines etched into their foreheads. Others have parallel lines stretching around to the back of their skull or crosses and stars on their cheeks.

Almost every tribe has its own language. Arabic, from the days of unification with Sudan, is the closest South Sudan has to a national language. English and Swahili are also popular among the millions who sought refuge in Uganda and Kenya.

During the decades of war with Sudan, tribes had a common enemy. After independence, any national identity unravelled almost immediately as South Sudan’s leaders returned to tribal affiliations and lined their own pockets with resources meant to build a country.

South Sudan is the size of France, but where France has more than a million kilometres of tarmac roads, South Sudan has less than 300 - a discrepancy that becomes worse when you consider that South Sudan has had a yearly revenue of more than £1.15bn from oil alone since 2005.

A lack of formal institutions at the time of independence made theft easy. The vast majority of South Sudan’s population are farmers or cattle keepers with no formal education.

Cows have for centuries been the centre of the economy and culture. Little has changed. In villages cows remain the preferred currency. In Juba, the most powerful people in South Sudan pay for dowries, or hide stolen money, in vast herds.

Money for roads, schools and hospitals quickly ended up in the pockets of the new administration, made up of former generals and veterans with no experience of government.

One particularly nefarious example, known as the Dura Saga grain scandal, saw £1.53bn set aside for food storage facilities to protect against famine disappear.

After two consecutive years of flooding in much of the country, famine is again expected in much of South Sudan. There is still no infrastructure to protect the starving.

In 2012, President Kiir - a major beneficiary himself of looting the public purse - issued a half-hearted public appeal to 75 top officials to return over £3bn.

Unsurprisingly, nothing was returned. Corruption is still widespread. A report published in September 2019, released by the Sentry, an investigative team in the nonprofit group Enough Project, detailed an international network of actors assisting local kleptocrats in the theft of billions, from “Chinese-Malaysian oil giants and British tycoons to networks of traders from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya and Uganda”.

The result for the people of South Sudan has been famine and war. The breakdown of national unity into tribal disputes and poverty has led to uncontrolled, armed clashes across the country.

'You don't know why they want to kill you'

It takes at least two days to drive the 400 miles north from Juba in the south to Wau, the country’s second largest city. There are no tarmacked roads, and roadblocks manned by militias. Robbers line the route. To avoid trouble, we drove in from the north.

We reached a school with no windows, no doors, no benches, just a blackboard. Teachers get paid 3,000 Sudanese pounds, less than £10 sterling, a month. Even that money seldom gets paid.

One tells us: “We are used to going six months without salary. How do you think we can eat? I cannot feed my children.”

Philip Nyok, principal of a nearby teacher training college, says that peace “will change so many things. People will be able to go back to their areas. They will cultivate their land. They will get more income”.

“You cannot get away five miles from here because you will be killed by unknown gunmen,” he says. “You don’t even know why they want to kill you. That is why you cannot get out of town and cultivate your crops.”
Photo: Teacher Philip Nyok in the southern city of Wau says people cannot cultivate their crops because of the threat from gunmen (MEE)

Despite the heat, Nyok is dressed in a smart grey suit, a jumper and tie. Like James Aguer Garang, he tells us “we are tired of war”.

“South Sudan needs strong people. Independent people. Hard-working people who can support themselves,” he continues.

“They won’t need support if there is peace. But with insecurity there are no jobs, no food, no shelter.”

Despite the current situation, Nyok has ambitious plans. He drives us out of the town to show us. At once the landscape opens out, dry bush spreading for miles on either side of the increasingly worn-away track. Small trees provide occasional patches of shade.

We pass a man collecting firewood, sweat dripping from his face. After 15 minutes we reach 50 hectares of virgin land that Nyok has set aside to turn his college into a university campus.

There is no fence or sign to mark out the site, nothing to distinguish it from the miles of bush surrounding it. There is still everything to be done. It is men like like Nyok who are determined to deliver the future South Sudan dreamed of at independence nine years ago, if their leaders will let them.

'Too dangerous to go home'

A few miles from Nyok’s campus, at a camp for internally displaced persons on the east bank of the Jur river, we found Adom, a mother of eight.

Sitting cross-legged outside her tent, children playing at her feet, she said: “I was born in the conflict. I was married in the conflict. And now I am growing old in the conflict.

“I miss my house. I miss it so much. But everything has been destroyed.”

Adero, a mother of seven, recalled: “My nephew was shot dead while we were sharing a plate of food. We just ran. I can’t go home until security comes.

“When I hear the opposition and the government agree, I can then think about returning home. I’m not just missing my village. I am crying my heart out. But it is still too dangerous to go home.”

Another lady, Asunta, arrived in the camp last March, having walked three days after her village came under attack. She said that “if they form a unity government, I will go back”.

Most of the people we spoke to were members of the Luo tribe, who had fled from Dinka raiders. The collapse of order in South Sudan has enabled indiscriminate warfare between different tribes.

Disagreements which used to be settled with low-level violence and regulated by elders are now settled with machine guns and RPGs, all too easy to obtain in a time of civil war.

The South Sudanese tragedy is only in part fought between the rival armies of Kiir and Machar. The horror of their war has unleashed a kaleidoscope of local conflicts which cannot be resolved without national unity.

'We are all one'

Back in Juba, negotiators face two sticking points. The first is the sensitive matter of merging Machar and Kiir’s armies into a national institution. This is going better than expected.

Beside the swimming pool of a Juba hotel we met Colonel Lam Paul Gabriel, spokesman for Machar’s opposition army. Gabriel told us there had been no major clashes since November 2018, and that huge strides had been made in merging the two armies in training centres set up across the country: "The troops are really happy together, sleeping together, celebrating together, eating together."

He added that troops enthusiastically sing “We are all one” at the training centres. Up to 40,000 members of the new national force will soon be deployed at border checkpoints and on policing duties.

The colonel insisted that no decision had yet been made whether opposition chief of staff Lt General Gatwech Dual or General Gabriel Jok Riak, head of Kiir’s army, would be in charge.

The same positive message comes from the government side, though one diplomat observer of the talks is sceptical.

“Are they sending core combatants to the camps?” he asked. “Or are both sides recruiting people to go to the camps while leaving hardened troops in key defensive positions?”
Photo: A trainee soldier for a new unified army gestures with his wooden rifle while attending a UN-run reconciliation programme in Mapei (AFP)

In any case, the unification of the army still holds great symbolic value. It is an institution that transcends tribal loyalties, a rare thing in South Sudan.

If peace is to hold, the formation of a new national identity will be key. In a society where most positions of authority are held by former SPLA generals, the army is an obvious place to begin this process.

The second issue is the number of South Sudanese states. What sounds like an administrative detail is deeply political. At independence in 2011, South Sudan was split into 10 states. Since then, Kiir has twice increased the number - to 25 in 2015 and then to the current 32 in 2017.

Critics insist that Kiir’s redrawing of boundaries is designed to gerrymander Dinka majorities in resource-rich areas, especially those with oil. More importantly, those same majorities will ensure Kiir wins the national elections slated to take place in three years' time.

Machar has understandably refused to accept the current 32 states. He has also rejected a suggestion from South African mediators that the issue is put to an international arbitration committee.

Machar has offered a return to the 24 states recognised under the British administration, with Juba being made an additional neutral state. It’s one of the more attractive options, due to having historical boundaries to work from. However, Kiir is refusing to compromise.

This failure to reach an agreement reveals more than bad faith. Machar and Kiir are terrified of each other.

After years of bitter fighting, both fear for their lives. Kiir has refused to provide Machar (who is said to have British citizenship) with a South Sudanese passport.

Machar, who lives in Khartoum, travels to Juba in the military jet of Sudan’s General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known as Hemeti, a senior member of Sudan's transitional government and commander of the country's Rapid Support Forces, formed from elements of the Janjaweed militia accused of massacres in Darfur.

He never stays in the city without his Sudanese protector. And whenever the pair are in the city, trucks full of elite presidential guards - known as the Tiger Battalion, named after Kiir’s rebel codename - are stationed outside their hotel.

Bullet holes in the walls

The guards outside Kiir's presidential palace in the centre of Juba look more relaxed. They wear stylish military fatigues and red berets. They sport dark glasses and smoke cigarettes. But the walls behind them are pockmarked with bullet holes, legacy of the gunfight between Kiir's and Machar's troops last time they tried to form a government in 2016.

Goats graze in front of plaques announcing South Sudan's slogan “Justice, Liberty, Prosperity”.

In Kiir's private office we meet the president’s secretary, who tells us she used to campaign against gender violence. Kiir enters wearing his trademark stetson hat, presented to him by US President George W Bush on a visit to the White House almost 15 years ago. He has rarely been seen without it since.

The president walks slowly, and his conversation is interrupted by long, pregnant pauses. Kiir maintains he is “hopeful” that a unity government can be formed this month.

At the same time, suspicion of Machar can be heard in much of what he says: “Riek is not convinced about the agreement because the agreement does not make him president. He has been threatening to go back to war.”
Photo: A wall of the presidential palace in Juba pockmarked with bullet holes. Kiir says he will repair the walls when a peace deal is agreed (MEE)

“If he captures the centre of power, if he controls Juba even for a day, he will claim he is president,” the president continues. “Even if he is here [in the room] for 24 hours, his ambition is completed.”

Who will be commander in chief? Kiir replies: “Of course, it will be someone from our side,” contradicting the earlier briefing from Machar’s military spokesman.

“We all want peace except Riek Machar,” adds the president. We reply that Machar also says he wants peace. “There is a difference between what you say and what you have in your heart.”

We observe that making peace requires forgiveness. Kiir replies: “I’m a very forgiving person. In my life I don’t seek revenge. If a person does me wrong on many occasions, I have no problem.”

“Last time the peace did not hold because Machar was not convinced. If we form a government now and Riek accepts the role of first vice president, it will hold. If this government succeeds the past will be forgotten.”

Kiir pauses, then mentions the bullet holes outside the presidential palace: “You have seen the walls. The bullets. I did not close them. I want to remind him. When he comes in together we will plaster the walls. We will repair them. Paint them.”

History is full of examples of men of violence who have given up arms and led the way to lasting peace. 

But are Machar and Kiir capable of the necessary generosity of spirit and moral heroism? With the 22 February deadline nearing and no compromise yet reached, that question is yet to be answered.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Spare a thought for the other Sudanese (Julie Flint)



Photo: Julie Flint, co-author, with Alex de Waal, of “Darfur: A New History of a Long War,” has written extensively on Sudan. Further details below.

From THE DAILY STAR :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb
Spare a thought for the other Sudanese
Commentary by Julie Flint
Friday, 14 January 2011
Full copy:
As southern Sudanese celebrate their self-determination referendum, spare a thought for those they leave behind – all those in northern Sudan for whom the birth of an independent state in the south of the country will be the death of a dream: the democratic, decentralized “New Sudan,” united and free of racial, ethnic or religious prejudice, which was the stated aim of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (S.P.L.M./A.) under the leadership of John Garang.

Conventional wisdom has tended to be that the National Congress Party (N.C.P.) of President Omar al-Bashir would fight tooth and nail to prevent the South seceding. Prominent commentators, especially in the United States, have warned that another “genocide” was on the cards. One went as far as to say the violence was likely to resemble “what happens in a stockyard.” Instead, Bashir recently traveled to the southern capital, Juba, on the eve of the vote and promised “to respect the choice of the citizens of the South.”

The North-South understanding is of course fragile. There are many flashpoints, many spoilers, and many people in Khartoum who think Bashir has given away too much (a third of the country, three-quarters of national oil production, and much rich grazing land that is of critical importance to northern pastoralists). Generally, however, the approach of the president’s N.C.P. seems to be that the S.P.L.M. has set secession as its objective, and the N.C.P. will accept it, but also make the price very high.

Part of the price is that the S.P.L.M. will not be permitted to continue as a political party in the North. The S.P.L.A., the armed wing of the S.P.L.M., will be permitted no presence – except for a minority that could be integrated into the Sudan Armed Forces (at the discretion of the N.C.P., and on its terms). The S.P.L.M. and its international backers must accept that they will have no role or access across the new border after partition.

Already there are signs that the N.C.P. is closing down in terms of tolerating dissent in the North – military offensives in Darfur, arrests of journalists and activists in Khartoum, inflammatory statements from the very top of the N.C.P., especially regarding the future of southerners in the North. Notice to quit has been served on the United Nations peacekeeping force, or U.N.M.I.S.

There is special concern among the Nuba people of Southern Kordofan state, “African” tribes at the southern limit of the Arabized North, many of whom fought alongside the southern S.P.L.A. for 15 years, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives. A special protocol in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (C.P.A.) that ended the civil war failed to satisfy the aspirations of S.P.L.M. supporters in the Nuba region and the second “protocol state,” Blue Nile – most importantly, their demand for self-determination.

The Nuba war was a civil war in its own right, an indigenously mobilized rebellion with strong local roots. With international attention focused on the conflict in southern Sudan, Khartoum sealed the region off from 1991 until 1995. At its height, the war was not only a war to defeat the rebels; it was a program of forced relocations designed to empty the mountains and resettle the Nuba in camps where their Nuba identity would be erased. Humanitarian access was denied. Educated people and intellectuals were detained and killed, according to a security officer who later fled the region, traumatized by what he himself had overseen. The aim, as he recalled, was “to ensure that the Nuba were so primitive that they couldn’t speak for themselves.”

After 1991, cut off even from the S.P.L.A. in southern Sudan, the Nuba fought alone, without resupply from the South. In the middle of a three-year famine, they established a civilian administration and judicial system, organized a religious tolerance conference, and took a popular vote on whether to fight on or surrender.

The unique nature of the rebellion was one of the reasons why the Nuba became something of a cause célèbre for a few years, once the atrocities of the government’s war in the mountains were exposed. Then came the C.P.A., and the war in Darfur. The Nuba fell off the agenda and implementation of the provisions relevant to them in the C.P.A. was neglected – jobs, development, and, critically, the formation of a new national army incorporating S.P.L.A. units.

On July 9, the C.P.A. will end – and with it the agreements that determine the fate of the Nuba people. A leaked N.C.P. document has identified them as “new southerners,” who must be “weakened … controlled [and] pulled out at the roots.” Secessionists, in other words. Rightly or wrongly, many Nuba fear the worst, beginning now.

The promised “popular consultations” for the two protocol states to review C.P.A. implementation remains a weak and ill-defined mechanism that can be drawn out indefinitely by disagreement with the center – even if the concept survives a North-South split. Southern Kordofan needs more than a popular consultation. It needs an internationally mandated mechanism to oversee implementation of unfulfilled C.P.A. commitments beyond the end of the C.P.A. It needs agreement on a new international presence, with examination of non-U.N. options in case Khartoum remains opposed to U.N. troops. It needs security mechanisms acceptable to and involving S.P.L.A. units. Northern Sudan as a whole needs the democratization the C.P.A. promised to deliver, but didn’t.

Southerners may feel they have won their battle. Northerners have not.
- - -

BOOK: "DARFUR: A NEW HISTORY OF A LONG WAR"
Authored by Julie Flint and Alex de Waal





Image courtesy: Amazon. Further details online at:

(UK) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Darfur-History-African-Arguments-Short/dp/1842779508

(USA) http://www.amazon.com/Darfur-History-Long-African-Arguments/dp/1842779508
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LATEST NEWS FROM SRS - SUDAN RADIO SERVICE:

Thursday, 20 January 2011 (Kadugli) – The people of southern Kordofan are still waiting for a response from the national election commission on when the new voter registration exercise will start.

The SPLM spokesperson and the information secretary in Southern Kordofan Mohammedan Ibrahim spoke to SRS on Thursday from Kadugli.

[Mohammedan Ibrahim]: “Now we are organizing for the elections in southern Kordofan so that afterwards we go for a popular consultation. We are now in the process and the Election Commission is insisting that they will work with the old register. However, all the political parties in the state are rejecting that. Last week citizens of South Kordofan went on a peaceful demonstration. They took a letter from the political parties to the commission rejecting the old register. Finally the commission stopped the process. The commission in Khartoum held a meeting and we reached a solution that they will work with the new census result. However up to now the election commission hasn’t announced the new timetable for the registration exercise in southern Kordofan.”

Mister Mohammedan Ibrahim explains the controversy behind the delay of the new voter registration exercise for elections scheduled two months after the southern Sudan Referendum.

[Mohammedan Ibrahim]: “There are two sides on the story. One, the people of southern Kordofan have rejected the first census result. The census was done yes but there are new geographical constituencies. Again there are some elements in Khartoum who are trying to delay the elections. But this will be the deadline and we will organize a popular consultation which will be peaceful. If there is anyone who doesn’t want popular consultation to take place thinking that if it doesn’t happen it will kill the will of the people of Southern Kordofan then that person is mistaken. Our will, will never die. We will struggle to tell them we got the right of our people.”

Initially, the registration was scheduled to start on January 16th but has now been postponed till further notice.

Over the weekend citizens of Southern Kordofan held a peaceful demonstration against what they call inappropriate procedures of the voter registration process.

According to the CPA, South Kordofan and Blue Nile states will hold elections before the popular consultation exercise in the two regions.
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Thursday, 20 January 2011 (Khartoum/UK) – The United Nation Security Council is urging the federal government not to get involved in aerial bombardments in Darfur but work towards a ceasefire arrangement with the anti-government groups in the region.

On Wednesday, the federal Advisor to the minister of information, Dr. Rabie Abdulaati accused some elements inside the UN-SC of wanting to create a new conflict in Darfur.

Abdulaati says this call by the UN Security council comes after the federal government has fulfilled its commitment to the people of Southern Sudan by conducting a self determination referendum.

[Rabie Abdulaati] “It is clear that this call in which the Security Council urges to stop air raids in Darfur comes at a time when the comprehensive peace agreement was implemented. They fully know that the Sudanese government originally aimed at peace stability, not only in Southern Sudan, but all over Sudan.

This call only came to draw attention once again, after peace was established in Southern Sudan, and chance was given to Southern population to decide its fate through the ballot box, for whether to secede or unite, this achievement should have been the axis upon which Western countries should concentrate. Instead of calling to stop air rides which don’t exist.”

However, the anti-government group the Justice and Equality Movement welcomes the call for negotiation by the Security Council.

The Justice and Equality Movement leader Al-Tahir Al-Faki told SRS about their readiness to reach a peace agreement with the federal government if the latter shows serious willingness to negotiate a political solution in Doha.

[Al-Tahir Al-Faki] “JEM accepts that the ideal solution for Darfur is a peaceful agreement and the last part is that the solution must be a comprehensive one. Not that a single movement to sign an agreement with the Sudanese government. The movement praises the stand by the UN and assures that, the movement believes in the strategic peaceful resolution, and it will be available at Al-Doha for that purpose.”
JEM delegation in Doha started last December talks on a cessation of hostilities agreement with the federal government. The mediation team said the movement is committed to engage political talks after the agreement.
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Thursday, 20 January 2011 (Abyei) – Tensions are once again rising in Abyei, with SPLM accusing the Messeriya community in Abyei of continuing road blocks in the region.

This comes just a week after the Ngo’k Dinka and Messeriya communities signed an agreement on secession of hostilities and a peaceful co-existence in Kadugli in Southern Kordofan.

The deputy SPLM chairman for Abyei area, Juach Agok, spoke to SRS on Thursday from Abyei.

[Juach Agok]: “Yes, the road has been blocked and commodities and the IDPs are being prevented from coming in to Abyei .Possibly, the Messeriya are behind this, but, behind them is the popular defense force which was formed by the government. So, I still do not point a finger to the Messeriya alone; the Central Government is behind it also. This started long before the start of the referendum and up to now, they are still blocking roads, looting and raping. They say it is the Messeriya but actually, it is the NCP because the NCP is using the Messeriya so that they Claim Abyei through the Messeriya.”

Juach Agok is urging the federal government and the Government of Southern Sudan to resolve the matter rather than considering it a problem of the Abyei people.

[Juach Chol]: “This thing should not be left to the people of Abyei because this road is connecting the whole of Warrap state , part of Unity state, Northern Bahr el Ghazal state, Western Bahr el Ghazal , even Central Equatoria and Western Equatoria use this road .So, it should be taken seriously by the Government of Southern Sudan . And, the humanitarian issue because some people have now spent more than 20 days on the road, suffering of hunger just because of this blockade. So, we appeal to the Government of Southern Sudan to take this as an important issue and not just leave it like that.”

Efforts to reach the federal government for a response were unsuccessful.
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Thursday, 20 January 2011 (Wau) – The residents of Wau town, capital of Western Bahr El-Ghazal State have expressed satisfaction with the preliminary results of the self-determination referendum in their state.

The state referendum high committee announced on Wednesday that Western Bahr El-Ghazal state scored ninety-five percent secession votes during the polling process.

Sudan Radio Service spoke to some residents of Wau town on Thursday.

Mister Faohat Richard Hasssan Maburuk is the Secretary-General of the Islamic Council for Southern Sudan:

[Faohat Richard Hasssan]: “What happened was expected because the people of Wau actually truly they are always with what Southern Sudanese are up to. Whatever a Southerner wants to do he would do it. As such, our opinion is that this referendum has come and passed peacefully and its result is what pleases the citizens of Western Bahr El-Ghazal State now. Every Southerners must accept this result and be pleased by it. All of us must accept this result because it was what was expected”.

Madam Antonit Benjamin Bubu is a woman activist in Wau:

[Antonit Benjamin Bubu]: “As a woman in Western Bahr El-Ghazal State, I am very happy indeed about the results announced yesterday and I have accepted these results, because truly there was a spirit of democracy manifested and truly the referendum was free and fair, because there is no where all the people are the same. If the results were to be hundred percent secession then there would be nothing like that it wouldn’t have been free because everybody has their own opinion. When it was reported that there were unmarked papers, it means there were people who were neither for unity nor for secession.”.

Madam Angelina No is another woman activist in Wau:

[Angelina No]: “I am very happy indeed with the result which scored the percentage of ninety-five secession votes. I am talking in the name of women of Western Bahr El-Ghazal State and a citizen, I am urging those who voted for unity to change their opinion, I am demanding that let them change their opinion because our aspiration in the referendum was that we determine our destiny as Southern Sudanese. For anybody who voted for unity should change their mind. People say it was democracy, but we as southerners all of us were supposed to vote for secession because we want to determine our destiny as southerners in order to be free so that we don’t continue to be second-class citizens, we want to be first-class citizens in our own country Southern Sudan”.

Michael Manyel Masheik is a youth in Wau:

[Michael Manyel Masheik]: “We were expecting the result to be more than that, but the result which is ninety-five percent is a honorable result, it is good. I would like to congratulate the people of Western Bahr El-Ghazal State for having scored this result and I would like to say they are not less nationalistic than the other states. What they have done is a great work, and I am one of the people who voted for secession and what I am left with is only to wait for the result which will be announced officially in February”

Those were views of some residents of Wau town.
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Thursday, 20 January 2011 (Wau) – The Governor of Lakes State has condemned the police in Rumbek for lashing girls allegedly dressed indecently in Rumbek town.

Governor Chol Tong Mayay said the act was done out of ignorance by untrained policeman in the state.
He spoke to SRS on Thursday in Rumbek.

[Chol Tong Mayay]: “I have to say it was total ignorance that the untrained police which we used by then to help us in maintaining security during the referendum polling as you may have observed were not carrying arms. They were just carrying sticks. It was part of training that they have to be exposed on how to be policemen. However they went ahead and took the law into their own hand and started beating up the girls”

Governor Chol said that the policemen who were involved in the act have been arrested and the matter is being looked into.

[Chol Tong Mayay]: “We have to say we regret as the government. There is no government body which has ever issued such kind of directives. So we have condemned it and measures have already been taken. Those who have committed this unlawful incident are now in jail and all measures are being taken against them. From that day they were immediately flashed out from the market and taken back to the training centers. So now they are being trained.”

The governor added that there has been no order to slash girls on what is termed as indecent dressing in the state.
- - -

MORE NEWS FROM SRS - SUDAN RADIO SERVICE


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More at Blogrunner »


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Postscript from Sudan Watch Editor
Shortly after publishing the previous post here at Sudan Watch on January 6th my computer was hacked to such an extent that it crashed and died. On January 10th I purchased a new £2.5K system, hence the reason for not being able to blog until now. Also, I was unable to receive a satellite signal or use digital radio to tune into BBC World Service. Until the other computer is repaired, I have no access to six years of data and email addresses. I have spent the past week reconstructing 1000+ news feeds and bookmarks from memory. If you are a friend of Sudan Watch and wish to keep in contact or I owe you an email please send me your email address asap. Thanks.