Invisible hands: The secret world of the oil fixer (Ken Silverstein)

“Oil is not a commodity,” Eronat said. “It’s a political weapon.” Source: Harper's Magazine, March 2009 Invisible hands: The secret world of the oil fixer By Ken Silverstein

On a cold, damp night last November, a Mercedes sedan looped through the semicircular drive of the St. James Paris, a century-old chateau-style hotel across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower. As the car rolled to a halt at the hotel’s main entrance, a well- tailored trim man named Ely Calil walked unhurriedly out the lobby door and down wide stone steps, talking into an earpiece that was connected, through a thin black wire, to a tiny cell phone tucked in the closed palm of one hand. The driver stepped from the car and opened the door for Calil, who interrupted his conversation to give the driver instructions. He spoke in a voice a little above a whisper, perhaps just a touch softer than his normal cool, flat tone. The driver returned to his seat and steered the car out through the granite-pillared entryway and onto Avenue Bugeaud. Calil had flown to Paris earlier that day from London, where he resides. Born in Nigeria in 1945 to a prominent family of Lebanese origin, Calil belongs to a small group of middlemen, a few dozen at most, who quietly grease the wheels of the global energy business, brokering transactions between oil companies and governments. The oil business operates on the basis of discreet payments, transfers, and backroom deals—not necessarily illegal— arranged by fixers like Calil. He has funneled money to African dictators to obtain concessions for oil companies, traded oil from Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and advised presidents and exiled political leaders. Along the way, he has not only amassed an immense personal fortune but has established a web of political ties stretching from Africa to the Middle East to the United States. “He’s built a very effective network of contacts and allegiances and loyalties through money and allowances,” a former senior CIA official who has worked with Calil told me, not without admiration. “It’s sort of like The Godfather. One day he’ll come to ask for a favor, and you’ll have to comply.” That night in Paris, Calil’s destination was Spring, a popular restaurant in the ninth arrondissement that offers a set four-course menu to sixteen diners nightly. Awaiting us at a corner table was Friedhelm Eronat, a close friend and sometime business partner of Calil’s who is equally reclusive and press-averse. Like Calil, he is one of the world’s leading oil fixers, having grown rich brokering deals for Mobil (before it merged with Exxon) in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Nigeria; more recently he has done business in Argentina, Brazil, and China. Until last year, Eronat lived just down the road from Calil in a Victorian mansion in London’s Chelsea neighborhood. But after an acrimonious separation, and pending divorce, he now spends most of his time in Geneva and Paris, where he lives in an apartment near the St. James. Eronat was waiting at Spring with two Russian models, one tall and blonde in a dark dress and knee-length black boots, and the other with dark hair and porcelain skin and wearing jeans. Eronat was born in Germany but moved with his mother to Louisiana when he was a young boy. Tall and hefty, he looks quite a bit younger than his fifty-five years, and was dressed casually in light-brown corduroys and a tan pullover. Eronat studied petroleum engineering at Louisiana State University in the 1970s and got a job as an engineer after graduating, then went to work for an oil-trading firm before branching out on his own. Eronat met Calil in the early 1980s, in Nigeria. “Ely was the man to see,” Eronat recalled, after sampling a red wine and then ordering several bottles for the table. “Back then,” he added, “it was a very small club, and we all knew one another. You did business by gentleman’s agreement. When you called and said you had a cargo of crude, you confirmed the price and details over the phone. If your word wasn’t honored, you were finished.” For years, Calil and Eronat attended the twice-a-year meetings of OPEC oil ministers, and the two men have partnered together numerous times, though “we never had anything in writing, Friedhelm and I, not once,” Calil said of their dealings. One particularly profitable stretch involved exporting oil from Russia in the early post-Soviet days. Calil recounted that they had met many of the country’s future oligarchs “when they were wearing funny suits and selling shoes and cigarette lighters.” With the global financial markets now in crisis, the two men spoke of some old comrades who had fallen on hard times. “They’re all selling their yachts,” Eronat said with a grim look. One friend, an Uzbek named Sascha, “had $44 billion, and now he’s down to a billion.” “It happens,” Calil deadpanned. The waiter brought a bouillabaisse, small plates of scallops in a truffle sauce, and veal loin with poached pear. Everyone agreed the food was delicious, but there were complaints about the “presentation.” Calil and Eronat, serious gourmets, seemed particularly dismayed. The two men decided to head to the famous brasserie L’Ami Louis for a proper meal. (This would include more wine, a plate of potatoes baked with dollops of goose fat and topped with shaved garlic, foie gras and toast and cornichons, scallops, and snails in butter and garlic.) For years, L’Ami Louis was a sort of headquarters for their mutual operations, and they reminisced about a dinner there in the mid-1990s when they hosted fourteen well-connected Russians. “It was just them and the two of us,” Eronat recalled while we were still at Spring. “We ordered a bottle of wine and then another and another”—he mimed guzzling directly from the bottle—“until the waiter just brought a case of wine and put it on the ground next to our table.” It was an extraordinarily expensive meal, the two men recalled, but well worth it, in that it played an important role in advancing their Russia business. Before dessert was served, Calil asked for the check and called L’Ami Louis from his cell phone. “You don’t ask for a table, you just say you’re coming,” he said as he hung up. The next morning, when I sat down for coffee with Calil and Eronat at the St. James, Eronat was reading the International Herald Tribune. He folded the paper, pushed it my way, and pointed to a story: Spain’s government was hesitating to allow the Russian company Lukoil to buy a controlling stake in Repsol YPF, Spain’s largest oil firm. “Oil is not a commodity,” Eronat said. “It’s a political weapon.” Oil, first and foremost, is a $2 trillion international industry, and most of this annual haul is extracted from under undeveloped nations. As Dick Cheney put it when he was CEO of Halliburton, “The good Lord didn’t see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States.” Sometimes, a company will reach out to rulers of oil-rich states on its own, negotiating and striking deals with them through official emissaries. More often, though, a company will instead work through men like Calil and Eronat: independent fixers, whose job it is to know the leaders and other government officials for whom oil serves as both piggybank and “political weapon.” A fixer can open doors for his corporate clients, arranging introductions to the various potentates he knows. He can help companies navigate the local bureaucracy, or provide the lay of the land with political and economic intelligence, or point to important people or companies that should be courted or hired in order to curry favor. And, in some cases, the fixer can feed money to those in power, in payoffs that often would be illegal under the stringent American and European anti-bribery laws. Edward Chow, a former Chevron executive who spent more than three decades in the oil business, described to me the logic by which fixers thrive. With the U.S. anti-corruption laws, he explained, “There is no gray zone. The lines are drawn very strictly. On the other hand, executives of oil companies are sent overseas to make deals, and they are measured by performance: you either make the deal or you don’t. So you’re supposed to be clean but you’re also supposed to create business. That leads to a tension, and a temptation to use middlemen. Let him do whatever he needs to do; I’m not part of it and don’t want to know.” Although bribery and other payoffs have undeniably been part of the fixers’ trade, the best are far more than bagmen to dictators. “There’s a real art to acting as an agent, and the role differs from country to country,” Robin Bhatty, an energy- industry analyst, told me. “In most of the world, business is done on a personal basis. The best way of getting something done is finding someone who knows someone who you want to know, and you use them to make introductions.” (“Just the same way you’re calling me now,” he added, after I asked him to put me in touch with some energy-industry officials I was hoping to interview.) Because oil fixers play such an important and sensitive role, they can accumulate extraordinary power with heads of state, who often bestow on them the title of presidential adviser and grant them use of a diplomatic passport. “Trading in weapons is trading in sovereignty,” says Philippe Vasset, editor of the Paris-based newsletter Africa Energy Intelligence. “If you don’t have them, you can’t defend your borders. It’s the same with oil, which gives you the liberty to run your ships and planes and tanks, and your economy. If you don’t have it, you can’t run your country.” Besides Calil and Eronat, key brokers of recent decades have included Marc Rich, the controversial Clinton pardon recipient who founded what is now the oil-trading firm Glencore and, in the 1970s, pioneered the practice of oil-for-commodities trades; John Deuss, who once owned his own tanker fleet and who during the 1980s smuggled vast quantities of oil to South Africa’s apartheid regime, then under an international trade embargo; Hany Salaam, a Lebanese middleman who made numerous deals for Occidental Petroleum Corporation during the days of Armand Hammer, its former chairman; and Oscar Wyatt, a Houston oilman and corporate raider who was jailed in 2007 in connection with the U.N. oil-for-food scandal. In the African oil market, two major players have been Samuel Dossou-Aworet, a longtime oil and financial adviser to Gabon’s president, Omar Bongo; and Gilbert Chagoury, another Lebanese who was especially close to Nigerian ruler Sani Abacha. “There used to be about forty people who ran the oil-trading business,” Eronat told me. “The world got bigger, especially when the oil market boomed and the hedge funds came in, but it’s still a pretty small group of people.” At breakfast, Calil and Eronat spoke about another fixer, a mutual friend of theirs named James Giffen. A New York business consultant, Giffen is facing charges in an American court over allegations that he funneled more than $78 million to Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Kazakhstan. The money allegedly came from fees paid to Giffen by American oil companies that subsequently won stakes in Kazakh oil fields. Giffen also gave Nazarbayev and his wife gifts, including his-and-hers snowmobiles and hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of jewelry. “Oil fields are a battleground,” said Eronat. “If Jim had not been involved, other [non- American] firms would have gotten the contracts, and the loser would have been the U.S. government.” Calil, who had recently visited Giffen in New York, concurred. “Jim never worked for the CIA, but he continuously informed the CIA,” he said, a line of argument that Giffen has advanced in court and that clearly has some merit. “He was never discouraged and in fact was encouraged to have that relationship with Nazarbayev. You don’t take him to court—you give him a medal.” “Americans want their gasoline cheap,” Calil added. “But it’s not possible without cutting a few corners.” I was able to see some of a fixer’s work firsthand last summer, when Calil brought me along to a meeting with a New York hedge fund whose offices overlooked Park Avenue just south of Grand Central station. Calil and a few of his associates gathered around a conference table with the fund’s two bosses, whose names I agreed to withhold. One was American, neatly groomed and dressed, with the personality of an accountant; the other was Austrian, and he did most of the talking. The Austrian wore blue jeans and a white dress shirt with a few buttons undone, and his hair was wild like Einstein’s. Eccentric, arrogant, and utterly obnoxious—all traits that no doubt served him well in directing the hedge fund—he was flying off to St. Tropez the next day for a dental appointment. The Austrian began the meeting by telling Calil and his associates a little bit about the fund. He explained how (no doubt for tax purposes) the firm’s myriad assets were “ring-fenced” in Panama, Luxembourg, and the British Virgin Islands, with separate contracts to operate each property. Its holdings included a boot factory in China and 150,000 hectares of Brazilian rainforest, he said, though when I asked him where the property in Brazil was he had no idea. The fund also had bought two defunct oil refineries, and these acquisitions were to be the subject of the day’s meeting. Because the refineries were quite old and could process only very dirty crude, few countries would allow them to operate today. When the fund took over the refineries, it believed it had buyers who would reassemble them elsewhere, but the deals fell through. Now both of the refineries were crated up, and in one case the hedge fund had a contract requiring that the refinery be removed in a matter of months. The fund had hundreds of millions of dollars tied up in these two refineries, so they were calling on Ely Calil for his expertise in unloading them. As he and the Austrian discussed the problem, a curious negotiation began to take place. The latter took great pains to stress how trifling this matter was to him; if Calil could help, then great, his tone implied, but otherwise he had many ways to resolve the situation. Calil clearly saw through this pose but did his admirable best to remain polite. “Perhaps it’s just my fatalism,” he began, “but it’s not going to be easy to sell the refineries.” He pointed out that few countries today could possibly accept refineries so noxious. Angola had potential, he said, but the country was so corrupt and its bureaucracy so complicated that a deal would be hard to strike. Nigeria was, in theory, another option, but again the politics were complex. “You’d need to find a state governor to support the project, and it’s possible that that could be arranged, but you also already have all the turmoil in the Delta region,” which added, he said, an additional political complication. The Austrian insisted that he already had a number of possibilities in play, and that he even had a “process” whereby he was evaluating those possibilities. He mentioned Pakistan in particular: “We have government support in Pakistan. They can change the government three times, I don’t care. For me this new guy is better than the last one.” But he acknowledged that a refinery there would be in constant danger of having its profits seized by the unstable government. “You have 170,000 starving people, and you don’t want them all running to Islamabad,” he said. “If you have an economic crisis and food prices are climbing, the government might step in and say to the owner, ‘You can only take a 2 percent profit.’ Maybe even for a few years you’d have to take no profit as a ‘contribution’ to the country.” “Through your process and my fatalism,” Calil replied, “we’ve reached the same conclusion.” Of course the hedge fund didn’t really have an easy option in Pakistan, or anywhere else, and so it needed his help—for which he could command a steep price. Calil laid out a rough plan for how he might place at least one of the refineries. He had identified a potential spot in Lebanon, in the port city of Tripoli. An old refinery there had been shut down about thirty years ago; it was fed from a pipeline that originated in Kirkuk and ran through Syria. Now that the Iraqi government wanted to ship oil from Kirkuk again, Calil went on, Lebanon might be persuaded to site a refinery in the same spot. Of course, the hedge fund would need political support; but fortunately, Calil said, he knew the Lebanese energy minister, and also had political contacts in Syria and Iraq. The fund would also need petroleum engineers to work at the Tripoli site, but Calil had just such a team at the ready, a group of twenty-three Bosnian Muslims with whom he’d worked before on a project in China. As mosque-going Muslims, he pointed out, they were less likely to be shot at or kidnapped in Tripoli. It was agreed that within the month, Calil would take a delegation from the fund to Lebanon for meetings with the relevant players. Later that day, after we left the meeting, Calil talked a little more about this deal, and how he happened to be so well situated to help the hedge fund out of its dilemma. “A friend of mine became energy minister in Lebanon—a good friend,” he recalled. “I said to him, ‘Congratulations. What sort of energy opportunities are there in Lebanon?’ We were just chatting. He mentioned that they hoped to get the Iraqi oil pipeline reopened, that that would solve a lot of economic problems. Just knowing that they are looking at that refinery: that knowledge is wealth in itself. You have that knowledge in your head. You also know that Syria imports so much and Lebanon imports so much, and that the Syrians are talking to the Iraqis about opening the pipeline. All that knowledge provides a theoretical solution.” He added: “You also need connections to deliver the solution—to influence the president, the prime minister, the relevant ministers. That is about relationships. If you don’t know the person directly, you know his cousin or someone close to his cousin.” In this case, I asked him, how big a problem would it be to get the political support? “As big as I want it to be,” he replied. A fixer’s business demands discretion. “If you go and blab about your contacts and talk about being a friend of the president, the next thing you know the president doesn’t want to be your friend,” one middleman told me. Calil, for his part, has avoided publicity for most of his thirty-five-year career. Although he is said to be one of the wealthiest men in Britain, and is a regular on the London club circuit, his name has rarely surfaced in the press; for decades, the only photograph newspapers could find to accompany articles about him was a snapshot from his 1972 wedding to the American tobacco heiress Frances Condon, the first of his three wives. During the past few years, though, Calil has become the subject of intense and unflattering press scrutiny. In 2004, a group of about five dozen mercenaries were arrested in Zimbabwe, where they were buying weapons. The men allegedly were en route to effect a coup in Equatorial Guinea, a tiny African country headed by one of the world’s worst rulers, Brigadier General Teodoro Obiang. The regime subsequently claimed the plot had been financed by Calil in hopes of installing Severo Moto, an exiled political leader. The accusations were never proven, and Calil still vociferously denies he had any role in the affair. Calil acknowledges being a friend and financial supporter of Moto and having introduced him to Simon Mann, a former SAS officer who remains in jail in Equatorial Guinea for allegedly having led the plot. But Calil insists he knew nothing about a coup; by his account, Mann was offering only to provide military protection for Moto so he could return to Equatorial Guinea. Obiang has brought suit against Calil over the coup in various countries, including Lebanon and Zimbabwe, and has never won a court victory. In Britain, a judge ruled that Obiang could not even bring suit for lack of evidence. “It would have been great fun,” Calil told me. “He accused me of causing him mental trauma, and he would have been forced to come to court for a mental exam. He has tried every angle and opportunity, and lost each time.” He added: “You had an African dictator and some mercenaries and a shady Arab. It makes for a great novel, but the part of it that wasn’t a novel was tested in court and proven to be wrong. The press has reported a pack of lies.” My acquaintance with Calil began in 2002, when I received a call from Victoria Butler, a public-relations specialist who was helping Severo Moto meet with government officials and journalists. At the time, I was writing frequently about the Obiang regime, and so I went to see Moto at Butler’s town house on Capitol Hill. He had already met with a number of Bush Administration officials and members of Congress, and he expressed a naive optimism that the administration might eventually turn against Obiang because of his undeniably appalling human-rights record. As Moto and I chatted on a sofa, another man sat nearby in an armchair and scrolled through his emails on a BlackBerry. When Butler left the room to get coffee, I asked the man who he was. It was Ely Calil, who told me that he and a number of other “businessmen” had sponsored Moto’s trip and had retained Butler through a P.R. office. I had never heard of Calil, and searches turned up little outside of a few European oil-industry publications. His name had briefly surfaced in a bribery scandal in France, where reports alleged that he funneled money to Nigeria’s Sani Abacha on behalf of Elf Aquitaine, a French oil company (which since has been bought by its French competitor Total). Since that first meeting six years ago, Calil and I have become unlikely friends. My family and I get together with him when he comes to Washington, and on a number of occasions I’ve visited him in London at Sloane House, the Chelsea estate he owned.11. Calil sold Sloane House in 2006 to Sir Anthony Bamford, chairman of a global construction-equipment firm, for an estimated £30 million. Perched behind gates of white stone, the estate was staffed to the hilt with servants and tastefully stocked with antique furniture, leather-bound books, and numerous busts of Napoleon, Calil’s hero. One Sunday afternoon in 2003, I sat with him in his study and listened to him take phone calls, his patter seamlessly switching from Arabic to French to English and back again. There was a Libyan official who told Calil that Muammar Qaddafi wanted to host a future World Cup soccer tournament in Tripoli, and was hoping to establish his bona fides in the meantime by sponsoring a mini-tournament. Could Calil help arrange for the Senegalese national team to take part? A call to an official in Senegal followed; as did a conversation with a well-connected friend in Lebanon about a brewing political crisis there. Several visitors dropped by, including a pencil-thin and dour man from Glencore who grew more dour still when I was introduced as a journalist. Calil was born in the Nigerian town of Kano, where his Lebanese parents settled in the 1920s. George Calil had prospered in Africa through a small business empire that was based on the cultivation of peanuts (for consumption and groundnut oil) but also included aluminum and small manufacturing. At an early age, Ely was sent to Lebanon and was privately educated there and in Europe. After his father died of stomach cancer in 1966, Ely—who has five sisters and a younger brother—was chosen to return to Nigeria and restructure the family business. He established close connections with government officials, becoming especially friendly with the transportation minister. At the time, Nigeria was looking for a firm to help its hajj pilgrims get to Mecca; during one meeting the minister asked Calil if he knew anyone at Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines. “The joke of it was that my brother-in-law’s sister was going out with a guy who was high up in the MEA hierarchy,” he said. “She later married him. So I went to Beirut and met his boss, who was very interested. ‘Do you really know the minister?’ he wanted to know. He made a huge proposal, and at the end Middle East Airlines got a lot of business and Nigeria was able to transport out its hajj pilgrims in style. We had been making a few hundred thousand dollars here and there, but on this deal alone I made a few million dollars. I thought: ‘Screw crushing peanuts to make oil.’ This was as easy as putting two people together who needed each other.” After the first OPEC “oil shock” of 1973, Calil became seriously involved in the petroleum business, first trading oil and then obtaining concessions and reselling them. Within five years, oil had become the largest sector of his business. Calil’s influence and wealth soared after the Nigerian general Ibrahim Babangida assumed power in a 1985 coup. When I asked Calil about his relationship with Babangida, who still is a power broker in Nigeria, he acknowledged that they were close friends. “I took his kids on holidays and to stay with me in London,” he said. “He saw me as a sound independent adviser, not a sycophant. He asked me to handle a lot of back- channel communications, and he sent me out as an adviser to other African governments.” But Babangida was forced out in the face of popular protests in 1993, and ceded power to a civilian government. Three months later, Sani Abacha took power; his regime earned worldwide condemnation by hanging an activist named Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other democracy campaigners. Base Petroleum, a firm of Calil’s that owned several oil concessions in Nigeria, paid Washington lobbyist Robert Cabelly nearly $400,000 between mid-1996 and early 1997 to lobby the Clinton Administration on Abacha’s behalf. Following the election in 1999 of Olusegun Obasanjo, who had been jailed for speaking out against the human-rights abuses and corruption of the Abacha regime, Calil’s influence in Nigeria waned. (In power, Obasanjo headed a government that proved pervasively corrupt itself.) But by then, his scope of operations had expanded enormously. He became a confidant to Denis Sassou Nguesso, who had taken power in a 1997 civil war in the nearby Republic of the Congo. “Calil became the country’s main oil adviser,” said Philippe Vasset, of Africa Energy Intelligence. “All the traders courted him in order to get contracts.” Calil served as a personal adviser to Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, who won office in 2000. Calil befriended Wade when the latter was living in exile in Paris. He provided Wade with an apartment, introduced him to French government officials, and generally promoted him in political and media circles. Wade’s base of operations while in exile was at the Paris offices of Saga Petroleum, a small Norwegian firm run by a friend of Calil’s. Calil also became the chief oil adviser to Idriss Deby, a warlord who had seized power (and still holds it) in Chad. He was tasked with recruiting oil companies to develop projects in that country, and he himself, in conjunction with Eronat, landed a huge exploration concession there roughly the size of Texas. In 2003, the two men sold a major stake in the concession to China in a deal sealed, according to a report in the Evening Standard of London, at a celebratory banquet thrown at Eronat’s estate in Chelsea. “You’d have an African head of state who would want advice—they all wanted oil to happen in their country,” Calil explained. “Of course you offered the advice pro bono, but you used that to build your network. They’d say, ‘Look at this piece of land and see if it’s worth anything.’ And you’d go to Exxon and get them interested and you’d sell them a part and you’d keep the juiciest part of the concession for yourself. Everyone was happy. The president was happy because Exxon was now exploring for oil, Exxon was happy, and you had the heart of the concession. If you hadn’t been there as the catalyst, the thing wouldn’t have happened. You might call it abusing my role. I call it creating entrepreneurial wealth, and I created a lot of wealth.” Africa has remained the main focus of Calil’s operations, but he now does business around the globe. In addition to operations in Russia and the Middle East, he owned a Houston-based firm called Nautilus, which obtained oil and gas concessions in South America and Central Asia. He sold Nautilus to Ocean Energy, which subsequently was bought by Devon Energy, now the largest U.S.-based independent oil and gas producer. Calil also won a gas concession in Brazil, which he later sold to Enron. “When buying and selling oil concessions, you’re dependent on your skills and knowledge, but you’re also very much dependent on the goodwill of the local government, from presidents to ministers,” Calil told me. “You end up building a political network to a) build up the business and b) protect it.” Calil’s social and political networks are astonishing in scope. In Britain, his friends include Lord Jeffrey Archer, the writer and former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party; Lord Peter Mandelson, a key figure in the British Labour Party and currently secretary of state for business, enterprise, and regulatory reform; the Syrian-born billionaire Wafic Said, who made his fortune in Saudi construction deals and once helped broker a mammoth sale of British warplanes to Riyadh; and Robin Birley, an ardent conservative who in 1998 helped coordinate a P.R. campaign on behalf of Chile’s Augusto Pinochet and even arranged his stay at the Wentworth Estate outside London. Birley describes Calil as “ambitious and restless,” a man always in search of a big project. “It’s not so much the money—he wants to build something on an imperial scale,” Birley told me. “He’s not just an average businessman who buys and sells. He’s more a Roman than a Carthaginian in that sense. He’s a seriously clever man.” When I traveled to Sudan in 2004, Calil supplied me with a cell-phone number for one of the country’s most senior intelligence officials. In Lebanon, I dined with Calil at the mountainside estate of Nayla Moawad, a government minister and powerful Christian politician.22. She is the widow of former President René Moawad, who was assassinated in a 1989 car bombing likely orchestrated by Syria. Calil is a close friend of Mohammad al-Saleh, the brother-in-law of King Abdullah II of Jordan. “He has the ability to get things done, just about anywhere,” said the former CIA official of his post-agency business dealings with Calil. “We once needed an answer to a question in Syria, which is a very tough place to work. One of his associates talked his way into the deputy foreign minister’s office and got us the information we were looking for.” In the United States, Calil has relationships with both major political parties, and contacts at the State Department and the CIA. “The minute you get anywhere in the oil business, the U.S. system becomes interested,” Calil told me. “The embassy invites you over and the attaché wants to know what you’re doing, and it builds from there. People tell you that you should meet someone, whether to impress you or please you or use you, and then it becomes a chain. There’s nothing sensitive about knowing people; it’s a talent, at the end of the day.” Fixers have always served an essential function in the oil business. The first to work on an international scale was Calouste Gulbenkian, a stateless Armenian Turk whose father was a banker and a major kerosene importer into the Ottoman Empire. Known as . Five Percent” and the “Talleyrand of oil diplomacy,” Calouste studied mining engineering at King’s College in London and upon graduation in 1887 was sent by his father to the Caspian port city of Baku to learn the oil trade. The young Gulbenkian wrote a series of scholarly articles that piqued the interest of the Ottoman department of mines. Officials there asked Gulbenkian to draw up a report on oil resources, and he pointed to several areas of great potential in the region. “Thus began Calouste Gulbenkian’s lifelong devotion to Mesopotamian oil, to which he would apply himself with extraordinary dedication and tenacity over six decades,” Daniel Yergin recounts in his definitive history of oil, The Prize. Gulbenkian’s fantastic success as an oil broker depended on his knowledge of the region and his cozy relationships—with Turkish officials, on the one hand, and with European and American oilmen on the other. In 1898, two years after he and his family fled the Armenian genocide, the Ottoman government appointed him financial adviser to its Paris and London embassies. In 1902, he obtained British citizenship, cementing his connection with the most powerful player in the partitioning of the Middle East. In 1912, Gulbenkian helped broker a deal that led to the creation of the Turkish Petroleum Company, which was established to exploit Middle Eastern oil fields. The joint owners, which included Royal Dutch Shell, the National Bank of Turkey, and various German and British investors, granted him a 5 percent non-voting share in the new company—hence Gulbenkian’s nickname. Sixteen years later, Gulbenkian drew the map that defined a cooperative agreement among the French, Dutch, British, and Americans—their governments and companies—to extract oil from the former Ottoman territories. This “Red Line Agreement” earned him the bulk of his fortune, and his success established the model of the independent, cash-dispensing oil fixer. The modus operandi was simple and straightforward: the fixer took money from a company seeking an energy concession, kept one part for himself, and funneled the rest into a Swiss bank account belonging to foreign officials who awarded the concession. When the officials got their money, the fixer’s sponsor got its contract. “For years you could not operate in many oil-producing countries without an agent, especially in the Middle East,” Willy Olsen, a former senior executive at Norway’s Statoil, told me. “If you had the wrong agent, one without the right connections, you were not relevant at all.” Today, fixers still play a vital role for oil companies in their dealings with heads of state and other government officials who, in the delicate phrasing of Laurent Ruseckas, an international energy analyst in London, “don’t know how to commercialize their power.” But although straightforward cash bribes are still employed, the means of payoff have become more complex. Partly this is for legal reasons. The United States passed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in 1977, which outlawed bribery abroad. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development passed similar rules in 1997; until then, many European countries allowed their firms to deduct bribes on corporate income-tax statements. With the heightened legal risk, the greater public scrutiny of international business, and the more sophisticated government methods of monitoring bank transfers, payoffs now take a multitude of forms. Indeed, while as opaque as before and serving the same purpose, modern-day payoffs are not always illegal. “I spent 99 percent of my time trying to figure out ways to not technically violate the FCPA,” a former Mobil executive in Angola once told me. The federal indictment of Jim Giffen, Calil’s friend, alleges that President Nazarbayev assigned him to negotiate deals with foreign oil companies seeking to invest in Kazakhstan after the country’s independence in 1991. Giffen accompanied the Kazakh leader to Washington for meetings with American officials and, in 1998, even assembled a team of political consultants to lobby the U.S. government on Nazarbayev’s behalf. The team, which sought to win approval for a bogus presidential election held by Na zarbayev and to sanitize his human-rights record, included Mark Siegel, a former executive director of the Dem ocratic National Committee, and Michael Deaver, a former deputy chief of staff to President Reagan. Giffen has not specifically denied funneling money to Nazarbayev, but he claims his role and actions were fully known by the U.S. government. A filing from his lawyers claimed that Giffen’s acts might seem unusual, but that “imposing American domestic conceptions of honest services on all the world’s governments” would “wreak havoc” on the workings of international law. In 2002, Calil himself was arrested by French police and briefly jailed in connection with the payments of enormous commissions to Sani Abacha by a subsidiary of Elf Aquitaine. During a judicial investigation, Philippe Jaffré, who was then Elf’s CEO, confirmed that the payments were made. “The Nigerian oil fields were extraordinarily profitable,” he said. “There was no other way to reach a friendly agreement.” Jaffré said, however, that Calil and two other Lebanese intermediaries—Chagoury and Samir Traboulsi—“apparently received more money than foreseen.” By Jaffré’s account, the three split $70 million among them for their role in moving the funds. Despite a lengthy investigation, Calil was never formally charged in the affair (though a number of Elf executives were sent to jail for embezzling millions of dollars from the company). In discussing the case with me, he acknowledged having received commissions from Elf in order to funnel payments to Abacha, saying: “From a strictly legal standpoint, there was nothing strictly illegal about it. It has become illegal now. The commissions I took from the French companies were sanctioned by the French Ministry of Finance. They had to declare the commissions on their taxes. If it’s wrong, then arrest the minister of finance. Why are you arresting me? Was it legal? Yes. Was it moral? I don’t know. But business isn’t about not making money. I’m not a philosopher, but the law is there to be tested. If you’re on the wrong side you should be sanctioned, and if you’re not you should be left alone.” In recent years, the global energy business has changed in ways that have reduced somewhat the clout of the middleman. Following the expansion of anti-bribery laws, a number of companies and fixers have been tried for their illegal payoffs to foreign officials. Baker Hughes, an oil-services company, recently paid a $33 million fine after admitting it had bribed officials in Angola, Russia, and other countries. A top executive at Halliburton pleaded guilty to making vast payments, in conjunction with three other international firms, to win a multibillion-dollar natural-gas-plant contract in Nigeria. Willbros Group, another oil- services company, was found to have paid off numerous foreign officials to win overseas deals, in one case delivering $1 million in a suitcase. Such judgments have made companies more wary of fixers and more eager to find other means of securing political support. One especially popular technique has been to partner with a local company that is owned by a president, or oil minister, or some other top official who needs to be appeased. Oil-rich states have grown a bit more sophisticated, too, further lessening the utility of middlemen. When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, such newly formed oil producers as Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan had no experience whatsoever with international business. Russia was hardly better off, and so fixers like Calil and Eronat were able to get in early and serve as important oil exporters from the country. In West Africa, after decades of poverty, deficient education, and repressive rule, many governments were staffed entirely by untrained apparatchiks who had no idea how to interact in the business arena. But during the 2000s, year after year of ever-rising oil prices prompted many oil nations to become more savvy about their resources and more inclined to deal with corporations directly. Fixers remain a permanent presence in the oil markets, however, and for good reason. Even with prices dropping in the current slowdown, a worldwide scramble for oil is still under way, with the United States and China as the two major competitors. Companies are always looking for an advantage, and often the right fixer can be the means to gain it. “There’s no way one company can act clean, especially if you’re worrying about what the Chinese and Koreans are going to do,” Edward Chow, the former Chevron executive, told me. “And to be fair, if you’re working for a Chinese or Indian oil company and you’re trying to get into a country or region where the Americans or British or French have been forever, how do you think you’re going to get in?” Furthermore, oil companies today tend to be capital-rich but opportunity-poor: they have plenty of money, but there are fewer fields and concessions available, and much of what’s out there is controlled by national oil companies. So the stakes are higher and the desperation to get in is greater. “The fundamental drivers behind the use of fixers is so strong that it’s hard to imagine the practice is going to go away,” Chow said. Calil agrees, in characteristically blunt terms. “There’s no way to do business in the Third World without enriching government leaders,” he told me. “You used to give a dictator a suitcase of dollars; now you give a tip on your stock shares, or buy a housing estate from his uncle or mother for ten times its worth.” Because of this inevitability, Calil sees the West’s strict anti-bribery laws as fundamentally misguided. “If you want to end corruption, you have to become the policeman of the world, and put in prison—in America—the Obiangs and Dos Santoses and the Qaddafis,” he said. “But the businessman has no choice but to do what those guys want. He’s between the devil and the deep blue sea. The Chinese are coming to Africa and promising 25 percent for concessions. So what do you do: say the U.S. government doesn’t approve? The Chinese will give you the finger.” He added: “No one looks forward to paying bribes. It’s no joke, and it’s coming out of [the fixer’s] pocket, not yours or Uncle Sam’s. But if you have to do it, you have to do it.” So whenever oil business is conducted around the world, it’s quite common to find middlemen at the heart of the deal—even if most of their operations are significantly more limited in scope than were those of the old guard. In Equatorial Guinea, a former top Elf executive named Jean-Paul Driot now has an exclusive agreement to market the government’s share of its international production through his company, Stag Energy. In the Republic of the Congo, another Frenchman, Jean-Yves Ollivier, helps companies navigate the bureaucracy there. London-based Mohammed Ajami, brother of the prominent Lebanese writer Fouad Ajami, helps companies looking for business in Libya, thanks to his close relationship with the country’s intelligence chief, Musa Kusa. Calil himself is still a major operator in the oil business, but he also has diversified into a broader range of industries. He told me that he spends more and more of his time “managing my investments.” One of his most promising investments is a company called Green Holdings, which is in the emerging field of carbon trading: buying the rights to pollute from cleaner businesses and selling them to dirtier ones. The firm has struck deals in China and India, and Calil has traveled regularly to both nations on the company’s behalf, hoping to establish business ties and build political support. It is an ironic turn indeed that Ely Calil, who grew so rich off the excesses of the carbon era, should now stand to profit still more from the long struggle to clean them up. Ken Silverstein is the Washington editor of Harper’s Magazine and the author of Turkmeniscam: How Washington Lobbyists Fought to Flack for a Stalinist Dictatorship.

UNAMID: Security Situation in Darfur July 15, 2009

Source:  UN – African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) 
EL FASHER (DARFUR), Sudan (via APO)

UNAMID Daily Media Brief July 15, 2009

Security Situation in Darfur

The general security situation in Darfur is reported to be relatively calm.

UNAMID military conducted 94 patrols, including confidence-building, escort patrols, night patrols and investigation patrols covering sixty-six (66) villages and internally displaced persons (IDP) camps during the reporting period.

Darfur-Darfur Dialogue and Consultation (DDDC) Workshop for Darfurian Women

The Darfur-Darfur Dialogue and Consultation (DDDC) Secretariat, in collaboration with the Center for Peace and Community Development Studies, University of Nyala, organized a two-day workshop on Tuesday 14 and Wednesday 15 July to explore the achievement of sustainable peace and reconciliation in Darfur. Women leaders from South Darfur participated in the workshop, which discussed a range of topics to identify common issues in an effort to end the conflict in Darfur.

Further, issues pertaining to the impact of the ongoing crisis and damage it has caused to the livelihoods, infrastructure and social fabric of Darfur, and long term challenges were raised. Participants emphasized that sustainable peace in Darfur could only be achieved through the provision of basic public services, especially health and education, as well as by conducting vocational training and creation of job opportunities, among others. In that light, they noted the lack of resources and funding for implementation of related development projects.

The women also discussed the security situation in Darfur, including the exchange of weapons in and around the villages and IDP camps in the area, and across the borders with neighboring countries, especially Chad.

The DDDC Secretariat was set up at the recommendation of the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) to facilitate a broad and inclusive consultative process to help Darfurians discuss and find solutions to the conflict in Darfur among themselves.

Sudan gov't buys unknown number of WS-2 multi-launch rocket launchers from China

This new escalation of the weapon systems available to the government raises grave concerns. Is it in preparation for an unacceptable ruling on Abyei which we expect towards the end of this month, or is it in preparation for an unfavorable decision regarding the future referendum of 2011, or is it out of concern for an escalation in Darfur and beyond with Chad? So, whichever way you look at it, it’s not good news.

Source: Sudan Radio Service, Wednesday, 15 July 2009 – full story:
Sudan Buys Rocket Launchers from China

(Asmara) – The Sudanese government has bought an unknown number of WS-2 multi-launch rocket launchers from China.

The deal raises concerns as to why the government is buying such sophisticated arms at this time.

Dr. Taysir Mohammed is the director of the Peace Building Center for the Horn of Africa.

Speaking to Sudan Radio Service by phone from Asmara, Eritrea on Wednesday, he describes the possible motivation for the government’s move.

[Taysir Mohammed]: “There are worries in the region about the political will of the National Congress Party to implement the CPA and to follow through with other peace agreements. I think many observers are worried about, not just the fragile conditions of the peace agreement throughout Sudan, but also a concern about the political will to implement them. This new escalation of the weapon systems available to the government raises grave concerns. Is it in preparation for an unacceptable ruling on Abyei which we expect towards the end of this month, or is it in preparation for an unfavorable decision regarding the future referendum of 2011, or is it out of concern for an escalation in Darfur and beyond with Chad? So, whichever way you look at it, it’s not good news.”

Dr. Taysir Mohammed went on to explain the Chinese intentions in Sudan.

[Dr. Taysir Mohammed]: “China is not only a member of the Security Council but has a Special Peace Envoy to Sudan. By selling arms, the Chinese are ruling themselves out of the peace process. They cannot be considered by any measure as honest brokers. They’ve blatantly taken the side of the government; they’ve blatantly taken the side of war. Therefore, this signals Chinese intentions towards our country. Another point to consider is the Chinese investment in oil plus the Chinese investment lately in agriculture. They’ve acquired large tracts of agricultural land in Sudan. They’re going to cultivate products which are going to be consumed by Chinese. So, they’re not contributing to the agricultural development strategies of our country. And I think the Chinese have not invested in Sudan, they’ve invested in the regime and therefore, it makes sense that they would sell sophisticated weaponry to the regime.”

Dr. Taysir Mohammed was speaking to Sudan Radio Service from Asmara, Eritrea.

- - -

WS-2 multiple launch rocket system



Photo source: www.armyrecognition.com



Photo source: www.militaryphotos.net

During the 2004 Zhuhai Air Show, SCAIC revealed its latest WS-2 multiple launch rocket system. The weapon is fitted with 6 box-shape launchers and fires 400mm rockets to a maximum range of 200km, which is long enough to travel through the Taiwan Strait and attack Taiwan targets should a war break out. It is speculated that WS-2 is going to be a cheaper alternative to the expensive short range ballistic missiles in Chinese inventory. 

The WS-2 is fitted with a primitive cascade inertial terminal guidance to compensate the degraded accuracy caused by the long distance flight of the rocket. 

In 2008, it was revealed that sub-munitions are developed for WS-2, including a specialized anti-radar version, which is a rocket containing three UAVs. Once the rocket is fired to the target area, the UAVs are released the same way like other sub-munitions. The seekers would seek out target radar signals as UAVs begun to cruise, and once locked on to the radar, UAV would home in and attack. Some domestic Chinese military enthusiasts have claimed such technology was based on the principle of Israeli Harpy anti-radar UAVs, but this could not be confirmed by independent sources outside China.

A WS-1E and WS-2 rocket battalion shared the same equipment and is armed with:
Firing command truck (5 men): 1;
Rocket launch truck (3 men): 6;
Transport and loading truck (3 men): 6~9;
Rockets per launch truck: 30~48;
Preparation time (from traveling to firing) < 12 minutes Firing density: better than 1/600 m Accuracy: better than 0.3% 

Source: Wikipedia
- - -

From UPI Asia.com (Hong Kong, China) by Andrei Chang, July 10, 2009:
Sudan obtains advanced Chinese MLRS

Sudan has acquired a small number of WS-2 multi-launch rocket systems from China, according to reliable information obtained by the author. A number of African delegates to last February’s Abu Dhabi International Defense Exhibition and Conference 2009, including North African military attachés, confirmed that a China-made “secret weapon” the Sudanese claimed to have acquired was in fact the 200-kilometer-ranged WS-2 multi-launch rocket system.
This is the first evidence that this system has been exported to an African country. In fact, it appears to be the first such export to any foreign country. It is unclear exactly when China shipped the WS-2 system to Sudan. But what is clear is that this will be the most powerful long-range attack system in all of Africa.

The Chinese companies capable of exporting the WS-2 system include the China Precision Machinery Import-Export Corporation and Poly Group Corporation. Both companies refused to comment on the report, other than to stress that any weapon systems they had sold to Sudan were delivered before the international community imposed an arms embargo on the country. In late March, 2005 the U.N. Security Council imposed a ban on weapons sales to all parties involved in the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region.

For Sudan, the WS-2 is a top secret strategic weapon system; therefore it has never made an appearance in any of the country’s military parades.

Sources say that the WS-2 MLRS acquired by Sudan have undergone substantial upgrading. The system’s effective range has been modified to 70-200 kilometers, its accuracy is CEP 0.3 percent, and launch time for four tubes of rockets is six seconds. The system’s warhead weighs 200 kilograms and it uses four types of ammunition.

China has already developed an upgraded WS-3 precision-guided long-range MLRS on the foundation of the WS-2. The author has acquired some specifics about the WS-3 MLRS, which was first revealed at the Zhuhai Air Show in November 2008.

The WS-3 uses two types of guidance systems. Using the inertial navigation system it has a maximum range of 200 kilometers, and CEP of 300 meters. When using INS plus GPS guidance, the CEP is improved to 50 meters.

Other structural features of the WS-3 are not much different from the WS-2. The WS-3 was only recently approved for export, and no country has as yet purchased this new MLRS.

(Andrei Chang is editor-in-chief of Kanwa Defense Review Monthly, registered in Toronto, Canada.)

S. Sudan: Bari and the Mundari fight one another on the streets of Juba

Recently in southern Sudan, inter-tribal conflict in Jonglei and Warrap states claimed more than 300 lives. In April, as noted here at Sudan Watch, Bari and Mundari communities clashed over cattle raiding in Jebel Lado area, north of Juba. Now the Bari and Mundari are fighting one another on the streets of Juba.

From Sudan Radio Service, Wednesday, 15 July 2009 –
No Referendum Without Rule of Law Says Advisor

(Khartoum) – The Presidential Advisor for African Affairs, Bona Malwal, says southern Sudanese cannot go for a referendum to determine their destiny in 2011 when there is an absence of the “rule of law” in southern Sudan.

Malwal was speaking in Saint Matthew’s Cathedral in Khartoum on Sunday.

[Bona Malwal]: “The question that we must ask ourselves is: 'Are we justified as political leaders, are we justified as politicians, to drag our people into the referendum on self-determination without the rule of law in our country at the time when the Bari and the Mundari are fighting?' In my entire life, I have never seen the Bari and the Mundari fight one another, they are fighting today on the streets of Juba under an autonomous, almost independent Government of Southern Sudan. Is this the way we want to ask the people of southern Sudan to choose between separation and unity? I say this thing not to side with any politician, I say this to raise the awareness of the young people in front of me”.

He called upon southern Sudanese not to make northern Sudan their greatest enemy if southern Sudan secedes after the referendum.

[Bona Malwal]: “If southern Sudan is honest about its right to self-determination which I have been supporting personally since 1965, then I think southern Sudanese politicians and all of you as southern Sudanese are duty-bound to ensure that when you become an independent southern Sudan, northern Sudan does not become a permanent enemy because the first people to suffer as a result of hostilities will be Southern Sudan”.

Bona Malwal was speaking in Khartoum on Sunday.

Misseriya and Dinka Ngok will abide by Abyei boundary verdict July 22nd

The court’s ruling on the status of Abyei - whether it belongs to Bahr el-Ghazal or Southern Kordofan - will be announced by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on July 22nd.

Abyei is an oil rich area in southern Sudan. Click here to see map showing boundary of Abyei at 10°22'30"N as decided by the Abyei Boundary Commission.

From Sudan Radio Service, Wednesday, 15 July 2009:
Both Sides Still Prepared to Abide By Abyei Decision

(Khartoum) – The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Deng Alor Kual says the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague has announced that it will pass its verdict on the status of Abyei on Wednesday, 22nd July.

Speaking to journalists in Khartoum on Tuesday, Alor, who is also a senior member of Sudan People’s Liberation Movement from Abyei and a member of the SPLM delegation who went to the Hague to defend the position of the SPLM, said the Arab Misseriya and the Dinka Ngok have both expressed their readiness to abide by the PCA verdict.

[Deng Alor]: “We in the SPLM have committed ourselves and will abide by the decision of the court and our counterparts in the NCP have also assured us that they will abide by the decision of the court. We went to the Misseriya in Muglad and went to the Dinka in Abyei and we discussed with them, and the two tribes have no major problem with the decision of the court, if the NCP and the SPLM are committed to abide by the decision of the court.”

The historian, Douglas H. Johnson, a member of the Abyei Border Commission, says that the arbitration decision will have an impact on the 2011 referendum.

[Douglas H. Johnson]: “The Abyei protocol sets out the conditions for the residents of Abyei to vote in 2011 to decide what they will be part of. Either part of Kordofan, or part of southern Sudan. The boundary establishes what territory is having that vote. The dispute between Khartoum and the SPLM is over the boundary and the ruling in The Hague is supposed to settle that once and for all. It affects the future of the Abyei people because it will define what the area is and by that definition, it will define who has the right to vote in 2011.”

The court’s ruling on the status of Abyei - whether it belongs to Bahr el-Ghazal or Southern Kordofan - will be announced by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on July 22nd.

Click on Abyei label here below for related reports and updates.

Hague court to rule on Sudan’s Abyei region on July 22nd?

The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague will issue its ruling on the disputed Abyei region between North and South Sudan on July 22nd, according to a newspaper report.

The independent Al-Sahafa newspaper quoting “informed sources” said that the Sudanese embassy in the Netherlands received notification on the date of their decision.

Source: Sudan Tribune, Saturday 11 July 2009 - Hague court to rule on Sudan’s Abyei region on July 22nd: report

Click on Abyei label here below to see further reports on Abyei.



Photo from Sudan Watch archives:: About 50 Dinkas staged a demonstration outside the opening ceremony of the NCP-SPLM meeting on Saturday 27, 2006 in Khartoum, shouting their support for the peace deal and calling for a swift resolution of the Abyei issue. In the picture two demonstrators hold banner "Abyei belongs 100% to Southern Sudan".

Sudanese embassy in Kampala to question Ugandan gov't over its stance supporting ICC Bashir arrest warrant

Here's a strange story.  Anything to do with the relationship between Sudan and Uganda I find odd. Some days I can't help thinking that Ugandans are at the root of the conflict in Sudan, particularly Southern Sudan. From what I have gathered over the five years of blogging at Sudan Watch, Uganda Watch and Congo Watch, Uganda receives support from the U.S. military. Taking into account all three blogs, the common denominators appear to be Uganda and the USA. Clearly, Sudan has everything going for it but is being held back. Some very powerful people are stopping Sudan from developing and keeping the Comprehensive Peace Agreement on track. Who are they and why, after six years and miles of writings on Darfur, don't we know for sure?

From Sudan Vision Daily, Wednesday, July 15, 2009:
Sudan Intends to Question Ugandan Government Over its Stances toward the ICC

(Khartoum – Zuleikha Abdul Raziq) - Sudanese government affirmed its intention to question the Ugandan government about its stance supporting the ICC arrest warrant against President Al-Bashir and its adhering to the ICC decision in case of Al-Bashir’s arrival in Uganda.

The question will be through the Sudanese embassy in Kampala.

Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ambassador Ali Al-Sadiq said in press statements yesterday that the travel of the President is not linked with the Ugandan stance, affirming that certain factors dictate the travel not including the Ugandan President's statement.

Al-Sadiq added that if Uganda stuck to its stance supporting the ICC arrest warrant that means that it violated the AU decision, adding that all African countries must adhere to AU decisions and any state that doesn’t do that is breaking the African consensus.

Foreign Ministry spokesman concluded that the Ugandan regime should be reminded about their massacring of the Acholi people in Northern Uganda, before talking about justice.

Governmental sources described Uganda stances as swinging and undecided while warned of any intention to get out from the AU decision which called on all African countries not to cooperate with the ICC with regard to its fabricated allegations against President Al-Bashir.

The Sudanese Foreign Ministry is reserved in responding officially against the Ugandan stances but the Ministry spokesman had condemned in a previous statements, a similar stance of State of Botswana.

The Ugandan State Minister for International Relations Okello Oryem had said in a press conference, “Till Al Bashir comes here I could not tell whether he could be arrested or not”, adding, “Let us wait for Al-Bashir to arrive here and we will see which action will be action,” explaining that the said issue is up to the Inspector General of Police to take action.

The media in the area says that President Al-Bashir intends to attend a meeting on the international affairs called “Smart Partnership Business Conference”.

The ICC General Prosecutor Luis Ocampo said that Uganda has obligation to cooperate with the said Court indicating that the case of South Africa where the President Al-Bashir did not attend the swearing-in of President Jacob Zuma last May adding.

“It’s a legal obligation and a court decision and Uganda and South Africa and 30 other states have a legal obligation on the said issue.”

UPDATE: From Sudan Tribune, Wednesday 15 July 2009:
Uganda president apologizes to Sudan’s Bashir over ICC remarks: SUNA -- July 14, 2009 (KHARTOUM) — The Ugandan president Yoweri Musievini phoned his Sudanese counterpart Omer Hassan Al-Bashir over remarks made by one of his cabinet ministers on cooperation with the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his arrest.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has threatened to target Chinese workers in Africa

Here is some worrying news from the Telegraph yesterday.  Al-Qaeda's North African wing has threatened to target Chinese workers in Africa in revenge for the deaths of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang, according to a risk analysis company. Excerpt:

The threat came in the wake of race riots in far West China which claimed the lives of at least 136 Han Chinese and 46 Uighurs.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said it would target the 50,000 Chinese who are working in Algeria and launch attacks against other Chinese projects in Northern Africa, said Stirling Assynt, which is based in London.

"This threat should be taken seriously," it said, adding that three weeks ago the group had ambushed a convoy of Algerian security forces who were protecting Chinese engineers, killing 24 Algerians. "Future attacks of this kind are likely to target security forces and Chinese engineers alike."

China has repeatedly linked Uighur separatist groups to Al-Qaeda, but this is the first time that the terrorist network has made a direct threat against China or its overseas projects.

Full story: Telegraph by Malcolm Moore in Shanghai, Tuesday, 14 Jul 2009 - Al-Qaeda vows revenge on China over Uighur deaths.

Here is an excerpt fom National Post, Canada, Tuesday, 14 July 2009 by Aileen McCabe, Asia Correspondent, Canwest News Service:
Al-Qaeda threatens China

AQM's sudden interest in defending Uighurs comes after a week of near indifference to their plight by the Islamic world. The sole exception was Turkey, where public opinion prompted the government into a quick defence of its ethnic blood brothers.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was particularly outspoken.

"The incidents in China are a genocide," he said. "There's no point in interpreting this otherwise."

On Tuesday, the official China Daily called on Erdogan "to take back his remarks."

P.S.  Over the past month or so this site Sudan Watch has received no visits from China which is most unusual.  For years Sudan Watch received several visits daily from China but ever since Google access in China was disrupted, all visits have ceased.  If you are reading this in China or know of Google-Blogger blogspots being blocked in China, please share and say hi in the comments or by email.  Thanks.

UPDATE: China is back on the ball. An hour after posting the above, Sudan Watch had a visit from China! Yay!

Kidnappers want €1.4m for release of aid workers - Ban Ki-Moon visits Ireland

The emergence last week of news that the kidnappers of two female aid workers from Irish aid agency GOAL in North Darfur, were looking for a ransom was the first confirmation that officials were negotiating with the armed gang who seized the women -- the third such kidnapping of foreigners in the region in four months.

But last night Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs maintained a discreet silence, saying it had no comment to make on the latest ransom demand report.  GOAL chief John O'Shea said he had seen a "million reports" about the situation and had nothing to say about any of them. "I can't say anything," he added.

On July 07, 2009 UN chief Ban Ki-Moon met Government officials on a visit to Ireland.

The high-level team of diplomats and negotiators sent to Sudan to try and secure their release met the police and army officials in north Darfur, the region where the women were abducted at gunpoint.

Goal chief executive John O'Shea said: "I would image that if anybody knows who has done this, these officials are the most likely people to know."

Sources: Independent.ie by Fergus Black, Wednesday July 15 2009: Kidnappers want €1.4m for release of aid workers

Independent.ie by Fergus Black and Aine Kerr, Tuesday July 07 2009: UN chief joins efforts to find Darfur workers

Joseph Kony will never make peace- ICC

"The retaliation shows that Kony has to be arrested," Moreno-Ocampo said. "They tried the Juba talks (in 2007), they offered him everything and he refused."

Let's hope that Prosectuor Moreno-Ocampo says the same of JEM and SLM's Nur one day soon. A lot more attention has been paid to Sudanese and Chadian rebels than Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army. Enough is enough. No more pandering to civilian gunmen. Either they make peace or go to jail, now. No more waiting for them to disrupt the CPA and start war all over again in Southern Sudan.

From The New Vision, Uganda, Tuesday, 14 July, 2009:
Joseph Kony will never make peace- ICC

UGANDAN rebel leader Joseph Kony will never sign a peace agreement so international efforts should focus instead on arresting him, the International Criminal Court prosecutor said.

The Hague-based ICC has indicted Kony and other leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) for war crimes in a brutal, two-decade rebellion that began in north Uganda but has spilled into south Sudan, east Congo and Central African Republic.

ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said late on Monday that past mediation efforts in 2007 and 2004 had failed and served only to allow Kony to recruit and re-arm.

"This is a fantasy, Kony will never make peace," he said in the interview with Reuters and BBC. "When he is weak, he goes for peace negotiation. Then he gets money, he gets food, he buys weapons and he attacks again. How many times will he cheat?"

Kony, a self-styled prophet, has said he will surrender only if the ICC warrants are withdrawn.

Following a Ugandan-led assault on LRA camps in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) late last year, the rebels have carried out numerous reprisal attacks on civilians, killing more than 1,000 and capturing thousands more.

"The retaliation shows that Kony has to be arrested," Moreno-Ocampo said. "They tried the Juba talks (in 2007), they offered him everything and he refused."

Obama calls Darfur a genocide

Shut up America, stop playing with fire telling rebels what they want to hear so they don't have to make peace. From Bureau News July 14th, 2009:
Sudan criticizes Obama for calling Darfur genocide

KHARTOUM, Sudan — Sudan’s government has criticized President Barack Obama for calling the conflict in Darfur a “genocide.”

Obama made the comment in a speech over the weekend in the African nation of Ghana.

There has been a long-running debate over whether to characterize the conflict between Sudan’s Arab-led government and ethnic African rebels in Darfur as a genocide. Obama and his predecessor both called it that, but the U.N. never has.

Up to 300,000 people have been killed since the conflict began in 2003.

The Sudanese government’s point man on Darfur, Ghazi Salah Eddin Atabani, said Monday that Obama’s comment was “regrettable.”

See commentary (and comments from readers) by columnist and filmmaker Farai Sevenzo on issues of leadership and Barack Obama's trip to Ghana: BBC News, 13 July 2009 - African View: A question of leadership

JEM threatens to leave Doha talks (yawn)

JEM threatens to leave Doha talks again. Yawn. Boring. I wish JEM would shut up and disappear back under the rock from which they have crawled. Civilian gunmen make my blood boil. Who do they think they are and why are they getting away with murder? Note here below the peacekeeping costs all because of a bunch of criminals who are free to roam and do as they please. 

After more than five years of blogging Sudan, I am still at a loss to understand why nobody sanctions and arrests the rebels. What is Sudan and the ICC doing about such criminals? Not a lot.  What are the general public saying about the billions of tax dollars that the rebels are costing in aid and peacekeeping, not to mention stolen vehicles, loss of lives, etc., ? Nothing. Not a murmur can I find anywhere in the press or blogosphere. What's the matter with people? Bah. Fume.

UNAMID Cost: 1 July 2008-30 June 2009: $1.6 billion

UNMIS Cost: 1 July 2008-30 June 2009: $858.77 million

How many more years will this go on for?  Think about the costs involved, year on year, for five years to date.  Imagine how many fresh drinking water pumps, school materials, football pitches and sports equipment could be purchased for those vast sums of money generated from ordinary everyday taxpayers around the world. I say, enough is enough. Please someone tell those rebels to make peace, get lost or put them in jail, NOW.  Pronto.  No pussyfooting.  

From Sudan Radio Service, Tuesday, 14 July 2009:
JEM Threatens to Leave Doha Talks

(Cairo) – The Darfur anti-government group, the Justice and Equality Movement, has threatened that they will leave the Doha talks if the mediators decide to include other factions in the negotiations.

JEM senior negotiator Ahmed Mohamed Tugod told Sudan Radio Service on Tuesday from Cairo that the Government of National Unity should negotiate only with JEM.

[Ahmed Tugod:”Our position has not changed. JEM will not negotiate unless we are by ourselves. If the mediators and the host country or other parties want to include other individuals to be part of the peace talks, alleging that they are Darfur anti-government groups, JEM will not participate in such chaotic talks whose outcome is known in advance. This will never lead to peace in Darfur. Our stance is clear regarding the talks in Doha, if any other party apart from JEM joins the negotiating table, we will not be part of those talks and we will withdraw from the negotiations immediately. We have been fighting the government, we fought with it in Darfur, in Omdurman, and still we have other options, the government knows very well that there is no other group in Darfur that could threaten it, apart from JEM.”

The Egyptian government is organizing a series of meetings in Cairo, which began on Sunday, in an attempt to encourage the Darfur anti-government groups to take a unified approach to the crisis prior to peace negotiations.

4 new Sudan Football Association branch offices have been opened in S. Sudan: Rumbek, Wau, Rajah and Aweil

Here is some encouraging news for football players in Sudan. The Chairman of southern Sudan’s Football Development Committee, Mr Andrea Abdallah, is calling on the Government of southern Sudan to support the efforts of the Sudan Football Association to rebuild football stadiums in the region.

Great news. From Sudan Radio Service, Tuesday, 14 July 2009:
South Seeks More Stadiums

(Khartoum) – Mr. Abdallah told Sudan Radio Service in Khartoum on Sunday that southern Sudan has the opportunity to host regional tournaments but the southern stadiums are not up to standard.

[Mr. Andrea Abdallah]: “We have a problem. In the whole of southern Sudan, the only stadium with a grass pitch is in Juba. We are calling on the leadership in Juba to help us build grass pitches. We want them to install lights in the stadiums of Wau, Juba and Malakal. And if we are able to build extra stadiums for the new football clubs around southern Sudan this will be of great benefit, rather than having just one stadium. With them, we can host tournaments. For instance, in 2011 there will be the African Cup of Nations for non-professionals. If we get such a chance we will have no problem hosting it in southern Sudan.”

The chairman said four new Sudan Football Association branch offices have been opened in southern Sudan. Rumbek, Wau, Rajah and Aweil are the first of ten offices which have are scheduled to open, to complement the existing ones in the region.

Let's hope that sponsors of football and sport in general take an interest in Sudanese athletes, players and sports venues enabling Southern Sudan to host 2011 African Cup of Nations for non-professionals. Incidentally, the Olympics in 2011 are to be held in London. I'm pleased to report that the huge amount of work involved is going very well and on time. The whole nation is looking forward to the event.

Click on CECAFA label here below to view previous reports on footballing in Sudan.

Sudan women 'lashed for trousers'

Several Sudanese women have been flogged as a punishment for dressing "indecently", according to a local journalist who was arrested with them.

Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein, who says she is facing 40 lashes, said she and 12 other women wearing trousers were arrested in a restaurant in the capital, Khartoum.

She told the BBC several of the women had pleaded guilty to the charges and had 10 lashes immediately.

Khartoum, unlike South Sudan, is governed by Sharia law.

Several of those punished were from the mainly Christian and animist south, Ms Hussein said.

Non-Muslims are not supposed to be subject to Islamic law, even in Khartoum and other parts of the mainly Muslim north.

Full story: BBC News, Monday, 13 July 2009 - Sudan women 'lashed for trousers'

Click on label here below - Sudan women 'lashed for trousers' - for related reports and further updates.

Rwanda's Atraco has toppled Sudan’s El-Merrikh to win the CECAFA 2009 clubs championship trophy in Omdurman

Well, this is disappointing news.  Various news reports led one to believe that Sudan’s El-Merrikh would be win.  Congratulations to Rwanda.
From Sudan Radio Service, Monday, 13 July 2009 –
Atraco Win CECAFA Trophy Against El Merrikh

(Khartoum) – Rwanda's Atraco has toppled Sudan’s El-Merrikh to win the CECAFA 2009 clubs championship trophy in Omdurman. The final on Sunday was expected to be a replay of the tournament’s opening when El-Merrikh had an easy 6-1 win over Atraco but surprisingly enough the Rwandan champions changed tactics and replaced key players that helped them wrestle El-Merrikh down.

The editor of Sokar sports newspaper, Mr. Badr Eldin Bakhit, spoke to Sudan Radio Service in the stadium after the match.

[Badr Eldim Bakhit]: “I think El-Merrikh’s coach (Mr. Radan Jacknet) had said from the beginning that he does not want to pressure the players. You can see that he was just seated on the bench without saying anything. It is clear; he is more concerned about the match against El-Hilal than this competition. In the tactics you see today, the defense is supposed to be changed. Look at the midfield, there is Nasrdin Shigail, Lasana Fanie and the wings there are Bala Jabir in the right and Zuma in the left. This is a typical makeup against El-Hilal. He did not concentrate on this match; he is more concerned about the later match against Hilal.”

The Rwandan fans at the stadium expressed their surprise after their victory. Ms. Julie Karanja, a Kenyan who supports Atraco, could not hide her joy.

[Juli Karanja]: “I would just say congratulations Rwanda! They have performed miracles, it is the least expected.”

While it is jubilation and shouts of joy on the Rwandan side, thousands of El-Merrikh supporters who turned up at the stadium left disappointed, including Sudan’s businessman Jamal Al-Wali who sponsored the team in this tournament.

There were five cases of fans who fainted when the last whistle was blown.

The editor of El-Sadda sports newspaper, Mr. Muzamil Abulgasim, a die-hard supporter of El-Merrikh, who gave over twelve thousand dollars in prize money to several players, was more positive.

[Muzamil AbulGasim]: “Again we want to say that the tournament has achieved its objectives and El-Merrikh is not an exception to this because it has got this far in the groupings. This tournament has shown us the weakness and the strengths of El-Merrikh and I hope the tactical team have noted this and will use it in the champion’s league.”

TP Mazembe of the Congo took the third position in the championship after beating Mathare United of Kenya 2-0.

Click on CECAFA label here below to read earlier news reports.
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Hamisi Gitagenda's lone strike gave Atraco victory over Merreikh

From BBC SPORT, Sunday, 12 July 2009:

Atraco stun Merreikh in Cecafa final

Atraco of Rwanda are the surprise winners of this year's Cecafa Club Championship.

They beat the Sudanese favourites El Merreikh 1-0 to take the trophy.

Atraco scored after just 15 minutes through the tournament's top scorer Hamisi Gitagenda.

It is a spectacular result for Atraco who have only been in existence for three years.

Atraco take home prize money worth US$ 50,000 for their efforts.

The runners-up El Merreikh earned US$ 30,000 plus the fair play trophy.

DR Congo's TP Mazembe beat Mathare United of Kenya 2-0 in the third-place play-off.

Mukulukutu Miala and Kaliyutuka Dioko were the scorers for the Congolese club.

Darfur Groups Optimistic They Can Unite - But No JEM or SLM's Nur

From Sudan Radio Service, Monday, 13 July 2009:
Darfur Groups Optimistic They Can Unite - But No JEM

(Cairo) – The Darfur anti-Government groups who are meeting in Egypt say that they are optimistic that they will unite and will reach a common understanding.

The meetings are organized by the Egyptian government in an attempt to encourage the Darfur anti-government groups to take a unified approach to the crisis prior to peace negotiations.

Dr. Sharif Harir, a senior spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Movement-Unity faction, spoke to Sudan Radio Service from Cairo on Monday.

[Dr. Sharif Harir]: “In fact we started the work according to the time table, yesterday (Sunday) was the opening of the meeting, today (Monday) we will discuss the issue of visions and goals, and how we can make our different opinions closer about the issue of negotiation as one of our means of struggle. I think it is going well and I’m optimistic, we are optimistic because this is an essential condition in the success of the movements in achieving the demands and the aspirations of the Darfur people. By our unity we will unite Darfur people.”

The political advisor to the leader of the United Front for Resistance, Abdallah Abakar, also spoke to Sudan Radio Service from Cairo.

[Abdallah Abakar]: “In fact, when we came to Cairo as the different movements and factions of Darfur, the Egyptian government provided a conducive atmosphere for the talks, and they want us to come to a common understanding, because the recent portrayal of the Darfur factions and movements is unacceptable to the world. So they are continuing the Libyan initiative that the movements can come out with a common vision. We, the Darfur movements, have come this time with goodwill, and we have no differences, so what prevents us from being one or at least having a common negotiating theme in any of the coming peace talks?”

The Egyptian government spokesperson, Omar Qenawi, is hoping for a breakthrough in the talks.

[Omar Qenawi]: “There is much discussion about the desire to unite between all of the leaders and decision makers - but talking is not enough. We urge that talk will be transformed into action, so we hope through these meetings we will make a breakthrough, which everybody is waiting for, particularly the people in Sudan and in Darfur.”

Most of Darfur anti-government groups and factions are participating in the Egyptian initiative for unification, except the SLM Abdulwahid’s faction and the Justice and Equality Movement.

See today's news at Sudan Watch: JEM make excuses to avoid peace (again)

GONU became illegal on 9 July under terms of CPA?

From Sudan Radio Service, Monday, 13 July 2009
Opposition Parties Plan Mass Rally Against "Illegal" GONU

(Khartoum) – Last week, the coalition of national opposition parties called for the formation of a national government saying that the current government became illegal on the 9th July under the terms of the CPA.

They threaten to hold a mass demonstration over the legality of the current government.

The Government of National Unity has defended its legal and constitutional legitimacy.

GONU Justice Minister Abdel-Baseet Sabdarat Saleh addressed a press conference in Khartoum on Sunday.

[Abdel-Baseet Sabdarat]: “Who is going to form the government if the President is going to be illegitimate and the President of south Sudan government is going to be illegitimate? There is talk of a constitutional vacuum. Who is going to fill this vacuum?

Is it going to be a voluntary committee? I think these claims are an attempt to make political capital out of the situation.

Article 216 reads as follows: The election is to be conducted within the four-year interim period. It is important to refer to this article, because it doesn’t refer to the period of the Government of National Unity nor to President or First Vice-President nor the President of the south Sudan government or to any level of government mentioned in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.”

Article 216 of the Interim national constitution states that the general elections at all levels of government shall be held not later than the end of the fourth year of the interim period. This period expired on 9th July.

Increased levels of insecurity in southern Sudan

Note that there seems to be little news coming out of Sudan re progress being made on implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement or what to expect from the upcoming ruling on the Abyei boundary.

From Sudan Radio Service, Monday, 13 July 2009:
Kenana Group Upset By Presidential Treatment

(Khartoum) – A group of southern Sudanese politicians calling themselves the “Kenana Group” have accused the President of the Government of southern Sudan, Salva Kiir Mayardit of refusing to meet and discuss with them the future of southern Sudan.

Speaking at a press conference in Khartoum on Sunday, the deputy-chairman and the official spokesperson of the Kenana Group, Angelo Beda, said his group has been disappointed by the treatment they received from Salva Kiir.

[Angelo Beda]: “The Kenana Group of south Sudanese political leaders, political activists, intellectuals, and elders, who met in Kenana, White Nile State, between 1st-3rd April 2009, hereby wish to release the letter the group had written to the President of the GOSS and the Chairman of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, General Salva Kiir Mayardit. The document contains many issues of concern to the Kenana Group, about the situation in south Sudan. Since the issues in the document concern the future of our country and our people, we wish to make it known to the Sudanese public that we are most disappointed with the treatment our group has received from the President of the GOSS, refusing to meet our committee, for nearly four months. That is why it became necessary to publish the letter.”

Beda explained that the letter they submitted to the GOSS President contained four key issues of concern to the people of southern Sudan which include a review of the implementation of the CPA in southern Sudan over the last four years and preparation for elections and the referendum scheduled for 2011.

He claimed that President Kiir refused to meet them because of misinformation about the Kenana Group.

[Angelo Beda]: “An inaccurate report was taken to them in advance, we got the copy of the this report, which contained information which we never discussed, like we are going to use the elections to remove them from power It said that certain people left the National Congress Party to join the SPLM. They talked of a false scenario in which, if the President of the Republic is arrested [by the ICC], the NCP will destroy the South — all these are wrong. This information was wrong. This information was made for their gain and somebody went and handed it over to the president and we who are politicians, we could not meet the president.”

Beda said the Kenana group is not seeking political positions, but they are concerned about the future of southern Sudan.

He cited the increased levels of insecurity in southern Sudan, mentioning the incident in which three police officers were shot dead by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in Yambio town in Western Equatoria in 2007. Up to now, no investigation has been conducted into that incident.

The Kenana group will meet again on Monday night in Khartoum to discuss the next step they will take after having failed to meet the GOSS President.

More people have been killed in South Sudan than Darfur in recent months

The United Nations say that more have died in the south in recent months from violence than in the war-torn western region of Darfur.  

Anger is high after Lou fighters massacred 71 people in the Jikany village of Torkech in May.

Clashes between rival groups in the south have taken place for generations, over resources, land or livestock.  

But these well-planned attacks are no simple disputes over stolen cattle.

Women and children are now also deliberately targeted - something elders say never happened in the past.

Southern President Salva Kiir says he is "convinced beyond any doubt" that the fighting is the work of "outside forces".

Who is really responsible for the violence, and what lies ahead for Sudan, is unclear.

However, if the past is anything to go by, it will be the most vulnerable who once again suffer most.

Full story:   BBC News, Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Could Sudan clashes herald return to war?
By Peter Martell, BBC News, Nasir, southern Sudan

Click on Jonglei label here below for related reports and latest updates.

Uganda willing to arrest al-Bashir for war crimes

Uganda said Monday it would arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir if he enters the country, an unusual stance after a summit of African leaders denounced the international arrest warrant against al-Bashir.

Henry Oryem Okello, Uganda's minister for international affairs, spoke after meeting with the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, in Kampala.

"It is a legal obligation for Uganda to arrest Bashir if he comes to Uganda," Ocampo said.

Full story from Associated Press by Godfrey Olukya - Monday, 13 July 2009, KAMPALA, Uganda: Uganda willing to arrest al-Bashir for war crimes

USAID has done some sort of audit of Care projects it has funded only to find that millions of dollars cannot be accounted for

From Rob Crilly's blog post, July 13, 2009 -
Shoddy Deals for Darfur - excerpt:

It turns out that Scott Gration is some sort of old chum of Helene Gayle, chief executive of Care USA, and was on the blower to her for a favour to help his deal get off the ground.

At the same time, USAID has done some sort of audit of Care projects it has funded only to find that millions of dollars cannot be accounted for. USAID is one of Care's biggest donors and was able to then dictate that the charity returned to Darfur, or else...

AU corrects Reuters re AUPD position on ICC Darfur

Reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse for Reuters appears to be rubbish.  Bring back Andrew Heavens.  From Bec Hamilton Saturday, 11 July 2009:

I have spoken to two people this afternoon who were actually at the press conference yesterday that the Reuters piece came out of. They both said there was absolutely no way you could have left the press conference with the impression that the Panel had even decided on the issue, let alone decided to support the arrest of Bashir. They are pretty furious, and understandably so. For their part Reuters have at least issued a correction.

Press Statement from African Union
Clarification - African Union Panel on Darfur’s Position on the ICC and Darfur

Addis Ababa, 11 July 2009: The African Union High Level Panel on Darfur (AUPD) has noted a Reuters news report which claims that the former South African President, Thabo Mbeki, Chairperson of the Panel, has called on the three Sudanese personalities, including President Omer Hassan Al-Bashir to present themselves before the International Criminal Court to stand trial.

This report is completely false and highly irresponsible. No member of the Panel has made any such pronouncement. Indeed, no member of the Panel could make any such pronouncement as the Panel has not yet completed its work.

At a press conference held at the AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa yesterday, Mr. Mbeki was asked about the Panel’s position on the ICC arrest warrant against President Bashir. Mr. Mbeki indicated that the Panel operated on the basis that the ICC warrant “is a given”. He, however, acknowledged that some of the interested parties with whom the Panel has met had called for ICC trials.

The Panel was established to address the issues of peace, reconciliation and justice in Darfur. These issues are fundamental to resolving the crisis of Sudan as manifested in Darfur. The search for peace, reconciliation and justice for Darfur is broader than the ICC process. In this connection, the ICC Prosecutor, Mr. Luis Moreno Ocampo, reiterated his support for the Panel’s work when he met with the Panel this week in Addis Ababa.

The Panel has previously met with the Government of Sudan, representatives of some of the armed opposition movements, political parties, civil society representatives, internally displaced people, refugees, tribal leaders, Native Authorities of Darfur. The Panel has also met with some of Sudan’s neighbouring countries, representatives of other foreign governments and institutions, amongst others.

The Panel will continue with its work and will hand over its report to the AU in September.

- - -

CORRECTED - Mbeki-led African panel says no stance on
From Reuters Sat Jul 11, 2009 4:50am EDT
(Corrects to show that panel has no position on ICC)

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - An African Union (AU) panel led by South Africa's former President Thabo Mbeki said it had not taken a stance on an international court's indictment of Sudanese officials including President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

Fighting between the government, its allies and a myriad of rebel groups in Sudan's western region has claimed as many as 300,000 people, according to the United Nations, but Khartoum says only 10,000 have died since clashes broke out in 2003.

"The panel has not taken a position whether or not the intervention of the (International Criminal Court) in Sudan or the arrest warrants the court has issued are appropriate," it said in a statement.

The ICC has indicted Bashir on seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and torture.

He has dismissed the allegations as part of a Western conspiracy, and the AU has sought a deferment of the indictment, saying it has complicated peace efforts in Darfur.

An AU summit in Libya last week voted to suspend cooperation with ICC in the matter.

Mbeki told reporters on Friday that his panel of eight eminent Africans had consulted widely inside and outside Sudan.

"The consensus reached is that those charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity should appear in court and defend themselves," he said. "The warrant has been issued. There is nothing that can be done."

(Reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse; Editing by Giles Elgood)

- - -

Mbeki-led African panel backs Darfur warrants
From Reuters Fri Jul 10, 2009 10:46am EDT
ADDIS ABABA, July 10, 2009

(Reuters) - An African Union (AU) panel led by South Africa's former President Thabo Mbeki backed on Friday an international court's indictment of Sudanese officials including President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes.

The panel's recommendation showed the differences around Africa over the indictment for crimes in the Darfur conflict. An AU summit in Libya last week voted to suspend cooperation with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the matter.

Mbeki told reporters his panel of eight eminent Africans had consulted widely inside and outside Sudan.

"The consensus reached is that those charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity should appear in court and defend themselves," he said. "The warrant has been issued. There is nothing that can be done."

The ICC has indicted Bashir on seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and torture.

He has dismissed the allegations as part of a Western conspiracy, and the AU has sought a deferment of the indictment, saying it has complicated peace efforts in Darfur.

U.N. officials say the Darfur conflict in Sudan's western region has killed as many as 300,000 people since 2003. (Reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse; Editing by Sophie Hares)

- - -

Excerpt from Alex de Waal's blog post Sunday, July 12th, 2009 The AU Panel and the Justice Challenge (1) at Making Sense of Darfur:

The allegation that Pres. Mbeki was intent on salvaging Pres. Bashir came up several times in the discussion. One woman said, “We fear you are here to defend the criminal Omar al Bashir.” One man stood up and said, “Seven members of my family were killed. How should I feel if Thabo Mbeki says that Omar al Bashir should not go to court?”

Pres. Mbeki challenged him, “from where did you get this information that I said that President Bashir should not go to court?”
The man responded, “it is well known.” He then said that the Africans were the ones saying Bashir should not go to the ICC, citing the early June meeting in Addis Ababa to discuss the African position on the ICC. This reply did not satisfy Pres. Mbeki, who continued to press him, “I asked you a question. Please answer it. You made an allegation. From where did you get this information?” The man said it was the BBC.

In response, Pres. Mbeki made several points. First, he suggested that the man should obtain his information directly from the source, in Africa, not from outside Africa. Mbeki said that he had not made any statement on whether Bashir should go court, or not. Second, he pointed out that the outcome of the June meeting in Addis Ababa had not been withdrawal from the ICC. Third, he explained the content of the resolutions of the Peace and Security Council on the issue, and promised to ensure that copies of the resolutions were sent so that the people could study them first hand and not rely on others’ interpretations.

JEM make excuses to avoid peace (again)

A major Darfur rebel group threatened on Monday to pull out of discussions with Sudan's government if mediators insisted on inviting other insurgents to negotiate.

JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim criticized joint U.N./African Union mediators on Monday for trying to pull in splinter factions into new negotiations and talking to individuals he said did not represent any real military power on the ground.

"JEM will never be part of these complications. We will never be part of this chaos. We will draw back from this issue," he told Reuters, speaking over satellite telephone.

"If people want to join peace talks, they can join JEM or the government group. There is no third party."

Source:  Reuters, Monday, July 13, 2009 by Andrew Heavens in Khartoum (Editing by Ralph Boulton) - Darfur rebels threaten to boycott "chaotic" talks

CECAFA invite Nigeria to participate in next month's U17 Championship in Khartoum and Juba in Sudan

The Council of East and Central African Football Associations, CECAFA, has invited Nigeria’s U-17 team to participate in next month’s U-17 championship to be staged in Khartoum and Juba in Sudan.

The Nigerians have won the world youth championships twice and their experience will spice up the regional tournament.

Source: Goal.com by James Momanyi, Monday, 13 July 2009:
CECAFA Invite Nigeria To U17 Championship

In a report posted on the CECAFA official website, secretary Nicholas Musonye said Nigeria had been invited so as to raise the standards of the game in the region.

“Nigeria have one of the best under-17 talent in the world. At this level, their football put the likes of Nwankwo Kanu, ‘Jay Jay’ Okocha and Sunday Oliseh on the world map. When Nigeria play in our tournament next month, they will be serving warning to youths in our region that football at this level is no ‘kids’ stuff,” said Musonye.

The CECAFA tournament kicks off in Sudan on August 12 after all the eleven CECAFA member countries assemble in Sudan. Musonye said that according to tentative plans, groups will be based in Khartoum and Juba but there is a possibility of placing the third group in another Sudanese city of Kessala.

It will be the first time ever that a major international sports event will take place in the semi-autonomous Sudanese region ravaged by war for decades. The Unity Government of Sudan has given CECAFA $400,000 towards hosting of the tournament and CAF (African Football Confederation) is also assisting.

Meanwhile CAF has openly praised CECAFA as the most active and efficient regional organisation in the continent. CAF is also pleased with CECAFA’s efforts to encourage co-operation between regional bodies.

After the conclusion of the CECAFA club championship on Sunday, the senior CECAFA championship that involves national teams in the region will take place in Kenya later in the year.

Organizations such as COSAFA (Confederation of Southern African Football Associations) and WAFU (West African Football Union) have lately halted their activities or discontinued them altogether, owing to financial and administrative problems.

Click on CECAFA label here below to read related news reports.

The AU Panel and the Justic Challenge

From Alex de Waal's blog Making Sense of Darfur:
The AU Panel and the Justice Challenge (1)
By Alex de Waal, Sunday, 12 July 2009

In summary, the Panel is still at the stage of asking people—especially Darfurians—for their opinions and proposals. There are certain realities, such as the positions taken by the AU heads of state, and by the ICC, which constrain and influence what the AU Panel can realistically recommend, but there are no overriding determinants on what it may decide.

"Ante Up for Africa" - playing poker for the poor people of Darfur

Rob Crilly says celebrity poker players turned out in full force yesterday for the 3rd annual Ante Up for Africa, a charity tournament co-hosted by world poker champ Annie Duke and actor Don Cheadle. Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Charles Barkley, Sarah Silverman, Jason Alexander, and Mike Tyson were just a few of the poker aficionados who took to the red carpet to talk about the importance of supporting humanitarian relief efforts in Sudan.   

Read more in Rob Crilly's blog post Gambling for Sudan [Frontline Club blogs, July 11, 2009]. Rob wonders if gambling really is the best way to raise cash for Sudan and says:

I was a little nonplussed by "Ante Up for Africa", ... essentially playing poker for the poor people of Darfur.

Now I'm not a leading authority on Islam, but I think after travelling through Sudan and Somalia I know a thing or two about the central tenets of the religion. Is gambling really the best way to raise cash for Sudan? What next, a sponsored hot dog eating competition? A drinkathon? There are plenty of celebrities who have spent time there or in Chad and really get the place (I'm thinking of Mia Farrow). But this just makes people like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck look a little silly.

Sorry to disagree, I think gambling is a good way to raise cash for Sudan.  Poker is popular, especially online.  It is played by some great personalities and warm hearted people and, like most sports, poker is fun.  I reckon poker is a mental agility sport, like chess.  So yes, why not 'Ante Up for Africa'?  Good luck to all those involved.

New uses for Platform Transmitter Terminals (PTTs) are exploding

This news story is about a company that makes and markets satellite trackers of wild animals and birds.  

From Fredericksburg.com, Saturday, July 11, 2009:
Biologists get some guidance from above



Photo: Snow leopard in Asia is wearing a North Star satellite tracking collar. 



Photo:  M. Blake Henke of King George County holds a stuffed pheasant with a North Star satellite tracker on its back. 



Photo:  One of North Star's collars was put on a rare jaguar in Arizona this year.

BY FRANK DELANO

Wild goose chases will never be the same, thanks partly to M. Blake Henke.

Henke, 41, is the managing partner of North Star Science and Technology LLC. Based at Henke's home in King George County, the company makes and markets satellite trackers of wild animals and birds.

The devices "have totally revolutionized wildlife biology," said Henke. "You can learn a lot about an animal when you know where it goes, where it spends its time and how much territory it needs."

North Star trackers have been used to study dozens of species, including cranes and flamingos in Africa, buzzards and snow leopards in Asia, mountain lions in South Dakota and black bears in New Jersey.

HawkWatch International of Salt Lake City is one of Henke's oldest customers. HawkWatch has bought more than 100 trackers since North Star first started selling them in 1999, said science director Jeff Smith.

Smith said the units have provided "amazing information" about the wanderings of northern goshawks, red-tailed hawks and golden eagles in the Rockies, Cascades and other Western mountains. Some young birds were found to summer in far northern Canada and to winter in Mexico.

Smith said HawkWatch recently loaned four of its North Star trackers to wildlife biologists studying short-toed eagles in Israel.

"The birds migrated to Chad and Sudan in Africa, including the troubled Darfur region, but they all survived and did well," Smith said.

The trackers are called Platform Transmitter Terminals, or PTTs. North Star's PTTs range from small to extra small.

Its biggest transmitter is attached to a collar that will fit a buffalo's neck. It weighs about 2 pounds, depending on the length of the collar.

Small units for birds are often attached to them like miniature backpacks. The smallest North Star PTT weighs just 9.5 grams, less than two nickels.

Powered by batteries or solar panels, the trackers contain tons of technology that fix a critter's location by satellites. The positions are transmitted to satellites, then back to Earth for plotting and analysis. Newer GPS models allow biologists to follow an animal in real time on Google Maps.

Henke said North Star sells about 500 bird PTTs a year at about $3,000 each and about 400 GPS animal collars costing between $2,500 and $3,200. The units are built by high-tech production firms in Maryland and North Carolina.

He graduated with a history degree from the University of Virginia in 1990, "but I always wanted to work in an environmental field somewhere," he said.

His chance came in 1994 when he was working for a defense contractor and met William S. Seegar, an Army research scientist working to rebuild peregrine falcon populations at an Army base in Maryland.

Seegar had worked with the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University to develop the first transmitter to go on a bird in 1984. Henke said he and Seegar hit it off. They formed North Star in 1998.

Henke, his wife, Stephanie, and their two sons moved to King George in 2002 to be closer to relatives. Her parents live in Lancaster County, his in Fauquier.

"King George is sort of in the middle," he said. "What I do is all on the Internet and the phone. I can work anywhere."

North Star "has had very good growth and we see continued growth," he said. The continuing miniaturization of PTTs will allow them to be used on smaller species. Henke thinks more species will lead to more PTT sales.

The company also has high hopes for logging collars that can store a year or two of data before dropping off. When it does, a VHF radio transmitter on the collar will emit a signal so researchers can retrieve it and its data.

New uses for PTTs are exploding, he said.

For example, he said, "We sell a lot to Japan where the government has put a lot of money into avian flu research. What better way to track a possible epidemic associated with widely ranging water birds than to put satellite trackers on them?"

Frank Delano: 804/761-4300
Email: fpdelano@gmail.com

My pet cat is out and about, every few hours, all day long. Outdoors, she walks mostly on stone and lush grass and she knows everything that goes on, sometimes five minutes before it happens. For example, she will hear the milkman arriving to at least fifteen minutes in advance of my hearing the actual delivery. 

How she would react to a tiny PTT around her neck?  Not very well, I'm sure she would sense or hear something emitting from a PTT, her senses are so highly tuned she can hear a spider. 

Naturally, I would love for her to carry a PTT so I could see and hear what she sees and hears and how far she travels.  And what about seals, dolphins, sharks and whales that are tagged with PTTs.  I wonder how a high pitched frequency might interfere with their ability to hear sonar. And what about submarines, fishing boats, etc., all emitting noise and pollution. When I read news reports of whales beaching themselves to death I think about noise pollution and hope that it is taken seriously.  Maybe in the future, cattle in Sudan will be tagged with PTTs to guard against cattle rustlers.

Yesterday, I signed a petition to help Help End The Canadian Seal Slaughter.

Mia Farrow fears that spies are targeting her blog

According to the following news report, Mia Farrow fears that spies are targeting her blog and are tipping off the British government about her actions. Reportedly, someone has been faxing the contents of Ms Farrow's site to members of the House of Commons in England, the Daily Star quoted the American actress as saying in her latest updates. I find such a reaction strange. So what if someone faxed the contents of any site to anyone.

From Thaindian News 12 July 2009:
Mia Farrow warns online spies trying to derail her efforts to help Sudan refugees

London, July 12 (ANI): Actress and activist Mia Farrow has revealed that an online spy is threatening to overturn her efforts to help refugees in Sudan, and has claimed that this won’t budge her from standing for the cause.

The ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ star has been working hard to highlight the plight of those effected by civil war in the country’s Darfur region, and encourage governments to do more to help them.

In fact, the actress had recently fasted to raise awareness of the cause and even runs a daily blog showing pictures as well as up-to-date news on the situation in the Sudan.

And now Mia fears that spies are targeting her blog and are tipping off the British government about her actions.

“I have been notified today that someone has been faxing the contents of this site to members of the House of Commons in England.” the Daily Star quoted the American actress as saying in her latest updates.

She added: “I hope whoever is doing this will cease as this sort of harassment is counterproductive to all we are hoping to accomplish for the people of Darfur… Shame on you.” (ANI)

I wonder why Ms Farrow construes the faxing of contents of websites as being a sort of harassment. Here is a copy of some notes at miafarrow.org

PLEASE STOP

Once again I implore whoever is repeatedly faxing the entire contents of this site to the Members of Parliament in England to cease immediately. The harassment and alienation of persons in positions of leadership is counterproductive to our efforts to alleviate the very real suffering of the people of Darfur. In addition, British taxpayers are being burdened with the cost of the extraordinary amounts of wasted paper and ink.
July 9, 2009

Please don't fax

I have been notified today that someone has been faxing the contents of this site to members of the House of Commons in England. I hope whoever is doing this will cease as this sort of harassment is counterproductive to all we are hoping to accomplish for the people of Darfur.
July 8, 2009

At her website, Mia Farrow says to check out this.

Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir is in Cairo, Egypt for talks with Hosni Mubarak

Egypt is trying to bring the Sudanese government and rebel groups together for negotiations.

From ABC (via BBC) Sunday, 12 July 2009;
Sudan, Egypt meet on Darfur conflict

Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir is in Cairo for talks with his Egyptian counterpart, Hosni Mubarak, to try to resolve the long-running conflict in the western Sudanese region of Darfur.

Egypt is trying to bring the Sudanese government and rebel groups together for negotiations.

The meeting follows talks which Egypt hosted on Saturday between representatives of several rebel factions, including the United Resistance Front and the Sudan Liberation Army.

Afterwards the rebel groups expressed hope that Egyptian efforts could help unite them and pave the way for direct talks with the Sudanese government.

Cairo continues to support president Al-Bashir who faces a warrant for his arrest on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

It has asked the United Nations to freeze his case before the International Court. - BBC

AU panel dismiss false media reports

The African Union Panel on Darfur is expected to hand over its report to the AU in September 2009.

From BuaNews
AU panel dismiss false media reports
Compiled by the Government Communication and Information System
Date: 12 Jul 2009
Title: AU panel dismiss false media reports
By Chris Bathembu

Pretoria - The African Union High Level Panel on Darfur (AUPD) has dismissed media reports claiming former President Thabo Mbeki has called on the three Sudanese personalities, including President Omer Hassan Al-Bashir to present themselves before the International Criminal Court to stand trial.

Mr Mbeki is the chairperson of AUPD.

"This report is completely false and highly irresponsible. No member of the Panel has made any such pronouncement.

"Indeed, no member of the Panel could make any such pronouncement as the Panel has not yet completed its work," AUPD spokesperson Barney Afako said.

Speaking at a press conference held at the AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa on Friday, Mr Afako said that Mr Mbeki was asked about the Panel's position on the ICC arrest warrant against President Bashir.

"Mr Mbeki indicated that the Panel operated on the basis that the ICC warrant "is a given". He, however, acknowledged that some of the interested parties with whom the Panel has met had called for ICC trials.

The Panel was established to address the issues of peace, reconciliation and justice in Darfur.

These issues were fundamental to resolving the crisis of Sudan as manifested in Darfur.

"The search for peace, reconciliation and justice for Darfur is broader than the ICC process. In this connection, the ICC Prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, reiterated his support for the Panel's work when he met with the Panel this week in Addis Ababa," added Mr Afako.

He said the Panel has previously met with the Government of Sudan, representatives of some of the armed opposition movements, political parties, civil society representatives, internally displaced people, refugees, tribal leaders, Native Authorities of Darfur.

It has also met with some of Sudan's neighbouring countries, representatives of other foreign governments and institutions, amongst others.

It is expected to hand over its report to the AU in September. - BuaNews

Football Without Borders - Sudan, Chad, DR Congo, Niger

Today, I received a newsletter message via Facebook from Jakob. The message inspired me to respond.  I think Jakob is part of a group of Niger watchers, namely @ Play31.  We've probably connected via my 'soccer and free footballs' postings at Niger Watch.  Here is a copy of Jakob's message and my reply.

From Jakob
Football Without Borders
Dear all,

As those of us who are in the northern hemisphere are enjoying the questionable weather of Nordic Summer, a new Play31 tournament is under way in Sierra Leone. Next weekend in Koindu Village in Eastern Sierra Leone, communities from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone will kick off the first tri-nation tournament.

We are very happy and proud to be able to reach out to communities in neighboring countries. The war in Sierra Leone knew no borders: refugees, rebels, arms, and diamonds spilled over the porous line that separates Sierra Leone from Guinea and Liberia and so it only makes sense that we at Play31 also work with “football without borders”. Of course, our objective remains the same: using footie to bring together people who have been torn apart by war.

Because of the generosity of so many of you in this group as well as the Clinton Foundation and a lot of UN Ambassadors, we now have money enough to include two very important aspects into our tournament: below 14-teams and shoes for all players.

Play31 is growing steadily at the moment and we hope to launch quite a few new initiatives soon. Among other things, we are right now setting up a Danish board in Denmark consisting of Danes. More information on all these exciting new projects will come soon so stay tuned.

With continued gratitude for your support and with love for the Beautiful Game,

Jakob and everyone @ Play31

- - -

Copy of my email reply re: Football Without Borders - Sudan

Dear Jakob, Football is a peaceful fun way for people of different cultures to get together, football games are a good thing. I would like to help focus on football in Sudan and, eventually, Chad, DR Congo. Please let me know how I can help using my blogs. Best wishes, Ingrid Jones, England, UK.

http://sudanwatch.blogspot.com
http://congowatch.blogspot.com

plus others on Uganda, Ethiopia, Niger, Kenya, Egypt.

PS  On completing my reply email to Jakob, I pressed SEND (at the Facebook site) but nothing happened. Repeated procedure. Same again. So I have no idea if my message has reached Jakob.

Hopefully this blog post will deliver the above message to Jakob.

Obama comments 'a step back', Sudan says

Sudan has hit out at US President Barack Obama, saying his use of the term "genocide" to describe the conflict in Darfur marked "a step back".

Mr Obama, in Ghana Saturday (local time) on his first official trip as President to Africa, condemned tyrants who enrich themselves and urged Africans to demand stronger governments.

He added that conflicts such as the "genocide" in Darfur and terrorism in Somalia were "a millstone around Africa's neck".

"It is a step back ... it is not helping. It is not constructive," spokesman for the Sudanese foreign ministry Ali Sadiq said, referring to Mr Obama's comments.

"We would like the President to consult with his special envoy about this issue."

Scott Gration, appointed by Mr Obama as US envoy to Sudan in March, declined to use the term "genocide" when referring to the Darfur conflict in his first news briefing in Washington on June 17.

Asked by a reporter at that briefing whether he would characterise the situation in Darfur as "genocide", he replied: "What we see is the remnants of genocide. What we see are the consequences of genocide, the results of genocide".

Source: AFP Sunday 12 July 2009 - Obama comments 'a step back', Sudan says

ICC prosecutor condemns AU support for Bashir, appeals Sudan genocide case

ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, who was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for meetings with a high level African Union panel on Darfur led by former South African President Thabo Mbeki, Tuesday rejected the decision taken by the AU.

Prosecutor Ocampo believes there is sufficient evidence to prove Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir's guilt.

I wonder what the Chadian and Sudanese rebels think when they hear of such news, why should they give in to peace when it sounds like they have the ICC onside.  I wonder if they listen to a radio and, if so, what they listen to.  I wonder if anyone reading this has also listened to Sudan Radio Service (details in sidebar here on right).

From Afrik.com by Desalegn Sisay, Saturday, 11 July 2009:
Addis Ababa: ICC prosecutor condemns AU support for Bashir, appeals Sudan genocide case

Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, who was in Addis Ababa for meetings with a high level African Union panel on Darfur led by former South African President Thabo Mbeki, Tuesday rejected the decision taken by the AU. "The AU is not a signatory of the charter, but individual nations are," said Moreno Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor of the ICC. He added that 30 African nations have signed the court’s founding document, which obliges them to cooperate with the court.

"African leaders may make political statements but individual nations’ laws take precedence," Moreno Ocampo said. He added that he appealed the ICC’s decision not to charge Bashir with genocide because he believes the evidence is clear that the Sudanese leader mobilised his Government to exterminate three Darfuri ethnic groups.

The decision on the genocide charge was split. While the entire chamber accepted seven charges - five crimes against humanity and two war crimes - two of the judges refused the charges on genocide.

The chief prosecutor says the summit’s statement does not relieve African states who are signatories to the ICC of their obligation to arrest Bashir if he sets foot on their soil. "He tried to go to South Africa and South Africa told him, if you come here, you will be arrested. He is not traveling around," he said.

"Today, President Bashir has to be arrested on five counts. If we win this appeal in some months, President Bashir will also have to answer the charges of genocide,” the prosecutor said.