A tribal sheik named Musa Hilal is responsible for leading a massacre in Darfur, according to U.S. and U.N. officials. (ABCNEWS.com) - copy in full:
Nov. 18, 2004 - A Sudanese tribal chief accused of leading a massacre in the Darfur region of Sudan tells ABC News, in an exclusive interview, that the mass killings are the result of war, not genocide, as the United States has labeled it.
Nevertheless, the people of Darfur are survivors of an atrocity -- children, who'll be haunted for the rest of their lives by what they have seen; fathers, living with the guilt that they couldn't prevent it; and mothers, struggling to carry on.
A year and a half ago, the Sudanese government gave weapons to Arab militias known as the Janjaweed in order to suppress a rebellion by three black African tribes in Darfur. The Janjaweed -- the name means "evil horsemen" in Arabic -- have gone after the rebels, and their tribesmen, with cruel efficiency.
In July, the Janjaweed descended upon the village of Baraka in South Darfur and went on a rampage.
"About 100 horsemen surrounded us," said one eyewitness. "I heard one of them say, 'Kill them all. Kill all of the slaves.' "
The Janjaweed tied their hands before they shot them.
"They slaughtered 50 members of my family," said surviving villager Halima Ahmed. "Then they burned the bodies."
She alone must care for her only surviving grandson, in a hut that is no sturdier than a bird's nest.
"When the Janjaweed go in, they blow up the irrigation ditches so there is no way you can support yourself. It's an arid climate," said Andrew Natsios, director of the humanitarian organization USAID. "They dump the dead bodies in the wells to pollute the water so the people have nothing to drink. They destroy their crops."
A tribal sheik named Musa Hilal is responsible for the July attack, according to U.S. and U.N. officials.
"He is clearly one of the Janjaweed commanders," said Natsios.
The United States has demanded his arrest for war crimes. But the government of Sudan, the largest and least-visited country in all of Africa, has done nothing.
ABC News found Hilal living openly in the Sudanese capital Khartoum. When asked about the genocide accusations, Hilal told ABC News in Arabic, "It's not genocide. It's war. And in war, bad things happen. People die."
U.S. officials say the Janjaweed have destroyed some 400 villages and forced more than 1 million people into homelessness -- all with the blessing of the Sudanese government.
"They gang-rape the women, and they kill the men," said Natsios. "I think you could easily conclude that is genocide."
But according to Dr. Mustafa Osman Ismail, the Sudanese foreign minister, "what is going on in Darfur is not genocide. This is an American attempt to use a humanitarian situation for a political agenda."
Crisis in Refugee Camps
In Darfur, at least 200 people a day are dying in the refugee camps, despite the best efforts of relief organizations to help them. Malnutrition and disease are now the biggest killers.
In the camps themselves, there is little sense of safety. The Sudanese government has commissioned thousands of new policemen to keep the peace. The day they deployed to Darfur, they tore apart a live chicken as a show of strength.
But the refugees say many of the new policemen -- sent to protect them -- used to be Janjaweed.
Last week, some of the policemen in South Darfur were seen beating refugees. Aid workers could only stand by and watch.
"Where are our human values here?" said Mathina Mydlna of the International Medical Corps. "I really honestly appeal to the humanity in people to please give these people some of their dignity back."
Mydlna says it's not enough to call the crisis in Sudan genocide. Somebody, she says, has to stop it.
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/print?id=264262
Thursday, November 18, 2004
The genocide must be stopped
Copy in full of 18 November 2004 report from the Scotsman:
IN APRIL 1995, at a Rwandan refugee camp in a village called Kibeho, United Nations troops stood by while 4,000 Hutu men, women and children were literally butchered in front of their eyes. In July 1995, Dutch UN troops welcomed Serbian fascist bands into the town of Srebrenica and left them to murder 7,000 Bosnian refugees. Last week, police units fired tear-gas and beat up refugees in a UN-supervised refugee camp at El-Geer in the Darfur region of the Sudan. In time-honoured fashion, UN officials looked on.
Why is the UN so pusillanimous in the face of such repeated state violence? Because it has ceased to be a world policeman as designed by the victorious allies at the end of the Second World War. Instead, it has degenerated into a talking shop, largely dominated by Third World dictatorships. In addition, the smaller, self- centred western democracies have been happy to abandon the idea of contributing troops as genuine peace-keepers, with sufficient air and fire power to impose law and order against rogue regimes. Instead, the Blue Helmets only appear after the worst human-rights abuses are over; or else - as in Rwanda, Bosnia and now Darfur - they actually stand aside to let the violence take place.
We know all this, and still the world does nothing. Today, the UN Security Council convenes another round of meaningless talks on Sudan, theoretically with a view to halting the ethnic violence and restoring peace. The UN was forced to intervene in the Darfur crisis only after some 50,000 native African farmers had been massacred by the Arab Janjaweed gangs, doubtless used by the fundamentalist Khartoum regime with a view to exploiting Sudan’s oil riches. Chillingly, since May, when the UN first began to address various slaps on the wrist to Khartoum, another 35,000 innocent people have been massacred in Darfur by the Janjaweed and the Sudanese military. As we report today, when those dying of hunger are added to the casualty lists, the total to die since the UN got "involved" could be as high as 61,500 - that is one every five minutes.
So far, the only meaningful intervention in the crisis has been to record a Christmas pop song to raise money for Darfur refugees. The real need is to stop the genocide. If the West is not prepared to put troops into Darfur, it should at least pay the African Union to provide the military forces to stop the killings, and provide the air and logistical support to put them on the ground. In addition, sanctions should be imposed on Khartoum to stop the regime profiting from its oil revenues. As for the United Nations, there are now another 61,500 reasons why it needs reforming.
http://news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=1327182004
IN APRIL 1995, at a Rwandan refugee camp in a village called Kibeho, United Nations troops stood by while 4,000 Hutu men, women and children were literally butchered in front of their eyes. In July 1995, Dutch UN troops welcomed Serbian fascist bands into the town of Srebrenica and left them to murder 7,000 Bosnian refugees. Last week, police units fired tear-gas and beat up refugees in a UN-supervised refugee camp at El-Geer in the Darfur region of the Sudan. In time-honoured fashion, UN officials looked on.
Why is the UN so pusillanimous in the face of such repeated state violence? Because it has ceased to be a world policeman as designed by the victorious allies at the end of the Second World War. Instead, it has degenerated into a talking shop, largely dominated by Third World dictatorships. In addition, the smaller, self- centred western democracies have been happy to abandon the idea of contributing troops as genuine peace-keepers, with sufficient air and fire power to impose law and order against rogue regimes. Instead, the Blue Helmets only appear after the worst human-rights abuses are over; or else - as in Rwanda, Bosnia and now Darfur - they actually stand aside to let the violence take place.
We know all this, and still the world does nothing. Today, the UN Security Council convenes another round of meaningless talks on Sudan, theoretically with a view to halting the ethnic violence and restoring peace. The UN was forced to intervene in the Darfur crisis only after some 50,000 native African farmers had been massacred by the Arab Janjaweed gangs, doubtless used by the fundamentalist Khartoum regime with a view to exploiting Sudan’s oil riches. Chillingly, since May, when the UN first began to address various slaps on the wrist to Khartoum, another 35,000 innocent people have been massacred in Darfur by the Janjaweed and the Sudanese military. As we report today, when those dying of hunger are added to the casualty lists, the total to die since the UN got "involved" could be as high as 61,500 - that is one every five minutes.
So far, the only meaningful intervention in the crisis has been to record a Christmas pop song to raise money for Darfur refugees. The real need is to stop the genocide. If the West is not prepared to put troops into Darfur, it should at least pay the African Union to provide the military forces to stop the killings, and provide the air and logistical support to put them on the ground. In addition, sanctions should be imposed on Khartoum to stop the regime profiting from its oil revenues. As for the United Nations, there are now another 61,500 reasons why it needs reforming.
http://news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=1327182004
How the world's biggest corporations are fuelling genocide in Sudan
The following is a copy of report in full dated Friday November 19th, 2004 by JOHANN HARI, The Independent UK:
LONDON, Nov 19, 2004 -- The dazzlingly efficient herding of Jews, gay people and Gypsies into concentration camps by the Nazis was only made possible by the technological expertise of IBM. The corporation provided the Nazis with punch-card technology - revolutionary in the 1930s - that made it possible to classify the entire German population according to "race" and send them to their deaths. The IBM subsidiary Hollerith had two people stationed in every camp. The numbers tattooed on to the arms of prisoners were five-digit codes for IBM machines. As Edwin Black - the award-winning historian who spent five years exposing this fetid story - explains: "Without IBM's machinery, continuing upkeep and service, as well as the supply of punch cards, Hitler's camps could never have managed the numbers they did."
This isn't an arid history lesson. IBM has apologised and moved on, but another group of multinational corporations is making a holocaust possible today in Darfur.
This western region of Sudan has dropped down the news agenda. But remember: one person dies every five minutes, 2 million people have been driven from their homes, and the UN describes the situation as "the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world today". But the Arab majority is continuing to rape and slaughter the black African minority with near-impunity. One journalist offers a typical scene from the province: "I found a man groaning under a tree. He had been shot in the neck and jaw and left for dead in a pile of corpses. Under the next tree I found a four-year-old orphan girl caring for her starving one-year old brother. And under the tree next to that was a woman whose husband had been killed, along with her seven- and four-year old sons, before she was gang-raped and mutilated."
The unelected Arab supremacist government in Khartoum raises virtually nothing in taxation. Sudan has an annual per capita income of just pounds 220. So how have they managed to afford to fight a war and launch a genocide? In the south, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, they waged a vast war against the Christian population, killing 2 million of them and ethnically cleansing a further 4 million. In Darfur today, Khartoum is arming and whipping up the genocidal Janjaweed militias. They have enough cash to buy Mig- 29s, one of the most swish and deadly fighter aircrafts in the world.
How can they afford all this? Because multinational corporations have ignored the pleas of human rights groups and handed money to the Khartoum serial killers in exchange for Sudan's oil. The roll-call of companies who chose to do this is long and distinguished: Siemens AG from Germany, Alcatel SA from France, ABB Ltd from Switzerland, Tatneft from Russia and PetroChina.
Human Rights Watch states unequivocally: "Oil revenues have been used by the [Sudanese] government to obtain weapons and ammunition that have enabled it to intensify the war." The money paid by multinationals is not the cause of these programmes of mass slaughter, but it is an essential ingredient. Just as Hitler could not have operated such efficient gas chambers without IBM's technology, Khartoum could not be waging such effective and large-scale genocides without oil money.
Of course, these corporations do not actively seek genocide, just as IBM did not actively seek the murder of Jews. They simply have a morally neutral stance towards it. They clearly see the murder of human beings as irrelevant; the profit margin is all. This tells us something about the nature of corporations - now the dominant cultural and economic institution of our times.
Private business is an essential component of a free society because it generates wealth and enables individuals to be independent from the state. But its desire for profit must be kept in careful balance with other human necessities; too often, it is not.
Even within broadly democratic countries like the US, we can see how corporations try to buy up the institutions of a free society - politicians and the press - and encourage them to turn a blind eye to (or even deny) life-and-death issues such as man-made climate change.
But democratic citizens can, if they have the will, restrain them. When corporations operate outside democracies, they will acknowledge no moral limits, and nobody can make them. They will pursue profit at any price. Some will even enslave people in sweat-shops and effectively - as in the Holocaust and in Darfur - aid and abet murder.
Only one group has opposed the corporations facilitating the murder in Sudan with any success, at least when it comes to brokering a fragile peace in the south. This is difficult for me to write, because they have not been the forces I like - human rights groups and the internationalist left. No; the only group that has effectively lobbied against the genocidal regime in Khartoum has been the red-state Christian evangelicals in the US. They lobbied hard for an oil embargo against Sudan, so US dollars were not used to slaughter their fellow Christians. Uber-moralistic religion clashed with raw amoral markets, and - incredibly - the Bush administration sided with the evangelicals against the oil companies. As a result, since 2000, no US oil company has been allowed to operate within Sudan, to their fury. Peace has finally prevailed. This shows what can happen when the Sudanese government is subject to serious economic penalties for its crimes.
The US is lobbying hard for the UN to impose similar international oil sanctions to stop the genocide in Darfur. (The evangelicals are much less worried about slaughtered Muslims, but they believe the chaos might spill over into the south). This is being flatly opposed by China - which receives a quarter of its oil supplies from Sudan - and Russia. These two authoritarian governments are vandalising any attempt to deal with this genocide through the United Nations.
It seems nobody is prepared to choke off the corporate fuel for the holocaust in Darfur. The UN is rendered useless by its arcane structures, the African Union is too poor and disorganised to act, and an Anglo-US intervention is extremely unlikely in the wake of Iraq. So what do we do - lie back and watch the first genocide of the 21st century scythe through Darfur unhindered?
There is an alternative. Professor Eric Reeves is an expert on the murder of black Darfurians. He explains: "The only way to stop this genocide now is for a mass campaign to force multinationals to disinvest from Sudan. During the apartheid era in South Africa, the divestment movement was an immensely powerful force in breaking down this system of racial discrimination. We can do the same today."
Through our pensions plans, our universities and our stock portfolios, we in Europe own most of the companies providing the hard cash for this genocide. If our governments fail to act to end genocide, the responsibility falls to us. Go to www.divestsudan.org to find out how, practically, we can act to deprive the Janjaweed militias of money and arms, just as we throttled apartheid.
If you don't bother - if you're just too busy, or you think corporations will behave responsibly without your pressure - please, don't lower your head or indulge in a moment's pained silence on Holocaust Day next year. You will have learnt nothing and remembered nothing.
http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=6570
LONDON, Nov 19, 2004 -- The dazzlingly efficient herding of Jews, gay people and Gypsies into concentration camps by the Nazis was only made possible by the technological expertise of IBM. The corporation provided the Nazis with punch-card technology - revolutionary in the 1930s - that made it possible to classify the entire German population according to "race" and send them to their deaths. The IBM subsidiary Hollerith had two people stationed in every camp. The numbers tattooed on to the arms of prisoners were five-digit codes for IBM machines. As Edwin Black - the award-winning historian who spent five years exposing this fetid story - explains: "Without IBM's machinery, continuing upkeep and service, as well as the supply of punch cards, Hitler's camps could never have managed the numbers they did."
This isn't an arid history lesson. IBM has apologised and moved on, but another group of multinational corporations is making a holocaust possible today in Darfur.
This western region of Sudan has dropped down the news agenda. But remember: one person dies every five minutes, 2 million people have been driven from their homes, and the UN describes the situation as "the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world today". But the Arab majority is continuing to rape and slaughter the black African minority with near-impunity. One journalist offers a typical scene from the province: "I found a man groaning under a tree. He had been shot in the neck and jaw and left for dead in a pile of corpses. Under the next tree I found a four-year-old orphan girl caring for her starving one-year old brother. And under the tree next to that was a woman whose husband had been killed, along with her seven- and four-year old sons, before she was gang-raped and mutilated."
The unelected Arab supremacist government in Khartoum raises virtually nothing in taxation. Sudan has an annual per capita income of just pounds 220. So how have they managed to afford to fight a war and launch a genocide? In the south, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, they waged a vast war against the Christian population, killing 2 million of them and ethnically cleansing a further 4 million. In Darfur today, Khartoum is arming and whipping up the genocidal Janjaweed militias. They have enough cash to buy Mig- 29s, one of the most swish and deadly fighter aircrafts in the world.
How can they afford all this? Because multinational corporations have ignored the pleas of human rights groups and handed money to the Khartoum serial killers in exchange for Sudan's oil. The roll-call of companies who chose to do this is long and distinguished: Siemens AG from Germany, Alcatel SA from France, ABB Ltd from Switzerland, Tatneft from Russia and PetroChina.
Human Rights Watch states unequivocally: "Oil revenues have been used by the [Sudanese] government to obtain weapons and ammunition that have enabled it to intensify the war." The money paid by multinationals is not the cause of these programmes of mass slaughter, but it is an essential ingredient. Just as Hitler could not have operated such efficient gas chambers without IBM's technology, Khartoum could not be waging such effective and large-scale genocides without oil money.
Of course, these corporations do not actively seek genocide, just as IBM did not actively seek the murder of Jews. They simply have a morally neutral stance towards it. They clearly see the murder of human beings as irrelevant; the profit margin is all. This tells us something about the nature of corporations - now the dominant cultural and economic institution of our times.
Private business is an essential component of a free society because it generates wealth and enables individuals to be independent from the state. But its desire for profit must be kept in careful balance with other human necessities; too often, it is not.
Even within broadly democratic countries like the US, we can see how corporations try to buy up the institutions of a free society - politicians and the press - and encourage them to turn a blind eye to (or even deny) life-and-death issues such as man-made climate change.
But democratic citizens can, if they have the will, restrain them. When corporations operate outside democracies, they will acknowledge no moral limits, and nobody can make them. They will pursue profit at any price. Some will even enslave people in sweat-shops and effectively - as in the Holocaust and in Darfur - aid and abet murder.
Only one group has opposed the corporations facilitating the murder in Sudan with any success, at least when it comes to brokering a fragile peace in the south. This is difficult for me to write, because they have not been the forces I like - human rights groups and the internationalist left. No; the only group that has effectively lobbied against the genocidal regime in Khartoum has been the red-state Christian evangelicals in the US. They lobbied hard for an oil embargo against Sudan, so US dollars were not used to slaughter their fellow Christians. Uber-moralistic religion clashed with raw amoral markets, and - incredibly - the Bush administration sided with the evangelicals against the oil companies. As a result, since 2000, no US oil company has been allowed to operate within Sudan, to their fury. Peace has finally prevailed. This shows what can happen when the Sudanese government is subject to serious economic penalties for its crimes.
The US is lobbying hard for the UN to impose similar international oil sanctions to stop the genocide in Darfur. (The evangelicals are much less worried about slaughtered Muslims, but they believe the chaos might spill over into the south). This is being flatly opposed by China - which receives a quarter of its oil supplies from Sudan - and Russia. These two authoritarian governments are vandalising any attempt to deal with this genocide through the United Nations.
It seems nobody is prepared to choke off the corporate fuel for the holocaust in Darfur. The UN is rendered useless by its arcane structures, the African Union is too poor and disorganised to act, and an Anglo-US intervention is extremely unlikely in the wake of Iraq. So what do we do - lie back and watch the first genocide of the 21st century scythe through Darfur unhindered?
There is an alternative. Professor Eric Reeves is an expert on the murder of black Darfurians. He explains: "The only way to stop this genocide now is for a mass campaign to force multinationals to disinvest from Sudan. During the apartheid era in South Africa, the divestment movement was an immensely powerful force in breaking down this system of racial discrimination. We can do the same today."
Through our pensions plans, our universities and our stock portfolios, we in Europe own most of the companies providing the hard cash for this genocide. If our governments fail to act to end genocide, the responsibility falls to us. Go to www.divestsudan.org to find out how, practically, we can act to deprive the Janjaweed militias of money and arms, just as we throttled apartheid.
If you don't bother - if you're just too busy, or you think corporations will behave responsibly without your pressure - please, don't lower your head or indulge in a moment's pained silence on Holocaust Day next year. You will have learnt nothing and remembered nothing.
http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=6570
Darfur Attracting 'Undue' Attention - The Scotsman praised as media urged to keep Dafur in spotlight
Here is a copy of a report for future reference. It is an opinion piece by Peter Mwaura in Nairobi posted to the web at all africa on November 18, 2004 http://allafrica.com/stories/200411180837.html
As the Security Council meets in Nairobi for the second and final day today over the problems in Sudan and Somalia, one thing that has emerged is that Darfur is attracting more attention than the other problem areas.
That may be because of the nature of the Darfur conflict, which lends itself well to dramatisation. The fear-inspiring militia named Janjaweed, accusations of genocide, war crimes, atrocities, rape, murder and displacement of tens of thousands of people attract more media attention - and possibly donor-attention - than the more pedestrian issues of reconstruction, such as de-mining, building roads, bridges, schools and hospitals in the southern Sudan.
Mr Jan Pronk, the Special Representative of the UN secretary general, has also been very eloquent about the situation in Darfur, which he has recently characterised as devolving into anarchy and where parties must be held accountable and a sizeable force deployed. But while Darfur and Somalia have their share of problems, southern Sudan has the "mother of all problems", as Unicef says in a recent publication.
Darfur flared into conflict in February 2003 as a peace and wealth-sharing deal was being worked out for southern Sudan between the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) rebels and the Khartoum government. The Darfur rebels, in turn, clearly saw an opportunity to get for themselves what the southern Sudanese were getting for themselves.
But the importance of the problems of southern Sudan go beyond the issue of mothering problems elsewhere. Southern Sudan, an area far much bigger than Kenya, has been a battleground for two civil wars since the independence of Sudan in 1956. In terms of almost all social and economic indicators, it is the most devastated and underdeveloped region in the world, perhaps only second to Afghanistan under the Taliban.
Southern Sudan merits the greatest attention of the Security Council and the donor community in terms of post-war reconstruction and rehabilitation if peace in Sudan is going to be meaningful. But even for immediate needs, Darfur is attracting more donor aid than southern Sudan. For the period between April and December this year, Darfur has (comparatively) attracted confirmed contributions of $178 million and has only a shortfall of 13 per cent while for the same period southern Sudan has attracted only $368 million and has a shortfall of 35 per cent according figures provided by the World Food Programme.
It is clear from these figures that Darfur is the darling of the donor community, with the United States leading with contributions amounting to $115.6 million, followed by the European Community with $41.6 million. Yet southern Sudan's problems, even immediate ones, are far greater. For example, while the signing of a comprehensive agreement between the government of Sudan and the SPLM has yet to be finalised, nearly half a million returnees are back in the south from northern Sudan and from neighbouring countries. As many as half a million Sudanese internally displaced persons and refugees may also return to their places of origin or choice in 2005 if a comprehensive peace is signed.
For the returnees to resume normal lives in their villages, roads will have to be rehabilitated and mines cleared. In the meantime, the returnees will need emergency food. The mine clearance alone is expected to cost at least $32 million, but to date only $10 million has been obtained from the US.
The settlement of the refugees and displaced persons in southern Sudan should be a priority. And the time for the ground work is now, even as work remains to be done for the peace agreement between Khartoum and the SPLM to hold.
The southern Sudan is on the threshold of a new era if a comprehensive peace agreement is signed. The region, with a population estimated to be 7.5 million in 2003, needs massively increased aid if it is ever going to pull itself up from more 20 years of civil war.
The children of southern Sudan, for example, have the least access to primary education in the world, with a net enrolment ratio in primary school of 20 per cent. Equally, it has the lowest ratio of female to male enrolment of about 35 per cent. And most teachers in southern Sudan are untrained volunteers. Less than 10 per cent have received any type of formal training.
The economy of southern Sudan is one of the least developed in the world. The gross national income per capita is around $100 per year. But this is an overestimate as it takes into account oil revenues, which do not benefit the population in the south. Poverty in Sudan is absolute. The international poverty line, defined as "per cent of population with income below one dollar per day", is more than 90 per cent.
Southern Sudan's prospect for peace will be wasted if the international community cannot find sufficient aid to help the war-affected communities to reinvent their lives. This will be the real test in the post-conflict period, long after the extraordinary Security Council meeting in Nairobi is gone.
- - -
The Scotsman praised as media urged to keep Dafur in spotlight
Report by James Kirkup
POLITICIANS and aid agencies yesterday stressed the importance of the media in keeping the spotlight on the appalling human rights abuses taking place in the Darfur region of Sudan.
Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said it was vital people were made aware of what was happening elsewhere in the world, and Oxfam - one of the aid agencies at the forefront of efforts to help victims of the genocide - said pressure had to be kept up on the United Nations Security Council.
The Scotsman has led the way in highlighting the crisis in Darfur and there was praise yesterday for the way in which this newspaper has refused to allow the issue to slip from the headlines.
Speaking at a press conference in London, the Prime Minister said: "The thing about human rights abuses is that unless there’s coverage of them, people don’t think they’re happening."
Brendan Cox, a spokesman for Oxfam, said it was vital that newspapers such as The Scotsman kept up pressure on the international community. He said: "It is massively important that the situation in Darfur is not allowed to slip from the public eye and it is up to the international media to ensure that this does not happen. Newspapers like The Scotsman are doing good work in ensuring that the world does not forget about Darfur and that the pressure is maintained on the Security Council."
George Foulkes, the Labour MP and former development minister who is lobbying for the UK to take a bigger role in alleviating the crisis, said he hoped that other news organisations would find room amid their coverage of Iraq to look at what was happening in Darfur.
"Because politicians and the media have been pre- occupied with Iraq, the enormity of what is happening in Darfur has been lost," he said.
"I would certainly commend The Scotsman for highlighting this issue. If other media outlets would do the same, we might get swifter government action.
"The international community needs to get serious about what is happening in Darfur and call it what is: genocide."
Tom Brake, the Liberal Democrat spokesman for international development, said it was important that people were made aware of what was happening.
"I would commend The Scotsman for the way you have worked to keep this in the public eye," he said.
Tony Baldry, the Conservative MP who chairs the House of Commons international development committee, was also impressed with the coverage. "It is a very difficult story to report - you have done your best to get this very serious issue across," he said.
Angus Robertson, SNP International Development spokesman, said: "The Scotsman is to be commended for its tenacious reporting of one of the most important issues of the day. The humanitarian catastrophe deserves the attention of everyone in Scotland and the world."
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1331462004
As the Security Council meets in Nairobi for the second and final day today over the problems in Sudan and Somalia, one thing that has emerged is that Darfur is attracting more attention than the other problem areas.
That may be because of the nature of the Darfur conflict, which lends itself well to dramatisation. The fear-inspiring militia named Janjaweed, accusations of genocide, war crimes, atrocities, rape, murder and displacement of tens of thousands of people attract more media attention - and possibly donor-attention - than the more pedestrian issues of reconstruction, such as de-mining, building roads, bridges, schools and hospitals in the southern Sudan.
Mr Jan Pronk, the Special Representative of the UN secretary general, has also been very eloquent about the situation in Darfur, which he has recently characterised as devolving into anarchy and where parties must be held accountable and a sizeable force deployed. But while Darfur and Somalia have their share of problems, southern Sudan has the "mother of all problems", as Unicef says in a recent publication.
Darfur flared into conflict in February 2003 as a peace and wealth-sharing deal was being worked out for southern Sudan between the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) rebels and the Khartoum government. The Darfur rebels, in turn, clearly saw an opportunity to get for themselves what the southern Sudanese were getting for themselves.
But the importance of the problems of southern Sudan go beyond the issue of mothering problems elsewhere. Southern Sudan, an area far much bigger than Kenya, has been a battleground for two civil wars since the independence of Sudan in 1956. In terms of almost all social and economic indicators, it is the most devastated and underdeveloped region in the world, perhaps only second to Afghanistan under the Taliban.
Southern Sudan merits the greatest attention of the Security Council and the donor community in terms of post-war reconstruction and rehabilitation if peace in Sudan is going to be meaningful. But even for immediate needs, Darfur is attracting more donor aid than southern Sudan. For the period between April and December this year, Darfur has (comparatively) attracted confirmed contributions of $178 million and has only a shortfall of 13 per cent while for the same period southern Sudan has attracted only $368 million and has a shortfall of 35 per cent according figures provided by the World Food Programme.
It is clear from these figures that Darfur is the darling of the donor community, with the United States leading with contributions amounting to $115.6 million, followed by the European Community with $41.6 million. Yet southern Sudan's problems, even immediate ones, are far greater. For example, while the signing of a comprehensive agreement between the government of Sudan and the SPLM has yet to be finalised, nearly half a million returnees are back in the south from northern Sudan and from neighbouring countries. As many as half a million Sudanese internally displaced persons and refugees may also return to their places of origin or choice in 2005 if a comprehensive peace is signed.
For the returnees to resume normal lives in their villages, roads will have to be rehabilitated and mines cleared. In the meantime, the returnees will need emergency food. The mine clearance alone is expected to cost at least $32 million, but to date only $10 million has been obtained from the US.
The settlement of the refugees and displaced persons in southern Sudan should be a priority. And the time for the ground work is now, even as work remains to be done for the peace agreement between Khartoum and the SPLM to hold.
The southern Sudan is on the threshold of a new era if a comprehensive peace agreement is signed. The region, with a population estimated to be 7.5 million in 2003, needs massively increased aid if it is ever going to pull itself up from more 20 years of civil war.
The children of southern Sudan, for example, have the least access to primary education in the world, with a net enrolment ratio in primary school of 20 per cent. Equally, it has the lowest ratio of female to male enrolment of about 35 per cent. And most teachers in southern Sudan are untrained volunteers. Less than 10 per cent have received any type of formal training.
The economy of southern Sudan is one of the least developed in the world. The gross national income per capita is around $100 per year. But this is an overestimate as it takes into account oil revenues, which do not benefit the population in the south. Poverty in Sudan is absolute. The international poverty line, defined as "per cent of population with income below one dollar per day", is more than 90 per cent.
Southern Sudan's prospect for peace will be wasted if the international community cannot find sufficient aid to help the war-affected communities to reinvent their lives. This will be the real test in the post-conflict period, long after the extraordinary Security Council meeting in Nairobi is gone.
- - -
The Scotsman praised as media urged to keep Dafur in spotlight
Report by James Kirkup
POLITICIANS and aid agencies yesterday stressed the importance of the media in keeping the spotlight on the appalling human rights abuses taking place in the Darfur region of Sudan.
Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said it was vital people were made aware of what was happening elsewhere in the world, and Oxfam - one of the aid agencies at the forefront of efforts to help victims of the genocide - said pressure had to be kept up on the United Nations Security Council.
The Scotsman has led the way in highlighting the crisis in Darfur and there was praise yesterday for the way in which this newspaper has refused to allow the issue to slip from the headlines.
Speaking at a press conference in London, the Prime Minister said: "The thing about human rights abuses is that unless there’s coverage of them, people don’t think they’re happening."
Brendan Cox, a spokesman for Oxfam, said it was vital that newspapers such as The Scotsman kept up pressure on the international community. He said: "It is massively important that the situation in Darfur is not allowed to slip from the public eye and it is up to the international media to ensure that this does not happen. Newspapers like The Scotsman are doing good work in ensuring that the world does not forget about Darfur and that the pressure is maintained on the Security Council."
George Foulkes, the Labour MP and former development minister who is lobbying for the UK to take a bigger role in alleviating the crisis, said he hoped that other news organisations would find room amid their coverage of Iraq to look at what was happening in Darfur.
"Because politicians and the media have been pre- occupied with Iraq, the enormity of what is happening in Darfur has been lost," he said.
"I would certainly commend The Scotsman for highlighting this issue. If other media outlets would do the same, we might get swifter government action.
"The international community needs to get serious about what is happening in Darfur and call it what is: genocide."
Tom Brake, the Liberal Democrat spokesman for international development, said it was important that people were made aware of what was happening.
"I would commend The Scotsman for the way you have worked to keep this in the public eye," he said.
Tony Baldry, the Conservative MP who chairs the House of Commons international development committee, was also impressed with the coverage. "It is a very difficult story to report - you have done your best to get this very serious issue across," he said.
Angus Robertson, SNP International Development spokesman, said: "The Scotsman is to be commended for its tenacious reporting of one of the most important issues of the day. The humanitarian catastrophe deserves the attention of everyone in Scotland and the world."
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1331462004
Genocide pays
The Security Council is scheduled to vote tomorrow on a resolution that would offer Sudan at least $500 million in economic development and reconstruction aid, and more than 10,000 UN peacekeeping troops, after the civil war ends. Completing their peace agreement and signing a peace agreement by the end of this year, Council members have agreed on a text, Agence France-Presse reported.
The resolution also promises "possible'' debt relief. Sudan owes the World Bank and International Monetary Fund nearly $2 billion, spokesmen for the groups said.
The Netherlands has pledged $130 million and the U.K. has pledged $186 million in development aid, according to Carl Ulrich, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. He said Norway was organizing a donors' conference to raise more money for Sudan.
"There is no time to waste,'' UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a speech to the Security Council, according to a copy given to reporters at the UN in New York. "The speedy conclusion of the North-South talks would not only curb the further spread of conflict to other parts of the country, it would serve as a basis and a catalyst for the resolution of existing conflicts.''
The resolution also promises "possible'' debt relief. Sudan owes the World Bank and International Monetary Fund nearly $2 billion, spokesmen for the groups said.
The Netherlands has pledged $130 million and the U.K. has pledged $186 million in development aid, according to Carl Ulrich, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. He said Norway was organizing a donors' conference to raise more money for Sudan.
"There is no time to waste,'' UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a speech to the Security Council, according to a copy given to reporters at the UN in New York. "The speedy conclusion of the North-South talks would not only curb the further spread of conflict to other parts of the country, it would serve as a basis and a catalyst for the resolution of existing conflicts.''
British aid agency estimate Darfur death toll is now between 200,000 and 300,000
"The death toll has been notoriously difficult to tally, thanks, in large part, to the obstructiveness of the Sudanese government. A figure of 70,000 deaths has been mooted, but aid workers say that simply accounts for deaths as a result of military action. Yesterday, the British aid agency Save the Children took the plunge: its spokesman, Paul Hetherington, estimated that between 200,000 and 300,000 people had died since the start of the Darfur conflict..
According to the UN’s World Food Programme, about 10,000 people are dying every month."
According to the UN’s World Food Programme, about 10,000 people are dying every month."
Genocide out of control yet still the UN refuses to act
When Mr Annan wrote to the Sudanese president in May, it was to warn him that the world was tiring of the killings. We must act, the UN said then, it is urgent.
When Mr Annan travelled to Khartoum in June, the message was the same. We must act, the UN said, it is urgent.
When the UN Security Council passed its resolution on 30 July, they were acknowledging that Darfur had become the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. We must act, they said, it is urgent.
When they met again in September, they gave Sudan more time. But if it did not comply with their demands, they said, they would act.
So, what of today’s meeting? Today, they will say we must act. It is urgent. But they won’t. And in the time it took to read this, another person died.
See full report Genocide out of control yet still the UN refuses to act.
A Sudanese girl cradles her baby sister outside their hut in a refugee camp at Krinding, near the Chad border.
Picture: Getty Images
- - -
Note, China can't afford to approve sanctions that result in the running of its country being affected by a shortage of oil. So it seems sanctions are out. Why can't China, Malaysia, Pakistan and Russia tell Sudan they are sending 80,000 special police to guard the regions oil operations? China have highly trained forces. And at least a one million-strong army. Consider it as the price they have to pay for exploiting Sudan's oil and blocking the Security Council from imposing sanctions on oil. Countries ought not to be allowed to block a UN resolution without coming up with an alternative solution. Does anybody at the Passion know what happened to the petition calling for Kofi Annan's resignation?
- - -
Here is the rest of the above report from today's Scotsman, for future reference:
According to the UN’s World Food Programme, about 10,000 people are dying every month.
Since 13 May, when Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, wrote to Omer al-Bashir, Sudan’s president, urging him to disarm the Janjaweed militias, maintain the ceasefire, improve access for humanitarian workers and negotiate a settlement to the conflict in Darfur, 61,500 have died.
Since 30 June, when Mr Annan arrived in Khartoum for the start of a three-day visit to see for himself the extent of the crisis, 46,000 people have died.
Since 30 July, when the UN Security Council voted to take action against Sudan if it did not make progress on the pledges it had made to relieve the situation in Darfur, 36,000 people have died.
Since 6 October, when Tony Blair stopped off in Khartoum and confidently announced he had secured a pledge from the Sudanese government to clean up its act and accept a five-point plan for action, including a force of several thousand African Union troops, 14,000 people have died.
The situation in Darfur is spiralling out of control. Jan Pronk, Mr Annan’s special representative on Sudan, has warned the Security Council that the Khartoum government is losing control of its own forces and the Janjaweed militias that it used to do its dirty work.
"It co-opted paramilitary forces and now it cannot count on their obedience," he said. "The border lines between the military, the paramilitary and the police are being blurred."
Aid agencies say the UN must act swiftly and decisively if it is to halt the killing and turn around a situation that is slipping from its grasp. They also warn that the Sudanese government is continuing to defy the will of the UN. "The Sudanese government continues to terrorise its own citizens even in the face of the UN Security Council arriving in Africa," said Peter Takirambudde, the executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Africa division.
"Unless the Security Council backs up its earlier ultimatums with strong action, ethnic cleansing in Darfur will be consolidated. And hundreds of UN personnel will be on the ground helplessly watching as it happens."
However, the chances of the Security Council taking decisive action against Sudan over the Darfur crisis are remote. China and Pakistan abstained from the original resolution. China relies heavily on Sudanese oil exports; in turn, it sells large quantities of arms to the African country. China has made it clear that it will veto any attempt to impose sanctions on the Khartoum regime. And, given that China is a permanent member of the Security Council, that veto will count.
Critics of the UN’s handling of the crisis - and there are many - say that it has failed to grasp the urgency of the situation in Darfur. They say that, as in Rwanda, the genocide will be over by the time the UN raises itself from its torpor.
Yet, this is how the UN works: the main purpose of today’s special meeting of the Security Council is not to address the crisis in Darfur; it is to try to reach a conclusion on Sudan’s north-south civil war, the longest in Africa, which has been raging for 21 years.
It has taken the UN more than two decades to get around to dealing with that crisis. What hope, its critics ask, can there be for those in Darfur? The UN says that if it sorts out the north-south situation, it will improve the circumstances for a solution to the Darfur crisis. Yet it offers no timetable for such action.
Aid agencies trying to pick up the pieces are at the end of their tether. CARE International, Christian Aid, International Rescue Committee, Oxfam International, Save the Children UK and Tearfund, all say violence and insecurity have escalated since the UN became involved. They say something has to give.
"Previous UN resolutions on Darfur have amounted to little more than empty threats, with minimal impact on the levels of violence," said Cynthia Gaigals, on behalf of the agencies. "The Security Council must now outline specific and time-bound compliance measures and agree to implement them if there is no clear and sustained progress. Idle threats from the Security Council have not, and will not, help the people of Darfur."
Yet, idle threats may be the best they can hope for.
When Mr Annan travelled to Khartoum in June, the message was the same. We must act, the UN said, it is urgent.
When the UN Security Council passed its resolution on 30 July, they were acknowledging that Darfur had become the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. We must act, they said, it is urgent.
When they met again in September, they gave Sudan more time. But if it did not comply with their demands, they said, they would act.
So, what of today’s meeting? Today, they will say we must act. It is urgent. But they won’t. And in the time it took to read this, another person died.
See full report Genocide out of control yet still the UN refuses to act.
A Sudanese girl cradles her baby sister outside their hut in a refugee camp at Krinding, near the Chad border.
Picture: Getty Images
- - -
Note, China can't afford to approve sanctions that result in the running of its country being affected by a shortage of oil. So it seems sanctions are out. Why can't China, Malaysia, Pakistan and Russia tell Sudan they are sending 80,000 special police to guard the regions oil operations? China have highly trained forces. And at least a one million-strong army. Consider it as the price they have to pay for exploiting Sudan's oil and blocking the Security Council from imposing sanctions on oil. Countries ought not to be allowed to block a UN resolution without coming up with an alternative solution. Does anybody at the Passion know what happened to the petition calling for Kofi Annan's resignation?
- - -
Here is the rest of the above report from today's Scotsman, for future reference:
According to the UN’s World Food Programme, about 10,000 people are dying every month.
Since 13 May, when Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, wrote to Omer al-Bashir, Sudan’s president, urging him to disarm the Janjaweed militias, maintain the ceasefire, improve access for humanitarian workers and negotiate a settlement to the conflict in Darfur, 61,500 have died.
Since 30 June, when Mr Annan arrived in Khartoum for the start of a three-day visit to see for himself the extent of the crisis, 46,000 people have died.
Since 30 July, when the UN Security Council voted to take action against Sudan if it did not make progress on the pledges it had made to relieve the situation in Darfur, 36,000 people have died.
Since 6 October, when Tony Blair stopped off in Khartoum and confidently announced he had secured a pledge from the Sudanese government to clean up its act and accept a five-point plan for action, including a force of several thousand African Union troops, 14,000 people have died.
The situation in Darfur is spiralling out of control. Jan Pronk, Mr Annan’s special representative on Sudan, has warned the Security Council that the Khartoum government is losing control of its own forces and the Janjaweed militias that it used to do its dirty work.
"It co-opted paramilitary forces and now it cannot count on their obedience," he said. "The border lines between the military, the paramilitary and the police are being blurred."
Aid agencies say the UN must act swiftly and decisively if it is to halt the killing and turn around a situation that is slipping from its grasp. They also warn that the Sudanese government is continuing to defy the will of the UN. "The Sudanese government continues to terrorise its own citizens even in the face of the UN Security Council arriving in Africa," said Peter Takirambudde, the executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Africa division.
"Unless the Security Council backs up its earlier ultimatums with strong action, ethnic cleansing in Darfur will be consolidated. And hundreds of UN personnel will be on the ground helplessly watching as it happens."
However, the chances of the Security Council taking decisive action against Sudan over the Darfur crisis are remote. China and Pakistan abstained from the original resolution. China relies heavily on Sudanese oil exports; in turn, it sells large quantities of arms to the African country. China has made it clear that it will veto any attempt to impose sanctions on the Khartoum regime. And, given that China is a permanent member of the Security Council, that veto will count.
Critics of the UN’s handling of the crisis - and there are many - say that it has failed to grasp the urgency of the situation in Darfur. They say that, as in Rwanda, the genocide will be over by the time the UN raises itself from its torpor.
Yet, this is how the UN works: the main purpose of today’s special meeting of the Security Council is not to address the crisis in Darfur; it is to try to reach a conclusion on Sudan’s north-south civil war, the longest in Africa, which has been raging for 21 years.
It has taken the UN more than two decades to get around to dealing with that crisis. What hope, its critics ask, can there be for those in Darfur? The UN says that if it sorts out the north-south situation, it will improve the circumstances for a solution to the Darfur crisis. Yet it offers no timetable for such action.
Aid agencies trying to pick up the pieces are at the end of their tether. CARE International, Christian Aid, International Rescue Committee, Oxfam International, Save the Children UK and Tearfund, all say violence and insecurity have escalated since the UN became involved. They say something has to give.
"Previous UN resolutions on Darfur have amounted to little more than empty threats, with minimal impact on the levels of violence," said Cynthia Gaigals, on behalf of the agencies. "The Security Council must now outline specific and time-bound compliance measures and agree to implement them if there is no clear and sustained progress. Idle threats from the Security Council have not, and will not, help the people of Darfur."
Yet, idle threats may be the best they can hope for.
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Bush speaks with Sudan leaders
Washington, DC, Nov. 16 (UPI) -- U.S. President George Bush pushed for peace in Sudan Tuesday during telephone conversations with leaders of combatant sides, the White House said.
Spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush told Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir to continue working on a north-south agreement to end 21-years of civil war and allow more African Union peacekeepers into the country.
McClellan said Bush also spoke with John Garang, leader of the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army, which opposes the Khartoum government.
"The president urged that both sides now bring the discussions to a close and reach and agreement for the people of Sudan," he said.
Spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush told Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir to continue working on a north-south agreement to end 21-years of civil war and allow more African Union peacekeepers into the country.
McClellan said Bush also spoke with John Garang, leader of the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army, which opposes the Khartoum government.
"The president urged that both sides now bring the discussions to a close and reach and agreement for the people of Sudan," he said.
Monday, November 15, 2004
THE NEW KILLING FIELDS IN DARFUR, SUDAN
The BBC's first class Panorama documentary "The new killing fields" aired on British TV last night.
It asked whether the first genocide of the 21st century is occurring in Darfur. The documentary left the viewer in little doubt that Darfur was genocide.
British Foreign Office Minsiter Chris Mullin, was interviewed, and made it clear there was no intention to intervene militarily with European troops who would get shot at from all sides with catastrophic repercussions for the whole of Africa. He rejected international intervention as complicated. "If any western force did intervene it would become very bogged down. Some new call for all the jihadists in the world would emerge and we'd find ourselves very quickly being shot at from all sides," he said.
BBC's Hilary Andersson, who for much of this year has been reporting from Darfur (and deserves an award) went on the trail of the killers to find out who the Janjaweed are. Travelling behind the rebel lines to areas where no television team has previously reached, the Panorama programme uncovered evidence of systematic killings on a horrifying scale. She also investigated where their orders are coming from and confronted the tribal head Hilal who is number one on the US State Department's list of suspected Janjaweed leaders.
Sudanese foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail, wearing a European style business suit, shirt and tie, was interviewed. He said Sudan's government has bombed towns in Darfur, but only to put down a regional uprising by the Sudan Liberation Army rebels. But survivors told a different story.
Note, another excellent report by Hilary Andersson in Darfur, from the Sunday Times yesterday: Genocide lays waste Darfur’s land of no men.
The Janjaweed are said to have shot children at this school in Kidinyir
- - -
FRUSTRATION OF DARFUR 'OBSERVER'
African Union Commander Seth Appiah Mensah told the BBC's Panorama programme that the remit he was working under was "highly restrictive" but added that he had no doubt that the Sudanese government was arming the Janjaweed militia.
"The government of Sudan forces and the militia work closely together in that area. It is difficult to distinguish who is who," he said. Read more in the Frustration of Darfur 'observer'.
Commander Seth Appiah Mensah of the African Union
- - -
Darfur in quotes
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
Panorama asked if the first genocide of the 21st century is occurring in Darfur.
Here are some key quotes from the programme and from people connected to the conflict.
"One of the reasons for our failure in Rwanda was that beforehand we did not face the fact that genocide was a real possibility. And once it started, for too long we could not bring ourselves to recognize it, or call it by that name."
Kofi Annan, April 2004 (speaking on the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide)
"We concluded that genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility, and that genocide may still be occurring. We believe that the evidence corroborates a specific intent to destroy a group in whole or in part."
Colin Powell, September 2004
"Genocide's not a word that I think should be bandied around lightly, for fear of devaluing the term. No-one doubts that there've been massive human rights violations, certainly crimes against humanity, committed in Darfur."
Chris Mullin, Foreign minister
"Our position is clear, that what has been going on is not a genocide, this is an American attempt to use a humanitarian situation for a political agenda."
Dr Mustafa Osman Ismail, Sudanese foreign minister
Mustafa Osman Ismail, Sudanese foreign minister
"My words are very clear in this regard. The war has its repercussions. The rebels started this war. They started burning and destroying many of the villages. They started destroying our villages first.
Musa Hilal, suspected Janjaweed leader
Musa Hilal - Arab tribal leader and 'leader' of the Janjaweed
"My son was clinging to my dress. An Arab looking man, in a uniform with military insignia, stopped his car next to me. He grabbed my son from me and threw him into a fire."
Kalima, resident of the village of Kidinyir, Darfur
"The government never initiated this war. The rebels, who are not denying it, they are the ones who initiated this war and insist on continuation of this war."
Dr Mustafa Osman Ismail, Sudanese foreign minister
"When they say we will go and fight the rebels, they lie. They do not actually go to fight the rebels. Instead they raid the villages and the small scattered communities and seize people's possessions."
Anonymous former Janjaweed recruit
"It's highly restrictive. Highly restrictive because we are not even allowed to look into issues like rape and other things. Highly restrictive because it only gives us an ability to observe, verify and report."
Commander Seth Appiah Mensah, African Union soldier in Darfur
"The children started jumping out of the windows of the classes, when they saw the 'Janjaweed' coming into the school. Some of the children were trying to run from the school, others were trying to hide inside. They killed two or three of the students who stayed in the classes. They were also shooting the other children who were trying to run away."
Hikma, teacher in the village of Kidinyir, Darfur
- - -
VIEWERS HAVE THEIR SAY ON THE NEW KILLING FIELDS
Read viewer's comments to the BBC on its New Killing Fields Panorama programme.
It asked whether the first genocide of the 21st century is occurring in Darfur. The documentary left the viewer in little doubt that Darfur was genocide.
British Foreign Office Minsiter Chris Mullin, was interviewed, and made it clear there was no intention to intervene militarily with European troops who would get shot at from all sides with catastrophic repercussions for the whole of Africa. He rejected international intervention as complicated. "If any western force did intervene it would become very bogged down. Some new call for all the jihadists in the world would emerge and we'd find ourselves very quickly being shot at from all sides," he said.
BBC's Hilary Andersson, who for much of this year has been reporting from Darfur (and deserves an award) went on the trail of the killers to find out who the Janjaweed are. Travelling behind the rebel lines to areas where no television team has previously reached, the Panorama programme uncovered evidence of systematic killings on a horrifying scale. She also investigated where their orders are coming from and confronted the tribal head Hilal who is number one on the US State Department's list of suspected Janjaweed leaders.
Sudanese foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail, wearing a European style business suit, shirt and tie, was interviewed. He said Sudan's government has bombed towns in Darfur, but only to put down a regional uprising by the Sudan Liberation Army rebels. But survivors told a different story.
Note, another excellent report by Hilary Andersson in Darfur, from the Sunday Times yesterday: Genocide lays waste Darfur’s land of no men.
The Janjaweed are said to have shot children at this school in Kidinyir
- - -
FRUSTRATION OF DARFUR 'OBSERVER'
African Union Commander Seth Appiah Mensah told the BBC's Panorama programme that the remit he was working under was "highly restrictive" but added that he had no doubt that the Sudanese government was arming the Janjaweed militia.
"The government of Sudan forces and the militia work closely together in that area. It is difficult to distinguish who is who," he said. Read more in the Frustration of Darfur 'observer'.
Commander Seth Appiah Mensah of the African Union
- - -
Darfur in quotes
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan
Panorama asked if the first genocide of the 21st century is occurring in Darfur.
Here are some key quotes from the programme and from people connected to the conflict.
"One of the reasons for our failure in Rwanda was that beforehand we did not face the fact that genocide was a real possibility. And once it started, for too long we could not bring ourselves to recognize it, or call it by that name."
Kofi Annan, April 2004 (speaking on the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide)
"We concluded that genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility, and that genocide may still be occurring. We believe that the evidence corroborates a specific intent to destroy a group in whole or in part."
Colin Powell, September 2004
"Genocide's not a word that I think should be bandied around lightly, for fear of devaluing the term. No-one doubts that there've been massive human rights violations, certainly crimes against humanity, committed in Darfur."
Chris Mullin, Foreign minister
"Our position is clear, that what has been going on is not a genocide, this is an American attempt to use a humanitarian situation for a political agenda."
Dr Mustafa Osman Ismail, Sudanese foreign minister
Mustafa Osman Ismail, Sudanese foreign minister
"My words are very clear in this regard. The war has its repercussions. The rebels started this war. They started burning and destroying many of the villages. They started destroying our villages first.
Musa Hilal, suspected Janjaweed leader
Musa Hilal - Arab tribal leader and 'leader' of the Janjaweed
"My son was clinging to my dress. An Arab looking man, in a uniform with military insignia, stopped his car next to me. He grabbed my son from me and threw him into a fire."
Kalima, resident of the village of Kidinyir, Darfur
"The government never initiated this war. The rebels, who are not denying it, they are the ones who initiated this war and insist on continuation of this war."
Dr Mustafa Osman Ismail, Sudanese foreign minister
"When they say we will go and fight the rebels, they lie. They do not actually go to fight the rebels. Instead they raid the villages and the small scattered communities and seize people's possessions."
Anonymous former Janjaweed recruit
"It's highly restrictive. Highly restrictive because we are not even allowed to look into issues like rape and other things. Highly restrictive because it only gives us an ability to observe, verify and report."
Commander Seth Appiah Mensah, African Union soldier in Darfur
"The children started jumping out of the windows of the classes, when they saw the 'Janjaweed' coming into the school. Some of the children were trying to run from the school, others were trying to hide inside. They killed two or three of the students who stayed in the classes. They were also shooting the other children who were trying to run away."
Hikma, teacher in the village of Kidinyir, Darfur
- - -
VIEWERS HAVE THEIR SAY ON THE NEW KILLING FIELDS
Read viewer's comments to the BBC on its New Killing Fields Panorama programme.
Sudan's forces will return to retake territory they've lost - Danforth is asked should US send troops?
In the Shilluk kingdom, in southern Sudan, it is nature and not man which seems to be keeping the peace.
In blackspots like Shilluk, where there was large-scale violence this year, a stream of rainy season floodwater, too deep for a pick-up filled with troops to cross safely, runs between the opposing frontlines. Analysts fear that when the dry season comes, later this month, government forces will return with a vengeance and seek to retake the territory they have lost.
WHAT IS THE WORLD DOING ABOUT IT?
This Thursday and Friday, the UN security council is holding a special session in Nairobi to focus attention on two disasters: (1) southern Sudan (2) and Darfur in western Sudan. They aim to pressure Sudan's genocidal dictator Bashir and the southern rebels of John Garang, to sign a final peace deal aimed at ending two decades of war.
Agreements in Sudan have been known to be written in disappearing invisible ink - and are not worth the paper they're written on.
Khartoum agreed to a no-fly zone recently, as well as signing a ceasefire in April. But a lack of trust and inability by leaders on both sides to control forces on the ground has meant that violence is on the increase. The ceasefire has been repeatedly violated by both sides.
The U.S. has ruled out sending their own troops. Britain could be asked to contribute peacekeeping troops to an international force for Darfur.
The US ambassador to the UN, John Danforth, has hinted that offers of aid may be withdrawn if a peace agreement is not reached swiftly in the south.
- - -
LEANING ON A RUBBER STICK
The United States revises its strategy on Sudan, seeks UN aid if peace deal signed
Two previous UN Security Council resolutions have threatened Khartoum with sanctions if it fails to curb the violence.
Sudan has not complied with Security Council demands over three months to disarm, arrest, and prosecute Arab militia.
An offer of financial aid marks a strategy shift by the United States. John C. Danforth, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said that although the threat of sanctions stands, the Security Council meeting in Nairobi on Thursday and Friday will focus more on the "carrot" than the "stick."
The United States changed course on Sudan after facing stiff opposition to sanctions, including a Chinese threat to block the United States from adopting a UN resolution punishing Khartoum over Darfur, according to a senior US official involved in the discussions.
"Are we leaning on a rubber stick? Sure," Danforth acknowledged in an interview. "It would clearly be extremely difficult to get a resolution that actually imposes sanctions in the Security Council adopted. We're doing the best we can with that particular tool."
- - -
JOHN DANFORTH IS ASKED:
Should the United States send troops?
November 9, 2004. Gwen Ifill talks with John Danforth, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, about the latest efforts to end the violence in Darfur and the planned U.N. meeting to address a nationwide peace for Sudan. Here is an excerpt:
Q: GWEN IFILL: There have been at least, by my count, six protocols or agreements that have been worked out in the past. None of them had been enforced. Where is the incentive for the government of Sudan or the rebels, for that matter, to sign on to anything this time?
A: JOHN DANFORTH: You're absolutely right. The history of Sudan for years has been a whole series of agreements that have been reached -- they turn out to be paper agreements, it's as though they're written in disappearing ink -- and they don't amount to anything. So what we have found in dealing with Sudan is it's important for the international community to have a continuing presence, to be there with monitors, to be there guaranteeing what was done on paper, to be there with peacekeepers. And this is part of the future that we hope to lay out when we're there. If they reach a peace agreement, the world is not going to go away. We're going to continue to be very, very engaged in the future of Sudan. So the hope is that the continuing international engagement in Sudan will provide a more durable peace.
Q: GWEN IFILL: Does the world have to do more than watch, though? I understand an African problem that the African Union is trying to resolve. But at what point does the United States, independent of the United Nations perhaps, have to assert its own forceful, independent, perhaps boots-on-the-ground effort to control what's happening, especially in the Darfur region?
A: JOHN DANFORTH: Well, some have argued that. And they say that notwithstanding the U.N., the U.S. should go it alone. I mean, this would really be unilateralism if that's what we did. But it's not the position of the African Union. I think that because we are, our military is really extended, very engaged very much in other parts of the world right now, it's doubtful that we're going to do that. I think it would be impossible to get the Security Council to agree to that. So I believe that the most practical thing that could be done right now, basically two things that are the practical that could be done: One is the deployment of the African Union in Darfur in the most numbers that we can get in there. I think that's very positive; and the second is to wrap up the North-South peace agreement, and that's why we're going over to Nairobi next week.
Read the full transcript.
- - -
SUDAN AWARENESS DAY
u.s. students urge action against Sudan violence. Yale students participate in a vigil to kickoff today’s Sudan Awareness Day. Groups will encourage letter writing to U.S. and UN representatives. (SOPHIE PERL/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER)
Students urge action against Sudan violence, says the Yale Daily News:
Bearing candles and green ribbons, nearly 30 students gathered at a vigil Sunday evening to raise awareness about the ongoing violence in Darfur.
The vigil was an opportunity for Yale students to think about the meaning of genocide. It introduced Monday's Sudan Awareness Day, when student representatives from Amnesty International and Students Take Action Now: Darfur will be tabling on Cross Campus and in dining halls. Those tabling will encourage students to write letters petitioning U.S. and UN representatives to take action to stop what group members described as a genocide.
At the vigil, students circled around a chalked silhouette of the African country to read aloud Sudanese refugees' testimonies about the rape and violence they have experienced at the hands of the Sudanese government and the government-backed Janjaweed milita. They also read testimonies from survivors of the Rwandan genocide and the Holocaust.
- - -
Note, Eleonora Sharef '07, who helped set up the vigil, urged those who attended to spread the word across the campus. "We think that with pressure from the U.S. something can change," Sharef said. "Spread the word about this to your friends."
In blackspots like Shilluk, where there was large-scale violence this year, a stream of rainy season floodwater, too deep for a pick-up filled with troops to cross safely, runs between the opposing frontlines. Analysts fear that when the dry season comes, later this month, government forces will return with a vengeance and seek to retake the territory they have lost.
WHAT IS THE WORLD DOING ABOUT IT?
This Thursday and Friday, the UN security council is holding a special session in Nairobi to focus attention on two disasters: (1) southern Sudan (2) and Darfur in western Sudan. They aim to pressure Sudan's genocidal dictator Bashir and the southern rebels of John Garang, to sign a final peace deal aimed at ending two decades of war.
Agreements in Sudan have been known to be written in disappearing invisible ink - and are not worth the paper they're written on.
Khartoum agreed to a no-fly zone recently, as well as signing a ceasefire in April. But a lack of trust and inability by leaders on both sides to control forces on the ground has meant that violence is on the increase. The ceasefire has been repeatedly violated by both sides.
The U.S. has ruled out sending their own troops. Britain could be asked to contribute peacekeeping troops to an international force for Darfur.
The US ambassador to the UN, John Danforth, has hinted that offers of aid may be withdrawn if a peace agreement is not reached swiftly in the south.
- - -
LEANING ON A RUBBER STICK
The United States revises its strategy on Sudan, seeks UN aid if peace deal signed
Two previous UN Security Council resolutions have threatened Khartoum with sanctions if it fails to curb the violence.
Sudan has not complied with Security Council demands over three months to disarm, arrest, and prosecute Arab militia.
An offer of financial aid marks a strategy shift by the United States. John C. Danforth, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said that although the threat of sanctions stands, the Security Council meeting in Nairobi on Thursday and Friday will focus more on the "carrot" than the "stick."
The United States changed course on Sudan after facing stiff opposition to sanctions, including a Chinese threat to block the United States from adopting a UN resolution punishing Khartoum over Darfur, according to a senior US official involved in the discussions.
"Are we leaning on a rubber stick? Sure," Danforth acknowledged in an interview. "It would clearly be extremely difficult to get a resolution that actually imposes sanctions in the Security Council adopted. We're doing the best we can with that particular tool."
- - -
JOHN DANFORTH IS ASKED:
Should the United States send troops?
November 9, 2004. Gwen Ifill talks with John Danforth, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, about the latest efforts to end the violence in Darfur and the planned U.N. meeting to address a nationwide peace for Sudan. Here is an excerpt:
Q: GWEN IFILL: There have been at least, by my count, six protocols or agreements that have been worked out in the past. None of them had been enforced. Where is the incentive for the government of Sudan or the rebels, for that matter, to sign on to anything this time?
A: JOHN DANFORTH: You're absolutely right. The history of Sudan for years has been a whole series of agreements that have been reached -- they turn out to be paper agreements, it's as though they're written in disappearing ink -- and they don't amount to anything. So what we have found in dealing with Sudan is it's important for the international community to have a continuing presence, to be there with monitors, to be there guaranteeing what was done on paper, to be there with peacekeepers. And this is part of the future that we hope to lay out when we're there. If they reach a peace agreement, the world is not going to go away. We're going to continue to be very, very engaged in the future of Sudan. So the hope is that the continuing international engagement in Sudan will provide a more durable peace.
Q: GWEN IFILL: Does the world have to do more than watch, though? I understand an African problem that the African Union is trying to resolve. But at what point does the United States, independent of the United Nations perhaps, have to assert its own forceful, independent, perhaps boots-on-the-ground effort to control what's happening, especially in the Darfur region?
A: JOHN DANFORTH: Well, some have argued that. And they say that notwithstanding the U.N., the U.S. should go it alone. I mean, this would really be unilateralism if that's what we did. But it's not the position of the African Union. I think that because we are, our military is really extended, very engaged very much in other parts of the world right now, it's doubtful that we're going to do that. I think it would be impossible to get the Security Council to agree to that. So I believe that the most practical thing that could be done right now, basically two things that are the practical that could be done: One is the deployment of the African Union in Darfur in the most numbers that we can get in there. I think that's very positive; and the second is to wrap up the North-South peace agreement, and that's why we're going over to Nairobi next week.
Read the full transcript.
- - -
SUDAN AWARENESS DAY
u.s. students urge action against Sudan violence. Yale students participate in a vigil to kickoff today’s Sudan Awareness Day. Groups will encourage letter writing to U.S. and UN representatives. (SOPHIE PERL/CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER)
Students urge action against Sudan violence, says the Yale Daily News:
Bearing candles and green ribbons, nearly 30 students gathered at a vigil Sunday evening to raise awareness about the ongoing violence in Darfur.
The vigil was an opportunity for Yale students to think about the meaning of genocide. It introduced Monday's Sudan Awareness Day, when student representatives from Amnesty International and Students Take Action Now: Darfur will be tabling on Cross Campus and in dining halls. Those tabling will encourage students to write letters petitioning U.S. and UN representatives to take action to stop what group members described as a genocide.
At the vigil, students circled around a chalked silhouette of the African country to read aloud Sudanese refugees' testimonies about the rape and violence they have experienced at the hands of the Sudanese government and the government-backed Janjaweed milita. They also read testimonies from survivors of the Rwandan genocide and the Holocaust.
- - -
Note, Eleonora Sharef '07, who helped set up the vigil, urged those who attended to spread the word across the campus. "We think that with pressure from the U.S. something can change," Sharef said. "Spread the word about this to your friends."
Sunday, November 14, 2004
U.S. activists pressing public pension funds to divest $91 billion in Sudan
Full Story and more from the Sudan Campaign
Displaced Sudanese children pray Saturday, Nov. 13, 2004, in the Kalma refugee camp near Nyala town in Sudan's western Darfur region. The children were saying special morning prayers marking Eid al-Fitr, the feast that marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Ramadan was deemed by clerics in Sudan to be over Saturday. (AP).
- - -
JANJAWEED 'LEADER' DENIES GENOCIDE
Panorama documentary The new killing fields will be broadcast on television in the UK at 22:15GMT on Sunday, November 14 on BBC One.
- - -
UK BAND AID SONG RE-LAUNCH FOR DARFUR
Today, after 20 years, a new version of the Band Aid 1984 hit, Do They Know it's Christmas? is being recorded in England.
The single will be released on 29 November to raise money for famine relief in Darfur.
Saturday, November 13, 2004
Duke students begin replica of Darfur suffering - Germany to send airlift planes to Sudan - Britain may deploy troops
This photo shows a group of Duke students working on putting up the first structure of what they intend to be a Sudanese refugee village replica at Duke on Friday.
The students are putting up a refugee type structure modelled after those in Darfur to raise awareness of the suffering and plight of the victims of genocide in Darfur Sudan. Here is a copy of a November 13 report from The Herald-Sun in America:
DURHAM -- The tent looked rickety, ready to fall to the slightest gust. But then, that's the point. A group of Duke undergraduates spent Friday afternoon propping up the structure, the beginning of a planned replica of a refugee village designed to draw attention to Darfur.
"We have to acknowledge that a genocide has happened," said Damjan Denoble, one of the project's organizers.
That crisis inspired the Duke students to build their own refugee village. They hope to add nine more to the first tent -- essentially a dirty sheet of canvas held up by tree branches. The design is based on pictures of actual refugee dwellings in Sudan and across the border in Chad.
And the students also plan to help passers-by write letters and make phone calls to members of Congress, asking them to put Darfur on the national agenda. The village will stay up through Thursday, when a vigil to raise awareness about the ongoing crisis in Sudan is planned for the steps of Duke Chapel.
Anders Luco, a graduate student in the philosophy department, said his group, Justice, and other students hope to raise money during the vigil for nongovernmental agencies providing aid to the refugees. The crisis has not received as much attention as it should, he said, given the human hardship involved.
"It's the single most dire humanitarian crisis on Earth right now," he said.
The students building the mock village said they hope it will educate students, but they added that it also would be worth the effort if it only sparked a few thoughts about the suffering in central Africa.
Political causes can get lost among all the others on a college campus, so the students have to do something dramatic to get attention, the organizers said.
"Part of it is the spectacle of it," said Vijay Brihmadesam, a sophomore involved in the project.
- - -
Note, MICHAEL PETROCELLI, the author of above report in The Herald-Sun, can be emailed at mpetrocelli@heraldsun.com. After posting this, I shall send him a link to the above.
Wouldn't it be great to see the mock village idea catch on at every campus across the world? A few scraps and twigs, and some energy and effort, are all that's needed to pitch up a village and grab the world's attention. Warm thanks to Mr Petrocelli for publicising this great initiative by the American students. It's a brilliant idea. Hope we get to hear more. They ought to be televised, across the world.
Here in England on BBC TV, there is a long running (well over 40 years) TV programme called Blue Peter that so many Brits grew up with, it's become a cult. Hugely popular with youngsters and parents, Blue Peter is an educational e-zine for teenagers that broadcasts serious news on world events and politics - and features all sorts of creative projects using scraps, empty washing up liquid bottles, drinking straws, bottle tops etc.
Maybe people like Michael Petrocelli can get TV stations interested in the students who could explain their Darfur project on TV (and radio) programmes like Blue Peter. More mainstream media and TV coverage is needed. We get just a minute or two on one news station, every few days - sometimes not for a week or two.
A previous post here dated November 11 linked to a BBC report re British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's shock at seeing BBC footage showing Sudan's police attacking a refugee camp in Darfur. You can view the video by clicking into a box in the top right hand corner of the report. Unfortunately, I'm using a PowerBook G4 and it wouldn't play for me.
Anyone can spread the word and get the video beamed around the world by linking to the BBC report in their weblog or website and pointing it out to readers. Please spread the word. Thank you. The UN Security Council meeting is next week, we need to get as much publicity on Darfur as possible. Jack Straw sent word out in the press: the pressure needs to be piled high on Khartoum. If we can put pressure on the Security Council - they might feel the pressure piling on them to do something.
- - -
GERMANY TO SEND AIRLIFT PLANES TO SUDAN
Some news reports say there are now 700 troops (probably including observers and monitors) in Darfur. The three US transport planes that airlifted AU soldiers into Darfur are now back in Germany.
The following report from Berlin (via expatica.com) November 11, explains how 3,000 AU soldiers - expected in Darfur by the end of this month - will get there:
The German government will seek parliamentary approval to send transport planes to Sudan to airlift African Union peacekeepers serving in the country, Defence Minister Peter Struck said on Thursday.
Struck told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that a parliamentary green light was needed because "danger to German soldiers cannot be ruled out."
The African Union (AU) has asked for European Union aid in deploying some 3,000 peacekeepers in Sudan's troubled Darfur region.
Struck said he expected German Luftwaffe C160 Transall transport jets to be flying missions in Darfur later this year.
- - -
Note, Later this year? Hello. What about this month? Like, today? If you've followed Darfur closely these past six months, you may have noticed nothing much new has been put on the table since April and May when the death toll for Darfur was reportedly 10,000. Thousands of UN peacekeepers were planned for Sudan anyway - to enter by the end of Sept/Dec 2004 to monitor the ceasefires agreements after the long hoped for signing of the north-south peace accords.
Obviously, Kofi Annan has known this all along. Everyone on all sides (GoS, rebels, UN) have been delaying, biding their time and coasting along at everyone's expense with talk, sulks and more talk.
The UN is as good at delaying tactics as Khartoum and the rebels are. Meanwhile ... 10,000 Sudanese die every four weeks waiting for food, medicine and security forces who won't rape, attack, kidnap, bomb and kill them or force them to flee by burning down their homes and bulldozing their refuges. Who knows for sure if this is all to do with Khartoum 'clearing' their land for oil and drilling operations?
- - -
BRITAIN MAY DEPLOY TROOPS TO QUELL FIGHTING IN DARFUR
Here we go again. Deja vu. Round two. Repeat of last crunch-time meeting of UN Security Council. Drums are starting to beat again, turning the pressure on Khartoum. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said pressure must be piled on Khartoum.
Note the below copy of a November 10 report in The Guardian UK. Best thing about reports such as this is, given our history, Khartoum can't help but take any information mentioning British troops, seriously. Peace in Sudan 'by January' is the ultimatum Tony Blair personally delivered to Khartoum.
"Britain could be asked to contribute troops to a 10,000-strong UN peacekeeping force for Sudan under a draft resolution being discussed in the security council, government officials in London indicated yesterday:
"The proposal for a UN force is part of a British package of incentives designed to gain Sudan's agreement to a comprehensive settlement of the conflict in Darfur, in western Sudan.
The UN says fighting in Darfur has claimed the lives of 70,000 people since March. A further 1.5 million people have fled their homes as a result of the violence pitting militias, known as Janjaweed, against two rebel groups, the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement.
The security council passed two resolutions this year in an attempt to halt the conflict, threatening the Khartoum government with sanctions if it failed to rein in the Janjaweed. But recent reports have suggested the situation is deteriorating.
Speaking at the Foreign Office, Chris Mullin, the minister responsible for Africa, said Khartoum had demonstrated "reasonable cooperation" with international efforts to stem the Darfur fighting but it was "still not a very good situation".
Asked whether Britain would send troops to Sudan as part of the proposed UN force, as Tony Blair appeared to suggest earlier this year, Mr Mullin declined to rule it out saying it was "premature" to comment at this time.
Britain's ambassador to the UN, Sir Emyr Jones Parry, said the UN resolution, drafted by Britain, was under discussion and would be presented to an extraordinary security council meeting to be held in Nairobi on November 18-19.
The meeting, convened in Kenya at the request of the US, would focus on Darfur and the long-running talks between Khartoum and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, he said.
"The draft resolution is the carrot," Sir Emyr said.
"We are saying that if you [the Sudanese government] get your act together to get a stable state and live together, then this is what we can contribute: a major peacekeeping operation by the UN, humanitarian relief, law and order, help with infrastructure and establishing the rule of law and democratic structures."
He said the resolution, if agreed, would support addi-tional deployments of African Union troops, with monitoring duties as now but possibly as peacekeepers with wider powers. And it could dangle the prospect of an international aid donors' conference for Sudan.
The aim was to show Sudan's leaders that "the international community will stand by Sudan but only if it behaves", he said. He said the possibility of sanctions remained if Khartoum failed to reach a settlement.
"Sanctions are held as a latent threat," he said, poised over the heads of both the government and the rebels. He added any punitive measures would be "smart sanctions", targeting financial assets and the foreign travel of officials, rather than ordinary Sudanese.
He appeared to rule out curbs on Sudan's oil exports, which would almost certainly be opposed in the security council by China, one of Sudan's biggest customers.
Britain's special representative for Sudan, Alastair McPhail, said peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria, over Darfur were making progress, with agreement reached in principle on humanitarian and security protocols.
It was also hoped that the Nairobi meeting would be a catalyst for a peace accord in the south, he said.
The latest British proposals to break the impasse over Darfur came at a critical moment. UN World Food Programme officials in the region said yesterday that violence in the past month had deprived 175,000 people of emergency food supplies and driven 150,000 people from their homes.
The International Red Cross said last month that villages throughout Darfur faced "an unprecedented food crisis" that was worse than the famines of the 1980."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sudan/story/0,14658,1347485,00.html
- - -
BRITISH LIBERAL MP TOM BRAKE HOLDS SUDANESE AMBASSADOR TO ACCOUNT OVER DARFUR
10/11/2004 Tom Brake MP, Liberal Democrat Shadow International Development Secretary, is today meeting with the Sudanese Ambassador to the UK HE Dr Hassan Abdin. Commenting, Mr Brake said:
“As the humanitarian and security situation continues to deteriorate, the Sudanese government continues to give questionable assurances on Darfur. The government is failing to control and disarm the Janjaweed militia and security remains an illusion for the people of Darfur. I am seeking the Ambassador's response to reports that Khartoum is losing control of the region and that Darfur is descending into anarchy.
"Sudan's oil-hungry friends on the Security Council should not help Sudan escape the threat of UN sanctions. Sudan must make good its promises on Darfur and comply with UN resolutions and co-operate with the African Union mission."
“The Sudanese government must halt violations of international humanitarian law and it must re-start peace talks.”
- - -
Note, Jim has written an excellent short summary on Darfur that puts the whole hellish story in a nutshell:
"It's not that complicated: a genocide in Darfur, by proxies of the government of Sudan, in order to suppress an insurgency and intimidate people in other regions of the country."
The students are putting up a refugee type structure modelled after those in Darfur to raise awareness of the suffering and plight of the victims of genocide in Darfur Sudan. Here is a copy of a November 13 report from The Herald-Sun in America:
DURHAM -- The tent looked rickety, ready to fall to the slightest gust. But then, that's the point. A group of Duke undergraduates spent Friday afternoon propping up the structure, the beginning of a planned replica of a refugee village designed to draw attention to Darfur.
"We have to acknowledge that a genocide has happened," said Damjan Denoble, one of the project's organizers.
That crisis inspired the Duke students to build their own refugee village. They hope to add nine more to the first tent -- essentially a dirty sheet of canvas held up by tree branches. The design is based on pictures of actual refugee dwellings in Sudan and across the border in Chad.
And the students also plan to help passers-by write letters and make phone calls to members of Congress, asking them to put Darfur on the national agenda. The village will stay up through Thursday, when a vigil to raise awareness about the ongoing crisis in Sudan is planned for the steps of Duke Chapel.
Anders Luco, a graduate student in the philosophy department, said his group, Justice, and other students hope to raise money during the vigil for nongovernmental agencies providing aid to the refugees. The crisis has not received as much attention as it should, he said, given the human hardship involved.
"It's the single most dire humanitarian crisis on Earth right now," he said.
The students building the mock village said they hope it will educate students, but they added that it also would be worth the effort if it only sparked a few thoughts about the suffering in central Africa.
Political causes can get lost among all the others on a college campus, so the students have to do something dramatic to get attention, the organizers said.
"Part of it is the spectacle of it," said Vijay Brihmadesam, a sophomore involved in the project.
- - -
Note, MICHAEL PETROCELLI, the author of above report in The Herald-Sun, can be emailed at mpetrocelli@heraldsun.com. After posting this, I shall send him a link to the above.
Wouldn't it be great to see the mock village idea catch on at every campus across the world? A few scraps and twigs, and some energy and effort, are all that's needed to pitch up a village and grab the world's attention. Warm thanks to Mr Petrocelli for publicising this great initiative by the American students. It's a brilliant idea. Hope we get to hear more. They ought to be televised, across the world.
Here in England on BBC TV, there is a long running (well over 40 years) TV programme called Blue Peter that so many Brits grew up with, it's become a cult. Hugely popular with youngsters and parents, Blue Peter is an educational e-zine for teenagers that broadcasts serious news on world events and politics - and features all sorts of creative projects using scraps, empty washing up liquid bottles, drinking straws, bottle tops etc.
Maybe people like Michael Petrocelli can get TV stations interested in the students who could explain their Darfur project on TV (and radio) programmes like Blue Peter. More mainstream media and TV coverage is needed. We get just a minute or two on one news station, every few days - sometimes not for a week or two.
A previous post here dated November 11 linked to a BBC report re British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's shock at seeing BBC footage showing Sudan's police attacking a refugee camp in Darfur. You can view the video by clicking into a box in the top right hand corner of the report. Unfortunately, I'm using a PowerBook G4 and it wouldn't play for me.
Anyone can spread the word and get the video beamed around the world by linking to the BBC report in their weblog or website and pointing it out to readers. Please spread the word. Thank you. The UN Security Council meeting is next week, we need to get as much publicity on Darfur as possible. Jack Straw sent word out in the press: the pressure needs to be piled high on Khartoum. If we can put pressure on the Security Council - they might feel the pressure piling on them to do something.
- - -
GERMANY TO SEND AIRLIFT PLANES TO SUDAN
Some news reports say there are now 700 troops (probably including observers and monitors) in Darfur. The three US transport planes that airlifted AU soldiers into Darfur are now back in Germany.
The following report from Berlin (via expatica.com) November 11, explains how 3,000 AU soldiers - expected in Darfur by the end of this month - will get there:
The German government will seek parliamentary approval to send transport planes to Sudan to airlift African Union peacekeepers serving in the country, Defence Minister Peter Struck said on Thursday.
Struck told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that a parliamentary green light was needed because "danger to German soldiers cannot be ruled out."
The African Union (AU) has asked for European Union aid in deploying some 3,000 peacekeepers in Sudan's troubled Darfur region.
Struck said he expected German Luftwaffe C160 Transall transport jets to be flying missions in Darfur later this year.
- - -
Note, Later this year? Hello. What about this month? Like, today? If you've followed Darfur closely these past six months, you may have noticed nothing much new has been put on the table since April and May when the death toll for Darfur was reportedly 10,000. Thousands of UN peacekeepers were planned for Sudan anyway - to enter by the end of Sept/Dec 2004 to monitor the ceasefires agreements after the long hoped for signing of the north-south peace accords.
Obviously, Kofi Annan has known this all along. Everyone on all sides (GoS, rebels, UN) have been delaying, biding their time and coasting along at everyone's expense with talk, sulks and more talk.
The UN is as good at delaying tactics as Khartoum and the rebels are. Meanwhile ... 10,000 Sudanese die every four weeks waiting for food, medicine and security forces who won't rape, attack, kidnap, bomb and kill them or force them to flee by burning down their homes and bulldozing their refuges. Who knows for sure if this is all to do with Khartoum 'clearing' their land for oil and drilling operations?
- - -
BRITAIN MAY DEPLOY TROOPS TO QUELL FIGHTING IN DARFUR
Here we go again. Deja vu. Round two. Repeat of last crunch-time meeting of UN Security Council. Drums are starting to beat again, turning the pressure on Khartoum. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said pressure must be piled on Khartoum.
Note the below copy of a November 10 report in The Guardian UK. Best thing about reports such as this is, given our history, Khartoum can't help but take any information mentioning British troops, seriously. Peace in Sudan 'by January' is the ultimatum Tony Blair personally delivered to Khartoum.
"Britain could be asked to contribute troops to a 10,000-strong UN peacekeeping force for Sudan under a draft resolution being discussed in the security council, government officials in London indicated yesterday:
"The proposal for a UN force is part of a British package of incentives designed to gain Sudan's agreement to a comprehensive settlement of the conflict in Darfur, in western Sudan.
The UN says fighting in Darfur has claimed the lives of 70,000 people since March. A further 1.5 million people have fled their homes as a result of the violence pitting militias, known as Janjaweed, against two rebel groups, the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement.
The security council passed two resolutions this year in an attempt to halt the conflict, threatening the Khartoum government with sanctions if it failed to rein in the Janjaweed. But recent reports have suggested the situation is deteriorating.
Speaking at the Foreign Office, Chris Mullin, the minister responsible for Africa, said Khartoum had demonstrated "reasonable cooperation" with international efforts to stem the Darfur fighting but it was "still not a very good situation".
Asked whether Britain would send troops to Sudan as part of the proposed UN force, as Tony Blair appeared to suggest earlier this year, Mr Mullin declined to rule it out saying it was "premature" to comment at this time.
Britain's ambassador to the UN, Sir Emyr Jones Parry, said the UN resolution, drafted by Britain, was under discussion and would be presented to an extraordinary security council meeting to be held in Nairobi on November 18-19.
The meeting, convened in Kenya at the request of the US, would focus on Darfur and the long-running talks between Khartoum and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, he said.
"The draft resolution is the carrot," Sir Emyr said.
"We are saying that if you [the Sudanese government] get your act together to get a stable state and live together, then this is what we can contribute: a major peacekeeping operation by the UN, humanitarian relief, law and order, help with infrastructure and establishing the rule of law and democratic structures."
He said the resolution, if agreed, would support addi-tional deployments of African Union troops, with monitoring duties as now but possibly as peacekeepers with wider powers. And it could dangle the prospect of an international aid donors' conference for Sudan.
The aim was to show Sudan's leaders that "the international community will stand by Sudan but only if it behaves", he said. He said the possibility of sanctions remained if Khartoum failed to reach a settlement.
"Sanctions are held as a latent threat," he said, poised over the heads of both the government and the rebels. He added any punitive measures would be "smart sanctions", targeting financial assets and the foreign travel of officials, rather than ordinary Sudanese.
He appeared to rule out curbs on Sudan's oil exports, which would almost certainly be opposed in the security council by China, one of Sudan's biggest customers.
Britain's special representative for Sudan, Alastair McPhail, said peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria, over Darfur were making progress, with agreement reached in principle on humanitarian and security protocols.
It was also hoped that the Nairobi meeting would be a catalyst for a peace accord in the south, he said.
The latest British proposals to break the impasse over Darfur came at a critical moment. UN World Food Programme officials in the region said yesterday that violence in the past month had deprived 175,000 people of emergency food supplies and driven 150,000 people from their homes.
The International Red Cross said last month that villages throughout Darfur faced "an unprecedented food crisis" that was worse than the famines of the 1980."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sudan/story/0,14658,1347485,00.html
- - -
BRITISH LIBERAL MP TOM BRAKE HOLDS SUDANESE AMBASSADOR TO ACCOUNT OVER DARFUR
10/11/2004 Tom Brake MP, Liberal Democrat Shadow International Development Secretary, is today meeting with the Sudanese Ambassador to the UK HE Dr Hassan Abdin. Commenting, Mr Brake said:
“As the humanitarian and security situation continues to deteriorate, the Sudanese government continues to give questionable assurances on Darfur. The government is failing to control and disarm the Janjaweed militia and security remains an illusion for the people of Darfur. I am seeking the Ambassador's response to reports that Khartoum is losing control of the region and that Darfur is descending into anarchy.
"Sudan's oil-hungry friends on the Security Council should not help Sudan escape the threat of UN sanctions. Sudan must make good its promises on Darfur and comply with UN resolutions and co-operate with the African Union mission."
“The Sudanese government must halt violations of international humanitarian law and it must re-start peace talks.”
- - -
Note, Jim has written an excellent short summary on Darfur that puts the whole hellish story in a nutshell:
"It's not that complicated: a genocide in Darfur, by proxies of the government of Sudan, in order to suppress an insurgency and intimidate people in other regions of the country."
Thursday, November 11, 2004
PETITION TO ASK KOFI ANNAN TO RESIGN AFTER HIS FAILURE OVER DARFUR SUDAN - Dear President Bush - China's Africa policy, oil, and Darfur Sudan
Terrible news. Darfur is sliding into a state of anarchy and emergency. Government of Sudan forces are out of control. It's taken up until a few weeks ago for 500 African Union soldiers to be on the ground in Darfur, despite months of negotiations and promises of another 3,000 several weeks ago.
The AU soldiers have to act as observers and watch refugee camps being bulldozed by government forces. A few days ago Government of Sudan forces attacked innocent civilians, threw tear gas into refugee camps, took refugees and drove away with them in vehicles against their will - and shot at a BBC reporter ... I'm lost for words ... and cannot repeat what is happening. Please read previous posts, and the most recent ones on the front page at Passion of the Present. Here are links to today's posts:
(1) HERE'S CALLING FOR THE RESIGNATION OF KOFI ANNAN (my post)
(2) Petition to ask Kofi Annan to resign, after his failure to stop the genocide in Darfur Sudan (Jim's)
(3) Petition to UN Security Council asking Kofi Annan to resign, after his failure to stop the genocide in Darfur Sudan (my post)
(4) Dear President Bush (another great post by Jim)
(5) China's Africa policy, oil, and Darfur Sudan (Jim - great links, thanks)
Note, Nick's buddy, Dr Jonathan Spector, who is recently back home in Boston after working with MSF (Doctors Without Borders) in Darfur - is, at long last, featured in a post at the Passsion (authored by Jim or his wife, I think) Don't lose hope for the children of Darfur Sudan. Seems there has been difficulty getting the photos online. Be sure to click on the photo (sorry it is too large for flickr to size here) of Jonathan's screen.
The AU soldiers have to act as observers and watch refugee camps being bulldozed by government forces. A few days ago Government of Sudan forces attacked innocent civilians, threw tear gas into refugee camps, took refugees and drove away with them in vehicles against their will - and shot at a BBC reporter ... I'm lost for words ... and cannot repeat what is happening. Please read previous posts, and the most recent ones on the front page at Passion of the Present. Here are links to today's posts:
(1) HERE'S CALLING FOR THE RESIGNATION OF KOFI ANNAN (my post)
(2) Petition to ask Kofi Annan to resign, after his failure to stop the genocide in Darfur Sudan (Jim's)
(3) Petition to UN Security Council asking Kofi Annan to resign, after his failure to stop the genocide in Darfur Sudan (my post)
(4) Dear President Bush (another great post by Jim)
(5) China's Africa policy, oil, and Darfur Sudan (Jim - great links, thanks)
Note, Nick's buddy, Dr Jonathan Spector, who is recently back home in Boston after working with MSF (Doctors Without Borders) in Darfur - is, at long last, featured in a post at the Passsion (authored by Jim or his wife, I think) Don't lose hope for the children of Darfur Sudan. Seems there has been difficulty getting the photos online. Be sure to click on the photo (sorry it is too large for flickr to size here) of Jonathan's screen.
BBC has concrete evidence - Straw says UN Security Council wanted to slacken their efforts in Sudan
More pressure must be piled on the Sudanese government after new evidence showed security forces storming a Darfur refugee camp, says British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. Responding to a BBC film which also showed civilians driven away by officials, the foreign secretary said he found the footage "very shocking".
Jack Straw said he hoped the "concrete evidence" would be broadcast in the capitals of Security Council members, "who frankly have thought that it is time to slacken our efforts in Sudan, rather than increase the pressure".
Jack Straw said he hoped the "concrete evidence" would be broadcast in the capitals of Security Council members, "who frankly have thought that it is time to slacken our efforts in Sudan, rather than increase the pressure".
NUMBER OF DARFUR VICTIMS: 2 MILLION AND COUNTING
U.N. diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said questions have already been raised about the AU force's ability to prevent attacks and the possible need for U.N. troops to be sent to Darfur as well.
Darfur is heading for total anarchy and the United Nations would be blamed if the Security Council did not take action, a senior U.N. official warned.
Jan Pronk, U.N.' s special envoy to Sudan told the Security Council that Darfur is sliding into anarchy as government and rebel forces battle over control of the territory the size of France (or the State of Texas).
He said that U.S.-supported plans to send 3,300 Africans soldiers to halt the violence in Darfur are inadequate and that more than twice that number are needed to restore calm.
Russia's U.N. Ambassador Andrey Denisov, when asked about the possibility of deploying non-AU troops, said "I don't see it." He called the 3,700-strong AU force for Darfur "a good contingent".
An aerial view of an abandoned village in Darfur
Darfur is heading for total anarchy and the United Nations would be blamed if the Security Council did not take action, a senior U.N. official warned.
Jan Pronk, U.N.' s special envoy to Sudan told the Security Council that Darfur is sliding into anarchy as government and rebel forces battle over control of the territory the size of France (or the State of Texas).
He said that U.S.-supported plans to send 3,300 Africans soldiers to halt the violence in Darfur are inadequate and that more than twice that number are needed to restore calm.
Russia's U.N. Ambassador Andrey Denisov, when asked about the possibility of deploying non-AU troops, said "I don't see it." He called the 3,700-strong AU force for Darfur "a good contingent".
An aerial view of an abandoned village in Darfur
BBC eyewitness to terror in Darfur
The BBC's Fergal Keane witnesses an assault by Sudan's security forces on a refugee camp in the troubled region of Darfur.
Here below is a copy of his report, just in from Darfur.
The first police action at El-Geer refugee camp near Nyala began soon after midnight.
I saw at least four jeep-loads of police driving over the flimsy shacks erected by displaced people.
Later they returned and began to beat and tear-gas the frightened crowd.
I saw one of the community leaders being thrown to the ground and attacked by several policemen.
The police launched tear-gas grenades into a compound where women and children were sheltering.
Police then entered and forced them to flee.
Relocation
A police commander at the scene told me he was under orders to move the people to a new camp several kilometres away.
Forcible relocation is a grave breach of international humanitarian law, but the internal community is powerless here.
The police showed open contempt for United Nations officials when they arrived, firing tear-gas grenades and driving aggressively around the camp.
African Union (AU) peacekeepers at the camp said they did not have power or mandate to intervene.
More police have now arrived to reinforce the earlier contingent.
The UN representatives pulled out of the camp for security reasons.
All of this took place on a day when the UN representative in Sudan, Mr Jan Pronk, was due to visit the camp to talk with local officials. Government officials in this area knew this.
Provocation
For the UN and African Union, this assault on El-Geer camp is a calculated affront.
The police staged two assaults on displaced people, and wouldn't desist from bulldozing their camp, despite the presence of representatives of the UN, AU and international aid agencies.
At one stage a plastic bullet was fired at a BBC cameraman standing next to a UN vehicle.
The BBC has also confirmed that tear gas was fired at people, mostly women and children, queuing at a nearby medical clinic.
We witnessed harrowing scenes.
One woman was crying hysterically because her baby son had been lost in the panic. She later found him.
A number of men and women were also arrested.
Bewilderment
The displaced people here are vulnerable and defenceless, and they felt real terror.
All the people here I have spoken to were driven out of their own villages by the pro-government Janjaweed militia and have witnessed rape and murder.
It is really hard to convey what it is like, when in the dark hours of the early morning, jeeps come in with searchlights, knowing that these people have absolutely no protection.
I've been covering Africa for 21 years and I thought I'd seen everything, but to watch the officials and the police of a state like Sudan - which has just signed a peace agreement - demolishing people's shacks under the eyes of international observer and breaching international law, is quite extraordinary and unique.
The population is terrorised and bewildered, with little faith in the power of the international community."
Here below is a copy of his report, just in from Darfur.
The first police action at El-Geer refugee camp near Nyala began soon after midnight.
I saw at least four jeep-loads of police driving over the flimsy shacks erected by displaced people.
Later they returned and began to beat and tear-gas the frightened crowd.
I saw one of the community leaders being thrown to the ground and attacked by several policemen.
The police launched tear-gas grenades into a compound where women and children were sheltering.
Police then entered and forced them to flee.
Relocation
A police commander at the scene told me he was under orders to move the people to a new camp several kilometres away.
Forcible relocation is a grave breach of international humanitarian law, but the internal community is powerless here.
The police showed open contempt for United Nations officials when they arrived, firing tear-gas grenades and driving aggressively around the camp.
African Union (AU) peacekeepers at the camp said they did not have power or mandate to intervene.
More police have now arrived to reinforce the earlier contingent.
The UN representatives pulled out of the camp for security reasons.
All of this took place on a day when the UN representative in Sudan, Mr Jan Pronk, was due to visit the camp to talk with local officials. Government officials in this area knew this.
Provocation
For the UN and African Union, this assault on El-Geer camp is a calculated affront.
The police staged two assaults on displaced people, and wouldn't desist from bulldozing their camp, despite the presence of representatives of the UN, AU and international aid agencies.
At one stage a plastic bullet was fired at a BBC cameraman standing next to a UN vehicle.
The BBC has also confirmed that tear gas was fired at people, mostly women and children, queuing at a nearby medical clinic.
We witnessed harrowing scenes.
One woman was crying hysterically because her baby son had been lost in the panic. She later found him.
A number of men and women were also arrested.
Bewilderment
The displaced people here are vulnerable and defenceless, and they felt real terror.
All the people here I have spoken to were driven out of their own villages by the pro-government Janjaweed militia and have witnessed rape and murder.
It is really hard to convey what it is like, when in the dark hours of the early morning, jeeps come in with searchlights, knowing that these people have absolutely no protection.
I've been covering Africa for 21 years and I thought I'd seen everything, but to watch the officials and the police of a state like Sudan - which has just signed a peace agreement - demolishing people's shacks under the eyes of international observer and breaching international law, is quite extraordinary and unique.
The population is terrorised and bewildered, with little faith in the power of the international community."
CALLING FOR THE RESIGNATION OF KOFI ANNAN
The latest report for the UN Security Council prepared by the UN's top envoy, Jan Pronk of The Netherlands, calls for nothing concrete.
The present UN and AU personnel in Darfur are standing by watching civilians being attacked without the power to protect and defend.
Government of Sudan is losing control of its security forces.
The Security Council will hold a formal meeting in Nairobi on November 18-19, only the fourth time it has done so outside UN headquarters in New York since 1952.
The meeting will concern the whole of Sudan and consist mainly of setting out timeframes and timetables - and provide more carrots but no sticks.
A few weeks ago I left word (yet again) at a British Member of Parliament's blog to suggest the UK ask China to send 80,000 special police to Darfur.
I emailed a copy to British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Yesterday, I left word at the blog of a high profile Conservative Member of Parliament.
My last post here on November 1st called for the resignation of Kofi Annan.
Seems the only way to get the UN to take action is to threaten its existence.
Does any reader here have the skills to put up an online petition calling for the resignation of Kofi Annan?
We'd have a week to get word of it to mainstream media.
The UN Security Council are meeting in Nairobi November 18-19, 2004.
The present UN and AU personnel in Darfur are standing by watching civilians being attacked without the power to protect and defend.
Government of Sudan is losing control of its security forces.
The Security Council will hold a formal meeting in Nairobi on November 18-19, only the fourth time it has done so outside UN headquarters in New York since 1952.
The meeting will concern the whole of Sudan and consist mainly of setting out timeframes and timetables - and provide more carrots but no sticks.
A few weeks ago I left word (yet again) at a British Member of Parliament's blog to suggest the UK ask China to send 80,000 special police to Darfur.
I emailed a copy to British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Yesterday, I left word at the blog of a high profile Conservative Member of Parliament.
My last post here on November 1st called for the resignation of Kofi Annan.
Seems the only way to get the UN to take action is to threaten its existence.
Does any reader here have the skills to put up an online petition calling for the resignation of Kofi Annan?
We'd have a week to get word of it to mainstream media.
The UN Security Council are meeting in Nairobi November 18-19, 2004.
Britain drafts UN resolution on Sudan peace accord
The government in Khartoum and the SPLM/A rebels in the south adjourned peace talks in October for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Darfur peace talks adjourn for 1 month after parties strike deal to end hostilities
Britain on Friday circulated a draft UN resolution pushing for a comprehensive peace accord in Sudan that the Security Council expects to adopt at a rare meeting in Africa November 18-19, only the fourth time it has done so outside UN headquarters in New York since 1952.
The draft promises generous development assistance to the warring parties if they make peace.
Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir shakes hands with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the presidential palace in Khartoum in Sudan, Oct 6, 2004.(AFP).
Darfur peace talks adjourn for 1 month after parties strike deal to end hostilities
Britain on Friday circulated a draft UN resolution pushing for a comprehensive peace accord in Sudan that the Security Council expects to adopt at a rare meeting in Africa November 18-19, only the fourth time it has done so outside UN headquarters in New York since 1952.
The draft promises generous development assistance to the warring parties if they make peace.
Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir shakes hands with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the presidential palace in Khartoum in Sudan, Oct 6, 2004.(AFP).
Monday, November 08, 2004
Darfur mass graves desecrated
08/11/2004 - Kabkabyia, Sudan - Unknown assailants desecrated several mass graves in the Darfur region of Sudan, an aid worker in Kabkabyia told Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa on Sunday.
The attackers removed the bodies from the graves, possibly in an attempt to conceal the traces of a massacre, said the aid worker who did not want to be named.
Members of the African Union's peacekeeping mission in the region (Amis) confirmed the destruction of the graves. A spokesperson said Amis was investigating the incident but had not yet found any clues. The number of bodies removed was also unknown, the spokesperson said.
The mass graves were created in early 2003, after Arab militias attacked and killed many residents of the village of Shoba. The survivors had hastily buried the victims in mass graves before fleeing further attacks.
"This is the first time that we hear about graves being desecrated in such a way," said the aid worker.
Meanwhile, another eight people were killed in the strife-torn area on Saturday, when rebels of the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) attacked a fuel convoy of the Sudanese military.
The Sudanese subsequently sent a military plane into the area.
Rebels have frequently attacked government convoys in recent weeks in order to replenish their own supplies. - Sapa-dpa
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1617343,00.html
The attackers removed the bodies from the graves, possibly in an attempt to conceal the traces of a massacre, said the aid worker who did not want to be named.
Members of the African Union's peacekeeping mission in the region (Amis) confirmed the destruction of the graves. A spokesperson said Amis was investigating the incident but had not yet found any clues. The number of bodies removed was also unknown, the spokesperson said.
The mass graves were created in early 2003, after Arab militias attacked and killed many residents of the village of Shoba. The survivors had hastily buried the victims in mass graves before fleeing further attacks.
"This is the first time that we hear about graves being desecrated in such a way," said the aid worker.
Meanwhile, another eight people were killed in the strife-torn area on Saturday, when rebels of the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) attacked a fuel convoy of the Sudanese military.
The Sudanese subsequently sent a military plane into the area.
Rebels have frequently attacked government convoys in recent weeks in order to replenish their own supplies. - Sapa-dpa
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_1617343,00.html
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