Sudan signs $400m contract with Sudanese White Nile Petroleum for oil field development in southern Sudan

Yesterday, a contract to develop oil in South Sudan was signed by the Government of Sudan (GoS) with a company whose owners are from Malaysia, India and the Sudan. It is not clear if any members of South Sudan's former rebel group SPLM/A, led by Dr John Garang, were consulted on the deal.

A report on the story just out from Reuters says "the deal states both sides will respect any oil contract signed before the date of the peace deal -- January 9, 2005 -- and any deals after a new government of unity is formed will be decided by a joint petroleum commission from the national energy and mining ministry." Also, the report mentions analysts are saying the deal indicates divisions within the SPLM/A [but it is not clear, to me anyway, what they mean by that].

The SPLM/A were not officially recognised as heading up South Sudan until they signed a peace deal with the GoS on January 9, 2005. Before that date, they were referred to as rebels. Now that they are getting organised to start up a Government of South Sudan (GoSS) - sometimes called 'New Sudan" - they are referred to as "former rebels." Having two governments within one country sounds confusing. Note, the Reuters report refers to "a new government of unity" being formed, along with a "joint petroleum commission from the national energy and mining ministry."

As part of the January peace deal, Dr Garang, a US educated economist who fought as a guerilla in the bush for some 40 years, is scheduled to soon be sworn in as Sudan's First Vice-President, taking the title from the President's right hand man, Taha. Apparently, when Sudan's "new government of unity" is formalised officially, Taha's new role will be to float in the background doing this and that for Sudan's President Bashir who recently made Taha responsible for handling Darfur.

The January peace deal, in the eyes of the world, seemed to legitimise the regime in Khartoum. Sudan's President, Omar el- Bashir, recently voted by an American magazine as the world's worst dictator, is part of a regime that stole power through the barrel of a gun well over 15 years ago. During the past 21 years of war in South Sudan, the SPLM/A took it upon themselves to stake their claim on South Sudan, after Bashir's gang staged a coup and staked their claim on the whole of the Sudan. Which of them is legitimate? Neither the SPLM/A or GoS were voted in by the people of Sudan.

Over the past few months, news reports reveal that a UK listed shell company called White Nile agreed an oil development deal with the SPLM/A, giving White Nile part of Block B in South Sudan. Recently, news emerged that in December of last year, when the peace deal between the SPLM/A and GoS was close to being signed, France's energy giant Total oil, in partners with Marathon Oil of Texas, USA, renewed its longstanding agreement with GoS to develop oil in the same area of southern Sudan. [See previous post here below re British White Nile and French Total]

Today, Reuters South Africa says the GoS signed a contract yesterday with a company called White Nile Petroleum (different company from White Nile) to take oil from the reserves of the Thar Jath oil fields, in Block 5a, in South Sudan. [See oil concession map at top of sidebar here on the right] White Nile Petroleum owners are from Malaysia, India and the Sudan.

The Reuters report says:

"The deal states both sides will respect any oil contract signed before the date of the peace deal -- January 9, 2005 -- and any deals after a new government of unity is formed will be decided by a joint petroleum commission from the national energy and mining ministry."

You would think that important sticking points, i.e., what happens with oil agreements re South Sudan signed by GoS before January 9, 2005, would have been clarified in the comprehensive peace agreement signed by both sides on January 9. For now, it seems GoS are saying GoSS cannot override oil agreements in existence before January 9 - and that GoSS must go through a new joint oil commission on any future oil deals, after the "new government of unity" is in effect.

It is not difficult to imagine a lot of mistrust. John Garang must suspect his new government may not have much sway within the new joint commission for petrol and oil. Who'd believe the dictators in Khartoum would be willing to share power? If they do not share power for the benefit of everyone in the Sudan, it seems likely New Sudan will vote to part from Sudan. The war over oil will continue because those in northern Sudan will feel deprived of oil revenues they perceive as belonging to them. As explained here earlier, Sudan's main oil is in South Sudan.

Within the past month, a British government official predicted the conflict in Darfur, western Sudan, will continue for another 18-24 months. And then there is eastern Sudan where people also feel marginalised. A leader of an east Sudan rebel group told AFP today their objective is to change the government. "The government does not want peace with us. There will be more fighting between the government and the Eastern Front," he said. Going by recent news reports, the British Amabassador to Sudan, Sir William Patey, has been working very hard on the diplomatic front. And let us not forget Eritrea and recent reports of Ethiopian troops massing along the border to send a message to Eritrea.

Surely the regime in Khartoum cannot carry on the way they have been going for so long. Even they, a while back, mentioned something to the press about "a pincer" movement aiming to weaken them. They are their own worst enemies. Had they screamed for international aid workers and UN peacekeepers in Darfur over the past year, while the world was watching, maybe they would not be in the pickle they find themselves today. Continuing on as a ruthless, unbending and corrupt dictatorship while refusing much needed aid and protection for the people of Darfur is their downfall.

Regardless of what tricks are pulled, South Sudan must not take up arms again. Sudan must not break up, or it will never have peace because of oil. No matter how tough it gets, Garang and his gang must work in harmony with Bashir and his gang or the leaders should be arrested by the African Union and put on trial for crimes against humanity. The two gangs must work in harmony with the Darfur gang of rebels and cease all violence while they work on a way how to get themselves trained and educated, with the UN's help, on how to run a democracy and make a new and united Sudan that everyone can be proud of. Right now, it is a hellhole and those who are fighting for power, with the blood of millions on their hands, are responsible for sorting it and stopping all violence now. People must be allowed to return to their homes and farms. They must start planting food and replenish livestock to bring up their families. They need to make a living. Children must get an eduction and medical care. The international community cannot keep feeding millions of people in the Sudan because of a handful of thugs that are treated by the UN and AU as a member state. The Sudanese people have no real government. Anarchy reigns.

Read the story about the oil deal, courtesy Reuters South Africa today, copied here in full. It states Sudan's main oil fields are in the south and disputes over oil fuelled the 21-year war in South Sudan cost 2 million lives.

Sudan signs $400 mln oil field development deal

Here is a copy in full of a KHARTOUM (Reuters) report Mon March 28, 2005 11:14 AM GMT+02:00:

Sudan signed a $400 million deal to develop its southern Thar Jath oil fields to an initial capacity of 80,000 barrels per day (bpd) by the end of March 2006, the oil ministry said in a statement on Monday.

The deal was signed late Sunday with the Sudanese White Nile Petroleum company -- a consortium of Malaysian state oil firm Petronas, which owns 68 percent, India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp, which has a 24 percent stake and Sudan's state oil company Sudapet with 7 percent. The remaining one percent is divided between the three companies, an oil ministry official said. It said the reserves of the Thar Jath oil fields, in Block 5a in the southern Unity state, were estimated at a minimum of 250 million barrels. White Nile Petroleum is expected to dig 45 wells in the coming year, it added.

Sudan's main oil fields are in the south, and disputes over oil fuelled a civil war there for more than two decades, claiming 2 million lives mostly from hunger and disease. A peace deal signed in January ended Africa's longest civil war and has revived interest in Sudan's potential oil reserves.

The deal states both sides will respect any oil contract signed before the date of the peace deal -- January 9, 2005 -- and any deals after a new government of unity is formed will be decided by a joint petroleum commission from the national energy and mining ministry.

But an official from the former southern rebel group the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) has said it has signed a deal with a London-listed company called White Nile, giving it part of block B in SPLA-controlled areas.

The news caused consternation as French oil giant Total signed a deal with Sudan in 1980 for the whole of block B, and the deal was renewed in December.

Total and the government both say they are confident of the validity of the deal.

More senior SPLA officials have played down the report of the deal with British White Nile, which analysts say indicates divisions within the former rebels, who are due to join the government in the coming weeks after a two-month delay. - The British White Nile company is different from Sudanese White Nile Petroleum, the company awarded the $400 million contract on Sunday. - Reuters

South Sudan: French energy giant Total in oil talks with SPLM/A over White Nile

Today, the UK's Independent reveals that French energy giant Total has opened talks with the new Government of South Sudan in the hope of getting them to repudiate an oil deal with UK based White Nile. Excerpt:

Total agreed exploration rights with Khartoum in the Eighties and says it has paid an annual fee to maintain those rights throughout the civil war, which made production impossible. It re-signed the deal in December.

The nascent government set up a state-owned oil company called Nile Petroleum last summer, which claims to have taken legal possession of concessions in its territory. White Nile agreed a deal with Nile Petroleum last month. "The signature of contract by White Nile is just not valid. It is against contract rights and against the peace agreement," a Total spokesman said yesterday.

White Nile expected Total to attempt a deal with the new authorities and said they were "fully confident in the relationship with the South Sudan government". White Nile was attempting to demonstrate that relationship yesterday by flying several British journalists to the region for meetings with the authority's new ministers.

Full Story by Stephen Foley, UK Independent, March 24, 2005.


Headquarters of the oil group Total in the western Paris suburb of La Defense. Total is in partners on above southern Sudan deal with US oil company, Marathon, based in Texas, USA.
- - -

South Sudan pipeline to assist region - "SPLM/A could become a dominant power in the region"

A report at Petroleum World News March 7, 2005 says, "Nile Petroleum's holding in UK-listed White Nile would be the first time an African national oil company had a market listing, albeit indirect, on a major international stock exchange". Excerpt:

White Nile Ltd. (UK Based) intends to help South Sudan build its own pipeline, bypassing the north and providing it further regional clout, said Andrew Groves, Director & Co Founder of White Nile.

The autonomous southern authority is a successor to the South Sudan's People Liberation Movement, or SPLM, which has waged a two decades of war against the north's central government before signing a peace treaty on Jan. 9.

A pipeline already routes Sudan's oil from the south to the north's Port Sudan on the Red Sea. "SPLM could become a dominant power in the region," Groves said. "Southern Ethiopia and Uganda would be opening up" to South Sudan's oil exports, he explained. In addition, the autonomous authority intends to build its own refinery, he said.

It's unclear how a construction deal between White Nile and the South Sudan government would turn out. But the interests of the company and the authority are set to become strongly intertwined.

White Nile previously said South Sudan - via state-owned Nile Petroleum - will get a substantial stake in the company following the award of the oil rights.

Nile Petroleum's holding in U.K.-listed White Nile would be the first time an African national oil company had a market listing, albeit indirect, on a major international stock exchange.

Separately, Groves said the South Sudan government had also been contacted for potential oil rights by numerous companies, Energy Africa, which is part of Tullow PLC of Ireland and Sinopec of China. Sinopec and Tullow couldn't be reached.
- - -

UN peacekeepers for South Sudan to assist African Union in Darfur - Janjaweed in South Darfur causes alarm

Good news concerning security in Sudan. The UN Security Council voted unanimously yesterday to send 10,000 troops and up to 715 civilian police to South Sudan for an initial period of six months to support the peace agreement between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) led by Dr John Garang, a former rebel and US educated economist.

The primary mandate of the UN peacekeeping force (UNMIS) includes assisting the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) "with a view towards expeditiously reinforcing the effort to foster peace in Darfur," said the US-sponsored resolution.

Recent UN news reports suggest it could take until June for UN troops to start arriving in South Sudan and at least six months to reach full strength. Meanwhile, there is growing talk of Khartoum agreeing to doubling the number of AU troops in Darfur, bringing the contingent to more than 6,000 troops, in addition to the 9,000-10,000 aid workers currently in Sudan.

Why can't China and other countries with oil interests in Sudan supply tens of thousands more aid workers? The rainy season will fall upon Darfur again soon. Last year, there were huge problems getting aid through. It had to be airlifted. Several months ago, Libya had agreed to provide a route for aid trucks to get into Darfur bu, in two recent interviews, US Secretary of State Rice, reveals problems [that have not been reported in the press as far as I know]. In one interview she says the access for humanitarian aid has worsened over the last month and in another interview she says, about Libya: "We've worked with the Libyans to have another supply route. It was going pretty well for a while. I think there's been some slowing in that over the last month or so. We're very concerned about it and we're pressing that issue very hard with Khartoum." It makes one wonder if Libya is now unable to open the route from Libya into Darfur because of certain issues between the international community and Khartoum, especially the one in the news last month concerning Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's comments on Kofi Annan's call for NATO and EU intervention in Darfur.

In the UN draft resolution approved yesterday, point number 5 states, quote: "request the Secretary-General to report to the Council within 30 days on options for how UNMIS can reinforce the effort to foster peace in Darfur through appropriate assistance to AMIS, including logistical support and technical assistance, and to identify ways in liaison with the AU to utilize UNMIS's resources, particularly logistical and operations support elements, as well as reserve capacity towards this end" [Coalition for Darfur has links to two draft resolutions, including the one by France]

A report just out via UPI says Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said that while his country welcomed the peacekeeping forces in the south, he insisted against "expanding their mission" to Darfur. I wonder why. One can only speculate that Khartroum feel weakened by losing power over South Sudan and fear losing power over Darfur. Even if they see the writing on the wall, it's going to be a long haul. The warring parties need to be forced to sit down and keep talking until a deal is sorted. Why is the inevitable being dragged out for so long? It will end up in a political deal whether it is a week or decades from now. Someone should knock their heads together, pronto. Imposing sanctions, no fly zones, embargoes and travel bans won't help. Too long to explain here the reasons why. I still maintain the Chinese could be doing a lot more to help behind the scenes. Sudan has a lot going for it but appears to be its own worst enemy.

At the present time, a nine-man African Union Ministerial Committee, represented by South Africa, Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan are on a four-day visit to Sudan, interacting with the Sudanese government, NGOs and others in different parts of the Sudan to assess areas of need and the type of interventions that can be initiated. Their report will be presented to the international donors conference next month in Oslo, Norway.

Intense negotiations have gone on between all sides and many others, including the World Bank, over the past few months regarding the UN peacekeeping force, development of Sudan's infrastructure and resources, along with its debts and international funding for development and aid. As a result, Darfur has been unusually quiet for a good number of days, which is good news.

However, according to the latest UN situation report dated March 24, 2005, there is an increased presence of bandits and Janjaweed near two IDP camps in South Darfur, causing considerable disquiet amongst IDPs. One can never be sure of how much control Khartoum has over Sudan's bandits and militias. Sudan's First Vice-President Taha, recently interviewed in the national palace by Emily Wax for The Washington Post, called the Janjaweed "bandits" and said they were beyond the government's immediate control.

Over the past year, Khartoum has defended its killings of civilians by saying it occurs because the rebels in Darfur hide behind and live amongst their kin. Rebels do not wear uniforms. Civilians are treated by their government as rebels or rebel supporters. The Government of Sudan uses Arab militias, known as Janjaweed, to smash the rebellion in Darfur because the Sudanese Army forces are full of soldiers from Darfur who cannot be trusted to defend against the uprising.

Since January of this year, reports of attacks in Darfur are few and far between. Every few days or so I receive, via email, UN Sudan Situation Reports. Up until the end of last year, the emails reported many incidents of violence. Lately, the fighting in Darfur has definitely subsided. Wheeling and dealing by all sides is going on involving billlions of dollars. Peace, security and the future of Sudan and the 'New Sudan' in the south is at stake. Sudan's rebels are switched on and appear to know when to move and not to move.

Here is a copy of the latest UN situation report received by email today. Note, under "Protection Issues" Khartoum controls the "Form 8" business which, I guess, involves rape victims. Going by the report, victims can opt to pursue legal action and seek legal redress. You have to wonder what it means for the victims.

24 March 2005
Key Developments:

The Security Council unanimously adopted a draft resolution this afternoon to establish the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) with an authorised troop strength of up to 10,000 and a civilian component including up to 715 civilian police. This new mission's primary mandate is to support the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement but it has also been tasked to assist the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) foster peace in the Darfur region. Please see [see above link] accompanying copy of the draft resolution, as it was adopted, for more details.
Humanitarian assistance in SLA areas in North Darfur was again interrupted due to a breakdown in the notification system, as the replacement for the SLM/A Humanitarian Coordinator was unavailable for several days. A new SLM/A focal point has been identified and a meeting took place with UN officials on 23 Mar.

Security Issues:

South Darfur: Protection agencies operating in the Beliel and Kalma IDP camps have reported an increased presence of bandits and armed men on camels in their immediate vicinity. This has added to the instability of the situation and has raised considerable disquiet amongst the IDP population.
West Darfur: UN and NGO Agencies have resumed road travel on West Darfur roads south of Seleia with assessments on-going in Arara, Beita, Masterri, and areas north of Serba. With yesterday's opening of Sanidadi, only the roads under assessment remain NO GO.

Protection Issues:

General: A mission comprising representatives from the UNAMIS Human Rights Office and GoS met with UN and NGO agencies working on protection to discuss the recent Ministry of Justice (MoJ) circular disseminated to GoS officials, Ministry of Health (MoH), police, the prosecutor's office, NGOs and UN agencies. The mission stated that every clinic or hospital (including all NGO clinics) can treat GBV survivors freely without any fear of negative consequences. However, not every NGO clinic can fill Form 8 for the survivor in the event she opts to pursue legal action. The only NGO clinics with authority to fill in Form 8 in North Darfur are IRC, Saudi Red Crescent, and the Egyptian military clinic (all operating in the Abu Shouk camp), as well as MSF- Belgium in Kebkabiya and Saraf Umra. The GoS representatives explained that there is a need to separate the issue of access to medical services from those of seeking legal redress, reiterating a previous message that only Sudanese medical officials employed by the MoH are authorized to fill in Form 8.

West Darfur: HAC Zalingei has requested a meeting to discuss protection matters and approaches with international agencies operating in the area. OCHA and UNHCR will follow up on the proposal, which has been welcomed in the humanitarian community.

Humanitarian Affairs:

Food/NFIs

North Darfur: Oxfam reported that it is developing a market bulletin on a monthly basis. The first such bulletin is likely be released by the end of this month. Oxfam is currently conducting an assessment on the livelihoods options together with the women development associations' network in El Fasher town.
FAO completed a three-day workshop on livestock, pastures, grazing lands, animal migration routes and water resources problems yesterday in El Fasher town.
South Darfur: Agencies involved in the distribution of NFIs remain slow to present distribution plans for the forthcoming rainy season, potentially delaying responses to OCHA and UNJLC. It is expected that cases of ARI, malaria and water-borne diseases will increase with the onset of the rainy season.
West Darfur: The UNJLC is about to reach targetted stock levels soon and plans a general distributions of NFI in West Darfur. A number of obstacles exist, however, including the upcoming rains and gaining access to some areas of need.

Health

North Darfur: According to the WHO weekly morbidity and mortality weekly bulletin released today, acute respiratory tract infections accounted for the largest number of reported deaths cases in North Darfur in the last reporting week. At today's health coordination meeting, WHO also unveiled plans to conduct a campaign against leprosy and TB in North Darfur.
South Darfur: 2,000 meningitis vaccinations arrived in South Darfur for use by humanitarian agencies, and WHO/MERT has requested staff numbers and locations from all agencies in order to prepare a plan of priority vaccinations for the most at-risk.
West Darfur: MSF-CH has said that it is planning on withdrawing from its role in water provision in Abu Zar School. The Wat/San sector is collectively discussing ways to fill the gap.

Returns

Bahr El Jebel: In an effort to update its beneficiary caseload figure, WFP fielded eight teams of 35 persons to conduct a headcount, verification and registration of IDPs, returnees and vulnerable people. The exercise is to be conducted in Terekeka, Glatokh, Kuda, Mekiu and Rokon from 21 to 26 Mar.

Education

Bahr El Jebel: 320 desks produced by Swedish Free Mission with support from UNHCR were distributed to four schools in Bahr El Jebel State. According to Sudan Aid, students coming from the neighbouring countries and the countryside are facing language problem as they once received instruction in English, while here all schools except church schools are in Arabic. The result is overcrowding in church schools where a class accommodates 70 - 90 students per class. There is a need to improve rural schools so that the number of pupils coming to towns is reduced.
- - -

See readers' comments at BBC News online report titled "South Sudan peace force approved". Here are a few:

"The situation in the Darfur region will have a negative effect on the south-north peace accord. The only thing that the UN and international community can do is to put more pressure on the northern government to stop the killings in Darfur. As a Sudanese I want the northern government to tell us what part of Sudan is this community called the jajiweed located and where do they get Sudanese army uniform and weapons? Stop misleading the world, we need the conflict to come to an end. - Palath Thonchar, NY"

"If Khartoum withdraws completely from the South and stop its interference in the southern Sudan affairs there will be peace there. What the SPLA/M needs is financial and technical aid to transform it into a modern political party and into a conventional army. The other key factor in the peace is the construction of the infrastructure including roads, telecommunications, schools and hospitals. The leadership in southern Sudan should also diversify its production. Social justice is also key to lasting peace and prosperity. - Henry Maina Reriani, Nairobi "

Douglas H. Johnson, Parliamentary Brief: Comprehensive Sudan peace agreement: playing for time

Douglas H. Johnson is author of The Root Causes of Sudan's Civil Wars' (James Cuney, 2003) and editor of the Sudan volume of the British Documents on the End of Empire series. The following piece, published online at the SudanTribune February 28, 2005, is copied here in full for future reference.

"Comprehensive Sudan peace agreement: playing for time"
By Douglas H. Johnson, Parliamentary Brief

Feb, 2005 -- The signing of a comprehensive Sudan peace agreement in Nairobi on 9 January brings to an end the final negotiation phase, extended over nearly three years, of the 'Peace Process' begun a dozen years ago. It sets in motion a six month 'pre-interim period' to be followed by a six year 'interim period' during which the provisions of the agreement are to be implemented. Only on the conclusion of that will we know with any certainty whether peace has come to Sudan.

The agreement includes protocols on state and religion, self-determination, power sharing, wealth sharing, security, a ceasefire agreement, the status of the border areas of Abyei, Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile, and a separate set of modalities for implementation, which alone runs to over a hundred pages.

To assess whether an agreement of such complexity can bring a lasting peace to Sudan one must first examine the extent that it addresses the causes of the war, and then gauge the extent that either side is willing or able to implement it.

Western Journalists repeatedly state that the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Amy (SPLM/A) is fighting for 'greater autonomy for the Christian and animist South'. This is wrong. The SPLM has always repudiated the idea that there a 'Southern problem' that needs a special attention, and have claimed instead that the South's own grievances are part of a wider national problem of sectarian, racial and regional imbalance.

The official goal of the SPLM has always been, and still remains, a 'New Sudan'. This ostensibly means a Sudan freed from the dominance of Islamic sectarian politics, and where underdeveloped regions have a greater say in their own administration, greater control over their own resources, and a greater share in the nation's governance. Independence for the South has been presented as a secondary option, a fallback position for the South alone, in the event that Northern intransigence makes the 'New Sudan' unobtainable.

The SPLM's position has been vindicated, in part, by events. The war is not confined to the South, but has spread to other 'marginalized' areas with Muslim populations. This not only includes the 'African' regions of Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile, but the fully 'Northern' Muslim region of the Eastern Sudan, where the SPLA has long had a military presence.

The fighting in Darfur is part of the same trend. Whatever ideology still divides them, the anonymous authors of The Black Book and the spokespersons for the Sudan Liberation Movement/ Army and the Justice and Equality Movement have all articulated Darfur's grievances in terms very similar to the SPLM' s original position: their common enemy is seen as the clique from the central Nile Valley who have dominated Sudan's governments and controlled its economy since independence.

It is a restructured Sudan, not secession, that is presented as a solution for the grievances of Darfur, the East, Blue Nile and the Nuba Mountains, and the South is seen as a key player and guarantor in such a restructuring.

The National Islamic Front (NIF) seized control in a coup in 1989 to prevent such a restructuring being negotiated between the SPLM and the government of Sadiq al-Mahdi (Southern secession was not even on the agenda at that time).

Since then they have imposed their version of an Islamic state, ruthlessly suppressing the Muslim opposition and generating a series of rebellions throughout the Muslim North. It is partly for this reason that they cannot afford to make any concessions on the Islamic state: to do so would be to give an opening to their Muslim opponents.

When the current peace process was revitalised by the Bush administration in 2002, Khartoum managed to persuade the president's envoy, former Senator Reverend Jack Danforth, that they represented the will of the Muslim majority in the North.

ln consequence, the solution that both Danforth and the State Department favoured, and which set the agenda for the renewed peace talks, was the preservation of the Islamic state in the North and regional autonomy for the South, protected by US-style constitutional guarantees for minority rights.

The SPLM's 'New Sudan' was not an option even to be discussed. Secession thus became the only realistic alternative. The Machakos Protocol of July 2002, which is the basis on which all subsequent protocols have been negotiated, thus enshrined a unitary Sudan as an Islamic state with a separate Southern regional administration, but with the Southern option to secede after a fixed period.

Negotiations since 2002 have focused on how the SPLM and the South can function within such a state over the next six years. Ostensibly this is to create the conditions by which Southerners will be persuaded to voluntarily remain part of a united Sudan.

Conversely, the provisions must also set up a viable Southern state which will have a chance of surviving on its own should Southerners choose secession. Thus the SPLA is not to be disbanded (as the old Anyanya was), but both it and the national army are to be reduced, and both are to contribute to a national force which will be stationed in parts of the current war zone.

The SPLM is to take over the administration of the entire South, including those are as currently under government control. The South is also to have a certain amount of economic autonomy.

The revenues from the Southern oil fields are to be divided equally between the Southern and National governments, but the Southern government has no power to renegotiate any of the oil leases the National government has granted prior to the date of the final peace agreement.

Southerners are also to have a share in the national government. Not only does SPLM chairman John Garang become vice-president of the Sudan (as well as president of the South), but Southerners have been offered a quota of 30 per cent of appointments in the central government.

Separate provisions have been made for the regional states of the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile, both of whom have contributed substantially to the SPLA, but neither of whom desire to be incorporated into an autonomous or independent Southern state.

Each is to have its own autonomous regional government, but the SPLM/A in both regions will have to share not only the civil administration, but the security forces with the government and its current allies.

An agreement this complex will need goodwill to implement, not only for the immediate cease fire and six month 'pre-interim' period, but throughout the following six years and especially during the final referendum in the South. So far there are worrying indications that such goodwill is not forthcoming.

The government's behaviour in Darfur has shown that it is unwilling to apply either the letter or spirit of cease-fire agreements. This is not surprising considering its numerous, documented violations of the agreements to cease offensive operations in the South or avoid attacking civilians.

The devastation of the Shilluk Kingdom in 2004 (see Parliamentary Brief, August 2004) was just the most recent example of such violations. The failure of the US and the UK not only to impose some sanctions on Khartoum for these violations, but to even make public protests, is one reason why Khartoum, quite rightly, decided that it could get away with similar violations in Darfur with impunity.

Just as worrying as this past behaviour are reports that the government is also trying to establish new militias in the border areas (Blue Nile, Nuba Mountains and Abyei) to resist the implementation of the peace agreement on the ground.

The last minute absorption of the government's Southern militias into the national army is also an indication that Khartoum is going to try to maintain its own allies within terri tories to be handed over to the SPLM administration. Any sustained effort by Khartoum either to circumvent or to undermine the provisions of the agreement will mean that, once again, secession of the South will become the only alternative.

In the South, opinion in the SPLM is already divided over whether to try to make the agreement for a united Sudan work or to go all out for secession.

If the latter opinion prevails then it is unlikely that Garang and the SPLM can make effective use of their role in the central government to bring an end to the Darfur fighting or insist on negotiations with Sudan's internal Muslim opposition, thus diluting the NIF's Islamic state.

The South's erstwhile allies in Blue Nile and the Nuba Mountains (and even, possibly, in the Dinka enclave of Abyei) could be abandoned in favour of a narrowly constructed Southern nationalism.

Such short-term thinking would be counterproductive, because whether the South remains part of Sudan or becomes independent, it will need allies in the North, and especially along its borders. This requires a recognition of common goals, as well as common grievances.
- - -

Causes of conflict in Sudan: Testing the Black Book

The following is an excerpt from a January 2005 Working Paper by Alex Cobham titled "Causes of conflict in Sudan: Testing the Black Book." [Source of link via Coaliton for Darfur, with thanks]

The authors of the Black Book sought to show the effect of this discourse on access to power in the Sudan. To do this, they determined the regional origins of each minister appointed in each government from independence in 1956 until 2000, and compared it with the underlying population distribution.

This data is summarised in table 1, and shows how the ministerial share of the northern region varied between 60% and 80%, with the sole exception of the second democratic period (1986-89) when the share fell to 47%. The northern regions’ population makes up less than 5% of the total.

The claim of the authors, which is expanded upon to some extent in part II (Anonymous, 2004b; Arabic version 2002), 4 is that this distortion had real and significant effects on the performance of government duties at every level - from the employment of outsiders to work on oil fields inconveniently located in marginalised regions, to the allocation of funds for public health expenditure. Disproportionate access to power brought disproportionate provision of government support, and unfairly reduced the human development opportunities of the marginalised.

This paper seeks to evaluate the validity of the Black Book's claim. The authors were later revealed to be associated with one of the two Darfur rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement, so it should in no way be seen as neutral in regard to the current conflict. As a basis for making greater demands in negotiations, claims of unfair treatment are of course likely to be helpful. If the claims are borne out however, there are important implications not only for the settlement eventually reached but for the conduct of the large-scale development effort that will follow.

Section 2 compares the basic economic and human development performance of Sudan with each of the neighbouring countries, and assesses the relative strengths and weaknesses.

Section 3 sets out the available data on government and state finances, including deriving the regional pattern of central subsidy and contribution. The extent of development expenditure per capita is also calculated.

Section 4 constructs and examines regional data on education and health indicators, to assess whether these patterns of expenditure and finance have results in terms of the human development opportunities for the inhabitants of different areas of the Sudan.

Finally, section 5 draws conclusions about the validity of the claims made in the Black Book.
- - -

For further reports, click on Abyei label here below.

Sudan: U.S. thwarts justice for Darfur

March 24 Reuters Brussels -- The US is blocking UN Security Council action on the crisis in Darfur on account of US hostility to the ICC, Human Rights Watch said today.

"The US is hanging the people of Darfur out to dry by stalling on justice," said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch's International Justice Program. "After labeling Darfur a genocide, the US is now blocking the credible threat of prosecution by the ICC, which could immediately deter further violence in Darfur."

"In the guise of taking action on a peacekeeping force in the North-South conflict, the US is pushing aside measures needed to deal with atrocities in Darfur," said Dicker. "Vague commitments to accountability are not enough. The heinous crimes committed in Darfur need immediate investigation and prosecution by the ICC." Full Story.

France puts U.S. in tight spot on Sudan

March 23 (AP) - France on Wednesday presented a UN resolution allowing for the prosecution of Sudanese war crimes suspects at the International Criminal Court, forcing the US to choose between accepting a body it opposes or casting a politically damaging veto.

The US circulated three Sudan resolutions Tuesday one authorizing a peacekeeping force, another imposing sanctions, and a third tackling the issue of where to punish those responsible for atrocities. It said a vote on the final issue would have to be put off because of the divisions in the council over the court. But France, Britain and others were determined to handle the issues at once. Full Story.

Further reading -- Nigeria wants new panel on Sudan crimes, not ICC. People's Daily Online news says China opposes economic sanctions against Darfur crisis.
- - -

Quotation

Mahatma Gandhi once said, "When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it, always." - via Be
- - -

UN chief meets Sudanese President, calls for Intl engagement in Darfur

March 23 (AP) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the Sudanese government and Darfur rebels Tuesday to stick by a frequently-broken cease-fire, saying it could take months for UN peacekeepers to deploy in the region if they are approved.

At the request of the US, the council voted last week for a second week-long extension of the UN political mission in Sudan. But many members including France, Algeria and Britain made clear they are fed up with the delays and want a vote next week on a new resolution.
- - -

UK calls on Sudanese rebels to resume Darfur peace talks

March 22 (AP) -- A British minister on Tuesday called on two Sudanese rebel factions to resume peace talks with the Sudanese government to end the crisis in Darfur.

Foreign Office Minister Chris Mullin said the Darfur rebel groups SLMA and the JEM "should reconsider their current position and agree to the immediate resumption of the peace talks in Abuja without preconditions."

"The current position of non-engagement is unacceptable and is unnecessarily delaying peace in Darfur," said Mullin, after meeting with Minni Minnawi of the SLM in London.

Britain has also called on the Sudanese government to do more to end the Darfur conflict.
- - -

Sudan criticises aid agencies over Darfur aid money

March 20 (AFP) -- Sudan has accused humanitarian agencies operating in Darfur of using only a fraction of funds from donors on the crisis and retaining much of it for their own activities, the independent al-Sahafa daily reported Sunday.

The paper quoted the governor of South Darfur state, Al-Hajj Atta al-Mannan, as saying that just over 10 percent of the total amount of financial assistance donated for the crisis in Darfur had reached the needy. He claimed that the majority of the money was used to fund activities not related directly to the plight of the people of Darfur.

"The share of the people of Darfur from this fund was only 12 percent while the remainder was spent on administrative operations and workers of the international organisations in Darfur," Mannan charged. Full Story.
- - -

Appeal for billions in development aid

Sudan needs almost eight billion dollars (six billion euros) for reconstruction and development over the next two years to recover from two decades of North-South civil war, an assessment team has indicated. The team, made up of representatives of the Khartoum government and the ex-rebel SPLM, said 7.8 billion dollars (5.8 billion euros), would be required through 2007.

Much of that was to be funded with domestic oil revenues, and international donors would be asked to contribute 2.66 billion dollars (two billion euros) of the total, the team said.

But the amount did not include the massive expenditures that will be needed for UN peacekeeping operations in the South, it said. Nor did it cover money that would be required to restore stability to Darfur.
- - -

Sudan Airways to Fly to London

March 21 -- Sudan Airways will fly the London route, barely a month since it resumed flights to Entebbe Airport. The airline's country manager, said on Saturday, the move to be implemented in April, was aimed at popularising the airline and cope with the demand.

"We shall be embarking on the London route. We have already ordered for one Airbus for that purpose. We want all those people who choose to fly Sudan Airways to continue enjoying the high class services of their first choice airliner while they also get the opportunity of flying with it to London," Adam said."

"It's just as well though that we also had to introduce the London route since there is an overwhelming demand for it," he said.
- - -

Darfur rebels call on Arabs to protect minorities

March 22 (Reuters) -- Darfur rebels want an Arab summit this week to show support for minorities in Arab countries and help bring war criminals to justice, rebel leaders said on Monday.

"We are calling on the Arab leaders at the Arab summit in Algeria to pass a resolution to respect the rights of non-Arabs in Arab countries," Khalil Ibrahim, a leader of the JEM, told Reuters from the Eritrean capital Asmara.

Abdel Wahed Muhamed al-Nur, a leader of the SLA, another rebel group, said he wanted the Arab states to back the recommendations of a UN-appointed inquiry commission that suspected Darfur war criminals be put on trial at the International Criminal Court.

"We call on the Arab states to support the trial of the people the UN has said are perpetrators of war crimes," he told Reuters from Kenya's capital Nairobi.

Arab leaders met in the Algerian capital Algiers on Tuesday.
- - -

AU force presence encourages Darfur displaced to return home

March 20 (PANA) -- The presence of the African Union monitoring mission in Sudan has encouraged certain local communities in Darfur, especially in Tine and Labado to return to their homes, the continental body's assessment mission reported Saturday.

"The recent arrival of AU civilian police in a number of camps hosting internally displaced persons has also encouraged the local population to resume their normal activities without fear of harassment," says an AU press release issued Saturday after a weeklong tour by a high level team in Darfur.

The visit to Darfur was recommended in a resolution adopted by the 17th session of the AU Peace and Security Council on 20 October 2004, which urged the AU Commission to report regularly on the situation in Darfur and on the operations and activities of its mission.

AU Commissioner for Peace and Security Council, Ambassador Said Djinit, led the assessment team, which left Khartoum for Darfur on 11 March. The head of AMIS, Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe, ANIS Force Commander, Major General Festus Okonkwo, as well as representatives of AU partners accompanied Djinit.

The assessment team visited all the eight AMIS military sectors with headquarters at El Fasher, Nyala, El Geneina, Kabkabiya, Tine, Zalingei, El Daien and Kutum. It also met with SLA and JEM representatives and field commanders as well as senior Sudanese officers in the Western Command area.

"The meetings focused on strengthening further cooperation between the AU and the Sudanese parties and how to pave way for an early resumption of Abuja peace talks," the release said. Full Story.

US contracted Brian Steidle and two other Americans to work as AU monitors in Darfur, Sudan

Brian Steidle, who served four years in the US Marine Corps, recently spent six months working for a US State Department contractor as a ceasefire monitor with the African Union force in Darfur. His sister, Gretchen Steidle Wallace, assisted in the writing of this piece. I am copying it here below in full, for future reference, incase the link becomes broken.

Apart from the fact that the US State Department contracts Americans to work for the African Union as neutral observers, and allows one of them to freely use the media [which I find most strange] in a way that could create difficulties for aid workers currently in Sudan, what I also find odd about the piece is that it appears to be a conglomeration, both in tone and content, of almost every piece on Darfur I have read at The Washington Post. I stopped linking to the Post a while back because of inaccuracies in its reports that appeared politically motivated, were more emotive than fact and, in my view, naive and not at all balanced. [Note how Samantha Power's sensational reports on Darfur are not so frequent since Senator John Kerry failed in his bid for the US Presidency]. Last year, even Khartoum complained about The Washington Post and its reporter Emily Wax. I don't blame them. Such reports seem like American propaganda and make one wonder why the Americans need to produce propaganda when it comes to such serious issues as Darfur and the Sudan.

UPDATE: I have just googled Gretchen Steidle Wallace and found that Brian Steidle is now working with his sister, Gretchen Steidle Wallace, founder of Global Grassroots, a non-profit organisation founded in 2004, who is also currently working on a documentary film to profile the hardship and innovation of women in the refugee camps in and surrounding Darfur, Sudan.

The point I am getting at in this post is the regime in Khartoum read The Washington Post. High profile reports by Brian Steidle could impact on aid workers who risk their lives trying to reach those in the Sudan who are suffering the most dismal of lives on this planet. [Further update below].

"In Darfur, my camera was not nearly enough" By Brian Steidle, The Washington Post, March 20, 2005:

Our helicopter touched down in a cloud of camel-brown sand, dust and plastic debris. As the cloud gradually settled into new layers on the bone-dry desert landscape, we could make out the faces of terrified villagers. "Welcome to Sudan," I murmured to myself, grabbing my pen and waterproof notebook.

A former Marine, I had arrived in Sudan's Darfur region in September 2004 as one of three U.S. military observers for the African Union, armed only with a pen, pad and camera. The mandate for the A.U. force allowed merely for the reporting of violations of a cease-fire that had been declared last April and the protection of observers. The observers sometimes joked morbidly that our mission was to search endlessly for the cease-fire we constantly failed to find. I soon realized that this was no joke.

The conflict had begun nearly 1 1/2 years earlier and had escalated into a full-scale government-sponsored military operation that, with the support of Arab militias known as the Janjaweed, was aimed at annihilating the African tribes in the region. And while the cease-fire was supposed to have put a stop to that, on an almost daily basis we would be called to investigate reports of attacks on civilians. We would find men, women and children tortured and killed, and villages burned to the ground.

The first photograph I took in Darfur was of a tiny child, Mihad Hamid. She was only a year old when I found her. Her mother had attempted to escape an onslaught from helicopter gunships and Janjaweed marauders that had descended upon her village of Alliet in October 2004. Carrying her daughter in a cloth wrapped around her waist, as is common in Sudan, Mihad's terrified mother had run from her attackers. But a bullet had rung out through the dry air, slicing through Mihad's flesh and puncturing her lungs. When I discovered the child, she was nestled in her mother's lap, wheezing in a valiant effort to breathe. With watery eyes, her mother lifted Mihad for me to examine.

Most Sudanese villagers assume that a khawadja -- a foreigner -- must be a doctor. And my frantic efforts to signal to her to lay her struggling daughter back down only convinced her that I had medical advice to dispense. It broke my heart to be able to offer her only a prayer and a glance of compassion, as I captured this casualty with my camera and notepad. I pledged, with the linguistic help of our team's Chadian mediator, that we would alert the aid organizations poised to respond.

"This is what they do," the mediator -- a neutral party to the conflict -- screamed at me. "This is what happens here! Now you know! Now you see!" I was unaware at that time that when the aid workers arrived the next day, amid continued fighting, they would never be able to locate Mihad.

Mihad now represents to me the countless victims of this vicious war, a war that we documented but given our restricted mandate were unable to stop. Every day we surveyed evidence of killings: men castrated and left to bleed to death, huts set on fire with people locked inside, children with their faces smashed in, men with their ears cut off and eyes plucked out, and the corpses of people who had been executed with gunshots to the head. We spoke with thousands of witnesses -- women who had been gang-raped and families that had lost fathers, people who plainly and soberly gave us their accounts of the slaughter.

Often we were the witnesses. Just two days after I had taken Mihad's photo, we returned to Alliet. While talking to a government commander on the outskirts of the town, we heard a buzz that sounded like a high-voltage power line. Upon entering the village, we saw that the noise was coming from flies swarming over dead animals and people. We counted about 20 dead, many burned, and then flew back to our camp to write our report. But the smell of charred flesh was hard to wash away.

The conflict in Darfur is not a battle between uniformed combatants, and it knows no rules of war. Women and children bear the greatest burden. The Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps are filled with families that have lost their fathers. Every day, women are sent outside the IDP camps to seek firewood and water, despite the constant risk of rape at the hands of the Janjaweed. Should men be available to venture out of the camps, they risk castration and murder. So families decide that rape is the lesser evil. It is a crime that families even have to make such a choice. Often women are sexually assaulted within the supposed safety of the IDP camps. Nowhere is really safe. If and when the refugees are finally able to return home and rebuild, many women may have to support themselves alone; rape victims are frequently ostracized, and others face unwanted pregnancies and an even greater burden of care.

The Janjaweed militias do not act alone. I have seen clear evidence that the atrocities committed in Darfur are the direct result of the Sudanese government's military collaboration with the militias. Attacks are well coordinated by Sudanese government officials and Arab militias, who attack villages together. Before these attacks occur, the cell phone systems are shut down by the government so that villagers cannot warn each other. Whenever we lost our phone service, we would scramble to identify the impending threat. We knew that somewhere, another reign of terror was about to begin.

Helicopter gunships belonging to the government routinely support the Arab militias on the ground. The gunships fire anti-personnel rockets that contain flashettes, or small nails, each with stabilizing fins on the back so the point hits the target first. Each gunship contains four rocket pods, each rocket pod contains about 20 rockets and each rocket contains about 500 of these flashettes. Flashette wounds look like shotgun wounds. I saw one small child's back that looked as if it had been shredded by a cheese grater. We got him to a hospital, but we did not expect him to live.

On many of the occasions we tried to investigate these attacks, we would find that fuel for our helicopters was mysteriously unavailable. We would receive unconvincing explanations from the Sudanese government's fuel company -- from "we are out of fuel" to "our fuel pumps are broken." At the same time, government helicopters continued to strafe villages unimpeded.

Those villagers who were able to escape flocked to existing IDP camps, where they would scrounge for sticks and plastic bags to construct shelter from the sun and wind. In even these desperate situations, however, the Sudanese government would not give up its murderous mission. First it would announce the need to relocate an IDP camp and assess the population of displaced people, often grossly underestimating the numbers. Then after international aid organizations had built a new, smaller camp, the government would forcibly relocate the population, leaving hundreds to thousands without shelter. It would bulldoze or drive over the old camps with trucks, often in the middle of the night in order to escape notice. It would then gather up and burn the remaining debris.

The worst thing I saw came last December, when Labado, a village of 20,000 people, was burned to the ground. We rushed there after a rebel group contacted us, and we arrived while the attack was still in progress. At the edge of the village, I found a Sudanese general who explained why he was doing nothing to stop the looting and burning. He said his job was to protect civilians and keep the road open to commercial traffic and denied that his men were participating in the attack. Then a group of uniformed men drove by in a Toyota Land Cruiser. The general said they were just going to get water, but they stopped about 75 yards away, jumped out, looted a hut and burned it. The attacks continued for a week. We have no idea how many people died there but tribal leaders later said close to 100 were missing.

Since I left Darfur last month, I have tried, in press conferences, newspaper interviews and congressional testimony, to publicize conditions there in the hope that the international community will intervene more vigorously instead of watching the atrocities run their course. That way we won't look back years from now and ask why we didn't stop another genocide.

I believe this conflict can be resolved through international pressure and international support of the African Union. Weapons sanctions and a no-fly zone throughout Darfur are critical. I have seen that the mere presence of A.U. forces can discourage attacks and, with more support, they could stop the conflict.

In December, the Sudanese general at Labado had told us that his mission was to continue clearing the route all the way to Khartoum, hundreds of miles away. The next town in line was Muhajeryia, roughly twice the size of Labado. The African Union placed 35 soldiers into Muhajeryia, not to protect the village, but to protect the civilian contractors who were establishing a base camp. Yet this small force alone was able to deter the government of Sudan, with a force of a few thousand soldiers and Janjaweed militiamen, from attacking. Shortly after that, the A.U. was able to deploy 70 more soldiers from the protection force and 10 military observers to the scorched village of Labado. Within one week, approximately 3,000 people returned to rebuild. In addition, the A.U. negotiated the withdrawal of Sudanese government troops from the area.

To secure and protect all villages in Darfur, the African Union needs several things: an expanded mandate that would allow it to protect civilians and ensure secure routes for humanitarian aid, advanced logistics and communication support, and an increase in the size of the protection force by tens of thousands.

The attention paid to Darfur in Congress and at the United Nations hasn't been enough. For the first time, we might be able to stop genocide in the making. We must not fail the men, women and children of Darfur.

During my time in Darfur, as I listened to the victims, I was astounded at their composure. Their unwavering faith provides some rationale to what seems to me an inexplicable horror. By handing over their lives to God, somehow each day is a gift, despite the massacres. "We're going to die," they acknowledge with fear, "but we hope to survive . . . Inshallah [God willing]." Unfortunately, they just don't have a choice.

We do.

Author's e-mail: steidlebs@globalgrassrootsnetwork.org

[End of report via http://www.sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=8637]
- - -

Brian Steidle: One eyewitness [out of 9,000 on the ground in Sudan]

On Friday, Eugene Oregon of Coalition for Darfur blog, attended a presentation by Brian Steidle hosted by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's Committee on Conscience. Please see Eugene's post on the presentation.

Note also the following excerpt from a March 17 post at Passion of the Present:

Brian Steidle understands the anatomy of a genocide. As one of three American State Department contractors on the African Union’s (AU) monitoring team in Sudan, the 28-year-old former Marine captain witnessed the systematic destruction of villages in south Darfur in late 2004. He’s now working with Gretchen Steidle Wallace (his sister), who runs a nongovernmental organization (NGO) called Global Grassroots Network to raise awareness about the government of Sudan’s complicity in the Darfur genocide. On March 15, between meetings with Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick and an appearance on Wolf Blitzer Reports, Captain Steidle sat down with American Prospect writing fellow Mark Leon Goldberg at a coffee shop in Arlington, Virginia.

- - -

Returning to the Washington Post report, it seems that, apart from the evidence of castrations, Brian Steidle says nothing much that has not already been reported by mainstream media during the last year. There are 9,000-10,000 aid workers on the ground in Sudan. Some have lost their lives. Many experience difficulties gaining entry into Sudan and timely access to people in need of aid. Doctors Without Borders and other aid agencies go to great lengths to be neutral and not get involved politically or publicise details and photos incase it breaks trust, hinders access and affects reaching those in need of aid.

Over the past few days, I have wondered why Khartoum recently made a point of complaining to the press about aid workers and entry into Sudan. One wonders what agencies like MSF, Oxfam, Save the Children UK and others, including UN and AU workers, are thinking about Brian Steidle and his sister who appear either irresponsible or dangerously naive. There are ways of getting news into the press but publicising already reported news and showing photos [which not even the UN has done] obtained through working for the US State Department, US contractors in Sudan and the African Union is something that aid workers and others concerned over Sudan go to great lengths not become involved with. It's no wonder Khartoum does not trust any foreigners entering Sudan, even those from the African Union. Last year, the British government warned that one needs to be careful because Khartoum could take it upon themselves to deny access to anyone entering Sudan and dismiss aid workers from the country as it has done in the past. You have to wonder if the US government has given Brian Steidle the green light. But why? Could oil have anything to do with it? Nothing would surprise me about what goes on in Africa these days.

I've only recently discovered that Marathon Oil company, based in Houston, Texas, USA [the home state of US President George W Bush] is a partner of the French Total Corp., which holds longstanding oil leases in a southern area of Sudan marked by fierce fighting throughout a 21-year war. Associated Press reported recently that Marathon, a major contributor to the Bush re-election campaign, has resumed payments to the Khartoum government and will be part of Total's operations in the oil fields.

John Garang and his Southern Sudan rebels recently negotiated an oil agreement, involving the same area assigned to French Total, with a new British oil company called White Nile. It looks like the deal is in the midst of being settled - or not. Khartoum says Sudan's contract with French Total still stands and that the former South Sudan rebels SPLM, soon to installed in charge of Southern Sudan, are not authorised to agree oil contracts for South Sudan, that supersede existing agreements, without first going through and getting approval within central government. More on this at a later date.

And then there is the business of bringing Sudan's war criminals to court. The UN Security Council may, within the next week, announce a new resolution on Sudan. The weeks of delay could be all part of the strategy, adding pressure on Khartoum anticipating billions of dollars in aid and development funding. Thing is, I have yet to read one word about how anyone will physically get Sudan's war criminals to whatever court is decided. It would be best if the regime in Khartoum stepped down before it is overthrown. Pressure needs to be put on the individual war criminals, name and shame them all, in particular Sudan's President Bashir, recently listed as the world's worst dictator, and his Vice-President Taha.

Sudan: Darfur Mortality 380,000 + 15,000 deaths per month

During an intermission of posting at this blog, please read a March 11 report by an American academic and Sudan expert, Prof Eric Reeves, whose Darfur updates and analyses over the past year have proved extremely accurate. It is an analysis of the situation to date and is a must read. Here is an excerpt:

"Building on eleven previous assessments of global mortality in Darfur, this analysis finds that approximately 380,000 human beings have died as a result of the conflict that erupted in February 2003, and that the current conflict-related mortality rate in the larger humanitarian theater is approximately 15,000 deaths per month. This monthly rate is poised to grow rapidly in light of famine conditions now obtaining in various parts of rural Darfur and threatening the entire region."

Full Story via Sudan Tribune, March 12, 2005.
- - -

UK to mediate between Sudanese government, rebel Beja Congress

The following material is provided by the BBC Monitoring Service via Sudan Tribune Mar 12, 2005:

The secretary-general of the Beja Congress, Abdallah Kunah, has disclosed that his organization and that of the Free Lions have accepted to go into peace negotiations with the government in the framework of the British initiative. He said that the talks will commence after the conclusion of the conference of the Beja Congress on 17 March.

In a statement to the Khartoum based Al-Sahafah newspaper via telephone from his residence in Eritrea, Kunah further said that the British ambassador in Asmara has proposed an initiative to sponsor the talks between the government and the Beja Congress and the Free Lions.

He said that during his meeting with the leaders of the two groups recently, the British diplomat asked the two groups the possibility of holding a procedural meeting between the three sides on 15 March.

He further said that the Beja Congress excused itself on the proposed date because it is preoccupied in its annual general meeting which will start on 17 March in the areas under its control. He also confirmed the acceptance of the Beja Congress and the Free Lions to participate in the talks at the said date.

Kunah further said he requested the British diplomat to give his organization copy of the written initiative in order to assess and respond to it.

Kunah also disclosed that Jan Pronk, the UN secretary-general's representative in Khartoum, has proposed holding of a general conference on the problems in east and west of the country after the formation of the a transitional government which will include the Sudan People Liberation Movement.
- - -

AU to assess Darfur

11 March Reuters (SA) report 11:

The African Union sent a delegation to Sudan's Darfur on Friday on a 10-day mission to assess the political, security and humanitarian needs in the troubled region.

The delegation is headed by AU Commissioner for Peace and Security Said Djinnit, includes AU mission in Sudan chief Baba Gana Kingibe, as well as officials from the United States, United Nations and European Union, the AU said in a statement.

Before leaving Khartoum, the delegation held talks with Sudanese officials and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's Special Representative in Sudan Jan Pronk about how to bolster the AU's peacekeeping role in Darfur.

The statement said the AU has 2,061 monitors and military observers in addition to 112 civilian police personnel deployed in Darfur, a region in western Sudan around the size of France.

On its first major peacekeeping operation, the pan-African body has been struggling to deploy troops rapidly and has failed to stem the violence on the ground.

Several rights groups have charged the AU force lacks broad international support and financial backing.
- - -

Sudan urges int'l community to press Darfur rebels for peace talks

12 March (Xinhua) via Sudan Tribune:

The Sudanese government on Saturday urged the international community to press Darfur rebels for the resumption of peace talks.

[In my view, resumption of talks is the fastest and only way to stop the violence in Sudan. The regime in Khartoum and Sudan's rebels could, if they wished, stop the killing and violence. The UN ought to demand the warring parties cease their violence and the leaders of all sides - including tribal leaders - get together and keep talking until they have agreed a peace pact ... or else.]


A member of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), listens to a radio at Dorsa village in west Darfur , October 10, 2004. (Reuters).
- - -

Hoping for a Sudanese golden age

To get an idea of what is happening in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, please see March 12, 2005, report by the BBC's correspondent in Khartoum, Jonathan Fryer, that explains why the locals are upbeat about Sudan's prospects.

[Note, the report says the Chinese and Malaysians have both built smart residential hotels for their nationals on the banks of the Nile. A son of Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi is constructing a huge five-star establishment alongside, ready for the day when Khartoum becomes the new boom-town. And, next to the sleepy old Sailing Club, where Lord Kitchener's rusting gunboat is preserved as a surreal reminder of the 1898 Battle of Omdurman, the Chinese have built a social club called Oil House.]
- - -

World Bank poised to re-engage in Sudan

13 March, 2005 Bank Information Center USA report extract:

Absent from Sudan since 1993, the World Bank plans to start lending to the country again this year in anticipation of huge reconstruction efforts.  Just months after a peace agreement was signed between the government in Khartoum and rebels in southern Sudan, the World Bank is preparing an assessment of the country's reconstruction for a meeting of donors in April and discussing plans to manage foreign aid to Sudan through trusts funds.  Debt relief for the war-torn country is a priority concern; according to some reports, the country has a $25 billion debt which would have to be reduced to $6 billion before relations with the World Bank could resume.

This apparent "rush to reengage" must be viewed in the context of a likely increase in oil production in Sudan in the coming years and the economic impacts of a new revenue-sharing arrangement for oil proceeds, which will sharply increase resource flows to southern Sudan, as well as ongoing conflict in Darfur and regional instability.

For more information, see the following articles:

World Bank considers relations with Khartoum (Sudan Tribune, March 12, 2005)

World Bank, Sudan seen resuming relations within year
(Katie Nguyen (Reuters) Sudan Tribune, March 9, 2005)

World Bank returns to Sudan as donors plan comeback
(Lesley Wroughton, Reuters, Sudan Tribune, January 18, 2005)
- - -

The Third World's Odious Debt

Note Africa Commission report analysis by BBC News March 11, 2005.
- - -

Rape and Sexual Violence Ongoing in Darfur

11 March, 2005, report by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), extract:

Women and girls in Darfur are continuing to suffer a high incidence of rape and sexual violence, according to a report issued today by Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). Stories of rape survivors told to MSF are a horrific illustration of the daily reality of the ongoing violence that has displaced two million people in Darfur.

Between October 2004 and mid-February 2005, MSF doctors in numerous locations in South and West Darfur treated almost 500 women and girls who were raped. MSF believes that these numbers reflect only a fraction of the total number of victims because many women are reluctant to report the crime or seek treatment. Almost a third (28%) of the rape survivors who sought treatment from MSF reported that they were raped more than once, either by single or multiple assailants. In more than half the cases, the rape was accompanied by additional physical abuse. Women told MSF that they were beaten with sticks, whips or axes before, during or after the act of rape. Some of the raped women were visibly pregnant, as much as five to eight months, at the time of the assault.

The majority of survivors of rape and sexual violence tell MSF that the attacks occurred when women left the relative safety of villages and displaced camps to carry out activities indispensable of the survival of the families, such as searching for firewood or water.

81% of the 500 rape survivors treated by MSF reported being assaulted by militia or military who used their weapons to force the assault. In Darfur, as in other conflicts, rape has been a regular and deliberate tool of war. It is used to destabilize and threaten a part of the civilian population, often a particular group.

Rather than receiving appropriate medical and psychosocial care, women and child survivors of rape and sexual violence in Darfur often face rejection and stigma. In some cases, victims of rape have even been imprisoned while the perpetrators of the crime go unpunished, adding to an appalling pattern of neglect and abuse.

"Despite its devastating consequences, rape in Darfur and in other conflicts has not received the attention that the scale of the crime or the gravity of its impact call for," said Kenny Gluck, director of operations for MSF in Amsterdam. "This has to change. It is time to end this vicious crime, which is a clear breach of international humanitarian law. Perpetrators should be prosecuted not tolerated."

MSF urges local government and other health care providers in Darfur, as elsewhere, to ensure full and appropriate treatment for victims of sexual violence and to help end the stigma and rejection faced by victims of rape.
- - -

FT breakfasts with Dallaire: Everything humanely possible

See Financial Times report by Craig Offman, March 11, 2005.
- - -

Fear Drives Long Trek to Kenya from Darfur

Note the last few lines of the following Reuters report, dated 12 March, 2005, by C. Bryson Hull in Kenya:

Fear propelled Mohammed Ahmed Osman's two-year, 1,120-mile flight from Sudan's Darfur region to Kenya, but anger, he says, will bring him home.

The farmer never imagined Kenya, to where thousands of fellow Sudanese from the south fled in a 21-year civil war, would be his first taste of safety after marauders slaughtered most of his village in a separate conflict in western Sudan in November 2002.

But by foot, plane, train, truck and donkey, Ahmed and 21 friends and family criss-crossed Sudan and arrived in Kakuma camp in northwestern Kenya, the dusty desert home to 86,000 refugees from eight African countries.

Nearly 60 percent are Sudanese, but Ahmed's group makes up just over half of the 42 refugees in Kakuma from the Darfur crisis that has pitted non-Arab rebels against Arab militias. Nearly all the Sudanese in Kakuma fled the civil war in nearby southern Sudan.

"If I go back to Darfur, I will kill the Arabs. If I had power, I would go. We have no power here," he said, standing in front of his home of just a few weeks in Kakuma Three, the last built of three mud-hut complexes set atop red-tinged sands.

"We did not want to come to Kenya. We did not know about it," Ahmed said.

Terror sparked his flight in November 2002, when marauding militiamen known as Janjaweed torched his north Darfur village, Masmaji, killing his two brothers, his parents, three nieces and dozens of neighbors.

"They came at night and burned the houses and they went back and shot anyone who ran away from the fire. They took children around the back and shot them," he said.

"NOT THE TRUTH"

Ahmed, his wife and three children were out in their sorghum fields when the raiders came, and they only returned to their razed, lifeless village two days later.

They fled for nearby Habila but, warned of impending Janjaweed attacks, they moved again.

"I decided to go to Chad, because it was near, but the Janjaweed cut the way," he said.

Their next stops were the larger Darfur towns of El Fasher and Nyala, but a few months in each with no fields to tend left the farmer in Ahmed frustrated, and his family hungry.

He bought train tickets for Khartoum, looking to go to its squalid squatter camps. Police at the train station had different ideas. Ordered to give his reasons for traveling, Ahmed replied that there was war at home.

"The security said 'That is not the truth. You must go back to Darfur."'

They ordered him to take the next train home, in two days, or go to prison. But luck rumbled into town. "We stopped a lorry and the driver we knew from Darfur," he said.

Taking sympathy, the driver arranged to pick up Ahmed's family 1 mile out of town that night. Driving only in the darkness for two nights, the trucker drove them 145 miles to Kadugli, near the Nuba mountains in south Sudan.

A day later, Ahmed and his starving companions, among them his severely malnourished 3-year-old son, arrived by truck in Kauda, a stronghold of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement.

It was just two weeks after the former rebel group had signed a landmark peace agreement with the government, ending Africa's longest-running civil war.

"We've just stopped the war here. We have nothing to give you," Ahmed said the SPLM told him. But they arranged for his group's passage to Kakuma, where many thousands of southern Sudanese had fled the long war in their region.

Ahmed said he wishes for an end to the violence racking his homeland, but his anger now is greater than his capacity to forgive.

"We, the black man and the Arab, cannot live together. If the war stopped, we cannot live together, because they did bad things. If I went back to Darfur, I would kill all Arab people," he said, his hand trembling.

The case of Darfur, Sudan makes clear the limits of media attention alone

Gareth Evans, president of Belgian-based thinktank International Crisis Group, writes the following for AlertNet March 9, 2005, titled "Media short-sightedness is truly staggering":

To find many of the world's "forgotten" humanitarian emergencies, one only need look at some of the world's forgotten conflicts. In some cases, it is truly staggering what the mainstream media are missing.

As an organisation working to prevent and reduce deadly conflict worldwide, the International Crisis Group spends a good deal of effort trying to bring international attention to the conflicts that cause so many avoidable humanitarian emergencies.

For some conflicts this is easier than for others, especially over the last two or three years.

One television news producer we met in the U.S. summed the situation since spring 2003 this way: "Look, we've got three foreign news priorities these days: Iraq, Iraq and Iraq".

And Iraq is not simply an American obsession: we've heard a similar refrain from news producers and newspaper editors again and again throughout Europe and elsewhere.

Of course, few would say Iraq doesn't deserve the top foreign news spot; it has been the main international news story not only because of its daily violence but also because of post-Saddam Iraq's long-term implications for the rest of the region.

Iraq is not the only story, however, as the average mass media consumer could almost be forgiven for thinking over the past two years. The world's obsession with Iraq has pushed to the margins many other scenes of mass violence.

A BLIP ON THE RADAR SCREEN

One good example is Nepal, home of the deadliest conflict in Asia, with some 10,000 killed over the past few years. Before the coup on 1 February 2005, how often did television crews bother to cover the expanding Maoist insurgency there?

How many articles did the Western press carry about the widespread human rights abuses and disappearances at the hands of the Royal Nepalese Army?

Nepal has simply been off the radar screen of the world media, and even now, the coup story itself seems to have appeared only as a rapidly fading blip.

Another under-reported conflict is in Uganda, where the rebel Lord's Resistance Army -- half guerrilla movement, half cult -- has fought government forces and made repeated brutal raids against civilians, displacing 1.6 million people and forcing thousands of abducted children to serve as their rank-and-file soldiers.

Uganda is now set to be the subject of the International Criminal Court's first full investigation into crimes against humanity.

And the media coverage of this ongoing tragedy internationally? Almost nothing.

The Deomocratic Republic of the Congo is another long-standing conflict in Central Africa that gets very little international attention apart perhaps from a single story in the quality broadsheets when Rwanda threatens to invade its massive neighbour.

This is a country, remember, where some three million people died as a result of the 1998-2000 war -- mostly due to the resulting hunger and disease -- and where the failure to demobilise former combatants and the failure to stick to the calendar of a transitional political process threaten the country with a return to all-out war.

WAR IN PEACETIME

In fact, for the eastern part of the country, the war is still really going on, and the human cost of violence is reliably reported at 1000 deaths a day (in combatant deaths and indirect "excess" deaths due to the war).

Still, the world media have by and large shown no interest in the Congo whatsoever.

And then there are the potential conflicts and humanitarian crises in Central Asia and the frozen conflicts in the Caucasus that could always hot up at any time.

The lack of international attention in such places only allows the precursors of mass violence to continue festering.

When things explode, foreign correspondents will no doubt be parachuted in to ask why no one saw this coming, when the truth is, quite a number of us in the international community have long been calling for more attention and more concerted effort to defuse the coming conflict.

The media had simply chosen to point their cameras elsewhere.

No one should get the impression this is only a problem of the Western media; it is universal.

The Arabic-language media, for example, have consistently ignored or under-reported the underlying causes of the conflict in Darfur, Sudan, and the massive humanitarian catastrophe that has resulted.

A UNIVERSAL PROBLEM

With very few exceptions, the national television stations and even the freer international newspapers simply toe the Sudanese government's line, not mentioning at all Khartoum's strong backing of the Janjaweed militias who have destroyed hundreds of villages, killed tens of thousands of people, and driven millions more from their homes.

But the case of Darfur also makes clear the limits of media attention alone. In the Western world, the situation in Darfur is now relatively well-known: compared to one year ago, when news reports were only just a few threads, we now see the full fabric of Darfur's horrors on television and in print almost daily.

This hard-won international attention has been essential for getting additional humanitarian relief into Darfur's IDP camps and the refugee camps in neighbouring Chad, but it has done nothing to stop the ongoing killing or return people to their homes.

Three feeble U.N. Security Council resolutions over the past year applied no serious pressure on the government of Sudan to stop its support of those committing the most brutal atrocities.

There are clearly conflicts that deserve more international media than they get, but we also have to be realistic: sometimes, media attention is not enough.

http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/reliefresources/111039372281.htm

UN joins African Union to assess peacekeeping needs in Darfur, Sudan - Bracing for Bolton

New York, 8 March - See UN news centre report and this excerpt from the Secretary-General's off the cuff remarks:

Reporter's question to Secretary-General Kofi Annan: On Sudan, you called the Security Council members. The UN is doing a lot of hand-wringing on the subject, but you called Security Council members into a meeting. Can you tell us why you did that, what you discussed, and what specifically are you advocating right now, whether it's the African Union, at one point you mentioned NATO? Get more specific maybe on what it is you think needs to be done.

Mr Annan's answer: I think, basically, what I discussed with the Council is something that everybody was aware of, that we are concerned that we are not moving fast enough in Darfur. We are concerned that the atrocities have not stopped. We are concerned that we are not gaining access to all those in need. We are concerned that the parties are not respecting the ceasefire. The question is what measures should be taken to create a secure environment. And we looked at various options. Of course, the African Union forces are on the ground. From all accounts, they are effective where they are, but there are very few of them. So we need to increase the numbers either by helping the African Union to strengthen the force and also give them logistical and financial support. They need communications. They have very few trucks, planes, cars. And we need to sort of help them to do the work if we expect them to do it. And if we come to the conclusion that they need additional help and they are not provide it themselves, what should be the responsibility of the international community? Should the UN send in troops to co-deploy with them, to cover Darfur? Should the UN eventually take over that operation? Should eventually a multinational force be considered? These are all options that were on the table. Of course, we know the pros and cons of each of the options. And of course, I also indicated that we are sending a mission which will be led by the African Union to Darfur to assess the situation on the ground. The European Union and US would also have members on the team. And after that mission, we'll do a serious reassessment of what needs to be done.

And I also indicated that we were all very happy when the Naivasha agreement was signed, but we do not have enough money to help the returning refugees. They are returning spontaneously. We have asked for $500 million and we got five percent of that amount. So we have managed to get a political agreement, but we are not doing enough on the ground to make sure the agreement holds. So we also did appeal for additional resources generally, and of course, we are going to deploy the 10,000 UN troops in the south.

And I was also concerned that if we did not take measures to strengthen the operations in Darfur, it's going to look very awkward that you have 10,000 troops in the south where it is safe, but you don't have enough troops in Darfur where the fighting is going on and protection and security of the people is urgent. So these are some of the issues that we discussed.
- - -

Bracing for Bolton - Dismay as US sends hawk to UN

The shock appointment of hardline neo-conservative John Bolton as US ambassador to the UN stunned the diplomatic community yesterday and raised questions about George W. Bush's commitment to work constructively for reform of the world body in its 60th anniversary year. His appointment must be ratified by the US Senate, where there is sure to be some opposition.

"Why would (President Bush) choose someone who has expressed such disdain for working with our allies?," said Senator John Kerry, who lost last year's election to Mr Bush. Full Story - 9 March, 2005 - Herald Sun - by David Nason in New York.
- - -

The U.S. cannot act effectively if it acts alone

During the 2004 election, President Bush's refusal to acknowledge having made any missteps during his first term was seen as shrewd politics.  The appointment of Bolton suggests that it is something more:  that Bush really does dismiss the concerns of critics around the world, that he believes the US. can and should go it alone.  The UN will be one casualty.  US interests will be another. Full Story 8 March - Center for American Progress - by Suzanne Nossel in New York.

Suzanne Nossel served as Deputy to the Ambassador for UN Management and Reform at the US Mission to the United Nations in 1999-2001. Nossel is currently an executive at a media company in New York City, and writes frequently on foreign policy issues.

Further reading: Who Is John Bolton? [Oh dear ... how disappointing ... and scary ... he sounds like a disaster]
- - -

UPDATE: 9 March: FT in America Firster says today: Mr Bolton is hardly likely to re-invent himself as a born-again multilateralist. But if US policy were to be changed in that direction by the decision-makers in Washington, it would carry more weight with the UN's many critics on the Republican right if it came out of the mouth of Mr Bolton. The dispatch of one of Washington's staunchest unilateralists to the UN may yet turn out an inspired decision. But the onus will be on Mr Bolton and his masters in Washington to prove this so. [Let's hope it turns out an inspired decision]

Sudan: U.S. will agree to allow Darfur cases go to the ICC

Following yesterday's one-hour Security Council meeting held behind closed doors, a report today in the Guardian by its diplomatic editor Ewen MacAskill, says:

"The British government is to back punitive measures against the Sudanese government after losing patience over the worsening humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Until now the Foreign Office has argued that persuasion was more productive than sanctions and other measures. But a British government source said: "We have run out of patience. It would be incredible if the international community continued to just wave a finger."

Well, it looks like the international community is continuing to just wave a finger. Read the report carefully and you will see why the Guardian's headline "Britain backs UN sanctions after losing patience in Sudan crisis" is not as action packed as it sounds. However, it seems the one big thing to come out of the meeting is about sending the accused war criminals to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The Guardian report states:

"The most important measure in a United Nations security council resolution this week will be to send those accused of crimes against humanity to the International criminal court, according to diplomatic sources. In a big concession to international opinion, the US will agree to allow Darfur cases to go to the ICC, the sources add. The US has strenuously opposed the court, but is now prepared to abstain in the security council.

Other measures include the setting up of a sanctions committee to target individuals in the Sudanese government, as well as some rebels. But the proposed sanctions have been watered down in horsetrading between Britain, the US, China and Russia.

The US, backed by Britain, circulated a draft resolution to extend an arms embargo, freeze assets of individuals accused of major crimes and impose travel bans on the same individuals. China and Russia, which have economic ties to the Sudanese government, have agreed to the setting up of a UN sanctions committee to identify those who should be targeted. But, in return, plans for the extended arms ban and freeze on assets have been dropped, with only the travel ban remaining."

Note, a travel ban on those who are on the UN's sealed list of suspected Darfur war criminals [reportedly, the list includes ten members of Bashir's genocidal regime] is unlikely to be imposed because Khartoum has in the past threatened reciprocal measures. Who knows, banning entry into Sudan could include UN officials, and even aid workers, even though the UN is currently in the process of setting up offices in Southern Sudan. [Not to mention the attendance of oil deal meetings .... more on oil dealings in Sudan in a forthcoming post.

"Men and women are two wheels of a chariot"

Education, leadership crucial for refugee girls and women UNHCR says on International Women's Day.
- - -

My thoughts on the following opinion piece by Margaret Vuchiri are about why there is such a thing as a "Women's Day" and why there appears to be no need for a "Men's Day." If there was such a thing, and you phoned a male friend to ask how he intended to spend Men's Day, what would you expect him to say? I'd expect most would treat it like some sort of Fathers Day, and give themselves a pat on the back and go eat, drink and play and make some more mess somewhere, or do a bit of wheeling and dealing, hooting and hollering, fighting, bombing, mugging, pillaging, looting, killing and raping ... Heh. You guys are something else [which is why you don't deserve a Men's Day!]

For Women's Day March 8, please click here to read an Op-Ed by Margaret Vuchiri in Kampala, titled "Has Feminism Failed to Feminise Society?"
- - -

The following three items are a copy of one of my favourite posts that I published at this blog on September 14, 2004:

TUTU'S MESSAGE OF WISDOM: Women should rule the world

Desmond Tutu, in his message of wisdom, writes:

"When we heard the revelations of unspeakable atrocities committed during the apartheid era we were appalled at how low we human beings can sink, that we had this horrendous capacity for evil, all of us.

Then we heard the moving stories of the victims of those and other atrocities relating how despite all they had suffered they were willing to forgive their tormentors, revealing a breathtaking magnanimity and generosity of spirit, then we realised that we have a wonderful capacity for good.

Yes people are fundamentally good. They, we, are made for love, generosity, sharing, compassion - for transcendence.

We are made to reach for the stars."

Desmond Tutu.

[Source: Courtesy "Tutu's handwritten message of wisdom" Hands That Shape Humanity]
- - -

'WOMEN SHOULD RULE THE WORLD' -
Desmond Tutu suggests a "feminine revolution" takes place

Women should rule the world said Desmond Tutu speaking at a signing ceremony between the Desmond Tutu Peace Trust and the City of Cape Town.

Former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town Desmond Tutu on Tuesday waxed lyrical about women, suggesting that a "feminine revolution" take place so that the fairer sex can rule the world.

Tutu was speaking at a signing ceremony between the Desmond Tutu Peace Trust and the City of Cape Town which brought a step closer the erection of a building bearing his name in the city CBD.

"Some of the best initiatives are those that occur because women are involved... It is almost a tacit acknowledgement of the crucial role that women play in nurturing, nurturing life," said Tutu in his tribute to women a day after Women's Day.

Tutu, who was seemingly mentally spurred on by Cape Town's sobriquet "Mother City", said that men had been given centuries to rule the world, but "have made a heck of a mess of things".

Tutu said the revolution he referred was one of women who were not afraid to be feminine, and who did not ape men in, for example, the stereotypical aggression.

"This revolution... is the last, best chance for making this globe hospitable to peace, to make this globe hospitable to compassion, hospitable to generosity and caring," he said. [More]
- - -

Here's a snippet found on the internet:

" ... A billionaire media baron has taken a step to demonstrate his belief that women should run the world because men have "mucked it up" with too much warfare and military spending.

The United Nations Foundation Ted Turner established six years ago to distribute the £1 billion he pledged to UN causes has a new female-dominated board of directors.

"I've said for years and I'm really serious about it, I think men should be barred from holding public office for 100 years. The men have been running the world for too long and they've made a mess of it. ..."

Tens of thousands raped in Darfur, Congo, Uganda. In honour of Women's Day, please take a stand for crimes against humanity

Today, March 8, is International Women's Day and there is no let up in sexual violence in Darfur says MSF.

People around the world must take action on behalf of the tens of thousands of women suffering from continued violence in places such as Darfur, DRC and Uganda. Please read a report at the Sudan Tribune, by Natalie Spicyn and Cathy Sweetser, Yale Daily News, March 5, 2005.

Note, when reading the report, please bear in mind Reuters reported yesterday that tens of thousands have been raped in East Congo and the victims were aged between 4 months and 80. Some rapists in Sudan use razor blades to cut the clitoris and vaginas of their victims immediately before raping.
- - -

Note, a post at my Congo Watch blog features today's report by Reuters titled "Tens of thousands raped in East Congo" and highlights the plight of Congolese rape victims aged between 4 months and 80.

The men of this world just do not seem to be listening or helping enough. Perhaps the most effective way to get the message across real quick to men that they must do everything possible to protect women and children from such horrific violence, is for females to silently protest by withholding love and sex from their male partners. Heh. Listen up guys, I'm serious. In the olden days there were eunuchs you know ...