High time to lift U.S. sanctions on Sudan (Ibrahim Adam)

Another must-read from Alex de Waal's blog Making Sense of Darfur:
High Time to Lift Sanctions
By Ibrahim Adam, August 14, 2008

The US government and the American people sincerely want to do the right thing by Sudan. Help turn it into a democratic, stable, equitable, prosperous and, preferably, united country. Trouble is they don’t seem to know how. At least that’s what it looks like judging by America’s neurosis with placing new, and keeping old, economic sanctions on Sudan, ultimately to make Sudanese President Bashir speed up the change.

US sanctions make steering Sudan on to the right track tougher, not easier. President Bush has belatedly realized it; too late for a U-turn, though, as his time in office is virtually up. So, it’s now up to presidential nominees Barack Obama and John McCain to realise US sanctions have actually damaged US interests by inflicting harm on, not help to, Sudan. And high time the American public does likewise, and supports lifting the sanctions quickly.

Take Darfur. The US government and public bought quickly into rebel claims of deliberate, long-standing economic neglect by President Bashir as moral justification for war. But it wasn’t the unwillingness, rather the inability of the Khartoum authorities till a few years ago to stump up money to develop Darfur, or anywhere else in the country, owing largely to tight US sanctions.
Successive American governments since President Reagan have steadily cut off all financial aid to Khartoum, and have toughened bilateral trade and investment sanctions to hobble public finances further, especially since 1997. The US government has also persuaded Western allies to follow its lead on cutting financial help and the World Bank, too. It stopped loans to President Bashir’s government 15 years ago; Sudan’s last dime from the IMF came back in 1985.

US-led isolation meant the Sudanese government got, for example, just $56 million in foreign budgetary support during 1994-1998 according to IMF data. At roughly forty cents per person per year, that’s hardly enough for the government to build some roads and a couple of schools in Darfur, never mind cater for all Sudan.

US economic sanctions have also hiked the cost of living for ordinary Sudanese – their main gripe with government. They de facto forced the authorities to pursue an economic rescue (read liberalization) programme, but without the standard donor-funded social safety net. Worse still, President Bush and his predecessor, Bill Clinton, have both pushed the IMF to chase payment of Sudan’s $1.7 billion odious debt, incurred by President Nimeiri during 1969-85.

Khartoum has paid an average $52 million back to the IMF every year since 1994, mainly late interest fines. That’s a very harsh anti-development tax on all Sudanese, especially without even the guarantee of fresh loans from the Fund in the future.
Don’t be fooled by today’s oil-induced boom. US economic isolation of Sudan worked a treat for nearly 20 years: petrol shortages so severe that even the capital lacked proper bus transport, and basic items like sugar and bread rationed.

Protracted, severe constraints on public finances in one of the world’s largest (10th), but poorest countries (141 out of 176 in the 2006 UN Human Development Index) could only ever lead to one outcome. Crystallizing or, in the case of Darfur, reviving older badges of identification (kinship, religious, locality and ethnic ties), due to the collapse of public investment and welfare spending over most of the last two decades.

Eroded nation-state loyalties usually tend towards war against the state or other groups, both evident in Darfur, to grab a larger share of public funds and other valued resources (e.g. land, water, and livestock). In other words, the impact of US sanctions on livelihoods battered the social fabric of Sudan - Darfur included. And not malign neglect by an Arab supremacist, psychopathic state caricature beloved of Congress, Hollywood activists, think tanks, and the media in the US.

‘Excess’ deaths from US sanctions – those who may have lived if sanctions had not crippled clinics and other vital public services – probably runs into the hundreds of thousands. That’s a tragedy of the first order, especially as Sudanese (who, presumably, supporters of the sanctions claim to act in their name?) never demanded economic isolation from the US in the first place, unlike the African National Congress and other anti-apartheid grassroots movements in South Africa. Take note: no Darfur rebel group called for sanctions either, making their tightening by President Bush and US activist-led Sudan disinvestment campaigns since the conflict started look at best misguided or, at worst, self-indulgent to the majority of Sudanese.

So, what’s in it for either John McCain or Barack Obama to lift the sanctions from Sudan? Big dividends. It would give President Bashir political space to hasten changing Sudan to an equitable, democratic country, as specified by the landmark 2005 north-south Sudan peace agreement – the policy anchor of US government.

Removing sanctions would help Sudan’s political institutions mature, too. The deafening criticism of Khartoum by Washington accompanying US sanctions often crowds out civil society and government discourse on other important, but ‘normal’, policy issues. Agriculture reforms, for example. US private investment into southern Sudan, thus far stifled by reputation risk fears, would also surely grow strongly following the abolition of the sanctions.

Sure, Khartoum now has access to money from China and, since 2003, sizeable oil revenue, with public spending on the poor doubled twice in real terms since 2005. Even so, it’s not enough to quench the urgent backlog of basic development needs throughout Sudan like railways, rural feeder roads, and maternity clinics; projects that help strengthen nationhood.

Yes, Sudanese need to take responsibility for their own predicament. They, after all, are the ones killing each other. But playing catch-up in the global race for economic development to lift millions out of acute poverty – the underlying driver of Sudan’s history of internal conflicts - is hard enough: more so when isolated from a quarter of the world economy. No need for either presidential nominee to wait until the AU-UN peacekeeping force deploys fully in Darfur before lifting the US sanctions; that will take at least another year – if it happens at all. The future President Obama or President McCain must both put the removal of US sanctions from Sudan at the very top of the US foreign policy in-box tray. It’s not about punishing or rewarding the government of President Bashir, but about recognizing the severe price ordinary Sudanese and the challenge of building a modern nation-state both keep paying for US and de facto EU sanctions.

Sanctions ‘101’, US presidential hopefuls: collective economic punishment is never a smart way to win the hearts and minds of people. Sudanese deserve the right to turn the page about the north-south civil war and other conflicts and move on – as most have done – with the hugely challenging task of reconfiguring the Sudanese state as per the CPA. So, help change Sudan into the country its citizens want it to become, and Americans wish it could be. Lift US sanctions from Sudan, future Mister President, because the victims of Darfur – like all Sudanese - are victims of them too.

The author is an independent economic and political consultant from and based in El Fasher, Darfur.

Further reading

Sanctions and Investment

Friday, May 8th, 2009

Sanctions and South Sudan: The Oil Factor

posted by Warwick Davies-Webb

Supporters of US oil sanctions on Khartoum, and who are in many cases supporters of the SPLM, are strangely silent with respect to its impact on South Sudan. Yet nowhere is the case of the “unintended consequences” of sanctions more clearly apparent than on this vital sector of South Sudan’s fragile economy.
US policy-makers [...]

Read the rest of Sanctions and South Sudan: The Oil Factor.

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

Narrowing the Escape from Poverty

posted by Ahmed Badawi

Helping Sudan turn into a democratic, stable, equitable, and prosperous country. That’s the ultimate dream end-destination; but there’s a huge problem with the US government’s wanton resort to placing sanctions on the Sudanese government: they have actually made steering Sudan on to that track tougher, not easier.
Sanctions have severely narrowed the escape from poverty for [...]

Read the rest of Narrowing the Escape from Poverty.

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

Sanctioning the CPA: A Policy Conundrum for the U.S.

posted by M Karna L Cohen

Over the past twelve years, the U.S. has put forth a confusing array of legislation to impose economic sanctions on Sudan. Horrified initially by the Sudan government’s early support for international terrorism and, later, its behavior in Darfur, yet aiming to support the signed peace agreements, US policymakers have enacted a disconnected series of measures [...]

Read the rest of Sanctioning the CPA: A Policy Conundrum for the U.S..

Sunday, May 3rd, 2009

Corporate Responsibility and the Goals and Tactics of the Sudan Divestment Campaign

posted by Adam Sterling

I hope to provide some comments that help clarify the goals and tactics of the Sudan divestment campaign.
In 2006, the Genocide Intervention Network launched the Sudan Divestment Task Force (SDTF) to coordinate the developing Sudan divestment movement, which at the time consisted of varying, divergent approaches. Some states had adopted sweeping divestment statutes covering [...]

Read the rest of Corporate Responsibility and the Goals and Tactics of the Sudan Divestment Campaign.

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

Have Activists Found A Soft Power Policy More Powerful than Sanctions?

posted by Tristan Reed

Apropos of Ibrahim Adam’s call to increase foreign direct investment in Sudan, it’s worth considering whether a strategy, pushed by American divestment activists, that bringing firms to the negotiating table offers a more productive soft power strategy than sanctions. In my view, there is a small chance that it does.
What began as a push by [...]

Read the rest of Have Activists Found A Soft Power Policy More Powerful than Sanctions?.

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

Sanctions and Targeted Divestment: Still Needed

posted by Daniel Millenson

On August 14th in this space, Ibrahim Adam argued for the removal of United States sanctions and an end to the international targeted divestment campaign meant to turn the screws on Khartoum. The argument is convincing only if you accept Mr. Adam’s implied premises: that the war in Darfur is merely a result of economic [...]

Read the rest of Sanctions and Targeted Divestment: Still Needed.

Posted in Making Sense of Darfur, Sanctions and Investment | 3 Comments » |ShareThis

Thursday, August 14th, 2008

High Time to Lift Sanctions

posted by Ibrahim Adam

The US government and the American people sincerely want to do the right thing by Sudan. Help turn it into a democratic, stable, equitable, prosperous and, preferably, united country. Trouble is they don’t seem to know how. At least that’s what it looks like judging by America’s neurosis with placing new, and keeping old, economic [...]

Read the rest of High Time to Lift Sanctions.

S. Sudan-Congo border: LRA attacks forcing Congolese to take refuge in southern Sudan

Lord's Resistance Army Attacks Villages, Kidnaps Children On Sudan-Congo Border (VIDEO)
By Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) aka Doctors Without Borders
Monday, 10 August 2009 via The Huffington Post

With photography and video by photojournalist Brendan Bannon, Doctors Without Borders brings you the underreported story of hundreds of thousands of Congolese who are fleeing the violent attacks of Ugandan rebel group the Lord's Resistant Army (LRA).

Following a military offensive against them, the LRA has intensified attacks against civilians. During these attacks, entire Congolese villages are often looted and burned to the ground; people are hacked to death with machetes and women and children are abducted as sexual slaves, forced to carry looted goods or recruited to fight.

Approximately 250,000 people have been displaced from their land and livelihoods, many of them taking refuge in Southern Sudan. These are their stories:

Cross posted from Congo Watch 10 August 2009.

GLOBAL: LRA attacks in DRC displace 12000

Reuters AlertNet - ‎11 hours ago‎

Since September 2007, LRA fighters have killed 1273 people and abducted more than 2000, nearly a third of them children. More than 226000 people have been ...

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From UN - Daily Press Briefing (7 August 2009) by Marie Okabe, Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General - excerpt:

Democratic Republic of the Congo

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR), meanwhile, says that an unprecedented 55 rebel attacks by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo have displaced some 12,500 civilians in the past month alone. This is a spike from 23 LRA attacks in May and 34 in June.

UNHCR says that the Ugandan rebels have murdered 1,273 civilians and abducted 655 children and 1,427 adults. A number of women were also raped and houses were looted and torched. Fleeing civilians have found shelter in public buildings including schools and churches. And the situation is made worse by a lack of basic medical supplies at local hospitals, while aid agencies have so far reached only half of the internally displaced persons. And that’s due to widespread insecurity in the region. You can read more about this upstairs.

Sudan

The World Food Programme (WFP) fears that the recent massacre of 161 people in Southern Sudan’s Jonglei State might lead to a spate of deadly retaliatory attacks. Some 700 people have been killed since March in the region while another 19,000 were displaced. WFP and its partners have called on the Government to put an end to inter-tribal fighting, which is endangering the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Full story

S. Sudan: 8th Aug another Twic East County raid, 7 killed

From Sudan Radio Service, Monday 10 August 2009:
Seven Killed in Twic East County Raid

(Bor) – Following an attack on Nyuak payam by raiders from Uror county two weeks ago, bandits have again attacked Lith payam, Twic East county. Seven people were killed and 30 cows were stolen in the raid, which took place on Saturday.

Chol Majok Chol is the SPLM Twic East county secretary who was sent by the state government to asses the situation. He talked to our correspondent Mayom Biar in Bor.

[Chol Majok]: “They attacked one of the cattle camps called Kiir in Lith Payam, Twic East county on 8th August on Saturday night, at 11pm. They attacked the kraal, shooting at animals and people. They killed about 6 people, leaving 5 others injured. Yesterday (Sunday) in the morning, the number again increased because there was more fighting in the eastern part of the county when the youths ran after the cattle. They managed to rescue some of the cattle while one of the youth was killed. The real suspects are people from Uror county because people could hear the language they were speaking.”

Speaking from Bor, our reporter Mayom Biar sent this report on the background to the latest raid.

[Mayom Biar]: “This is the third incident that has occurred in Twic East and Duk county after the signing of the agreement in May this year. Not only the lost of life but the loss of more than 68 cattle will be a big blow to the cattle keepers because this year there is great hunger in the state; people are not cultivating well like last year because many people rely on the cattle for survival. So people will face a lot of hunger this year, according to observers. The Twic East community is calling on the government of the state to provide better security to the people so that they can stay with no fear as the elections approach next year.”

Click on Twic County label here below for related reports and updates.

S. Sudan: 2nd Aug massacre by Murle in Akobo, Jonglei

Horrors of South Sudan massacre
By Peter Martell, Monday, 10 August 2009
BBC News, Akobo

Photo: A girl shows spear cuts and gunshot wounds from the attack

First the gunmen surrounded the fishing camp in the hour of darkness before dawn.

Next they opened fire, then moved in with spears to finish off the wounded.

"They shot me in the arm and I fell, but as I was getting up they put a spear in my back," said Nyakong Gatwech, a 20-year-old pregnant mother.

"They thought that I was dead so they left me."

The attack on 2 August was carried out by fighters from the Murle ethnic group in the remote region of Jongeli state.

It was one of the worst single outbreaks of violence in South Sudan since the end of the civil war four years ago. Officials say at least 185 people died, mainly women and children.

These kind of attacks are becoming increasingly common in the troubled south, a region still recovering from decades of war with the north. It is one of Africa's longest conflicts.

'Clear massacre'

The few wounded survivors of the attack recounted their experiences as they recovered in a basic hospital in the town of Akobo.

"They shot me in the leg, but I made it to the river and I hid until they had all gone," said 10-year-old Dobol Jok.

His father sat by his bedside and watched in silence. Dobol's younger brother was speared to death.

"It was a clear massacre," said Akobo Commissioner Goi Jooyul Yol, who visited the site of the attack.

"We saw children and women lying floating in the river," he added. "I am wondering why people would do this to innocent children."

It is a situation that is causing deep concern.

Fighting is common in the region, often over cattle or land, but an upsurge in violence has left many in shock.

Even the unit of soldiers sent to guard the group as they fished could not provide protection - 11 were killed in the attack.

Many of those targeted had fled to Akobo in April after earlier clashes, but had returned in search of food.

Akobo has been accessible only by air for months, with its roads closed by heavy rain and its river route blocked by hostile neighbours upstream.

The last river convoy of 700 tonnes of UN food aid was stolen or sunk by gunmen in June. The military convoy was killed.



Photo: A village elder recovers from a gunshot blast to the groin

"We needed to fish because we have no food," said Nyakong Gatwech. "The soldiers were sent to protect us."

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

Many in the south blame former civil war enemies in the north for encouraging the attacks.

"There are definitely indications of the hand of the north," said Commissioner Yol.

He said cattle herders had reported sighting "unknown aircraft" landing on unmarked airstrips in the remote region and offloading cargo. But they could not provide further details.

There are fears the north wants to destabilise the oil-rich south ahead of a 2011 independence referendum, which many believe will see Africa's biggest nation split in two.

Distrust remains high between the two sides, still divided by the religious, ethnic and ideological differences over which the civil war was fought.

Officials have vowed to open the river route, increase supplies and to beef up security.

But the youth of Akobo are itching for revenge.

"We cannot sit back and let our enemies knock us down," said James Gatwech, a young man in a market empty of basic supplies. "If they kill us, we will kill them."

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Video report from Al Jazeera, 07 August 2009

The UN says survivors of a Sudanese massacre in which 185 people were killed are desperately short of food.   Al Jazeera's Tarek Bazley reports on the violence near Akobo in southern Sudan, 07 August 2009:



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

In southern Sudan a humanitarian disaster more serious than that in Darfur is unfolding - Important video report by Tracy McVeigh and John Domokos

Be sure to view the short video clip in the following must-read report.

Africa's longest-running civil war is over and a new country is supposed to grow out of it. But there are few schools or roads and the people live in fear of kidnap and death. Soon, Southern Sudan's humanitarian disaster could dwarf that of its neighbour Darfur.

Southern Sudan faces the 'humanitarian perfect storm'. Tracy McVeigh and John Domokos report on how guns, cattle and children are the new commodities in a region whose fragile peace could be shattered at any moment.

Tracy McVeigh and John Domokos report on the challenges facing southern Sudan.  Click here to view their important video report.

From The Observer, Sunday 21 June 2009:
Guns, children and cattle are the new currency of war in Southern Sudan
By Tracy McVeigh, chief reporter

Corline Timon shrugged her AK-47 off her shoulder and held it out in both hands to the commanding officer. Her back straight in ill-fitting fatigues, her face expressionless, the 42-year-old soldier took a step backwards; into civilian life.

The automatic rifle joined a stack of others in a pyre around rags and dried grass in a dusty military compound on the outskirts of Southern Sudan's capital city, Juba. A jerrycan of accelerant was thrown on and the pile set alight.

With this ceremony 10 days ago, 26 years after the start of Africa's longest-running civil war, and four years after a peace treaty was signed with the north, the disarming of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, the military wing of the governing Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), finally began.



Photo: Juba: AK-47s and uniforms of soldiers belonging to the Sudan People's Liberation Army are burned at the launch of a disarmament programme (Photograph: Tim McKulka/UN Photo)

Two days later a convoy of barges carrying UN food aid to 18,000 people displaced by fighting near the town of Akobo was attacked. At least 40 soldiers and civilians were killed, including children who jumped from the boats into the Sobat river and drowned. Last month 66 people, mainly women and children, were shot dead in their village, Torkey, in a tribal feud.

Even though the conflict with the Islamist Republic of Sudan to the north is officially over, war seems closer than peace here. And a humanitarian disaster widely thought more serious than that in neighbouring Darfur is unfolding.

It was in 2005, after two decades of bitter civil war, that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed between Arab-speaking Khartoum and the SPLM of the Christian and animist south. The president of Southern Sudan, Salva Kiir, who took over when John Garang, the great SPLA war hero, died just three weeks into office, is also vice-president to President Omar al-Bashir.

Bashir, with a warrant out against him from the International Criminal Court over atrocities committed in Darfur, and facing a build-up of military hostility from Chad, has a presidential election approaching. As the political agenda hots up, so does tension between north and south. Suspicions are high in the south that Khartoum would do anything to disrupt its independence referendum, agreed under the peace deal and due in 2011, even to the point of backing militias as it did in Darfur. The south has 80% of Sudan's oil and independence would nullify Khartoum's deals with foreign investors.

There are almost 50 tribes in Southern Sudan's 10 states, speaking 400 dialects. It is bigger than France, but no one aged under 40 has ever cast a vote, and a lethal mix of guns, tribal conflict, disease and displaced people is threatening to explode. It has seen nothing of the attention or celebrity campaigns that have helped Darfur. If the referendum leads to independence for the south, the new state will be born already failed.

Southern Sudan is awash with guns - 1,000 people have died in the past six months. Children are being kidnapped and traded, and cattle stolen, all against a backdrop of hunger and destitution. The government seems powerless to keep order and claims to be out of money. Last month President Kiir said oil revenue had been halved by world price slumps.

The numbers of refugees and displaced are rising steadily. Two million people have already returned from neighbouring regions, from the north, from Kenya, from Uganda, where they had fled during the war, and are arriving in towns and villages where there is no shelter, healthcare, food, sanitation, water or jobs.

With so many war-hardened former fighters and a seemingly unending supply of weapons coming in from neighbouring African countries and even, some believe, from enemies in the north keen to destabilise the south ahead of the 2011 referendum, disputes over land and animals quickly turn bloody. The lethal mix is exacerbated by a second year of drought, and by murderous incursions into border villages by the feared Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), taking advantage of the chaos to push in from Uganda.

It is, said the UN's Sudan humanitarian co-ordinator Lise Grande, "a humanitarian perfect storm". At the UN's Juba compound of block walls and razor wire, Grande says the spike in killings and child abductions is elevating a disastrous situation into a catastrophe.

"The unexpected fiscal crisis in the government is impeding its ability to provide basic services in what is one of the most remote areas on the planet.

"It is clear that international assistance and attention is making a big difference in Darfur. In the case of Southern Sudan there isn't that donor money and yet the death tolls and the scope of the problems are higher here."

Nowhere is the stagnation more apparent than in the capital city. Juba, boiling under desert temperatures, is a sprawl of refugees, returnees and aid agencies. Toyota Land Cruisers carrying multiple acronyms of international charities outnumber anything else on the two tarmac-covered roads. These cross and then peter out into pot-holed tracks that destroy the tyres and suspensions of the trucks that bring in the Ugandan market traders, with their pineapples, beans and potatoes that few can afford. The traffic brings chaos to a town where 10 years ago there were seven cars.

A few hotels have sprung up for the NGOs and the UN, and for Chinese, Kenyan and Ugandan workers here building boreholes and oil wells to drain the country of its resources. The prices are astronomical. Taxi drivers demand fares to make a London cabbie blush and dream of sending their children to school, abroad.

Even the government stays in Juba only part-time, most leaving when they can for long spells with their families in Khartoum, Kenya, Europe or the US.

"What can we do?" one minister who lives in the west asked the Observer at a party thrown by the British embassy in Juba to celebrate the Queen's birthday. "There are no schools so I can't bring my family back. There is nothing here. Even for me, coming back after the war was a difficult decision. My parents and brothers were killed in the war. My children are now strangers to Sudan, they are never going to come here, but my family died for this country. I come back as little as I can." He laughed and sank another beer: "I work for the graveyard."

The speeches at the party were full of talk of investment and building. But there are few signs of either. On one of Juba's many expanses of wasteland, 3,000 refugee families had built makeshift homes. But then the government bulldozers arrived.

"We had no warning, no time to even get our belongings out. They just came with soldiers and said they wanted the land for development," said Grace Ardlando, 35.

They razed the settlement to the ground, promising new homes. "That was three months ago," said the war-widow, who has rebuilt a shack of palm leaves and old flour sacks that won't withstand the first shower of the rainy season. "They said they would get us somewhere to live, but they haven't. With this demolition we are left with no water, no sanitation. The river makes many people sick. We had cholera here before and that is our worry."

Dr Thomas Akim, medical director of Juba teaching hospital, says it is well staffed. Despite his dogged optimism, diseases that are long eradicated even in other African countries, such as measles, polio and leprosy, are making a comeback here, to join malaria, cholera, acute respiratory disease and HIV.

Like the roads, health provision extends little beyond Juba.

"There are health centres, but they are not equipped to give services. There will be no one there and medicines, of course, are short," says Dr Akim. "It would be good if we could train personnel to staff the rural areas."

Southern Sudan has only three midwives, and one in six pregnant women die in childbirth. But none are as vulnerable as the children, born into war. The children at Gumbo, outside Juba, fear the "Lokwo dano" - people thieves.

"We were coming home from school when some men came out of the bushes in torn clothes. They were calling and offering us soda. We were very scared so we ran," said Susan Achan, 12.

Last month two of her friends were not so lucky. "We were picking mangoes," said Sebit Quintino, 13. "We saw the men, they were Murle tribe, and we shouted to each other and ran, but three were playing in the water and didn't hear. One of the boys turned up days later after managing to escape; the other two have never been seen again."



Photo: Gumbo, S. Sudan: Susan Achan and Sebit Quintino escaped a kidnapping attempt by a rival tribe. (Photograph: John Domokos/Observer, June 2009)

The boys are traded for cattle and made to work, and the girls are also sold off for a dowry of cows. Odii Odwong, 77, used to be a farmer but was forced off his land by the war. He then became a soap salesman but was forced out of his home by the LRA. Now he is a refugee living in Gumbo; the graves of his wife and son are directly outside his hut door. "We are squatters here and I have lost three of my four children. It is the children we worry about now, with all this stealing. It is a shame to see them so afraid.

"We here have been refugees in our own country for a long, long time now but things seem to get not better but much harder. There is a lot of crying going on because people have no food. I am not optimistic for the new Sudan. The Dinka and the Murle tribes are the ones we fear and they are on both sides of us. I would like to get a gun."

Guns are on the minds of a group of Bari tribesmen at Gudlle, a rural area of rich grassland north of Juba.

The possession of cattle is everything: wealth, standing, nourishment and pension. The cows will only be sold or slaughtered in dire times.

Peter Acihek doesn't even know the current market price, he thinks maybe it's 1,000 Sudanese pounds, but in fact it's closer to half that. He knows a child can be exchanged for one. Cattle are worth going to war for and their theft is a deep affront.

A few nights ago these villagers lost 100 cows, half their herd, in a night raid by Mundari tribesmen. They now keep the remaining cattle tethered close and cannot take them to the better pastures a little further away, so the cows are losing weight. "There was a lot of shooting and they took all of our cows, but luckily half of them came back to us in the confusion of the bullets," says Acihek.

In April the next village was raided by Murle tribesmen. "The soldiers took away our guns because they said they did not want a feud. Now we have lost so many cows that our children have no milk and are hungry. The cows cannot get to the best grass and they will get sick.

"It is a terrible thing that we don't have weapons to protect ourselves, but we will again get guns."

James Miyak, a Dinka man and former rebel who works in the nearby prison, has now been sent out by the soldiers to guard the Bari people's remaining cows at night.

"I will shoot them if the Mundari come back again," he says, proudly showing the civil war shrapnel scars on his chest. "You should be dead," the Observer tells him. "I will be the last man to die," he replies with a glare. "I have the gun."



Photo: Juba, S. Sudan: James Miyak, left, and Peter Acihek, centre, and an unnamed man stand with their depleted herd; a rival tribe stole their cattle in an armed raid at night (Photograph: John Domokos/Observer, June 2009)



Photo: Juba, S. Sudan: A dog waits with a malnourished child, Angelina, the daughter of James Miyak, whose Bari tribe's cattle was stolen by local tribe in a night time raid. (Photograph: Tracy McVeigh/Observer, June 2009)

Most post-conflict countries need investment to rebuild. In Southern Sudan it is needed just to build.

There is nothing here to raise from the ashes, everything needs to start from scratch, a whole country has to be brought out of the peach-coloured dust.

"Many people have migrated back to the south but now there is the same situation, the same reasons that sparked the war in Darfur. The tribal conflicts, the distancing from Khartoum, guns are very cheap and people can find them easily. Now there are signs of peace in Darfur, many weapons are coming from there too, from Chad, from maybe even sources no one might expect," said Mohamed Kashan, a Sudanese journalist in Khartoum.

"We are not casting you away," government minister Luka Monojai told the 16 SPLA soldiers being demobilised in Juba, "but reassigning you to new and important roles and duties to build a new Sudan. You must go with your heads held high, we are proud of you."

But the question of whether or not Corline Timon and her fellow soldiers can build anything out of the dust and despair of Southern Sudan or are forced to reach back to their guns remains unanswered.

A catastrophe in the making

• There is one doctor per 500,000 people and there are three surgeons in the whole country.

• Female illiteracy is 92%, compared with 62% in Darfur.

• Only 27% of girls are in school and there are 1,000 primary school pupils per teacher.

• Under the peace agreement, the Sudanese People's Liberation Army is to demobilise 180,000 soldiers, starting with women and children.

• About 3% of people have access to sanitation.

• A 15-year-old girl has a higher chance of dying during pregnancy than of completing school. One in six pregnant women die in childbirth.

• An estimated 96% of Southern Sudan's people favour independence from Khartoum. A referendum on the issue is to be held in 2011.

• Southern Sudan suffers 15 of the world's 16 deadliest diseases.

Photo: Nasir, S. Sudan:  Cattle belonging to the Nuer tribe are shrouded in dung smoke to keep away insects near the town where disputes over cattle have turned violent. (Photograph: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters)



Photo: Nasir, S. Sudan: Nuer tribesmen recover at a clinic after they were shot during a clash over cattle between two rival ethnic groups (Photograph: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters)



Photo: Nasir, S. Sudan: A Nuer tribewoman visits a clinic run by the charity Médecins Sans Frontières after receiving a gunshot wound during recent tribal violence (Photograph: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters 2009)



Photo: Nasir, S. Sudan: A blind Nuer woman recovers at a clinic run by the charity Médecins Sans Frontières after being shot in the arm during recent tribal violence. (Photograph: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters)

Photo source: Guns and disease ravage south Sudan (16 pictures)

(Hat tip to Kelsey's blog From Here to Finvara - Welcome to my world ... - 24 June 2009)

Click on label 'humanitarian disaster' (here below) to see related reports and updates.

LRA targets children of Sudan: David Blair's report from Witto, Western Equatoria, S. Sudan

Here is a long awaited report from The Daily Telegraph's Africa correspondent David Blair. I have lost count of the number of times over the past year that I wondered about his lack of reporting on Africa and even worried that he might be ill. So, it was a wonderful surprise for me last night to find the following report filed from South Sudan's Western Equatoria! Fingers crossed that he remains in the region to report more on what is really going on. This morning (Monday, 10 August 2009) I published news here at Sudan Watch about southern Sudan where a humanitarian disaster more serious than that in Darfur, western Sudan is unfolding.

From The Daily Telegraph
Lord's Resistance Army targets children of Sudan
By David Blair in Witto, Western Equatoria province, South Sudan
Published: 7:00AM BST Monday 10 Aug 2009

The Lord's Resistance Army, which specialises in abducting and murdering the young, has turned on a new and pitifully vulnerable target: the children of southern Sudan, one of Africa's most isolated and troubled regions.



Local people call LRA fighters the "ton-tong", meaning "machete", because this is their chosen weapon for murdering victims Photo: GETTY

The LRA, which emerged in neighbouring Uganda and has kidnapped tens of thousands of children during two decades of guerrilla war, is now striking across a vast area of bush and plain along Sudan's south-western frontier.

These raids on defenceless villages, usually mounted by small groups of rebels searching for children to abduct and food to steal, have forced more than 55,000 people to flee their homes. Western Equatoria province has been worst hit, with scores of villages abandoned and new refugee camps springing up.

Local people call LRA fighters the "ton-tong", meaning "machete", because this is their chosen weapon for murdering victims.

Mary Anja, who does not know her age but looks about 30, lived in Diko district until the LRA attacked her village. Knowing that the rebels were hunting for children, local people tried to evacuate as many as possible, along with their mothers, on two tractors.

Mrs Anja gathered her three infant sons and climbed onto one vehicle's trailer. Meanwhile, her daughter, Phoebe, who is about 12, boarded the second tractor.

But this tiny convoy drove straight into an LRA ambush. "The ton-tong fired bullets in the air, then they shot out the tyres of the tractor," said Mrs Anja. "When people tried to jump out, they shot at the people." As the terrified women and children tried to flee, one baby boy, less than a year old, was shot dead in the arms of his mother. Another woman was wounded in the leg, while a Sudanese soldier, who had tried to protect the convoy, died in a hail of bullets.

Mrs Anja managed to flee with her three sons. As she ran, she knew nothing of the fate of Phoebe, travelling on the second tractor. "I was thinking 'Phoebe is not here'. I started crying while I ran," said Mrs Anja.

By this time, Phoebe was already in the hands of the LRA. The guerrillas surrounded her tractor, firing in the air and singling out Phoebe along with five other girls and one boy. "They surrounded us. We couldn't run and then they said 'sit down'. One of the rebels tied us up," said Phoebe.

The captives were led away into the bush. For the next three days, Phoebe was forced to march for 18 hours at a time. "If you don't walk fast enough, you are beaten with sticks," she remembered. "I was thinking, 'I may be killed like those who have been killed by the ton-tong before'. And I asked myself 'what has happened to my mother and my brothers'?"

Phoebe could not have known that her family was safe. They had managed to reach another village, from where Mrs Anja and her sons were brought to a refugee camp at Witto, some 50 miles away.

Shortly before dawn on the fourth day of the march, Phoebe and three other girls managed to slip away as their captors slept. For the next 12 days, they walked through the bush, surviving on river water and wild berries, until they reached the town of Tore Wandi.

Phoebe, emaciated and dehydrated, was taken to hospital, where her mother eventually found her. Today, she has recovered and the family lives in Witto camp, where Oxfam provides sanitation and basic essentials for about 500 refugees.

They cannot understand why they have become the LRA's latest targets. This nihilist movement, which emerged in Northern Uganda more than 20 years ago, has no coherent aim. Its psychotic leader, Joseph Kony, claims to be a prophet and says that he wants to rule Uganda according to the Ten Commandments.

But Kony's rebellion has no purpose save murder, so no-one joins him voluntarily. Hence the LRA must abduct children, who are then brainwashed into becoming soldiers and sent to kidnap more young recruits. In this brutal fashion, the LRA constantly replenishes its ranks.

Uganda has managed to expel the rebels from its territory with a series of offensives. But the LRA has scattered across a new killing ground, covering Sudan's borders with the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.

No-one can tell how many children have disappeared in this vast area. Joseph Ngere Paciko, the deputy governor of Western Equatoria, has recorded 250 abductions in his province alone.

"There have also been cases in far-away villages, where we have no access, so the real number is certainly higher," he said. "Our people don't understand why this is happening. Why should the LRA come and kill our people every day?"

Sudan disappointed over Gration’s stance “reversal” (ST)

From Sudan Tribune, Sunday 9 August 2009 07:46:
Sudan disappointed over Gration’s stance “reversal”

August 8, 2009 (KHARTOUM) — The Sudanese government expressed disappointment over the statements made by US special envoy Scott Gration this week saying it is a “reversal” from his original position he expressed before the Congress.

Gration told Reuters in an interview that remarks he made to US lawmakers last week — that Washington could “unwind” some sanctions against Sudan — had been misunderstood and that he was only suggesting limited changes to sanctions that would contribute to the development of South Sudan.

The US official also said that he backs the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir.

A Sudanese presidential official speaking to the London based Al-Hayat newspaper on condition of animosity said he was surprised by Gration’s “change of heart”.

The official accused Gration of seeking to “pacify hawks” within the Obama administration who want a “tough” approach with Khartoum.

Earlier today the head of the US bureau at the Sudanese foreign ministry Nasr Al-Deen Wali urged Washington to take a “brave” decision and remove his country from the list of states that sponsor terrorism.

The Sudanese diplomat said the designation is “baseless” saying that Khartoum has persistently pushed for the removal. He also said that the government is not concerned with the policy review underway in Washington but simply wants the sanctions lifted.

In his testimony before the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Gration said that there was “no evidence” to support that designation saying that Khartoum helped US efforts against key member of Al-Qaeda extremist group and that it was a political decision.

Today the Foreign Relations Affairs officer at the US Embassy in Khartoum, Judith Ravin, told UN sponsored Miraya FM that Gration backs economic sanctions on Sudan.

It is not clear if the US is backing away from what appeared to be imminent plans to lift sanctions as some Sudanese officials have said in press statements that it is a “matter of time”.

Washington has also been grappling with how to deal with Khartoum over violence in Darfur, where UN estimates say up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have fled their homes amid violence the United States has labeled genocide. (ST)

Click on label here below for related reports and updates.

Dear Baby Mogo in Upper Nile State, S. Sudan: Will you live to your 5th birthday?

Copied here below is a must-read short story from Sudan Watch archives November 14, 2005. The story was written by a friend of Rob Haarsager, Richard Reesor, who had just returned from a visit to a small village in Upper Nile, Southern Sudan (photo also courtesy of Richard - sorry, hyperlink to Sudan Man blog has broken).

Dear baby Mogo, I often think of you, hoping you are alive and feeling well, wondering what your eyes are seeing now.  God bless the children of Sudan and pray for US sanctions on Sudan to be lifted.  Here is the photo and story by Richard Reesor c. November 2005, followed by another of my favourites from Sudan Watch archives, November 27, 2004:   A prayer for the janjaweed rape babies.

Baby Mogo, what will your eyes see?
You were born 5 months ago, the first baby born in your village after the signing of the peace treaty ending 22 years of war. Will you know a life of peace, or will the prospects of peace in your land only be a cruel mirage that evaporates in your eyes before your 5th birthday?

Will you live to your 5th birthday?
Or, will you succumb to the threats of malaria, malnutrition and unsafe drinking water because your village lacks access to a medical clinic. As your village chief warns, "Disease does not wait until morning and the 10 hour walk to the nearest clinic!"

Will you attend school?
Will your mind learn to recognize the letters and words your eyes see so you can read and write, so you can explore through books, the sciences, history, learn to reason and learn about other cultures and their understanding of God?

How will you earn your living?
Will you learn from a teacher about mysteries and vocations unknown to your village or will you learn only from your elders knowledge past down through the generations teaching you how to subsist by keeping livestock, fishing, cultivation, gathering wild foods and herbs and making petitions to the mysterious god NGO?

Will you marry?
Will you find a way to accumulate the bride price of 10 cows and 24 goats? Will you learn about other models of marital relationships or will you learn that your masculinity divines you the right to the family assets, including your wife, who will be responsible for providing food, water, firewood and comfort for you and your children?

Will you learn how to be a peacemaker?
Or, will you learn from your elders that your enemies are the Dinka, the Nuer and the Jalaaba and that your responsibility is to avenge the wrongs done to your ancestors when your eyes see the opportunity?

Baby Mogo, what will your eyes see?

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A prayer for the janjaweed rape babies



Click here to read:  A prayer for the janjaweed rape babies (from Sudan Watch archives, November 27, 2004)

Darfur Sudan activists' reactions to US Gration's statements (Enough Project, Jerry Fowler, Eric Reeves)

Surely US Special Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration should not be criticised for acting boldly, wisely and positively while suggesting that US sanctions on Sudan ought to be lifted. How many more years do the Darfur rebels and activists expect the poor people of Sudan to endure living in concentration camps and being dependent on hand-outs, I wonder.  If the rebels and activists get their way, and manage to stop US sanctions on Sudan from being lifted, imagine what future is in store for the Baby Mogo's of Sudan who were born around the same time as Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement, almost five years ago.

Ruthless rebel group leaders spinning the media to discredit Mr Gration in an attempt to stop US sanctions on Sudan being lifted shows how much they genuinely do not care about the defenceless women and children of Sudan.  But what is in the mindset of American humanitarians such as Save Darfur Coalition's president, Jerry Fowler and John Prendergasts' Enough Project and Boston based activist Eric Reeves, is beyond my comprehension.   Their hearts seem to be in the right place with respect to humanitarian issues but confusingly (to me anyway) when it comes to the lifting of US sanctions on Sudan, they all start singing from the same hymn sheet as JEM and all the other self serving mercenary gun toting rebel groups in Sudan.

Considering the privileged background and education of the people leading the Darfur activist groups, they must know that their statements embolden the rebels and contribute towards holding the whole of Sudan to ransom and marginalising poor people in Sudan who are in need of drinking water, food, healthcare, shelter, education, jobs and independent living.

For the record, here below is a link to Jerry Fowler's recent statement on YouTube followed by a copy of recently published commentary from Enough Project and Eric Reeves.

Jerry Fowler's meeting with US Special Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration

From Save Darfur Coalition's Blog for Darfur:
My Meeting With The Special Envoy
By SDC President, Jerry Fowler, Friday 07 August 2009

On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to meet with U.S. Special Envoy Scott Gration. We discussed his recent testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the United States’ role in promoting peace in Sudan. Here is a quick video about the meeting:

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From John Prendergast's Enough Project:
Gration's "Phony Optimism on Darfur"
By Laura Heaton, Friday 07 August 2009

Marking one week since Sudan Special Envoy Gration’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sudan scholar Eric Reeves wrote an excellent op-ed for the Boston Globe that summed up well the sentiments of many Sudan watchers who fear that the direction of the Obama administration’s Sudan policy is misguided. In particular, Reeves describes strong concern about the administration’s apparent reliance on incentives to negotiate with Khartoum, rather than a clear set of consequences for Khartoum’s continued intransigence. Reeves, like other activists and experts, thinks that the starting point for negotiations with Khartoum should be to prepare for a continuation of Khartoum’s pattern of stalling and reneging, rather than approach Bashir and his allies with the expectation of a sea change in behavior. Reeves suggests that perhaps the Sudan special envoy doesn’t fully understand the calculus that drives Khartoum’s actions.

“[L]ike many [diplomats] before him, [Gration] is convinced that the National Islamic Front is controlled by men who can be reasoned with, cajoled, rewarded, made to do ‘the right thing.’’ He ignores the basic truth about these men: during their 20 years in power they have never abided by any agreement with any Sudanese party.”

Reeves is particularly frustrated by the “excessively optimistic” tone Gration takes when discussing resolution of Darfur conflict and the emphasis the special envoy places on the return of displaced people, a point that others have also recently picked up on. Reeves writes:

The notorious Janjaweed have not been disarmed and pose a constant threat. Even in the camps themselves, security is tenuous; women still face rape, men are tortured and murdered, and looting is commonplace. In the past, it has been Khartoum that has pushed for returns under these conditions; now, perversely, it is the US special envoy.

Expect to hear Reeves’ arguments and noticeable frustration echoed and amplified by Sudan watchers as the Obama administration finalizes its strategy for engaging Sudan. With all that is on the line in Sudan today – including the integrity of the country, on which the southern Sudanese will vote in 2011 and the well-being of the 2.7 million Darfuris who cannot return home – the Obama administration can’t afford to get this strategy wrong.

Technorati Tags: Advocacy Darfur and Southern Sudan Genocide Protection

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From Boston Globe's opinion section
The phony optimism on Darfur
By Eric Reeves, August 6, 2009:

IN SENATE testimony last week, the US special presidential envoy for Sudan offered a peculiarly upbeat assessment of the crisis in Darfur and the prospects for peace throughout Sudan. Envoy Scott Gration argued that the United States should move toward normalizing relations with the regime in Khartoum, including lifting sanctions and removing Sudan from the State Department list of terrorist-sponsoring nations. This would be a grave mistake - and would reward a regime comprising the very men who orchestrated genocide in Darfur and continue to renege on key elements of the 2005 north/south peace agreement.

There was little policy detail in Gration’s testimony because debate within the Obama administration continues to be intense. But Gration is close to Obama and seems determined to set the tone and establish the substance of US Sudan policy. He clearly went a step too far in June when he declared that genocide had ended in Darfur, and that there were only “remnants of genocide,’’ a characterization disowned by the State Department, the US ambassador to the United Nations, and President Obama, who used the word “genocide’’ in the present tense during recent speeches in Germany and Ghana.

More troubling, Gration has said too little about the humanitarian crisis in Darfur and the consequences of Khartoum’s March 4 expulsion of 13 key international humanitarian organizations; he has demonstrated little appreciation for what was lost, and the difficulty in generating new capacity. Stop-gap measures are beginning to fail at the height of the rainy season, and a number of camps report grave health and sanitation crises.

Gration also appears excessively optimistic about the moribund Darfur peace process. He repeatedly declared to Darfuris and humanitarians during a recent trip to the region that peace in Darfur would be achieved by the end of this year. But any meaningful peace agreement will first require an effective cease-fire, with robust monitoring of a sort that cannot be provided by the current UN/African Union peacekeeping force, which is badly underequipped, undermanned, and has lost the confidence of most Darfuris.

Humanitarians were dismayed at Gration’s insistent talk about the “voluntary’’ return of some 2.7 million displaced persons languishing in camps throughout Darfur. There is no humanitarian capacity to oversee such returns and ensure their voluntary nature; Khartoum refuses to provide security in areas it controls; and Darfuris in the camps complain bitterly that they are being asked to return to lands without protection, and which have oftentimes been taken over by Arab tribal groups. The notorious Janjaweed have not been disarmed and pose a constant threat. Even in the camps themselves, security is tenuous; women still face rape, men are tortured and murdered, and looting is commonplace. In the past, it has been Khartoum that has pushed for returns under these conditions; now, perversely, it is the US special envoy.

In his Senate testimony, Gration suggests that his travels to Cairo and Beijing enabled him to meet “leaders who share our common concern and want to work together toward shared objectives.’’ This ignores the long and resolutely obstructionist role both Egypt and China have played in Sudan over many years. Shortly after Gration’s testimony, a senior Egyptian official described Darfur as an “artificial’’ crisis directed against the people of Sudan. Beijing’s continued shipment of advanced weaponry to Khartoum; its opposition to the role of the International Criminal Court in pursuing atrocity crimes in Darfur; and its relentless support of Khartoum at the Security Council leave one wondering what Gration means by “common concern.’’

Most disturbing, Gration gives no evidence in any of his public comments of understanding the ruthless nature of the security cabal that rules Sudan and is determined to retain its stranglehold on national wealth and power; like many before him, he is convinced that the National Islamic Front is controlled by men who can be reasoned with, cajoled, rewarded, made to do “the right thing.’’ He ignores the basic truth about these men: during their 20 years in power they have never abided by any agreement with any Sudanese party. Any rapprochement that is not preceded by clear and irreversible actions to establish unimpeded humanitarian access, create freedom of movement and deployment for peacekeepers, and meet the critical benchmarks of the north/south peace agreement is doomed to fail.

Eric Reeves, a Smith College professor, is author of “A Long Day’s Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide.

JEM's Ibrahim says his rebels and the Darfur population advise US President Obama to dismiss his envoy to Sudan Scott Gration

One would be hard pressed to find evidence of JEM and its leader Khalil Ibrahim genuinely caring about the women and children of Sudan. All they seem to care about is saving their own faces and deluded power crazy ideas. 

Babies born six years ago in Sudan are still facing a very bleak future all because of a handful of opportunistic criminals such as Khalil Ibrahim terrorising and draining millions of people's lives, time and energy.  Why isn't the ICC charging Ibrahim and his gang of terrorists, I wonder.  

Surely, US special envoy to Sudan Scott Gration is wise to suggest that US sanctions on Sudan ought to be lifted.  As stated here many times before, I reckon they should have been lifted years ago in order to help war torn Sudan get back on its feet and out of debt. Despite all the odds against it, Sudan has not become a failed state and deserves all the help it can get from China and Russia and other supporters that I hope includes the UK.

Click on label here below to read the memorable story of Baby Mogo who (if still alive) should by now be approaching his fifth birthday. When I first read and published the story here at Sudan Watch almost four years ago, I never imagined for one moment that four years later, Darfur rebels and activists would be working together to stop US sanctions on Sudan from being lifted. 

How can southern and western Sudan develop infrastructure and create jobs while US sanctions are blocking Sudan from developing?  See next blog post here at Sudan Watch: Darfur Sudan activists' reactions to US Gration's statements (Enough Project, Jerry Fowler, Eric Reeves).

From Asharq Al-Awsat by Mustapha Sirri, Thursay 06 August 2009:
Sudan: JEM Leader Blasts U.S. Envoy Over Report

(Amsterdam, Asharq Al-Awsat) - Dr. Khalil Ibrahim, leader of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement [JEM] in Darfur, launched a scathing verbal attack on Scott Gretion, US Special Envoy to Sudan, over the report that he presented to the US Congress's Foreign Relations Committee last week. Ibrahim described Gretion as naive and said that he works as the foreign minister of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Ibrahim threatened to discontinue cooperation with Gretion if the latter continues his policies, which, he said, are supportive of Khartoum against the Darfur population.

Ibrahim called on Washington to change its envoy and appoint a more competent one in his place. On the other hand, he called on the displaced people and refugees to organize demonstrations to express their rejection of Gretion's statements.

Speaking with Asharq Al-Awsat from Darfur by telephone, Ibrahim said that his movement and the Darfur population are unhappy with Gretion's report to the US Congress's Foreign Relations Committee last week in which he called for easing the sanctions on Khartoum. Ibrahim added that Gretion's report harms the sidelined ones, the Sudan issue in Darfur, and the peace agreement in the south.

He said: "He is a naive man, and he is in a hurry to reach conclusions. He takes his information from one party, the government of Al-Bashir. After presenting this report, he is now considered the foreign minister of Al-Bashir, not a representative of US President Barack Obama."

Ibrahim said Gretion's statement that there is no intelligence evidence of Sudan's connection with terrorism is false. He added that the Khartoum government attempted to bring in terrorists by way of tribes that refused this move. He continued: "Khartoum currently gives weapons to the terrorists in Somalia, and this is a known fact."

Ibrahim threatened to stop cooperation and communication with Gretion. He said: "If Gretion continues his policies against the sidelined ones and the Darfur population, we will not cooperate with him. We will not meet with him in the future if he continues to be biased toward Khartoum."

Ibrahim said that Gretion implements the Sudanese Government's plans, not his country's policies. He added that Gretion lacks a policy and works to destroy the Darfur issue by inviting the persons whom he considers movements.

Ibrahim said: "From our observation of the man, he works to liquidate the Darfur issue in favor of Al-Bashir and the criminals in Khartoum because he began his initiatives with the regime's proposal for a cease-fire. He announced it before meeting with us."

Ibrahim said the US envoy does not seek peace but wants to consolidate Al-Bashir's rule through forged elections in the absence of the JEM and the Darfur population. He added that the US envoy attempts to move Al-Bashir away from the International Criminal Court. He noted that Gretion failed to pressure the Sudanese Government to implement the Doha agreement, which it signed with the JEM in February.

Ibrahim said that Gretion contradicts Obama regarding the genocide in Darfur. He added that Obama openly spoke about the existence of genocide in his speech before the Ghanaian Parliament in May, but Gretion defends the Al-Bashir regime and explicitly contradicts Obama's statement.

Ibrahim said that his movement and the Darfur population advise US President Barack Obama to dismiss his envoy, Scott Gretion, and appoint a more competent one who is familiar with the nature of the issue.

Why Sudanese and Chadian rebel group leaders such as JEM's Khalil Ibrahim are free to talk to all and sundry, while travelling here there and everywhere without fear of arrest, while holding Sudan and millions of Sudanese people to ransom, is beyond my comprehension.

IDPs might opt for staying in their new settlements over a return to their place of origin in Darfur, W. Sudan

According to the following article from the Washington Post, a UN relief coordination team in Darfur known as the Inter-Agency Management Group concluded that there are not enough funds or resources to deliver assistance to the villages in Darfur people had fled or even to oversee the administrative work of ensuring that those who return are doing so voluntarily.

"In addition," the briefing note states, "it is important to keep in mind that a large part of the IDPS [internally displaced people] might opt for staying in their new settlements over a return to their place of origin."

Full story from the Washington Post:
Too Soon To Return Home, Say Darfurians - Displaced Question U.S. Envoy's Advice
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 6, 2009

NEW YORK, Aug. 5 -- The Obama administration's Sudan envoy is facing growing resistance to a suggestion he made recently to civilians displaced from Darfur that they should start planning to go back to their villages. Darfurian civilians and U.N. relief agencies say it is still too dangerous to return to the region where a six-year-long conflict has led to the deaths of more than 300,000 people.

In the latest sign of tension, Sheik al-Tahir, a leader at Kalma, one of Darfur's largest camps for displaced people, said Tuesday that homeless civilians would protest retired Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration's strategy for resolving the conflict and his assertion in June that genocide in Darfur has ended. Tahir and other camp leaders have accused Gration of taking the side of the Sudanese government, which has been seeking to dismantle the camps.

Gration denied this week that he is seeking to send Darfur's displaced into harm's way, saying he was simply urging Darfurians and the United Nations to begin preparations for return.

"I am not pushing for anybody to go back right now, because I don't think the situation is secure enough," he said in an interview Tuesday. "I don't want to get into a position where people are trying to return because there is peace and some modicum of security, and then we haven't done the planning to ensure they can move back."

The latest round of violence in Darfur began in February 2003, when two rebel movements took up arms against the Islamic government in Khartoum. In response, the government, backed by local Arab militiamen known as Janjaweed, launched a bloody counterinsurgency operation that the Bush and Obama administrations have termed genocidal.

A recent State Department analysis showed that more than 3,300 villages have been severely damaged or destroyed in the violence. Most of the survivors have either fled to neighboring Chad or crammed into a network of camps in Darfur.

Gration's effort to prod the displaced communities into preparing for a return has been complicated by the loyalty many still profess to an exiled rebel leader, Abdul Wahid al-Nur, who lives in Paris and has refused for years to participate in talks with the Khartoum government.

Gration met recently with leaders of the Kalma camp, which houses more than 100,000 displaced Darfurians. He told them that the violence was easing in Darfur and that he was confident he could negotiate a political settlement by the end of the year, according to notes of the encounter by a U.N. relief coordination team in Darfur known as the Inter-Agency Management Group.

Gration also urged camp leaders to select envoys to represent their interests at ongoing U.S.-backed talks in Doha, Qatar, suggesting that Wahid's boycott would deny them a voice in the process. Your "future is in his hands, and his hands are in Paris," Gration said, according to the briefing notes. "You need someone who is working for you."

Some of the camp leaders, according to the account, said they were unhappy with Gration's assertion that genocide was no longer occurring in Darfur, insisting that government forces and allied militias continue to commit atrocities against residents of Kalma. They said that they would never return to their villages unless the Janjaweed were disarmed.

The U.N. interagency group also expressed concern about Gration's assurance that "peace will prevail in Darfur by the end of the year, and returns have to happen," and described the conditions in Darfur as too dangerous to ensure civilians' safe return. It voiced concern that Gration was linking the fate of Darfurian civilians to political goals.

The U.N. group concluded that there are not enough funds or resources to deliver assistance to the villages people had fled or even to oversee the administrative work of ensuring that those who return are doing so voluntarily.

"In addition," the briefing note states, "it is important to keep in mind that a large part of the IDPS [internally displaced people] might opt for staying in their new settlements over a return to their place of origin."

Note yesterday's blog post here at Sudan Watch, asking what is so great about dusty old dry Darfur where trees and firewood are disappearing: Minni Arko Minnawi says if refugees and IDPs are not repatriated to Darfur, W. Sudan, elections may not be conducted successfully in the region

Minni Arko Minnawi says if refugees and IDPs are not repatriated to Darfur, W. Sudan, elections may not be conducted successfully in the region

Note that the figure for the population of Darfur, as used by USAID in 2004, is approximately 6.5 million. Regarding the following report from Sudan Radio Service, I wonder how Mr Minnawi arrived at the figure of 3 million refugees and IDPS being three-quarters of Darfur. Also, I wonder why three million people want, or are being encouraged, to return to dusty dry deserts of Darfur where, according to Julie Flint's latest commentary at Making Sense of Darfur, reports of oil are exaggerated.  What is so great about Darfur, and what future does it hold for its people, I wonder.  See photos here below and note the one from MSF about disappearing trees and firewood.



Photo (by Lynsey Addario/For The Times): Muhajeria, in south Darfur, was razed in internecine rebel rivalry, one example of the complexities in the region. Critics of the genocide label says it inflames the situation and that the Khartoum government’s counterinsurgency, though brutal, didn’t intend to wipe out the Darfur tribes, but subdue them. Source: Los Angeles Times - Is the Darfur bloodshed genocide? Opinions differ - by Edmund Sanders, 04 May 2009.

From Sudan Radio Service, Friday 07 August 2009:
Minawi Warns that Darfur May Compromise Elections

(Khartoum) – Senior Presidential Assistant, Mini Arko Minawi says the Darfur problem remains a major obstacle that may compromise elections which are scheduled for April next year.

Addressing a forum on current political developments in the country organized by the Sudan Liberation Movement at Omdurman Ahlia University on Thursday, Minawi said if refugees and internally displaced persons are not repatriated to Darfur, elections may not be conducted successfully in the region.

[Mini Minawi]: “If you count the number of refugees and IDPs it will come to something like 3 million people and this means something like three-quarters of Darfur are refugees and as such, this problem must be solved. Political problems in Darfur should be solved and after that people should embark on solving the refugees and IDPs’ problems. There is a need to support the return exercise so that people return and settle. If people don’t give antibiotics by now, the infection will swell up and it may claim people’s lives”.

Minawi who is also the Chairman of SLM, cautioned that if the Abyei boundary is not peacefully implemented, problems will still arise between southern Sudan and northern Sudan that may consequently impact on the elections.

[Mini Minawi]: “As we said, there is an infection. The Abyei boundary was drawn by GPS but it was not clearly stated that the northern border of Abyei was like this and that, it passes through this point and that point and it was not drawn and people are still haggling about it over cups of tea, now that there is the issue of the oilfield at Heglig. All these issues will be solved by practical demarcation of the boundary on the ground. If the committee smoothly draws the Abyei boundary on the ground and there is no problem, for sure this is finished and we can say the problem of southern Sudan is over and it only remains for us to wait for the referendum so that the people of southern Sudan choose unity or go. But if there is any disagreement over the drawing of the boundary, there will still be a problem regarding southern Sudan’s fate and for sure this is going to be one of the sensitive threats that will impede the holding of elections in Sudan."

That was the Senior Presidential Assistant and SLM Chairman, Mini Arko Minawi addressing a political rally at Omdurman Ahlia University in Khartoum on Thursday [06 August 2009].

Photo/caption via Soldier of Africa: An AMIS outpost in Darfur. There are more than 25 of these bases scattered over 8 sectors. [Photo taken in 2006. From Sudan Watch archives 01 March 2007]



Photo: An African Union peacekeeper patrols Shok Shok village after an attack by a rebel faction in Sudan's northern Darfur province, May 14, 2006. A rebel leader from Sudan's Darfur region has rebuffed the latest proposals from African Union (AU) mediators for him to join a peace deal despite intense pressure by diplomats desperate to gain wider support for the accord. (Reuters/Candace Feit/Sudan Watch archives)



Photo: A rebel of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) is seen in the northern part of the Darfur region in July 2004. (AFP July 29, 2006/Desirey Minkoh/Sudan Watch archives)



Photo: Displaced Sudanese women queue at a water point 21 May 2006 in Abu Shouk camp, close to Al-Fasher, the capital of the war-torn Sudanese northern Darfur region. (AFP/File/Ramzi Haidar)



Photo: Donkey Carcass near Geneina [the capital of West Darfur state in Sudan]. Donkeys are essential to the livelihoods of the people of Darfur. Many donkeys are dying due to lack of fodder or abandonment during civilians' flight to safety. (Photo and caption courtesy USAID Photo Gallery/From Sudan Watch archives 2006)



Photo and caption from MSF: Nyala, Kalma camp, South Darfur - March 2007. Trees are not safe around one of the world’s biggest IDP (internal displaced people) camps in South Darfur. People cut the last remaining trees to be used as fire wood for cooking and, as a result, the environment surrounding the IDP camps is changing rapidly. People cannot travel far to collect wood or food for their animals due to insecurity in the deserted areas around the main towns and refugee camps. Photo by Sven Torfinn/MSF Photo Blog

Kenya Commercial Bank plans to increase the number of outlets in Southern Sudan to nine from five

Kenya Commercial Bank Ltd. (KNCB KN), the East African nation’s biggest lender by assets and outlets, climbed 3.6 percent, the most in six weeks, to 21.75 shillings.

The lender said July 30 first-half net income declined two percent to 2.41 billion shillings as expansion costs rose.

“Demand is coming from high net-worth individuals and institutional investors,” Snehal Shah, head of research at Nairobi-based Kestrel Capital East Africa Ltd. said in a phone interview. “They are discounting these results and looking ahead at future growth.”

The lender, which has 156 outlets in Kenya and 26 in four neighboring nations, plans to increase the number of outlets in Southern Sudan to nine from five and seven in Rwanda from one currently, it said July 30.

Source: Bloomberg, Friday 07 August 2009: Kenyan Stocks Climb: Kenya Commercial Bank, Standard Chartered