Sudan's Taha not in favour of UNMIS in Darfur

Taha who was in favour of the UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur, shifted his position and started since one week to denounce any role of international force in Darfur. - SudanTribune - UN draft resolution shows US voracity for oil 30 Aug 2006.

Sudanese riot police teargas protestors and Reuters vehicle

"They give out sweets at one protest and tear gas bombs at the other," said one Sudanese bystander.- Reuters via Gulf Times 31 Aug 2006.

War looms again over Sudan's Darfur (Lydia Polgreen)

International Herald Tribune
By Lydia Polgreen The New York Times
August 30, 2006
EL FASHER, Sudan

War looms again over Darfur

There is plenty of frantic shuttle diplomacy happening in the corridors of power in Khartoum, Washington and New York to avoid a new bloodbath in Darfur.

But here in the tense heart of the region, where the bombs will drop and the bullets will fly, everyone is nervously watching the Ilyushin cargo planes landing on El Fasher's busy airstrip, their holds packed with the stuff of war: troops, trucks, bombs and guns.

"The planes land, day after day, week after week, night after night," said a foreign military official at the airport who had seen the planes land and unload their cargoes.

As negotiations over a proposed UN force to shore up the shaky peace in Darfur limp along with no sign of compromise, the opposing sides in the conflict seem headed toward a large-scale military confrontation.

"Unfortunately, things seem to be headed in that direction," said General Collins Ihekire, commander of the beleaguered 7,000-member African Union force that is enforcing a fragile peace agreement between the government and one rebel group.

Nearly four months after signing the agreement, the government is preparing a new assault against the rebel groups that refused to sign, bringing Darfur to the edge of a new abyss, perhaps the deepest it has faced.

The conflict has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced 2.5 million to flee their homes. But that may be a prelude to the deaths likely to come from fighting, hunger and disease.

In the past few months, killings of aid workers and hijackings of their vehicles, mostly by rebel groups, have forced aid groups to curtail programs to feed, clothe and shelter hundreds of thousands of people.

"We have less access now than we did in 2004 when things were really bad," said a senior aid official in El Fasher, speaking on the condition of anonymity because outspoken aid workers have been sanctioned and expelled by the government. "If there were a major military offensive you could be looking at a complete evacuation of humanitarian workers in North Darfur, which would leave millions without a lifeline."

Diplomatically, Sudan has taken a hard line, refusing to allow any international peacekeepers other than the small and powerless African Union force already in place, despite a request from the union to hand over its command to the United Nations.

A visit to Khartoum this week by Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, failed to produce an agreement, and Sudan has so far snubbed the United Nations, potentially leaving the people of Darfur without any international peacekeepers to protect them.

The African Union force has enough money to keep going only until Sept. 30, when its mandate ends. It is perpetually running short of fuel, food and equipment, and its suppliers - like its soldiers - have waited months for payment and are reluctant to make new deliveries.

Worse, the force is finding itself increasingly drawn into battles between the government and the rebels.

Rebel leaders deny they were involved in an ambush on a fuel convoy this month in which two Rwandan soldiers were killed, but they say that the African Union is biased in any case because it brokered a peace agreement that they reject.

Most ominous is the looming confrontation between government troops and rebel holdouts, set to take place on a battlefield that is home to a quarter- million people and could easily set off a chain of battles across Darfur.

"In terms of loss of life it could dwarf the killings in 2003 and 2004," said a senior aid official, asking not to be named.

In that period alone, at least 180,000 people died from attacks on villages by government forces and their allied Arab militias, known as the janjaweed, and in battles with non-Arab rebel groups seeking greater power for their fellow tribesmen in the long marginalized region. The violence brought on widespread hunger and disease, often the most lethal killers here.

El Fasher was once a sleepy state capital in an impoverished, backward part of Sudan. Now it is a garrison town swarming with government troops in crisp new uniforms driving shiny trucks mounted with guns.

The government has made no secret of its intentions - it submitted a plan to the Security Council this month in response to a resolution calling for 20,000 UN troops here. Instead, the government said it planned to use 10,500 of its own troops to crush the rebellion, a move that would violate the peace agreement it just signed, according to Ihekire.

The rebel movements that refused to sign the Darfur Peace Agreement have massed in a vast swath of territory north of here, gaining strength and flexing their muscle in attacks on government troops and its allies, as well as on the African Union forces.

In an interview deep in the territory they hold, commanders of the new rebel alliance, the National Redemption Front, said they were ready for a fight. "Our capabilities are unlimited, on the air and on the ground, to repel them," said Jarnabi Abdul Kareem, a commander.

The splintering and reforming of the rebel groups in the chaotic period since the peace agreement was signed was evident in their makeshift logos. On one truck, the initials of the rebel group had been changed so many times that the jumble of acronyms had become a collection of illegible smears.

Seated in a circle under a thorny tree, leaders of the front, joined in collective hatred for the signers of the peace agreement, say they came back to the battlefield reluctantly. "We are holding arms in our left hand but an olive branch in our right," said Abubakar Hamid Nour, a commander of the Justice and Equality Movement, an Islamist group that has joined with a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army to fight the government.

The battles over this patch of earth have already exacted a terrible toll. On the outskirts of Hashaba, people displaced by the fighting as far back as 2003 have settled, their camps becoming semi-permanent villages. There are few men here - just a handful among dozens of drawn-faced women and wiry children with ochre-tinted hair, a telltale sign of malnourishment.

At a clinic run by the International Rescue Committee, an aid organization, Hassan Ibrahim Isaac said he opens the clinic every day, writing futile prescriptions for the sicknesses that kill here: malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia. But the clinic's pharmacy ran out of antibiotics and anti-malarial drugs long ago.

"I still come because I don't want people to give up hope," Isaac said. "But now fewer people come. They know I have nothing to give them."

Military officials for the African Union said the new government assault could take shape in two ways - government troops could build up along an axis between El Fasher and the towns of Mellit and Kutum, using a scissor-like advance aided by Antonov bombers and attack helicopters to wipe out as many rebels as they can, then force the rest to flee north.

Another possibility is that the government will attack from the south, where it holds ground north of El Fasher, and airlift troops to swoop down from the north as well.

Bombing attacks on Kulkul, a town that has changed hands several times in the chaotic period since the Darfur Peace Agreement was signed but had been a stronghold of the newly united rebel groups, already have pushed those rebels north to Umm Sidir and beyond, African Union commanders said.

Armed conflict on a vast scale seems so likely and the hope of a UN peacekeeping force arriving to ease the tensions so distant that a joke has been making the rounds of the military and aid officials here: The most important peacekeeper in Darfur now is the rain.

It turns the rough, dusty tracks that crisscross the arid plains and mountains into impassable bogs, and swells once-dry riverbeds into rivers easily capable of carrying off a Toyota Landcruiser, the military vehicle of choice.

But the rains end in the next couple of weeks.

Sudanese forces seizing laptops to scan for porn

Reuters/tvnz Aug 31, 2006:

Sudanese security forces have begun temporarily seizing laptop computers entering the country to check information stored on them as part of new security measures.

A state security source said on Wednesday the procedure was introduced because pornographic films and photographs were entering Sudan. "We return the laptops after one day," he said.

UN officials, aid agency workers, businessmen and journalists who regularly visit Sudan worry, however, that the security of sensitive and confidential information such as medical, legal and financial records could be at risk.

"They could download email systems, passwords, even get into people's bank accounts," said one source in Khartoum's aid community, who declined to be named for fear of retribution.

Other innocent material could also be construed to be subversive, like maps or photos, the source added.

Seizing laptops to stop porn entering a country doesn't make sense. The material the Sudanese government say it is concerned about doesn't need to be carried into Sudan. It can be transmitted over the Internet. Avoid taking modern gadgets to Sudan, I guess. Sudan doesn't do its image of being in the dark ages much good when it makes such backward moves. Why aren't Sudanese officials focusing on munitions entering the country and crime?

African countries shun fibre-optic cable deal

African countries shun fibre-optic cable deal, Reuters/ST reported today.

Only seven out of 23 countries signed the accord for the long-delayed East African Submarine System (EASSy), which aims to slash phone and Internet costs.

Only Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda signed the protocol in Kigali.

The EASSy cable was originally expected to be operational in the first quarter of 2008. The project is expected to cut Internet costs to nearly one third of current levels over the next five years and boost investment in Africa.

Back to the dark ages. Africa is putting itself behind the rest of the world.

Illicit ivory sales globally is being driven by new demand from China - Poachers kill 100 elephants in Chad

Greedy moronic barbarians. The remains of 100 African elephants killed for their tusks have been found in Chad not far from Darfur, conservationists said on Wednesday. - Reuters report excerpt:

The discovery was made earlier this month by a team led by Mike Fay, a renowned conservationist and explorer with the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society and National Geographic.

"... his team discovered five separate elephant massacre sites totalling 100 individuals during a survey made August 3-11 from their small plane," Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) said in a statement.

WCS said most of the animals had their tusks removed and more than 50 of them appeared to have been slain just days before the team found their carcasses.

Note the report tells us wildlife groups say a rise in illicit ivory sales globally is being driven by new demand from China and that elephants are especially at risk in lawless or violence-prone regions where their tusks are a ready source of income. Sad.

Red Cross worker killed in Darfur after abduction�

Reuters 31 Aug 2006 excerpt:

A Sudanese national working for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), who was abducted in Darfur by an armed group two weeks ago, is dead, the humanitarian agency said on Wednesday.

The Swiss-based agency said that it had not yet recovered the body of the 31-year-old man, who was not named, nor had it any details of how he was killed.

The man was abducted east of the Jebel Marra mountains in north Darfur on August 16 after an ICRC team was stopped by an armed group -- also not identified in the statement.

The team had been distributing food and the man was forced to drive one of two vehicles stolen in the attack, the agency said.

Sudanese Thinker: Debating UN Troops & the Conspiracies

Excerpt from Drima's blog entry at The Sudanese Thinker - Debating UN Troops & the Conspiracies:

If people want to talk about Darfur from a humanitarian perspective, then UN troops will make things worse and Darfur will become a warzone. However if people want to talk about Darfur from a political perspective, then a bloody revolution is the only way to settle the problem. Both are bad scenarios and that's why I support strengthening the AU troops. Nobody is opposed to them and if strengthened they can provide the protection needed in Darfur. I don't understand why it's so hard for others to understand that.

Me neither, Drima. Thanks. I'd like to see a joint force of everyone pulling together for the sake of Sudan's children.

US, UK seek quick vote on UN force for Darfur - UN Resolution requires Sudan's consent before actual deployment

Reuters report via Washington Post via CFD 30 Aug 2006 - excerpt:

Britain and the United States called for a vote on Thursday on a U.N. resolution to allow the United Nations to begin assembling a peacekeeping force for Sudan's Darfur region, despite opposition from the government in Khartoum.

The resolution would require the Sudanese government's consent before actual deployment, but Western powers expect Khartoum to eventually accept a U.N. presence in Darfur, as it already has in southern Sudan.

"I think council colleagues understand why we really do need to act" in Darfur, British U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said on Tuesday after two weeks of Security Council deliberations on the measure drafted by Washington and London.

"Our judgment here is that we think we've found a formulation that would win acceptance on the council and achieve the objective we've been seeking, which is the early transfer of (peacekeeping) responsibility in Darfur to the United Nations," said U.S. Ambassador John Bolton.

The envoys spoke with reporters a day after U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland warned the 15-nation council of a looming new humanitarian disaster in Darfur and said U.N. inaction could lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths.

The two ambassadors said a revised text would be circulated before council talks set for Wednesday.

Diplomats said it would state explicitly that the force could go in only with the Sudan government's consent, since council members agreed deployment would be impossible without it.

"It will address consent among other issues and will be clear on how the transition will take place," Jones Parry said.

Highlights from revised UN Resolution for UN troops in Darfur circulated Aug 29

Britain and the US on Tuesday circulated a revised UN Security Council resolution on a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur to take over from 7000 Africa Union troops. Following are highlights from the six-page, 2600-word draft that both countries hope to put to a vote on Thursday. [via Reuters/IOL 30 Aug 2006]:

Deployment Of Force

- To deploy a peacekeeping force in Darfur "on the basis of the acceptance" by the Sudan government, as an addition to the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), which has 10 000 personnel in southern Sudan.

- Creates an UNMIS mission in Darfur of up to 22 600 military and police personnel: 17 300 military, 3300 police and 2000 in formed police units.

The final number has not yet been agreed.

- Asks UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to consult with African Union and Sudanese parties on a plan and timetable for transition from the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) to a UN operation.

Deployment should begin no later than October 1.

During the transition AMIS is to be provided with air assets, ground mobility training, engineering and logistics and mobile communications capacity.

Mandate

- Support implementation of the May 5 Darfur Peace Agreement; investigate violations; establish a buffer or demilitarised zones inside and around camps of villagers driven from their homes.

- Monitor armed groups in Darfur and along Sudan's borders with Chad and the Central African Republic.

- Help develop a disarmament program for combatants and their families.

- Work with the national police, including training and restructuring and mentoring and monitor their performance on joint patrols; help support an independence judiciary and professional corrections system to combat impunity.

- Help co-ordinate voluntary return of refugees and other displaced people to their homes by establishing the necessary security conditions.

Mandate Provisions Under Chapter (which allows use of force)

- UNMIS is authorised to "use all necessary means" within its capabilities to protect UN personnel and facilities; prevent disruption of the implementation of the Darfur Peace Agreement by armed groups, and prevent attacks and threats against civilians.

- UNMIS is to seize or collect arms whose presence in Darfur is in violation of the peace agreements and to "dispose of such arms and related material as appropriate."

Chad, Central Africa Republic

- Sets up political, humanitarian, military and civilian police liaison officers in key locations in Chad, where Sudan refugees had fled and villagers along the Sudanese border have been evicted from their homes.

If necessary, the same system can be set up in the Central African Republic.

- Requests Annan to report to the Security Council on the protection of civilians in refugee and displaced persons camps in Chad and on how to improve the security situation on the Chadian side of the border with Sudan.

Sanctions

The measure threatens, in response to a request by the African Union, to impose sanctions, such as an an asset freeze or travel ban, against any individual or group that violates or attempts to block the implementation of the Darfur agreement or commits human rights violations.

US's Frazer took up with Sudanese president the arrest of journalist Paul Salopek - Sudan to send envoy to US to discuss Bush plea for Darfur

AP report Aug 29 via ST Aug 30:

Sudan's president is sending an envoy to Washington to discuss a request by President Bush to allow a UN force into the war-torn Darfur region, a State Department spokesman said Tuesday.

The request was delivered to President Omar al-Bashir by Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi E. Frazer in a meeting at his home, spokesman Tom Casey said.

"She made a very clear case of what U.S. policy is, and he certainly listened to what she had to say," Casey said.

"President Bashir said in response to the message from the president that he would be sending an envoy to Washington and that he would then provide a direct response," Casey said.

The Sudanese president has opposed a U.N. force on Sudanese territory and has said he plans to send government troops to Darfur to pacify the region.

Frazer also took up with the Sudanese president the arrest of an American journalist by pro-government forces in the Darfur region.

The reporter, Paul Salopek of the Chicago Tribune, his driver and interpreter were arrested Aug. 6. He was charged with espionage, passing information illegally, writing "false news" and entering the African country without a visa.

The State Department has said any judicial process should be fair and speedy.

Casey said he did not know what al-Bashir's response might have been. He said Salopek was in good health and receiving frequent visits from U.S. diplomats assigned to the country.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a U.S. official said later there was no foundation to the spy charges but that some technical violation of immigration regulations could not be ruled out.

- - -

Aug 29 2006 AP report via ST: Sudan to consider case of US journalist accused of spying:

President Bashir said during a meeting with Frazer that he would consider Chicago Tribune reporter Paul Salopek's "case out of a humanitarian standpoint," said Bashir's spokesman Mahjud Fadul Bedry.

Despite saying he would consider Salopek's case, al-Bashir also said Tuesday that the conflict in Darfur was "exaggerated by the Western media by repeatedly publishing allegations of ethnic cleansing and rape," Bedry said.

Sudanese leader meets with US's Frazer after snub

Sudan's president met with US Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer in the capital Khartoum on Tuesday after failing to secure a meeting with him a day earlier, John Bolton, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said.

Frazer went to Khartoum at the weekend to deliver a strong message to Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir that he must accept UN peacekeeping troops in the war-torn western Darfur region. She extended her stay on Monday after she was unable to meet with him.

"My understanding is he (Bashir) was maybe too busy yesterday but he did meet with her this morning," Bolton told reporters at UN headquarters in New York. "I know that she saw President Bashir."

He said he had no details of what was said during the meeting, however.

Source: Reuters 29 Aug 2006.

Norway to call international conference on Darfur

Norway's Minister of International Development, Erik Solheim, is to call an international emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss the crisis in Darfur, Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) reported on Tuesday.

Full story by Xinhua via People's Daily Online

Uganda Sudan Border Project - Stephen Alvarez photos

Excerpt from The Uganda Sudan Border Project:

For the past four years, photographer Stephen Alvarez has journeyed to the Uganda Sudan border area to document the effects of civil war and rebel insurgencies and the plight of refugees, night commuters, and civilians attempting to rebuild their lives.

Prints are available for purchase, all proceeds will suport the education of children at Amazing Grace Orphanage in Adjumani, Uganda and its sister orphanage, St Bartholomew's, in Kajo Keji, Sudan.

Susan Tabi founded Amazing Grace Orphanage in Adjumani, Uganda in 1994 to care for orphans of the Sudanese civil war. Ebzon Wudu joined her to help with admin of the orphanage.

Amazing Grace cares for over 30 children. The facility has 5 dorms, an office, kitchen and bathrooms. The team of 7 caretakers has created livestock and agricultural projects to help support themselves and the children.

Uganda: ICC still calling for Kony's arrest

Take this report and change the name of Kony to Bashir (and Uganda to Sudan) to get an idea of what Khartoum regime and its followers must be thinking when it comes to Darfur rebels getting UN troops onside.

Aug 28 2006 Reuters/CFD ICC Still Calling for Kony's Arrest:

International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors said on Monday they still hoped for the arrest of leaders of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) despite an offer of amnesty by Uganda under the terms of a truce.

Leaders of the cult-like rebels, who are infamous for massacring civilians, mutilating survivors and kidnapping thousands of children, are wanted by the Hague-based Court to face war crimes charges.

"We believe that the countries or the states which have an obligation to execute the arrest warrant will do so," the court's deputy prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told journalists.

"We still maintain that because we think those persons who bear the greatest responsibility should not go unpunished."

He was speaking at a news conference called to discuss a separate case and reiterating the Court's position.

The ICC issued arrest warrants against LRA leader Joseph Kony and his deputies last year but has no police force to hunt down its targets, so must rely on Ugandan, Sudanese and former southern Sudanese rebel troops to bring them to justice.

Under the terms of a truce agreed on Saturday, Uganda has offered amnesty to LRA leaders, including those hunted by the ICC, if they abandon their hideouts and assemble at two Sudanese camps within the next three weeks to thrash out a final deal.

The LRA said all leaders including the ICC indictees would come to the camps.

Asked about Uganda's truce offer, Bensouda said: "We certainly hope that they will execute the warrant that has been issued against the top leaders of the LRA."

Uganda begins ceasefire with LRA

Excerpt from BBC report today:

A ceasefire between Uganda's government and the Lord's Resistance Army rebels has come into force.

The truce, signed on Saturday, gives rebels three weeks to assemble at points in southern Sudan where the regional government will protect them.

Comprehensive peace talks are then meant to start. Uganda has pledged that it will not try to attack the rebels.

Thousands have died during the 20-year conflict in northern Uganda, and more than one million have fled their homes.

The ceasefire took effect at 0600 local time (0300 GMT) on Tuesday.

Ugandan army spokesman Maj Felix Kulayigye told the BBC that so far the truce was holding.

UN's Jan Egeland warns of looming catastrophe in Darfur

The United Nations' most senior humanitarian official issued a dire warning today about the situation in Darfur, stating that "a man-made catastrophe of an unprecedented scale" looms within weeks unless the Security Council acts immediately to deal with the spiralling violence, looting and internal displacement. Full story at UN News Centre 28 Aug 2006.

Dark Clouds Over Darfur

This may be symbolic for AMIS. The NRF and certain breakaway factions of JEM has threatened to target AMIS. They do not agree with what the DPA stands for. (Photo and caption courtesy Werner, Soldier of Africa 27 Aug 2006)

Changing of the Guard in Darfur



Changing of the guard. This is the first time I have really photographed this daily occurrence in our base. (Photo and caption by Werner of Soldier of Africa 27 Aug 2006)

Dinner Time in Darfur



We asked the protection force to prepare the dinner for last night and they did a real good job of it. Not only was the food very good, but the catering staff also dressed very nicely. I believe that the food makes any function good or bad. (Photo and caption by Werner of Soldier of Africa 27 Aug 2006)

SLM faction says Sudan Mujahideen are transported to camps in Darfur's Sarf, Omrah and Kabkabya janjaweed controlled zones

Sudan Tribune Aug 25, 2006 (PARIS):

A Darfur rebel group accused the Sudanese government of transporting Islamists Arab groups to Darfur region in order to train them to face the eventual arrival of United Nations force to the region.

According to a press statement by a faction of rebel Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) signed by Esamedin Al Haj, Sudanese government transports Arab Mujahideen in night flights after the curfew to Nyala and Al-Fasher airports.

Al-Haj added that the Mujahideen are transported to camps in Sarf, Omrah and Kabkabya, areas known as Janjaweed controlled zones.

Sudanese ruling National Congress Party officials renew since several months opposition to UN takeover of the peacekeeping mission in the trouble region of Darfur.

Sudanese Islamist leaders say they will take up arms against United Nations peacekeepers if they deploy to Darfur, and some have warned they will also fight the Khartoum government if it agrees to the force.

President al-Bashir, who swore to lead personally the resistance to a U.N. force, renewed Sudan's rejection to any UN forces in Darfur, considering the draft resolution forwarded by Britain to the Security Council in this regard as a colonial attempt against, a matter which Sudan would not allow.

Despite Sudan's objections, the United States and Britain have introduced a Security Council draft resolution that would deploy up to 17,000 troops and 3,000 police in Darfur, where an overstretched African Union force is monitoring a shaky truce.

The Islamist NCP mobilizes its militias like Popular Defence Forces and Dababin to fight international forces in Darfur.

Leaders of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, have called on Muslims to fight any U.N. force in Darfur and while the diplomatic wrangling continues, Khartoum's many Islamic groups have delivered a clear message.

Sudan hosted bin Laden in the 1990s, relations soured and under U.S. and regional pressure Khartoum asked him to leave in 1996. But it is not excluded that Sudanese security service renewed contacts with Islamist groups.

Sudan reiterates rejection of UN force in Darfur, calling for African peacekeepers to be strengthened

AP report 28 Aug 2006 via Easy bourse - excerpt:

A senior US diplomat Jendayi Frazer left Sudan without meeting President Omar al-Bashir after Khartoum rejected demands that it approve the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in war-torn Darfur.

Frazer departed Sudan late Sunday, a day before the UN Security Council was to discuss a draft resolution on the peacekeepers.

Frazer had been expected to deliver a message from US President George W Bush to al-Bashir.

Sudanese President al-Bashir was unable to meet the American diplomat "due to his crowded schedule," the president's office said.

Instead, Frazer handed the message to presidential adviser Majzoub al-Khalifa Ahmed, who in turn gave her a message from al-Bashir repeating his rejection of the U.N. force, presidential spokesman Mahjub Badry, told reporters.

Instead of the UN force, al-Bashir has called for the African peacekeepers to be strengthened - and he has said he plans to send Sudanese troops to Darfur to pacify the region.