Cluster of homes
South and Darfur, East Sudan are one of the least developed areas of the world and life here is tough
Cluster of homes
South and Darfur, East Sudan are one of the least developed areas of the world and life here is tough
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Wednesday, 17 December 2008
'Thousands made slaves' in Darfur
Strong evidence has emerged of children and adults being used as slaves in Sudan's Darfur region, a study says. |
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Kidnapped men have been forced to work on farmland controlled by Janjaweed militias, the Darfur Consortium says.
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Eyewitnesses also say the Sudanese army has been involved in abducting women and children to be sex slaves and domestic staff for troops in Khartoum.
Up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have fled their homes since conflict began in Darfur in 2003.
Sudan's government has not yet commented on the allegations in the report, published on Wednesday.
The Darfur Consortium says it has around 100 eyewitness accounts from former abductees.
Thousands of people from non-Arabic speaking ethnic groups in Darfur have been targeted, its report says.
Victims have been rounded up during joint attacks on villages by the Arabic-speaking Janjaweed and the Sudanese Armed Forces, according to the study.
Civilians are also tortured and killed while their villages are razed to ethnically cleanse areas, which are then repopulated with Arabic-speaking people, including nomads from Chad, Niger, Mali and Cameroon, it says.
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Most of the abductees are women and girls, but there is new evidence in Darfur of kidnappers targeting men and boys for forced agricultural labour, says the report.
The abducted women and girls, meanwhile, are raped and forced to marry their captors as well as carry out household chores and sometimes cultivate crops, according to the study.
'Told to serve'
The report includes the testimony of children forced to become domestic workers.
One boy said he had suffered regular beatings from his Janjaweed abductors.
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"They were treating me and the other boys very badly, they kept telling us that we are not human beings and we are here to serve them, I also worked on their farms," he said.
A woman said she was kidnapped from a refugee camp and her captors "used us like their wives in the night and during the day we worked all the time.
"The men they abducted with us were used to look after their livestock.
We worked all day, all week with no rest."
Sudan's government has always denied the existence of slavery in the country, although Khartoum has previously admitted abductions occurred in the north-south civil war of 1983-2005, when up to 14,000 people were kidnapped.
But a senior Sudanese politician who did not wanted to be named said kidnappings had also occurred more recently in Darfur.
"The army captured many children and women hiding in the bush outside burnt villages," he told the report's authors.
"They were transported by plane to Khartoum at night and divided up among soldiers as domestic workers and, in some cases, wives."
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Call to action
The report urged Sudan's government to disband the Janjaweed and other militia and to fully co-operate with the United Nations and the African Union.
Dismas Nkunda, co-chair of the Darfur Consortium, said: "Urgent action is clearly required to prevent further abductions and associated human rights violations, and to release and assist those who are still being held."
The study also calls for the mandate of the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur (Unamid) to be beefed up so it can use force to protect civilians.
The Darfur Consortium also wants Khartoum to prosecute all those responsible for abductions and ban them from holding public office.
It notes that no-one has ever been arrested over the wave of kidnappings.
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Saturday, 6 September 2008
Sudan army 'attacks Darfur towns'
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Sudanese government troops have launched attacks on two towns in Darfur, three rebel groups in the region have said.
The rebels said the troops, backed by militias, helicopters and planes, had attacked Disa and Birmaza in North Darfur state early on Saturday.
The joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur said it was investigating the reports.
There has been no comment on the rebel claims from the Sudanese military.
'String of attacks'
"There are many dead, both civilians and some of our soldiers too," a commander of a faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army, Ibrahim al-Helwu, was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.
"The fighting is still going on, they are inside the town and are looting," he said from Disa.
Commanders of two other rebel groups also said their forces in the area, north of the town of Kutum, were also involved in the fighting.
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Rebel groups have accused government forces of launching a string of attacks on insurgent-held areas in North Darfur in recent months.
One rebel commander, Sherif Harir, from the Sudan Liberation Movement — Unity faction, said Khartoum was trying to wrest control of key transport routes and oil reserves in the area, Reuters news agency reported.
The five-year conflict in Darfur has led to the deaths of more than 300,000 people and the displacement of two million others, according to UN estimates.
The violence began in 2003 when rebel groups complaining of discrimination against black Africans began attacking government targets.
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Not seen wife and son for 19 years ago.
Friday, 16 March 2007
No return for Sudan's forgotten slaves
By Joseph Winter
BBC News, southern Sudan
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Some 8,000 people are believed to be living in slavery in Sudan, 200 years after Britain banned the Atlantic slave trade and 153 years after it also tried to abolish slavery in Sudan.
But rows about money mean no-one is doing anything to free them.
In the same year that Mr Arol's family was kidnapped, Arek Anyiel Deng, aged about 10, was seized from her home, not far from Malualbai.
Arab militias rode in to her village on horseback, firing their guns.
When the adults fled, the children and cattle were rounded up and made to walk north for five days before they were divided between members of the raiding party.
Forced conversions
Ms Anyiel returned home under a government scheme last year.
"My abductor told me that I was his slave and I had to do all the work he told me to — fetching water and firewood, looking after animals and farming," she said.
"When I was 12, he said he wanted to sleep with me. I could not refuse because I was a slave, I had to do everything he wanted, or he could have killed me."
Such raids were a common feature of Sudan's 21-year north-south war, which ended in 2005.
The northern government is widely believed to have armed the Arab militias in order to terrorise the southern population and distract rebel forces from attacking government targets.
According to a study by the Kenya-based Rift Valley Institute, some 11,000 young boys and girls were seized and taken across the internal border — many to the states of South Darfur and West Kordofan.
The boys generally looked after cattle, while the girls mostly did domestic chores before being "married", often as young as 12.
Most were forcibly converted to Islam, given Muslim names and told not to speak their mother tongue.
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Boys were forced to look after cattle all day. |
War of words
Sudan's government has always rejected claims that people are living in slavery but admits that thousands were abducted during the war.
It says this is an ancient tradition of hostage-taking by rival ethnic groups.
One senior government official strenuously denied there was any slavery in Sudan but bizarrely acknowledged: "It was the same as when people were taken from West Africa to America."
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The United Nations defines slavery as: "The status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised."
Ms Anyiel and several others we spoke to certainly seemed to have been living in conditions of slavery — having been abducted, subjected to forced labour and often beaten.
To be able to work with the return programme the government set up in 1999 under intense international pressure, donors agreed to use the euphemism "abductee".
About 3,000 were taken back home before the programme ran out of money in 2005.
Donors pulled out, saying some were not genuine slaves, some had been returned against their will and had been left to fend for themselves in the desolate, under-developed south.
The government then funded the return for a while but strangely, the end of the war seems to have taken the urgency out of the project.
The governments in both north and the autonomous south seem more interested in spending their new oil wealth.
Officials from both administrations say they are still working out their new policy on the "abductee file".
Disillusioned
Ahmed Mufti from the government's Committee for the Eradication of Abduction of Women and Children (CEAWC) says the Arab tribal leaders are now more than happy to release the "abductees" but his group does not have the $3m he estimates it would need to arrange transport and pay officials to organise the operation.
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Faced with this lack of progress, James Aguer, the man at the forefront of the campaign to free Sudan's slaves, is becoming increasingly disillusioned after spending some 20 years risking his life for the cause.
"With peace, I thought they would be freed by now," he says bitterly.
He says he has the names and location of 8,000 people, who could easily be freed from the Arab cattle camps, as soon as the political will is there.
He says the true number of those being forced to work against their will without pay in Sudan is more than 200,000, although most donors believe that is an exaggeration.
Sitting on the dusty ground outside the abandoned mud hut where she and her five children now live, Ms Anyiel is delighted to have finally gained her freedom and to be able to make decisions about her own life.
But freedom is not necessarily easy — she now has to support the children on her own, with no assistance from donors or the government.
Her only income comes from collecting firewood in the bush to sell in the local market.
"It's like I was still in the camp, it's the same situation as in the north," she complains.
Tribal markings
Ghada Kachachi, from United Nations' children's agency Unicef, uses Ms Anyiel's case to explain why funding was stopped for CEAWC's return programme.
She says those who are freed must be helped when they get back home — both economically and socially, as they move from an Arabic society to the Dinka community some left 20 years ago.
But campaigners say the first priority must be to free them from slavery and then sort out the details of their return.
Ms Kachachi also points out that it can be difficult to trace the parents of children abducted in a war zone up to 20 years ago.
Some have forgotten their real names and where they come from, although they can sometimes be identified by the marks cut into their faces as children - a part of Dinka traditions.
Save the Children UK is still helping foster parents look after some children several years after they returned "home".
While officials debate the best way to organise the return, Mr Arol and many others are just desperate to see their loved ones again.
He has gone to meet four different convoys of returned abductees in the hope of being reunited with his family, only to be disappointed each time.
"I always ask God, why other children come back but not mine. What have I done to deserve this?" he asks.
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 | Satellite image of destroyed village in the Darfur region of western Sudan. |
| Orphanage |
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Mohamed Baraka Mohamed, 56, lawyer
What is happening in Darfur is a result of many years of persecution against specific tribes in the province.
These tribes are viewed with contempt such as my tribe, the Fur.
When I was at school, I was beaten if I didn't speak Arabic even though my tribe has its own language.
This and other forms of "forced Arabisation" suggests the disrespect with which we are viewed.
This attitude is not confined to the Sudanese government — other Arab and Muslim countries are included.
Has a single Arab or Muslim country condemned what is happening in Darfur?
From my experience as a Sudanese member of parliament (2001 — 2005) for Darfur, I can confirm that what is going on is genocide.
In my village, Shuba, the Janjaweed have killed many people, burnt homes and stolen herds.
If people file a complaint to the authorities, the police are always late — at least five hours — despite the police station being only seven kilometres away.
Instead of chasing the attackers, the police question the villagers over how they procured the arms which they use for self-defence.
This happens despite the fact that the corpses of villagers are scattered around.
In some instances, the number of corpses has reached 60. For example, Shuba village was attacked at around 0500 local time. Though more than 600 homes were burnt, the government forces, stationed in a nearby base, only arrived at the village by 0915.
Attacks don't usually target a single village. Instead, they attack a wide range.
I support the deployment of international forces because the 7,000-strong African Union (AU) forces are incapable of protecting themselves, never mind the people of Darfur. They have been repeatedly attacked in the past.
The international forces will be empowered to stop the attacks and put pressure on the government, unlike the AU which does nothing but write reports whenever an attack occurs.
I find the attitudes of those who claim that the deployment of international forces would only bring colonial forces to Sudan odd.
Why don't they think of hundreds of thousands of Darfuris who were either killed or driven from their homes? Aren't they human beings who deserve protection?
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The United Nations said in a report last week that there were indications that Sudan's military participated in attacks that left over 50 people dead — including 27 children under the age of 12. Thousands more were displaced.
The United Nations said witnesses identified the 300 to 500 attackers as Arabs riding on horseback, wearing green camouflage military uniforms and armed with AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
More than 200,000 people have been killed — and 2.5 million displaced — in fighting between rebels and government-backed militias since early 2003.
The U.N. Security Council voted in August to send over 20,000 peacekeepers to Darfur to replace the African Union force — but Sudan has rejected the decision.
Monday, November 13th, 2006 See below |
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MAHMOOD MAMDANI: I think the larger question is the names — genocide, in particular — come into being against a background of the twentieth century and mass slaughter of the twentieth century, and particularly the Holocaust.
And against that background, Lemkin convinced the international community, and particularly states in the international community, they have an obligation to intervene when there is genocide.
He’s successful in getting the international community to adopt a resolution on this.
Then follows the politics around genocide.
And the politics around genocide is, when is the slaughter of civilians a genocide or not?
Which particular slaughter is going to be named genocide, and which one is not going to be named genocide?
So if you look at the last ten years and take some examples of mass slaughter:
For example, the mass slaughter in Iraq, which is — in terms of numbers, at least — no less than what is going on in Sudan
Or the mass slaughter in Congo, which, in terms of numbers, is probably ten times what happened, what has been happening in Darfur.
But none of these have been named as genocide.
Only the slaughter in Darfur has been named as genocide.
So there is obviously a politics around this naming, and that’s the politics that I was interested in.
AMY GOODMAN:
And what do you think this politics is?
Instrumentalized by United States
MAHMOOD MAMDANI:
Well, I think that what’s happening is that genocide is being instrumentalized by the biggest power on the earth today, which is the United States.
It is being instrumentalized in a way that mass slaughters which implicate its adversaries are being named as genocide and those which implicate its friends or its proxies are not being named as genocide.
And that is not what Lemkin had in mind.
I was struck by the fact -- because I live nine months in New York and three months in Kampala, and every morning I open the New York Times, and I read about violence against civilians, atrocities against civilians.
There are two places that I read about
Une is Iraq.
The other is Darfur.
Largest political movement against mass violence on US campuses is on Darfur
I’m struck by the fact that the largest political movement against mass violence on US campuses is on Darfur and not on Iraq.
And it puzzles me.
Because most of these students, almost all of these students, are American citizens.
I had always thought that they should have greater responsibility, they should feel responsibility, for mass violence which is the result of their own government's policies.
And I ask myself, “Why not?”
I ask myself, “How do they discuss mass violence in Iraq and options in Iraq?”
And they discuss it by asking -- agonizing over what would happen if American troops withdrew from Iraq.
Would there be more violence?
Less violence?
It is easy to hold a moral position emptied of political content
But there is no such agonizing over Darfur.
Because Darfur is a place without history.
Darfur is a place without politics.
Darfur is simply a dot on the map.
It is simply a place, a site, where perpetrator confronts victim.
And the perpetrator’s name is Arab.
And the victim’s name is African.
And it is easy to demonize.
It is easy to hold a moral position which is emptied of its political content.
This bothered me, and so I wrote about it.
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Photo: US AID |
MAHMOOD MAMDANI:
Well, let’s begin with the numbers of the dead, OK?
The only group in a position to estimate how many people have died in Darfur is UNICEF, because UNICEF is the only one that did a comprehensive survey in 2005 in Darfur.
Everybody else only knows the piece of ground on which they work and will then extrapolate from it, like any other NGO, like Oxfam or Medecins Sans Frontieres or World Food Program.
The WFP estimate was 200,000.
Out of these 200,000, the WPF report tells you that roughly about 20% died of actually being killed, of violence, and 80% died mainly from starvation and from diseases.
And normally in our understanding of genocide, we put both those together and look at them as a result of the violence, because the violence prevents the medicine going in, etc., except in the case of Darfur, it’s not a single-cause situation.
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Darfur is also the place which has been hit hard by global warming.
The UN commission which sat on global warming very recently spoke of Darfur as the first major crisis of global warming.
Desertification — Global Warming
In other words, from the late 1970s you have had a significant desertification, and you’ve been having in the north of Darfur basically a situation where people’s simply entire livelihoods are destroyed, and which has been one of the elements, because it has driven the nomadic population in the north down into the south.
So how many people are dying from desertification?
How many people are dying from the violence that has been unleashed through this civil war in Darfur?
Second element in this is that there’s a civil war going on in Darfur.
There are two rebel movements, and both rebel movements were born in the aftermath of the peace in the south.
And those who were unwilling to accept the peace in the south, who thought the peace in the south should have included a resolution for all of Sudan, particularly for Darfur and not simply for the south, they were the inspiration behind the two movements that developed.
One movement, the Sudan Liberation Army, was a movement strongly connected with the SPLA in the south, especially with those sections of the SPLA who were not happy with the partial nature of the settlement in the south.
Islamist rebel movement and secular rebel movement
The SPLA is the Sudan People's Liberation Army, which had organized and led the guerrilla war in the south for several decades under John Garang.
The second movement was the Justice and Equality Movement.
The Justice and Equality Movement, unlike the SLA, which is a secular movement, Justice and Equality is an Islamist movement.
And it was a break-off from the regime in the Sudan.
It was a break-off between two sections of the regime, the military and the civilian section, and particularly the section led by the chief ideologue, Hassan al-Turabi, who split from the military wing and was the inspiration behind the formation of the Justice and Equality Movement.
So you have, in a way, a very strong Islamist rebel movement and you have a strong secular rebel movement, and these two began their operations in 2003.
Sudan government's response was to pick a proxy and arm it
The government's response — and I saw the ambassador's response there, which was as disingenuous as Bush's response, in a sense, because he’s claiming that it’s just a civil war inside, the government has nothing to do with it.
It’s not true.
The government's response was to pick a proxy and arm it.
And the government was, in a way, smart enough to pick those who were the worst victims of the desertification and the drought.
It picked the poorest of the nomads from the north whose livelihoods had been entirely destroyed and who had simply no survival strategy at hand and gave them weapons.
And these guys went down south, and their object was not to kill the peasants in the south, but to drive them off their land.
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The larger came from the regular Salvadoran armed forces and police.
He also had U.S. backing.
In fact, D’Aubuisson launched his career as a major figure in Salvador by going on TV and making a speech.
He had a video role as he spoke with an illustrated death list of union people and religious figures and others who he said should be killed as traitors to the country.
And the data for the list were supplied to him by American intelligence, again according to the officers there I interviewed. |
Photo: US AID |
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MAHMOOD MAMDANI:
The government’s response was also to pick a second group, and that second group are the nomads from Chad who have come into Darfur.
Problem stems from Colonial Empires enhanced by US intervention
And to understand that, one has to look at the third dimension of the conflict, which is that over the last twenty-five, thirty years there has been a civil war going on in Chad.
Chad, during the Cold War, was a bone of contention, first and foremost between the US and France, and both had their allies in the region.
France allied with Libya.
The US allied with the military dictatorship in Sudan, with the Numeri dictatorship in Sudan.
And every oppositional movement in Chad had a base in Darfur, and they armed themselves, organized themselves in Darfur.
So Darfur was awash with weapons for two decades, OK.
And those who ran away from the civil war in Chad came into Darfur.
So the other wing of those who were armed, whether by the government or whether by this weaponry which was awash, were the Chad refugees in Darfur.
So what we call the Janjaweed are two groups.
They are the Chad refugees in Darfur, and they are the poorest of the northern camel - the pastoralists divide into two: the camel pastoralists and the cattle pastoralists.
And the camel pastoralists, because the camel is the only game which will survive in the worst conditions where even cattle will not survive, they are the poorest of the poor.
So these are what are called the Janjaweed.
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AMY GOODMAN:
I wanted to play a clip for you from John Prendergast.
He is the senior adviser for the International Crisis Group, leader of the Save Darfur Coalition, has argued that genocide is occurring in Darfur, that the Sudanese government is trying to mask what’s really happening.
JOHN PRENDERGAST: This policy of divide and conquer, which has been in place since the early part of this decade, had as its objective the creation of anarchy in Darfur.
So when people take a snapshot today and see Darfur and go, “My god, all these groups are fighting against each other. It seems like it’s chaos,” it’s precisely what the government intended.
US state-sponsored terrorist movement in Mozambique
MAHMOOD MAMDANI: We need to keep in mind, and John Prendergast needs to keep in mind, that the history of state-sponsored terrorism in that part of Africa begins with the US providing a political umbrella to South Africa to create a state-sponsored terrorist movement in Mozambique: RENAMO.
And it is after a full decade of that impunity that others learn the experience, and Charles Taylor begins it in Liberia.
The Sudanese government begins it in the south.
But this is the second thing, which builds on this history of political violence.
The third thing is that when the rebel movements begin in 2003 in Darfur, the Khartoum government responds in the same way, which is it looks at the scene, and it picks the weakest, the most vulnerable, the ones that they can bring under their wing.
It arms them and says, “Go for it.”
And they go for the land.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Mamdani, you quote the saying, “Out of Iraq, into Darfur.”
What about intervention?
MAHMOOD MAMDANI: Well, look, the question in Darfur is really, how do we stop the fighting.
Because if we want to stop the killing of civilians, we have to stop the fighting.
The only way to stop the fighting is a political resolution.
In 2005, African Union troops came into Darfur.
I interviewed the Ghanaian general who was deputy to Dallaire in Rwanda and who is the chief of the UN nucleus force in Darfur.
And he said to me that the African Union troops were spectacularly successful in 2005.
The killing came down dramatically.
And then, he said, two things happened.
Both happened around the question of finances, because African countries can provide troops but they don’t have finances to provide salaries or logistics.
So the first shift was around salaries.
The salaries of African troops were being paid by the European Union, which paid them from an emergency fund, and it shifted the payment to quarterly payments.
So they would make payment every three months.
They would only make the next three-month payment if the paperwork was done properly, if there was accountability.
So, as I speak now, African Union troops have not been paid for four months, because the EU says there hasn’t been proper accountability.
Second is about logistics.
The troops have to work with planes, and the planes provided are not military planes.
They are planes flown by civilian pilots.
And civilian pilots have the right to refuse to fly in areas which they consider dangerous.
Now, of course, all these areas are dangerous.
So you’re operating with logistics that you don’t control.
Civilian pilots will not.
The Ghanaian general said to me - I asked him, I said, “Why do you think these changes happened?”
He said, “I don’t know.
But the only thing I can think is that the reason would only be political.”
I had the same response when I heard President Bush’s speech.
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Photo: US AID |
MAHMOOD MAMDANI:
The contention has been over who has political control over the troops in Darfur.
The African Union troops are under the political control of African Union.
And there is a concerted attempt being made to shift the political control of any intervention force inside Darfur from inside Africa to outside Africa.
The second thing is that the African Union is convinced that they cannot go in and fight.
They can only go in with the agreement of both sides, so they can only intervene consensually.
And that is crucial and important, because if they go in with the two sides not agreeing, the fighting will simply increase and the slaughter of civilians will increase.
President Bush's speech yesterday — the response of the UN, the UN Secretary General, was, “Look, we’re just arriving at an agreement.
We’ve been working for the last four, five months, and the Sudan government is agreeing.”
The South African response was the same.
Why sanctions now when we are about to arrive at an agreement?
Any sane thinking person would think that, intended or unintended, the consequence of these imposition of sanctions is to torpedo that process on the ground.
And that process is the political process which is absolutely vital to stopping the fighting.
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AMY GOODMAN:
You mentioned Congo.
What about the comparison of the conflicts and the attention given to each?
MAHMOOD MAMDANI:
Well, no two comparisons are exactly alike, of course. We know that.
But to the extent that numbers are being highlighted, the numbers are huge in Congo.
The Congo estimates are four million-plus [killed] over several years.
The Darfur estimates go from 200,000 to 400,000.
So why no concern about Congo?
Congo involves, again, multiple causes, like Darfur.
It’s a huge place.
But both states are allies of the US in the region so there's nothing said about it
But in Kivu province, where I have been, the conflict has been very Darfur-like, in the sense that you’ve had proxies being fed from the outside, the Hema and the Lendu.
You have the recruitment of child soldiers.
You have two states in the region arming these proxies: Uganda and Rwanda.
But both states are allies of the US in the region, so there's nothing said about it.
The most recent example is Somalia.
We can see that the civilian suffering is going up dramatically in Somalia since the intervention, Ethiopian intervention force.
And we know that the Ethiopian intervention force had at least the blessings of the US, if not more than that — I’m not privy to the information.
And nothing is being said about it.
So one arrives back at the question: what is the politics around it?
And I’m struck by the innocence of those who are part of the Save Darfur — of the foot soldiers in the Save Darfur Coalition, not the leadership, simply because this is not discussed.
Where does Save Darfur Coalition money go?
Let me tell you, when I went to Sudan in Khartoum, I had interviews with the UN humanitarian officer, the political officer, etc., and I asked them, I said, “What assistance does the Save Darfur Coalition give?”
He said, “Nothing.”
I said, “Nothing?”
He said, “No.”
And I would like to know.
The Save Darfur Coalition raises an enormous amount of money in this country.
Where does that money go?
Does it go to other organizations which are operative in Sudan, or does it go simply to fund the advertising campaign?
AMY GOODMAN: To make people aware of what’s going on in Darfur.
MAHMOOD MAMDANI: To make people aware of what is going on.
But people, who then, out of awareness, give money not to fuel a commercial campaign, but expecting that this money will go to do something about the pain and suffering of those who are the victims in Darfur.
So how much of that money is going to actually — how much of it translates into food or medicine or shelter?
And how much of it is being recycled?
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think the UN process, if allowed to carry forward, would be the answer right now?
MAHMOOD MAMDANI: Well, the answer has to be a political process.
The African Union, if its hands are not tied — if this money was translated into salaries and logistics for the African Union force, it would untie those hands.
If the governments who claim to be speaking and acting for the people of Darfur, if they actually directed the money they intend to spend on intervention to paying salaries for the African Union forces, to providing the logistics without these constraints, the problem would be much closer to solving.
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Attackers have destroyed the container and emptied it of its contents Photo: US AID |
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MUBARAK: I can't sleep all night long. I also can't eat. I have bad nights. I’m always thinking about back home.
REFUGEE GIRL: All the kids dream at night and cry. You ask why, and they say, “The planes come.”
Some of them wake up and run.
When you stop them and ask them why, they say, “because the soldiers are coming to beat me!”
MUBARAK: When the Antonovs dropped bombs on us, we ran to hide under the trees.
The ones who were not killed ran away.
Antonovs killed my father.
I saw many people killed.
I saw it with my eyes.
Many people were killed with him.
The bombs severed people’s arms and legs, and the people fell.
We were forced to leave by army, Janjaweed and Antonovs.
Three days later, we came back and buried the dead.
After the bombing, we came and dug many graves.
We used tools and cut wood from the trees to dig the graves.
After we buried the people, we left.
Even after we left, the Janjaweed and army came and killed people.
Interview continues — Click Here |
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Monday, September 18th, 2006
Damanga Coalition for Freedom and Democracy
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MOHAMED ADAM YAHYA: In this case, the situation is going to be worse, and there is going to be a real disaster over there, because the government of Sudan right now threatening to send those African Union troops, almost about 7,000, who are already doing the job over there, but they are not sufficient to do the job perfectly, because Darfur is really double size of France, not only size of France, and it’s even bigger than Texas, a state here in the United States, and it is not enough for the African Union to do that job.
And even though the government of Sudan trying to get them out of the country and to open the way to the troops from the government, which has already deployed in Darfur about 3,000 troops, this for the first time since this war began in Darfur to send this big amount of people over there, all those troops.
This is really creating a new disaster. The government has started in just two weeks, and even before this resolution passed in August 31st, they watched and launched those troops in Darfur, and they targeting those civilians in the villages and bombed them, and even they displaced so many recently from their villages.
AMY GOODMAN: Jason Miller, can you talk about the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act, what the U.S. Congress is doing about Darfur?
JASON MILLER: The U.S. Congress major piece of legislation, as you mentioned, is the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act. Unfortunately, as it went through multiple iterations that passed through the House and Senate, it got watered down to some degree to the extent now that the current version that we have has dropped the possibility for a no-fly zone and secondly has also dropped the federal government's explicit support for the divestment campaign that’s happening across the country at the state level.
AMY GOODMAN: And what is that divestment campaign?
JASON MILLER: So, the general concept of divestment is that right now there are no economic levers or pressure from the U.S. on Sudan, because the U.S. already had sanctions on Sudan because it’s a state sponsor of terrorism. But as U.S. citizens, we can exert pressure on companies that are significantly supporting the Sudanese government and allowing them to carry out their military campaign. So what we’re trying to do across the country is pull that economic lever so that Sudan has a buy-in into creating peace in Darfur. They have a worse alternative if they don't create peace, and that is the economic fall-out of this divestment campaign.
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AMY GOODMAN: Like against Apartheid South Africa.
JASON MILLER: Very much similar to that.
AMY GOODMAN: Who is putting pressure, who pulled these sections of the bill out?
JASON MILLER: Well, the current Section 11, which helped to give federal protection to states divesting, was pulled out by Senator Lugar, who is chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
And he just introduced that — pulled that revised version last Monday.
AMY GOODMAN: And who’s putting pressure on him?
JASON MILLER: We don't know the exact people.
We do know that the National Foreign Trade Council, which is a coalition of the largest multinationals with a presence in the U.S., is actively against the Sudan divestment campaign.
We also suspect through our contacts in Congress that some members in the State Department are against the divestment campaign, because they view it as a turf war between the federal government and the state's rights to do what they deem as foreign policy.
AMY GOODMAN: The Trade Council you mentioned saying that we're not going to have foreign policy determined by the Mayor of Berkeley.
JASON MILLER: Right, that is the exact group that mentioned that, and their view is that only the federal government determines foreign policy. Our view is that this isn’t an issue of foreign policy, it’s a state’s right to invest based upon financial risk and moral factors that they deem okay for them.
AMY GOODMAN: Is the Trade Council suing Illinois?
JASON MILLER: The Trade Council is indeed suing Illinois for its divestment bill right now. And our worry is that if they are successful in Illinois, that will give cold feet to other state legislatures who are right now actively considering divestment.
AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed Yahya, do you support a divestment campaign of companies involved with Sudan?
MOHAMED ADAM YAHYA: Absolutely, I support divestment, and especially those companies who are working on investing their money in a large scale in Sudan. This is really one of the bad things that are affecting those Darfurians and those victims, who are already victimized by the government of Sudan.
They use this money to fuel the war, to fuel the war, and as the government gets this money to use to get the weapons and to get, yes, a kind of, you know, yes, weapons of mass destruction and to use it against those civilians in Darfur.
We’re against this kind of act. We encourage all those companies or even governments who are working in Sudan to divest immediately, because the money, this — we consider this money is bad money, because blood money is a bad money.
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AMY GOODMAN: Jason Miller, what companies are doing business with Sudan?
JASON MILLER: It's important to emphasize that our group is not interested in targeting all companies, because some are doing substantial good in Sudan, but the ones that are really helping the government without providing benefit to Sudan’s citizens tend to be oil and energy companies from China, Russia, India, Malaysia, and to some degree France.
Not surprisingly, these are the same countries, especially China and Russia, that are impeding a lot of international action on the issue of Darfur.
They’re protecting their commercial interests in the country.
AMY GOODMAN: Mohamed Yahya, what at this point are you saying needs to be done?
Do you believe that a U.N. peacekeeping force in Sudan will make the difference?
Is it at all possible?
We're talking just a matter of days before the end of September, when the African Union forces leave.
MOHAMED ADAM YAHYA: Certainly, the peacekeepers, if deployed immediately to Sudan, they are going to make a difference.
Our people over there, they are waiting for a long time to get those peacekeepers in Darfur.
They even demonstrated in their camps, those IDPs and those refugees in the cities, in the towns, in their shelters in Chad.
They made a statement, and they said, “Welcome, welcome, U.S.A. Welcome, welcome, United Nations.”
Because the only way out from this really terrible war and this genocide is to send the international peacekeepers, the foreigners, and this is going to — hopefully United States of America to lead this mission, and immediately, before those African Union withdrawn from Darfur.
This is the only solution, I believe. |
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Oil Strengthens the Sudanese Government By Tanguy Berthemet Le FigaroSaturday 11 November 2006 The tall skyscraper looks like a big glass and steel egg posed along the banks of the Nile. In a few months, the Fatah Hotel will open its doors and offer the Sudanese its covered swimming pool, its bars, its fitness rooms. Western luxury, unimaginable only a short time ago. Khartoum's residents are already rushing to taste the first fruits of this international modernity under the Ozone Cafè's outside air conditioners, at the Solitary Internet restaurant's tables, and under the new shopping mall's vaulted ceilings. In its aisles, rich families and laughing young people belted into pants labeled "Made in Dubai" stroll about. Khartoum is only a thousand kilometers from the evils of Darfur. But it's another universe. The city is too absorbed in its many construction sites and its arteries gorged with cars to worry about the conflict. "This whole story about the war is exaggerated by Westerners to keep Sudan in poverty and loot its wealth," answers an annoyed Ali Ousman Ibrahim, a student who sips on fruit juice at the Ozone. "But it's not working."
Swollen with petrodollars, the Sudanese economy is experiencing a veritable boom.
Growth posted at 8.2% in 2005 should reach 10-12% this year.
Gross domestic product went from 14.6 billion dollars in 2001 to 36 billion, according to the estimates of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The American embargo, supposed to suffocate Sudan, is caving in all over. Attracted by the smell of black gold, China, Malaysia, India and the Gulf countries have rushed in.
"Oil is the motor for the Sudanese takeoff," asserts Rachad Ousman, an executive from the Dal Group, one of the country's most important industrial conglomerates.
Production remains modest, certainly: officially 500,000 barrels a day.
But that's enough to breathe the necessary fresh money into the economy.
China, Premier Partner
To limit this sudden prosperity to oil alone would, however, be a mistake.
"The Islamists who hold the larger share of power are very skillful people, well-educated and pragmatic, who understand the ropes of [economic] liberalism," anonymously insists an Arab political scientist from Khartoum.
A few adjustments suggested by the IMF attracted the financiers of the Gulf and expatriate Sudanese only too happy to return to the country.
Foreign investments in Sudan jumped from 120 million dollars in 2000 to 2.3 billion today.
This slight gentrification has not, all the same, pushed the police regime to greater leniency.
"Khartoum is only a showcase. The money stays in the capital and nothing goes to the provinces, where there are no roads, no schools, no water. The only thing that's decentralized is poverty," asserts Alfred Taban, Director of the Khartoum Monitor daily newspaper.
According to the NGO International Crisis Group (ICG), most business — through a complex game of shell companies — is in the hands of those close to the government or to the security apparatus.
"Everything is terribly opaque. It's even impossible to know the exact amount of oil production or the income that comes from it," emphasizes the political scientist.
The government, which is finally garnering the fruits from its exercise of power, seems less inclined than ever to share them.
And now it possesses the means to assert its will.
"It is obvious that without money it would have been less arrogant with the UN and the United States and would not have rejected the Blue Helmets' arrival so easily," parses Alfred Taban.
Supported by Arab opinion very hostile to Westerners, the very unpopular Sudanese government has even succeeded in regaining a bit of credit in the eyes of its own people by engaging in these contests.
But, above all, the petrodollars allow it to pursue the costly war against the Darfur rebels.
The construction of a weapons and munitions factory assures Sudanese soldiers and their allies regular supplies.
Khartoum, become an oil power, has also won itself some powerful allies. Beginning with China.
By far Sudan's first partner, Beijing, not very observant of human rights, supports the regime almost unconditionally.
"China is present in almost all the big projects — which it most often finances with very advantageous loans," a diplomat indicates.
The gamble attempted by Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bachir nonetheless sets teeth on edge.
In Khartoum, businessmen are discreetly beginning to worry about growing Western pressure.
"We must speedily find the means to a true reconciliation in Darfur," a financier slips in.
"The economy, security, and politics are very linked and always end up influencing one another."
Translation: t r u t h o u t French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher.
© : t r u t h o u t 2006 |
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Friday, 28 April 2006
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BBC Friday, 14 April 2006 |
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Sunday, 5 February 2006
Sudan militia 'is targeting Chad'
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| www.democracynow.org December 20th, 2004 |
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Screams of Sudan's starving refugees By Hilary Andersson
BBC Africa correspondent 
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www.democracynow.org December 20, 2004
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www.democracynow.org December 20, 2004
'Genocide underway' in Sudan
AMY GOODMAN: The S.L.A., who are they?
MARK BRECKE: The Sudanese Liberation Army, some call them rebels, but they're much more than rebels. They're a real people's movement.
Extremely organized and very educated.
I was with a unit for almost three weeks.
I was with some of the top commanders.
The commanders come from different varieties of occupations.
One was a veterinarian.
One was a college professor, one used to work for the government.
The younger members of the S.L.A. have left university early to join the movement in Darfur.
This is their land.
This is where they have come from for generations.
This is what they're fighting for.
Just equality and not autonomy. |
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Testimony Before the Committee on International Relations U.S. House of Representatives May 06, 2004
Roger Winter Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance
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...Our experts have put together a mortality chart, which I will submit for the record.
I would like to focus attention on this chart because it shows what we have feared for some time, and especially since the violence escalated dramatically last December.
This chart shows why we were raising that alarm and what we are faced with now since we have not had adequate humanitarian access.
Looking at this mortality chart, several points stand out immediately.
The threshold mortality rate for an emergency is one person per ten thousand dying everyday from the effects of the emergency.
At the time the chart was created, the number of people "affected" by the emergency in Darfur was 1.2 million people. USAID estimates that by June 2004, Darfur will reach three deaths per 10,000 people per day.
This is just the starting point.
In a normal year, this is the time when Darfurians finish consuming their crops from the last growing season.
They are also preparing for the long "hunger gap."
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They plant their crops for the new year before the rains begin.
Once the rains start, it is difficult to get food, so people use their stored crops and their animals to sustain them through this period.
In Darfur, they also typically migrate to other parts of Sudan or other countries to earn cash through this rough period.
At the market, they purchase what they could not grow on their land.
This year, however, is tragically different.
Water sources have been destroyed and crops burned by the jingaweit.
The people who have fled their homes have no food stocks, having left with only a few possessions.
People who are still in their homes have depleted their food stocks by feeding themselves and their displaced relatives.
The livestock, at least the ones that were not looted, were sold for cash.
Donkeys, which are vitally important to the livelihoods of rural people, have died in huge numbers, leaving households without the ability to transport water and other critical items.
Because of the conflict, the population has not been able to earn cash.
Even if they have cash, many markets have also been looted, burned, and deprived of commodities coming into the region.
They are now barren and empty.
In short, the agricultural cycle for this year has been lost.
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Even if people no longer feared the jingaweit and returned to their land, many would still die because the crops have already been destroyed.
If they cannot return before the rainy season to plant, they will have no harvest for the next year.
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Friday, 11 March, 2005 Darfur's hunger set to continue
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AMY GOODMAN: We're joined now by Suleiman Jamous, with the Sudanese Liberation Army. He is speaking to us from Darfur. Welcome to Democracy Now!. What is the situation right now in Darfur?
SULEIMAN JAMOUS: The situation now in Darfur is the government is not respecting our agreement of cease-fire, and is violating everywhere, especially in the south Darfur to the east of Niala, and are speaking to the media that they are respecting the cease-fire agreement, but on the ground, they're preparing themselves, I think, for a bigger war.
And I think we may be led to a war which is bigger than the previous one.
Our government is using all weapons, gunships and tanks and big artillery against the civilians.
And they're avoiding our towns where the S.L.A. groups are counting, and they're burning villages and farms which are ready to cultivate, and scaring all of the citizens who are now fleeing to the areas which are controlled by the S.L.A.
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This started on the 6th of December, until today, they are doing the same.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us why the S.L.A. has decided to take up arms against the Khartoum government?
SULEIMAN JAMOUS: Well, we don't know the reason, but we found that the government is trying to work with our area, and by killing or scaring or raping our women and girls everywhere, and they were trying to take us out of the area.
This kind of — they made us some kind of genocide.
So we decided to defend ourselves against the government with the Janjaweed, and when we defeated the Janjaweed, government itself came to the field of fighting, and they fought us.
So, we started as a defending group to defend our areas against the Janjaweed that were backed by the government.
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Further on, the government itself participated in the fight with the Janjaweed, and we did not find any way, unless we fight until the government goes out of power.
This is, of course, what started the war at first.
What I am calling for is — those who are here in the field can see more than those who are away, waiting to learn from the media.
I think my friend, Mark Brecke was here and he saw at least so many areas, the mass graves and mass killing and some raids, I think, and he saw the recent field of war and how the government is burning our villages and looting our animals to compel to us leave the area, or — like that.
So, what I’m asking the world to do is make come kind of pressure to the government at least to give us our rights and leave us alone to live.
And if they are not going to help us with any kind weapons of defending to defend ourselves, so they have to a least help us overthrow this government, and make some kind of a democracy in Sudan with equal rights for all the Sudanese people, and to not leave us to genocide, and to be smashed from the air.
They are using this helicopters and this scares the citizens.
The citizens are very scared from this, and they are fleeing in numbers towards the different parts of the S.L.A. controlled area, and they need to be assisted at least to live.
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| Janjaweed (Jingaweit) roughly translated means "evil men on horseback with guns" |
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US AID US Government website
The humanitarian emergency in Darfur is a direct result of violence and harassment directed toward the Fur, Zaghawa, and Masaalit civilian groups by Government of Sudan (GOS) forces and GOS-supported militia groups collectively known as Jingaweit.
In early 2003, the Sudanese Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) stated that they would engage in armed struggle to achieve full respect for human rights and an end to political and economic marginalization in Darfur.
On April 24 and 25, 2003 the SLM/A attacked GOS military forces at El Fasher in North Darfur.
Following this attack, GOS military forces and Jingaweit militia initiated a more coordinated campaign of violence against civilian populations, including aerial bombardments to kill, maim, and terrorize civilians who the GOS claimed were harboring opposition forces.
Conflict-affected populations have described recurrent and systematic assaults against towns and villages, looting, burning of buildings and crops, destruction of water sources and irrigation systems, gang rape, and murders.
Throughout late 2003, armed conflict intensified, as GOS military and Jingaweit clashed with the two main opposition groups – the SLM/A and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) – in Darfur.
Following U.S. Government (USG) and European Union (EU) facilitated negotiations in N’Djamena, Chad, the two main opposition groups and the GOS signed a renewable 45-day humanitarian ceasefire on April 8 that took effect on April 11.
This agreement included a GOS commitment to disarm Jingaweit militia groups and a protocol on providing humanitarian assistance in Darfur.
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Darfur aid worker's diary XVII
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| SPLM officials say Obama's family originally came from Sudan not Kenya |
| As the world turns its attention to this western region of Sudan, oil is a factor in global politics and in relations with Khartoum. |
| Sudan's oil reserves
By Phil Gasper Socialist Worker Online June 11, 2004
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| Kewe Archives |  More war images | More war images | TheWE.cc |
They were kept tellingus that we are nothuman beings and we are here to serve them
Testimony from unnamed boy
