Political Detainees in Limbo

From Amnesty International

Amnesty International believes that there are many more political detainees in Sudan than those named on the list. Families do not often know where detainees are being held. Prisoners are transferred from one place to another, while families must search for any information at all about their relative's whereabouts. There is no public registry of detainees that relatives can consult.

[edit]

At least a third of detainees were arrested in Darfur, most of them held arbitrarily in connection with the conflict. Many are still detained in Darfur; others have been transferred to Khartoum. They include community leaders, critics of government policy and people -- including members of Arab groups -- seeking to engage in reconciliation. Most have been arrested on suspicion of sympathising with the Darfur armed groups, however only 26% have been charged or brought to trial.

More than 100 detainees arrested elsewhere, mostly from Darfur and Eastern Sudan, have been transferred to Khartoum. Among those believed to be detained in Khartoum are 18 supporters of the Beja Congress, arrested in Port Sudan or Kassala and transferred to Khartoum. Because of the distance and the difficulties of travel, most have had no access to their family. For most of the 69 Popular Congress members on the list, arrested during mass government round-ups in September 2004, even the nine months detention period without access to a judge allowed in Sudanese law has now expired. The government linked these arrests to a plot against the State, but few of those still detained have been brought to trial; many have not even been charged.

Eastern Sudan Rebels say Khartoum Hiding Bombing Casualties

From AFP

The head of an eastern Sudan rebel group said Thursday the Sudanese government is trying to hide casualties from alleged bombing of civilian targets last week that were aimed at halting an advance by his fighters.

[edit]

He said the air force had destroyed four villages and a main bridge in the in the remote Barka Valley in eastern Red Sea state and caused a large but unknown number of civilian casualties.

Ahmed told reporters in the Eritrean capital that the number of dead and injured was impossible to determine because the Sudanese authorities were attempting to keep the figure secret.

"We are doing our best to collect this information," he said. "Most casualties are in government-supervised hospitals and nobody is allowed to enter. The government tries to prevent the news coming out."

Luis Moreno-Ocampo's Presentation to the UN

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, briefed the Security Council yesterday on the status of the investigation into the crimes committed in Darfur.

Ocampo's statement can be found here and his report can be found here (both PDF files.)

Brian Steidle Event

It appears as if the Holocaust Museum's Committee on Conscience will be hosting a presentation by Brian Steidle on July 27th.

Bush Discusses Darfur

Or at least mentions it

We're strongly committed to peace for all the peoples of Sudan. American mediation was critical to ending a 20-year civil war between north and south, and we're working to fully implement the comprehensive peace agreement signed last January. Yet the violence in Darfur region is clearly genocide. The human cost is beyond calculation. In the short-term, more troops are needed to protect the innocent, and nations of the African Union are stepping forward to provide them. By September, the African Union mission in Sudan will grow from 2,700 to 7,700 personnel. In a NATO operation next month, the United States military will airlift more than 1,000 Rwandan troops. We will support the construction of additional 16 base camps over the next two months, and we will provide communications and vehicle maintenance for the entire force.

In the long run, the tragedy in western Sudan requires a settlement between the government and the rebels. And our message is clear: All sides must control their forces, end the killing, and negotiate the peace of a suffering land.

Daily Darfur

From Reuters

Sudan's justice minister on Thursday rejected calls for the extradition of Darfur war crimes suspects to the International Criminal Court, after the court's prosecutor said key perpetrators may not face justice at home.

[edit]

Justice Minister Ali Mohamed Osman Yassin said 10 suspects were already on trial in southern Darfur for crimes including rape.

"Now the court is starting its job ... We have started judicial proceedings and the hearings have started," Yassin told BBC radio.

"We are very transparent, we are cooperative, and we would like to use all the rational logic to convince the ICC that this matter can be retained locally."

From the Weston Town Crier

On June 16, the Rev. Dr. Gloria White-Hammond, Boston pediatrician and world recognized humanitarian activist, gave an impassioned talk to a crowd gathered at the Weston Community Center about her most recent trip to the Darfur region of Sudan and the efforts of her newly formed organization “My Sister’s Keeper.”

Describing the genocide that has been called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with 250,000 people killed (and 15,000 to 35,000 dying every month) and 2 million displaced, White-Hammond’s clear message was that while it may be too late for many, it is not too late to make a difference and each of us must try.

From Jane's Defence Weekly

US military and intelligence sources warn that ancient desert smuggling routes stretching from Mauritania in the west and Sudan in the east are becoming "areas of choice" for Al-Qaeda and other militant groups as they seek to boost recruitment in the region.

From Reuters

The first batch of a 2,000-strong Nigerian contingent is due to leave for Sudan's Darfur region on Friday to bolster an African Union force monitoring a shaky ceasefire in the area, a defence spokesman said on Thursday.

From Reuters

Sudanese authorities on Thursday released prominent Islamist Hassan Turabi, detained last year on suspicion of plotting a coup, in a step toward reconciliation among Khartoum's political elite.

Hundreds of supporters shouting "God is great" welcomed Turabi, a former ally of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, to his Popular Congress party headquarters in the Sudanese capital.

Bashir said in a speech on Thursday that his government had decided to release all political prisoners and undertake other reform measures.

ICC Finds 'Credible' Information on Grave Crimes in Darfur

From the UN News Center

There is a "significant amount of credible information" to show that grave crimes have taken place in Sudan's western Darfur region, and every effort will be made to identify those who bear the greatest responsibility, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) told the United Nations Security Council today.

[edit]

Today, Mr. Ocampo said his Office had received information showing the killing of thousands of civilians, the widespread destruction and looting of villages, as well as persistent targeting and intimidation of humanitarian personnel. The ICC would identify those bearing the greatest responsibility for the crimes and assess the admissibility of the selected cases.

Eritrea - Sudan Tensions Grow

From AFP

Already tense relations between neighboring Eritrea and Sudan deteriorated sharply on Wednesday as the two countries traded bitter threats and accusations over eastern Sudanese rebels fighting the Khartoum government.
Meanwhile, the rebel group in question, the Eastern Front, accused Sudan's military of terrorizing civilians in Red Sea state with constant overflights by fighter jets and other warplanes after charging last week that Khartoum had bombed civilian targets in the region.

The increasing verbal belligerence began with a statement from the Eritrean foreign ministry accusing Khartoum of committing "horrendous crimes" in the troubled western Darfur region and "atrocities" in eastern Sudan.

It ended with Sudan's foreign minister warning that the situation on the border could "explode" if Eritrea continues with what it claims is military support for the Eastern Front.

Conflicting Priorities

For more than two years, the international community has done little to stop the violence in Darfur or provide security to the millions of displaced victims. And the closer one follows the world's response to this crisis, the clearer the conflicting priorities of the major actors (the US, the AU, the ICC and the UN) become.

Though former Secretary of State Colin Powell declared the situation "genocide" in September 2004, the United States has more or less ignored the Genocide Convention's legal requirement that parties to the convention "undertake to prevent and to punish" it. This can be partly explained by the fact that the administration played a key role in ending the decades long war in the South and does not want to risk upsetting it by directly confronting Khartoum over Darfur. It can also be partly explained by the fact that the CIA has developed significant ties to the regime in Khartoum, which has become "an indispensable part of CIA's counterterrorism strategy."

The International Criminal Court has just recently become involved in the conflict in Darfur, taking up an investigation and warning that Khartoum must cooperate with its investigation. The ICC is a relatively new body that has yet to try a case and is still working to establish itself as a viable international body. As such, the ICC is proceeding slowly and cautiously, attempting to stay within the bounds set by the ICC statute and avoid an embarrassing and potentially damaging showdown with Khartoum should the genocidal regime refuse to cooperate.

The AU faces many of the same problems. As a relatively new organization, the AU hopes to become the key to providing "African solutions to African problems." Over the last six months, the AU has only been able to supply 2/3rd the number of troops it initially mandated and will, in all likelihood, be equally unable to fill the size of its expanded mandate. As a fledgling organization, the AU does not possess the clout or support necessary to demand an expanded mandate to protect civilians in Darfur and has been reluctant to seek outside logistical or financial assistance for its mission, perhaps out of fear that doing so will highlight its inadequacies and undermine its credibility further.

While the US, ICC and AU all have a genuine interest in stopping the violence, it is clear that they also have internal concerns that are restricting their effectiveness in Darfur.

At the same time, the United Nations faces internal concerns of its own. The presence of Russia and China on the Security Council has stymied attempts to force Khartoum to reign in the Janjaweed militias and prevented the imposition of sanctions. Nonetheless, no amount of internal concerns can excuse this recent statement by Jan Pronk, Kofi Annan's Special Representative to Sudan.

While Annan was telling Khartoum that the violence "must stop," Pronk was praising Khartoum for setting up meaningless show trials designed solely to slow the ICC investigation

The government says its national trials will be credible and will be a substitute for the ICC, which announced last week the formal launch of its investigation in Darfur.

Pronk said those concerned about the credibility of the national court, which begins proceedings on June 15, should give the government the benefit of the doubt.

"If the government takes a decision to do something which it had been asked to do late, you only have to criticise that they are late, you should not criticise that they are doing it," he said. "So give the government the benefit of the doubt."

For two years, Khartoum has waged a genocidal campaign against the people of Darfur, taking the lives of an estimated 400,000 people. Under no circumstances does this government deserve "the benefit of the doubt."

Solving the crisis in Darfur is undoubtedly a priority for many in the international community. Unfortunately, it is not a main priority. And because of that, it is likely that tens of thousands Africans will continue to die over the coming months.

Rwanda to send 2,000 Troops to Darfur

From The New Times via AllAfrica

The Rwanda Defense Forces (RDF) is to increase its peacekeeping mission to Darfur to three battalions, comprised of two thousand troops by July 15, this year.

The revelation was made June 28 by Director of Research and Development in the RDF Lt. Col. Charles Karamba, while addressing students and staff of the Kigali Independent University (ULK) on the role of the RDF in managing the conflict in the troubled Sudanese western province of Darfur.

East Sudan Rebels Agree to Talks with Conditions

From Reuters

East Sudan's rebels and opposition parties will hold talks with the government if it releases prisoners and publishes an investigation into police shootings in January, a rebel leader said on Wednesday.

Amna Dirar, head of the main eastern opposition party, the Beja Congress, said the government must address the needs of the neglected east, which has seen a recent flare-up of fighting.

"Yes we are ready (for talks), but we have two conditions: release all the detainees and publish a result of the investigation into Port Sudan," Dirar told Reuters in Khartoum.

Africans Back U.N. Intervention for Serious Abuses

From the Inter Press Service News Agency

Africans strongly support military intervention authorised by the United Nations Security Council to stop serious abuses of human rights in their region, according to a just-released survey which also found that they prefer U.N. forces to those of the African Union (AU).

The survey of nearly 11,000 Africans from eight countries -- Angola, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe -- found that about two-thirds of respondents agreed that the U.N. should have the right to intervene in such cases and that just over half agreed that intervention was justified even without the Security Council's authorisation.

The surveys, which were conducted by Globescan between late last year, were released here Wednesday along with a the results of a new poll of U.S. public opinion by the University of Maryland's Programme on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) that also found continuing majority support for U.N. military intervention in Darfur, Sudan.

The U.S. poll, which was conducted just last week, found that 61 percent of respondents said U.N. members should ”step in with military force to stop the violence in Darfur” and that 54 percent said the United States should be willing to contribute troops to such an operation.

A higher percentage -- nearly three quarters -- of U.S. respondents said they thought NATO, including the U.S., should contribute equipment and logistical support to the current AU monitoring operation in Darfur, Sudan, where as many as 400,000 have died as a result of a two-year-old counterinsurgency campaign against the region's African inhabitants that the Bush administration has called ”genocide.”

And this is rather revealing

Just over one-third of Africans interviewed by Globescan said they had heard or read a great deal or a fair amount about the Darfur conflict, according to the report.

You can get the PIPA report here.

Daily Darfur

From Reuters

Sudan has promised to prosecute murder and rape suspects in Darfur but the key perpetrators may not be among those Khartoum plans to put on trial, the prosecutor of a global court said on Wednesday.

[edit]

In a report ahead of his first appearance before the Security Council on Wednesday, prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said any Sudanese trial probably would not conflict with an ICC probe aimed at "prosecuting persons most responsible for crimes."

He said that in Sudan there appeared to be an "absence of criminal proceedings relating to the cases on which the Office of the Prosecutor is likely to focus."

From AFP

Eritrea has accused the Sudanese government of committing "horrendous crimes" in Darfur and "atrocities" in eastern Sudan but renewed denials that it is providing military support to rebels in the east.

From AFP

A determined group of 5,000 displaced Sudanese on a 435-mile trek back to their homes in southern Sudan have reached their halfway point after a two-month odyssey across parched riverbeds, thick forest and swampland, an aid agency said Tuesday.

From the UN News Service

With a peace agreement ending the decades-long civil war in southern Sudan and the arrival of United Nations peacekeepers, Secretary-General Kofi Annan is calling on international donors and the Sudanese parties to meet high expectations for significant improvement in the situation on the ground.

From IRIN

One-third of all internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Sudan plan to return to the south within six months, posing considerable humanitarian challenges to aid organisations, an interagency survey found.

And finally, Darfur appears to be the new standard against which horrible living conditions are measured

The U.N. chief peacekeeper said Tuesday that some parts of Haiti are worse off than the war-ravaged Darfur region of Sudan.

Undersecretary-General Jean-Marie Guehenno said although thousands have been killed and displaced in Sudan, in some ways the living conditions are better there than in Haiti.

The Caribbean nation was plunged into violence last year when armed rebel groups began taking over the country hoping to force President Jean-Bertrand Aristide form power.

Aristide eventually left the country in February 2004. Since then U.N. peacekeepers have been trying to restore order to Haiti, where food shortages affect much of the country and violence has claimed hundreds of lives in the last few months.

Darfur's 2 Million Refugees Languish in Camps Over Security Issues

From Catholic News Service

While the Sudanese government encourages some refugees in the Darfur region to return home, aid workers here report that conditions for a safe return do not exist in most areas.

"A few of the displaced have gone home and seen that they have nothing, so they have returned to the camps," said Bjorg Mide, director of ACT/Caritas Darfur Emergency Response, a global alliance of Catholic and Protestant aid agencies.

The United Nations says at least 180,000 have been killed in the conflict in Darfur. Some 2 million residents of Darfur have been chased from their homes in a scorched-earth campaign that many have characterized as genocide.

International officials in Sudan report that, in an effort to get people out of the overcrowded camps, the government is paying families and providing transportation so that they may return to their villages. Yet many of the villages are nothing but ashes following two years of attacks by Arab militias aligned with government troops.

Rebel infighting undermines Darfur peace talks

From Reuters

Divisions within two rebel groups from Sudan's Darfur region over who speaks for the fighters on the ground are undermining peace talks in the Nigerian capital.

International mediators led by the African Union (AU) say the parties are making slow progress toward agreeing a declaration of principles. But rebel infighting on the fringes of the talks is calling into question the value of any agreement.

The AU has resisted getting drawn into arguments over who speaks for the fighters. "We simply cannot get involved in the internal affairs of the movements. What we want is to hear one voice per movement," said an AU spokesman on Tuesday.

Mortality in Darfur Down but Health "Extremely Fragile"

From the UN News Center

The mortality rate in the troubled Darfur region of Sudan has declined significantly, but the health of the population remains “extremely fragile,” according to a new survey undertaken by the Ministry of Health of the Government of Sudan (GOS), United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations.

“Major progress has been made by the humanitarian community and GOS in Darfur. However, we must not allow the situation to slide back,” said the UN Humanitarian coordinator, Manuel Aranda Da Silva, who commissioned the survey, which found that traumatic injury, meningitis and diarrhea remained major causes of death.

Over 70 people, including local and international epidemiologists, carried out the survey from mid-May to mid-June of 2005, interviewing more than 3,000 families or about 26,000 people affected by the conflict between the Government, rebels and militias in the three states of Darfur.

The researchers found a death rate of around 0.8 per 10,000 people per day, which is below the international crisis threshold of 1 death per 10,000 per day – three times lower than the previous survey.

Around 50 per cent of child deaths were caused by diarrhea, which is a preventable condition, according to the survey.

Due to a successful measles vaccination campaign, that disease claimed relatively few lives during the period surveyed. However, the next campaigned, planned for July, must be implemented in order to keep the illness down.

In addition, water and sanitation assistance needed to be increased as a matter of priority to keep diarrhea and other diseases at bay during the coming season.

“Deaths due to malaria could rise” in particular, warned Mr. Da Silva. “The rainy season is approaching and preparedness for malaria control needs to be stepped up urgently,” he said.

This report does say exactly where the survey was conducted, so it is hard to know just how exhaustive it is and if it covers all of Darfur or simply those who have been displaced.

Regardless, there are an estimated 6 million people in Darfur and if the "death rate of around 0.8 per 10,000 people per day" applies to all of Darfur, that means that 480 people are dying per day, 3,360 per week, and 13,440 per month.

If it covers only the displaced (of which there are an estimated 2 million,) the death toll is 160 per day, 1,120 per week and 4,480 per month.

Daily Darfur

From the Sudan Tribune

Darfur rebels have attacked an Antonov plane belonging to the UN in Labadu area in Southern Darfur State in western Sudan. The plane was on its way from Khartoum to the capital of Southern Darfur State, Nyala.

The African Union blamed the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) for the attack. An informed source said JEM had used a bomb to carry out the attack, the pro governmental newspaper Al-Anba said.

From the AP

The conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region will not be settled until disputes over land ownership and animal grazing rights are resolved, the U.S. aid chief said.

Andrew Natsios, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development who has been visiting Sudan for many years, said Monday that the Darfur conflict is being fueled by an ideological clash as well as a fight over available land, which pits the rights of farmers against the right of nomads to move their animal herds around.

Also, I came across this op-ed by Gen. Romeo Dallaire that I can't find a link to, so I am going to post it in its entirety (Passion of the Present managed to track the link down here)

The solution for Darfur: Two years ago, I called for a major effort to stop a repeat of Rwanda, but nothing happened. Now, things have changed.

Romeo Dallaire
24 June 2005
Ottawa Citizen

The debate surrounding the Canadian response to the situation in Darfur must not be cheapened by partisan bickering or personal disputes. The focus must remain on the people of Darfur and how Canada can best contribute to stopping the human-rights abuses and crimes against humanity there.

Based on my experience as commander of the United Nations Force in Rwanda in 1994, and everything I have learned since, I believe the best hope for Darfur right now is for the wealthy countries of the West, like Canada, to do all they can to support the African Union in its efforts to bring security and stability to Darfur.

As recently as three months ago, I called for an intervention force of up to 44,000 combat and support soldiers to be deployed to Darfur, a recommendation based on the many reports of mass killings, destruction of villages and concerted internal displacement as Darfuris fled for their lives en masse from the Janjaweed militias. Add to this the raping of women and young girls as they foraged for critical scraps of wood, the nightly raids on dispersed rural populations, the still unprotected camps and the despair and disease spreading due to lack of food and other vital supplies. The whole situation smacked of a repeat of the Rwandan genocide.

The militias, tribal extremists and common bandits essentially achieved with impunity the aims of the Janjaweed. They succeeded in creating the revolting scenes that we see throughout Darfur today: millions of innocent people packed into camps in Sudan and neighbouring Chad; a depleted rural population, villages burned and countryside ravaged, waiting for the onslaught of torrential rains.

All the while, what did the supposedly enlightened, just and human-rights-conscious developed world do about this situation as it unfolded over the last two years? What did we do when faced with these hard and verified facts, even as reminders of the Rwandan genocide a decade before flickered on the movie screens?

In fact, we did not do much.

Faced with cries for help from Darfuris, echoed by hundreds of humanitarian workers on the ground, we fiddled, prevaricated and watched from afar. We hoped, as was the case 11 years ago, that the problem would resolve itself, in as short a time as possible and with a minimum commitment on our part.

The situation in Darfur has changed dramatically over the past few months. Make no mistake, the situation continues be grave. The rapes and killings must stop and security must be improved to allow the millions of refugees and internally displaced persons to return to their homes, and for humanitarian aid to reach those desperately in need.

However, a changed situation calls for a changed response. We have to focus on this new state of affairs. The priority must be the protection of the nearly two million internally displaced persons and refugees who ultimately must return safely to their homes and start to rebuild their lives.

Having taken the decision not to intervene months ago while genocide was unfolding, we are now faced with different options. There is a conspicuously more defined and limited threat and consequent security requirement.

Instead of leading a Don Quixote cavalry charge into a desert that has absorbed legions of white colonial troops in previous decades, we may finally have realized that those who are the most immediately concerned, and who are the closest to this calamity, might be the best ones to intervene. We don't need a crusade by the professional armies of the north. We need a more humble and determined effort and an extended kinship.

When the world abandoned Rwanda in 1994 at the height of the genocide, the big powers told me that the genocide was an African problem and so it was up to the Africans to sort it out. But the Africans did not have the means to do so.

Eleven years later, Africans are once again being told to sort out their problems and there is some evidence they have learned some lessons from Rwanda.

The African Union soldiers currently stationed in Darfur have the fundamental skills necessary to do the job. They don't lack the experience or the motivation to accomplish their mission.

As United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan reported after his tour of the region a few weeks ago, in the areas where the African Union Mission (AMIS) is deployed the security situation is vastly improved -- reducing fear among the local populations and permitting humanitarian aid to get through. The AU force is extremely effective in the areas in which it is present; but they must be supported and reinforced so they are able to increase their presence across the region.

What the AU forces lack are the "force multipliers," tactical mobility, as well as the strategic airlift that would make them most effective. They require helicopters, and armored vehicles. And the commanders of this mission require the resources that would allow them to establish a proper headquarters with communications to improve their command and control function. The Darfur mission needs exactly what I needed in Rwanda -- but did not get.

This is exactly the support and reinforcement Canada is providing. We are reinforcing the African Union Mission with a significant force multiplier capability for the rapid reaction reserve forces in the form of armoured personnel carriers and helicopters, which are of great strategic importance to the force commander's ability to effectively achieve his mission. We are providing additional support in the form of equipment and material and are prepared to provide planning experts and other specialized staff to support AU operations.

In May I travelled, as a member of the prime minister's special advisory team, to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to take part in the AU Pledging Conference where Canada committed $170 million to AMIS, the largest single contribution made at the conference.

While in Addis I met with many people involved in the AU mission, including the deputy force commander from my mission in Rwanda, Maj.-Gen. Henry Anyidoho who is now the chief of staff of AMIS. These meetings strengthened my professional commitment and reinforced my belief that the support Canada is providing to AMIS is the full and right response to the situation in Darfur and for Africa in the long term.

Canada is prepared not only to offer its expertise and experience in dealing with these situations. We can also try to use our influence with others. We must facilitate and support the AU countries as they grapple with this situation and learn how to better serve their African brothers and sisters when the next catastrophe hits their region.

We must help Africans to sort out the evil in their midst that strangles development and drowns the fundamental rights of every human to be treated and respected equally.

Senator Romeo Dallaire is a member of the prime minister's special advisory team on Sudan and former commander of the United Nations Force in Rwanda.

Ignoring the UN, Then Asking for its Assistance

I guess that just because Khartoum flagrantly refuses to abide by any of the multiple UN resolutions calling on it to reign in the Janjaweed and stop killing its own citizens doesn't mean it can't complain to the UN and ask for protection from Eritrea

Sudan plans to lodge a protest with the United Nations against Eritrea, accusing it of seeking to stoke instability after a rebel offensive in the east of the country, the state-run SUNA news agency said Sunday.

The agency quoted Sudan's UN ambassador Al-Fatih Irwah as saying that Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail would hand Secretary General Kofi Annan a written complaint Monday against "the Eritrean regime and its irresponsible practices aimed at destabilising Sudan and undermining the peace process."

After all, protecting the sovereignty of genocidal regimes is what the UN is all about.

UN Refugee Agency Fears for Darfur Children

From Reuters

The world was not paying enough attention to the plight of children in Sudan's west Darfur, where many were forced to join armed groups or were separated from their families, the U.N. refugee agency said on Monday.

"The whole issue of child protection is one that deserves more focus," said Erika Feller, director of international protection at the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

She said that international awareness was high about the continuing problems of sexual violence and rape facing women and female children amongst the refugee populations forced to flee violence in the vast western region of Sudan.

But less was known about the other dangers facing children.

"I met mothers who told me that their children had been abducted and that they had not seen them for months," she told a news conference following her return from the region.

"Others told me of forced recruitment ... about problems associated with the traumas of children who had lost their families," she added.

Rape as a Strategic Weapon of War in Darfur

The latest from Eric Reeves

"In Darfur, rape is systematically used as a weapon of warfare," Jan Egeland, UN Under-secretary for Humanitarian Affairs, June 21, 2005

Eric Reeves
June 25, 2005

Egeland’s recourse to the present tense in describing the use of rape as an ongoing weapon of war in Darfur is entirely appropriate. The Janjaweed militia forces allied with the Khartoum regime are continuing a brutal campaign of systematic sexual violence directed against the women and girls of non-Arab or African tribal groups. Khartoum for its part remains deeply complicit in this campaign, now in its third year, as Egeland makes clear in his characteristically forthright statement:

“[Egeland said] the impact of [sexual] violence was compounded by [the government of] Sudan's failure to acknowledge the scale of the problem and to act to stop it. ‘Not only do the Sudanese authorities fail to provide effective physical protection, they inhibit access to treatment.’ He said in some cases unmarried women who became pregnant after being raped had been treated as criminals and subjected to further brutal treatment by police. ‘This is an affront to all humanity,’ Egeland said.” (Reuters, June 21, 2005)

The consequences of systematic, racially/ethnically-animated sexual violence in Darfur are enormous. Rape as a weapon of war is one the largest elements of the insecurity defining most of Darfur; sexual violence increasingly paralyzes civilian movement and powerfully circumscribes the grim lives within overcrowded and under-served camps for displaced persons. More broadly, insecurity continues to attenuate humanitarian reach and efficacy.

The threat of rape severely inhibits the gathering of firewood, water, and animal fodder. The collapse in Darfur’s food production is also directly related to the ongoing intimidating effects of sexual violence. More generally, rape---and the impunity with which it is committed by Khartoum’s proxy military force in Darfur---contributes to a desperate decline in morale within many camps and among displaced persons, some now entering their third year in this debilitating condition.

A powerful study of sexual violence in Darfur was published last fall and deserves the closest attention. Written by Tara Gingerich, JD, MA and Jennifer Leaning, MD, SMH, “The Use of Rape as a Weapon of War in the conflict in Darfur, Sudan” (October 2004) was prepared for the US Agency for International Development/OTI under the auspices of the Harvard School of Public Health and the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights (available at: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/fxbcenter/). Virtually all of the conclusions and assessments made in this detailed and historically informed study continue to be borne out by realities on the ground more than half a year later.

Dying in the Dust: a Story from Sudan

From Reuters

Sprawled on the ground with his face pressed into the earth, the boy looked like he might already be dead.

Naked but for a pair of bangles on his ankles and white dust caking his skin, the four-year-old had collapsed a few steps from a group of starving children sheltering under a tree. It was as if he had been discarded.

Working as a reporter in Africa, it's not uncommon to see people dying. For it to be a child, in a village in southern Sudan, during a drought makes the event even less exceptional. What made this boy different was that just a few weeks before, the world had promised to help.

Daily Darfur

Via Passion of the Present, we get this

Sudan's Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has agreed to consider the possibility of lifting sanctions imposed on the northeast African state.

Speaking after talks with the top US diplomat, he said "most of the problems" that used to hinder normal relations between the two countries had been removed and that he urged her to lift the trade and economic sanctions.

"Secretary Rice told me, she promised me, that she is going to start looking at it," Ismail told reporters at the State Department.

From SUNA

An American delegation, which is to be led by US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, is to participate in Sudan's celebrations marking the start of the interim period and the inauguration of the President of the Republic and his deputies on July 9, the Chargé d'Affaires of Sudan Embassy in Washington, Ambassador Khidir Haroun Ahmed, said.

From Reuters

Sudanese rebels who recently clashed with government forces in the east have accused Khartoum of using planes to bomb civilians near the Eritrean border.

"Civilians take all the punishment - their houses, their livestock. Today [Friday] they are bombing with aircraft," said Salah Barqueen, a senior official of the Eastern Front, a rebel movement formed in February when the Beja Congress merged with another eastern rebel group, the Rashaida Free Lions.

Taisier Ali, secretary-general of the Sudan Alliance Forces, a Sudanese opposition group based in neighbouring Asmara, Eritrea, said they thought the planes were Russian-made Antonov bombers attacking from a high altitude.

From Reuters

Tiny southern Sudanese Martin Atiyan's hollowed cheeks screwed up into a scowl as he hit out at his thin diseased mother trying to breast-feed him. At 3 months he weighs half as much as a normal new-born baby.

But in this feeding centre for severely malnourished children between 6 months and 5 years old, Martin is not an unusual case. The centre, run by a Sudanese aid agency on a shoe-string budget deals with about 40 cases like Martin each month.

The feeding centre operates in the Mayo refugee camp, not in war-torn areas like Darfur or southern Sudan, but situated a few kilometres outside the booming capital Khartoum.

The United Nations estimates at least 2 million people live in camps or slums surrounding Khartoum. They receive little aid from international donors.

From AFP

Women in displaced persons' camps in Darfur remain prey to rape, a UN security report said, adding that two Sudanese aid agency staff had been kidnapped by ethnic minority rebels.

Five women from the Kalma camp outside the South Darfur state capital of Nyala were abducted and raped when they left the camp to collect firewood on Tuesday, the report said, without giving further details.

From a column by Leonard Pitts

By the same token, though, I think people overdo the ''I'm just one person, I'm helpless'' routine. Especially in light of two facts: 1.) We are fortunate enough to live under a representative government that, in theory and often enough in practice, responds to our concerns, and 2.) The Internet gives us more information and personal power than our forebears could have dreamt.

Truth is, we are the least helpless people on earth. So ''I'm just one'' simply doesn't cut it. Martin Luther King Jr. was just one. Lech Walesa was just one. That guy who blocked a tank in Tiananmen Square was just one.

The death toll in Sudan stands at 400,000 and rising. The United States has provided humanitarian aid, but has declined to forcefully press Sudan -- a putative ally in the war on terrorism -- to stop the massacre. Earlier this year, the Senate passed a resolution -- the Darfur Accountability Act -- requiring sanctions against Sudan. The White House killed it. American news media have covered all this with a fraction of the energy and attention they accorded the Michael Jackson trial.

Save Darfur

From Save Darfur.org

Will You Join Us In Helping Millions of Americans Care for Darfur?

Tens of millions of Americans attend religious services every weekend. Yet many have not had the opportunity to reflect on the plight of those suffering in Darfur. The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have called for a weekend of prayer and reflection. By helping Americans learn about the suffering and our spiritual obligations to respond, we can help the people in Darfur.

You can contribute by encouraging your own religious leaders to participate in this shared weekend of prayer and reflection.

The Save Darfur Coalition is looking for volunteers to help us reach out to local faith communities and invite them to participate. If you have one to two hours to help, we will send you a short list of faith groups in your area to contact, information about the weekend, and some talking points to help your efforts. For more information, please send your name, telephone number, and zip code to us at volunteer@savedarfur.org

Below is the announcement for the weekend.

National Weekend of Prayer and Reflection for Darfur
July 15th, 16th and 17th 2005

The families of Darfur, Sudan are suffering. An estimated 400,000 Darfurians have been killed since February 2003 and over 2.5 million people’s lives remain at risk today. Over 500 innocent people die each day from violence, malnutrition and disease. By working together, individuals and faith communities can bring this to an end, but we must act now.

Join millions of Americans in praying for the innocent people of Darfur on July 15th, 16th, and 17th. Declared a National Weekend of Prayer and Reflection for Darfur by the United States Senate (S. Res. 172) and House of Representatives (H. Res. 333), the weekend coincides with the one-year anniversary of the Congressional declaration of genocide. Please use this opportunity to reflect on the plight of Darfur’s children and their families and respond as your faith and religious traditions call you.

The people of Darfur need our help. We hope that you will join us.

Sudan Denies Bombing

From AFP

Sudan dismissed Friday as "unfounded" claims by rebels that it carried out an aerial bombing campaign in eastern Red Sea state that resulted in many civilian casualties.

"The government is committed to protecting property and lives of citizens in the event that rebels threaten security and stability," Information Minister Abdul Basit Sebdarat told the official SUNA news agency.

He added that the government "did not use aircrafts, it did not carry out any aerial bombings in any region in eastern Sudan, saying the rebel claims were "not correct."

Two rebel groups in the region had said that the government has launched an intensive aerial bombing campaign on civilian targets in eastern Red Sea and accused it of pursuing a policy similar to that used in the troubled western Darfur region.

Daily Darfur

From the BBC

Sudanese government warplanes have dropped bombs on north-eastern rebel forces who have been fighting the army since Sunday, the rebels say.

A number of people were injured in the raid, the Eastern Front rebels said.

From IRIN

A court set up by the Sudanese judiciary to try suspected criminals in the western region of Darfur has raised questions regarding its legal status vis-à-vis the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is conducting separate investigations in Darfur.

Sudan's justice minister, Ali Mohamed Osman Yassin, formed the court through a national decree. He was quoted by local media as stating that the court was "considered a substitute to the International Criminal Court".

From the AP

The State Department's second-ranking official met Thursday with Sudan's top diplomat and urged him to take steps to halt the violence in Darfur and to permit the unfettered deployment of African Union troops in the region.

Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick met with Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail at the State Department. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to meet with Ismail Friday.

Only rarely have foreign ministers from countries on the State Department list of state sponsors of terrorism been received at the department.

From UNHCR

Although much lip service is being paid by all concerned to the importance of protection objectives, Feller said a lot more needs to be done. She told a group of aid agencies based in El Geneina that those involved in protection efforts must be given the resources they need to expand their presence and activities. Protection also has its costs. There is a gap here between the rhetoric and the financial support that protection activities tend to attract.

UNHCR has asked for $31.3 million for its Darfur operation, but so far has received only $3.9 million.

On a more positive note, the UNHCR mission found that there are "pockets" in Darfur where improved conditions have led to some limited, spontaneous return movements. UNHCR has identified several villages where displaced persons have already gone back to their homes with the aim to regain their former livelihoods. In selected locations, we are now cautiously engaging in small-scale self-sufficiency activities to support these people reestablish themselves. This requires a carefully balanced approach; providing support to those who need it, while ensuring that these activities do not create any false impressions about the prevailing security situation and encourage additional movements in a situation not considered conducive to returns.

Via Minor Wisdom, we get this op-ed by Paul Rusesabagina, the inspiration for "Hotel Rwanda"

I ask that the nations of the world provide hope to these people right now. I have received a humanitarian award from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for my part in helping 1,268 refugees stranded in the hotel I managed in Kigali during the 100 days of slaughter over 11 years ago. But I ask that the symbol of hope for today's refugees not be the long-ago action I took at a hotel, just trying to do my job. Rather, the nations of the world can and must provide hope to those people right now.

The UN should implement its resolution on Sudan and bring the war criminals before the International Criminal Court. An arms and oil embargo should be imposed. We know that the Sudanese weapons are bought with the profits from oil.

We know helping refugees is a temporary solution. The long-term solution is to hold the Sudanese government and militias accountable.

It's the responsibility of all of us to ensure that our governments stop genocides. We cannot allow them to evade their duty where thousands or millions perish. Otherwise, we will all be responsible for perpetuating the genocides that will inevitably occur in the future.

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From SUNA

Minister of Foreign Affairs Mustafa Osman Ismail arrived Wednesday in Washington on an official visit to the United States of America.

The Charge d'Affaires of Sudan Embassy in Washington, Ambassador Khidir Haroun, said in a statement to SUNA that Ismail would meet a number of officials of the American Administration and Congress, civil society organizations, businessmen, media and representatives of the Sudanese community in Washington.

G8 Foreign Ministers Call for More Darfur Troops

From AFP

Foreign ministers from the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations called for extra troops to be deployed in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region by the African Union.

"We welcome the work of the African Union mission in Sudan," said a statement at the end of a day-long meeting in London to prepare for the G8 summit at the Gleneagles resort in Scotland next month.

"Where the troops are deployed, they are having a positive impact. Expansion of the force will help stabilize the situation, and we stand ready to do what we can to support this."

[edit]

The G8 foreign ministers -- from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States -- also called for the prosecution of "all those responsible for massive violations of human rights in Sudan".

"We will continue to support the humanitarian effort in Darfur and across Sudan," said Thursday's statement, which was presented to reporters by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who chaired the G8 meeting.

"More will be needed through this year, but only a political solution can create long-term peace and security for Darfur," it said, welcoming the resumption of African Union peace talks in Nigeria's capital Abuja.

Blogging About Darfur

Tapped as several posts that discuss Darfur:

Mark Leon Goldberg

It seems that we are back to the bad old days of cold Cold-War calculations: The United States doesn’t care what happens inside the borders of a cooperative regime. That, at least, is the message the administration sends to the genocidaires in Khartoum -- while out of the other side of its mouth, it decries their genocide.

Matthew Yglesias

If there had been no invasion, we could have used the savings in military strength to mount a much smaller intervention in Sudan that would have saved countless lives.

Jeffrey Dubner

On the one hand, you've got Mark's point that we don't really plan to do anything about Darfur. On the other hand, you've got Matt's point that we've squandered too much of the United States' muscle to confront other problems in the world. That clapping sound you hear is all the other bloodthirsty, cold-hearted killers in the world realizing they can do anything they want.

So What Can I Do? also has posts on related topics here and here.

Darfur Returnees Still Fear Attack

From Reuters

Darfur refugees who returned to a village cited by Khartoum as a model of security say they are virtual prisoners, fearing renewed attack by Arab militias if they venture out.

The inhabitants of Sania Delaiba in South Darfur state fled fighting and had their homes burnt last May during a revolt by mostly non-Arab rebels which has run into its third year in Sudan's remote western Darfur region.

They returned home a few months later and were compensated by the Khartoum government, but say they feel trapped in their small village of about 2,000 inhabitants south of the state capital Nyala.

Consolidated Appeals Process

From the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

As insecurity in Darfur continues, possible scenarios considered in the contingency plan, including a potential additional influx of Sudanese refugees, remain valid. WFP foresees the possibility to assist an additional 150,000 Sudanese refugees in case the situation in Darfur further deteriorates.

The logistical challenges of humanitarian operations in the remote and desert Eastern Chad are enormous. They are further exacerbated by the poor level of existing infrastructure in the region. This leads to a considerable increase of costs of humanitarian operations.

The Mid-Year Review (MYR) strives to reflect these trends. In addition to assistance to refugees, it foresees significant additional financial requirements in order to address needs of host populations and to provide agencies the ability to react adequately to a possible further deterioration of the situation in Darfur, including a massive influx of refugees in eastern Chad. It also anticipates an increase in operational costs, given the difficulties to reach populations in need in the particularly harsh and under-developed Eastern-Chad environment. The CAP 2005 for Chad encompassed 65 projects in 12 sectors. In order to address the urgent protection and assist needs of 300,000 people for the rest of the year, financial requirements have been revised to US$ 223,881,823. With the donor response standing at US$ 60 million as of 10 June 2005, requirements for the remainder of 2005 total US $163,963,164.

Media Comparisons

Time for our semi-regular feature comparing major media mentions of the issue du jour versus Darfur

Number of mentions of Brennan Hawkins, the Boy Scout who got lost in Utah, in the last week: 236

Number of mentions of Darfur in the last week: 237

Total number of mentions of Marian Spivey-Estrada, the USAID worker in Darfur who was shot in the face back in March, over the last three months: 3

Daily Darfur

From AFP

African Union mediators and parties in Sudan's Darfur conflict have set up a working committee specifically to get past differences that have stalled full peace talks for almost two weeks, AU officials and delegates said Thursday.

The fifth round of the AU-mediated talks to end a ruinous civil war in Darfur, which resumed in Abuja on June 10, has been deadlocked over rebel opposition to a mediation role for neighbouring Chad, thus halting the adoption of a key Declaration of Principle (DOP) by the warring parties.

"The working group will begin work today. It will sit for two days. We expect it to turn in its report by Friday and then the plenary session can begin thereafter," AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni told AFP.

From the AP

Authorities have detained thr