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.

?????

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 three journalists in Chad on criminal charges over reports and columns critical of the government, according to a media watchdog group.

From Reuters

Government troops are preparing a counter attack against eastern Sudanese rebels who raided army camps earlier this week, a rebel official said on Thursday.

From the Washington Times

Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick said yesterday that Sudan's new unity government must exert stronger pressure to curb the violence and human suffering in the country's war-torn Darfur region.

Mr. Zoellick told a House International Relations Committee hearing that the United States had "zero tolerance" for further human rights abuses in Darfur, but African troops -- not U.S. or NATO forces -- must take the lead in containing violence there.

The department's No. 2 diplomat also criticized the United Nations for not seconding a U.S. determination last year that government-backed attacks by Arab militias on the largely black African Darfur population amounted to genocide.

"The definition of the United States of the human suffering in Darfur is 'systematic genocide.'?" Mr. Zoellick said, noting that a subsequent U.N. investigation defined the suffering in Darfur only as "crimes against humanity."

US Opposes Western Troops in Darfur

From the AP

The Bush administration is opposed to the dispatch of U.S. or European forces to help enhance security in Sudan's Darfur region because they could be vulnerable to attack by terrorists, the No. 2 State Department official said Wednesday.

The region is populated by "some bloodthirsty, cold-hearted killers," Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said, mentioning Somalia in particular as one possible source.

Zoellick was asked about the potential for non-African peacekeeping presence in Darfur during a House International Relations Committee hearing on Sudan.

[edit]

Zoellick said any expansion in these roles to an on-the-ground presence could lead to charges by some Africans that "the U.S. or the colonial powers are telling Sudan what to do."

Rep. Barbara Lee, a Democrat, suggested that non-African troops in Sudan might be appropriate given recent precedents. She noted that British forces were sent to Sierra Leone to restore peace several years ago and that French and Belgian troops have been deployed in the Congo.

Many committee members expressed horror over the continuing suffering in Darfur that persists well over a year after the region became the focus of international attention.

[edit]

Zoellick said it was vitally important that the African Union force succeed not only for the sake of the beleaguered victims in Darfur but also for other regions of Africa that may be beset by conflict.

The African Union has taken on the challenge of Darfur, Zoellick said, "in the belief that Africans are needed to solve African problems."

You can get a PowerPoint presentation of Zoellick's testimony here.

Darfur Refugees Threaten Hunger Strike

From Reuters via Passion of the Present

Darfur refugees on Wednesday threatened to go on hunger strike if conditions do not improve in camps in the remote region and expressed discontent with African Union forces monitoring a shaky ceasefire.

Tribal leaders in Darfur's largest camp, Kalma, said unless a commercial blockade on the camp, imposed by the government for almost a month, was lifted and conditions improved, they would fast for three days starting Friday and then go on hunger strike.

Daily Darfur

In something of an unhappy anniversary, it has now been exactly one year since I began the first of my "Daily Darfur" posts.

From Reuters

Rebels from the Darfur region of western Sudan are developing a new front in the east of the country, expanding their campaign against discrimination by central government, they said on Wednesday.

From IRIN

Rebels of the Beja Congress group in eastern Sudan have destroyed three government military camps during fighting that broke out in the northeast on Sunday, one of the rebel leaders said.

"Our forces destroyed three big camps and other smaller stations," said Salah Barqueen, secretary for legal affairs of the Beja Congress, which merged with the Rashaida Free Lions in February to form the Eastern Front.

Also from Reuters

Violence flared up in the western Sudanese state of South Darfur on Sunday when rebel fighters of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) attacked and killed a number of Sudanese soldiers, a UN spokesperson said.

The attack on government troops took place in the area of Manawashi, about 78 km north of Nyala, the capital of South Darfur State.

Also from Reuters

One medical charity has treated 500 victims of sexual violence in Darfur in four months and this is just a fraction of such attacks in the Sudanese province, a senior U.N. official said on Tuesday.

Under-Secretary General Jan Egeland told the Security Council women and children were being systematically raped and assaulted in the ravaged region and urged Sudanese authorities to do more to protect civilians and end a culture of impunity.

Addressing the U.N. Security Council on the need for more international effort to protect civilians in armed conflicts, Egeland said Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo were among the countries where sexual violence was worst.

World Must Do More to Protect Civilians in Armed Conflict

From UN News Center

There is little hope of stopping the deliberate targeting of civilians and relief workers in armed conflict without the political will to tackle impunity, to provide reliable crisis funding and devise better ways to report rights violations, the United Nations Emergency Coordinator said today.

At the core of the challenge is the changing nature of warfare: increasingly, civilians – including humanitarian workers – often are not just random, incidental victims of conflict, but targets of it, Jan Egeland told reporters after he briefed the Security Council on the protection of civilians in armed conflict. Indeed, with the numbers of killings, rapes and kidnappings on the rise, it's "far more dangerous today to be a civilian than a soldier," he said.

[edit]

During his briefing, Mr Egeland said that brutal and indiscriminate tactics of terror continue to be deliberately employed in the world's most protracted protection crises. He listed a raft of alarming trends, from the unchallenged use of sexual violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the re- recruitment of child soldiers in Liberia, to the massive forced displacement in Colombia and the rise of sectarian violence in Iraq.

"Imagine the quality of life for those that are caught in these cycles of violence living in constant terror," Mr. Egeland said. "This has an enduring impact on individuals and tears the very fabric of society. Such endemic violence cannot continue. We have a responsibility to find better solutions to these intractable situations."

To better protect civilians, address displacement and the needs of children, and end sexual violence, he said the world must fight impunity by supporting the International Criminal Court and strengthening national judicial systems; include the protection of civilians in all peacekeeping mandates; strengthen engagement with regional and intergovernmental organizations; and improve humanitarian funding.

Mr. Egeland told reporters that the situation of civilians caught in the crossfire in conflicts around the world was "bleak." He also highlighted the increasing dangers faced by humanitarian workers, saying that 12 colleagues had been lost in Afghanistan since his last briefing to the Council in December, and least five had been killed in Sudan's troubled Darfur region. Scores more have been kidnapped or detained. "This has to stop," he said.

Banditry and Looting Continue in Darfur

From the UN News Center

Looting and banditry, including attacks by armed groups, continued to be reported in the troubled Darfur region of Sudan, the United Nations said today.

In an update on the situation in wider Sudan and the Darfur region, the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) listed a number of incidents including a reported attack in eastern Sudan that was repelled by the Sudanese army. UN commercially rented trucks carrying food were in the area during the incident.

Due to the continued violence, UNMIS said that non-governmental organizations still continued to face difficulties in certain areas.

Sudan says UN Observers Welcome to Attend Trials

From AKI

Sudan's foreign minister, Mustafa Osman Ismail, has reiterated his government's refusal to turn over alleged war criminals to the International Criminal Court (ICC), saying that those implicated in atrocities in the country's Darfur region will be tried in Sudan, but that international observers will be allowed to monitor the hearings. Ismail who arrived in Rome on Monday for a two-day official visit, made the remarks in an interview with Adnkonos International (AKI).

"The Sudanese government neither wants to challenge nor contradict the International Criminal Court," Ismail said, when asked whether Khartoum had set up its own war-crimes tribunal as an alternative to the ICC.

The Sudanese court has already started its work, said Ismail, adding that it would "open its doors to Sudanese and international media as well as United Nations and International Criminal Court representatives to monitor the proceedings."

Sudan Rebels Promise 'Real War'

From Reuters

Rebels in Sudan's remote eastern region said Tuesday they were holding 20 government troops from an attack on three camps and promised "real war" against a government they accuse of ignoring their needs.

The Eastern Front rebel movement said in the last two days it had destroyed three government garrisons near Tokar, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of Port Sudan on the Red Sea.

Analysts fear eastern Sudan could become the next flare-up in Africa's largest country, where conflict in the western Darfur region has brought international condemnation and a 21-year-old war in the south only ended a few months ago.

"Fighting is continuing. We have no intention of stopping," said Salah Barqueen, legal secretary for the Beja Congress, one of two groups forming the Eastern Front.

"This is war. It is a real war," he said at his office in the Eritrean capital Asmara.

First Darfur Defendants Say They Are Innocent

A new piece by Opheera McDoom of Reuters

The first 10 defendents to be tried by Sudan's special Darfur court said they were innocent on Tuesday, the second sitting of the court which Sudan hopes will avoid international trials for crimes in the remote region.

The 10 members of the government-allied Popular Defence Forces aged between 18 and in their late 40s sat in the dock of the small, crammed court in the capital of South Darfur, Nyala, and listened to the testimonies of witnesses for the prosecution and a woman who said she was raped.

The 10 men from the Arab Rizeigat tribe are accused of armed banditry, injury, rape and robbery. Mostly dressed in the traditional long white garment called a galabiyya, they sat silent throughout the proccedings.

One witness identified two of them as present at the time of the attack. The rape victim did not positively identify her attacker and did not remain for the duration of the trial.

"We are not afraid," the accused told Reuters after the proceedings. "We feel this is an easy case and we are innocent -- the court will not take long to see that," said defendent Moussa Osman.

[edit]

The 10 are accused of looting a bus and other vehicles carrying more than 100 people outside Nyala in December last year, not the crimes against humanity which a U.N.-appointed commission of inquiry found evidence of in their report to the Security Council earlier this year.

Daily Darfur

From AFP

Eastern Sudanese rebels have launched a major offensive near the country's main port, capturing government troops in what Khartoum charged was an operation mounted with the complicity of Eritrea.

At least one rebel group from the troubled western Darfur region currently involved in peace talks with Khartoum was involved in the attack, which the local governor charged was an attempt to shift fighting to the east.

Government officials vowed their troops would hit back, prompting fears of a fresh flare-up in Africa's largest country.

Also from AFP

African Union (AU) mediators trying to bring peace to Sudan's Darfur region, wracked by conflict and humanitarian crisis, said they would get talks going again Tuesday despite a stalemate over the participation of Chad.

From the Sudan Tribune

The Belarusian government has announced that it continued exporting weapons to Sudan and Ivory Coast, the Belarusian news agency Belapan reported.

In its 2004 report sent to the UN Register of Conventional Arms, the government notes that it supplied Sudan with 21 BRDM-2 armoured reconnaissance vehicles, seven BTR-80 and 10 BTR-70 armoured personnel carriers and a BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle.

From UNHCR

High Commissioner António Guterres told recently displaced refugees from South Sudan today that the international community must do more to translate a peace agreement for the region into reality.

Visiting a reception centre at Palorinya in northern Uganda on the second day of a three-day mission, Guterres met recently-arrived refugees, including one man who asked why people were still being forced to flee despite the January 9 peace agreement in South Sudan.

The man said he arrived in Palorinya on May 20 after fleeing repeated attacks on a succession of villages in South Sudan by the notorious Lord's Resistance Army. "That peace agreement is for others and not for all of us," said the man, whose wife was killed and five of his six children missing. "When will it help us?"

The High Commissioner told the refugees: "Some people don't respect the peace agreement. Then there are the attacks by the Lord's Resistance Army. It will take some time, but I hope things are moving in the right direction. It will take patience, however."

Finally, this seemingly important article recently appeared in the Washington Times

U.S. officials say nearly 500 foreigners are in Sudan for training as Islamic terrorists. The trainees include Palestinians and nationals from Iraq, Iran, Indonesia and Pakistan.

At least four al Qaeda training camps are operating in Sudan. A fifth training camp in Khartoum is limited to Sudanese Islamists. Two of the five are in Khartoum, one is in southern Sudan, and officials said the locations of the other two are still under investigation.

[edit]

The activities of the foreign terrorists are being carried out under the direction of an Islamist cleric known as Sheik Mohammed Abdel-Kareem, the officials said, and are retaliation for what the government sees as Israeli and other foreign meddling in Darfur, where government-backed militias have been killing civilians in tribal violence.

[edit]

The new information on Sudanese terror training also backs reports from nongovernmental organizations working in Sudan, said Eric Reeves, a Sudan specialist at Smith College in Northampton, Mass.

"NGOs operating in Darfur have told me they have seen camps for Middle Eastern nationals, although they are unsure what the connection is to al Qaeda," Mr. Reeves said in an interview. "But they're there."

Mr. Reeves said the Sudanese government is "extremely adept at covering its tracks."

If Khartoum is backing Middle Eastern terrorists, it is probably because the government wants to warn the United States and other Western supporters of aid efforts in Darfur that Sudan is willing to turn the region into "another Iraq," Mr. Reeves said.

Khartoum Characters

The latest from Mark Leon Goldberg

The United States gives a substantial portion of the world’s humanitarian assistance to the roughly 150 camps for the internally displaced that dot Sudan’s western region. But where a government has recognized genocide, dictates of treaty law require an effort to punish and prevent war crimes -- and that’s an effort the Bush administration has yet to undertake.

“Declaring Darfur a genocide every six months or so leaves the administration open to criticisms that they are politicizing the use of the term,” says John Prendergast of the respected nongovernmental organization the International Crisis Group. “The genocide declarations appear less demonstrative of policy and more of a political ploy to be seen as being tough on the [Sudanese] regime.”

Indeed, both Powell’s genocide declaration -- delivered September 9, 2004 -- and Bush’s recent concurrence belie the general trend in the administration’s Sudan policy. The rhetoric can occasionally be tough, but the policy behind it bears the hallmarks of a creeping rapprochement with the regime in Khartoum, which is responsible for the deaths of as many as 400,000 in Darfur and the displacement of 2 million more. And if the current trajectory of the Bush administration’s Sudan policy is sustained, there’s the likelihood of a new era of constructive engagement with Khartoum -- pursued in the name of fighting the war on terrorism -- after the Sudanese government undergoes a constitutional restructuring in July.

Update on Brian Steidle

The Capital out of Annapolis, Md has this profile of Brian Steidle

In addition to Congress, Mr. Steidle has testified for Britain's House of Commons, and appeared on media outlets throughout the world. He's made his information available to the International Criminal Court in the Hague, which announced on June 6 it would open formal war crimes investigations into the Darfur debacle. The Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., has put some of his photographs on its Web site.

Now he is going back.

This month Mr. Steidle, who has been living on a sailboat in the Annapolis area since February, is returning to the camps in Chad - this time with an HBO film crew to document the horrific stories the displaced thousands have to tell.

Surviving Darfur

From the National Geographic Society

More than 17 million refugees and other displaced people fall under the humanitarian umbrella of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). To increase awareness of their plight, the UNHCR has established World Refugee Day, which is being observed today, June 20, in 116 countries.

In keeping with the occasion, the National Geographic Society is exhibiting the photographs of French-born Hélène Caux at its Washington, D.C., headquarters. Caux is a photojournalist and humanitarian aid worker for the UNHCR.

Titled "Surviving Darfur," the exhibition documents the unfolding African humanitarian crisis in Sudan and neighboring Chad.

You can see photos from the exhibit here.

WFP Appeals for Extra Funds

From IRIN, via Passion of the Present

The UN food agency has appealed for an additional US $94 million to buy more food for an estimated 3.5 million people who could go hungry as a result of the conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan.

Additional food aid will be required to carry people through the annual August-October "hunger season". This year, more than half the entire population of Darfur would need food aid during this time, the World Food Programme (WFP) said in a statement released on Friday.

The funds would be used to acquire an extra 84,000 mt of food and enable the agency to raise its monthly target to 3.25 million out of the 3.5 million people in Darfur who are in need.

"The Darfur conflict is now sadly halfway through its third year. In May, WFP fed 1.8 million people in Darfur, most of them stranded in camps after being forced from their homes and farms," said Ramiro Lopes da Silva, WFP's country director in Sudan.

"But large numbers of others can no longer provide for themselves because of insecurity, drought, the poor harvest last year and with local markets closed. They don't live in camps, but are all caught in the same Darfur trap and urgently need our help to survive," he said.

In the Camps of Chad

From the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent

Assan Yaya looks older than his 40 years. His hair is grey, his face lined. Formerly an engineer working for a government department in Sudan, he now lives in Bredjing refugee camp, home to some 29,500 people who have fled from conflict in the Sudanese province of Darfur.

Assan has more reason than most to feel miserable. Ten years ago he fell ill with a fever and a stomach ache. Afterwards, his joints started to stiffen up. Rheumatism, he says. Today he is nearly paralyzed. He can barely move his head. Someone has to lift his thin frame into a sitting position on his bed, which is a pad of blankets folded on the ground.

He shares a tent with his six-year-old daughter and his brother’s family. “When my condition deteriorated, I let my wife go. She is married to another man now,” says Assan in English. In spite of his troubles, Assan’s face lights up when he gets a visit from 12 fellow refugees being trained by the Red Cross to do home visits and care for people who are chronically ill, have a disability, are elderly or orphaned.

It will be their responsibility to visit extremely vulnerable people every day, and others a few times a week, in the Red Cross-managed camps of Bredjing and Tréguine, home to a total of 44,000 people. In return for about (CFA 25,000) USD50 a month, the social assistants will spend time with people and if necessary, cook for them, clean their homes and clothes, help them bathe and take them to medical care.

“I am very happy to see you. This is the first time that someone has come to me like this,” says Assan, smiling, to International Federation social welfare delegate Annette Molle-Kouoh, who introduces him to his new caregiver, Zainab Malik.

Daily Darfur

From Reuters

The international medical charity, Medécins Sans Frontières (MSF), said on Monday the Sudanese authorities had dropped all charges against two of its senior officials accused by Khartoum of publishing false information.

From AFP

The African Union attempted to overcome the latest hold-up in peace talks on the crisis in Darfur on Monday, urging reluctant Sudanese rebels to allow Chad to mediate between them and the Khartoum regime.

From Reuters

Eastern Sudanese rebels have captured three government garrisons south of Port Sudan and taken 10 prisoners, including an officer, an eastern opposition party spokesman said on Monday.

From Nat Hentoff

After surviving the Holocaust,Elie Wiesel went on to askaquestion: "How could it be possible for them to burn people, children, and for the world to remain silent?" That question reverberated after the world, Bill Clinton and Kofi Annan allowed Rwanda's genocide. It is with us again as the genocide in Darfur relentlessly continues.

From the Washington Post

THE UNITED NATIONS is getting ready to appeal for more money for Darfur, the western Sudanese province that's been targeted with genocide. The reason is simple: The Darfur crisis, which threatens to slide off the radar screen as people grow tired of hearing about it, is quietly getting worse. Back in January, the World Food Program estimated that 2.8 million people would lack food for all or part of this calendar year. This month that number rose to 3.5 million -- more than half of Darfur's population.

Unfortunately, the United Nations can't count on collecting the money that it's about to ask for. At the start of this year it appealed for $693 million, nearly all of which it said it needed by June because of the time it takes to turn dollars into help on the ground. But as of June 1, only $358 million had come in from donors -- just over half what was hoped for. The United States has been by far the most generous donor, giving $252 million for Darfur plus another $100 million or so for relief efforts elsewhere in Sudan, according to figures compiled by the United Nations; Britain comes in second with $36 million, plus slightly more than $50 million for the rest of Sudan. Meanwhile Japan has given a grand total of just $7.9 million for all of Sudan. Germany has given merely $4.2 million for the whole country, France a paltry $1.8 million. Although Darfur's victims are Muslim, only two Islamic states even make it onto the U.N. list of the top 18 donors: Saudi Arabia, which had given a stingy $2.6 million to Sudan as of June 1, and the United Arab Emirates, which had managed $800,000. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has written to some of the recalcitrant member governments, but his pleas have been ignored.

From Reuters

Ten men have gone on trial in Sudan accused of rape and robbery in the troubled Darfur region, the head of a special court said on Sunday.

Mahmoud Mohamed Saeed Abkam told Reuters from Nyala, capital of South Darfur, where the court opened on Saturday, that the trial had been adjourned until Tuesday at the request of the prosecution, which asked for more time to call witnesses.

Khartoum Accommodated

The latest from Eric Reeves

Current Darfur peace negotiations in Abuja (Nigeria), conducted under the auspices of the African Union, are the first since December 2004. At the time, the National Islamic Front regime in Khartoum deliberately collapsed negotiations by launching a major military offensive on the very even of resumed talks. This is the context in which to understand the regime’s current presence in Abuja. The UN’s ever-expedient Jan Pronk---Kofi Annan’s special representative for Sudan---has made various approving noises, evidently to encourage Khartoum. But this regime is unchanged in its genocidal ambitions, as is clear from a continuing stream of reports from UN organizations, international humanitarian organizations operating in Darfur, news reports, and confidential sources on the ground.

What is all too clear is that the international community, in accepting Khartoum as a legitimate negotiating partner, cannot discern a way forward that does not entail expediently accommodating the regime’s massive atrocities and its continuing defiance of international “demands.” The larger effect is to convince Khartoum’s genocidaires that by holding to their present course of obduracy, they will ultimately prevail and the international community will weary of Sudan as a focus of diplomatic and humanitarian energies. This has implications not only for Darfur, but for southern Sudan, for the marginalized areas only partially addressed by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of January 9, 2005 (particularly the Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile), and for eastern Sudan.

Admin

I am going to be unable to post for the rest of the week, so visit The Passion of the Present for all your Darfur news.

The Future of Darfur

There can be no doubt that, relatively speaking, the crisis in Darfur has generated a fair amount of attention. Journalists, human rights experts and bloggers have poured a lot of energy into raising awareness of the genocide and the 400,000 lives it has taken. Unfortunately, this focus on Darfur only highlights the lack of attention being paid to other, arguably even more horrific, crises in Africa.

For instance - Uganda

Eight people are shot, hacked and beaten to death and their bloodied corpses dragged to the middle of a dirt road for aid workers to find.

Six other fatally wounded victims are left lying nearby, screaming in agony. They die hours later.

After nearly two decades of bloodshed, Ugandans are asking why atrocities such as this May 27 attack by Lord's Resistance Army rebels still plague the traumatized people of the north -- and why they seem to have been forgotten by the world.

And the Democratic Republic of Congo

Militiamen grilled bodies on a spit and boiled two girls alive as their mother watched, U.N. peacekeepers charged Wednesday, adding cannibalism to a list of atrocities allegedly carried out by one of the tribal groups fighting in northeast Congo.

The report came as a key U.N. official said the ongoing violence in Congo, claiming thousands of lives every month, has made it the site of the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

[edit]

"Several witnesses reported cases of mutilation followed by death or decapitation," the report said. The U.N. report included an account from Zainabo Alfani in which she said she was forced to watch rebels kill and eat two of her children in June 2003.

The report said, "In one corner, there was already cooked flesh from bodies and two bodies being grilled on a barbecue and, at the same time, they prepared her two little girls, putting them alive in two big pots filled with boiling water and oil."

Her youngest child was saved, apparently because at six months old it didn't have much flesh. Alfani said she was gang-raped by the rebels and mutilated. She survived to tell her horror story, but died in the hospital on Sunday of AIDS contracted during her torture two years earlier, the U.N. report said.

In Uganda, the Lord's Resistance Army has abducted some 20,000 children and forced them to become either soldiers or slaves. The attacks have displaced nearly 2 million people and every night, tens of thousands of children trek to the cities to sleep, in hopes of avoiding the rampant kidnapping. For years, the LRA had been supported by the government in Khatroum, the same government now responsible for the genocide in Darfur.

In the Congo, an estimated 3.5 million people have died of disease, starvation and violence since 1998. The situation in the Congo can be directly traced to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which itself took nearly 1 million lives. There are currently 19,000 UN peacekeepers in the Congo with a mandate to disarm the militias, but so far they only attention this peacekeeping force has received has come from allegations that soldiers are sexually abusing the residents of the DRC.

Darfur is an anomaly only to the extent that it has managed to generate a significant amount of coverage and global attention. But if the world does not act soon to address this genocide in Sudan, is it all but inevitable that it too will eventually evolve into years-long, seemingly intractable conflict such as those found in Uganda and Congo.

And as we've seen with Congo and Uganda, once that happens, the world will stop paying attention entirely.

Realpolitik and the UN

As we all know, the UN has not been particularly effective in its dealings with Sudan. And now one has to wonder just how effective it will be in the future considering that Germany, India, Japan and Brazil are pushing hard to get seats on an expanded Security Council and are currently courting world leaders gathered for the Group of 77 summit in Qatar, seeking support.

Among these leaders to be courted

Among those presidents expected were Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Lebanon's Emile Lahoud, Syria's Bashar al-Assad, Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo and Sudan's Omar al-Bashir. Also expected were the kings of Bahrain, Morocco, Nepal and Swaziland and the leaders of Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

Sudan Detains Head of Eastern Political Party

From Reuters

Sudanese authorities detained, interrogated and then released the leader of the main eastern political party in Khartoum on Tuesday, but demanded she return for questioning the next day.

Southern Sudan Suffering Hidden Emergency

From Reuters

Southern Sudan, ravaged by more than two decades of civil war, is suffering from a hidden emergency and urgently needs aid, British Secretary of State for International Development Hilary Benn said on Tuesday.

He said Britain had appointed a special envoy for a separate conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region and was donating a further 12 million pounds to the African Union force monitoring a shaky ceasefire there, taking Britain's total contribution to the AU mission in Darfur to 32 million pounds.

"The international community has rightly focused on the crisis of Darfur ... but there is also a hidden emergency in southern Sudan which continues every day of the week," Benn told reporters in Khartoum.

Former southern rebels signed a peace deal with the government in January to end a conflict which has claimed more than 2 million lives and forced 4 million from their homes.

But aid pledged in Norway earlier this year, although it exceeded expectations, has failed to materialise on the ground and people are suffering in the underdeveloped south, one of the poorest areas in the world.

Darfur Talks Should be Behind Closed Doors

From Opheera McDoom of Reuters

Darfur peace talks in Nigeria should be held behind closed doors and exclude both Western nations, and neighbouring countries trying to further their own interests, the top U.N. envoy in Sudan said on Tuesday.

The talks should see tangible progress by July 9, when a new constitution will be approved, and the warring parties may reach a deal by the end of the year, Jan Pronk told reporters.

"I'm saying that in the direction of Western countries ... please stay away a little bit and of course to African countries, Eritrea and Chad, neighbouring countries," he said.

"(These) countries should exercise restraint and leave it to (the mediator)," he said. "Other countries should not complicate matters by trying to get their own interests ... supported in the talks."

Daily Darfur

From AFP

A US-funded famine monitoring agency has warned of serious food shortages in areas of southern Sudan over the next three months and is appealing for more assistance for the poverty-stricken region.

The Famine Early Warning System Network said food insecurity was "extreme" in pockets of Sudan's northern Bahr el-Ghazal region and "high" in Jonglei and Upper Nile regions.

"The worst-off areas will be northern Bahr el Ghazal and select areas of Jonglei, Upper Nile, Lakes and Unity States," the network said in a statement received here Monday.

"Poor households and returnees will face significant food gaps between June and August 2005," it said, referring to the thousands of displaced southern Sudanese expected to return to their homes in the coming months.

The BBC reports that Sudan will try 160 suspects for alleged crimes in Darfur

The BBC's Alfred Taban in Sudan says that he does not expect the court to charge the 51 alleged ringleaders of the atrocities but instead to concentrate on the "small-fry".

"The court will be an alternative to the International Criminal Court (ICC)," Mr Yassin said.

From Reuters

The United Nations expects the Sudanese authorities to drop charges against two officials of the Dutch branch of the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) on Tuesday, a senior U.N. official said.

"I have reason to assume that the charges against the two MSF officials will be dropped today," U.N. envoy to Sudan Jan Pronk told reporters in Khartoum.

"That would be very positive because that might make it possible that MSF, which has saved the lives of tens of thousands, in particular children, in Sudan, can continue that humanitarian work," he added.

Stephen R. Weissman, a former staff director of the House subcommittee on Africa and author of "A Culture of Deference: Congress's Failure of Leadership in Foreign Policy" offers something of a how-to article on running a Darfur-awareness campaign in the Washington Post.

Dallaire Makes Impassioned Plea to TV to Better Cover Genocide

From CP

Television broadcasters around the world have a moral responsibility to better cover human disasters such as ethnic slaughter in a way that could mobilize world compassion, says retired general Romeo Dallaire.

"You must shock," Dallaire told a hushed crowd of international producers gathered Monday at the Banff World Television Festival.

"Don't let the world forget the catastrophes, the failures," said Dallaire, who was unable to get international attention focused on the ethnic genocide in Rwanda in 1994. "Help humanity learn from its lessons and hold itself accountable as it moves into the future."

[edit]

Dallaire said the public must often be horrified into action and governments must be held accountable for their decisions. Powerful visual images and compelling stories will awaken that urge to help.

While it's not possible to transmit the smells of death and devastation, Dallaire said pictures of nine-year-olds toting AK-47s and stories of children being torn from their families to become soldiers or sex slaves will make a difference.

He said it appears the media often choose the easiest and most obvious international stories, noting there was blanket coverage of the Asian tsunami while atrocities in the Sudan were ignored.

"There were more people killed, internally displaced and raped in Darfur during that timeframe than all the Asian tsunami and nothing came out," he said.

Senior UN Officials Head to Darfur

From the UN News Center

Two senior United Nations officials are headed to Sudan's Western Darfur region to assess the humanitarian and political situations, following a weekend which saw a number of serious incidents of banditry and other violence in the war-torn area the size of France.

[edit]

Security incidents of the past weekend included attacks on humanitarian and commercial trucks, a tribal militia attack on a village and an alleged rape of four girls.

National Court for Crimes in Darfur Lacks Credibility

From Amnesty International

Tomorrow's opening of a special court set up by the Sudanese Government to try alleged Darfur war criminals is "doomed to failure," Amnesty International said today, unless the country undergoes serious legal reforms ensuring independence of the judiciary and brings about an end to the current climate of intimidation.

Our Moral and Ethical Obligation to Stop the Genocide in the Sudan

A post by Rep. Jim McDermott on The Huffington Post - via Life, Law, Libido

Given the level of defense spending, it's fair to say that the United States has a few (thousand) military fighter jets parked on tarmacs around the world. Let's do something useful with them. Let's do something humanitarian with them. Let's do something long overdue by this President -- let's stop the genocide in Sudan's Darfur Region.

We know that hundreds of thousands of innocent people have died at the hands of a corrupt regime. We know that the government-Janjaweed often deploy helicopter gunships as their instrument of death. The U.S. has bigger gunships and faster jets. Let the U.S. declare a no-fly zone throughout Darfur. Let the U.S. declare its intention to stop the genocide.

The President has barely paid lip service to the mass slaughter of thousands, and the displacement of millions of African people. Well, I say, dispatch the fleet, launch the planes, and rally the world to accept our moral and ethical responsibilities to stop the slaughter and bring those responsible to justice. If we are to be a beacon of freedom and justice in the world, it's time to turn on the light.

Genocidal Dictator Commemorates Genocide

Unbelievable, this happened more than a week ago, but this is the first I had heard of it - from Protect Darfur

Sudanese Dictator Omar Bashir visited the Kigali Memorial Centre in Rwanda, Friday 3 June, during an African economic summit being held in the capital. He was accompanied by Mustfa Osman Ismail, his Foreign Minister, together with other officials.

Bashir, whose government is presiding over an ongoing genocide against black Africans in Darfur that credible independent estimates indicate has already claimed the lives of 200,000 – 400,000 people, viewed a memorial to the hundreds of thousands of children killed in the 1994 genocide, and laid a wreath on mass graves containing the remains of 250,000 victims of the genocide killed in Kigali alone.

“We followed closely the painful events of 1994,” he stated during his visit. “We are very glad to see that the Rwandan people have overcome this tragedy. We hope that in the future the Rwandan people will reconcile and live in peace and stability.”

[edit]

“We often express our hope that the Kigali Memorial Centre will serve not only as a reminder of Rwanda’s tragedy but also as a lesson for the future,” says Centre Director and Aegis Chief Executive Dr James Smith. “Bashir and Ismail seem to have learned another lesson from Rwanda: that states have the sovereign right to commit genocide, and that the members of the UN Security Council will merely observe the destruction.

ICRC Cares for ounded from Darfur Fighting

From the ICRC

A rapidly deteriorating security situation in Southern Darfur has prompted the ICRC to deploy a surgical team to care for the wounded.

Armed clashes in and around the town of Gereida on 3 and 4 June resulted in the death of at least 17 civilians, with dozens more wounded. There was an unknown number of casualties among the combatants. An ICRC mobile surgical team is now in the town performing life-saving operations on civilian victims.

The surgical team sent to Gereida is a quick-response mobile unit set up by the ICRC for difficult-to-reach areas of Darfur. The four-member team is now operating out of the town's hospital, where it is working closely with local staff and providing them with medical supplies. All efforts are focused on the most urgent cases. The team comprises a surgeon, an anaesthetist, a surgical nurse and a nurse for post-operative care.

Echoes of Darfur

From Reuters

Barefoot men in grubby white tunics, with wild eyes and unkempt hair, gather round a hole in a dried-up riverbed, lowering skins and dirty plastic buckets by rope in search of water far below.

The Beja people live a virtually medieval existence among desert plains and stony mountains in remote and rebel-controlled eastern Sudan.

Lack of development in their region is one of the main grievances that spur the Beja rebels who have controlled this small area on the Eritrean border since early 1997.

The same kind of local resentment toward the distant government in Khartoum has been a key factor behind other Sudanese conflicts, in western Darfur region and the south.

When aid workers first arrived in the east in 2000, they were shocked.

"We found a humanitarian situation that was probably one of the worst we had ever seen in Africa," Fergus Thomas, field coordinator for the U.S.-based International Rescue Committee (IRC), said at its base in Hor-Milih in northeast Sudan.

"We found a population with rampant epidemics, with no health structure in place, with no education system, and illiteracy rates of more than 97 percent," he told Reuters, adding that fighting had exacerbated the situation.

Despite the entry of aid groups, there are fears that resentment in the east of Sudan toward Khartoum could make it the next flashpoint in Africa's largest country.

Albright Encourages More Immersion in World

From the Denver Post

She decried the country's lack of support for sub-Saharan black Africa, calling Rwanda a "volcanic" genocide and the current situation in the Darfur region of Sudan a "rolling genocide" that the United States must get involved in.

Daily Darfur

From AFP

Sudan said a special court set up to try alleged Darfur war criminals will open on Tuesday, after officials criticised international attempts to investigate atrocities in the troubled region.

Khartoum said last week that its judiciary was competent to "carry out justice" and that a Darfur-based court would try cases of "violation of honour, murder and looting or property crimes committed in Darfur."

Court chairman Judge Mahmoud Saeed Abkem denied any relationship between his tribunal and The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC), which earlier this month announced an inquiry into Darfur atrocities.

But he said 51 suspects named in January as possible perpetrators of war crimes by a UN investigation would be tried "if they are brought to the court by the Sudanese committees of enquiry."

From Reuters

Peace talks on Sudan's Darfur region adjourned on Sunday after a brief plenary session, with government and rebel delegates yet to agree an agenda and format for the negotiations.

Delegates were to study a proposal from African Union (AU) mediators on a draft agenda and format for the latest round of talks, which resumed in the Nigerian capital on Friday. Negotiations would restart on Monday, negotiators said.

"We were briefed by the special envoy on the possible agenda. We will reconvene later," said Majzoub al-Khalifa, head of the Sudanese government's negotiating team.

The new round of talks hit an early snag on Saturday as the first plenary session was put off after the Sudanese government delegation rejected the participation of Eritrea in mediation.

From the CBC

Canada may send 100 old Grizzly armoured personnel carriers to Sudan, CBC TV news reports.

They would be used by the African Union, which has a 7,500-soldier force that is trying to stop Arab militias from killing the local population in the Darfur area.

About 50 Canadian soldiers would go to a neighbouring country with the carriers to teach African soldiers how to drive and maintain them.

But sending the vehicles is not a sure thing because the U.S. State Department has a veto. The Grizzlies contain U.S. equipment, and cannot be sent to a third country without U.S. permission, said CBC reporter James Cudmore.

From Reuters

Sudanese authorities on Sunday closed down Sudan's only English-language opposition daily, the Khartoum Monitor, and withdrew its license, the chairman of the paper's board said.

From Reuters

A group of unshaven, uniformed men squat on a dusty floor, drinking coffee and talking softly, inured to the din of a dawn chorus and the occasional braying of a donkey.

The men have recently returned from kidnapping six Sudanese officials and are now relaxing in Hamesh Koreb -- a simple sprawl of mud buildings in eastern Sudan and the largest town in territory held by the rebel Beja Congress Army.

"We attacked the road to capture government soldiers and show them we are a force," said Ali Hamed, a rebel company commander dressed in tunic and sandals.

"We are ready to fight against the government until we get justice and equality in Sudan," he added.

Like better-known rebel groups in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, the Beja are angry about the lack of development in their homeland and accuse the central government in Khartoum of marginalising them.

The Beja rebels have held a small territory -- around 15,000 square miles (40,000 sq km) -- since 1997. Now they are threatening to step up attacks after a lull in large-scale activities since 2002.

Darfur and the Genocide Debate

This article is from the January/February issue of Foreign Affairs and required a subscription to read in its entirety, but I have finally managed to track down a full version of it (pdf format)

In July 2004, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution labeling Darfur a genocide. Then, in early September, after reviewing the results of an innovative government-sponsored investigation, Secretary of State Colin Powell also used the term and President George W. Bush followed suit in a speech to the United Nations several weeks later--the first times such senior U.S. government officials had ever conclusively applied the term to a current crisis and invoked the convention. Darfur, therefore, provides a good test of whether the 56-year-old Genocide Convention, created in the aftermath of the Holocaust, can make good on its promise to "never again" allow the targeted destruction of a particular ethnic, racial, or religious group.

So far, the convention has proven weak. Having been invoked, it did not--contrary to expectations--electrify international efforts to intervene in Sudan. Instead, the UN Security Council commissioned further studies and vaguely threatened economic sanctions against Sudan's growing oil industry if Khartoum did not stop the violence; one council deadline has already passed without incident. Although some 670 African Union troops have been dispatched to the region with U.S. logistical assistance to monitor a nonexistent ceasefire, and humanitarian aid is pouring in, the death toll continues to rise. The lessons from Darfur, thus, are bleak. Despite a decade of handwringing over the failure to intervene in Rwanda in 1994 and despite Washington's decision to break its own taboo against the use of the word "genocide," the international community has once more proved slow and ineffective in responding to large-scale, state-supported killing. Darfur has shown that the energy spent fighting over whether to call the events there "genocide" was misplaced, overshadowing difficult but more important questions about how to craft an effective response to mass violence against civilians in Sudan. The task ahead is to do precisely that: to find a way to stop the killing, lest tens of thousands more die.

Sudanese Forces Attack AU Peacekeepers' Base

From AFP

Sudanese forces attacked a garrison of African Union (AU) observers in Sudan's western Darfur province and arrested members of one of the two rebel forces in the region, AU and Sudanese rebel sources said Friday.

Ibrahim Khalil, president of the Movement for Justice and Equality (JEM), the rebel force concerned, said the government troops entered the garrison at Al-Fasher and took away some of the rebels. "The AU couldn't do anything," he said.

[edit]

Another JEM source, who asked to remain anonymous, said the government forces took 23 members of the movement from the AU garrison, but released them in another region.

Another JEM source, who asked to remain anonymous, said the government forces took 23 members of the movement from the AU garrison, but released them in another region.

Nigerian General Festus Okonkwo, commander of the 2,700-member peacekeeping and observer mission, which is made up of 2,700 Nigerian and Rwandan troops, confirmed the incident.

Comparisons

Every once in a while I like to do these quick media comparisons:

Using the data available from Factiva, I discovered that, in the last week, there have been 352 mentions of Darfur by major US media outlets compared to 548 mentions of Natalee Holloway, the Alabama teen missing in Aruba.

Peace in Our Time

Mark Leon Goldberg comments on the Condoleezza Rice statement reported here

But the problem here is that while the north-south negotiations were at their height, so too was Khartoum’s counterinsurgency-by-genocide policy in Darfur. As Foggy Bottom scrambled to save the north-south accords (which were signed this January), Khartoum killed and displaced more than 2 million people in Sudan’s western region. A "tremendous step forward" this was not.

Global Law Claims New Turf in Sudan

Good article from the Christian Science Monitor

Investigators will also face a very dangerous security situation in Darfur, where aid convoys are regularly attacked. Unlikely to want to rely for protection on the very Sudanese forces they are investigating, they will not be able to turn either to the African Union (AU) troops in Darfur, because their mission is to monitor a cease-fire, not to protect foreign nationals.

[edit]

Though Sorkobi says the Darfur investigation will be "quick and judicious," court observers do not expect any indictments for at least a year. The ICC has not yet issued any indictments in either Uganda or Congo, after more than 18 months of investigation.

[edit]

The Security Council "has set a legal procedure in process, but it has not yet given it any teeth," worries Adam Roberts, an expert on international law at Oxford University in England. "We cannot be very optimistic at this stage about the chances of gathering the kind of evidence to persuade a court of law."

Other observers foresee a greater impact for the ICC in Sudan. "Regime officials are very worried about the long-term ramifications of the ICC investigation," says John Prendergast, an analyst with the Crisis Group, a conflict prevention non-profit, via e-mail from Washington.

Those "indicted by the ICC will become international pariahs," he points out. And since there is no statute of limitations on war crimes, nor do ICC arrest warrants expire, "eventually the likelihood is that they will be picked up and tried," Mr. Prendergast adds. "Justice will not come quickly in Sudan. But it will come."

Daily Darfur

From a press conference with Condoleezza Rice

SECRETARY RICE: People look to the United States to solve every problem, it seems, sometimes. And sometimes, it's awfully important that we stand back and recognize that the resolution of problems in the international system is not centered solely on the United States.

MR. ROSE: Is Darfur an example of that?

SECRETARY RICE: Darfur is an example of that. The United States is extremely active and I think is leading the effort in Darfur. If you look at the humanitarian situation, we're something like more than 85 percent on the food aid to Sudan as a whole and almost 89 percent of food aid to Darfur. We have led the effort in the UN Security Council to try to get resolutions for peacekeeping, for accountability, for potential sanctions, if necessary, against Khartoum. And, of course, the President with the able efforts of Jack Danforth, led the effort to get a peace agreement between the North and South.

Darfur is critically important and we're paying a lot of attention to it. And by the way, NATO is now going to provide logistical support and planning support to the African Union. But when you think about the fact that we've also managed to resolve a 25-year civil war in Sudan, this is a tremendous step forward. It provides now a political framework in which we believe Darfur and eastern Sudan might also be soluble. But yes, sometimes the international institutions move too slowly, and on Darfur it was very hard in the Security Council to get action.

From the Mail & Guardian

A millionaire British businessman, Friedhelm Eronat, was named on Thursday night as the purchaser of oil rights in the Darfur region of Sudan, where the regime is accused of war crimes and where millions of tribespeople are alleged to have been forced to flee, amid mass rapes or murders.

The disclosure was greeted with outrage by human rights campaigners. "From a moral point of view these people are paying a government whose senior members may end up in front of the international criminal court for war crimes," Simon Taylor, director of Global Witness, said on Thursday.

A London representative of the Darfur rebels on Thursday night called for oil exploration to stop until there was a peace settlement.

[edit]

Documents seen by the Guardian suggest that Eronat, who lives in a £20-million house in Chelsea, swapped his United States passport for a British one shortly before the deal was signed with the Sudan regime in October 2003.

US citizens are barred from dealing with Sudan under sanctions dating from 1997.

From the BBC

Peace talks between Sudan's government and two rebel groups from the Darfur region have resumed in Nigeria after a six-month break.

Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo urged all sides to spare no effort to end the conflict.

A joint statement from India and Sudan

The Foreign Minister of the Republic of Sudan, H.E. Dr. Mustafa Osman Ismail paid an official visit to India from 6-8 June, 2005 at the invitation of Hon’ble Minister of External Affairs, Shri K. Natwar Singh. This is in keeping with the tradition of high level visits between the two countries including that of President Abdul Kalam to Sudan in October, 2003 and of the Sudanese Interior Minister H.E. Major General Engineer Abdulrahim Mohamed Hussein to India in January, 2005 in recent years.

[edit]

The Sudanese Foreign Minister briefed the Indian leaders on the internal situation in Darfur in detail. India reiterated its position that the situation in Darfur is an internal crisis that has to be resolved by the Government of Sudan in consultation with the AU.

India appreciated the efforts of the Government of Sudan in consultation with the AU in bringing the situation to normalcy. India in response to the humanitarian crisis had given 20,000 tonnes of wheat. India was not in favour of sanctions which could be counter-productive.

India has made a significant investment in the oil sector in Sudan. Discussions in economy and trade covered enhanced bilateral cooperation in the hydrocarbon, power, small-scale industries, civil aviation, agriculture, infrastructure, IT, health care, pharmaceuticals and other development-related sectors.

NATO Defends Deal on Darfur Airlift

From the Financial Times

Nato ministers on Thursday sought to defend an unwieldy deal over Sudan's stricken province of Darfur and to stress the alliance's relevance, despite new figures revealing that military expenditures continue to slip.

[edit]

France had pushed for the long-distance airlift of about 5,000 African Union monitors to be co-ordinated by the EU because of Europe's historic ties to Africa, while the US and the alliance's military command wanted Nato to take the lead.

In the event, the two organisations agreed that both would report to an AU-led military cell in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, rather than either the EU or Nato taking overall responsibility for co-ordinating the task.

“I was pleasantly surprised at the willingness to co-operate between the EU and Nato because we all know that there have been rivalries in the past,” said John Reid, UK defence secretary.

But some officials expressed dismay that the compromise was excessively complicated for such a simple task. While even the UK, the US's strongest ally, was prepared for co-ordination to be handled by the EU, Washington held out for a Nato role.

“At least we now know that it will not be our fault if we cannot begin,” said one Nato diplomat. “The question now is whether the Africans will be ready for us.”

UN Mission Suspends Operations in Areas of South Darfur

From the United Nations News Service

The United Nations mission in Sudan (UNMIS) has today declared the town of Muhujariya in South Darfur a "no go" area for UN staff following recent clashes between rebel forces and continued unrest in the area.

In an update on the situation in wider Sudan and the Darfurs, UNMIS listed a number of incidents including a reported attack and robbery on 5 June of two commercial trucks on the Tawilla – Om road in North Darfur by unknown armed men.

It further stated that on 4 June in West Darfur armed tribesmen attacked the village of Gosmino, abducted one individual and stole 43 livestock. On 31 May Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) representatives filed a complaint about an alleged attack on civilians at Fornu village in the area of Kutum by armed tribesmen.

Apparently Ocampo Hasn't Been Paying Attention

From Reuters

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said Sudan had no choice in cooperating with his investigation into war crimes in Darfur but acknowledged Khartoum's refusal made his job difficult.

"The Security Council decision forces them to cooperate," Luis Moreno-Ocampo, prosecutor of the world's first permanent criminal court, said in an interview with two reporters on Wednesday.

[edit]

Because the Security Council's decision was mandatory, Moreno-Ocampo said Sudan had no choice but to cooperate, despite its firm refusal to do so.

In case Ocampo hadn't noticed, Sudan hasn't been particularly cooperative with any of the other resolutions issued to date. And nobody expects them to start cooperating now.

All Attention is Welcome

Even stuff like this

Actress Rachel McAdams is carried by actor Ryan Gosling after winning the 'Best Kiss' award for their screen kiss in the film 'The Notebook' at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards in Los Angeles June 4, 2005. REUTERS/Fred Greaves

Daily Darfur

From the AP

A U.N. commission of inquiry concluded in January that crimes against humanity had occurred in Darfur, although the mass killings fell short of a policy of genocide. It recommended that the case go to the fledgling court based in The Hague, Netherlands, and drew up a list of 51 potential suspects.

"We will try to define who will be the people under the investigation in a few months," he said. "We need to collect evidence, to define how things happened in Darfur, who are the most responsible in the situation."

The chief prosecutor was asked whether his investigators will be able to operate on the ground in Darfur since the Sudanese government opposes the court.

"I will be able to collect evidence on Darfur. In Darfur, we'll see," Moreno-Ocampo said.

Some U.N. diplomats have warned that indictments in Darfur could interfere with peace talks to end the conflict there, as well as the fragile peace agreement between the government and southern rebels signed in January.

Moreno-Ocampo cited a provision of the Rome statute that created the International Criminal Court that says the prosecutor must stop his investigation if "it is not in the interest of justice."

From the Financial Times

Southern Sudan's humanitarian crisis is worsening in spite of the signing of a peace agreement and promises from a major donors conference and leaders of the US and UK, according to John Gareng, the former southern Sudanese rebel leader.

Not a single dollar of the $4.5bn pledged at the Oslo donors conference in April had arrived so far, Mr Gareng said yesterday.

"The irony is that having signed a peace agreement, the humanitarian situation has deteriorated," he said.

From the Sudan Tribune

Radhia Achouri, spokeswoman for the U.N. advance mission in Sudan, has said there is famine in some regions in southern Sudan.

[edit]

Relief agencies worry that calls for help in the south may be drowned out by appeals for the Darfur conflict, which erupted in 2003 when rebels began fighting the government over similar concerns about marginalisation voiced by the southern rebels.

Aid workers fear growing hunger will inflame localised conflicts over water and cattle that could complicate the most delicate stage of attempts by former rebels to implement their January peace deal with the Khartoum government.

From Reuters

NATO defence ministers gave the green light on Thursday to an operation to airlift extra African troops to Sudan's troubled Darfur region, the alliance's first mission on the continent.

NATO chiefs were at pains to stress there was no competition with a separate European Union mission, after NATO-member France said its offer to transport two battalions of Senegalese troops was under an EU, not a NATO, banner.

From VOA

South Sudan's leader John Garang says his former rebel group is ready to deploy up to 12,000 troops in war-torn west Sudan's Darfur region to help displaced people return to their villages.

In an interview with VOA in Washington Wednesday, Mr. Garang said his Sudan People Liberation Army (SPLA) would be deployed alongside African Union troops.

Finally, I think this short exchange from yesterday's State Department press briefing pretty well sums up the media's interest in Darfur

QUESTION: Darfur. Do you have any reaction to - apparently, NATO is dropping plans to airlift AU troops in. The French have apparently objected.

MR. MCCORMACK: I knew that there were some technical discussions ongoing with respect to NATO's response to the AU for requests of airlift for AU monitors into Darfur. I haven't checked today on the state of those discussions. I know that as of yesterday that they were ongoing. So if there's anything more to add with respect to that, anything more definitive, we'll let you know.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. MCCORMACK: Anything else on Darfur, Sudan?

(No response.)

MR. MCCORMACK: Okay, we'll come back to Nicholas.

They Cannot Be Fed with Investigations by the International Criminal Court

The latest from Eric Reeves

The mismatch between humanitarian capacity and human need grows more deadly by the day in Darfur. The most recent warnings of this mismatch come in a June 2, 2005 announcement from the UN’s World Food Program (WFP): “the number of people in Sudan’s Darfur region who need food has jumped to 3.5 million---more than half the population---as rural families join refugees in the hunger line, the UN said on Thursday [June 2, 2005]” (Reuters, June 2, 2005). Holdbrook Arthur, regional director for WFP in East and Central Africa, bluntly declared: “We are talking about 3.5 million, including the local population who have lost or are dramatically losing their livelihood because of insecurity.” Jamie Wickens, WFP’s associate director of operations, declared: “The rural population is becoming more and more food insecure. The are in the same situation as internally displaced persons."

NATO Drops Plan to Coordinate Darfur Airlift

Via Passion of the Present, we get this article from Reuters

NATO on Wednesday dropped a U.S.-backed proposal for it to coordinate a Western airlift of African troops joining peace efforts in Sudan's Darfur region, after France raised objections.

Paris has pledged air transport for troops for the African Union which is seeking to increase its force in Darfur.

However, France said the offer was part of a European Union package and did not want it to be coordinated by NATO.

A NATO official denied the episode showed tension between the alliance and the EU and said NATO instead would manage offers of air transport only from member countries that wanted it to do so -- at present, just the United States and Canada.

The Slow Reaction

The big news regarding Darfur this week is that the International Criminal Court has formally announced that it is conducting an investigation into allegations of crimes against humanity in the region.

This investigation is a welcome, if belated step, but one that is also unlikely to have much of an immediate impact on the violence, disease and starvation that plagues the region.

The investigation is the result of a UN commission of inquiry that began in September 2004. Established under UN Resolution 1564, the commission took three months to investigate "violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law in Darfur by all parties, to determine also whether or not acts of genocide have occurred." In the report it issued in January 2005, the commission declared that genocide was not taking place, but that "serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law amounting to crimes under international law" had indeed occurred. The report went on to recommend that the UN Security Council refer the situation to the ICC for possible prosecution.

In April, the Security Council did just that and turned over evidence gathered by the commission, including the names of 51 people suspected of punishable crimes. And now, two months later, the ICC has finally begun an investigation.

It has taken nine months from the time the Security Council authorized the commission to investigate the crimes in Darfur to reach the point where the ICC has finally launched an official investigation.

The ICC has only been in existence for three years and has yet to indict or hold a trial for anyone connected with either of its two other cases, despite the fact that the ICC began its probe of Uganda in January 2004 and the Congo in April of the same year.

Furthermore, the ICC statute itself contains a provision (Article 17) regarding "complementarity" that grants states the priority to try their own citizens for crimes that fall within the ICC's jurisdiction. The ICC thus has no jurisdiction over these cases unless it can be determined that "the State is unwilling or unable genuinely to carry out the investigation or prosecution." And making that determination is going to take time.

Considering that Khartoum has already begun to look at ways to exploit this provision and is openly rejecting calls to cooperate with the ICC, it is likely that, as Nat Hentoff noted, "It will be at least a year, maybe two, before the ICC even issues its first indictments."

We ask you to join the Coalition for Darfur as we attempt to raise awareness of this genocide and collect contributions for worthy organizations providing life-saving assistance to the forgotten people of Darfur.

Sudan Will Not Hand Citizens to ICC

From the AP

Also Wednesday, the government gave its first Cabinet-level response to this week's decision by the International Criminal Court to begin investigating war crimes in Darfur, as the U.N. Security Council had mandated it to do.

"Our decision not to hand any Sudanese national for trial outside the country remains valid and has not changed," Justice Minister Ali Karti was quoted as saying by the official Sudan Media Center. He added the government had not yet been officially notified of the ICC investigation.

Well, I Guess That Genocide In Sudan Must've Worked Itself Out On Its Own

Absolutely brilliant - from The Onion

I was pretty worried a year or so ago when the news came out that thousands of people had been indiscriminately slaughtered in Darfur. It was unsettling to hear that citizens of one ethnicity (Arab, maybe?) were systematically mass-murdering the population of some other ethnicity (Was it the Ganjaweeds? It's been so long since I've read their names!) But lately, the main stories in the news seem to be about Deep Throat, the new summer blockbusters, and something about stem cells. Since I'm sure I would have remembered if the U.S. had intervened in some way to stop it, I can only assume that the whole genocide-in-Darfur thing has somehow worked itself out.

Well, that's good news then, isn't it?

I also seem to recall that this genocide was causing a massive exodus of displaced refugees, with millions starving to death while attempting to flee to neighboring nations. Since I haven't seen any petitions or heard any emotional entreaties for somebody—anybody—to please, for God's sake, do something... Well, I'm gonna guess that the major humanitarian crisis must be over. And thank God, too! The whole situation sounded really awful.

Quickness

Last month, Richard Gwyn has this editorial in Canada's "Embassy Magazine"

If we are going to act like imperialists, we must act as did the old imperialists: at their best. A quick in-and-out intervention will merely get the crisis off the front pages and make us feel good about ourselves. To truly deal with the problem, though -- effectively, it will require a regime change -- we need to intervene and then stay until the job is done.

Eric Reeves has this response

The deaths clearly impending without large-scale humanitarian intervention, including all necessary military support, will be genocidal deaths. International failure to prevent them will represent the sort of failure that the world so painfully lamented in the aftermath of Rwanda in 1994. "Quickness," despite Mr. Gwynn's cautions, is of the essence: without immediate international augmentation of the woefully inadequate African Union monitoring force, even greater catastrophe is inevitable. Such intervention will be neither easy, short, nor without considerable political risks. But the alternative is to countenance genocidal mortality that will eventually exceed Rwanda's.

Sudan's Ambassador to Canada also has a response.

Daily Darfur

From the AP

United Nations peacekeepers have been delayed in deploying to southern Sudan because troop-contributing nations weren't ready and the rainy season has begun, the top U.N. peacekeeping official said.

IRIN has this article

As he peers down the barrel of his ancient, Russian-made machine gun, Emanuel Ndagijimana epitomizes the constraints and expectations faced by the African Union's (AU) first-ever peacekeeping force.

At 22, the Rwandan soldier is one of 2,370 AU peacekeepers helping to maintain a shaky ceasefire in Darfur, western Sudan, the scene of what the UN has called "one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters". Around him are peacekeepers from Chad, Senegal, Kenya and South Africa.

The AU force is an army that has begged and borrowed its way into existence. But the peacekeepers, who many wrote off even before they set foot in dusty Darfur, are beginning to win international praise.

Reuters has this article on the soon-to-commence peace talks

The African Union, which is sponsoring the peace talks, says it hopes for a deal in the Nigerian capital Abuja before July 9, when a new constitution will be approved in Khartoum after a peace deal with southern rebels to end a separate 20-year civil war in the country's south.

But others have been more cautious about when a peace deal might be reached.

Internal rebel divisions and recent fighting between the two main rebel groups in South Darfur have increased, casting doubts over their ability to be serious negotiating partners.

From Caritas

It is not even 5:00 in the morning. The women sit down patiently and wait for the guard to turn on the generator that pumps water into a big water bladder that is connected to several taps. At about 6.30 the water starts running, and the women rush to guard their jerry cans.

A young woman explains that she spends five to six hours every day fetching water, although she lives only 500 metres from the bladder. The water runs out of the taps three times a day, but the queue is long if your jerry can is not among the first ones in line.

Finally, there is this

The Indian Government is likely to extend a line of credit to the tune of $500mn to Sudan in view of emerging business opportunities for the domestic businessmen, according to Foreign Minister of Sudan, Mustafa Osman Ismail.

And this

Sudan Tuesday offered to give "special treatment" to Indian companies investing in oil exploration and contributing to development of railways, roads, airports and other key areas in that country.

Sudan Works to Stall War Crimes Case

From the New York Times

[T]he Sudanese government, blamed by a United Nations inquiry for much of the violence, has said it will not accept the court's jurisdiction. It has already begun to try to delay legal action by using some of the safeguards built into the court's rules, like insisting that it is conducting its own investigations and will hold its own trials.

The government has recently hired lawyers from Britain and Kenya to advise it and to start domestic trials, according to diplomats and court officials.

[edit]

When the International Criminal Court, the world's first permanent criminal tribunal for war crimes, was set up by the Rome Treaty of 1998, a number of safeguards and restrictions were adopted, largely at the request of the United States. One is that prosecutors can act only after a government shows itself unwilling or unable to conduct credible trials in its own courts.

If Sudan goes through with its own trials, international prosecutors would be forced to take time to show that those trials were not credible. Proceedings would be delayed further if they have to prove a government cover-up or that officials were shielding crucial suspects.

Turf Wars Snag U.S., Europe on Darfur Mission

From Reuters

Defence chiefs from the United States and Europe will seek at a NATO meeting on Thursday to end a weeks-long dispute threatening to delay air transport vital to boosting peace efforts in Sudan's Darfur region.

The snag is a turf-war tussle between Washington and some European capitals over who should coordinate offers of help to the African Union as it seeks to triple its Darfur mission to some 7,700 troops by late-September.

Fears are rising that if the row is not resolved soon, the onset of the rainy season in Darfur could undermine operations on the ground just as the new troops arrive.

[edit]

After being approached separately by the AU in April, both NATO and the European Union pledged to come up with offers of airlift and other support to African troops unable to get to Darfur under their own steam.

The AU appeals promptly reawakened transatlantic tensions over Europe's defence ambitions, with Washington arguing that NATO should coordinate the mission and others -- notably France -- insisting it be done outside the alliance.

"This is a sad discussion. The poor Africans must be looking at this in bewilderment," said a senior NATO diplomat.

"If we do not get out of this competitive mindset, we cannot exclude there being a delay," cautioned the envoy, who requested anonymity.

Coalition Members on Darfur

From Seth Chalmer's Blog

Tonight in Darfur, a woman will be gang-raped, and she'll scream and cry out, and nobody will help her. And we know it. And we know her crops will be burned, and we know her husband and her brother will be shot. And we know there won't be anywhere near just one of her tonight. We know where she is, and we know who wants to do it to her, and we know they will, because they already are.

And my point is this: if armies aren't for stopping this, what are armies for?

From Restless Mania

I am ashamed every day that we sit by and allow this to go on. There needs to be more peacekeeping troops on the ground - and a sanctions panel needs to be appointed immediately.

Daily Darfur

From Reuters

All parties to the Darfur peace talks will attend the next round of African Union-sponsored negotiations after a six-month lull, but leaders of the main rebel group said logistical problems may delay their arrival.

Majzoub al-Khalifa, the head of the government negotiating team, told Reuters his delegation would be in the Nigerian capital Abuja in time for the planned start of talks on Friday.

From the Washington Times

But when the U.N. Security Council voted in late March to refer Darfur to the court, the United States abstained rather than veto the resolution.

"The ICC is tough," said a State Department official who has experience dealing with the matter. "The issue of accountability is there for the atrocities, but law prohibits our participation."

Nonetheless, the official said, "We are strong supporters of the Security Council resolution, and we are advocating that others support that. We can't say 'support the ICC,' but we can say that all governments should support the Security Council resolutions."

The U.S. law prohibiting cooperation with the ICC includes waivers and riders that, in theory, could allow government agencies to assist the court, said the State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"I know there are waiver opportunities out there, but how and what, I couldn't say," the official said.

The latest from Nick Kristof

Last fall President Bush declared the slaughter here in Darfur to be genocide, and then looked away. One reason for his paralysis is apparently the fear that Darfur may be another black hole of murder and mutilation, a hopeless quagmire to suck in well-meaning Americans - another Somalia or Iraq.

It's not.

We're again making the same mistake we've made in past genocides: as in the slaughter of Armenians, Jews, Cambodians, Rwandans and Bosnians, we see no perfect solutions, so we end up doing very little.

This editorial from Gareth Evans, president of the International Crisis Group, appeared in the Wall Street Journal yesterday

The recent pledge by a number of countries of a further $300 million to support the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) was helpful, even if it didn't reach the AU's goal of $466 million. The associated EU and NATO pledges of air transport, materiel and some military training were also steps in the right direction. But they were far too small given the continuing enormity of the Darfur problem. What's more, the high-level conference in Addis Ababa avoided the most pressing issue: The African Union may have the best will in the world, but with the kind of support now on offer it is simply not able to do what is necessary, with the requisite urgency, to prevent tens of thousands more lives from being lost.

From Christian Solidarity International

The head of Sudan's "Dinka Chiefs Committee" (DCC), James Aguir, rejects as "far too low" the U.S. State Department's estimate of 14,000 as the number of enslaved Dinka women and children. Christian Solidarity International (CSI), the American Anti-Slavery Group and other abolitionists call on President George W. Bush to establish an independent commission to ascertain the facts about Sudanese slavery and oversee its eradication.

The State Department's 2005 Trafficking in Persons Report, produced by the Office for Monitoring and Combating Trafficking (OMCT), estimates that only 14,000 Dinkas were abducted by Baggara Arab tribesmen during 22 years of civil war. The OMCT, headed by Ambassador John Miller, cites Aguir's committee as the source of this figure. Speaking to CSI, Aguir denied that he was the source of this erroneous information.

Aguir claims that the DCC has identified 40,000 Dinka slaves since 1986. But the true number of enslaved Dinkas is far higher, he says. Aguir accepts a 200,000-plus figure estimated by Dinka Civil Commissioners of northern Bahr El Ghazal - the area most severely affected by slave raids. "It is the Commissioners in the area", Aguir says, "who know best the fate of their people."

ICC Investigations Not Welcome

From Reuters

Sudan said on Monday it would not welcome investigations by the International Criminal Court (ICC) with a view to prosecuting people for suspected war crimes in the Darfur region,

However, Majzoub al-Khalifa, the head of the government's Darfur talks team, said the ICC and others were welcome to send observers to trials in Sudanese courts.

"If they want to observe what is going on from the ICC and others, they are welcome (but) if they want to start trials of the Sudanese this is not acceptable," Khalifa told Reuters. "The investigation is part of the trial system."

Rebel Infighting Kills 11

From Reuters

Internal fighting between two Darfur rebel groups has killed 11 people and injured 17 in clashes which breach a shaky ceasefire agreed more than a year ago, the African Union said on Monday.

AU spokesman Noureddine Mezni said in a statement the rebels from Sudan's western Darfur region should withdraw from the South Darfur town of Gereida, where heavy clashes continue between the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

"These actions of the rebel movements, especially the relentless pursuit and attacks on JEM elements by the SLA with heavy civilian collateral damage, are unacceptable and condemned in the strongest terms," Mezni said.

Dilemma for Washington as ICC Begins Darfur Probe

From the Financial Times

The US had no immediate reaction to the ICC statement, and it is not clear whether it will co-operate with requests for help. Sudan has previously refused to co-operate. US legislation blocks co-operation with the court, but a senior State Department official has said that requests could be considered on a case-by-case basis.

The Bush administration, analysts say, has put itself in a delicate situation. On the one hand the US last year was the first big power to accuse the Sudanese government and Janjaweed militia of responsibility for genocide in Darfur. Yet it lobbied against a UN Security Council resolution in March that referred the case to the ICC because of its opposition to the court.

John Bolton, whose confirmation as the next US envoy to the UN has been held up in the Senate, has spearheaded Washington's efforts against the court.

Despite abstaining in the vote, the US has used the threat of the ICC to press Khartoum to stop the violence and prosecute those responsible. Robert Zoellick, deputy secretary of state, visited Darfur last week for the second time in two months.

At the same time, according to officials, the US maintains a close relationship with Sudanese officials and intelligence officers believed to be responsible for the ethnic cleansing and village burning in Darfur. US officials say Sudan is a valuable partner in the “global war on terror”. Washington also fears Khartoum's isolation would jeopardise the peace deal ending the decades-old north-south conflict.

ICC Takes Key Step to Bring Justice to Darfur

From Human Rights Watch

The decision today by the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, to start an investigation into atrocities in Darfur is a key step toward bringing justice for those crimes, Human Rights Watch said.

[edit]

Under the court’s statute, the prosecutor’s initiation of an investigation reflects his assessment that the Sudanese authorities are “unwilling or unable” to prosecute crimes within the ICC mandate, namely genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. This is consistent with Human Rights Watch’s finding that the Sudanese authorities have not taken any meaningful steps to hold those most responsible for serious international crimes to account since the armed conflict began in February 2003.

While the Sudanese government has recently announced its intention to establish a special tribunal in Sudan to try perpetrators of serious crimes in Darfur, such a tribunal would require Khartoum to take enormous and effective efforts to ensure the tribunal’s independence and credibility, Human Rights Watch said.

Sudan Says Not Notified of ICC Darfur Probe

From Reuters

The Sudanese government has yet to be notified of investigations at the International Criminal Court into suspected crimes in the Darfur region of Sudan, a Sudanese minister said on Monday. Asked whether the Sudanese government had received any communication from the ICC, Najeeb al-Kheir Abdul Wahab, state minister for foreign affairs, said no.

"The priority of the international community should be to secure a ceasefire in which people could trust for the rendering of justice," he said.

The ICC launched formal investigations on Monday into suspected crimes against humanity in Darfur, where tens of thousands have been killed since early 2003.

Daily Darfur

From The Guardian

Prosecutors at the international criminal court are expected to announce a formal investigation today into allegations of war crimes in the Darfur region of Sudan, according to officials familiar with the case.

[edit]

Dozens of court officials have begun preparing for the investigation, and the chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, will brief the UN about his plans later this month in New York, the sources said, adding that they could not comment officially until the investigation had been formally announced by the court. Investigators have said they hope to move quickly and complete their work over a period of months rather than years. Once they have gathered evidence and interviewed witnesses, court officials will then consider issuing indictments against individual suspects and seek their extradition to The Hague.

From UPI

Sudanese President Omar Bashir said Saturday there was a "positive change" in the U.S. position on the troubled Darfur region.

Bashir said on state-owned Um Durman TV the U.S. "shift confirms substantial improvement in the Darfur situation.

Bashir's comments came as U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick met with Sudan's Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail in Khartoum on Darfur, the peace process in southern Sudan and bilateral relations.

Ismail told reporters that Zoellick told him there was "improvement of conditions in Darfur" after the American envoy visited the region Friday.

He said the two agreed for a Sudanese government delegation to visit Washington soon to discuss bilateral relations in more detail in order to restore relations between the two countries.

The latest from Nick Kristof

All countries have rapes, of course. But here in the refugee shantytowns of Darfur, the horrific stories that young women whisper are not of random criminality but of a systematic campaign of rape to terrorize civilians and drive them from "Arab lands" - a policy of rape.

One measure of the international community's hypocrisy is that the world is barely bothering to protest. More than two years after the genocide in Darfur began, the women of Kalma Camp - a teeming squatter's camp of 110,000 people driven from their burned villages - still face the risk of gang rape every single day as they go out looking for firewood.

From the AP

The Red Cross said Saturday it had begun airlifting food supplies to refugees in the violence-wracked Darfur region, saying a rising number of attacks on aid convoys made it too risky to move the food by road.

From Itar-Tass

Germany decided to take part in the UN mission in southern Sudan more than a month ago, but only four German military observers have been sent there so far.

More Darfur Discussion

Suzanne Nossel of Democracy Arsenal responds to Kevin Drum's earlier post

So its not enough to throw up our hands even if we reject U.S. ground troops as a serious option. There are alternatives. Its the Administration's job to make them work, and our job to push them to do so.

Drum responds here

I agree that there are options in Darfur other than landing a few divisions of U.S. troops, and I support them even if I'm skeptical that they'll do much good. Rather, my point is a simpler one: if you're serious about stopping genocide, I think you have to face the fact that armed combat troops — not "monitors" or "peacekeepers" — are needed to do the job. I'd like to see more people taking a firm stand on whether they support this, both in Darfur and elsewhere, instead of tiptoeing around the subject and pretending that maybe the AU or the UN is up to the task. For now, they aren't.

Brad Plumer also has some thoughts

Eh, I'm becoming less enthralled with the "we'd have to invade if we wanted to stop the genocide" school of thought. Not because it's untrue—heck, I wrote a whole article on the subject—but because the incremental battles here really are crucial and tend to get obscured by talking too much about "perfect" possible solutions. For instance, the ICG recently put out an assessment of peacekeeping needs in Darfur. It's still a lowball on troop needs, I think, but as Eric Reeves points out, it's the first time an organization has been willing to think "realistically about the essential features of true civilian protection in Darfur." The next step here is to convince the African Union to think in these terms as well.

Mark Leon Goldberg responds

The problem with the administration’s Sudan policy, however, is that it tends to prize constructive engagement with Khartoum above threats and isolation. This is particularly evident as Khartoum gears up for the entry into force of a new power-sharing arrangement that will include the leader of the southern Sudan rebels in the governing structure of Khartoum. Since the north-south deal was signed in January, the administration has been unwilling to let the unfolding genocide in Darfur impede its progress. In this context, I think that the occasional mentions of genocide by the former secretary of state (and more recently the president himself) seem to have been a domestic political ploy rather than a call for action.

And I've got some thoughts of my own over on my other blog.

Darfur-Related Events

From Save Darfur

Photo Exhibits

Photos at Congress
Thursday, June 9th - Friday, June 10th

Thirty photographs of the crisis in Darfur taken by New York Sun Photographer Konrad Fiedler will be on display at the Rayburn House Office Building foyer at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

The Rayburn House Office Building is located southwest of the Capitol on a site bounded by Independence Avenue, South Capitol Street, First Street, and C Street, SW.

"Surviving Darfur"
Through Friday, July 17th

The National Geographic Museum is presenting a new exhibit, Surviving Darfur, in its Explorers Hall. The exhibit, featuring photographs by Helene Caux, documents the lives of refugees in the Darfur region of Sudan.

Ms. Caux spent 2004 traveling between eastern Chad and Darfur as part of an ongoing collaboration with the United Nations High Commission on Refugees to document the refugee and human rights situation. Surviving Darfur is held in conjunction with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees World Refugee Day events hosted at National Geographic June 15-18, which includes a lecture by Ms. Caux on Thursday, June 16 at 7 pm.

The National Geographic Museum is located at 1145 17th Street, NW, Washington, D.C.

Worshipping in the spirit of justice: Five Sundays to end genocide in Darfur

An invitation to people of faith to gather for five Sundays of public religious worship in Washington, D.C., around the theme of justice and peace in Africa, especially in Darfur, Sudan.

June 12: 1 p.m.
Kickoff event at Lincoln Memorial

June 19: 1 p.m.
Capitol Reflecting Pool (3rd St. NW and the Capitol Mall) Target: Congress

June 26: 1 p.m.
Freedom Plaza (14th St. and Pennsylvania Ave. NW) Target: The Media

July 3: 1 p.m.
Sheridan Circle (23rd St. and Massachusetts Ave. NW) Target: The Sudanese Embassy

July 10: 1 p.m.
LaFayette Park (16th St. and H St. NW) Target: White House

Sponsoring organizations include Africa Action, Cedar Ridge Community Church, Sojourners, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and more. For up-to-date information, visit www.sojo.net/Darfur or call 1-800-714-1474.

Summer Conscience Series at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Join students and interns for a powerful series of programs focusing on the genocide in Darfur and other crimes against humanity.

Friday, June 3, 2:00 p.m.
Smallest Witnesses: Darfur through the Eyes of Children
In cooperation with Human Rights Watch

Friday, June 10, 12:00 p.m.
Survivors Stand Shoulder to Shoulder
Holocaust Survivor Nesse Godin speaks out for the people of Darfur

Wednesday, June 15, 3:30 p.m.
Darfur Briefing: Current Situation and Policy
Panel discussion with John Heffernan, Physicians for Human Rights; and Jemera Rone, Human Rights Watch; moderated by Jerry Fowler, Director, Committee on Conscience

Thursday, June 23, 12:00 p.m.
Meet mtvU's Correspondents
Featuring students Stephanie Nyombayire, Swarthmore College, and Nate Wright, Georgetown University, who interviewed Darfurian refugee children in Chad

Tuesday, June 28, 3:30 p.m.
Remembering Rwanda: Did We Learn Anything?
Discussion with Donatella Lorch, Journalist and Director of the Knight International Press Fellowship at the International Center for Journalist, and Adotei Akwei, Campaigns Director, Amnesty International (invited)

The complete June schedule can be found here.

All programs are held at the Museum and are free and open to the public.

The Summer Conscience Series continues in July.

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Are You?

Kevin Drum on Darfur

I'm willing to support half measures like the Darfur Accountability Act because half measures are better than nothing. But I'd like to see more people on both left and right face up to facts: if you consider yourself serious about stopping the genocide in Darfur, then you should be willing to support a serious commitment of combat troops — and all that that implies — for a period likely to last years. Are you?

Daily Darfur

President Bush said this at a fundraiser last night

Somebody told me they thought Ambassador Danforth would be here tonight. I hope so. I do want to say that he represented our country so well -- Jack, thanks for coming and thanks for serving. (Applause.) Thanks for serving so admirably in the United Nations. As well, thanks for taking on a tough assignment. I asked Jack Danforth from the state of Missouri to help resolve the Sudan civil war, the conflict between north and south. And, unfortunately, Darfur has obscured the great progress that Ambassador Danforth made on behalf of -- on behalf of peace. And when it's all said and done, Jack, your contribution to helping solve that problem will go down in history as one of the great humanitarian gestures by our country, led ably by you. Thank you, sir.

From Reuters

The United States called on Friday for the deployment of more African Union police in refugee camps in Darfur, saying it would help stop attacks against civilians in the Sudanese region.

During a visit to Darfur, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick also urged the Sudanese government to disarm Arab militias accused of rape, burning and killing.

"We are certainly sending a very strong message to the government of Sudan that we want them to stop the militias ... and we also want them to move to disarm the militias," said Zoellick, who has made Sudan one of his top priorities.

The Washington Post has this editorial

On Wednesday President Bush called the Darfur killings "genocide," a description that implies some moral obligation on the part of the United States to act to stop the killing. But his administration has yet to improve on the schizophrenic pressure-cum-cooperation approach of the past year, in part because it is hemmed in by the world's indifference. China courts Sudan because of its oil. Russia seeks to sell arms to Sudan. Egypt and other Muslim states appear unmoved by the killing of Darfur's Muslim people. The diplomatic challenge for the United States is to persuade these partners to see Sudan's government for what it is: the problem, not the solution.

From AFP

The airlift of some 5,000 additional men to be deployed in the troubled Darfur region of western Sudan as part of the African Union (AU) Mission could get underway later this month, a US senior official said Thursday.

Part 4 of Jane Wells' "Witness to Darfur" is now available.

And finally, what do some in the Arab world think of Western concern for Darfur? Not much, apparently

But all of a sudden, and as a result of foreign intervention exploiting internal dissent, Darfur province in western Sudan has the world's attention. The media exaggerated the size of the rebellion portraying what is happening in the province as the largest humanitarian tragedy in the 21st century. Claims of mass murder, rape and other violations of human rights appeared in every media organ and the Khartoum government was attacked as no other government in the world has ever been.

A monitor of African affairs may ask why all this sudden interest in Darfur and this blatant intervention in Sudan's internal affairs while massacres in Rwanda and other parts of the world were still going on. The question is worth being asked, especially after an organization like Medicines Sans Frontiers gave a different interpretation to what has happened in Darfur contrary to what has been claimed by the Western media.

Amnesty International's report claiming mass murder in Darfur is as untrue as the claims by the United States on Iraqi WMD used as a pretext to attack and occupy Iraq.

Foreign powers have sought by all means to derail the Sudanese peace talks between the north and south before adding fuel to the fire in Darfur. Those powers drove some tribes to rebel against the legitimate government in Khartoum in order to open the door to foreign intervention and the ultimate disintegration of Sudan into tiny tribal entities to serve their strategic interests.

Zoellick's Bold Message or You Get Credit Just for Trying

From Reuters

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said on Thursday he had asked Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to stop violence, rape and intimidation of aid workers in the western Darfur region.

"The key message ... is that the eyes of the world are directed on Darfur, so the rapes, the violence, we have to try and stop it," he said, speaking after his first face-to-face talks with Bashir, in the Rwandan capital Kigali.

Zoellick said he had emphasized to the Sudanese government that it must rein in the militias who are behind the atrocities and killing in Darfur.

"What I stressed in my meetings today is to try and stop the militia attacks, particularly the attacks on women that have caused outrage all over the world, and not intimidate the NGO (non-governmental organization) workers," he said.

The international community has been "trying" to stop this for a year now without much success.

Perhaps the time has come to stop "trying to stop" it and start "stopping it."

Gaddafi Opposes Any Foreign Intervention in Darfur

From Reuters

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on Thursday any intervention in Sudan's Darfur region from outside Africa would exacerbate the crisis, adding that the continent was capable of dealing with its own problems.

"We are against any foreign intervention in Darfur because that would do nothing but pour oil on the fire," Gaddafi said after a summit of heads of state from West and North Africa in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou.

"There are threats of intervention from outside which raise the chances of civil war in our region. We should be firmly opposed to all these foreign interventions ... which aim to resolve our problems as if we weren't grown up," he said.

Tribal Violence in Darfur Overshadows Peace Moves, Hampers Aid

Via AFP via Passion of the Present

Growing tribal conflict in Sudan's strife torn region of Darfur is overshadowing peace efforts involving the Sudanese government and local rebels, a senior Red Cross official said Thursday.

Dominik Stillhart, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) chief in Sudan, said conflict between rebels, the government and its militia allies in Darfur was giving way to violence involving some 30 to 90 tribes there.

Odd Darfur-Related Story

From Reuters

Congolese park rangers who risked or even lost their lives to save mountain gorillas, pygmy chimpanzees and white rhinos as war raged around them have been honored two years after the conflict officially ended.

More than 40 park guards, bush trackers and local chiefs — many of whom fought off militia fighters, bandits and poachers in Congo's lawless east — were presented with the Abraham Conservation Award in Kinshasa late on Wednesday.

[edit]

Mokilibe Atakuru and Likambo Masikini, two park guards from the remote Garamba National Park on Congo's border with Sudan, were posthumously recognized for their efforts to help to try to save the world's last remaining northern white rhinos living in the wild.

They were both killed in May last year during a gun battle with heavily armed poachers from the Janjaweed militia — accused of raping and killing in Darfur — who swept into Congo on horseback from Sudan to hunt down the rhino for their horns.

Witness to Darfur (Part 3)

Part 3 in the series from Jane Wells

Several children are so sick they can’t swallow medicine when they come in. They receive electrolytes that will stabilize them until they can leave with antibiotics and analgesics. All the pregnant women get tetanus shots. This simple precaution is already saving hundreds of lives. Most women deliver their babies in tents without sterile instruments. What’s more, many Sudanese women have been circumcised and must endure agonizing births. Tetanus shots save two lives when both the woman and the umbilical cord are cut, as they often are, with dirty tools.

Bloggers Discussing the Crisis Group Poll

The following bloggers have written about this recent poll from the International Crisis Group and what it means

Matthew Yglesias

Democracy Arsenal

Restless Mania

The Moderate Voice

Also, Chainz from Restless Mania has this post up

[I]f President Clinton had chosen to use his position to bring awareness to the issue, and explored options for involvement, there is, in my opinion, a good chance he could have convinced the American public that our involvement was necessary to end the genocide. And that would have been even easier to do once the public was informed that our involvement would actually mean only a very small commitment of troops (especially if we actually allowed / pressured for UN involvement).

And so again I say that President Bush could to more for the situation in Darfur.

Sudan Will Pay High Price For 'Peace'

An op-ed from Gerard Prunier, author of the upcoming book "Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide" - via Passion of the Present

All the while, violence and starvation continue unabated in Darfur. A recent UN report warned that "militia attacks" intensified there last month, and it is now accepted that the Janjaweed, the most notorious militia group, acts largely at the government's bidding. The UN recently admitted fatality figures of unprecedented magnitude in the Darfur region, bringing the recognised death toll since February 2003 to at least 300,000 and perhaps as much as 400,000. Meanwhile, despite promises to the contrary, Khartoum has done nothing to rein in its violent proxies. So in Addis Ababa, Mr Annan will have to display a selective blindness in order to save the peace agreement signed after so much effort. The bloodshed in Darfur should not interfere with disbursing $4.5bn of "conscience money" to aid efforts in the south. Brussels, New York and Washington appear ready to pay that price. But the Sudanese public has not been asked its opinion; the implicit message is to keep suffering in silence while the rest of the world decides its future.

Daily Darfur

From the AP

The African Union needs more cash to expand its peacekeeping mission in Sudan's troubled Darfur, the group's peace and security commissioner said Thursday as he headed to the region on a fact-finding tour.

Last week, international donors pledged $300 million US in cash and more in kind for the African Union's Darfur operation.

But "all the announcements are more or less related to logistical requirements, which are needed of course, but I was expecting to have more cash," said African Union's Peace and Security Commissioner Said Djinnit. "The donors have been forthcoming in terms of logistical support but in terms of meeting the budget we have just not seen it."

From Reuters

The World Food Programme (WFP) is seeking more funds for Sudan's troubled Darfur region, where the number of people who need food has jumped to 3.5 million -- more than half of the population, it said on Thursday.

WFP, the U.N.'s international food aid organisation, will seek an additional $96 million for Darfur, bringing its budget to $563 million for the year, according to Holdbrook Arthur, regional director for East and Central Africa.

"We are talking about 3.5 million including the local population who have lost or are dramatically losing their livelihood because of insecurity," Arthur told a briefing in Geneva. "A lot of people are going hungry."

From Human Rights Watch

Two months after resolving to impose sanctions for Darfur, U.N. Security Council members have failed to expedite the appointment of a sanctions panel to identify individuals responsible for violence in the western Sudanese region, Human Rights Watch said today.

[edit]

Two months after the resolution, the matter remains pending in the Security Council committee, and no one has been appointed to the panel of experts.

From AFP

A high-level African Union delegation will set out on a three-day visit to Darfur to assess the humanitarian situation in the war-torn region, the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) said.

[edit]

Djinnit and his delegation will meeting in El Fasher with the humanitarian and NGO community on Saturday to discuss the situation in the region and "how best AMIS could continue to provide and enhance protection to humanitarian convoys and personnel," said Mezni.

He said the delegation would wrap up its visit with a stopover in Khartoum on Saturday for consultations with Sudanese officials, as well as representatives of the international community and AU member states.

Khartoum's Continuing Assault on Humanitarian Aid Workers

The latest from Eric Reeves

Khartoum’s National Islamic Front regime has in the past two days arrested the two top officials working in Darfur and Sudan for the Nobel Peace Prize-winning humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF, specifically MSF-Holland). For emphasis, the regime’s security forces also arrested the translator for Kofi Annan following the UN Secretary-General’s interview with rape victims in Darfur, including a pre-pubescent girl. If we are to understand the implications of these extraordinarily brazen actions, we must see not simply how they extend an official policy of harassing and intimidating aid organizations, as well as stifling their efforts to convey the full genocidal horror that continues in Darfur. The meaning of these arrests, ordered on purely contrived grounds, derives ultimately from Khartoum’s profound contempt for the international community.

The regime is openly contemptuous of international humanitarian operations in Darfur, and has relentlessly obstructed them for over a year and a half. The regime is equally contemptuous of all international human rights organizations, as well as the international news media and their fitful efforts to reveal the truth about human suffering and destruction in Darfur. The regime is particularly contemptuous of the International Criminal Court, to which the UN Security Council has referred massive “crimes against humanity” following the report of a Commission of Inquiry (January 2005). These crimes certainly including acts by senior officials of this same brutal regime.

New Attack in Darfur

From Mark Leon Goldberg of the American Prospect

It’s somewhat bizarre to be breaking news about an attack in Darfur on a blog, but as this is the most immediate forum at my disposal, here we go:

I just got off the phone with David Brown of Aegis Trust, a British NGO dedicated to confronting genocide around the world. As part of the organization’s mandate, Aegis documents crimes against humanity. To that end they’ve had contacts on the ground in Darfur collecting information on the ongoing genocide.

Brown told me that on Friday, May 27, a contact reported to Aegis Trust that he saw four Sudanese military helicopter gunships take off from an airbase near El Fashir in Northern Darfur. The observer then heard the gunships fire and saw evidence of civilian casualties, including a young girl who was evacuated to a hospital. (The number of casualties at this point remains unclear.) Other than saying that the witness was not Darfuri, Brown could not reveal his identity for fear that it would put his life at risk. Interestingly, he says that an international organization could confirm details of the attack, but it may not do so publicly for fear of reprisals on its staff.

Read the entire post.

United Nations Sudan Situation Report

The latest from the United Nations Country Team in Sudan

Humanitarian Affairs

The Road from Juba to Yei will not be cleared of mines by 7 June; the earliest estimate is now by end of June.

Health

Unity

Action Contre la Faim released the results of its May nutritional survey of Bentiu and Rubkona which shows a significant nutritional deterioration from its last survey in February 2005. In Rubkona, where there are 39,264 IDPs, global malnutrition has increased by 109 percent to 33.6 percent since February. Severe acute malnutrition for children between 6-59 months of age has increased by 248 percent to 7.3 percent. In Bentiu where there are 56,335 IDPs, the global malnutrition rate has increased by 110 percent to 34.1 percent. Severe acute malnutrition for children between 6-59 months of age has increased 570 percent to 6.7 percent. Today humanitarian agencies are meeting in Bentiu to plan a multi-sectoral humanitarian response.

[edit]

UNMIS Military

Southern Sudan

On 29 May, two intruders entered the UNMIS compound in Juba and insulted the security guards. They threatened to damage all UN vehicles parked in the compound and threw stones on the security guards on duty. GoS Police officer arrested one culprit while the other managed to escape. The apprehended culprit was then taken to Juba Police station by the UNDSS people and handed over the culprit to Police. However, the Police later informed the UNDSS that during the interrogation by the Police at the police station the culprit somehow managed to escape.

President Bush Discusses Darfur

Nicholas Kristof's count ends, for now, at 142 days.

President Bush also reiterated that what is taking place in Darfur is genocide.

From the White House

President and South African President Mbeki Discuss Bilateral Relations

PRESIDENT BUSH: We talked about several situations that are of concern to our government, most notably Darfur. I want to thank you for your leadership there. The President has got troops there. Deputy Secretary Zoellick is on the way to Darfur. This is a serious situation. As you know, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, with my concurrence, declared the situation a genocide. Our government has put a lot of money to help deal with the human suffering there.

[edit]

Q: And, Mr. President, on the issue of Darfur, Sudan, a new survey came out by the Zogby International Poll that finds 84 percent of Americans polled feel that the U.S. should not tolerate an extremist government committing such attacks and should use its military assets, short of using military combat troops on the ground to protect civilians there.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Let me first say something. We are working with NATO to make sure that we are able to help the AU put combat troops there. And as a part of that, I believe a transport plane of ours, for example, will be a part of this mission.

I think later on today I'm going to speak to the Prime Minister of Canada, who has also been very strong about dealing with Darfur, and I will thank him for his contributions.

President Mbeki also discussed Darfur

PRESIDENT MBEKI: No, we -- our view has been that it's critically important that the African continent should deal with these conflict situations on the continent. And that includes Darfur. And therefore, indeed, you will notice that we have not asked for anybody outside of the African continent to deploy troops in Darfur. It's an African responsibility and we can do it.

So what we've asked for is the necessary logistical and other support to be able to ensure that we discharge our responsibilities. I should say that. Even the first troops deployed in Darfur were from Rwanda and Nigeria. The U.S. military forces sent the planes that actually did the airlift of those forces to Darfur. That's the kind of support I would ask for, and indeed, as the President has indicated, we even went to NATO, who also agreed to support.

So I don't think it's -- certainly from the African perspective, we wouldn't say we want deployment of U.S. troops in Darfur -- on the continent. We've got the people to do this -- military, police, other -- so long as we get this necessary logistical support. I think that's what's critically important.

Improvement is in the Eye of the Beholder

Jan Pronk, U.N. envoy to Sudan, recently said that Secretary-General Kofi Annan was greatly impressed by improvement of the situation in Darfur. In Pronk's words

"Mr. Annan was really impressed by the improved situation in Darfur, which he visited on Saturday," Pronk told a press conference in Khartoum.

[edit]

"Foreign press reports, especially in the American press, which speak of no progress in Darfur are completely untrue," he added.

At the time Annan was in Darfur, The Scotsman was reporting that

Confidential African Union (AU) reports have provided damning new evidence of the involvement of Sudanese government forces and their Janjaweed militia allies in the murder and rape of civilians in the Darfur region.

At the same time, two aid workers from Doctors Without Borders were arrested because of a recent report documenting hundreds of cases of rape in the region.

On top of that, the World Food Program reported that the number of people requiring food aid in Sudan is now more than six million, while the UNHCR reported that Janjaweed and government attacks have all but destroyed village life and forced some 2 million people into makeshift slums. With the majority of villages destroyed and insecurity rampant, it is not surprising that the displaced have become entirely dependent on foreign aid and are increasingly unwilling to return home.

As Eric Reeves explained in his most recent update

Sometime in the summer of 2004 (we will never know precisely when), genocidal destruction in Darfur became more a matter of engineered disease and malnutrition than violent killing. In other words, disease and malnutrition proceeding directly from the consequences of violent attacks on villages, deliberate displacement, and systematic destruction of the means of agricultural production among the targeted non-Arab or African tribal groups became the major killers.

According to a recent International Crisis Group estimate, "a minimum presence of 12,000-15,000 [military] personnel is needed now to undertake the tasks of protecting villages against further attack or destruction." But as it stands now, the African Union hasn't even been able to deploy the 3,000 or so troops required under its current mandate and will most likely be unable to field the 7,000-12,000 troops called for in its expanded mission.

Thus, it is rather difficult to comprehend just what sorts of "improvement" Annan and Pronk claim to have witnessed in Darfur.

The international community continues to fail to seriously addresses this crisis and so we ask you to join the Coalition for Darfur as we attempt to raise awareness of this genocide and collect contributions for worthy organizations providing life-saving assistance to the forgotten people of Darfur.

Sudan Mobilizes Army Reserves in East

From Reuters

Sudan has called for general mobilisation of its army reserves in the eastern region bordering Eritrea to secure roads and an oil pipeline after rebels kidnapped three politicians, a local official said.

Eastern rebels joined with an insurgent group from the western Darfur region to kidnap three local politicians last month on a major road in Sudan's poor east.

"We called our troops for mobilisation. This is to call all the reserves, in Red Sea state and in Kassala state," governor Hatim al-Wasiyla told Reuters from the eastern city of Port Sudan on Wednesday.

He said the extra troops would number between 500-1,000 and would be to protect the border with Eritrea, major roads and the oil pipeline which runs to the port.

Poll Shows Americans Support U.S. Role in Darfur

From the International Crisis Group

Over 80 per cent of Americans support a tougher international response to the current situation in Darfur, a new International Crisis Group/Zogby poll finds. This includes backing for military measures, sanctions and International Criminal Court prosecutions against the Sudanese government and its leaders responsible for the tragedy.

In May 2005, Crisis Group commissioned the respected Zogby International polling firm to explore U.S. public attitudes about the situation in Darfur and what steps Americans felt were warranted in response. Among 1,000 Americans surveyed, results indicate that short of inserting U.S. combat troops on the ground to protect civilians, there is greater public backing for the U.S. to play a leadership role in stemming this catastrophe than has been the conventional wisdom in Washington.

Key voter demographics -- including Hispanics, Jews, 18-29-year olds, married adults, college graduates, residents of the east and west, men, and people with household incomes over U.S.$75,000 -- were most likely to support robust international action.

Among key Crisis Group/Zogby findings:

80 per cent agreed that the Janjaweed attacks on civilian populations in Darfur can accurately be called "genocide" or "crimes against humanity", with response higher among Republicans (82 per cent) than Democrats (79 per cent);

84 per cent said the U.S. should not tolerate an extremist government committing such attacks and should use its military assets, short of putting U.S. troops on the ground, to help stop them;

91 per cent said the U.S. should cooperate with the International Criminal Court to help bring to justice those accused of crimes against humanity;

Strong majorities supported tough sanctions on Sudanese leaders who control the militias (81 per cent), a no-fly zone over Darfur (80 per cent), and NATO logistical and troop support for an expanded African peacekeeping force (76 per cent).

Given the Crisis Group/Zogby findings, it is hoped Washington will take a stronger role in convincing the international community to embrace concerted and direct efforts to end the tragedy of Darfur.

Sudan 'Drops Aid Worker Charges'

From the BBC

Charges are to be dropped against two aid workers in Sudan's Darfur region accused of falsifying a report on rape, diplomats say.

The arrests led to an international outcry, which the BBC's Jonah Fisher in Khartoum says seems to have forced the Sudanese government into a u-turn.

Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said he agreed that the pair should not have been arrested.

Sudan Unapologetic for Arrests

From the AP

Striking an unapologetic note after the arrest of two foreign aid workers, Sudan's foreign minister Wednesday warned international organizations not to meddle in the country's affairs or tarnish its image.

"Organizations operating in Sudan should observe the country's national security in their dealings and they should not be seen to tarnish Sudan's image through issuance of false information," Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail was quoted as saying by the official Sudan News Agency.

Witness to Darfur (Part 2)

From Jane Wells at the Huffington Post

The Al Shereif camp is now home to over 45,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from all over Darfur. It appears randomly placed in the middle of a barren desert about two hours walk from the center of Nyala. Eunice and I stare at row upon row of white tents, orderly and neat, each row and tent lettered and numbered, in a completely desolate, vegetation-free and scorching landscape. It looks like a set for a Beau Geste film, but there are way too many tents. They stretch as far as the eye can see. The IMC clinic, a temporary, white-washed structure with a flat roof and several small rooms inside, abuts section D of the camp. Two thatched shelters outside serve as waiting rooms – one for men and another for women, with children moving freely between the two. The clinic serves new arrivals at this block. When Eunice and I arrive, the waiting huts are already full of men dressed in turbans and white djellabas. The women wear robes of every imaginable color, swathing themselves in a single piece of cloth that covers them from head to toe. Though the clinic is full, it is strangely quiet. Everyone is waiting and no one is talking, crying or screaming. The heat seems to have this silencing effect, even on sick children.

Daily Darfur

From the AP

The Dutch Foreign Ministry Wednesday summoned Sudan's ambassador to explain the detention of two aid workers held responsible for a report alleging widespread rape, the ministry said.

Humanitarian agencies are warning that thousands risk starvation in south Sudan

Food supplies are critically low in many parts of southern Sudan, exposing thousands of people to starvation, the region's leaders and humanitarian agencies have warned.

They blame the looming crisis on a poor harvest, the return of thousands of refugees and the inability of humanitarian agencies to provide adequate food for the needy due to a shortfall in funds.

[edit]

World Food Programme (WFP) senior deputy director Jean-Jacques Graisse agreed the situation was getting desperate.

"I am worried some areas may suffer a disaster if we don't have the resources to save lives," Graisse said in a statement last month after a tour of the troubled Darfur region and the south.

[edit]

The WFP said the failure by donors to honor their pledges was seriously hampering its operation to feed some 3.2 million people in Sudan.

According to the WFP, the operation "has a massive shortfall of 224 million dollars (74 percent) out of the 302 million dollars required."

The Sudan Organisation Against Torture has this alert

On 19 May 2005, three men allegedly from the Popular Police Forces attacked and raped a 14 year old girl (name withheld) belonging to the Beni Halba tribe in Nyala. During the attack which took place at Nyala Valley, the victim was beaten with hands all over her body.

From the AP

The top U.S. military commander in Europe discussed with senior Rwandan officials Tuesday plans to airlift peacekeepers from the small central African nation to Sudan's western Darfur region, scene of one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

Marine Gen. James. L. Jones, the NATO supreme commander and the head of the U.S. European Command, also discussed U.S. plans to train Rwandan peacekeepers, fly them to other areas where they may be needed and strengthen military cooperation between the two countries.

From the BBC

Sudan's biggest opposition party has said it will boycott the power-sharing government due to take office in July.

Umma party leader Sadiq al-Mahdi told the BBC that the government would be made up of two groups which were not democratically elected.

In January, the Islamic government and southern rebels agreed to end 21 years of war and set up a joint government.

Mr al-Mahdi was deposed as Sudan's leader in a coup by current President Omar al-Bashir, in 1989.

The Umma party is also boycotting the committee drawing up an interim constitution.

In April, Umma said it had been banned from political activity after Mr al-Mahdi said he backed sending those accused of war crimes in the Darfur region to the International Criminal Court.

Congrats and Kudos to my main man Eugene for getting a shout out over at the MoJo blog. Well done, bro.