Sudan: Rife With Distrust of UN and Fear of Al Qaida

From the UN News Center

Distrust of the United Nations and warnings of Al Qaida involvement are growing in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, the UN’s envoy to the troubled African nation warned today, saying that both are linked to the uncertainty surrounding peacekeeping operations in strife-torn Darfur.

Describing the working environment for UN staff in the capital as “very difficult,” Jan Pronk, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative, said that “politically we are a bit in a stalemate,” referring in particular to the African Union (AU) peacekeeping force in the Darfur region and whether, and how, it would be replaced by a UN operation.

“The climate in Khartoum against the UN is heating up very strongly…threats, there are warnings, there is talk about Al Qaida. And there is fear in Khartoum, that is being used, that the UN transition will be not a UN transition but a conspiracy which will bring Sudan into the same situation as Iraq a couple of years ago,” Mr. Pronk said.

“Of course that is a feeling, which is being manipulated by leaders, at the same time it’s also a feeling which is true for many people in the streets of Khartoum, and in that very difficult situation we at the moment are working,” added Mr. Pronk, who heads the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS).

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Since fighting flared a week ago in North Darfur, a large number of villages have been attacked and burned, markets have been looted and people displaced. UNMIS has also said that clashes between the Sudan Armed Forces and rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) have continued.

Speaking today, Mr. Pronk also said that 300 people had been killed in one area of South Darfur since December by attackers riding horses and camels and backed up by military vehicles.

He also said that he was “very concerned about what’s going on around the border in Darfur” with neighbouring Chad, where more than 200,000 Sudanese refugees have sought safety in the past three years from the killings in their homeland, adding that there was violence on both sides of the frontier.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said today that they were now seeing “population movements in both directions along the troubled Chad-Sudan border, further evidence of the spreading insecurity that now straddles this increasingly insecure region.”

“In addition to the more than 200,000 Sudanese refugees from Darfur who have sought refuge in eastern Chad in the past three years, we're now seeing indications that some Chadians are themselves fleeing in the opposite direction, to Darfur,” said UNHCR Spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis.

Darfur: Sudan Rejects UN Forces; Envoy Cites Al-Qaeda Threat

From Bloomberg

Sudan's government has rejected a United Nations peacekeeping mission aimed at stopping violence against residents of Darfur, and a UN official said al-Qaeda terrorists have threatened to attack any troops deployed there.

``The government of Sudan has taken a strong position against the transition,'' Jan Pronk, the UN's top envoy to Sudan, told reporters in New York, referring to the planned shift from an African Union force in Darfur to UN blue helmets possibly backed by NATO. Pronk said the government in Khartoum fears the type of occupation of Sudan that the U.S.-led coalition has undertaken in Iraq.

Omar Manis, Sudan's deputy UN ambassador, confirmed his government's objections to a mission that has been planned for several months and endorsed by the Security Council. President George W. Bush suggested on Feb. 17 that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should have a leading role in the mission. Manis said the ``motives'' of UN and U.S. officials pressing for a peacekeeping mission are in question.

``We believe the African Union has done a good job and should stay,'' Manis said in an interview. ``If we are not convinced that there is a good reason for a transition, we wonder what other kind of agenda there might be.''

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Pronk said preparations for a UN mission to Darfur have also been thrown into doubt by the African Union's reconsideration of the transition. It is no longer certain what the AU, which initially supported the idea, will decide at a March 10 meeting on the issue, he said.

"We are in a stalemate politically," Pronk said. "The climate in Khartoum against the UN is heating up. There are threats, warnings about al-Qaeda."

Pronk said intelligence shows there are "persons in Khartoum who were not there before,'' meaning al-Qaeda terrorists who have threatened his life and would act against any UN troops, particularly non-Africans. Khartoum is Sudan's capital.

DPA has a similar article

The presence of NATO or UN troops in Sudan's troubled western region of Darfur would provoke a jihad because of the deep mistrust by the Moslem-led government in Khartoum for foreigners, a UN official said Tuesday.

Jan Pronk, the UN special envoy in Sudan, said there is an 'atmosphere of fear and conspiracy' in Khartoum that Sudan might become another Iraq or Afghanistan if the West would send in troops to quell the ethnic conflict in Darfur.

Pronk said he spent time trying to convince people in Darfur to accept a UN force, but to send in NATO troops would be a 'recipe for disaster.'

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Pronk said the AU was reconsidering its position to pull out and may announce its future plans in March.

'I was able to make them (Sudanese) understand that the UN is different,' Pronk said. But he said his hosts reacted differently at the mention of non-UN troops.

'They speak about recolonization, invasion and they speak about Iraq and Afghanistan ... and they speak about a conspiracy against the Arab and Islamic world,' he said, adding that such talks have heated up the climate in Darfur.

Darfur: International Pressure Needed to End Violence, Insecurity

An interview with John Prendergast in The Daily Star

Q: What are your thoughts on the request for a UN peacekeeping presence in Darfur?

A: It's a year or two late. It was quite clear as early as the beginning of 2005 the force that the African Union was deploying under the rules of engagement and the mandate it was given with the little bit of equipment it was provided were simply inadequate to address the enormous insecurity caused by the government of Sudan's counterinsurgency strategy. So a year and a quarter later we finally have the United States making a decision to begin to press for the transition from the African Union force to a United Nations mission. We lost a lot of lives - tens of thousands of lives - as a result of that delay. But, it's never too late. There are still huge protection issues in Darfur, and the situation, in fact, is deteriorating.


Q: News reports say the UN has been preparing for a couple of months [for the transition to UN peacekeepers], but [U.S. Ambassador to the UN] John Bolton criticized [UN Secretary General] Kofi Annan for not pushing harder to get the planning done for the UN forces. Does this criticism have merit?

A: It is the height of disingenuousness. The United States only recently made a decision to begin pressing for a transition to the UN. Principally, for financial reasons and for reasons of policy, the United States was supporting the AU fully and said the AU was the right way to go up until the end of last year. So it's only been the last month or two that the United States began to publicly say we need to have a transition to the UN. And then, to all of a sudden turn around and accuse the UN of dragging its feet-this is one of many, many examples of this administration taking a policy position, seeing that policy crumble in failure, and then pointing fingers at others and blaming others for the failure. Just like the African Union was set up from the beginning to fail, now the United Nations is going to be blamed for dragging its feet.

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Q: So, what do you think would work?

A: Hard pressure is the only way to do it. That means you go to the [UN] Security Council. We already have an authorization for targeted sanctions; we have 17 names on a list from the work of the UN sanctions committee [charged with investigating anyone they deemed to be obstructing efforts to end the Darfur conflict] as we saw leaked to the press in the last couple of days. Sanction those people, go after them, go after their assets, freeze their travel, do these kinds of things. Send a message to Khartoum that, in fact, there will be a cost for conducting the kind of counterinsurgency campaign they're conducting and there will be a cost for committing massive crimes against humanity. By the way, there are three rebel leaders on that list as well. Sanction them, too.

So far, three years into this war, no one has been penalized in any way for anything that has happened. That is a remarkable failure on the part of the United Nations Security Council and a remarkable failure on the part of the United States, which came out and for the first time called something genocide while it was going on. And then to not have any repercussions for that is simply a moral failure.


Q: Do you see the UN peacekeepers as part of this pressure diplomacy?

A: If we start to press very hard for a United Nations force that actually has a civilian protection mandate, that actually has the kind of muscle on the ground to protect people, that is a form of pressure that is a statement to Khartoum that the days of no accountability for crimes against humanity are over and that we're going to actively involve ourselves, the international community, in protecting civilians because the government of Khartoum has abdicated its responsibility to protect.

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Q: Do you think the U.S. and UN policy changes are too late, or is there still hope for resolving the conflict in Darfur?

A: This crisis has unfolded in slow motion compared to what we've seen in previous eruptions of violence. Three years have gone by, the killing is sort of a low-intensity nature, and therefore there are constant opportunities for an escalation of a response to have a significant impact on the ground and end the tragedy in Darfur. So yes, I think there is a great deal of hope that if the U.S. and the UN actually do make the kinds of policy changes necessary, deploy a more muscular force and produce measures of accountability like targeted sanctions, and step up their support for the process - if we see those things happening across the board, we could get a resolution of the Darfurian crisis that will literally save tens of thousands of lives and will enable, over time, literally two and a half million people to go home again.

Somalia:Smugglers Force Overboard, 63 Feared Dead

From Reuters - via POTP

Sixty-three people, mainly Somalis, including women and children, are feared dead after being forced overboard from a smuggler's boat carrying them to Yemen, the U.N. refugee agency said on Tuesday.

Some 33 bodies were found and another 30 people were missing and probably drowned after the incident on Saturday during a crossing of the Gulf of Aden.

According to the UNHCR office in Aden, Yemen, a boat sailing from Somalia forced all 137 passengers, three of them Ethiopians, into deep waters off the Yemeni coast, before turning around and heading back to Somalia.

By Monday evening, scores of people had reached shore. The bodies of the dead were found near Al Hodeiya, 10 km (6 miles) east of Bir Ali on the southern Yemeni coast, it added.

"The latest tragic incident once again highlights the urgent need for joint international and local efforts to address this problem and minimise the flow of desperate people who fall victim to ruthless smugglers," the UNHCR said.

Darfur: AU Meeting on Handover Postponed

From Reuters

A meeting of African Union members on whether to hand over the AU's mission in Sudan's Darfur region to the United Nations has been postponed until March 10, an AU spokesman said on Tuesday.

"It was postponed to give ample time for all those concerned in the Darfur crisis to attend," AU spokesman Assane Ba said, without elaborating.

The AU meeting to make a final decision on a handover in Darfur was originally due to take place on Friday.

Darfur: UN to Agree on Sanctions Within Days, Says UK

From Reuters

The U.N. Security Council will agree to punish individuals believed to be blocking peace in Sudan's Darfur region within the next 10 days, a senior British official said on Tuesday, a move that would end a year-long deadlock.

The issue was discussed in New York on Monday, but Security Council members failed to resolve their differences.

The council voted nearly a year ago to authorise sanctions against individuals blocking the peace process or violating a U.N. arms embargo. Experts from the world body last December gave the council a list of 17 people it said should be punished.

"In terms of impunity and sanctions ... we have action in New York to try to see against whom we should put in place measures, I would expect that to happen in the next 10 days," said the senior British diplomatic official.

"I think we are getting to a point where we will take measures against some named individuals," he said, adding the action would mostly likely include travel bans and a freeze on assets.

He said the number of individuals who would be penalised would be "close to double figures", fewer than the list of 17 the U.N. experts gave the council.

Uganda: ICC Ready for LRA

Of course, they have to be captured first - from Reuters

International Criminal Court cells are ready to receive war crimes suspects and officials said on Tuesday the court hoped indictees from Uganda would be arrested this year so its first trials can start.

"We have 12 cells in Scheveningen," ICC registrar Bruno Cathala told a briefing as the court opened its media centre.

"We are ready to welcome detainees," he said. "We need the help of states in order to arrest these people but as soon as these people are here there could be a trial."

Cathala said suspects will be held in the same wing of a Dutch prison in the seaside resort of Scheveningen near The Hague that already houses 48 war crimes indictees for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

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Uganda said earlier this month its troops had attacked Kony in southern Sudan and killed four of his bodyguards as he tried to flee towards the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The court has also launched investigations into war crimes in Congo and Sudan's Darfur region.

Palme said the ICC was planning a new trip to Khartoum, but could not say when. Sudan's government refuses to allow any Sudanese citizen to be tried outside national courts and says it will not allow ICC investigators to work in Darfur.

Darfur: UN Peacekeepers Could Be at Risk if Deployed

From the AP

Sudan warned Monday that United Nations peacekeepers could be at risk if they deployed to its conflict-wracked Darfur region.

According to the official SUNA news agency, Justice Minister Mohamed Ali Al Mardhi told Sima Samar, the United Nations’ special rapporteur for human rights in Sudan, that it would be difficult to provide protection for such forces.

"The minister has warned the U.N. official about the danger of sending foreign forces to Sudan," SUNA said.

It added that Al Mardi said implementing a proposal to send "international forces to Darfur would pave the way for infiltration of elements in Sudan across the borders with neighboring countries a matter which will complicate the protection and safety of the international forces."

Darfur/UN: Ken Mehlman Addresses the Jewish Council for Public Affairs

A press release from the RNC

"The UN is an organization that must distinguish between democracy and despotism.

"It is an organization that must guarantee that its peacekeepers protect, not exploit, the helpless and the needy.

"It must do these things so that it can more effectively turn to help others ... especially in places like the Sudan.

"I know that the people in this room are particularly concerned with the situation in Darfur.

"The United States is the largest humanitarian and peacekeeping donor in the Sudan. We brokered the cease-fire, and we helped bring the African Union in. We have pledged $1.7 billion to help that war-torn nation. We provided move than 60 percent of the aid to Darfur in 2005 ... and we will not stop.

"There is much we are doing ... but the world needs to step up to the plate. Which is why we are pushing for Security Council Action to take the next steps.

"We need a full-fledged peacekeeping mission in the Sudan, and we especially need UN peacekeepers in Darfur.

"We will push for all of those ... and we will push for reform, because a UN hobbled by its own inefficiencies and scandals is not a UN that is doing the most it can to help in places like Darfur.

"Of course, there are people who don't want to rock the boat, not even when the boat clearly needs rocking as much as the UN does.

"They are the people who said that John Bolton was too forward, too controversial, to upset the delicate sensibilities at the UN.

"Those people are the same kind of people who, above all, want 'stability' in the Middle East.

"They want it so much that to them it is more important than security … or freedom.

"They don't want change in the UN, in the Middle East, or here at home.

"So ladies and gentleman, let me be crystal clear.

"We will reform the UN.

"We will stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

"We will stand with Israel in the face of terrorist threats.

"We will work to stop the suffering in the Sudan.

"And we will protect ourselves and our allies from terrorists.

"We will not retreat from the world, and we will not shirk our responsibilities."

Darfur/Chad: Refugee Crisis Grows as War Crosses a Border

An important article from the New York Times - there is also a video feature here

The chaos in Darfur, the war-ravaged region in Sudan where more than 200,000 civilians have been killed, has spread across the border into Chad, deepening one of the world's worst refugee crises.

Arab gunmen from Darfur have pushed across the desert and entered Chad, stealing cattle, burning crops and killing anyone who resists. The lawlessness has driven at least 20,000 Chadians from their homes, making them refugees in their own country.

Hundreds of thousands more people in this area, along with 200,000 Sudanese who fled here for safety, find themselves caught up in a growing conflict between Chad and Sudan, which have a long history of violence and meddling in each other's affairs.

"You may have thought the terrible situation in Darfur couldn't get worse, but it has," Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, said in a recent statement. "Sudan's policy of arming militias and letting them loose is spilling over the border, and civilians have no protection from their attacks, in Darfur or in Chad."

Indeed, the accounts of civilians in eastern Chad are agonizingly familiar to those in western Sudan. One woman, Zahara Isaac Mahamat, described how Arab men on camels and horses had raided her village in Chad, stealing everything they could find and slaughtering all who resisted.

The dead included her husband, Ismail Ibrahim, who tried to prevent the raiders from burning his sorghum and millet fields. Like so many others in this desolate expanse of dust-choked earth, she fled west with her three children, much as people in Darfur have been forced to do in recent years.

"I have lost everything but my children," she said, her face looking much older than her 20 years. She is now a refugee, with thousands of other displaced Chadians, in Kolloye, a village south of here.

"We have three bowls of grain left," she said. "When that is gone, only God can help us."

The spreading chaos is a result of two closely connected conflicts in the neighboring countries.

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If unchecked by international intervention, this complex and volatile mix of government forces, allied militias and at least a half-dozen rebel groups in a remote region awash with weapons will almost inevitably lead to disaster, said John Prendergast, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization, and an expert on the Darfur conflict.

"The principle strategy of all these actors, both state actors and proxy militias, is to displace people in order to destabilize and undermine the support base of your opponent," he said. "We are going to see an increasing spiral of displacement on both sides of the border and an increasingly dangerous environment for humanitarian workers."

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That Chadian rebels have found sanctuary in Sudan is beyond doubt. Geneina, the capital of Western Darfur, resembles a garrison town; armed men from at least six forces are visible on the streets, as are Arabs in street clothes carrying AK-47's. Local residents identify them as janjaweed.

In the market in the evening, Chadian Army deserters wearing their distinctive turbans sit drinking tea, submachine guns beside them. Freshly dug machine-gun pits surround the police and army stations, and aid agencies are putting sandbags around their offices. The Chadian rebels have new weapons, uniforms and vehicles, aid officials in Geneina said, leading many to conclude that they are getting support from the Sudanese government.

With so much firepower on the Sudanese side of the border, residents in villages like Adé, south of Adré, have borne almost daily attacks.

"There is no security here," said Hisseine Kassar Mostapha, secretary general of the local government in Adé. "We are out here completely on our own, with no one to protect us."

The 'Challenges' of Darfur

An op-ed from Eric Reeves in The Globe and Mail

How serious is South Africa about halting massive, ethnically targeted human destruction in Darfur in western Sudan? Is President Thabo Mbeki prepared to support the robust, international force required to protect millions of vulnerable people and the increasingly tenuous humanitarian lifeline upon which they depend? At the moment of truth for Darfur, the answers are not encouraging.

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Mbeki’s view is highlighted in a recent study of the AU force in Darfur: “We have not asked for anybody outside of the African continent to deploy troops in Darfur. It is an African responsibility, and we can do it.” The ghastly facts on the ground in Darfur reveal the hollowness of these words, and the question becomes whether Mbeki’s passionate African “continentalism” will triumph over the need to move swiftly to save the more than 3,5-million people estimated to be “conflict-affected”. Most within this vast population have lost everything in fleeing to IDP camps and into eastern Chad. There are no remaining foodstocks, and agricultural production has largely collapsed. Violence has produced intolerable levels of insecurity, forcing an increasing number of humanitarian evacuations, leaving hundreds of thousands without food or assistance of any kind.

To be sure, Mbeki has plenty of company insisting that the AU is up to the task in Darfur, including Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt as well as Libyan leader Moammar Ghadaffi. The same insistence comes from officials within the AU, even if this stubborn pride comes at the expense of the innocent women and children who make up a large majority of acutely vulnerable camp populations.

Mbeki had a chance to confront the architects of the current genocide in Darfur a year ago, when he addressed the Parliament in Khartoum. Instead, in remarks widely reported, he devoted his time to excoriating Winston Churchill and British policies in Africa of a century ago. And although Mbeki visited Darfur, he made only the obligatory stops that Khartoum had sanitised for visiting dignitaries. Afterwards, he spoke not of genocide or conspicuous crimes against humanity, but of “challenges” in the region.

Mbeki has unrivalled power as an African leader, and has used that power wisely in several arenas. But failure to lead the way in halting ethnically targeted destruction of defenseless populations in Darfur ensures his leadership will be compromised by the failure to help stop genocidal destruction that may eventually exceed that of Rwanda in 1994.

Darfur: Bolton Pushes for Action While Annan Avoids Comment

From the New York Sun

American Ambassador John Bolton admitted yesterday that despite his best efforts, the U.N. Security Council was not likely to pass measures to stop the carnage in Darfur before the end of February. Secretary-General Annan, meanwhile, did not even discuss Sudan during a weekend visit to Qatar, whose U.N. ambassador is one of three council members blocking American-proposed measures.

Mr. Annan went as Qatar's guest for a U.N.-related conference on an "alliance among civilizations" as Muslims riot against Western cartoons. He has recently chided America for not doing enough on Darfur, but declined to criticize Sudan's allies. The issue of Sudan "did not come up" during his meetings in Doha, spokeswoman Marie Okabe, told The New York Sun yesterday.

American diplomats are disappointed that since joining the 15-member Security Council this year, with Washington's backing, Qatar has followed a hard line when representing the Arab group. Ambassador Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser has disagreed with America on several issues, most notably Sudan. Along with China and Russia, Qatar blocked proposals to impose sanctions on Sudanese officials and militia leaders singled out for punishment by a U.N. panel of experts.

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Russian Ambassador Andrey Denisov told the Sun he was concerned that sanctions imposed against senior Sudanese officials might upset the political balance and create more problems than it would solve. The unity government formed in Khartoum last year "should not be influenced by negative thoughts," he said.

Refugees From Chad Now Seek Safety in Darfur

From Reuters

Chadians fleeing mounting insecurity at home are crossing the border into Sudan's Darfur region, increasing already staggering refugee pressures there, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

About 8,000 to 10,000 people, among them "an undetermined number" of Chadians, have set up camp on the Darfur side of the frontier after a rebel attack in the Chad border town of Adre on Dec. 18, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.

"Confirmation that Chadians have crossed into Darfur is certainly a worrisome new development and a sign of the deteriorating security situation across the border," UNHCR spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis told a press briefing.

U.N. officials said it was difficult to estimate the numbers of Chadians in the makeshift camps because Sudanese nationals were also seeking shelter there from the ongoing Darfur conflict between rebels, the government and government-backed militias.

Two million Darfuris have fled their homes since a rebellion began there in early 2003. Some 200,000 of those have crossed the border into camps in eastern Chad.

Chad has withdrawn its border troops to protect its main frontier towns, including Adre, after the December attack and officials say that has created a dangerous security vacuum along the Sudan-Chad border.

U.N. and human rights officials say the Darfur conflict is spreading over the frontier and Chadian rebels hoping to depose President Idriss Deby present a new threat.

Uganda: Besigye to Challenge Poll Results

From IRIN

Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye on Tuesday said his party had decided to contest the re-election of President Yoweri Museveni because of "widespread irregularities and falsification of results".

Besigye, the leader of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), said he had assembled a team of lawyers to petition the results in court within the next 10 days.

"The main thrust of the petition is that our supporters were disenfranchised; the falsification of results, of which we have a lot of evidence; and bribery," he told a press conference at FDC headquarters in Kampala, the capital.

Nigeria Turns to China for Defence Aid

From the Financial Times

Nigeria has criticised Washington for failing to help protect the country’s oil assets from rebel attack, forcing it to turn to other military suppliers, including China, for support.

Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s vice-president, told the Financial Times the US had been too slow to help protect the oil-rich Niger Delta from a growing insurgency. He said talks with the US over security plans for the region did not “appear to be moving as fast as the situation is unfolding” and Nigeria was instead sourcing military equipment elsewhere.

Nigerian security sources said China was becoming one of Nigeria’s main suppliers of military hardware. They said new supplies would include dozens of patrol boats to secure the network of swamps and creeks where rebels launch attacks.

Last year, China won a $250m deal to supply 12 fighter jets to Nigeria.

A senior Nigerian naval official said Nigeria had “felt let down” by the reluctance of the US military to offer more support and that the Chinese boats were “a very welcome development”.

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Diplomats and analysts say that concerns over the level of corruption within the Nigerian security forces and human rights violations have made the US reluctant to supply more equipment. Nigeria accuses militants of funding themselves with stolen oil, but many industry officials say military personnel are involved in cartels that sell stolen oil to criminal syndicates.

Darfur: It's Time for Regional Leaders to Stop Playing the Blame Game

An editorial from the The Daily Star of Lebanon

For over three years, in the western Sudanese province of Darfur, government-backed militias have been terrorizing, killing and raping civilians. It is baffling that a crisis of such magnitude - with up to 300,000 people killed and some 2.4 million civilians forced to flee their homes - could be ignored and forgotten for so long. We could blame the United Nations for not responding quickly to the crisis, we could blame the media for not drawing enough attention to the atrocities and we could blame Western governments and citizens for caring too little about the plight of African villagers. But the greater burden of responsibility for the tragedy lies closer to home, where regional officials are still allowing the killings to take place.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is quick to lay blame on others for the death and displacement of his citizens. He has charged that the West has invented a "conspiracy" to plunder his country's resources, and denied his government's well-documented participation in the killings. On Monday, Bashir reiterated this same theme while warning that "Darfur will be a graveyard for any foreign troops" that might intervene. But it is Bashir's own failure to protect the lives and livelihoods of its citizens that has invited external intervention. This failure has already forced Bashir to withdraw his bid for the African Union presidency, and it will probably soon force the international community to send peacekeeping troops. If foreign troops arrive in Sudan, Bashir will have only himself to blame.

Likewise, the Arab League, whose next summit will be hosted by Sudan, has exonerated Khartoum in Darfur, blaming other factors for the conflict, including drought, tribal disputes and underdevelopment. The league has rejected sanctions or foreign intervention in Darfur, saying that Khartoum needs more time to resolve the crisis. After three years of killings, the Arab League is still content to stand aside and wait for the conflict to resolve itself.

The people who are losing their lives and livelihoods in Darfur are citizens of Sudan who live under the umbrella of the Arab League, just like citizens of Cairo or Riyadh. It is therefore the responsibility of Sudan and the Arab League to address the crisis by doing everything possible to stop it.

Nigeria: Militants Foresee More Violence

I am going to try and keep a close eye on this, because it seems to contain all the elements for massive catastrophe - from the AP

Most of the crude in Africa's largest oil-producing country is pumped from beneath this deeply impoverished region. A new militant group behind a spate of attacks and kidnappings that have driven prices up worldwide say anger and more violence are inevitable, and even those who have not resorted to taking up arms agree.

"The people are angry. The oil belongs to the Niger Delta, but we get nothing. That oil belongs to us," said Innocent Johnson, a 21-year-old Biriya-Ama fisherman. "We will fight, if possible. I want to fight the government."

Petroleum companies discovered oil underneath southern Nigeria before the west African nation gained independence from Britain in 1960. But Biriya-Ama, and countless villages like it in the vast region of creeks and mangrove swamps, see little benefit. And with oil spills and pollution befouling the waters and killing the fish, their economic mainstay, the region's people say they are growing poorer.

The militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation for the Niger Delta, sprang up in recent months and pulled off some of the more spectacular attacks in years of violence.
In a matter of weeks, they kidnapped more than a dozen foreign oil workers and blew up oil installations to shut down about 20 percent of Nigeria's daily production - about 455,000 barrels. Prices, already near record highs, soared on international markets.

The MEND militants, who released four hostages and then took nine more, met with reporters for the first time on Friday. They invited journalists to a mid-creek meeting where they reiterated their demands: the release of two of the region's leaders from prison, a greater cut of the oil revenues and $1.5 billion from Royal Dutch Shell, the largest foreign oil firm operating here.

"Before independence, Nigeria fought for its freedom. Now we're fighting for our own freedom," one militant shouted, pointing a rocket-propelled grenade at reporters.

"If the federal government can't take care of us, we need independence. We want to control our own oil," he said from behind his black mask.

The oil question only adds to the volatility of a nation of over 250 ethnic groups. Religion also at times appears to be pulling Nigeria apart, with the latest clashes between Muslims who predominate in the north and Christians in the south breaking out last week. The last major secessionist push ended in 1970, when the three-year Biafran war subsided after more than 1 million died.

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The government, which has launched a military campaign dubbed Operation Just Cause to quell the violence, says the militants are little more than criminals who steal oil and sell it on the black market. The militants say the same of the military.

The oil companies say they are meeting their contractual obligations with the federal government while performing many community outreach programs in the delta, such as building schools and health clinics.

Across the delta, the people and militants blame their poverty on the oil companies, the former kleptocratic military rulers often from Nigeria's north and now President Olusegun Obasanjo, who has won two elections since the country's return to democracy.

The militants say Obasanjo, who is not from the delta region, cannot be trusted as an honest broker. They are threatening more attacks in a campaign they say will be coordinated and devastating.

Darfur: UN Security Council Deadlocked on Sanctions

From Reuters

A block of U.N. Security Council members pushed on Monday for action on proposals to punish individuals believed to be blocking peace in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, but ran into opposition that left the yearlong deadlock unresolved.

While the United States, Britain, Denmark and France argued certain individuals should be quickly designated as sanctions targets, China, Russia and Qatar called for more delay, U.N. diplomats said after closed-door talks on the way ahead in Darfur.

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The council voted nearly a year ago to authorize sanctions against individuals blocking the peace process or violating a U.N. arms embargo, and U.N. experts last December gave the council a secret list of 17 people it said should be punished.

The list remained confidential until Feb. 17, when details appeared on the Web site of The American Prospect. Additional details were published last week including by Reuters, leading to speculation the 15-nation council would now quickly move ahead with freezes on travel and assets of those on the list.

But council members instead denounced the leaks.

[edit]

But China, which relies on Sudan for oil and opposes U.N. sanctions as a matter of policy, and Qatar, the council's sole Arab member, called the experts' evidence unreliable and recommended a fresh start in compiling sanctions targets.

Russia, meanwhile, argued sanctions might damage peace efforts, diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions took place behind closed doors.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, the council president for February, acknowledged the divisions but warned that inaction risked undermining the council's credibility.

"If the council ... isn't willing to take steps to persuade people to follow what it says, its credibility will decline. And people need to consider that consequence," he said.

Darfur: AU Cautions Slovenia, Int'l Community on Complicating Negotiations

From SAPA-AFP

An African Union mediation team on the Darfur conflict in western Sudan on Monday appealed to Slovenia and other international partners to avoid possibly disrupting negotiations in Abuja aimed at ending the crisis.

The AU announcement came after a senior Slovenian diplomat said Slovenian President Janez Drnovsek was intervening in the Darfur conflict.

Chief Negotiator for the AU at the peace talks, Nigeria's Sam Ibok, said the union had so far not received any official information regarding the Slovenian initiative.

Ibok said there was also a serious need to avoid sending mixed, and often confusing signals to the Sudanese parties negotiating in Abuja.

He stressed that any political initiative outside the ongoing Abuja peace talks would only distract parties to the conflict and divert attention from the critical issues.

The Abuja talks, said Ibok represented a genuine international partnership with the involvement of partners including the UN, the EU, the League of Arab States, the US, Britain, Canada and others.

Ibok expressed regret that the Slovenian initiative was apparently launched without any consultations with the AU mediation team.

Int'l Justice: EU Gives Serbia One Month to Act on Mladic

From the Financial Times

Serbia has until the end of March to hand over Ratko Mladic, the indicted war criminal, or see its gradual progress towards the European Union halted, ministers said on Monday.

Olli Rehn, EU enlargement commissioner said that unless Serbia fully co-operated with the International Criminal Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia, its next round of talks with the EU – scheduled for April 4 and 5 – would be put on hold.

The state of Serbia and Montenegro is negotiating an EU association agreement, widely seen as a way-station to full membership. But the fact that Mr Mladic remains at large is the biggest stumbling block in its relationship with the outside world.

The former Serbian chief of staff commanded Bosnian Serb forces during the Srebrenica massacre of 1995, when up to 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed.

Sudan: Bashir Invited to Chinese-African Summit

From BNA

Sudanese President, Omar Al Basheer, received an invitation from his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, to take part in the Chinese African Cooperation Summit, due in Beijing next November.

The invitation was conveyed to State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Assam Al Waseela, during a meeting with the Chinese Ambassador in Khartoum today, during which they also discussed the situation in Darfur and China's support for Sudan in preventing a UN Security Council resolution on replacing African forces with an international peacekeeping force.

Sudan: Archbishop Urges Return of Church Lands

From Reuters

Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of more than 70 million Anglicans worldwide, urged Sudan to be more tolerant towards religious minorities in the mainly Muslim country and return confiscated Church property.

On his first visit to Sudan, the Archbishop of Canterbury will travel to both sides of a bitter north-south civil war to encourage progress in implementing a peace deal signed last year to end the bloodshed which claimed some 2 million lives.

"In the tragic years that have gone by Sudan has been known for conflict and for poverty," he told reporters at a news conference in Khartoum, where Islamic sharia law is in force.

"The question is how will the government ... of this country in the years ahead make sure that Sudan is known for creative, democratic, tolerant policies that will work for the good of an entire population," he added.

Religion and the imposition of sharia on the mainly Christian and animist south was a major catalyst for the outbreak of the civil war which forced more than 4 million people to flee their homes.

Many of them sought refuge in slum camps around Khartoum, the base of the Islamist government which pursued a policy of Islamisation of the population.

Despite the peace deal, sharia is still in force in the national capital, where Sudanese of many religions live.

A commission to protect the rights of non-Muslims in Khartoum, as specified by the peace deal, has yet to be formed more than year after it was signed.

[edit]

Williams added the northern-dominated government could do more to encourage goodwill following the deal, starting with the return of property confiscated from the Church in the capital.

"The Episcopal church guest house was ... irregularly sold off a few years ago," he said citing one example. "If one wants to look for signs of goodwill towards a minority these are crucial signals."

Church officials said lots of Christian buildings and land have been seized over the past few decades often with little or no compensation. Most notably was the Cathedral in the grounds of the Presidential Palace which is now a museum.

UN: U.S. May Oppose New Human Rights Council

From the AP

The United States will vote against the proposed new U.N. Human Rights Council unless negotiations are reopened to address what it considers serious deficiencies, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said Monday.

After months of divisive and highly contentious negotiations, General Assembly President Jan Eliasson presented a compromise proposal last Thursday to create the new council and called for a quick vote, preferably this week.

It received wide support, though the United States immediately expressed reservations and raised the possibility of reopening negotiations.

A primary U.S. goal in the negotiations has been to ensure that human rights offenders are barred from membership on a new council, and it wanted a small, permanent body.

[edit]

"I say this more in sorrow than in anger, but we're very disappointed with the draft that was produced last Thursday," Bolton told reporters Monday. "We don't think it's acceptable."

"My instructions are to reopen the negotiations and to try and correct the manifold deficiencies in the text of the resolution or alternatively to push off consideration of the resolution for several months to give us more time," he said.

Bolton said it was his understanding that Eliasson would bring the matter to the General Assembly floor for a vote within the next two days.

"If he continues on that course, we will call for a vote and vote no," Bolton said.

DRC: Warning of "Huge Risk" of New Conflict, UN Agencies Urge Greater Aid

From the UN News Center

Warning that there is “a huge risk for conflict to rise again” in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC), the top United Nations refugee official has called on the international community to provide greater support for the vast country’s transition to full democracy for the first time in 45 years.

“The scale of the problem, the complexity of the problem, and the nature of the problem are such that all our resources combined together won't easily solve it,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres told ambassadors from donor countries in Kinshasa, capital of a nation that is moving towards national elections in June after the most lethal fighting in the world since World War II.

A six-year war cost 4 million lives, and medical experts say a further 1,200 people are still dying needlessly every day. More than 3.4 million have been displaced from their homes and 17 million don't have a steady supply of food.

“We are morally obliged to act together. Separately, UN agencies cannot do much. Together we can really make a difference,” Mr. Guterres declared, speaking on the first day of a visit to the Great Lakes region with the heads of two of the UN's other large humanitarian agencies, World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director James Morris and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Ann M. Veneman.

[edit]

The three lamented that the DRC’s tragedy was unfolding out of the glare of television cameras, and out of the consciousness of the developed world. All three UN agencies say they are dramatically under-funded compared to the needs of the three Great Lakes countries they will visit on this trip.

After the DRC they move on to Rwanda and Burundi to underline the need to find a regional solution to conflict and displacement in the Great Lakes.

“You cannot solve the political problems of Congo if at the same time you do not address the problems of Rwandans and Burundians,” Mr. Guterres said, referring to the DRC’s two small neighbours which have also been afflicted by decades of civil war and humanitarian crises, including the 1994 Rwandan genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus by extremist Hutus, in which 800,000 people are estimated to have died.

Sudan: Officials warn of Cholera Catastrophe

From SAPA-AFP

The death toll from a suspected cholera outbreak in southern Sudan has risen to 89 amid continued efforts to stem the epidemic, the World Health Organisation said in a statement on Monday.

The United Nations health agency said 4,906 cases of acute watery diarrhoea were reported, 89 of them fatal, over the past month.

The outbreak has hit two major southern Sudanese towns; the administrative capital, Juba; and Yei, near the border with Uganda.

[edit]

Health officials have warned of catastrophe if cholera spreads through Juba, a city of about 250 000 people that relies almost entirely on untreated water from the heavily polluted Nile.

DRC: UN Chiefs Plead for Aid, End to Violence

From AFP

The heads of the three leading UN humanitarian agencies pleaded Monday for more aid for hundreds of thousands of people displaced in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and called on the government to end violence against civilians.

World Food Programme (WFP) director James Morris, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres and UN Children's Fund (Unicef) chief Ann Veneman were speaking after what Morris described as a "very productive meeting" with President Jospeh Kabila.

Veneman told journalists that the UN officials had spelled out four priorities: "peace and security, successful elections, cease violence against women and children, and respect for human rights."

"We must address the issue of violence against women," she said. "Children must receive education."

Veneman added, "We look forward to working closely with the new elected government, after the elections", which are planned for sometime this year.

Guterres said a key issue was proper pay for soldiers in the DRC.

"No army can respect huamn rights if it is not paid," he said. "It is a crucial question for establishing the rule of law, and we are all committed to creating the conditions for resolving this question."

DRC: EU Nations Come Forward for Election Force

From Reuters

Sweden and Belgium signalled on Monday they would be ready to join France and Germany in a European Union force to help safeguard June elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo, diplomats said on Monday.

The United Nations asked for EU help to protect Congo's first free elections since independence from Belgium in 1961, but member nations have been wary of offering troops to the potentially risky mission.

"Sweden and Belgium signalled a readiness. The aim is still for a broad participation," said one diplomat at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

He said no decision had been taken on what type of force to send, nor how many troops the EU could raise. The Belgian role was likely to be more in offering logistical support rather than any significant troop presence, he added.

The United Nations asked the EU in January for a force of around 800 troops. France and Germany have both said they would contribute troops but neither is keen to manage the mission.

Int'l Justice: World Court Asked to Decide on Genocide

From the AP

The International Court of Justice opened hearings Monday on a suit by Bosnia accusing Serbia of genocide, the first time an entire nation has faced trial for humanity's worst crime.

The hearings come 13 years after Bosnia filed the lawsuit against Serbia-Montenegro - the successor state for the defunct Yugoslavia - charging it with a premeditated attempt to destroy Bosnia's Muslim population, in whole or part.

The stakes potentially include billions of dollars and history's judgment.

Although individual Bosnian Serbs have been convicted on genocide charges, the U.N.'s highest court started hearing arguments on whether the Serbian state can be held responsible for the actions of its allies in the neighboring republic and its own leaders during Yugoslavia's brutal secessionist war in the early 1990s.

``This case is not aimed at individual citizens of Serbia and Montenegro,'' said Bosnian representative Sakib Softic, opening 10 days of arguments by his team. ``This is about state responsibility, and seeks to establish responsibility of a state which, through its leadership ... committed the most brutal acts of violence.''

Serbia will have equal time to respond before witnesses are summoned.

It is one of the most complex and far-reaching rulings ever sought from the tribunal, also known as the world court. Arguments are scheduled to end May 9, and it will likely be a year before the judges deliver their verdict.

The case hinges on whether the court believes the Serbian state, and not just a group of individuals, had the specific intent to wipe out the Muslims of eastern Bosnia as a distinct community.

``Not since the end of the Second World War and the revelations of the horrors of Nazi Germany's 'Final Solution' has Europe witnessed the utter destruction of a people, for no other reason than they belong to a particular national ethnical, racial, and religious group as such,'' said the lawsuit's opening paragraph.

If the judges rule in Bosnia's favor, they would decide later whether to award financial reparations, which could total billions of dollars. The court's rulings are binding, and a refusal to abide by them could be referred to the U.N. Security Council for action.

Sudan: 'Foreign Powers Trying to Disrupt Arab Summit'

From the Khaleej Times

A Sudanese minister yesterday accused foreign powers of trying to sabotage the forthcoming Arab Summit in Khartoum scheduled for March 27-28.


"The same powers attempted to foil the African Summit in Khartoum earlier, but we defeated their moves. No threats can divide us," Abdul Basit Sabdarat, Minister of Federal Government told Khaleej Times in an exclusive interview.

"We are not bothered by sundry allegations. This is a purely Arab affair and it should be decided by the Arabs alone," he added.

[edit]

On the domestic affairs of Sudan, Sabdarat vowed that Sudan would not protect any suspect or criminal, referring to the request to hand over Darfur war suspects to International Criminal Court.

A list containing 51 people accused of involvement in the alleged ethnic massacre in Darfur was handed over recently by Secretary General Kofi Annan to chief prosecutor of the international court. The confidential list, said to include the names of senior Sudanese government officials, militiamen, army officers and rebel commanders, was compiled by a United Nations commission in January. "We are ready to bring any suspect to justice but that should be done here before Sudanese courts," he stated, rejecting the UN recommendation for trial of the suspects at the Hague. The Sudanese government would not accept transfer of the mission of the African Union (AU) forces in Darfur to international troops, he asserted.

"We absolutely reject any form of foreign intervention. When we accepted the African peacekeeping troops, that was because we are all people of the continent and we have a better understanding of our issues," Sabdarat explained.

He said the Darfur dispute would be solved soon, based on the outcome of the current round of negotiations.

Darfur: ICC Delegation to Visit Sudan

From the Sudan Tribune

An ICC delegation will be visiting Sudan next week to asses the situation in lawless Darfur and investigate whether crimes against civilians may have been committed.

Till now, the ICC investigations, on killings, mass rapes and other atrocities in western Sudan, are conducted outside Sudan. The witness are interviewed abroad.

An ICC delegation paid an informal visit to Sudan’s troubled Darfur region last year.

But Sudan’s Justice Minister Mohamed al-Mardi told Reuters in an interview on 13 December 2005 that Moreno Ocampo’s investigators would not have any access to Darfur, where ethnic cleansing has resulted in killings, rape and the uprooting of 2 million refugees.

"The ICC officials have no jurisdiction inside the Sudan or with regards to Sudanese citizens," he said in Khartoum. "They cannot investigate anything on Darfur."

Moreno Ocampo also told the council that the International Criminal Court and the African Union, which has troops in Darfur, had drawn up a cooperation agreement in May, which still was not signed. He refused to say why.

Darfur: Sudan Hands UN Suspects List

From the Sudan Tribune

Sudan on Sunday handed a UN envoy a list of security officials who have been tried over the Darfur conflict, as Khartoum works to convince the world it is equipped to handle such cases at home.

The UN official in charge of human rights in the Sudan, Sima Samar, was given the list by the head of the governmental Human Rights Advisory Council (HRAC) Abdelmonim Osman Taha, state media said.

The UN official "was on Sunday given by HRAC chairman the list of individuals of the regular services who have been tried for perpetrating crimes connected with the Darfur conflict," SUNA news agency reported.

There were no details on who the individuals were or what had been the nature of their trials.

[edit]

Samer was also briefed on "positive" steps taken in the field of countering violence against women, including setting up a unit for fighting violence against women within the ministry of justice, SUNA said.

SUNA said Taha urged Samer to include "the positive steps she has seen" in the report she is to submit to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva next month.

Darfur Will Be a "Graveyard" for Foreign Troops, Warns Bashir

From SAPA

Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir warned Darfur would become a "graveyard" for any foreign military contingent entering the region against Khartoum's will, newspapers reported today.

"We are strongly opposed to any foreign intervention in Sudan and Darfur will be a graveyard for any foreign troops venturing to enter," he was quoted as saying Saturday.

His comments came amid stepped-up efforts by the international community to send UN peacekeeping forces to war-torn Darfur in place of African Union troops, which have failed to quell the three-year-old bloodshed.

Beshir, who regularly accuses the United States and its allies of fomenting a conspiracy to plunder his country's resources, again accused the West of seeking to use the western region of Darfur as a launchpad to spread its interests in Sudan.

The United States, which currently chairs the UN Security Council, saw its hopes of clinching a resolution for a UN mandate in Darfur by the end of the month dashed but vowed to continue its efforts.

The transition is expected to be discussed during an AU Peace and Security Council meeting in Addis Ababa on March 3.

Beshir was also dismissive of the AU, which has hinted it would not oppose its own replacement by a UN contingent in Darfur.

"The African Union forces can leave the country if they believe that they have failed to carry out their duties," Beshir said.

Darfur/Sudan: Brown Votes to Divest

From the AP

Brown University announced Saturday it will stop investing in companies that do business in Sudan because the country has been accused of genocide.

The decision by the Brown Corporation, which oversees the university's assets, follows similar moves by Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth, Amherst and Yale.

[edit]

"We declare our solidarity with the peoples of the Darfur region of Sudan whose struggle to live in peace, freedom and security is an issue of pressing global concern," Brown President Ruth Simmons said in a statement.

She said the university will develop a divestment list of companies whose business activities have supported the Sudanese government. A Brown spokeswoman said it was not clear yet how much money will be divested, but it will be "substantial."

Brown has an endowment of more than $1.6 billion.

Uganda: Opposition Disputes Incumbent's Win

From the AP

President Yoweri Museveni overwhelmingly won re-election in Uganda's first multiparty election in 25 years, the nation's electoral commission declared Saturday, but the leading opposition party said its independent tally showed the incumbent trailing.

Within an hour of the announcement, police used tear gas and live ammunition to disperse a crowd blocking the road and throwing stones near the headquarters of Museveni's main opponent, Kizza Besigye. Young men attacked a man who appeared to be a Museveni supporter, but there were no reports of other injuries or arrests.

Museveni supporters drove through downtown Kampala, honking horns, cheering and giving the thumbs-up salute of the ruling party.

Museveni, who has been in power for more than 20 years, lifted a two-term limit last year so he could run again. A European Union observers' mission criticized Museveni for using all the resources of the government to win and said that the vote - although an improvement on past ballots - was marred by serious problems.

An estimated 68 percent of the 10.4 million registered voters turned out for the election, which also chose 284 members of parliament.

The official results of Thursday's vote, based on 99 percent of polling stations reporting, showed Museveni with 59.3 percent of the vote, Besigye with 37.4 percent and the other three candidates sharing a little more than 3 percent.

Besigye rejected that count, saying tallies collected by his Forum for Democratic Changes party at the country's 19,786 polling stations showed him with 49.1 percent and Museveni with 47.1 percent.

"The FDC has taken the decision to reject the results announced by the Electoral Commission and to say we are still gathering our own information, which we hope will be complete in another day or so," Besigye said. "We shall decide on further action once we have all of the information we need."

[edit]

For a second day Saturday, police questioned the managing director of the Monitor Media Group, the largest independent newspaper and radio broadcaster in Uganda. The government placed intense pressure on the group to suspend its independent count, which showed a closer race than the official results, said the group's managing director, Conrad Nkutu.

The group's Web site was blocked and its radio station's signal was jammed Friday and Saturday, and Nkutu said he had appealed to the minister of internal affairs to investigate and stop the blockage.
The national police chief, Maj. Gen. Kale Kayihura, said the independent reporting of vote results was illegal and said police had recovered 18 gasoline bombs, reportedly assembled by militant members of Besigye's party, at an unspecified location in the capital, Kampala.

Darfur: Chronology

The Coalition For International Justice has produced a massive report entitled "Chronology of Reporting on Events Concerning The Conflict in Darfur, Sudan" (PDF).

They have also made individual sections available here.

Also, be sure to check out the trailer for the Darfur Atrocities Documentation Project DVD on the homepage or order it here.

Darfur: US Alone in Push for UN Peacekeeping Mission

From the AP

The U.S. is pushing to establish a U.N. peacekeeping force in Sudan’s conflict-wracked Darfur region by the end of February but faces opposition from the rest of the Security Council, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said.

"Our view is that the deteriorating security situation in Darfur requires us to move forward," he said Thursday. "There’s not a lot of enthusiasm for it from anybody else on the council."

Bolton expressed frustration Monday with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and U.N. officials over the pace of preparation for the mission, which would replace 7,000 African Union troops. He also said African and Arab diplomats on the Security Council needed to move more quickly.

But after a meeting with Annan Thursday on military, logistical and political planning for the Sudan mission, which he called "very helpful," Bolton said it was the 14 other council members who were holding up action because neither the A.U. nor the Sudanese government had signed off on it.

Bolton, who holds the Security Council presidency this month, has scheduled a meeting Monday to discuss a report on sanctions against Sudan.

Last month, the top U.N. envoy in Sudan, Jan Pronk, and A.U. envoy Salim Ahmed Salim, who is trying to mediate peace talks to end the Darfur conflict, urged the council to impose sanctions on those holding up the peace process - which it has already authorized - to put pressure on the parties to move the negotiations forward.

"We think it’s right for the council to make some decisions on sanctions," Bolton said. "Right now, we’re probably farther out front in advocating that than any of the council members and so be it. We’re going to keep pressing on that. We’ll see what we can do next week."

Uganda: Museveni Ahead in Election Tally

From Reuters

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni took a commanding lead over rival Kizza Besigye on Friday and was close to winning an election to extend his two-decade rule despite the misgivings of Western donors.

Results from more than half the east African nation's polling stations gave Museveni 63.1 percent of the vote. Besigye, leader of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), was way behind on 34 percent, the Electoral Commission (EC) said.

Uganda's first multi-party election in 25 years was being closely watched in the West as a test of democracy in Africa and for the message it might send to others in the region who, like Museveni, may try to extend already lengthy tenures.

Ecstatic Museveni fans took to the streets of the capital Kampala. But the opposition denounced "multiple irregularities" in Thursday's poll and is mulling legal action.

There were fears of street protests.

Either candidate needs more than 50 percent to avoid a run-off next month. Fifty-eight percent of results were in by late Friday, and the final result was due on Saturday.

Darfur - Podcast

The latest podcast featuring Gloria White-Hammond, co-pastor of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Boston, Massachusetts and National Chairwoman of the Million Voices for Darfur Campaign - from the Committee on Conscience

JERRY FOWLER: First you were the co-founder of the Massachusetts Coalition to Save Darfur, and now as I said at the top of the program, you are the Chairwoman of the Million Voices for Darfur campaign; tell me about this campaign.

GLORIA WHITE-HAMMOND: It is a very exciting campaign, Jerry. We are looking to have a million people sign postcards directed to President Bush urging him to support a multi-national force that has the strength and the mandate to actually protect the civilians in Darfur. We are going all around the country trying to mobilize people to be a part of this campaign; to both inform them about the situation in Darfur, in Sudan, and to inspire them to be a part of it. Sunday, April 30th will be a culmination, a celebration for the campaign.

JERRY FOWLER: So you are trying to get the Million Voices together by April 30th?

GLORIA WHITE-HAMMOND: That is right, and we will have two rallies, one in DC and another in San Francisco, where we will demonstrate our commitment to this cause. We are very excited about this. We know that there are more people who want to speak out, and again we are encouraging President Bush to continue what he has already started.

JERRY FOWLER: What is the importance of people speaking out? I think a lot of people would say, “I am sorry about what is happening in Darfur, but what does it matter if I sign a postcard? What difference does that make?

GLORIA WHITE-HAMMOND: One, it will register the fact that you both know and you are caring. I think people, at some point have to decide—certainly for people who are aware of the Holocaust and the genocides that have happened around the world over the years—the worst thing people can do is be silent because to be silent is to be complicit. By filling out this postcard, we opt to stand up and make our voices heard. To be silent is to remain irrelevant. I do not want to go to my grave being irrelevant and I do not want it to be said that I did nothing to respond to the one genocide that we can see that is unfolding before our very eyes, every single day. We also recognize that in order for President Bush to take the kind of bold moves that we are asking him to take he will really require a mandate from the American people. It certainly remains true that around the world, the involvement in the war in Iraq has raised concerns both home and abroad and it would be difficult for President Bush to take the bold move we need him to take to stop this genocide in Darfur without having a groundswell of support from regular people like you and me. By filling out these postcards, we have the sense that we have done something, but we will also be able to make it clear to this president that we are standing with you as you make a more robust response to stop the genocide in Darfur, even as you have worked to bring peace and justice to all of Sudan.

JERRY FOWLER: If people want to get involved in the campaign?

GLORIA WHITE-HAMMOND: www.millionvoicesfordarfur.org. You can fill out an electronic card, but certainly you can also e-mail us at www.savedarfur.org. Either one of those web sites will get you to the same place and you can let us know that you would like to have a speaker—I am certainly happy to come speak. We have lots of people in our speaker’s bureau. There is something for everybody to do.

Chad: May 3rd Set as Date for Presidential Poll

From Reuters

Chad named a May 3 election date on Friday for presidential polls widely expected to extend the 16-year rule of President Idriss Deby despite efforts by armed rebels and army deserters to unseat him.

Opposition parties in the oil-producing central African country have already said they will boycott the polls, leaving the field to Deby, a former army chief who himself seized power in an armed uprising.

Deby has not officially confirmed he will stand but a referendum last year approved the removal of a constitutional limit on the president serving more than two terms, allowing him to run again.

Sudan: United Nations Situation Report

Lots of information - from UNMIS

On 22 Feb., the National Assembly discussed the possible deployment of a UN force in Darfur, following a briefing by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Lam Akol, who reiterated that the operation in Darfur should remain with the AU. The Foreign Minister added that the proposed transition would send the wrong message that the AU had failed in Darfur, while the deployment of forces from outside the continent could cause conflict with the local population. Most speakers from different parties during the debate expressed concerns about a “foreign intervention”. The Assembly decided to form a committee to draft a statement regarding the deployment of “international Forces”.

On 21 Feb., the Organization of Humanitarian and Voluntary Work Act 2006 (NGO Law Bill) was passed in a final reading by the National Assembly. The Bill requires NGOs to be registered with the Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC), or face monetary fines. (The UN, its agencies and the ICRC are exempted from registration). The NGO Law remains controversial. Civil society alleges three main problems with the NGO Law. First, it gives excessive powers to the HAC Registrar, Commissioner and Minister in terms of issuing and repealing NGO registrations; second, it does not provide for judicial review of appeals to the Minister; and three it requires fundraising to be approved by the HAC, which, according to NGOs, entrenches Government power over civil society programs. The civil society alliance has indicated they will challenge the validity of the new law before the Constitutional Court on the basis that it violates freedom of association.

[edit]

On 21 Feb. in Khartoum, the northern parties allied to the NCP affirmed in a meeting held at the NCP headquarters their rejection to any foreign intervention in Sudan's affairs. Assistant to the President, Nafie Ali Nafie, called for a formation of a wide internal front to confront foreign intervention and stated that Darfur should not be used as a pretext for intervention in Sudan’s internal affairs.

[edit]

Sudanese media reports on 22 Feb. concentrated heavily on the Press conference given by the SRSG on 21 Feb. The SRSG had been asked about his meeting with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Al Ayaam reported that, asked whether he had been "summoned" by MOFA, the SRSG had indicated that such meetings can take place either at his own request or at the request of the Ministry. It also quoted the SRSG as saying that "there was a misunderstanding of the UNMIS mandate, whose activities are governed by the CPA" The Sudan Vision also commented on the SRSG's comments that there is no evidence that the SAF are giving support to the LRA, although he does not rule out that "some individuals" are continuing to give support.

There are further reports (Al Ayaam) that there is mounting opposition in the country, and specifically in Darfur against "international intervention" in Darfur. The paper reports that the parliamentary bloc of the Communist Party of Sudan has declared its rejection of foreign intervention. Sudan Vision reported a similar statement by Mohamed Kibir, the Governor of North Darfur. Al Ayaam also reported that the SRSG, in his press conference had called on the Darfur rebel movement to "avoid relations" with neighboring states, as these only complicate the issue.

[edit]

North Darfur

Security:

Infighting was reported between SLA factions south of Tawilla on 19 and 20 Feb. One SLA member from Abdul Wahid’s faction was killed during the clashes. Even though the situation was observed to be tense, the AMIS Commander managed to calm the tension by speaking to the two factions separately. No shooting was reported afterwards.

On 20 Feb., an AMIS Protection Force vehicle was attacked in Tine town (close to Chadian border) by three armed men carrying AK-47 assault rifles and dressed in traditional civil dress. The attackers seized the AMIS vehicle and moved in northern direction (towards Bamina). Two AMIS soldiers, including the driver, were injured. Meanwhile, AMIS Protection Force has dispatched a team to search for the seized vehicle. SAF and Chadian authorities have been informed.

[edit]

South Darfur

Security:

On 21 Feb., AMIS conducted a confidence building patrol to Arto village, 15 km South of Shearia, followed by a patrol to Kazanjedeed on 22 Feb. The security situation in Shearia was reported to be calm but still tense.

On 22 Feb., AMIS conducted a patrol to Dito (25 km north-east of Gereida) and learned that schools in the area had not yet opened due the continued absence of teachers following the militia attack on Dito on 23 Dec. The patrol observed about 30 inhabitants in the village out of a total of 300 prior to the attack. Those who had returned expressed fears of Arab militia attacking the village due to the presence of an SLA camp in Dito. The inhabitants requested for AU protection. The Sheik of the village informed the patrol that Arab militias were concentrating in Assalaya village (40 km East of Dito village). The patrol assured the inhabitants of AMIS protection. Three APCs were redeployed from Marla to MGS Gereida for this purpose.

[edit]

Southern Sudan

Security:

Recent reports indicate that the LRA has moved southwards near Kajo-Kaje province which is located south of Juba, The LRA looted the villages around Rojo, Kansuk and Rodo on 20 Feb., killing five people and wounding many others. The entire population has vacated the area. The SPLA is said to be pursuing the enemy. The incident has stopped the movement of civilians to Kajo-kaje.

[edit]

UNMIS Military

CRITICAL INCIDENTS:

In RCHQ, at Fayafi (2 km north-west of Kassala), an SPLA soldier was stabbed to death by a local villager. To avenge the death, SPLA soldiers from the SPLA camp in Kassala fired indiscriminately in the village injuring at least three civilians. SPLA, SAF and civil police authorities have taken control of the situation.

DRC: Group of LRA Reported in North

From Misna

Sixty some Ugandan rebels of the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) have been for some days in the extreme north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

MISNA received the report from humanitarian sources on the scene, specifying that the Ugandan rebels entered the territory from South Sudan, where they have training camps, and that after crossing the border settled in some small rural villages near Duru, around 300km from Isiro (main city of the East Province) and 25km from the Sudanese frontier.

With the rebels are also some thirty Sudanese civilians kidnapped previously and, as customary for the LRA, utilised as carriers. Their presence in the Congolese territory, confirmed by several sources contacted in the area, has already created panic among the people in the Duru area, causing them to flee for safer locations.

Darfur: Three Officials Could Face Sanctions

Still more coverage of the sanctions list first reported by Mark Goldberg - from the Los Angeles Times

The Security Council on Monday will discuss whether to move forward on sanctions against the 17 people. Several members, especially Qatar and China, have argued that punishing senior leaders would weaken the fledgling unity government on the brink of implementing a long-sought peace agreement. Qatar also represents Arab interests on the council, and China's long-standing opposition to sanctions in general may be bolstered by its oil interests in Sudan.

[edit]

The United States has resisted singling out particular regime members for any kind of accountability or sanctions since the beginning," said John Prendergast, a senior advisor to the International Crisis Group, who has done much to focus international attention on the Darfur conflict. "It's going to require positive action by one or two members, and everyone is looking to the United States.

The leaked list may increase pressure on the government and rebels to halt violence in Darfur, diplomats said. Interior Minister Elzubier Bashir Taha, Defense Minister Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein and Gosh, the intelligence chief, were listed for failing to disarm government-controlled militia groups under a 2005 agreement. Gosh was further charged with command responsibility for acts of arbitrary detention, harassment and torture by security and intelligence officials under his control.

Taha, the interior minister, told Reuters in Khartoum on Thursday that he was not aware he was on the list and would be "surprised … and then I'd be angry" if it was true. He then suggested that President Bush belonged on a sanctions list.

Some names are conspicuously absent, such as that of Vice President Ali Osman Taha, identified by human rights groups as the architect of the systematic attacks on villages by government-sponsored militias. Also missing are key leaders of those militias, known as janjaweed, although three leaders of Darfur's main rebel group, the Sudan People's Liberation Army, are named.

"The leak is not good for us," said Maria Telalian, the deputy ambassador from Greece, the country that chairs the Sudan sanctions committee. "It is up to us to decide whether these names should appear on the list for sanctions. It is a political process, and it takes a lot of factors into consideration."

The circulation of the list also will raise questions if names drop off. Diplomats who requested not to be identified said that the United States was seeking to exclude Gosh, who traveled to Washington to meet with CIA officials last April.

U.S. Ambassador John R. Bolton would not answer questions about specific names on the list Thursday but said, "We're farther out front than any other council member in pushing for a sanctions decision."

David Shinn, director of East African affairs at the State Department from 1993 to 1996, said that, assuming the list was accurate, it would "clearly create problems for any ongoing contacts that exists between those people and the U.S. and any foreign governments."

Shinn said the U.S. "would not want to cut off the counter-terrorism relationship and would probably try to work around" the list.

CAR: Thousands Flee "Rebels"

From the BBC

Armed unrest in the Central African Republic has caused thousands of people to flee to Chad in recent weeks.

Sources in the region speak of a nascent rebellion against the CAR government of General Francois Bozize.

The refugees say they were caught in the crossfire between forces loyal to General Bozize and others linked to the government he overthrew in 2003.

They say they are fleeing armed men who attack villages, steal possessions and in some cases kidnap children.

Refugee flows are often the first indication outsiders have of what is happening in the more remote parts of the world.

An estimated 5,000 people are now known to have fled the north-west of the Central African Republic in the past three weeks.

Nigeria: Religious Violence Continues, At Least 150 Dead

From Reuters

Muslim and Christian mobs took to the streets of three Nigerian cities on Friday and killed at least four people, extending a week of tit-for-tat religious riots that have claimed at least 150 lives.

Uncertainty over Nigeria's political future is aggravating regional, ethnic and religious rivalries ahead of elections next year.

Christian youths armed with machetes and clubs attacked Muslims in the southeastern city of Enugu, beating one Muslim motorcycle taxi driver to death.

In the northern town of Kotangora, Muslim mobs killed three people, torched nine churches and looted shops, police said.

The Christian rioters in Enugu laid siege to a bank where two Muslims from the Hausa ethnic group were hiding. Police fired tear gas at the crowd, but failed to dislodge them.

Eyewitness Obinna Uche said: "A group of boys are laying siege to the bank because two Hausa men work there. They want to kill them. Police are trying to get them out safely and take them to army barracks, but the boys won't go away."

In northeastern Potiskum, Islamic youths burned shops, churches and houses belonging to minority Christians early on Friday. Police said 65 rioters were arrested.

The religious violence first broke out last Saturday in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, when a Muslim protest against Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad ran out of control and 28 mostly Christian people were killed.

But the violence has taken on a logic of its own in Africa's most populous country, which is divided roughly between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south, feeding a cycle of tit-for-tat killings.

Sudanese Flee LRA

This seems like a pretty significant development as this is the second report of the LRA attacking residents of Southern Sudan, something which (as far as I know) they have never done before - from SAPA-AFP

Deadly raids by Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels have forced scores of villagers in
southern Sudan to flee their homes to spend nights in the bush fearing abductions and killings, a German humanitarian group has said.

The insurgents have been carrying out raids in vast southern Sudan belt called the "LRA Triangle" which lies between Rasola town near the Democratic Republic of Congo border, the region's capital Juba and Lokukei town near the Ugandan border.

"The threat imposed by the LRA forces the local population to leave the village during the night to hide in the bush," said Klaus Stieglitz, the deputy director of Sign of Hope.

Last week, LRA fighters attacked villages around Rajef, 12 kilometres south of Juba and brutally hacked to death three people, including a 70-year-old man and looted cassava farmland, the group said.

"It is a shame that these people nearly feel like animals. They are in fact deprived of their human dignity," he said after touring villagers around Rejaf and Nimule outposts in southern Sudan, where the group delivered humanitarian support.

The group said LRA last week attacked villages around Rajef, 12 kilometres south of Juba and brutally hacked to death three people, including a 70-year-old man and looted cassava farmland.

In areas outlying Nimule, about 150 kilometres southeast of Juba, the insurgents have abducted at least 92 people, including children, and villagers believe that most of them are still held by the ruthless insurgents, they said.

"The villagers told us they can identify the attackers as the LRA because of the ethnic Acholi accent in their language," Stieglitz told a press conference in Nairobi.

"These LRA activities pose the most difficult hardship on people who are already struggling to rebuild their lives after suffering from war and displacement," he said, adding that the raids have disrupted the economic activities.

Darfur: Call and They Will Listen

Fro the Oklahoma Daily

Sen. Tom Coburn shifted in his seat and leaned closer to Allen D. Hertzke.

“This is the most people I’ve ever seen in this room,” Coburn said softly.

Minutes later, Hertzke, political science professor, and Coburn, R-Okla., took to a podium in front of more than 350 people gathered in Oklahoma Memorial Union’s Beaird Lounge Thursday.

The crowd, mostly made up of students, had come to hear the speakers invited by Students for Action in Darfur, the College Republicans, Young Democrats and the Union Programing Board.

But Coburn quickly said that showing up wasn’t enough.

“It’s not important that you’re interested in it, it’s only important if action comes from your interest,” Coburn said.

[edit]

Coburn started his speech with a direct question for the audience:

“Can you live free while this is going on?” Coburn asked. “You can’t. Our freedom is threatened. If we allow this to go on, our freedom is cheapened.”

The African Union is incapable of monitoring the situation, requiring America to act, Coburn said.

“Nobody else can do this, and there’s nobody else who will,” Coburn said. “The U.N. is absolutely ineffective. The only organization that is more inefficient than the federal government here is the U.N.”

Darfur: Daily Vigil Draws Faithful, if Few, Protesters

A good article from the Mercury News

Every weekday lunch hour they stand -- men, women, young, middle-aged -- asking Peninsula motorists and pedestrians to help stop genocide on the other side of the world.

As far as protests go, the Darfur daily vigil doesn't look like much -- no crowds, no noise, no candles. But it's extraordinary for its commitment: Scores of people have promised to take turns standing on this Palo Alto corner for four months, from Jan. 1 to April 30, when a massive rally is planned in Washington, D.C.

The ethnically based fighting in Sudan started in 2003. So far, tens of thousands have been killed, and the United Nations estimates that millions have been displaced.
Sheri Morrison, 52, has been out several times since learning about the vigils at her synagogue, Congregation Etz Chayim in Palo Alto.

``I volunteered because I thought it was too important not to,'' the Mountain View homemaker said. ``It's been heavy on my mind. We keep saying `never again,' but we've had Bosnia, Rwanda and now Darfur.''

After her visits to the corner of El Camino Real and Embarcadero Road, Morrison has learned to gauge the drivers. She notes who makes eye contact, who rolls down his window to take a flier and who turns her head to look the other way.

She is not naive. Morrison knows that standing on a street corner won't directly stop the ethnic violence or send food and clean water to refugee camps where hundreds of thousands have fled. But she hopes that her banner or her fliers or her very presence, bundled against the winter chill or drenched by rain, will get someone thinking. Then maybe they'll call their legislators, donate some money, sign a petition. Pressure officials to interfere.

``In order to get on the radar screen,'' she said, ``we need volume.''

Uganda: Museveni Takes Early Lead in Election

From Reuters

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni took a strong early lead over his doctor-turned-rival Kizza Besigye on Friday, according to official results from 7.7 percent of the East African country's polling stations.

The results showed Museveni with 59.6 percent of the vote. Besigye, leader of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), received 37.3 percent, the Electoral Commission (EC) said.

Uganda's first multi-party election in 25 years is being closely watched in the West as a test for democracy in Africa and for the message it might send to others in the region who, like Museveni, may seek to extend already lengthy tenures.

The early EC figures contrasted with provisional results being announced by local media, which at mid-afternoon put Museveni in the lead but by a much smaller margin.

That could fuel further claims of fraud by the FDC, which denounced "multiple irregularities" on Thursday and is mulling a legal challenge. There were also fears of street protests.

[edit]

Either candidate needs more than 50 percent to avoid a run-off next month. Final results are expected on Saturday.

Uganda: LRA Abducts 38 in Southern Sudan

From DPA

Suspected members of the Ugandan rebel group the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) attacked a church parish in the southern Sudanese town of Nangere, abducting least 38 people, according to news reports in Nairobi Friday.

"They destroyed the health centre, raped women; they plundered all the property and abducted civilians," Nangero County Governor, Lino Uto Takwari told US-funded Sudan Radio Service Friday.

Although the kidnapping occurred last Sunday, news of the incident only filtered to the governor's office Friday owing to poor communication systems within the fledgling government of South Sudan.

Four abductees, including a priest have since been released but the remaining 33 were believed to be still in the hands of the rebels.

Darfur: US Push for Quick UN Vote Stalls

From Reuters

The United States has found no support in the U.N. Security Council for a resolution before the end of this month on a future U.N. force in Sudan's Darfur region, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said on Thursday.

The Bush administration has been pushing the 15-nation council to quickly adopt a resolution calling for an international peacekeeping force to help end the violence in Darfur, taking over from some 7,000 African Union troops already there.

But at a meeting on Thursday, all other council members argued a resolution should come only after African Union foreign ministers make a final decision on a handover, expected in early March, said diplomats present at that meeting.

Prior to an AU move, everyone but Washington "agreed the council shouldn't be seen to be prejudging that decision," said one council diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity because the meeting took place behind closed doors.

"There's not a lot of enthusiasm about it from anybody else on the council," acknowledged Bolton, who holds the council's rotating presidency through the end of this month. "If there is no resolution in February, it won't be because we didn't try as hard as we could."

"Our view is that the deteriorating security situation in Darfur requires us to move forward," Bolton said, predicting the Sudanese government in Khartoum as well as the African Union would eventually agree to a shift to a U.N. force.

The head of the AU mission in Sudan, Baba Gana Kingibe, acknowledged as much on Wednesday saying in a statement the transition to a U.N. mission was inevitable in the long run.

But Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol, speaking the same day, said his government rejected such a plan.

The United Nations has already begun contingency planning for a takeover, but the planning process is expected to take a few weeks, and Bolton said he hoped that process, as well, could be sped up.

Darfur: Sudan Again Rejects UN Replacing AU

From AFP

The Sudanese government Thursday renewed its opposition to a UN military intervention in Darfur and denied the African Union (AU) the right to propose replacing its own mission by UN peacekeepers.

"The national unity government and parliament are opposed to intervention of UN forces in Darfur," Interior Minister Al-Zubair Beshir Taha said at a press briefing.

Khartoum had "drawn up plans for averting the dangers of such an intervention by launching a political and diplomatic offensive".

"The African Union has no right to propose alternatives to its mission for the failure of its forces in carrying out their duties, like substituting them with forces from the UN," Taha said.

He said the call for foreign intervention in Darfur was "due to the decrease of the energy supplies in the major industrial nations ... and due to the increasing demand in those nations for petroleum which is abundant in Darfur".

Nigeria: Bodies Burned in Open After Riots Kill 146

From Reuters

Christian youths burned the corpses of Muslims on Thursday on the streets of Onitsha in southeastern Nigeria, the city worst hit by religious riots that have killed at least 146 people across the country in five days.

Christian mobs, seeking revenge for the killings of Christians in the north, attacked Muslims with machetes, set fire to them, destroyed their houses and torched mosques in two days of violence in Onitsha, where 93 people died.

"We are very happy that this thing is happening so that the north will learn their lesson," said Anthony Umai, a motorcycle taxi rider, standing close to where Christian youths had piled up the corpses of 10 Muslims and were burning them.

Dozens more corpses had been thrown into the back of pick-up trucks by security services overnight, residents said.

Rwanda: Shooting Dogs

BBC Films and the UK Film Council are releasing a movie about Rwanda entitled "Shooting Dogs" in which a "British priest and his young acolyte [are] forced to confront the depths of their faith, the limits of their courage and, ultimately, to make a choice. To remain with their people or to run away."

The UK release date is reportedly March 31st.

There is also an official blog for the film.

Zambia's Plight Goes Begging in Year of Disasters

From the New York Times

Hundreds of refugees from Angola's civil war have walked away from this remote United Nations outpost where most have lived for years, many roaming on foot as far as the Namibia border, 85 miles away. The journey was not by choice. The refugees were looking for food.

In January, to stretch its thinning supplies, the United Nations cut its already basic food rations to war refugees in Zambia by almost 40 percent — not just for the Nangweshi camp's 15,100 residents, but also for 57,000 refugees from Congo in four other camps.

The cuts were made after the developed world did not respond to United Nations' pleas for help to feed the refugees. Like similar appeals, they went unheeded in a year of many disasters and what aid specialists call a growing malaise among donors about such emergencies.

That thousands of war refugees cared for by the United Nations should go hungry for want of about $8.5 million, what amounts to a rounding error in the budgets of wealthy countries, may seem surprising. But the international system that is supposed to protect refugees from hunger and privation is prone to breakdowns like this one, which has rendered 72,000 war victims in Zambia hungry for weeks on end.

DRC: Thousands Flee Rape, Murder Onto Floating Islands

From Reuters

Thousands of civilians have taken refuge on floating islands in the lakes of Congo's Katanga province to escape rape and murder by government and militia fighters, a top U.N. humanitarian official said on Thursday.

Some 120,000 people have fled their homes in the remote Mitwaba area, where hundreds of women have been raped during fighting between the army and former pro-government militiamen that U.N. peacekeepers are unable to control, he added.

Congo is staggering towards elections, due later this year, but fighting continues in Katanga and elsewhere in the lawless east, where minerals are plentiful and gunmen continue to roam, nearly three years after the war was officially declared over.

Daniel Augstburger, the head of the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Congo, said many people had taken refuge on islands formed by clumps of papyrus plants floating on lakes in Katanga's Upemba National Park.

"In and around Upemba there are thousands of people living on floating islands because it is the only place they feel safe," he said. "There is systematic sexual violence. Hundreds of women have been treated for rape."

Darfur: Sudan Minister Says Bush Belongs on UN Sanctions List

From Reuters

Sudan's interior minister said he was surprised his name was on a list of people who could face sanctions for blocking peace in Darfur and suggested on Thursday U.S. President George W. Bush should instead be on the list.

The U.N. Security Council last year formed a committee to investigate and recommend names for a travel ban and asset freeze of anyone they deemed to be obstructing efforts to end a three-year-old conflict in Sudan's west.

That committee compiled a secret list of 17 names to be considered for sanctions. On Wednesday Reuters obtained the list, which named Sudan's defence and interior ministers and the head of the intelligence services, Salah Gosh.

Interior Minister Zubair Bashir Taha said he had not been told that he was on the list and would be "surprised ... and then I'd be angry" if he were.

"If any name has been mentioned apart from (U.S.) President (George W.) Bush and his junta ... I'd be very surprised," he added, looking flustered.

He said the war in Darfur, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives and driven 2 million people from their homes, was a creation of the Western media and foreign interests.

He was particularly scathing of the United States, which has called the Darfur violence genocide. Taha said U.S. interests in Sudan's oil reserves was behind their comments.

Sudan produces around 330,000 barrels per day of crude oil and exports gold.

Taha told reporters the United States and other foreign states were trying to attack Sudan's police and armed forces to gain easier access to its natural resources.

"The first attacks will be at the command and control. The first attack will be targeted at the police and army," he said, adding they wanted to disarm Sudan's national defences.

"This is neo-colonialism," he added.

Darfur: What Does President Bush Mean by "NATO stewardship"

The latest from Eric Reeves

President Bush declared this past Friday that a security force for Darfur will require “NATO stewardship, planning, facilitating, organizing, probably double the number of peacekeepers that are there now, in order to start bringing some sense of security” (New York Times, February 17, 2006). But crucially, Bush did not specify whether these additional peacekeeping forces would come from NATO---or indeed how and when they would be generated. And he certainly did not promise participation by US troops or personnel in any NATO deployment. After the President spoke, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter declared it is "‘premature to speculate’ on potential increases in US troops” (Washington Post, February 17, 2006). Privately, Bush administration officials make clear there is no intention of sending US troops to Darfur.

The Pentagon comment comports precisely with the statement by US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, following last week’s meeting between Bush and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan: "‘It's really premature to speculate about what the needs would be in terms of logistics, in terms of airlift, in terms of actual troops. And certainly in that regard, premature to speculate on what the US contribution might be’" (Reuters [Washington, DC], February 13, 2006).

But what, then, is the time-frame for “bringing some sense of security” to Darfur? The African Union monitoring force has revealed itself to be radically inadequate to the task; the US is declaring that “it’s really premature to speculate about what the needs” are for an adequate security force; and NATO officials in Brussels are also speaking of any significantly increased NATO role as “premature,” indeed seem clearly disinclined to provide more than NATO logistics, transport, and financial assistance.

When will the necessary “doubling” of troops occur? And again, who will provide these troops? Who will provide the “sense of security” the President spoke of? The failure to address these questions directly and specifically signals all too clearly a lack of real and timely resolve.

UN: High Hopes, Disappointment Over New Rights Plan

From Reuters

Diplomats pushing for a strong new Human Rights Council at the United Nations scrambled on Thursday to put a bright face on plans for its creation, arguing it would mark a big step forward despite falling short of their original goals.

[edit]

The council is meant to replace the discredited U.N. Human Rights Commission, a 53-nation Geneva-based panel better known for blocking criticism of human rights abuses than defending them, and for giving seats to nations like Sudan and Zimbabwe.

But the drafting process quickly turned into a minefield.

Western powers pushed for a smaller body that would exclude chronic rights violators from membership, while developing nations battled to prevent a Western-dominated body from running roughshod over them while ignoring abuses by major powers like China, Russia and the United States.

Capping months of delicate talks and numerous concessions, U.N. General Assembly President Jan Eliasson of Sweden planned to unveil his final compromise plan on Thursday and to have a draft resolution adopted by the 191-nation assembly next week.

[edit]

While Eliasson was not ruling out last-minute compromises, he hoped there would be none and the assembly would adopt it by consensus rather than a recorded vote, she said.

Diplomats close to the negotiations said they feared human rights backers would be put off by a major concession in requirements for selecting new members, running the risk of sinking the new body before it could get off the ground.

In the existing rights panel, candidates are typically put forward by regional groupings and often unopposed. For the new body, Annan had proposed a two-thirds vote to win a seat.

But Eliasson was forced to compromise, convinced the plan would otherwise be doomed to fail, diplomats said.

Under his plan, a separate vote would be held on each candidate, with a simple majority -- at least half the assembly's 191 members plus one -- needed to win a seat.

Eliasson also felt obliged to compromise on the size of the new body, settling on 47 while U.S. Ambassador John Bolton had pushed for no more than 30 members, in hopes a smaller council would be more nimble in responding to rights emergencies.

But the draft plan also requires every new member -- including major powers like Beijing and Washington -- undergo a rights review soon after winning a seat, a new rule supporters said might scare off some rights abusers from the start.

The draft would also enable council members to kick off troublesome members by calling a vote.

It would extend the new body's work program to three annual sessions totaling at least 10 weeks a year, with the added possibility of convening emergency sessions.

While falling short of pleas for a full-time rights body, that is longer than the current commission's six-week year.

"This does provide for a fresh start on a lot of problems that have bedeviled the (Human Rights) Commission," said one diplomat deeply involved in the negotiations.

Uganda: First Multi-Party Election in 25 Years

From Reuters

From the shores of Lake Victoria to a remote war zone in the north, Ugandans voted on Thursday in their first multi-party election for 25 years with President Yoweri Museveni aiming to extend his two-decade rule.

Despite scattered reports of irregularities and downpours around the country, voting was brisk and without the violence many had feared after a volatile election campaign.

In office since his guerrilla army seized power in 1986, Museveni, 62, went into the vote ahead in opinion polls. But he faces a strong challenge from his former physician Kizza Besigye, 49, who has firm backing from the young and in cities.

Western donors, who once hailed Museveni as the foremost of a "new breed" of African leaders, are disappointed Uganda's parliament scrapped term limits and allowed him to stand for a third term. They are also angry over the brief jailing of Besigye and his ongoing trials on rape and treason charges.

Ugandans hope whoever wins will be able to end a vicious war in the north, where Lord's Resistance Army rebels have terrorised locals for 20 years, and improve their lot in a nation where most live on less than a dollar a day.

Darfur: Sanctions Sought Against Sudanese Officials

Another article based on Mark Goldberg's piece in The American Prospect - from the Washington Post (Reuters also picked up the story)

A U.N. panel has proposed imposing sanctions against several senior Sudanese officials and rebel leaders for impeding peace efforts in Darfur, and has indicated that it is considering calling for punitive measures in the future against the presidents of Sudan and neighboring Chad, according to a confidential annex of a publicly released report.

The panel recommends in the annex that Elzubier Bashir Taha, Sudan's interior minister; Salah Abdalla Gosh, its intelligence chief; and others be sanctioned for the crimes committed by their subordinates in Darfur, where government-backed militias have driven more than 2 million villagers from their homes. It also calls for sanctions against three Darfurian rebel commanders of the Sudan Liberation Army, which has targeted civilians and aid workers during its insurgency against Khartoum.

The four-member panel's recommendations have faced resistance within the 15-nation U.N. Security Council, where China, Russia and Qatar have opposed efforts to impose sanctions on members of Khartoum's government, according to U.N. and Sudanese officials. Those states have argued that the release of the annex -- which, unlike the main report, lists the names of officials recommended for sanctions -- could jeopardize the peace negotiations underway in Sudan.

"You cannot criminalize the leadership," said Yasir Abdelsalam, the charge d'affaires at Sudan's mission to the United Nations. Abdelsalam said he could not comment on a report that his government has not yet seen. But he said: "It's nonsense for them to accuse my president of being involved in crimes in Darfur. It's more complicated than that." Officials from Chad's mission could not be reached yesterday.

[edit]

The annex names five other people against whom the panel is considering recommending sanctions, including President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan and President Idriss Deby of Chad. It cites Bashir's failure to "take steps to identify, neutralize and disarm" government-backed militia. It also accuses Deby's government of supporting anti-Sudanese militants.

Darfur: Tour To End Violence Stops In Philly

The first story on Save Darfur's "Tour for Darfur" campaign - from the AP

As he watched a village of 20,000 people in Darfur being looted and burned to the ground, Brian Steidle said the Sudanese general standing next to him stoutly denied that his men were taking part in the attack.

The general maintained that stray bullets had set the village aflame, and although a few people may have been caught in the crossfire, they were unavoidable civilian casualties, said Steidle, a former Marine captain serving as a State Department observer in Darfur, Sudan.

Just then, a group of uniformed men drove by, stopped a short distance away, jumped out, and looted a hut before burning it. The general’s response to such incidents? “’Anybody can get a uniform,”’ Steidle said.

Steidle was in Philadelphia on Wednesday to open a 22-city tour and photo exhibit calling on the Bush administration and Congress to do more to end the violence in Darfur. The effort is to culminate with an April 30 rally in Washington, D.C.

[edit]

Steidle, who served from Sept. 2004 to February 2005 as the U.S. representative to the African Union’s peacekeeping mission, said he saw helicopters firing on villages, found mutilated bodies, and interviewed people who told of rapes and fleeing villagers shot by militias. The observers had no mandate to stop the violence, something Steidle said went against his Marine training.

“It was very difficult for me to sit there and watch and grit my teeth and do nothing,” said Steidle. The team filed scores of reports to the African Union, but all but a handful disappeared, he said.

The United States has been calling for more effort to halt the violence, and NATO is considering boosting training, transport and planning assistance to the African Union peacekeeping force of 7,000. NATO deployment, however, would need a United Nations request, with backing from Russia, China and the African Union— which prefers an African solution to the conflict.

Steidle, however, said he believes the United States could persuade the African Union to go along with a joint UN or NATO mission with its own forces monitoring and foreign forces acting as peacekeepers.

The Save Darfur Coalition is calling on people to send postcards an electronic version of which is available on the campaign’s Web site—calling on Bush to use his office to support a stronger multinational force to protect the people of Darfur.

“As a people, I think we can say, ‘This is important to us and they have to listen,”’ said Steidle, who retired from the Marines in 2003. He is also working on a book about his experience and a documentary film with interview of survivors.

Darfur: Bush Presses Chirac on NATO Involvement

From Reuters

President George W. Bush on Wednesday told French President Jacques Chirac that NATO should take a more active role in international efforts to stop the bloodshed in Sudan's Darfur region, the White House said.

In a 30-minute conversation initiated by Chirac, Bush "raised his concern about the deteriorating situation in Darfur and his view that NATO should be more actively involved in a robust international response to this crisis," Frederick Jones, spokesman for the White House national security council said.

Bush last week said NATO should have an organizational role and there should be double the number of international peacekeepers for Darfur.

Darfur: Sudanese Parliament Rejects UN Force

From Xinhua

The Sudanese parliament on Wednesday rejected a proposed UN takeover of peacekeeping operations from African Union (AU) forces in Sudan's western region of Darfur.

The Sudanese National Council said in a statement following a special session that it "refuses all attempts to transfer the African Union forces' mission in Darfur to forces from the United Nations."

"The parliament members agreed unanimously on the necessity to safeguard Sudan's sovereignty and its security and stability," the statement said, reiterating Khartoum's refusal to any kind of foreign interference in its internal affairs.

Darfur: More Attacks Signal Sustained Volatility

From the UN News Center

The security situation in Sudan’s Darfur region remains volatile as armed forces supported by militia attacked two villages in North Darfur this week and an African Union (AU) vehicle travelling through the region was assaulted and stolen, the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) reported today.

Attackers stormed the village of Likalik and its market area and destroyed its source of water as they attacked the water pump area and killed many animals at the site, the mission reported. On Monday, the village of Al Amin came under assault and its market was raided and huts were burned. The same day, an armed group attacked a vehicle of the AU peacekeeping force, injuring AU soldiers and stealing the car.

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Meanwhile, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Sudan, Jan Pronk, told a news conference held in Khartoum yesterday that the AU Peace and Security Council will meet March 3 at the ministerial level to explore how its security forces might make a shift to a proposed peacekeeping force supervised by the UN. The AU Peace and Security Council had expressed its support for the transition at an Ambassadorial level meeting held in January.

Mr. Pronk, who will attend the ministerial meeting, said the AU has not yet made a decision abut the transition. The UN, as directed by the Security Council in the form of a presidential statement, is consulting with the AU and all parties now at the negotiating table in the Nigerian capital of Abuja. The UN wants to ensure that the AU can stay as long as possible in Darfur, hopefully to the end of the year.

He said he hopes a pledging conference now being organized for the AU forces can be held by 8 March. “That has always been the UN position and is still our position…more money, more resources, for a long period for the AU in Darfur,” he added.

Darfur: Britain Warns Patience Running Out

From Reuters

The world is fast running out of patience with slow negotiators of a Darfur peace deal and the government of Sudan needs to do more to fulfil its promises, a senior British minister said on Wednesday.

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The world is fast running out of patience with slow negotiators of a Darfur peace deal and the government of Sudan needs to do more to fulfil its promises, a senior British minister said on Wednesday.

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Benn urged the government to cooperate more with the 7,000-strong African Union force monitoring a shaky ceasefire in Darfur, and called "unhelpful" restrictions the government has placed on the soldiers including a night-time curfew.

He said Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha had agreed that no curfew should be applied to the peace monitors, although local Darfur officials had insisted it should.

"The government of Sudan has a very, very heavy responsibility to cooperate and do all it can to help alleviate the suffering of the people of Darfur," he said.

Nigeria: Death Toll Rises

From the AP

Bodies littered the streets of the southern Nigerian city of Onitsha on Wednesday as the death toll from days of Christian-Muslim violence across Nigeria rose to at least 96.

"I've counted more than 20 people killed today," said Onitsha resident Isotonu Achor after gangs of rioters armed with machetes and shotguns poured through the mainly Christian city.

"Major streets are littered with bodies of people killed today, most of them northerners," Achor said. Other witnesses also said they saw at least 20 dead.

Residents said soldiers had opened fire on a mob of ethnic Igbo Christians that tried to enter the military barracks after reports ethnic Hausa Muslims sheltering in the barracks had attacked a nearby primary school, killing a number of children.

The claims could not be verified and it was not clear if the soldiers killed anyone in the mob.

The deaths brought to at least 96 the number of people killed in Nigeria since sectarian violence first erupted Saturday in the northern city of Maiduguri, where Muslim protests against cartoons caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad turned violent, razing 30 churches and claiming the lives of 18 people, mostly Christians.

Similar violence followed Monday and Tuesday in the northern city of Bauchi, where witnesses and Red Cross officials say 25 people were killed when Muslim mobs attacked Christians there.

Darfur: Sudan Rejects U.N. Troops

From Reuters

Sudan rejects U.S.-backed efforts to have U.N. peacekeeping troops take over from African Union troops in the country's troubled Darfur region, Foreign Minister Lam Akol said on Wednesday.

The United States has said genocide is continuing in Darfur with rape, looting and killing by Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed, and has urged the African Union to accept a hand over to U.N. peacekeepers.

"The government has rejected this ... We did not hear anybody saying they (the AU) are not doing enough to stop the violence. What we are hearing is that they're short of funds," Akol told Reuters.

Sudanese officials had previously shown a softer position towards the deployment of U.N. troops in Darfur, which the AU says it supports "in principle". The United Nations has already begun contingency planning for any takeover.

African foreign ministers will make a final decision in early March on any handover. In a statement issued on Wednesday the head of the AU mission in Sudan, Baba Gana Kingibe, said the transition was "inevitable" in the long run.

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"We think that the AU mission has done a very good job, but I think everybody believes that there now needs to be a more robust force," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a news conference in Cairo on Tuesday.

"And so when we go to a U.N. force, which we would hope to do fairly soon, there will still be a core of that force that will be the African Union, but of course it is more sustainable to have a U.N. force," she added.

The AU has been accused of standing by and watching when civilians have been attacked, and have themselves become a target of ambushes and kidnappings in the region.

Akol said the U.N. had not approached Sudan about the deployment of troops. "Our position is if you have a problem you solve it. If the African forces are short of money, you provide them with money," he said.

Darfur: Don't Fear the International Criminal Court

A piece by David Kaye in Foreign Policy

[T]he Bush Administration should offer to help Moreno-Ocampo’s team develop the kind of evidence necessary to identify and try the most senior officials responsible for the crimes in Darfur. This cooperation may involve sharing sensitive information, but with adequate protections, the United States should be able to provide such support, as it has for over a decade to the international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

The administration should also apply diplomatic and economic pressure on the Sudanese government to encourage it to give the ICC’s investigators free rein in the region, including the ability to interview Sudanese political and military officials without constraint. Any future peacekeeping force in Sudan should have, as part of its mandate, the authority to protect and assist ICC investigations.

Nobody believes that accountability alone will stop the terror in Darfur. But unless leaders in Khartoum understand that the U.S. commitment to prevent these crimes trumps even its opposition to the International Criminal Court, they are unlikely to face the consequences of their continued atrocities. Critics may argue that this cooperation would undermine U.S. opposition to the ICC. But that kind of cynical approach has no place in an administration that appears to value bringing an end to the Darfur genocide. The United States doesn’t have to join the ICC or even like it. But it shouldn’t stop the court from helping America achieve its own goals.

Tour for Darfur: Eyewitness to Genocide

A press release from Save Darfur

The Save Darfur Coalition tonight will launch a 21,000 mile, 22-city, 11-state photo exhibit and speaking "Tour for Darfur: Eyewitness to Genocide" to raise public pressure on the Bush administration to end the genocide and build a lasting peace in the Darfur region of western Sudan, and on Congress to provide the resources necessary to do so. The tour will begin tonight at 7 p.m. at the Free Library of Philadelphia, the nation's first capital, and end in its current one, Washington, DC, with a "Rally to Stop Genocide" on April 30.

"While President Bush deserves credit for asking Congress for emergency supplemental funding of $389 million for peacekeeping and humanitarian aid projects in Darfur, that's just the first step to ending this crisis," said the tour's featured speaker, Brian Steidle, a former Marine captain and U.S. representative to the African Union's peacekeeping mission in Darfur from September 2004 to February 2005. "This tour is designed to educate the American people about the Darfur genocide and to motivate them to turn up the heat on the Bush administration to take the many other steps necessary to end the suffering for millions of men, women and children in Darfur."

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The tour is part of the "Million Voices for Darfur" campaign to generate one million postcards to President Bush asking him to use the power of his office to fulfill his Feb. 17 pledge to support a stronger multi-national force to protect the Darfuri people. Anyone can send an electronic version of this postcard in just a few seconds by visiting http://www.MillionVoicesForDarfur.org. The postcards will be delivered at the last stop of the tour in Washington, DC, the site of the April 30 "Rally to Stop Genocide" ( http://www.SaveDarfur.org/rally ). The tour, Million Voices campaign and rally are sponsored by the Save Darfur Coalition ( http://www.SaveDarfur.org ), an alliance of 150 plus faith-based, humanitarian and human rights groups representing 130 million Americans.

In addition to Philadelphia and Washington, DC, the other tour cites and dates are: Coconut Grove, Fla. (2/27); Jupiter, Fla. (TBD); Deland/Orlando, Fla. (2/28); Los Angeles, Calif. (3/1-2); Beverly Hills, Calif. (3/3); Sacramento, Calif. (3/6); Saratoga, Calif. (3/7); San Francisco, Calif. (3/8); Ithaca, N.Y. (3/10- 11); Nashville, TN (3/21); Henderson, NV (3/27); Seattle, WA (3/28); Pittsburgh, Pa. (3/29); Bloomington, Ind. (3/30-31); Fort Wayne, Ind. 4/1-2); Chicago, Ill. (4/4); Austin, Texas (4/21); San Antonio, Texas (4/22-23); Houston, Texas (4/24); Fort Worth, Texas (4/25); and Dallas, Texas (4/26). For more details, visit http://www.SaveDarfur.org/SteidleTour.

Darfur: Worsening Security Could Hinder Peace Prospects

From Reuters

Peace talks for Sudan's Darfur region are in their final stretch, but worsening security on the ground could hinder the implementation of any deal, the European Union's special representative to Sudan said on Wednesday.

Pekka Haavisto told a news conference that all the necessary elements for making decisions on power-sharing, wealth-sharing and security arrangements were on the table, but reaching a deal was not a guarantee for sustained peace.

"We are now in a situation where it could optimistically be said that the peace negotiations in Abuja are nearing their end," Haavisto said in Helsinki, where he was briefing Finland ahead of the country's EU presidency later in the year.

"In the European Union, there is a feeling that even if a peace deal is reached in Abuja, the means to realise the peace deal on the ground are lacking if the situation in Darfur worsens," Haavisto said.

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Haavisto said a major problem was that the Sudanese government and the leaders of armed groups seemed to have lost control, and guerrilla groups had become bandit-like gangs that waged their own wars.

He said the worsening of relations between Sudan and neighbouring Chad was a threat to the entire peace process.

"This is a kind of nightmare that everyone has feared, that the situation in Darfur spreads across borders even more ... It is possible that this will add to the conflict completely new elements," Haavisto said.

When asked about the sustainability of any peace deal reached for Darfur, Haavisto said the onus was on Khartoum.

"We turn to Khartoum. If you want peace with Darfur, you need to work quicker to fulfil the peace deal between the north and the south. This is a question of Khartoum's own credibility," he said.

Sudan: Eradicating Slavery

An op-ed by John Eibner, executive director of Christian Solidarity International, in The Boston Globe

Abuk Ater was a slave in northern Sudan. She was a young, childless, married woman when she was captured and enslaved by a member of an Arab militia backed by Sudan's government. Her master, Mohammed El Nur, raped her, called her ''slave," and forced her to convert to Islam. He renamed her ''Howah."

This month, Abuk, her four children, and 162 other slaves were repatriated to southern Sudan by the government's showcase Committee for the Eradication of the Abduction of Women and Children. Government officials loaded Abuk and the others like cattle into open-topped, seatless trucks for a three-day journey in 100-degree-plus heat. Despite the bleak prospect of having nothing to eat but leaves, Abuk is relieved to be free, living with her own people, in her own land.

Abuk is just one of tens of thousands or more black Sudanese citizens who have been enslaved by the government's armed forces and allied militias since the outbreak of civil war in 1983. Khartoum has consistently used militia raids on black villages as a low-budget but brutally effective component of its counterinsurgency policy.

President Bush declared the eradication of slavery as one of his goals when he launched his Sudan peace initiative in September 2001. But just as the signing of a peace agreement between Khartoum and the Sudan People's Liberation Army in January 2005 has not ended genocidal conflict in Darfur, neither has it resulted in the emancipation of the country's slaves. Slavery -- an internationally recognized crime against humanity -- continues to blight lives and obscure the prospect of a peaceful, stable, and united Sudan.

Black women and children in Darfur continue to be enslaved by government-backed janjaweed militiamen, especially for sexual purposes. In the far south, Khartoum's longtime ally, the Lord's Resistance Army, still perpetrates atrocities against civilians, including enslavement.

Moreover, tens of thousands of Dinka and Nuer women and children captured before the government made peace with the Sudan People's Liberation Army remain in bondage. Officials at the Committee for the Eradication of the Abduction of Women and Children estimate the presence of at least 40,000 such slaves in northern Sudan, and have documented the names and locations of more than 8,000.

The government withholds funds needed to free the 8,000 registered slaves. It calculates that the international community will be satisfied with occasional small-scale repatriations, and it appears to be right. Last September, the Bush administration rewarded Khartoum's lethargy by upgrading Sudan's slavery status from Tier III (the level for worst offenders) to Tier II.

Darfur: Benn Calls for UN Action

From SAPA-AFP

Britain's International Development Secretary Hilary Benn has called for the United Nations (UN) to take over peacekeeping duties in the conflict-torn Sudanese region of Darfur.

"The security situation has deteriorated compared with last June when I was last here in El-Fasher," said Benn, speaking to BBC radio from Darfur where he was seeing Sudanese officials.

"The rebels have been responsible for an increasing proportion of the attacks. The Arab militia (backed by Khartoum) are still at work...It really reinforces the point that we have to step up the international effort in Darfur."

A bigger, better-funded UN peacekeeping contingent would step into the boots of an underfunded, overstretched African Union (AU) force which, Benn said, is being hindered by the Sudanese government.

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Benn called upon the international community to redouble its assistance to Darfur, where up to 300,000 people have died in over three years of conflict.

Britain announced on Tuesday that it will contribute a further 20 million pounds (29.3 million euros, 34.9 million dollars) to support the African Union mission, in addition to 32 million already committed.

Pressed on possible UN sanctions against Khartoum, Benn said: "The (UN) sanctions committee is now looking at the names of individuals against whom accusations have been made.

"I think it is very important that that work is concluded as quickly as possible. We have to demonstrate that if people do not honour the obligations they have entered into, there will be consequences."

Darfur: AU Envoy Discuses UN Force Deployment with Rebels

From the Sudan Tribune

The AU special envoy in the Sudan Baba Gana Kingibe held a series of separate meetings with Darfur rebels groups in Abuja in order to discuss the eventual transition from AU to UN force in Sudan’s Darfur.

The Special Representative of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission in the Sudan, Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe, from 19 to 20 February 2006, held separate briefing sessions in Abuja with the Sudanese rebels groups, consulting them to elicit their views on the proposed transition from the AU Mission in the Sudan (AMIS) to a UN force, in order to report back to the Ministerial Session of the AU Peace and Security Council scheduled for 3 March 2006.

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The Special Representative emphasized that the UN would, in principle, not move in without the approval of the Government of the Sudan, a peace Agreement or at least, a working and holding Ceasefire Agreement.

He added that it might take up to 9 months to build up the 15,000 strong Force that would be needed by the UN. Such a Force, he stressed, would have African character, and would not exclude troops from the existing AMIS forces.

Darfur: Sudan Ministers Named in Leaked UN List

An article from the Financial Times related to this recent article by Mark Leon Goldberg in The American Prospect

Sudan's interior minister, defence minister and the director of its national intelligence service, are named in a confidential list of individuals who could be considered for sanctions by the UN Security Council over their alleged role in the conflict in Darfur.

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The list does not reflect any judicial findings of guilt, and does not relate to a separate legal process in the International Criminal Court, which is also investigating alleged war crimes in Darfur.

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Nevertheless, the unofficial dissemination of the names, which were closely guarded by Security Council members, could add to international pressure on the government and rebels to halt the violence in Darfur. The leak comes as the UN and the US are planning to bolster African Union troops in Darfur with a robust UN force.

The Sudan government has repeatedly blamed the rebels for the violence and dismissed accusations that it was responsible for human rights abuses and war crimes.

But among those named by the UN panel is Salah Abdalla Gosh, director of the national security and intelligence service, who is cited for his alleged "command responsibility for acts of arbitrary detention, harassment, torture, denial of right to fair trial".

Elzubier Bashir Taha, Sudan's interior minister, is identified for a "failure to take appropriate action to employ police forces" to disarm non-state militia, while Major General Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein, the defence minister, is accused of a "failure . . . to identify, neutralise and disarm militia groups". The 17 names also include rebels such as Adam Yacub Sharif, a Sudan Liberation Army commander, who is identified as responsible for an attack on a government military escort.

Sanctioning or even the suggestion of sanctions against the Sudanese officials would put the US in a difficult position given its close intelligence relationship with Sudan in the "war on terror". Mr Gosh visited the US last year and the CIA maintains an operation in Khartoum, say former US officials and analysts in Washington.

A second section, titled "Conditional naming: consideration for possible future designation" cites Omer Al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, for impeding the peace process, and for his command responsibility as chief of the armed forces.

Darfur: Living a Restricted Life

From IRIN

After Janjawid militia attacked and looted their homes in 2003, the inhabitants of the predominantly Fur villages to the south and west of Kabkabiya were left with nothing.

Many of them fled to town, but some 4,000 people from 20 different villages decided to remain.

To ensure their security, they agreed to pay the Janjawid - their former attackers - a "protection-fee" and a share of their harvest, to be collected by the sheikh. According to various local sources, the protection fee was approximately 700 Sudanese dinars (US 35 cents) per family per month in addition to one-third or one-quarter of their harvest.

Over time, a climate of intimidation developed. "They don't pay to be defended," said the community leader. "They pay not to be attacked."

The African communities, who are still paying for "protection", are virtually held hostage in their own homes by the Janjawid.

"The main problem people are facing is the lack of freedom of movement. Access to the market, to services in nearby towns, to fetch water, to their surrounding fields - it has all been severely hindered," said Thomas Linde, director of protection for the United Nations Mission in Sudan.

Although the Fur still cultivate their fields, they are restricted to the relative security of the land in the immediate vicinity of their villages. To enter or leave the villages, they must pass through security posts. The checkpoints are manned by Arab militia, who monitor people’s movements, levy taxes and demand food or money.

"They are harassed, threatened or assaulted whenever they move outside their village, and this has a big impact on their livelihoods and their ability to lead a normal life," Linde said.

"In most of the villages south of Kabkabiya, people are not allowed to leave the village and look for refuge in IDP [internally displaced persons’] camps. They are trapped," a local observer noted.

The Janjawid want to give the impression to the outside world that different communities in government-controlled areas were coexisting peacefully, he explained. However, under the guise of "protection" they have created a valuable source of income.

The militias harass communities inside the villages as well.

"Armed men come at night and loot their belongings. Sometimes the husbands are ordered to go outside and the men spend the night with their wives," the observer said. "It is a case of extreme harassment, intimidation and violence. These people live in open prisons."

Darfur: US Vows to Keep Pushing For UN Force

From VOA

The Bush administration acknowledged Tuesday it may not get a Security Council resolution for a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Sudan's Darfur region as it hoped for by the end of month. But it vowed to keep pushing for the upgrade of the current African Union force.

Bush administration officials had hoped to get a resolution on the new Darfur peacekeeping presence before the United States' turn as rotating Security Council president for the month of February expired.

But with only a week to go, they are acknowledging that prospect now appears unlikely, while saying that the U.S. drive for a full-fledged U.N. peacekeeping mission will continue unabated.

At a news briefing, State Department Deputy Spokesman Adam Ereli hailed the performance of the current African Union force in Darfur, which he credited with preventing the kind of large scale atrocities that occurred in the region in 2004.

But he said that mission was never intended to be open-ended and said the United States wants to see quick action transforming the African Union Mission in Sudan, or AMIS, into a full-scale blue-hatted U.N. force. "I can't promise you that there's going to be a resolution introduced in the next week. I can say that whether we're the president or not of the Security Council, the United States will push to marshal international efforts in support of peace in Darfur, including a re-hatting of AMIS into a U.N. force," he said.

Mr. Ereli said it is important to get the logistics and mechanics of the transformation done right, but said there is an urgency to the matter, since people are still dying in Darfur.

Privately a senior diplomat who spoke to reporters here expressed frustration over the pace of work by a U.N. team now in Sudan to make an assessment of the logistical needs of a new force.

They are dragging their feet, the diplomat said, and we are getting a little impatient.

Darfur: Turning the Tide

The latest from Tod Lindberg - via POTP

President Bush seems to have surprised some of the officials in his own administration with his forward-leaning comments on a decision in the works to support a substantial increase in the peacekeeping force trying to do something about genocidal conditions in Darfur. Good. It will take no less than the sustained personal engagement of the president of the United States to get something effective done there.

By all accounts, the situation in Darfur is getting worse. One correspondent reports to me from the scene that violence is approaching its 2003-04 levels. That's killing, displacement and lawlessness at a pace that led then-Secretary of State Colin Powell to label the crisis "genocide," a term the president has also used and that Congress has endorsed in resolutions.

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The key perpetrators are the government-armed Janjaweed militia, who often operate in close cooperation with Sudanese government forces. Rebel movements are active in Darfur, and the Sudanese government has often sought to portray its actions as merely a response to an insurrection. That won't wash. There is no justification for the perpetuation of conditions in which millions are displaced or dead and the dying continues. The fact that these conditions persist is itself clear evidence that the perpetuation of misery and terror is exactly what the Khartoum government has in mind.

The government is well practiced in the arts of lying and dissembling and seems perfectly content with the perpetually stalled peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria, providing an excuse for the continued depredation in Darfur.

To say it again, the only reason Darfuris are unable to return home and begin rebuilding the villages the Janjaweed torched with the help of the Sudanese government is because the Sudanese government wants them where they are.

Reports are now emerging that the Janjaweed militia have been crossing the border into Chad in order to harass and abuse refugees there. Perhaps the spillover across national borders will help galvanize action.

It's a cheap shot to blame the African Union mission for failure in Darfur. Yes, there are political problems within the AU, a new regional organization that has been groping for a way to perform its mission in Sudan even as Sudan is a member of the AU. On the ground, the reality is that that AU force is trying but has no experience in missions of this sort, inadequate manpower and funding, and insufficient training. It is lacking in essential "force multiplier" assets such as actionable intelligence and helicopters, and it is operating with a mandate that does not allow for the protection of civilians(!). The failure here is not the AU's alone.

Sudan/Uganda: Army Denies Connection to LRA

From the Sudan Tribune

The Sudanese army denied a press statement of First Vice-President, president of Southern Sudan government Lt. Gen. saying it is still provides assistance to the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in the southern Sudan.

Official spokesperson for the armed forces Abbas al-Khalifah said that the armed forces were committed to supporting and implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, something which disproved accusations made by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) that the Sudanese army supported the LRA.

Sudanese First Vice-President said in an interview to BBC, he has no prove but still he believes that Sudanese army support Ugandan rebel Lord’s resistance Army.

"We can do nothing but deny these accusations. We are now working at withdrawing the armed forces from the south and we have already started to do so gradually," he added.

Darfur: US Tells UN to Hurry Up With Planning

From Reuters

The Bush administration, under growing pressure from religious groups over Sudan's Darfur region, urged the United Nations on Tuesday to quickly finish its planning for an international force to help end violence in Darfur.

"We eagerly await the report of the U.N. assessment mission. We'd like it to be as soon as possible just because there's an urgency to the matter. People are dying in Darfur and we need to act to stop it," State Department Deputy Spokesman Adam Ereli said.

"We want to move forward -- we don't want to let the logistics and mechanics -- it's important to get that right, but there is an urgency to it," Ereli added.

On Monday, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said he was hoping for a U.N. Security Council resolution on a future U.N. force by the end of this month.

Bolton also chided U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan for not pushing harder to get the planning done for a U.N. force in Darfur, a claim the U.N. denied.

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The U.N. assessment team, including four U.S. military planners, is mapping out what would be needed to help the world body take over from a struggling team of about 7,000 African Union troops in Darfur whose funding is running out.

State Department officials said privately the United Nations was "dragging its feet" with the assessment.

"The United Nations needs to get its act together on this," said one official, who asked not to be named because of the critical nature of his comments.

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Sudan expert John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group called U.S. criticism of the world body "hypocritical."

"The U.S. has not been forward-leaning on this issue. It's disingenuous to claim that the United Nations is not doing all it should," Prendergast said.

He said Christian and Jewish religious leaders were becoming more vocal in urging Washington to do more to end the genocide in Darfur and this was likely spurring Washington to act ahead of midterm elections in Congress in November.

In addition, there was a growing voice on U.S. university campuses, as well as a disinvestment campaign against the Sudanese government.

The Save Darfur Coalition, which consists of more than 150 faith-based, humanitarian and human rights groups, will launch a 22-city speaking tour on Wednesday to raise public pressure on the Bush administration to act in Darfur.

"This tour is designed to educate the American people about the Darfur genocide and to motivate them to turn up the heat on the Bush administration," said Brian Steidle, a former Marine captain and U.S. representative to the African Union's peacekeeping mission in Darfur.

Steidle is among those campaigning for Save Darfur Coalition, which starts the speaking tour in Philadelphia on Wednesday and ends with a "Rally to Stop Genocide" on April 30 in Washington D.C. It is part of a campaign to generate 1 million postcards to Bush over Darfur.

Darfur: UK to Provide Additional £20m For AU Mission

From the United Kingdom Department for International Development

Hilary Benn, International Development Secretary, today announced an additional £20 million of UK support for the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) during a visit to El Fasher, Darfur.

Mr Benn discussed the current security situation and plans to hand over peacekeeping in Darfur to a UN ‘blue-hatted’ force with Major-General Ihekire (the AMIS force commander) and said:

“I have seen firsthand today how AMIS soldiers and police on the ground are making every effort in difficult circumstances to protect the lives of the people living in the Darfur camps. But talking to women who were forced to flee their homes, it is clear that they don’t feel it is safe to go back.

“Funding for AMIS is running low, and the international community must do more to ensure the African Union can operate effectively, as preparations are made for a handover to the UN. Improving security must be the priority. This means predictable, sustainable support for AMIS and I am confirming that the UK will provide a further £20m for this. The UK stands ready to provide equipment, fund essential expenses, for example fuel costs, and provide experts to strengthen AMIS headquarters and operations.

“I urge other donors, who along with the UK will be attending a pledging conference in early March, to join us in committing significant additional resources to ensure that AMIS gets the support it needs.”

Somalia: Death Toll Climbs to 33 as Fierce Fighting Rocks Capital

From AFP

At least 15 people were killed and 23 wounded in fighting between gunmen loyal to warlords controlling Somalia's capital and Islamic court security militia, in what residents called the fiercest battles in five years.

This brings the death toll to 33 and dozens wounded, according to witnesses and medical sources, since the clashes erupted on Saturday.

The fighting pits gunmen backed by the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) -- a coalition of warlords -- against Islamic court militia along a road in southern Mogadishu's Daynile district, they said.

"The fighting intensified in the afternoon killing 13 people. The wounded are more than 23," Mohamed Daud, a former militia commander, told AFP.

Two other civilians, including a child, were killed by stray rounds earlier in the day, according to a witness, who asked to remain unnamed for security reasons.

Eight of the 15 dead were fighters from rival sides, according to militia sources.

Residents of the bullet-charred capital described the fighting as the heaviest in five years and a witness said the battlefield was "full of blood and it is very scary".

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The weekend clashes erupted moments after the warlords launched the ARPCT, an initiative believed to be backed by Washington, aimed at ridding the influence of Islamic extremism from Somalia as well as fighting the possible presence of terrorists there.

Critics have accused the Islamic courts, which have set up a form of quasi-judicial system in Mogadishu, of having links to the Al-Qaeda network.

Western intelligence groups have long warned that the world's failure to support efforts to stabilise lawless Somalia risked turning the country into a breeding ground for Islamic extremism and have expressed concern at the influence of the clerics.

But one influential Somali cleric, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, said the Sharia fighters would not rest until they vanquish the "forces of evil" supported by western powers.

"The violence was started by the people who have proclaimed themselves to be fighters against terrorism. This battle is between us, the people of peace against those of evil," said the cleric, who is known for his firebrand tendencies.

"The clashes will only stop if forces of evil (warlords) request forgiveness," Aweys told Mogadishu's Radio Shabelle. "We shall fight on."

DRC: EU Snagged on U.N. Request for Peacekeeping Force

From Reuters

The European Union is struggling to respond to a U.N. request for help in safeguarding elections in Congo this year because countries are reluctant to offer soldiers, diplomats said on Tuesday.

The United Nations asked the EU in January for a force of around 800 troops to help stabilise the Democratic Republic of Congo ahead of its first free elections since independence from Belgium in 1961. They are expected to be held by June.

The EU had said it would come up with a final decision by the end of this month but may not be able to commit by then because of a shortfall in troop commitments, and because no nation has come forward to lead the operation, they said.

"It is not sure whether there can be political agreement next week," said one envoy of a February 27-28 meeting of foreign ministers originally hoped to give the mission the green light.

Envoys from the bloc's 25 countries held talks in Brussels on Tuesday, but officials played down prospects of progress.

"You can't do any military planning until you know how many troops you have available," said one EU diplomat. "France and Germany are ready to contribute -- we don't know how many -- but we need others to come forward too."

The EU wants to show its mettle as a global security player and the Congo mission would be its sixteenth operation to date. Others range from peacekeeping in Bosnia to monitoring the Gaza-Egypt border and peace monitoring in Aceh, Indonesia.

Britain has said it will not contribute forces because it is over-stretched with commitments in Iraq and elsewhere.

Envoys said that while France could offer some troops, it is unwilling to lead the EU mission because it is already engaged in peacekeeping in Ivory Coast and was lead nation in an earlier EU security mission in the Ituri region of Congo in 2003.

Germany is the only other EU nation with sufficient planning capacity to run such an operation, but has also shown unwillingness to be put in the lead role.

Sudan/Iran: Muslims Should Unite to Resist U.S. Threat

From the Tehran Times

Vice-President for Parliamentary Affairs Ahmad Musavi said on Tuesday that Muslim nations should resist U.S. threats through unity.

In a meeting with the new Sudanese ambassador to Iran, Abdullah Khezr Bashir, Musavi stated that serious efforts should be made to make use of the huge potential of Islamic countries.

The U.S. pursues a strategy of crisis-building in other countries in an attempt to threaten them, he said.

Pointing to the numerous commonalities between Iran and Sudan in various spheres, Musavi said that the Islamic Republic seeks to develop ties with all countries particularly with Islamic states.

He noted that the West opposes Iran’s peaceful use of nuclear energy because Iran is governed by Islam.

The Sudanese envoy, for his part, noted that the West is against countries that have raised the flag of Islam.

He noted that developing economic agreements between Iran and Sudan will lead to the expansion of bilateral ties.

The ambassador added that the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is willing to pay a visit to Iran in the near future.

Darfur: Current Policy Not Enough

Senator Barack Obama has a page on his webiste dedicated to Darfur - as well as a podcast discussing "why this is not only a humanitarian crisis, but also an issue of national security." (Via Fido the Yak which also has a very good post on the issue.)

International Justice: Serbia Denies Mladic Arrested But Reports Persist

This is a bit off-topic for this blog, but I think it is important - from Reuters

The Serbian government on Tuesday denied media reports that top Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive Gen. Ratko Mladic had been arrested, but Bosnian and Serbian sources said he was in custody in Bosnia.

"The news about Ratko Mladic is not correct," government spokesman Srdjan Djuric said. "It is a manipulation which damages the (Serbian) government."

Djuric was speaking to Reuters by telephone. No official statement was issued.

Independent Belgrade broadcaster B92 said that in spite of Djuric's denial, a number of sources had told its reporters that the 63-year old general was arrested in Serbia then transferred to Tuzla in northeastern Bosnia for a flight to The Hague.

This was the route used to take former Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague when he was extradited in 2001 and flown from Belgrade via the U.S. military base Camp Eagle near Tuzla to the Netherlands.

Morning newspapers on Tuesday speculated that Belgrade would spirit Mladic into Bosnia after his arrest in order to counter charges by the Hague war crimes tribunal that he had been hiding in Serbia for years with government knowledge and army help.

In the afternoon, Serbia's state news agency Tanjug and the main Bosnian Serb agency SRNA said the wartime Bosnian Serb Army commander had been arrested in Belgrade then taken to Tuzla.

Uganda: Weakened LRA Force Still Roaming the Great Lakes

From The East African

Six months after the Inte- rnational Criminal Court (ICC) indicted top commanders of the Lord's Resistance Army, the rebels are still roaming the region, having recently moved from Southern Sudan into Congo.

Last November, Uganda and Sudan renewed a protocol to fight the rebels, allowing Uganda to pursue them beyond the "red line" and also to stop the use of Juba and Yei airports to fly in supplies to the fighters.

At least two rebel commanders – LRA leader Joseph Kony and his number two, Vincent Otti – are known to have fled westwards from Juba after Uganda People's Defence Forces moved in to Gondokoro.

Instability in eastern Congo provides a good cover for the rebel leaders, who may find sanctuary there before any authority can apprehend them.

"Kony is now in the northeast Congo, although his location is closer to the Central African Republic than northern Uganda," said UPDF spokesman Maj Felix Kulayigye. "And we also know that Otti is in the same region, in the Garamba National Park."

Maj Kulayigye said Uganda's collaboration with Sudan had reduced the LRA’s ability to fight, as Sudan used to be its chief supplier of weaponry and other logistics; the rebels at times carried weapons that were superior to those of the UPDF.

The strength of the LRA has also waned because it can no longer carry out abductions – its means of recruitment. At the start of Operation Iron Fist in 2002, the LRA had 5,000 fighters, including abducted children, with at least 3,000 armed fighters.

The rebel force has now about 120 fighters in northern Uganda, only about 80 of whom are armed. Kony and Otti are said to have crossed into Congo with 100 fighters.

[edit]

Congo was part of the meeting that agreed to hunt the LRA leaders and hand them over to the ICC, but has so far not shown the UPDF any action taken on the rebel fugitives. And with the UPDF barred from re-entering Congo the situation will have to be handled by the political leadership.

"We can’t do anything to them in Congo, but we are talking with the DRC. We have a joint verification team to ensure that there are no rebels on either side of the border," Maj Kulayigye said.

Stop the Crisis in Northern Uganda

An op-ed by Betty Bigombe and John Prendergast in the Philadelphia Inquirer

How do you end a 19-year insurgency led by a messianic guerrilla leader with an army of abducted, tortured, and brainwashed children?

For years, we have been attempting to answer this question in northern Uganda, where the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and its leader, Joseph Kony, have preyed mercilessly upon civilians since 1987 and created a humanitarian catastrophe.

During the last year we, acting with the support of Uganda's president, have worked in pursuit of a peaceful end to this brutal conflict. However, in isolation, military, diplomatic, political, and judicial strategies cannot reverse these trends. A comprehensive peace and justice strategy is needed.

Last October, the first warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) targeted Kony and his top lieutenants. However, the warrants have gone unexecuted, LRA violence has intensified, the humanitarian situation has worsened, and the threat to regional stability has increased.

Civilians in northern Uganda - 1.7 million of whom reside in squalid camps for displaced persons - are victims of a brutal cocktail of physical violence, coercion, and sexual exploitation. An estimated 1,000 people die in these camps each week. And the LRA's recent strategy of ambushing civilian vehicles has severely reduced humanitarian access in northern Uganda.

Despite a more than 20-1 advantage in manpower over the LRA, Uganda's army has been unable to defeat the rebels, and the violence is spreading. The LRA's recent incursion into Congo, the killing of international peacekeepers, and an intensified terror campaign against southern Sudanese civilians threaten each country's fragile transition to peace.

The situation is grim, and it requires policy makers with political imagination and moral courage to put forward a comprehensive military and political strategy.

Darfur: Tensions Grow as Sudan Opposes UN Troops

From VOA

Tensions are running high in Sudan, as a controversial proposal that would allow United Nations peacekeepers into Darfur, has been met with disapproval by the Sudanese government. The United States charges that the conflict in Darfur is genocide have infuriated government officials who say the United States is lying and targeting Sudan. And a top U.N. envoy has been summoned by the Sudanese government and charged with making statements that undermine Sudan's sovereignty.

Sudan has rejected a proposed United Nations peacekeeping force in the nation's western Darfur region, despite worldwide pressure to allow U.N. peacekeepers to bolster a floundering African Union mission.

Sudan government officials say the African Union is up to the challenge, despite recent admissions by the AU that Darfur is now more dangerous than ever and that rape, looting and lawlessness continue.

Foreign Ministry spokesman, Jamal Ibrahim, told VOA that a U.N. force will not be necessary if the African Union has better support.

"The problem with the African Union forces in Dafur is that they need support, they need logistics, they need money. What they need monthly is around $13 to $17 million, which is quite a huge amount of money. And the African Union hasn't got this sum," said Ibrahim. "If it is supported, the forces will perform in a better way. Without our consent, no mandate is going to be reviewed. No other forces will be allowed into the region without the approval of the Sudan government."

Ibrahim did admit that the situation in Darfur is not improving, despite the AU presence in the region.

[edit]

Also at hand is a charge by the U.S. government that the conflict in Darfur is genocide. Ibrahim says the U. S. is targeting Sudan with baseless allegations.

"This is not genocide. There is no genocide and there is no systematic policy of genocide in Darfur. There is no support of any janjaweed, there is no support of any militias, and the government is doing its best to find a resolution to the crisis," he said. "This is a unilateral position by the United States, no other countries, no other partners continue to say that there is a genocide in Sudan. Even the United Nations admitted that there is no genocide in Sudan."

CAR: Continuing Attacks Push Refugees into Chad

From UNHCR

The number of refugees seeking refuge in Chad after fleeing violence in the lawless northern Central African Republic (CAR) is climbing steadily, with around 200 crossing the border daily. More than 4,000 refugees have arrived so far this month and more are believed to be on the way.

"Many refugees report they fled attacks by government forces on civilians who CAR troops suspected of supporting various rebel groups. Refugees also mention raids by rebel groups who attack their villages to loot food and cattle, as well as forcibly recruit young men," UNHCR spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis told journalists at a regular briefing in Geneva on Tuesday. The refugees said they are also suffering from attacks by bandits or coupeurs de route.

"Some refugees have told UNHCR they have been victims of all three groups – rebels, government soldiers and bandits," said Pagonis.

Although UNHCR was unable to verify the accounts as it did not have a presence in northern CAR for security reasons, the agency took the reports seriously due to the number and similarity of stories from refugees, she added.

The refugees have harrowing tales of their ordeals and those left behind.

"We are the lucky ones, those of us able to talk to you and tell our story," Martin, 55, a recent arrival from CAR told UNHCR staff in south Chad. "Others are hiding in the bush, sleeping under trees like animals. They are dispersed all over the place. It is very sad," he sobbed as he sat outside a hospital nursing a deep, infected wound to his foot.

Martin said that when his northern CAR village of Begora was attacked on February 11, eight men, all civilians, were shot.

Sudan Attacks UN Envoy on Darfur

From the BBC

Sudan's government has summoned the UN envoy, Jan Pronk, over comments about the troubled region of Darfur which it said infringed on state sovereignty.

Acting Foreign Minister Ali Ahmad Karti criticised Mr Pronk and the UN's "conduct and attitudes".

In January, the UN said an expanded peacekeeping force was needed to cope with continuing violence in the region.

UK Minister for International Development Hilary Benn is to visit peacekeepers in Darfur on Tuesday.

Sudan opposed the UN's plan for more peacekeepers, saying funds should go to the African force already there.

Mr Karti said statements made by Mr Pronk and his aides tarnished Sudan's image and infringed on its sovereignty, state news agency Suna reported.

He told the UN envoy that Sudan "totally rejected" this attitude.

He said that while Sudan did not oppose cooperation with the UN, it had the right to reject the organization's "conduct" if it felt that the UN had "other agendas".

Darfur: AU Says Curfew Hinders Peace Force

From Reuters

Sudan is hindering an African Union peace mission's ability to monitor a tentative truce in the Darfur region by imposing a curfew and restricting airport access, the head of the mission said on Tuesday.

"Of course with the curfew, the airport shut, there are some constraints because if we cannot move about in that hour we cannot know what the government is doing in that hour," said Collins Ihekire, head of the AU military mission in Darfur.

[edit]

Ihekire said the government had been flying helicopters offensively, a breach of the ceasefire signed in April 2004, which has since been widely ignored. Last week rebels shot down a government helicopter in South Darfur and captured a pilot alive and are still holding him.

"Those were helicopter gunships supporting their troops fighting with the SLA (Sudan Liberation Army) ... offensive flying," he added of the two helicopters the government used in the attack.

The government has imposed a curfew in el-Fasher from 2100 until 0630, U.N. officials said. The AU also says the airport in el-Fasher, the force headquarters, is closed from 1800.

Benn urged the local state governor to lift the curfew. "I can see no justification for imposing a curfew on peacekeepers," he said.

Darfur: NATO Mulls More Aid for Pacekeepers

From the AP

NATO is considering boosting aid to African peacekeepers in Sudan in response to mounting U.S. pressure for an intensified effort to halt the ethnic violence in western Darfur, but officials say there are no plans for a major deployment of troops.

Diplomats on Monday confirmed that discussions were underway for NATO to boost training, transport and planning assistance to the African Union peacekeeping force of 7,000, which has failed to halt the violence blamed for a humanitarian disaster that has killed an estimated 180,000 people.

[edit]

However, NATO officials say political sensitivities will probably mean that the alliance's role will - for the time being at least - prevent the dispatch of large numbers of European or North American troops.

They point out that any NATO deployment would need a United Nations request, with backing from Russia, China and the African Union - which has stressed a preference for an African solution to the conflict.

"NATO has not received any formal request from the U.N. or from the African Union for anything beyond what it is currently doing," said NATO spokesman James Appathurai. "NATO is continuing to do what it has been doing for many months, and that is airlifting in and out African Union battalions ... as well as providing training."

NATO is looking at how it could do more as the United Nations prepares to take over direct responsibility for the peacekeeping force from the poorly equipped and funded African Union force. The Security Council this month approved a U.N. takeover of the mission and the U.N.'s top official in Sudan, Jan Pronk, has said that could see the force expanded to up to 20,000.

However, NATO military officials say there is little enthusiasm among European allies for a full-scale NATO mission and the United Nations is expected to continue to use African troops to provide the bulk of the peacekeeping force.

Although a high-powered Western force could be more effective militarily, many fear the political fallout - particularly if the mainly Muslim Sudanese government opposes a NATO deployment.

"If we do it through NATO we'll give further encouragement to all those who are condemning the white man and are fueling the clash of civilizations," said Dominique Moisi, deputy director of the French Institute of International Relations. "They will use it against us."

France in particular is concerned about the possible impact of using NATO in Africa. Without mentioning Sudan specifically, French Defense Minister Michelle Alliot-Marie cautioned recently against NATO taking on missions best left to other organizations.

"Let us make sure we do not spread ourselves too much in areas where the competence of other organizations is more obvious," she told a security conference in Germany.

Darfur: Sudan Opposed to UN Force, But Says AU Can Decide

From DPA

Sudan remains opposed to a United Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur, saying the UN should instead boost the capacity of African Union troops in the conflict ridden region, a Sudanese foreign ministry official said Tuesday.

"The AU has got a mandate regarding its mission in Sudan and what it needs is to be logistically supported in its mission in Sudan," said Jamal Ibrahim, spokesman in the Sudanese foreign ministry.

This is despite recent admissions by the AU's top envoy to Sudan, Baba Ghana Kingibe, that Darfur is now more dangerous than ever, with rapes and lawless looting continuing unabated.

"It is up to the AU to decide whether to extend or not to extend in Sudan," Ibrahim added, echoing the sentiments of many Arab and African nations who say the AU should decide if it wants UN support.

Darfur: Kristof's O'Reilly Pledge Drive Yields $727,568

From Editor and Publisher

In a postscript to his regular New York Times column on Tuesday, Nicholas Kristof reveals that he has raised almost three-quarters of a million dollars from readers to send Fox News host Bill O'Reilly to troubled Darfur.

Kristof, embroiled in a public feud with O'Reilly, launched a pledge drive recently with this end in mind, and reports today that he has been "deluged by 6,675 pledges, averaging a bit more than $100." The grand total comes to $727,568, "so Mr. O'Reilly will be able to fly first class with the very best satellite phones and fill his water bottles with San Pelegrino."

Darfur Bleeds

From Human Rights Watch - via POTP

Janjaweed militias and Chadian rebel groups with support from the Sudanese government are launching deadly cross-border raids on villages in eastern Chad, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. Human Rights Watch called on the African Union Mission in Sudan to proactively patrol strategic points along the Chadian border to deter further attacks against the civilian population, and on the United Nations Security Council to urgently authorize a transition of the African Union force in Darfur to a U.N. mission.

The 15-page report, Darfur Bleeds: Recent Cross-Border Violence in Chad, based on a Human Rights Watch investigation in eastern Chad in January and February, documents an alarming rise in attacks against civilians in Chad by Sudanese government-backed Janjaweed militias and Chadian rebel groups. The Janjaweed and Chadian rebel forces operate from bases in Sudanese government-controlled areas of Darfur. Sudanese government troops and helicopter gunships have at times supported these cross-border attacks in eastern Chad. The Sudanese government provides support for several Chadian rebel groups, including harboring them on Sudanese territory.

“The government of Sudan is actively exporting the Darfur crisis to its neighbor by providing material support to Janjaweed militias and by failing to disarm or control them,” said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The Janjaweed are doing in Chad what they have done in Darfur since 2003: killing civilians, burning villages and looting cattle in attacks that show signs of ethnic bias.”

Sudanese forces have had a direct hand in the recent violence in Chad, according to witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch in eastern Chad. For example, Sudanese troops and helicopter gunships reportedly supported a Janjaweed attack across the border in the region of Goungor, Chad, on two occasions in early December.

Darfur: Bolton Chides Annan on UN Planning

From Reuters

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said on Monday that Secretary-General Kofi Annan should be pushing U.N. officials harder in planning a force in Sudan's Darfur region rather than just lobbying the United States for contributions.

"It would be helpful, I think, if the secretary-general, in addition to prodding the U.S., could also be out there talking to the African Union and the Arab League, and in fact, even talking to his own peacekeepers about the importance of moving ahead here," Bolton told reporters.

When told of Bolton's remarks, Annan said, "I'm not going to answer that." But his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the U.N. "planning process was moving full speed ahead."

[edit]

Bolton said that while the United Nations had begun contingency planning "a lot more could be done."

"And that is why we have been pressing the secretariat hard," Bolton said. "We want to make sure there is not a disjunction between what the secretary-general says publicly and what the secretariat itself is doing."

In response, Dujarric, the chief U.N. spokesman said, "Once we know what this force will look like, we will be presenting options to the Security Council."

"We will then go back to those countries that have the capacity and the resources to help put that force together," Dujarric said.

[edit]

Bolton has distributed what he called "elements of a resolution" to the other 14 Security Council members outlining the duties of future peacekeepers in Darfur, rather than awaiting the result of U.N. planning.

As this month's council president, Bolton said the purpose of the resolution he wants adopted by the end of the February is to "provide additional political impetus" to the operation.

One provision of the text, obtained by Reuters, calls for stopping "any act of violence or other abuse on civilian populations." Another calls for halting "the acquisition and supply of arms and ammunition."

But Bolton acknowledged the council, particularly African and Arab members, had objected to a U.S. push to adopt the resolution by February 28 -- when the U.S. presidency of the council expires -- because the African Union would not formally agree to hand over the mission before March 3.

"But I said we thought it was important to proceed in any event," he said.

Darfur: Pressure Rises Over NATO's Role

From the International Herald Tribune - via POTP

NATO is coming under increasing pressure from the Bush administration to play a much bigger role in Sudan, with President George W. Bush telephoning the NATO secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, during the weekend and U.S. senators lobbying NATO to support efforts to stop the war, starvation and abuse of human rights.

A spokesman for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said Sunday that no formal request had been received from Washington, but other officials said on Sunday that proposals to expand the alliance mission faced serious political and cultural problems.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity because the issue was so sensitive inside NATO, a diplomat said that neither the Sudanese government nor the African Union, which has major responsibility for the existing peacekeeping mission, "want to see white, European troops coming into Sudan."

NATO said it would be placed in an extremely difficult situation if the United Nations agreed to impose a no- flight zone in Darfur that would require the assistance of NATO to enforced.

"Which NATO country would be willing to shoot down a Sudanese plane?" the diplomat said. "Let's see what the UN and Washington asks the alliance."

James Appathurai, a NATO spokesman, said the alliance had not yet been formally asked to play a bigger role in Sudan.

"We will have to see what happens over the coming days," he said Sunday. "In the meantime, we are continuing to airlift soldiers from the African Union into Sudan. We are also involved in training for a mission that is led by the African Union."

Darfur: Sudan Opposes UN Force

From the AP

Sudan told a visiting U.S. delegation that it opposed a proposal to deploy international peacekeepers to the troubled Darfur region and that it was committed to negotiations to end the tensions there.

Vice-President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha spoke to the 11-member congressional delegation Sunday night after they returned from a daylong visit to Darfur.

"Sudan rejects replacement of the African Union forces with United Nations forces," Taha told them, according to a Monday report by the state-run Sudan News Agency.

[edit]

According to the Sudan Media Centre, a tribal delegation in Darfur gave the U.S. delegation a memorandum in which they rejected any foreign international forces in their region.

"Talking about dispatching Atlantic troops to the region means sending a wrong signal to the rebels that troops would be sent to remove the current government and impose a new political reality therein," Amin Hassan Omar, government delegation spokesman in Abuja, told SMC.

SUNA said Taha told the delegates that Sudan was committed to resolving the Darfur problem through peaceful negotiations, and blamed the rebels for procrastinating in the ongoing peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria.

Samani Al-Wasilla, state minister of Foreign Affairs, said Taha briefed the visitors on the nature of the conflict in Darfur, explaining it was "a situation of security violations and intertribal fighting over water and grazing areas and could not under any circumstance be described as a genocide."

Darfur: Tension Still High in Kutum Town

From IRIN - via POTP

At the Monday market in Kutum town, North Darfur, heavily armed Janjawid militia openly stroll between the fruit and vegetable stalls, closely watched by Sudanese soldiers.

It is the first day the market is open again after a week of unrest. Unease and fear are palpable.

On 1 February, rebels of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) killed a lieutenant of the Sudanese military in the town. In retaliation, the Janjawid militia took over the town's streets for a week, culminating in a violent assault on the local population on 6 February.

"Between 2 and 6 February, the whole town was full of Janjawid," a local political analyst said. "The town was completely deserted, with not a single man outside and only a few women.

"The Arab militia was calling for revenge, calling the whole town Tora Bora [local term for SLM/A rebels]," he said.

On 2 February, just north of Kutum, at Kassab camp for internally displaced people, the militias sealed off the area and detained various people. The same day, the analyst said, Arab militia entered Kutum market and randomly started beating people and putting them into trucks to take them away.

On 6 February, violence escalated in the market, resulting in a shoot-out between the Arab militia and the Sudanese armed forces, which moved everybody out and closed the market.

"Although the Arab militia are collaborating with the Sudanese military, in Kutum it sometimes looks as if the militia are the ones in charge," the analyst noted.

"At the end of the afternoon, the militia started looting and harassing and beating people in the market," a town resident noted. "Then the shooting started, and everybody was running."

As the militia withdrew, they attacked people and stole their animals and other belongings at the outskirts of Kutum and in the nearby village of Sungir. Six people were shot. African Union peacekeepers picked up and treated the wounded, but two people died of their injuries.

Darfur: Urgent Intervention Required in Shearia

From the Sudan Organization Against Torture

On 1 September 2005, SOAT reported the build-up of Janjaweed militias in Niteaga, Shearia province, Southern Darfur state following an armed militia attack and looting of Amar Jadeed village, North West of Labado in Shearia province. The incident was initially reported to the African Union observers in the region and to the Governor of Shearia. Despite calls by SOAT and its partner organisation in Darfur for an investigation and for government dispersal of the militias from the area, no action was taken.

In the first week of November 2005, reportedly the Janjaweed militias working with Government forces attacked and looted Shearia market. During the attack, shops belonging to persons from the Zaghawa tribes and persons from the Zaghawa tribe were specifically targeted.

Following the attack and looting, persons belonging to the Zaghawa tribe fled Shearia town to El Fahal, Otash and Dereig Internally displaced Camps, adding to the already large IDP population in Southern Darfur. The remaining population, largely from the Birgid tribe set up camp near the African Union Camp in Shearia. Due to continuing fighting between government forces and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLM), armed militia presence in the area and reported widespread rapes, African Union troops provide armed escorts for the women and girls, who ventures outside the camps to fetch water and firewood, a necessary activity.

There are reportedly no aid agencies operating in Shearia town following their evacuation. The remaining population in Shearia are in desperate need of food and water, shelter and medicine. The humanitarian situation in Shearia is precarious and requires an immediate international response both political and humanitarian.

Darfur: Drnovsek's Peace Plan

An article on Slovene President Janez Drnovsek's attempts to bring peace to Darfur - via Transitions Online

Drnovsek dedicated most of his recent efforts to a humanitarian and political peace initiative for Darfur.

The humanitarian part went quite well as he managed to unite four Slovene humanitarian groups behind a fundraising drive. When he realized that setting up a new camp for 10,000 refugees (his initial plan) was unnecessary, he sensibly changed gear and instead suggested to use the funds to support an existing camp currently sheltering around 28,000 people.

The political component went less well.

Drnovsek first proposed a 10-point peace plan, then added six more items based on comments by the rebels and the Sudanese government. Drnovsek thought that a breakthrough was imminent – something that more than two years of negotiations in the Nigerian capital Abuja had failed to deliver – and announced that “a final round of peace talks” would be held at an undisclosed location in Slovenia on 12-14 February and that a peace agreement might be signed or at least initialed.

When journalists asked government officials and the police to check whether there were any preparations for the peace conference, nobody knew of the matter. They learned about it from the media and began drafting a security plan just in case.

But Drnovsek’s big plan began unraveling and an impatient president tried to share the blame for his failed peace push. First he accused a Slovene weekly of torpedoing the talks by reprinting some of the controversial Danish cartoons of the prophet Mohammed (Both the Darfur rebels and the Khartoum government are Muslim).

Then, on 12 February, he accused UN negotiators and the British envoy in Abuja of plotting against him by persuading the rebels not to board a special plane for Slovenia. But he was still optimistic that a final breakthrough was within reach. He announced that talks might finally take place on 18 February in the German town of Gymnich. But when journalists called the conference center there, nobody knew anything about a planned meeting.

If that wasn’t enough, he also managed to sour relations with the government, which had supported his peace initiative with 126,000 euros to keep an existing refugee camp operating and was considering other steps to help the presidential plan.

But the government had enough when Drnovsek overstepped his competencies and asked the head of Slovenia’s intelligence service, Iztok Podbregar, to deliver a personal message to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir without first asking Prime Minister Janez Jansa.

Jansa ordered Podbregar to stay put.

On 14 February the president finally announced that the talks in Germany had been postponed indefinitely and more time would be needed for the parties to reach agreement. The U.S. embassy in Ljubljana explained in a 15 February statement for the daily Dnevnik that the U.S. government still supported Drnovsek’s humanitarian initiative, but it also urged the parties to return to the Abuja talks. British foreign secretary Jack Straw echoed this view in an 18 February op-ed in Dnevnik.

Update: Two Chadian Army Generals Desert, Join Rebels

From Reuters

In the most high-profile defections yet, two top Chadian army generals have deserted and joined insurgents along the Sudan-Chad border sworn to ousting President Idriss Deby, rebels said on Monday.

"General Sedi Aguid and General Ishaq al-Diar are in one of our camps on the border," said Mahamat Nour, the leader of an alliance of nine Chadian guerrilla groups, the United Front for Democratic Change (FUC).

"It's important to have them with us and important that the international community ... sees that this now confirms that Deby is finished, he has no men with him and they should warn him he should talk with us," Nour told Reuters by telephone from the border.

A large group of army officers including members of Deby's family deserted in September. They took refuge in the war-torn Darfur region bordering Chad and later joined Nour, who has thousands of well-armed troops in camps along the long and porous border.

[edit]

The insurgents sent a delegation to Libya with what they call a last-chance proposal for Deby to accept a national forum for democratic change or be removed by force.

Nour said the delegation had given a written proposal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi who was reviewing it with other regional states.

He said they expected a reply in the coming days from Gaddafi as to whether he will mediate between the rebels and Deby.

"These two defections will certainly change everything in people's minds," Nour said.

Chadian opposition parties and Nour himself have expressed a desire to remove Deby, who they call "autocratic and corrupt," by peaceful means rather than by force.

But Nour says if he does not agree to talks by the beginning of June, when Deby's current presidential term ends, he will not hesitate to take up arms.

Darfur: US Congressional Delegation Visits Region

From the Sudan Tribune

A U.S. congressional delegation visited Sudan’s troubled Darfur region on Saturday to assess the security and humanitarian situation, the Foreign Ministry said.

The 11-person delegation, led by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, was to meet with officials in Darfur and visit troubled areas, ministry spokesman Jamal Mohamed said.

"The delegation seeks to get firsthand information about the humanitarian situation in Darfur," Mohamed said. "This would be a good opportunity for the delegation to know the situation on the ground instead of depending on negative reports being propagated by some quarters amid congressmen."

He did not elaborate.

Uganda: Children of the Night

From the Mail & Guardian

Mary has spent the day gathering sheaves of grass to feed the cattle, weeding the vegetable patch and helping her mother cook dinner over a charcoal fire: the life of any African girl in any African village.

But as daylight begins to fade, Mary slips away from the family’s mud hut and strides down a sandy track into the nearest town. The adults in the town of Lacor in northern Uganda are going home but Mary, along with hundreds of other children, is going the other way. Dressed in rags and flip-flops, some carry sacks or rolled-up blankets; they are on their way to the night shelters, which are guarded by government troops.

In any other country, a 14-year-old girl leaving her home and an anxious mother for the night would spell rebellion. Here, it is simply about survival. “We fear the rebels, we fear thugs and robbers who come at night to disturb us,’’ says Mary.

The war in this region is perhaps the only conflict in history where children are both the main victims and the principal aggressors. Mary and the other children walk to safety every night because they fear abduction by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a Christian fundamentalist rebel group that uses children as soldiers, porters and sex slaves. The LRA carries out its raids at night, storming into villages from the surrounding bush, killing adults and forcing children to bludgeon their parents before marching them away to camps deep in the bush.

Desperate to keep the child-snatchers from their doors, parents in northern Uganda began sending their children into nearby towns at night in 2002. Back then, children used to sleep on the pavements, curling up together for warmth. They came in vast numbers: 40 000 children started walking into towns to sleep. Aid agencies set up shelters to give them somewhere safe to go.

Uganda: Security Forces Break Up Opposition Rally

From Reuters

Ugandan riot police fired tear gas and turned a water cannon on opposition supporters in Kampala on Monday in the latest outbreak of violence before the East African nation's election on Thursday.

Several hundred supporters of opposition leader and presidential candidate Kizza Besigye were gathered at a Kampala rugby club awaiting his final rally in the Ugandan capital when police moved to disperse them.

The police advance and gas clouds sent the throngs of mainly young opposition supporters racing away, with some leaping across a stream to escape.

"What have we done? We don't have any guns. We are just waiting for our leader," Maureen Mbabazi, 22, said while running away.

Peter Wesanga, 31 and jobless, added: "We are suffering. We are tired of this dictatorship," referring to President Yoweri Museveni's two decades in power.

A senior police officer at the scene told Reuters the opposition supporters had started the trouble by blocking a road and throwing stones outside the rugby club.

"It was just hooliganism," he said. "We need order here, then the rally can proceed."

Sudan: Cardinal Sees Hope Amid Horror

From the Scotsman

'THE men had their ears cut off - cut right into the skull. One said he had been stripped and beaten. Another had also had his lips cut off, you could see the scars. He told me stories of other people who had had their lips padlocked. Man's inhumanity to man is quite startling."

Cardinal Keith O'Brien's frank and graphic response when asked what hit him hardest during a recent visit to Sudan brings home the horrific abuses suffered by thousands of people in the war-ravaged African country.

[edit]

Addressing a joint Christian church service in a stadium outside the South Darfur capital of Nyala four weeks ago, he told a 2000-strong gathering of Sudanese people "you are not forgotten - there were a quarter of a million people in Edinburgh shouting Make Poverty History".

But he admits that when faced with the reality of life in Sudan for those people, his message of hope rang a little hollow. Sudan was not among the countries whose debts G8 leaders pledged to wipe out.

And the Cardinal's thoughts as he looked into the traumatised eyes of the mutilated victims of the greatest humanitarian disaster in the world - as it has been described by the UN - were that the demonstrations back in Edinburgh had all been for nothing.

"There was that feeling of 'what good had been done?'" he says, sitting in his comfortable Morningside house - a world away from the grim conditions in the vast, arid homeless camps which countless Sudanese have been forced to live in for years.

While the outspoken Cardinal says his visit was "humanitarian, not political", he has returned with a new rallying call for those in positions of power in Scotland, at Westminster and around the world.

"Bad enough, surely, to be hungry and thirsty, to be denied education and proper medical facilities, to have been raped, tortured and sent home as a 'postcard' to one's own tribe from the perpetrators," he says. "But to be utterly and completely ignored by the rest of the world - surely we can do more for these, our forgotten sisters and brothers?"

Official Says Two Generals Leave Chad

From the AP

Two top army generals related to President Idriss Deby have crossed the border into neighboring Sudan, an official said Monday, raising the prospect that dissatisfaction within Chad's military runs deeper than previously suspected.

Gen. Sedi Aguid and Gen. Issaka Diar have been in eastern Chad for two months with permission, but they crossed the border into Sudan without authorization to join relatives there, the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.


Deby left for a private visit to Paris on Wednesday for an unspecified number of days.

The official declined to say if the generals had joined any of the Chadian rebel groups on the border, formed in part by scores of soldiers who deserted late last year.

It is up to Sudan to explain what the officers are doing in their territory, he said, declining to give further information.

Darfur: Sudan May Accept UN Troops

From the Scotsman

SUDAN'S government yesterday rejected US accusations that genocide was ongoing in its Darfur region and said it could allow a robust UN force to take over from African peace monitors there.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week said genocide was continuing in Darfur through a widespread campaign of rape, looting and killing, and urged the African Union to accept the help of UN peacekeepers to stop the atrocities.

However, Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Jamal Ibrahim said: "She is biased because any authentic parties who are concerned with what's going on in Darfur have confirmed that this is not genocide."

[edit]

Sudan has previously refused to accept any foreign troops in Darfur, preferring only African soldiers.

But Khartoum has shown signs of softening its position towards a transition from the AU force to a UN force. The AU's Peace and Security Council will take a final decision in early March, but the council said "in principle" it supported it.

Ibrahim said yesterday the government had not yet decided to accept or reject a transition to a UN or any other force in Darfur.

[edit]

"We still feel it is early to accept or not to accept. It is still under discussion," Ibrahim said. "[But] it is not acceptable for any party to make a unilateral assessment of the role of the AU forces in Darfur."

Darfur: Only Sudanese Judiciary Can Try War Crimes

From the Sudan Tribune

President Omer al-Bashir, has stressed that the Sudanese Judiciary has solely the jurisdiction of ruling in cases in Sudan, especially that in Darfur, the official SUNA reported

In his address at the celebration marking the Golden Jubilee of the Judiciary Saturday, al-Bashir affirmed the government full confidence in the Judiciary and judges for realizing justice and the rule of law.

He pointed out that the Judiciary is capable to provide public fair trials and the right of defence for any defendant, safeguard the human rights and to simplify the legal procedures for all people.

He referred to the role of the Judiciary for quelling "the fire of the sedition" in Darfur.

How States Are Aiming to Keep Dollars Out of Sudan

From the New York Times

THE latest American initiatives to put pressure on the government of Sudan are centered many thousands of miles away from its capital, Khartoum. A handful of state legislatures in the United States have passed laws that bar their public pension funds from investing in companies with ties to Sudan, which has been accused of extensive human rights abuses in a long-running civil war.

The United States State Department has also labeled Sudan a state sponsor of terrorism.

While a 1997 executive order by President Bill Clinton bars American companies from conducting business in Sudan — except for a few technical exceptions, like a humanitarian mission — foreign businesses do not fall under that restriction. But in this age of global asset allocation, it is not uncommon for investors in the United States to have a link to Sudan through foreign stock holdings. Such foreign holdings would be the most affected by the recent state legislation.

The New Jersey Legislature passed a law in August that requires its public pension funds to divest itself of holdings in businesses that have equity stakes, including investments, facilities or employees, in Sudan. A similar law went into effect in Illinois last month, requiring its pension funds to be fully divested of any company with a Sudan tie by July. Oregon has also passed such a law for its public investment funds, while Louisiana has approved legislation that permits, but does not require, its public funds to shed investments linked to Sudan.

In December, the biggest public pension hammer, the California Public Employees Retirement Plan, or Calpers, took aim at three companies in which it has invested. The Calpers board voted 9 to 2 to call for the companies, ABB, Alcatel and Siemens, to cease business operations in Sudan.

A Calpers spokesman said that "our board believes that an engagement process with the companies is the best avenue if we are going to effect some change." Last week, Calpers reported that the three companies would not sever their Sudan ties; Calpers is considering its next step.

Phil Angelides, the California state treasurer and a Calpers board member, says he is prepared to pursue divestment if those companies do not pull out of Sudan. "The U.S. government has told Americans to have no business in Sudan," he said, "so why should California invest in companies that are supporting the regime?"

Spokesmen for the three companies say that leaving Sudan would do more harm than good. Ron Popper, a spokesman for ABB, for example, said the company had sought comment from many individuals and organizations within Sudan. "We have unanimously heard one message: do not withdraw because the country needs international investment," Mr. Popper said.

The states have left it to their money managers to figure out who belongs on the divestment list. Money managers have relied on private research firms that scour publicly available documents, trade journals and news accounts, and that conduct independent research to compile databases of companies involved in Sudan. Among the firms providing this research are KLD Research and Analytics, Institutional Shareholder Services and the Conflict Securities Advisory Group.

For example, KLD started its Sudan Compliance Service last November. Noel Friedman, managing director of KLD, said that 124 companies were currently on its Sudan list, including eight American businesses that he declined to name.

The lists, however, are far from definitive. Some companies that appear on them declare that they do no business in Sudan, and for at least one, 3M, the involvement was described by the company as aiding the United Nations. A spokesman at 3M said the United Nations bought 3M's Scotchshield Ultra Safety and Security Film, used to protect windows.

Steven Schoenfeld, chief investment strategist for quantitative investments at Northern Trust, is responsible for determining the companies his firm will exclude from the six "Sudan free" index funds it has started for institutional clients, including the State of Illinois. More than $8 billion of Illinois pension money has already moved into the six portfolios.

Mr. Schoenfeld's goal is to track closely the performance of traditional indexes even after he has removed stocks with ties to Sudan. He says his fund that tracks the MSCI EAFE index, a popular benchmark for developed countries across Europe and Asia, as well as Australia, will pose his biggest challenge. He said that more than 25 companies, representing more than 9 percent of the index's market capitalization, could be booted from the fund.

Among the big names that could be dropped from the portfolio are Royal Dutch Shell, which represents more than 2 percent of the EAFE index; Total, the French energy giant, about 1.5 percent; Toyota, about 1 percent; and Siemens of Germany and Ericsson of Sweden, both about 0.5 percent.

[edit]

Mutual funds that call themselves socially responsible routinely screen out companies that they regard as having poor records on humanitarian issues and thus have generally avoided investing in companies with Sudan ties. But Julie Gorte, director of social research at Calvert Investments, which specializes in socially responsible funds, says she can still appreciate the complexity of the issue.

"You have to ask yourself what your goal is with divestment," she said. "What's there if the government falls? Is there a government there that will take over and be better? If the companies that pull out provide money, goods and services, is there an understanding that will make the people poorer in the short run?"

Darfur: News Briefs

The latest news round-up is available from the Genocide Intervention Network

The United Nations continues to discuss plans for a UN force in Darfur. The United States and European nations have shown that they are supportive of plans to organize this force but are still showing reluctance toward donating troops to this pending mission. This week, the AU and the government of Sudan restated their opposition to the international community playing a leading role in resolving the Darfur conflict.

Chad: Oil Riches, Meant for Poor, Are Diverted

From the New York Times

Students from the Institute of Mongo have everything they need to learn: desks, computers, professors, notebooks and inquisitive minds.

The only thing missing is the school itself. Their country's newfound oil wealth is supposed to build it in their hometown, about 275 miles east of here, but after three years it is still not ready. So they study in borrowed classrooms here in the dusty capital.

"It's a long time we wait, but this is Chad," said Abdelraman Choua, 22, a computer science major from Mongo. "We are always waiting."

Such is reality under a World Bank-supported program that was supposed to harness this impoverished African nation's oil wealth for the benefit of its poorest citizens. A $4.2 billion oil pipeline has generated $399 million for Chad since mid-2004, but the spending of the money has been seriously marred by mismanagement, graft and, most recently, the government's decision that a hefty share can be used to fight a rebellion.

And now the approach, once envisioned as a model for the development of other African countries, seems to be on the verge of collapse. In recent weeks, Chad seriously weakened a law that dedicated most of its oil revenue to reducing poverty and reneged on its deal with the World Bank. In response, the bank suspended all its loans to the country.

What is happening in Chad, a Central African country twice the size of France, is an important test of the idea that international institutions like the World Bank can influence governments of poor countries to spend newly tapped riches on their people instead of using the money to further entrench themselves in power.

The proposition is particularly challenging as oil prices surge, because now nations like Chad can attract investors who make few or no demands on how the profits are spent.

African: China's Investment and Growing Clout Cause Concern

From the Chicago Tribune

But China's growing sway in Africa also is a worry for Western governments and for many Africans. Chinese loans and investments are a major reason President Robert Mugabe's disastrous regime in Zimbabwe remains afloat, analysts say. China has sent tanks, helicopters and fighter aircraft to Sudan's government, which has supported attacks in its Darfur region in which tens of thousands of people have been killed.

China's willingness to deal with rogue regimes, to overlook corruption and to push ahead with projects regardless of safety and environmental concerns risks lives and undermines African institutions and Western efforts to promote good governance, analysts say.

"China offers an alternative source of support, even for some of the United States' closest allies, when they chafe under Western pressure for economic or political reform," the U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations said in a report released in December. In some cases, "China's aid and investments are attractive to Africans precisely because they come with no conditionality related to governance, fiscal probity, or the other concerns of Western donors."

Darfur: Annan Did Not Ask for US Troops

For what it is worth - from Robert Novak's latest column

Administration sources say UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan misspoke in suggesting to reporters that he asked President Bush, when they met at the White House last Monday, to send U.S. troops to Darfur in the Sudan.

The meeting with Bush had been requested by Annan, but he did not have much of an agenda. That led to speculation at the White House that the secretary-general merely wanted "face time" with the president to boost his sagging prestige.

Darfur: Sudan Rejects US Claim of Ongoing Genocide

From Reuters

Sudan's government on Saturday rejected U.S. accusations that genocide was ongoing in its Darfur region and said it was discussing allowing a robust U.N. force to take over from African peace monitors there.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday said genocide was continuing in Darfur through a widespread campaign of rape, looting and killing and urged the African Union to accept the help of U.N. peacekeepers to stop the atrocities.

"She is biased because any authentic parties who are concerned with what's going on in Darfur have confirmed that this is not genocide," said Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Jamal Ibrahim.

"This is a systematic policy of the U.S. administration ... of pressuring the Khartoum government," Ibrahim said, accusing the United States of responding to internal pressures from Congress and the African American lobby.

Foreign Minister Lam Akol said he had not heard Rice's comments, but, he told Reuters: "of course there is no genocide in Darfur."

Bush's Statement on Darfur and LRA

He calls them "the Lord's Group," but it is obvious that he is referring to the Lord's Resistance Army - from the White House

Q It's a small part of the world, but it's very important to me -- I'm concerned about the children in northern Uganda who are the victims of the rebel Joseph Kony. And I'm wondering if you can bring any pressure to bear on President Museveni to stop that 20-year war and free those children from the bondage that they're under.

THE PRESIDENT: Really interesting question. She's talking about the -- northern Uganda, there's a group called the Lord's Group that has been terrorizing both northern Uganda and southern Sudan. I talked to Mrs. Garang, John Garang's widow. John Garang was the head of the Sudanese in the southern part of the country that, by the way, became adopted by a church in Midland, Texas, my old home town, interestingly enough. And early in my administration I got Jack Danforth, a former United States senator, to go and negotiate an agreement between northern Sudan and southern Sudan. And John Garang was a partner in peace. Unfortunately, he died in a helicopter accident about a year ago, I think. And the reason I bring this up is that there's no doubt it would be easier to deal with the Lord's Group if we were able to achieve peace between north and south Sudan. They take advantage of instability.

I have talked to this -- I've talked about this issue with Mrs. Garang, as well as -- now, there are peacekeepers in the region, by the way, U.N. peacekeepers on the north-south accord. I hope they're effective at helping the people of southern Sudan. I have talked to Museveni, President Museveni, about the issue, as well, and I've been with him, I think, two or three times. I know on two occasions we've talked about this -- and will continue to talk to him about it. I'm very aware of the issue.

My hope is that by having a southern Sudanese -- having the peace agreement negotiated between north and south so that the southern Sudanese can begin to get their lives back in order, get the oil money moving that's guaranteed to them, will help provide -- help drive them out of any safe haven in the south, which will make it easier for all of us to deal. It's kind of a roundabout answer, but I'm aware of the problem, first of all. And secondly, I'm surprised that anybody in this audience would bring it up, and I thank you for that.

We also have got a major issue in Darfur, Sudan. I presume if you're worried about northern Uganda, you're also worried about western Sudan, as am I. The strategy there was to encourage African Union troops to try to bring some sense of security to these poor people that are being herded out of their villages and just terribly mistreated. We need more troops. The effort was noble, but it didn't achieve the objective.

And so I'm in the process now of working with a variety of folks to encourage there to be more troops, probably under the United Nations. I talked to Kofi Annan about this very subject this week. But it's going to require a -- I think a NATO stewardship, planning, facilitating, organizing, probably double the number of peacekeepers that are there now, in order to start bringing some sense of security. There has to be a consequence for people abusing their fellow citizens.

At the same time, part of the issue in the Darfur region is that the rebel groups are not united in their objectives. And so politically, or diplomatically, we have to work to make sure there's one voice from which to speak, so that we can then create kind of the same agreement between government in Darfur that was created between north and south. A lot of talk, but we've got a strategy, and it's of concern, to the point where our country was the first country to call what was taking place a genocide, which matters -- words matter.

Darfur: Brownback, Biden Urge President to Act to Stop Genocide

A press release from Senators Sam Brownback and Joe Biden -with many thanks to Eric of POTP [Senator Brownback was also on the NewsHour last night with Sen. Barack Obama discussing Darfur]

In an effort to prevent the deaths of thousands of Sudanese people and provide humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousands of refugees, U.S. Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Joe Biden (D-DE) last night introduced a resolution calling for NATO troops to help the African Union stop the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. The resolution urges President Bush to advocate sending NATO troops--including Americans if need be--to work in support of the A.U., and that NATO enforce a no-fly zone in Darfur. It also calls upon the U.N. Security Council to approve a Chapter VII peace enforcement mission that is well-trained, well-equipped, and with adequate troop strength.

“The world has known for far too long of the atrocities in Darfur. We must do more than declare a genocide: we must do all we can to stop the killings, and we must do it now,” said Brownback.

“The U.S. must lead international efforts to stop the mass killing of innocent men, women, and children in Darfur,” said Biden. “By systematically abusing its own people, the Sudanese government has ceded its sovereignty, and the plight of the victims is now the concern of every civilized nation in the world.”

Since the terror began in early 2004, between 180,000 and 400,000 Sudanese people have been killed and over two million displaced by their government’s systematic campaign to eliminate the non-Arab and African tribal groups of Darfur.

On February 3, the U.N. Security Council announced a plan to send U.N. troops to help the overworked and under-equipped African Union-led mission. However, it could be a year before a U.N. mission fully deploys, and it is unclear what type of mandate or troop strength the Security Council will authorize.

“Enabling NATO troops to help keep the peace and end the genocide is badly needed,” said Brownback. “The current Janjaweed killing squads go unchecked while the A.U. troops have no mandate to stop them and don’t have the numbers to monitor such a large area. The people of Sudan need our help, and we are obligated to help them as soon as we can.”

“Time is of the essence. We must not watch from a distance as the conflict in Darfur spins further out of control,” concluded Biden. “Adding NATO's experience and expertise to the African effort would quickly improve security, save lives, and allow thousands of refugees to return to their homes. NATO should deploy troops to work side-by-side with A.U. forces, forming a bridge between the A.U. and U.N. missions.”

Darfur: The Test

An important new article by Mark Leon Goldberg in the American Prospect

The Prospect has obtained a confidential annex to a January 30th Security Council report that identifies the 17 Sudanese individuals whom a panel of U.N. experts concluded were most responsible for war crimes and impeding the peace process. The panel recommends that the council place these men under targeted sanction, that they be banned from international travel, and that their foreign assets be frozen. In addition to the 17, five others are cited as possible future targets for sanctions, including Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir and the President of Chad, Idriss Deby.

The men identified in the annex are the worst of the worst war criminals in a conflict that has claimed hundreds of thousands of civilian lives. And by far the most prominent name of the 17 recommended for immediate sanction is Salah Abdala Gosh.

You may not know that name, but the Central Intelligence Agency certainly does, and Langley won’t be thrilled if he is placed under an international travel ban. He is the director of Sudan’s National Security and Intelligence Services. And when Osama bin Laden found haven in Sudan from 1990 to 1996, Gosh was his personal government minder. Last year, Ken Silverstein of the Los Angeles Times detailed the extensive counterintelligence cooperation between Gosh and the CIA, and reported that the CIA even flew Gosh to CIA headquarters on a private jet to swap trade secrets.

The quality of the intelligence that the CIA obtains from Gosh is unclear. But what is widely known is Gosh’s role in devising Khartoum’s counterinsurgency-by-genocide strategy for Darfur. He is Sudan’s answer to Heinrich Himmler -- the organizational genius upon which every genocide depends. Gosh is behind the recruitment of the local janjaweed militia; the well-known coordination between government forces and the janjaweed; the harassment of aid workers; and, as the leader of Sudan’s security services, he bears responsibility for the arbitrary detentions and torture committed by his officers in Darfur.

[edit]

If Gosh stays on the list, then, for starters, the CIA won’t be able to fly him to Langley. The United States can purge Gosh’s name from the list if it wants to. And there have been a few trickling reports published by Sudan expert Eric Reeves and the International Crisis Group’s John Prendergast which mention that the U.S. has tried to protect Gosh from ever appearing on this list. The world, though, will be watching as we either let the 21st century’s worst war criminal off the hook or hold him accountable for the unspeakable atrocities he orchestrated.

Darfur: Bush Says Twice the Number of Peacekeepers Needed

An early report from Reuters

President George W. Bush on Friday said double the number of international troops were needed for peacekeeping efforts in Darfur, Sudan.

"I'm in the process now of working with a variety of folks to encourage there to be more troops, probably under the United Nations," Bush said. "But it's going to require, I think, a NATO stewardship, planning, facilitating, organizing -- probably double the number of peacekeepers that are there now."

Here is an updated version of the article with a good deal of added information - not about troops, but mentioning Bush's call to NATO and the statements by Senators Obama and Brownback.

Sudan: Nearly 7 Million Need Food Aid

From the FAO

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said today that while Sudan was likely to reap a reasonably good harvest in 2005-2006, almost seven million people would still require food aid over the coming year.

Most of the needy have either been forced to flee their homes by fighting or are in the process of returning home following the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Moreover, vulnerable households will for the most part be unable to benefit from the harvest due to the currently prevailing high cereal prices.

The FAO/WFP Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission, carried out late last year, found that Sudan's overall cereal production in 2005/06 amounted to about 5.3 million tons, 55 percent higher than the very poor 2004/05 harvest and 17 percent above the average of the previous five years.

[edit]

Despite the estimated above average crop, the mission found that some 6.7 million people require about 800,000 tons of targeted food assistance in 2006. These beneficiaries include more than two million internally displaced persons (IDPs), about 900,000 returnees and close to 3.5 million highly vulnerable people in Darfur, southern Sudan and marginal areas of central and eastern parts of the country.

Zimbabwe: Bodies of Fetuses, Newborns Clog Sewers

From the AP - via POTP

The corpses of at least 20 newborn babies and fetuses are found each week in the sewers of Zimbabwe's capital, some having been flushed down toilets, Harare city authorities said, according to state media Friday.

Town Clerk Nomutsa Chideya said the babies' remains were found among a wide variety of waste and garbage cleared by city council workers unblocking sewers and drains in Harare.

"Apart from upsetting the normal flow of waste, it is not right from a moral standpoint. Some of the things that are happening now are shocking," the state Herald, a government mouthpiece, reported Chideya as saying.

Acute shortages of revenue and gasoline in the nation's worst economic crisis since independence in 1980 have crippled public utilities and garbage collection services across Zimbabwe.

Hospital fees and charges for scarce medicines have soared. Church and charity groups blame economic hardships for an increase in illegal back-street abortions.

Darfur: Bush Discusses "Deteriorating Situation" With NATO

Not much information, but this is from today's White House Press Gaggle

I have a couple of things to read out. The President this morning called NATO Secretary General de Hoop Scheffer this morning, before 8:00 a.m., eastern time, to share his concerns about the deteriorating situation in Darfur. They discussed the steps NATO has already taken to assist in stopping the violence and what additional actions NATO might take in the future.

CAR: Refugees Fleeing Lawlessness and Violence

From UNHCR

A fresh influx of more than 2,800 refugees from the Central African Republic (CAR) crossed over into southern Chad this week, fleeing violent attacks by bandits, armed rebels and security forces in the lawless northern part of the country.

"Government forces surrounded our village in Bemal," says Emile, a recent arrival in south Chad. "I don't know how many of them. It happened during broad daylight, in the afternoon. They stole my cattle, four bulls, and broke the door of our house. We did not have any choice but to flee.''

The refugees claim that recent attacks on their villages forced them to flee, leaving everything behind. Some refugees told UNHCR they had been attacked by bandits ("coupeurs de route"), while others say they were victims of violent attacks by armed rebels and/or the army, UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond told journalists on Friday.

Refugees also reported that civilians have been killed in the attacks. Chadian authorities say that since Sunday 12 February, at least 50 civilians have been killed. Six people who were injured during the attacks in CAR have been brought to hospitals in Gore and Bongor towns in southern Chad for treatment.

"There has been a significant increase in CAR refugees crossing into Chad since the beginning of the year, with some 4,300 crossing since January, and 3,785 seeking refuge in February alone," said Redmond.

Refugees are crossing the border at a steady rate of around 100 a day and are coming from northern CAR villages including from Bepikasse, Bemal, Bossangoa, Bedoro, Beogobo and Bekia. They are initially finding refuge in Bekoninga, a Chadian village of 600 inhabitants located only 500 metres from the CAR border.

"Living conditions are extremely difficult in the village and at the border," said Redmond.

Darfur: Hardships Persist Despite Newfound Media Interest

From Oxfam

For three years, violence has continued to shatter the lives of nearly two million people forced from their homes in a remote western region of Sudan known as Darfur. And for almost as long, millions of Americans have known little of the suffering of countless families crowded into makeshift camps dotting both sides of the border between Sudan and Chad.

Now, the hardships of the people of Darfur are getting new attention--in news stories, op-ed pieces, books, and fictionalized TV programs. While the surge in public interest will inevitably help their plight, their day-to-day reality remains grim.

For instance:

The United Nations estimates that nearly 3.4 million people in Darfur--about half the region's total population--are now dependent on international aid for their survival. About 13,500 aid workers are in the region struggling to meet the needs of this vast group.

Few people are safe in Darfur--even in the temporary camps to which they fled after they saw their villages burned. Civilians continue to suffer harassment, beatings, rape, and murder on a daily basis. Aid workers also face the frequent threat of theft, assault, kidnapping, even death.

Estimates of the number of people who have lost their lives in the conflict range from 180,000 to 400,000.

An African Union mission, sent to monitor a ceasefire that is now nearly two years old, is still significantly below its planned deployment of 7,757 troops and police officers. Even at full strength, the mission would not be large enough to adequately patrol an area the size of Texas.

For people stranded in the camps, often far from their villages, fields, and pastureland, life has become one long wait—for food rations, for limited amounts of water, for peace.

Uganda: Judges and Generals Face Off Before Polls

From Reuters

Black-clad soldiers brandishing assault rifles spring from minibuses and fan out around Uganda‘s High Court to re-arrest 14 suspects accused of treason with a top opposition leader.

Next, a general tells local radio the army will not accept orders from the courts, and says judges are helping terrorists and forgetting who appointed them in the first place.

Two days later the replacement judge in the treason case also withdraws, citing insomnia, stress and high blood pressure.

"I still love my dear life," Judge John Bosco Katutsi told a packed courtroom. "I do not want to die a martyr."

Tensions between Uganda‘s judges and the powerful army are at boiling point ahead of next week‘s presidential polls -- pitting President Yoweri Museveni against opposition leader Kizza Besigye who is facing treason charges.

Analysts say the risks of these tensions exploding are high.

Uganda: Court Rules Besigye's Campaign Not Illegal

From the AP

A court cleared the way for Uganda's main opposition leader to run in next week's presidential election by rejecting claims Friday that his nomination was illegal.

Kizza Besigye is the first credible challenger to President Yoweri Museveni's 20-year rule.

The attorney general and two civilians had asked that he be struck from the ballot, arguing that his nomination in November was illegal because he had been detained at the time and was unable to file his nomination papers in person. They also argued that election officials' acceptance of the nomination against the advice of the attorney general was unconstitutional.

The Constitutional Court disagreed, saying the Electoral Commission was not required to follow the attorney general's recommendations. Judges ordered the petitioners to pay all costs of the court proceedings.

Rwanda: Suicides Haunt Search for Justice and Closure

From the Washington Post

In the years after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Innocent Mulinda, 39, started a family, tended to his red-earth farm and won a local election for a government job. Rumors that he had participated in a murderous militia in this hillside town seemed behind him.

But that changed with sudden vengeance last April, witnesses said, when a confessed militia member told a traditional, open-air court that Mulinda was not merely a fellow militiaman but a leader who carried an AK-47, manned roadblocks and exhorted others to kill.

Hours after the testimony, when darkness had fallen across his neighborhood of mud-walled homes, Mulinda drank a bottle of pesticide. He would leave behind a wife, two young sons and oddly conflicted feelings among Rwandans longing for tidy justice with a full confession and a punishment befitting his crimes.

Mulinda's agonizing death, which his wife said took more than two days, was among a rash of suicides and attempted suicides that Rwandan officials have recorded in the past year among genocide suspects as traditional courts have begun to hear cases. Between March and the end of December, 69 suspects killed themselves and 44 others tried to. Many others attempted or committed suicide, officials say, in the months before record-keeping began.

DRC: Ruling Party’s Election Strategy Raising Ethnic Tension

From IRIN

Human rights groups warn that ethnic tension is rising in Katanga province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in part because the ruling party of President Joseph Kabila is attempting to take control of politically and economically important cultural associations in the province, ahead of national elections.

"We have seen violence with this kind of strategy before in Katanga," said Hubert Tshiswaka Masoka, executive director of the Katanga-based human rights group Action contre l'impunite pour les droits humains. He was referring to former Congolese president Mobutu Sese Seko’s tactic of ruling by exacerbating tension between various groups.

"Ethnic politics foments fear and distrust," Tshiswaka said. "This province has a long history of massacres and ethnic cleansing, and it could happen again."

Darfur: Sudan, AU Want it to Remain African Initiative

From the Sudan Tribune

President Omer Al-Bashir and Chairman of the African Union Commission Alpha Omer Konari affirmed in a meeting held here Wednesday evening the necessity that the initiative of resolving Darfur issue remains African initiative.

In a press statement to the state-run SUNA at the end of the meeting, Foreign Minister Lam Akol said that the meeting reviewed situation in Darfur and the steps required on the ground as well as the Abuja peace negotiations.

He added the meeting also tackled issues pertinent to African troops in Darfur, pointing out it was agreed that the initiative remains African so as to find solution to the problem as quickly as possible.

Konari said that the meeting underlined the importance of speeding up progress of Abuja peace negotiations and that the initiative on all African issues, especially Darfur, should remain at the hands of the African Union.

Darfur: MSF Says "Chronic Instability" Hampering Efforts

An interview from MSF - via POTP

How would you characterize the current situation in Western Darfur?

Fabrice Weissman: Since 2005, Darfur has no longer been the scene of major confrontations and massive violence that threw the province into a state of unrest in 2003 and 2004. As a result of those confrontations, hundreds of thousands of people were driven onto the roads from their looted and burned villages, having lost all their possessions and their crops. In some places, they were fleeing killings that left one person in 20 dead . Since last year, the situation is now more aptly described as one of chronic instability.

Pauline Horrill: However, certain areas of Western Darfur province, where we are working, are experiencing periodic resurgence of violence. These events are linked to the current situation near the border with Chad (see the article), to recurrent fighting among the militias, the government army and rebel groups, and to tensions among nomad clans that have degenerated into bloody confrontations. This chronic instability, punctuated by violent episodes, has direct impacts on the population and has led us to redefine and step up our activities.

What are the displaced persons' living conditions?

Fabrice Weissman: Almost all of them - totaling some 2 million, or one in three Darfur residents - continue to live at the sites where they sought refuge nearly two years ago. In these towns controlled by government forces - like garrison outposts - the living conditions, although improved, remain prison-like.

The people living in these open-air jails still cannot - and do not want to - return home because of the continuing insecurity outside these sites. Few of the displaced persons venture outside the camps to find firewood, forage or thatch for their personal needs or to sell to earn some income and improve their situation.

Some slightly better-off individuals have managed to buy plots of land on the outskirts, but working on them is still dangerous because of the violence experienced by people who venture outside the camps. The displaced persons continue to be crammed inside makeshift shelters, and this overcrowding is unhealthy.

Finally, violence continues even within the camps. This is characteristic of every displaced persons' camp, where traditional structures have been shaken by flight and violence - including intra-family violence and prostitution undertaken for reasons of survival. Epidemiological indicators suggest that the health and nutritional situation is stable, but it remains fragile.

Pauline Horrill: I last visited in December 2005 and, before that, in February 2005. I was struck by the fact that nothing had changed in 10 months even if, at first glance, everyday life seemed to have resumed. In Mornay, for example, children attend school and goods are traded in the market at the center of the camp. However, this activity masks considerable fragility, as revealed by our medical work, which continues at a high level.

In Mornay, with its 5,000 inhabitants and still home to 74,000 displaced persons, nearly 5,900 patient visits are conducted every month and the major illnesses - respiratory infections, diarrhea, and a variety of physical ailments - are obvious signs of that fragility.

We saw another sign of this instability in July, when the general food distribution had to be postponed after disturbances related to the displaced persons' registration process and the number of children suffering from "moderate" malnutrition then shot up. Simply reducing or delaying the supplies to a camp can almost immediately worsen families' nutritional status. But most importantly, there is a continued suffering that affects all the displaced persons in the camps: the lack of hope that their situation will change.

Darfur: Senators Call for Increased U.S. Action

From the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

GWEN IFILL: Now, Sen. Brownback, Kofi Annan was in Washington this week meeting with President Bush and among the things that he was talking about was increasing the U.N. peacekeeping force, something which the Security Council has agreed to at least start the wheels in motion but that might not happen for a year. Is that soon enough?

SEN. SAM BROWNBACK: It's not soon enough. Something needs to take place now. That's why a number of us have been pushing the idea, let's get NATO involved at this point in time; that there's a discussion of changing the African Union force into a U.N. force. It's still going to have to be upgraded in size, scale, ability and mandate.

But in the interim, let's get NATO involved in this process because every day you wait, you're going to have more people dying.

GWEN IFILL: If NATO gets involved, Sen. Brownback, I'll turn this question to Sen. Obama, if NATO gets involved, does that increase the chances that there will be US troops involved on the ground?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Well, I don't think that the issue right now is US troops. The issue is US leadership. What we can do is to insist that NATO forces provide a bridge as was indicated by Sen. Brownback. Otherwise you could have a situation, even if the U.N. finally does authorize a larger force, let's say of 20,000, it may take a year, year and a half to create that force and get it on the ground.

In the interim, having NATO forces there that could be supplied by some of the middle powers, Canada, Australia, others that have experience in peacekeeping would be absolutely crucial. We also need to provide additional funding for the A.U. troops who are already on the ground. There's been some talk that funding may discontinue sometime this year for that force and if they don't have any kind of support, then it's going to be fair game across the board for the people who are being assaulted by the Janjaweed.

The main thing that we've got do is use the kinds of political pressure that we can bring to bear on other countries when we really think that something is of our national interest. And this is a situation where not only for humanitarian reasons should we be concerned but situations of failed states like this are going to continue to come up in the coming years.

And if we don't have an international structure that's prepared to deal with failed states, genocide, displaced persons, refugees, ultimately that is going to create a situation that undermines a world order in which we have an enormous stake.

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GWEN IFILL: Sen. Brownback, what can Congress do to jumpstart this process?

SEN. SAM BROWNBACK: We can pass the Darfur Accountability and Peace Act. We've cleared it through the Senate. It's in the House of Representatives. I urge the action to take place there.

There's been negotiations back and forth of what all should be in that but basically this is a bill that provides for key sanctioned language and aggressive sanctioning taking place against the perpetrators in the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed leadership. I think that's something we could do.

Second is we've got a fund and helping the funding of the African Union force. We'll have supplemental bills coming through and I'm hopeful that we can get that funding pushed forward there.

And third, I think we need to continue to push this administration and NATO to get much more aggressively involved. I applaud the actions by a recent U.S. gold medalist at the Olympics where he's going to give everything that he gets out of this to Darfur. There is support in the country, particularly on young people - young people on college campuses to do something against this genocide; we should listen to those urging us and get some of these things done.

GWEN IFILL: And Sen. Obama, Robert Zoellick, the State Department official who has been the most on the ground - four times in the past year, representing the United States in Darfur, was quoted recently at saying if people are determined to kill each other, there's not a lot the United States can do. What is your -- and he is one of the most involved people in this process. What is your response to that?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Well, the people who have been displaced are not killing anybody. They're being killed. They're being raped. There may be great difficulty in bringing back - bringing about a political settlement between the rebels and Khartoum, the Sudanese government.

What we have is a situation in which millions of people have been displaced, murdered, raped and threatened who are essentially innocent bystanders to this conflict. And I think we can't be cavalier about that. That's happened before in Rwanda, and at some point we say to ourselves that it is in our interests to make sure that those kinds of events don't happen again.

It's also in our national security interest because as things like this occur, over and over again, not just in Africa but potentially in other parts of the world, this not only creates the seeds of terrorism, it also creates the kind of despair that over time spills over into our own country.

California Congress Members Head To Darfur

From NBC11.com

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is leading a congressional delegation to Africa.

One of the places they will visit is Sudan's Darfur region, ravaged by rebel war and genocide.

Oakland's Rep. Barbara Lee, who has visited Darfur before, is one of the House members going along with Pelosi.

Lee calls the Darfur situation one of the greatest moral crises of our time.

California's Rep. George Miller and Rep. Maxine Waters are the other California members of the 11-member delegation.

They'll return to the U.S. on Feb. 24.

DRC: UN Report Delayed on 8 Peacekeeper Deaths

From Reuters - via POTP

The United Nations will be a month late on its urgent inquiry into the killing of eight Guatemalan peacekeepers during a botched hunt for a Ugandan rebel leader in [DR] Congo in January, officials said on Thursday.

The U.N. report on the investigation, which had been due out this Friday, will now not be completed until mid-March, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the matter.

The eight "Kaibil" Special Forces soldiers were killed and five others wounded Jan. 23 during what the U.N. mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo has acknowledged was an ambush during a botched secret mission to try to capture or kill Vincent Otti, the deputy commander of Uganda's notorious Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

A U.N. diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the soldiers' recovered bodies had shown signs of torture, and the Paris newspaper Le Monde said some had been beheaded.

But U.N. officials have insisted there was no evidence the peacekeepers had been tortured or mutilated.

Darfur: Rice Says Genocide Continues, U.N. Must Act

From Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday genocide was continuing in Sudan's Darfur region and she urged the African Union to accept the help of U.N. peacekeepers to stop the atrocities.

Speaking to U.S. lawmakers about Darfur, Rice voiced strong concern over what was happening in western Sudan and said the international community must act.

"It is our view that genocide was committed and in fact it continues in Darfur," she said, adding, "We are doing everything we can to deal with the impact of the situation in Darfur."

[edit]

The United States currently holds the presidency of the U.N. Security Council and Rice said she hoped to get through a resolution for a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Darfur.

"The hold-up right now is that the African Union has not requested it and people are reluctant to do so without African Union backing," Rice told the House of Representatives International Relations Committee.

She said the United States was working closely with the AU to get this issue resolved. Sudan also has to give its permission for U.N. troops to go there.

[edit]

Annan said on Thursday he expected the Security Council to authorize a U.N. force to take over from the AU troops, the only bulwark against atrocities.

"We would want to see a force that is highly-mobile, on the ground and in the air," said Annan.

"We are doing our contingency planning to be able to move as fast as we can but of course we will be in the hands of member states, particularly the member states with well trained armies and armies with capacity to support us. We will be able to deploy as quickly as we get the assets."

Annan, who discussed Sudan with President George W. Bush and Rice in Washington this week, has said the United States should contribute troops and equipment to any U.N. force.

Washington, however, has been noncommittal so far on troops for such a mission. If there were to be any significant deployment of U.S. troops in Darfur it would be Washington's first major foray into African peacekeeping since it quit Somalia in 1994.

Annan said countries were waiting for a detailed U.N. plan before deciding what help they could offer for Darfur.

Darfur: Podcast

A new podcast with Juan Mendez, Special Advisor to the United Nation’s Secretary General on Genocide Prevention, from the Committee on Conscience

JERRY FOWLER: You have been to Darfur a couple of times now, the first time, as you said, with the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and then again, this past September. Let me ask first, what kind of cooperation, if any, have you gotten from the Government of Sudan? They must not be very happy to have the Special Advisor on Genocide Prevention appear.

JUAN MENDEZ: No, I did meet at relatively high levels. Both times I met with the Foreign Minister, for example, with the Justice Minister, and in Darfur with all of the Walis, the regional governors and their cabinets. I would say, according to my experience of human rights investigations on the ground, formally, they were open and they did receive me and answered my questions. Substantially, their cooperation was not all that great. There was a lot of stonewalling, a lot of pretense about the things that they told me they were doing, when it was blatant that they were not. Maybe we should not generalize because some of these people that I interviewed were marginally better than others, but in general I would say that the government of Sudan is in denial about what the rest of the international community is concerned with; not only do they not think there is a risk of genocide in Darfur, they do not even think that what has happened already in Darfur is anything out of the ordinary, and if it is lamentable, it is not something of their doing, it is mostly the blame of everybody else.

JERRY FOWLER: I guess understanding that attitude is a little bit difficult because many of the thing that are occurring on the ground, if not most of them, are being committed by officials of the Sudanese government, or at their instigation. When you say they are in denial, is that one part of the government not accepting what another part of the government is doing or people lying about what they know to be the truth?

JUAN MENDEZ: No, I think they are in denial under this notion of plausible deniability. They say that the Janjaweed are not an instrument of their policy. They say that the Janjaweed are malicious and have armed themselves to protect themselves and that if they have committed atrocities, it is not with any cooperation from the government. That is belied by the facts on the ground so easily that it becomes almost a mockery of a serious answer, but that is the way that they stick to it.

JERRY FOWLER: Between your two trips, or I should say, comparing your two trips to Darfur, how did the situation appear on your second trip in relation to how it was the first time?

JUAN MENDEZ: I had gone in September of 2005 prepared to say that we have muddled through; we have stabilized it; we have more or less kept the situation from deteriorating, but the status quo is also unacceptable. We have two million people who are away from their lands and their places of origin, etcetera, so we now need to move on to revert the situation, rather than stabilize it. Unfortunately, on the ground, the situation was much more shocking and disturbing than I thought I would find, mostly because the half measures that the international community had taken during 2005 and that in fact, had improved the situation considerably, were beginning to break at the seams. They were evidently showing that they were unraveling. I think it is a combination of things. One, that the actors on the ground had tested the waters and now felt that they could push further, and so there were outbreaks of violence all over Darfur. Second, the rebels, who had been relatively patient, now they were fighting amongst themselves and they had splinter groups and spoiler groups that were not following orders and therefore, breaking the peace; and the government was reacting the same way it had when the insurgency had started in 2003; that is by unleashing the Janjaweed on them—some cases providing them with transportation, some cases letting them act on their own—and the situation is even worse now because there are many more displaced persons, and so the victims of the attacks are now the displaced persons themselves. Now we have people who have been displaced two, three and four times; and we have new displacements all the time, even now as we speak, the last couple of weeks, the United Nations estimates that something like 30 thousand new people have been displaced, or new plus displaced again, which means that the pressure on the elements of the measures that we have put in place in Darfur are now extraordinary. There is lawlessness all over Darfur, especially in the West to the point where the United Nations declares all roads in West Darfur off limits to United Nations personnel. The relief organizations that do not want to be escorted are subjects to attacks and banditry and looting all the time. The worst of all of that is that the population that they are serving is left much more vulnerable, and I think unless we decide that the situation is getting out of control again and act accordingly, we will not be able to avoid another major humanitarian catastrophe.

DRC: Troops Suffer Malnutrition in Training Camp

From Reuters

Six soldiers have died from malnutrition in a Congolese training camp where thousands are living in dire conditions as they await reintegration into a new national army, foreign military experts said on Thursday.

Congo's army confirmed some deaths but said they were among the old and sick who had travelled long distances by rail to get to the remote camp in Katanga, where Belgian soldiers are helping to train the troops.

"We have heard that six people have died from hunger and malnutrition down in Kamina," said one foreign military expert who is assisting the army integration process, referring to a military base in Katanga province.

"About 5,000 people have turned up and they are not being provided with any real food or shelter. The conditions are pretty drastic," he told Reuters, asking not to be named.

With elections due by the end of June, the deaths highlight the problems faced by those trying to integrate tens of thousands of fighters from government forces, rebel groups and lawless militias into a cohesive national army.

Thousands of soldiers from various factions that fought in Congo's 5-year war, which officially ended in 2003, have arrived in Kamina, where some opt for a future in the army and others for reintegration into civilian life.

A U.N. source also said six soldiers had died and said conditions for those in training or waiting to join the process were "dire" and that there were "critical" food shortages.

Uganda/Sudan: Army Kills Kony Bodyguards

From Reuters

Ugandan troops attacked Joseph Kony, the internationally wanted leader of the cult-like Lord's Resistance Army, in southern Sudan and killed four of his bodyguards, the military said on Thursday.

Uganda says Kony left a hideout east of the Nile two weeks ago and is fleeing towards lawless eastern Congo.

A military spokesman said Ugandan forces attacked Kony's group on Tuesday as it headed for the remote border.

"Our soldiers pursued and caught up with rebels commanded by Kony southwest of Juba and killed four of his bodyguards on the spot," Lieutenant Chris Magezi said in a statement.

"Kony and his defeated remnants are on their way to Democratic Republic of Congo fleeing the offensive."

Magezi said one Ugandan soldier was injured in the clash. It was not possible immediately to verify his report.

This is rather confusing, as last week, the Uganda Army said its attacks on Kony had forced him to flee to the DRC.

Darfur: Stop the Killing, or Pay the Price

A tough-talking op-ed by Jack Straw in the International Herald Tribune

[T]he parties must reach an agreement that stops the conflict for good. There is well-founded cynicism in the international community that they are serious about this. For example, the Sudanese ministers are at the talks but the leaders of the rebel movements are not.

The parties in Abuja now have to make a clear choice. They can choose to reach an agreement. That means concluding one in Abuja and implementing it on the ground. If that is done, the international community will help with humanitarian and developmental assistance, with practical support and political encouragement.

Or they can choose not to reach an agreement. The result will be more death and misery and a lost opportunity to build a better future for the people they claim to represent.

There will be direct consequences for them, too. The international community is not going to allow individuals responsible for gross human rights violations or blocking the peace process to escape the consequences. We know who these people are.

There is already provision for sanctions against such individuals under UN Security Council Resolution 1591. The Security Council's sanctions committee is already considering several members of the Sudanese government and the rebel movements. Other names can, and will, be put forward. The United Kingdom will not hesitate to do so. Nor do we rule out additional UN sanctions if the parties fail to make progress.

And the International Criminal Court, with the full support of the Security Council, is pursuing allegations of war crimes and grave human rights abuses. They too will be watching closely who does and who doesn't do what in Darfur over the coming months.

The international community's patience is limited. If the parties do not reach an agreement soon we will need to start looking at the alternatives. Those alternatives will leave some of the parties in Abuja, and the absent leaders, with a smaller role to play than they would have achieved had they taken part and reached an agreement.

We are not there yet. The international community is serious about wanting these talks to succeed. The people of Darfur need them to succeed. The parties gathered in Abuja have a duty to deliver.

Uganda: Northern Conflict Taking a Heavy Toll

From IRIN

At least 131 people die every day in northern Uganda as a result of violence and poor conditions in camps for people displaced by war in the region, a coalition of nongovernmental organisations said on Thursday.

"There are 918 excess deaths each week," the Civil Society Organisations for Peace in Northern Uganda (CSOPNU) said. "Each month almost 25,000 people in Uganda die from easily preventable diseases."

[edit]

CSOPNU said 85 percent of deaths that would not have occurred under normal, non-crisis circumstances, could be directly attributed to the poor living conditions, poor water and sanitation, inadequate health care provision and extreme poverty in the camps.

"The two most common killers reported were malaria and HIV/AIDS," it added.

Each day, some 58 children under the age of five die as a result of violence and preventable diseases, according to CSOPNU. A quarter of all children in the region older than ten years had lost one or both parents.

"Nearly half of all children in Kitgum, northern Uganda are stunted from chronic malnutrition," it said. "Three times more children under five years die in northern Uganda than in the rest of the country."

[edit]

For the past two decades, the people of northern Uganda have suffered the devastating effects of a conflict between the rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the government of President Yoweri Museveni.

The rebels are notorious for mutilating and torturing civilians, and abducting children to serve as soldiers, domestic workers and sex slaves. CSOPNU noted that about 25,000 children had been abducted over the course of the war.

The conflict, according to the coalition, has displaced up to two million people, forcing them into more than 200 overcrowded camps, where they depend almost entirely on humanitarian relief for their survival.

"Population densities in some camps exceed 1,700 people per hectare, densities higher even than those in Africa's most notorious urban slums," it said, adding that 80 percent of the camps in the northern districts of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader could not be accessed without military escorts.

The region - once know as the breadbasket of Uganda - has also suffered the total destruction of its economy.

"Nearly 70 percent of displaced people have no monetary income," the group noted. "95 percent of people in northern Ugandan districts live in absolute poverty."

PBS Panel on Armenian Genocide Stirs Protest

From the Washington Post

Thousands of Armenian Americans are protesting the Public Broadcasting Service's planned panel-discussion program about Turkey's role in the deaths of Armenians during and after World War I.

The 25-minute program has generated an outcry because the panel will include two scholars who deny that 1.5 million Armenian civilians were killed in eastern Turkey from 1915 to 1920.

The program is scheduled to air April 17, a week before the annual Armenian Remembrance Day commemoration, and will follow a one-hour documentary, "The Armenian Genocide," which describes the events surrounding the deaths, as well as denials of complicity by successive Turkish governments.

Armenian Americans have publicized an online petition that asks PBS to drop the discussion program. As of last night, more than 6,000 people had electronically added their names to the petition, making it one of the largest organized protests of a PBS program.

"We strongly feel that debating the Armenian Genocide is akin to arguing about the Jewish Holocaust in order to project a sense of balance," the petition reads. "Would PBS ever contemplate such a program?" Noting that the film already includes Turkish denials, the petition concludes that the panel discussion "would serve to emphasize the Turkish state's official position and undermine the non-political nature of [PBS] programming."

Rwanda: Norway to Try Genocide Suspect

From Reuters

Norway has agreed to put on trial a former Rwandan official accused of ordering the killing of hundreds of Tutsis hiding in a cathedral during the 1994 genocide, a U.N. court said on Thursday.

Proceedings against Michel Bagaragaza would make Norway the second country outside Africa -- with Belgium -- to take legal proceedings against a Rwandan genocide suspect, diplomats said.

"I can confirm that Norway has accepted," Alex Obote Odora, a senior official at the Tanzania-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), told Reuters.

Bagaragaza, who gave himself up last August, was facing three genocide counts at the backlogged court in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha, set up to try suspected ringleaders of the 1994 slaughter of some 800,000 people.

He has pleaded not guilty.

Darfur: UN Official Says Talks Deadlocked

From the Sudan Tribune

During a press conference today, the UN spokesperson in Sudan, Radhia Achouri, said that the seventh round of talks in Abuja between the government and the Darfur armed movements did not manage to make any achievement.

She said that the course of talks in some of the dossiers was very slow and that the security instability on the ground affected it negatively.

Darfur: Kristof Discusses Genocide

From Yale Daily News

The event, sponsored by the Yale Center for International and Area Studies, drew a crowd of about 300 faculty members and students who filled the main auditorium in Luce as well as two large rooms where the speech was simulcast. In the speech, Kristof criticized the U.S. government and international organizations for what he viewed as a failure to respond to the killing of more than 100,000 Sudanese.

Kristof's remarks outlined the history of the Darfur conflict and the international response, which he characterized as inadequate. Janjaweed militias in Darfur, composed of Arab tribesmen who are protected by the Sudanese government, have been attacking African Sudanese villages since 2003, killing "a few hundred thousand" people and sending hundreds of thousands more to refugee camps in Sudan and Chad, Kristof said.

"You go for mile after mile after mile, and you just see burned out villages, one after the other," Kristof said.

The militia target the wells in the country, either poisoning them or waiting near them to attack villagers who come to get water, Kristof said. Men are killed and women are raped, he said, so families have to send their small children to get water.

[edit]

In his speech, Kristof compared the Bush administration's failure to address the situation in Darfur to President Franklin Roosevelt's decision not to act to end the Holocaust and the Clinton administration's inaction during the Rwandan genocide.

"We have a long, bipartisan and consistent record on genocide, of inhumanity," Kristof said.

Kristof proposed that peace in Darfur might be achieved through talks between tribal sheiks representing both Arab and African groups, who continue to hold moral authority over their tribesmen. The genocide followed a rebellion by African tribes in the region that demanded more autonomy, and peace talks between the government and the rebels have thus far been unproductive, he said.

Kristof described a hypothetical scenario in which United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan would appoint former Secretary of State Colin Powell to lead talks between sheiks representing the different tribes involved in the conflict.

"Would that work? I don't know, but it's surely worth a try," he said.

Sudan: Measure Puts Administration in Tough Spot

From The Hill

A bipartisan resolution denouncing both Sudan and the Arab League may place the White House in the difficult position of choosing between strategic and humanitarian interests.

The White House will face tremendous pressure to support the measure, which expresses disapproval for the Arab League’s holding its annual summit in Sudan, to bring attention to what has been deemed by many as genocide in the country’s Darfur region. However, such support may undermine U.S. intelligence-sharing with Sudan as well as diplomatic efforts in Darfur and Iraq.

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) introduced the bill Tuesday with 36 co-sponsors, including senior House Republicans Dan Burton (Ind.), Dana Rohrabacher (Calif.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Fla.)

Pallone asserted that condemning the summit is another way of showing Congress’s awareness of the genocide in Darfur, adding, “If The White House will not act on the Sudan issue, then it is incumbent on Congress to take action.”

Will Adams, a spokesman for Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), a co-sponsor, said the emphasis should be on pressuring the Sudanese government to end the hostilities. He also said the White House has not been willing to be as vocal as members of Congress on Darfur.

The resolution denounces the Arab League for scheduling its March summit in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, and asserts that the decision provides an economic reward for the country. It further states that the summit will encourage Sudan to continue to commit genocide against the people of Darfur.

[edit]

The Bush administration has cultivated a tense balance with Sudan over the past five years. In addition to sponsoring a U.N. resolution calling for an end to the violence in Darfur as well as negotiating with the government directly, the White House has also established an ongoing intelligence-sharing relationship, which could be jeopardized if the president supports the resolution. The Sudanese government has reportedly provided information on Islamic terrorists and aided the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in rounding up terror suspects.

This tension was highlighted when the CIA flew Sudan’s intelligence chief, Salah Abdallah Gosh, to Washington to discuss intelligence on al Qaeda — a move that offended members of Congress, the State Department and the Justice Department.

While U.S. relations with the Arab League have not been cooperative, the group could aid American interests in the Middle East. The Sunni-dominated delegation sponsored a national reconciliation conference among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds in Iraq late last year that was lauded by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The Arab League has consistently supported the Sudanese government, including a call in 2004 to reject sanctions and international military involvement regarding Darfur.

The White House may look to ensure that the bill does not come up for a final vote. The move to strike the House bill from the 2005 supplemental came at the behest of the White House to preserve a Sudanese peace treaty, according to a report in The American Prospect.

Darfur: Yale Dumping Investments

From the AP

Yale University has announced it is divesting itself of oil stocks that are linked to the African nation of Sudan which has been accused of genocide.

[edit]

"The time-honored principles that Yale observes as an ethical institutional investor have guided us to take this strong action," Yale President Richard Levin said Wednesday.

Levin said the university had stock in one of seven oil companies that it determined were providing "the lion's share of the revenue to the Sudanese government."

There is a related story in The Harvard Crimson

While Harvard continues to hold shares in firms currently operating in Sudan, Yale announced yesterday that it will divest from seven oil companies that it deems partly responsible for funding the Sudanese government.

The Yale Corporation, the school’s governing board, reached the decision at a Feb. 11 meeting after an advisory committee of students, faculty, and staff recommended divestment.

“The time-honored principles that Yale observes as an ethical institutional investor have guided us to take this strong action,” Yale President Richard C. Levin said in a statement.

Yale’s announcement follows similar moves last year by colleges and universities such as Stanford, Amherst, and Dartmouth. Harvard announced this past April that it would divest from PetroChina, a subsidiary of the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), after pressure from students and some faculty members. But Harvard continues to hold a stake in a second Beijing-based oil company, Sinopec, which also does business in Sudan.

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Eric Reeves, a professor at Smith College who has been on leave since 1999 as an activist for involvement in Sudan, said, “I think Harvard is to be commended for having led the way in the divestment campaign, but it’s time for them to eliminate their investment in those companies that continue to sustain a genocidal regime.”

“Amherst’s divestment and Yale’s divestment this month oblige Harvard to rethink the extent of the divestment,” he said.

Africa's Forgotten Crises

From The Guardian

In Africa everything is bigger. Since the second intifada began in 2000 approximately 4,480 Palestinians and Israelis have died - but that is equivalent to a long weekend in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where, the UN says, 1,200 people are dying every day from war-related causes. Since 1997, nearly 4 million have died, their passing relatively unremarked and unreported.

Hurricane Katrina temporarily displaced tens of thousands in the southern US last summer amid worldwide media coverage. In Sudan, about 2 million civilians remain homeless three years after the Darfur conflict ignited. Almost unnoticed, their numbers rose by 30,000 in January due to renewed militia depredations.

In Congo and Sudan the international community's efforts to do better gathered pace this week. But the vast scale of the countries' problems, coupled with doubts about the developed world's commitment to resolving them, does not encourage optimism, says Tom Cargill, of the Africa programme of the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

"The west can try to force the pace although in the end it's up to the people on the ground," said Mr Cargill. "But there is often a lack of political will to make the difficult decisions."

Darfur: Urgent Calls for More Troops

From the Christian Science Monitor

Amid new escalation in fighting in the troubled Darfur region of Sudan, with rebels shooting down a government helicopter Tuesday, there's fresh pressure on the international community to step in to help stop the three-year-old conflict.

It comes as consensus is hardening in Western capitals and at the United Nations that the 7,000 African troops now in Darfur, as part of a force supplied by the African Union, are inadequate. Because of limited training, equipment, and marching orders, the AU troops have been unable to contain the fighting, provide safety for civilians, or adequately protect humanitarian aid groups operating in the desert region, which is the size of Texas.

The AU mission "is costing a fortune and nothing's happening" except that the mission "is going broke and will have no more supplies within a month or so," says Richard Cornwell of the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, South Africa. That means the international community, which is under significant political pressure to help in Darfur "has to decide where it's going to put its money - and how," he says.

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Meanwhile, 30,000 people have been displaced from their homes in just the last month, the UN says. And some 2 million people - half of Darfur's population - are living in displaced-person camps where they are under threat of attack. Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group urged Bush to push for up to 20,000 NATO troops to be sent.

Some US Democrats, like Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, have also been calling for NATO to send troops. But NATO has so far proved reluctant to seriously entertain the idea.

"The focus is more about extending our support role in the transition from an AU to a blue-helmet force," a European diplomat, who requested anonymity, told Reuters Wednesday. NATO planes have transported about 4,000 AU troops into Darfur and have trained AU officers. The US is also very reluctant to commit troops.