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).

[edit]

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.''

[edit]

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.'

[edit]

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.

[edit]

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.

[edit]

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.

[edit]

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.

[edit]

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."

[edit]

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.

[edit]

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.

[edit]

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”.

[edit]

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.

[edit]

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.

[edit]

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