Chad: Gov't Rejects U.N. Troops, Wants Police

From Reuters

Chad will not accept an international military presence on its eastern border with Sudan's Darfur region but wants a civil protection force of police and gendarmes, the government said on Wednesday.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week recommended peacekeeping operations for Chad and neighbouring Central African Republic, which could involve up to 11,000 troops and helicopter gunships, to stem the spillover from Darfur.

In proposals to the United Nations Security Council, he suggested deploying 260 U.N. police in 12 refugee camps in eastern Chad in addition to the military mission.

"For Chad, it has never been a question of receiving any military force on the eastern border but rather a civil force made up of gendarmes and police officers," Deputy Foreign Minister Djidda Moussa Outman told foreign ambassadors.

Outman spelled out the government's position in a meeting in Chad's capital, N'Djamena, with envoys from the United States, France, Russia and China, all permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

"These civil forces could eventually be reinforced by a light observation mission bringing logistics support to humanitarian organisations," Outman said.

He asked the ambassadors to relay Chad's concerns to their respective governments so they would be taken into account by the Security Council.

Darfur: Ex-Sudan PM Explains Resistance to U.N.

From the AP

The main Sudanese opposition leader says the government is refusing to allow U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur because it knows the U.N. troops would help hunt down war crimes suspects for the International Criminal Court.

Former Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi said Khartoum's other reason for rejecting U.N. forces was that it still believes it can defeat the Darfur rebels militarily.

In an interview with The Associated Press while visiting Cairo, al-Mahdi challenged the government's official line in the standoff with the U.N. Security Council, which is that it supports the May peace accord and that U.N. forces in Darfur would constitute a "colonialist" attempt to subjugate the country.

[edit]

Al-Mahdi, whose Umma Party traditionally wins the plurality of votes in Sudan's elections, dismissed the sovereignty argument as inapplicable to gross abuse of human rights.

"Atrocities have been committed and those who committed them have got to be brought to book," al-Mahdi said.

Interviewed in his apartment in the Cairo suburb of Nasr City on Sunday, the man who was twice prime minister said his party, were it to return to government, would cooperate with the ICC and would allow the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur.

Al-Mahdi, whose government was toppled in a 1989 military coup led by al-Bashir, is known to have influence in Darfur. In the 1986 polls - the last to be considered free and fair - Umma Party swept Darfur by a landslide.

He is also the great grandson of the Mahdi, the 19th century nationalist who ousted Egyptian colonial forces under the British general Charles Gordon. Darfur played a major role in that rebellion and many of its tribal elders today revere Sadiq because of his illustrious ancestor.

The government's rejection of the U.N. peace force is "irrational and very insensitive to the humanitarian problem in Darfur," al-Mahdi said.

Wearing a white woolen hat and the white robes favored by Sudanese men, al-Mahdi said the government had reasons other than sovereignty for blocking the U.N. deployment.

"The existence of U.N. troops will make it more possible to police (for) the ICC," he said. He added the janjaweed militia was actually "the irregular troops of the government."

Al-Mahdi said the government was also rejecting the U.N. deployment because "they want to keep the military option open."

The chief external spokesman of the Information Ministry in Khartoum denied al-Mahdi's allegations. Bakri Mulah said the government is "not resorting to a military solution" and seeks to solve the Darfur problem "through negotiations."

The charge that the government fears U.N. forces would assist the ICC process is "false," Mulah said. "The government has nothing to hide," he said, adding it had allowed ICC inspectors to visit Sudan five times even though the country had not ratified the ICC charter.

Al-Mahdi said that for peace to come to Darfur, the Khartoum-appointed governors of the three states of Darfur - North, South and West - had to be replaced because they implemented the counterinsurgency policies that led to the atrocities.

"People now believe the present governors have blood on their hands," he said.

He also said peace would require new negotiations, particularly with the groups that did not sign the May accord, and the deployment of U.N. troops.

"Before any more negotiations, we have to get people to keep the peace in Darfur, and that is only possible through U.N. forces," al-Mahdi said. The African Union peace mission was "completely inadequate."

Earlier this month, al-Bashir warned that if the world were to deploy UN peacekeepers without Sudan's consent, they would receive "the lesson we taught you" in the 19th century - a reference to the Mahdi's victory.

Asked what he thought of al-Bashir exploiting his great grandfather, al-Mahdi replied it was a "gimmick."

"There is no comparison between now and the 19th century," he said. "The U.N. here is not contemplating conquering Sudan or conquering Darfur. It's there to help us with containing certain humanitarian problems."

Darfur: Concerning the ICC "Application"

The latest from Eric Reeves

The role of the ICC in responding to the catastrophe in Darfur has been oversold from the beginning. When the enabling UN Security Council resolution (1593, March 2005) was in doubt, Human Rights Watch spoke in exceedingly foolish terms about the “deterrent effect” of an ICC referral. More honestly, and certainly more accurately in retrospect, Refugees International warned at the time that an ICC referral might actually increase tensions on the ground in Darfur, and pose yet greater threats to humanitarian workers. Certainly there is no evidence whatsoever to support Human Rights Watch’s “deterrence” theory, even as there is very considerable evidence of the dramatic deterioration in security for aid operations throughout Darfur over the past year and a half. Today the BBC reports that humanitarian groups are bracing for possible reprisals, a very real fear given the ongoing war of attrition against these groups, a war highlighted in the “advance copy” of the Report of the Secretary-General on Darfur (February 26, 2007, paragraphs 2-24).

One hardly knows what to make of the continuing argument for the deterrent effect of ICC actions, such as made today by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour:

“UN human rights commissioner Louise Arbour, whose office has accused Khartoum of systematically failing to protect civilians and bring those responsible to justice, said she hoped the move [by the ICC] would be a ‘strong deterrent’ against more bloodshed.” (Reuters [The Hague, The Netherlands], February 27, 2007)

Is this fatuousness or disingenuousness? As so often in UN pronouncements on Darfur, it’s impossible to sort the two out.

Darfur: War Crimes Suspect Defiant

From the BBC

Sudan's humanitarian affairs minister, accused of war crimes in Darfur by the International Criminal Court (ICC), has said the move against him is political.

Ahmed Haroun said he "did not feel guilty", his conscience was clear and that he was ready to defend himself.

The ICC accuses Mr Haroun and a Janjaweed militia leader, known as Ali Kushayb, of 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Some 200,000 people have died in the four-year conflict in Darfur.

"I am not worried at all and I do not feel guilty because I acted within the legal framework and in accordance with the general interest," Mr Haroun told AFP news agency.

Mr Haroun was the former interior minister in charge of Darfur and according to the ICC was responsible for organising and funding the Arab militia known as the Janjaweed.

Ali Kushayb is accused of ordering the murder, torture and mass rape against innocent civilians during attacks on villages near Kodoom, Bindisi Mukjar and Arawala in west Darfur.

The United States has urged Sudan to co-operate fully with the ICC, but Sudan says it will not hand over the two suspects as the ICC has no jurisdiction to try its citizens and its courts are capable of prosecuting the suspects.

Darfur/Chad/CAR: Farrow Details Dire Border Situation

From the AP

Mia Farrow says she encountered burned villages and terrified refugees with no help in sight on her recent trip to Central African Republic and Chad.

At a news conference Tuesday, the 62-year-old actress and U.N. goodwill ambassador recalled impressions from her visits earlier this month to villages and refugee camps along border areas where violence has spilled over from Sudan's Darfur region.

Farrow said her convoy stopped on a seemingly desolate road in northwestern Central African Republic after passing "burned village after burned village after burned village — it was numbing and dispiriting."

She said she heard that people were living along the roadside, even though the area appeared to be uninhabited, and that they might appear if the unarmed convoy paused.

After waiting silently for 15 minutes, people began to emerge "like specters, emaciated, with remnants of clothes or no clothes at all, terrified," she told a U.N. news conference.

From talking to them, Farrow said she learned the people were too scared to return to their villages and rebuild — but they were also afraid of who might find them in hiding.

At the sound of a vehicle approaching on the road, "you could hear the pounding of feet on the hard clay ground as 300 people vanished, vanished into the bush in sheer terror," she said.

"This is an extremely traumatized population and neglected," Farrow said, adding that some of the people have been living in the bush for more than a year.

She said that if an international peacekeeping force was not sent to protect civilians in the region, "you're going to see two collapsed states, which will serve no one."

Darfur: ICC War-Crimes Move ‘A Good First Step’

From IRIN

The decision by the International Criminal Court to name war-crimes suspects in Darfur was a sign of progress but there was still a long way to go before justice could be delivered, analysts said.

"Sudan is legally obliged to cooperate, but I see some complications," Leslie Lefkow of Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Wednesday. "The key questions are what the pre-trial chamber decides and what the prosecutor does next. Sometimes, international justice takes a while to bear fruit."

Mariam Juma, an analyst at the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa, said that while the move was a good step, it could end up hardening attitudes against the United Nations.

"It is too early to tell, but it is important to note that Sudan is not a signatory to the ICC; neither are the international powers that want to use the ICC," Juma said. "While it is important that there is some movement on impunity, we need to ask: will it include rebel groups that have also been involved in atrocities? Will it also look at cross-border influences?"


ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo unveiled the court’s evidence on Tuesday after investigations conducted over 20 months. "The prosecution has concluded there are reasonable grounds to believe that Ahmad Muhammad Harun [a government minister] and [militia leader] Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman (better known as Ali Kushayb) bear criminal responsibility in relation to 51 counts of alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes," Moreno-Ocampo said at The Hague.

"These alleged crimes were committed during attacks on the village of Kodoom, and the towns of Bindisi, Mukjar, and Arawala in West Darfur between August 2003 and March 2004," he added.

Sudan immediately rejected the ICC submission. Justice Minister Ali Al-Mardhi said Sudan would not hand over any person for trial by the ICC because "the court has no jurisdiction to try any Sudanese national for alleged committed crimes".

Sudan, the minister said, was responsible for applying laws within its borders in accordance with the principles of international law, adding that his country had not ratified the convention that established the ICC.

In a separate statement, the adviser to President Omar el-Bashir, Majzoub Khalifa, said his government rejected the trial of any Sudanese national outside the country, on the principle that anyone who committed a mistake would be tried by the Sudanese legal system. Neither the Sudanese people nor the Sudanese government would allow the trial of Sudanese citizens outside their homeland, he added.

HRW, in a separate statement, said the case against the two Sudanese leaders was a first step in ending the culture of impunity associated with horrific crimes in the region.

"The ICC prosecutor’s request sends a signal to Khartoum and ‘Janjawid’ militia leaders that ultimately they are not going to get away with the unspeakable atrocities," said Richard Dicker, HRW’s director of human rights. "We urge the prosecutor to explain the significance of his action today to the communities devastated by crimes in Darfur."

Darfur: Sudanese ICC Suspect Says Inspired by Saddam

From Reuters

A Sudanese official named as a possible Darfur war criminal said he drew inspiration from the example of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein at his execution in Baghdad in December.

On Tuesday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor accused Secretary of State for Humanitarian Affairs Ahmed Haroun and Janjaweed leader Ali Kosheib of having "jointly committed crimes against the civilian population of Darfur".

A Sudanese newspaper, Akhbar al-Youm, published an interview with him on Wednesday.

Asked how he felt about the case, Haroun said: "I don't know why I recall the footage of Saddam's execution when the whole world saw him take strong confident steps towards the gallows.

"The late Saddam on that day was more steadfast than his executioners. God willing, we are capable of taking such steadfast attitudes, which will shake the Muslim and Arab world."

Haroun said he heard the news that the court had named him while he was at the airport in the Jordanian capital, Amman. His colleagues said on Tuesday he was in Jordan for medical treatment and would be back at his office on Wednesday.

The minister, who is suspected of war crimes in Darfur while he was minister of state in the Interior Ministry, defended his work in the troubled region of western Sudan, where tens of thousands of people have been killed since 2003.

"The police operation that took place in Darfur, with the deployment of thousands of policemen, remains one of the greatest operations ever by the Sudanese police," he said.

The aim was to secure areas populated by the Fur people, who give their name to the region. "[That is] contrary to the prosecutor's claim that we incited what are referred to as the Janjaweed against our kin the Fur," he added.

The Janjaweed are the mainly Arab militias accused of carrying out much of the violence in Darfur. Rights groups say they had government support, but Khartoum denies this.

Haroun said the police operation succeeded in attracting displaced people to camps around towns controlled by the government, whereas there are no camps in rebel-held areas.

"It's impossible for those terrorised and fearful of war to ... seek security from their tormentors," he added.

Darfur: South Africa Supports ICC Moves

From Reuters

South Africa fully supports the International Criminal Court prosecutor's decision to seek summonses for two suspects accused of war crimes in Sudan's Darfur region, a top government official said on Wednesday. But Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad told a media briefing in Cape Town it was too early to tell what effect the ICC action would have on long-term peace prospects in Sudan.

"These are early days. We are now trying to contact the Sudanese government, trying to contact the ICC and trying to understand what are the processes and what implications this will have on the broader comprehensive peace agreement in Sudan," Pahad said.

[edit]

Pahad said South Africa fully supports the ICC process.

"Once the ICC has declared what will happen then the processes will start, and people who have been named, and others are going be named, will then be sought by extradition," he said.

"Any any decisions that come from there (ICC), we will have to comply," he added.

Darfur: Jolie Visits Refugees

From AFP

Hollywood star and UNHCR goodwill ambassador Angelina Jolie has spent two days visiting refugees from the strife-torn Sudanese region of Darfur at a camp in neighbouring Chad, the UN refugee agency said on Wednesday.

Jolie, who last visited the region three years ago, said she was struck by the deteriorating security situations but also encouraged by the sense of hope she encountered in the Oure-Cassoni camp, which is home to over 26 000 refugees.

"It's always hard to see decent people, families, living in such difficult conditions," she said.

"What is most upsetting is how long it is taking the international community to answer this crisis," she added, according to a statement released by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

The actress visited children at a camp school, mentally-ill refugees and women seeking to raise income to sustain their families.

She said the refugees had taken comfort from the recent decision by the International Criminal Court in The Hague to name a Sudanese minister and a militia member suspected of war crimes.

"In order to feel safe enough to return home, these people said they would need to know that the men who attacked them had been stripped of their weapons," Jolie said.

Uganda: Fear Grips North as Truce Lapses

From IRIN

A day before a ceasefire agreement between the government and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) was due to lapse with no sign of an extension, observers fear northern Uganda could again plunge into violence.

"The international community must insist that both parties take urgent and extraordinary measures to ensure a peaceful resolution," Save the Children said in a statement on Wednesday, noting that the majority of fighters within the LRA ranks were children.

The LRA announced in January it was pulling out of peace talks mediated by the government of south Sudan in the city of Juba, following comments by Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir that the group was no longer welcome on Sudanese territory. The LRA leadership demanded a ‘neutral venue’ for the talks, suggesting that Kenya or South Africa should mediate.

The cessation of hostilities agreement signed in August 2006 has largely held despite both sides questioning each other’s commitment. It obliged the rebels to assemble in two neutral places and required that government troops respect the truce.

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Gulu, John-Baptist Odama, expressed optimism that the government and the rebels would consider the suffering of the people in the region and extend the truce and resume peace talks.

"In spite of the fact that the truce agreement is expiring tonight, there is still hope that both sides will consider the suffering people and renew it in order to stabilise the peace process," said Odama.

He appealed to the United Nations Secretary-General’s special envoy for northern Uganda, Joachim Chissano, to take up the issue of the lapsing ceasefire.

Cosmas Onen, who manages a shelter in Gulu town for children who leave their homes every night to seek shelter in urban areas, where they are less likely to be abducted by the LRA, said fear was apparent among the residents of Gulu, the area worst affected by the conflict that has lasted two decades, killed hundreds of thousands and displaced about 1.7 million.

"There is a fear that the war will resume and that is why only a few [internally displaced] people have returned to their homes despite a campaign by the authorities," he said.

"Everybody had hopes in the peace talks, but all the hope has been lost because the peace talks have become peace jokes," he added.

Uganda: LRA Won't Renew Expiring Truce/Museveni Warns LRA

From Reuters

Lord's Resistance Army rebels will not renew a landmark truce with the Ugandan government set to expire on Wednesday, a top LRA official said, raising fears of a new chapter in the brutal 20-year war in northern Uganda.

The LRA pulled out of peace talks with the government in south Sudan's capital Juba last month, citing security fears after Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir threatened to "get rid of the LRA from Sudan".

They have refused to resume talks unless another venue outside Sudan is found, a request Kampala rejects as a time-wasting tactic.

"We are not going to renew anything," LRA deputy commander Vincent Otti told Reuters by satellite telephone from his forest hideout in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The ceasefire, signed in August and renewed last December, raised hopes of an end to a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 1.7 million in northern Uganda.

It will expire at midnight on Wednesday.

"(The truce) is just a playing tactic of the government while they renew military operations against us. Why renew an agreement they are not respecting?" Otti said.

Both sides accuse each other of violations. The government says the LRA failed to gather at two agreed assembly points inside south Sudan; the rebels say the Ugandan army used the meeting points to besiege them and attack their fighters.

Otti said the LRA had no plans to resume hostilities, but would hit back in self-defence. He added that the LRA would happily sign an extension of the truce in another venue.

Addressing journalists late on Tuesday, President Yoweri Museveni warned military operations against the LRA were still possible.

"Peace in Uganda will be maintained with or without peace talks," he said. "Talks were mainly for the benefit of the terrorists. If they don't give in, that will be their problem."

Analysts say Museveni has had little faith in the peace process, but sees that it might be the only way out of a costly war that has tarnished Uganda's international image.

"Museveni is a man who believes in force, not negotiated settlement," Paul Omach, a political scientist at Kampala's Makerere University, told Reuters. "But he's also pragmatic. It was internal political pressure that made him accept talks."

From AFP

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Tuesday warned he would launch a fresh fight against any rebel Lord's Resistance Army fighters on his soil after a truce expires on Wednesday.

The LRA rebels have vowed not to renew the truce - the only significant achievement of peace talks that began last July aiming to end two decades of war.

Some of the rebels and their leaders are currently believed to be hiding in parts of southern Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), while others are said to be heading to the Central African Republic.

Museveni told reporters in Kampala that his country's defence forces could not fight the rebels when they were outside Ugandan soil, but added: "If they try to enter Uganda, we shall deal with them."

He was speaking after holding talks with visiting US General William Ward, the deputy commander of the European Command, a structure covering US military forces in Europe and Africa.

The LRA has insisted it will only participate in peace talks at a new venue under a different mediation, since it has lost trust in the south Sudanese mediators who brokered the now-stalled talks, and no longer wants to hold them in southern Sudan's regional capital Juba.

It has accused the chief mediator, the region's vice-president Riek Machar, of bias - a charge he has repeatedly denied.

In addition, the movement's deputy commander Vincent Otti has accused the Ugandan army of violating the truce by attacking his forces in southern Sudan in recent weeks, and vowed to fight back.

But Museveni downplayed the threat, saying the movement had been weakened by a series of army attacks.

"We defeated them and that is why they ran to (DR) Congo. There were no hostilities when they signed the cessation of hostilities agreement," Museveni said.

"There will be peace in Uganda with or without the peace talks because the peace talks were only good for the terrorists who wanted to get a soft landing," he added.

Sudan: Ahmadinejad on Visit

From the AP

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Sudan on Wednesday for talks between two leaders who face strong U.N. Security Council pressure — Iran for its nuclear program and Sudan for the conflict in Darfur.

Ahmadinejad was met at Khartoum airport by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, a day after the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor accused a junior member of al-Bashir's Cabinet of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

During his two-day visit, Ahmadinejad will deliver a lecture at a private institution in Khartoum and witness the signing of several bilateral agreements, according to Sudan's Information Ministry.

Darfur: U.S. Compassion Will Show Our Greatness

An op-ed by Sen. Sam Brownback in The Orlando Sentinel

In the face of the ongoing genocide, the American people have shown their compassion and conviction by voicing their strong opposition to the violence in Darfur. The message from the American people is clear: Genocide will not be tolerated.

It is my hope that these values are contagious and spread to those whose economic relationships with Sudan allow the Darfur genocide to continue.

Specifically, we need to work with the Chinese government, which accounts for more than half of Sudan's annual oil revenue. During a recent trip to Sudan, Chinese President Hu Jintao announced that China would cancel millions of dollars of outstanding Sudanese debt. Hu Jintao also announced that his government would fund the construction of a presidential palace for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, a man who has carried out two genocides in the last two decades, the first in Southern Sudan and the current one in Darfur. Rather than providing no-strings-attached economic aid to a genocidal regime, China should use its economic leverage to pressure the Sudanese government to end the humanitarian crisis.

Now is the time for the American government to show its greatness by acting with compassion for those who are suffering.

"Not on my watch," wrote President Bush on the margins of a White House memo concerning genocide, and now is the time that America follows through on that pledge.

Darfur: Displaced Want Sudan President Brought to Justice

From DPA

For Darfuris living in squalor in camps for the displaced, the naming Tuesday by The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) of the first two Darfur war crimes suspects was a fleeting moment of justice after four years of rape, pillage and murder that observers say has been conducted with impunity.

The ICC accused former Sudanese state minister of interior affairs and now minister of state for humanitarian affairs, Ahmed Muhammad Harun, and janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb of committing crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Darfur region, including 'mass murder, summary executions (and) mass rape.'

However, Darfuris say the list must include the man who many call the main perpetrator of the violence that has cost at least 200,000 lives and led to the displacement of more than 2 million people - Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

Bashir's government has been accused of arming the janajweed, unleashing them on African villages to rape and kill, hindering humanitarian aid to desperate people, and ordering the aerial bombardment of civilian villages.

Observers charge that Bashir armed the janjaweed to crush a 2003 rebellion by African farmers who complained that Darfur had been neglected by Sudan's powerful Islamist regime.

People in the war-torn region insist that Bashir deserves justice and most of them want him to be tried first.

'Omar al-Bashir is the chief war criminal,' said Fatma Adam Yagoub, the leader of women's affairs at the Abu Shouk camp for displaced Darfuris in the northern Darfur capital city of El Fasher. 'He makes the plans and then he has other people carry out the plans.'

Sheikh Isaac Adam Adam is the community leader of Tur village in south Darfur. Last April his people were chased from their homes by Arabs dressed in Sudan government uniforms.

'Bashir is a criminal,' Adam told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa in a camp for the displaced in south Darfur outside the town of Kaas. 'He gave the janjaweed weapons. The international court must try him.'

After the International Criminal Court announced in 2005 that it would begin an investigation aimed at fingering reputed war criminals, Sudan responded with harsh criticism, accusing the ICC of meddling and insisting it could try war criminals internally.

But the United Nations has said that Sudan's own criminal court has made little progress in prosecuting those believed responsible for war crimes.

Darfuris say they find the prospect of Sudanese trials absurd.

'The government is part of the problem,' Yagoub told dpa. 'You cannot catch yourself.'

Sudanese officials have protested that the ICC has no jurisdiction in the country and say that even their chief foes, the rebels in Darfur, should only be tried internally.

But even former rebels who may be implicated say fair trials can only happen outside of Sudan.

'We want justice to be done,' said Abdul Gasm Ahmed, the commander of the Sudan Liberation Army in Gerieda town. 'If I am named as a war criminal, I will go to the court and turn myself in.'

Ahmed told dpa that he agrees Bashir is a war criminal, despite the fact that his faction of the SLA signed a peace agreement with the Sudanese government last May.

Experts estimate that at least 200,000 thousand lives and perhaps as many as 500,000 have been lost during the conflict.

Those who survived janjaweed attacks and government bombings died in droves due to the hunger and disease which have stalked the teeming camps for the displaced.

The International Criminal Court cannot itself hunt down those it accuses.

Observers say that Sudan's staunch refusal to allow a United Nations force into Darfur to support the struggling African Union mission springs from fear that once inside, the UN would capture those believed responsible for war crimes.

Darfur: ICC Prosecutor Presents Evidence on Crimes

From the International Criminal Court [See also: Summary of the Prosecutor’s “Application” to the judges and Fact Sheet on the OTP’s work to investigate and prosecute crimes in Darfur - both PDFs]

Today ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo presents evidence showing that Ahmad Muhammad Harun, former Minister of State for the Interior of the Government of the Sudan, and Ali Kushayb, a leader of the Militia/Janjaweed, jointly committed crimes against the civilian population in Darfur.

Based on evidence collected during the last 20 months, the Prosecution has concluded there are reasonable grounds to believe that Ahmad Harun and Ali Kushayb, (also known as Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman) bear criminal responsibility in relation to 51 counts of alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes. The evidence shows they acted together, and with others, with the common purpose of carrying out attacks against the civilian populations.

The crimes were allegedly committed during attacks on the villages and towns of Kodoom, Bindisi, Mukjar, and Arawala in West Darfur between August 2003 and March 2004. The Prosecution has focused on some of the most serious incidents and the individuals who, according to the evidence, bear the greatest responsibility for those incidents.

In early 2003, Ahmad Harun was appointed as head of the “Darfur Security desk”. The most prominent of his coordination tasks was his management of, and personal participation in, the recruitment, funding and arming of Militia/Janjaweed – forces that would ultimately number in the tens of thousands. During a public meeting, Ahmad Harun said that as the head of the “Darfur Security desk”, he had been given “all the power and authority to kill or forgive whoever in Darfur for the sake of peace and security.”

The conflict involved rebel attacks on Sudanese Government installations in Darfur and a counterinsurgency campaign by the Sudanese Government against the rebels. The attacks carried out on towns and villages in Darfur did not target any rebel presence. Rather, they targeted civilian residents based on the rationale that they were supporters of the rebel forces.

The evidence shows that on several occasions Ahmad Harun incited the Militia/Janjaweed to carry out such attacks. For example, in early August 2003, prior to an attack on Mukjar, Ahmad Harun gave a speech where he stated that “since the children of the Fur had become rebels, all the Fur and what they had, had become booty” of the Militia/Janjaweed.

Ali Kushayb, an “Aqid al Oqada” (“colonel of colonels”) in West Darfur, was commanding thousands of Militia/Janjaweed by mid-2003. The evidence shows that Ali Kushayb issued orders to Militia/Janjaweed and armed forces to victimise the civilian populations through mass rape and other sexual offences, killings, torture, inhumane acts, pillaging and looting of residences and marketplaces, the displacement of the resident community and other alleged criminal acts.

The Prosecution has devoted considerable resources to assessing the admissibility of this case. Although investigations in the Sudan do involve Ali Kushayb, they are not in respect of the same incidents or conduct that are the subject of the case now before the Court. Therefore, the case is admissible.

The Pre-Trial Chamber I will review the evidence. If the judges determine that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the named individuals committed the alleged crimes, they will decide on the best manner to ensure their appearance in court.

Darfur: Sudan Minister, Militia Leader Suspected of 51 War Crimes

There will undoubtedly be a lot of articles and press releases about this today about this - for now, here is one from the AP

The International Criminal Court's prosecutor on Tuesday named a former Sudanese junior minister and a militia leader as suspects in war crimes and crimes against humanity in the country's Darfur region.

The prosecution document — the first details released from the court's 21-month investigation — claimed to establish a clear link between the Sudanese authorities and the janjaweed militias blamed for much of Darfur's bloodshed.

Ahmed Muhammed Harun, the former junior interior minister responsible for the western Darfur region, and a janjaweed militia leader, Ali Mohammed Ali Abd-al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, were suspected of a total of 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said.

Harun and Kushayb were part of conspiracy to "persecute civilians they associated with rebels." Their methods were "indiscriminate attacks against the civilian population, murder, rape, inhumane acts, cruel treatment, unlawful imprisonment, pillaging, forcible transfer and destruction of property," said the prosecution document, seeking a judicial order for the men to be handed over to the Hague-based court.

Harun, who was head of Khartoum's "Darfur Security Desk," recruited janjaweed knowing they would commit crimes against civilians, Moreno-Ocampo said in a 94-page document filed with the court's judges.

The prosecutor called Kushayb a "colonel of colonels" in charge of thousands of janjaweed fighters.

[edit]

"A widely reported characteristic of the armed conflict in Darfur is the great majority of civilian deaths" in the villages attacked by the janjaweed, sometimes together with Sudanese armed forces, prosecutors said.

While the prosecution document is not an indictment, it does say that there are "reasonable grounds to believe" that Harun and Kushayb "bear criminal responsibility" for the offenses including murder, rape, torture and persecution.

New York-based Human Rights Watch welcomed the evidence, but said more suspects should be identified.

"We hope to see more and we certainly encourage the prosecutor to continue investigations and go higher up the chain of command," said Geraldine Mattioli of Human Rights Watch.

After reviewing the prosecutor's evidence, judges can issue arrest warrants or summonses to the suspects to appear in The Hague. If they are charged, tried and convicted, they face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment at the court, which does not have the death penalty.

However, the court has no police force and relies on other countries to carry out arrests. Sudan, however, has not signed the Rome Statute creating the court and does not recognize its jurisdiction.

Moreno-Ocampo's investigators have carried out 70 missions in 17 different countries, taking statements from more than 100 victims and witnesses and collecting documents. They have been unable to carry out investigations in Darfur itself because of the ongoing violence.

In Khartoum, there was no immediate government reaction.

Prosecutors said the offenses occurred in four villages. The "janjaweed did not target any rebel presence within these particular towns and villages. Rather, they attacked these towns and villages based on the rationale that the tens of thousands of civilian residents in and near these towns and villages were supporters of the rebel militia."

The strategy "became the justification for the mass murder, summary execution, and mass rape of civilians who were known not to be participants in any armed conflict," prosecutors said. "Application of the strategy also called for, and achieved the forced displacement of entire villages and communities."

Sudan has rejected the ICC's jurisdiction in Darfur, saying it was conducting its own investigations.

Moreno-Ocampo said Sudanese investigators told him Kushayb had been arrested last November. Sudanese authorities described him as a "police assistant," and said he was in the custody of his own superiors for investigation into five attacks in which hundreds of people were killed. The incidents were not the same as those being probed by the ICC, he said.

No charges had been brought against him, the prosecutor said.

Here is another from the AP

Sudan's justice minister rejected Tuesday the International Criminal Court's war-crime allegations against a former minister of state and an alleged janjaweed militia leader, saying they he would not be handed over for trial.

"We are not concerned with, nor do we accept, what the International Criminal Court prosecutor has opted for," Justice Minister Mohammed Ali al-Mardi told The Associated Press.

"Our position (on handing over any indictees) remains the same," Al-Mardi said.

Sudan has repeatedly said it will not respect any indictments handed down by the ICC, and it is not a signatory to the convention that created the international court.

Earlier Tuesday, the ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced in The Hague that a former Sudanese minister of state in the Interior Ministry, Ahmed Muhammed Harun, and a janjaweed militia leader, Ali Mohammed Ali Abd-al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, were suspected of a total of 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The counts refer to the government's campaign against rebels in the west Sudanese region of Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have died and more than 2.5 million people have been displaced in four years of fighting.

Harun was not available for comment Tuesday. A member of the family at his home said he was out of Sudan and expected to return Wednesday.

Harun is known to be a member of President Omar al-Bashir's inner circle.

Trained as a lawyer, Haroun is regarded as one of the most energetic politicians among the younger leaders of the ruling National Congress Party. At one time he was the youngest minister of state in the government.

Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo accused him of being the main recruiter and paymaster of the janjaweed, a pro-government that is blamed for the bulk of atrocities in Darfur.

The prosecution presented a document to the court that alleges Harun and Kushayb were responsible for massacres, mass rapes and the forcible transfer of thousands of civilians from their homes.

The document established a clear link between the Sudanese authorities and the janjaweed.

The government denies backing the janjaweed, but members of the militia have told the media that they were armed by the state. And U.N. and African Union officials have said the government armed the janjaweed and directed its operations.

Gates, Buffett Urge US Not to Recognize Genocide

From APA

Hundred prominent US businessmen appealed to President George Bush, APA’s US bureau reports.

The appeal signed by Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and other famous businessmen says that the recognition of the so-called Armenian genocide will create problems for the US.

“The recognition of Armenian genocide will harm trade relations between the US and Turkey,” the appeal says.

The authors of the appeal stressed that the recognition of the genocide will impede reconciliation of Turkey and Armenia.

The resolution on the so-called Armenian genocide was submitted to the US Congress in January this year.

Chad: Lawmakers Pass Amnesty Law for Rebels

From the AP

The national assembly has passed an amnesty law for a Chadian rebel group that signed a cease-fire deal with the government two months ago.

Also late Monday, President Idriss Deby appointed Nouradine Delwa Kassire Koumakoye prime minister. Koumakoye was minister of state for territorial administration before his appointment. He was also one of Deby's allies who ran against him in a May 2006 election boycotted by the main opposition parties.

Koumakoye's predecessor, Pascal Yoadimnadji, died last week in Paris, France, following a brain hemorrhage.

The amnesty law was part of the Libya-brokered deal that saw one of several rebel groups in eastern Chad lay down arms and agree to work with the government in December.

The national assembly voted late Monday 91-2 in favor of the law. Under Chadian law, Deby has two weeks to sign the amnesty law for it to take effect; otherwise it will automatically take effect after two weeks.

Once it takes effect, members of the rebel United Front for Democratic Change group will be allowed return to their homes without interference from the government. The law, however, does not cover any violations they may have committed before becoming rebels or after they return to civilian life.

Chad: UNHCR Launches New $6.2 Million Appeal

From UNHCR

UNHCR today is issuing a US$6.2 million supplementary appeal to fund protection and assistance programmes for tens of thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) in eastern Chad.

The latest appeal is in addition to our 2007 annual budget of $69.3 million for some 220,000 refugees from Sudan's neighbouring Darfur region in 12 camps in eastern Chad, and another 46,000 from the Central African Republic (CAR) in the south of the country. Chad is already struggling to cope with the refugees from Darfur and CAR. And it is now faced with the internal displacement of up to 120,000 of its own citizens amid spreading regional insecurity. The displacement began in late 2005 and worsened in 2006 with a series of bloody inter-ethnic attacks, exacerbated by competition for scarce water, grazing land and other resources – mostly in the south-east of Chad.

The new appeal includes a planning figure of up to 150,000 internally displaced by the end of 2007. It will cover a variety of protection and assistance needs for internally displaced Chadians under an approach modelled on the UN "cluster" system in coordination with the UN Country Team. It will include the transfer of up to 20,000 IDPs from makeshift spontaneous settlements to more organised sites. It will also cover regular UNHCR missions to IDP settlements; assistance to victims of gender-based violence; family tracing; profiling of displaced populations; monitoring of returns to some 150 villages; provision of emergency shelter and other non-food relief materials; and construction of site infrastructure.

The appeal acknowledges the difficulties of carrying out humanitarian work amid the growing insecurity in much of eastern Chad, noting that access to internally displaced populations is often limited. As you know, on Feb. 23, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon proposed to the Security Council that a multi-dimensional international mission be deployed to Chad with a mandate ranging from ensuring the security of civilians, maintaining law and order in refugee camps and towns housing humanitarian field offices, to facilitating free movement of aid and border monitoring.

Few humanitarian agencies have staff or offices in areas of displacement. In addition, most IDPs are scattered in numerous villages rather than in organised sites. Local authorities only have limited resources and little capacity to deal with the enormous needs of displaced populations.

The appeal notes that the attacks in eastern Chad mirror the pattern of violence in Sudan's Darfur region, with armed, mainly Arab men on horseback and camels attacking and burning African villages, destroying crops, stealing cattle, terrorising villagers and killing many inhabitants. The attacks allegedly involve mostly Chadian groups, with some degree of cooperation from the Sudanese Janjaweed militia.

The appeal says that inter-communal fighting intensified in 2006. Between February and April 2006, several Chadian villages near the border with Sudan were attacked. Villagers moved to what they thought would be safer areas, but were then attacked again, and again displaced. Despite efforts by Chadian authorities, the attacks continue. In November, a series of brutal raids on some 50 villages left over 250 people dead, hundreds wounded, at least 30 villages destroyed and 25,000 newly displaced. In December, another wave of attacks on villages in the Koukou-Angarana area left 30 people dead.

Currently, there are at least 25 settlements of internally displaced people in south-eastern Chad. But the appeal notes that the real extent of the displacement in south-eastern Chad remains difficult to assess.

To date, UNHCR has received $14 million, including $8 million from the United States, for its 2007 annual programme in Chad.

Uganda: DRC Will Push LRA Out

From DPA

Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) will be pushed out of the bush of the Democratic Republic of Congo its rebels are using as bases, Interior Minister General Denis Kalume said on Monday.

The army was there to defend the country and it would do its job, Kalume said.

LRA fighters were pillaging villages in north- east Congo, near the border with Uganda, Sudan and Central African Republic, he said without confirming their numbers.

A landmark truce agreement between the LRA and the Ugandan government is to expire Wednesday, with the LRA saying it will not renew the deal because of attacks on it from Ugandan forces.

The Ugandan military has said the LRA, fearing reprisal from the Congolese army, have crossed into the Central African Republic, joining forces with rebels fighting the government there.

Sudan: Under Fire, Iran President to Hold Talks

From AFP - via POTP

The heads of state of Sudan and Iran meet in Khartoum on Wednesday to cement ties between their countries, both of which appear increasingly defiant in the face of mounting Western pressure.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will start his two-day visit with his country seemingly more determined than ever to pursue a nuclear programme it calls peaceful, but which the West claims is aimed at building atomic weapons.

Sudan, considered along with Iran a state sponsor of terrorism by Washington, has refused to allow the deployment of international troops in Darfur where some say genocide is taking place.

But while Khartoum blows hot and cold about the deployment of UN peacekeepers, it has recently accepted limited UN support for an African Union force currently operating in the western region ravaged by four years of war.

"Sudan and Iran feel targeted and must respond by making diplomatic efforts to better explain their positions in regional and international forums," said Sudanese presidential adviser Mustafa Othman Ismail.

Ahmadinejad is visiting Khartoum following an invitation by Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir, who was himself in Tehran in April 2006.

Beyond the visit's political dimension, the two leaders are expected to discuss ways to develop their modest economic relationship.

Iran's ambassador to Khartoum, Reza Amiri, said he hoped business partnerships could help increase the volume of bilateral trade to 70 million dollars per year, up from the current 43 million dollars.

Iran is currently engaged in two projects in Sudan, one water project worth 30 million dollars and another in electricity production worth 130 million dollars.

Iran is also ready to offer Sudan its expertise in the oil exploitation field, an area currently dominated by the Chinese.

In January, Iran and Sudan signed a memorandum of understanding for the expansion of mutual defence cooperation through expert exchanges.

Iran and Sudan share the "same vision (on international issues), have similar orientations and rely on their own powers," said Ismail.

He said that while both countries have been accused of sponsoring terrorism, they have also both called for an international conference to differentiate between terrorism and "resistance".

In October, Iran's agriculture minister visiting Khartoum said both countries had to stand together in the face of colonialism.

Darfur: Rebels Look to Unify

From the AP

Amid the vast sands of a dry Darfur riverbed, more than 100 rebel commanders and tribal chiefs are hoping for a turning point in Darfur's humanitarian disaster: A unity deal among rival rebel factions as a step toward new peace talks with the government.

Sudan's government has done everything it can to discourage the milestone unity conference from taking place: It has bombed previous gatherings of rebel leaders and made overtures to individual rebel commanders to try to lure them from the meeting.

But the rebels gathering here from various factions of the Sudan Liberation Army claim nothing will dissuade them this time.

Camping in a secret location near a place called Wadi Anka as they wait for the formal conference to begin this week, rebel leaders say they are determined to unite their rival political and military leaders, as a first step toward proposing new peace talks with the government.

"We've tried before, but this is the first time we're really serious about it," said Saleh Adam Itzahk, a senior rebel commander from the northeastern Jebbel Midob mountains of Darfur, the vast arid region of western Sudan.

"The war is dragging on because of our disunion," he said. "And we've been cheated of our rights too many times because of it."

[edit]

The SLA conference's main goal is to avoid a repeat of the Darfur peace agreement signed last May in Abuja, Nigeria, by the Sudanese government and one rebel leader -- under intense international pressure.

The rebels' longtime overall leader, Abdelwahid Elnur, refused that deal. Although many in the SLA now contest his leadership, most Darfur rebels and civilians also rejected the accord. They contend it provided too little compensation for refugees and offered no real guarantee the Sudanese government would rein in fierce janjaweed militias if the rebels disarmed.

In part because of that, chaos and violence have only worsened across Darfur in recent months, with new government and janjaweed attacks on rebels, and aid groups increasingly unable to help refugees.

Jar al-Naby, the SLA spokesman and a rebel field commander, said rebels have no trust left in the African Union, which brokered the Abuja accord. About 7,000 overwhelmed AU peacekeepers in Darfur have been unable to enforce the agreement, and Sudan's government in Khartoum rejects a Security Council resolution to replace them with 22,000 U.N. peacekeepers.

"We want the United Nations to act as mediator and its troops to come here," al-Naby said.

The one rebel chief who signed the previous peace deal, Minni Minawi, is scorned here. "The international community must finally recognize that we represent the vast majority of Darfur," said al-Naby. "Look around you."

Around him, an Associated Press reporter who traveled to Wadi Anka recently saw 100 rebel commanders in camouflage combat gear and tribal chiefs in floating white cotton gowns and turbans. Along with clusters of armed bodyguards, they gathered in small groups across the vast sandy stretch here, sipping cups of mint tea under the shade of scattered trees.

As they wait for other rebel commanders to reach the secret meeting place, dozens of pickup trucks jammed with rebels patrol the area. Sudan's government bombed a previous, tentative SLA conference in December, drawing angry denunciations from the AU force chief who called it wrong for Khartoum to hinder rebel unity efforts.

Many of the field commanders here claim they left hundreds of fighters back home, although none of their numbers could be independently verified.

One rebel commander, Mohammed Ibrahim, was nervously shouting orders into a satellite phone on a recent day last week. A janjaweed militia had entered his sector of the remote western Jebbel Moon mountains that morning, he said, and he was organizing a counterattack by phone.

The U.N. says a previous janjaweed militia raid in Jebbel Moon killed 53 civilians, including 27 children, last December, and Ibrahim wanted to prevent another calamity.

Outside observers claim Sudan's government has armed and organized the janjaweed to beef up its regular army. But Sudan's government may be losing its grip on the militia because of new infighting among its members: Several hundred nomads have died in intertribal fighting this year, the U.N. says.

SLA leaders say that reinforces their conviction that Sudan's government has no choice but to renegotiate a peace deal. They warn of a massive campaign against towns and other government positions if the government rejects their eventual unity overture.

"Time is on our side," al-Naby said.

Darfur: Sudan Sees Hidden Motive in UN Deployment

From Reuters

The U.N. plan to deploy its peacekeepers in Darfur would put Sudan under the trusteeship of the world body, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said on Monday.

Speaking in Ethiopia, Bashir reiterated his rejection of the Security Council resolution, which calls for the deployment of some 22,500 U.N. peacekeepers and police to take over the African Union mission in Darfur.

"Resolution 1706 of the U.N. Security Council actually confirmed our suspicion because the content of the resolution places Sudan under international trusteeship of the United Nations," Bashir said at a press conference in Addis Ababa.

"That plan to transform the peacekeeping job in Darfur from African Union (AU) to United Nations held a hidden agenda aimed at putting Sudan under the United Nations trusteeship."

Experts say an estimated 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes in Darfur since rebels took up arms against the government in 2003 charging neglect.

On Friday Bashir defended his handling of the Darfur crisis and criticised Western media for exaggerating the death toll and put the blame on rebel groups that did not sign on to a peace agreement concluded in Abuja, Nigeria in May 2006.

He said the AU force deployed in Darfur had been doing an "excellent job" until the Abuja agreement was signed.

"Immediately after the signing of the agreement, talks shifted into transforming the responsibilities of the AU force to an international peacekeeping force," he said in Addis Ababa where he attended a heads of state meeting on Somalia.

"Our position was to maintain AU force to keep security in Darfur and to be supported logistically and financially by the U.N.," he added.

Darfur: Clashes Erupt Among Sudanese Arabs

From VOA

The African Union has warned that violent clashes between nomadic Arab tribes are heating up in south Darfur. A series of recently attacks by the Reizegat tribe has paralyzed much of the region. Noel King reports for VOA from Kaas, south Darfur.

Schoolchildren in Singita village, south Darfur, sing a song at the start of the school day.

They sing, "Oh, bird, I am not a sniper, don't fly away from me." Perhaps strange words for a song for small children, but even the youngest in Darfur have witnessed unspeakable violence during four years of conflict in the region.

Violent attacks by Arab nomads known as janjaweed have terrorized this land since 2003.

The Sudanese government is charged with arming Arab nomads to crush a rebellion by African farmers who rose against Khartoum's powerful Islamist regime for neglecting the remote Darfur region.

But now, the janjaweed are not only fighting the Africans, they are also warring among themselves.

In the latest such incident, the African Union protection force based in Kaas, south Darfur, was alerted Sunday to a massacre in the village of Amar Jadeed.

Elderly Hussein Ahmed Hassan arrived at the AU base and reported 32 villagers from the Arab Terjem tribe were killed in an attack by the Arab Reizegat tribe.

Hussein said women and children have fled the village. He said they reported the attack to the police but no action was taken. The camel men, he said, wore government uniforms and they are supported by the government.

AU peacekeepers drove 26 kilometers to the village, but arrived at the scene of the attack several hours after it happened. The village was in ashes, with small fires still smoldering. Twenty nine bodies were stacked in the bed of a truck for burial in a nearby cemetery.

Three young children had already been laid in the ground. Men sat astride camels preparing for another attack while women gathered in a group and wept.

The villagers are not the African farmers who are normally the victims of janjaweed militias. The Terjem are Arab camel herders themselves and local people tell VOA they were once friendly with the Reizegat.

Now, as the situation in Darfur grows increasingly desperate and water and food are even harder to find, the Reizagat and the Terjem have turned on one another.

The Terjem accuse the Sudanese government of providing arms to the Reizegat.

A day earlier, in Tutura village just north of here, four young Terjem boys were shot execution style by Reizegat in the back, as they slept.

On photographs of the victims obtained by VOA, the youngest boy appeared to be about seven years old, the eldest 15.

One boy's father, Abaker Fadil Isaac, spoke to VOA at the his son's funeral.

He said he heard the gunshots. He said his son was 15 and he slept along with the other boys. He said the men who killed the children came on camels.

The African Union has warned that the recent outbreak of tribal conflicts in south Darfur is ominous.

Bashar Osman, a Reizegat camel herder with a rifle strapped to his back, spoke to VOA near Gubba village south of Kaas.

Osman says the janjaweed are like storybook monsters. People are scared of them, he says, but no one has ever seen them.

Back at Amar Jadeed, African Union peacekeepers take notes for a report on the incident, but in the distance gunfire erupts again. The villagers, on their way to camps for the displaced in Kaas come fleeing back over the hills.

The African Union peacekeepers run for their patrol trucks. Their mandate forbids them from stepping in between fighting forces. They are allowed to raise arms only in self-defense.

They argue over whether to go back to the village, but decide against it. The people of Amar Jadeed are left to their own fate.

Darfur: Sudan Rejects ICC Authority

From AFP

Sudan on Monday rejected the legitimacy of the International Criminal Court in pressing charges over the conflict in Darfur, still ravaged by war and famine four years after the violence erupted.

Last week the ICC -- which is authorised to judge war crimes or crimes against humanity if national jurisdiction lacks the ability to do so -- announced that its prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo will present evidence on Tuesday of alleged war crimes committed in Darfur.

The judges will then decide whether to open an inquiry against the suspects with the aim of eventually issuing international arrest warrants.

But Sudan has rejected the ICC's authority, arguing that the country's judiciary is perfectly capable of trying its own criminals.

"The position of Sudan is that this court has no jurisdiction when it comes to trying Sudanese," Minister of Justice Mohammed Ali al-Mardhi was quoted by the Akhbar al-Yom as saying.

This applies to Sudanese officials, members of the security forces as well as the rebel groups in the troubled western Sudanese region, Mardhi said.

Sudan's judiciary is "sufficiently independent and impartial" and has the "will and capacity to try all persons responsible for crimes in Darfur," he said.

Mardhi is currently in Darfur conducting an inquiry into violations in the region, but Sudanese authorities insist his visit is not related to the ICC report.

Most experts say the war in Darfur, an arid desert region the size of France, officially started on February 26, 2003 when rebels attacked a garrison in North Darfur. Government forces backed by Janjaweed militia responded with a fierce scorched-earth campaign.

The human cost of what some observers describe as the first genocide of the 21st century has been huge. At least 200,000 people have been killed and more than two million diplaced according to the United Nations, though some sources say figures are much higher.

Moreno-Ocampo has investigated accusations of presection, torture, rape and murder since June 2006. He has focused on events alleged to have occurred between 2003 and 2004, considered the most violent period involving the crisis in Darfur.

His team has visited 17 countries and conducted more than 100 interviews.

However, he has been criticised by non-governmental organisations and the UN high commissioner for not sending investigators to Darfur itself, citing security concerns.

CAR: In Volatile Central Africa, Insecurity Spreads From Darfur

From the AP

The lucky ones live in this former rebel stronghold secured by a handful of French and government forces. The unlucky live in the lawless countryside, their villages abandoned, their lives at the mercy of bandits, rebels and renegade soldiers.

Central African Republic has struggled for more than a year to contain a homegrown low-intensity rebellion in the northwest. Now, a new insurgency in the northeast near Sudan's Darfur region has compounded this fragile nation's troubles and displaced tens of thousands of people.

"The security situation was always deplorable, but it's gotten worse with Darfur," regional Gov. Franck Francis Gazi told The Associated Press in Birao, the small sun-blasted capital of Vakaga, a region held for a month by rebels until late 2006. "The conflict in Sudan has consequences for us. There is a cause and effect."

President Francois Bozize accuses Sudan's Omar al-Bashir of backing the northeastern rebels, charges Sudan denies. Diplomats and U.N. officials say it's unclear who is supporting them, but insurgents are believed to operate in part from bases in lawless Darfur.

The U.N. Security Council said in a report Friday that a recent U.N. assessment mission to Birao found no "compelling evidence" that troubles in the northeast are directly related to Darfur. But the mission, it said, "took note of the government's view that the two situations are linked."

Nevertheless, the U.N. is studying creating a peacekeeping force that would deploy hundreds of troops to Central African Republic and thousands more to Chad to prevent incursions along the two countries' borders with Darfur.

The barren frontier region is porous, remote and poorly policed. Central African Republic, a nation of 4 million, has an army of fewer than 4,500 men, with only 1,000 soldiers actively deployed. A "border post" can be one guard.

Herdsmen and smugglers have crossed these borderlands without passports for centuries with ease — as have armed groups and arms trafficked through Africa's war-torn heart.

In April 2006, Chadian rebels based in Darfur traversed Central African Republic en route to attack Chad's capital, N'djamena. The same month, a cargo plane carrying arms and dozens of unidentified combatants left Sudan and landed on two consecutive days in the Central African Republic town of Tiringoulou. Some diplomats and senior U.N. officials believe the plane carried the seeds of the northeast rebellion.

The region suffered its first major rebel attack Oct. 29, when insurgents seized Birao and held it for weeks. Gazi said Sudanese and Chadians were among the attackers, who went on to seize half a dozen small towns before retreating from the last in December after a government assault led by French forces, who turned the tide with attack helicopters and Mirage fighter jets.

For now, Vakaga is quiet, though rebels still control territory in the area. Two weeks ago, one woman was shot dead by unknown attackers in a roadside ambush near Birao, Gazi said.

About 60 percent of Vakaga's villages are abandoned, said Karline Kleyer of MSF-Holland, the only non-governmental humanitarian organization operating here. The prefecture is home to about 56,000 people.

"People are afraid, very afraid ... of the rebels, of the governmental troops," Kleyer said. "The population is almost forced to take sides. They're told 'You're with us, or you're against us.' They're trapped in the middle."

During the rebel occupation, most residents fled Birao, living as refugees in the open, prone to cold night air with little or no shelter. They survived on wild fruit, roots and what was left of their fields.

"We lived like animals, we ate whatever we could find," said Sende Dieudonne, a 34-year-old teacher, who returned to find his home looted. Some women said rebels had raped them.

Similar insecurity elsewhere in the country has displaced about 150,000 people, while 70,000 more fled to Chad and Cameroon, according to the U.N, which says tens of thousands of women have been raped by combatants.

Most of Central African Republic's problems appear internal, however, borne of a long history of poverty, coups, mutinies and rebellions. But conflict in Darfur can easily affect the situation here — and may already have.

Sudan has staunchly opposed pressure to accept a U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur, a region at war since 2003, when rebels from ethnic African tribes rose up against the central Arab-led government. The Sudanese government is accused of responding in part by backing Arab militia in Darfur who have been accused of some of the conflict's worst atrocities.

The U.N.'s special envoy to Bangui, Lamine Cisse, said if Sudan was supporting the rebellion, it might be doing so to discourage peacekeepers from deploying here.

"Their strategy is no troops in Darfur," Cisse said. "So, no troops close to the boundary with Darfur. They can't say ... 'Don't accept troops in your country,' because it's a question of sovereignty. But on the ground they can make trouble."

Sudan also may be supporting rebels in Chad and Central African Republic to undermine their governments. Bozize is closely allied with Chad, and Chadian soldiers form a crucial part of Bozize's presidential guard. Under a security agreement, Chad's military is free to cross into Central African Republic.

Around 2,000 Chadian troops used to be on Central African Republic's northern border, keeping pressure on the northwestern rebellion. But those troops were sent to fight Darfur-based Chadian rebels in eastern Chad last year.

The result: emboldened rebels here launched new attacks, prompting Bozize's presidential guard to retaliate brutally, burning countless villages whose inhabitants were suspected of supporting the rebellion.

Along the main northern road from Paoua to Markounda on the Chad border, village after village sits silent and abandoned. Thatched roofs have collapsed and burned. Red-earth walls have been torn down and charred.

So terrorized are people that the mere sound of an approaching vehicle one recent day sent dozens of women and children running for their lives.

The villagers thought the convoy contained soldiers. They returned minutes later when they saw the vehicles carried aid workers and human rights officials.

Chad: U.N. Weighs Deploying Force

From AP

Tribal leaders are desperate for the deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping force along Chad's border with Sudan to protect refugees and stop increasing spillover from the violence in Darfur.

The U.N. Security Council is considering a mission, with up to 10,000 troops, largely because Sudan's government has resisted efforts to send U.N. peacekeepers to Darfur itself.

But Chad's president is worried about inflaming tensions with Sudan, while U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned the Security Council that peacekeepers would face "serious risks" of rebel attacks.

The two countries have strained relations because Chad supports the Darfur rebellion against the Sudanese government, and Sudan strongly backs Chadian rebels settled in Darfur, Western observers say.

Tens of thousands of Darfur refugees live in scorching, wind-beaten camps on Chad's side of the border, competing with Chadian villagers over scarce water and firewood. Various rebel groups and militias roam the vast region.

"We are waiting impatiently for the international force to arrive and protect both the border and the refugees," said Timan Deby, the sultan or traditional ruler of Bahai, a desert outpost in Chad near the Sudanese border.

[edit]

Along the frontier, clashes between ethnic groups and cross-border raids are "carried out with impunity," the British aid group Oxfam said recently. Dozens of civilians have been killed in recent weeks, Oxfam said.

So far, none of the 12 refugee camps have been attacked, but several villages have been plundered.

The region's governor, Atom Dillo, said the U.N. force was necessary to stop Sudanese infiltration into Chad, which he said was part of Sudan's strategy to destabilize its neighbor and prevent aid workers from helping Darfur refugees.

Chad's President Idriss Deby has accepted the idea of a U.N. mission on his border in principle. But Western officials in Chad say he is worried the force might be used as a starting point for deployment into Darfur, which would anger Sudan.

"He doesn't want to be seen as facilitating a possible invasion of a neighboring state, even Sudan," said one Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the situation's sensitivity.

Ban said Deby has proposed that the U.N. mission be a civilian one. He told the Security Council last week that any peacekeeping mission should help keep peace in refugee camps and deploy at key points to prevent cross-border attacks. But he warned it would carry "serious risks."

Last year, Chadian rebels based in Sudan launched several raids, briefly seizing the major eastern Chad town of Abeche and attacking the capital, N'djamena. Reports of smaller clashes come almost daily.

Col. Vincent Tesnieres, who commands a 1,000-strong French force already deployed in Chad, accused Sudan of providing the rebels with the ground-air missiles that recently helped them down Chadian aircraft.

"What is striking is that we now witness a level of violence completely unknown to Chad before," said Serge Male, the head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Chad.

The UNHCR says it has a contingency plan for up to 50,000 more people to arrive from Darfur. The agency is trying to relocate the Darfur refugee camps further east from the border to ease the strain on Chad's meager natural resources.

The Chadian army is trying to protect the Darfur refugee camps but can't do much because it needs to focus on protecting the border, said Gen. Kalimi Sangui Abdalla, who commands Chadian military operations on the eastern frontier.

"This is why we will welcome United Nations forces," he said.

Uganda: LRA Refuses to Renew Treaty

From Sapa

The Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) said on Friday that it would not renew a truce with the government.

The treaty is due to expire next week.

The refusal is a blow to a stalled peace process aimed at ending two decades of war.

LRA deputy commander Vincent Otti blamed Kampala for violating the truce that was the only significant achievement of peace talks that began last July.

Otti said: "The cessation of hostilities deal is a hopeless agreement. The government of Uganda is not respecting it and we see no reason why it should exist. We are not renewing it.

"The army has been attacking my boys east of the river Nile and, from now on, we will defend ourselves."

The peace talks have barely made progress, apart from the initial truce signed in August and renewed in December. This is due to expire on February 28.

The two sides are still deeply divided on critical issues, including a reformed Ugandan military and power-sharing.

Otti, alongside LRA supremo Joseph Kony and three other commanders, has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes and against humanity - specifically, murder, rape, mutilations and mass abductions - in the course of their two decades of conflict with the government.

Genocide: Court Rules Serbia Failed to Prevent Srebrenica

From the AP

The United Nations' highest court ruled Monday that Serbia failed to use its influence with Bosnian Serbs to prevent the genocide of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica, but exonerated Serbia of direct responsibility for genocide or complicity in genocide during the 1992-1995 war.

In a lengthy ruling, the International Court of Justice said the leaders of Serbia had also failed to comply with an international obligation to punish those who carried out the massacre in July 1995.

The Serbians "should have made the best effort within their power to try and prevent the tragic events then taking shape" in the UN enclave, the scale of which "might have been surmised."

Reading the decision, Judge Rosalyn Higgins said it had been clear in Belgrade that there was a serious risk of a large-scale slaughter in Srebrenica, where about 7,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed.

But Serbia "has not shown that it took any initiative to prevent what happened or any action on its part to avert the atrocities which were being committed," the decision said.

Serbia's claim that it was powerless to prevent the massacres "hardly tallies with their known influence" over the Bosnian Serb Army, said the ruling by the court, also known as the World Court.

The case was the first time an entire nation was being held to judicial account for the crime of genocide.

The World Court can only adjudicate disputes among UN member states. The UN Security Council suspended Yugoslavia's membership in 1992 and readmitted the country, then known as Serbia and Montenegro, in 2001.

Higgins also said that Montenegro, which withdrew from the Serbia and Montenegro federation last year, was no longer part of the case, and that Serbia alone assumed the "legal identity" of the former Yugoslavia.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has said that the government in Belgrade under the late former president, Slobodan Milosevic, had armed, financed and encouraged Bosnian Serbs to conduct an ethnic cleansing campaign that amounted to genocide, in an attempt to create a "Greater Serbia" during the war.

Serbia argued that it was not responsible for the actions of Serb paramilitary groups, that the war was a conflict of ethnic groups and that there was no intent to destroy Bosnia's Muslims.

If the court had ruled against Serbia, it could have ordered Belgrade to pay compensation. Bosnia has said that Serbia should pay restitution for lost lives and property to both the victims and to the Bosnian state.

Genocide: US 'Outreach' Diplomacy Downplays Armenian Resolution

From The Anatolia Times

A six-member Turkish parliamentary delegation will hold a series of talks in Washington D.C. next week to prevent approval of a draft resolution on so-called Armenian genocide which was submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives.

The delegation is expected to leave for the United States early on Monday.

Members of the delegation will hold talks with U.S. congressmen and U.S. State Department officials during their stay in Washington D.C.

Later, the second and the third delegations will pay visits to the United States in March.

During their meetings with U.S. authorities, Turkish parliamentarians will explain that the events during the World War I could not be defined as genocide, and that approval of the draft would seriously disturb Turkey-the United States relations.

From Turkish Daily News

U.S. diplomats in Turkey have made clear their strategy of dealing with the possibility that the U.S. House of Representatives could pass House Resolution 106, the Armenian genocide bill. They want to get the message out that the bill would mean next to nothing in terms of U.S. foreign policy. Dr. Clyde Wilcox, of Georgetown University in Washington, told members of the Turkish media that such a vote would mean, one chamber [of the U.S. Congress] said something. It doesn't mean our Congress said something, it doesn't mean that our government said it. Dr. Wilcox was speaking via live video feed from the U.S. State Department to the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, which hosted the 90-minute question-and-answer session last week.

Wilcox stressed that if the bill passed in the House, it would not reflect U.S. public opinion, rather the organized opinion of Armenian lobby groups working within the United States for a symbolic victory. However, journalists at the session repeatedly stressed that playing down the significance of such a resolution was not much of a strategy. Many of the questions posed to Wilcox indicated that any indication of U.S. support for Armenian genocide claims would be manipulated to fuel nationalist sentiments in Turkey and shift votes to nationalist parties. This would be crucial during this year's elections for both president and government.

Wilcox acknowledged this dilemma: Symbols are often powerful for political actors. … [But] within the framework of U.S. governance, a vote by the House of Representatives would not be very important in American politics. It would not speak for America. It would not speak for the administration. It would not even speak for the Congress. However, symbols are important, because people interpret them as important. And so [Turkish] political parties would use those symbols [the U.S. genocide bill] as part of their election campaign.

Most Americans don't know anything about this issue. … They don't know what, where, or when, or whatever it's a time of history in another part of the world. … I bet there's not 1 percent of the American public who has a position on this.

Darfur: Jolie Seeks to Raise Awareness

From the Irish Examiner

Actress Angelina Jolie arrived in Africa yesterday in her role as United Nations Goodwill Ambassador to monitor and raise awareness of the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan.

The Tomb Raider star touched down in N'Djamena in neighbouring Chad because she cannot travel into Darfur itself, due to the violent conditions there.

Jolie is expected to remain in the region for a few days, in her first trip there since 2004. She is due to visit refugee camps near the border of Sudan.

Darfur: ICRC Will Not Cooperate with ICC

From the AP

The International Red Cross is barred by principles of neutrality and confidentiality from testifying if the International Criminal Court holds war crimes trials for those accused of Darfur atrocities, its president said Friday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has the largest presence of any aid group in Darfur and has frequently in the last four years pleaded with both the Sudan's government and Darfur rebel groups to stop what Jakob Kellenberger called "very gross violations of international humanitarian law."

Nevertheless, Kellenberger said the neutral ICRC, guardian of the Geneva Convention on the conduct of war, was bound by its strict principles of confidentiality and would never make public the conversations it has held with officials and rebels, or the observations of its nearly 2,000 Sudanese and international staff working in the country.

"That's not for the public. That's for the authorities concerned," Kellenberger told journalists at the ICRC's Geneva headquarters. "The ICRC will never be a witness in court proceedings."

The issue is a sensitive one for the ICRC, which is frequently criticized for refusing to go public with its denunciations of atrocities, most notably during the Holocaust. In 1997, the ICRC admitted a "moral failure" in keeping silent about the Nazi genocide of Jews during World War II, even though it had documented mass deportations and killings.

More recently it has insisted on speaking only to U.S. authorities about any mistreatment it may have found at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq or at the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It denies any role in the leaking to the news media of its reports to the U.S. government.

Kellenberger, speaking upon his return from a five-day mission to Sudan, said the Red Cross has made countless "interventions" with rebel groups and Sudanese officials and at all levels of government since fighting in Darfur broke out four years ago. "Where there are violations ... we request that that is not being repeated," he said.

Darfur: Red Cross Warns of Gross Violations, Risk to Aid Operations

From the Financial Times - via POTP

Increased violence and deteriorating security in much of the Darfur region of Sudan threatens to cut off access by the International Committee of the Red Cross to hundreds of thousands of people for whom the organisation is the sole source of assistance.

Speaking to the FT after a five-day trip to Sudan, Jakob Kellenberger, ICRC president, said access problems were worse than at any time since fighting between government forces, allied Arab militia and African rebel groups flared in 2003.

The conflict in Darfur has left tens of thousands of dead and displaced close to 2m people, some of whom have now been pushed across the border into neighbouring Chad.

Despite attacks on its workers and the loss of a staff member, the ICRC had no intention of pulling out of Darfur, Mr Kellenberger said, noting that the org-anisation's mandate under the Geneva Conventions was to help victims of conflict.

However, he said he had told the Sudanese government and armed groups on all sides that they could not take continuation of the current aid effort for granted without action to protect the security of humanitarian workers.

The Geneva-based ICRC is the only international humanitarian organisation working outside the camps in Darfur, providing aid to a million people in African villages and among the Arab nomadic communities. Much of Darfur is now considered too dangerous for UN workers and NGOs to operate.

In December the ICRC was obliged to take responsibility for the Gereida camp housing 120,000 displaced people after NGOs pulled out following a series of attacks. Sudan is the ICRC's biggest operation, costing SFr100m ($81m, €62m, £41m) a year and employing 160 expatriate and more than 1,800 national staff. "The work of the ICRC is appreciated by all sides, who understand that we are working in a very difficult environment," Mr Kellenberger said. "They are convinced of our impartiality, independence and neutrality.

"But that is not protecting us from serious security incidents caused by banditry and lawlessness. The number of incidents in 2006 and 2007 is much higher than it was before."

The ICRC president said he had emphasised to the government in Khartoum and to the leaders of armed groups and tribal chiefs that they had a responsibility to uphold international humanitarian law, protect civilians and ensure the safety of aid workers. "There is a lot of talk about political solutions but I wanted to make clear that international humanitarian law has to be respected whenever there is an armed conflict and whatever political solution is found or not found."

Asked whether the worsening situation did not induce feelings of despair, Mr Kellenberger said his job was to do everything in his power to help the people who needed protection.

"I do not have the right to despair," he said. "The ICRC is about action, and about action where it may be dangerous. Our responsibility is to assist and protect people in armed conflicts on a needs-based non-discriminatory basis. There are enough people making judgements."

From Reuters

The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned on Friday that growing insecurity jeopardised its aid operations in Sudan's Darfur region, where it is often alone in addressing massive needs.

Jakob Kellenberger, speaking after a five-day trip to Sudan which included stops in Darfur, also said all sides of the conflict were committing human rights violations against civilians.

"It is a context of very gross violations of international humanitarian law, with a main responsibility on the government side, but not only on the government side. There have also been gross violations on the side of armed groups," he said.

Kellenberger said he stressed to all parties of the four-year-old conflict that the agency needed a safe environment to continue its life-saving work.

"What is widening is the gap between needs and the possibility of access. It is a very serious concern," he told a news conference in Geneva.

"I do expect parties to the conflict to really respect the security of our staff. ... Our main problem is banditry and criminality in the region," he added.

The ICRC deploys 160 expatriates and 1,800 Sudanese staff in Sudan's vast west, where security incidents affecting its work "increased greatly" in 2006, Kellenberger said. It is the only aid agency with foreign staff on the ground in Darfur.

A Sudanese working for the ICRC was abducted and murdered by an armed group near the Jebel Marra mountains in north Darfur last August and two others were shot recently in Kutum, he said.

Kellenberger said the greatest insecurity and therefore its greatest access problems were in Kutum, Jebel Marra, Nyala, Gereida and to the far west along the border.

Experts say around 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million people displaced since rebels took up arms against the Sudanese government in 2003, charging it with neglect. The government countered with local militias and bombing runs.

Kellenberger, a former senior Swiss diplomat, declined to comment on the need for U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur, but said action was needed to improve the security environment.

Both government and rebel authorities had "clear responsibilities" to uphold international humanitarian law and protect civilians and aid workers, he said.

CAR: Emergency Aid Vitally Needed

From the UN News Center

Emergency international aid “of the most urgent kind” is needed to avert massive suffering and death in the Central African Republic (CAR), where armed militias and bandits have burned and ransacked villages, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee into the bush to hide from attacks, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned.

“They have no clothes, no shelter, no food, no blankets, no access to clean water, and most of all they are completely traumatized, living in the terror of further attacks,” UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow said after a four-day mission to northern areas of the country, where 212,000 people are estimated to have been uprooted.

“Denying that a humanitarian crisis exists will result in the deaths of many children within a few months,” said UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa, Esther Guluma who accompanied Ms. Farrow. “If we are to avert suffering and death on a massive scale in these areas UNICEF has to accelerate its activities, along with the government, our UN partners and the few NGOs (non-governmental organizations) on the ground.

“We have to act now on this situation in CAR, since there are already thousands of refugees who have fled across the country’s western border with Chad; the risk here is that the looming crisis will exacerbate the already extremely fragile humanitarian situation in the entire region,” she added.

She stressed the need for health care, mobile clinics, water pumps, household equipment, seeds and tools to re-start farming, and help to return children to school.

“Above all the people need protection; they told me their greatest wish is for peace to rebuild their lives,” Ms. Farrow said.

Uganda: Podcast With John Prendergast

The latest podcast from The Committee on Conscience with John Prendergast [In addition to Uganda, they also discuss the DRC, Darfur, and the CAP/ICG's new Enough Initiative]

JERRY FOWLER: Tell me about your trip. You went to Northern Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. First, Northern Uganda; where do things stand there in terms of resolving the conflict between the government and the Lord’s Resistance Army?

JOHN PRENDERGAST: It has been twenty years now that this thing has raged on, and we have yet to see a really effective peace process develop in those two decades. The process that has unfolded over the last six months, based in Juba, in Southern Sudan is on the brink of collapse over the issue of venue, as the sort of approximate cause for the collapse.

JERRY FOWLER: Venue of where they are going to do the negotiations?

JOHN PRENDERGAST: Yes.

JERRY FOWLER: Isn’t that sort of like collapsing over the size of the table? Or the shape of the table?

JOHN PRENDERGAST: It is one step above the size of the table, but the rebels—the Lord’s Resistance Army—of course, has very significant reasons that they are presenting as to why they want to get out of Juba, and the government of Uganda is saying no and that they will not go any other place but Juba, so they are at loggerheads there. The Lord’s Resistance Army, their indications, radio intercepts, and other things, that the Lord’s Resistance Army is getting ready to go back to war, so we are at one of those moments where it is very possible that they will start launching attacks again and the ceasefire—the one success that the Juba process has brought is a cessation of hostilities agreement that expires on February 28th, so that is going to be the big day. Who knows whether they will be able to hobble together an extension of that cessation of hostilities or whether the rebels will plunge the region back to war.

JERRY FOWLER: What is the main issue that the rebels have? It seemed like several months ago, things appeared very close to coming to some type of agreement.

JOHN PRENDERGAST: Appearances were very deceiving. I think the process that Juba has unleashed is one that contains the seeds of its own demise. It has a delegation representing the Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group that is largely composed of elements of the Diaspora of Northern Ugandans and people who do not really have any connection to the Lord’s Resistance Army and the military guys in the field. They are putting forth all manner of issues, loading down the agenda with things that the Lord’s Resistance Army as an entity never fought for, and it does not represent the people of Northern Uganda on it. It has created an impossible scenario, and the government of Uganda says, “No, we are not going to negotiate on any of that stuff. We just want a pure deal directly with Kony.” They are not the right people representing the Lord’s Resistance Army, and the issues are not the right issues to try to attend the immediate threat that is posed by the Lord’s Resistance Army. I think the venue is basically what created a crisis in the talks that leads to an examination of much deeper problems that if not fixed with fairly dramatic new inputs will ensure that this thing slowly, surely deteriorates and disappears as yet another failed, half-hearted initiative to try to resolve this war.

JERRY FOWLER: The International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, issued arrest warrants quite some time ago for Joseph Kony and other top leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army. Has that had any affect on the dynamics?

JOHN PRENDERGAST: I think it pushed and shoved the Lord’s Resistance Army to this process, this Juba process. It is not the Lord’s Resistance Army’s fault that a lot of things have gone wrong in Uganda. It is not the Lord’s Resistance Army’s fault, really, that the process itself is so deeply flawed. I think that the International Criminal Court indictments certainly brought the Lord’s Resistance Army to the table. That leverage has not since been utilized effectively to get them to the next step of, or at least going down the path of, getting a deal that has a legitimate possibility of being signed and implemented. It is very tantalizing and very frustrating because there are not very difficult issues at stake here. Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, has been quite clear in the meetings he has had privately about what needs to be on the table regarding his personal security and the security of the other guys that were indicted by the International Criminal Court and the livelihoods and opportunities in case these guys all come out of the bush for where they go after rebellion. If a credible mediator was shuttling back and forth between Kony and Museveni, I think we could get a deal pretty quickly, but instead we have gone this diversionary route, through Juba, loaded down by these crazy agenda items and a delegation that simply does not represent the Lord’s Resistance Army. It is highly unlikely that anything positive will come out of this unless it is dramatically altered.

JERRY FOWLER: Is Joseph Kony even someone who can be negotiated with? He has been fighting for twenty years, and in some ways it is open to question whether the Lord’s Resistance Army actually even has a political agenda. Isn’t the movement kind of based on his idea that he is going to institute law based on the Ten Commandments?

JOHN PRENDERGAST: It is true; we have all kinds of evidence from people who have spent a lot of time with him who are all very divided. Some people think he is schizophrenic, messianic, and others say the guy just puts on a big act to scare people, and he has a very keen sense of his rational options, and that if he were presented with a set of options that either go through Door A, which provides you sanctuary and an end to this whole thing, or B, face united international community, increased military threats, etc., etc., that he would take the rational choice and go through Door A, but he has never been presented with that in a systematic way. I think that we do not really know frankly; the guy’s record is very uneven and spotty, and we do not know much about ultimately, his psychological profile and whether he is stable enough and whether his core interests could be appealed to, survival interests could be appealed to, through a very well thought through peace deal proposal that deals with his central issues: his personal security and livelihood guarantees.

Darfur: Attacks Continue

From the UN News Center

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today said he will soon meet with the head of the African Union to discuss the continuing suffering in Sudan’s devastated Darfur region, as the United Nations warned that almost 50,000 more people were forced to flee violence in the region last month alone.

Mr. Ban outlined to reporters the UN’s recent initiatives to try and bring peace to Darfur, including a letter he sent on 24 January to Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al Bashir stressing the importance of more support for the African Union mission, known as AMIS, and also the need for the rapid deployment of the hybrid UN-African Union force.

“Now I have requested very strongly that President Bashir agree to my letter [on the heavy support package which will enable the early deployment] of a hybrid African Union and UN peacekeeping operations there,” the Secretary-General said in Austria, where he is on an official visit.

“There are two tracks that are still going on, even though we have not yet finally agreed. One is the political process; a political dialogue process is going on at the highest level, including myself. And secondly, peacekeeping operation level is now being discussed. The United Nations will soon engage in detailed negotiations with African Union representatives and I’m also going to meet with the African Union Commissioner.”

Mr. Ban’s comments come as the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) released its latest grim overview of the situation in Darfur, produced in collaboration with other UN agencies and partner non-governmental organizations (NGOs), showing the violence forced around 46,000 people to flee their homes last month.

“New population displacements were registered weekly in January as attacks on villages, sexual violence and intimidation continued to force large numbers of people to move throughout Darfur. Generalized violence, attacks on humanitarian assets and bureaucratic impediments continued to affect humanitarian operations,” the overview states.

New displacements of villagers towards internally displaced person (IDP) camps continued “relentlessly” through the month as a result of attacks by both the Government of Sudan and associated militia and a wing of the Sudan Liberation Army headed by Minni Minawi, according to OCHA.

This was especially the case in north Darfur where there were reports of Sudanese Government “aerial bombings in many locations - and attacks and intimidation by Arab militias.”

OCHA’s overview said that while there were some positive humanitarian developments in terms of access to areas that had been cut off for months, overall access for emergency supplies “continues to be compromised.” The latest January humanitarian access map shows Darfur-wide access is about 64 per cent.

Backing up this grim assessment, the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) said today a 15-year old girl was raped on Tuesday in south Darfur, while Arab tribal fighting has erupted again in the same region. These are the latest in daily reports of violence coming out of the region, where at least 200,000 people have been killed and 2 million others displaced from their homes since 2003. In total, some 4 million civilians need assistance to survive.

Uganda/CAR: LRA Moves

From Reuters

Ugandan rebels have crossed into Sudan from hideouts in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and were moving north on Friday towards the Central African Republic, a Sudanese official and aid worker said.

Paul Matthews Rikito, director of Tambura County in southwestern Sudan on the CAR border, told Reuters he saw two groups of Lord's Resistance Army rebels moving north.

"They are so many. The first group was more than 1,000," Rikito said by phone. "They are heading towards CAR."

He added that the group included women, children and cattle.

The LRA denied the move. "We are not moving anywhere near Central African Republic. We have no intention to," LRA spokesman Godfrey Ayoo said.

But local aid workers corroborated the sighting.

"The group (of LRA) ... is following the Namatina River in a northwest direction. They are moving fast," said Andy Wren, who works for aid agency Norwegian People's Aid.

He said cited south Sudanese military sources with whom his organisation works closely.

Darfur: Double Standards Being Applied

From IFEX

Why is it that - in contrast to the attention given to the Middle East conflicts - Arab media and politicians are largely ignoring events in Darfur? Moataz El Fegiery and Ridwan Ziyada look for answers

For many people in the Arab world the "humanitarian catastrophe" unfolding in Darfur just doesn't exist - and the simple reason for that is that the Arab media has ignored it. So it's little wonder that there has been no unease or disapproval voiced at the ignorance exhibited by the Arabs on the subject of crimes against humanity in this region of Sudan.

What makes things worse is a suspicion that what we are faced with here is the kind of unscrupulousness that borders on a denial of history; one need only recall the role of some Arabs in the African slave trade.

Let's assume for the moment that Arab governments' displaying a less than clear cut commitment to the human rights issue in Darfur is only to be expected - in fact it is just about the last thing an Arab government is going to place on its list of foreign policy priorities - but what about Arab journalists, intellectuals, political activists and artists? How is their behaviour, particularly those whose job it is raise public awareness of such things on behalf of the United Nations, to be explained?

How can they justify their silence on events in Darfur? No explanation, no honestly expressed shock at what is happening in Darfur has been forthcoming. The only rent in this curtain of silence being the statement of 17 October 2006, when at least some few Arab intellectuals were prepared to express their disapproval of "the silence of the Arab world in the face of the humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur."

[edit]

The blinkered political rationale has cost millions of civilian lives in Darfur, with innocent people suddenly becoming expendable pawns in the conflict being waged by the political and intellectual Arab elite against the West.

What some, in particular the Khartoum government, have overlooked is the fact that a 10,000-strong UN troop, made up mostly of soldiers from 60 different African and Asian countries, is currently stationed in Sudan.

It was the peace agreement of 2005 that brought an end to twenty-one years of civil war between the government and the Sudanese liberation movement and led to the troops being deployed in central and southern areas of the country.

Collaboration with the international community for the purposes of securing peace in Darfur does not contravene international law nor undermine the sovereignty of the Sudanese leadership; it is in fact the duty of the international community.

The Arab world's response to the Darfur crisis has been a miserable failure. It's the moral failure, however, more than the political failure, that is the real tragedy. And it is a failure of the intellectuals just as much as it is of the Arab governments.

Because it is better late than never, Arab politicians, intellectuals, lawyers and journalists must act now. They must come together to protect the people of Darfur. It may, perhaps, still be just enough to help ease a little the pangs of remorse and grief which are the lot of all who indulge in misplaced silence and ignorance.

Genocide: Despite Ankara’s Entreaties, Groups Stay Mum on Armenian Resolution

From Forward

Despite fears of upsetting a top Israeli and American ally in the Muslim world, Jewish organizations are reluctant to respond to Turkish calls to fight a congressional resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide.

In the past, Jewish groups have aided Turkey’s efforts to prevent the United Stated from applying the term “genocide” to the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Turks during World War I. But this time around, the Forward has learned, Jewish organizations are declining to commit to the issue, fearing an uphill battle with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has vowed to push the resolution through.

In a meeting two weeks ago in Washington, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul raised the issue with representatives of several leading Jewish organizations. In the meeting, attended by representatives of eight major groups, Gul stressed the importance that Turkey sees in preventing the passage of the resolution. He asked the Jewish groups to use their lobbying operations on Capitol Hill to aid Ankara’s cause.

According to several Jewish representatives who were in the meeting, Turkish officials warned that the passage of a genocide resolution could threaten Ankara’s strategic ties with the United States and, perhaps, with Israel. In the past, Jewish groups have been inclined to side with Turkey, which they see as Israel’s only Muslim ally in the region and a power that can check Islamist radicalism and block Iranian influence. The Israeli air force holds exercises with Turkey, and Israeli defense industries see the country as a major export market.

In sharp contrast, several Jewish lawmakers have sided with Armenian American activists in pressing for a resolution, saying that the moral imperative is to fight genocide denial.

“There is no debate in the [Jewish] community about the facts regarding what happened; the only question is, are we willing to recognize it while taking the risk of alienating our relationship with Turkey?” said Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who introduced the genocide resolution January 30. “When you think of Elie Wiesel’s words, that Holocaust denial is a second trauma for the victims, it’s easy to understand the potency of the Armenian claim.”

Schiff was optimistic about the fate of his resolution.

“Chances of getting the resolution passed this time are good,” Schiff said. “Turkey has some of the best lobbyists in town, but we definitely have the votes.” The key question is if and when a vote will take place.

Rep. Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign

Affairs Committee and the only Holocaust survivor in Congress, has yet to schedule a debate or vote on the measure. The California Democrat is “focusing on the Iraq debate and has not yet made a decision regarding this resolution,” according to his spokeswoman, Lynne Weil.

Congressional sources predicted that if Lantos tried to block the genocide resolution in committee, Pelosi would ask him to move it to the House floor for a vote and he would end up agreeing.

[edit]

During the Turkish foreign minister’s recent meeting with Jewish organizations, sources said, it was Ankara’s ambassador to Washington, Nabi Sensoy, who directly addressed the possible consequences of a resolution. The ambassador listed several points of cooperation that could be jeopardized if Congress moves forward, most of them relating to the American military effort in Iraq. The possibility was raised of Turkey closing Incirlik air force base, through which American forces in Iraq receive more than half their fuel supply; for example, Turkish officials suggested, the Incirlik area could be declared a national bird refuge in which flights and traffic are limited. The discussion also touched on the effect that the congressional resolution could have on Turkey’s strategic ties with Israel.

Neither side raised the issue of Turkey’s Jewish community in the context of the Armenian genocide resolution. But in interviews after the meeting, representatives of Jewish organizations said that they were concerned over the well-being of the Turkish Jewish community if the government in Ankara decides to express its dismay with America.

Representatives of Jewish organizations who attended the meeting were reluctant to offer their help to Gul, sources told the Forward. They told the Turkish foreign minister that the chances of blocking the House leadership on this issue were slim, and that — as one participant later said — “no one wants to take on a losing battle.”

The meeting included representatives of the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League, B’nai B’rith, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the Orthodox Union, Chabad and United Jewish Communities, the national arm of the North American network of Jewish charitable federations.

[edit]

In the Senate, several Jewish lawmakers have assumed a vocal role in fighting America’s refusal to classify the killing of Armenians as genocide. Currently at issue is President Bush’s decision last month to reintroduce the nomination of career diplomat Richard Hoagland as ambassador to Armenia. Democrats and at least one Republican, Norm Coleman of Minnesota — one of two Jewish Republican senators — opposed Hoagland’s nomination last year over his refusal to use the term “genocide” when talking about the killing of the Armenians in World War I. His predecessor, ambassador John Evans, was recalled last year after using the term “genocide” publicly.

Senate Democrats are now calling on Bush to withdraw Hoagland’s nomination and find a candidate who is more forthcoming on the genocide issue. Another Jewish lawmaker, New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, wrote a letter to Bush last month arguing that “Hoagland’s reluctance to classify the Armenian Genocide as the 20th century’s first genocide is a travesty, which leaves us to believe that he will march lock and step with the administration’s politically motivated stance of denial.”

Genocide: U.N. Court to Rule in Landmark Bosnia Case

From Reuters

The World Court will rule on Monday whether Serbia committed genocide in Bosnia during the 1992-95 war, a decision that could allow Bosnia to seek billions of dollars of compensation from its Balkan neighbor.

The International Court of Justice in The Hague, the highest U.N. court, opened the case last year, 13 years after Bosnia first sued the rump Yugoslav state from which it seceded in 1992, triggering a war which killed at least 100,000 people.

"If Serbia were convicted of genocide, it would have far reaching consequences which would burden our future for decades," Serbia's lawyer Radoslav Stojanovic told Belgrade's B92 radio.

This is the first time a state is on trial for genocide, outlawed in a U.N. convention in 1948 after the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews. The separate U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague has already found individuals guilty of genocide in Bosnia.

Ahead of the judgment, sentiment is divided along ethnic lines in Bosnia, now split into a Muslim-Croat federation and a Serb Republic under an umbrella government.

Bosnian Muslims hope the court will rule that Serbia was an aggressor guilty of genocide, while Bosnian Serbs consider the lawsuit illegitimate because it was filed without their consent by the then Muslim-led government.

Bosnia's Muslims and Croats followed Slovenia and Croatia in breaking away from Yugoslavia in April 1992, against the wishes of Bosnian Serbs, who were left as a one-third minority in what had previously been a Yugoslav republic ruled from Belgrade.

Backed by the Yugoslav army, the Serbs responded by capturing two-thirds of Bosnia, besieging Sarajevo and carrying out "ethnic cleansing" in which tens of thousands of non-Serbs were killed and hundreds of thousands forced from their homes.

During the trial, Bosnia used evidence from the U.N. tribunal which has already ruled that the Serb massacre of 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica, eastern Bosnia, in 1995 was genocide.

Serbia questioned the court's jurisdiction and disputed that Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander, Ratko Mladic, both also accused of genocide over Srebrenica, were under its control.

SOLOMONIC JUDGMENT

The trial has raised questions about the best ways of dealing with the past and whether it is better to pursue individuals or states for war crimes.

Serbia's lawyers argued the case between two multi-ethnic states did not mirror the conflict fought along ethnic dividing lines. They said a ruling against Serbia could find Bosnian Serbs, alleged perpetrators of genocide, on the side of the alleged victim.

Jakob Finci, chairman of the Center for European Integration Strategies think-tank, said the court would have to make "a Solomonic judgment" to satisfy both parties in Bosnia.

A ruling against Serbia would come at a time when Brussels has already suspended Belgrade's talks on eventual membership of the European Union because it had not arrested fugitive Mladic.

Serbia is also trying to hold on to the breakaway Kosovo province, which has been run by the United Nations since NATO forced Serb troops out in 1999.

Stojanovic told Reuters last week he was optimistic Serbia would not be found guilty of genocide.

But he said Serbia's weak point was its obligation under the U.N. convention to prosecute perpetrators of genocide, and Belgrade's position would be much better if Mladic had been delivered to The Hague for trial.

Chad: Prime Minister Yoadimnadji Dies

From the AP

Chadian Prime Minister Pascal Yoadimnadji died Friday at a Paris hospital following a brain hemorrhage, the African nation's ambassador to France said. He was 56.

Yoadimnadji died shortly after midnight at Val de Grace military hospital in Paris. He had been evacuated to France on Wednesday after falling ill and slipping into a coma in Chad, Ambassador Moukhtar Wawa Dahab told The Associated Press.

His wife, who accompanied Yoadimnadji to Paris, will repatriate his body to Chad, the ambassador said. He said they had no children.

``On Wednesday, he felt ill. He fell into a coma,'' he said. He added that Yoadimnadji received medical attention in Chad before being evacuated on an ambulance plane.

Darfur: ICC Press Conference to be Webcast

Here is the International Criminal Court press release - The Hague is 6 hours ahead of East Coast time, so the conference will be at 8:00 am

On Tuesday, 27 February, Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo will submit evidence, in connection with named individuals, of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. The Prosecutor will file his evidence with the ICC judges and then brief the press. Please note the following schedule of press events:

14h00 hrs - Press Conference, ICC Media Centre. The Prosecutor will summarise his evidence, discussing the crimes and the named individuals, and answer questions from journalists.

To attend the press conference, journalists must apply for media accreditation from the ICC no later than Monday, 26 February at 12h00. (Please see instructions below.)

Eurovision will broadcast the live press conference internationally via satellite. Specific instructions on how to receive the transmission will be provided in a follow-up media advisory on Monday, 26 February.

Web-Cast of the Press Conference in English, French, and Arabic will be available through the ICC website, www.icc-cpi.int.

15h45 - Conference Call with the Prosecutor. Journalists who cannot attend the press conference at the Court may pose questions to the Prosecutor during a moderated conference call. To register and receive the call-in number, please contact public information liaison Florence Olara no later than Monday, 26 February at 12h00, Florence.olara@icc-cpi.int, +31-70-515-8723.

**All hours noted refer to local time in The Hague.

Darfur: ICC to Name Suspects on Feb. 27

From Reuters

The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor will name the first suspects accused of committing war crimes in Sudan's Darfur region on Feb. 27, the prosecutor's office said on Thursday.

Chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said in December his investigators had found evidence of rape, torture, murder and sexual violence in Darfur. His announcement is keenly awaited to see if he charges government figures as well as rebels.

Experts say around 200,000 people have been killed and about 2.5 million others driven from their homes in Darfur since 2003, when rebels took up arms against the government, charging it with neglect. Khartoum says only about 9,000 people have died.

"Moreno-Ocampo will submit evidence, in connection with named individuals, of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur," his office said in a statement, adding that the prosecutor would hold a news conference at 1300 GMT on Feb. 27.

Once Moreno-Ocampo has filed the evidence, pre-trial judges will decide whether to issue summons or arrest warrants for the named individuals. Formal charges will only follow later.

Darfur: Britain Wants Sanctions if UN's Plans Fail

From Reuters

A senior British official on Wednesday advocated sanctions and an arms embargo against Sudan if President Omar Hassan al-Bashir reneges on pledges to allow U.N. and African peacekeepers into Darfur.

David Triesman, the British minister for Africa, who consulted with U.N. peacekeeping officials, also told reporters the world body needed to move far more rapidly in setting up a force and naming a special envoy for Sudan.

That post has been empty since Dutchman Jan Pronk was expelled late last year.

Triesman, a member of the House of Lords, said if plans for some 4,000 extra personnel in Darfur were not settled by late March, "there are bound to be international consequences."

For one, he said the U.N. Security Council should add names to its list of four Sudanese now under sanctions and widen its violated arms embargo to the whole of Sudan, not just Darfur.

If Russia or China threatened to veto or abstain, Triesman said a resolution should be put to a vote anyway.

"I think every country will have to stand up and be counted," he said, recalling that Russia and China abstained during last summer's vote on creating a U.N. force for Darfur.

[edit]

"Conditions on the ground are getting worse and worse" and the African Union force "has been reduced almost to the point where there is nothing they can do," Triesman said.

He said he came to New York in an effort "to accelerate those parts of the process for which the U.N. is responsible."

They included appointing a special representative and calling for Alpha Oumar Konare, the African Union commission chairman, to visit quickly to work out the numbers, composition and rules of engagement with U.N. officials, he said.

Triesman also said work had to be accelerated on the hybrid force, where the United Nations wants 17,000 troops but Sudan says far fewer will do. He noted that few countries would volunteer until terms, conditions and financing were set.

While it was unusual for the United Nations to pay for troops not under its full command, he said members of the U.N. General Assembly should move quickly in approving operations once plans were completed.

"I don't believe anyone in the world will understand a long bureaucratic process while people are dying," Triesman said.

Sudan/Chad: Gov'ts Again Pledge to Avoid Hostilities

From Reuters

Neighbours Sudan and Chad pledged to redouble efforts to end border violence being fuelled by Darfur's conflict, concluding their third agreement in 12 months to end hostilities and respect each other's sovereignty.

"The problem should be addressed not by the Kalashnikov, the rocket propelled grenade or the Toyota (battlewagon)," Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said after brokering the agreement at a mini-summit of regional leaders late on Wednesday in Tripoli.

"It is forbidden for an African to take up arms against a fellow African."

Violence in Darfur has expanded into Chad, which accuses Sudan of supporting rebels launching cross-border attacks that have worsened ethnic tensions and triggered a flood of refugees.

Gaddafi has pressed Chad and Sudan to settle their differences as part of efforts to bring peace to Darfur, where an estimated 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million people have been driven from their homes since 2003.

In a summit statement issued at the end of the gathering, which was convened to advance Darfur peace efforts, the leaders of Sudan, Chad, Libya and Eritrea said Chad and Sudan had agreed not to interfere in each other's internal affairs.

"The governments of both countries are committed to respect the sovereignty of one another and not to interfere in the internal affairs of the other country, and refrain from any hostile activity against one another, and to work for full normalisation of their relations," the statement said.

The statement carried by Libya's official Jana news agency added that a follow-up committee headed by Libya and Eritrea and also including Chad and Sudan would start work immediately.

It did not elaborate. But Majzoub al-Khalifa, an adviser to Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, said "mechanisms of observation" would be set up to monitor any attempt to smuggle weapons across the frontier.

"God willing, we will transcend all obstacles and all our bitterness," Bashir said after the meeting.

Chad President Idriss Deby said: "I wish the mechanism to apply this decision be set up as soon as possible to be able to restore confidence between Chad and Sudan."

The statement said Bashir and Deby had agreed to "implement honestly" an accord they struck in February 2006 requiring they stop insurgents setting up bases on their territories and end propaganda against one another.

In November 2006 Sudan and Chad pledged to redouble efforts to repair their frayed ties.

But relations have remained tense. Sudan's government denies accusations by Chad that it sends Janjaweed militia across the frontier and arms and directs rebels trying to overthrow Deby.

In Khartoum, the Sudan News Agency reported that the heads of states attributed any recent security lapses to a lack of adherence to mechanisms agreed upon in the February 2006 accord.

The agency quoted Minister of State for Foreign Relations Al-Samani Al-Wasiyla as saying the 2006 agreement had called for the creation of joint forces and the setting up of observation posts on the Sudan-Chad border to prevent any "military moves".

The accord was the only progress reported by officials at the end of the gathering.

The meeting had also sought to persuade the National Redemption Front (NRF) Darfur rebel coalition to meet Sudan's government to discuss joining a 2006 peace deal between Khartoum and a faction of the former rebel Sudan Liberation Movement.

There was no word on whether such a meeting took place.

Darfur: Sudan Denies "Janjaweed Militia" Gathering

From the Sudan Tribune

The governor of West Darfur Wednesday described as "unfounded" a report by the U.N. warning that a significant number of Arab militia, suspected to be the pro-government janjaweed, is assembling in Sudan’s Darfur and that its purposes are not known.

Jaffar Abdul Hakam Taifour said he had read the reports, but the security situation in West Darfur state was actually better than ever.

"There are not janjaweed militia or any other military build-up in this area and the whole state is stable," Taifour told The Associated Press in a phone call from El-Genaina.

"The proof is that we had delegates coming from the state’s 13 districts to a conference in Zalingei (a town south west of El-Genaina) this week and they all returned safely home," he said.

The janjaweed is a militia that has been blamed by U.N. and African Union officials for numerous cases of rape, arson, looting and killing during the four-year conflict in Darfur. The officials accuse the Khartoum government of arming the janjaweed and coordinating regular military operations with it -charges that the government denies.

In a report released this week, the U.N. in Khartoum said that the militia, "suspected to be janjaweed," was reported gathering about 75 kilometers (47 miles) northeast of El-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur.

The reason for the gathering was not known, U.N. spokeswoman Radhia Achouri said. She declined to say how many people were in the assembled militia.

Darfur: Khartoum Accommodated

The latest from Eric Reeves

During a recent interview on PBS’s “NewsHour” (February 16, 2007), US special envoy for Sudan Andrew Natsios gave clear evidence of a Bush administration strategy to back away from meaningful efforts to pressure Khartoum over its continuing responsibility for genocidal destruction throughout Darfur and eastern Chad. In essence, the US effort is to “lower the bar” for Khartoum in complying with international “demands”---indeed, to lower the bar so far that short of all-out assaults on the displaced person camps, the regime will be judged to be performing acceptably. Such a strategy of course obviates the need to deploy the conspicuously vacuous “Plan B” Natsios threatened in late 2006 if Khartoum did not comply with various “demands” by January 1, 2007. This deadline has come and gone, and as The Washington Post has made clear (February 7, 2007), “Plan B” has so far entailed positioning four US Army colonels on the Chad/Darfur border and a threat to inconvenience Khartoum by obliging conversion of its various commercial enterprises (including oil exports) from dollar-denominated to Euro-denominated contracts. “Plan B” is a bluff, but one that won’t be revealed as such if never deployed.

Other elements of “Plan B” remain classified, according to Natsios during recent Congressional testimony. But Natsios’ implicit characterization of these classified elements of “Plan B” as military in nature is hardly supported by recent Congressional testimony from senior Pentagon officials:

“Senior US defense officials say they are not planning any military intervention to end the killing and suffering in Sudan’s Darfur region. The comments came at a US Senate committee hearing Tuesday February 6, 2007. [ ] The Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs, Theresa Whelan, told Voice of America the United States is pressing for progress on the Darfur crisis, but is focusing on diplomacy. ‘We are not considering doing something militarily.’ [ ] Assistant Secretary Whelan says the efforts of President Bush’s special envoy for Darfur [sic], Andrew Natsios, are focused on convincing the Khartoum government it cannot achieve its goals in Darfur militarily.” [ ]

“Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton raised the Darfur issue at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday [February 6, 2007]. She asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the top US military officer, General Peter Pace, about a proposal she and other senators sent to President Bush to consider military action to prevent Sudan’s air force from attacking Darfur [the much-mooted “no-fly zone”---ER] and to blockade the Port of Sudan [the only way to halt Khartoum’s oil exports---ER].”

“Clinton: ‘I’d like to ask you if you have been instructed by the President to begin planning or preparing any such measure, and whether or not you would look into that if you have not yet been asked to do so?’

“Gates: ‘I have not been asked to. I would defer to General Pace in terms of whether the Joint Chiefs have done any contingency planning along those lines. And I’m certainly willing to pursue it.

“Clinton: ‘General Pace?’

“Pace: ‘I have not been asked to do that ma’am.’" (Voice of America [dateline: Washington, DC], February 6, 2007)

We must wonder just how “coercive” Natsios’ “Plan B” is if there is no military component. Suspicions that “Plan B” is in fact without real pressure points in confronting Khartoum are suggested in other ways. That Natsios’ comments on the “NewsHour” (see below) were factually in error on several key points, and in ways that serve to promote this long-developing strategy of accommodation, should give pause to those who have heretofore been willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the Bush administration. This is perhaps especially true of the gullible and excessively financed Save Darfur Coalition, which has become the unfortunate “default” bureaucracy for Darfur advocacy in the US. A number of well-placed sources have confirmed to this writer that the administration’s priority is politically “managing” the American Darfur advocacy movement, particularly the Save Darfur Coalition (SDC), rather than responding to advocacy demands---demands that are in any event typically impoverished on the part of SDC.

But of course as has been the case throughout the Darfur crisis, the US role---however expedient, disingenuous, or simply inept---is more than matched by the feckless response of the rest of the international community, including the countries of the European Union. Italy has just signed several new economic agreements with Khartoum; French Foreign Minister Douste-Blazy declared last fall that “genocide” was occurring in Darfur and that the issue of nonconsensual deployment should be raised---and then said nothing more; the UK has repeatedly declared it is prepared to send troops to Darfur, all of which declarations have meant nothing (Britain has made no commitment of military resources to the UN force for Darfur authorized by Security Council Resolution 1706); rich European countries such as Germany and Belgium have not begun to offer adequate financial support to humanitarian operations in Darfur; despite all evidence to the contrary, from all humanitarian organizations on the ground, EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Assistance Louis Michel recently declared of security in Darfur, “things are not deteriorating, I do not think” (from an extended exchange with this writer, The New Republic on-line, February 21, 2007 at http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w070219&s=reeves022107); the European Union has very recently again decided not to impose any economic sanctions on Khartoum, targeted or otherwise---this despite the fact that the Parliament of the European Union voted 566 to 6 in September 2004 to declare that realities in Darfur were “tantamount to genocide.” Recent self-righteous declarations from the European Parliament aside, Europe shows no intention of leading on Darfur, despite the disabling burden of the Iraq debacle for the US military.

Japan, despite insistent claims that it deserves a Permanent Seat on the UN Security Council, has been completely useless on Darfur, and scandalously laggard in financial contributions for humanitarian assistance. Canada has been only more generous financially. The Arab League has made clear that on the issue of Darfur, it will defer completely to Khartoum’s genocidal ambitions. Notably, Agence France-Presse recently reported that “only 10 percent of the 150 million dollars pledged in Khartoum last year [January 2006] for the African peacekeeping force in Darfur has been paid up” ([dateline: Khartoum], February 19, 2007). The Organization of Islamic Conference can bring itself to say no more than that “the Darfur problem must be dealt with diplomatically within the framework of national reconciliation without any intervention by unsolicited foreign or international troops” (Bernama [dateline: Kuala Lumpur], February 16, 2007). Khartoum’s génocidaires could themselves have hardly scripted more encouraging words.

In the absence of meaningful pressure on the Khartoum regime, backed by the threat of a credible military response to ongoing genocide, the world will be fortunate simply to preserve the brutally destructive status quo in Darfur. But in all likelihood---given the regime’s continuing defiant refusal to accept any meaningful deployment of international forces to Darfur, one guided by a robust mandate to protect civilians and humanitarians---we will see a continuing deterioration in security on the ground. Such deterioration, widely reported by aid organizations throughout Darfur and eastern Chad, will result in yet further attenuation of already highly restricted humanitarian access---and further withdrawals and expulsions of the sort represented by the departures of Medecins du Monde (Doctors of the World) and the Norwegian Refugee Council. Many hundreds of thousands of civilians are currently beyond humanitarian access, and many additional hundreds of thousands have only the most tenuous humanitarian access.

Here we should consider the example of some 130,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the camp at Gereida, currently the largest IDP camp in the world, and served only by the skeletal presence of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). As the ICRC recently reported (Geneva, January 28, 2007), the extremely violent and threatening attack of late December 2006 has produced a near collapse in humanitarian presence:

“The consequences in humanitarian terms of the recent security incident in Gereida and the subsequent evacuation of aid personnel are beginning to show. Camp residents have at most two weeks of food left and are already worried. The maintenance of water-supply systems is another concern, along with sewage disposal and hygiene promotion. The link between food, hygiene and safe water is so close that neglecting any of these areas can have a direct impact on people’s health.”

Neither Oxfam nor Action Contre La Faim (ACF), the two humanitarian organizations previously operating in Gereida, currently has plans to return to the area. As The Independent (UK) reported last month of the Gereida incident (dateline: Nyala, Darfur):

“Aid groups have suspended operations in Darfur and may pull out of the Sudanese province after a French relief worker was raped, another sexually assaulted and an Oxfam employee was severely beaten at the world's largest refugee camp [Gereida]. ‘We have suspended our operations and we may not go back,’ said Thomas Gonnet, the director of operations for Action Contre La Faim (ACF), whose colleague was raped and another was molested.” (The Independent [dateline: Nyala, Darfur], January 22, 2007)

DRC: Army and Police Continue to Violate Civilians' Human Rights

From MONUC

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) reported that the human rights situation in the country continues to deteriorate, as the army and police perpetrate acts of violence against civilians and the number of reported rapes surges.

A monthly assessment of the human rights situation in the DRC released yesterday by the UN Mission, known as MONUC, stated that there have been numerous cases in which Congolese soldiers and police have summarily executed and raped civilians, in some cases with apparent impunity.

Late last December, troops from the Armed Forces of DRC (FARDC) allegedly arbitrarily executed 13 civilians, wounded many others and set fire to portions of the villages of Laudjo and Ladhejo close to Bunia in the northeast portion of the country. Although MONUC has not been able to confirm this account due to ongoing military violence in the area, it does give credence to the reliable sources who informed the Mission of this incident.

In western Bandundu Province, a policeman with the National Congolese Police (PNC) reportedly shot a 60-year-old woman when delivering a summons to her daughter who had been raped by another policeman.

There have also been reports of a marked rise in armed robberies and other human rights violations committed by people wearing PNC uniforms, with several civilians being killed in apparent robbery attempts.

The number of rape cases climbed significantly in January in Ituri and South Kivu, both located in eastern DRC.

In Muguma in Ituri, a soldier allegedly raped a woman three times who had been accused of witchcraft, and two young women, one a minor, in Aru in the northeast claimed to have been raped by a FARDC deputy commander on 31 December.

In South Kivu, there have been reports of sexual violence directed against both men and women. Four women, one a Rwandan Hutu, allegedly were raped on 21 January by armed men in uniform when they tried to run away from them. On 8 January, a 21-year-old male civilian was reportedly sexually attacked by an FARDC soldier in Ihusi.

Despite the formal end in 1999 of the brutal civil war which cost 4 million lives through fighting, hunger and disease, the DRC has been beset by unrest. This month saw violent clashes in the western Bas-Congo province which killed more than 130 people, according to the report.

Uganda: LRA Quit Assembly Areas

From Reuters

ganda's Lord's Resistance Army rebels said on Thursday they have left two assembly points in southern Sudan set up under a landmark truce with the Ugandan government, fearing for their safety.

LRA spokesman Godfrey Ayoo said the rebels would never resume negotiations in south Sudan's capital, Juba, despite claims by the chief mediator, south Sudanese Vice President Riek Machar, that they were due to do so this week.

A truce renewed in December gave the rebels until last month to gather in two places in south Sudan -- Owiny-Ki-Bul, on the Uganda border and Ri-Kwangba, on the Democratic Republic of Congo border.

Ayoo said both groups had dispersed and the LRA's top leaders were back in their jungle hideouts in the DRC.

"We withdrew from Ri-Kwangba because of security concerns, so we are back in Congo," he said. "The group in Owiny-Ki-Bul has scattered in southern Sudan."

Ayoo was talking by phone from Nairobi. LRA delegates have refused to return to Juba since Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir threatened to "get rid of the LRA from Sudan".

The Juba peace talks had raised hopes of an end to two decades of conflict in northern Uganda that have killed tens of thousands and displaced 1.7 million people.

But the truce expires at the end of this month, with no agreement on when the two sides will meet to extend it.

Uganda accuses the rebels of repeatedly failing to assemble in agreed locations, which the rebels deny. Government officials were not immediately available for comment.

Machar told Reuters on Tuesday he expected LRA delegates back in Juba this week to set a date for resuming talks.

"Our position has not changed," Ayoo said. "We are not going back there (to southern Sudan). We are fully united in the search for a new venue."

The Ugandan government has said it will not move the venue.

But Ayoo said the LRA would keep their guns silent, even if the truce expires. The government has made similar comments.

Rwanda: Debating the Media`s Role

From UPI

Did the failure of the international media to timely report the slaughter of nearly one million civilians in Rwanda facilitate the work of the executioners?

Allan Thompson, founder of the Rwanda Initiative and former Toronto Star reporter said, 'Somehow I remained oblivious to what was happening in Rwanda in 1994.' And tragically, many Americans still are.

The local press, however, were far from ignorant. In fact, one domestic radio station, Radio-Television Libre des Milles Collines, assisted in the genocide.

A newly released book, 'The Media and the Rwanda Genocide,' analyzes this question which was the subject of a recent discussion at the World Bank in Washington.

Thompson, editor, along with the contributing authors, challenged the inadequacies and hidden agendas of the media. Panelists highlighted how the media can avoid propaganda and censorship while increasing journalistic responsibility both locally and around the world.

The most powerful source of hate media throughout the Rwanda genocide occurred within the government-owned radio station, Radio-Television Libre des Milles Collines, which continued to spawn the killings between the Hutus and Tutsis. The absence of the international media, some say, allowed the killings to continue. And Rwanda`s lack of diversity within their media allowed the Hutu-led government to place tight control on the domestic media.

Thomas Kamilindi, a Rwandan native, worked for the Milles Collines and offered insight into the biases of the Rwanda radio and print media. He described the government`s instigation and ignoring of the killings. Raised as a Hutu, Kamilindi was no stranger to his tribe`s dissent with the Tutsis. Yet that barrier became a bridge for his persecution.

'The radio never spoke badly about the Hutu government army, so the rebels -- mostly Tutsis -- were seen as devils and the Hutus as good guys,' Kamilindi said. Such public announcements successfully encouraged hatred between the Rwandan people, for whom the radio is 'a form of gospel truth.'

As the massacres began, Kamilindi resigned -- refusing to fuel the hatred any longer. 'I tried to fight the hate messages, but I failed.' Soon, his own message became a cry of help -- he joined the Tutsis in fleeing from the government. His father became one of the nearly one million people who were murdered in the 100-day span of the conflict.

The deaths reached the point where health advisories warned people to stop eating fish due to the overload of human bodies in the water -- 'rivers clogged with humanity.'

Thompson emphasized the power of the media to present the iconic image -- to 'show us the news images that come to typify an event that makes the general public want to do something to take action,' he said.

The news images that the media chooses to show is another topic. Thompson referenced the media`s agenda setting: the connection between news content and policy-decision making. The 'CNN effect' states that there often is a connection.

The international media`s impact on politics and public opinion often has the power to influence the outcome of certain events.

Darfur: Eric Reeves vs. EU Commissioner Louis Michel

An excerpt from a transcript of an interview conducted by Eric Reeves on The New Republic

After I wrote this piece for TNR Online last October about Europe's indifference to Darfur, the European Union contacted my editor offering to to set the record straight. Eventually, Louis Michel, the EU commissioner for development and humanitarian aid, agreed to an interview with me, and TNR recorded our (sometimes testy) exchange. You can listen to the audio here or read the transcript.

[edit]

Why is it that there is so little in the way of European civil society activism on Darfur? Certainly when compared to the US, European governments just don't feel the pressure.

Excuse me, sir, this is also very strange what you say there. Because the European Union, the European Commission, I am in charge to the European Commission, we have spent three hundred million Euro to finance the AMIS mission. I am waiting for another donor spending as much money as we did.

No, no at the moment I am not talking about the funding of AMIS, which has taken a variety of forms, some of them kind, I'm right now talking about European civil society activism and why it is so far behind--

No, I cannot agree with-- You also have a very caricaturial understanding of the European Union and the European states--

I don't think you're understanding the question. The question is about ordinary citizens.

But if you don't allow me to answer the question then it is difficult for me to give you my answer. Just listen to what I am willing to say to you. If the public opinions in the European countries would not be concerned about Darfur, never would it have been possible to take 300 million Euro from the development finances to pay for military action in Darfur. So you are not right when you think when you have the impression that in Europe public opinions are not concerned with what happens in Darfur. But we cannot be the only who are paying for Darfur. We are paying a lot 300 million Euro! Most probably I will find 45 million more, and then probably 70 million more, to make the gap with 2008 to finance the extension of AMIS. All this because there is no agreement between Bashir and the international community to accept the transfer to the UN. So I don't think and I don't feel there is a lack of sensitivity in public opinions in Europe about that, I think the Darfur issue is a very sensitive issue in the European public opinions.

Well, in fact, I speak very frequently to European journalists who come to me and I ask them why it is that the European civil society movement is so far behind that in the US and they confess with embarrassment that they don't know, but they say to me that there is nothing like American civil society action on Darfur anywhere in Europe. Perhaps most strongly in the UK, but certainly on continental Europe there is nothing that compares. So we simply have empirically very different experiences of what European civil activism amounts to. Let me ask you about Chad. Why has there been no more effective effort to get a force to eastern Chad with the French airbase at Abéché. The request for a robust force at Abéché has come from Chad, the Central African Republic, from the UN high commission for refugees, from human rights and humanitarian organizations. Why aren't we further along? Why hasn't the European Union been more effective in pushing, with French leadership, for a force to eastern Chad?

I think because when the European Union has to move with this kind of issue it always takes some time because there is not a strong attaché a strong culture in favor of moving with soldiers in this kind of difficult situations. It takes time. I moist probably it will we will have a force there increasing but all the discussions I confess it to you are taking a lot of time. I don't know why, there is a kind of reluctant to send soldiers to these kinds of situations. It is not so easy.

It is not so easy. To the contrary, it is very very difficult.

But our public opinions are not any more in the habit of exposing soldiers in these kind of missions and that's one of the problems in the European Union. We have no European real defense police. And that's a real problem, and we are working on that.

What about the rapid deployment brigades that were to have been ready at least a year ago, as I understand it? Why aren't the rapid deployment forces ready?

I am not in charge of that. You must ask Solana. I am not in charge of this kind of confidence. I am humanitarian, I'm the development commissioner, in charge also with the political dialogue with the [unintelligible], I cannot give you, I am not allowed in fact, to give you a position on that.

Darfur: Videos Eye Candidates on Sudan

From the Boston Herald

Steve Atlas is planning to hold presidential candidates’ feet to the fire by creating online videos where the many politicians with White House ambitions will outline their stance on the conflict in Darfur, Sudan.

Atlas, a flimmaker who works out of the offices of Moody Street Pictures in Waltham, is working with the nonprofit organization SaveDarfur.org to create the Web videos.

Atlas hopes to film the candidates and splice it with footage he captured in Chad, a neighboring country to which many Sudanese refugees have fled. The videos would be posted on SaveDarfur.org and also spread to video-sharing sites like Google-owned YouTube for maximum impact.

Atlas said he’s already reached agreements with presidential hopefuls Sen. Joseph Biden and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.

“My hope is once we get a couple of them bagged the others will not want to be left out,” he said.

Reb and government military groups have waged bloody fighting in Sudan’s Darfur region for years. President Bush used the term genocide in 2005 to describe the killings.

Darfur is not a make or break issue with many voters and it’s not likely to come up in many debates, Atlas said. But the Web videos will give voters a chance to hear candidates’ opinions on the matter.

Somali: Insurgents Warn Peacekeepers Away

From the AP

Somali insurgents warned Wednesday against the impending deployment of African peacekeepers in the war-ravaged country, as families began burying their dead after some of the heaviest violence to hit the capital this year.

Just hours after the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to authorize an African Union force to help stabilize Somalia, one insurgent leader said they will fight any foreign troops who are sent into the country.

"The U.N. should keep its hand off our country because the Islamic forces are ready to fight any foreign troops whether they are blue helmet or black helmet," said one insurgent leader identified only as Osman.

He claimed to be part of a newly formed extremist group the Popular Resistance Movement in the Land of the Two Migrations.

The U.N. hopes the 8,000-member African Union force can stabilize the country following the ouster earlier this year of a radical Islamic movement that controlled much of southern Somalia since June.

The deployment is also meant to prevent a vacuum of power and allow the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces that supported Somalia's weak transitional government in battles against the Islamic militia fighters.

The peacekeepers will have to confront the growing violence that has plagued the capital, Mogadishu, since the battle with the Islamic Courts Union.

Fifteen people were killed and 45 wounded Tuesday in crossfire between Somali government forces and Ethiopian troops battling radical elements of an Islamic group ousted in December.

Hundreds of families have begun fleeing the capital, and hospitals say they are struggling to cope with the daily influx of wounded.

Meanwhile, the city's powerful warlords are said to be buying new weaponry at Mogadishu's main weapons bazaar, known as Irtokte, according to arms traders.

"Brokers representing five warlords ... have been buying weapons from here for the last two months," said arms dealer Socotoy Sheikh Mohamed. "They bought more than 300 heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons," he said.

The U.N. resolution urges the 53 African nations to contribute troops to the 8,000-strong force and urges other U.N. member states to provide financial support and any needed personnel, equipment and services.

The deployment is also intended to set the stage for U.N. peacekeepers to take over the long-term job of bringing peace to the Horn of Africa nation.

"For the first time in 15 years, the Somali people have a prospect of being governed by representative institutions that will provide them with security and stability," said Britain's U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry, the main sponsor of the resolution, in New York.

Mogadishu's escalating violence threatens to plunge Somalia back into the years of anarchy and chaos that dogged the war-ravaged nation after 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, igniting a 16-year conflict.

Numerous attempts at restoring order have failed. The transitional government was formed in 2004 with U.N. help, but has had little authority because it has no real army or police force.

"I really welcome the U.N. move," said Khadija Ulusow, a businesswoman in the coastal city of 2 million. "We are tired of war, enough is enough."

Others were critical of the U.N. move.

"The U.N. is just serving the interests of our archenemy Ethiopia to consolidate its grip on our country. That is unfair and unbecoming of a world body meant to be neutral," said 64-year-old Abu Ali Yarow.

The latest fighting has raised questions about the deployment of the AU force, whose first troops — a small Burundian advance team — were scheduled to be on the ground as early as Friday. Uganda canceled a Wednesday news conference without explanation at which it planned to announce a date for deployment of its force.

Nigeria, however, reiterated its commitment to establishing stability in Somalia, saying Tuesday that its 850 troops should arrive by mid-April.

The insurgency has grown increasingly bloody since the government, backed by soldiers from neighboring Ethiopia, drove out the Islamic group. Since then, insurgents have staged near-daily attacks, with Mogadishu's civilian population bearing the brunt.

In the last three weeks, 51 people have been killed and more than 100 wounded. Ethiopian troops, largely seen as an occupying Christian force, have been accused of indiscriminate attacks against civilian-populated areas.

Darfur: Frist on the Humanitarian Crisis, Government Denial

A post from former Senator Bill Frist on FOXNews.com [previous posts here, here, here, and here]

The most significant new and somewhat unexpected thing we learned on this trip to Darfur was that the humanitarian situation remains on the brink of crisis.

The position of the nongovernmental organization, or NGO, workers in Darfur is becoming untenable. The fundamental change is the targeting of humanitarian workers with violence.

Two examples: In Nyala, South Darfur, last month five U.N. staff members were badly beaten by police, and one female staff member was sexually assaulted. According to the U.N. report, this indicated "that those allocated to protect humanitarian workers, the government, were unable or unwilling to do so.”

On Dec. 18 in Gereida, South Darfur, targeted attacks were directed against six humanitarian compounds. All staff members were forced to withdraw and one was sexually assaulted. This withdrawal compromised the delivery of aid to over 130,000 displaced persons.

We were told that morale against humanitarian workers is at an all-time low. Humanitarian workers are becoming the objects of attacks, both from the rebel factions and the government.

Unless things improve and the government becomes pro-active in supporting the humanitarian operations, NGOs will have no choice but to withdraw. The humanitarian crisis would then rapidly escalate.

We discovered deterioration in access for humanitarian operations and increased Sudan government-imposed bureaucratic barriers to the operations.

Access is diminished because of continued violence (increase in vehicle theft and ambushes) against civilians; fragmentation of the rebel factions; and fluctuating control of territory. Access to humanitarian relief has deteriorated to a new low (the worst had been in April 2004), though numbers of potential beneficiaries have doubled over the past three years.

Worse access and increased numbers needing the care — that is a formula for destruction, if not reversed.

A post from yesterday

I was to go back into Sudan the next week to visit rebel (SPLA) leader (and friend) Dr. John Garang (which I did, joining him and his wife, Rebecca, at their home called New Site in southeastern Sudan). I was waiting for the Sudanese government in Khartoum to grant me a visa (On all my previous trips I just entered the south directly on medical mission airplanes without a visa from the Government of Sudan). They denied me the visa (by delaying consideration of it), I’m sure because of my action on the Senate floor and my numerous statements that “genocide” was being perpetuated by the GOS. So instead I went to Chad, just adjacent the Darfur border and visited several refugee camps there. And then on into southern Sudan.

I mention all this because on this current trip, I am making my very first journey to Khartoum in the north, requesting a meeting with President Bashir to explain why the U.S. calls the atrocities genocide and to encourage peace in Darfur. I got the visa and approval to spend time in Darfur, but was denied the meeting with Bashir. Franklin Graham, who has been outspoken in condemning Darfur activities, held the meeting with Bashir — sans Frist. In the meeting he received permission to operate Samaritan’s Purse in the north.

I had other meetings in Khartoum, and most of the spin was that Darfur is simply not a very big deal in the large scheme of things. The government party line is to diminish the atrocities there, to blame everyone except the government, and to adamantly criticize the national media for “overstating” and “exaggerating” the human suffering, numbers of deaths, and numbers displaced from their homes. All U.N.-gathered statistics are said to be overblown.

A 500-mile flight southwest in the DC-3 took us to Nyala, Darfur (the capital of South Darfur) where we met with the deputy wali (or governor) of South Darfur. The meeting was cordial but I was dumbfounded by what I was hearing from this government official. I share with you a few of his statements just to give you a feel of the denial that is so obvious to the international community and independent observers.

He said about a million people in Darfur have been affected by the conflict; the U.N. tells us it is 4 million. His estimate of internally displaced people is 450,000; the actual figure is 2 million.

We were told the “humanitarian situation is stable,” although we had just been told by the U.N. that several weeks ago, 18 humanitarian workers in Nyala had been arrested, some beaten and one sexually assaulted, and that overall the humanitarian efforts because of insecurity are on the “brink of crisis” (more on this tomorrow).

The killing today is due to “tribal disputes,” the wali said. Adding that “we do not want the U.N. peacekeepers to come in.” If the U.N. comes in, “we will see increased suffering of my people. Our tribes have a lot of arms, and if the U.N. comes in, these arms will be directed against the U.N. The U.N. will complicate matters.” All this, when we know the 7,000 African Union troops simply are not and can not adequately accomplish the task; we were told that again and again by refugees and by humanitarian workers at Otash camp today.

The international media is “making great exaggeration” of the conflict in Darfur and there is “over-reporting” of IDPs and attacks, he said. It is “media imagination.”

Well, you can see he was carrying the party line … consistent with what you hear in Khartoum. This is a far cry from what the reality is, according to what the NGOs, the international community, the UN, and people on the ground in the camps tell us.

Darfur/Chad: Leaders Discuss Peace Prospects

From Reuters

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi brought the leaders of Sudan and Chad together on Wednesday to discuss ways to bring peace to Darfur, scene of one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

Violence in Darfur has spilled over into Chad, which accuses Sudan of supporting rebels launching cross-border attacks that have exacerbated ethnic tensions and triggered a flood of refugees.

The four-way meeting between Gaddafi, Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Chad's Idriss Deby and Eritrean leader Isaias Afewerki was to discuss "means of boosting peace and guaranteeing stability in Darfur", the Libyan state news agency Jana said.

Bashir was due later to meet Darfur rebels who have not signed up to a shaky peace deal.

"We hope this crisis will find its appropriate solution," Chad's Deby was quoted as saying by Jana after arriving in Tripoli.

Gaddafi has been pressing Chad and Sudan to settle their differences as part of international efforts to bring peace to Darfur.

The talks in Libya are aimed at trying to entice the National Redemption Front rebel coalition to join a 2006 peace deal between Khartoum and a faction of the former rebel Sudan Liberation Movement.

Divisions among Darfur's rebel factions have been a factor in delaying an effective peace deal with Khartoum. One of the main factions complained on Wednesday it had not been invited to the talks in Libya and dismissed them as a "charade".

Gaddafi is expected to try to persuade the NRF to join the peace deal for Darfur, where an estimated 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from homes since 2003.

Comments from one rebel group that did travel to Tripoli suggested a compromise would not be easy.

"We're not ready at this point in time to enter any talks with Khartoum. We came based on brother Gaddafi's invitation," said Khalil Abdullah, secretary-general of the National Movement for Reform and Development.

Darfur: JEM's Ibrahim Ready for Cease-Fire But Warns of Offensive

From the AP

The head of one Darfur's main rebel groups said he is willing to call a cease-fire if the Khartoum government stops attacks on civilians in the war-torn region and agrees to re-negotiate the Darfur peace deal — but warned of all-out war if it fails to do so.

The United Nations is trying to get the government and rebels into negotiations, hoping to rework the Darfur Peace Accord, which Khalil Ibrahim's Justice and Equality Movement and most other rebel groups have refused to join.

[edit]

"If Khartoum doesn't reopen peace negotiations and doesn't immediately cease janjaweed attacks, we will have no choice but large-scale offensive," Ibrahim said in an interview with the Associated Press.

"We will agree to an immediate cease-fire if there is a framework for new peace talks. We are waiting for the government's response," Ibrahim said. "Either we get the opportunity to negotiate a real treaty, an acceptable peace that we can sell to our people, or we will proceed."

Ibrahim, whose JEM leads a coalition of rebel groups, spoke outside the town of Abeche in eastern Chad, close to the border with Sudan and Darfur. Around 40 of his fighters were with him, sitting in the shade of trees in a dried-up riverbed.

Ibrahim made clear his forces were ready to keep fighting. He dismissed reports that Sudan was using a flood of new oil income to build up its armed forces, saying the rebels capture many government weapons.

"This is all provided by the Sudanese government," he said, pointing to five pickup trucks that looked like the ones used by the Sudanese army, laden with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns.

Ibrahim spoke after coming out of a meeting with a senior Chadian general. Sudan accuses Chad of backing the Darfur rebels. Ibrahim insisted JEM — whose leadership is a mix of former Islamists and former communists — gets no foreign support, but acknowledged that Chad gave free passage to his men.

"Our men our fighting for a cause, for our land and for our people," he said. "Every time the (Sudanese) army comes out in the open, we defeat them."

He would not specify how many troops he has but dismissed estimates that his trained fighters number only in the hundreds. He cited a major battle last September in northern Darfur where rebels crushed a 4,000-strong government force — capturing over 100 vehicles, heavy armament and a Sudanese army general along with hundreds of soldiers. He also said his troop downed two army helicopters in December during a raid against the Abu Jabra oil fields in Kordofan, halfway between Darfur and Khartoum.

[edit]

Ibrahim said he felt cheated by the May deal, which he said was imposed by American and European envoys, who "wanted to tell their people they'd solved the problem in Darfur, when in fact they only made it worse."

Ibrahim urged the U.N. to send peacekeepers to Darfur despite Sudan's rejection of a plan to send some 22,000 U.N. troops to replace the overwhelmed AU force in Darfur.

Darfur: More Displacement Amid Continuing Violence

From IRIN

Several thousand Sudanese civilians who were forced to flee their villages after fighting broke out between the Targem and Reziegat Maharia communities in South Darfur have moved to Kass town, where humanitarian agencies have started assisting them, the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) said.

Unconfirmed reports suggested that between 70 and 100 tribesmen were killed and 14 injured in the clashes, which were triggered by a dispute over pasture. By Tuesday, about 3,352 people had been registered for assistance, but others were widely dispersed.

Another 1,000 internally displaced, UNMIS said, had arrived at Al Salam camp from Sanamanaga after fleeing renewed fighting last week between the local population and the Maharia militia.

Kass town, which originally had 25,466 people, has taken on 73,653 displaced people since March 2004 - many from surrounding villages. Aid workers in the town said the IDPs took refuge in homes and buildings and set up makeshift shelters in open spaces surrounding institutions such as primary schools. More than 20 such informal camps exist in the town.

The latest movement of people comes amid reports that a significant group of suspected Janjawid Arab militia had been gathering for five days in Um Shalaya area, 75km northeast of El Geneina in West Darfur. No reason for the gathering could be immediately established, according to aid workers.

It also follows a continuing pattern of violence perpetrated by various armed groups. On Saturday, tents belonging to several UN agencies were destroyed by police from the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army, while an NGO was temporarily forced to relocate medical staff from Otash camp, 15km north of Nyala, because of shooting by drunken policemen.

In another incident, two suspected armed Arab militiamen entered Krinding II camp in El Geneina, burnt a shelter and shot dead one displaced person before fleeing.

Meanwhile, the influx of Chadian refugees into West Sudan has risen because of cross-border conflict. Within the past two weeks, an estimated 10,000 Chadian refugees have moved across the border.

On Wednesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said fighting had escalated over recent months in many parts of Darfur, forcing people to flee to more remote areas where it is harder for aid workers to reach them.

Civilians who stayed in their villages were unable to tend their fields or go to local markets because of the violence and insecurity, while traditional survival methods have broken down. These recent developments, it noted, were "alarming signals".

"Whole communities are being caught up in a spiral of destitution, leading them to seek refuge in the camps, which are already overflowing," the ICRC said in a statement at the end of a visit to the region by its president, Jakob Kellenberger.

Chad/CAR/Darfur: Secretary-General Warns Sending U.N. Peacekeepers Carries "Serious Risks"

From the AP

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned the Security Council that sending U.N. peacekeepers to Chad carries "serious risks" because of the volatile situation in the central African nation and possible attacks by rebel groups.

Chadian President Idriss Deby also has expressed concerns about the deployment of a U.N. military force, he said Tuesday.

Unlike his predecessor, Ban made no recommendation on whether the council should deploy a U.N. peacekeeping force to Chad and the Central African Republic to help thousands of civilians caught in local fighting and the spillover of the Darfur conflict in neighboring Sudan.

In one of his final reports before stepping down as U.N. chief on Dec. 31, former Secretary-General Kofi Annan recommended against deploying U.N. peacekeepers to the two countries until all parties agree to a cease-fire and start talks aimed at a political solution. He cited the risk to troops from continuing hostilities and very difficult logistics.

The Security Council rejected Annan's recommendation, and asked the U.N. team that had gone to Chad and the Central African to return to the region to visit places they didn't get to because of fighting and make "updated and finalized recommendations on the size, structure and mandate of a U.N. multidimensional presence."

In a 27-page report to the council, based on the U.N. team's return visit, Ban said if the council decides to establish a peacekeeping mission it should assist in protecting civilians who have fled their homes and in maintaining law and order in refugee camps. It should also deploy at key border locations to reduce tensions and prevent cross-border attacks.

Eastern Chad is facing "a multi-faceted security and humanitarian crisis," which includes ongoing clashes between government forces and Sudan-based Chadian rebels and cross-border attacks on civilians by Sudan-based militia, the report said.

The region is also wracked by ethnic violence, inter-communal tensions and banditry, which along with the other clashes have led to an increase in the number of internally displaced Chadians from an estimated 92,000 in December to approximately 120,000 by Feb. 1, the report said. In addition, Chad is hosting 232,000 refugees from Sudan, primarily from Darfur.

By contrast, Ban said, the situation in the northeastern Central African Republic was less acute following an agreement between the government and rebel groups to negotiate an end to their conflict, which he called "an encouraging development."

Ban proposed two possible military options for Chad — a 6,000-strong force backed by 20 helicopters and an observation aircraft and a 10,900-strong force backed by 11 helicopters and two observation aircraft. He also proposed that some 800 Chadian police be loaned to a U.N. peacekeeping operation to help protect a dozen refugee camps and key towns where Chadians have fled, along with 260 international police.

In northeastern Central African Republic, he said, a modest deployment of approximately 500 U.N. military and police personnel "would have a stabilizing effect on the situation."

But the secretary-general cautioned that "eastern Chad is not a conventional peacekeeping environment" because of unrest in the region, hostilities between the government and opposition groups, and the failure of efforts at political dialogue to gain momentum.

"The open-ended deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping force into this challenging environment would therefore carry distinct and serious risks," Ban said. "Chief among these is the possibility that armed groups may view a United Nations force as interfering with their military agenda and decide to attack it."

A U.N. force could also find itself caught in cross-fire, he said.

To mitigate the risks, he recommended the larger 10,900-strong force as the best option because of its size and mobility.

Ban said it would also be "imperative" for the U.N. to obtain assurances from Chadian rebel groups "that they would recognize the impartial character of a United Nations presence."

The secretary-general stressed that the deployment of any U.N. force in eastern Chad would need full support from the government.

When Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Hedi Annabi met Deby in eastern Chad on Feb. 5, Ban said the Chadian president told him he had asked the council in November to deploy a "civilian force" to the camps — not a military force.

"Furthermore, he expressed the view that the international community was considering the deployment of a United Nations military force in Chad because Sudan had refused to accept the deployment of a United Nations operation in Darfur," Ban said.

Deby said he wanted to see additional details about a proposed U.N. mission before making a final decision, and those recommendations were handed over, the secretary-general said.

Ban stressed that a lasting solution to the crisis in both countries depends first and foremost on their leaders. He urged the governments in Chad and the Central African Republic "to move forward rapidly and to muster the political will and establish peace and stability in their countries and in the region."

From Reuters

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recommended on Tuesday peacekeeping operations of up to 11,000 personnel for Chad and the Central African Republic to stanch the spillover from the Darfur conflict in Sudan.

Sudan and Chad have been supporting each other's rebels. The Janjaweed militia, blamed for much of the killing in Darfur, chase Sudanese into refugee camps in Chad and anti-government Sudanese rebels recruit men and boys from the same camps.

Eastern Chad is marked by "uncertainty, vulnerability and victimization of the local communities" with 232,000 Sudanese refugees and 120,000 Chadians uprooted from their homes, Ban said in a long-awaited report to the U.N. Security Council.

The 27-page report laid out two peacekeeping options. The first would number 6,000 troops backed by aircraft and engineering units.

The second option would number about 10,900 troops and include aircraft, and is favored by Ban as better suited to protect civilians, although it might severely tax the overburdened U.N. peacekeeping department.

In addition, Ban suggested deploying 260 U.N. police in 12 refugee camps in eastern Chad. But because of the difficulties of recruiting international police with appropriate language skills, his report suggested 800 local police be seconded to the United Nations and placed under its operational command.

In the Central Africa Republic, Ban recommended a "security presence" of about 500 personnel as well as 20 U.N. police and political officers. Even though security has improved somewhat, Ban noted that more than 70,000 people were still displaced and are living "under threat of indiscriminate violence."

Security Council members had been pressing for a report since they visited Sudan in June and then surveyed the arid desolate camps in Chad. In December, the peacekeeping department and then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan had recommended against deployment, saying it was too risky.

But council members asked experts to return because fighting had prevented them from surveying eastern Chad.

Still, the United Nations is concerned about recruiting more troops in addition to the 18 existing peacekeeping operations around the globe with about 100,000 personnel.

This figure does not include the planned Darfur mission of some 17,000 troops and 500 police. The Khartoum government has not yet agreed to a "hybrid" African Union-United Nations force to augment the 7,000 African troops now in Darfur.

Ban outlined the dangers, saying an open-ended deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping force carried "serious risks" among those who might view a U.N. force as interfering with their military agenda.

And he said that Chadian President Idriss Deby, who had requested international help for months, now was reluctant to approve a military force rather than civilian police.

Darfur: NRF Not Invited to Libya Talks

From Reuters

One of Darfur's main rebel factions complained on Wednesday it had not been invited to talks in Libya between Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and Darfur rebels who have not signed on to a shaky peace deal.

The peace talks, expected to start on Wednesday, are aimed at trying to entice the National Redemption Front rebel coalition to join a 2006 peace deal between Khartoum and a faction of the former rebel Sudan Liberation Movement.

But the commander of another Darfur splinter group, which agreed last week to respect a truce and professes readiness to resume peace talks with Khartoum, said he had not been informed of the talks in advance, and dismissed them as a charade.

"We were not included in the efforts exerted by Libya and Eritrea. We had no invitation or foreknowledge of the talks," said Jar el-Neby Abdel Karim, commander of a breakaway arm of the Sudan Liberation Movement that is not a signatory to the peace accord.

"If there is an initiative like this, they should have informed us and invited us. ... We wouldn't have refused. But we needed to have a clear picture of the situation."

Also attending the talks are Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki and U.N. Darfur envoy Jan Eliasson and his African Union counterpart Salim Ahmed Salim.

Gaddafi is expected to try to persuade the NRF to join the peace deal for Darfur, where an estimated 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from homes since 2003.

Abdel Karim said Bashir did not understand the reality of Darfur's rebel movements. Tens of thousands of Darfuris rejected the May 2006 peace deal because they want more political representation, compensation for war victims and guarantees that militias allied with the government will be disarmed.

"He (Bashir) can't have a summit and say he's dealing with the Darfur issue when he doesn't even know who he's dealing with. We'll have to assume this is a stalling tactic, or a media frenzy, and not for the good of Darfur and the people of Darfur," Abdel Karim said.

The NRF, a coalition of rebels that rejected the May peace deal, fragmented after disputes over whether to accept a truce negotiated last month by Bill Richardson, governor of the U.S. state of New Mexico, to which Abdel Karim's group ultimately signed on.

Divisions among Darfur's rebel factions have been a factor in delaying peace talks with Khartoum. On Sunday, Abdel Karim said a conference aimed at trying to unite rebel factions would be postponed to allow a new group that had broken away from the NRF to join the talks.

CAR: Mass Exodus as Forgotten Tragedy Explodes

From the Belfast Telegraph

A solitary metal signpost indicates the point where the Central African Republic (CAR) meets Chad. There is nothing on either side of this endless stretch of dirt highway to distinguish one desperately poor central African state and the other.

But the relief that travellers feel when they pass the "Frontière Tchad" sign is palpable.

With the family's belongings strapped to three donkeys, Fadimatou Fanta and her four sons skirt the collapsed bridge and scrabble to safety. They have walked for seven days; hundreds more people are arriving in Bekoninga every week. It is a pattern repeated across the two nations' frontier.

That so many people are desperate to leave CAR, the sixth-poorest country in the world, for Chad, the seventh, indicates the extent of the crisis now engulfing this forgotten corner of the world.

The Central African Republic has become enveloped in a humanitarian crisis so serious that one-quarter of the population of four million has been affected. Bandits kidnap children, rebel groups destroy villages and rape women, and soldiers kill civilians with impunity.

Already 60,000 refugees have crossed into Chad; 30,000 more have fled to Cameroon. At least 150,000 are displaced within CAR itself and humanitarian workers believe up to one million people could soon be on the move. Most are walking - often for up to 10 days - to reach safety. Others are selling everything they own to buy a place on one of the trucks operated by CAR's growing number of people traffickers.

The shadow of Darfur looms large. The Sudanese region borders CAR's northeast and there has been a sharp increase in ethnically driven attacks in the area.

A UN team last month reported that 40,000 of the area's 200,000 residents had been driven from their homes. Unidentified aircraft, rumoured to be Sudanese government planes, have been landing in the area. Darfur rebels and janjaweed alike have been using CAR as a base to launch attacks inside Sudan.

In November, Jan Egeland, the UN aid chief at the time, warned of a "really dangerous regional crisis". The conflicts in Darfur, Chad and CAR are, he said, "intimately linked".

The presidents of Sudan, Chad and CAR agreed at a summit in Cannes last week to refrain from supporting rebellions within each other's countries but few experts believe it will make much difference.

"The situation is dire," said Bob Kitchen, head of mission for the International Rescue Committee, one of the few aid agencies working inside CAR. "It is very similar to Darfur but this is a forgotten crisis and it is getting worse."

If it were not called the Central African Republic, few in the West would have any idea where this poverty-stricken, coup-ridden nation is situated. Bordering Chad and Sudan to the north and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the south, CAR has had a turbulent history since gaining independence from France in 1960. Its diamond and timber wealth has made power a valuable prize, and there has been a succession of military dictators.

Education and health services have collapsed and life expectancy has dropped from 49 in 1995 to 39 today. Despite the urgent need for aid, little has been forthcoming. The United Nations appealed for $49m (£25m) for CAR this year but, by the end of January, just $184,330 (£94,000) had been collected from member states. The first refugees crossed into Chad in 2002 after a failed coup attempt by General Bozize. More fled a year later when Bozize staged a successful putsch. A third group entered Chad in late 2005 and early 2006 when fighting broke out between rebel groups and government soldiers.

The latest influx began at the end of last year as the security in the north deteriorated. Beneath the shade of mango trees in Bekoninga, a village a few hundred yards inside the Chadian border, dozens of new arrivals wait to be interviewed by the UN refugee agency.

Those huddled in a clearing include cousins 19-year-old Kayo, 15-year-old Isaka and 11-year-old Abdulaye. Kayo was abducted by a group of 20 armed men and held in the bush. His feet were tied together and he was given nothing to eat. The kidnappers demanded that his father, Tadi Abdul, a cattle owner, pay them CFA700,000, around £700.

"They told me if my father did not pay the money they would cut my throat," said Kayo. "I was really afraid they would kill me." "I was trying to find the money from everywhere," said Mr Abdul. "It took me five days."

The kidnappers returned his son. The next day they came back to their house and took Abdulaye. He was held for a few days as the family tried to raise the new ransom - this time CFA1m. When they paid up, the kidnappers returned and took Isaka.

But after paying out nearly CFA2m - and having lost many of their cattle to bandits - the family struggled to find the ransom. The kidnappers killed Isaka's father and returned the boy.

A truck carrying about 80 refugees arrived at the border a few days ago, escorted by CAR soldiers. Mothers paid up to CFA150,000 to be taken with their children to the border, with one-third being paid to the military. Those who have made it say that thousands more are trying to sell everything they own to buy places on the next truck for their children.

Salmania Umar is one of those who paid to get out. "I left everything," she said, sitting in a UNHCR camp 65km north of the border. Mrs Umar said Arabs like her were being attacked by armed groups because they are Muslim.

"They are shooting at people as they go to prayer," she said. "It has been like this for two months." Her family had suffered a string of attacks, she said, as the situation in Paoua has deteriorated. "Last time, they came at five in the morning," she said. "They fired bullets all over the house. We hid under the bed. We already wanted to leave before but this was too much. We had to leave immediately."

Other women gathered around Mrs Umar tell even more harrowing stories. One points to a bullet wound in her abdomen; another whispers that the attacks caused her to miscarry. Families have been split up. Husbands have tended to stay in CAR, living in the bush with their cattle and trying to return to work on their crops at night. All the women fear the violence will only get worse. None of them wants to return home.

At the border, Fadimatou Fanta leads her children into the village and finds a quiet spot under a mango tree. "I am ashamed to be a refugee," she said. "But I don't want my children to be killed by rebels. All the women are leaving my village with their children. They will all come here."

From Reuters

From the air, much of Central African Republic looks like deserted bushland.

Larger than mainland France but with less than one tenth of its former ruler's population, the landlocked and impoverished country languishes near the bottom of just about every development and governance ranking.

"There's such a lack here of anything. Central African Republic? Where's that?" said one foreign aid worker.

Geography is its defining quintessence -- and its curse.

The French called the territory Oubangui-Chari after rivers on its southern and northern frontiers, before the country adopted the equally business-like "Republique Centrafricaine" in the run-up to independence in 1960.

"Central African Republic is strategic not because it is powerful, but because it has powerful neighbors," said one observer in the dilapidated riverside capital Bangui.

In a poor region, neighbors Cameroon, Chad, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo all enjoy significantly greater political clout and mineral wealth.

Congolese and Chadian rebels have come to loot and pillage during years of coups and instability following the despotic rule of megalomaniac leader Jean-Bedel Bokassa, who famously declared himself emperor at a lavish ceremony and is widely reputed to have had a taste for human flesh.

"The favorite statistic is the government controls 2 percent of the national territory," said one diplomat.

Last year the government accused Sudan of helping rebels who seized a swathe of northeastern territory around Birao before being dislodged by French special forces backed by helicopters and fighter jets. The surviving rebels melted into the bush.

President Francois Bozize observed after a humanitarian mission to Birao this month that many of his officials had not even been to the remote town, three hours from Bangui by light aircraft, or up to a week by road -- at least during the seven or eight dry months the roads are passable each year.

"It's a problem of transport here," one Birao resident told Reuters during a recent visit. "There's not even a bank."

In the northwest, members of another rebel group told reporters they were lucky to hear of a peace deal this month on the radio, as they heard nothing from their commanders.

Geography exacts a heavy toll on the economy, with most imports and exports traveling the 1,450 km (900-mile) road from Bangui to Cameroon's Atlantic port of Douala, which some studies say can take up to a month including lengthy customs delays.

Rife banditry and one of the lowest proportions of paved roads among landlocked countries make for punitive transport costs, according to the International Monetary Fund.

"C.A.R. exporters and importers face among the highest per unit land transport costs in the world," it said in a recent working paper.

Cotton, one of the main exports, costs up to 120,000 CFA per ton to transport to Douala, hammering an industry already struggling with low international prices, said Lezin Leklegban-Ka-Takotessoumbou, in charge of reforming the sector.

The government has pinned hopes for economic growth on gold, diamonds, uranium and other minerals, but there is little industrial-scale extraction. Alluvial diamonds have been informally mined for years, but many are smuggled abroad.

An executive for one of a handful of foreign mining firms prospecting here said he had hired a workforce, but was waiting for equipment to clear customs in Douala and make the long journey by road before the next stage of research could begin.

An alternative freight route by river to Brazzaville in Congo Republic and on to the port of Pointe-Noire by train is only feasible for around half the year around the wet season.

Prime Minister Elie Dote said his government was exploring other routes via Gabon or even Port Sudan on Africa's east coast. "Being landlocked is a real problem," he said.

Even air travel is difficult, with just one flight to Europe per week and a handful of flights to other African destinations, some with airlines the United Nations judges unsafe.

Social isolation is widespread. Internet access is notoriously unreliable with only a handful of towns online.

Less than half of children complete their sixth year of school, according to the government.

Poverty, violence and an HIV/AIDS rate of 15 percent have seen infant mortality rise to more than one in five in the last decade, and life expectancy drop by five years to 38.

"CAR has no voice," said the foreign aid worker.

Darfur: Militia Kill 20

From Sapa-AFP

The Janjaweed militia backed by the Sudanese government has killed at least 20 people in an attack in a southern region of strife-torn Darfur, a rebel official.

"Hundreds of Janjaweed mounted on camels with four all-terrain vehicles attacked the area of Umm Dhai," said Kamal Eddin Haj Daoud, head of humanitarian affairs for the Sudanese Liberation Movement, the sole rebel signatory of a peace deal with the Khartoum government.

Daoud, whose statements appeared in the press, gave the names of seven dead, indicating that the others had not yet been identifed and their corpses had been burned.

He also said the pro-government militia also made off with 350 head of cattle.

Darfur: ICRC President Deplores Worsening Conditions

From the ICRC

Jakob Kellenberger, the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), returns today from a five-day visit to the Sudan, which took place against a background of increasing violence and deteriorating security in many parts of Darfur.

In the course of his journey, Mr Kellenberger went to Gereida, Nyala and Al Fashir in South and North Darfur and Juba in southern Sudan.

The main objectives of this visit, his third to the Sudan since 2004, were: - To gain a first-hand, on-the-spot idea of the current humanitarian and security situation in Darfur; - To urge the representatives of the government, Mini Minawi's faction of the SLA and armed groups who have not signed the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) to comply with their obligation under international humanitarian law to protect civilians and to spare them from harm.

- To request safe access for the ICRC to those in need.

Over recent months, as fighting has escalated in many parts of Darfur, people have fled to more remote areas, making it harder for aid workers to reach them.

Those who have stayed in their villages have been unable to tend their fields or go to local markets because of the violence and insecurity.

In addition, traditional coping mechanisms have broken down.

Nomadic communities have also been prevented from travelling centuries-old migration routes.

This has meant that animals have congregated in small areas, thereby placing an additional strain on water resources and grazing land.

For the ICRC, which is largely focusing its assistance and protection activities on rural areas rather than the camps, these are alarming signals, because unless these areas can be safely accessed, agencies' ability to respond will increasingly fall short of the needs of the people living there.

Whole communities are therefore being caught up in a spiral of destitution leading them to seek refuge in the camps, which are already overflowing.

The visit to Gereida was mainly prompted by the fact that the ICRC, as the only remaining humanitarian actor with expatriate staff on the ground, has had to take over assistance activities in this camp and supply the some 120,000 internally displaced people living in it with food, water and health care.

Darfur: UN Warns Militia Are Mobilizing

From the AP

The United Nations has warned that a significant number of Arab militia, suspected to be the pro-government janjaweed, is assembling in Sudan's Darfur and that its purposes are not known. But the local governor denied the report Wednesday.

The janjaweed is a militia that has been blamed by U.N. and African Union officials for numerous cases of rape, arson, looting and killing during the four-year conflict in Darfur. The officials accuse the Khartoum government of arming the janjaweed and co-ordinating regular military operations with it — charges that the government denies.

In a report released this week, the U.N. in Khartoum said that the militia, "suspected to be janjaweed," was reported gathering about 75 kilometers (47 miles) northeast of El-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur.

The reason for the gathering was not known, U.N. spokeswoman Radhia Achouri said. She declined to say how many people were in the assembled militia.

However, the governor of West Darfur, Jaffar Abdul Hakam Taifour said the report was "unfounded."

"There are not janjaweed militia or any other military build-up in this area and the whole state is stable," Taifour told The Associated Press in a phone call from El-Genaina.

Taifour said he had read the reports, but the security situation in West Darfur state was actually better than ever.

"The proof is that we had delegates coming from the state's 13 districts to a conference in Zalingei (a town south west of El-Genaina) this week and they all returned safely home," he said.

[edit]

The U.N. Mission in Sudan also said this week that residents of West Darfur have abandoned some villages because of banditry, armed robberies and other harassment.

On Monday, the U.N. said, two armed people dressed in military fatigues, suspected to be Arab militia, entered a refugee camp in El-Geneina, set alight to a shelter and shot dead one refugee who came out to protest.

Sudan: Task Force to Address Sexual Abuse and Exploitation

From IRIN

United Nations agencies and the southern Sudanese government are to establish a task force to monitor cases of sexual abuse and exploitation involving international staff, officials said.

"To my knowledge it would be the first such task force," David Gressly, UN Deputy Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Southern Sudan, said at a one-day workshop on the prevention of sexual abuse and exploitation on Tuesday in the southern capital of Juba.

Participants agreed to launch a public information campaign against the abuse.

"There are 13 ongoing investigations being implemented by the OIOS [Office of Internal Oversight Services]," Aster Zaoude, head of the Conduct and Discipline Unit in the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), said. Two of the investigations, she added, could not be substantiated but four military personnel had been repatriated, as had one member of the UNMIS police.

"There will be incidents; we need to be prepared to enforce our policies," Zaoude added.

The southern Sudanese Vice-President, Riek Machar, said: "This is an important workshop and we in government welcome it, particularly because this was a burning issue; it will help to clear the air."

The southern Sudanese government, he added, expected to be informed of reports about sexual misconduct "so that proper action can be taken in a timely and ordered manner".

The UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on 4 January that at least 20 children said they had been picked up in Juba by UN peacekeepers. The children said they had been forced to have sex, often in official UN vehicles, by the blue berets, who had been deployed to help stabilise the region after a 20-year civil war that ended with the signing of a peace agreement in January 2005. The report, which noted that some of the children were as young as 12, prompted a UN investigation.

"The GOSS [government of Southern Sudan] was caught unawares and we were pressed by the world and the Sudanese people who wanted to know what had happened." said Machar. He added that the government had also been "in the dark" about investigations into the crime.

"Our country has been split over the deployment of UN troops in Darfur," Machar said. "When the press talked about sexual abuse and exploitation, [certain] groups used it to try and stop deployment."

Uganda: LRA Sort Out Differences/8,000 Granted Amnesty

From The Monitor

The Lord's Resistance Army peace negotiators have ironed out their differences and are willing to meet the LRA top leadership, largely to set a date for the resumption of the faltering peace talks stalled by a rebel walk-out.

The announcement was made yesterday by the peace talks mediator Riek Machar.

It comes a day after Army and Defence Spokesman Felix Kulayigye confirmed that Kony and Otti have left their camp in DR Congo's vast Garamba Game Reserve and relocated to Central African Republic.

"We have reliable intelligence information that Kony and Otti are in Central Africa," Maj. Kulayigye said. "Representatives of Ugandan guerrillas in the peace talks will meet the South Sudan mediators in a bid to re-start the faltering negotiations stalled by a rebel walk-out," Dr Machar said on Tuesday.

Last month, Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) delegates quit talks that began in the South Sudanese capital Juba in July, saying they feared for their safety after Sudanese President Hassan Omar al-Bashir vowed to "get rid of them from Sudan".

They had called for another venue outside Sudan. But on Tuesday, chief mediator and south Sudan Vice President Riek Machar, said he had been given assurances that the guerrilla group's representatives would come back.

"There were differences between LRA rebels. Now they have reunited," Dr Machar told Reuters.

From New Vision

ABOUT 8,000 former Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels have been granted amnesty in the last six years.

The Amnesty commissioner in-charge of West Nile, Hajji Ganyana Miiro, yesterday said the fighters had lost interest in the rebellion.

"We have been talking to the rebels. We have been putting pressure on them to stop fighting and engage in developmental activities."

Miiro made the revelation yesterday at the launch of "Peace in Uganda", a book by Always Be Tolerant (ABETO), a local peace organisation at Hotel Africana, Kampala.

According to Miiro, those who denounced rebellion were reintegrated into the communities.

"We receive them with their arms and take them for counselling. They are also sensitised about the communities in which they are to be resettled."

Rwanda: Genocide Accusation Causes an Uproar

An interesting article from the Los Angeles Times - via the COC

More than a decade after the genocide, a mystery still lies at the heart of Rwanda's darkness.

But France's most celebrated anti-terrorism magistrate believes he knows who assassinated two African presidents on April 6, 1994. The shooting down of the Rwandan presidential jet that night was followed by the killings of an estimated 800,000 people, most of them members of the Tutsi minority.

In a report to French prosecutors late last year, Magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere accused the Tutsi leader who is now president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, of ordering the assassination.

The investigation includes allegations that U.S. and U.N. officials helped quash earlier inquiries to protect Kagame, an ally of the United States.

The French judge's report, which was obtained by The Times, has caused an uproar in Africa and Europe, and led Kagame's government to break off relations with France.

A United Nations tribunal is judging perpetrators of the genocide, but the ghosts of Rwanda still haunt a world community that failed to intervene. French investigators do not claim that the assassination was the sole cause of the genocide. Tensions already were growing between Tutsis and Rwanda's majority Hutus. But Bruguiere alleges that Kagame sacrificed fellow Tutsis in a brutal "political calculation" aimed at toppling the Hutu-dominated government.

"Kagame deliberately chose a modus operandi that, in the particularly tense environment … between the Hutu and Tutsi communities, could only cause bloody retaliation against the Tutsi community," says the judge's report, which recommends that prosecutors file formal charges.

Former U.N. investigators who initially looked into the assassination told Bruguiere that their bosses had blocked efforts to pursue leads implicating Kagame. The 67-page French report presents testimony from exiled Kagame bodyguards, spies and commanders. They identified a commando team that allegedly shot down the plane, killing President Juvenal Habyarimana and the president of neighboring Burundi, as well as their aides and the French crew.

In November, Bruguiere issued warrants for nine high-ranking Rwandan officials in the investigation, which he opened in response to a complaint from the widow of one of the French pilots. The judge also urged a U.N. war crimes tribunal on Rwanda to investigate Kagame, who as a head of state is immune from prosecution.

The warrants put Rwandan suspects in danger of arrest if they travel, and Kagame also could be in jeopardy once he leaves office. But a trial in France seems remote for now.

In response to the warrants, Kagame accused the French of trying to conceal their ties to former Hutu leaders and said the prosecution amounted to blaming the victims.

"Mr. Bruguiere is an impostor, a politician," Kagame said. "If he were a judge, he would raise the question of the implication of France in the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda."

Genocide: Pallone Condemns Turkey for Interfering in Congressional Affairs

A statement from Congressman Frank Pallone from last week

"Madam Speaker, I rise this morning to share my concerns regarding the Turkish government's threats to retaliate against our country if the U.S. Congress adopts a resolution affirming the Armenian Genocide."

"These shocking threats have been issued in response to the recent introduction of the Armenian Genocide Resolution, H.Res.106. This measure seeks to affirm the U.S. record on the Armenian Genocide, by recognizing it as a historical fact. It also praises the American record of opposition to this tragedy, which is marked by courageous diplomatic protests and unprecedented American relief efforts for the survivors of this crime."

"Senior Turkish government officials have warned that, if Congress even considers this resolution, they will cut off supply access for our forces serving in Iraq. In fact, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told Vice President Dick Cheney that the U.S. must (quote) "calculate the costs of losing Turkey."

"Such a brazen threat to interfere in U.S. military operations is absolutely unacceptable. I am outraged that the Turkish government would put the lives of soldiers at risk in the pursuit of its desperate campaign to deny the systematic slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians. This extremist behavior is known as blackmail in my book and it should be publicly and forcefully rejected as such. Clearly, Turkey is no friend of the U.S."

"As an American, I am deeply offended that another country is seeking to dictate where our nation stands on core moral issues. Especially a country that claims to embrace democracy yet has a long-standing history of abusing minorities, intellectuals and the principle of freedom of expression."

"As a Member of Congress, it is extremely troubling that a foreign government is meddling in our nation's legislative process through threats and intimidation. This is the most dramatic intervention of a foreign government in U.S. congressional affairs and it has been going on for much too long."

"Madam Speaker, Senior Administration officials, rather than outright rejecting these outrageous intimidations, are passing them on to Members of Congress as justification for not supporting the Armenian Genocide Resolution. The Administration is showing no courage on this issue, instead giving Turkey a free pass on their efforts to deliberately reject the truth. They seem to go to any lengths, including having soldiers call into their Representatives in fear of their lives, to deny the Armenian Genocide simply because Turkey demands that they do so."

"Madam Speaker, the Armenian Genocide Resolution already has over 175 cosponsors. I am certain that if Members of the House were given the opportunity to vote on this Resolution, we would pass it overwhelmingly. Congress should be allowed to reaffirm what we all believe and know to be fact -- that genocide was orchestrated by the Ottoman Empire in 1915 to exterminate its Armenian citizens."

"Reaffirming the Armenian Genocide is a matter of conscience. It is my hope that this Congress will rebuke any warnings against the United States by Turkey and consider legislation on the Armenian Genocide."

Genocide: Congress to Vote on Amernian Resolution

From AKI

The speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi has scheduled a vote in April on a resolution that accuses Turkey's Ottoman Empire of perpetrating "genocide" resulting in the death or displacement of nearly 2 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923. Turkey is one of America's closest allies in the Islamic world and is also a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

Turkish-Americans have launched a campaign against the resolution saying that it ignores most experts on the Ottoman Empire who reject the Armenian allegation of genocide. They say that the resolution is an attempt to pass judgment on a controversial piece of history and it unfairly defames an entire people on discredited evidence.

They point out that the US State Department openly supported Turkey's 2005 proposal to Armenia to establish a joint commission to research and sort out this matter but the resolution ignores this.

On Oct 12, 2006, the French National Assembly passed a bill that not only endorsed the Armenian claim of genocide but also made it a crime to deny the genocide.

Like in France, Armenian and Greek lobbies in the United States are playing a major role in pushing for this resolution as it allows them to settle old scores dating back to World War I.

Bush administration officials, however, look at this move with alarm as they fear that it has the potential to damage America's vital foreign policy interests.

Text of the resolution

Calling upon the President to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States record relating to the Armenian Genocide , and for other purposes.

Resolved,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This resolution may be cited as the `Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide Resolution'.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

The House of Representatives finds the following:

(1) The Armenian Genocide was conceived and carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923, resulting in the deportation of nearly 2,000,000 Armenians, of whom 1,500,000 men, women, and children were killed, 500,000 survivors were expelled from their homes, and which succeeded in the elimination of the over 2,500-year presence of Armenians in their historic homeland.

(2) On May 24, 1915, the Allied Powers, England, France, and Russia, jointly issued a statement explicitly charging for the first time ever another government of committing `a crime against humanity'.

(3) This joint statement stated `the Allied Governments announce publicly to the Sublime Porte that they will hold personally responsible for these crimes all members of the Ottoman Government, as well as those of their agents who are implicated in such massacres'.

(4) The post-World War I Turkish Government indicted the top leaders involved in the `organization and execution' of the Armenian Genocide and in the `massacre and destruction of the Armenians'.

(5) In a series of courts-martial, officials of the Young Turk Regime were tried and convicted, as charged, for organizing and executing massacres against the Armenian people.

(6) The chief organizers of the Armenian Genocide , Minister of War Enver, Minister of the Interior Talaat, and Minister of the Navy Jemal were all condemned to death for their crimes, however, the verdicts of the courts were not enforced.

(7) The Armenian Genocide and these domestic judicial failures are documented with overwhelming evidence in the national archives of Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Russia, the United States, the Vatican and many other countries, and this vast body of evidence attests to the same facts, the same events, and the same consequences.

(8) The United States National Archives and Record Administration holds extensive and thorough documentation on the Armenian Genocide , especially in its holdings under Record Group 59 of the United States Department of State, files 867.00 and 867.40, which are open and widely available to the public and interested institutions.

(9) The Honorable Henry Morgenthau, United States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916, organized and led protests by officials of many countries, among them the allies of the Ottoman Empire, against the Armenian Genocide .

(10) Ambassador Morgenthau explicitly described to the United States Department of State the policy of the Government of the Ottoman Empire as `a campaign of race extermination,' and was instructed on July 16, 1915, by United States Secretary of State Robert Lansing that the `Department approves your procedure . . . to stop Armenian persecution'.

(11) Senate Concurrent Resolution 12 of February 9, 1916, resolved that `the President of the United States be respectfully asked to designate a day on which the citizens of this country may give expression to their sympathy by contributing funds now being raised for the relief of the Armenians', who at the time were enduring `starvation, disease, and untold suffering'.

(12) President Woodrow Wilson concurred and also encouraged the formation of the organization known as Near East Relief, chartered by an Act of Congress, which contributed some $116,000,000 from 1915 to 1930 to aid Armenian Genocide survivors, including 132,000 orphans who became foster children of the American people.

(13) Senate Resolution 359, dated May 11, 1920, stated in part, `the testimony adduced at the hearings conducted by the sub-committee of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations have clearly established the truth of the reported massacres and other atrocities from which the Armenian people have suffered'.

(14) The resolution followed the April 13, 1920, report to the Senate of the American Military Mission to Armenia led by General James Harbord, that stated `[m]utilation, violation, torture, and death have left their haunting memories in a hundred beautiful Armenian valleys, and the traveler in that region is seldom free from the evidence of this most colossal crime of all the ages'.

(15) As displayed in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Adolf Hitler, on ordering his military commanders to attack Poland without provocation in 1939, dismissed objections by saying `[w]ho, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?' and thus set the stage for the Holocaust.

(16) Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term `genocide' in 1944, and who was the earliest proponent of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide , invoked the Armenian case as a definitive example of genocide in the 20th century.

(17) The first resolution on genocide adopted by the United Nations at Lemkin's urging, the December 11, 1946, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 96(1) and the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide itself recognized the Armenian Genocide as the type of crime the United Nations intended to prevent and punish by codifying existing standards.

(18) In 1948, the United Nations War Crimes Commission invoked the Armenian Genocide `precisely . . . one of the types of acts which the modern term `crimes against humanity' is intended to cover' as a precedent for the Nuremberg tribunals.

(19) The Commission stated that `[t]he provisions of Article 230 of the Peace Treaty of Sevres were obviously intended to cover, in conformity with the Allied note of 1915 . . ., offenses which had been committed on Turkish territory against persons of Turkish citizenship, though of Armenian or Greek race. This article constitutes therefore a precedent for Article 6c and 5c of the Nuremberg and Tokyo Charters, and offers an example of one of the categories of `crimes against humanity' as understood by these enactments'.

(20) House Joint Resolution 148, adopted on April 8, 1975, resolved: `[t]hat April 24, 1975, is hereby designated as `National Day of Remembrance of Man's Inhumanity to Man', and the President of the United States is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the people of the United States to observe such day as a day of remembrance for all the victims of genocide , especially those of Armenian ancestry . . .'.

(21) President Ronald Reagan in proclamation number 4838, dated April 22, 1981, stated in part `like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians, which followed it--and like too many other persecutions of too many other people--the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten'.

(22) House Joint Resolution 247, adopted on September 10, 1984, resolved: `[t]hat April 24, 1985, is hereby designated as `National Day of Remembrance of Man's Inhumanity to Man', and the President of the United States is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the people of the United States to observe such day as a day of remembrance for all the victims of genocide , especially the one and one-half million people of Armenian ancestry . . .'.

(23) In August 1985, after extensive study and deliberation, the United Nations SubCommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities voted 14 to 1 to accept a report entitled `Study of the Question of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide ,' which stated `[t]he Nazi aberration has unfortunately not been the only case of genocide in the 20th century. Among other examples which can be cited as qualifying are . . . the Ottoman massacre of Armenians in 1915-1916'.

(24) This report also explained that `[a]t least 1,000,000, and possibly well over half of the Armenian population, are reliably estimated to have been killed or death marched by independent authorities and eye-witnesses. This is corroborated by reports in United States, German and British archives and of contemporary diplomats in the Ottoman Empire, including those of its ally Germany.'.

(25) The United States Holocaust Memorial Council, an independent Federal agency, unanimously resolved on April 30, 1981, that the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum would include the Armenian Genocide in the Museum and has since done so.

(26) Reviewing an aberrant 1982 expression (later retracted) by the United States Department of State asserting that the facts of the Armenian Genocide may be ambiguous, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1993, after a review of documents pertaining to the policy record of the United States, noted that the assertion on ambiguity in the United States record about the Armenian Genocide `contradicted longstanding United States policy and was eventually retracted'.

(27) On June 5, 1996, the House of Representatives adopted an amendment to House Bill 3540 (the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 1997) to reduce aid to Turkey by $3,000,000 (an estimate of its payment of lobbying fees in the United States) until the Turkish Government acknowledged the Armenian Genocide and took steps to honor the memory of its victims.

(28) President William Jefferson Clinton, on April 24, 1998, stated: `This year, as in the past, we join with Armenian-Americans throughout the nation in commemorating one of the saddest chapters in the history of this century, the deportations and massacres of a million and a half Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in the years 1915-1923.'.

(29) President George W. Bush, on April 24, 2004, stated: `On this day, we pause in remembrance of one of the most horrible tragedies of the 20th century, the annihilation of as many as 1,500,000 Armenians through forced exile and murder at the end of the Ottoman Empire.'.

(30) Despite the international recognition and affirmation of the Armenian Genocide , the failure of the domestic and international authorities to punish those responsible for the Armenian Genocide is a reason why similar genocides have recurred and may recur in the future, and that a just resolution will help prevent future genocides.

SEC. 3. DECLARATION OF POLICY.

The House of Representatives--

(1) calls upon the President to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States record relating to the Armenian Genocide and the consequences of the failure to realize a just resolution; and

(2) calls upon the President in the President's annual message commemorating the Armenian Genocide issued on or about April 24, to accurately characterize the systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1,500,000 Armenians as genocide and to recall the proud history of United States intervention in opposition to the Armenian Genocide .

Darfur: Natsios Says ‘Chaos’ Clouding Prospects for Political Solution

From the Council on Foreign Relations

Could you describe the situation as it exists now in Darfur? What are the biggest threats the people of that region face?

There are three major threats. First, the displaced camps where two and a half million people live are vulnerable, because people are in very closed-in areas. If there was an attempt by the janjaweed militia, which is paid for, equipped, and directed by the Sudanese government, but not always completely under their control, to start to attack the camps, to disperse them, or to take things from people, then I think there would be widespread bloodshed in the camps. That’s a grave risk. There are some people within the regime that think the displaced camps are the problem, that if the displaced camps weren’t there, there wouldn’t be pressure for all these international troops and there wouldn’t be pressure for resolving the situation. This is a visible evidence of the failure of their policy. So far, the government has not attempted to shut the camps down. But should they, then we have a huge problem on our hands. We have given credible warnings of what will happen if they do that.

Two, there is a risk that the instability in the province will lead to the voluntary departure or the expulsion of the NGOs—the ICRC (the International Committee of the Red Cross) and the UN humanitarian agencies that support the people in these camps. Without those agencies, people will die, because they have no way of feeding themselves and providing the medical support and the water that’s needed to sustain life in the camps. If the attacks by rebel forces on the NGOs to loot their trucks—that’s what the rebels are doing—or the harassment by the government against the humanitarian aid agencies results in the departure of these NGOS and UN agencies, that would be a disaster.

The third risk is simply the fact that there’s near anarchy in the province. The Sudanese government has lost control of large parts of the province. They have been defeated militarily three times now in major battles with the rebels. But the rebels are atomizing, they are breaking down into smaller and smaller groups. Some of the rebels are fighting with each other and some of the [formerly allied] tribes have been fighting with each other. The chaotic conditions make it much harder to achieve a peace agreement, which is the only way to put Darfur back together again. It’s more difficult under those circumstances to get troop-contributing countries to agree to put their soldiers in harm’s way when there’s no agreement and there’s chaos on the ground and a lot of guns around.

Outline how the UN peacekeeping role plays into this.

We need another ten thousand troops and three thousand police, which is what the [UN] secretary-general requested and has suggested from the assessments the United Nations did last summer. This is necessary for several reasons. One, it will allow greater protection for civilians. [Two,] it will allow protection for the humanitarian aid effort. Third, if there is a negotiated peace settlement, there will be things like the disarmament of rebels on either side of the conflict [including the] militias that are associated with the government—particularly the disarmament from the use of heavy weapons—that I think only troops that are experienced in doing this should be charged with carrying out. The United Nations [UN] has this experience, but the African Union [AU] does not. The AU basically has said, “We want to help, we want to be there, we’re willing to provide the protection, but some of these duties that we’re being asked to perform we do not have experience with.” So we need a combination of the UN and the AU. That’s what’s been agreed to, a hybrid force of the two, but getting other countries to contribute troops under these circumstances is difficult.

You generated a lot of interest with your ‘Plan B’ warning. What can you say about what sort of levers the United States has to try to influence the situation?

Our leverage over the rebel movements to unify is more limited than our leverage over the Sudanese government, but we have to have movement on both sides. If we get the Sudanese government to sit down at the table and there are fifteen rebel groups fighting with each other, there’s not going to be any peace agreement. So we need both sides to cooperate. The Sudanese have not been particularly cooperative. They bombed the first two meetings of rebel commanders that we in the international community had encouraged because they don’t want them talking. Two days ago, Jan Eliasson, the special envoy of the secretary-general and Salim Salim, the special envoy of the African Union, did sit down with two hundred rebel commanders in a very productive meeting in Darfur, and the government agreed not to bomb it. So that, for us, was a step forward in the process. We believe we can move both sides towards a negotiated settlement, but it’s not easy to do it.

So the announcement of a Plan B laying out of a marker, perhaps, for the Sudanese—that there are penalties down the road, and that there are plans for certain financial sanctions and things like that?

We needed to send a message to the Sudanese government that we were no longer simply going to continue with the situation the way it’s been the last four years, that there was a change. We are considering more aggressive measures should we make no progress in the humanitarian area, in the political negotiations, and in the implementation of Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon’s [former and current UN secretary-generals] plan to introduce these additional forces.

The Chinese president made a recent trip to the region. You actually went to China before that to talk to the Chinese. The visit ended with an agreement to eliminate Sudanese debt and to help finance a presidential palace. What should we make of this trip?

The Sudanese and the Chinese have been discussing this issue. We wanted to encourage the Chinese to press the Sudanese for progress [in protecting civilians and moving toward a negotiated solution], which is sort of a broad agreement in the international community in terms of where we need to go. The Chinese delivered the messages, I believe quietly in their own nonconfrontational way. We tend to be more confrontational in our diplomacy traditionally, and as a result of that, we were disappointed in the low-key approach the Chinese took. However, the Chinese can play an important role as interlocutors for the Sudanese government. We need to keep cultivating that and I am actually hopeful that there will be more cooperation with the Chinese on this.

The neighboring countries of Chad and Central African Republic are getting swept into the conflict. Can you talk about the concern the United States has for this being a region-wide crisis, and maybe what contingencies there are to address it?

Well, it already is a region-wide conflict. Chad is at war with Sudan even though it’s not a declaration of war. Essentially they’re destabilizing each other, and this conflict has spilled over into the Central African Republic. Our plan for dealing with it, one, is the U.S. support with the French for a robust UN peacekeeping force to be placed in Chad along the border that will protect the refugee camps and the displaced camps, and then through diplomacy to stabilize the situation within Chad. We don’t need a civil war within Chad now with what’s happening in Darfur. So we’ve been working with our European allies on this. We support efforts to resolve the internal differences in Chad that have led to the instability, and we’ve been urging both the Chadians to not interfere in Darfur and the government of Sudan not to interfere in Chad.

As a presidential envoy in this region and previously as USAID [Agency for International Development] director, how would you describe the scale of this conflict and the thicket that has to be navigated to get to a political resolution?

This is one of the most complex conflicts in the world. The risk to the civilian population is enormous. Our levers and instruments of influence are more limited than people realize. But I still think we have a chance of success. We do have a unified world community in terms of wanting to resolve this. We have people’s attention. The Africans are very upset with what’s happening in Darfur and they want to resolve this, so do the Europeans, and the Chinese in their own way as well, and some of the Arab states have been helpful. They’re not going to go as far as we would go. They’re not going to impose sanctions, they don’t want to go to Plan B. We will have a much smaller coalition should we go to a Plan B, but we have enough countries that it won’t be just the United States versus

Darfur: Janjaweed Massing North of el-Geneina

From Reuters

Janjaweed militias have been concentrating forces to the north of el-Geneina, the capital of Sudan's West Darfur state, an African Union military source said on Tuesday, corroborating a U.N. report.

Janjaweed is the local name for militia forces drawn mainly from the nomadic Arab tribes of the area and blamed for much of the killing in Darfur over the past four years.

The AU source, who asked not to be named, said: "They are massing (north of el-Geneina). ... They have vehicles with machineguns on top and they're Janjaweed. We can't say what their intentions are."

The source declined to give numbers, but described the forces gathered as a "huge amount of personnel", with pick-up trucks, camels and horses, while a U.N. mission spokeswoman said the militia numbered in the hundreds.

The AU source said an African Union helicopter was keeping the force under surveillance and the government was being notified. The Sudanese military could not be reached for comment.

A former rebel movement said a separate Janjaweed force has been attacking villages far to the east of the Darfur region for the past two days, killing six civilians.

That Janjaweed activity was north of ed-Da'ein, a town about 450 km (300 miles) southeast of el-Geneina.

A spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), the only rebel faction to sign a May peace accord with the government, said the militia had pillaged food and burned houses in an attack which began on Monday and continued on Tuesday.

Six civilians were killed and two injured, he added. An army spokesman said he could not comment immediately.

"Nine months after (the signing of the peace agreement), Darfur has not lived with stability. We want to affirm that government officials who say the situation is stable in Darfur ... want to deceive the Sudanese people," said SLM spokesman Al-Tayyib Khamis.

Khamis said the militia were using heavy weaponry given to them by the government, and the attacks were a "blatant violation" of the Darfur peace agreement.

Rights group and Western governments say the Sudanese government has used the Janjaweed as auxiliaries against Darfur rebels and civilians suspected of rebel sympathies. The government denies this and says the Janjaweed are outlaws.

On Monday, a report by the U.N. Mission in Sudan said "armed militia have been mobilising in large numbers over the last five days in the general area of Abou Souroug and Sliea (approximately 50 km north of el-Geneina). The reason behind the massive militia mobilisation is so far not known."

Tribal clashes in South Darfur killed up to 100 people last week, according to the United Nations.

Darfur: al-Bashir, Rebels to Meet

From Reuters

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir will hold talks with Darfur rebels in Libya on Tuesday to try to advance peace efforts in the western Sudanese region, a Libyan official said.

The talks will also be attended by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki and U.N. and African Union envoys, the official said.

A Libyan official said he expected Gadhafi to try to persuade the National Redemption Front Darfur rebel group to join a peace deal reached between one rebel faction and Bashir's government in May 2005.

[edit]

Gadhafi, who advocates African solutions in resolving African conflicts and avoiding reliance on Western diplomacy, sees neighboring Sudan and Chad as his diplomatic backyard.

Gadhafi has hosted a string of mini-summits and other gatherings on the Darfur conflict in the past two years.

U.N. envoy for Darfur Jan Eliasson and his AU counterpart Salim Ahmed Salim will attend Tuesday's gathering.

From AFP

Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir has flown to Libya for talks with Darfur rebel leaders aimed at reviving faltering peace efforts, a news agency has said.

He was expected to meet Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki and a number of representatives from the many rebel groups operating in the war-torn western Sudanese region.

The meeting "represents a new step in the dialogue between the government and the armed movements and should pave the way for talks to take place later in Asmara," SUNA news agency quoted presidential adviser Abdallah Ali Massar as saying Tuesday.

United Nations and African Union envoys Jan Eliasson and Salim Ahmed Salim were also due to join the talks in Tripoli.

Beshir travelled with a high-level delegation including Foreign Minister Alam Akol, top aides Majzub al-Khalifa and Nafie Ali Nafie, Presidential Affairs Minister Hassan Saleh and Investment Minister Malek Akar.

The Sudanese president flew to Tripoli in response to an invitation by Kadhafi to start negotiations with all rebel factions.

"Beshir has earlier declared willingness to negotiate with the armed movements," a source at the presidential palace in Khartoum told AFP Monday.

However the official, who was speaking on condition of anonymity, declined to elaborate on the identities of the rebels due to take part in the talks.

According to press reports, the Sudanese leader is expected to engage in talks with rebel leaders who did not endorse the peace agreement signed in Abuja in May 2006.

Darfur: AU, UN Attempt to Break Stalemate

From the Mail & Guardian

Four years after the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region started, the search for peace continues. As government planes bombed two more villages, envoys from the United Nations and the African Union arrived in the capital Khartoum. Their task is a difficult one -- to try and reduce the level of violence and start a new dialogue between Khartoum and Darfur’s rebel movements.

In theory, there is a peace agreement in place. In Nigeria last year, one faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) signed the Darfur Peace Agreement with the government. According to the Abuja deal, the pro-government Janjaweed militia was supposed to disarm, and the rebels given government positions. But the agreement hasn’t been implemented and was rejected by most of Darfur’s two million displaced. Minni Minnawi, the rebel who signed, now sits forgotten and forlorn in a side wing of Khartoum’s Republican Palace.

For the Sudanese government, the refusal of the rebels to sign the Abuja agreement has provided continued justification for their war. “The Front [National Redemption Front rebels] is fighting. We are forced to deal with it militarily,” President Omar al-Bashir said in a recent interview. As a result, villages continue to be bombed, displacing hundreds of thousands more people from their homes. Bashir said the bombing would continue “until this front comes to peace and accepts peace”.

Even jump-starting talks about peace is complicated by the chaotic state of Darfur’s rebel movements, which are proliferating by the day: there are now at least 10 factions and splinter movements. Though some of these groups appear to be operating from a living room in London, each faction leader claims to be the true voice of Darfur’s dispossessed. Western diplomats have pushed for meetings at which the rebel groups might form a united position -- but such efforts have been undermined by power struggles and government bombing.

It is into this unpromising environment that the United Nations and the African Union have this week sent their two envoys, the Swede Jan Eliasson and his Tanzanian counterpart Salim Ahmed Salim.

Their first priority is to find a way to reduce the violence amid warnings from aid agencies working in Darfur that their operations are on the verge of total collapse. The world’s largest and most expensive humanitarian response provides food and water to the more than four million displaced Darfuris, but as security has deteriorated, aid workers have found themselves increasingly caught up in the violence. Twelve have been killed in the past six months -- and three women raped or sexually assaulted.

Large parts of Darfur are now too dangerous to operate in. After attacks from rebels and militia last year, no aid agency is based in the town Tawilla in north Darfur. After the town was targeted, its 20 000 inhabitants fled their homes to huddle along the barbed perimeter fence of the nearby camp of African Union peacekeeping troops. With no sanitation or healthcare, preventable diseases are common. A recent report said that 75 people and 10 pregnant women had died in Tawilla as a direct consequence of the lack of medicine.

Elsewhere, an attack in December forced aid agencies to leave Gereida, Darfur’s biggest camp, meaning that 130 000 people are now without humanitarian assistance.

For the past year, the international community’s focus has been to get Sudan’s approval for the deployment of UN peacekeepers. But, more than a year after it was first mooted, discussions are still taking place about the exact nature of the force. A three-phase plan has been drawn up, the first of which has already been completed. Discussions about the more contentious second and third phases still continue. Phase two would see about 2 500 more UN troops being deployed, followed by an additional 10 000 in phase three.

But it is not going to be easy to get Khartoum’s approval. Sudan’s president has repeatedly made it clear that he will accept only logistical and financial support from the UN and that the troops must remain African.

Now, with the visit of envoys Eliasson and Salim, the emphasis has switched once again to negotiating a ceasefire among the various parties. When they travel to Darfur to meet the various rebel groups, their message will be: the government that bombed you last week says it is committed to a negotiated settlement.

Uganda/DRC/CAR/Sudan: LRA Crosses Borders

From the New Vision

At least 40 LRA rebels have crossed into the Central African Republic, where they have joined a rebel group that is fighting the Government in Bangui, according to security sources. They also looted food and drugs from Yangiri dispensary.

Another group of about 400 LRA has left their hide-out in the Congolese jungles of Garamba and is heading in the same direction.

This main group, led by Joseph Kony himself, reportedly quit Garamba on February 14 and is camping in a forest 35km of Tambura in South Sudan. On their way, the rebels looted food from villages in western Equatoria and abducted several Sudanese youth to carry the loot.

Security sources fear that the rebels will attack the SPLA forces around Tambura and Efo in a bid to force their way into the Central African Republic.

Reliable sources have indicated that the LRA advance party has already linked up with the rebels of APRD (Popular Army for the Restoration of Democracy), who are fighting the Government of the Central African Republic.

President Francois Bozize accuses the Khartoum authorities of backing the APRD. France, which supports the Government of Bozize, is actively involved in fighting the rebels.

“It is true that they (LRA) are leaving Garamba,” army spokesman Maj. Felix Kulayigye confirmed yesterday. “But why should the LRA kill, loot and abduct citizens of Sudan, Congo and the Central African Republic who have nothing to do with their war?”

The new developments come one week before the deadline for the LRA fighters to assemble in Owiny Kibul and Ri-Kwangba expires.

The new move also comes as the LRA was urged by the Congolese authorities to quit Garamba.

MONUC and other states reportedly put pressure on Kinshasa to expel the rebels, following their lack of commitment to the peace talks and increased harassment of the civilian population.

According to UN-run Radio Okapi, the Ugandan rebels last week attacked Congolese villages between Faradje and Aba, killing at least four Congolese civilians.

As a result, the Congolese army has increased its deployment in Nagero, Kurukwata and Aba, towns in the southern environs of Garamba National Park.

Uganda: LRA to Return to Talks

From Reuters

Representatives of Ugandan guerrillas in peace talks with the government will meet south Sudanese mediators in a bid to restart faltering negotiations stalled by a rebel walk-out, the top mediator said on Tuesday.

Last month, Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) delegates quit talks that began in the South Sudanese capital Juba in July, saying they feared for their safety after Sudanese President Hassan Omar al-Bashir vowed to "get rid of the LRA from Sudan".

They had called for another venue to be found outside Sudan. But on Tuesday, the chief mediator, south Sudan's Vice President Riek Machar, said he had been given assurances the guerrilla group's representatives would come back.

"There were differences between those (LRA rebels) who supported coming back to the talks and those who did not. Now they have reunited," Machar told Reuters.

Two decades of civil war between the LRA and Uganda's military have killed tens of thousands of people and displaced some 1.7 million more in northern Uganda.

Most LRA fighters are in neighbouring southern Sudan, but the top leadership -- who are wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague -- remained hidden in the dense forests of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

"After they (the LRA delegates) arrive I am planning to travel ... with them to meet the (LRA) leaders and set a schedule for the resumption of the talks," Machar said.

LRA delegates were not immediately available for comment, and Machar did not say when they would arrive in Juba.

Darfur/Chad/CAR: Leaders Seek Solutions to Violence

From VOA

Violence and refugees strung along the border of Chad, Central African Republic and Sudan continue to worry international leaders. The U.N. special representative for West Africa is hopeful about a renewed peace agreement among the three countries' leaders. Phuong Tran has more from VOA's Central and West African Bureau.

Chad, Central African Republic and Sudan's presidents face the task of delivering on an agreement signed at the French-Africa summit last week.

The leaders renewed their pledge to end violence that has rocked the three countries, pushing hundreds-of-thousands out of their homes into waste-infested camps that have been caught in inter-ethnic fighting and cross-border raids.

One-time U.N. envoy to Sudan, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, who is the international body's special representative for West Africa, says, despite internal rebellions the governments face, the real challenge is personal relations.

"The problem they have is not of population, not of rebellion, but competition between the three leaders," he explained.

Chad's hostility carried to the negotiating table at the leaders' summit in Cannes, France. Chad's foreign minister called the side-meeting, in his words, "useless", and said Chad was not in Cannes to entertain the crowd.

Despite current tensions between Chad and Sudan, fed by mutual accusations that each leader supports the other's rebel movements, Ould-Abdallah is still hopeful about this latest peace agreement.

"In the past, Sudan was very close to Chad. And at the same time, Chad was [an] enemy and went [to] war with Libya. Now Libya and Chad are very good friends. So, we hope that both leaders, President al-Bashir and President Deby, who know each other very well, will find a common understanding."

But analyst Adrien Feniou, with London-based Global Insight, says, even improved relations between the leaders will not be enough.

"None of these governments have been willing to engage in a political dialogue with the rebels. It seems unlikely they will reach a long-term peace agreement without engaging the rebels," Feniou said.

Though the Central African Republic and Chadian governments have recently signed agreements with rebel leaders, different rebel factions in both countries have dismissed these agreements as government propaganda, and have continued attacks.

International mediation efforts have run into roadblocks.

Ould-Abdallah, who traveled to Sudan in December of last year, reports continued negotiations between U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Sudan's president to place U.N. peacekeepers in Sudan, which President al-Bashir has resisted.

The African Union is planning a fact-finding mission to the region to try to end the violence, and has asked the United Nations for help with its peacekeeping forces.

International NGOs warn that, without immediate intervention, eastern Chad risks becoming a second Darfur, which erupted in civil war four years ago.

Sudan: Bond Shared a Faith in Peace

From the Chicago Tribune

African revolutionaries don't walk through the church door every day in Plains, Ga., the hometown of former President Jimmy Carter.

So Carter took notice when John Garang, the tall, bearded rebel who eventually would lead a 21-year civil war against the northern government in Sudan, strode into Carter's church on an unexpected visit in about 1987.

Carter was teaching a Sunday school lesson that morning. "I had known about John Garang. But that was the first time I saw him," Carter said. "He attended my Bible class, and we talked afterward about our common Christian faith."

And so began an unusual friendship between an African rebel and a former U.S. president. On that day in Plains, Garang sought to explain the plight of southern Sudan and urged Carter to use his influence to help.

Soon after, Carter tried unsuccessfully to arrange peace talks. But over the years, Carter and Garang met several times, working to end the civil war that took nearly 2 million lives and left millions more displaced.

In 2005, Garang - a proponent of a united Sudan - signed a peace accord that ended the civil war. But just three weeks after he stepped into the post of vice president of the country, Garang was killed in a helicopter crash. His death shook the fragile peace in Sudan, where tensions simmer between the Christian and animist south and the Arab, Muslim north.

On a Saturday this month, during a whirlwind tour of Africa, Carter visited the grave of the former rebel leader. Carter climbed out of an armored sport-utility vehicle and walked the few steps to the grave site, on a small hill amid the dusty, barren landscape that Garang fought to control.

Arrangements of silk flowers adorned the grave, and gun-toting soldiers dressed in blue camouflage stood guard. Under a blue sky and sweltering heat, Carter greeted Garang's widow, Rebecca, and laid yellow roses and white lilies on the grave. He folded his hands and talked about the former guerrilla fighter.

"This is a moment of great emotion for me. John Garang was one of the finest leaders I've ever known," Carter said at the grave, where people had festooned the metal overhead canopy with silver tinsel and multicolored ribbons that fluttered in the breeze. "His death was not only a loss for you but for everyone in Sudan."

Traveling with a small delegation of health officials, Carter, 82, was meeting with national leaders in four countries across the continent to promote peace and health projects supported by his Atlanta-based Carter Center.

On his visit to Khartoum, the capital of the north, and Juba, the capital of the south, protocol dictated that a trip to Juba include a stop at Garang's grave.

"John Garang is south Sudan's national hero and the man behind the comprehensive peace agreement. He is the single most important person to south Sudan," said Ayom Wol, 43, deputy director of information for the government in the south. "His loss is still keenly felt."

But the visit was a personal one for Carter, who called Garang a "wonderful leader and a wonderful friend."

After the helicopter accident, which an investigation later attributed to pilot error, some worried that without the charismatic and forceful Garang at the helm in the south, the country would again descend into civil war. But Garang's handpicked successor, Salva Kiir Mayardit, a senior military commander, stepped in as vice president and has so far been able to keep peace, however uncertain.

[edit]

"He was seen as this major figure who could bring about what he referred (to) as a `New Sudan,' a Sudan that included all the people of Sudan, secular and democratic," said Eric Reeves, an expert on the country at Smith College in Massachusetts. "It was a great vision."

But Garang was known at times as a brutal leader who maintained authoritarian leadership to bring together factions in the south. "He was an ethnic warlord," said J. Stephen Morrison, director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "But he graduated to become a something larger, a leader."

A military helicopter flying Garang to his rebel command center crashed in hilly terrain in July 2005.

"He was a man whose stature was such that he could impose himself on the different voices in the movement, and when he died, it left a huge question mark," said Chester Crocker, a former assistant secretary of state for African affairs under President Ronald Reagan.

Many hurdles remain for Sudan, and several aspects of the peace agreement remain unsettled, including the establishment of a north-south boundary and the division of oil revenues. As part of the agreement, a referendum will be held in 2011 to decide whether the south will secede.

As Carter left the grave site, he leaned over a visitors log, signed his name and wrote a short message of condolence: "A great leader who is missed by all."

Rwanda: Genocide Prisoners Freed

From the BBC

Rwanda is releasing more than 9,000 prisoners, most of whom are in jail over the 1994 genocide which left about 800,000 people - mostly Tutsis - dead.

This is the latest wave of releases under a 2003 presidential decree. About 60,000 inmates have been freed since.

The government has said the releases are to ease overcrowding and foster reconciliation, Reuters reports.

The latest group to be freed does not include any major figures involved in the genocide, an official said.

About 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates were slaughtered during the country's 100-day genocide of 1994.

Since 1997 a UN tribunal sitting in Tanzania has convicted 26 ringleaders of the genocide and acquitted four people, according to its website.

Rwanda has also been trying people accused over the genocide in local institutions known as gacaca courts.

The Rwandan government says that most of the thousands released since President Paul Kagame's 2003 decree are the sick, elderly and children.

"The group that has been released excludes key masterminds of the genocide," Rwanda's chief prosecutor told the Reuters news agency.

Genocide survivors, however, are outraged and accuse the released inmates of planning more ethnic crimes.

"They should ensure that they keep an eye on these people because some of them continue to harbour a genocide ideology", said Theodore Simburdali, president of a local genocide survivors group told Reuters.

Rising Violence Threatens to Turn Eastern Chad into Another Darfur

From the AP

Attacks on civilians and aid groups have intensified sharply along the Chad-Sudan border in the last two weeks, as the violence in Darfur continues to spill over into its African neighbor.

The violence is leading the United Nations to consider a new option: Stymied by a lack of progress on a proposal to put peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur region, it now is weighing trying to put more than 10,000 peacekeepers in Chad along its border with Sudan.

More than 230,000 Darfur refugees have fled to Chad during four years of ethnic chaos in Darfur fueled by the Sudanese government. In all, an estimated 2.5 million in Darfur have fled their homes and another 200,000 have died since 2003.

The Arab-dominated Sudanese government backs janjaweed militias of nomadic Arabs in a brutal counterinsurgency in Darfur against local rebels and the ethnic African tribes they come from, the U.N. says.

But Darfur refugees are not the only ones spilling over the porous border between Sudan and Chad these days: Various rebel groups and militias also roam the vast, arid region — spreading Darfur-type violence that has already chased over 110,000 Chadians from their homes.

Attacks on civilians have intensified along the northern stretches of the frontier over the last two weeks, the British aid group Oxfam said recently. And farther south along the 500 kilometer border, dozens of civilians have been killed over the last few weeks, Oxfam said.

"Traditional rivalries are spiraling into major conflict as armed groups become more organized, more numerous and better equipped," the aid group said. "Inter-ethnic clashes and attacks on villages, including cross-border raids from neighbouring Darfur, are being carried out with impunity."

Chad supports the Darfur rebellion against the Sudanese government, and Sudan strongly backs Chadian rebels settled in Darfur, Western observers say. The Chadian rebels based in Sudan launched several raids last year, briefly taking the major eastern Chad town of Abeche and attacking the capital, N'djamena.

These days, reports of smaller clashes come almost daily.

So far, none of the 12 Darfur refugee camps in Chad have been directly attacked, but neighboring villages are being plundered, officials say.

"It's impossible to say how many raids are directly conducted by forces from Sudan, but what is striking is that we now witness a level of violence completely unknown to Chad before," said Serge Male, the head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Chad.

A 7,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force has been struggling to quell the ongoing violence in Darfur but Sudan's president has rejected a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for 22,000 U.N. peacekeepers to replace the AU force. He also has continued to delay on a compromise deal for a joint U.N. and African Union force.

That has led top U.N. officials to consider a proposal to put peacekeepers along the Sudan-Chad border instead.

Chad's President Idriss Deby has accepted the idea of such a force in principle, calling on the international community to help protect Chad and the Darfur refugees. But he is wary that some Security Council members, mainly the U.S., will want to use the force as a starting point for a possible deployment into Darfur, Western officials here say.

"He doesn't want to be seen as facilitating a possible invasion of a neighboring state, even Sudan," said one Western official in the Chadian capital, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.

Last week, Chad, Sudan and the Central African Republic signed a declaration, mediated by France, to not support armed rebel movemetns on each other's territories. But Sudan and Chad signed a similar agreement a year ago to little apparent effect.

Meanwhile, aid groups continue to struggle amid the rising violence.

UNHCR says it has a contingency plan for up to 50,000 more people to arrive from Darfur. It also is trying to relocate the Darfur refugee camps farther east from the border with Sudan to ease the strain on Chad's natural resources and the competition between Darfur refugees and Chadian villagers, who now often skirmish over firewood or water.

"We don't want to be pessimistic, but we really hope the next rainy season will give us some reprieve," said Angele Djohossou, the chief protection officer for UNCHR in eastern Chad.

She said the seasonal rains, due in July, tend to prevent military operations and should ease the urgent problem of lack of water.

The Chadian army is trying to protect the Darfur refugee camps but can't do much because it needs to focus on protecting the border, said Gen. Kalimi Sangui Abdalla, who commands Chadian military operations on the eastern border.

"This is why we will welcome United Nations forces," he said.

Darfur: Rebel Talks Delayed

From Reuters

A conference aimed at trying to unite the divided rebels of Sudan's western Darfur region has been postponed again, this time to enable a new breakaway rebel faction to join the talks, a rebel commander said on Sunday.

Commander Jar el-Neby told Reuters that a faction had broken away from the National Redemption Front (NRF) rebel group and asked to attend the talks, prompting a delay to await their arrival.

"We believe they'll be a valuable addition to us, and thus we've decided to postpone the conference temporarily," Neby said. He gave no new date for the meeting, originally scheduled for Monday.

Divisions among Darfur's rebel factions have been a factor in delaying peace talks with Khartoum, and the conference to try to unite their positions has been delayed many times, twice because of government bombardment.

The NRF, a coalition of rebels who rejected a peace deal with the government in May, fragmented after disagreements about whether to accept a ceasefire negotiated last month by Bill Richardson, governor of the U.S. state of New Mexico.

One of the largest rebel factions said on Thursday it had agreed to the ceasefire with the government.

Chad: Please Send UN Troops, Say Desperate Refugees

From the Independent

Fatuma Ahmed buried her baby last night. The morning after, as the temperature touched 40C under the full blast of the sun, mourners gathered on plastic mats outside her straw hut to drink tea and offer condolences. All could tell similar stories of pain and suffering. Of how their father, husband or brother was killed. Of how their mother, wife or sister was raped. And all knew who to hold responsible.

Sudan's janjaweed militia, armed Arabs on horseback responsible for so much of the violence in neighbouring Darfur, are carrying out attacks in Chad daily. Chadian Arabs, who have long lived peacefully with non-Arab tribes in eastern Chad, have joined the janjaweed in their attacks on civilians. It is a conflict that United Nations officials are warning could become a genocide.

The attack that caused the death of Fatuma's baby displays disturbing parallels with the conflict in Darfur. Their village was razed by the Arab militia, armed with AK-47s. Men were shot and killed, women were raped, every last hut was burned to the ground. In all, 80 people were killed.

Following the attack, Fatuma and some 200 women and children began the long walk to safety. Four men on horseback attacked them once more. Fatuma, heavily pregnant, was thrown to the ground and beaten. Her baby, Fatimi, had little chance of survival. She was just two months old when she died. "I don't know why they did this," she said. "Somebody must help us."

As the bloodshed rises in Chad, there are calls from humanitarian agencies working in the region for UN troops to be deployed. A UN technical assessment team visited Chad earlier this month and will recommend to the Security Council next week a force of eight battalions, some 6,000 troops, be sent to the region to quell the violence.

Officially, more than 120,000 Chadians have been displaced by the violence - the number has quadrupled in the past nine months as attacks on villages have soared. The word "displaced" does not do justice to the terror the janjaweed have inflicted. Men armed with AK-47s, M14s and rocket-propelled grenade launchers have attacked their village, burning huts, raping women and throwing babies into the fire.

Their cattle and their goats, their horses and their donkeys have all been stolen. Their harvest has been destroyed. Every last item that they owned has gone and they have been driven from their home - land their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were born on. They have fled to the refugee camps set up by the UN High Commission for Refugees, the nearest thing there is to a safe haven in eastern Chad for the 230,000 people who have crossed the border from Sudan fleeing the violence in Darfur. Informal settlements have been set up on the outskirts of the camps, themselves set up on the fringes of small towns.

It has, inevitably, put impossible pressure on limited supplies of food and water. The 7,000 residents of Goz Beida, who already had to cope with 15,000 Darfuri refugees, are now playing host to 30,000 displaced people. "This is one of the hardest places in the world to find water," said Oxfam's Nicki Bennett. "We are trying ... to locate new water sources so people can get more than four or five litres a day."

The inhabitants of Teso, a village of 1,600 in Darsila, are now making their home in Gassire, a site for displaced Chadians near Goz Beida. "For the past year, the janjaweed attacked the village and took the cattle and killed our people," said Khater Abdul Karim, the chief. "Some of them were from Chad, some were from Sudan. They were all in the military uniform of Sudan. We had 1,400 cattle - the janjaweed took them all. We had 16 horses - the janjaweed took them all. We tried to escape but the janjaweed chased us and caught us and killed 10 of our people. They took our goats... We cannot go back."

A short walk away, on the outskirts of the camp, people from the village of Karo have recently arrived. "The janjaweed took our women and made violent relations with them," said Abdullah, a village elder. Even in this camp, with a constant presence of international aid agencies such as Oxfam and Médecins sans Frontières, they do not feel safe.

"The conflict is about a lack of resources," said Ms Bennett. "This is an area where traditionally there have always been rivalries between different groups around water, land and pasture. Previously there may have been small tensions. But these rivalries are spiralling out of control. People are forming armed groups and attacking each other."

The region's spiritual leader, the Sultan of Darsila, has tried to broker a peace deal but, by his own admission, he has been unsuccessful. "We had 11 different Arab tribes living together with all the different non-Arab tribes," he said. "They have lived together, they have married together. No one said this is an Arab, this is a Dajo. We have the same history, the same culture and the same economy.

"It is not a problem of principles. It is a problem of politics. When it becomes a political problem the traditional leadership structures are bypassed."

Few people can offer solutions. Matthew Conway, a spokesman for the UNHCR in Chad drew parallels with the genocide in Rwanda. "We have communities who have lived together peacefully for generations, in many cases have inter-married, which are now turning on each other. We risk reaching a point of no return. We are at a point where immediate action needs to be taken."

There is little action the Dajo can take themselves. The janjaweed are armed with Kalashnikovs, M14s and G3s - a semi-automatic rifle used by the Sudanese military. The Dajo have bows and arrows, plus the odd spear. "They broke our spears and our bows," said Abdul Karim. But the Dajo are undeterred. Between them they have 75 bows and several tubes of arrows left. A self-defence group has been formed.

What they lack in firepower and ability they make up for in determination. another refuge claims to have killed 10 janjaweed guerrillas, and is prepared to do it again. "I will fight with these arrows," he said. Until the UN Security Council agrees to send troops - and then actually sends them - Chad's civilians will have to rely on men like him with their bows and arrows.

Chad: Charred Villages Tell of Ethnic Bloodshed

From Reuters

Under the blazing desert sun, the charred remains of the village of Bandala in eastern Chad lie scattered.

Once home to hundreds of people, Bandala is now nothing more than scorched earth and broken pots, littered unceremoniously across the sand.

Occasionally there are signs of the life people once led here: an abandoned shoe; a blackened kettle; plastic biscuit wrappers flapping in the dusty breeze.

But the devastation is clear. Almost every hut in this village has been razed to the ground, and the people have long since fled.

Bandala is one of dozens of villages that have been attacked in a wave of inter-ethnic violence pitting Arabs and black Africans that has displaced 120,000 civilians in eastern Chad. At least 70 of the villages attacked have also been torched.

The British aid agency Oxfam is now warning that attacks against the local population must not be allowed to reach the levels seen in neighbouring Darfur, where over 200,000 Sudanese have died in four years of political and ethnic conflict.

"Every day, more and more people in eastern Chad are suffering the consequences of violent conflict, and the situation is spiralling out of control," Roland Van Hauwermeiren, head of Oxfam in Chad, said in a statement.

"We need to put an end to the attacks now."

[edit]

In the nearby town of Goz Beida, the displaced have been arriving in droves.

The town has a population of 5,000, but the arrival of both Sudanese refugees from Darfur and, more recently, displaced Chadians means some 50,000 people are now competing for the same scarce resources.

Aid workers complain of an extraordinary "double" humanitarian crisis as more than 230,000 refugees who escaped attacks in Darfur in 2003 and 2004 and joined by tens of thousands of Chadians fleeing fighting at home.

Water is a particular concern, especially as Chad's long dry season is only just beginning. "The town is exploding," an aid worker told Reuters. "You could say it's under siege."

Several camps for displaced Chadians have sprung up in the valleys around Goz Beida over the past year.

One of them is Gassire. Two months ago this was a quiet village - now it is home to 12,000 hungry and scared people.

Dozens of flimsy straw shelters dot the barren desert landscape, providing scant protection from the driving winds and relentless heat.

One of the new arrivals here is Khadija, a frail and elderly woman who says she was beaten by Arabs when she returned to her village of Jamena to collect millet from her fields.

"I didn't think any man could attack a woman my age," said Khadija, pointing out the bruises and cuts inflicted by her attackers.

"There were two men. One had a gun and the other had a big stick which he used to hit me. The man with the gun stood to one side, ready to shoot any person who tried to help me."

Khadija, so frail her relatives carried her from her straw shelter to talk to journalists, said she still feels in danger.

"I'm still afraid of them and I think they could come here to attack again," she said. "But God will help us."

Darfur: Interview With President Umar Hasan al-Bashir

From Asharq Alawsat

(Asharq Al-Awsat) There is talk about a tripartite Sudanese-Chadian-Central African summit on the sidelines of the Cannes summit. What do you hope to achieve in it?

(Al-Bashir) In the past, we held several summits of this kind. We signed several agreements with Chad, even before the Darfur problem, to control the border, which is witnessing problems because of the movement of tribes between Sudan and Chad--tribes that know no borders. There are 18 joint tribes with one leader each. They exist on both sides of the border. As for Darfur, the one that launched the rebellion there was a Chadian officer with the rank of colonel. Several rebellion leaders were Chadian officers. All the agreements we signed with the Chadians to control the border and establish a joint observation force have produced no results because of Chad's failure to honor its commitments. Members of the Chadian regime are from the same tribe that is leading the rebellion in Darfur. When Idris Deby was trying to overthrow the regime of Hissen Habre, he obtained the help of his tribe, the Zaghawa, which is present on both sides of the border. The tribe is asking him now to return the favor to their brothers in Sudan. His security and intelligence services are working to support the rebellion in Darfur. Despite the agreements and discussions, Chad has not fulfilled its commitments, although we must affirm that the existing situation does not serve the interests of Sudan or Chad. The two countries have no choice but to cooperate, because security anarchy negatively affects both sides. We want to exchange benefits and not disagreements. We hope that the summit would open the door for settling the differences.

(Asharq Al-Awsat) The Darfur issue is at the top of the political agenda of the French-African summit. How do you see the solution to the present crisis?

(Al-Bashir) Foreign parties are behind the issue. They have fabricated and exaggerated it. Frictions and conflicts have always existed between the tribes.

(Asharq Al-Awsat) But, the view of the United Nations, its organizations, and various nongovernmental organizations is different. They talk about various atrocities.

(Al-Bashir) On the issue of the report, remember the reports regarding Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction. What happened later? We think that anti-Sudan elements have turned their attention to Darfur after we had achieved peace in southern Sudan. They accused us of ethnic cleansing and that government instruments and forces are doing this. Here I want to say that Darfur is divided into three provinces with their own governments and local councils. If we look at the situation closely, we can see that the governors of two of the three provinces are from Darfur and that most of the administration, police, and security forces are from Darfur. The Darfur Arabs are nomads. Their educational level is low. Therefore, their presence in the security forces, administration, and political councils is very weak. Can you imagine that Darfur citizens are ethnically cleansing Darfur? All this is false propaganda. There is a rebellion problem in Darfur, and it is the duty of a government in any state to fight the rebellion. When war takes place, civilian victims fall, and this has been exaggerated.

(Asharq Al-Awsat) The question today is will Sudan accept a UN force, according to UN Security Council resolution 1706, to replace the African force or accept a joint force?

(Al-Bashir) We totally reject resolution 1706. Its acceptance would mean placing Sudan under UN mandate. We will not accept such a situation under any circumstances and willingly, because it would turn us into another Iraq. I want to say that we signed a peace agreement about Darfur. Deputy US Secretary of State Zoellick, the British minister of state for international cooperation, African Union envoy Salim Ahmad Salim, Head of the African Commission Umar Kunari, and representatives of the EU and the European states drafted the final copy of the agreement. The agreement called for the deployment of African forces to maintain security in Darfur.

(Asharq Al-Awsat) But, these forces have been ineffective.

(Al-Bashir) The African forces are suffering from financial problems. All the reports talked about the positive role of these forces. However, when the Western countries stopped their financial support, problems began. We think that the African force plus UN support is sufficient. What would change if the force changed hats and became a UN force?

(Asharq Al-Awsat) What would change is that a UN force operating under UN command would have a moral power not enjoyed by the current African force.

(Al-Bashir) The force is the force of the African Union. It was the mediator. The force was entrusted with the peacekeeping task in Darfur. When the peace agreement was signed, the government signed it with one rebel faction--the Sudan Liberation Army. The agreement called for sanctions against the party that did not sign the agreement if it continued to oppose it. Resolution 1706 was to the contrary. It punished Sudan. The Darfur Peace Act, which the American President signed, imposed on us additional American sanctions. On the other hand, the elements that rejected the agreement are moving freely in the Western capitals. They are receiving unrestricted financial and military aid, and because of this aid, they have succeeded in seizing control of the northern part of Darfur. We only heard subdued reactions from the world. Is this not a direct threat to Darfur and to security and peace? These movements exist in the refugee camps in Chad where they are conducting military training. Chad has opened its borders and airports to allow weapons to reach these groups and facilitate their movements to Darfur. This is taking place within the view of the United Nations and its organizations. So far, no one has condemned Chad or the states that send the weapons. They are only criticizing the government and the Janjawid.

(Asharq Al-Awsat) Can we say then that irrespective of the pressure and the mediations, Sudan absolutely rejects a UN force or a hybrid UN-African force?

(Al-Bashir) Yes, this is our position. We accepted Kofi Annan's three-stage plan. The first stage is for weak logistical support, and this is taking place. The second is for heavy support involving equipment, systems, experts, and technicians from the United Nations. This is acceptable in principle and negotiations are taking place to implement it. The third stage is the hybrid force. We have expressed reservations about it and submitted these reservations to the African Peace and Security Council, which issued a resolution that we accepted. Based on this resolution, an understanding was reached about the appointment of a special envoy of the UN secretary general, the identity of the commander of the force (African), and the way of appointing him (the African Union would nominate one and the United Nations would approve it). An understanding was also reached about accepting elements from the United Nations in this force and about the level of command. This is what we are prepared to accept, and this is what we call the African Union force plus UN support. Anything else is unacceptable to us.

(Asharq Al-Awsat) Would you show some additional flexibility in Cannes?

(Al-Bashir) We have shown flexibility, but there is a limit and beyond it, we cannot go. In short, we cannot accept an agreement that would place us under a mandate and place our justice, police, and other systems under the control of others.

(Asharq Al-Awsat) What does the United States wants from you? Does it want to change the regime in Sudan?

(Al-Bashir) Yes. There are elements in the United States that want political change in Sudan. Some groups in the US Congress, for example, are hostile to us, and whatever we do, we are unacceptable and would never be acceptable to them.

(Asharq Al-Awsat) Does the administration of President Bush want change?

(Al-Bashir) I would not say the American administration wants change. It stood by us on the issue of peace in the south. The State Department played a positive role in reaching the Abuja agreement (on Darfur).

(Asharq Al-Awsat) But, the US President has imposed new financial and economic sanctions against Sudan recently.

(Al-Bashir) The American blockade is not new. The United States economic and financial boycott is also not new, and so is the boycott maintained by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Despite this blockade, we have reorganized our economy and achieved very high levels of development. Therefore, the American measures would not affect us. We turned toward the orient, and our relations are good and close with many of its countries. Our relations are excellent with China, for example.

Darfur: How Do We Stop Genocide When we Begin to Lose Interest After the First Victim?

From the University of Oregon

Follow your intuition and act? When it comes to genocide, forget it. It doesn't work, says a University of Oregon psychologist. The large numbers of reported deaths represent dry statistics that fail to spark emotion and feeling and thus fail to motivate actions. Even going from one to two victims, feeling and meaning begin to fade, he said.

In a session Friday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science devoted to "Numbers and Nerves," Paul Slovic, a UO professor and president of Decision Research, a non-profit research institute in Eugene, Ore., urged a review and overhaul of the 1948 Genocide Convention, mandated by much of the world after the Holocaust in World War II. "It has obviously failed, because it has never been invoked to intervene in genocide," Slovic said.

Slovic is studying the issue from a psychological perspective, trying to determine how people can utilize both the moral intuition that genocide is wrong and moral reasoning to reach not only an outcry but also demand intervention. "We have to understand what it is in our makeup - psychologically, socially, politically and institutionally - that has allowed genocide to go unabated for a century," he said. "If we don't answer that question and use the answer to change things, we will see another century of horrible atrocities around the world."

In the 20th century, genocides have occurred in Armenia, Ukraine, Nazi Germany, Bangladesh, Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Zimbabwe. Currently, killings continue in Darfur. "America has done little or nothing to stop genocide," Slovic said, adding that the lack of response has come from both Republican and Democratic administrations. Research shows that people cannot trust moral intuitions to drive action. "Instead, we have to create institutions and laws that will force us to do what we know through moral argument is the right thing to do."

Figuring out how to reach that critical mass for decision-making, however, will be a challenge. It is thought that every life is equally important, and thus the value of saving lives rises linearly as the numbers of people at risk increase.

However, models based on psychology are unmasking a haze on the issue. One model suggests that people react very strongly around the zero point. "We go all out to save a single identified victim, be it a person or an animal, but as the numbers increase, we level off," he said. "We don't feel any different to say 88 people dying than we do to 87. This is a disturbing model, because it means that lives are not equal, and that as problems become bigger we become insensitive to the prospect of additional deaths."

In Slovic's latest research, evidence is mounting for an even more disturbing "collapse model" that he described in his talk. "This model appears to be more accurate than the psychophysical model in describing our response to genocide," he said. "We have these large numbers of deaths occurring, and we are doing nothing."

His new research follows up an Israeli study published in 2005 in which subjects were presented three photos. One depicted eight children who needed $300,000 in medical intervention to save their lives. Another photo depicted just one child who could be helped with $300,000. Participants were most willing to donate for one child's medical care. The level of giving declined dramatically for donating to help the entire group.

Slovic and colleagues Daniel Vastfjäll and Ellen Peters used the same approach but narrowed the focus. Participants in Sweden were shown a photo of a starving African girl, her individual story and the conditions of the nation in which she lives. Another photo contained the same information but for a starving boy. A third photo showed both children. The feelings of sympathy for each individual child were almost equal, but dropped when they were considered together. Donations followed the same pattern, being lower for two needy children than for either individually.

"The studies just described suggest a disturbing psychological tendency," Slovic said. "Our capacity to feel is limited." Even at just two individuals, he added, people start to lose sympathy.

If we see the beginning of the collapse of feeling at just two individuals, "It is no wonder that at 200,000 deaths the feeling is gone," Slovic said. This insensitivity to large numbers is understandable from an evolutionary perspective. Early humans fought to protect themselves and their families. "There was no adaptive or survival value in protecting hundreds of thousands of people on the other side of the planet," he said. "Today, we have modern communications that can tell us about crises occurring on the other side of the world, but we are still reacting the same way as we would have long ago."

Darfur: Rice Singles Out China, Says World Must Press Sudan

From the AP

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice singled out China as she urged nations to press Sudan to resolve violence in its troubled Darfur region.

Rice told U.S. lawmakers Friday that Andrew Natsios, special U.S. envoy to Sudan, had made progress during a trip to Beijing to talk about Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed in four years of conflict. Critics are pushing China to use its considerable leverage in Sudan to press for an end to the crisis.

"We do need more help from the international community. We especially need help from those countries that seem sometimes to want to shield Sudan," Rice said. She then mentioned China.

Some U.S. lawmakers have accused China of supporting Sudan's government through its huge oil purchases while ignoring the violence in Darfur. Besides the widespread killing, millions of Darfurians have been driven from their homes, many into neighboring countries.

Rice said progress by China on the Darfur front included President Hu Jintao's comments, during a recent trip to Sudan, about getting international peacekeeping forces into the country.

Darfur/Chad: Nomads Attack Refugees

From the AP

Fatma Daoud wrapped a plastic bag as a makeshift bandage around her hand _ using a corner of brightly colored robe to wipe the blood from the deep, gaping knife wound that had cut her down to the bone.

The 36-year-old woman, a refugee from Sudan's war-torn Darfur, had left her camp in eastern Chad to gather firewood when she was attacked by young Chadian nomads.

"They were three boys, camel herders. They told me to stop collecting wood and then they stabbed me," Daoud said, calm despite the attack that had happened only minutes before outside the Gaga refugee camp.

At least 230,000 ethnic Africans have fled Darfur to take refuge in camps in neighboring Chad _ and their numbers are growing. But the refugees crowded into 12 camps are facing increased tensions with Chadians in a competition for scarce resources in the large, barren border region.

The friction comes despite the fact that both the refugees and the Chadians belong to tribes that straddle the border.

Daoud, for instance, said she recognized her assailants. They weren't the Arab Sudanese janjaweed militiamen who attacked her home in Darfur, but herders from the ethnic African Zaghawa tribe.

On the Sudanese side of the border, the Zaghawas are among the tribes that have been targeted in Darfur and they form the backbone of some rebel groups battling the janjaweed and government troops. But in Chad, they are affluent camel herders with close ties to power, since President Idriss Deby and most of the top military are Zaghawas.

"Life has been quieter in Chad, but now it's getting hard," said Daoud as she stood under the fierce afternoon sun waiting for humanitarian workers to treat her wound. A member of the Massalit tribe, she fled Darfur when the janjaweed destroyed her village, about 60 miles east of Gaga across the border.

The sudden settlement of large numbers of refugees risks exacerbating what has long been a competition among Chadians for land, grazing areas, wood and other resources in the border region.

"There has been age-old tensions between farmers and herders here," said Serge Male, Chad's country director for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. "But it's becoming a regional situation, and Darfur is the essential worsening factor."

The nomad-refugee tensions, though still small scale, add yet another layer of danger in the region's interwoven conflicts.

[edit]

So far, the Darfur refugees have largely been spared violence in Chad as the conflicts unfurl around them. But increasing violence in all the various conflicts raises fears the refugees could be caught in the crossfire or directly targeted.

Mbaitlham Kaban, the camp manager in Gaga, said the attack on Daoud was the first case he'd seen of African on African violence in the camp, home to 13,500 refugees.

"We're far enough from the border, and there is enough space around here for the camp to stay calm," said Kaban, an aid worker from Africare, a U.S.-based charity.

But Male, the UNHCR director, said tensions were growing.

"The border is a completely artificial concept to local populations ... So people here welcomed their brothers fleeing Darfur when violence began in 2003," he said. "But over the years, other problems inevitably develop."

In the Gaga camp, the few Chadian soldiers guarding the site lay on a carpet playing cards, fields were cultivated and plump cattle roamed the nearby area _ a sign that the camp has so far been peaceful enough for refugees to grow their own food.

But refugees keep flowing in. A group Massalit women and their exhausted children huddled in the open on the outskirts of the camp, waiting to register. They had hung garments and cloths in thorn bushes as meager protection from the sun.

"We registered 220 people in January," said Kaban. "But we expect much more to come ... By the end, we think there'll be 20,000 people here."

Darfur: Sudan President Says Rebels Western-Backed

From Reuters

Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said in comments published on Friday that Darfur rebels who rejected a 2006 peace deal were backed by the West.

Speaking to the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper on the sidelines of African talks in the French city of Cannes, Bashir said that instead of punishing rebels that rejected the peace deal, a United Nations resolution had put the onus on Khartoum.

"The elements that reject the agreement move with freedom in Western capitals and receive financial and military support ... and due to this support have been successful in controlling the northern section of Darfur," Bashir said. "Is this not a direct threat to Darfur and to security and peace?"

[edit]

Bashir appeared to have made his comments before Sudan agreed at talks with its neighbours Chad and Central African Republic not to support rebels attacking each other's territory.

In his comments to Asharq al-Awsat, he accused Chad of backing Darfur rebels under the nose of the United Nations.

"These movements were initially present in the refugee camps where they were carrying out military training and where Chad opened its borders and airports to get weapons to these groups and to facilitate their movement to Darfur, and this is happening within the sight of the United Nations," he said.

"No one has condemned Chad or the states that send arms, but accusations are always against the Sudanese government and Janjaweed," he said, referring to a pro-government militia.

Chad: UNHCR Warns of Genocide

From the BBC

The violence in Chad could turn into a genocide similar to that in Rwanda in 1994, the UN refugee agency has warned.

The UNHCR says the killing tactics from neighbouring Darfur in Sudan have been transported to eastern Chad in full.

The warning comes as Chad, Sudan and the Central African Republic signed a deal not to support rebels attacking each other's neighbouring territory.

African Union head, Ghana's President John Kufuor, said they seemed ready to agree to an AU/UN border peace force.

"They seem to be ready to accept a beefed-up force from the African Union and the United Nations to take control of the borders among them," Mr Kufuor told reporters at the French-African summit in Cannes where the declaration was signed.

[edit]

"We are seeing elements that closely resemble what we saw in Rwanda in the genocide in 1994 and I think we have an opportunity here to avoid such a tragedy from occurring again," UNHCR's Matthew Conway said.

Meanwhile, in Sudan, UN special envoy to Darfur Jan Eliasson is trying to arrange face-to-face talks between the Sudanese government and the rebels in Darfur.

He said the main concerns of the rebel groups that had not signed last May's peace deal were compensation power-sharing and security.

"With readiness on the government side to open up for amendments and improvement then I think there is room for negotiation," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme.

"We'll try to bring the horses to the water hole and then it's up to the horses to drink."

[edit]

Eastern Chad and Darfur have a similar ethnic make-up, with nomadic Arab groups and black African farmers both seeking access to land and scarce water points.

Our reporter says the violence in Chad follows the same pattern as in Darfur - mostly Arabs on camels and horseback attacking non-Arab villages.

Without an international protection force, there is no-one to stop the Janjaweed, she says.

In recent days, our reporter followed the trail of the Janjaweed through the ghost villages of eastern Chad, finding torched huts and smashed pots.

She met some of their victims, including a young man stabbed in both eyes and a frail old woman, badly beaten when she dared to look for food.

Darfur: Military Solution 'Not an Option'

From IRIN

A military solution is not an option in ending the crisis in Darfur, according to United Nations and African Union officials. Instead, the parties to the Darfur conflict must agree to a peace process.

"There is an acknowledgement that there is simply no military solution to the Darfur crisis," the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to Sudan, Jan Eliasson, told reporters in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, on Thursday. "That is a starting point for the way forward and that is the political road."

At a joint news conference with Salim Ahmed Salim, the AU’s special envoy to Darfur, Eliasson warned: "A missed opportunity, again on Darfur – not building on what we have achieved and not taking the chance now to finally get this conflict behind us – will be a serious mistake."

The two envoys have been in Khartoum and Darfur for talks with government and rebel representatives, in a renewed attempt to coax non-signatories to the May 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement to agree a truce. They also hoped to pressure the Sudanese government to halt its military campaign in the war-torn region.

"There cannot be a military solution to the crisis in Darfur," Salim said. "The result is only suffering, death and destruction for ordinary people."

Despite repeated promises by both the Sudanese government and rebels, there is little evidence on the ground to demonstrate that either side is committed to a peaceful solution to the crisis, observers say.

On the contrary, the violence has continued to escalate, threatening humanitarian operations across the vast region. This week, for example, the AU reported that Sudanese military planes had bombed two villages in North Darfur in direct violation of two ceasefire agreements. Sudanese officials said the bombardment was a defensive manoeuvre against rebels.

Salim said they had urged parties to the conflict to stop the violence. "We have been encouraged by the initial reaction of everybody we met on this issue – the importance of de-escalation of violence - and by the assurances from all the other parties that they will do the utmost to facilitate the operations of humanitarian organisations," he said.

"We are going to operate with a sense of urgency," the envoy added. "Because if you say ‘we will continue to consult and consult and consult,’ the more time you take, the more people will die."

According to aid workers, violence in Darfur has escalated since the signing of the Darfur accord between the government and one faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement.

Two factions refused to sign, complaining that it did not meet their basic demands of wealth and power-sharing. The rebel movements later fragmented and shifting alliances between rebel groups have resulted in continuing clashes with government forces.

Over the past year, a significant number of attacks have been directed at humanitarian workers, severely curtailing aid operations. Observers say the culprits remain largely unidentified due to growing confusion over which groups are politically motivated rebels and which are mere bandits.

"The humanitarian workers are exhausted," Eliasson added. "We heard from them clear expressions of fatigue, of frustration at the situation."

Darfur: Bashir "Ready" to accept U.N. Fact-Finding, Not Peacekeeping

From the AP

Sudan's president said Friday he is ready to accept a U.N. fact-finding mission on Darfur, although not some of the members who have been proposed so far. He also gave no ground on a proposed U.N. peacekeeping deployment for Darfur.

President Omar al-Bashir alleged that some members of the U.N. team that had been stuck in Ethiopia, waiting for Sudanese visas, were biased and could not be trusted to report back honestly on the situation in the western Sudanese region where more than 200,000 people have been killed since 2003.

"From the moment when they already have a point of view, it is not possible to let them come," he said on the sidelines of an African summit in Cannes on the French Riviera. "We are ready to accept a mission, but a mission that is independent and which will be honest."

Mission leader and Nobel peace laureate Jody Williams said Wednesday that the 14-member U.N. human rights team, which was meant to visit Darfur to assess alleged atrocities, could not wait any longer in Ethiopia and would carry out its assessment from outside the country and submit a report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.

Al-Bashir did not budge from his refusal of U.N. peacekeepers — either for Darfur or to monitor the borders with Chad and Central African Republic. The three neighboring countries have accused each other of backing each other's rebel movements, adding tension to the already volatile region.

However, al-Bashir suggested that Sudan could accept more African Union peacekeepers — with U.N. support.

"With regard to United Nations forces in Darfur, we have already said 'no' and that would be valid also for the frontiers. But we accept the presence of African forces to control the borders with Chad and Central African Republic," he said.

For Darfur, "we have accepted a hybrid operation. What does that mean? It means that the base of this force would be African forces, with a strong logistical, human, technical and other support so that the African Union can maintain peace," he said.

From Sapa

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on Friday rejected a United Nations peace force for Darfur and said he would not grant visas to UN rights monitors who want to visit the strife-torn region.

Bashir said an international force in Darfur would remain under the aegis of the African Union and that the UN would be confined to a "technical and logistics role".

He also said that the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, led by Nobel peace laureate and anti-landmines campaigner Jody Williams, would not be allowed to travel to Darfur because its members were biased.

"There are members of that delegation who in our view are not impartial, therefore it is difficult to say that they will be honest and reflect reality," Bashir told a news conference on the final day of an Africa-France summit.

The two-day gathering in the Riviera resort of Cannes has been dominated by concerns over the conflict in Darfur, where at least 200 000 people have been killed and more than 2,5-million displaced in fighting since 2003.

President Jacques Chirac opened the summit by adding his voice to pleas for Khartoum to accept an international force for the western region as he warned of a humanitarian catastrophe.

Khartoum-backed Janjaweed militias and government forces are fighting rebels in Darfur in a conflict that has spilled over to eastern Chad and the north of the Central African Republic.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday he was "very disappointed" by Sudan's refusal to allow the rights mission to Darfur and urged Khartoum to reconsider.

The UN chief is also waiting for Bashir to respond to his request last month to allow the dispatch of over 2 300 UN troops to lay the groundwork for a robust joint AU-UN force to take over peacekeeping in Darfur from cash-strapped AU forces.

But Bashir gave no indication that he planned to bolster the current peace force, saying "it is clear that the AU troops have the peacekeeping role".

"The UN is there to provide logistical, financial and technical support so that AU can do its work," said Bashir.

Darfur: Is Khartoum Interested in Peace?

The latest from Eric Reevesy

Although the name “Suleiman Jamous” is hardly familiar, even within the world of Darfur advocacy, he is one of the true heroes to emerge from the desperate conflict of the past four years. Jamous, chief humanitarian coordinator for the rebel movements, has done more than anyone to enable humanitarian relief efforts to cross the lines of various rebel factions, reaching tens of thousands of Darfuris who would otherwise have been forced into camps for the displaced, thus losing all ability to use local resources and creating yet greater pressures within these desperately overcrowded camps. He is a man who is by nature conciliatory, even as he is politically savvy and enjoys the trust of nearly all the commanders on ground. Given the highly fractious nature of the rebel movement in Darfur, this is an enormously valuable, indeed critical asset.

Humanitarian workers in Darfur are certainly able to offer the most compelling endorsements of Jamous’s work in responding to the urgent needs of millions of Darfuris. As the current humanitarian crisis deepens, as security deteriorates and brings aid operations to the verge of collapse, it is especially important to keep in mind his previous efforts. Jamous has a well-proven record of delivering relief under the most difficult of circumstances; this alone presents the most compelling argument for his immediate release. Significantly, no humanitarian workers were beaten or raped when he was in charge, even as rebel abuses have soared in the eight months since he was arrested. Relief supplies were not looted when Jamous served as aid coordinator for the rebels, even as such looting is now commonplace. There is precious little humanitarian space open in Darfur at present; if it is to remain open, Jamous is desperately needed.

But just as important, because Jamous’s concern has been so conspicuously for people, not politics, he will be the essential anchor for the upcoming conference of rebel commanders, now scheduled to begin February 19, 2007. This conference has as its ambition the forging of a united movement and negotiating platform---the key feature of any successful talks with the Khartoum regime.

Notably, Jamous is also a Zaghawa. Given the poisonous relations that have been created by Minni Minawi’s own Zaghawa ethnic parochialism and indeed brutality, it is essential that a Zaghawa voice of reason and peace be heard. Since Minawi assumed the leadership of his own Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/M) faction, he has proved himself to be the primary source of rebel human rights abuses. This destructive pattern continued even after Minawi entered the merely notional “Government of National Unity” in Khartoum. Minawi was the only rebel, and distinctly the least representative, to sign the disastrous Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) in Abuja (May 2006), under unreasonable pressure from US and European diplomats. He has now been completely sidelined in Khartoum, and his commanders in the field have joined with Khartoum’s forces (some refer to these as “Janjaweed 2”), joined other rebel groups (primarily the much more cohesive Group of 19 in North Darfur), or resorted to vicious banditry.

In short, Minni Minawi is hated by most Darfuris both for signing the DPA and for the brutally divisive military actions of his men. He cannot possibly represent the people of Darfur in any future peace conference.

But Suleiman Jamous would certainly be able to serve in this role, precisely because he is a conciliatory figure who is known for caring more about human needs than political power (see, for example, Jen Marlowe’s “The Ordeal of Suleiman Jamous,” at http://www.counterpunch.org/marlowe01222007.html). He is the very opposite of the now isolated and debauched Minawi.

Darfur: Envoys Still Optimistic Despite Latest Violence

From VOA

Amid growing concern over continued violence in Sudan's Darfur region, top United Nations and African Union envoys to the region said Thursday they remain optimistic that a political solution to the crisis can be found. Noel King has this VOA report from Khartoum.

United Nations special envoy to Darfur Jan Eliasson and African Union special envoy Salim Ahmed Salim said their meetings this week with Sudan government officials and non-signatories to the Darfur Peace Agreement gave cause for optimism.

But observers say, despite promises made by both the government of Sudan and rebel factions, little evidence has been seen on the ground that either side is committed to a re-energized peace process.

The African Union reported just this week that Sudan government planes bombed two villages in north Darfur, in direct violation of two ceasefire agreements.

Sudan called the bombardment a defensive maneuver.

AU special envoy Salim stressed the need for a renewed political process in the region.

"There cannot be a military solution to the crisis in Darfur. I think that should be clear to everyone. The result is only suffering, death and destruction for the ordinary people," he said.

[edit]

AU envoy Salim called on the parties to back up their words with action.

"Consultation is essential, but consultation is not an endless process. And, we are going to operate with a sense of urgency. Because, if you say we will continue to consult and consult and consult, the more you take time, the more people die," he said.

Sudan has indicated that it may make changes to the Darfur Peace Agreement.

In particular, rebels charge that the government's offer of $30 million to some three million victims of the conflict is too low.

But neither the U.N. nor the AU envoy in their talks this week secured any firm commitment from government officials.

Darfur: Correction From The Georgetown Voice

From The Georgetown Voice

An article published on Feb. 8, 2007 in the Voice entitled “Natsios on Darfur: not genocide” contained three significant errors. First, the article incorrectly referred to “the recent deployment of 10,000 more United Nations troops.” While the United Nations has authorized the deployment of forces into Darfur, the government of Sudan has not allowed that deployment to take place.

More importantly, the article stated: “[U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Andrew] Natsios emphasized that the crisis in Darfur is not the first of its kind, saying that the Arab and African populations in Sudan have fighting (sic) since the late 1980s.” Besides the evident syntax error, the sentence is flawed because it does not accurately portray Natsios’ point. Upon reviewing the speech, it is clear that Natsios did not intend to say that genocide has occurred previous to the current Darfur conflict. He was instead emphasizing the violent context within which the conflict is taking place.

Finally, and most importantly, both the headline and lead sentence of the article stressed that Natsios declined to call the current conflict a “genocide.” While we stand by our account that Natsios is opposed to using the word “genocide” to continue to describe the current situation in Darfur, the article should have included a sentence stressing that Natsios still believes that, at its height, the crisis constituted a “genocide.”

Unfortunately, the flawed article was published in our print edition, but a corrected version was published online early Thursday afternoon.

The original version of the article has generated a storm of controversy among advocacy groups on the many sides of this complicated issue. It is a lesson in how quickly a story from any newspaper, however small, can be disseminated internationally in the digital age. I want to take this moment to apologize to Professor Natsios and all our readers for this very significant error. The Voice is currently undertaking reforms to ensure that this never happens again.

Sudan: Southern Former Rebels Move North

From Reuters

Sudan's southern former rebels said on Friday they would move their headquarters to Khartoum to influence national policy more as north-south relations had soured since a 2005 peace deal ended Africa's longest civil war.

Under the peace accords a national coalition government was formed, wealth and power was shared and the south given the right to vote on secession by 2011.

But the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) has complained their northern partners in peace, the dominant National Congress Party (NCP), have not implemented the accord and have taken key policy decisions unilaterally.

"We are going to relocate the headquarters of the SPLM to Khartoum so as to be more active in national politics," said SPLM spokesman Yasir Arman.

The SPLM headquarters was previously in the south Sudan capital Juba and observers had often criticised the SPLM for focusing on southern issues and neglecting national politics.

Arman said the NCP was wrong to prevent a U.N. human rights delegation from visiting the war-torn west Sudan region of Darfur this week and it was just the latest in a string of decisions imposed by the NCP without consulting the SPLM.

"This will add more fuel to the problems between the government of Sudan and the international community and we don't want to do that," said Arman.

Khartoum has defied a U.N. Security Council resolution authorising some 22,500 U.N. police and troops to keep peace in Darfur, calling it an attempt to colonise Sudan. The SPLM supports a clearly mandated U.N. Darfur mission.

Relations have been tense between the world body and the NCP, which expelled Jan Pronk, the top U.N. official in Sudan, last year. This week Khartoum also refused visas to a six-member delegation from the Geneva-based U.N. human rights council, saying one member was biased.

Arman criticised also this decision.

"We need the cooperation of the international community to reach a peaceful political solution to the Darfur problem which is more important than the fuss about visas," he added.

He said the NCP was using its mechanical majority rather than taking decisions by consensus within the coalition government formed by the January 2005 peace deal, he said.

Under the deal the NCP was allocated 52 percent of parliament and government institutions while the SPLM took 28 percent with the rest going to other political forces.

But another SPLM official who declined to be named said a "gentleman's agreement" was made at negotiations that decisions would be taken by consensus. "But we made a pact with the devil," he told Reuters from Juba.

Arman said if the NCP persisted in pushing through its policies without consensus the coalition could be in danger.

"This will no longer be a government of national unity but a government of the National Congress Party," he said.

Darfur: Unable to Visit, UN Human Rights Council Fact-Finding Team Heads to Chad

Three related articles:

From the UN News Center

After a planned visit to Darfur fell through because of visa problems, the United Nations Human Rights Council’s fact-finding mission on the situation inside the strife-torn region of Sudan has travelled to neighbouring Chad to interview refugees who have fled the war-torn region.

The high-level, five-member team intends to complete its work on the ground by next week, UN spokesperson Marie Okabe said today, in response to press questions at UN Headquarters in New York.

The mission is not going to Sudan as planned because of continued uncertainty over whether members could obtain visas for that country.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today he was disappointed the team could not get into Sudan, and had raised the issue with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir when they met last month on the sidelines of the African Union (AU) summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

“He said he would issues visas to the fact-finding mission,” Mr. Ban said. “He said he would have no problem. I am very much disappointed by the decision of the Sudanese Government. I urge again that the Sudanese Government fully cooperates with the unanimous decision of the Human Rights Council.”

[edit]

Since the mission began its work in Geneva on 5 February, it has held dozens of meetings and interviews with human rights specialists, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community representatives, UN staff members, AU officials and others.

Aside from Ms. Williams, the other members of the mission are: Mart Nutt, an Estonian parliamentarian and member of the Council of Europe’s European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance; Bertrand Ramcharan, the former Acting and Deputy UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; Patrice Tonda, Gabon’s Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in Geneva; and Indonesian Ambassador Makarim Wibisono, President of the 61st session of the Commission on Human Rights. The members are serving in their personal capacity.

From the AP

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed disappointment that Sudan's president reneged on a promise to allow a U.N. human rights team to visit Darfur to assess alleged atrocities.

He said Thursday that the deteriorating situation in the vast conflict-wracked western region is unacceptable.

Ban said that during a meeting with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir at last month's African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, "he said he would issue visas to the fact-finding mission — he said he would have no problem."

"If he believes that there is no problem, then he should be able to receive the human rights fact-finding mission," the secretary-general said.

The 14-member mission has been stuck in Addis Ababa because Khartoum has failed to give them visas. Mission leader and Nobel peace laureate Jody Williams said Wednesday the team could not wait any longer and would carry out its assessment from outside the country and submit a report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

"I am very much disappointed by the decision of the Sudanese government," Ban said. "I urge again that the Sudanese government fully cooperates with the unanimous decision of the Human Rights Council" to send a fact-finding team to Darfur.

[edit]

Sudanese officials agreed in November on a three-phase U.N. package to help end the escalating violence that culminates with the deployment of a 22,000-strong African Union-U.N. "hybrid" force. But al-Bashir said last month that U.N. troops were not required in Darfur because the 7,000-strong African Union force on the ground could maintain order.

Ban told reporters after his monthly luncheon with the Security Council, which focused on the Darfur conflict, that he was still waiting for an official reply from al-Bashir to his Jan. 24 letter outlining the U.N.'s detailed positions on the force, command and control, and funding.

"With an affirmative answer, we can pave the way immediately to the introduction of an AU-U.N. hybrid mission," Ban said.

"This continuing deteriorating situation in Darfur is just unacceptable," he said.

South Africa's U.N. Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo said most council members who spoke at the closed-door lunch "were very frustrated because there's no way forward."

Without an affirmative response from al-Bashir to Ban's letter, he said, the U.N. cannot start planning for the hybrid force.

"At the end of the day, it's happening in Sudan and you need the cooperation of Sudan — that's the difficulty," Kumalo said.

The secretary-general said he is waiting for a report from his special envoy, Jan Eliasson, who is now in Darfur with AU envoy Salim Salim.

"On the basis of the report ... I will take a future course of action on this matter," Ban said.

Eliasson and Salim told a news conference in Khartoum Thursday that they were "encouraged" about prospects for peace in Darfur after two days of talks with factions in Sudan.

There was a "readiness" by all to improve the Darfur Peace Agreement signed last May in Abuja, Nigeria, by the government and one rebel group, Salim said.

Eliasson said he expected a "visible sign of reduction of violence" after the mediation by the two and efforts to bring parties that did not sign the peace deal on board.

From the New York Times

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday that President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan had broken a personal pledge he made last month to give entry permits to a United Nations human rights team, and Mr. Ban urged the Sudanese leader to reconsider.

“This is the issue I discussed with President Bashir during my meeting with him in Addis Ababa, and he said he would issue visas to the fact-finding mission,” Mr. Ban said. “He said he would have no problem.”

“I am very much disappointed by the decision of the Sudanese government,” he added. “If he believes that there is no problem, then he should be able to receive the human rights fact-finding mission.”

Mr. Ban also said he had received no reply from Mr. Bashir to a Jan. 24 letter addressing Sudanese concerns over a combined African Union and United Nations force to curb attacks on villagers in the Darfur region of western Sudan.

Mr. Ban said the letter detailed how an advance force would be created, as well as its command structure and financing. “With an affirmative answer, we can pave the way immediately to the introduction of a hybrid A.U./U.N. mission,” he said.

Under an agreement reached late last year with Sudan, a 20,000-member joint force was to be sent to Darfur to replace an undermanned and poorly equipped 7,000-member African Union contingent that has said it cannot control the rising violence.

Since that agreement, however, President Bashir has repeatedly defied the United Nations, saying he would not accept its peacekeepers and at one point threatening to send the Sudanese Army into combat against any who tried to enter the country. Because the resolution creating the force specifies that it must have the consent of the government before it can deploy in Sudan, United Nations officials have been pressing Mr. Bashir to drop his objections.

Mr. Ban said he was expecting to hear word shortly from Jan Eliasson, his special envoy for Darfur, and Salim A. Salim of the African Union, who are both currently in Sudan.

“This continuing deteriorating situation in Darfur is just unacceptable,” Mr. Ban said.

The violence in Darfur has left more than 200,000 villagers dead and made 2.5 million people homeless since the government moved to fight rebels there in 2003.

In Washington, Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said the United States was putting pressure on United Nations members, and African countries in particular, to supply more troops to the mission but had met resistance.

“It is absolutely essential that member nations of the U.N. step up and make those troop contributions,” he said.

Andrew S. Natsios, President Bush’s envoy for Darfur, said Wednesday that pro-government Janjaweed militias blamed for most of the killing, raping and pillaging were planning new actions — a threat, he said, that could drive out aid workers and close camps, producing a “bloodbath.”

CAR: Raids, Fear Put Life On Hold

From Reuters

For over a year, mayor Emmanuel Lockoulet has not registered a birth since fellow villagers in his remote northwest corner of Central African Republic fled attacks by government soldiers.

In a battered pocket book he has noted the dates he says soldiers killed civilians or torched the straw roofs of their mud huts, suspecting them of helping anti-government rebels.

"In January 2006 the people went to the bush because of the threats by these soldiers," Lockoulet said. "On April 5 they killed one person. On Sept. 30 they killed another. On Oct. 2 they came and burned."

Scores of villages have been destroyed or abandoned in over a year of violence in this part of the deeply poor country, where insecurity has been made worse in recent months by a new rebel front to the east near the border with Sudan's Darfur.

Ragged villagers emerging from the bush to speak to aid workers and journalists said members of Central African Republic President Francois Bozize's own guard had razed many villages.

In Beboura-II, most of the dozens of houses have been burnt in successive raids. People only came here on Thursday in the hope of having their children vaccinated by passing aid workers.

Hearing vehicles approaching, most of the group of women and children ran away between the charred ruins, only returning when they saw the cars brought not soldiers but human rights researchers documenting abuses.

Villagers in this region, a 10-hour drive from the capital Bangui mostly on dirt roads, say they run the gauntlet of attacks by Bozize's presidential guard and army, rebels, groups of armed bandits, as well as by gunmen from neighbouring Chad.

The United Nations estimates 220,000 people have been forced from their homes since the latest violence began in 2005.

Bertin Wafio, who described himself as a commander of the rebel Popular Army for the Reconstruction of the Republic and Democracy (APRD), said he took up arms against Bozize in 2005 over "bad governance, rigged elections, killings and impunity".

Wafio said the APRD had 975 fighters in the area, the youngest aged 14. He said as a former science teacher he did not recruit the boys, but said they had joined up voluntarily.

Talking outside an abandoned school to journalists and Hollywood film star Mia Farrow, who was touring the country as goodwill ambassador for the U.N. children's fund UNICEF, Wafio said he could not disclose who was leading the APRD.

He said the movement included soldiers who served former President Ange-Felix Patasse, whom Bozize ousted in March 2003, before going on to be elected president in 2005.

But Wafio said Abdoulaye Miskine, one of Patasse's former gu