Sudan Monthly Report

["SCIO" <SCIO at maf.or.ke> (by way of Enrico Marcandalli <ramalkandy at iol.it>)]

Sudan Monthly Report<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

A monthly production by the Sudan Catholic Information Office
(SCIO)

 

May 15, 2001

 

Content

1. Chronology

2. Humanitarian workers, missionaries leave as fighting rocks Upper
Nile

3. Khartoum savours the sweet smell of oil money

 

1. Chronology

April 16: The movement of refugees across the Uganda and Sudanese borders
has been blamed for increased cases of sleeping sickness in some areas of
northwestern Uganda, and health authorities say these movements make it
difficult to control the spread of the disease. Uganda s assistant
commissioner for health services in charge of vector disease control said
most of cases were identified among the Sudanese refugee population in
the area.

17: The authorities in Sudan have freed a prominent journalist,
Alfred Taban, who was detained almost a week ago. Mr. Taban, who works
for the BBC and also for Reuters, telephoned colleagues from his home in
Khartoum. He said he had been treated well during his 
detention.

18: Seven Sudanese refugees died while 42 others were admitted to various
hospitals after fighting erupted at Kenya s Kakuma Refugee camp. Another
150 were wounded when two rival groups of the Dinka community- one from
Bor and another from Bahr el Ghazal regions of southern Sudan engaged in
a fierce fight following a disagreement.

19: The SPLA said its forces killed 257 government troops in major
battles in southern Sudan in the last few days. It said in a statement
received from Asmara, Eritrea, that its forces killed 187 troops and
wounded 130 in heavy fighting in southern Blue Nile state, about 600 km
(375) southeast of Khartoum.

20: Amnesty International took note of the presidential decree
pardoning 47 people arrested over last Easter and called for an impartial
and independent investigation into the shootings, beatings and arrests by
the Sudanese riot police on April 11, 2001.  "Amnesty
International is concerned that at least nine people, including children,
were flogged as punishment, after being convicted with 47 others for
causing 'public disturbance' in an unfair and summary
trial."

23: Pop superstar Michael Jackson will travel to Sudan to campaign
for an end to child slavery in the country. He decided to make the trip
after hearing of a visit by American civil rights campaigner Reverend Al
Sharpton to the war-ravaged state. Children are often taken from their
homes by soldiers, sold into slavery and forcibly converted to Islam as
part of an ongoing civil war between Muslims in the north and Christians
and traditionalists in the south. 

24: Catholic bishops in the US have recommended that President
George Bush name a special envoy for Sudan and that the US lead the way
in seeking an end to the Sudanese civil war. Michael Perry, speaking for
a National Conference of Catholic Bishops delegation that visited Sudan
this month, said the US government should put pressure on oil companies
also to ensure their activities in Sudan did not exacerbate the war
between the Khartoum government and southern rebels.

24: Dr Mustafa Osman Ismail, Sudan s external relations minister,
has stressed that the government is endeavouring to adopt moderate
foreign policies to confront the challenges and realise the hopes,
wishes, aspirations and interests of Sudan. In a statement he gave before
the National Assembly, he said the first challenge was the civil wars,
disputes and conflicts raging in the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes
region, the Israeli-Arab conflict and the problems of armament.

24: Belarussian oil major Slavneft said it could start drilling
operations in Sudan within the next six months as part of its push into
the oil-rich African nation. A Slavneft official said the company had
received the results of seismic exploration at Sudan's Block-9 and
Block-11 and would examine them before making a decision.

24: The American Anti-Slavery Group-organised talks between John
Garang's SPLA and Riek Machar's Sudan People's Democratic Front (SPDF)
held in Nairobi, Kenya, have failed so far to reach a formula for a
merger, or to resolve differences over the leadership of armed opposition
in southern Sudan. The committee had been examining ways to unify
military operations, the Sudanese newspaper 'Al-Ra'y al-Amm'
said.

26: The American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG) has called upon
Fidelity Investments of Boston to rid its mutual funds of Talisman
Energy, the Canadian oil giant accused of contributing to genocide and
the enslavement of Africans in Sudan. Charging that Talisman oil fields
are being cleared by enslaving and murdering Africans,`` Charles Jacobs,
AASG President, asked Fidelity CEO Edward Johnson III to ''act quickly.``

26:The US has suggested to the Sudanese government that the two
countries cooperate on a peace plan for the south, possibly leading to a
higher level of US. representation in Khartoum, US. Secretary of State
Colin Powell said. The Khartoum government would have to stop the aerial
bombardment of southern towns and villages and ease the restrictions on
humanitarian relief to the south, he added.

27: The SPLA claims to have seized control of five areas in
Southeastern Blue Nile Province after defeating government troops. But
Khartoum refuted the claims saying that its troops had the upper hand in
an offensive it launched on March 28. 

28: The conference of the pro-government southern Sudanese
factions ended with the unification of the factions under the general
command of Maj-Gen Paulino Matib. The resolutions of the conference will
be presented to the chairman of the Coordination Council for the Southern
States [CCSS], Brig Gatluak Deng, who will in turn submit them to the
president of the republic, Gen Omar al-Bashir.

28: A chartered plane carrying the Ugandan delegation, that
returned home from Libya was delayed for two hours after Sudan reportedly
refused to grant it clearance to over-fly their airspace. Sources said
that the delegation which included Uganda s vice president, Specioza
Wandira Kazibwe was held at Tripoli International Airport for more than
two hours while the Libyan authorities tried to obtain clearance from
Sudan.

29: Secretary of State Colin Powell is fending off calls from
lawmakers for a special envoy to Sudan, a nation stricken with slavery,
war, famine and terrorism. Speaking before the House Appropriations
Committee Powell said he is considering alternatives including the
restoration of diplomatic ties with Khartoum.

30: The Sudanese minister of information Ghazi Salah Eddine has
described the three American conditions to build better relations with
Sudan as more positive than the tone of the former US administration. In
a statement to the Sudanese daily al-Rai al-Am, the Sudanese minister
said "we hope the US administration had realised that the Sudanese
government proposed a comprehensive position to cease fire in Southern
Sudan," noting that the rebellion movement laid obstructive
conditions before ceasing fire. 

30: International donors had pledged less than one third of the
emergency food needed for drought-stricken Sudan, the World Food
Programme (WFP). WFP information officer Lindsey Davis told IRIN that
governments and agencies had pledged only 55,000 mt of the 171,699 mt of
food aid required to feed both northern and southern Sudan this
year.

30: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has agreed to a formula
for Sudan to reschedule its debt repayments, the governor of the Central
Bank of Sudan, Sabir al-Hasan, announced. AFP said it was the first time
such an agreement had been made in 17 years.

30: The official Sudanese government spokesman, Information
Minister Ghazi Salah al-Din al-Atabani, has expressed satisfaction at
approach of the new US administration. He commended the
"language" of the new US administration, regarding relations
between the US and Sudan, and said it was more positive than that of the
former administration, 'Al Ra'y al-Amm' newspaper reported. 

30: A joint Ethiopian-Sudanese ministerial meeting held in the
Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, will discuss the fate of the five
hijackers of an Ethiopian aircraft, who had pleaded not to be extradited,
a Sudanese official told IRIN. The two sides had agreed, "not to
make an issue of the extradition of the hijackers", the source said.

May 2: AASG, in coordination with the Washington-based Free Sudan
Movement (FSM), will protest Sudan's trade in black slaves at the Sudan
Mission to the UN --655 3rd Avenue between 41st and 42nd Sts. On April 13
FSM leaders, former Congressman Rev. Walter Fauntroy and DC radio host,
Joe Madison were arrested for chaining themselves to the gate of the
Sudan Embassy in Washington, DC in a similar protest against black
slavery.

3: Human rights activists and Sudanese expatriates descended on
Talisman energy Inc. s annual meeting to accuse the Canadian oil company
of fueling Sudan s civil war, but Talisman s chief executive said the
firm s presence was only improving the situation. Outside the hotel where
the meeting took place, about 200 demonstrators beat drums and chanted
their opposition to Talisman s involvement in a big south Sudan oil
project they say is giving the Islamist government financial muscle to
wage war against traditionalist and Christian people in the southern part
of the country.

4: The fight for freedom in Sudan hit the streets of New York as a
pair of radio hosts and two human-rights advocates were arrested
protesting slavery in the African nation. Guardian Angels founder Curtis
Sliwa, who hosts a WABC Radio morning show, led a quartet of protesters
who blocked lunchtime pedestrian traffic outside the Sudan mission to the
United Nations on Third Avenue near 42nd Street.

4: Sudanese government has rejected as baseless a report by an
international relief agency warning about a looming famine among 40,000
people in southwestern Nuba Mountains. Mr. Abdel-Ati Abu-Kheir, deputy
commissioner in Humanitarian Aid Commission, a government body in charge
of relief in Sudan, said the Nuba Mountains areas were receiving regular
food aid supplies.

6: Human rights groups involved in Sudan expressed shock that US
has been voted off the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, while Sudan has
been re-elected to the body despite blatant rights abuses, including
slavery. They said the departure of the US would make condemnation of
Khartoum's violations less likely, as the US had stood virtually alone in
its firm stance on Sudan.

7: Canadian Foreign Minister John Manley has expressed concern at
reports that Sudan's government could be using an airfield of the
Canadian oil company Talisman Energy to launch offensive operations
against rebels. Human rights groups, including Amnesty International and
Christian Solidarity International, have reported bombing raids by the
Sudanese military on civilians by helicopter gunships operating from the
oil consortium's airstrips.

9: A 26-year-old Danish co-pilot was killed when his plane was
shot over southern Sudan. Mr. Ole-Friis Eriksen, a co-pilot of an
aircraft chartered by International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC),
died from what his pilot described as severe head injuries from a loud
explosion in their aircraft that was on its way to Khartoum from the
northwestern Kenya town of Lokichoggio. The light aircraft, on a routine
flight to Sudan, belonged to Danish Aviation Assistance Company of
Denmark.

9: Nigeria has sent an envoy to Sudan to pursue a new peace
initiative a week after its President Olusegun Obasanjo met Sudanese
rebel and opposition leaders, Sudanese media reported. Nigeria hopes its
initiative will bring Sudan s 18-year-old civil war to an end, Obasanjo s
special envoy Ibrahim Babangida was quoted on Sudanese news agency, SUNA,
as saying.

10: Freedom House Chairman and former US ambassador to the UN,
Bill Richardson, has indicated his willingness to discuss the recent
ouster of the US from the UN Commission on Human Rights. The vote saw the
election of Sudan among other countries, which Washington has been
accusing of human rights abuses. Freedom House, an organisation
accredited at the UN, is currently under attack by Cuba and Sudan who are
seeking to strip it of its UN status

11: Oil production in Sudan is exceeding expectations as output in
Africa's largest country reaches 220,000 barrels a day despite civil war
and US sanctions, a senior official said. Energy and Mining Minister Awad
Ahmed Al-Jaz Minister said a consortium of Canadian, Chinese, Malaysian
and Sudanese companies has had 100 percent success with the wells in its
concession, the first to come on line.

11: Sudan s Islamist government has accused rebels of killing a
Red Cross pilot on an aid mission in the south, the independent al-Ayam
daily reported. The Danish pilot was killed when his plane came under
fire over southern Sudan.

11: In a significant move, the US Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC) has indicated that it will investigate all foreign firms
listed in the country s capital markets so as to determine whether these
companies have disclosed everything about the foreign operations. More
so, the move seeks to expose and deal with those companies that have
contravened US rules on sanctions.

11: Sudan and Uganda have agreed to ease the tension that
has characterised relations between the two countries for the last 15
years. The two countries have also agreed to implement an
agreement they signed in Nairobi in December 1999. 

14: The presidents of Egypt and Sudan have agreed in talks in
Cairo to reactivate diplomatic ties between the two countries that have
been dormant since the mid 1990s when they fell out together. President
Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and his Sudanese counterpart, Bashir indicated
that they will revive a joint cooperation commission and all suspended
bilateral agreements. 

14: The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) began the
process of repatriating Eritrean refugees living in camps in Kassala and
Al-Qadarif [Gedaref] states in eastern Sudan. A first convoy carrying 932
refugees left Lafa refugee camp in Kassala, the agency told IRIN. The
majority of Eritreans living in Sudan have been there since well before
May 1993, when Eritrea declared independence after a long liberation
struggle with Ethiopia, but tens of thousands more crossed into the
country in May and June last year when war between the two countries
caused tens of thousands of Eritreans to leave their homes.

15: United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
recently donated about US$259, 740 for the newly-refurbished Rumbek
Secondary School in southern Sudan. The money was channeled through the
Catholic Relief services.

 

2. Humanitarian workers, missionaries leave as fighting rocks Upper
Nile

 

For the second time in two months, serious fighting has rocked Sudan s
Western Upper Nile area, forcing the evacuation of foreign aid workers,
missionaries and disrupting relief operations in some areas. The latest
incidents are the clashes currently taking place in Nyal town, which was
destroyed in February by troops of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army
(SPLA) under a renegade Nuer commander Peter Gatdet. 

 

Now the fighting has spread to the nearby town of Ganyliel, forcing the
evacuation of humanitarian workers and missionaries in the area,
according to Fr. Fernando Gonzalez. Fr. Gonzalez is one of two Comboni
Missionaries evacuated from Ganyliel on May 12 together with 14 relief
workers. Among the evacuees are four workers with International Rescue
Committee (IRC). The latest clashes do not involve Gatdet but other
factions fighting in Upper Nile.

 

Reports from the area indicate that the fighting was sparked by
allegations of biased distribution of food donated by the World Food
Programme (WFP) by the village chiefs. It is yet to be known how many
tonnes were involved and when they were delivered to the area. Normally,
distribution of relief in Sudan involves local leaders. But this method
of distribution has in the past been accused of abetting the looting of
food by those involved in the distribution, consequently sparking
clashes. That is what happened in Nyal on April 26.

 

Fr. Fernando says the fighting in Nyal started after enraged young
soldiers of the Sudan Peoples Democratic Front (SPDF), stationed around
Nyal, rebelled against their commanders on April 26. They accused the
commanders of getting more than their share of food.

 

Led by Lieutenant Majak Jaal, the troops briefly took control of the town
and the food, forcing many people to flee to islands in the surrounding
swamps. Others left for Ganyliel, some 45 km away in the southwest. The
following day, security people of the Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS)
started evacuating 16 foreign workers and missionaries from Nyal. The
exercise was completed on May 12 when it became obvious that Ganyliel was
the next target.

 

But the trouble had started earlier on April 11, when Lt. Majak s forces
attacked and defeated forces allied to the area Governor, Simon Maguek,
on the food issue forcing the intervention of other SPDF factions. Majak
withdrew some of his troops to the area around Ganyliel, which he now
threatens to take. The rest, left in Nyal, are the ones that started the
fighting on April 26. 

 

The situation is still fluid and the evacuees may not return immediately.
We are not going back soon since the situation is still volatile, says
Fr. Fernando.

 

That is the same position taken by IRC. We are still awaiting a security
report from OLS security people before we can decide what to do next,
says a source in the IRC office in Nairobi. The source adds that some of
their personnel who were in Upper Nile have left for Northern Bahr el
Ghazal where the organisation runs water, sanitation and primary health
care programmes.

 

This is not the first time that IRC personnel have had to evacuate from
the area. And now the organisation vows; we will not move out of Upper
Nile. We will continue to operate there. 

 

Apart from the insecurity and instability caused by the factional
fighting, Ganyliel has been cut off from the rest of the world after the
government banned relief planes from landing on its airstrip three years
ago. "Missionaries and NGOs now operate from alternative
airstrips," says Fr. Fernando. This makes the possibility of
starvation real.  

 

According to Fr. Fernando, the local people who felt comforted by the
presence of the missionaries received their arrival in Ganyliel in mid
March with great joy. However, two weeks after they arrived, rumours of
an imminent attack by Gatdet started.

 

"There is a great possibility that we might be evacuated soon.
Gatdet's troops are stationed near Nyal," said the confrere late
last month. But even so the missionaries were not afraid: "Our
confreres will remain in Ganyliel for the time being. They will follow
the situation and continue with their missionary work." In fact the
missionaries were planning to visit Nyal and assess the situation whether
it is possible for them to return there. That didn t come to pass and
instead they have left after Western Upper Nile once more becomes the
epicenter of factional fighting in Nuerland.

 

The Comboni have worked in Upper Nile since 1996 and have come to share
the suffering of the local population. On June 1998, when forces led by
Paulino Matip, who was acting on behalf of the government of Sudan,
attacked and destroyed Leer, the missionaries had to flee to Nyal where
they started their work once more. Nyal was then hosting people who had
been displaced by the fighting in Leer.

 

A year later, in May 1999, Fr. La Braca Antonio had to flee together with
the people he was visiting in Koch after Gatdet attacked the area, who at
that time were an ally of Matip. Together with the displaced, Fr. Antonio
walked for almost a week to cover the 90-km journey between Koch and
Nyal. The trek took that long since Gatdet kept on ambushing the fleeing
lot. 

 

Apart from the SPDF and SPLA forces, there are government troops and
their militia allies. 

 

Consequently, the losers have turned to be the southerners with
government troops now controlling 2/3 of Western Upper Nile, which is one
of the country s oil rich areas and was formerly in rebel hands. In these
newly captured areas, Khartoum has pursued a scorched earth policy, which
involves the forceful eviction of civilians from areas bordering the
oilfields so as not only to ease the oil exploration but also prevent
rebel attacks.

 

Local leaders from both the Nuer and Dinka communities recently condemned
Gatdet, his commanders and soldiers who they said were destroying the
area. The chiefs accused Gatdet of torpedoing a peace agreement signed
between the two communities in Wunlit in 1999 under the mediation of the
New Sudan Council of Churches, ending nine years of cross-border raids.
The clashes precipitated the horrifying famine of 1998 in Bahr el Ghazal
region. When he burned Nyal to the ground in February this year, analysts
were quick to note that he withdrew his troops after the destruction. So,
went on the observers, Gatdet had not attacked Nyal to gain any strategic
territories, but instead seemed to be on a mission of revenge. 

 

Two years ago, Gatdet was content to attack nearby oil installations,
which have thin civilian population due to forcible evictions by the
government. However, that has changed and, armed with what is said to be
logistical support from Rumbek, Gatdet has been attacking heavily
populated Nuer territories south of the oilfields. It is a considerable
distance of more than 100 miles and is almost inaccessible due to the
presence of huge swamps. 

-Mathias Muindi and Charles Omondi

 

3. Khartoum Savours the Sweet Smell of New Money

 

War, drought and reckless oil exploitation threaten the lives of millions
of people in the Sudan. The ruthlessness, even by Sudanese standards, of
the war in the Nuba Mountains is the consequence of several
factors.

 

A major reason runs as an almost straight line along the main road to the
largest Nuba town, Kadugli - an oil pipeline. Vanessa Gordon watches oil
money bubble in Khartoum and discovers some tough dilemmas confronting
those who want to help.

 

It is the very pipeline, which shunts oil from the newly developed
oilfields south of the mountains to its destination in northern Sudan.
The pipeline, marked every 500 meters by yellow or red warning signs, is
buried under a low vault of earth changing from black to dusty red as it
ploughs through different soil types.

 

Whatever its colour, the pipeline is watched over by military check
points every five kilometres with additional mobile units walking up and
down the road at all times.

 

This pipeline, running an amazing 1,600 kilometre, is the vulnerable main
artery of the Sudanese government's newly found riches and rebels must be
kept away from it at any cost.

 

As the war continues in the mountains, aid workers and local leaders in
lower lying towns such as Kadugli and Dilling expect a continued influx
of displaced people from the war zones. Government forces are on the
offensive and seem bent on extending the security perimeter around the
pipeline and access roads to the oil operations.

 

Reports from churches and local authorities in Upper Nile, some 200 km
further south of the Nuba Mountains and in the oil areas, confirm that
they need assistance for some 60,000 people displaced by continued
fighting in the area.

 

The last couple of years the Sudanese army and allied militias have been
waging a savage war in Upper Nile, leaving the areas around oil
installations and supply roads virtually empty of the original
population. Hundreds have been killed in attacks on civilian
villages.

 

Tens of thousands have been forced to flee their homesteads. In some of
the worst documented cases, children, women and elderly have been burned
alive, trapped inside their huts as they were torched by army and militia
soldiers.

 

When asked to explain what is going on in his home area, an elder leader
from Bentiu in Upper Nile lapses into a convoluted tale of personal
rivalries between renegade rebel gangs, government instigated plots and
ferocious looting parties defying all control but their lust for booty
and price money.

 

Details of his tale may be beyond the comprehension of most outsiders but
the conclusion is not to be missed. While oil valued at as much as US $
one billion per year is being pumped out under their very feet, large
sections of the local Nuer and Dinka population are worse off than they
ever were before.

 

Starved and displaced, the legitimate owners of this oil rich land are at
the mercy of the bush and the occasional relief agency.

 

In a camp for displaced not far from the Nuba Mountains, an angry chief
cannot hold his tongue: "What kind of a life is this. We were forced
to flee our land and now we just sit here waiting. Waiting for what?
"

 

The chief, a tall man of maybe 50 years, speaks with a booming anger and
backs his words up with hefty punches in the air. The eyes are bloodshot
and his breath reveals the source of some of this unusual courage in the
face of high-ranking security personnel - several glasses of a cheap
local brew.

 

But his anger and indignation should not be dismissed as just a
drunkard's ravings - the brew only helps him state what others fear to
even whisper.

 

Recently detailed reports from journalists, human rights organisations
and the British charity Christian Aid have presented first hand testimony
to the fact, that the oil exploitation is causing massive human suffering
and has deepened the crisis in Sudan.

 

At the end of March, the UN's Human Rights Raporteur for Sudan, Gerhart
Baum returned from a visit to Sudan and reported that "I gathered
further evidence that oil exploitation leads to an exacerbation of the
conflict with serious consequences on civilians".

 

Churches and rights organisations have launched a campaign to hold
companies in countries like the UK, Sweden and Canada accountable for
their involvement in the Sudanese oilfields.

 

Other major foreign players include Chinese and Malaysian companies as
well as British and German suppliers of pipelines, pump stations and
other essential equipment.

 

Among the allegations against companies such as Sweden's Lundin Oil or
Canada's Talisman Energy are eyewitness accounts to the effect that oil
company roads and airfields are being used by government forces when they
attack people living in the oil areas.

 

The Sudanese government and the foreign companies dismiss the reports of
human rights violations and atrocities tied closely to their
activities.

 

Carl Bildt, a former Swedish prime minister and currently a UN
representative to the Balkans, sits on the board of Lundin Oil. 

 

In a March 22, 2001 press statement, Bildt stated that he was
"convinced that the foreign presence and not least the oil are
possibilities for peace and development in Sudan in the long
term".

 

Approaching Khartoum on the main road from the Nuba Mountains and the oil
fields further south, its hard to imagine the war zone one has just left
behind. Traffic in Khartoum seems to have at least doubled over the last
years.

 

Fuel trucks, nowhere to be seen in the days of hyper inflation and fuel
queues in the mid 1990s, race up and down main roads supplying sparkling
new fuel stations in the suburbs and in towns down the course of the
Nile.

 

On the outskirts of the capital, homes the size of small hotels and built
in lavish Saudi Arabian style, pop up where once were just sandy dessert.
A few Internet cafes advertise along the road to and from the
airport.

 

In the city centre music from restaurants and computer game shops add a
new layer to the street noise and the frequent prayer calls radiating
from an ever-increasing number of minarets and mosques across
town.

 

Money has returned to Khartoum on a scale challenging the times before
1989, when a National Islamic Front instigated military coup put the
current President, Omar al Beshir, into the old palace down by the Blue
Nile Promenade.

 

Something else may be changing too. The stern faced Islamic Sharia code
so vigorously enforced only a few years ago seems to be slowly giving way
to the kind of sneaking Westernisation, which comes with the smell of new
money, and spoiled Upper Class kids.

 

The displaced, like 99.9 percent of the Sudanese population, live way
outside the oil bubble's posh mansions, and cannot even dream of ever
hanging out in Internet cafes. Where they live, not even snail mail would
reach.

 

- The writer, Vanessa Gordon, wrote this story for All Africa News
Agency (AANA) on return from Sudan 

-Enquiries to

The Editor

Sudan Catholic Information Office (SCIO)

E-mail: SCIO at maf.or.ke

Tel. 254-2-577949/ 577616/ 577595

Fax 254-2-577327