Sudan Monthly Report, April 15, 2001

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

Sudan Monthly Report

A
monthly production by the Sudan Catholic Information Office
(SCIO)<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

April 15, 2001

 

Content

1. Chronology

2. USCC delegation visits Sudan


3. Nuba martyrs remembered

 

1. Chronology

March 16: Sudan s main sugar manufacturer has denied claims the country lacks capacity to export to Kenya under Comesa s zero tarrif regime. The firm denied that Sudan was flouting the trade bloc s rules of origin, and announced that with its capacity of 450,000 tonnes a year, it was ready to sell bigger volumes to Kenya.

16: Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir has rejected a recent report by the Washington-based Strategic Studies Centre, proposing the formation of two political entities in the north and south of Sudan as a way out of the protracted civil war in the country. We categorically refuse both content and implications of the paper, Bashir told reporters in Khartoum, after a meeting at the offices of the ruling National Congress.

17: Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi has affirmed the commitment of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to resolving the Sudan conflict, the local media reported. The president said the war, which has claimed over 1.5 million lives, is of major concern to the international community.

8:  Eight Sudanese opposition leaders accused of espionage and plotting to wage war against the state stood trial in a case that could further strain US-Sudanese relations. The Sudanese government said in December it had caught opposition leaders - members of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), an umbrella organisation for opposition groups - meeting with an American diplomat to allegedly plan an armed uprising.

18: Opposition leader Sadiq el-Mahdi, Sudan's toppled prime minister, said he had accepted a US invitation to discuss democracy and his country's 18-year civil war with US officials. The war is between Arab-descended, Muslim northerners, who control the military-dominated government, and African southerners, who mostly practice Christianity and indigenous religions.

19: Renowned Sudanese zoologist, Mohammed Abdallah el Rayyah, whose specialties are natural life and tourism, has launched a new private reptile zoo in Khartoum. Rayyah's Zoo, established under the company name of 'Umam', displays various types of indigenous and imported snakes, lizards and tortoises.

20: The former speaker of Sudan's parliament, Hassan el Turabi is now almost a month behind the bars with no clear indication about his political fate. Turabi was jailed on February 22 when his party - the Popular National Congress (PNC) - signed a memorandum of understanding with the rebel SPLA.

20: Turabi's family and his PNC operatives have seized the opportunity of the recent visit by the UN human rights rapporteur for Sudan, Gerhart Baum to raise the issue of his imprisonment. In a memo to the UN envoy, the party said; "Turabi and his brothers were met with harsh treatment, were denied beds and made to sleep on the ground."

21: Turabi will be charged with a criminal offence, Sudan's president said. Turabi, an Islamic theologian, was arrested on February 21 in Khartoum.

22: The NDA and the SPLA said a fresh round of talks with the government could only be held if certain conditions were met. SPLA spokesman Samson Kwaje said that the conditions included the release of all political prisoners, the lifting of the state of emergency, and the suspension of clauses in the 1998 constitution relating to Islamic Sharia. Other conditions include the lifting of the Public Securities Act, and removing the ban on political parties, Kwaje told IRIN.

22: The government of Uganda is ready to enter fresh peace talks with the Sudanese government and rebels of the Lords Resistance Army (LRA), the minister of state for northern Uganda rehabilitation, Omwony Ojwok, said. "We hope to quickly resume dialogue with Sudan government which will help us have direct access to the leadership of Lords Resistance Army rebels," Omwony told eight ambassadors from the European Union at his office at Eden Road in Gulu.

22: Saudi Arabia beheaded a Sudanese man in the holy Muslim city of Mecca for killing a compatriot, the official Saudi Press Agency said. It was the 22nd execution in the conservative kingdom this year. The execution was delayed until the victim's children reached the legal age to decide on the murderer's fate. Under Islamic law a victim's immediate family can accept compensation known as "blood money" and spare the life of a convicted murderer.

22: A panel formed by the US Congress has recommended that more stringent trade and financial sanctions be imposed on Sudan in response to human rights abuses in that country. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom said the situation in Sudan has deteriorated since the commission reported last May that the impoverished African country was "the world's most violent abuser of the right to freedom of religion and belief."

23: The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said that while Sudan had shown increasing willingness to cooperate with international agencies in the field of human rights, there was continued concern over abductions, displacements and discrimination. It said there were continuous reports and allegations regarding the abduction by armed militia of primarily women and children belonging to different ethnic groups.

23:  A bipartisan group of US lawmakers called on President George W. Bush to name a special peace envoy to Sudan. Headed by House of Representatives Republican Leader Dick Armey of Texas, they said the US must make it a top priority to help bring to an end Sudan's 18-year-old civil war, blamed for more than 2 million deaths.

26: Sudan residents in the southern Sudanese town of Wau say armed nomads known as the Murahiliin have abducted dozens of women and children. The residents told the BBC that some 3,000 men arrived in the city three weeks ago on trains and horseback and have been carrying out robberies and other attacks. The Murahiliin are reported to be demanding US$150 per person from relatives of the kidnap victims.

26: A key Republican leader in the US House of Representatives has said that the persecution of Christians and other minority ethnic groups in Sudan is "horrible" and the US must get involved. House Whip Tom DeLay said the White House view is that "we won't stand for what's going on in the Sudan" and asserted "we need to do whatever is necessary to stop this carnage that's going on in the Sudan."

27: House Majority Leader Dick Armey, taking on Sudan as a cause, urged President Bush to name a "nationally distinguished leader" as special envoy to the war-ravaged African nation. "The situation in Sudan is rapidly getting worse and must be seriously addressed before the scale of death and destruction increases," Armey wrote in a letter also signed by three other Republican and two Democratic lawmakers.

28: Detained Turabi said in remarks published that he would resist attempts by the government to send him into exile. I will not leave. I will stay in Sudan, Mr. Turabi told the Saudi Arabian Al-watan newspaper in answer to questions from the newspaper passed to him in prison by his wife.

30: Sudan is on the verge of a huge food crisis with three million people at risk of hunger as fighting and drought sweep the country, the World Food Programme (WFP) said. The Rome-based WFP said food in affected regions was expected to run out by mid-April while drought and civil war continue to plague Africa s largest country.

31: President Moi of Kenya said he suggested to Sudanese President Bashir that there was need to allow the freedom of religion and worship in the country s constitution. He called for speedy resolution to the conflict in Sudan to enhance stability in the region.

April 4: Founding member and former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rev. Walter Fauntroy, and the nationally syndicated broadcaster, Joe Madison witnessed the liberation of 2,953 Black Sudanese slaves through the Christian Solidarity International (CSI)-sponsored "Underground Railroad" during a fact-finding visit to Sudan on March 29-April 1, 2001.

5: Sudan s deputy defence minister and 13 other high-ranking military officers were killed as their plane crashed on takeoff in southern Sudan, state television reported. The television said the deputy minister, Col Ibrahim Shamsuldin, and the others had been touring a southern military area and were headed back to Khartoum at the time of the crash.

6: The Sudanese army blamed a sandstorm for the crash of a plane that killed 14 senior officers, including the deputy defence minister who directed the war in southern Sudan. A non-commissioned officer also died while 16 military personnel survived the accident, which occurred when the pilot of the Russian built Antonov, overshot his landing amid poor visibility at Adar Yiel airport, the army said.

6: Sudan s deputy defence minister and 14 other military personnel were immediately buried after a plane crash, which has thrown the capital into mourning, newspapers and television, said. They were laid to rest in the oil-producing area of Adar Yiel, after the crash in southern Sudan, the independent al-Ayyam paper said.

7: The death of a key player in the 1989 coup that brought President Bashir to power is another blow to the Sudanese leader after most of his confidantes have either resigned, died or were pushed aside, an analyst said. The deputy defence minister, Col. Ibrahim shasul-Din, one of Bashir s top army aides, was killed along with 13 other high ranking military officers when their plane crashed on take-off in southern Sudan.

7: On April 5, 2001, Sudanese gathered at London s Waterloo Park between 10:30 am and 12 noon for a demonstration against the National Islamic Front regime; the oil companies and the overall British policy on Sudan. The idea of going to the streets was a brain child of the Sudanese-British Human Rights Forum, an ad hoc committee created by Lady Baroness Cox last year to bring Sudanese to talk about their problems and how they can maintain advocacy in the British Parliament.

7: The opposition Ummah Party leader, Sadiq al-Mahdi, has called for an urgent probe into the crash of a Sudanese military plane at Adar Yiel, southern Sudan. Mahdi criticised the decision to put capable military commanders on board a single aircraft. He described the martyrs as "national resources" of all the people of Sudan and the armed forces.

8: The freeing of a Sudanese opposition leader has raised hopes for the release of other accused anti-government conspirators, a leading party figure said. Mohamed Hassan al-Amin, head of the PNC s constitutional department, was detained in February along with PNC leader Turabi and three senior party members. Al-Amin was released without explanation.

10: Despite rising pressure from grassroots groups and Congress, the administration of President Bush is unwilling for the moment to impose new sanctions or take other actions that could worsen already difficult ties with Sudan, according to knowledgeable sources. The most it will do is begin spending some of the US$10 million which Congress appropriated last year for political and technical support for unarmed civil society groups active in the southern part of the country under the control of the SPLA.

10: Sudanese priest has accused the West of ignoring the appalling human rights situation in his country for selfish reasons. The interest in Sudan s crude oil reserves seemed to be more important than the plight of the oppressed Christians and traditionalists. Hilary Boma - former treasurer of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Khartoum - was speaking at a meeting of the International Society for Human Rights, April 7-8 in Konigstein near Frankfurt (Germany). The priest was incarcerated in solitary confinement for nine months in 1998 and 1999.

12: Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has pledged to help resolve the conflict in Sudan, Sadiq el Mahdi, a former premier announced. "President Obasanjo has conveyed to me his intention to start intensive contacts with concerned parties for a comprehensive political solution to the armed conflict in the country," Mahdi declared on arrival from a Nigerian visit.

12: Sudan and Ethiopia have created a joint committee to speed up the proposed inter-connection of their electric networks. The Sudanese national corporation for electricity's director of planning and projects Sayed Ahmed Mohammed said in Khartoum that the committee's first meeting would be held in Addis Ababa next month.

12: Sudan has denied charges that it was producing chemical weapons with Baghdad and that Iraqi pilots were flying air raids in the Islamic regime's war against the rebel Christian and traditionalist south, a newspaper said. "This is an old allegation by the rebel movement for misleading world opinion," an unnamed official in the government spokesman's office told the independent Al-Ayam daily.

12: Leading Arab and Pakistani Muslim delegates have begun arriving in Khartoum in a bid to reconcile President Beshir and Turabi, party officials said. The rivalry, which burst into the open in 1999, has torn apart the Islamist movement, which has ruled Sudan since it took power in a military coup 10 years earlier.

12: The US has persuaded Sudan, which is on the US list of nations sponsoring terrorism, to delay its call for Security Council action to lift limited sanctions until August, diplomats said. The sanctions, imposed in 1996 to force Sudan to hand over suspects in the 1995 assassination attempt against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, were never actively enforced, but they nevertheless remain on the books.

13: The European Union has expressed its satisfaction over the agreement between Kenya and Sudan to organise a regional summit on the peace process in Sudan. In a statement, the 15 EU member countries said they had taken note of President Moi's visit to Khartoum on March 29-30 with the aim of boosting the peace process in Sudan under the auspices of the IGAD.

14: Sudan-based Reuters and BBC correspondent Alfred Taban, who was arrested in Khartoum is still being held in an unknown location, his family said. A family source said, "he's still being held by the security services" and that his relatives "have no news of him and do not know where he is being held."

14: Southern Sudan, developmentally neglected by successive Khartoum governments, has become a hotly contested area with multinational oil companies, local authorities and Muslim interests vying for a piece of the oil revenue pie. When the US-based international oil company Chevron first came to Sudan in the 1970s, it started exploring for oil in areas designated by the central government that excluded southern Sudan, said Abel Alier, a former vice president of Sudan under Nimeiry.

14: Authorities flogged 53 Christians who were convicted of rioting over efforts to move their Easter ceremony out of a public square, the Sudanese Council of Churches said. Four women and two children received 15 lashes each before they were released. Authorities gave 20 lashes each to 47 men and sentenced them to 20-day jail terms, a council official said on condition of anonymity.

 


2. USCC delegation visits Sudan

A delegation from the United States Catholic Conference (USCC) on April 2, 2001 completed a tour of Sudan s non-government territory in a move that could impact greatly on the relations between the USA and Khartoum.

Having first spent a week in Khartoum, the USA delegation divided themselves into two groups in order to be able to cover as much ground as possible in their two-day tour.

One group led by Bishop Edward Braxton of Lake Charles in Louisiana, first visited the Diocese of Tambura Yambio in Western Equatorial then proceeded to Rumbek in Bahr el Ghazal, Kauda in Nuba Mountains and finally Narus in Eastern Equatoria.

Other members of the group were Fr. Mike Perry, the USCC s Policy Advisor on African Affairs, Mr. Ken Hackett, the Executive Director, of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and Mr. Paul Townsend, the Country Representative for the CRS Sudan Programme.

To receive the USCC team at the different stations, were the areas respective Bishops; namely; Joseph Gasi of Tambura Yambio, Paride Taban of Torit, Max Macram Gassis of El Obeid and Caesar Mazzolari of Rumbek.

The second group comprised Bishop John Ricard of Tallahassee-Penscacola and Chairman of CRS Board of Directors and Kevin Appleby, USCC Director, Office of Migration and Refugee Policy. The Auxiliary Bishop of Torit, Rev Johnson Akio Mutek, accompanied the group that visited the Adjumani Refugee camp in northern Uganda, Nimule in Eastern Equatoria and Kakuma Refugee Camp in northern Kenya. The two refugee camps are homes to thousands of Sudanese, while Nimule hosts the internally displaced.

The USCC delegation heard and saw for themselves the realities of the Sudan s civil conflict, which in its 18^th year today, has claimed an estimated 2 million lives.

The members of the USCC held talks with the church and the SPLA leadership on various varied issues. However, one message was invariably repeated at all points: Sudanese are tired of war!

Aware of the complex nature of the conflict, the USCC delegation chose to be cautious rather than raise the hopes of the Sudanese to unrealistic levels.

In a press release in Nairobi, they said: We have found, first and foremost, that this conflict cannot be characterised in simple terms. All attempts to reduce the war to any single factor distorts reality and does not serve the cause of peace. However, despite all the complexities involved, our mission has deepened our conviction that the international community can no longer neglect efforts toward peace in Sudan. The judgment of history will be determined by the courage and determination of the international community to take bold steps now to help bring this cruel war to an end. In our judgment, the US must play a central role in this effort.

They added: we invite all people of goodwill, regardless of their religious identity, to join us in our prayer that God will deliver the people of Sudan from the ravages of this terrible conflict.

At Kauda, Bishop Braxton erected a giant cross at the site where government bomber killed 14 pupils and a teacher on February 8, last year.

Other issues raised during the tour included the role of oil in Sudan s conflict, bombardment of civilian targets, education and the on-going demobilisation of child soldiers by Unicef.

Sudan began exporting oil in August 1999; a development believed to have tilted the war in favour of Khartoum. The government reportedly earns at least US$2 million daily from oil, revenue that has enabled Khartoum to acquire more and better military hardware. Thousands of civilians have been rooted out of their ancestral land in the Bentiu oilfields and along pipeline from Bentiu to Port Sudan.

Several western and Asian companies are involved in the oil business. The most prominent of them all is Canada s Talisman Energy Corporation. -Charles Omondi

 

3. Nuba martyrs remembered

The occasion is commemorating a sad event; the massacre of 14 pupils and a teacher by a Khartoum government bomber. Nevertheless it is grandeur and the mood upbeat since it is not every other day that the type of dignitaries present visit the Nuba Mountains.

Present are Bishop Edward Braxton of Lake Charles, Louisiana, USA, Mr. Ken Hacket, the Executive Director of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and Fr. Mike Perry, the United States Catholic Conference (USCC) Advisor on African Affairs.

They have traversed vast lands to Kauda, a place one is unlikely to find even in the most detailed map of Sudan, let alone Africa, to plant a cross at the site where the pupils and their teacher met their painful deaths on February 8, 2000.

Also present is the local Catholic Bishop Max Macram Gassis, himself a persona non grata in his motherland, for his human rights crusade and Mr. Paul Townsend, the Country Representative for CRS Sudan. 

Local civilians have turned up in their drove. There is heavy military presence as the situation is ever precarious and nothing can be left to chance. School children are clapping their hands and singing their hearts out. But Amani Hissein cannot participate fully in the unfoldings. She cannot clap her hands as she has only one arm.

Like her brother Adil, little Amani was forced to undergo an amputation to save her life having sustained wounds when the Khartoum government bomber hit their dusty Holy Cross Primary School on the foot of a hill. Many others like Amani lost various varied body parts in the incident that to date rekindles most unpleasant memories in the minds of many Nuba people.

These are misfortunes they have to live with for the rest of their lives. Even more hurting is the fact that these innocent pupils have no iota of an idea why their motherland continues to shed so much blood in the name of a civil war.

But for the German Emergency Doctors (GED) who dashed to the scene of the tragedy on foot hours after the strike, the death toll could have been much higher.

The rag-tag school by normal standards is a prized institution in the Nuba Mountains, one of the most isolated places inhabited by human beings. It is the best established and, no doubt, the most well staffed and equipped in several kilometres radius. It has a population of 270 pupils in class one to five.

This school was built by the local parents, Bishop Macram says as he points to a line of grass-thatched and mud walled classrooms. Now we have to relocate it to another site and use this compound for other purposes, he adds.

The decision couldn t be more appropriate. Since the pupils witnessed many of their friends and colleagues die a painful death from the crudely assembled bomb, they have been struggling to continue studying on the same compound. Already a few classes have been relocated to what Bishop Macram describes as save crevices between the countless hills that dot the Nuba terrain.

Bishop Macram vehemently rejects the simplification of the Sudanese war to a religious conflict. The bombing of Holy Cross Primary School, he says, attests to this. Those who died in that incident were from different religious backgrounds including Muslims, he says. This is a systematic genocide which the international community has an obligation to bring to and end, he asserts.

He fears that the worst could still be in store for the Nuba people. Part of Sudan s oil pipeline from the south passes through the Nuba Mountains. As a result, thousands of people have been uprooted from their ancestral lands to pave way for the pipeline.

The oil business has since its inception in August 1999, heavily tilted the war in favour of the government. The oil, mined in Bentiu, Unity State in the south, is ferried through a 1,650-kilometre pipeline to Port Sudan for exportation. Khartoum is reported to be earning about US$2 million everyday from oil exports money, which the Islamic regime is investing in war efforts.

Like all other non-government controlled areas, Nuba Mountains is a war zone. However, the situation here is compounded by the fact that Khartoum has declared it a no-go area for foreigners. Whether on humanitarian mission or you merely intend to spread the word of God to the Nuba people, you go there at your own risk.

At the moment, only the airstrip at Kauda is safe as all the others are within the government s shelling range and only the most daring pilot can risk using them. Consequently, a journey to a particular part of the Nuba Mountains today could mean several hours or days of hard walk depending on its location from the Kauda airstrip. Remember! The Nuba people live on top of hills, which act as a natural fortress against enemies.

The Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), a consortium of UN and international organisations formed in 1989 to prevent famine in the war-ravaged African nation, has no presence in the area. OLS was borne out of a tripartite agreement between the UN, the SPLA and Khartoum following the 1988 famine that claimed about 200, 000 Sudanese. It has two sectors for its operations in the north and the south.

The southern sector launches its operations from Lokichoggio in northern Kenya but has to strictly adhere to Khartoum s wishes. Promises to the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan in 1997 that the Nuba Mountains would be opened for relief operations, have borne little fruits to date. Instead, Khartoum has on several occasions threatened to slap a ban on the launching of relief operations from the Kenyan town.

Thus the burden of bringing relief and development to the Nuba people lies squarely on the shoulders of the Church and the local NGO, Nuba Relief and Development Organisation (NRRDO).

With inadequate funding, extremely difficult terrain, lack of communication and general state of insecurity, the Church and NRRDO have struggled a great deal to make a difference. The resilience of the Nuba people has been a great motivation to them.

The new SPLA governor for Southern Kordofan Commander Abdul Aziz appeals for equal treatment for all the warring parties in the Sudanese crisis. Either relief for all or no relief at all, he says.

Aziz, who formerly served in the Eastern front near Eritrea, has taken over from Yusuf Kuwa, who died early this month in a London hospital after a long fight with cancer. The charismatic Kuwa is credited with revolutionising the minds of the Nuba people to rise against Arab cultural domination.

Aziz says that the Khartoum allows relief to its side of the Nuba Mountains to force those on the SPLA side to defect to the government. The use of food as a weapon is immoral and must be stopped, he says.- Charles Omondi

 

 

For inquiries, contact

The editor,

Sudan Catholic Information Office (SCIO)

SCIO@maf.or.ke

Tel. 254-2-577949/ 577616/ 577595

Fax 254-2-577327