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Sudan Monthly Report



 

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@maf.or.ke

Tel. 254-2-577949/ 577616/ 577595

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