Sudan Government Responsible for Ethnic Cleansing, Group Says

May 7 (Bloomberg) -- The Sudanese government is responsible for the ethnic cleansing of African Muslims in its western Darfur region, according to a report from campaign group Human Rights Watch.

Government forces have helped so-called Arab Janjaweed militias kill thousands of members of the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups, according to the report. More than one million civilians have been driven into camps and settlements from their homes, and in excess of 110,000 others have fled into neighboring Chad.

Human Rights Watch says Sudan's government should immediately disband and disarm the Janjaweed militia, and allow food and medical supplies to be delivered to the region to prevent a crisis. One hundred thousand civilians may die in Darfur from hunger and disease over the next year, according to Roger Winter of the U.S. Agency for International Development. The report also calls for a United Nations investigation.

"We've asked the UN to require that the Sudanese government withdraw the militias from the area," said Jemera Rone, Sudan researcher at Human Rights Watch, and one of the report's authors. "We also want them to immediately investigate the human rights abuses with an eye to prosecuting the perpetrators."

Sudan Government Responsible for Ethnic Cleansing....

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From the Horse's Mouth: Sudan: Government Commits "Ethnic Cleansing" in Darfur

Related: Civilians killed in fighting in southern Sudan

From Yesterday: Sudan Starving Darfur Refugees

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Photo from hrw report:



Sudanese refugees struggle to raise a collapsed donkey after a 34-day march towards safety in Chad.

because the leader is a bad man? It sounds like the leaders in Sudan are way worse than Saddam. They are trying to wipe out an entire people. Genocide. That is worse than torturing a few political enemies. Where's Rush and the rest of these scum that want to save (liberate) the Iraqi People? D'oh ~ No Oil I forgot.

The upstream oil industry could be key to the future of the economy of the North East African state of Sudan. Although the country is considered to be vastly under-explored, it has been a producer of oil and gas for a number of years. The country's oil and gas reserves are vast. The downstream oil industry in Sudan is an important sector in the country's economy as Sudan has three refineries and imports both refined product and crude oil. The completion of a new refinery has made Sudan largely self sufficient and able to export refined as well as crude products. Sudan still needs to import jet fuel however.

Sudan denies ethnic cleansing accusations:

Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail, returning to Khartoum from a trip to Kenya on Friday, didn't specifically mention the Human Rights Watch report but denied any "ethnic cleansing".

"What is happening in Darfur is neither ethnic cleansing nor genocide," Ismail told the official Sudan News Agency. "It is a state of war, which resulted in a humanitarian situation."

Sudan: German Red Cross steps up relief efforts in Darfur

Deutsches Rotes Kreuz (In German)

Flüchtlingshilfe im Sudan (In German)

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Government committing ethnic cleansing in Darfur — Human Rights Watch (from AFP). It quotes the HRW statement:

"There can be no doubt about the Sudanese governments culpability in crimes against humanity in Darfur," said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, in a statement. "The UN Security Council must not ignore the brutal facts."

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"The humanitarian emergency in Darfur is immense," said Takirambudde. "But a human rights crisis lies behind it. The Security Council must demand that the Sudanese government take immediate steps to reverse ethnic cleansing in Darfur."

Darfur in Flames, Gamal Nkrumah of Al-Ahram covered the UN report last week. He presents the case against and for the government. Here is one view arguing against charges of ethnic cleansing:

The armed conflict in Darfur is not simply between Arabs and non-Arabs. Fighting often occurs between Arab tribes such as the Beni Helba and Al-Mahiriya, who are part of the huge Rezeiquat tribal confederacy of western and central Sudan," Yaqub Al- Dumuki, an ethnic Arab from the Beni Halba tribe told the Weekly.

Al-Dumuki, a London-based journalist who has just returned from a visit to Darfur, said the problem in Darfur is one of underdevelopment and poverty. He stressed the humanitarian situation.

"We are concerned about the organised campaign against the Arabs of Darfur. The Arabs of Darfur are deeply disturbed by the comments made by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Annan accuses Arabs of committing atrocities of ethnic cleansing against the non-Arabs in Darfur," Al-Dumuki said.

" remarks fuel the fire rather than helping rivals reach an amicable solution. Arabs constitute more than 55 per cent of Darfur's population and they have been subjected to a relentless campaign comprising unfounded accusations of ethnic cleansing."

I think Al-Dumuki doth protest too much. The accusations of ethnic cleansing are well founded indeed. But that's the counterargument, for what it's worth.

Mother Jones presented a brief overview of the Sudan crisis some weeks back. It's still relevant. .

News Article by THE ECONOMIST posted on August 31, 2000 at 17:47:54: EST (-5 GMT)

Sudan's oil - Fuelling a fire

THE ECONOMIST
September 2, 2000
KHARTOUM

WHEN Talisman bought a chunk of oil rights in Sudan two years ago, Jim
Buckee, the Canadian company's chief executive, talked of its "spectacular
potential". Spectacular it has been, but not always in ways that pleased Mr
Buckee. The Heglig field lies across all the faultlines that have caused
Sudan's civil war: political, religious and ethnic. Like Shell in Nigeria,
Talisman has found itself in the middle of a war and under fire from
activists back home.

The Greater Nile Oil Project, which is 25% owned by Talisman, Canada's
largest independent oil- and gas-exploration firm, could transform Sudan into
a medium-sized oil producer. But history suggests otherwise. The very
discovery of oil contributed to the renewal of the war in 1983 and, when oil
first started flowing in June last year, the rebel Sudan People's Liberation
Army (SPLA) pledged to stop it. They blew up the oil pipeline to Port Sudan
on the Red Sea three times.


Implementing this has proved difficult. Sudan's war is nearly 50 years old
and nasty. Since 1983 it has killed an estimated 2m people and displaced a
further 4.5m. In the area just south of Talisman's Heglig field there are at
least five armed bands roaming around, including the government forces and
the SPLA rebels. Others are militia bands led by warlords who tend to fight
for the highest bidder. Into this violent chaos Talisman is trying to
introduce human-rights monitoring. It has designed a form for monitors to
record violations in its area and it is even offering to give human-rights
training to the government soldiers designated to protect the oil
installations.



That is the crunch for Talisman. Sudan's government finances are obscure but,
according to one minister, Sudan's top priority is to refurbish the army.
Some of the estimated $300m the government will get from oil this year is
already being spent on weapons. For all its concern for ethical business,
human rights and development, the ugly truth is that Talisman is helping the
government extract oil, and oil is paying for the war.

http://southsudanfriends.org/issues/EconomistOnTalisman.html

The Report of a Canadian Assessment Mission
Prepared for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ottawa, January 2000

The preponderance of Southern opinion we encountered was that Oil was hurting their people. We tried hard to find out what people thought and felt, and tried hard to figure out just what is going on. Leonardo Franco’s predecessor as Special Rapporteur, Gaspar Biro, has been quoted as saying that if the oil companies don’t know what’s going on, they’re not looking over the fences of their compounds.

Of course, Talisman maintains that it keeps itself well-informed, and there is some reason to believe that this is so, at a certain level. However, we were often told, and saw for ourselves, that great reliance is placed on the GNPOC security staff for local information. If Talisman was really looking “over the fence”, what would its people have seen?


http://www.ms.dk/Kampagner/Sudan/oil.htm#Situation%20of%20human%20rights%20in%20the%20Sudan


Situation of human rights in the Sudan
Summary of the draft report of the Special Rapporteur
Commission on Human Rights, Fifty-sixth session, Agenda item 9, E/CN.4/2000/36, Geneva, 19 April 2000.


15. The Special Rapporteur is of the view that the prolonged war in the Sudan mainly affects the civilian population, whose plight should be regarded as one of the most important human rights concerns facing the international community. Although of rather low intensity, the war has a disproportionately high impact on the civilian population, in particular women and children, who become hostages or targets of the belligerents. Consistent and undisputed evidence indicates that the war is being conducted in disregard of human rights and humanitarian law principles, and that violations are perpetrated by all parties, albeit with varying degrees of responsibility, the greater portion being attributable to the Government.

17. The Special Rapporteur has found that the Government is continuing to practise indiscriminate bombing, which appears to have intensified during recent weeks, with a heavy toll of civilians. In this connection, the Special Rapporteur strongly condemns the bombing of the school at Kaouda in the Nuba Mountains, as well as the heinous practice of bombing civilians as they gather to collect humanitarian food aid, mainly in the Upper Nile zone.
http://www.ms.dk/Kampagner/Sudan/oil.htm#Situation%20of%20human%20rights%20in%20the%20Sudan

World Report 2000
Human Rights Watch, Washington, 2001

The government of Sudan remained a gross human rights abuser, while rebel groups committed their share of violations. In the seemingly endless seventeen-year civil war, the government stepped up its brutal expulsions of southern villagers from the oil production areas and trumpeted its resolve to use the oil income for more weapons. Under the leadership of President (Lt. Gen.) Omar El Bashir, the government intensified its bombing of civilian targets in the war, denied relief food to needy civilians, and abused children’s rights, particularly through its military and logistical support for the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which held an estimated 6,000 Ugandan children captive on government-controlled Sudanese territory. As for the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), the principal armed movement of the south and of all Sudan, its forces continued to loot food (including relief provisions) from the population, sometimes with civilian casualties, recruit child soldiers, and commit rape. On both sides, impunity was the rule. (...)

Negotiations to end the war appeared fruitless, whatever the forum or venue. The parties remained stalled on the issues of the relation of religion to the state and self-determination. Sudan’s Arab and African, Muslim and non-Muslim population is spread between nineteen major ethnic groups and 597 subgroups speaking Arabic and more than 115 indigenous languages. (...)
http://www.ms.dk/Kampagner/Sudan/oil.htm#World%20Report%202000

The Scorched Earth, Oil and war in Sudan
by Christian Aid, London, March 2001

‘When the pumping began, the war began... Oil has brought death.’
Chief Malony Kolang, Western Upper Nile

In the oilfields of sudan, civilians are being killed and raped, their villages burnt to the ground. They are caught in a war for oil, part of the wider civil war between northern and southern Sudan that has been waged for decades. Since large-scale production began two years ago, oil has moved the war into a new league. Across the oil-rich regions of Sudan, the government is pursuing a ‘scorched earth’ policy to clear the land of civilians and to make way for the exploration and exploitation of oil by foreign oil companies.

This Christian Aid report, The Scorched Earth, shows how the presence of international oil companies is fuelling the war. Companies from Asia and the West, including the UK, have helped build Sudan’s oil industry, offering finance, technological expertise and supplies, to create a strong and growing oil industry in the centre of the country. In the name of oil, government forces and government-supported militias are emptying the land of civilians, killing and displacing hundreds of thousands of southern Sudanese. Oil industry infrastructure –the same roads and airstrips which serve the companies – is used by the army as part of the war. In retaliation, opposition forces have attacked government-controlled towns and villages, causing further death and displacement. Exports of Sudan’s estimated reserves of two billion barrels of oil are paying for the build-up of a Sudanese homegrown arms industry as well as paying for more arms imports. Without oil, the civil war being fought between the government of Sudan and the main opposition force, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) is at a stalemate; with oil, it can only escalate.
http://www.ms.dk/Kampagner/Sudan/oil.htm#The%20Scorched%20Earth,%20Oil%20and%20war%20in%20Sudan

Corporate Social Responsibility Report 2000, Sudan Operations
Talisman Energy Inc., Calgary, April 2001

“There have been many media and third-party reports of population displacement in oil field areas. We are aware that historically there has been conflict and strive in the 19,000 square mile concession are amongst Baggara, Dinka and Nuer groups and militias sometimes alligned with the government, sometimes not. Conflict still periodically occurs within the GNPOC con-cession. We believe that all persons whose land use has been impacted by GNOPC operations in the concession and along the pipeline should receive fair and just compensation. In the conces-sion area, GNPOC has compensated people affected by GNPOC operations, such as drilling wells and seismic exploration activity. However, the process of identifying people affected by such activity and the provision of fair compensation has not been well documented.” (p. 17)
http://www.ms.dk/Kampagner/Sudan/oil.htm#Corporate%20Social%20Responsibility%20Report%202000,%20Sudan%20Operations


List of International Companies involved in the Sudanese Oil Industry
BP (UK), a major investor in PetroChina, a subsidiary of CNPC. There is nothing to stop this investment being used to fund CNPC operations in Sudan.
China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) (China), holds 40% of block 1, 2 and 4 through its share in GNPOC; holds the concession block 6.
ExxonMobil (USA), downstream operations only. Sells i.a. aviation fuel at Khartoum and Port Sudan airports. Holds a large interest in the installations there which are used to fuel the Sudanese airforce.
Lundin Oil AB (Sweden/Switzerland), lead operator in block 5a, holding 40%.
OMV Aktiengesellschaft (Austria), holding 26.125% of block 5a.
Petronas (Malaysia), holds 28.5% of block 1, 2 and 4 through its 30% share in GNPOC.
Rolls Royce (UK), supplies GNPOC with equipment and operational support.
Royal Dutch/Shell (Netherlands/UK), downstream operations only. Sells aviation fuel at six locations in Sudan, i.a. to the Sudanese airforce. Promised on 16 May 2001 to end this activity.
Talisman Energy Inc (Canada), lead operator and 25% owner of Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNOPC) through its 100% Dutch subsidiary Talisman Greater Nile B.V. GNPOC owns the pipeline from Bentiu to Port Sudan and holds the concessions of block 1, 2 and 4.
TotalElfFina (France/Belgium), holds the 120.000 km2 concession block 5; trades Sudan Nile Blend crude.
Trafigura (Netherlands/UK/Switzerland), trades Sudan Nile Blend crude on behalf of Talisman.
Weir Pumps Ltd. (UK), supplier of pumping stations and drivers to the Sudanese oil industry.
http://www.ms.dk/Kampagner/Sudan/oil.htm#List%20of%20International%20Companies

While I don't think we should be blind to the oil and how that motivates people, factors into decision making, and fuels the conflict, I'm leary of analyses that would that reduce our understanding of conflict to a struggle for lucrative resources.

I agree with these three points from the MS position paper on the Situation in Sudan:

• The international community should show great concern for the present development in Sudan and its consequences which threaten the stability in the whole East African region.
  
  
• The conflict in Sudan is often projected as purely religious but it is much more complex than that. It is just as much a revolt against domination and marginalisation of ethnic minorities and a call for an equal distribution of the country's resources, and the conflict should be recognised as such.
  
  
• Every day we witness gross abuse of human rights in Sudan. The Sudanese government gives active support to rebel movements in neighbouring countries, thereby causing political instability in the whole region. This is an obstacle to regional co-operation and the realization of development potentials existing in the region as a whole. These actions should be strongly condemned and counteracted by the international community.
  
  

So, if we go back to say 1983 and hypothesize that the conflict erupted because of the discovery of oil, well, okay that could be a factor, but does it explain the government forces dropping mustard gas on people? Or slave raiding? Or driving masses of people from their lands and then, in a deliberate effort to starve them, attacking food relief shipments? I don't think so. And when you realize how fragile the peace was to begin with back in 1983, then the argument about marginalization of ethnic minorities makes more sense.

As far as the oil goes, it seems like it would make more financial sense for the powers that be in Khartoum to negotiate with those who claim rights over the land in the South and their political leaders, which is what you see happening in Nairobi right now with the peace talks.

So what's up with the ethnic cleansing in Darfur? I chalk it up to a culture of warfare, genocidal hatred, and also religious intolerance. (The Fur are largely Sufi Muslims, if I've understood correctly.)

What do you make of it? Darfur in particular?

Brazzaville, Congo, 07/05 - Touched by continued reports of deteriorating humanitarian situation in Darfur, Congolese president, Denis Sassou Nguesso urged the international community to intensify involvement in the crisis to stop it from destabilise neighbouring countries.

"The press reports this morning depicted sad news at the border between Sudan and Chad. It`s a serious situation that calls for the mobilisation of CEEAC, the African Union and the United Nations. I think this situation must be taken seriously," Sassou Nguesso said at a joint press conference with Chadian counterpart, Idriss Deby.

Nguesso, Deby discuss Darfur crisis....

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Photo Essay from BBC: In Pictures: Darfur Refugees.



This is a photo of Yacoub Youssouf
It took me 40 days to reach the Chadian border from my village.
In the daytime I hid with my wife and four children in caves and then at night we walked.
Our village was bombed from the air and then attacked by ground troops.
I am just a farmer - I don’t know why they attacked us.

and it's horrific there too.
3.5 million have died since 1998

On the Trail of the Congo's "Cannibal Rebels"


From: Eliza Griswold
Subject: Cannibalism as a Crime of War
Friday, March 26, 2004, at 8:20 AM PT

Maria lost her arm defending her children; she says soldiers ate flesh from the arm after they amputated it

In Bunia, the town's population has swelled from 6,000 to 120,000 people. Most have left everything—crops, possessions, their families—to escape the ongoing massacres in the bush. Through a network of local human rights organizations, I arrange to meet with a handful of survivors. One Sunday morning, over a hundred people show up to tell their stories.

One of them, Vivienne Nyamutale, 30, says that she spent 75 days captive with the Lendu fighters in the bush. "I was taken as the fourth wife of the fetish chief, Chief Abele." On five separate occasions before the Lendu fighters attacked a Hema village, Vivienne says, Hema men were brought before the crowd, cooked, and eaten by the fighters. Vivienne is Hema. She survived captivity only by swearing that she was Alur, the most common tribe in this part of Congo. Finally, after one massacre, she ran into the night and escaped. Vivienne is one of a handful of women who tell me about rape camps farther along the Fataki road where we found the two dead men.

Later, I visit a camp for displaced people and meet Chantal Tsesi, 24. We sit in the camp's office to talk. On the floor, a 2-week-old baby cries. The baby's parents have been killed; she was left at the camp by a neighbor who grabbed the infant while fleeing the massacre.


A Lendu child soldier waits in a camp for news of his next deployment. Battles are raging 13 miles to the north of his position.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2097314/entry/2097323/