Bishop Calls Darfur Situation 'Another Apartheid'
Catholic Information Service for Africa (Nairobi)
June 18, 2004
Posted to the web June 18, 2004
Nairobi
A Catholic bishop from South Africa, after touring the situation in Darfur, western Sudan, has likened the situation there to the apartheid practised by former South African governments against black citizens.
Bishop Kevin Dowling, the chairperson of the Sudan Ecumenical Forum said that during a visit to Sudan two weeks ago, he experienced the torture, mass killings and looting being carried by the government on the citizens.
"The commander of the Janjaweed militia that is carrying out the atrocities is a general in the Sudanese government army," Bishop Dowling lamented.
The Bishop, who was addressing a press conference in Nairobi Kenya on Thursday, June 15, 2004, said that his team was stopped from visiting some parts where the security forces had just bombed villages using mortar fire.
"If the war in Darfur is not stopped then the peace agreement in the South may not have much effect," Bishop Dowling told CISA.
Melaku Kefle, a representative form the World Council of Churches (WCC), said that the war in Sudan was not ethnic, but one of the government against part of its citizens.
Refugee Day-Sudan: The Desperate Plight of Darfur
Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)
June 19, 2004
Posted to the web June 21, 2004
Joyce Mulama
Nairobi
"The toll on children is most worrying," says James Elder, Communications Officer for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), about the situation in Darfur, western Sudan.
Speaking to IPS Friday in a telephone interview from the beleaguered region, he noted that "There are high levels of malnutrition, especially among children Many of them have died of malnutrition (but) it is difficult get the number of those dead due to lack of monitoring logistics."
On the eve of World Refugee Day (Jun. 20), there seems little relief in sight for Darfur - where Arab militias are said to have launched a scorched earth campaign against the members of three black ethnic tribes: the Fur, Masaalit and Zaghawa.
Reports from the region indicate that villages have been torched, women raped and cattle stolen during the 16-month conflict, which the UN's Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs - Jan Egeland - has said amounts to ethnic cleansing.
The militias, also known as janjaweed ("men on horseback"), are reportedly backed by the Sudanese government, a charge Khartoum denies. Human rights groups point out that the Fur, Masaalit and Zaghawa are the same ethnic groups that two loosely allied rebel movements in the region draw their membership from: the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army and the Justice and Equality Movement.
At present, about a million people have been displaced in Darfur as a result of the conflict, while the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that 158,000 have fled to neighbouring Chad.
According to Kitty McKinsey, the organisation's Regional Public Information Officer, the situation of the refugees is appalling, "and is likely to get worse as more refugees continue to cross into Chad."
"The refugees are in a desperate situation after walking for long without food. Most of them reach the Chad-Sudan border when they are almost collapsing," she told IPS in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, shortly after returning from a visit to the area.
McKinsey said the UNHCR had not yet been able to get enough equipment and supplies to the eight camps that are housing the Sudanese refugees: "We have had to create temporary shelters with twigs. There is basically no water."
But, in an ironic twist, this situation may now be disastrously reversed. "We are now worried because the rainy season is soon starting and the people have no proper shelter," she noted.
The UN agency is also struggling to take care of those refugees who are still stuck at the border. "Here the situation is more depressing, as we have had cases of babies dying in their mothers' arms because there is nothing for them to eat and drink," McKinsey said.
The UNHCR has launched an appeal of 55 million dollars for emergency aid to Darfur, only a third of which has been raised.
Thousands of people are also reported to be streaming into the approximately 20 camps for internally displaced persons in Darfur, whose facilities are inadequate to deal with this influx. Certain camps host about 60,000 people, according to James Elder.
"We now have access to all the camps, but we do not have sufficient resources to provide the people with basic needs. We have sent out an appeal of 39.5 million dollars. If this is fully funded, we can make a difference in these people's lives," he told IPS.
The Darfur crisis has been repeatedly condemned by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who is expected to visit Sudan in the coming weeks.
The Chairman of the Sudan Ecumenical Forum, which comprises churches, donors and international organisations, also spoke out Thursday against developments the region. Bishop Kevin Dowling likened the violence in Darfur to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which upwards of 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.
Earlier this week, a Chadian official reportedly accused the janjaweed of trying to export the tensions in Darfur to Chad. This followed the killing of 69 militia who had crossed the border to raid a village in Chad. The Chadian area along the border with Sudan has the same ethnic composition as Darfur.
Violence in the region has undermined hopes of a peace dividend in southern Sudan, where a separate 21-year conflict between government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army may be brought to an end next month.
"The situation in Darfur will make it difficult for the international community to fully invest in the country, and reconstruct the underdeveloped southern region," Ben Parker, Spokesman for the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, told IPS in Nairobi.
"Now attention has been diverted to addressing the insecurity in Darfur, which has led to an influx of refugees, creating a humanitarian crisis," he added. Sudan's resources include oil, gold and uranium.
Various observers have pointed out the need for the African Union (AU) to take a leading role in resolving the Darfur crisis.
"This poses a litmus test for the AU, which recently launched the African Union Peace and Security Council, and which is due to put in place an African peace keeping force," says Mitch Odero, a regional political and media analyst.
The AU sent a team to evaluate the situation in Darfur about four weeks ago, but has not made public its findings.
Politics-Sudan: Bringing the Protocols to the People
Inter Press Service (Johannesburg)
June 18, 2004
Posted to the web June 21, 2004
Joyce Mulama
Nairobi
An association of churches, donor organisations and other groups has unveiled a plan to acquaint Sudanese communities with peace protocols that have been signed to end their country's long-running civil war.
The project was developed by the Sudan Ecumenical Forum (SEF) during a four-day meeting held this week in Limuru, near the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
In an interview with IPS, SEF Chairman Kevin Dowling said the plan would include a translation of protocols drawn up during the Sudanese peace process, into languages spoken in the East African country.
"We realise that the peace must be owned by the people of Sudan. Therefore, it is important that they are conversant with all sections of the agreements," he said. "This will make it easy to carry out civic education among the people of Sudan after a final peace agreement is reached."
"The plan provides for a team of church leaders in Sudan to go through the protocols, pinpointing critical areas and formulating them into simple language for easy understanding by the populations.People (will be) given a chance to respond to the document," noted Dowling, who also serves as a Catholic bishop in South Africa.
As dozens of different languages are spoken by Sudan's 572 tribes, this promises to be a daunting task.
But, Dowling is undeterred, saying the necessary funds will be found: "We have committed ourselves to popularising the protocols among the communities and we shall have to do all we can to ensure that the people are empowered on every section of the peace deals."
Paul Chol Deng, General Secretary of the Sudan Council of Churches, told journalists at a press briefing Thursday that the SEF initiative was a bid to prevent the peace accords from going the way of a 1972 agreement to end conflict in Sudan.
The 1972 treaty, brokered by the All Africa Conference of Churches and the World Council of Churches, only lasted for 10 years, something that has been blamed on the fact that mediators failed to put mechanisms in place to monitor the accord.
"We do not want what happened that time to repeat itself. We are preparing ourselves to jealously guard the imminent peace," said Deng.
Talks to end the 21-year conflict between Islamic authorities in Khartoum and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army in the south of the country began in Kenya in 2002. To date, they have led to the signing of six accords which provide for an interim government of national unity, the sharing of revenues from oil resources - and the integration of government and rebel troops into a single army, amongst other matters.
South Sudan will also be allowed to hold a referendum six years after the signing of a final peace treaty, on whether it wants to secede from the rest of the country. The last three of the protocols were signed on May 26, and there are hopes that a final accord will be in place by next month.
But, even as SEF representatives prepare to take the peace protocols to the people, concerns are being expressed about the commitment of government and rebels to the accords.
"The protocols were arrived at as a result of pressure, particularly from the United States, which has an act to deal accordingly with any one party responsible for failing to conclude the peace negotiations leading to a final peace agreement," Akolda Tier, a law professor at the University of Khartoum, told journalists at the SEF press conference.
"The moment the dust settles, there will be temptation for the parties to go back to their original situation, which is hostility," he added.
The Sudan Peace Act was signed into law by President George Bush in October 2002. If he can certify that Khartoum is "not engaged in good faith negotiations" to end fighting, Bush is authorised by the act to seek a United Nations Security Council resolution to impose an arms embargo on Sudan. The law also allows Washington to oppose loans to Sudan's government from global financial institutions, and to block it from receiving oil revenues, amongst other sanctions.
Norway and Italy have also observed the Sudanese peace process, which is being brokered by the Inter Governmental Authority on Development - a regional body. Over two million people have been killed and five million displaced by the conflict in south Sudan.
A separate conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region has also thrown a pall over the Sudanese peace process. In recent months, Khartoum has repeatedly been accused of backing Arab militias in Darfur which are terrorising the members of three black, ethnic groups. Sudanese officials deny the charges.
About a million people in the region have been displaced, and 180,000 have fled to neighbouring Chad. The Darfur crisis began last year, after two rebel groups in the area staged attacks to protest against the actions of the militias - and Khartoum's alleged tendency to disregard the needs of the region.
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