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Monday, April 21, 2008

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Darfur warring parties willing to discuss security arrangements - envoys
Sunday 20 April 2008 05:30. Printer-Friendly version Comments...

April 19, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — U.N. and African Union Peace envoys today announced the approval of all parties to the conflict in Darfur to start talks leading to stop the deterioration of the security situation before to engage in direct negotiations to achieve peace in Darfur

At the end of their fifth visit to Sudan, Jan Eliasson, the UN Secretary General envoy for Darfur and Salim Ahmed Salim, the African Union envoy to Darfur held on Saturday a press conference at the premises of the United Nations in Khartoum.

Salim Ahmed Salim said that Sudanese government and all the rebel movements in Darfur had expressed during the meetings that have taken place "their willingness to discuss the security arrangements."

"But each one of them had his own position on how this can be brought about ... Whether this could lead to a cessation of hostilities or to a ceasefire, this is the work that is being accomplished now." Salim added.

Jan Eliasson, said that they will begin a process consisting of three elements 1 - How and ways of the ceasefire, 2 - Cooperation between the Government of Sudan and UNAMID and the rebel movements in Darfur 3 – Ways to stop attacks and banditry occurring in Darfur, which has impacted negatively on the security operation and the civilians in Darfur.

Banditry has long been common in the remote west of Sudan, which borders Chad, Libya and the Central African Republic, but armed bands have organised to take advantage of rich pickings from the influx of U.N. and aid agency vehicles since the rebellion began.

The conflict has claimed an estimated 200,000 lives with 2.5 million forced from their homes, according to the United Nations. Khartoum disputes the figures, saying 9,000 have been killed.

Eliasson expressed hope that the talks on security arrangements begin before this autumn. He further said it is not possible now to give the date where the parties will sit together, or discuss in any other form the security measures that may lead to a ceasefire or cessation of hostilities.

He added that various circles have now begun work on these arrangements in coordination with the UNAMID.

The underscored that the current efforts aim to quell violence in the region and clear the way for the resumption of peace talks before the end of the year.

Salim further told the media "we are not saying that all parties now prepared for a ceasefire to determine when it will take place; but we said that all the parties have expressed willingness — whether the Justice and Equality Movement, the Sudan Liberation Movement led by Abdel-Wahid al-Nur or the Government of Sudan — to discuss security arrangements.

The two envoys pointed out that the current row between Sudan and Chad is one of the reasons that led to the escalation of violence in Darfur. Salim said no one could believe that the problem of Darfur will be resolved unless there was a normalization of relations between Sudan and Chad.

They also welcomed the different offers to host peace talks including a proposal from UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown to hold peace talks in Britain.

The envoys pointed out that Brown didn’t consult them in advance. However Britain accepted that their offer is going to be under the lead of the United Nations and the African Union, underlined Eliasson.

In May 2006, Sudanese government and a SLA faction led by Minni Minawi signed a peace deal and some small splinter groups. Nonetheless the peace pact did not change the level of violence in the region, and the security situation even deteriorated since the signing of the deal and the fragmentation among the two main rebel groups.

A joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping mission took over in January from a beleaguered AU force to try to stem the violence. But it only has about 9,000 troops and police on the ground, out of a total of the authorized 26,000.

After spending around one year in attempts to reunite the different rebel factions in Darfur, the international community now seems convicted that no peace without security on the ground.

(ST)

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Darfur advocacy group criticize US-Sudan negotiations to normalize ties
Monday 21 April 2008 06:30. Printer-Friendly version Comments...

April 20, 2008 (WASHINGTON) — A powerful Darfur advocacy group in the US issued a strong worded statement criticizing a move by the Bush administration to negotiate normalizing ties with the Sudanese government.

“Darfur activists around the world were at-once stunned, confused and outraged by this report on the content of the U.S.-Sudan negotiations. It is so at odds with President Bush’s rhetoric on Sudan as to be simply unbelievable” said Jerry Fowler, president of the Save Darfur coalition.

“Special Envoy Williamson should clarify the administration’s views on Sudan when he appears before the Senate next week” Fowler added.

Save Darfur Coalition is a coalition of over 160 faith-based, humanitarian, and human rights organizations dedicated to ending what they believe is genocide in the western Sudanese region of Darfur.

Last week the New York Times (NYT) obtained a series of documents exchanged between the Washington and Khartoum on a series of steps to normalize relations between the two countries. The documents were leaked by an unidentified US official described as being “critical of the administration’s position”.

The report said that the Bush administration could remove Sudan from an American list of state supporters of terrorism and normalize relations if the Sudanese government agreed, among other steps, to allow Thai and Nepalese peacekeepers as part of the peacekeeping force.

The newly appointed US special envoy to Sudan Richard Williamson met in Rome last week with a high level Sudanese delegation to discuss normalization of ties. The meeting adjourned late Friday and will be resumed “within a month” according to Sudan official news agency (SUNA).

Fowler said in a statement that “normalizing ties with Sudan should be very far off, particularly given that Secretary-General Ban just this week issued a dire report on the continued violence in Darfur and Sudan’s blocking of the UNAMID civilian protection force”.

"Khartoum sets the gold standard for breaking international promises which is why previous discussions of normalization have foundered” he added.

The leakage of the documents by the NYT may complicate the new US initiative and place the Bush administration under extreme pressure from US lawmakers and lobby groups to scrap it.

The US envoy will appear before the Senate Foreign relations committee headed by Senator Joe Biden next Wednesday to discuss the Darfur crisis. It is expected that Williamson will come under fire from the Senators to justify the latest move by the US administration to normalize ties with Khartoum despite the lack of progress on Darfur crisis.

Exactly a year ago the former US special envoy to Sudan Andrew Natsios appeared before the committee in a hearing that featured an angry exchange between him and Senator Robert Menendez.

The senator and the special envoy argued back and forth in loud voices, each repeatedly interrupting the other. Other US lawmakers at the hearing lashed out at the administration for delaying sanctions on Sudan.

International experts estimate some 200,000 have died and over 2 million have been driven from their homes during 4-1/2 years of fighting in Darfur. Sudan puts the death toll from the conflict at just 9,000.

(ST)

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Jonglei’s schoolchildren challenge state education system
Tuesday 22 April 2008 03:23. Printer-Friendly version Comments...

By Philip Thon Aleu

April 21, 2008 (BOR, Jonglei) – Long holidays and low number of schools in Jonglei state is an "academics weevil," teachers and pupils expressed here Saturday April 19 at a seminar organized by primary teachers and high school students at Bor "A" primary school. They (teachers and pupils) call on the state government to consider reviving education system.

Schools in Jonglei state opens on April 1 despite using East African and New Sudan curriculum; calendar teachers and pupils call unacceptable. "There is no system here," Thon Bol, a primary eight pupil in Bor "B" primary school told Sudan Tribune at the seminar.

The teachers on the other hand complain about low teacher-pupils ratio. "In Bor "B" primary school, I registered 1,800 pupils in the first two weeks of the academics year that started on April 1st," Deng Machok, deputy head teacher revealed pointing that there are only ten (10) teachers recruited to teach in the school.

This arithmetically puts teacher: pupils’ ratio at 1:180, and substantially reducing children’s chances of learning. Moreover, there is only one classroom block serving upper classes of Primary 8, 7 and 6. Other classes learn under trees or seasonal tents set-up by school administration, Mr. Machok lamented a visible problem at his school.

The seminar that attracted 78 pupils was organized by Garang Institute students in conjunction with Bor "B" school authorities. It is the first time higher learning Jonglei citizens had made to help the ailing education format in the state through seminar.

The teachers-pupils’ challenge to Jonglei state style of education is not an accident. An international lecturer and a born from Jonglei, Prof. Agrey Ayuen elaborated at the opening ceremony of John Garang Institute on February 1 that teaching is poor at the low level of learning in Southern Sudan.

"We find a lot of difficulties in teaching students at the Universities, and this is an indication that something must be wrong at the primary or secondary levels," Prof. Agrey said referring to how weak how the curriculum is developed adding that the ministry of education must do something.

On the other hand, the organizers of the weekend’s seminars call upon the state government to come to their rescue. "We do not have means to transport teachers from various parts of Bor town to Bor "A," no funds to afford lunch for teachers and pupils and other teaching materials," head of the seminar organizers and a student at John Garang Institute Abraham Dhieu Machar told Sudan Tribune adding, "we too demand a word of courage from our elders."

He encouraged pupils to be tolerant and challenge the government by coming to schools despite what pupils call "lack of system." The pupils welcome the move to have seminars organized over weekend but fear ministry of education may not support the program.

"The seminar is okay," Ding Stephen, a primary eight pupils noted, but who will like it, he concluded.

Effort to back government’s LEAVE NO CHILD BEHIND campaign is likely to fail if source of ’motivating facilitation’ is not rescue. Arrangement made to interview state education ministry on issues pertaining curriculum, lengthy holidays that deprived school children of coverage, few numbers of schools in the state, low provision of teaching aid facilities, few classrooms and high teacher: pupils’ ratio failed as the state education ministry officials were not available.

(ST)

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Protesters march in Monclair against Darfur violence

Protesters march in Monclair against Darfur violence
by Carly Rothman/The Star-Ledger Sunday April 13, 2008, 10:00 PM

William Perlman/The Star-Ledger
Beijing U.S. Olympian Doug Lennox, a gymnast at Princeton University, walks with Emily Srebro, a Special Olympian gymnast, during today's rally.
Nearly 400 people gathered in Montclair today, protesting ethnic violence in Darfur with a march including an Olympic-style torch.

Sport and politics have long mixed at the Olympics. In 1938, Hitler tried to use Olympic victory to demonstrate Aryan superiority -- an effort undermined by champion runner Jesse Owens, an African American. In 1972, 11 Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinian terrorists. The United States and other countries have boycotted the games to protest other nations' policies.

The Beijing Olympics featured prominently at the Montclair rally today, and at other events worldwide marking the fifth anniversary of the conflict in the Sudan, as demonstrators highlighted the close relationship between the Chinese and Sudanese governments.

Vigil for Darfur

Since 2003, violence between Sudan's Arab-dominated government and ethnic African communities have led to more than 200,000 deaths and the displacement of 2.5 million people. Khartoum is accused of unleashing militia forces to commit atrocities against the rebel groups, charges the government denies.

Sumiea Eltayeb, a doctoral candidate in chemistry at Seton Hall University who grew up in Sudan, addressed the crowd of nearly 400 parents, children, politicians and clergy who gathered at the First Congregational Church in Montclair after the march.

"I think the Chinese government tried to solve the problem, tried to help, tried to rebuild the broken parts, but our government is so bad," she said.

Eltayeb said she's witnessed the poor conditions in her country's refugee camps -- no water, no food, no cure for diseases, and above all, no security.

"I want to show the world," she said.

Leaders from the Essex County Coalition for Darfur, which organized the rally, noted China is Sudan's largest foreign investor, trading partner and supplier of weapons.

Speakers including Gov. Jon Corzine urged Chinese leaders to push the Sudanese government to stop the killings and let U.N. peace-keeping forces into the country.

"We, as a nation, need to send a message through our leaders to China," Corzine said. "We cannot let the words 'never forget' be just words. They must be actions."

In addition to marching, rally-goers took action by raising money for Doctors Without Borders, collecting about $20,000 for the nonprofit's efforts in Sudan.

All talk and no action in Darfur

All talk and no action in Darfur
Five years since the conflict in Darfur began, BBC News website's World Affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds asks why international concern has not been translated into effective intervention.
The deep concern about Darfur felt internationally has not been matched by a similar determination to intervene.

The peacekeeping force in Darfur has been weak

It is not from lack of knowledge.

There have been many reports, from the UN and others, which have laid the blame largely at the door of the government of Sudan.

The US has called the killings genocide, though the UN held back from using that word.

Map of displaced people from Darfur
However, whatever it is called, no major power was willing to send its own forces to try to put an end to it.

Instead, diplomacy has centred on putting pressure on the Sudanese government to restrain its armed forces and the Janjaweed militias it is accused of supporting - charges it denies.

Sudan has also been pressured into allowing in peacekeeping forces, first from the African Union (AU) and then from a mixed AU-UN force including other international troops.

However, those peacekeepers have been weak. The African Union force has been ineffective. The wider international force has not been properly deployed.

Diplomacy not enough

A great deal of effort has also been put into trying to solve the underlying political problems which led to the first rebel attacks in 2003, but these talks, amounting to agreements sometimes, have a habit of fading away.

The best aspect of the world's response perhaps has been humanitarian. Undoubtedly many lives have been saved.

More than two million have been displaced by the Darfur conflict
One of the problems for the outside world is that it has been dealing with a very determined government unwilling to concede much in what it sees as a major threat on its own territory.

Another is that the rebel groups have not been united and have not always been ready to make a peace agreement.

Clearly, diplomacy has not been enough.

"The Americans were quite driven over Darfur, but were hamstrung by their great achievement of the North-South agreement in Sudan," says Richard Dowden, executive director of the Royal African Society in London.

"This meant they could not apply too much pressure on Khartoum over Darfur because its co-operation was needed for the North-South implementation.

"Sudan was able to manipulate African opinion and blunt whatever pressure there was.

China, which buys about 60% of Sudan's oil and sells it weapons, has also played a key role in helping Sudan avoid UN sanctions.

"Although China did in the end persuade it to accept the hybrid force, breaking its own rules about not intervening in the political affairs of the countries in which it invests," Mr Dowden notes.

"If the US had not done Iraq, it might have done Darfur, but the mood in the West was that this was an African problem and an African solution should be sought.

"If there was genocide, then it happened in 2003/4. By the time the world got round to acting, it was too late."

Mention of Iraq raises the issue, though, of whether any intervention in Darfur would have produced its own problems, given the opposition of the Sudanese government.

'Turning point'

One example of how interested the world is in Darfur but how powerless it has been can be seen in the role of the International Criminal Court.

The court has indicted (but has not managed to have arrested) two Sudanese officials for war crimes - Ahmad Harun, currently the minister for humanitarian affairs, and Ali Kushayb, leader of the pro-government Janjaweed militia.

In a statement in February 2007, the court's prosecutor described how the "turning point" in the conflict was the rebel attack on Fasher airport in North Darfur in April 2003.

Ahmad Harun, the prosecutor said, was then appointed interior minister.

"Shortly after Harun's appointment, the recruitment of militia/Janjaweed greatly increased, ultimately into the tens of thousands.

"The vast majority of attacks in Darfur were carried out by the militia/Janjaweed and the armed forces... they targeted civilian residents based on the rationale that they were supporters of the rebel forces.

"This strategy became the justification for the mass murder, summary execution, and mass rape of civilians who were known not to be participants in any armed conflict. The strategy included the forced displacement of entire villages and communities."

Hostile forces

Yet Ahmad Harun nor Ali Kushayb have not been arrested and handed over by the government of Sudan.

Indeed, Ahmad Harun was subsequently put in charge of government refugee camps and has been appointed to the group monitoring the deployment of the AU-UN force.

The international humanitarian response has saved many lives
In December 2007, ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told the Security Council:

"In Darfur in 2003 - 2004, we witnessed the first phase of the criminal plan co-ordinated by Ahmad Harun. Millions of people were forced out of their villages and into camps.

"In the second phase - happening right now in front of our eyes - Ahmad Harun is controlling the victims inside the camps... women are raped... the displaced are surrounded by hostile forces; their land and homes are being occupied by new settlers. The rationale is the same as before: target civilians who could be rebel supporters.

"As long as Harun remains free in Khartoum, there will be no comprehensive solution in Darfur."

Such talk shows how much has yet to be done.

Monday, April 21, 2008

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Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Protesters march in Monclair against Darfur violence

All talk and no action in Darfur

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