Peace deal cosmetic?

US urges Sudan to curb militia, hails southern peace

NAIROBI, Jan 8 (Reuters) - The United States urged Sudan's Islamist rulers on Saturday to curb Arab militia attacks in Darfur and said peace efforts in the turbulent west should draw strength from an imminent end to a civil war in the south. Secretary of State Colin Powell, in Kenya to witness the signing of a north-south peace deal on Sunday, said sanctions were an option for the United Nations in its efforts to end Darfur's "terrible conflict" but he declined to say if genocide is still taking place in the western region

The peace agreement, which will end Africa's longest-running civil war, will be signed four months to the day that Powell declared genocide had taken place in Darfur and that Khartoum and government-backed Janjaweed militias were responsible. - source

Briton involved in Sudan oil drill

A Channel 4 News investigation has discovered that the Khartoum government has signed a 25-year contract with a consortium to drill for oil in southern Sudan. And the man behind the deal is a British citizen. Jonathan Miller reports.

Published: 9 Jun 2005 By: Jonathan Miller

What a place to be looking for oil. Say Darfur, we think genocide, ethnic cleansing. But to Khartoum and its corporate partners, deep below dustbowl Darfur lie abundant hidden riches. In 2003, as Sudanese government forces and their murderous militias hounded black Africans from their homes, Khartoum signed a deal to drill for oil in Darfur. In April this year, with the burning and killing still going, the oil minister announced they had struck oil.

A potential windfall for a pariah regime and its friends. So what on earth does the human misery of war torn Darfur have to do with the exclusive London borough of Chelsea? Well, the man who was behind the Darfur oil deal lives here. Right here, in fact, in this multi-million pound mansion. Until two years ago he was an American citizen. Now though, he's British. His name: Friedhelm Eronat. Peter Felter knows Cliveden's secrets, and Friedhelm Eronat's too. He was his lawyer for eight years and ran the whole empire for four before he was sacked. He is taking the Group to an employment tribunal. Cliveden's rigorously defending the action.

Peter Felter was the chairman of Cliveden Sudan at the time of the Darfur oil deal.

He said: "He's a complex personality. Very rich, very charming, a very good salesperson. He now is Mr Big Oil, untouchable. He doesn't care about the minor issues of Darfur or genocide."

From another document we know that Cliveden Sudan is registered in the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven, and has a business address in Switzerland. Normally, it is impossible to determine the true owner of such companies. But our document reveals that in December 2003, Friedhelm Eronat personally owned Cliveden Sudan. Channel 4 News has obtained confidential photographs, taken by African Union monitors last July in Suleia, a village just to the north of Block C. The following month I went to other nearby burned villages. In them, I met people still on the run from Suleia. They said theyd been bombed by government planes. Some had then been shackled and burned alive, many shot dead; others wounded; women, raped. Suleia is 180km from Block C's first well. Cliveden Sudan insisted to us that the 'wells' are 1000km from the conflict zone. So how did Cliveden Sudan get into bed with a regime accused of war crimes, in the very province the ethnic cleansing is happening?

Here's how. Channel 4 News can reveal that Friedhelm Eronat's Sudan venture was very much a Chelsea-set affair.

The whole deal brokered by his close neighbour, Lebanese businessman, Eli Calil. If his name sounds familiar it's because he is alleged to have helped bankroll last year's failed coup in the West African state of Equatorial Guinea, an allegation he denies.

Mr Felter said: "He was purely and simple an introducing instrument. It was quite natural to ask Eli Calil he said he said I think I know a company that might be interested because they are already in Chad and he therefore introduced the Sudanese lot as it were to Eronat."

One of Darfur's rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement is adamant that the search for oil will enflame the conflict. They want all exploration to stop, until there is peace. Ahmad Hussein Adam of the JEM said: "So when they say they discover oil in Darfur, who is going to benefit from that? Are they the people of Darfur? Of course not. Absolutely not, the only beneficiaries is the ruling elite and ruling minority of the regime."

In the rebels' view, Cliveden Sudan has joined those accused of propping up a pariah regime, whose members include UN war crimes suspects. Yet, under British law, Friedhelm Eronat has done nothing illegal in doing a deal with Khartoum. But then there is the ethical argument.

Mr Felter said: "I would say for Eronat he would deem it pretty irrelevant because it is about getting a signature on a document and I don't think it would be in his mind again Eronat is not interested in Darfur or political issues, he's interested in making money."

We've discovered another interesting fact about the mysterious Mr Eronat. A US Treasury Department notice lists individuals who have renounced their American citizenship. One name on the list: Friedhelm Eronat. And the date: October 2003, just before the Darfur oil deal was signed. Co-incidence: maybe. But the effect was certainly helpful. Under US sanctions against Sudan, an American doing business with the Sudanese state oil company could face ten years in jail and fines of half a million dollars.

Mr Felter said: "In terms of doing business in Sudan of course one advantage of denouncing your US citizenship is that suddenly you can also do deals in Sudan. If there is a direct connection or not I can't say but the timing was good."

In fact, we have learnt that it was in August 2003 that Friedhelm Eronat acquired a British passport. We showed our evidence to a Conservative MP John Bercow, with a long interest in Darfur. In his view, Mr Eronat's new passport and the timing of his Sudan deal raise disturbing questions.

Mr Bercow said: "What discussions took place between the British and US administrations about his activities in the oil business? What assurances were sought about the prospective scope of his activities? "What benefit did the British government think that an oil deal of this kind between a company and the government of Sudan could do to help the long-suffering people of Darfur? And what does the British government think that this deal will do for the credibility of its foreign policy towards Sudan?"

Mr Eronat has told Channel 4 News that he is not a shareholder or officer of Cliveden Sudan and that he does not work for or financially benefit from Cliveden Sudan. Also that Cliveden Sudan is not the operator of the concession, but a shareholder.

In a statement to this programme, Cliveden Sudan said "there has been no commercial oil find in Block C."

As the International Criminal Court, backed by Britain, investigates the Sudanese regime for war crimes, and efforts to stop the killing gather pace, a British businessman has thrown oil on the flames in Darfur - and has done so legally. - Jonathan Miller - Channel 4 news UK

Garang, a one-time Marxist, may have outlived his usefulness to Washington and the Bush administration. He would join Savimbi, Mobutu, Kabila, and other African leaders as "throw aways" for the corporations that determine America's Africa policy. U.S. oil and military policies in the Rift Valley are centered on Uganda's Museveni, Rwanda's Kagame, and Ethiopia's Meles. No others need apply.

According to a Secret United Nations memo from March 1997, Museveni's (and those of his ally, U.S. military client Paul Kagame of Rwanda) fingerprints were all over the aerial assassination of the Rwandan and Burundian Presidents in 1994, an event that triggered the worst genocide since World War II and the eventual dismemberment of Congo/Zaire. Museveni supplied the Russian-made Igla series surface-to-air missiles, captured by U.S. forces in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm and used by Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) to shoot down the Rwandan presidential aircraft. After seizing power in Rwanda, Kagame, with U.S. and British assistance, launched two invasions of Congo. Congo's fracture and the eventual assassination of Congolese President Laurent D. Kabila, with a wink and a nod from Washington and London, was a boon for U.S, British, and Israeli gold and diamond miners. Kellogg, Brown & Root/Halliburton helped Angola track down and assassinate Ronald Reagan's "George Washington of Africa," Dr. Jonas Savimbi, Angola's UNITA rebel leader. That was a boon for U.S. oil companies and British and Israeli diamond and gold miners. And to ensure that Angola's government remained a central player in UN negotiations between Luanda and rebel UNITA forces, UN envoy and chief negotiator Alioune Blodin Beye's aircraft suspiciously crashed on its final stage of landing at Abidjan airport, in Beye's native Ivory Coast.

Niger's Tuareg leader Mano Dayak was killed in a suspicious plane crash in Niger a year and a half after the shooting down of the Rwanda One aircraft. As with the Rwandan and Burundian leaders with their opposition, Dayak was engaged in peace negotiations with the central Niger government and was on his way to Niamey when the plane crashed. However, an autonomous Tuareg government threatened to undermine the plans of Exxon and other U.S. oil companies and mineral miners to have a free hand in exploiting oil and mineral resources around Lake Chad, along the Chadian-Nigerien border.

Equato-Guinean officials were mum about who and how many people died in a recent plane crash near the capital Malabo. Equatorial Guinea, an oil rich but immensely poor African nation, was recently in the news as a result of the exposure of slush funds maintained by the former Riggs Bank of Washington, DC on behalf of Equatorial Guinea's dictator Teodoro Obiang. President Bush's uncle, Jonathan, was a senior executive of Riggs before it was sold to PNC Bank amid the financial scandal (which also included money laundering for the Saudi Royal family and Chile's dictator Augusto Pinochet)..

It is imperative to exercise a healthy dose of skepticism whenever there is a plane crash involving a key political figure in Africa. For example, we know from recent history that colonialist and apartheid forces were involved in the shooting down of the aircraft of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold and Mozambican President Samora Machel.

Are aerial assassinations in Africa influenced by Big Oil? Yes. The wreckage of Rwanda One Mystere Falcon executive jet (top) carrying Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, their staff, and a French crew; ordered shot down on April 6, 1994 by U.S. clients Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame. Major oil and natural gas reserves had been discovered in Rwanda, Uganda, and Sudan. Soon, Museveni met with British officials of Heritage Oil (left) and Kagame with Shell Oil officials (right).

Now, Garang's death in one of Museveni's helicopters may presage the fracture of Sudan and that will be a boon for U.S. oil companies and British and Israeli gold and diamond miners. The trend is unmistakable. War crimes are being committed in Africa every day and Washington, London, and Tel Aviv rake in abominable profits.

Garang's helicopter crashed after it departed Museveni's ranch at Rwakitura, about 200 miles southwest of Kampala, near the Rwandan border. Garang was on his way back to New Site, his base in southern Sudan, after meeting with Museveni. - Wayne Madsen

Anti-riot police were deployed to several areas of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, where crowds were pelting passers-by with stones and smashing car windows. At least 10 private and government-owned cars were set on fire. About 300 were injured in the riots. No information was available on how many of those killed were security forces and protesters. - msnbc

Darfur agony goes on as the UN fails to act

Sat 22 Oct 2005 - GETHIN CHAMBERLAIN CHIEF NEWS CORRESPONDENT

FIFTEEN months after the United Nations' Security Council issued an ultimatum to the government of Sudan to clean up its act in Darfur or face action, shocking new evidence of atrocities is emerging. Various governments have labelled the campaign of murder and forced displacement in Darfur as genocide and the UN last year described Darfur as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Yet according to the UN's own situation reports and accounts of investigations by African Union (AU) peacekeeping forces, the black African farmers targeted in the initial wave of violence continue to face the daily threat of violence.

The UN and AU reports detail murders, rapes and the burning of entire villages by Sudanese government forces and their armed militia allies, known as janjaweed.

They also reveal the threat now facing humanitarian aid workers in the region, who have increasingly found themselves the target of attack.

A UN report from last month sheds light on the worst recent incident involving aid workers, describing how the group of 22 people travelling in seven vehicles was ambushed on the road from Beida to Geneina in west Darfur on 1 September.

"The bandits took cash, cameras and other personal belongings and ripped out all VHF communication equipment," the report says. "The bandits then beat the staff members with sticks and rifles while they were lying on the ground. Seventeen persons suffered injuries such as blunt trauma, head injury with stitches, back injuries, haematoma on the scalp, etc."

Aid workers say the security situation has deteriorated badly in recent months. There is a reluctance to speak publicly because of the action taken by the Sudanese government against international workers who have spoken out in the past, but one worker - who did not wish to be named - yesterday described how there were attacks every day in August against aid convoys.

"There has been a massive increase in attacks against humanitarian agencies," the worker said, adding that the victims of the 1 September ambush were also stripped of their clothes during the attack. "The few cars that were moving have stopped and no-one can use any of the roads outside Geneina [the capital of west Darfur]. People cannot move and that means they can't get to any of the camps in west Darfur."

The worker said that an increase in fighting in north and south Darfur meant that movement there was also restricted and had prompted more villagers to abandon their homes and seek refuge in camps. There had been recent co-ordinated attacks against between 30 and 40 villages prompting thousands of people to flee. Several civilians were killed in a large clash between Sudan Liberation Army rebels and government forces this week.

The AU has sent thousands of troops into Darfur to try to keep the peace between the warring parties and it sends teams of investigators to look into reports of ceasefire violations. Previously confidential reports from AU investigators on attacks which took place earlier this year have now been made available and provide fresh insight into the extent of the brutality faced by the black African farmers driven from their homes by the Sudanese government and its Arab militia allies.

One AU report into an attack on the village of Duma by janjaweed militia details how six fighters executed in cold blood a woman, Miriam Mohammed Abubakat, as she was fetching wood with nine others.

One witness told investigators that one of the janjaweed grabbed Mrs Abubakat: "The woman was trying to loose herself from the man and they fell down on the ground. One of the militia came forward and told his friend who was struggling to pull his head aside so that he could shoot the woman. He then put the muzzle of the gun on her head and shot the woman."

Another handwritten witness statement from a teacher, Omar Ahmed Adam, recounted how the fight had started when the janjaweed began raping the group of women. Mrs Abubakat was killed, he said, because she had refused to submit.

Another report details how 20 Sudanese soldiers murdered a man, Abdul Halim Adam, by shooting him in the back as he drew water at a well in the Abushouk refugee camp. Investigators concluded that the attack had taken place with the full knowledge of the Sudanese police officers in the camp.

The team was also able to gather information about a number of rapes committed against women in the camp. Witnesses told the AU team that Sudanese soldiers were in the habit of visiting the camp to take away girls by force. The girls were taken to unknown locations and raped, the report said.

Other AU reports from earlier in the year describe a number of attacks on villages by armed militias. One report provides a full account of one of the worst incidents, an attack on the village of Khor Abeche in April.

The investigators described how about 200 janjaweed under the command of Nasr Atijani Abdel Gadir attacked at 8am, killing four people, injuring many more and destroying everything except a school, mosque and a few huts. The report said 15 villagers were later declared missing. An AU helicopter was sent to investigate reports of the attack and was able to take pictures of janjaweed attackers mounted on horses and camels and the village ablaze. Survivors described how the janjaweed had spoiled the wells and left almost 800 people without food. Mohamed Bushm Adam, the village leader, said seven children died because of the water shortage and many villagers were still hiding in the mountains, afraid to return.

Even AU peacekeepers are now coming under direct attack. Five Nigerians with the AU's 6,300-strong contingent in Darfur are known to have died in an attack, blamed on the Sudan Liberation Army, which also killed two civilians earlier this month. Days later, 38 African Union peacekeepers were taken hostage by rebel forces in Tine near the border with Chad. A dissident faction of Darfur's rebel Justice and Equality Movement was blamed for the attack.

The latest UN report from Darfur paints a grim picture of daily killings and the forced removal of villagers from their homes. The report - which covers just four days in Darfur - notes the discovery of the bodies of two AU peacekeepers, killed in the ambush near Menawashi; an attack on the town of Liria in which 18 people died, 11 of them women; a fight over grazing rights in which an unknown number of people died and 100 families from Wandi were forced from their homes; the ambush of a truck on the near Tore in which four people died; the shooting dead by seven armed bandits of two passengers in a commercial vehicle and theft of six million Sudanese dinar; and the burning of the market in Kafod in which one person was killed and an aid agency forced to relocate its team.

Aid agencies say that without security in the region, they are powerless to help those most in need. Oxfam operates in 16 camps in Darfur but is currently unable to reach five because it is too dangerous to use the roads.

A spokeswoman for Oxfam said clashes between Sudanese government forces and rebels were hampering aid efforts.

"Thousands of people are facing horrific violence every day," she said. "Humanitarian agencies including Oxfam are being targeted. All parties are breaching the ceasefire and it is causing more death and displacement." - scotsman.com

UN contemplates military operation for Darfur

By Evelyn Leopold - UNITED NATIONS, Dec 4 (Reuters) - A joint military team will visit Darfur next week to study whether the United Nations should take over efforts to bring order to Sudan's lawless west, U.N. officials and diplomats said on Sunday. Led by the African Union, the mission, from Dec. 10 to Dec. 20, will include experts from the United States, the European Union as well as the United Nations. Under discussion is folding the African Union's existing Darfur peacekeeping operation into a U.N. Sudan mission established last March to support a peace agreement between Khartoum and former rebels in the south of Sudan that ended two decades of war.

But it might take until September to deploy such an expanded mission, and it is uncertain whether the African Union would agree to wind up or combine its own operation into a U.N.-led force, the envoys said.

Sudan also would have to consent to non-African troops, which could number up to 10,000 and, like the African Union, would have to scramble to get enough soldiers for what one envoy called "a robust and mobile" force. "For now there has to be further support for the African Union," one Security Council diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "In the longer term, there is going to be a need for a sustained peacekeeping force. So the African Union and the United Nations have to begin now to look at what is feasible in 2006."

About 6,000 African Union troops and police are trying to stop escalating violence in Darfur, but those in charge say they lack the vehicles and communications equipment needed to operate effectively in the desert region the size of France.

In Abuja, Nigeria, Festus Okonkwo, the military head of the union's mission told Reuters, "If you are supposed to move people with 20 vehicles and you are moving them with six vehicles, you can understand the problems. "It's affecting everything."

The rebels are involved in peace talks with the government in Abuja, but militia allied to Khartoum are still raping and harassing civilians herded into camps in what Annan has called a descent into complete lawlessness. Tens of thousands of Sudanese have been killed since a revolt in Darfur began in early 2003 by non-Arab villagers who accused the government of neglect and repression. More than 2 million people have been forced out of their homes.

Okonkwo, a Nigerian, said he hoped the 10-day assessment mission would address the African Union's problems and decide whether more troops were needed. There are 5,618 AU soldiers and observers on the ground, he said.

The figure falls short of the 6,171-strong force that was supposed to have been deployed by the end of September. Most of the troops are from Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Ghana. Unlike U.N. peacekeeping missions, financed from the world body's budget, the AU relies on the whim of donor nations, which pledged $300 million in May. The U.S. Congress voted in November to cut $50 million for the AU's Darfur mission.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said cash would be allocated from other areas to meet the $50 million shortfall, but troops in Darfur say they are wondering if they will get paid next week.

African Union forces have been targeted by combatants in Darfur and suffered their first casualties in October when four soldiers were killed in an ambush. As the latest round of peace talks in Abuja opened, a breakaway rebel faction attacked and injured five AU soldiers. During a recent Arab militia raid on Tama village in South Darfur, union troops initially refused to enter the village saying they were too scared, witnesses said. Rebels cite this weakness for their refusal to relinquish control of some towns in South Darfur to the African Union.

"Even right now in Marla (town) the government is attacking civilians in front of the AU," rebel Sudan Liberation Army spokesman Esam Elhag said. - alertnet.org

SUDAN: Negotiations needed to avoid war in the east - ICG -

NAIROBI, 6 January 2006 (IRIN) - Negotiations are needed immediately to address a simmering conflict in eastern Sudan and avoid the outbreak of a new regional war, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG).

In a report, "Sudan: Saving the Peace in the East", the advocacy organisation said that if the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) - now part of the Sudanese government - went ahead with a troop withdrawal scheduled in the east, the low-intensity conflict there risked becoming a major new war with disastrous humanitarian consequences.

The troop withdrawal is part of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or "CPA", signed by Sudan's ruling National Congress Party and the then rebel SPLM almost a year ago. The agreement ended a 21 year civil war in southern Sudan, but did not address the political and economic grievances of rebel groups in either eastern Sudan or the Sudanese western region of Darfur.

"Like Darfur, we have a peace agreement which falls short of providing fair wealth and power-sharing to other areas in northern Sudan," said David Mozersky, senior Sudan analyst for the ICG, at a press briefing in Nairobi on Thursday.

Under the terms of the agreement, the SPLM is obliged to withdraw its forces from eastern Sudan by 9 January 2006. Mozersky said the SPLM was far behind schedule, expecting to withdraw 50 percent of its forces from the east by the end of March, and complete the pull-out only in October 2006.

"Given that SPLM was much more implicated [in the war] in the east than it was in Darfur, a new conflict there has the potential to unravel the CPA and draw the SPLM back into the conflict," Mozersky warned.

According to the ICG's new report, the SPLM "has a duty to ensure that its withdrawal from eastern Sudan does not create a security vacuum that could invite escalation."

The main concern, Mozersky said, was how the rest of the Sudanese government would react to the SPLM pull-out, and to the possibility of more rebel attacks. "Will they target civilians? The government has shown such viciousness in Darfur, in the Nuba Mountains and in the south, that you have to expect the worst," Mozersky said.

Eastern Sudan is a strategic region, including Sudan's economic lifeline to the outside world, Port Sudan, and its oil pipeline, as well as irrigated agricultural schemes and a long border with Eritrea, with whom Sudan has poor relations. The Sudanese government has a heavy security presence in the east, involving, according to ICG, three times as many forces as in the troubled region of Darfur.

The rebel Eastern Front is an alliance between two rebel movements, the Beja Congress and a smaller group, the Rashaida Free Lions. It has been active in an impoverished region near the Eritrean border, but fighting is sporadic and on a small scale.

"It is unclear whether the rebels can do much more than small hit-and-run attacks, especially as the SPLM provided the bulk of the forces in the east," Mozersky said…"But they can do substantial damage to the port, the oil pipeline and other vital infrastructure."

The SPLM needed to use its leverage as a member of the government of national unity, to start comprehensive negotiations, the ICG report stated. The international community needed to work closely with key regional actors, particularly Eritrea.

The ICG also said significant donor attention and resources were needed in eastern Sudan to reverse crude mortality rates and malnutrition levels that were even higher than in Darfur.

The eastern rebels accuse the government of marginalising remote regions of the country like their own. They see the year-old peace agreement between the government and the SPLM as a model for a political settlement for their own region.

In a flare-up of violence in January 2005, Sudanese security forces crushed a demonstration of local Beja people in Port Sudan, killing over 20 people and wounding hundreds. More than 150 members of a political movement, the Beja Congress, were detained. Mozersky said many Beja youths had joined the movement after this, and that the Beja Congress was now mobilised in a way it had not been in the past.

Originally a nomadic people, many Beja live in extensive shantytowns on the outskirts of Port Sudan. They moved to the port to work as labourers in the 1980s, after a famine killed their cattle and mechanised farming took over their land. - alertnet.org

Outrage over the dictator poised to lead Africa

By David Blair Africa Correspondent(Filed: 16/01/2006)

Sudan's military dictator is likely to become chairman of the African Union and the continent's face to the world despite waging war in Darfur, it emerged yesterday. President Omar al-Bashir, who seized power in a coup and harboured Osama bin Laden for five years in the 1990s, will host a meeting of African leaders in Sudan next Monday. They are due in Khartoum for a summit of the African Union, an alliance of all 53 countries in the continent. They are likely to outrage human rights groups by electing Mr Bashir as their chairman and Africa's most prominent statesman for the next 12 months.

The union's chairmanship is due to rotate to east Africa, deemed to include Sudan, and as the summit's official host Mr Bashir is expected to be elected even though his Arab-dominated regime is conducting a brutal campaign against rebels in Sudan's western region of Darfur, where almost two million people have been forced into squalid refugee camps.

Black African tribes have been marked for attack and a United Nations investigation has found Mr Bashir's forces guilty of atrocities.

"Government forces and militias conducted indiscriminate attacks, including killing of civilians, torture, disappearances, destruction of villages, rape and other forms of sexual violence," the UN said. "These acts were conducted on a widespread and systematic basis and may amount to crimes against humanity."

Some 300,000 people, about five per cent of the population, are believed to have died in Darfur since the onset of war three years ago. Fifty African human rights groups urged the union not to favour Mr Bashir with its chairmanship.

"Such an action will deeply undermine and erode the credibility of the AU," they said in an open letter to African leaders. The union has mediated in peace talks between Sudan's regime and Darfur's rebels. Its 6,000-strong military force in Darfur has documented numerous attacks on civilians.

Critics fear that if Mr Bashir takes the union's helm the mission will be compromised and Africa's attempt to solve a grave crisis will end. But Mr Bashir has ended decades of secessionist war in southern Sudan with a historic peace agreement signed last year. Free elections are intended to follow in 2009 and Sudan has a new government of national unity. African leaders may argue that Mr Bashir deserves a reward for these achievements. - telegraph.co.uk

Entire Darfur village of 55,000 flees after raids by Janjaweed gunmen

By David Blair in Menawashi (Filed: 04/02/2006)

Exhausted refugees were building ramshackle shelters in a dry river bed yesterday after 55,000 people fled a raid mounted by the Janjaweed militia in the Sudanese province of Darfur. It was the biggest movement of refugees there so far this year. The victims, many of whom have fled attacks twice or even three times before, are camped around the town of Menawashi in southern Darfur. They abandoned the nearby town of Mershing after two attacks from the pro-regime militia in the space of eight hours last Tuesday.

The flight took place as President Omar al-Bashir was assuring 53 African leaders gathered for a summit in Khartoum of his desire for peace in Darfur. Evidence suggests that Sudan's security forces colluded with the Arab raiders. The first assault took place around noon. Abdul Majid Hassan, 28, was herding cattle with his brother, Tibin, 30, when five Arab gunmen approached on horseback.

"They said, 'Give us your cattle,' " Mr Hassan said. "I told Tibin, 'Give them our cattle to save our lives.' But my brother refused. The Janjaweed raised their guns and I ran." As he fled, Mr Hassan heard a burst of automatic gunfire. He turned to see that his brother had been shot. "I went back and found him lying on the ground. There was a bullet in his back. He said, 'I know I am dying. I ask one thing, please take care of my family.' "

About 400 Janjaweed gunmen raided a refugee camp in Mershing, riding among the shelters, beating up or firing on anyone who crossed their path. They returned about eight hours later, attacking the town and looting the market. Mershing's entire population of 55,000 fled the next morning to Menawashi, 10 miles away. Panic-stricken refugees stampeded, trampling to death about 13 infants. Another 220 children disappeared during the flight. The surviving members of Tibin Hassan's family had been forced to flee once before when the Janjaweed destroyed their home village in 2004.

Keltoum Adam Ibrahim, 25, was also fleeing with her five terrified children for the second time. "I went to Mershing because I thought the government is there, the police are there, they will protect us," she said. "Now I don't trust them. I saw the police sitting and eating with the Janjaweed before they attacked us."

All the refugees in Menawashi are black Africans, and the Arab-dominated regime views them with deep suspicion. Evidence suggests that the Janjaweed were unleashed to clear the black Africans from a strategically vital road. Paramilitary police were seen talking to Arab gunmen. Some 1.8 million people have fled their homes in Darfur, with the death toll standing at about 300,000. - telegraph

'It's now or never' for Darfur as peace talks enter twilight zone

IAN MATHER DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENT Last updated: 30-Apr-06 The Scotsman

ONE of the world's bloodiest conflicts is threatening to drag Africa's largest country into further carnage and open up a new front for al-Qaeda.

The Darfur region of Sudan has seen hundreds of thousands of deaths from massacres, hunger and disease, and two million forced into miserable refugee camps in a vast, arid part of Africa.

In recent months the violence has spread with fresh ferocity, and it now risks becoming international as government-backed Sudanese militias have taken their fight against rebels even further by rampaging through villages across the border in Chad. As a result, Chad has broken off relations with Khartoum. The US and Europe fear that as Sudan faces collapse into another failed state, sucking in its neighbours, international intervention could open up another front for al-Qaeda.

John Prendergast, a former senior Africa specialist for the US government, said last week: "Sudan policy has run off the road into a ditch."

Osama bin Laden has begun urging jihadists to head for Darfur to fight for the Islamic cause. In a tape broadcast last week, he played the Darfur card for the first time, linking it to the global Islamic struggle and accusing the US of stirring the conflict "to pave the way for sending Crusader forces to occupy the region and steal its oil under the pretext of peacekeeping".

That is why the West has been pinning its hopes on the African Union, which has been trying for nearly two years to produce a peace agreement but which now faces the immediate prospect of humiliation and failure. The deadline to accept its draft peace plan is today. If it is rejected, peace talks between warring parties in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, will end.

"This is decision time," said Ahmed Salim Ahmed, the chief AU mediator. "No more procrastination, no more antics, no more delaying tactics. The eyes of the world are on you."

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, a diplomatic heavyweight in Africa, is heavily involved, holding 11th hour meetings with the warring parties in Abuja.

But the chances are not good. "Most of the things that are proposed will not be part of a just peace. We feel there is no movement from the other side," Abduljabbar Dosa, chief negotiator of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) rebel group, said last week.

A Sudanese Darfur rebel faction has demanded that the African Union extend today's deadline.

The Sudan Liberation Movement, one of two rebel groups battling in Darfur since 2003, said that it needed more time to consider the draft document.

"We requested of the president that by April 30 it is not possible for us to conclude on our position. I will not be able to say how long because it is a technical issue," said Waheed Al-Nur, one of the group's leaders. Obasanjo wasn't available for comment.

Another rebel group, Justice and Equality Movement, said it had only received a copy of the deal written in English - a language it said 70% of its delegates can't read - and that it was waiting for the document in Arabic.

Nevertheless, that insurgent group said it was willing to work toward a deal by today, echoing public optimism on the part of the Sudanese government delegation.

The fighting in Sudan's Darfur region blew up in early 2003, when ethnic African tribes there rebelled against the Arab-dominated central government. The Muslim-dominated Sudanese government is accused of arming and sponsoring the notorious Janjaweed, nomadic Arab tribesmen who are waging a terror campaign against rebel villages, a charge it denies.

Despite a nominal ceasefire in April 2004, the situation has grown steadily worse. A 6,000-strong African Union force has been struggling, and failing, to quell mounting ethnic violence. European and the US governments have now concluded that it is inadequate, and want to intervene, but don't know how.

In February the Security Council authorised plans for sending a UN force, which the US wants to be 20,000-strong. But the plan is blocked by adamant opposition from the Sudanese government.

The Bush administration accepts that without Khartoum's agreement any such intervention would amount to an invasion, a scenario that has no appeal whatsoever in the light of what is going on in Iraq.

Few governments have declared their willingness to contribute troops. Morocco, Pakistan, Ukraine and Russia have made tentative promises, but only if Khartoum drops its opposition. Moreover, the UN's previous sallies into peacekeeping hardly inspire confidence.

To plug the gap Washington is urging greater Nato backing for the African Union peacekeepers. Nato is already assisting the AU force but its role is limited to airlifting AU forces to the region and providing a small number of military specialists. Washington wants Nato to send up to 500 specialists in logistics, communications, transport, planning, intelligence and training.

Wary Nato officials stress that combat troops would not be involved on the ground in Darfur. Nor would the alliance provide air cover to protect peacekeepers and prevent the bombing of villages.

These options have been ruled out because several member governments fear that sending significant numbers of European and North American troops would play into Bin Laden's hands by inflaming regional sensitivities over another intervention in a Muslim state.

Meanwhile, more evidence accumulates of a deteriorating situation in Darfur. A UN team of experts reported last week that arms are still pouring into Darfur despite a ban imposed by the Security Council two years ago. They said the weapons were coming from neighbouring countries, especially Chad, as well as from countries outside Africa. Other reports have mentioned Eritrea and Libya as arms suppliers.

They accused Sudan's government of supplying weapons to the Janjaweed and further inflaming the situation by encouraging Darfur-based Chadian rebels trying to topple Chadian President Idriss Deby before a presidential election on Wednesday.

The failure of the international community to help the people of Darfur was underlined further last week when the UN announced it was halving food aid in Darfur from 2,100 calories to 1,050 calories a day, half the minimum amount needed to remain healthy.

Nearly three million people in Darfur are totally reliant on food aid after being driven off their land by the conflict.

"This is one of the hardest decisions I have ever made," said James Morris, executive director of the UN's World Food Programme. "Haven't the people of Darfur suffered enough? Aren't we adding insult to injury? This is a measure we should simply never have to take."

The Darfur crisis is widening as well as deepening. It is now beginning to enter the mainstream political debate in the US. Five members of the US Congress were jailed last week for protesting outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington over atrocities in Darfur. They were released after paying $50 fines.

Mass rallies in support of Darfur are planned for this weekend in Washington, San Francisco and Chicago. An appropriation bill to fund an international force for the region is now before the Senate.

That could bring the US into conflict with China, which is boosting its economic and strategic interests in Africa. China, a veto-wielding UN Security Council member, has offered diplomatic support to Sudan.

A lot is riding on this weekend's deadline. Jan Pronk, chief UN envoy in Sudan, said the mediators might be willing to extend the talks a few days at most. "It's now or never," he said.

Darfur peace hopes collapse as rebels reject proposed deal

· Main guerrilla groups defy African Union ultimatum
· Sudanese government says it was ready to sign

Xan Rice in Nairobi and Ewen MacAskill in Washington Monday May 1, 2006 The Guardian

Hopes for a breakthrough in peace talks on the Darfur conflict were dashed last night when two of the main rebel groups refused to sign a proposed agreement only hours before a deadline expired .

The Sudanese government and the rebels had been under enormous pressure from the US, Europe and other African states to reach a deal over the conflict that has seen up to 3 million people displaced and tens of thousands killed. The African Union, the pan-continental organisation representing most African states, had set a deadline of midnight last night for agreement at the peace talks in Abuja, Nigeria, which had been running for two years.

The Sudanese government offered to sign the agreement, but two of the three main rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement and a faction of the Sudanese Liberation Army, said late last night that they would refuse to accept the 85-page document in its present form.

Ahmed Tugod, the JEM chief negotiator, told Reuters: "We are not going to accept this document unless there are fundamental changes made."

The African Union's deadline for a peace deal was set because of frustration at the lack of progress. Speaking before the rebel failure to sign, the AU said this was its final attempt to mediate a settlement and warned that it would not reopen talks on the fundamental issues if the deal was rejected.

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, last week secured a Nato promise that the organisation would become more involved in trying to resolve the conflict. The United Nations is proposing to take over peacekeeping from the AU. The question is a much bigger public issue in the US than in Europe. Thousands joined a protest on the Mall in Washington yesterday calling for intervention. The actor George Clooney, who visited Darfur last week with his father, a former journalist, spoke at the rally. He said he had been moved by reading about the conflict, had got on a plane to Chad and then gone briefly over the border into Darfur. Another speaker, Elie Wiesel, the Nobel peace prize winner and Holocaust survivor, said: "Darfur deserves to live. We are its only hope."

In Abuja, the head of the Sudanese government's negotiating team, Majzoubal-Khalifa, said: "The government ... wishes to confirm its decision to formally accept this document and its readiness to sign." Mr Khalifa said that "any difficulties that might come up in the implementation stages can be resolved by consensus between all the parties".

With humanitarian conditions continuing to deteriorate in Darfur, the UN last week warned that a surge in fighting had led to a third of the 2.4 million displaced people being cut off from aid. The World Food Programme said a lack of funds had caused food rations to be halved, even though malnutrition rates were rising.

Part of JEM's concern is over the arrangements for the disarmament of the government-backed militias known as the Janjaweed. Diplomats at the Abuja talks said the rebels were also upset that their demands for a regional government and a new national vice-president from Darfur had not been met.

The conflict began in early 2003 when the rebels, accusing the government of discrimination and neglect, attacked a military base in Darfur. In retaliation, the government, which has a strong Arab bias, launched a scorched-earth policy against black civilians in Darfur. Military aircraftbombed villages, while the mainly Arab Janjaweed militia raped and pillaged. Up to 300,000 died by some estimates.

Despite a 2004 ceasefire and the deployment of 7,000 AU troops, fighting has continued. Since December 2005, more than 200,000 civilians have been displaced. A Human Rights Watch report last week said the government had bombed villages in south Darfur as recently as April 24.

New deadline for Darfur agreement

BBC NEWS 2006/05/02 -

The deadline has again been extended for rebel and Sudanese government negotiators, meeting in Nigeria, to sign a deal ending the Darfur conflict.

On Sunday, an earlier deadline was extended until Tuesday, in a bid to make reluctant rebels sign the deal. A new deadline of 48 hours has now been set. It expires on Thursday night. The US, UK and African Union mediators have been pushing for a deal that could end a conflict that has led to some 200,000 deaths in Darfur.

More than two million people have been displaced by the violence, which started three years ago when black African rebels took up arms against Khartoum. The Sudanese government and militias backed by it have been accused of committing genocide in their crackdown on the rebels - a charge Khartoum denies.

Rebel demands

US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, who arrived at the talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, on Monday, said: "I believe there has to be an end to this process."

An adviser to the African Union said that while the deadline could be extended, the draft agreement could not be re-written drastically. Alex de Waal said the rebels have to move "from criticising the many injustices that they and their people have suffered to seeing that a much better future can be grasped on the basis of this agreement", Reuters news agency reports.

The Sudanese government says it is prepared to sign, but the rebels say they want further concessions on security, power and wealth-sharing. The talks between the two parties have been going on for a year.

The original deadline for signing the deal expired on Sunday, prompting a new extension - until Tuesday - and a flurry of diplomatic activity.

The US and UK sent top envoys to the talks in Abuja and US President George W Bush spoke by telephone to his Sudanese counterpart. According to a White House spokesman, President Bush told President Omar al-Bashir on Tuesday that he must keep up efforts to find a deal on Darfur. He urged the president to send his envoy, Vice President Osman Taha, back to the talks he had left earlier in apparent frustration at the rebels' stance. The president also told Mr Bashir he should allow UN peacekeepers, backed by Nato, to take over from an overstretched African Union force in Darfur.

Meanwhile, AU mediator Salim Ahmed Salim urged the black African rebels "to show leadership and make the compromises necessary for peace, for the sake of the people of Darfur".

Reuters news agency quoted a diplomat involved in the mediation as saying that the rebels would be discredited if they rejected the deal. Four parties are at the talks in Abuja: the Sudanese government, the pro-government Arab Janjaweed militias, and two rebel groups, the Sudanese Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

'Critical concerns'

The proposed peace deal envisages disarming Janjaweed militia and incorporating rebel fighters into the regular army.

The BBC's Alex Last in Abuja says mediators hope that the proposed deal can be amended to increase the number of rebels integrated into the army, while dropping the provision that the Janjaweed disarm before the rebels. The government is unhappy at this provision, even though it has signed the deal. But the rebels are also said to be unhappy about arrangements concerning power-sharing and wealth distribution in the vast desert region. They are also reportedly concerned that the peace deal may not be properly implemented.

"The extension of the deadline does not have any meaning for us," said Saifaldin Haroun, spokesman of the main SLM faction, according to the AFP news agency. "The AU peace proposal does not address our crucial concerns."

Last year, a peace deal was signed with southern rebels which included detailed arrangements on sharing wealth and brought the rebel SPLM into government.

US pressure was instrumental in getting this deal signed.

[my note: ahem! blimey! propaganda watch!]

AU presses rebels to sign Darfur deal

Monday, May 15, 2006 By Tsegaye Tadesse ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) -

The African Union ratcheted up the pressure on two rebel factions on Monday to sign a peace deal for Sudan's Darfur region, threatening international sanctions if they did not endorse it.

Only one of the three Darfur rebel factions signed a May 5 accord with Khartoum to end fighting that has killed tens of thousands of people, and officials fear the two holdouts could instigate violence to scuttle the deal.

Alpha Oumar Konare, chairman of the African Union (AU) commission, urged a faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) led by Abdel Wahed Mohammed al-Nur and the smaller Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) to sign the deal unconditionally.

"Should they embark on any action or measure likely to undermine the Darfur peace agreement, especially the ceasefire provisions, the (AU) should take appropriate measures ... including requesting the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions against them," he said in a statement.

The warning came as the AU's Peace and Security Council met in Addis Ababa to discuss how to push forward the peace process in Darfur, which U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan says is the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Konare called for more AU troops to be sent to Darfur and urged Khartoum to produce a plan to disarm pro-government Janjaweed militias accused of a campaign of murder and rape that has driven more than 2 million people into camps in Darfur and neighboring Chad.

In another sign of a concerted drive by the AU to pull the rebels into the deal, its chief Darfur mediator warned Nur he risked becoming irrelevant unless he accepted a deal already signed by Minni Arcua Minnawi, leader of the biggest SLA group.

"In every situation where people have not been on board, eventually they will have to come on board or become irrelevant," Salim Ahmed Salim told Reuters.

CONDITIONS

Nur has come under increasing pressure to sign the deal, but has set conditions. Although he is weak militarily, he represents Darfur's largest Fur tribe.

Nur demands greater compensation from Khartoum for Darfur war victims, more political posts for the movement and greater SLA involvement in the disarmament of Janjaweed militias.

"When I am assured that the supplementary document has addressed our demands and been attached to the agreement, I shall then attach my signature to the Darfur Peace Agreement," Nur said in a letter to the AU on Monday.

But his close adviser, Ibrahim Madibo, said Khartoum had already rejected the demands. "We received a response from the Sudanese government and it was not positive enough for us to go ahead and sign," Madibo said in the Nigerian capital Abuja.

Diplomats say efforts to bring Nur around were likely to continue beyond Monday's original deadline to seal the deal at the Addis meeting. Nur remained in Abuja after the chief Darfur negotiators moved to Addis on Sunday.

The peace agreement has provoked violent protests in Sudan by refugees who say it is not enough to protect them, and criticism from the Sudanese opposition that the parties were pressured into signing an ill-considered deal.

Annan said the AU mission should be turned over to the United Nations as soon as possible, but until then rich nations must provide immediate funding for the AU forces.

A senior U.N. official in Addis said the meeting there would focus on providing the AU with a new mandate to monitor the peace deal, and improving logistics before a U.N. takeover.

"We also plan to increase the international force operating in Darfur from the present 7,000 to between 12-14,000," U.N. principal deputy special representative for Sudan Taye-Brook Zerihoun told Reuters.

Sudan had rejected a U.N. deployment in Darfur before a peace deal, and European Union officials said last week Khartoum now appeared to be reconsidering allowing U.N. troops.

Sudanese Foreign Minister Lam Akol said his government was committed to enforcing the deal and willing to discuss the U.N.'s future role.

Jan Egeland, the U.N.'s top humanitarian official, predicted catastrophe if the deal was not implemented. "If it is not, it will mean a downward spiral which will get totally out of control and go into the abyss," he said from Geneva.

Sudan: UN Prepares to Deploy Peacekeepers to Darfur

May 17, 2006 Posted to the web May 17, 2006 Nairobi - allafrica.com

A United Nations Security Council resolution has paved the way for the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force in Sudan's western Darfur region and threatened sanctions against any parties standing in the way of peace.

In a resolution adopted on Tuesday, the Council called on the African Union (AU) to agree with the UN and other regional and international bodies on a strategy to strengthen its 7000-strong peacekeeping force in Darfur before a UN mission is deployed.

It said a technical assessment mission would visit Darfur within a week to lay the groundwork for the transition to UN peacekeepers. Before any UN force can be deployed however, the UN must reach an agreement with Sudanese authorities on the forces mandate.

The Council called for speedy implementation of the Darfur peace plan, which was agreed upon by two parties to the conflict - the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Sudanese government - on 5 May in Abuja, Nigeria. It issued a stern warning to two smaller rebel groups that refused to sign the accord, saying any individual or group that violates or undermines the peace agreement risked sanctions, "such as a travel ban and assets freeze."

The rebel holdouts have asked for more concessions from the government. On Monday, the commander of the dissident SLM/A faction, Abdulwahid Mohamed Ahmed Elnur, said he would not sign unless the government agreed to give his group a greater role in local and federal government.

The Security Council's resolution echoes recent statements by the AU Commission. On Monday, commission chairman Alpha Oumar Konare had urged the Sudanese government to allow UN peacekeepers to replace the cash-strapped African troops. Sudan's Foreign Minister Lam Akol, however, had on Friday said that even if Khartoum were prepared to discuss the matter with the UN, such a transition was not mentioned in the Darfur peace deal.

The AU urged all rebel groups in Darfur to sign the peace agreement. Speaking for the AU Peace and Security Council in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, Nigerian Foreign Minister Oluyemi Adeniji said the AU would ask the Security Council to impose sanctions on the Justice and Equality Movement and a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement if they did not sign the deal by 31 May. The AU also agreed to boost the mandate and manpower of its peacekeeping mission in order to monitor implementation of the Abuja peace deal.

The peace accord provides for the disarmament of the Darfur rebels as well as the Janjawid militia, which is allegedly backed by the Khartoum government and blamed for most of the atrocities against civilians in Darfur.

Rebel groups, government troops and militia have wreaked havoc in the region since early 2003. The UN estimates the conflict affects 3.6 million people - of whom 1.8 million are internally displaced and 200,000 have fled to neighbouring Chad. More than 200,000 people have been killed as a result of violence.