| WRITTEN BY GEMMA WARE |
| THURSDAY, 11 AUGUST 2011 18:14 |
Military attacks by the government of Sudan in the border region of Southern Kordofan are violating the standards of war in the 21st century, according to the US special envoy for the region.
“Bombing of civilian targets, taking people out of their homes, possible extrajudicial killings: all of those are violations of the rules of war that all modern military institutions abide by,” said Ambassador Princeton Lyman, US special envoy to Sudan, in an online media briefing.
Ambassador Princeton Lyman, US special envoy to Sudan
Since June, fighting has flared in Sudan’s ethnically-divided South Kordofan region. The state borders the new country of South Sudan, which celebrated its independence on 9 July. A leaked UN report has accused the Sudan Armed Forces of possible war crimes in the state, and human rights groups have pointed to systematic targeting of the state’s Nuba minority. The Sudanese government says it is fighting rebels in the region.
An agreement signed in late June between the ruling National Congress Party, in Khartoum, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-North) was renounced by Sudanese President Omar el Beshir and there are no signs of political will on either side to reach a ceasefire.
Lyman, who visited both Khartoum and Juba, capital of newly-independent South Sudan in late July, said he was “not at all confident” that political and security discussions were near at hand. “There are big disagreements over even how to start political talks.”
Lyman warned that the fighting in Southern Kordofan could spread further in nearby Blue Nile state, and into South Sudan. Links from the civil war remain between some elements in the South and those fighting government troops in South Kordofan, he said. “Nobody wants a war in between North and the South, so we shouldn’t allow it to go down that path. We should be working night and day to get a resolution of the problem in South Kordofan as soon as possible.”
There are currently no UN monitors on the ground in South Kordofan, despite pressure from Washington on the Sudanese government to allow a UN presence in the region to continue after the UN Mission in Sudan closed at the South’s independence on 9 July.
“We think there should be an opportunity for an international presence, and for a full investigation of the charges, whether they’re on one side or the other, or human rights abuses,” said Lyman.
Meanwhile, tension is mounting between the government of Sudan and the UN Security Council over the extension of the UN-AU Mission in Darfur (UNAMID). This week Sudanese foreign minister Ali Karti rejected a 29 July UN Security Council resolution that extended the mandate of the UNAMID force for one year.
In response, Lyman stressed that the resolution to extend the joint UN and African Union force had been passed unanimously, including by all the African members of the security council (currently Gabon, Nigeria and South Africa). “I hope the government will sit down with the UN and work out any problems that they see,” he said.
The resolution of the Darfur conflict is one of the criteria the US has set out to remove through widespread economic sanctions imposed by Congress on the Sudanese regime. A peace agreement reached in Doha on 14 July, made some headway, but it was only signed by one rebel group – the Liberation and Justice Movement.