In violence between Sudan and South Sudan, ‘echoes of Darfur’
Hereward Holland/Reuters – Women who fled a war across the border in Sudan’s Blue Nile state sit outside a clinic in Doro refugee camp. Sudan is fighting a civil war on multiple fronts in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile, with almost 100,000 fleeing across the border into the newly-independent South Sudan.
By Sudarsan Raghavan, Saturday, March 10
From July 9, 2011: South Sudan raised the flag of its new nation for the first time Saturday, as thousands of South Sudanese citizens and dozens of international dignitaries swarmed the new country capital of Juba to celebrate the country’s birth.
In the South Kordofan region, once a major battleground during Sudan’s 22-year civil war, fighting broke out in June between Sudanese forces and rebels formerly allied with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement. By September, the conflict had spread to Blue Nile state.
This past week, Mukesh Kapila, a former U.N. representative to Sudan and now a human rights activist, said the conditions in South Kordofan could become as violent as they had been in a separate conflict in Darfur, a vast region in western Sudan. That conflict pitted the Arab-ruled government in Khartoum against non-Arab rebels. According to the United Nations, more than 300,000 died and 2.7 million were displaced, prompting the United States to declare that a genocide had taken place.
Kapila, who had recently returned from a visit to the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan, told reporters in Nairobi that Sudanese airplanes routinely bomb civilians, actions he deemed “tantamount to war crimes.”
“Inside the Nuba Mountains, I saw burnt villages, destroyed food stores and damaged schools and churches used by civilians to shelter from the fighting,” said Kapila, now with the Aegis Trust, a human rights group that campaigns against genocide.
“I heard an Antonov [airplane] myself and watched women and children running away, shrieking with fear, as well as fields on fire from dropped bombs destroying what little food crops were being planted,” Kapila said.
Sudan has denied the allegations, but it has also prevented foreign relief agencies from entering the Nuba Mountains, even as U.N. and other aid groups report food shortages and malnutrition.
The conflict appears to be intensifying. Sudanese airplanes allegedly bombed border areas in late February and again this month. In November, bombs hit the Yida refugee camp near the border, and U.N. officials are concerned it will be struck again.
“We are extremely concerned about the safety of people in the nearby Yida refugee settlement, which hosts 16,022 Sudanese,” Lejeune-Kaba said.
U.S. Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), who recently visited Yida, said in a statement this week: “In speaking with the refugees in the camp, I heard echoes of Darfur — accounts of ethnic cleansing, mass murder and rape of innocent civilians in the region. As any Sudan watcher knows, this is familiar ground for Sudanese President Omar Bashir — an internationally indicted war criminal.”
Wolf, along with two other members of Congress, Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Michael E. Capuano (D-Mass.), this past week introduced the Sudan Peace, Security and Accountability Act, which calls for tough actions against Bashir and an end to human rights violations in the Nuba Mountains.
One recommendation said that “no American tax dollars should be going to countries that welcome Bashir.”
The U.N. Security Council also weighed in this past week, calling for a cease-fire “to put an end to the cycle of violence.” The Obama administration welcomed the council’s action.
“The United States remains deeply concerned about the grave humanitarian situation in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, where hundreds of thousands endure the daily threat of violence and looming famine without an urgent infusion of life-saving assistance,” said Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
South Sudan and Khartoum have many unresolved issues
SINCE THE two Sudans separated on July 9 last year, they have never gotten down to relating like good neighbours should. Khartoum still treats the newly independent South Sudan as part of its territory, given that it carries out military incursions across their common border.
Khartoum on the other hand, accuses Juba of providing logistical support for rebels who support the newly independent South, especially the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLN-N), which is fighting the Sudanese government in Southern Kordofan.
The uneasy relations have hindered talks over post-referendum issues that were to see the full implementation of the 2005 comprehensive peace deal. They include the loosely demarcated north-south border, the issue of citizenship, oil-rich Abyei and wealth-sharing.
Earlier in the year, South Sudan stopped oil production and transportation of oil through the pipeline to Port Sudan, on the grounds that the north was siphoning oil through unofficial pipelines and charging exorbitant prices for oil transportation.
South Sudan’s armed forces last Wednesday said that two Sudanese planes dropped six bombs in oil wells in Pariang County, destroying at least one of them which lead to leakage that is polluting drinking water.
In the meantime, the issues of citizenship is a running concern. Prior to the referendum in January 2011, President Omar Al Bashir announced that there would be no need for cultural diversity in the North if the South voted to separate.
Since the South went its separate way, there have been great migration of southern Sudanese who have been living in the North, fearing for their lives.
The UN estimates that there are at least half a million people of Southern origin still residing in Sudan. The International Organisation of Migration stated that it is impossible to transport hundreds of thousands to the South in less than a month.
Recently, South Sudan started demanding to know the fate the children abducted from the South and taken to Sudan during the civil war, especially in the 1990s. It is estimated that the children number at least 35,000 children, but there are no accurate estimates.
Sudan has refused to discuss the issue of abductees. In recent years, rights groups accused Sudan of using the abducted women and children as slaves.
http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/-/2558/1363526/-/myh0v8z/-/
Intervene before the two Sudans erupt again
THE EAST African region must renew its focus on the uneasy relations between Sudan and South Sudan following reports that Khartoum has started bombing oil wells in the South.
This bombing combined with the ongoing war in the frontline northern states of Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, could easily lead to fresh wars that could destabilise the entire region.
It appears that the international community has abandoned the Sudans after the successful referendum in 2011 that led to the independence of the South.
Yet, the separation was the beginning of a new rivalry that has hindered talks over post-referendum issues that were to see the full implementation of the 2005 peace deal.
The issues include the loosely demarcated north-south border, citizenship, Abyei and wealth-sharing.
The current talks under the auspices of the African Union to bring the two to an amicable solution, needs to be complemented by diplomatic pressure from countries in the region.
Kenya has of late been engaged in shuttle diplomacy to bring the two countries to an understanding.
Uganda has also been engaged in some diplomacy to secure its interests.
For Kenya, the recently signed transport infrastructure joint venture with South Sudan and Ethiopia could be in jeorpady were the two Sudans to resort to war.
While Kenya would want to benefit from the resources in the South, it still maintains a strong bond with the North.
In that sense, Kenya is the best country to bring the two to some level of understanding that would ensure peace in the eastern Africa region.
Sudan’s hidden conflict: Rebels, raids and refugees
Largely hidden from the world’s media, a conflict is raging in the border area between Sudan and the new nation of South Sudan. The BBC’s Martin Plaut reports from the border on the plight of the thousands who have fled their homes and the rebels’ motives.
“I clutched my children to my bosom, when the Antonov bombers came,” says one grandmother, who crossed into South South with her 29 children and grandchildren.
We cannot name her, since she hopes one day to go home.
A scattering of refugee camps along the borders have been erected by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) to serve their needs.
Just one – Jammam refugee camp, in Maban county of Upper Nile state – is home to some 34,000 people.
Col Abdildem Dafalla said he had between 8,000 and 9,000 men fighting across the border in Blue NileIt is estimated that around 100,000 people have fled their homes since the second half of 2011, when the Sudanese government launched an offensive against rebels in Blue Nile and South Kordofan, in the south of Sudan.
Most set off with nothing but the clothes they wore.
Families we spoke to say many of their children and elderly were too weak to make the journey, and died along the way.
First estimates of the scale of the crisis by aid agencies proved inadequate, and the United Nations had to rapidly increase the scale of its operations.
Now a route has been opened through the port of Djibouti and on through Ethiopia and into South Sudan.
It is a journey of six to seven days, but the trucks towing trailers of basic supplies are now arriving to feed these huge camps.
The rebels who are taking on the government in Khartoum are the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-North).
They see themselves as continuing in the footsteps of the movement from which they sprang, the SPLM of the late John Garang, which now runs the newly independent state of South Sudan.
When independence came in July last year, many SPLM forces in Blue Nile and South Kordofan were left stranded in Sudan.
“We have not even requested support or ammunition from any other country because we know we can win this fight” Abdildem DafallaSPLM-North colonel
These areas were supposed to have been allowed a vote to choose autonomy, but this was blocked by Khartoum.
Neroun Philip Aju, the SPLM-North’s humanitarian co-ordinator in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, says the aim is to change the government in Khartoum – not to form another new state.
Fighting is vicious, with refugee after refugee explaining how they have been bombed from the air, with markets being a particular target.
This is likely to intensify as the SPLM-North has concluded an agreement to link up with three rebel movements fighting in Darfur.
A conflict that brings together South Sudan and the west of Sudan could prove a real headache for the authorities in Khartoum.
Until now the SPLM-North has been a somewhat unknown quantity. There are few hard facts about its operations in Blue Nile state and no independent sources of information.
Rebel ammunition in border area waiting to be walked up to front line positionsBut visiting the border area in Maban County, South Sudan, we pieced together a picture of the movement.
We saw no training bases or rebel camps.
This is a military zone and there were plenty of men in uniform from the South Sudan government forces – the rebels we did meet were in civilian clothes.
“If nothing is done we will have a humanitarian disaster” Neroun Philip Aju SPLM-North
In a border village, we ran into Col Abdildem Dafalla of the SPLM-North, who told us he has between 8,000 and 9,000 men fighting in Blue Nile.
“We are moving around. If a specific place is attacked, we move away and then return to it when the Sudan government forces have left.”
Asked whether his forces could win, he was confident: “100%, we’ll win.”
“We have not even requested support or ammunition from any other country because we know we can win this fight,” he said.
The SPLM-North routinely denies receiving support from South Sudan, and the government denies any connection with the rebels.
Juba signed an agreement with Khartoum not to support rebellions in each other’s states, but there are strong suggestions that both sides flout this pact.
Daily life for people in the Sudanese states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan is reported to be dire, with hundreds of thousands of displaced – many living in caves in the hills to avoid aerial bombing which happens day and night.
Supplies are now arriving in South Sudan’s refugee camps, but not in conflict zones across the borderFormer UN official, Mukesh Kapila, who has just visited the area, told the BBC it reminded him of the “terror tactics” he had seen in Darfur.
“We saw whole tracts of deserted countryside and smoke rising from fires where fields of seeds that had been planted had been burnt off, ” he said.
“We saw churches destroyed where people had run to take shelter. And we saw fear, hurt and anger in the eyes of the people we met.”
Mr Aju showed the BBC a document signed by the UN, the African Union and Arab League calling for international aid to be allowed to flow directly into these areas of conflict.
“We have accepted that proposal for the delivery of aid to the affected population and we are waiting for the Sudan government to do the same,” he says.
“March is a deadline. If nothing is done we will have a humanitarian disaster in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.
“If the Sudan government does not accept the proposal, we would ask the international community to put the food in anyway.”
This might mean sending aid in without government approval – something the UN appears to be considering.
This could put the aid agencies in an extremely awkward position, caught between serving the needs of the people and the demands of the states in which they are operating.
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