Humanitarian Crisis in Sudan as Thousands Flee Attacks (villages burned and looted)

Mathaba.net ^ | West Sudan 01/06/2004

[miltonim]

In the last ten days an estimated 5,000 families have fled to the town of Junaynah from militia attacks in Western Darfur, in the far west of Sudan, according to local sources.

Over the weekend between 3,000 and 4,000 people had streamed into the town after their villages were burned and looted by the Khartoum-based northern Arab dictatorship government of Sudan, and were continuing to arrive on Monday, said one source. Many of the displaced are reportedly sleeping in the open without shelter, while some have been taken in by local people.

Since the breakdown of peace talks on 15 December between the government dictatorship and the Darfur Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) rebel group, fighting and militia attacks in all three Darfur states have escalated. In December alone, about 30,000 people fled from militia attacks across the border to neighbouring Chad, bringing the number of refugees there - mostly women and children - to 95,000.

Around one million civilians have already been displaced by the fighting, which dictatorship front-man General Omar Bashir has vowed to "crush" and "wipe out" using any available means.

"We will use the army, the police, the mujahidin (Islamic jihad fighters), the horsemen to get rid of the rebellion," military Generao Omar Bashir said on state-run Sudanese television. A few weeks ago, the offices of the international Arab satellite channel al-Jazeera were raided without warrants, equipment moved, and the Sudan correspondent abducted for several days by the security forces for "false reports on Darfur".

The dictatorship position is that the pro-democracy rebels are "armed bandits and criminals" and not a legitimate response to the excesses of one of Africa's most brutal dictatorships.

An SLA spokesman, Dahar Ibrahim, said that on 2 January about 225 men, women and children had been killed by Arab militias mounted on horses and camels in the village of Sorrah, about 15 km outside of Zalingei, Western Darfur. Describing the attack as "ethnic cleansing", he said the inhabitants of the town were mainly from the Fur ethnic group.

Dar-Fur means "home of the Fur's" which are a black African non-Arab people who are Muslim by religion.

Meanwhile, rebels reportedly attacked the village of Sharaya in Southern Darfur on 2 January, killing between four and six policemen and soldiers, and looting a local market.

Regional analysts say a political solution, based around devolution of power and equitable sharing of resources, is necessary to resolve Darfur's decades of economic and political neglect. However, there is no pressure on the dictatorship as the United States appears only interested in signing a peace deal with the oil rich south of the country.

Promising removal of the dictatorship from the list of rogue states which sponsor terrorism, U.S. President George W. Bush has urged the dictatorship government and the main rebel movement in the southern oil rich area, the SPLA, to sign a peace agreement, preferably in Washington, in the coming days, to end more than 20 years of continuous fighting between the SPLA and the regime.

Other rebel movements and civil society pro-democracy groups have no say in these negotiations however, and the two sides already agreed in recent days to split the profits from oil in two equal shares between them, leaving nothing for the rest of Africa's largest country nor any clear program on democracy and human rights.

Separate December peace talks with the Darfur SLA fell apart after Chadian mediators accused the rebels of upping their demands to include the creation of an autonomous state in Darfur and a percentage of the oil revenues.

The SLA has denied the charge. The SLA spokesman, Dahar Ibrahim, said that a delegation sent to the Chadian capital, Ndjamena, had neither met the government delegation nor disclosed any of its demands to the Chadian negotiators, whom it views as being too friendly with Khartoum.

Observers do not put much weight on the honesty of the Chadi negotiators either, since the dictatorship in Chad, similar in ethnic make up to that in Sudan, was installed with the help of the Sudanese regime and is allied with it.

Following preliminary and informal talks, Dahar said the Chadi mediators had told the SLA to go home. "They said they believed we could not reach an agreement, so we were told to go back to Darfur. We were surprised," said Dahar. "How did they come to this conclusion?"

Regional analysts believe the talks may have collapsed due to a lack of willingness on the part of the Sudanese government dictatorship to "internationalise" them, by allowing international monitors to take part.

The SLA has repeatedly demanded the presence of international observers during peace talks; the protection of civilians and the guaranteed safe passage of humanitarian relief; and international observers to monitor a future ceasefire.

In a statement released after the breakdown of the talks, it also proposed including the negotiations in the peace process being sponsored by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development between the Sudanese regime and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement - expected to reach an agreement this month after American pressure - and called on the UN to form a committee to investigate massacres in Darfur.

Neither Darfur's second rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement, nor the militias have been included in peace talks to date. Regional analysts accuse militias of perpetrating gross human rights abuses including the killing of several thousand people.

In December alone, up to 30,000 people fled into neighbouring Chad. The United Nations Childrens agency, UNICEF, estimates that up to 750,000 people have been displaced from the Darfur region because of fighting.