Killing goes on as Sudan lies to world and defies UN

Key quote
"Despite a cease-fire signed in April between the Sudanese government and two rebel groups, fighting in Sudan’s Darfur region continues to displace civilians who say they are innocent victims" - UN spokeswoman

Story in full SUDANESE government forces and Arab militia have launched a fresh wave of murderous attacks on black African villagers in Darfur in defiance of demands from the United Nations and the United States for an end to the fighting.

Fleeing refugees have described how villages in south eastern Darfur were bombed by Antonov aircraft and helicopter gunships before Janjaweed militia men in pick-up trucks and riding horses and camels swarmed into the villages, killing men, women and children, raping women, stealing property and animals, and setting houses alight.

Survivors say that the attacks took place last week, while Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, and Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, were visiting the country to demand an end to the genocide which aid workers have warned could result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

The UN High Commission for Refugees said more than 100 desperate people had fled the latest killings and braved heavy fighting to make it to a refugee camp at Kalma, near Nyala, the capital of South Darfur.

At least 40,000 people are living in the camp and aid agencies say they are struggling to provide food, water and medical care to the displaced people, who include many severely malnourished babies.

A UN spokeswoman said that the latest attacks on villages came as the Sudanese government and Janjaweed militia launched a fresh offensive against two rebel groups in breach of a cease-fire agreement signed in April. Rebel groups have warned that they will retaliate if the Khartoum regime continues to break the cease-fire.

She said: "Despite a cease-fire signed in April between the Sudanese government and two rebel groups, fighting in Sudan’s Darfur region continues to displace civilians who say they are innocent victims."

The UNHCR also released details of an attack on aid workers inside nearby Chad, where tens of thousands of refugees have fled.

On Sunday a group from Norwegian Church Aid, which is based in Iriba about 50km from the Chad-Sudan border, were kidnapped by armed men as they drove from the nearby Touloum camp to Iridimi camp a short distance from the town. They were later released and their vehicle stolen. The identity of the attackers is not known.

Yesterday John Bercow, the shadow international development secretary who has recently returned from an all-party trip to Khartoum and Darfur, called on the British government to consider backing military action to halt the genocide.

"Only when you apply pressure to the regime will you get results," he said. "It is a mistake to rule out military action.

"The government of Sudan are not gentlemen who abide by the Queensberry Rules. You have to bring pressure to bear on them."

He said he had written to Hilary Benn, the International Development Secretary, to ask what had become of the Prime Minister’s pledges to consider a no-fly zone in the region.

Tony Blair yesterday reiterated his claim that Britain was doing all it could to end the crisis.

"We’re doing our level best in Africa," he said. "It’s a very serious situation. The situation in Sudan is still very, very serious."

At a meeting of the African Union yesterday Kofi Annan warned African leaders that the humanitarian crisis in Darfur may lead to "a catastrophe that could destabilise the region" if they did not take action.

"The ruined villages, the camps overflowing with sick and hungry women and children and the fear in the eyes of the people should be a clear warning to all of us," he said.

In response, the African Union said it would send 300 troops to protect refugees in Sudan and Chad and to protect military observers monitoring the supposed cease-fire in Darfur.

READERS of The Scotsman have now donated £49,000 to the UNICEF Children of Sudan Emergency appeal - nearly five times the amount anticipated when the newspaper joined forces with the charity.

UNICEF says it is optimistic that the total will break through the £50,000 barrier before the end of the week.

Denise McNiven, fundraising manager for the charity in Scotland, said: "This will make an enormous difference to the children that are surviving in such difficult conditions."

UNICEF is using the money to supply water, repair and install hand pumps, distribute blankets, shelter, jerry cans, cooking pots, bowls and many other basic relief items.

The Sudan situation is textbook Moslem genocide of non-Moslems.

Trading in the Blood Oil of Sudan
by Nat Hentoff
April 26th, 2001
On April 3, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney testified before a hearing of the Subcommittee on Africa and the Joint Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights. The subject was Sudan. "At the heart of the suffering is oil from the oil-rich southern regions of Sudan, which is being pumped out of Sudan through the port of Khartoum for consumption by the West... And all the while," she went on, "Western oil companies continue to operate within the human rights disaster we call Sudan and pump their precious black gold. We in the West might as well be filling our gas tanks with blood from the hundreds of thousand of poor souls who have lost their lives in Sudan. . . . Amnesty International reported that a shipment of Polish battle tanks arrived in Sudan on the day the first export of oil left the Port of Khartoum. . . . There is no doubt that Sudan's oil shipments are being reinvested in their ongoing war in the south."
Khartoum Savours the Sweet Smell of New Money
Vanessa Gordon
African Church Information Service
April 17, 2001
War, drought and reckless oil exploitation threaten the lives of millions of people in the Sudan... The pipeline, marked every 500 meters by yellow or red warning signs, is buried under a low vault of earth changing from black to dusty red as it ploughs through different soil types. Whatever its colour, the pipeline is watched over by military check points every five kilometres with additional mobile units walking up and down the road at all times. This pipeline, running an amazing 1,600 kilometre, is the vulnerable main artery of the Sudanese government's newly found riches and rebels must be kept away from it at any cost... The last couple of years the Sudanese army and allied militias have been waging a savage war in Upper Nile, leaving the areas around oil installations and supply roads virtually empty of the original population. Hundreds have been killed in attacks on civilian villages... Starved and displaced, the legitimate owners of this oil rich land are at the mercy of the bush and the occasional relief agency... Recently detailed reports from journalists, human rights organisations and the British charity Christian Aid have presented first hand testimony to the fact, that the oil exploitation is causing massive human suffering and has deepened the crisis in Sudan... Other major foreign players include Chinese and Malaysian companies as well as British and German suppliers of pipelines, pump stations and other essential equipment. Among the allegations against companies such as Sweden's Lundin Oil or Canada's Talisman Energy are eyewitness accounts to the effect that oil company roads and airfields are being used by government forces when they attack people living in the oil areas... Carl Bildt, a former Swedish prime minister and currently a UN representative to the Balkans, sits on the board of Lundin Oil... The displaced, like 99.9 percent of the Sudanese population, live way outside the oil bubble's posh mansions, and cannot even dream of ever hanging out in Internet cafes. Where they live, not even snail mail would reach.
China puts '700,000 troops' on Sudan alert
by Christina Lamb, Diplomatic Correspondent
Sunday 27 August 2000
Col Johnny Garang's Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) has managed in recent weeks to advance within 10 miles of the oilfields in the Upper Nile region, causing the country's Islamic regime to activate emergency plans drawn up with allies whose interests in the oil project are directly under threat.

These plans aim to crush the rebels from the mainly Christian and animist south and bring to an end the 17-year civil war that has cost an estimated two million lives. Since oil production began last year arms have been arriving from Libya, Qatar and China. The ruling National Islamic Front (NIF) is spending £300 million a year of its oil revenues on weapons, according to western intelligence sources.

An internal document from the Sudanese military said that as many as 700,000 Chinese security personnel were available for action. Three flights a week have been taking the Chinese into Sudan since work on the oilfields started three years ago. Diplomats in Khartoum, however, cast doubt on the numbers.
Sudanese Want U.S. Policy Change
With President Clinton in office, Washington lambasted President Omar el-Bashir's government for being an oppressive, undemocratic sponsor of terrorism that carried out gross human rights violations and condoned slavery. Sudanese officials in turn accused Washington of being ignorant of Sudan and supporting the Sudan People's Liberation Army rebels, while simplifying the conflict as one between northern Muslim, Arabs, and the black, Christian south. The war has claimed some 2 million lives since it broke out in 1983. The United States has not had an ambassador in Sudan since February 1996; Sudan's ambassador to the United States was recalled in 1998. Relations were not always so poor. Sudan, a huge country that bridges black Africa and the Arab world, was the biggest sub-Saharan Africa recipient of U.S. aid from 1974 to 1989. But relations soured after el-Bashir came to power in a bloodless coup in 1989. In contrast to the United States, European countries are moving to re-establish relations with Sudan.
6 nations scored for abuse of faith
Agence France-Presse
March 6, 2003
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday designated six nations as "countries of particular concern" for abuses of religious freedom but rejected widespread calls for Saudi Arabia to be included on the list. Mr. Powell identified China, Iran, Iraq, Burma, North Korea and Sudan as such -- the same six he designated last year -- keeping in place the possibility of sanctions against them... However, his decision not to designate Saudi Arabia, which bans nearly all forms of non-Muslim worship, as an punishable violator of religious rights was clearly the most significant information imparted by the statement... Saudi Arabia, a key Persian Gulf ally, is likely to play a major role in any conflict given its geography and the presence of thousands of U.S. troops there... "We're not going to list them, but we are going to press them on this," a senior official said on the condition of anonymity on Monday. "We think there is an opportunity to push really hard this year." ...Although the Saudi government had given indications it was willing to allow non-Muslims to worship in private, U.S. officials said the pledge had never been codified or clarified and that non-Muslims continued to suffer harassment, including assaults and the confiscation of religious material.

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