Starting Points: Sudan

Showing posts with label Sudan. Show all posts

Jan 24, 2011

Abyei, Sudan's potential tinderbox

By Rebecca Hamilton
Monday, January 24, 2011; A06

IN ABYEI, SUDAN Southern Sudan brimmed with optimism after a largely peaceful referendum this month that almost certainly will lead to the creation of a new nation. But in the contested border town of Abyei, the mood was somber.

In a mud-walled hut, Achol Deng Ngok stacked layers of kissera, a sorghum pancake, she had prepared to send to men north of town. Two weeks ago, clashes in the area left at least 36 people dead.

"We are scared, that's why we're sending our men food - so they stay in the villages north of here to protect us," she said.

But Ngok said she has an even bigger fear: "We don't want to be left behind when the south gets its independence."

That fear is pushing the Ngok Dinka, the town's dominant ethnic group, to consider declaring Abyei part of the south, even though they know that move might provoke the north to try to take Abyei by force.

Sudan's predominantly Muslim and Arab north and the largely Christian and animist south fought a 22-year war that led to the deaths of 2 million people. If Abyei's status is left unresolved, the area will be caught between two nations, possibly triggering a return to conflict in Sudan.

A 2005 peace agreement, which ended the war, promised the people of Abyei their own referendum on whether to be part of the north or south. The Abyei referendum was supposed to be held simultaneously with the main southern referendum, but the two sides failed to agree on who was eligible to vote.

Results of the main referendum are expected next month, but the Abyei referendum has been postponed indefinitely.

"If Abyei remains unresolved and the south secedes," said Jon Temin, director of Sudan programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace, "the people of Abyei will be left in a very ambiguous and vulnerable position."

The agreement that ended the first Sudanese civil war in 1972 gave people here the opportunity to claim Abyei as a southern area, reversing a decree made during British colonial rule that had put it under northern administration.

But after oil was discovered in Abyei, the Sudanese government refused to let the referendum go forward.

This time, the Ngok Dinka have decided to issue their own declaration.

"We want to be clear that Abyei is part of the south and we want to belong to the south," said Kuol Deng Kuol, paramount chief of the Ngok Dinka. Nomadic grazing

While the Ngok Dinka say Abyei belongs to the south, another group is equally adamant that it belongs to the north.

Each year the Misseriya, a northern nomadic group, migrate southward to graze their cattle near a river south of Abyei. The River Kiir, as the Ngok Dinka call it, or Bahr al-Arab, as the Misseriya term it, is a lifeline during the harsh dry season.

Historically, the two groups managed a relatively peaceful coexistence. But during the war years, that relationship frayed as governments in Khartoum armed the Misseriya to fight against the southern population.

The 2005 peace agreement promised the Misseriya continued grazing rights in Abyei regardless of whether the land ended up in the north or the south. The Ngok Dinka say they support that provision.

But in a phone interview, Misseriya leader Sadig Babo Nimir said grazing rights will mean nothing if Abyei goes to the south.

If the Ngok Dinka want to go to the south, he said, "let them go with pleasure. If they want to stay, let them stay with pleasure. But the land is part of the north."

These conflicting views are reflected at the national level, partly due to rumors about oil. While the one remaining oilfield in Abyei is in decline, U.S. oil exploration here in the early 1980s still prompts speculation that there are untapped reserves.

On the southern side, the secretary general of the ruling party, the Southern People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), Pagan Amum, has said that if the Abyei referendum is not conducted, the only remaining option is for Abyei to be transferred to the south by presidential decree. On the northern side, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has said he will not accept Abyei being part of the south.

The Ngok Dinka say they fear that if they do not make their declaration before the votes are counted in the southern referendum, they will miss their chance to join the south.

"There is still time to find a political solution if President Bashir wishes to do so," said Rou Manyiel, chairman of civil society organizations in Abyei.

But with the referendum commission expected to announce the results by Feb. 14, the clock is ticking.

The Ngok Dinka were ready to make their declaration before voting started on Jan. 9. But two high-level officials from the SPLM persuaded them to hold off.

The officials said a declaration before the referendum would give the north "an excuse to disrupt" the vote, said Juac Agok, deputy chairman of the SPLM in Abyei.

The SPLM is now asking them to wait until after July 9, when southern independence would formally begin.

But Agok said, "I don't think it will be possible for me to convince the people of Abyei to wait." Peacekeeping challenge

Politicians in both north and south have accused each other of sending troops to the area around Abyei. Experts worry that violence in the contested borderland would be difficult to rein in.

"If unresolved, Abyei will continue to be a source of instability, risking broader escalation," said Zach Vertin, Sudan analyst at the International Crisis Group.

The Ngok Dinka leaders are preparing their people for the possibility of a Khartoum-backed attempt by the Misseriya to take Abyei.

"We are appealing to all the sons of Abyei to be aware of this, and telling them they should defend their family and property," said Kuol, the Ngok Dinka chief.

Misseriya leader Nimir denied that the group has any plan for a takeover, and said that far from feeling supported by Bashir, the Misseriya feel betrayed by the government for having agreed to an Abyei referendum in the first place.

But Nimir also said that if the Ngok Dinka declare that Abyei belongs to the south, "then we will defend our land by force."

Hamilton is a special correspondent in Sudan on a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Jan 16, 2011

A Sudanese 'lost boy' brings his dreams home

By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 16, 2011; A10

IN JUBA, SUDAN Abraham Akoi strolled confidently through a door marked with a sticker that read: "Secession."

The tall, rail-thin D.C. resident walked up the stairs of the Ministry of Finance here in southern Sudan, entering a world he had never expected to enter.

As he walked into his office, another man smiled and declared: "Separation!" Hazy sunlight glinted on the man's purple-shaded thumb, a sign that he had just voted.

That morning, Akoi, too, had taken part in Sudan's historic week-long referendum, which ended Saturday. He had voted for the south to secede from the north, as most people in this region were expected to do.

For Akoi, it was the latest stop in an extraordinary journey. It began with a dangerous walk across mountains and deserts when as a child he fled a civil war. It stretched to refugee camps and prestigious American universities and now unfolds back here amid great hope and trepidation over what could soon become the world's newest country.

"I still can't believe that I am here," said Akoi, 31.

Ten years ago, Akoi stepped off a plane in Atlanta, one of several thousand "lost boys" whose hardship and escape from Sudan's brutal 22-year conflict captured the imagination of Americans. Thousands of southern Sudanese were resettled in the United States, and most struggled to blend into their adopted communities. But many, like Akoi, excelled.

Akoi earned a degree in history and economics from the University of the South in Tennessee, then a master's degree in government and an MBA from Johns Hopkins University. He had internships at the Carter Center in Atlanta and with Rep. Donald M. Payne (D-N.J.), who has championed causes in Africa.

Today, Akoi's life has come full circle. Southern Sudanese living in the United States could have voted in several U.S. cities. But Akoi and many other "lost boys" chose to return to their homeland to vote and help propel it into its next era.

"It is a fulfillment of a mission we for so long have yearned to accomplish," said Valentino Achak Deng, whose own journey was portrayed in the novel "What Is the What." "It is a day when I feel like someone has finally given me my voice. It was important for us to be here, to be on this soil." 'Thinking about the past'

The day Akoi voted, the memories flooded back: fleeing his village at the age of 11. Walking, hungry and tired, to neighboring Ethiopia. Fleeing militias and bombers. Then returning to southern Sudan, only to flee again to a refugee camp in Kenya. Learning that his father and three brothers had died in the war.

As he stepped up to the cardboard booth to cast his vote, his hands shook.

"I was thinking about the past, all that we've been through," Akoi said. "I voted on behalf of all who lost their lives. I voted for my brothers."

He paused and added: "I looked at the ballot for a few seconds, as if it would fly away, and then I dropped it into the box."

In a couple of weeks, he'll know whether his dreams of secession will come true. If the referendum passes, as expected, southern Sudan will declare its independence in July.

On a recent day, Akoi drove through Juba. He noted how much the capital has improved since his first visit back, in 2009.

A few years ago, "this road was not paved," he said with pride.

He pointed at a sign for a local relief agency: "That was started by Sudanese in the U.S.," he said.

Akoi knows that significant challenges lie ahead. So many key issues dictating the relationship between north and south remain unresolved. Will the oil-producing border region of Abyei, contested by both sides, erupt into war? Will revenue from Sudan's massive oil reserves, the majority in the south, be shared equitably?

"Our political and financial institutions are weak," he said. "Civil liberties are not strong. There are no good hospitals and no good supply of medicines.

"And only 15 percent of south Sudanese know how to read and write. That's not very good for democracy."

Like most southern Sudanese, Akoi blamed Sudan's government, which is dominated by an Arab elite, for the region's woes. For decades, the Khartoum government sought to repress the south. Akoi noted how the vast majority of universities were located in the north. "We can't have good governance if the institutions of higher learning are not there," he said.

Akoi has already begun playing a role in shaping his homeland. He has declined to seek the six-figure salaries in the United States that come with earning an MBA. Instead he has chosen to live here and work with the government. His current job in the Ministry of Finance is to make sure government ministries and departments spend money efficiently and according to the annual budget. Water and mangoes

It's a delicate balancing act. The government is led by and filled with former rebels who have little experience. Corruption is rife; jobs are often handed out based on tribal allegiances. And despite his history, many perceive Akoi as an outsider.

"How do I tell them what to do without them thinking that I am some guy from the U.S. talking big? It's a very tough job," he said.

A few months ago, as global oil prices fell, he told officials they had to cut spending.

"They were not happy, but I had to do it," Akoi said. "They didn't understand that the oil revenues were based on market prices. They thought they would always get the same price."

Salva Kiir Mayardit, south Sudan's president, has tapped Akoi to become the deputy director of administration and finance - a sign that the government is reaching out to qualified technocrats in the diaspora. Many of southern Sudan's educated professionals, including lawyers, doctors and economists, died in the war or fled the region.

Akoi vowed not to be influenced by corrupt bureaucrats.

"I have a commitment and integrity to do the right thing for south Sudan," he said. "Our biggest challenge is creating a system that is bigger than one person, to create a system that will stand the test of time."

On most weekends, Akoi walks along the banks of the Nile, which snakes through Juba. When he looks at the lush mango trees, he sees the potential for southern Sudan to export their fruit. When he looks at the brown waters, he sees the potential to harness hydropower to light up the electricity-starved region.

"When I look at the water and the mangoes, they are indicators of how beautiful south Sudan is," Akoi said. "This is a place where people should not go hungry. If you plant anything here, it will grow."

Apr 2, 2010

Michael Gerson - Putting a face on Sudan's legacy of slavery - washingtonpost.com

Image by talkradionews via Flickr

By Michael Gerson
Friday, April 2, 2010; A19

ROUM ROL, SOUTH SUDAN

For those used to seeing the faces of slaves in Civil War-era tintypes -- staring at the camera in posed, formal judgment -- it is a shock to see the face of slavery in a shy, adolescent boy.

Majok Majok Dhal, 14 or 15 years old (many former slaves have no idea of their exact age), dimly remembers his capture in the village of Mareng at about age 5. "I ran a little and was taken. I was carried on horseback." He recalls seeing other captives shot and killed after refusing to march north with the raiders into Sudan proper. His master, Atheib, was "not a good person." He forced the boy to tend goats and live with them in a stable. Majok was beaten regularly with a bamboo stick, "if I was not quick and fast." He recalls once being feverish and unable to work. The master "stabbed my leg with a knife. He said, 'I will cut your throat.' " Majok shows me his poorly healed wound. He was forced to address Atheib as "father."

Image via Wikipedia

Relating his experience, Majok shows no anger -- until asked about the master's children. "When they beat me up, I couldn't raise my head. If I tried to fight back, the father would kill me." He recounts their taunting. "They would say to me, 'Why don't you go to your own home and eat?' " Majok's voice rises: "If he brought me all the way to take care of goats and cattle, why did he not employ his own children?"

I talk to Majok through an interpreter, under a large tamarind tree, in a setting as bleak as his story. The scenery tests every possible shade of brown: reddish brown, yellowish brown, greenish brown. It is a landscape of thatched, conical huts; circling scavenger birds; rutted mud roads; and wandering goats. A haze of fine red dust blurs the horizon.

Nearby, about 125 recently released slaves are being interviewed by Christian Solidarity International, an organization that has helped redeem and resettle tens of thousands of captives during the past 15 years. Though no more slaves are being taken by northern militias -- the raids generally stopped with the American-sponsored peace treaty in 2005 -- an estimated tens of thousands more are still held within a hundred miles of South Sudan's northern border.

Image by talkradionews via Flickr

The background of each man, woman and child at the makeshift camp is recorded, reflecting a determination by CSI that none of these people, and none of the crimes they have experienced, be forgotten. A woman is missing teeth from being tied and thrown to the ground. Others reluctantly admit that their genitals were mutilated. One woman tells me she is often awakened by her nightmares.

Slavery is only the most extreme legacy of Sudan's two decades of civil war. With patience, nearly every personal encounter reveals a story of struggle. A pastor tells me how his congregation met for 15 years under a tree so they could quickly move to avoid bombing raids. Cattle herds -- the main source of stored wealth in South Sudan -- were decimated. An estimated 40 percent of people in this region depend on food aid of some sort. There is almost no public health infrastructure. A Sudanese doctor tells me that about every two weeks he diagnoses a new case of leprosy -- a condition almost unknown in the West. Women in rural areas play fertility roulette -- a local aid official estimates that one in six will die from complications during childbirth.

Image by talkradionews via Flickr

Just months from South Sudan's likely vote for independence, its humanitarian challenges seem overwhelming. International relief organizations provide many services, but the greater need is the building of local capacity -- agricultural development, trained government administrators, a credible national teaching hospital. Direct international aid in the form of cash can encourage local corruption. But technical assistance to build specific capabilities might be the only way to avoid the destructive failure of a new nation. Still, as one U.S. State Department official recently vented to me, "We are doing about 10 percent of what we need to do."

Without leaving the planet, it would be difficult to experience greater cultural distance than meeting a Sudanese goatherd released from slavery. But my main impression of Majok was his profound resemblance to my sons of similar age. It is a hopeful thing about humanity. In a timid smile, in a turn of the head, we see similarity, we see family. We should also see responsibility.

mgerson@globalengage.org

Read more stories and see images from Michael Gerson's trip to Sudan.

Mar 31, 2010

Deal Making in Sudan | Enough

Image via Wikipedia

Deal Making in Sudan | Enough

Mar 30, 2010

Southern Sudan prepares for freedom – and puts dream of skyscrapers on hold - The Guardian

Image by Water For Sudan via Flickr

Southern Sudan prepares for freedom – and puts dream of skyscrapers on hold - The Guardian

Feb 23, 2010

Sudan parties sign Darfur ceasefire

Al-Bashir, right, arrived in Qatar on Monday to sign the deal, which the Gulf state has brokered [AFP]

Sudan's largest opposition group has signed a peace deal with the government that could end the conflict in Darfur.

Preliminary documents setting out the terms of the deal, signed in Qatar on Tuesday, appeared to offer government positions for the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem).

The documents were the first concrete sign that Khartoum is prepared to share power with the group.

Zeina Awad, Al Jazeera's correspondent, reporting from Doha, said that while the positions could be part of the deal, Jem could also emerge as an opposition group.

"There is some form of a political deal being discussed," she said.

"But the larger point is that Jem looks like its repositioning itself in Sudanese politics to become an important political player - either in the government or perhaps as a leading opposition group."

'More negotiations'

Image via Wikipedia

The conflict in Darfur, which has pitched ethnic African tribesmen against the Arab-dominated Khartoum government, has raged far the last seven years.

in depth


	Timeline: The ICC and Sudan
	Timeline: Darfur crisis
	Profile: Omar al-Bashir
	Riz Khan: Ignoring Sudan?
	Riz Khan: Sudan's interlocking crises
	Inside Story: Sliding back into civil war
	The role of the ICC
	Drought and conflict in South Sudan
	Who are Sudan's Jem rebels?

While numerous ceasefires agreements in the past have been short-lived, analysts say that the forthcoming elections in Sudan and increased international pressure could give this initiative a better chance of survival.

But officials warned a March 15 deadline for a final peace deal was overly ambitious.

"After the agreement is signed, the rest will come through more negotiations," said Adrees Mahmoud, a Europe-based Jem representative, who was in Qatar for the signing.

El Sadig el-Faqih, a former adviser to Sudan's president, who was also in Qatar, told Al Jazeera the move was a "framework to start discussing the details" and a peace deal could only go ahead when all parties were involved.

"It is essential for all parties to be part of it and I think the mediators are working diligently to realise this fact ... it is important to include everybody," he said.

"It is a framework, it is not the final peace agreement yet."

Darfur's other main armed group, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), is refusing to talk to the government, demanding an end to all violence before negotiations begin.

'Significant move'

The year-old Doha negotations have seen the dozens of smaller anti-government factions coalesce into two main groups to unify their demands.

Those groups have been irked by the separate ceasefire with Jem, but Sudan's government insisted it is committed to an inclusive peace deal.

"We believe that Darfur can't be solved bilaterally. We hope we can negotiate with the other groups to reach a final and comprehensive agreement," Amin Hassan Omar, the government official leading the negotiations, said.

The US has hailed the ceasefire deal as a "significant move" towards formal negotiations.

"The agreed ceasefire between the government of Sudan and Jem is an important first step toward reducing violence in Darfur," Philip Crowley, the US state department spokesman, said in a statement.

US officials will attend the signing, as will UN and Arab representatives and Idriss Deby, the president of Chad.

Controversial guest

Omar al-Bashir, Sudan's president, arrived in Qatar on Monday to formally sign the deal with Jem.

He has been charged with seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur by the International Criminal Court (ICC), but Qatar is not a member of the ICC and has no legal obligation to arrest him.

The conflict in Darfur has ebbed over the last year and the peace deal has been bolstered by improved relations between Sudan and Chad, which have often accused each other of supporting armed groups in each others' territories.

The peace agreement is being signed in the run-up to Sudan's first multiparty elections in 24 years.

Jem, whose leader Khalil Ibrahim was a Sudan government minister before he joined the Darfur uprising, is already pressing the government to postpone the elections so that it can take part in the vote, set for April.

Darfur's seven-year conflict has claimed some 300,000 lives - both from the fighting, as well as famine and disease - and left 2.7 million refugees, according to UN figures.

Sudan puts the death toll at 10,000.

Dec 31, 2009

Letter From Khartoum

Image via Wikipedia

Sudan’s Empty Election

Rebecca Hamilton

REBECCA HAMILTON is a Fellow at the Open Society Institute, a Visiting Fellow at the National Security Archive, and the author of a forthcoming book on the impact of advocacy on Darfur policy.

At a clandestine meeting in a nondescript Khartoum suburb, a man started reading a list of numbers to me. "Between the census conducted in 1983 and the one conducted in 1993, the nomadic population in South Darfur decreased by just over 5.5 percent," my informant summarized. "This was largely due to the drought, which led to a loss of livestock and forced many nomads into the towns." He resumed his list of numbers. "If we are to believe the recent census, this same nomadic population has increased by 322 percent."

Last year's census was conducted to determine how many parliamentary seats would be allocated to each geographical area in Sudan's April 2010 election. Sudan's ruling party refused to release its raw census data, but anomalies like this one are widespread. With numbers unexpectedly high among populations that support the current regime and lower than anticipated in opposition-dominated regions, many Sudanese believe that the census has been manipulated for political purposes. Distorted census figures like these are just one of many tactics being used to ensure that next year's election will come out in favor of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), led by Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, an indicted war criminal.

Over the past few years, international engagement with Sudan has focused on the western region of Darfur, where more than 200,000 civilians died and 2.7 million remain displaced as a result of a conflict that the U.S. government characterized as genocide. The catastrophic events in Darfur certainly warranted international attention, but this attention came at the cost of monitoring other important domestic developments. While the global spotlight has focused on Darfur, Bashir has been quietly consolidating power, emulating such despots as Hugo Chávez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who have adopted the trappings of democracy while working to subvert it.

Bashir belongs to the Jaali -- one of the northern riverine Arab tribes that, despite being a minority, have maintained control of Sudanese political life for as long as anyone can remember. In 1989, Bashir and his allies launched a military coup that overthrew the democratically elected prime minister, Sadiq al-Mahdi. Once in power, Bashir banned political parties, dissolved trade unions, and prohibited demonstrations. He was reelected after running unopposed in 1996 and again, with 86.5 percent of the vote, in 2000 -- the second rigged election of his tenure.

Sudanese politics are best understood as a struggle for control by an elite center over a vast and marginalized periphery -- a long-standing dynamic that was entrenched under British rule, from 1899 to 1956. During Bashir's reign, the most visible manifestation of this center-periphery tension has been the civil war between his NCP government and the main opposition group in the country's south, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) -- a conflict that led to the deaths of two million people over the course of two decades. And it was just as this war was coming to an end that rebel groups in Darfur took up arms to fight for representation in their marginalized area of the country.

The idea of a democratic election was put on the Sudanese agenda largely at the behest of the United States during negotiations to bring the north-south war to an end. The concluding document of those negotiations, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), was signed in January 2005. It set out an ambitious program for a multistage transition period to democratic rule and promised southerners a referendum on secession from Sudan in 2011.

At the time, neither the NCP nor the SPLM was particularly keen to hold an election that risked diminishing the seat allocations assigned to them for the pre-election period. But the U.S. government insisted there could be no democratic transformation of Sudan unless citizens went to the polls. Steeped in U.S. President George W. Bush's foreign policy agenda of democracy promotion, the architects of this grand vision focused not only on representation for the marginalized south but envisaged citizens in all of Sudan's peripheral areas voting for representatives who would serve their interests.

Back in 2005, there was a compelling logic to this. The six-year interim period between the signing of the CPA and the 2011 referendum was designed to sell southerners on the benefits of remaining part of a unified Sudan. They would see development in their region, the theory went, and get a taste of a new Sudan -- where repressive laws would be revoked and human rights would be respected. A national election held halfway through the period would reinforce these changes, and southerners would have over two years between the election and the referendum to experience life under democratic rule.

But nearly five years later, progress toward democratization has, if anything, gone into reverse. It is already clear that if the election takes place in April 2010, it will be under conditions that make a mockery of democratic principles. And since the elections have been delayed on multiple occasions, they are now scheduled to take place a mere eight months before the referendum in which southerners are almost certain to vote for independence. The international community is pouring millions of dollars into the formation of a government that will likely be dissolved just months after taking office.

Driving into town from Khartoum's international airport, visitors are greeted by a slew of pro-NCP billboards featuring heavily airbrushed images of Bashir in military or religious attire. "Bashir is our dignity!" they proclaim. Even Bashir's indictment by the International Criminal Court has been spun by the NCP. As the state-run media tell it, Bashir's indictment was an attack on the Sudanese people; voting for him, therefore, is an act of patriotism.

Image via Wikipedia

Meanwhile, for Sudan's opposition parties, making even the most basic political statement entails extreme risk. In mid-August, I met with Hassan al-Turabi, a key Islamist involved in orchestrating the 1989 military coup that brought Bashir to power. (They later had a falling out after Bashir suspected Turabi of plotting to overthrow him.) Midway through our interview, one of his several attendants insisted he take an urgent call. The leader of the Sudan Congress Party, a minor opposition group, was being detained by Sudan's omnipresent security services for trying to hold a public meeting. "How can we hold an election if we can't even hold a meeting?" Turabi asked. "We are living under an absolute dictatorship."

As a former host to Osama bin Laden, Turabi is not the most trustworthy of characters, but when it comes to the topic of repression, he is not exaggerating. Sudan's National Security Act has long enabled security forces to detain anyone without any justification for renewable periods of up to 90 days. Parliament has "reformed" the law to reduce the time detainees can be held, but the NCP-controlled intelligence service retains the power to detain its opponents. This means that the "ghost houses," where intelligence agents torture detainees, are unlikely to disappear.

The government may not be willing to reform repressive laws, but it is prepared to use its largesse to attempt to reform potential dissidents. The first thing I noticed at the Khartoum residence of the former Darfur rebel Minni Minawi was the Sudanese government license plate on his brand-new black Mercedes. Appointed a presidential adviser after being the only rebel leader to sign the ill-fated 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement, Minawi has been living comfortably in Khartoum, doing nothing for those he once claimed to represent.

Most dispiriting of all my meetings was the one with Ghazi Suleiman -- the man once referred to as "the godfather of human rights in Sudan." Responding to allegations of rape in Darfur, Suleiman now parrots Bashir's line, "They are all false. . . . I have been to Darfur and met a woman who had claimed she was raped," he said. "I asked her what does this word 'rape' mean? She had no answer." It seemed fruitless to point out that a woman who had been raped might not want to tell her traumatic story to a skeptical male stranger. According to Suleiman, "Now is the best time in the history of Sudan."

For those who cannot be co-opted, intimidation seems to be the NCP's preferred tactic. While I was in Khartoum, the government threatened to lift the parliamentary immunity of Yasir Arman, the head of the SPLM's northern delegation, for speaking out against public order laws. These vaguely worded morality laws serve as ideal vehicles for harassing anyone who has fallen out of favor with the government. "Yasir Arman is an MP, a prominent figure -- and they manage to bully him," said Salih Mahmoud Osman, a globally acclaimed human rights activist and a member of the Sudanese parliament. "Imagine what it is like for ordinary people. How can they possibly vote freely? "We've been hearing the U.S. government has agreed to donate $21 million for elections. We know the Carter Center has been holding workshops. But elections are supposed to be about the will of the people. To hold an election in this climate . . ." Osman's voice trailed off in despair.

Sudanese citizens are being asked to go to the polls for their first "democratic" election in over two decades under decidedly undemocratic circumstances. Even in the semi-autonomous south of the country, where repression is less overt, potential voters face significant hurdles. In an area where the UN reports a literacy rate of 24 percent (only 12 percent for women), voters are being asked to complete 12 separate ballots. Members of the international community -- which has signed up to fund a significant portion of the election (the UN has just announced a $91 million donation to the Bashir-appointed National Elections Commission) -- must ask whether they should be supporting this election at all. As one Sudanese academic who requested anonymity put it: "Elections with what objective? Legitimating an illegitimate regime?"

Bashir and the NCP have maneuvered themselves into something of a win-win situation. If the election goes forward, they are assured of a victory; if the election does not take place, they stay in power. As the NCP sees it, the key difference is that if the election happens, the indicted war criminal Bashir will become the democratically elected Bashir, granting the ruling regime a veneer of legitimacy. For Sudanese citizens and their outside supporters, this will undermine any push for a true democratic transformation.

While the world's attention has been on Darfur, the ruling regime in Khartoum has not lost focus on their primary goal: survival. An election was forced upon them, and they have risen to the challenge. Always a step ahead, they have put the pieces in place to ensure that they will be the ostensibly democratic choice of the Sudanese people on election day. In the NCP's best-case scenario, Sudanese citizens will simply accept this fraud.

But public dissent, a rarity in Sudan, is brewing. Following the CPA, civil society activists had hoped that constitutionally mandated legal reforms would prohibit NCP security agents from arresting and detaining citizens and that other laws used to suppress dissent would be repealed. Nearly five years on, cosmetic reform notwithstanding, little has changed. In the past two weeks, anti-NCP demonstrations have erupted both in Khartoum and in the south, suggesting that even if the international community does not take a stand against the failure to establish the conditions for a free and fair election, it is conceivable that the Sudanese people will.

To date, the NCP has responded to the protesters with tear gas, arrests, and an announcement that such demonstrations are illegal. But this may not be enough to suppress dissent among a population with long-standing and legitimate grievances in a country awash with arms.

Dec 21, 2009

Sudan: Stealing an Election in Slow Motion

Author:

John Prendergast

Dec 21, 2009

Enough Co-founder John Prendergast explores the many challenges facing the 2010 Sudan election season.

The deputy police commissioner of Duk Padiet, left, and a police describe an attack on their village. (Photo / Maggie Fick)

Sudan’s national elections scheduled for April 2010 will be neither free nor fair absent significant international pressure on the ruling National Congress Party, or NCP, to dramatically change the electoral landscape. The crackdown by the NCP on December 7 and 14 2009, involving the arrests of senior opposition politicians and the use of tear-gas on protestors, is yet another demonstration that the basic requirements of credible elections, including freedom of expression and assembly, have yet to be met. Despite recent progress over key components of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, little has been done to change the electoral environment, and many of the national-level reforms included in the CPA have been ignored by the NCP with little outcry from the international community.

In the wake of this crackdown, and in the face of what the Obama administration calls “ongoing genocide,” the United States has yet to impose genuine consequences on NCP officials and others who are obstructing peace in Sudan. If nothing changes before April, U.S. taxpayers will have spent nearly $100 million to support the election of an indicted war-criminal and legitimize the iron-fisted rule of one of the world’s most oppressive regimes.

The current efforts of the United States and the broader international community to end the atrocities in Darfur and prevent all-out war in Sudan are failing. Despite clear signs that the CPA is in jeopardy and continued atrocities against civilians in Darfur and southern Sudan, the Obama administration has yet to impose consequences on those behind the violence.

No consequences for commission or orchestration of crimes against humanity.
No consequences for the brutalization of political opposition and silencing of independent voices.
No consequences for the failure to establish conditions for a free and fair national election.
No consequences for the non-implementation of existing agreements, including the CPA.

A stolen election would be the beginning of the CPA’s end, as the NCP would almost certainly exploit what it would quickly claim was newfound “democratic legitimacy” to prevent southern Sudanese from holding the self-determination referendum scheduled for 2011. If that happens, it would be fanciful to think that anything short of full-scale national war would result. In this context, it is time to alter course in bold and specific ways in order to avert what could be the deadliest conflagration in Sudan’s war-torn post-colonial history.

_________________

Explore our interactive timeline of the elections in Sudan.

Credible elections in Sudan? Not even close

The April 2010 national elections are a central pillar of the CPA, the peace deal that ended the North-South war. But in order for elections to truly achieve the democratic transformation that was intended in the CPA, conditions for holding credible elections must be in place. These conditions include a new security law to reduce the government’s broad powers of arbitrary arrest and detention, an independent electoral commission, clear steps to allow independent media coverage, and unrestricted access for international observation teams. Not one of these preconditions has been met to date. These are the basic freedoms that must be in place for any election to meaningfully reflect the will of the people and for opposition politics to have a chance of challenging the status quo. If they are not there, elections can further inflame the crisis, rather than ameliorate it, and to date the international community has been overwhelmingly focused on technical support for the elections without recognizing that the underlying conditions for a free and fair election are not in place.

Until the NCP agrees to conditions that will allow for credible elections, the United States and other donors should suspend all electoral assistance. Un-free and unfair elections should not be financed and legitimized by American taxpayers. If the Sudanese parties decide to continue with elections without the establishment of these basic standards, the U.S. and the broader international community should not certify its outcome as a credible one.

However, efforts to put in place the conditions for the January 2011 referendum should continue. Not holding the referendum on time is the most certain trigger for all-out war.

The risks of ignoring electoral prerequisites and holding non-credible elections are enormous, with consequences ranging from the humanitarian to the political. Non-credible elections will:

Fuel violence and divisions, particularly in the South and Darfur;
Undermine the CPA’s aim of democratically transforming the country;
Disenfranchise millions of Darfuris;
Provide false legitimacy to an indicted war criminal, Omer al-Bashir, and to his ruling NCP;
Badly discredit international electoral assistance programs;
Reinforce to the NCP that it can ignore key provisions of the CPA such as national political reforms; and,
Waste nearly a hundred million dollars of American taxpayers’ money.

Darfur is particularly vulnerable to flawed elections at this time. Rampant insecurity and attacks on civilians, the absence of a credible peace process, a disputed census, and the displacement of the majority of Darfur’s population are key obstacles to holding truly democratic elections. The displacement of Darfur’s population alone could conceivably lead to myriad problems. Many displaced Darfuris lack proper identification papers or cards, which not only complicates the voting and registration process but also creates ripe opportunities for electoral rigging. Elections in Darfur could formalize displacement; i.e., by registering Darfuris to vote in displaced camps, the NCP may well argue that the individuals who registered in camps have forsaken their legal claims to the lands from which they were driven. The NCP has also routinely encouraged the immigration of non-Darfuris into areas cleared out by the violence, raising questions of whether an election would truly be representative of the region’s people. Elections on these terms will only create new opportunities for the NCP to further exploit the population and hand the ruling party an easy, illegitimate victory. In short, it is almost impossible to imagine a fair election in Darfur in four months, and any national election that does not include Darfur will sorely lack legitimacy.

In the South, piecemeal and ad hoc attempts by the international community and the southern government to address significant security concerns related to the elections are a cause for concern even if the NCP does agree to pre-election reforms. If the elections occur in the current climate, where legitimate elections are impossible, they will fan the flames of simmering inter-communal and political tensions in the South. Elections in the South represent risks that will be all the more threatening if reforms by the NCP do not occur now.

The urgent need for consequences

The U.S. and other donors to the electoral process need to stand up and conclude that the Emperor is as naked as he ever was, and blow the whistle now on this deadly charade.

To be clear, we are not calling for a postponement of the elections, per se, but rather for the creation of conditions for free and fair elections as envisioned in the CPA. The CPA was built upon a clear sequence: national reforms first, to be followed by nation-wide elections and a referendum. If the international community does not condition its continued financial and logistical assistance on substantial reform of the electoral environment, the results will be predictably unfortunate. If the international community lets the NCP gloss over the provisions that would allow for fair elections, without consequences, this will demonstrate once again the lack of international will to enforce crucial CPA components, and will signal to the NCP that it can wriggle out of additional CPA requirements, thus further imperiling the fragile peace in the South. We are calling for full implementation of the CPA. Rushing toward elections without the proper conditions in place will end badly for all involved, and further embolden the NCP to undermine the next major CPA process: the referendum.

Un-free and unfair elections in Sudan and its potentially violent aftermath will continue to undermine efforts toward democratic reforms throughout Africa as a continent. With several countries -- including Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Chad -- holding elections next year and all undermining the underpinnings of democracy in varying degrees, the conduct of credible elections in Sudan is pivotal to countering this negative regional trend. The U.S. rarely pulls the plug on its support for an electoral process, no matter how non-credible it is. Doing so in Sudan would set a positive precedent that the substance of democratic transitions matter to the United States.

There is a reason Sudan is facing this make-or-break scenario. Until now, the parties – particularly the NCP – continue to trample the agreement because there has been no cost for not implementing key parts of the CPA. It is time for President Obama to implement his administration’s own benchmark-based policy. Flouting the establishment of conditions for a credible election and referendum should trigger immediate consequences. The U.S. should work within and outside the U.N. Security Council to develop a coalition of countries willing to impose consequences on the NCP for its obstruction of basic conditions for peace. Consequences should include ratcheting up targeted multilateral sanctions, enforcement of the arms embargo, denial of debt relief, and greater support for further International Criminal Court investigations and indictments. Similar consequences should await senior SPLM officials and Darfur rebel leaders if they are found to be undermining peace as well.

These consequences that allegedly reside in the Obama administration’s confidential annex to its policy are the only instruments that can prevent an all-out national war in Sudan. Consequences, or the meaningful threat thereof, have altered the calculations and behavior of the NCP in the past. They led to the expulsion of Osama bin Laden, the end to slave raiding and aerial bombing in the South, the acceleration of intelligence cooperation after 9/11, and the CPA itself.

There is a path to peace for the parties in Sudan. The United States has a major role to play. But to contribute to peace, the U.S. needs to stand for peace with principle, and back principle with real leverage in the form of credible multilateral consequences in support of genuine democratic processes and verifiable commitment to peace. The first step surely is to suspend U.S. taxpayer support for the unacceptably flawed electoral process, signaling the beginning of a strategy in which fundamental human rights and civil rights violations have real and escalating costs.

Nov 14, 2009

Sudan's 'trouser lady' continues to fight decency laws - washingtonpost.com

Image by khowaga1 via Flickr

Defiant 'trouser lady' continues to fight decency laws

By Stephanie McCrummen
Saturday, November 14, 2009

KHARTOUM, SUDAN -- A few months after she was arrested for wearing pants, Lubna Hussein was lounging around her home in a shady, upper-class neighborhood in this capital along the Nile River. It was a hot afternoon, but the 34-year-old Sudanese journalist was wearing thick jeans adorned with sequins and embroidered flowers.

"Since all this happened, I will only wear pants," she said in the calmly defiant manner that led to her fleeting global celebrity as "the trouser lady," and a less-publicized backlash that has included anonymous death threats and newspaper columns calling her a prostitute. "If you have something to fight for, you can lose your life."

In July, Hussein attempted to shame Sudan's Islamist ruling party by inviting reporters to view her public flogging, a punishment under Islamic law that is sometimes applied here -- by leather whip or bamboo cane of the sort used on camels -- to women deemed to have violated decency laws.

As news spread, her court date drew crowds of women and men protesting in solidarity, and she received support from the likes of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Sudanese women started Web sites such as iamlubna.com, and some compared her to Rosa Parks, the American civil rights icon who challenged segregation laws.

Then, the campaign fizzled. Eager to dispense with the negative publicity, a judge sentenced Hussein to jail instead of flogging. She was released days later, and the attention surrounding her case settled into discussions among women about their experiences with Khartoum's vaguely worded decency laws, and the politics of keeping public order.

"When I was young, I used to see people free and wearing any kind of clothes they want," said Hussein, who is Muslim. "Some women were wearing miniskirts. But since the Islamists came, women don't have that power."

Soon after Omar Hassan al-Bashir came to power in a 1989 coup, Islamists in his party began asserting tight control across Sudan, a country whose north, including Khartoum, is mostly Muslim.

In Khartoum, local authorities showed their loyalty by adopting public-order laws requiring, among other things, "decent" dress and conduct.

Over the years, the public-order police have been relatively tolerant, and these days, women's fashions vary widely in the capital, from long black burqas and gloves to skinny jeans. Trousers are fairly common, but head scarves, long skirts and wraps remain standard attire for most Muslim women here. At times, though, police have implemented the law arbitrarily and even bizarrely.

For months, Sudanese women recalled, a man wearing a red bandana around his head and a whip on his waist was posted at a crowded bus station. He would call out to women he decided were showing too much wrist or ankle and whip them on the spot. Sometimes he would spit on them, they said.

Naglaseed Ahmad, who was among those protesting in support of Hussein's case, recalled being arrested as she was demonstrating against the drafting of her fellow university students into the Sudanese army. A judge found her guilty of violating decency laws and ordered another woman, accused of being a prostitute, to administer 10 lashes in front of him.

"The judge, he was smiling the whole time," Ahmad recalled. "He was enjoying these lashes."

Some women say they are harassed by ordinary men who fancy themselves as sort of a vigilante force. Nahid Mohammed al-Hassan Ali, a psychiatrist who demonstrated with Ahmad, said men who know her shout out "Hey, professor!" when her head scarf slips.

Last year, about 40,000 women were arrested on charges of violating public-order laws, according to human rights groups. They say most cases involved Khartoum's poorest women, such as those who sell tea under trees along the capital's sandy streets.

Hussein's case was somewhat unusual in that she is a relatively wealthy professional. She was enjoying an evening of music with friends at a restaurant when police showed up and began picking women out of the crowd, asking them to parade across the room.

Police said Hussein's green pants -- covered to mid-thigh by a shirt -- were too tight. She and several other women were hauled off to the police station. That night, Hussein, angry not only at her situation, but also at seeing a 16-year-old girl being harassed, crying and wetting herself out of fear, began planning her campaign to overturn the decency laws.

"I decided to cry, but in a different way," she said.

Hussein's more moderate critics say the public-order laws reflect values accepted by a majority of people in Khartoum and dismiss her cause as elitist.

There are harsher critics, though. Women demonstrating on the day of Hussein's trial were met by a counter-protest by men, including some carrying containers of acid. "They said, 'After this trial we will use this acid,' " Ali, the psychiatrist, said with a weary laugh. "We are just familiar with this attitude."

At this point, she and others consider the public-order laws another repressive tool of a ruling party aiming to keep society under control.

Ali and others said that changing these laws will be difficult but that there are small signs of revolt. Around Khartoum, women refer to the gap between a short shirt and a skirt as "the separation of church and state." If a skirt is too short, or too open, they mockingly call it "the failure of civilization."

"It's a kind of mutiny, I guess," Ali said. "Because we've been treated so badly."

Nov 2, 2009

BBC - South Sudan leader urges split

Image by Vít Hassan via Flickr

Southern Sudan leader Salva Kiir has made his strongest call for full independence when the region's status is decided at a referendum due in 2011.

He said voting for unity with northern Sudan would make southerners "second class citizens" in their own land.

A referendum in the now semi-autonomous oil-rich south was part of the 2005 deal that ended decades of civil war.

A BBC correspondent in Sudan says Mr Kiir's comments are likely to add to tensions between the north and south.

Previously officials have been careful in public to at least promote the unity between north and south, as the peace deal stipulates, says the BBC's Peter Martell in the South Sudan capital Juba.

'Respecting choice'

Salva Kiir was speaking at a special church service to pray for peace, timed to mark the start of voter registration for multi-party elections due in April 2010.

"When you reach your ballot boxes the choice is yours. You want to vote for unity, so that you become a second-class [citizen] in your own country, that is your choice," he told the congregation at St Teresa's Catholic Cathedral in Juba.

"You would want to vote for independence, so that you are a free person, in your independent state, that will be your own choice. And we will respect the choice of the people."

In October, South Sudan said it had achieved a breakthrough in talks with the north over terms for the referendum.

Vice-President Riek Machar said the vote would require a simple majority as long as two-thirds of those eligible took part.

In the past, the Khartoum government had insisted that 75% of voters must agree to independence.

Mr Machar said all southerners would be allowed to vote, including those in Khartoum and those outside Sudan.

Jan 24, 2011

Related articles

Jan 16, 2011

Apr 2, 2010

Mar 31, 2010

Mar 30, 2010

Feb 23, 2010

Dec 31, 2009

Dec 21, 2009

Enough Co-founder John Prendergast explores the many challenges facing the 2010 Sudan election season.

Nov 14, 2009

Nov 2, 2009