Sudan: As South split looms, abuses grow in Darfur
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Human Rights Watch
Sudan: As South Split Looms, Abuses Grow in Darfur
World Should Stay Focused on Need for Justice and Reforms
(Johannesburg, June 6, 2011) – Serious abuses have increased in Darfur
in the past six months while the world’s attention has focused on
Southern Sudan’s upcoming independence, Human Rights Watch said in a
report released today. The United Nations Security Council, which will
be briefed on Darfur on June 8, 2011, and the African Union should do
much more to ensure that those responsible for continued war crimes in
Darfur are held accountable and press the Sudanese government to end
attacks on civilians in Darfur, cease arbitrary detention of rights
activists, and reform the state security apparatus, Human Rights Watch
said.
The 28-page report, “Darfur in the Shadows: The Sudanese Government’s
Ongoing Attacks on Civilians and Human Rights,” documents the
intensification of the eight-year conflict over the past six months.
Since December 2010, a surge in government-led attacks on populated
areas and a campaign of aerial bombing have killed and injured scores
of civilians, destroyed property, and displaced more than 70,000
people, largely from ethnic Zaghawa and Fur communities linked to
rebel groups, Human Rights Watch said.
“Darfur once commanded the headlines, but now risks being forgotten,”
said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “With only
a month before Sudan splits in two, international pressure to end
ongoing government abuses and impunity for war crimes in Darfur is
more urgent than ever.”
The UN Security Council briefing by the prosecutor of the
International Criminal Court (ICC) on June 8 about international
crimes in Darfur will give governments an important opportunity to
insist on Sudan’s cooperation with the ICC and enhance their pressure
on Khartoum, Human Rights Watch said. The Sudanese government
continues to obstruct the ICC’s work on Sudan and those subject to
arrest warrants by the ICC for crimes in Darfur, including President
Omar al-Bashir, remain fugitives from justice.
Human Rights Watch’s report is based on research carried out between
January and May 2011 in North and South Darfur and Khartoum. Human
Rights Watch researchers interviewed over 50 Darfuri witnesses and
victims of attacks and human rights abuses, government officials,
lawyers, and members of civil society in towns, villages, and
displaced persons camps.
The renewed fighting in Darfur began on December 10 with government
attacks on KhorAbeche, South Darfur, and ShangilTobayi, North Darfur
following the deterioration in relations between the government and
MinniMinawi, the only major Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) rebel leader
to have signed the 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement.
Government forces continue to violate the laws of war in their
military operations against rebel forces with utter impunity. There
have been clashes and attacks on civilians in North and South Darfur,
as well as eastern Jebel Mara, where fighting since early 2010 had
already displaced tens of thousands of civilians further into the
mountains. In mid-May alone, government airstrikes in North and South
Darfur reportedly killed more than 20 civilians.
“Clear patterns of abuses, often based on ethnicity, have accompanied
the renewed fighting,” Bekele said. “The government’s longstanding
failure to hold perpetrators accountable appears to be fueling
continued violations.”
In just one case documented by Human Rights Watch, during the
government attack at ShangilTobayi on December 21, about 20 soldiers
surrounded and ransacked the home of a sheikh, or local leader. They
demanded to know his tribe and threatened to “kill all of them
[Zaghawas] and rape all their women.” The soldiers stole the sheikh’s
farming equipment and abducted his 22-year-old cousin, whom they
accused of being amember of the SLA rebel group.
Government human rights violations against civil society activists
have also intensified, Human Rights Watch found. On May 6, national
security officials arrested HawaAbdallah, a community activist in the
Abu Shouk displaced persons camp in El Fasher and an employee of the
African Union/United Nations peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID).
On May 8, the state news service published an article accusing her of
“Christianizing” children in displaced persons camps and of links to a
rebel group – a crime punishable by death under Sudanese law. An
accompanying photo of Abdallah holding a Bible shows visible signs of
fatigue and what appear to be bruises on her face.
Dozens of other Darfuri activists and displaced people are detained in
Darfur and in Khartoum, many without charges and for periods far
exceeding the maximum allowed by Sudanese law, Human Rights Watch
said.The National Intelligence and Security Service has, since April
24, detained without charge another Sudanese employee of the
peacekeeping mission who is a known activist. Two men from Abu Shouk
camp who were arrested in the wake of the UN Security Council’s visit
in October are also in detention in El Fasher. Four leaders of a group
of displaced people have been held under emergency laws for almost two
years.
Human Rights Watch documented instances in which government security
forces assaulted residents of camps for displaced people, suppressed
peaceful student demonstrations, and engaged in sexual violence. The
full extent of human suffering and scale of human rights abuses is
still not known, however, as the government continues to restrict
access to much of Darfur by both the peacekeepers and humanitarian aid
organizations.
Sudan also appears to be pursuing a controversial “domestic political
process” inside Darfur that would engage members of Darfuri society in
dialogues on solutions to the Darfur conflict. The impact of these
dialogues on peace talks with Darfur rebel groups and on new
constitutional arrangements in northern Sudan following Southern
Sudan’s split is not clear, Human Rights Watch said. The government
has also announced creation of two new states in West and South Darfur
and plans to hold a referendum on Darfur’s administrative status in
July, which rebels and observers contend complicates peace talks.
Southern Sudan will formally secede from the Khartoum government on
July 9 under a January referendum for southern independence, called
for under the terms of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that
ended Sudan’s 22-year-long war.
The African Union and UN have both announced support for the new
domestic political process in Darfur on condition that Sudan creates
an “enabling environment” guaranteeing rights and freedoms of
participants. A list of these indicators of a changed situation in
Darfur, and how they will be measured, has yet to be made clear.
“The African Union and United Nations, which play a critical role in
Darfur, need to ensure their joint peacekeeping mission can properly
monitor the human rights situation,” Bekele said. “Any support they
provide to Sudan needs to promote and protect rights, not undermine
them.”
In March, the Sudanese government said it would end a state of
emergency, which empowers the government to detain people without
judicial review, in an apparent concession to calls for reform ahead
of any political process in Darfur. It has yet to do so,though.
Human rights organizations have long urged Sudan to reform the
National Intelligence and Security Service, which is empowered to
detain people for long periods without judicial review and is widely
known for its ill-treatment and torture of detainees.
The UN Security Council referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC in
2005. The court has since issued arrest warrants on charges of
genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity for three suspects
for crimes committed in Darfur. In addition to President al-Bashir,
they are Ahmed Haroun, governor of Southern Kordofan state, and Ali
Kosheib, a "Janjaweed" militia leader. In 2010, the ICC issued a
formal finding of non-cooperation by the Sudanese government in the
cases of Haroun and Kosheib.
Sudan has also failed to implement any of the key justice
recommendations put forth by the African Union’s Panel on Darfur
report, issued in October 2009, which highlighted the importance of
prosecutions for the worst crimes committed in Darfur.
“The UN Security Council brought the situation in Darfur to the ICC,”
Bekele said. “Now it needs to firmly stand by its pledge to the
thousands of victims and press for Sudan’s cooperation with the
court.”
To read “Darfur in the Shadows: The Sudanese Government’s Ongoing
Attacks on Civilians and Human Rights,” please visit:
http://www.hrw.org/node/99396
For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Sudan, please visit:
http://www.hrw.org/en/africa/sudan
For more information, please contact:
In New York, Jehanne Henry (English, French): +1-212-216-1291; or
+1-917-443-2724 (mobile); or [email protected]
In Johannesburg, Sipho Mthathi (English): +27-11-484-2640; or
+27-82-777-1319 (mobile); or [email protected]
In Paris, Jean-Marie Fardeau (French, English, Portuguese) :
+33-1-43-59-55-35; or +33-6-45-85-24-87 (mobile); or [email protected]
In Brussels, Lotte Leicht (French, German, Dutch): +32-2-737-1482; or
+32-47-568-1708(mobile); or [email protected]
In New York, Elise Keppler (English): +1-212-216-1249; or +1-917 687
8576 (mobile); or [email protected]
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