---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: John Ashworth <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Jul 4, 2011 at 7:54 AM Subject: [sudan-john-ashworth] Fwd: Bashir orders continuation of South Kordofan offensive To: Group <[email protected]>
The word "rebel" (put in quotation marks by Sudan Tribune but not by NYT, Guardian and other media houses) needs to be unpacked. Actually Abdel Aziz Adam Hilu and the SPLM are not rebels. He was the Deputy Governor of South Kordofan. SPLM was part of the ruling coalition in both South Kordofan State and the Government of National Unity in Khartoum. They were trying to implement the protocol signed by both sides in 2005 but constantly undermined by the NCP and sidelined by an international community focusing only on the south. They became "rebels" only when they defended themselves against an attack by the very government which they were supposed to be part of. I'm hearing from sources on the ground that the figure of around 70,000 displaced is pure guesswork (as no agency was in a position to make accurate estimates at the time) and in any case now two or three weeks old. The true figure could be as high as 400 to 500,000. John BEGIN 1. Bashir orders Sudan army to sustain South Kordofan offensive July 1, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan President Omer Al-Bashir has instructed his army to continue military operations in the North-South border state of South Kordofan until it is “purged” and the “rebel” Abdel Aziz Adam Al-Hilu - leader of main opposition group in the state - is under arrest. Al-Bashir made his inflammatory statement less than a week since his government inked an AU-moderated agreement with the northern sector of the opposition Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) as a precursor to reaching a ceasefire deal in South Kordofan which has been ravaged by weeks of localised violence between North Sudan army and SPLM forces. Following Friday prayers at a mosque in the capital Khartoum, Al-Bashir said he had commanded the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) not to cease its military offensive in South Kordofan until it “purges” the area and “arrests and brings to trial the rebel” Abdul Aziz Adam Al-Hilu for the “crimes of terrorizing civilians and killing of innocent people.” Al-Hilu is the leader of the SPLM in South Kordofan and the former deputy governor who refused to concede his defeat in the state’s gubernatorial elections to the incumbent governor Ahmad Harun of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP). The veteran SPLM leader and the state’s deputy governor alleged the vote was rigged in favor of Ahmad Harun and thus declared the SPLM’s non-recognition of the result. Independent election observers endorsed the result despite controversial voter registration and constituency demarcation in the run-up to the poll. Following the contentious elections, fighting erupted in early June between SAF and SPLM forces. It is not clear what ignited the confrontation but the SPLA claimed it was because SAF had attempted to disarm its fighters while SAF alleged that it responded to a raid by SPLA members on a local police station. The fighting escalated alarmingly as SAF applied the use of heavy artillery and aerial bombardment to put out what the Khartoum government now characterises as an all-out rebellion. More than 70,000 people have been displaced by the violence, the UN said, amid reports of widespread abuses committed by SAF specifically against the ethnic Nuba population of South Kordofan. The framework agreement on South Kordofan and the Blue Nile stipulates that the NCP would recognise the right of the SPLM to continue "as a legal political party” in north Sudan. Also, the NCP and SPLM-North agreed to form a joint political committee to ensure that "the issue of governance in South Kordofan shall be discussed and resolved amicably ... within thirty days". The agreement further states that the two sides should begin working on a cease-fire and allow humanitarian access into Southern Kordofan. The accord also stipulates that SPLA fighters in the North “shall be integrated, over a time period and with modalities to be agreed, into the Sudan Armed Forces” and that “any disarmament shall be done in accordance with agreed-upon plans and without resorting to force.” Meanwhile, the state’s governor Ahmad Harun said that the government was fighting “a legitimate battle of self-defense” in South Kordofan. Addressing supporters on Friday in Kadugli, he said that government forces would not hesitate to use “any kind of weapon to defend the security of citizens.” Some rights groups accused SAF of using weapons banned under international laws. On 25 June, Amnesty International said it had received reports of “freshly laid” landmines around Kadugli. The organisation warned that these mines pose a threat to civilians returning to the area. (ST) END1 2. Sudanese Struggle to Survive Endless Bombings Aimed to Quell Rebels New York Times By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN Published: July 3, 2011 LEWERE, Sudan — Fatima Ramadan, mother of six, froze, her eyes shooting up to the sky. “Antonov!” she yelled. Little girls threw down the pebbles they were playing with. Toddlers, sensing danger, started to wail. About two dozen people grabbed the young and dashed up the mountainside into a cave. It was hot and dark inside, and the children’s eyes were wide with fear. “I don’t like this place,” said Kaka, a 10-year-old girl. Nobody does. And yet thousands of people live like this. As the July 9 division of Sudan nears, the government in Khartoum is scrambling to crush any rebellious chunks of the territory that will remain its own. Its forces have been relentlessly pounding the Nuba Mountains from Russian-made Antonov bombers for weeks, demanding that tens of thousands of rebel fighters dug in here disarm and drop their insistence on more autonomy for the distinctive Nuba people. Hundreds of civilians have been killed, including many children. Bombs have been dropped on huts, on farmers in the field, on girls fetching water together, slicing them in half with buckets in their hands. As the area inches toward becoming fully engulfed in war, the Nuba caves offer a crucial refuge. Every morning at sunup, Ms. Ramadan trudges up a hillside, about 1,000 feet high, lugging pots, water jugs, mats and blankets, the children huffing behind. She nestles her cooking fire in a crack in the mountain wall, to conceal the smoke. The young mothers around her dangle their legs over ledges as they nurse. Older children play a game similar to jacks, using pebbles on the precarious heights. Old men just sit and stare. At dusk, which usually signals the end of the sorties, most descend. Very few young men are with them. “These caves have saved my children’s life,” Ms. Ramadan said. A couple of hundreds yards below her is the evidence: jagged chunks of shrapnel, gaping bomb craters and a tree trunk with a huge hole blown straight through it. The bombings have shifted west in recent days, away from the Lewere Valley toward what is emerging as the front line in an area called Korchi. But the fear endures like a scar. “Even the sound of a car sends us running,” Ms. Ramadan said. In another time, perhaps, a hike up this mountain would be a treat. The views from the top are amazing. The undulating Nuba heartland stretches for miles into the hazy distance, the tawny hilltops clear save for some scratchy green brush and a few trees stubbornly clinging to the rocks. Down below, thatched-roof huts squat together. A few people swing hoes. A few women plant on their knees, as if they are praying. A tan stripe — the only road — slices across the valley floor. “This is all about land,” said Saida Bakhait, who is also hiding in a cave with her children. “Bashir,” she says, referring to Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, “needs our land and he wants to finish us off.” But if war comes, it will not be an easy fight. “Be tough! Be strong! Protect our land!” shout legions of young men — “freedom fighters” they call themselves — as they march through the mist-shrouded valleys at dawn to add to the rebels’ numbers. They do not have guns, so they train with sticks. Many are freshly carved, the wood still white. Land is often code for identity and the Nuba see this as a fight for their cultural survival. These mountains are an outpost of traditional beliefs and Christianity (though there are Muslim Nuba, too) in northern Sudan. Many people here did not wear clothes until the 1970s, when the government passed laws forbidding nudity. Anthropologists have celebrated the Nuba for their singing, dancing, ferocious wrestling tournaments and dizzying number of languages, with nearly every major set of hills having its own tongue. Their land is among the most fertile in all of Sudan. Because they had been subjugated by Sudan’s Arab rulers for generations, the Nuba sided with southern rebels during the latter half of Sudan’s north-south civil war, in the 1980s and ’90s. The government responded by bombing the hillsides, wiping out villages and incarcerating hundreds of thousands of Nuba in so-called peace camps where many were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint. People fled to caves then, too. A peace treaty signed in 2004 called for Nuba to have a say in determining how much autonomy they would get — again, protecting their unique culture was a priority — but autonomy never came. Now, it seems, the government’s sudden interest in Nuba is timed to the south’s independence on Saturday. Khartoum may feel it has to send a signal that even after the south breaks off, the result of decades of struggle for liberation, it will not tolerate other secession movements. “They lost southern Sudan with bitterness, and now they are projecting that bitterness on us,” said a Nuba man named Kuku. In one place near Lewere, hundreds, perhaps thousands, are camped in caves. At least that is what some soldiers were saying. According to them, an entire village has uprooted itself to a mountaintop. “But we can’t let you see it,” said a local elder at the foot of the mountain. He is sympathetic but firm. “It’s the only place that hasn’t been bombed yet,” he said. “The last thing we want is for al-Bashir to know about it.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/world/africa/04sudan.html?_r=1&hp END2 3. Sudan partition leaves rebel Nuba region feeling betrayed Secession will see Nubian people ruled by Khartoum with scant hope that the south will support calls for autonomy * Matteo Fagotto in the Nuba mountains * guardian.co.uk, Sunday 3 July 2011 19.15 BST As southern Sudan prepares for independence on Saturday, residents of the Nuba mountains near the new border are pushing for a breakaway state rather than affiliation with the north or the south. The region lies in the Arabised north of Sudan, although its people have long been sympathetic to the south. But conflict in the area in recent weeks has cast a shadow over independence and bodes ill for the stability of Sudan after partition. "There is no way for me to be part of the north anymore," said 35-year-old Yohanes Mudier. "I haven't fought for so many years just to fall under the same government again." Like many of his fellow Nubians, Mudier joined southern Sudan's rebel movement at the start of the 1983-2005 Sudanese war to support what he thought would be a struggle towards freedom. He spent 14 years in the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) without going to see his family. When he came back to the Nuba mountains in 2006, after peace deals had been signed, many of his relatives were dead. Mudier says there is no reason for him to celebrate independence. "I am part of the SPLA, but I feel I have been left behind. We will never get anything out of Khartoum through a political process. There is no point in talking to them any more." His remarks reflect the views of a growing number of Nubians who feel betrayed by all the players involved in the peace agreement: the Sudanese government, the international community, and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), the political wing of the SPLA. Most Nubians are still affiliated with the northern wing of the movement, but many would prefer independence to joining the south. In the past weeks, the SPLM-dominated government in south Sudan has stressed that it will not engage in another war against Khartoum. Still bearing the scars of 20 years of a devastating conflict, the leadership of the south will focus on development rather than putting its new sovereignty in jeopardy by throwing its military weight behind the Nuba people. There are those who still have faith in the SPLM, insisting that after Saturday's independence, troops and weapons will start flowing from Juba, the capital of south Sudan, to the Nuba mountains. But others, such as Montasir Nasir Waren Kalo, are more sceptical. In 2005, he was part of a Nubian youth delegation that lobbied the SPLM not to sign the peace agreement. "We have been the wheel of freedom for the whole African people of Sudan, but we never enjoyed the fruits of our struggle. We were always sacrificed for the benefit of others, and the [peace deal] is no exception to that," he said. The recent misfortunes of Nubians started in 2005 when John Garang, the long-time leader of the SPLA/M, died in a helicopter crash a few days after the war ended. His Mandela-style vision of a united "new Sudan", where Arabs and Africans would coexist under a new political leadership, was then substituted by the new SPLM leaders with a more achievable goal: the independence of the south. But according to the 1956 Sudanese borders, on which the peace agreement is based, the Nuba mountains will fall under the control of the north. "When I read the conditions of the [peace deal], I thought the southern leadership had sold us off," said a local social worker, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation. "When the SPLM/A was marred by internal division in the 90s, Nubians were the ones who supported Garang. Without us, the movement would have died and the south would have never been independent." Instead of the referendum on independence given to southerners, the Nuba mountains were granted only ill-defined "popular consultation" to express their opinion on the peace deal. Six years later, no date has been set for the consultations. Many here believe the Khartoum government will never allow them to take place. Nubians are divided between those who want complete independence, and those who still support the SPLM/A as the best hope of freedom; but they are united in their determination to control their own destiny. "A wrong peace is worse than a war," said a Nubian SPLM MP, who asked for anonymity. "We would rather take our weapons again to achieve a just one, than settle for the current situation." His opinion is shared by Mudier: "If the south does not help us, we will have to fight the northern regime to the last man," he said. "Maybe only our grandchildren will see that day." http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/03/sudan-partition-rebel-nuba-region END3 4. "The Logic of War: Khartoum's Economy After Southern Secession" ... a précis Eric Reeves July 3, 2011 What is the logic of Khartoum’s military actions in Abyei and South Kordofan? Why has it engaged in such deeply threatening actions in the weeks leading up to independence for the Republic of South Sudan? What are the politics within the regime that animate this immensely dangerous course of action, including not only seizing Abyei militarily, conducting an immense military operation in South Kordofan, with unambiguous ethnic targeting of the Nuba people, repeated bombing of locations inside South Sudan, but also engaging in a large and ominous military buildup near southern Blue Nile? Why has Khartoum created a situation so volatile and threatening that Kyung-wha Kang, the UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, declared following a recent assessment mission to Sudan: "If this renewed fighting in border areas doesn't stop and it further spreads to other areas of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, then obviously it's war again." There is no simple answer, but these actions suggest that the very worst elements in the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime are fully in charge, and that the security threats South Sudan will face in the coming months and years are many and acute. But to understand fully the obstacles the nascent nation of South Sudan will confront, it is critical that we understand the intense economic distress in North Sudan that follows more than two decades of gross mismanagement, rampant cronyism, profligate military expenditures, and exorbitant self-enrichment by the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime. Khartoum's recent, highly threatening military actions in and along the border regions cannot be understood outside the context of what has already occurred, and what is impending, in the economy of the North. It is insufficiently appreciated just how badly this economy is performing, even before enduring what Finance Ministry officials acknowledge will be a 37 percent decline in oil revenues ($2-3 billion annually) once the South secedes. The IMF has sounded the alarm, warning of a "permanent shock" to the economy. This comes even as inflation is 15 percent and rising; foreign exchange reserves are extremely low, hindering international trade; subsidies for petrol and sugar have been cut, prompting a number of protests; and more painful cuts are coming---at the very time the regime acknowledges the need for much higher taxes. In a desperate short-term measure, Khartoum has engaged in selling large tracts of Sudanese farmland to Arab and Asian investors, a terrible decision from the standpoint of both national economic development and food security. Unsurprisingly, the Sudanese Pound has experienced a de facto devaluation of about 25 percent. Growth in the economy has shrunk dramatically (to about 3 percent) and gives signs of shrinking further. Gone are the days of double-digit growth rates, huge oil riches, and foreign journalists marveling at the café bars that were gently misted in various spots in upscale Khartoum and Omdurman. But lurking behind this disastrous news is an even bigger overhang on the economy: more than $38 billion in external debt (some $30 billion in the form of arrears, accrued largely under the NIF/NCP). Even in its best years, the oil-dependent economy of the North could not begin to service, let alone repay this gigantic debt. It will continue to drag the economy downwards unless the IMF and World Bank structure some form of debt relief, which Khartoum disingenuously claims is "90 percent" achieved on the "technical side." But this is where the regime's military behavior along the border regions intersects with its economic prospects. So far the U.S. and the Europeans have offered only tepid criticism of Khartoum for its military seizure of the contested Abyei region and its increasingly genocidal military campaign in South Kordofan, particularly the Nuba Mountains (predictably, the African Union and Arab League have entirely been unwilling to speak honestly about these realities). But politically it will be impossible for the Obama administration to remove Khartoum from the State Department list of terrorism-sponsoring nations while ethnically targeted violence escalates in South Kordofan; and the U.S. must oppose on "principle" any application for debt relief by a terrorism-supporting state. It was, of course, foolish of the Obama administration to make this issue one for negotiation: Khartoum either does or does not support terrorism, and in fact there is considerable evidence that it still does, chiefly by funneling Iranian weapons to Hamas. The terms of the "deal" the Obama administration struck with Khartoum also do not include countenancing what has occurred in Abyei, South Kordofan, other contested border areas---and the relentless suffering and destruction in Darfur, which seems to have been accorded "parenthetical status" in the Obama administration’s discussions of Sudan's crises. The U.S. openly promised to assist Khartoum with debt relief if it fulfills its obligations under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (2005). But Khartoum is very far from fulfilling a range of obligations, leaving even an expedient Obama administration with little wiggle-room, given the seriousness with which Sudan is regarded by a substantial part of his key political constituency. But without debt relief, economic problems that are already deeply threatening become insoluble. Some in the regime surely understand this, and so the decision to adopt the present militaristic and threatening posture towards South Sudan---now less than a week away from independence---represents a triumph of the worst impulses within the regime: nationalism, Arabism, Islamism, embarrassment over "losing the South," contempt for the international community, and a belief that more of the lucrative Southern oil fields can be brought by force into the North (some 75 percent of Sudan’s oil production and proven oil reserves lie in the South). Only such conviction about enhancing oil revenues can make war seem "affordable." This calculation is disastrous, and indeed in the short-run can only diminish oil revenues further: the South will fight with tremendous determination to preserve its territorial integrity, however resolutely it has resisted Khartoum's military provocations so far. Oil infrastructure in the South will become a prime target for the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in all-out war. Khartoum has only one rational economic decision to make under the circumstances, even from a purely survivalist perspective. But though always capable of vicious and ruthless calculations, Khartoum’s serial génocidaires have never been considered men of reason. The consequences of their world-view are now conspicuously on display, and nowhere more so than in the disaster toward which the Northern economy is moving. [Eric Reeves has published extensively on Sudan, nationally and internationally, for more than a decade. He is author of A Long Day's Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide.] Eric Reeves Smith College Northampton, MA 01063 [email protected] 413-585-3326 www.sudanreeves.org END4 ______________________ John Ashworth Sudan Advisor [email protected] +254 725 926 297 (Kenya mobile) +249 919 695 362 (Sudan mobile) +27 82 853 3556 (South Africa mobile) +44 750 304 1790 (UK/international) +88 216 4334 0735 (Thuraya satphone) PO Box 52002 - 00200, Nairobi, Kenya This is a personal e-mail address and the contents do not necessarily reflect the views of any organisation -- The content of this message does not necessarily reflect John Ashworth's views. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, John Ashworth is not the author of the content and the source is always cited. You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sudan-john-ashworth" group. 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