---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: John Ashworth <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 11:13 AM Subject: [sudan-john-ashworth] Fw: Kadugli: The UN's very un-safe haven in Sudan To: Group <[email protected]>
1. The siege at Kadugli: The UN's very un-safe haven in Sudan Posted By Colum Lynch Sunday, July 24, 2011 - 7:01 PM Foreign Policy With the world's attention riveted last month to the coming birth of Africa's newest nation,South Sudan, Khartoum opened a new military front in northern Sudan, battling forces from the country's Nuba Mountains region and targeting civilians and U.N. workers. On June 5, the Sudanese armed forces, and pro-government militias surrounded Kadugli, the Nuban capital of Southern Kordofan, triggering a resumption of fighting between government troops and Nuban members of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army. The Sudanese action was intended to press thousands of local Nuban troops that once fought alongside Khartoum's southern rivals to disarm or to immigrate to the south. The chief obstacle to Sudan's military push was a force of nearly 2000 Egyptian and Bangladeshi U.N. peacekeepers, whohad a mandate to protect civilians. But internal U.N. documents illustrate how the Sudanese military quickly neutralized the U.N. blue helmets, seizing control of the U.N. operated airport, cutting off humanitarian supplies and preventing U.N. staff from carrying out their work. Armed and uniformed Sudanese security personnel entered a U.N. safe area at will, checking the identities of frightened civilians who sought refuge there and prodding them to leave the safety of the U.N. protection. Even more alarming, Sudanese army troops and allied militias targeted Sudanese nationals working for the United Nations, summarily executing one and detaining others in the presence of U.N. blue helmets, according to the internal U.N. accounts. In one incident,two days after the fighting began, government backed militia members shot a national U.N. staff member in the legs as he sought sanctuary in a U.N.compound in Kadugli. One internal report by the U.N.'s human rights office in Sudan "revealed that the SAF [Sudan Armed Forces], paramilitary forces and government security apparatus have engaged in violent and unlawful acts against UNMIS." They included "verified incidents of shelling in close proximity to UN property...summary execution of a UN National staff member; assaults on physical integrity of UN staff: arbitrary arrest and detention of UN Staff and associated human rights violations, including ill-treatment amounting to torture." The report cited a June 16 episode in which UN military observers, seeking to verify the existence of alleged mass graves, "were arrested, stripped of their clothes, and believed that they were about to be executed when a senior SAF [Sudan Armed Forces] officer intervened." According to the account, A Sudanese army captain instructed four UN military observers "to line up and be killed. He removed the safety of his AK-47, and just as he was about to point the weapon towards the UN [military observers], a SAF Major entered the room and ordered him not to shoot." The captain obeyed his superior but warned the UN officials to leave Southern Kordofan. " If not we will kill you," he said. The leaked report, which was made available to Turtle Bay through the Washington Post, has already received extensive coverage in the press in recent weeks because it claimed that Sudan and pro-government militias may have committed war crimes and cited witness testimony suggesting the possibility of mass graves. But there has been little focus on Sudan's violent crackdown on U.N. peacekeepers. So far, the mistreatment of U.N. blue helmets has provoked a relatively restrained response from top U.N. officials,who downplayed the report's finding as preliminary, or by the U.N. Security Council, which adopted a mild statement calling for a U.N. investigation,according to human rights advocates. "For the Security council to remain timid in the face of credible allegations of war crimes, mass graves, and torture of UN personnel is simply inexcusable," Philippe Bolopion, the U.N.representative for Human Rights Watch told Turtle Bay. Ivan Simonovic, the U.N. Assistant Secretary General for Human Rights, meanwhile, told Turtle Bay that the United Nations takes the allegations of abuses seriously, and has called forfurther investigation to determine what crimes have been committed. But he stopped short of endorsing key recommendations in the draft human rights report, including a call for referring the crimes to the International Criminal Court prosecutor. Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Friday that the United States is "deeply concerned about alarming and credible allegations of violence committed by Sudan Armed Forces and aligned groups in Southern Kordofan" - including "acts of extreme cruelty and abuse against civilians" that "may" constitute crimes against humanity. Rice condemned what she described as the deliberate targeting of civilians, including U.N. humanitarian personnel, and expressed support for an investigation into the allegations by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. "The United States will not tolerate impunity for such acts of violence," she said in a statement. The situation in South Kordofan bears some similarities with Darfur, where Sudanese forces, backed by Arab militias, have mounted a brutal counterinsurgency campaign, including large-scale killings and massive displacement of civilians, against the region's restive tribes. In one ominous twist, South Kordofan's new governor, Ahmed Haroun, a member of Sudan's ruling National Congress Party, is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of committing war crimes against Darfurians. However, the local forces in South Kordofan are far more heavily armed than their Darfurian counterparts and have exercised control over large swaths of the territory. Sudanese officials charge the Nubans with precipitating the latest round of violence by reinforcing their military presence in recent months and refusing to meet their obligation under previous agreements to disarm. The fate of the Sudan's Nubans has become a growing source of concern among human rights observers. A landmark 2005 peace deal ending Sudan's bloody civil war between the North and South Sudan paved the way for the south's independence last month, but it never resolved the fate of their Nuban allies, who will remain subject to northern rule. A provision in the 2005called for the troops from Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile States to serve alongside Sudanese armed forces as part of a Joint Integrated Unit. The local forces were supposes to disarm following a Popular Consultation that was intended to determine the regions relationship with Khartoum. But the rival forces were never integrated, the popular consultation never took place. A recent election consolidated Khartoum's political dominance over Southern Kordofan. In May, Khartoum moved to dissolve the joint unit and ordered the Nuban forces to either turn over their weapons and submit to northern rule or move to the south. As fighting erupted between the two sides in Kadugli, the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Sudan (UNMIS), established a safe area, known as the Protective Perimeter, around the U.N. base, providing a refuge for thousands of displaced civilians, relief workers and U.N. personnel. The Egyptian contingent that headed the effort has come under criticism for allowing armed Sudanese forces to breach the perimeter in an attempt to identify and arrest suspected sympathizers with the south. The most serious incident documented by U.N. human rights monitors occurred on June 8, when Sudanese army troops dragged a UN contractor, reportedly an active SPLM member, from a vehicle in front of a U.N. compound in Kadugli, "while U.N. peacekeepers could not intervene. He was taken around the corner of the compound and gunshots were heard. Later he was discovered dead by UNMIS personnel and [displaced civilians]." The U.N.'s top peacekeeping official, Alain le Roy, challenged the veracity of those accounts. "I have read that some people were extracted from this area were killed in front of the peacekeepers,"Le Roy told reporters on July 13. "That is completely wrong; that is completely wrong." "It is clear that some civilians have been killed but not of course in our site and not in the vicinity, not in the safe area close to our camp. Our peacekeepers, our Egyptian peacekeepers, our Bangladeshi peacekeepers have been protecting them from the beginning until today." Le Roy confirmed that Nuban civilians were being targeted in the region but that the U.N. mission was powerless to respond. "It is clear that civilians are being killed," he said. But "we don't have freedom of movement because there is heavy fighting in South Kordofan." The situation has only worsened since July 9, South Sudan's independence day, when the U.N.'s mandate in the north expired. But the internal U.N. reporting paints a different picture. On June 8, U.N. human rights observers witnessed four armed men, including two from the Central Reserve police"without any intervention from the [UN] peacekeepers guarding the premises,"according to the UN rights report. "Eyewitnesses interviewed reported that the armed men abducted three IDPs from the vicinity of UNMIS Protective Perimeter on suspicion that they were supports of the SPLM [Sudanese People's Liberation Movement]" A second internal situation report,obtained by Turtle Bay, also cited concerns about "the uncontrolled movement of armed civilians and uniformed personnel" within the UN safe area."There is concern about the entering of SAF [Sudan Armed Forces] and [pro-government militia] into the UNMIS Protective Perimeter asking for what appeared to have been ‘identity checks' and their abduction of [displaced civilians] outside but within the vicinity of the Protective Perimeter on suspicion that they are supporters of SPLM." The report cited one instance in which the U.N. human rights monitors "interviewed a boy who had narrowly escaped abduction himself and learned of the abduction of a 17-year-old girl from just outside [Protective Perimeter] on the morning 19 June by two Arab militia members, who came upon them while washing clothes and fetching water." In another incident, Sudanese military personnel stopped a U.N. truck near a U.N. compound in Kadugli and pulled three displaced three civilians who had helped load supplies on to the truck. The three men were beaten in front of U.N. staff and then abducted . One UN staff member who sought to stop them was threatened by gunpoint to back down. The three individuals were never seen again. Sudanese security forces, disguised as Sudanese red Cross Workers, also breached the safe area. "On 20 June UNMIS Human Rights in Kadugli verified that National Security Service (NSS) donning Sudan Red Crescent (SRC) Aprons were posing as Sudanese Red Crescent workers ordering [internally displaced people] to evacuate the UN Protective Permiter (PP) IDP cam near its compound, insisting that they congregate at Kadugli Stadium with promises of an address from the governor and humanitarian aid and threats of forceful removal if the failed to comply." The strategy appeared to work. By late that afternoon, "approximately 75 percent of the more than 11,000 IDPS had vacated the [Protective Perimeter], mostly women, children and the elderly.... Human Rights is concerned that coercing IDPs to leave UNMIS PP and have them sent to the stadium or school compounds may pose [a] security danger to them." Egypt's U.N. ambassador, Maged Abdelaziz,defended the Egyptians troops conduct, saying they had faithfully fulfilled their obligation to protect civilians in Kadugli. Abdelaziz said that while it was impossible for the peacekeepers to interrogate civilians entering the safe area to determine whether Sudanese agents or anti-government partisans had infiltrated the camp he insisted that armed personnel were barred from entry."We checked with our forces on the ground and they said this never happened,"he told Turtle Bay "The Egyptian forces have been implementing all commitments with regard to the protection of civilians. Any civilian that went to the Egyptian forces and asked for shelter received it," Abdelaziz said. "We drew some criticism from NGOs [non-governmental-organizations] who discovered people being protected were part of the military forces. But how do you distinguish between [unarmed] combatants and non-combatants. It's a peacekeeping mission not an interrogation mission." http://turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/07/24/the_siege_at_kadugli_sudans_very_un_safe_haven END1 2. Sudan’s NCP softens stance on dialogue with al-Hilu in S. Kordofan July 24, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – A senior official in the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) in Sudan expressed willingness to negotiate with Abdel-Aziz al-Hilu who is leading an armed rebellion since last month in the oil-rich state of South Kordofan. Al-Hilu was the deputy governor of the state which borders Darfur and South Sudan but last May lost in elections to incumbent governor Ahmed Haroun who was running on NCP ticket. The Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) figure accused Khartoum of rigging the vote and vowed not to recognize the results. In an interview with Saudi owned Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper yesterday, al-Hilu repeated widespread accusations by UN and rights groups that the Sudanese government has been pursuing ethnic cleansing policy in South Kordofan. He also denied claims by Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) of military victories against his forces and said that many Sudanese soldiers defected to his side. However, the SPLA leader in the state said he is ready to negotiate with Khartoum through a third party anywhere outside Sudan. The head of the NCP political bureau Qutbi al-Mahdi said his party welcomes al-Hilu’s willingness to engage in negotiations. Al-Mahdi stressed that negotiations requires genuine desire by the parties involved adding that al-Hilu knows what the government wants and as such the NCP is prepared to begin dialogue with him. The remarks by al-Mahdi marks a departure from the hardliner stance taken by other NCP figures including president Omer Hassan al-Bashir. It may also be an indication of a difficulty encountered by the SAF in quelling the rebellion. Bashir scrapped an accord signed by his powerful aide Nafie Ali Nafie with SPLM-North in Addis Ababa that would have paved the way for a ceasefire in South Kordofan. He ordered SAF to continue military operations and called for the arrest of al-Hilu so he can be tried for what he described as crimes against innocent civilians. The Sudanese president also openly faulted his negotiators for agreeing to the terms of the accord brokered by the African Union (AU) in a sign of deep divisions within the NCP. Since the eruption of violence in South Kordofan in early June, more than 70,000 people have been displaced, according to UN figures. The clashes escalated into artillery and aerial bombardment amid reports of ethnic targeting of the Nuba population which largely fought alongside the SPLM during Sudan’s second North-South civil war. (ST) END2 3. Sudan FM denies willingness to accept peacekeepers in S. Kordofan July 23, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese foreign minister Ali Karti on Saturday denied making statements expressing openness to the idea of deploying peacekeepers to the state of South Kordofan where fighting is ongoing between Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and units of the Sudan People Liberation Army (SPLA) led by Abdel-Aziz al-Hilu. Karti was quoted by Agence France Presse (AFP) this week as saying that Khartoum will agree to foreign troops under the condition that there is a consent on this between all parties. "If there’s an agreement with local leaders specifying the sending of foreign troops, it will be welcome," Karti said. "But at the moment we don’t have an agreement," he added. However the Sudanese top diplomat today upon his return to Khartoum from Vienna told state media that he made no such remarks. Karti said that he was answering questions by some journalists following a lecture he presented at the international academy in Vienna stressing that he explained clearly that the situation in South Kordofan is an internal matter which occurred after an armed attack took place on the state and its civilians in violation of the law. He added that Sudan has made its stance clear regarding the presence of the international forces on its territory and that any talk about that is out of context. The Sudanese ambassador at the United Nations Dafalla al-Haj Osman had qualified Karti’s statements earlier this week saying that the minister was only referring to a small “high ranking” force or monitors. Osman told Inner City Press website that this could be comprised of “ten to fifteen” people that possibly may include Europeans. The fighting in the state which borders South Sudan and Darfur occurred shortly after the South Kordofan’s gubernatorial elections in which al-Hilu lost to incumbent governor Ahmed Haroun who was the candidate of Sudan’s ruling party. Haroun is one of the suspects wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in connection with war crimes allegedly committed in Darfur where 300,00 are estimated to have been killed since rebellion broke out in 2003. The African Union High Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) headed by former South African President Thabo Mbeki managed to broker a preliminary accord between Khartoum and SPLM-North to de-escalate tensions in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states. But Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir later rejected the agreement signed by his assistant Nafie Ali Nafie, ordered SAF to continue military operations in South Kordofan and called for arresting al-Hilu so he can be tried for what he described as crimes against innocent civilians. Al-Hilu told the London-based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper in an interview published today that it is Bashir who needs to stand before ICC to satisfy the arrest warrant against him issued in 2009. He claimed that his forces have defeated SAF and that the latter have seen many defections to his side. (ST) END3 4. US Envoy Minimizes Mounting Evidence of Mass Graves in Sudan By Frederick Clarkson Religion Dispatches July 22, 2011 The first hand reports of mass killings and mass graves in Kadugli, Sudan, and the testimony of Anglican Bishop Andudu Adam Elnail, remain at the center of a growing international controversy over the fate of the Nuban people, whom human rights groups, anti-genocide scholars, journalists, and Sudanese exiles say are the victims of a current and ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign by the Sudanese government that began on June 5. One of the satellite images said to show a pile of white objects “consistent with” reports of body bags near the Episcopal Church complex in Kadugli—used by RD to illustrate our July 14 story on the dramatic report on mass killings and mass graves—is now a point of contention, and an indicator of how the United States has responded to the crisis. That report, by the George Clooney-initiated Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP), received worldwide media attention while a New York Times piece, on an internal UN report compiled in June, confirmed many previously reported atrocities, adding: ”In late June, a contractor working for the United Nations witnessed Sudanese Army soldiers filling a grave with bodies and covering it with a bulldozer. The Sudanese Army, paramilitary forces and government security forces have also attacked the United Nations force itself, the report said, including the summary execution of a Sudanese staff member. The report, which was requested by the Security Council, recommends an independent investigation into human rights violations, including a possible referral to the International Criminal Court.” Amidst escalating calls for intervention, the UN Security Council met privately on July 15. Senior UN staff publicly called for UN and humanitarian access to the area and expressed concern about the reports of mass graves, extra-judicial killings and attacks on UN personnel. The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, called for a joint IFRC and UN investigation of allegations (first reported by the Associated Press), that Sudanese intelligence agents disguised themselves as Red Crescent Society workers to lure refugees away from the UN compound to uncertain fates. But just when it seemed that the world might be poised to intervene and to investigate the atrocities, the U.S. doused those hopes with a bucket of realpolitik cold water. Special Envoy Princeton Lyman, who has downplayed the scope of the human rights abuses in Kadugli, told the Washington Post “what they identify as body bags, we see those same items in those same places before the fighting started.” “We can’t confirm the conclusion in the Sentinel project that there are mass graves in Kadugli,” Lyman continued, citing U.S. intelligence reports. At the same time, he acknowledged that there “might” in fact be mass graves. Eric Reeves, a scholar of genocide and a professor at Smith College was shocked by Lyman’s claim. “Even without the SSP report,” he told RD, “he must know that there are repeated [statements from] credible witnesses who say there are mass graves. My God, there is a witness, a UN contractor cited in the UN report.” (See section 34, where the report states: “She reported that SAF elements transported the bodies to the site, dumped them in the grave and using a bulldozer to cover the grave.” The area the witness identified, south of the Tilo school, is the same area where SSP’s witnesses also saw mass graves.) “There are way too many facts that Lyman’s account does not take into account,” Reeves concluded. “It’s as if the UN report does not exist.” Lyman’s skepticism is even more difficult to justify given that the satellite image taken on June 17 of a spot near the complex of buildings belonging to the Episcopal Church of Sudan showed no white items, while the white items are evident in the image of the same spot from July 4. SSP also told the Post that an additional satellite image shows no white objects in that spot on June 7. The envoy’s claim that the piles of white “items” pictured in the satellite images were present prior to the fighting, is unsubstantiated, and he offered no alternative explanation for what those white items might be or how they came to be in those spots. Eyewitnesses cited by the SSP and the UN among others, state that house-to-house killings resulted in bodies being disposed of in white tarps or body bags throughout the city, then collected by the Sudanese Armed Forces in white trucks like urban trash collection here in the United States. Bishop Andudu told RD in an interview, for example, that a member of his congregation told him that he saw bodies wrapped in white body bags or some sort of white tarps at the grave site, then buried in two pits excavated by an earthmover on June 8. Andudu added this plea: “Bishop says what is important is that many people have been killed and displaced. He needs the international community and the US to protect the people of the Nuba Mountains by stopping the bombardment, to send effective international peacekeeping troops to monitor the situation, and to provide humanitarian aid for the needy people of Nuba Mountains.” According to Reeves, Ambassador Lyman has a record of downplaying atrocities in Sudan, even while expressing “concern” about them, as he did in the Post. It is one element of what Reeves describes as a pattern of American governmental avoidance of serious action in response to the ethnic cleansing campaigns in the border provinces of Darfur, Abyei and most recently, South Kordofan. Lyman’s apparent effort to dampen mounting pressure for outside intervention in Kadugli, came shortly after calls by a coalition of human rights activists, Sudanese diaspora, and genocide scholars, for “limited” American military intervention “to destroy carefully selected military assets of the government of Sudan.” In so doing, the coalition invoked the UN doctrine of “Responsibility to Protect” which is an outgrowth of world reflection on the lack of international response to the genocide in Rwanda during the 1990s. Now considered an established international “norm” (as distinct from a “law”), it’s based on the idea that all states are obliged to protect their citizens against atrocities, including genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. When a state is unable to protect its citizens or is responsible for the crimes, it is then the responsibility of the international community to intervene—including militarily as a last resort. The authority for military intervention rests with the UN Security Council and the General Assembly. The Obama administration and NATO were quick to invoke this doctrine when Libyan troops fired on civilians during the Arab Spring uprising—before siding with rebels in a campaign to topple the Qaddafi government. In any case, the Associated Press reported on July 10 that UN Ambassador Susan Rice had already “dismissed the possibility of U.S. military intervention in South Kordofan… She noted that the U.S. has not been involved militarily in Sudan and she doesn’t foresee that changing in the near future.” Reeves thinks the credibility of the Doctrine to Protect is on the line. “Darfur would seem to have sounded the death knell for any meaningful commitment to the ‘responsibility to protect,’” he wrote, “but South Kordofan offers one last opportunity. Real hope, however, seems entirely unwarranted.” Reeves told RD that in addition to what he thinks are “thousands” killed directly in South Kordofan, there will be tens of thousands more who have fled to the Nuba Mountains who will also die of starvation unless Khartoum allows humanitarian aid in. The daily aerial bombings have caused farmers to flee leaving the fields untended. And if there is no planting, there will be no harvest in October. “There will be mass starvation,” he said. “A major catastrophe. Tens of thousands will die in the Nuba mountains. They will watch their children die before they die themselves.” “If the world stands idly by this time,” Bishop Andudu told RD last month, “they will bring genocide.” http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/4906/u.s._envoy_minimizes_mounting_evidence_of_mass_graves_in_sudan/ END4 5. "Are U.S. and U.N. Officials Ignoring New Evidence of Atrocities in Sudan?" The New Republic (on-line), July 23, 2011 by Eric Reeves Sudan seems to bring out a perverse diffidence in both the Obama administration and the international community. This is especially clear in their response to a growing body of evidence that atrocities are being committed in South Kordofan, a border state in what is now Northern Sudan. Indeed, the more evidence that accumulates about the targeted destruction of the African Nuba people, the less the White House and the U.N. seem inclined either to speak out forcefully or to announce a course of action. U.S. special envoy for Sudan Princeton Lyman offered only a passing reference to the violence in South Kordofan during his Senate testimony on July 14, and, this week, Lyman said he could not confirm whether evidence has in fact revealed mass graves in the vicinity of Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan. The U.S., meanwhile, has preemptively taken a military response off the table, and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon continues to indulge in vague exhortations. And the head of U.N. humanitarian operations has said the world can't be sure of what's really happening in South Kordofan. This, however, is simply not true: We do know what's happening, by virtue of a now-leaked report from U.N. human rights investigators working in Kadugli in June. The report contains 19 pages of accounts of mass graves and brutal actions, from air assaults to summary executions, taken against the Nuba. There is also corroborating evidence from a variety of sources that backs up the report. How one can choose to dismiss this information defies comprehension. THE U.N. REPORT contains numerous eyewitness accounts of mass graves, gathered independently by U.N. investigators in June. A few examples: "On 10 June, UNMIS [U.N. Mission in Sudan] Human Rights interviewed residents from Murta village, outside of Kadugli Town [the capital of South Kordofan], who stated that they saw fresh mass graves located in a valley southeast of the Murta bus station near the Kadugli police training centre." "[Two men interviewed by UNMIS] reported that, following their release from SAF [Sudan Armed Forces] custody, they saw fresh mass graves between the SAF 14th Division Headquarters and Kadugli Market. On 16 June, UN military observers, while on their way between the SAF 14th Division Headquarters and Kadugli Market in an attempt to verify the existence of these mass graves, were arrested, stripped of their clothes, and believed that they were about to be executed when a senior SAF officer intervened." "On 22 June, an UNMIS independent contractor reported witnessing SAF elements fill a mass grave in Al Gardut Locality in Tillo with dead bodies. She reported that SAF elements transported the bodies to the site, dumped them in the grave and using a bulldozer to cover the grave." Bolstering these reports, the Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) recently published dramatic photography taken July 4 that shows three parallel mass gravesites, each approximately 16 feet by 80 feet. It also captured images of heavy earth-moving equipment and many white bags piled up near the gravesites, all consistent with human proportions. But Lyman, citing unspecified U.S. intelligence assets, has said simply, "We can't confirm the conclusion in the Sentinel project that there are mass graves in Kadugli." This claim could mean that U.S. surveillance has just not been directed at this particular site, but Lyman also said of the white bags, "[W]e see those same items in those same places before the fighting started"---which would seem to imply that U.S. surveillance has been ongoing. Problem being, SSP has photographic evidence indicating that these white bags were not there on either June 7 or June 17. (Putting aside the question of why Lyman and SSP's accounts are so different, one has to ask what the excavated sites might be, if not graves. Lyman, however, offered no alternative explanation.) Of course, we can't say for sure who or what is in the bags or in what seem clearly to be graves---but, given the violence committed again them, it's reasonable to guess it's the bodies of Nuba. Consider that on June 20, some 7,000 Nuba who had sought U.N. protection were forcibly removed from international custody by government security agents disguised as Red Crescent workers. The U.N. still doesn't know where these people are. Then, there are the victims of Khartoum's ongoing aerial assault throughout the Nuba Mountains, which the U.N. report from June details: "Since the eruption of the conflict, the SAF has carried out daily aerial bombardments into the Nuba Mountains and in several towns and villages populated by Nubans. The consequences of these bombardments on the Nuban people and in particular civilians, including women and children, are devastating. They have resulted in significant loss of life, destruction of properties, and massive displacement. UNMIS Human Rights has received photographs of mangled and mutilated bodies of civilians, some cut into halves, including women and children." The consequences of such bombings were also described in a July 13 dispatch in England's The Independent: "'The injuries are horrifying,' said the mission doctor who comes from upstate New York, 'a girl with her feet blown off, another with her abdomen sliced open.' The victims pouring in from the villages in Sudan’s Nuba mountains were being bombed by their own government, he discovered. Grass thatch villages were being turned to charnel houses as an air force dropped bombs from the back of ageing cargo planes. The government in Khartoum insists it is targeting armed rebels but the Antonovs it is using are non-military aircraft and are randomly destructive." John Ashworth of the Sudan Ecumenical Forum and a close observer of Sudan for more than 25 years also reports that recent conversations with the Nuba have a frightening congruence: "The conflict in South Kordofan continues, even if it is not so much in the news these days. I have just this minute talked to three Nuba, including one very old friend, who found their way separately to Juba with firsthand news of Kauda, Kadugli and Dilling. All confirm that the targeting of Nuba and suspected SPLM sympathisers is continuing. These days it is Arab militia rather than government forces which are searching vehicles and removing people on the road between the Nuba Mountains and El Obeid. Security forces in El Obeid continue to search for 'SPLM sympathisers' and anyone who has come from the conflict area, and Nuba report that they don't even feel safe in Khartoum. There is still a feeling that educated people are being singled out." (e-mail received July 13, 2011) DESPITE THE EVIDENCE at hand, U.N. and U.S. officials continue to speak ambiguously or insufficiently about South Kordofan. Valerie Amos, the head of humanitarian operations for the U.N., claimed on July 15 that "[w]e do not know whether there is any truth to the grave allegations of extra-judicial killings, mass graves and other grave violations in South Kordofan"---despite her own organization's new report on those very allegations. Then, there's Hillary Clinton of the U.S., who, in early July, according to Agence France-Press, "expressed concern over a recent flare-up of violence in the [South Kordofan] region, which she said 'cannot be allowed to return and jeopardise the larger peace.'" Clinton makes no mention of the evidence of atrocities, and her language suggests that the governing U.S. priority is not the immediate fate of the Nuba people. And Princeton Lyman, in more than 3,000 words of Senate testimony last week, said, "We are extremely concerned by credible allegations of targeted and ethnic-based killings and other gross human rights abuses. These abuses must end, an investigation must be conducted." That's just 27 words on the matter. To be sure, the "concern" expressed by Lyman, Clinton, and members of the U.N. is warranted, but it's far from a satisfactory response. That response should entail putting considerable pressure---pressure which I’ve outlined before---on Khartoum to stop what it is doing in South Kordofan. Given how many senior officials in the U.S. and at the U.N. won't speak honestly or even seriously about the situation in South Kordofan, however, how can we expect this to pressure to be applied? Somehow, both current evidence and the echoes of mass atrocities in the not-too-distant past aren't finding an audience in Washington, New York, or Europe. Or, worse, they are being ignored. Why can't the world find its voice—or its conscience? We have seen this play before, and we know that it will end terribly. [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.] http://www.tnr.com/article/world/92510/sudan-kordofan-princeton-lyman-kadugli END5 ______________________ 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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