UN/Sudan: Southern Kordofan Needs International Monitors – Human Rights Watch
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(Juba) - The United Nations Security Council should take immediate
steps to ensure international monitoring in Southern Kordofan, where
reports of massive human rights violations by Sudanese forces have
emerged, Human Rights Watch said today. Council members, who meet on
July 28, 2011, should press all parties to end immediately the
indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on civilians and should
warn those responsible for these crimes that they will be held
accountable.
The conflict began on June 5 between the Sudanese government and Sudan
People’s Liberation Army in Kadugli and other towns in Southern
Kordofan. Sudanese government forces have shelled and bombed civilian
areas, looted homes and churches, and arrested and killed civilians
suspected of links to the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM),
the southern political party that now rules South Sudan. Witnesses
interviewed by Human Rights Watch in Juba described the attacks and
the scene. "Tens of thousands of civilians in Southern Kordofan are in
grave danger, and no one is on the ground to report on what is
happening, much less do anything about it," said Daniel Bekele, Africa
director at Human Rights Watch. "An international presence in Southern
Kordofan is urgently needed to prevent further atrocities."
Fighting is taking place in several locations, and Sudan is bombing
areas throughout the Nuba Mountains, including areas where displaced
people have gathered. On June 26, government forces bombed Kurchi,
killing 16 people, including three children. Images obtained by Human
Rights Watch show bodies of women and children that appear severed by
the explosives.
Southern Kordofan is home to large populations of ethnic Nuban groups.
It is north of the border between Sudan and South Sudan, but the local
population has longstanding ties to South Sudan. South Sudan became an
independent state on July 9 following a January referendum in which
the vast majority of southerners voted for secession. The referendum
was one of the terms of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)
that ended 22 years of civil war.
The witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported that soldiers
and armed militias shot civilians during house-to-house searches in
Kadugli. They reported seeing dozens of dead bodies in homes and on
the ground as they fled town. One student member of the SPLM, who left
town on June 6 after a large number of soldiers entered the house
where he and other students were living, said, "We jumped over the
wall to the neighbor’s house, and I found five dead bodies of the
father, mother, and three children."
He and six other students sought refuge near the UN Mission in Sudan
(UNMIS) compound on the outskirts of Kadugli, but then fled toward
Dilling, to the northeast, after government security forces entered
the mission’s protective area in search of SPLM members.
Near-daily bombing has killed and maimed scores of men, women, and
children in the region and has forced thousands of civilians to flee
to safety in nearby caves. Sources on the ground estimate that the
numbers displaced by the ongoing hostilities have more than doubled,
from 73,000 a few weeks ago to over 150,000 now.
Access to Southern Kordofan remains difficult, as Sudan is blocking
road and air access to affected populations. In addition, its bombing
campaign has destroyed or damaged airstrips, preventing humanitarian
aid from reaching displaced people in the Nuba Mountains.
"As a critical first step, the Security Council should secure
unrestricted access to Southern Kordofan for humanitarian purposes,"
Bekele said.
The mandate of the UN peacekeeping mission, which was established as
part of the 2005 peace agreement and might have provided some
protection to these civilians, formally ended on July 9. The UN forces
who remain in Southern Kordofan are confined to their bases until
their departure, scheduled for August 31.
In June, the Security Council unsuccessfully pressed Sudan to agree to
an extension of the UNMIS mandate. In adjacent Abyei, a disputed area
that Sudanese forces took over in May, Ethiopian troops have
undertaken a peacekeeping role as the UN Interim Security Force for
Abyei (UNIFSA). The African Union High Level Implementation Panel,
which is mediating outstanding issues from the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement, is also involved in Southern Kordofan. It previously
brokered the arrangement for the Abyei interim force and has
recommended solutions to the Darfur conflict.
An international presence in Southern Kordofan is urgently needed and
could grow out of an existing peacekeeping mission or could be a
stand-alone operation involving the UN, the African Union, or both
organizations. In any case, the mission should have an explicit
mandate to monitor and report publicly on human rights violations,
Human Rights Watch said.
An unpublished report by UNMIS, leaked to the media in mid-July,
documented numerous cases of extrajudicial killings, arrests through
house-to-house searches and checkpoints, and abductions. In one
example, on June 8, militiamen pulled an independent contractor out of
his vehicle in front of the peacekeepers’ compound, took him around
the corner, and shot him dead.
The report, based on information gathered by UNMIS human rights
monitors before the mission’s mandate ended, also detailed witness
accounts of large numbers of dead bodies, mass graves, the use of
chemical weapons, and the presence of landmines. The report noted that
such violations, if proven, could amount to war crimes and crimes
against humanity.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is sending an assessment
team to Abyei this week. The team would be available to go to Southern
Kordofan, but the prospects of it gaining access to that area are
slim. A senior official from the Office of the UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights is expected to brief the Security Council about the
situation in Southern Kordofan at the July 28 meeting.
"The Security Council needs to have up-to-date information about the
crisis in Southern Kordofan so it can respond swiftly to protect
civilians and prevent further abuses," Bekele said. "This week’s
briefing is a good first step, but unless the Security Council presses
Sudan to allow access for more monitoring, the tap will be turned off
after this report."
Those most responsible for serious violations of humanitarian law and
human rights abuses against civilians in Southern Kordofan should face
targeted punitive sanctions, including travel bans and assets freezes,
Human Rights Watch said. Over the past several months the Security
Council, the European Union, the United States, and others have
adopted such targeted sanctions against individuals considered
responsible for human rights abuses in other countries in North Africa
and the Middle East, including Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria.
In Sudan, longstanding impunity for grave abuses in Darfur has
probably helped to set a precedent for similar atrocities elsewhere in
the country, including South Kordofan, Human Rights Watch said. The UN
Security Council referred the situation in Darfur to the International
Criminal Court (ICC) in 2005. The ICC has issued arrest warrants for
three suspects, including President Omar al-Bashir and the governor of
South Kordofan, Ahmed Haroun.
Haroun is wanted on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity
committed in Darfur, and al-Bashir is subject to two arrest warrants
for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity for his role in
the same conflict. Six years on, though, Sudan refuses to cooperate
with the ICC and to act on the arrest warrants.
The government also has not taken any meaningful steps to carry out
the justice recommendations of the African Union High-Level Panel on
Darfur, headed by former President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa. In
October 2009, the panel released a report on Darfur, noting that
serious crimes had been committed in violation of international law
and that Sudan had failed to ensure justice for those crimes.
On July 11, group of human rights organizations, including Human
Rights Watch, Interights, REDRESS, and the Sudanese Democracy First
Group petitioned the African Commission to investigate their abuses
and press for much-needed accountability.
"With no eyes and ears on the ground, the Sudanese government may
believe it can continue this brutal campaign with total impunity,"
Bekele said. "The Security Council should send a strong message now
that those responsible for these violations will be held accountable."
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