---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: John Ashworth <[email protected]> Date: Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 3:23 PM Subject: [sudan-john-ashworth] 'Butcher of Nuba remains at large' To: Group <[email protected]>
1. Butcher of Nuba remains at large By Mariana Rodriguez Pareja* January 20, 2013 - The conflict in Darfur has ruined the lives of over half a million people. This violence has had the complicit support of a government, which in theory is in charge of protecting its own population, that does the opposite. The UNSC asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to intervene and investigate the situation in 2005. The President of the country Omer Hassan al-Bashir has been indicted as one of the most responsible for the situation in Darfur, as well as his defense minister Abdel-Rahim Mohamed Hussein, now Governor of South Kordofan Ahmad Haroun and militia leader Ali Kushayb. None of them has been held accountable at the ICC or in any court in the Sudan. The case of Haroun is particularly outrageous; he has served in senior official capacities for more than a decade. As a state minister for the Interior from 2003 to 2005 he was allegedly in charge of the management of the "Darfur Security Desk" thereby coordinating the different bodies involved in the counter-insurgency, including the Police, Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), National Security and Intelligence Service (NISS) and the notorious militia known as the Janjaweed. It is impossible that he was unaware of the situation in Darfur. Former ICC Prosecutor Ocampo emphasized repeatedly that evidence gathered by his office demonstrated that Haroun had the individual criminal intent to commit crimes, as well as the resulting knowledge of the attacks against civilian population, rapes and pillaging of towns, and that in many cases, he encouraged the perpetration of such horrendous crimes. As a coordinator of logistics, bringing money and weapons and words of encouragement to Darfur’s triggermen, Haroun was the spider at the center of a web large enough to entrap millions of his fellow countrymen. When tribal elders in Darfur approached him as representative of the government and implored him to address violence against civilians, he allegedly called them his enemies and informed them that he had come to Darfur to destroy them. The joke is that this man was appointed Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs, following his stint at the Ministry of the Interior. In 2007, the ICC Judges issued an arrest warrant for Haroun for 42 counts for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Even though, he has not - or at least not that I know of- set foot outside the country since the issuance of his arrest warrant, he continues to hold power within the regime. He is now the governor of South Kordofan, the province that lies to the west of Darfur and to the north of South Sudan, encompassing key border regions like Abyei whose status remain unresolved, and over which Haroun has allegedly recruited tribal militias to try and ensure through violence that Abyei and its oil-rich fields remain part of the Sudan and do not effectively exercise referendum under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which could result in it joining the South. The result of this militarization is that the region is now one of the most unstable and restive parts of the country, the scene of fighting between the Sudanese army and Sudan People Liberation North (SPLM-N) which is part of the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) coalition of insurgent groups, and the subject of belated hang-wringing by international observers, who ignored or downplayed the threat that Haroun posed to the stability of the region. Alleged human rights violations occur in that province on a daily basis with total impunity. Victims in the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan remember Haroun all too well from the 1990s, when he was known as the Butcher of the Nuba. The international community has explored the idea of curbing "non-essential contacts" with individuals like Haroun, but it raises the inevitable question, whether any contacts can truly be called essential. The message the Sudan has received is to make Haroun essential to the work of the UN: he was in charge of overseeing the deployment of African Union-United Nations mission in Darfur (UNAMID). And we end up with the spectacle of Haroun transported by a UN helicopter to meetings that could very well have been linked to the militarization of Abyei that has taken place on his watch. The UN acknowledged this transport only when the photos came to light. It is acknowledged in UN corridors that Haroun has become a daily fixture in the UN calendar, and that the UN has come to rely on Haroun’s support in South Kordofan, a man one NGO representative argued had been scared straight. This argument comes less frequently, with the rising violence in Abyei. The video of Haroun in South Kordofan’s capital, exhorting government forces to take no prisoners, is a strong indicator that Haroun has indeed not been scared straight, but continues to operate from the same playbook he has used throughout his government service. We must insist on the execution of his ICC arrest warrant: the price of ensuring impunity for Haroun and others like him is too high. *Mariana Rodriguez Pareja is a Human Rights Lawyer http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article45244 END1 2. Ex-UN envoy suspects war crimes in Sudan border conflict [NB: I've already contacted the reporter to bemoan the sub-editor's choice of title. The Nuba Mountains conflict, of course, is not a "border conflict" but an internal civil war within Sudan. John] By Hereward Holland JUBA | Mon Jan 21, 2013 10:07am EST (Reuters) - Aerial bombardment and ground attacks by government forces in Sudan's restive south are targeting civilians as well as armed rebels and may amount to war crimes, a former senior United Nations official said. Mukesh Kapila was the U.N. head of mission in Sudan in 2003, when rebels in the country's western Darfur region took up arms against the central government. The government mobilized troops and allied militias there to put down the revolt. Hundreds of thousands died in the ensuing conflict, many of them civilians caught in the fighting or struck down by disease. Returning to Sudan this month, Kapila said he went on a ten-day tour of rebel-held areas in South Kordofan and Blue Nile border states and found evidence of abuses that amounted to systematic ethnic cleansing. "What's happened over the last two odd years ... is basically exactly the same tactics as Darfur except in the interim period the technology of war has improved," Kapila told Reuters in an interview. Sudan's government insists its forces have committed no war crimes but says the rebels have sown chaos in South Kordofan and Blue Nile and are guilty of grave abuses. Asked to comment on Kapila's findings, Rabie Abdelatie, a senior member of the ruling National Congress Party in Khartoum, said they were "completely incorrect". "The government's responsibility is to protect civilians," said Abdelatie. Armed revolts broke out in South Kordofan and Blue Nile around the time neighboring South Sudan declared independence in 2011. On his 1,000 km (620 mile) tour of the southern regions, Kapila said he saw burned villages and bomb craters far from any fighting. He said government bombing had struck a blow to farming, causing severe food shortages, and hundreds of thousands of civilians had been displaced. Sudan's government has banned aid deliveries even though it signed an agreement on the aid with the U.N. and the rebels in August. Khartoum said it needed assurances that aid could be delivered before giving the go-ahead. Kapila said 2.5 million people now had limited or no access to humanitarian assistance. "This is the world's biggest human rights disaster," said Kapila, who now works as a special representative for the Aegis Trust, an organization that campaigns to prevent genocide. "The tactics they are using point towards war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed with the circumstantial evidence that it is quite strongly ethnically based." SANCTIONS He urged the international community to use diplomatic isolation and economic sanctions to push Sudan to allow humanitarian access to the rebel-controlled border areas. Kapila, whose assignment as U.N. envoy ended in 2004, was speaking in the capital of South Sudan, which split away from Khartoum under the terms of the peace deal that ended the two-decade conflict. The rebels in South Kordofan and Blue Nile - known as the SPLM-North - fought as part of the southern insurgent army during a civil war in Sudan that lasted from 1983 to 2005. Sudan now accuses South Sudan's government of supporting the rebels in the border states. The government in Juba strongly denies that, saying it severed links with the insurgents when it gained independence, but the issue continues to strain relations between the nations. In Darfur, violence flared again at the end of December. More than 100,000 fled some of the worst clashes there between government troops, rebels and rival tribes in months, the U.N. said. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir and other senior officials on charges of masterminding genocide and war crimes in Darfur. They deny this and refuse to recognize the court. Khartoum puts the death toll from the Darfur conflict at 10,000. Kapila warned the violence in South Kordofan and Blue Nile could reach a similar scale as Darfur and said the crimes being committed in those states needed to be investigated. "There's more than enough prima facie evidence that a properly constituted inquiry should determine the nature of these crimes, and I can't understand why that's not happening," he said. (Editing by Tom Pfeiffer) http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/21/us-sudan-border-idUSBRE90K0KL20130121 END2 3. KHARTOUM AIR FORCE ATTACKS VILLAGES IN NUBA MOUNTAINS Saturday, 19 January 2013 19:28 | Catholic Radio Network Sudanese warplanes attacked several villages in Umdorain and Boram counties three days consecutively this week in Nuba Mountains State, killing animals and burning some houses. SPLM-N spokesperson Arnu Ngutulu Lodi said that the air strikes started on Tuesday and continued until Thursday morning. He added that several cows were killed and houses were destroyed. Mr Ngattulu stated that the air raids created fear among the local residents. Sudanese warplanes have been bombing the civilians in Nuba Mountains since June 2011 when the war between the SPLA-N and the Government forces started in South Kordofan. http://catholicradionetwork.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9049:khartoum-air-force-attacks-villages-in-nuba-mountains&catid=2:south-sudan&Itemid=84 END3 4. SPLM-N urges peace between Sudan and S. Sudan January 19, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – The leadership of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) rebels welcome any agreement between Sudan and South Sudan for the sake of peace, tranquility and interests of the people in both countries, an official said. Yasir Arman, the SPLM-N Secretary General, in a 19 January statement, said his group fully supports of the establishment of a dimilitaterised border zone between the two Sudans, and in particular, the agreement on the demilitarized buffer zone between the two countries to establish peace. “The establishment of a demilitarized buffer zone emphasizes the urgency and the necessity to include the SPLM-N in order to reach an effective demilitarized buffer zone given the fact that the SPLM-N controls more than 40% of the Sudan international border with the Republic of South Sudan, that will entail the need of the consultations between the SPLM-N, the AUHIP [African Union High level Implementation Panel], the Ethiopian Prime Minister, the United Nations and the other countries supporting the peace process,” Arman said. The talks between neighboring states of Sudan and South Sudan, which was held in Addis Ababa, have been adjourned till mid-February after the two sides failed to forge an agreement on a wide array of security and border issues. The Sudanese defense minister Abdel-Rahim Mohamed Hussein, at a press conference in Khartoum airport, said that the AU mediation team led by former South African president Thabo Mbeki has submitted a proposal to the negotiating teams of the two countries. He further said the two countries failed to resolve their differences over the disputed region of Abyei, borders, disengagement 9th and 10th divisions in Blue Nile and South Kordofan from South Sudan’s People Liberation Army (SPLA) and defining Mile-14 area. However, South Sudan’s Justice Minister, John Luk Jok blamed the breakdown in talks over “unjustifiable and persistent” demands by Sudan for “disengagement and disarmament” of the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North (SPLM-N) by the South Sudanese army (SPLA). In the statement, the SPLM-N Secretary General reiterats the groups’ readiness and willingness to cooperate in the interest of peace and tranquility of the border between the two countries, especially when it comes to securing the interests of the civilian population. “It is worth mentioning that the joint monitoring teams for the borders will include a military personnel from the Sudan government and without an agreement with the SPLM-N, it is only logical that the SPLM-N will welcome all the monitor personnel from the region, the international community and the United Nations in the area of our control minus the Sudan government military personnel who will have no place in our areas of control without ending the war or reaching an acceptable formula for both of us,” he said. “We welcome any consultations regarding this issue,” he added. (ST) http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article45250 END4 ______________________ John Ashworth Sudan, South Sudan Advisor [email protected] +254 725 926 297 (Kenya mobile) +211 919 695 362 (South Sudan mobile) +27 82 050 1235 (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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