---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Eric Reeves <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2013 13:59:02 -0500
Subject: An interview with Dr. Tom Catena concerning the Nuba
Mountains, and a humanitarian update on the region
To: Eric Reeves <[email protected]>

*An interview with Dr. Tom Catena concerning the Nuba Mountains, and a
humanitarian update on the region*

Eric Reeves, 9 March 2013

*Note:  *Dr. Tom Catena has been offering medical services in the Nuba
Mountains of South Kordofan (Sudan) for five years, including the past
twenty-one months of brutal fighting in the region.  The outbreak of war
came as no surprise to Dr. Catena, as he and his Nuba staff and friends
watched the slow breakdown of any chance for a meaningful peace.  The
"popular consultations" of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between Juba
and Khartoum (2005) offered no real promise of responding to the deep
grievances, political and economic, of the Nuba people.  The election of
Ahmed Haroun—wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against
humanity in Darfur—as governor of South Kordofan in May 2011 ensured that
there would be war.  Arms and troops in the region had been building
substantially for several years (Julie Flint, January
2011<http://www.cmi.no/news/?787=the-nuba-mountains-central-to-sudans-stability>),
so for Dr. Catena there was no question about the scale of the fighting
that would follow—or the need for the surgical skills that Dr. Catena
possesses.

I spoke at length with Dr. Catena on March 5, 2013 during a break from his
vital work in the Nuba.  His thoughts should be sobering for those who
think that this is somehow a crisis that is being managed.

*Eric Reeves (ER):  **Is there a "tipping point" in the humanitarian
situation that continues to worsen throughout the Nuba?  A point at which
we will see mass flight of an uncontrollable sort?*

*Dr. Tom Catena (TC): * My work is done in a hospital in the Kauda valley
in the very center of the Nuba, and while there have been frequent
bombings, we have been spared the worst of the violence on the ground,
which has occurred in many parts of both the Nuba and South Kordofan more
broadly.  But from this perspective, yes, we are building to a "tipping
point"—those forces that could bring about mass flight have been set in
motion. The sorghum crop this year was very poor—much poorer than last
year, which was itself badly compromised—and we were already seeing hungry
children in January.  Since the sorghum crop is harvested in November, this
is very early to be seeing such malnutrition, and quite ominous.

Children and young people have had their educations interrupted, and this
has also accelerated flight from the Nuba, as people seek education for
their children in Yida [refugee camp, Unity State, South Sudan].

*ER: **The so-called Tripartite Agreement on humanitarian access to South
Kordofan and Blue Nile was jointly proposed on February 2, 2012 by the
African Union, the Arab League, and the United Nations.  The Sudan People's
Liberation Movement/Army-North (SPLM/A-N) accepted the agreement within
days; but it was only after many months of deliberate delay that Khartoum
nominally committed to the agreement—and then reneged.  Have you seen
anything of benefit deriving from this still merely notional "agreement"?*

*TC: * No, nothing at all.  There seems to be no political will by these
parties to see their agreements put into action—Khartoum pays no price for
reneging on this agreement, or indeed many others.  But no, there has been
no improvement that I have seen in humanitarian access.

*ER:  **You have seen a great many military flights by Antonov "bombers,"
retrofitted Russian cargo planes that are without any militarily useful
precision.  What is the result of these bombing attacks?*

*TC: * We've seen perhaps 150 victims of bombing attacks in my hospital
alone, and despite our best efforts some of these people have died.  The
wounds are horrific, and often threaten lives.  Without medical
intervention, more than three-quarters of the people suffering such wounds
will die.  And I see just the people who are able to make it to Kauda.  We
hear the bombers all the time.

*ER:  **Is there any evidence that the targeting is of a military nature?*

*TC: * No.  Occasionally I will see an SPLA-N soldier wounded by shrapnel
from an Antonov but he will have been wounded by accident, not because of
his military location.

*ER:  **In any earlier conversation you mentioned the fact that Khartoum is
no longer flying its real military combat aircraft, such as the Sukhoi-25
jet fighter. What is the nature of the aerial military assaults now?*

*TC: * Bombing by Antonovs has settled into a routine of sorts—frequent and
irregular enough to keep people from tending their larger fields, or areas
too distant from places of shelter.  This is the main reason the sorghum
crop was so poor this year.  The vast majority of Antonov attacks occur
against civilian sites, well away from the fighting.

*ER:  **There are other ongoing reports of the situation in the Nuba,
particularly Nuba Reports (**http://www.nubareports.org/**), organized by
the American relief worker Ryan Boyette.  How reliable do you find the
information in these reports, coming as they do from a wide range of
locations in the Nuba and suggesting intense civilian bombing continues
relentlessly?*

*TC: * They seem to me very reliable, judging on the basis of my own
experience and seeing what they have posted on their website.  The
reporting I find quite good.

*ER:  **On the basis of what you've seen, do you have any doubt that these
attacks are ethnically motivated, given the absence of military targeting?*

*TC: * No.

*ER:  **What is the make-up of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) in the Nuba and
South Kordofan?*

*TC:*  Early on it was relatively high in Nuba conscripts, but this is much
diminished. Nuba who fought with the SAF tended to be people from areas
controlled by Khartoum during the North/South civil war.  Now, the
conscript population in the army is much more heavily Arabic, and retention
methods are brutal in light of the large number of defections, many of
which left important military equipment for the SPLA-N to capture.  These
have included tanks, which must be abandoned to be captured.

*ER: ** What is morale like among the people of the Nuba as you have seen
them since the war began?*

*TC: * Among older people, in the Kauda area, there is a grim
resignation—they are determined to tough it out, and many remember well
what they had to endure in the 1990s.  But younger people, especially those
who are well along in their schooling, are deeply dismayed that their
chances to complete an education are disappearing.  They see their future
in this education, and that future looks less and less promising.  From the
Kauda area, the primary motivation for those fleeing to the refugee camp in
Yida [Unity State, South Sudan] is to continue their education.

*ER: * *Has the SPLA-N attempted to seize food coercively from the civilian
population?  This was a serious problem in the North/South civil war.*

*TC: * No, there have been requests for a small portion of sorghum from
civilians, but no coercion was involved.  There is a tremendous feeling of
solidarity among the Nuba people as a whole, and it would be a mistake to
underestimate just how committed they are to their land and way of life.

*ER:  **Will they fight Khartoum to the death?*

*TC:*  Yes, they will.  There is no way that these people can be subdued
militarily.

*ER:  **Have you seen any evidence of military support from Juba for the
SPLA-N?*

*TC:* No, even Dinka men are now rare.  There were some Dinka soldiers
early in the war, but they are now quite rare in the Kauda valley where I
work.

*ER:  **Was war in the Nuba preventable?  Was it foreseeable?*

*TC: * We could see for a year before fighting broke out that there was no
real path to peace; election for governor of South Kordofan, the merely
promised "popular consultations," and the military build-up—together they
created insuperable obstacles.

*ER:  **What will it take, then, to bring peace to the Nuba Mountains?*

*TC: * People have to see—a critical mass of people have to* see *how
horrific the suffering of these people is.  Despite the many reports on
conditions, there isn't enough outrage to move international actors to
action.  Khartoum can't be bluffed with words or bound by more agreements;
they've got away with reneging on too many agreements, and words are too
often hollow statements.

*[end of interview]*

There have been a number of recent accounts from others who have traveled
into the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile on assessment missions.  Many of
these bear out Dr. Catena's first-hand account.  Particularly important
recent findings have been compiled by Aegis Trust and HART (UK).  These
findings follow an assessment mission in both Blue Nile and the Nuba
Mountains:

*• "People suffering from hunger, bombing in two war-torn states" (Agence
France-Press [Juba], January 19, 2013):*

"A former top UN official in Sudan on Friday warned that 'ethnic cleansing'
is going on in the southern part of Sudan, where the people are suffering
from hunger, disease and bombing in two war-torn states. Just back from a
trip to Blue Nile and South Kordofan states, where conflict between rebels
and Sudanese government forces has raged for over a year, Mukesh Kapila
called on the international community to come to the aid of the some 1.5
million people living in these states that border South Sudan.

*"'The ethnic cleansing is largely complete*.... Rebel areas are depopulated
and largely empty,' said Kapila, the former UN Humanitarian Coordinator in
Sudan in 2003-2004. His comments came prior to the publication Friday
[January 13, 2013] of a statement by anti-genocide charity the Aegis Trust,
for which he serves as a special representative.

"In Blue Nile, where Kapila estimates 450,000 people are affected by the
conflict, fields and villages have been razed, he said,* and the** population
is described on Sudanese radio as 'black plastic bags' that must be cleared
out of the area."*

The African population of Blue Nile is described on Sudanese radio as *"black
plastic bags"* that *"must be cleared out of the area."*  In trying to make
sense of the savagery of the reports about assaults on civilians that
continue to emerge from Blue Nile, as well as South Kordofan, we must keep
in mind the deep racial animus defining this human destruction and
displacement.  The same was true during the North/South civil war, in
Khartoum's seizure of Abyei from the indigenous Dinka Ngok (May 2011), and
in conduct of genocidal counter-insurgency in Darfur.  The campaign against
the Nuba people in the 1990s is regarded, without dissent of which I am
aware, as genocide.  There is simply nothing surprising about present
racist characterizations of the people of the Nuba and Blue Nile.

It is hardly surprising that people continue to flee to South Sudan, both
Unity State and Upper Nile State.  The UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) declared recently that they are expecting a
large influx in the coming months, before the start of the next rainy
season:

*• Concern about high number of arrivals in Yida [OCHA press release]*

"Aid agencies are concerned by the high number of refugees arriving in
Yida. With nearly 1,400 people registered in the past week, the population
continues to grow and exacerbate conditions in the congested site. At this
rate, the settlement could see upwards of 120,000 people by June,
coinciding with the onset of the rainy season." [The refugee population in
Upper Nile is much larger and is also growing rapidly—ER] (PRNewswire
Africa [JUBA, South Sudan], 20 February 2013)
One source of this concern about the congestion is the high incidence of
hepatitis E:

"The United Nations says an outbreak of hepatitis E has killed 111 refugees
in camps in South Sudan since July, and has become endemic in the region.

"UN refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards says the influx of people to
the camps from neighboring Sudan is believed to be one of the factors in
the rapid spread of the contagious, life-threatening inflammatory viral
disease of the liver. Edwards said Friday that the camps have been hit by
6,017 cases of hepatitis E, which is spread through contaminated food and
water. He says the largest number of cases and suspected cases is in the
Yusuf Batil camp in Upper Nile state, which houses 37,229 refugees fleeing
fighting between rebels and the Sudanese government." *(Associated Press
[Geneva], February 15, 2013)*

Any uncontrolled new influx of refugees fleeing from Khartoum's campaign of
annihilation in the Nuba and Blue Nile (http://www.sudanreeves.org/?p=3773)
will certainly exacerbate a deadly medical threat that is extremely
difficult to eradicate.  And in fact assaults on civilians, on the ground
and from the air, have been accelerating during the current dry season.
Yasir Arman, Secretary General of the SPLM/A-North, recently put the
situation in Blue Nile in stark terms:

*• Sudan Government Attacks Displaced Camps in Blue Nile, 8,000 on the Run*

"The Sudanese army and their allied militia have re-started a military dry
season campaign beginning February 14th up to this morning, February 17th,
in a heavily populated area with internally displaced civilians at Muffa
Village and the surrounding area, 21 kilometers southwest of Kurmuk. The
fighting has gone on for the last three days with heavy aerial bombardment
from Sudan's air force on the displaced camps in the village that resulted
in *putting 8,000 civilian displaced populations on the run* towards the
Ethiopian and South Sudan borders. It is to be noted seriously that the
aerial and ground bombardment of the Sudanese army and their allied militia
*resulted in the displacement of more than 70 percent of the inhabitants of
the rural Blue Nile, and as of now, nearly 200,000 from the civilian
populations are refugees in Ethiopia and South Sudan."*  (February 17,
2013<http://splmnsudan.net/en/sudan-government-attacks-the-displaced-camps-in-blue-nile-8000-on-the-run/>
)

There are also continuing reports of military build-ups along the
North/South border that could once again trigger conflict, perhaps all-out
war.  The Abyei region continues to be an issue that festers, and it is
clear that Khartoum wishes to keep it this way as a point of
leverage.  Actions of the Sudan Armed Forces are reported by Sudan Tribune:

• Abyei community asks South to redeploy after UN force fails to protect
them

"Members of the Abyei community called on South Sudan's to redeploy forces
to the disputed border area Wednesday as Juba accused neigbouring Sudan, of
sponsoring the theft of 489 heads of cattle on Sunday evening. The status
of Abyei is one of the main outstanding issues that Sudan and South Sudan
have not resolved since the latter's secession in 2011. South Sudan
minister of information and broadcasting Service, Barnaba Marial said there
had been 'reports of Sudanese army building up troops and reinforcing the
strength' of their forces in the area.

"'We have received reports from the area that more than 400 heads of cattle
have been raided. The government of Sudan is behind this activity. It is
using the militia to raid the area while it continues to build up troops
and reinforcing the strengths of those supposed to have been withdrawn. It
is not respecting resolution 2046 of the Security Council of the United
Nations which calls for unconditional withdrawal of the armed forces from
the area, which we responded and withdrew our forces without any condition
but it refused to observe.'" (*Sudan Tribune, February 27, 2013)** *

The international community—and the UN, the African Union, and United
States in particular—failed badly in the months preceding the May 2011
military seizure of Abyei by SAF and militia forces.  There no guarantee
that even with the present deployment of the UN Interim Force for Abyei
(UNISFA) hostilities will not occur.  Barnaba's statement comes,

"…following a visit [to the Information Ministry] by Abyei community
leaders with a message calling on the government to consider redeploying
troops to the area, claiming UNISFA was no longer providing protection to
the citizens in there. 'The situation remains tense and UN peacekeepers in
Abyei are not doing anything at all to protect civilians and their
properties. They allow Misseriya to come to the area with guns. They allow
Sudanese armed forces to increase the number of their forces in the area
and they allow cows to be taken away in their presence by militia groups
sponsored by the government of Sudan. The whole intention is to discourage
our people from returning home so that they can continue with their plans
to settle Misseriya in the area.' Acuil Akol said on Wednesday. Acuil is
the leader of an Abyei community delegation currently visiting Juba."

There are more than a few echoes of assessments of UNAMID in Darfur
here.  Moreover, it is unclear how long the UN Department of Peacekeeping
Operations is prepared to support this third, very expensive peacekeeping
mission in greater Sudan (in addition to UNAMID in Darfur and UNMISS in
South Sudan).  No doubt at some point an agreement will be signed by
Khartoum that will allow UNISFA (and Ethiopia, which has provided the
force) to withdraw with dignity, able to claim that their mission has been
accomplished.  And the agreement secured from Khartoum will be worth
precisely as much as the scores of other agreements the regime has made and
then disowned.

The United Nations and international community more broadly seem prepared
to accept this appalling status quo, as suggested by John Ging, OCHA head
of operations:

"UN humanitarian chief of operations John Ging told Inner City Press that
despite a 'Security Council resolution nine months ago calling for
immediate access [to Blue Nile and the Nuba],' no aid has since gotten into
South Kordofan and Blue Nile States…. [Ging continued] 'we have to stay
focused on results, which have been failure. We have to be honest
about *prospects
are... nil.'"* (Inner City Press [UN/New York], February 26, 2013)

Let us be clear about the implications of Ging's assertion that the
prospects for access to the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile are "nil."  A
useful and informed summary comes from the UN Integrated Regional
Information Networks (IRIN):

• Briefing: Humanitarian crisis in Sudan's Nuba Mountain

"The ongoing conflict in Sudan's South Kordofan and Blue Nile states
continues to present a major challenge to aid agencies in the region, which
say access is urgently required to meet the humanitarian needs of hundreds
of thousands of people.  IRIN has put together a briefing on the
humanitarian situation and prospects for peace in the region.  The
fighting, which began in June 2011 in the Nuba Mountains area of South
Kordofan, pits the Sudanese army against the rebel Sudan People's
Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N).  While South Sudan was able to hold a
referendum on its independence, the SPLM-N says it remains marginalized by
the northern government. SPLM-N also expresses frustration with the
"popular consultations" offered to South Kordofan and Blue Nile states to
determine their future, feeling theses did not provide a mechanism to
guarantee their community’s rights. They have refused to surrender their
weapons to government forces, which they see as hostile.  More than 200,000
people from South Kordofan and Blue Nile states have fled into South Sudan
and Ethiopia, according to the UN. Of particular concern are accusations of
continued "indiscriminate" aerial bombardment by the Sudanese Air Force and
shelling by the two sides in the two Sudanese states….

"Speaking at the UN headquarters in New York in January, the director of
the coordination and response division of OCHA, John Ging, said many people
in South Kordofan and Blue Nile were subsisting on roots and leaves due to
a lack of humanitarian aid. According to OCHA, the NGO Save the Children
Sweden has, since January 2012, screened 81,062 children under age five for
malnutrition, registering 3,490 cases of severe acute malnutrition and
10,287 cases of moderate acute malnutrition. Describing the situation as
'appalling,' Ging blamed the continued civilian suffering and lack of
humanitarian access on inadequate political will from both the Sudanese
government and the rebels; he warned that unless humanitarian operations
were allowed to proceed, more deaths and displacement were inevitable.
Despite an August 2012 Memorandum of Understanding among the Khartoum
government, the SPLM-N, and a tripartite mediation group of the African
Union (AU), the League of Arab States and the UN, humanitarian actors in
Sudan say the agreement's three-month deadline lapsed with neither SPLM-N
nor the Sudanese government allowing access or delivery of relief supplies
to South Kordofan and Blue Nile." (NUBA MOUNTAINS/NAIROBI, 14 February 2013
[IRIN])

Of course Ging is being deeply disingenuous here in suggesting that there
is any comparable responsibility for the denial of humanitarian access on
the part of the SPLM/A-N: this is consistent with the official UN policy of
representing Sudan's crises in terms of "moral equivalency."  But it is
simply not true that the rebel leadership in the Nuba and Blue Nile is
without the "political will" to do what is necessary to gain humanitarian
access for the regions. Nor does he adduce a shred of evidence that the
SPLM/A-N is not "allowing access or delivery of relief supplies to South
Kordofan and Blue Nile."  Not to assign responsibility accurately and
proportionately works to hand Khartoum an extraordinary propaganda victory,
and ignores the fact that the SPM/A-N leadership signed on to the original
humanitarian access proposal from the "tripartite mediation group" within a
matter of days of its original proposal on February 2, 2012—over a year
ago.

Given the UN posture, it is all the easier for Khartoum to forestall access
by declaring, as IRIN reports:

"A senior Sudanese government official said in November 2012 that there
were humanitarian needs in the two states, including water and health
services, *but denied that there was a crisis in the region."*

And yet the UN estimate for the number of civilians in Nuba and Blue Nile
in need of humanitarian assistance was "more than 900,000" in early
January<http://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/aid-to-900-000-needy-blocked-1.1449293#.UTphqRmhAbk>
.  The* Enough Project *published in October 2012 a
report<http://enoughproject.org/reports/rapid-food-security-and-nutrition-assessment-south-kordofan>
based
on evidence gathered from the ground by an International Nongovernment
Humanitarian Organization (INGO) working surreptitiously in the Nuba;
experts in health assessments in humanitarian crises at The John Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health vetted the assessment and found its
research and methodology to be sound and its findings to be credible:

§ The food security situation in South Kordofan has dramatically
deteriorated, with 81.5 percent of households surviving on one meal per
day, compared to only 9.5 percent one year ago, and 0 percent two years ago.

§ The prevalence of malnutrition among children in South Kordofan is
"serious" *bordering on "critical," according to the World Health
Organization's malnutrition prevalence classifications. A "critical"
classification for malnutrition is the worst or most dire classification
possible.*

§ This dry season's harvest, which is currently underway, is expected to
yield a significantly smaller amount of food than normal because farmers
were unable to plant seeds due to persistent bombing by the Sudan Armed
Forces. This means that civilians will require alternative sources of food
immediately.

§  65.7 percent of households have less than one week's food stock. This is
particularly troubling because food is not readily available for purchase,
the harvest is low-yielding, and incomes are scarce or non-existent.

§  96.4 percent of households report having less income than normal, and
73.2 percent of households currently having no income at all. This
effectively precludes the majority of households from purchasing available
food stocks.

§ The ongoing conflict has further limited access to and availability of
commodities at local markets, which has fuelled widespread displacement in
search of food.

For their part, leaders of the Nuba people declared in a November
2012 letter to the international community: "We do not have access to food,
medicine, healthcare and other basic necessities. We look around at what is
left of our homes, and see our family and friends weak from hunger and
disease. Everywhere we look, we see children, the elderly and other
vulnerable people lying on the ground helpless.  It is very hard for us to
explain to our children what is happening when they ask us, 'Does anyone in
the world know what we are going through? Why is it that no one cares about
us?'" (
http://sudanunlimited.tumblr.com/post/35351052341/a-letter-from-the-nuba-people
)

The African Union, despite its professed concern, indulges in the same
distorting account of what sustains the humanitarian embargo imposed on
these desperately needy regions:

"'The situation is now too critical to allow civilians to be held hostage
to further political intransigence,' the statement, presented to the AU
Peace and Security Council, read. 'Only unified, sustained, high-level
political pressure will break the deadlock in Southern Kordofan and Blue
Nile.'  The AU High-Level Implementation Panel for Sudan, chaired by former
South African president Thabo Mbeki, recently released a report urging the
government of Sudan and the SPLM-N to 'enter into direct negotiations to
seek a political solution to the conflict.'

"It also called on the UN Security Council to reiterate previous calls for
immediate and unconditional humanitarian aid to affected communities in
South Kordofan and Blue Nile.  The report warned that *'if either of the
two parties persist in failing to permit such assistance,* it will not be
possible for [Security] Council to discourage any other mechanisms for
humanitarian assistance that are not necessarily in full conformity with
the preferred principles of impartiality and transparency.' The panel also
called on both parties to 'enter into direct negotiations to seek a
political solution to the conflict.'" *(IRIN, February 14, 2013)*

The suggestion that the SPLM/A-N is refusing to permit humanitarian
assistance is simply an expedient lie, and can only lessen the pressure on
Khartoum, which is fully responsible for the denial of humanitarian access.

Mbeki and his diplomatic team have repeatedly failed Sudan and South
Sudan.  Few seem to remember that the title for his diplomatic
initiative—"AU High-Level Implementation Panel for Sudan"—referred
originally to the *"implementation"* of a "roadmap for peace" in *Darfur *that
Mbeki proposed several years ago.  The roadmap led nowhere and Darfur is
again exploding, largely because of the abysmal failure of the Doha
Document for Peace in Darfur, the result of yet another diplomatic process
into which Mbeki attempted to insert himself.  Mbeki failed again in
attempting to negotiate a referendum for Abyei in 2010-2011, and he is one
of those within the diplomatic community most responsible for Khartoum's
decision to seize Abyei militarily in May 2011.  Mbeki's response was
feckless and irresponsible, and it is the people of Abyei who are paying
the price:
• Abyei: Food scarcity hits thousands of displaced people

"A member of South Sudan’s ruling party (SPLM) has accused the United
Nations of allegedly failing to provide relief assistance to thousands of
displaced people in the disputed Abyei region. Luka Biong Deng, the
co-chair of the Abyei Joint Oversight Committee (AJOC), also expressed
fears that the population in the region were facing likely death should the
situation remain unaddressed. 'The UN coordinator in Abyei is [not] only
unable to act, but he is unwilling to act. Food and non-food items are in
abundance in Abyei, but returnees may die simply because of lack of food
and shelter. People of Abyei may be better off without [the] UN system that
is unable to act,' Deng told Sudan Tribune Saturday…. It is apparent that
no humanitarian assistance is being provided to the returnees despite
availability of such assistance in Abyei. Despite good efforts by USAID and
[the] Dutch and others to assist, the UN system in Abyei will not deliver
such good intentions to the people of Abyei who have suffered [a] great
deal."  (*Sudan Tribune, February 9, 2013*)

In an effort to divert attention from the African Union's continuing
failure in its self-appointed diplomatic role, Mbeki has gone so far as to
suggest that the SPLM/A-N is "failing to permit [humanitarian] assistance"
into the Nuba and Blue Nile.  This is false, and again the effect of such
mendacity is to encourage Khartoum to believe that it will triumph by
virtue of an expedient "moral equivalency."  Mbeki's panel calls "on both
parties to 'enter into direct negotiations to seek a political solution to
the conflict.'"  But this is precisely what the SPLM/A-N agreed to do in a
Memorandum of Understanding signed on June 28, 2011; the agreement was also
signed by Khartoum's politically senior Nafie Ali Nafie.  Three days later
it was President al-Bashir (July 1, 2011) who renounced the agreement and
called for a "cleansing" of the Nuba Mountains (the assault on Blue Nile
did not begin until September 1, 2011).  Mbeki never refers to this
critical three-day period in Sudanese history.

Re-writing history, moral equivalence, and political cowardice: these are
ultimately the reasons that Dr. Catena will continue to perform surgeries
on the most innocent of victims in the Kauda valley of the Nuba
Mountains.  Children will continue to lose limbs—overwhelming losses in
predominantly agricultural communities; they and other civilians will
continue to be grossly disfigured, suffer agonies of pain, and lose loved
ones.  And they will continue to ask why the world does not stop the planes
from bombing them, and allow food and medicine to reach them.

There is no answer in sight.  The moral cowardice and shameless expediency
on the part of any number of international actors of consequence, certainly
including the U.S. and the European Union, is beyond disgrace.  Individuals
like Tom Catena are heroic but slim buttresses for any vestige of the once
much-touted "responsibility to protect."


Eric Reeves
Smith College
Northampton, MA  01063
       413-585-3326
       [email protected]

*Eric Reeves'* new book-length study of greater Sudan (*Compromising With
Evil: An archival history of greater Sudan, 2007 - 2012*) is available in
eBook format, at no cost:
www.CompromisingWithEvil.org<http://www.compromisingwithevil.org/>


Websites:   www.sudanreeves.org

                 www.sudanbombing.org


www.CompromisingWithEvil.org<http://www.compromisingwithevil.org/>


Skype: ReevesSudan
Twitter: @SudanReeves

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"South Sudan Info - The Kob" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.


Reply via email to