Darfur death rates 'six times higher' than normal!!!!!!

Injuries and illness are taking their toll on displaced Darfur residents.

As many as 10,000 displaced people could be dying each month in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region - six times higher than normal mortality rates - a World Health Organisation study shows.

"What we are getting from this study is that the number of deaths is between 6,000 and 10,000 per month," David Nabarro, the WHO's official in charge of health actions in crisis situations, said.

He says under normal conditions, total mortality for the population concerned would be expected to stand at around 1,500 per month. A very high proportion of the dead are children," he said.

Mr Nabarro says the main causes of death are diarrhoea due to water pollution, fever, pneumonia and various injuries. He calls the death rate "unacceptably high", saying the figures are higher than during the wars in East Timor, the Balkans or Iraq in 1991. He says the main priority is to improve hygiene conditions, access to clean water and the management of camps in the western Sudanese region. However, he warns that the current relief operation may not be enough to match the scale of the crisis.

The WHO study has been carried out, with help from the Sudanese Government, in Darfur's three provinces. There are 1.2 million people are living in precarious conditions in camps for the displaced in the region. Mr Nabarro says the daily mortality rate among the displaced stands at 1.5 per 10,000 in North Darfur, where some 380,000 people are displaced. It rises to 2.5 among children under five - three times higher than the average African death rate.

According to United Nations estimates, up to 50,000 people have died in Darfur since two rebel groups rose up against the Government in February 2003. The uprising sparked a crackdown by the Government and a proxy Arab militia.

By In Solidarity 14 September 04

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Sudan urged to allow international peacekeepers in Darfur

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United Nations special envoy Jan Pronk has delivered a report to the UN Security Council.

Mr Pronk says the Sudanese Government has a responsibility to protect its civilians from human rights violations.

The UN Security Council is debating whether to take action against Sudan after the expiry of a 30-day deadline to restore security.

Up to 50,000 people have been killed during attacks by militias, more than 1 million others have been displaced.

Meanwhile, Darfur's tough-talking rebel groups have refused to discuss disarming their forces and demanded an international inquiry into alleged atrocities by government forces.

The insurgents' hardline stance, which came on the first day of talks with the African Union, threatened to deadlock the dialogue and undermine the progress made so far on humanitarian issues.

"We are not going to accept the cantonment of our forces, even if it means the collapse of the talks," said Abdelhafiz Mustapha Musa, a delegate from the Sudan Liberation Movement.

"We will be giving the government the opportunity to bombard our soldiers if we agree to their encampment proposal," he said.

By In Solidarity 3 September 04

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Washington tightens the screws on Sudan

Sudan's rebel forces are on the offensive and are reported to have seized large areas in the eastern part of the country. Their success may be due in part to covert backing from the United States government, which has its own reasons for interfering.

After failing to get tough UN Security Council sanctions against the Islamic government in Khartoum, the US government has adopted the backdoor strategy of sending military aid to its adversaries.

Although a small slice of the budget cake, Washington's plan to send $20 million in military equipment to Uganda, Ethiopia and Eritrea - three neighbours who support Sudanese rebel forces - may tip the civil war balance against the Khartoum government.

Last October, a milestone unity conference of the National Democratic Alliance, Sudan's rebel coalition, announced the formation of a joint military command of its seven diverse components. Simultaneously, it was launching offensives around the country. When Ethiopia revealed evidence of Sudan's complicity in the botched assassination attempt on Mubarak in its capital, Addis Ababa, in 1995, regional relations plummeted. Sudan ignored calls from the Organisation of African Unity and the United Nations to extradite the suspects.

In April 1996 the US sought and obtained UN Security Council sanctions covering diplomatic and travel matters. What it did not get was an arms embargo. Egypt objected to an arms embargo, fearing the benefit it would bring to the southern rebels, who might jeopardise Egypt's use of the Nile. Russia and China, which have signed oil exploration agreements with Sudan, also objected to tougher sanctions.

Military aid

Now the US is hitting back below the UN belt. It has openly pledged military aid to three of Sudan's neighbours, cementing an anti-Khartoum coalition. According to US government officials, the $20 million in surplus military equipment earmarked for Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda is "non-lethal" and includes items such as radios, uniforms, boots and tents. But Pentagon officials have not ruled out extending this to include rifles and other weapons.

Although US officials have denied that the equipment is for Sudanese opposition groups, saying it is for the "defence" of the recipient countries, it is uncertain that the equipment - reported in the Washington Post to be basic items suitable for outfitting a guerilla force - will be kept from Sudan's rebel forces.

In 1995 Eritrean President Issayas Aferwerki stated in an interview with the Economist that his government would give arms to anyone committed to overthrowing the Khartoum government. Ethiopia and Eritrea do not need US rifles, nor are they incapable of defence. In the 17 years prior to 1991, the former Soviet-backed Ethiopian regime - then Africa's largest standing army - received an estimated $2 billion in Soviet arms. Ethiopian and Eritrean rebel forces captured and redeployed these arms to oust the government.

Relations turn sour

Five years ago, Sudan supported Ethiopia's rebels and Eritrea's secessionists. In turn, the former Ethiopian regime supported Sudan's rebels. When Ethiopian rebels toppled their government and Eritrea seceded, their respective new governments attempted a policy of non-interference toward Sudan.

But since the 1993 Eritrean independence referendum, relations between the secular but Christian-dominated Provisional Government of Eritrea and Khartoum's militant Islamic regime have grown sour over Sudan's push for Arabisation and Islamisation. Eritrea, like Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, charges Sudan with creating regional instability by funding Islamic militants. Although Sudan's National Islamic Front leader, Hassan al-Turabi, and military leader Lieutenant General Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir praised Eritrea's newly won independence in April 1993, their push to attract lowland Muslim Eritreans ended with Eritrea's 1995 expulsion of the Sudanese embassy and Sudan Airways. Then in June 1995, Eritrea hosted a milestone conference to unite Sudan's rebel forces, giving them the former Sudanese embassy in Asmara to coordinate their efforts.

The National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Sudan's rebel coalition, was formed, consisting of the Beja Congress, the Sudan Alliance Forces, the Umma Party, the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army/Movement, the Democratic Unionist Party, the Legitimate Command of the Sudanese Army and the Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance. All have agreed on the future process of development, democratisation and the restructuring of Sudan on the basis of social equality and justice.

Ethiopia

Ethiopia is also playing its part. The Sudanese embassy, once the largest in the region and the most feared among political exiles, was downgraded to a skeleton staff, and around Christmas 1995 there were reports of SPLA units returning to their former Gambela base in Ethiopia.

In March 1966, Sudan claimed that the Ethiopian army had launched a series of offensives along the border of its upper Blue Nile states using tanks and heavy weaponry to capture territory it then handed over to the SPLA. In June the Khartoum government-controlled newspaper Akhbar Al-Youm denounced the World Bank for its support of Ethiopian plans to build dams on the Atbara and Blue Nile rivers, the latter delivering 70% of the Nile's water. Uganda has similar plans for the White Nile.

In response to mounting opposition and its growing isolation, the Sudanese government attempted to legitimise itself through snap elections in March. Of the 20% who went to the polls, 75% voted for National Islamic Front zealots. A large part of Sudan's new foreign relations offensive focuses on Egypt. Following a meeting of the two presidents on the sidelines of the Arab Summit, held in Cairo on June 21, Sudan showed its willingness to trade Islamic militants for better relations. Pressure from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also prompted Sudan to release former prime minister Sadiq al-Mahdi, and officials have pledged they will release a further 200 prisoners on the 148 released in September.

On November 4 Sudan signed a draft peace agreement with Uganda, but a week later the US compromised any such deal by pledging military aid to Uganda. Khartoum in recent months has stepped up a campaign of aerial bombardment, employing cluster bombs to devastating effect.

Although ethnicity and religion play a key role in Sudan's civil war, it was generated by the will of a resource-starved northern elite to exploit the newly accessible oil, water and land resources of the south. Islamic law has been the tool of repression, and ethnic groups have been divided in order to be ruled or pitted ruthlessly against each another. Jihad (holy war) has been called to rally the poorer folk, who are often forcibly swept up into peasant militias.

Refugees

Since 1970 the population has nearly doubled to 27 million, of which up to 6 million are internally displaced, and at least 1 million have become refugees. The subsistence economy has been largely destroyed by the compound effect of drought, desertification, deforestation and war in the south, west and east.The resultant city-bound migration is unwelcome. In 1995, the government bulldozed thousands of homes in the shanty towns on Khartoum's fringes. Some 300,000 Ethiopian and 400,000 Eritrean refugees, many having lived, intermarried and had children since waves of migration brought them to Sudan during the famine and war-torn years of the early '80s, have been caught up in the conflict. Refugees suffer the injustices of trumped-up racial hatred and petty economic jealousies. Imprisonment, deportation and confiscation of property have become common.

Although Eritrea has been notably compassionate in its treatment of Sudanese refugees, Ethiopia has not learned to distinguish between pro- and anti-Khartoum Sudanese people in Ethiopia. The few who have been granted political asylum are neglected by the United Nations, and many dissidents in Addis Ababa have been "repatriated" to the Khartoum government.

By James D. Thompson Green Left Weekly posted 2 September 04

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UN warns of worsening conditions in Darfur

The United Nations' World Food Program (WFP) says conditions are worsening in Sudan's western Darfur region.

The WFP says disease and hunger are threatening lives. It is trying to deliver food to some of the more than 1 million people who have been displaced by fighting but officials say disease and heavy rains are adding to the difficulties. The number of hepatitis cases has doubled in the past month.

United Nations special representative Jan Pronk is expected to report to the UN Security Council tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Sudan has accused rebels of kidnapping more than 20 aid workers in the troubled region. United Nations officials are investigating the incident.

The Sudanese Government says 22 health workers were abducted near the town of Nyala in southern Darfur. The staff were part of a vaccination program. The Government says they were kidnapped by rebels, but there has been no official confirmation.

In a separate incident eight Sudanese workers from the World Food Program and the Red Crescent organisation went missing on Sunday.

Rebels have denied that the staff members were abducted.

Rebel leaders and government officials are taking part in peace talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja. Both sides have accused each other of breaking a ceasefire agreement.

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In need of aid: Kofi Annan says western nations have been tight-fisted.

UN secretary-general Kofi Annan is pressing governments for more aid for the troubled Darfur region, as the Security Council considers threatening the Sudanese Government with sanctions over its role in the humanitarian crisis in the region.

Mr Annan has written to the leaders of 11 key European, Asian and Gulf nations.

He says nations have so far been too tight-fisted in addressing the situation in Darfur, where Arab militias have killed tens of thousands of African villagers and driven more than 1 million more from their homes.

A UN emergency appeal in March requested $US349 million in aid for the western Sudanese region.

UN officials say so far, less than half of that has been donated, with 70 per cent of that coming from just four donors - the United States, the Netherlands, Britain and the European Commission.

On Tuesday, the United States toughened its draft resolution to threaten unspecified sanctions against the Sudanese Government in 30 days if it failed to fulfil its commitments to disarm the Arab militias and give relief workers full access to the region.

UN, US and European Union officials blame the armed groups, known as Janjaweed militias, for murder, rape and pillaging in Darfur.

The Sudanese Government is accused of backing the Janjaweed.

Sudan denies this and protests outsiders meddling in its affairs.

US envoy Stuart Holliday told Security Council members on Tuesday to expect a vote either Thursday or Friday on the draft after a final round of talks on Wednesday afternoon.

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Sudan vows to resist Darfur intervention

A crowd of boys welcomes the arrival of a convoy of Red Cross trucks carrying food and supplies to a camp between Chad and Sudan.

The Sudanese Cabinet has put all government institutions on alert after vowing to face down any foreign intervention in the Darfur crisis.

Ministers have ordered the "political and strategic mobilisation of all government institutions", Agriculture Minister Majzub Al Khalifa Ahmed said after an emergency cabinet meeting.

Mr Ahmed says ministers also decided to "strongly resist all [UN Security Council] resolutions calling for despatching international forces to Darfur".

"The Government will from now on harden its attitude in rejection of any foreign intervention in Darfur and will notify the international community of this position," he said.

"The Government will appropriately deal with any soldier who sets foot on Sudanese territory."

Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail later re-iterated that Khartoum was prepared to face down any foreign intervention in Darfur, by force if necessary.

"We are not looking for confrontation and we hope that we will not be pushed to that," Mr Ismail told reporters in Ankara.

"But if we are being forced to do so, if we are being attacked, definitely we are not going to sit silent. We will retaliate or we will hit back."

Premature

At the same time, United States Secretary of State Colin Powell said it was too soon to talk of military intervention in Darfur.

Speaking to reporters on his way to Egypt, Mr Powell called such talk "premature", adding that he believed the Sudanese Government still had the ability to take action to bring the violence there under control.

Australia and Britain have both expressed readiness to commit troops to an international intervention force in Darfur.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said on the weekend that there was a "good chance" Australia would send "a small number" of troops to Darfur as part of a United Nations peacekeeping force.

The US is looking to introduce a new resolution on Darfur in the UN Security Council later today.

By In Solidarity 27 July 04

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Sudan rejects human rights report on Darfur

The Sudanese government has slammed a report by Human Rights Watch over the strife-torn western region of Darfur and accused the organisation of attempting to provoke the UN Security Council into imposing sanctions against the country.

Human Rights Watch charged in a report that Sudanese government officials are directly involved in recruiting, arming and other support to the Janjaweed militia that terrorise the black population of Darfur.

"It is nothing new of this organisation to take up this role that raises suspicion," Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail told journalists, referring to the US-based watchdog.

"The suspicion in the aims of the organisation is particularly raised by the timing it has chosen for releasing its report," Mr Ismail said, adding that HRW intended to pressure the UN Security Council into adopting a resolution imposing sanctions against Sudan.

The Darfur region is in the throes of what the United Nations has described as the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with a major famine looming and humanitarian relief operations hampered by rains.

Up to 30,000 people have been killed in Darfur since rebel groups rose up in February 2003, prompting a heavy-handed response from Sudanese forces and government-sponsored Arab militia.

Citing Sudanese government documents, the Human Rights Watch called for an immediate, strongly worded UN resolution that sanctions Khartoum and government officials responsible for crimes against humanity.

It said the confidential documents in its possession implicate high-ranking government officials in a policy of militia support.

"It's absurd to distinguish between the Sudanese government forces and the militias, they are one," said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Africa Division. "These documents show that militia activity has not just been condoned, it's been specifically supported by Sudan government officials."

Mr Ismail rejected the report as "lies" and said the documents used to back its assertions are "100 per cent false". He said he was planning to telephone UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and explain to him Khartoum's viewpoint on the developments in Sudan.

By In Solidarity 21 July 04

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