The House International Relations Cmte. held a hearing on 8 March that dispensed with Darfur business in 10 minutes before moving on to Iran for the remainder of the 4-hour session. Rep. Donald Payne (D- NJ) praised the committee for agreeing to markup HR 3127 after months of negotiations and thanked Cmte. Chairman Rep. Harry Hyde (R-Ill) and his staff for their cooperation in adding the Democrats’ revisions to the bill. Described as benchmarks for lifting sanctions, demands such as disarmament of the Janjaweed are familiar measures. The new twist is declaring the Janjaweed to be a foreign terrorist organisation that is deployed and harboured by the government in Sudan, and condemnation of Khartoum for protecting the northern Uganda-based Lord’s Resistance Army. “Some have accused Sudan of supporting the LRA because Uganda allegedly supports the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, the rebel movement fighting against the Sudan government.” The LRA has been carrying out atrocities for the past 20 years in the name of replacing the current government in Uganda with one based on the Ten Commandments. “While the LRA has been supported by the Government of Sudan in the past, the Sudanese are now cooperating with the Government of Uganda in a campaign to eliminate LRA sanctuaries in Sudan.”
The House of Representatives ignores the complexities and blames Sudan alone for the continued existence of the LRA. They hold fast to the premise there is a bad and better side despite evidence to the contrary. Since 2002, the government in Sudan has allowed Ugandan troops to come into Sudan to attack LRA rebels, an arrangement that Uganda claims has been extremely effective and continues to this day. Since Operation Iron Fist was launched in 2002, the peace process has been damaged and humanitarian operations have been egregiously compromised. The Uganda government began to take money “from the budgets of other ministries such as health, education and transport” to finance military operations which drew protests but little action from the World Bank and the UK government. In 2004, the UK-based Christian Aid condemned the Uganda government for failing to provide security in its displacement camps where the number of IDPs in northern Uganda had doubled to 1.4 million since the launch of Operation Iron Fist. Christian Aid now estimates that number to be nearly 2 million. This year, the UK finally “withheld more than $15 million in aid from the government over concerns about governance” and redirected it “to finance humanitarian relief in the north of the country.”
These conflicts will never be resolved by taking sides, especially not when that advantage is a demand of the U.S., a country that’s lost even the hint of credibility to the claim it can be an honest negotiator. To demand that one side disarm but not their enemy is at least counterproductive if the goal is improving security for the most vulnerable but it is beyond belief if the aim is to bring the warring parties to the peace table. And it could be reasonably argued that pursuing such an agenda without first preparing to manage the ensuing crisis is criminal. Global Security offers that when the camps in Sudan were raided in 2002, displaced LRA members fled to Uganda with retaliation in mind. In June 2003, LRA chief Joseph Kony “told his fighters to destroy Catholic missions, kill priests and missionaries, and beat up nuns.”
Changing the game
By Richard Kavuma
28 March 2004
Priest of peace aims to turn confrontation into cooperation
Joseph Kony Ochola, who is a deputy to Gulu Archbishop John Baptist Odama, says that an ARLPI now has a peace committee in every sub-county. The committees teach villagers about how to treat children who return from Kony captivity. They explain to the people that the children are victims of the war who may have killed people only because they were forced.
In July 2002, a group of LRA rebels returned to Uganda as Operation Iron Fist raged on in southern Sudan.
They requested ARLPI to act as a link between them and government.
“We took the letter from them to the president and the president gave us the permission to go and look for them,” says Ochola.
Within two weeks ARLPI had managed to meet in the bush with the second in command of the LRA officer, Vincent Otti. “Then the president became interested. He wrote a letter to them. They wrote a letter to the president although the language was a bit strong – You see when people are quarrelling the language is not always very soft – but it was something to see that at least they were able to talk.”
When Museveni announced his Presidential Peace Team (PPT) led by the then Internal Affairs minister Eriya Kategaya, ARLPI knew that both sides were becoming even more positive towards the dialogue.
But again, something unsettling happened. In August rebels requested a meeting with the religious leaders in Kitgum. Fr Carlos Rodriguez and two priests, Giulio Albanese and Tarcisio Pazzaglia, travelled from Gulu to Kitgum to meet the rebels.
“They got all the formalities from the RDC, LCV, the military – everybody was well informed,” says Ochola. On August 28, when they had met for just 15 minutes the UPDF attacked the venue and the rebels fled.
Ochola: “That became a very big problem. Fr Carlos was almost killed. Rebels began to suspect that government was trying to use the religious leaders as a bait to kill them.”
The government officials said the priests did not have permission to meet the rebels and accused them of being rebel collaborators.
The UPDF said it had “captured the priests” in battle and held them for two days in what Fr Carlos described as “appalling conditions”.
However, ARLPI chairman Odama issued a statement saying that Kitgum RDC Okot Lapolo had even asked the priests to carry a letter to one of the rebel commanders, Toopaco.
“The little trust that we had built on both sides was completely smashed because of that incident. By October, 2002 both sides went on the offensive and there was a lot of killing and abduction,” said Ochola.
In 2004, Philip Okin, a Ugandan member of Christian Aid’s interfaith partner, the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative (ARPLI), explained there were actually three ongoing conflicts. “The LRA attacks civilians. The Government is fighting the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). But the Government attacks civilians! It is very complicated. [ Background to conflict ]
Doesn’t the government protect civilians? They say they do but they do not have enough soldiers. So they recruit civilians from each tribe into militias to protect their own tribe. This makes things worse as it leads to ethnic conflict. And although they are armed, they are mostly untrained and unpaid. So they often loot civilian camps.
What does ARLPI do to help? Mediation and reconciliation. It is hard for ex-rebels to show their faces when they have been forced to do terrible things to their own families. We have to remind communities that these people were just children when they were taken, and that they were dehumanised. We have helped thousands of abducted adults and children return home by using traditional reconciliation practices such as drinking from the same pot, or giving a gift of a cow.
Joseph Kony is now in hiding.
The war, often described as the world’s worst forgotten humanitarian crisis, has dragged on despite attempts to rekindle peace efforts that broke down in late 2004 and Ugandan military offensives that have driven the rebels further underground and into neighboring countries.
But pressure on the rebels grew last year when fugitive LRA chief Joseph Kony and four top commanders were indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, among them the “brutalisation of civilians by acts including murder, abduction, sexual enslavement (and) mutilations.”
On Monday, the Ugandan army claimed that Kony, a self-styled mystic who claims that God speaks directly to him to order attacks, fled from a base in southern Sudan into the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Although Christian Aid supported the principles of the ICC and international law, their partners had concerns about its implementation and effect. They feared disruption of the peace process as rebels would go underground rather than risk prosecution. They also felt the ICC was insensitive to local tribal traditions and would not uphold its pledge to suspend intervention if it was determined to be working against the interests of justice.
UK government is neglecting the victims of Africa’s longest running war
Joint statement by: Oxfam, Christian Aid, Tearfund, International Rescue Committee, World Vision UK, Save the Children UK, CAFOD and Quaker Peace and Social Witness
30 November 2005
Two British people have been killed by the LRA in the last month, as well as several Ugandan aid workers. This is part of a new wave of violence, which has seen aid workers targeted for the first time. The attacks follow the indictment of five members of the LRA by the International Criminal Court in mid-October.
As a result of these attacks, many aid agencies have been forced to restrict their operations in northern Uganda. Almost two million people have been driven from their homes by the conflict and now live in camps.
The Darfur Peace and Accountability Act of 2005 (HR 3127) was cobbled together when the more muscular Darfur Genocide Accountability Act (HR 1424) failed to gain bipartisan support. This markup does not restore the contentious provisions. If sanctions fail to bring the government in Sudan in line, Payne said, further legislation should be pursued that would call for no-fly zones, “perhaps combat planes to ensure that the government of Sudan does not continue to use its gunboats, ships, planes to kill and maim people”, and a “robust” UN or NATO force that would be directed by the African Union.
Brutality, heroism and the imperial sideshow
Kevin Rushby
19 November 2005 Guardian
Khartoum: The Ultimate Imperial Adventure
by Michael Asher
480pp, Viking, £25
The Islamic state of Sudan was every bit as tyrannical as its colonial predecessor, and its strength – in a tribal confederacy – soon showed cracks after the Mahdi died (probably from natural causes). Left to its own devices it would have disintegrated and given the Muslim world a clear signal of where messianic utopianism led. Instead the British empire struck back, this time fortified by all the latest gadgetry of war. On the final day of the drama, at Omdurman, British machine guns slaughtered 11,000 dervishes in a single day – “a good dusting”, as Kitchener put it. None of the spear-wielding warriors came within reach of the enemy, and if the 21st Lancers hadn’t mounted a charge (with young Winston Churchill among them), there need have been little loss to the imperial power at all. The machine gun had simply put the enemy out of reach and made chivalric close combat redundant – just as cruise missiles and B52s can nowadays.
Why are “robust” and NATO analogous? A funny example of this recurring association can be found in Scott Horton’s post on AntiWar.com’s blog about plans to put American troops under the command of a British officer in Afghanistan, described by Stars and Stripes as a possible blueprint for alliance actions in Africa and elsewhere: “‘I’ve absolutely no doubt’ NATO is ready to lead the force, the ARRC commander, British army Lt. Gen. David Richards, said in an interview. If attacked, ‘we will respond robustly to whoever wishes to take us on. The NATO [rules of engagement] are more than robust enough to deal with anyone who wishes to tangle with us.'”
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) appeared on Washington Journal the day the House hearing was held to urge states and other institutional overseers of pension funds holding investments in companies doing business in Sudan to divest. She recently blamed China and Russia but not Qatar for blocking UN sanctions and believes the government in Sudan is solely responsible for the ongoing conflict. Rep. Lee should visit the lands and history of Sudan with people other than Don Cheadle and Nancy Pelosi whose opinions are shaped by Hollywood screenwriters and political campaign managers. If she’s editing her script to mollify colleagues in order to secure passage of pending amendments such as Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.’s, which would add $100 million to the FY06 supplemental spending bill for AU peacekeepers, her approach still makes little sense. This is the same Congress that only 3 months ago refused a request by Condoleezza Rice to restore $50 million in aid to the AU mission that was cut from the budget last November.
According to Security Council Agrees to Send Troops to Darfur by Joel Brinkley, published by the New York Times, the United States did offer a motion last month to deploy thousands more peacekeepers which was unanimously supported by the UN Security Council. The U.S. also made it clear it had no intention of sending U.S. troops on the mission that aims to merge the 7,000 African Union troops currently serving in Sudan with UN or NATO forces of 12,000 to 20,000. So far no other member state has stepped up to become entangled in it. Even if all obstacles are overcome, including Khartoum’s resistance to the UN takeover, troops would not be deployed for at least a year.
According to Eric Reeves in Bad to Worse in Darfur, published this week by The New Republic, a Western takeover has been thwarted by the cunning government in Sudan. “Despite the fact that the United States held the presidency of the U.N. Security Council during February, the month passed without any meaningful action from the Council.” Reeves further states, “The African Union had committed “in principle” to a handover to the United Nations in January. But the genocidaires in Khartoum used the intervening weeks to remarkable diplomatic effect, pledging to withdraw from the African Union if there were a handover to the United Nations, implicitly threatening to unleash Al Qaeda on Western forces, and lobbying A.U. nations. Egypt weighed in on Khartoum’s behalf, creating the prospect that the African Union might split along “Arab” and “African” lines.”
According to UN force in Sudan ‘will raise al-Qa’eda threat’ by Mike Pflanz, published by the Telegraph, Jan Pronk, the UN’s leading envoy to Sudan, warned in early February that “Al-Qa’eda’s presence in Sudan is likely to soar” if UN or NATO forces replace those of the African Union, calling such a deployment a “recipe for disaster” that would cause “terrorist agents to stream in to fight a “jihad” against the blue berets.”
“The climate in Khartoum against the UN is heating up very strongly. There are threats, warnings of recolonisation, invasion, imperialism, conspiracy against the Arab-Islamic world,” he told a news conference in New York. “There is fear in Khartoum that the transition [to a UN-led force] will be a conspiracy, which will bring Sudan in same situation as Iraq.”
The BBC’s Jonah Fisher in Khartoum says although 10,000 United Nations troops are being deployed to southern and eastern Sudan, the prospect of a UN mission in the west is unacceptable to many Sudanese.
Stirred up by violent rhetoric in Islamic newspapers, several thousands of people marched on the UN headquarters.
Our correspondent says many believe their country’s sovereignty is at stake, with the West eager to turn Sudan into another Iraq.
Death threats against Western diplomats have been published and militia groups have warned of a holy war.
He says the crowd chanted a mixture of Islamic slogans and insults to America, George Bush and the United Nations.
On 26 February 2006, Human Rights Watch reported that a confidential list compiled by a U.N. panel of experts who were appointed to the task last year by Kofi Annan had been leaked to the press. The 17 high-level Sudanese officials on the list could be sanctioned and referred to the International Criminal Court by the UN Security Council for their involvement in gross human rights violations. An additional watchlist of 5 included the names of “two top commanders of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) who may be considered for sanctions if their ongoing leadership struggles impede the peace process. They were also cited for various human rights abuses, including using child soldiers and summary executions of captured combatants.”
According to the Panel’s public report, the Sudanese government defied the explicit arms embargo provisions of resolution 1591. The Panel found that the government officials shipped arms, trucks, attack helicopters, and other military materiel into Darfur without seeking permission from the Sanctions Committee. Khartoum also used attack helicopters in support of offensive ground operations, which the Security Council resolution forbids.
The Panel’s report also named the Darfur rebel movements, particularly the SLA, for violating the arms embargo and attacking civilians, including killing captured government combatants, who have protection under international law. The report detailed the summary execution of 20 captured government soldiers during the fighting in and around Sheiria, South Darfur, on September 19-22. The SLA commander considered responsible is named in the annex to the report, as are four other rebel commanders in different parts of Darfur.
National Security Director Salah Abdalla “Gosh” is one of the 17 people under consideration for immediate action. His role as Sudan’s intelligence liaison with the Bush administration was exposed in May ’05 by Ken Silverstein in Official Pariah Sudan Valuable to America’s War on Terrorism published by the LA Times.
When the story broke, Rep. Donald Payne appeared with Silverstein on Democracy NOW! and discussed how Khartoum’s special relationship with Washington had influenced various efforts to derail punitive measures against the government.
In the year since, Payne has put together a markup that will only succeed in causing greater misery for the very people he aims to help. I doubt Eric Reeves is correct that the United States was unnerved by some implicit threat of Khartoum’s to unleash al Qaeda against Western forces. Continuing to protect current intelligence and future business relationships and choosing to avoid a messy situation when troops are overextended and elections are in play seems more likely. Khartoum’s response was no less predictable.
Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) said it was unconscionable that the civilised world would stand by as the Arab militias slaughtered innocent women and children. Then he advocated doing just that to Iranians when the committee left Darfur behind and turned its attention to Iran. I recently revisited another performance Mr. Lantos gave before a different committee. Waco: The Rules of Engagement is in Link TV’s current rotation. Who is the terrorist?
Perhaps if the civilised U.S. was not in a full-bore rush to delegitimise or otherwise neutralise every country on the planet that might possibly stand up to it one day without fear of being toppled, the world would not be in the shape it is in today. But clearly activists who worry for Darfurians should appeal to a different negotiator.