Africa

September 17, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Federica Mogherini, has appointed ambassador Jean-Michel Dumond as Head of the EU Delegation to Sudan.

EU's ambassador to Sudan Jean-Michel Dumond (EU Photo)

In a statement extended to Sudan Tribune on Saturday, the EU delegation to Sudan said that Dumond has arrived in Khartoum on September 13th, pointing he is expected to present his credentials to the Sudanese government in the coming days.

The French diplomat, who succeeded former Czech envoy Tomas Ulicny, was previously serving as Head of the EU Delegation to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

He also served as ambassador of France to Nigeria and had been posted to Germany, Italy and Romania.

“Ambassador Dumond was also Director for Common Foreign and Security Policy and Deputy-Director for Western Europe at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He devoted a part of his career to the Francophonie” said the statement.

The statement added that the role of Dumond is “to represent the EU in Sudan, to ensure the enhancement of bilateral relations, to promote the values and interests of the European Union, notably peace, democracy, and respect for human rights through political dialogue, development cooperation and humanitarian assistance to the people of the Sudan”.

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September 17, 2016 (BENTIU) - A delegation of 35 members from South Sudan's armed opposition loyal to First Vice President, Taban Deng Gai are in Northern Liech, one of the country's new states on peace deal implementation.

Taban Deng Gai addresses delegates after he was sworn-in as South Sudan FVP inside the Presidential Palace in the capital of Juba, July 26, 2016 (Photo Reuters/ Jok Solomun)

Former Mayom county commissioner, John Bol Mayak, said the visiting team discussed a number of issues on with state officials.

“We are happy to receive the delegations, and we now pledge to the general public that the Northern Liech state is for peace,” said Mayak, now a state security advisor.

Last month, he said, the state received several members of the country's armed forces under the command of Lt. Gen Dor Manjuor as a sign of peace in the country.

Former Unity state security advisor, Manyiew Dak led the delegation, comprising of several senior SPLM-IO members.

Dak separately told Sudan Tribune that he led the over 35-member delegation to Bentiu to spread messages of peace and assure them of the peace implementation.

“Our coming to the state was to assure people and government officials that peace must be implemented in line with Taban Deng Gai's appointment as the first vice president of the republic of South Sudan,” he said.

Dak stressed that the people of Northern Liech state were for peace, which he said must be embraced by all citizens.

“It is time for us to leave Riek Machar alone and his groups. We assure you that through Gen. Taban Deng and President Salva Kiir, peace will be achieved without any obstacle,” he said.

The armed opposition delegation, officials told Sudan Tribune, will move around the counties informing the public about new development for peace in the country.

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September 17, 2016 (KHARTOUM) – Over 2,000 South Sudanese refugees relocated from Khor Omer to Kario camp in Sudan's East Darfur state, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), said in a new report.

The relocation of the refugees reportedly began on 20 August and as of 9 September, 2,173 refugees from Khor Omer camp had been moved to the new camp.

According to UNHCR, Kario camp, which is located about 45km south of Ed Daein, was selected by authorities to host the refugees coming from the Northern Bahr el Ghazal area of South Sudan.

“The relocation will help decongest Khor Omer and ensure better access to basic services including access to water, sanitation and health services and other assistance in Kario,” the agency said.

Those relocated have reportedly also received shelter materials.

As of 31 August, the total number of South Sudanese in Sudan had exceeded 247,000, the refugee agency said, adding that fluctuating figures in some refugee hosting locations is due to the internal movement of refugees within Sudan, particularly in East Darfur and the Kordofan states where refugees have been seeking seasonal labour.

Meanwhile, over 6,000 South Sudanese were moved by local authorities between 18-19 August, from three open areas in Jabrona sites, located in Ombeda locality (Omdurman) to a new site in Nivasha, 15km from the Jabrona, the UN agency said.

UNHCR, however, said it was not consulted on the relocation of the refugees, but added that it was monitoring the situation closely.

The UN refugee agency said it was engaged in dialogue with the Sudanese Federal Civil Registry to promote the issuance of birth certificates for South Sudanese children born in Sudan.

“Authorities in White Nile and South Kordofan States have indicated they are ready to issue certificates, which UNHCR welcomes,” it said, adding it is currently following up with the authorities at state levels.

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September 17, 2016 (JUBA) - A senior official at South Sudan's information ministry says it has no knowledge about the recent closure of an independent English daily newspaper.

South Sudan's information minister, Michael Makuei Lueth, speaks to reporters in Jonglei state capital Bor on 25 December 2014 (ST)

South Sudan's director general of information, Paul Jacob Kumbo, said he was unaware of the decision behind closure of the Nation Mirror newspaper.

"I cannot say anything about this because I am not unaware of the reasons for which the paper you are talking about was closed. So I cannot also comment on when it will resume. It is the responsibility of the national security and they are the ones to decide," he said.

He was reacting days after the Juba-based newspaper was closed by authorities.

The decision by operatives drew a significant attention of the media advocacy group and the international organizations advocating for upholding of freedom of expression as well as right to gathering and disseminating information in the interest of the public.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), in a statement issued on Thursday, called on South Sudan authorities to immediately re-open the paper. The statement was in reaction to reports that security services ordered the independent daily to close.

"The newspaper's editor, Aurelions Simon Cholee says security officials summoned editors and accused them of "engaging in activities that are incompatible with the newspaper's registration status," but did not offer further explanation.

Cholee said that authorities ordered the Nation Mirror closed and did not specify when it would be able to resume publication. The paper's website was last updated on 13 September.

In its most recent edition, the Nation Mirror covered a report by The Sentry, a Washington advocacy group, which alleged that President Salva Kiir and his rival, the former vice president Riek Machar, had amassed enormous wealth and invested it in multimillion dollar properties abroad, while a conflict triggered by a dispute between the pair has left many citizens in South Sudan living in poverty.

"President Salva Kiir's government should immediately allow the Nation Mirror to resume publication," said Murithi Mutiga, CPJ's East Africa representative.

"South Sudan needs more, not fewer, independent and critical voices. Preventing professional journalists from doing their work will not advance efforts to build a democratic and stable South Sudan," he added.

The Nation Mirror was closed before. In February 2015, CPJ documented how National Security Service agents seized a print run and issued a publishing ban after the paper was accused of printing anti-government reports.

The media environment in South Sudan has deteriorated in recent months. CPJ reported in July that the major daily, Juba Monitor, was ordered closed and its editor, Alfred Taban, was arrested after he wrote a column critical of both Kiir and Machar.

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September 17, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) leader Gibril Ibrahim Friday disclosed they requested the African Union mediation to dedicate more time for the preparations of the upcoming round of talks adding no date has been determined yet for its resumption.

Last August, after a week of negotiations with the government over a cessation of hostilities and humanitarian access agreements the mediation suspended the discussions between the warring parties in Sudan's two areas and Darfur region.

Sudanese officials recently expected the resumption of talks soon, and announced a visit by the head of the African Union High Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) Thabo Mbeki to Khartoum ahead of the negotiations.

However , JEM leader who is currently visiting the French capital Paris told Sudan Tribune that no date has been yet determined. He further said they informed an AUHIP delegation during a recent meeting held in Kampala they would not join the negotiating table before the good preparations for the short rounds of negotiations the mediation used to hold.

He said together with Minni Minnawi the leader of Sudan Liberation Movement faction, they recommended to not call for a new round of talks without good preparations and making every diplomatic effort to narrow the gaps between the parties.

Ibrahim further told a limited number of journalists and activists that they asked the mediation not to set a deadline for the negotiations. " We told them if there is a problem in the means, the mediation should search further funding."

"So, no specific date has been fixed for the resumption of negotiations," he concluded.

The talks on peace in Darfur between the Sudanese government, JEM and SLM-MM are stalled over four points: the rebel rejection of the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD), the determination of the exact location of their sites, release of the prisoners of war and the establishment of a mechanism to monitor the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

JEM leader explained they asked to open the DDPD for negotiations to review some issues but the government refused. Following what they proposed to keep the framework agreement aside and to negotiate new deal but the government also rejected their proposal.

"That means there would be no political or economic discussions and we would only negotiate security arrangements and power sharing protocols," he stressed, pointing they are interested in justice and reforms.

According to Ibrahim the mediation held a separate meeting in Kampala with the Sudan People's Liberation Movement to discuss the differences between them and the Sudanese government on the humanitarian access, as they diverge over the delivery of 20% of the aid from Ethiopia.

He confirmed that the Sudan Call groups will meet in Addis Ababa from 25 to 30 September to discuss the preparatory meeting to coordinate positions and discuss some organizational matters.

Ibrahim who chairs a faction of the Sudan revolutionary Front stressed that the good coordination between the opposition forces, which include political and military groups, is needed more than any structural reforms.

He also, the preparatory or the strategic meeting between the government and opposition groups will discuss the other confidence building measures besides the humanitarian truce such as the release of prisoners and ensuring public freedoms through the suspension of the National Security Act of 2010.

The meeting will discuss the participation of the "Call of Sudan" and other opposition forces in a comprehensive and genuine national dialogue and how to enable them to implement its outputs. This requires restructuring the National Congress Party controlled process in Khartoum, he added.

He regretted that some opposition groups decided to boycott the negotiations with the government before too fulfill a number of conditions saying they want to bring these preconditions on the negotiating table.

Some groups of the National Consensus Forces refused to take part in the African Union brokered negotiations before the creation of a conducive environment and the acceptance of Bashir's government to form a transitional cabinet to implement the outcome of the national dialogue.

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September 16, 2016 (JUBA) - South Sudan's President, Salva Kiir, has extended an official invitation to the president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, expressing willingness to implement the collapsing peace agreement which he signed with his former first deputy, Riek Machar, in August last year.

South Africa's President Jacob Zuma (R) shakes hands with the visiting South Sudanese President Salva Kiir at his office in Pretoria on 24 October 2015 (Photo Moses Lomayat)

South Africa is one of the countries in the continent which played a supportive role to the regional led mediation to reunite fragmented ruling party in South Sudan, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), and to end the 21 months of civil war.

The invitation was delivered by the new First Vice President, Taban Deng Gai, who went to South Africa last week in an attempt to solicit support from the South African government and its ruling African national congress (ANC).

The support-seeking mission was based on the promise to implement the agreement and Arusha reunification of the SPLM.

The newly appointed Minister of Petroleum, Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, who acted as spokesperson during the visit to South Sudan, told reporters on Thursday upon arrival at Juba airport that the visit to South Africa was to discuss bilateral issues between the two countries and solicit recognition of the controversial leadership of the new vice president, Gai, who replaced Machar in July.

He said the South African president has accepted the invitation from president Kiir to discuss bilateral issues in Juba.

"The invitation has been accepted and President Zuma will be visiting South Sudan soon to show solidarity with the people of South Sudan and also the implementation of the agreement and all the bilateral issues," announced Gatkuoth.

He said Gai, while in South Africa, met his South African counterpart, Cyril Ramaphosa, to deliver an invitation from President Kiir to Jacob Zuma.

South Africa, he said, has been training South Sudanese on state and national administration and project implementation and still wants to continue with these trainings as part of its support to the young country.

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September 16, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - Three students were killed and two others injured on Thursday by armed groups in the locality of Kass, 86 km west of South Darfur capital, Nyala.

Hundreds of the victims' relatives have traced the perpetrators while the state's security committee held an emergency meeting to take the legal measures to bring the culprits to justice.

A traditional administration leader in the locality of Kass, who spoke to Sudan Tribune on the condition of anonymity, said 3 armed groups have deliberately shot 5 high schools students in Diginj area, 15 km south of Kass, pointing that 3 of them died immediately and 2 others sustained serious wounds and were transferred to Nyala Teaching Hospital.

He added the students were spending Eid al-Adha vacation with their families.
The same source pointed that the killing incident was carried out by armed groups who have seized homes and lands of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Shattaya area, stressing the same groups had threatened to obstruct the peace and social coexistence conference which was recently held in the area.

“The armed groups have bluntly said they don't recognize the Shattaya conference even if [its recommendations] are signed by the President of the republic” said the source.

He pointed the negative activities of the armed groups have significantly increased following the signing of the social and peaceful conference recommendations in clear defiance of the state government.

The same source said they submitted a formal complaint to the governor's office in Nyala demanding him to put an end to the outlaws who prevent the return of the IDPs to their original villages and undermine security, stressing the need to deploy troops to protect the residents according to the recommendations of the Shattaya conference.

Last August, the Shattaya conference for peaceful coexistence was held under the auspices of the Sudanese Presidency in order to encourage voluntary return of the IDPs in South Darfur.

The conference called for the need to end control of the armed militias and new settlers and hand over lands and villages to the IDPs.

On Wednesday, Governor of South Darfur state Adam al-Faki said that arrangements are underway for the visit of President Omer al-Bashir to the locality of Shattaya to attend the social peace conference.

Al-Faki pointed that 113 IDPs have received their original homes and lands in the locality of Shattaya, vowing to reinstate all residents' rights in the locality.

He accused those who seek to achieve personal interests of obstructing peace efforts, stressing they would deal with them decisively.

UN agencies estimate that over 300,000 people were killed in Darfur conflict since 2003, and over 2.5 million were displaced.

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September 16, 2016 (JUBA) – Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning in South Sudan has introduced new measures which restrict medical referrals abroad due to the ongoing economic crisis in the young country.

South Sudan minister Stephen Dhieu Dau (Getty photo)

Minister of Finance, Stephen Dhieu Dau, in an order issued on Wednesday, said there is no budget allocated for medical referrals this year. He said any claims of payment for the referrals has therefore been cancelled.

“All requests for payments and claims from all public institutions, meant for treatment of public officials outside the country are hereby cancelled by this order until the approval of 2016/2017 Financial Year Budget,” Minister Dau wrote in the statement dated 14 September.

“Any public institution or agency that intends to budget for medical referrals must also be done in controlled and verifiably admissible cases,” he further directed in the order seen by Sudan Tribune.

The country has been spending hundreds of thousands of US dollars every year to refer abroad some of its officials for medical treatments. The new order instead suggested the need to improve on the existing hospitals in the country which can be used for the referrals instead of to abroad.

Dau said the ministry together with the ministry of health were working on mechanisms for future referrals.

It remains unclear how the country, hit by economic crisis, plans to secure funds for upgrading of the existing poorly equipped hospitals.

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September 16, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Friday said the number of South Sudanese refugees living in neighbouring countries “has this week passed the one million mark”.

South Sudanese refugees perform a traditional dance as President Omer Hassan al-Bashir addresses a crowd a rally held in Ed Daein, East Darfur, April 5, 2016. April 5, 2016. (Photo Reuters/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah)

UNHCR spokesperson Leo Dobbs told reporters in Geneva on Friday that South Sudan, with this milestone, joins Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia as countries which have produced more than a million refugees.

“Most of those fleeing South Sudan are women and children. They include survivors of violent attacks, sexual assault, children that have been separated from their parents or travelled alone, the disabled, the elderly and people in need of urgent medical care,” he said.

According to the UNCHR, more than 185,000 people have fled South Sudan since fresh violence erupted in the country in Juba on July 8.

Dobbs noted that “more than three quarters of the recent arrivals have crossed into Uganda, but a growing number of people have entered Ethiopia's western Gambella region in the past week and others have been heading to Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Central African Republic (CAR)”.

According to the UNHCR, “Uganda is hosting the lion's share of South Sudanese refugees, with 373,626, more than a third of them arriving since early July. They keep coming; over the past week more than 20,000 new arrivals were recorded, primarily through the Oraba crossing in the northwest”.

SUDAN SAYS RECEIVED HALF OF SOUTH SUDAN'S REFUGEES

Meanwhile, Sudan's refugee commission has put the number of South Sudanese refugees who arrived in Sudan at 500,000, saying most of them are living in the White Nile, East Darfur, West and South Kordofan states.

The Sudanese Red Crescent Society (SRCS) on Friday said that 82,000 South Sudanese refugees have arrived in the gathering points in the localities of Al-Gabalain and Al-Salam since 2014.

SRCS executive director Osama Osman Talha pointed that 40 to 50 South Sudanese families arrive in Sudan daily through three crossing points in the White Nile state including Al-Migaines, Al-Kowaik and Joddah.

He added the refugees are received at eight gathering points, stressing the health conditions in these points are stable.

Talha further said that government organs, UN agencies and civil society groups provide all food and health services for the refugees.

In December 2013, Sudan's President Omer al-Bashir decided to treat South Sudanese refugees as citizens and refused establishing refugee camps for them, saying they can live and work all over Sudan.

However, earlier this month, Sudan decided to treat South Sudanese that fled the conflict in their country as refugees, enabling United Nations to provide assistance and raise funds for aid operations.

(ST)

September 16, 2016 (JUBA) – The top leadership of the armed opposition faction of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM-IO) under the leadership of the former First Vice President, Riek Machar, will meet in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, in the next few days, opposition officials have confirmed.

South Sudan's former FVP Riek Machar, speaking to visitors at his residence in Khartoum, on 1 September 2016 (courtesy photo of SPLM-IO)

“Yes, our leadership will meet in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. It will take place in the next few days,” confirmed James Gatdet Dak, opposition leader's spokesperson.

The gathering will be the first since 8 July when fighting erupted in the South Sudan's capital, Juba, between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and bodyguards of Machar.

Dak said the meeting will review the situation following the violence “which was ordered by Salva Kiir in an attempt to kill Dr. Riek Machar.”

The renewed war has threatened the collapse of the peace deal signed in August 2015 to end 21 months of the civil war that started in December 2013.

The opposition leader's spokesman said members of the political bureau and the national liberation council of the SPLM-IO have travelled from Juba, Kampala, Nairobi and Addis Ababa to take part in the Khartoum's consultative meeting.

He said the meeting may begin on Sunday or Monday.

Machar was transferred to Khartoum from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after he was extracted by the United Nations at the South Sudan-DRC border.

He fled Juba during the July fighting and walked for 40 days to the neighbouring nation.

He was hospitalized in both DRC and Khartoum on "humanitarian grounds" due to swollen legs and extreme exhaustion.

His health has however stabilized and has been released from hospital weeks ago.

(ST)

By Eric Reeves

In both the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns, the Darfur region of western Sudan was an unlikely but entirely appropriate topic. After all, the U.S. Congress had—in a remarkable bipartisan, bicameral vote in July 2004—declared that what was occurring in Darfur at the hands of the Khartoum regime was “genocide.” So too did President George W. Bush, as did then-Secretary of State Colin Powell in a speech to the UN, citing a detailed and rigorous assessment by a nongovernmental human rights groups. The 2004 campaign of then-Senator John Kerry asked me to vet closely their own statement on Darfur.

In 2008 candidate Obama's campaign made much of Darfur and the continuing rape, slaughter, and displacement of civilians belonging to Darfur's African (non-Arab) tribal groups, a brutal counter-insurgency campaign conducted by Khartoum's regular and militia forces. At one moment in his campaign, Obama declared that Darfur was a “stain on our souls,” and vowed that as president, he did not “intend to abandon people or turn a blind eye to slaughter.” Candidate Hillary Clinton in 2008 also made strong statements about genocide in Darfur, and the issue actually emerged in one question posed in the final presidential debates of that year between John McCain and Obama.

In the campaign of 2016 there has been no mention of Darfur, hardly surprising for Donald Trump, given his vast deficit in knowledge of foreign policy issues. But there is nothing on the Clinton website, no public statement, no indication that she understands the current realities in Darfur are every bit as bad as when she was making her own unctuous declarations in 2008.

There are two reasons for this. The Darfur civil society movement in this country—as remarkable as any since the time of apartheid-era South Africa—had largely disappeared by the 2008 – 2009. The reasons for this are many, but central was the decision by the Obama administration to “de-couple” Darfur from the key bilateral issues between Washington and Khartoum, namely (1) the U.S. intelligence community's desire for counter-terrorism from a regime that remains one of three countries on the State Department's annual list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism”; (2) Khartoum's desperate desire to be removed from that list and to see the lifting of comprehensive economic sanctions first imposed during the presidency of Bill Clinton.

“De-couple” is not my word choice: it is that of a “senior administration official” referred to as such in a background interview given in November 2010 (for which there is an official State Department transcript). And though articulated explicitly only two years after Obama's election, it reflected policy priorities articulated by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama's first, disastrous choice for the role of Special Envoy for Sudan, Air Force Major-General (ret.) Scott Gration.

Gration had no diplomatic experience, no significant knowledge of Sudan or its history, or any relevant language other than English. His policy views were animated by the absurdly naïve belief, as reported by the Washington Post, that a regime of hardened génocidaires could be appealed to with “cookies”: “We've got to think about giving out cookies… Kids, countries—they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement."

Obama's Sudan policies have ensured that there is little interest in Darfur within his administration that is not guided by the lust for counter-terrorism intelligence. And yet the carnage continues, indeed has escalated significantly over the past four years, culminating this year in a savage assault on the civilians in the last rebel redoubt in the Jebel Marra mountains of central Darfur.

Reports from the past thirteen years of ethnically-targeted conflict strongly suggest that in excess of 500,000 people have been killed, directly or indirectly, by violence; more than 3 million Darfuris have been displaced from their homes—some 300,000 as refugees in the harsh environs of neighboring eastern Chad; tens of thousands of girls and women have been raped, often gang-raped, while those assaulting them hurl hateful racial epithets.

The violent expropriation of farmland that has also accelerated, ensuring that peace will be much more difficult to achieve than when Obama assumed office, despite his soaring campaign rhetoric of 2008. We hear nothing of this. Hillary Clinton is unlikely to speak about Sudan since she was Secretary of State when Darfur began to tip into greater violence. Donald Trump probably couldn't locate Darfur on a map, and all indications are that he would take no interest in Darfur [see “Political Postscript” below]. And debate moderators have either themselves forgotten Darfur or can't imagine it of interest to television viewers. Syria will serve as a surrogate for all “troubled regions.”

The brutal men in Khartoum will watch all this with the keenest interest as they contemplate their next offensive in Darfur, which—coincidentally—will begin in November, when the seasonal rains have ended. They will conclude that genocide is simply no longer a political issue of interest for the American people.

Political Postscript:

In almost eighteen years of committed research and advocacy for a just peace in greater Sudan, I have tried assiduously not to allow my work to be determined or influenced by American political issues unrelated to Sudan. The same is true for issues elsewhere in Africa and the Middle East, if unrelated to Sudan—this despite many requests for broadcast interviews. My view has been simple: I should speak about what I have come to know well over these years, and that partisanship cannot help advance the cause of Sudan in the United States, where Sudan has traditionally bi-partisan issue. I have at times been sharply critical of the Clinton administration, the George W. Bush administration, and most fiercely of the Obama administration.

But the candidacy of Donald Trump does not permit me to stay silent, given my primary concern at present for the people of Darfur—people who are universally Muslim; who are all “African” in the broadest sense, and “dark-skinned”; and who offer nothing of interest to a a Trump administration, should it be our great misfortune to see this “national disgrace” (to borrow the word's of Colin Powell, Secretary of State during a Republican administration) become president.

Trump's racism, his xenophobia—extending to a virulently anti-Muslim campaign rhetoric—and his stunning ignorance of world affairs (declaring, for example, in an ABC Television news interview that he would prevent Russian troop from entering Ukraine, despite the fact they are have been present since 2014)…all suggest that Darfur and Sudan as a whole would suffer greatly from policies guided by ignorance and hatred. Caring for the innocent civilians of Darfur and other marginalized regions of Sudan is a compelling reason not to vote for Donald Trump.

Eric Reeves has written extensively on Sudan for almost two decades; he is a Senior Fellow at Harvard University's François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights

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