Sudan wars seem far from over – The Huffington Post

September 8th, 2011

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/simon-roughneen/sudan-wars-seem-far-from-_b_953395.html

After a murderous almost-six decade forced-marriage with what is now the (relative to before) the rump state of ‘northern’ Sudan, the Republic of South Sudan (RoSS) was founded on July 9 2011, six months after the Texas-sized region voted to secede from what was Africa’s largest state.

The death-toll (over 2 million) and destruction (total) wrought on what is now RoSS during the fighting has been well-documented – if obscured somewhat in the years since 2003 when the Darfur war began. With RoSS taking 3/4′s of what was the old Sudan’s oil with it, independence and its aftermath was always likely to be a fraught affair, even if secession was mandated by a 2005 peace agreement.

There was fighting along the border in January – in the still-disputed Abyei region – as the referendum took place. Both the Khartoum Government and the Juba (then-regional) administration distanced themselves from those skirmishes, putting them down to long-standing local disputes between farmers and herders over grazing and passage rights. (more…)

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Will Freedom of Expression Hold in southern Sudan? – PBS Mediashift

January 27th, 2011

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/01/will-freedom-of-expression-hold-in-southern-sudan026.html

JUBA, SUDAN — “If someone from southern Sudan trusts you, they will tell you enough to write a book,” said Sr. Cecilia Sierra Salcido, a Mexican nun and media entrepreneur who runs Radio Bakhita. “We broadcast a special history series, as so much here has not been written or recorded, and so many people have stories to tell.” (more…)

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Sudan: Blue Nile State Weighs its Future – Voice of America

January 18th, 2011

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/decapua-sudan-blue-nile-18jan11-114124159.html – see audio here.

Sudan’s Blue Nile State did not take part in the just completed independence referendum in Southern Sudan. Technically part of the north, its sympathies often sided with the south during the long civil war. Now, its residents are wondering what their relationship with the Khartoum government will be if the south breaks away.

Irish Journalist Simon Roughneen toured the region while the south voted on succession. (more…)

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Voting ends in southern Sudan referendum – Sunday Tribune

January 16th, 2011

As the south prepares for independence, the borderlands remain volatile and some  feel left out of the political changes taking place

http://www.tribune.ie/news/international/article/2011/jan/16/black-gold-bubbles-beneath-the-blood-red-soil/

Kyeli, Blue Nile State, Sudan – “Soon after we married, my husband was killed during the war”, says Hawa Abdul-Gadr.

Her eyes show a suppressed grief, but her demeanour is purposeful. That said, there is a perceptible sadness – long-kept under wraps but perhaps closer to the surface than she would care to admit.

Eschewing outward self-pity or sentimentalism, she chops her left hand down from her cheek, as if swatting away an invisible spectre. “I am happy now here, we have peace and I hope it stays.”

Hawa spent eleven years in a refugee camp in Ethiopia. The border is just fifty miles away from this village in southern Blue Nile state, but for those long years, home here in Kyeli seemed like a distant dream. “I came back in 2006, after the word spread about peace in the camps.” (more…)

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“I want my child to go to school here” – RTÉ World Report

January 16th, 2011

http://www.rte.ie/news/av/2011/0116/worldreport.html#&autoplay=true - audiostream

Five and six hundred yards long queues form either side of the entrance to polling stations – men on one side, women on the the other. They wait in excitement and euphoria on the first day of polling — here — in what would be the new capital of an independent southern Sudan. The scenes have been repeated all across the region in voting this week to decide whether the region should remain part of Sudan or form the world’s newest country. (more…)

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Suspense in Sudan: Letter from “the land of Cush” – National Catholic Register

January 11th, 2011

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/suspense-in-sudan/

Simon Roughneen in Juba, southern Sudan.

Apologising for delaying the liturgy, U.S. Senator John Kerry paid tribute to the people of southern Sudan, addressing a congregation at St.Teresa’s Cathedral in Juba, the region’s capital. Sen. Kerry is Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and has visited Sudan three times times in recent years on behalf of the Obama Administration. He sat next to Salva Kiir, President of the Government of South Sudan (GoSS) – as the regional authorities here are known. A U.S-backed 2005 peace deal, which ranked as President George W. Bush’s main foreign policy successes, gave the mainly Christian south a degree of self-Government after 22 years of war, causing 2 million deaths, with the Islamist-leaning Government in Khartoum.

Kiir attends Mass here every Sunday, when he is in town, so his presence is no big deal to locals. However Sunday January 9 saw the start of a week-long referendum, with southern Sudanese voting whether to remain part of Sudan, or secede and form their own country (more…)

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Independence – and challenges – loom for southern Sudan – Irish Examiner

January 10th, 2011

http://examiner.ie/world/independence-for-south-sudan-to-present-challenges-141639.html

JUBA , Sudan. The dateline here and now says ‘Sudan’, but later this year it will likely read ‘South Sudan’ or ‘Nile Republic’. Biblical references such as  ’Cushitia’ or ‘Azania’ are also being touted as names for the what will be world’s newest country. Four million voters in southern Sudan are likely to vote to leave Africa’s largest state in a referendum that started early on Sunday.

Just before 8am, I spoke to Charles Juma-Seyis at the end of a 500 yard long queue at Konyo-Konyo polling station in central Juba, the usually low-key and ramshackle would-be capital.  “I don’t mind waiting to vote, we have been waiting more than fifty years for this day”, he said. (more…)

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Election parallels between Sudan and Burma? – The Irrawaddy

April 23rd, 2010

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=18303&Submit=Submit

BANGKOK—Since Gen. Omar al-Bashir’s 1989 coup, Sudan has been run as by a military dictatorship, but not quite as long as Burma, which has been under army rule since 1962.

Still, there are many parallels between the two countries: both are multi-ethnic, poly-religious populations oppressed by a violent elite. Both are prey to a vast state security apparatus funded by natural resource revenues, in turn abetted by close links with China and Russia.

Beijing shields both countries from criticism and action at the UN Security Council, and its investment helps undermine the Western sanctions in place against both regimes. Both regimes stand accused of large-scale human rights abuses and violence against their own citizens, and a Harvard Law School report published in May 2009 drew a direct parallel between violence in western Sudan’s Darfur region and that in eastern Burma. (more…)

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Darfur: Is Qatar’s Peace Process Stillborn – IslamOnline

October 29th, 2008

http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1225200768754&pagename=Zone-English-Muslim_Affairs%2FMAELayout

Despite objecting to previous initiatives to get a UN peacekeeping force in to the western Sudan region, Qatar has set itself as the latest honest broker attempting to mediate a solution to the Darfur conflict, but some may see it as another move to sidestep the International Criminal Court.

When Sudan’s President Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir was accused last July by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of 10 charges: three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder, odds were long that the erstwhile coup leader would ever face trial.

Odds were shorter, of course, that the willful and wily Al-Bashir, now a somewhat Janus-faced US ally in the “war on terror,” would pull some stunt to undermine the ICC warrant. His latest gambit – the apparent arrest of Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, commonly known as Ali Kushayb, a prominent Janjaweed commander – is as transparently hollow in its sincerity, as it is adolescent in its audacity. At the same time, it could prove a factor, among many others, in ensuring Sudan’s President does not join Head of State counterparts Charles Taylor and Slobodan Milosevic in facing international justice.

Khartoum has appointed special prosecutor for Darfur crimes, and announced that it will try Kushayb, who, like Al-Bashir, is wanted by the ICC.

Diplomatic Back-Channeling

Nice work if you can get it. This move comes after three months of diplomatic back- channeling, with the National Islamic Front (NIF)/National Congress Party (NCP) leadership in Khartoum assiduously- cultivating (more…)

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Charging of al-Bashir may provoke backlash – The Irish Times

July 15th, 2008

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2008/0715/1215940932576.html

OPINION: The International Criminal Court may lay genocide charges against President Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese dictator, but he’s unlikely ever to stand trial, writes Simon Roughneen .

‘Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.” The words of former US president Dwight Eisenhower may offer some long-term solace for those caught up in Sudan’s regionalised wars, but yesterday’s landmark charging of Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, with 10 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC) may scupper any chance of bringing peace to the wider region.

Or so goes the argument. The “peace and justice” template has become a “peace versus justice” dichotomy, as immediate-term political realities prompt less idealistic observers to question the efficacy of courts and tribunals intervening in real-time conflicts.

To illustrate, in Uganda, ICC proceedings against senior figures in the millenarian-psychopathic Lord’s Resistance Army are regarded as hindering the faltering peace process, after two decades of cult-driven rape, abduction and murder. Meanwhile, the ICC trial of Thomas Lubanga, a Congolese militia boss accused of recruiting child soldiers, has stalled amid disputes over evidence being withheld from the defence.

Sudan might prove different, however. Not only are the charges more significant – including genocide – politically speaking, there is scant peace left for the ICC to destabilise. (more…)

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