Darfur Sudan

sufi

sufi

lala
alright alright the chad conexion as follows:

1 factor about Darfur that is important and i don't know how obvious it is - the region's remoteness from khartoum. I travelled for about 1 week to get to darfur from khartoum, chased all the way by the GOS general secirity, who would nab me then expel me from each region because you need a visa to travel between each part of sudan (the same problem initially faced by aid workers i guess) i din't bothyer hanging about waiting for boracrats in khartoum, and each time i got busted i'd skip town early nex morning and head deeper into sudan rather than back to the capital. Back then Darfur was peaceful, and the area that GOS were worried about was the Nuba mountains, nearer khartoum on the way to the waest, from there it was another 5 days on the back of a truck thru roadless scrub to get to the first big town in Darfur - el-Fasher.

I felt remarkable impunity, i was asked at one stage by one darfuri - " what are you doing here foreigner, you must be a spy, obviously your disheveled appearence and lo-budget footware is an elaborate bluff, you must have a weapon concealed in your rather shabby luggage, so rest assured, stranger, on that basis you will have no trouble in darfur - everyone know that no white person will come here unarmed" i did see 1 other foreigner in darfur, but the region is very very cut off from the world.
Sudan is africa's biggest country, and darfur is pretty enormous, there is a slow and unreliable train from khartoum, but there is no covered road to the capital (of course when the GOS decides to expend resources on getting over there by antonov, suddenly it's not cut off any more....). In fact the transport links to the west are better, so Darfur in many ways is a bit of West Africa, unlike khartoum, which is in the mid-east/east africa. This is reflected in many ways - e.g the fellata people from Nigeria, who have had apresence in Sudan for generations & the sufi tariqas whiose influence stretches all the awy to the atlantic and the red sea, the pilgrimage routes have bought west african muslims thru darfur for centuries. I'm interested to know how the nigerians are involved in Darfur - my instinct puts them on the side of GOS, altho this is obviously against the racial divide in the conflict, but i've been interested to note that the peace talks have bene taking place in Nigeria and Chad.

I travelled up to a town called Melitt - this is the border of Libya, although Libya lies hundreds of Ks up thr the desert, there were trucks laden with water bottles heading off - check this route in your atlas - it's a mind-blowing trip, I got a lot of hassle for photographing those trucks.

finally i made it to Nyala and then to the top of Jebel marra, Sudan's highest peak. I was treated graciously and gently by the folk of Darfur, particularly out of the towns, where life was beautifully rural, the only place in the world i visited without seeing cigarettes, let alone anything driven by petrol.

So, the Geopolitics.
In the 80's gadaffi financed various groups - (Tinarawen, the algerian/Malian guitar band were originally his guerillas) Gadaffi financed arab militias in Chad, If i got it right, they were defeated by the Chadi govt - currently headed by idris Deby - a Zaghawa. De Waal proposes that these same arab groups took the opportunity of the nascent rebellion in Darfur to re-form and pursue their chauvanist agenda. So ignoring the National Boundaries, you can see that broadly the Chadis are, even by virtue of being enemies of enemies, siding with the Darfur rebels against the Janjaweed.

De Waal also examines the Arab/African nature of the conflict - it's a good article, here's another good link - (i originally saw this article published in ft, ta rewch! - ripped by a random blogga)

now i'm gonna see if i can google up a copy of the black book form JEM website...
 
rewch

rewch

Well-known member
and there are also the historical ethnic/religious rivalries with the migration of west african sufism eastward & militant islamic ideologies westward...(which i think is mentioned somewhere in that de waal article)...all to mix in a mélange of pastoral delight and sharing until whipped up by evil british colonialists and their heirs (!) the GOS (in your words)...which to go back several pages is a rather different scenario to the media simplicities...have to say i never underdstood the whole arab thing with sudan since all the sudanese arabs i've met have looked particularly african (which is not to say that i would deny their rightt to be arabs or anything they want really&c. &c....then again the bani rashid in eritrea/ethiopia look pretty arab but they did emigrate en masse at the end of the 19th century...will have to read that article again because i think de waal goes into that too
 
P

polystyle

Well-known member
And it goes on ...

Sorry to come so late to the thread , but it's been quite busy /can't always write as the threads begin.
But today's news (Reuters) about Darfur compell me to comment on the ongoing horrible situation .
Thank you Sufi & Rewch for all the info and links along the way ,'natch .
It really helped ground the thread to rd about Sufi's travels in- country ,
and that just made me think about the fact that this situation is still 'hot' , unfolding day by day ,
person by person , Jangaweed shot by shot - all 'out of sight' in a remote area has made it possible for it to continue .
Todays news about the JEM and the SLA rejecting the AU's efforts and holding out for UN troops in -country
just gave me the feeling this will just keep going and going until the Sudan Gov. and Jangaweed crews get what they want , call it Genocide or what ever you want to call it .
The US Gov. has real problems with the UN , for many reasons , some of which have been previously highlighted in this thread .
I can only add that in this route (with UA perhaps not the go-to guys they should have been)
the people in harms way will have a long way to go to find any peaceful ground .
The US will not run to bk the UN - and the UN shows it's slow , dysfunctional face ,
possibly frozen in face of Oil For Food scandal and efforts to keep Kofi A afloat .
The UN has quite corrupt sections and has to be reformed , like many, many institutions.
A friend did work there in the last years in video & TV Production and between the entrenched old farts stuffing their pockets and the growing irritation of others in other divisions watching it and snipeing when the moment presented itself , it's all *ucked up over there.
When it came time to shoot the already late 'UN primer' - their video promo device ,
my friend was organized to shoot it only to be told all the budget had been ,uh 'used up' - gone .
One of those old cats with full pockets got moved to Iraq after my friend complained about the situation,
and within a few months , got blown up over there when the UN HQ was bombed .

And so the worms turn , guns shoot , pols stuff , others sit , some sweat their last days and the people sit and wonder how much time they have , out of sight and close to out of mind .
 
sufi

sufi

lala
from me homies in UN Nairobi

CHAD-SUDAN: How credible is Darfur's third rebel movement?

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

NDJAMENA, 13 January (IRIN) - A third rebel movement has appeared in
Sudan's troubled Darfur region, but nobody seems to be taking it very
seriously, apart from the authorities in Khartoum and the government of
neighbouring Chad.

Recent weeks have seen a flurry of negotiations between this newcomer, the
National Movement for Reform and Development (NMRD) and Sudanese
government envoys in the Chadian capital N'Djamena and the border town of
Tine.

In contrast to the slow-moving peace negotiations with the two main rebel
groups in Darfur, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and
Equality Movement (JEM) in the Nigerian capital Abuja, Khartoum's talks
with the NMRD in Chad appear to have made rapid progress.

The two sides agreed a ceasefire on 17 December and on 3 January they
struck a deal to promote the return of refugees from Chad to areas which
the NMRD claims to control.

However, UN refugee officials in eastern Chad told IRIN they had seen no
evidence of fugitives from Darfur trekking back across the border, despite
images purporting to show such returns broadcast by Sudanese state
television and affirmations by Chadian officials that some Sudanese
refugees have gone home.

"In the camps there have been no massive refugee returns, as reported by
the press, and the refugees are sceptical of any return given the security
situation prevailing in the Sudan," Claire Bourgeois, the head of the UN
refugee agency UNHCR in the eastern town of Abeche, told IRIN.

Bourgeois said that on the contrary, new arrivals were continuing to
trickle into the semi-desert of eastern Chad to join the 200,000 who have
sought sanctuary there already.

Many of the new arrivals had fled to the mountains following fighting
inside Darfur, but were now crossing the border to camps near Iriba and
Bahai because they had run out of food, she added.

Both these Chadian towns are near Tine, the border settlement where the
NMRD signed a deal that was supposed to lead to refugees returning
voluntarily to Darfur.

Another UNHCR official in eastern Chad, Lino Bordin, said some refugees
had been making brief trips across the border to benefit from money and
assistance packages offered by the Sudanese authorities to returning
refugees. But once they had grabbed their cash and food parcels they
hurried back into Chad, he added

"All refugees questioned by the UN say they do not want to go back,"
Bordin told IRIN. He stressed that UNHCR had no plans to repatriate any of
them in the short term.

The NMRD claims to be a breakaway movement from JEM.

NMRD leader Nourene Manawi Bartcham, told an IRIN correspondent in
N'Djamena at the end of December that his group broke away from JEM in
April last year because it disagreed with the influence of Hassan Al
Tourabi, an Islamic fundamentalist politician, over the rebel movement.

Tourabi helped Sudan's current military head of state, Omar Hassan Al
Bashir, seize power in a 1989 coup and subsequently became an influential
figure in his administration. However, the two men fell out 10 years later
and Tourabi went into opposition.

Bartcham claimed that the NMRD had an important presence on the ground
throughout Darfur, an arid territory the size of France. He said the
movement controlled territory near the main border crossing at El Geneina.

"We have men and weapons and the capacity to be a real nuisance," he told
IRIN.

But Bartcham added: "We want peace and that is why we have accepted
President Deby's invitation to come to N'djamena to sign the ceasefire
agreement."

Ahmad Allami, an adviser of Chadian President Idriss Deby who has acted as
a mediator in several rounds of peace talks with all three rebel movements
in Darfur, said the NMRD were a force to be taken seriously.

He estimated that the movement had about 1,000 fighters on the ground.

"Contrary to what has been said, the NMRD do represent something in Darfur
as they managed to prompt a number of Sudanese refugees to return to
Sudan," Allami told IRIN.

A western diplomat based in N'Djamena also cautioned that the breakaway
rebel movement should not be dismissed too lightly. "Our indications are
that the NMRD should not be under-estimated since a sizeable part of JEM's
military capacity appears to be under their control," he told IRIN.

But as far as JEM itself is concerned, the NMRD is just a stooge of the
authorities in Khartoum.

"This group belongs to the Sudanese government…It is very strange that the
government negotiates with itself," said Mohamed Ahmed Tugod, a JEM
negotiator at the currently suspended peace talks in Abuja.

The conflict in Darfur erupted in February 2003 when rebels in the
territory, which was traditionally a key recruiting ground for the army,
took up arms against the government.

Since then, the United Nations estimates that tens of thousands of people
have been killed in fighting or have died from hunger and disease.

Nearly a third of the territory's six million inhabitants have been forced
to leave their homes, mainly as a result of raids on black African
villages by Arab nomads grouped in the pro-government Janjawid militia
movement.

The United Nations estimates that 1.65 million are internally displaced. A
further 200,000 have fled to Chad.

Briefing the UN Security Council on Tuesday this week, Jan Pronk, the
United Nations special envoy to Sudan, made no reference to the NMRD as a
player in the Darfur conflict.

But he warned that security situation was still bad, the humanitarian
situation was poor and the region was still in a political stalemate.

Pronk accused the rival factions in Darfur of rearming and pointed to a
recent increase in banditry and looting. He also drew attention to the
recent spread of armed conflict to the neighbouring province of Khordofan.

And the UN envoy was dismissive of all agreements signed so far to bring
an end to the fighting.

"Talks between the parties on Darfur have not yielded concrete results or
much narrowing of the gap on the issues concerned," Pronk said. "Despite
regular statements to the contrary, the parties have yet to commit in
practice to the implementation of the humanitarian ceasefire (agreed in
April 2004)."

However, hinting at the need to include other groups besides the SLA and
JEM in the political dialogue, Pronk said: "It would be useful to start
thinking of including tribal leaders in finding political solutions even
before reconciliation has taken place. That may include tribes that so far
were beyond control by the government or by the rebel movements and were
fighting to protect their own interests."

Could that perhaps point to a role for the NMRD in the overall negotiating
process?

Allami, the Chadian mediator, also advised that the peacebrokers in Darfur
should cast their net wider.

"We should involve all the political and military forces in a definitive
and global settlement of the crisis in Darfur," he told IRIN.

[ENDS]

We have sent this message from a no-reply address to avoid bounced
messages into our general email folder. Please do not hesitate to contact
us at Mail@IRINnews.org with any comments or questions you may have

IRIN-WA
Tel:+221 867.27.30
Fax: +221 867.25.85
Email: IRINWA@IRINnews.org
[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or
to change your keywords, contact e-mail: Irin@ocha.unon.org or Web:
http://www.irinnews.org . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post
this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Reposting by
commercial
sites requires written IRIN permission.]

Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2005

To make changes to or cancel your subscription visit:
http://www.irinnews.org/subscriptions/subslogin.asp


Subscriber:
Keyword: Peace Security, Refugees IDPs

U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)
Click to expand...
 
M

mr epicurus

Man From U.N.C.L.E.
First post..... be kind.

n00b alert! Seriously though...

sufi said:
a swift google for this Friedhelm Eronat reveals a lot of really dodgy dealings, i wonder why his name has suddenly come up now?
Click to expand...

Mmm. Major links to illegal oil shipments between Mobil and the Kazakstan government (link) and Eli Calil (link), a cetain Lebanese businessman involved with the attempted coup of Equatorial Guinea.

Both men - naturally - deny everything.

However dodgy Eronat's dealing seem, they seem to be legally kosher. The International Criminal Court, currently investigating the Darfur 'crisis' (seems such a paltry word for genocide, doesn't it?), isn't, apparently, investigating him. The most interesting, and suspect, piece of information seems to be Eronat's switch to British nationality in 2003... just before the Darfur oil deal was struck. Maybe it's a coincedence; but if it is, it's a lucky one for Eronat: under US sanctions against Sudan, any American doing business with the Sudanese state oil company could face ten years in jail and fines of half a million dollars. No such restrictions on British citizens are in place.

Which calls into question whether British and US government were either directly involved or, the more likely option, had knowledge of the deal when it was struck.
 
rewch

rewch

Well-known member
lots of garbled reports... thought garang was in a plane flying back from uganda... obviously not if he was in a chopper... was apparently reported on the television news that he had touched down safely?!? lots of room for conspiratorial business... garang what a trooper...
 
sufi

sufi

lala
as i was saying rewch:

جون جرانج - اكبر مشكلة مات او حي؟

فهد - لسة بدون فائدة

he was problematic in life, but the timing of his death could not have been worse timed :(

(&fahd؟ - still useless!)​
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top