Sudan President Omar al-Bashir has resisted US efforts to destabilize this oil-rich central African nation. Now the Americans want to tighten economic sanctions against the country.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
AUSTRIAN ARRESTED IN SUDAN FOR SPYING: REPORT
A 20-year-old Austrian man has been arrested in Port Sudan on charges of spying after he was found in possession of articles about an eastern Sudanese former rebel group, local media reported on Monday.
The man, named as Thomas Hirschvogel, was arrested on December 31 as he travelled into the hills around the Red Sea port without a travel permit, the English-language Sudan Tribune reported.
The charge was upgraded to spying after security services discovered printouts of Internet articles about the Beja Congress, which fought a 10-year rebellion against Khartoum before signing a peace deal in October 2006.
A spokesman at the Austrian embassy in Cairo, which also has
responsibility for Sudan, said he was checking the report and could not comment further.
The Beja Congress, named after eastern Sudan's largest ethnic group, formed the Eastern Front rebel grouping along with the Free Lions of the Rashidiya Arabs.
However, a Port Sudan-based dissident faction of the Beja Congress rejects the peace deal that saw the former rebels take up cabinet posts and "Khartoum remains suspicious of their political activities," the paper said.
It said Hirschvogel, who is currently being detained under close security surveillance in his hotel room in Port Sudan, also met with Beja Congress officials.
The Tribune said Hirschvogel had worked for an organisation helping illegal immigrants in Austria and that he was currently on a regional tour.
Austrian 'spy' held in Sudan expects to be expelled
KHARTOUM, Jan 7, 2008 (AFP) - A 20-year-old Austrian man detained in Port Sudan on charges of spying for possessing articles about an eastern Sudanese former rebel group said he expects to be expelled from the country.
Thomas Hirschvogel said on his blog on Saturday that following his arrest on December 31 as he travelled into the hills around the Red Sea port without a travel permit "they told me that I'll most likely be expelled from Sudan."
Sudanese media had reported that Hirschvogel was being held in his hotel room in Port Sudan but the Austrian embassy in Cairo, which has responsibility for Sudan, said he was free to move around town with a government minder.
"He hasn't been arrested and will most likely be expelled," an embassy spokesman told AFP.
Hirschvogel said on his blog that "they believe that I'm either a journalist or a spy" after printouts of Internet articles about the Beja Congress, which fought a 10-year rebellion against Khartoum before signing a peace deal in October 2006, were found in his bags.
The Beja Congress, named after eastern Sudan's largest ethnic group, formed the Eastern Front rebel grouping along with the Free Lions of the Rashidiya Arabs.
However, a Port Sudan-based dissident faction of the Beja Congress rejects the peace deal that saw the former rebels take up cabinet posts and "Khartoum remains suspicious of their political activities," the Sudan Monitor reported.
Chad's air force bombs rebels base inside Sudan
NDJAMENA, Jan 7, 2008 (AFP) - Chadian air force planes on Monday attacked a Chadian rebel base across the border in the Darfur region of Sudan, military and security sources said, while Khartoum accused Chad of bombing civilians.
The raid was carried out over West Darfur around 4:00 am (0300 GMT) by two helicopters, an Mi-17 and an Mi-24, with a Pilatus light aircraft, the military and security officials in Ndjamena said.
But a Chadian rebel spokesman contacted by AFP said that the aircraft could not have hit rebels since "our troops are all in Chad".
The official sources confirmed a report from Khartoum that a similar attack was carried out Sunday in the same Darfur region against rebels opposed to Chad's President Idriss Deby Itno.
Several rebel bases lie south of El-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) across the desert from Abeche, the main town in eastern Chad, but it was not clear which had been targetted.
Sudanese army spokesman Othman al-Aghbach said Monday that Chadian aircraft had bombed positions in the west of strife-torn Darfur early Sunday, killing and wounding civilians.
"Three Antonov planes attacked positions southwest of Geneina in the early hours of Sunday, killing three civilians and wounding four others," he said.
A spokesman for Chad's latest rebel alliance formed in mid-December, Abderaman Koulamallah, said Monday's attack could not have affected the movement since "our troops are all on the Chadian side of the border."
However, the head of one group in the Alliance, the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development - Fundamental (UFDD-F), acknowledged his base in Sudan was hit on Sunday.
"I was bombed on December 28 and yesterday (Sunday) by Chadian aircraft inside Sudan," Abdelwahid Aboud Makaye said, reached by satellite telephone from Libreville.
"Our headquarters are on the Sudanese side; we sustained a few wounded," he added, stating that there were no raids on his own positions on Monday.
The attack followed a threat Saturday by Deby to pursue and strike Chadian rebels inside neighbouring Sudan and repeated charges that Khartoum was trying to destabilise his country.
Deby told a rally that his forces had already driven out the rebels from Chad and said: "We're going to destroy them in their nest inside Sudan. We're going to make them eat dust inside Sudan."
Rebels and government forces clashed violently in eastern Chad between November 26 and December 4, scuttling October peace accords signed in Libya.
The rebels have since reorganised and allegedly have support from Khartoum, with some groups acknowledging that the majority of their forces were on the Sudanese side of the border, already in the grip of ethnic conflict.
Relations between Sudan and Chad have turned from bad to worse, with Deby again accusing Khartoum of having a "destabilisation plan" against his already volatile country.
Deby, who has backing from French troops permanently based in the central African nation, initially came to power in 1990 in a rebellion launched from eastern Chad and has faced successive bouts of insurgency.
The army has been strengthened by weaponry bought with oil revenues, but rebel leaders in November and December expressed disquiet at plans to deploy a French-led European peacekeeping force in Chad to protect hundreds of thousands of Darfur refugees and internally displaced Chadians.
French Defence Minister Herve Morin was in Chad for the New Year and said he hoped the 3,500 men could start deploying this month, after stating in December that their presence "does not concern the military actions carried out by rebels against the Chadian armed forces."
The rebel UFDD has threatened to shoot down helicopters on the grounds "all European units on our territory are enemies because they came to defend the dictator (Chadian President) Idriss Deby".
US readies fresh push on Darfur as new envoy takes charge
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration is preparing a new
push to end the conflict in Sudan's western Darfur region and keep a fragile north-south peace deal from unraveling in the vast African state.
With international attention increasingly focused on other world trouble spots, the United States is boosting its profile on Sudan with the appointment of a new special envoy for the country, a former senior diplomat with links to President Bush, the GOP and a firm grasp of the U.N. system.
The envoy, Richard "Rich" Williamson, was sworn in by
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday, after his
predecessor, Andrew Natsios, resigned last month. Natsios, a former administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, was said to have been frustrated by internal bureaucratic battles over the direction of Sudan policy.
Darfur advocates have praised Bush's choice of Williamson as key to overcoming those hurdles, noting the Illinois Republican has close ties to administration heavyweights, particularly Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte. Williamson was Negroponte's No. 2 when Negroponte was U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 2001 to 2004.
Williamson takes over just a week after a joint African
Union-U.N. force took over peacekeeping duties in Darfur on New Year's Eve despite chronic shortages of staff and equipment and less than adequate cooperation from the Sudanese government, which is accused of fomenting the violence.
That same day, Bush signed legislation that lets states and
local governments cut investment ties with Sudan over Darfur. The law complements wide-ranging U.S. sanctions already imposed on Sudan and senior members of its government allegedly involved in the Darfur crisis that the United States has labeled a genocide.
The 41/2-year-old Darfur conflict has killed more than 200,000 people and driven 2.5 million from their homes since the region's ethnic African rebels began fighting the Arab-dominated Sudanese government and its militia allies in 2003.
Williamson plans to consult with Congress this week and then
with the United Nations before visiting Sudan in coming weeks to step up pressure on authorities in Khartoum to ease restrictions on the hybrid peacekeeping mission, officials said. He also will be urging greater contributions to the force, known as UNAMID.
The long-awaited AU-UN force -- with just 9,000 soldiers and
police -- is only a little larger than the beleaguered and
ineffectual African Union peacekeeping mission it replaced. And, even in the best-case scenario, it will take months to build up to its planned strength of 26,000.
Western nations have not come through with equipment such as
military helicopters and vehicles the U.N. says are vital for the new force to reach hotspots quickly and protect civilians. The Sudanese government, meanwhile, has erected numerous obstacles, including insisting that the force be African and rejecting Western contributions of engineers.
When he signed the divestment legislation on Dec. 31, Bush said he would keep pushing for major improvements for the Sudanese people through "sanctions against the government of Sudan and high-level diplomatic engagement, and by supporting the deployment of peacekeepers in Darfur."
And, in announcing Williamson's appointment on Dec. 21, the
White House said the United States would continue "to lead
international efforts to deploy a large and effective peacekeeping force to Darfur, and implement the north-south peace agreement while providing for the humanitarian needs of conflict-affected populations across Sudan."
That north-south peace accord, negotiated in 2005 with
considerable U.S. involvement, is now fraying and many see it as a template for a Darfur agreement and fear its collapse could engulf Sudan in widespread conflict, fracturing the country and throwing the region into turmoil.
Meanwhile, on Monday, one of the largest U.S.-based Darfur
advocacy groups announced it had chosen a new president to lead its lobbying efforts.
After a six-month search, the Save Darfur Coalition named Jerry Fowler, an official with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, to be its executive director.
Security Council alarmed by Sudan-Chad border tension
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 7, 2008 (AFP) - The UN Security Council on Monday expressed serious concern about mounting tension along the Chad-Sudan border in the wake of stepped-up activities by rebel groups on both sides.
The 15 council members expressed "their serious concern at the recent upsurge of activities of the illegal armed groups in western Darfur and in eastern Chad, and at the resulting tension" between the two neighbors," according to a statement.
They urged Khartoum and N'Djamena to "exercise restraint and pursue dialogue and cooperation" while respecting their commitments under various peace deals.
They welcomed the progress made in deploying the UN force known as MINURCAT and encouraged contributors to make available to both it and the European Union force (EUFOR) "the personnel and resources required for the implementation of their mandates."
Up to 4,000 EUFOR troops are to deploy in Chad and the Central African Republic to help protect hundreds of thousands of war refugees from Sudan's neighboring Darfur region along with people displaced by internal insurgency.
Monday, Chadian air force planes attacked a Chadian rebel base across the border, southwest of El-Geneina in Darfur, a military source in N'Djamena said.
The source confirmed a report from Khartoum on Sunday that a similar attack had been carried out in the same Darfur region against rebels opposed to Chad's President Idriss Deby Itno.
Some 234,000 Darfur refugees, along with 178,000 displaced eastern Chadians and 43,000 Central Africans also uprooted by strife and rebellion in the north of their country, are housed in camps in the region, where many remain at risk because of insurgency.
Several rebel bases lie south of El-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) across the desert from Abeche, the main town in eastern Chad, but it was not clear which had been targeted.
Sudanese army spokesman Othman al-Aghbach said Monday that Chadian aircraft had bombed positions in the west of strife-torn Darfur early Sunday, killing and wounding civilians.
The attack followed a threat Saturday by Deby to pursue and strike Chadian rebels inside neighboring Sudan and repeated charges that Khartoum was trying to destabilize his country.
Relations between Sudan and Chad have turned from bad to worse, with Deby again accusing Khartoum of having a "destabilization plan" against his already volatile country.
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