Sudanese President Omer Hassan Al Bashir, right and Zimbabwean Deputy President Joyce Mujuru, left , upon his arrival in the resort town of Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, Saturday, June 6, 2009. (AP), a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
Sudan: U.S. Congressional Committee Votes to Cut Aid From States Hosting President
17 May 2012
Tim McKulka/UN
Washington — A congressional committee in the United States House of Representatives voted to cut off aid to any state that hosts Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his alleged role in Darfur war crimes.
The amendment to the fiscal year 2013 State and Foreign Operations Appropriations bill was pushed for by Frank Wolf who is one of Bashir's most vocal critic.
"Women are being abused and killed for the color of their skin," Wolf shouted according to 'The Hill' website.
"This is a moral issue," he added and threatened to send gruesome videos of violence in Sudan to any committee member who voted down the amendment.
"One lady she pinched her skin and said, 'I'm black. Get Bashir!' " the U.S. Republican lawmaker said.
Wolf's office released his prepared remarks in support of this provision which he said is necessary to further American interests.
"In a time when the foreign affairs budget is being squeezed, I believe our assistance should be a direct reflection of American values and priorities," he said.
"Surely we can all agree that bringing a war criminal to justice is in our national interest. Leveraging our foreign assistance in this way sends a powerful message," Wolf added.
The approval of the amendment does not guarantee that it will be included in the final appropriations bill especially that the democratically-controlled Senate will produce its own version which will later has to be reconciled with the House version and voted on.
The issue has already drawn concern by some of Wolf's peers in light of its implications on the U.S. foreign policy.
"We all agree that the situation in Sudan is deplorable, that President Bashir must be held accountable for his crimes," Democratic Representative Nita Lowey said.
She noted that Bashir has visited many countries including Ethiopia, China, Egypt, Chad, Malawi, Qatar, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
"My colleague's amendment would cut off U.S. funding to all of these countries, some of them strategic allies," had it already been in effect when the visits were made, Lowey said.
Last March, the US announced that it is suspending $350 million allocated to Malawi through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) citing reasons which included receiving Bashir last year.
This month Malawi's new president Joyce Banda asked the African Union (AU) not to invite Bashir to this year's summit hosted by her country for fear of its implications on aid Malawi receives.
The Sudanese president denies the ICC charges and refuses to recognize the jurisdiction of the court which he denigrates as a tool of neo-colonialism by the West.
South Sudan calls for UN sanctions on Khartoum
* Negotiator says Sudan in violation of UN resolution
* Faults UN, AU for not being firm enough with Khartoum
JUBA: The United Nations should impose sanctions on Sudan for failing to obey a Security Council resolution calling for an end to hostilities and renewed negotiations with South Sudan over oil and border disputes, South Sudan’s negotiator said on Friday.
Pagan Amum told Reuters Khartoum had not complied with the May 2 resolution giving neighbours Sudan and South Sudan, under threat of sanctions, two weeks to resume talks over their differences, which boiled over into border clashes last month.
He said while South Sudan, which became the world’s newest independent nation last year, had signalled its readiness to restart talks immediately, its neighbour had carried out air attacks after May 2 and had not moved to resume negotiations.
“They have violated the timeline,” Amum, Secretary-General of South Sudan’s ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), said in an interview in the South Sudanese capital Juba. He urged the UN Security Council to “impose sanctions now and take measures against Khartoum”.
A spokesman for Sudan’s Foreign Ministry said Amum’s remarks were “unfortunate” and accused the south of violating the Security Council resolution by continuing its “aggression” in Sudan’s territory.
While insisting the South wanted to live in peace with Sudan, Amum criticised both the United Nations and the African Union for failing to deal firmly with Sudan, which he said routinely defied the international community.
“If the UN fails to take action, they will be judged by humanity and the people of South Sudan will lose trust and confidence in them,” the South Sudanese negotiator said. “We are going to ask them, ‘What are you going to do?’”
He said he had written to former South African President Thabo Mbeki, who is in Khartoum as head of the AU panel tasked with resolving the north-south disputes, asking when the negotiations with Khartoum would restart but had not so far received a response. El-Obeid Morawah, Sudan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: “The Security Council and the AU have their own monitoring mechanisms and it is they who will say which side violates the decisions. I think it is better for them (South Sudan) and for us to put the negotiations first.”
On Thursday, the UN Security Council demanded that Sudan immediately withdraw troops from the disputed Abyei border region but Khartoum pledged only to do so after a joint military observer body for the area was created. Amum said South Sudan had withdrawn its police forces from Abyei in compliance with the UN demands and said Khartoum’s failure to pull out its military was a violation that should be punished by the Security Council.
Juba accuses Khartoum of launching bombing raids on South Sudanese territory after May 2. UN peacekeepers have verified damage and casualties from at least one raid and the UN’s top human rights official said last week she was outraged by “indiscriminate” aerial attacks by Sudan that she said were killing and injuring civilians. Sudan denies Juba’s accusations of air raids and independent verification of rival claims are often difficult because of limited access to remote conflict areas. Amum chastised the UN and the AU for what he said was inaction over repeated Sudanese attacks. “The UN sees it as normal for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir to bomb and kill the people of South Sudan.
The conscience of the international community is not pricked they are used to it, it has become normal,” he complained.
He said the international community only reacted when South Sudanese forces, in what he called self-defence, occupied the disputed Heglig oil region, as the two armies clashed on their border last month. Under international pressure, South Sudan withdrew from Heglig. The two Sudans, which fought a civil war for more than two decades before a 2005 peace deal that eventually led to South Sudan’s independence, sit on significant oil reserves.
The South’s independence gave it about three quarters of the oil output of the previously unified nation. A dispute over the fees South Sudan should pay to Sudan to export its crude through the north prompted Juba to shut off its oil production earlier this year, straining the two economies. reuters
Sudan set to devalue pound amid oil crunch
Fri, May 18 2012
By Ulf Laessing
KHARTOUM, May 18 (Reuters) - Sudan will allow foreign exchange bureaux and banks to trade dollars at a level close to the black market rate, effectively devaluing the pound, a senior banking official said on Friday.
Sudan's economy has been battered since the country lost three-quarters of its oil production to South Sudan when the latter became independent in July. Even though the pipelines are in Sudan, the two have been unable to agree on how much the South should pay to transport its oil.
South Sudan shut down its output of 350,000 barrels a day in January after Sudan started seizing oil for what the latter calls unpaid fees.
The loss of oil revenues, the main source of state income and dollar inflows, has hit the Sudanese pound hard. One dollar bought 5.5 pounds on the black market on Friday, way above the official rate of around 2.7. The rate hit 6.2 during a military confrontation with South Sudan last month.
To close the gap the central bank will allow foreign exchange bureaux and banks to use rates close to the black market, said Abdel-Moneim Nur al-Din, deputy head of Sudan's association of foreign exchange bureaux.
"From Monday on, foreign exchange bureaux can trade dollars at a rate of 5.2," he told Reuters, adding that banks could set a rate of 4.9.
"We expect the situation to stabilise. We have eight million Sudanese living abroad whose money goes to the black market. With the (new) rate we can attract Sudanese workers to send their money to families through banks and official organisations," he said.
He said the central bank, which could not be immediately reached for comment, had assured it would provide sufficient dollars supplies.
The central bank has for long time tried to clamp down on the black market which has become the unofficial benchmark for import firms and banks.
As a result of a dollar scarcity inflation shot up to 28.6 percent in April, more than triple the level of November 2010, as Sudan needs to import much of its needs.
Import firms have turned to the black market for dollars as banks and exchange offices struggle to meet supplies.
Nur al-Din said banks were allowed to trade dollars at 4.9 for letter of credits required by import firms. Essential goods such as wheat or medicine would be still guaranteed by the finance ministry at the official rate to keep prices down.
Deputy central bank governor Badr el-Din Mahmoud told al-Sudani newspaper he expected the currency situation to stabilise after the central bank managed to get new supplies. He did not elaborate.
UN Urges Sudan to Pull Troops from Abyei
Posted Friday, May 18th, 2012 at 2:50 am
The United Nations Security Council is demanding Sudan withdraw its troops from the disputed region of Abyei and that it reach an agreement with South Sudan on the status of the oil-rich border region.
The council on Thursday extended the U.N. security force mission in Abyei for six months. It also expressed concern at delays in forming a jointly-run administration and police force for the area.
The 15-member body welcomed last week's withdrawal of hundreds of South Sudanese forces from Abyei, saying Sudan should follow suit “immediately and without preconditions.”
But Sudan's deputy U.N. ambassador, Idris Ismail Faragalla Hassan, said South Sudan had taken the wrong approach. He said both sides should withdraw at the same time under the supervision of an international body.
“This withdrawal should take place simultaneously and it should be monitored by a body agreed upon by the two parties. The body will be composed of the two parties as well as the African Union. What happened is that the government of South Sudan took a piecemeal approach, not the comprehensive approach that the government of Sudan is calling for.”
The Security Council earlier this month threatened sanctions against the two Sudans if they do not cease fighting and return to negotiations. Although violence has lessened in the past week, the nations failed to meet a Wednesday deadline to resume talks.
Rising tensions have pushed the countries to the brink of war, just 10 months after South Sudan formally split from the north.
The countries have yet to resolve critical issues from their split, including citizenship questions and disputes over oil revenue and borders. The neighboring countries have accepted “in principle” an African Union roadmap for an end to the fighting.
The fighting has displaced tens of thousands of people along the two countries' border area, creating a humanitarian crisis that aid agencies say is rapidly growing worse.
History repeats as war pushes Sudanese to Kenya
Fri, May 18 2012
* Some 1,200 S.Sudanese refugees arrive each month
* Swampy conditions bad for health, U.N. says
* Refugee matters "not popular" among locals - U.N.
By Katy Migiro
NAIROBI, May 18 (AlertNet) - When Nyajany Kutil left Kenya's Kakuma refugee camp to return home to South Sudan in 2008, she did not imagine that war would force her back across the border again so soon.
But the exodus is repeating itself less than a year after South Sudan celebrated its independence from Sudan, dashing hopes of an end to five decades of war.
About 1,200 South Sudanese refugees are arriving in Kakuma camp each month, fleeing conflict and hunger in the world's newest nation.
"When I came here in 2005, we had a lot of war," Kutil, 20, said, seated on a wooden bench with her five-year-old daughter, waiting to register with Kenya's Department of Refugee Affairs.
Kutil's parents were killed in a night-time raid on their village, forcing the teenage girl to seek sanctuary in Kakuma, 120 km (75 miles) south of the border.
In 2008, she and her two young daughters were among the 50,000 South Sudanese refugees repatriated from Kenya, keen to rebuild their lives following a 2005 peace deal which led to a referendum on southern independence last July.
"When I returned to Sudan, I got the same war. So I am here. I don't have any other place to go," Kutil said.
Last month, her husband and four-year-old daughter were killed when raiders burned down their village in South Sudan's troubled Jonglei State.
"I don't have any hope to return back to South Sudan. I would like to stay in Kenya because I do not see any war here," she said.
HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF
Many of those who are coming back have been here before, said Guy Avognon, the United Nations (U.N.) refugee agency's head of office in Kakuma. "It's history repeating itself."
Like Kutil, the majority of new arrivals come from Jonglei where 170,000 people have been affected by interethnic conflict since late 2011.
"The journey was very hard. We suffered. There was no food and no water. We were scared so we used to run at night," said Nyibol Mariar, 40, sitting on a mat in the camp's reception centre with her eight surviving children.
Her first born son and husband were killed in a night-time raid on their village in Jonglei.
Kakuma receives 100 new arrivals each day. With a population approaching 97,000, the camp is likely to reach its 100,000 capacity in the next few weeks.
"We have never reached that number even at the peak of the Sudan crisis prior to the referendum," Avognon said.
"The only place to accommodate these new arrivals is swampy," he added, warning that such unsanitary conditions were likely to make people sick.
Some 60 percent of new arrivals are from South Sudan, 16 percent from Sudan and the remainder from neighbouring states like Somalia and Ethiopia.
Most Sudanese are coming from South Kordofan on the oil-rich, disputed border between the two Sudans. Rebels who fought on the side of South Sudan during the 1983-2005 war are fighting the Khartoum government once again, causing widespread displacement and hunger.
The United Nations and the local community have identified a new site called Kalobeyey with capacity for 80,000 people, 25 km from Kakuma.
But Kenya's ministry of internal security has yet to authorise the U.N. to start building an access road to the site.
"Refugee matters are not very popular here. People immediately see the security side of it. The government is very cautious," Avognon said.
The U.N. predicts that Kakuma will receive between 30,000 and 50,000 new arrivals in the next 12 months, largely because of interethnic feuds.
"If Kakuma remains the main destination of new arrivals, I don't see how we are going to cope in the next dry season," said Avognon, adding that water shortages could lead to conflict with the host community in Kenya's arid north-west. (AlertNet is a humanitarian news service run by Thomson Reuters Foundation. Visit www.trust.org/alertnet) (Editing by James Macharia and Michael Roddy)
EXCLUSIVE - Sudan: The Blue Nile’s Forgotten Rebellion
By blade
Created 18/05/2012 - 10:55
Since September, war has been raging between the Sudanese Revolutionary Front and the Sudanese Armed Forces in the Blue Nile State. FRANCE 24's James André, Chady Chlela and Stéphanie Braquehais went to the frontline with the rebels.
REPORTERS
2012-05-18 10:10-WB EN REPORTERS
Our convoy sets off at dawn, four Toyota pick-up trucks full of rebels armed with Kalashnikovs. We leave Southern Sudan for Blue Nile State, a province of the Republic of Sudan. After an hour’s drive on a bumpy dirt track through the forest, we cross the border illegally.
Our driver asks us to remove the batteries from our satellite phone. If we turn it on, the Sudanese army could locate and bomb us. We are now unreachable. The men stop to camouflage the 4x4 with mud. The area is bombed daily. Khartoum uses Antonovs - Russian transport aircraft - to drop bombs on villages and rebel positions. Most residents have fled the province; others live hidden in the bush.
The villages along the track leading to the frontline are deserted, some houses are burnt. Rebel fighters use these hamlets as bases. We soon realise that they lack everything. There is little food. One of the rebels tells us that their salaries have not been paid since the beginning of the war. They also lack fuel; most fighters have to walk between positions. Some are wearing flip flops, others sneakers.
Rebel positions on the frontline consist of groups of men who control tracks or intersections. It is a static war, with heavy yet sporadic fighting. Ground skirmishes are rarer than bombings.
Omar al-Bashir’s arch-enemy
The rebels take us to interview Malik Agar, the leader of the Sudanese Revolutionary Front. The man lives in a secret base hidden in the forest. The place is remote and heavily armed. There are only temporary buildings. We are not allowed to film or photograph anything that could give away his location.
Malik Agar is a former minister and governor of Blue Nile state who was dismissed by Khartoum. Almost two metres tall, he is President Omar al-Bashir’s arch-enemy. He speaks perfect English and Arabic in a calm voice. “What we are doing here is exactly what you Europeans did a few centuries ago… with the added value of the Kalashnikov”, he tells us. His popularity has allowed him to rally rebellions from Blue Nile, South Kordofan and also factions from Darfur to form a force of 45,000 men. His goal is to overthrow the government of Omar al-Bashir, which he considers racist, then to seize power and create a multicultural and secular Sudan.
During our meeting, he stresses the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the province. We leave to go and meet those who are displaced within Blue Nile state.
As night falls, our escort stops in one of the ghost villages. We are shown into a hut. We are offered a meal of roast goat. First, the liver and guts are served, then a few pieces of muscle. There is only one goat for the whole unit, roughly thirty men.
The day has been exhausting; we have travelled for hours on bumpy tracks in temperatures of 40 to 45°C. We sleep outside on string beds.
The Blue Nile is a province that has been deliberately abandoned by the Sudanese government over the years. There is no water, no electricity, let alone a telephone network. Nothing here has changed for thousands of years.
The next day, we set off at sunrise. Our escort takes us into what remains of one of the largest markets in the Blue Nile. Everything is closed except for two stores. There are a few products for sale; they are all imported from Ethiopia and South Sudan. The village is dotted with craters; the hospital was destroyed by a bomb dropped by the Sudanese Air Force.
We finally meet some residents who chose to hide in the bush. They live with nothing - no water, no food. Some shelter in caves. They receive no aid since the humanitarian NGOs have been expelled by Khartoum. The rainy season will begin in a few days. The rains will turn the area into a bog. In some places, there will be up to 50 cm of mud. Vehicles will get stuck, paralysing the region, and the already difficult situation of the Blue Nile’s displaced people will become impossible.
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