Former rebel takes over governing of West Darfur

Source: CNN:

KHARTOUM, Sudan (Reuters) -- West Darfur's new governor, a former rebel, arrived in the state capital on Wednesday welcomed by hundreds of supporters in a sign some aspects of an unpopular peace deal are being implemented.

Abu el-Gasim al-Hajj, 35, was appointed under a May 2006 accord which gave former rebels the governorship of one of the three states of Darfur, a junior ministry post in the central government and some parliamentary seats in Khartoum and Darfur.

"The wali (governor) said his first priority was to bring peace and stability to West Darfur," Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) official Mahjoub Osman Abdallah told Reuters from el-Geneina, the state capital.

Al-Hajj also pledged to ensure the safe return to their homes of all those languishing in Darfur's camps, Abdallah said.

Apart from the appointment, little else of the deal has been implemented and many of the 2.5 million Darfuris who fled their villages to makeshift camps reject it.

Violent state of West Darfur borders troubled Chad

West Darfur is the most lawless of all the Darfur states as it runs along the long and porous border with neighboring Chad, also in the throes of its own insurgency.

Chadian, Sudanese rebels, militias, bandits and government forces often cross the almost nonexistent frontier.

Al-Hajj's appointment has exacerbated tensions between the government and the leader of the only one of three rebel factions to have signed the May 2006 accord at the time, Minni Arcua Minnawi. Minnawi became the fourth-ranking member of the presidency as a result.

Al-Hajj is from a rival group to Minnawi, which signed up to the accord after the rebel groups splitered into a dozen factions. The Khartoum government also gave the junior ministerial position to a non-Minnawi supporter.

Minnawi has been sidelined in Darfur policy and has expressed frustration at President Omar Hassan al-Bashir's "lack of political will" to implement the deal.

Darfur, an area the size of France, has been beset by bloodshed since 2003 when mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms accusing Khartoum of neglecting the arid region.

Opposing the rebels are the Janjaweed, the local name for militia forces drawn from the nomadic Arab tribes, who are blamed for much of the killing. Experts estimate 200,000 have been killed in rape, murder and pillage in the Darfur region.

The United States calls the violence genocide, a term rejected by the Sudanese government and one which European governments are also reluctant to use. The Sudanese government also denies accusations it backs the Janjaweed.

Minnawi complains a transitional authority he should head and which should direct development and reconstruction in the remote west is still not functioning almost a year after the signing of the accord which envisaged it.

The world's largest aid operation is under strain in Darfur because of banditry and attacks. Governmental restrictions have also hindered the almost 14,000 humanitarian workers.

The United States said on Wednesday it was planning new sanctions against Sudan, including restrictions on companies that do business there in U.S. dollars, because of Khartoum's refusal to allow United Nations peacekeeping troops into Darfur.

Chad may consider U.N. police to protect Darfur refugees

CNN March 1, 2007.

N'DJAMENA, Chad (AP) -- Chad's government is voicing opposition to a U.N. plan to deploy troops along its border with Sudan to protect tens of thousands of people who have sought refuge there from the conflict in neighboring Darfur.

The U.N. Security Council is considering sending up to 10,000 troops to Chad, largely because Sudan's government has resisted efforts to send U.N. peacekeepers to the Darfur region itself.

The goal of the mission would be to protect refugees and aid workers, and monitor borders to reduce cross-border attacks.

Djidda Moussa Outman, Chad's minister of foreign affairs, said late Wednesday that Chad had never accepted the idea of a military force of "whatever nature" on its eastern border.

"It was more a question of deploying a civil force made up of police and gendarmes with the aim of protecting the camps of Sudanese refugees, the displaced persons and humanitarian workers in the region," Outman told diplomats representing Security Council members in the Chadian capital, N'djamena.

By "displaced persons," he was referring to the many Chadians who have fled their homes because of an insurgency in the region.

Rebels bent on toppling Chadian President Idriss Deby have clashed sporadically with the government since 2005. They have been able to exploit volatility in Sudan to establish rear bases in Darfur.

Deby expressed concerns about the deployment of a U.N. military force during the Security Council's closed consultations on the issue this week, diplomats at the U.N. said.

Deby is worried about inflaming tensions with Sudan. The two countries have strained relations because Chad supports the Darfur rebellion against the Sudanese government, and Sudan strongly backs the Chadian rebels based in Darfur.

Of the 2.5 million people who have fled Darfur, 230,000 have ended up in refugee camps inside Chad. There are also 90,000 internally displaced Chadians living in camps close to the border.

More than 200,000 people have died since ethnic African tribesmen in Darfur took up arms four years ago, complaining of discrimination by the Arab-dominated Sudanese government.

The U.N. blames the Sudanese government's counterinsurgency for the bulk of the atrocities. Khartoum denies the allegations.

Chad lawmakers pass amnesty law for rebels

February 27, 2007.

N'DJAMENA, Chad (AP) -- The national assembly has passed an amnesty law for a Chadian rebel group that signed a cease-fire deal with the government two months ago.

Also late Monday, President Idriss Deby appointed Nouradine Delwa Kassire Koumakoye prime minister. Koumakoye was minister of state for territorial administration before his appointment. He was also one of Deby's allies who ran against him in a May 2006 election boycotted by the main opposition parties.

Koumakoye's predecessor, Pascal Yoadimnadji, died last week in Paris, France, following a brain hemorrhage.

The amnesty law was part of the Libya-brokered deal that saw one of several rebel groups in eastern Chad lay down arms and agree to work with the government in December.

The national assembly voted late Monday 91-2 in favor of the law. Under Chadian law, Deby has two weeks to sign the amnesty law for it to take effect; otherwise it will automatically take effect after two weeks.

Once it takes effect, members of the rebel United Front for Democratic Change group will be allowed return to their homes without interference from the government. The law, however, does not cover any violations they may have committed before becoming rebels or after they return to civilian life.

The United Front for Democratic Change, which has fought an insurgency in eastern Chad since 2005, launched a failed assault on the Chadian capital, N'djamena, in April 2006.

The violence in eastern Chad has followed repeated warnings that the conflict in the neighboring Darfur region of western Sudan could spill over and engulf the region where Chad, Sudan and the Central African Republic meet.

The governments of Chad and Sudan trade accusations that each is supporting the other's rebels -- each side denies the allegations.

Source: CNN.

Key facts about Darfur

February 26, 2006.

(Reuters) -- The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor will name the first suspects accused of committing war crimes in Sudan's Darfur region on Tuesday.

Here are some facts about the conflict in the Darfur region.

The conflict.

• Rebels in Sudan's western region of Darfur rose up against the government in February 2003, saying Khartoum discriminated against non-Arab farmers there.
• Khartoum mobilised proxy Arab militia to help quell the revolt. Some militiamen, known locally as Janjaweed, pillaged and burned villages, and killed civilians. The government has called the Janjaweed outlaws and denied supporting them.
• Experts have estimated 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes in the region since early 2003, some crossing the border into Chad exacerbating a refugee crisis there.
• The United Nations calls Darfur one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. The United States says the violence in Darfur amounts to genocide.

Cease-fires:

• A ceasefire was agreed in Darfur in April 2004 and the African Union eventually sent nearly 7,000 peacekeepers with a mandate to monitor the peace and protect those displaced in the camps. The ceasefire has been violated frequently, with fighting blamed on government troops, rebels and Janjaweed militias.
• A peace deal in May 2006 was signed by only one of three rebel negotiating factions. The agreement was almost immediately rejected by many people in Darfur who said it did not go far enough in ensuring their security. A new rebel coalition has since formed and renewed hostilities with the government.

Peacekeeping force for Darfur:

• In August 2006, the U.N Security Council adopted a resolution on deploying a 22,500-strong peacekeeping force in Darfur to replace and absorb African Union forces who have been unable to stem the violence in western Sudan.
• It invited the consent of Sudan, which has so far refused.
  Then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan suggested a hybrid force, which Khartoum also rejected. But Sudan has agreed to allow a "hybrid operation", involving technical U.N. support personnel, to deploy to Darfur to help the AU. It has allowed the first phase of that three-phased deployment to proceed but has balked at phase two, which involves some 3,000 U.N. personnel, as well as equipment.

Source: CNN.

NOTE: Consider the source and the outcome so far. I give them below a failing grade. I call it complicit.

Darfur rebels look to unify

February 26, 2007.

WADI ANKA, Sudan (AP) -- Amid the vast sands of a dry Darfur riverbed, more than 100 rebel commanders and tribal chiefs are hoping for a turning point in Darfur's humanitarian disaster: A unity deal among rival rebel factions as a step toward new peace talks with the government.

Sudan's government has done everything it can to discourage the milestone unity conference from taking place: It has bombed previous gatherings of rebel leaders and made overtures to individual rebel commanders to try to lure them from the meeting.

But the rebels gathering here from various factions of the Sudan Liberation Army claim nothing will dissuade them this time.

Camping in a secret location near a place called Wadi Anka as they wait for the formal conference to begin this week, rebel leaders say they are determined to unite their rival political and military leaders, as a first step toward proposing new peace talks with the government.

"We've tried before, but this is the first time we're really serious about it," said Saleh Adam Itzahk, a senior rebel commander from the northeastern Jebbel Midob mountains of Darfur, the vast arid region of western Sudan.

"The war is dragging on because of our disunion," he said. "And we've been cheated of our rights too many times because of it."

The conference comes at a time when the situation in Darfur -- widely viewed as the world's worst humanitarian crisis -- is only getting worse. More than 200,000 people have died in Darfur since 2003, when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-led central government, accusing it of neglect.

Another 2.5 million people are now refugees, with many inside Darfur and others spilling across borders into Chad and Central African Republic, says the U.N. It accuses Sudan's pro-government forces of atrocities against Darfur civilians.

The SLA conference's main goal is to avoid a repeat of the Darfur peace agreement signed last May in Abuja, Nigeria, by the Sudanese government and one rebel leader -- under intense international pressure.

The rebels' longtime overall leader, Abdelwahid Elnur, refused that deal. Although many in the SLA now contest his leadership, most Darfur rebels and civilians also rejected the accord. They contend it provided too little compensation for refugees and offered no real guarantee the Sudanese government would rein in fierce janjaweed militias if the rebels disarmed.

In part because of that, chaos and violence have only worsened across Darfur in recent months, with new government and janjaweed attacks on rebels, and aid groups increasingly unable to help refugees.

Trust in peacekeepers lost.

Jar al-Naby, the SLA spokesman and a rebel field commander, said rebels have no trust left in the African Union, which brokered the Abuja accord. About 7,000 overwhelmed AU peacekeepers in Darfur have been unable to enforce the agreement, and Sudan's government in Khartoum rejects a Security Council resolution to replace them with 22,000 U.N. peacekeepers.

"We want the United Nations to act as mediator and its troops to come here," al-Naby said.

The one rebel chief who signed the previous peace deal, Minni Minawi, is scorned here. "The international community must finally recognize that we represent the vast majority of Darfur," said al-Naby. "Look around you."

Around him, an Associated Press reporter who traveled to Wadi Anka recently saw 100 rebel commanders in camouflage combat gear and tribal chiefs in floating white cotton gowns and turbans. Along with clusters of armed bodyguards, they gathered in small groups across the vast sandy stretch here, sipping cups of mint tea under the shade of scattered trees.

As they wait for other rebel commanders to reach the secret meeting place, dozens of pickup trucks jammed with rebels patrol the area. Sudan's government bombed a previous, tentative SLA conference in December, drawing angry denunciations from the AU force chief who called it wrong for Khartoum to hinder rebel unity efforts.

Many of the field commanders here claim they left hundreds of fighters back home, although none of their numbers could be independently verified.

One rebel commander, Mohammed Ibrahim, was nervously shouting orders into a satellite phone on a recent day last week. A janjaweed militia had entered his sector of the remote western Jebbel Moon mountains that morning, he said, and he was organizing a counterattack by phone.

The U.N. says a previous janjaweed militia raid in Jebbel Moon killed 53 civilians, including 27 children, last December, and Ibrahim wanted to prevent another calamity.

Outside observers claim Sudan's government has armed and organized the janjaweed to beef up its regular army. But Sudan's government may be losing its grip on the militia because of new infighting among its members: Several hundred nomads have died in intertribal fighting this year, the U.N. says.

SLA leaders say that reinforces their conviction that Sudan's government has no choice but to renegotiate a peace deal. They warn of a massive campaign against towns and other government positions if the government rejects their eventual unity overture.

"Time is on our side," al-Naby said.

Source: CNN.

Thought: Why are the people who live here called rebels instead of insurgents? After all, they are just trying to protect what is rightfully theirs...

Darfur's tragedy spills into Central African Republic

February 26, 2007.

BIRAO, Central African Republic (AP) -- The lucky ones live in this former rebel stronghold secured by a handful of French and government forces. The unlucky live in the lawless countryside, their villages abandoned, their lives at the mercy of bandits, rebels and renegade soldiers.

Central African Republic has struggled for more than a year to contain a homegrown low-intensity rebellion in the northwest. Now, a new insurgency in the northeast near Sudan's Darfur region has compounded this fragile nation's troubles and displaced tens of thousands of people.

"The security situation was always deplorable, but it's gotten worse with Darfur," regional Gov. Franck Francis Gazi said in Birao, the small sun-blasted capital of Vakaga, a region held for a month by rebels until late 2006. "The conflict in Sudan has consequences for us. There is a cause and effect."

President Francois Bozize accuses Sudan's Omar al-Bashir of backing the northeastern rebels, charges Sudan denies. Diplomats and U.N. officials say it's unclear who is supporting them, but insurgents are believed to operate in part from bases in lawless Darfur.

The U.N. Security Council said in a report Friday that a recent U.N. assessment mission to Birao found no "compelling evidence" that troubles in the northeast are directly related to Darfur. But the mission, it said, "took note of the government's view that the two situations are linked."

U.N. considering peacekeeping force.

Nevertheless, the U.N. is studying creating a peacekeeping force that would deploy hundreds of troops to Central African Republic and thousands more to Chad to prevent incursions along the two countries' borders with Darfur.

The barren frontier region is porous, remote and poorly policed. Central African Republic, a nation of 4 million, has an army of fewer than 4,500 men, with only 1,000 soldiers actively deployed. A "border post" can be one guard.

Herdsmen and smugglers have crossed these borderlands without passports for centuries with ease -- as have armed groups and arms trafficked through Africa's war-torn heart.

In April 2006, Chadian rebels based in Darfur traversed Central African Republic en route to attack Chad's capital, N'djamena. The same month, a cargo plane carrying arms and dozens of unidentified combatants left Sudan and landed on two consecutive days in the Central African Republic town of Tiringoulou. Some diplomats and senior U.N. officials believe the plane carried the seeds of the northeast rebellion.

The region suffered its first major rebel attack October 29, when insurgents seized Birao and held it for weeks. Gazi said Sudanese and Chadians were among the attackers, who went on to seize half a dozen small towns before retreating from the last in December after a government assault led by French forces, who turned the tide with attack helicopters and Mirage fighter jets.

For now, Vakaga is quiet, though rebels still control territory in the area. Two weeks ago, one woman was shot dead by unknown attackers in a roadside ambush near Birao, Gazi said.

About 60 percent of Vakaga's villages are abandoned, said Karline Kleyer of MSF-Holland, the only non-governmental humanitarian organization operating here. The prefecture is home to about 56,000 people.

"People are afraid, very afraid ... of the rebels, of the governmental troops," Kleyer said. "The population is almost forced to take sides. They're told 'You're with us, or you're against us.' They're trapped in the middle."

'We lived like animals'

During the rebel occupation, most residents fled Birao, living as refugees in the open, prone to cold night air with little or no shelter. They survived on wild fruit, roots and what was left of their fields.

"We lived like animals. We ate whatever we could find," said Sende Dieudonne, a 34-year-old teacher, who returned to find his home looted. Some women said rebels had raped them.

Similar insecurity elsewhere in the country has displaced about 150,000 people, while 70,000 more fled to Chad and Cameroon, according to the U.N, which says tens of thousands of women have been raped by combatants.

Most of Central African Republic's problems appear internal, however, borne of a long history of poverty, coups, mutinies and rebellions. But conflict in Darfur can easily affect the situation here.

Sudan has staunchly opposed pressure to accept a U.N. peacekeeping force in Darfur, a region at war since 2003, when rebels from ethnic African tribes rose up against the central Arab-led government. The Sudanese government is accused of responding in part by backing Arab militia in Darfur who have been accused of some of the conflict's worst atrocities.

The U.N.'s special envoy to Bangui, Lamine Cisse, said if Sudan was supporting the rebellion, it might be doing so to discourage peacekeepers from deploying here.

"Their strategy is no troops in Darfur," Cisse said. "So, no troops close to the boundary with Darfur. They can't say ... 'Don't accept troops in your country,' because it's a question of sovereignty. But on the ground they can make trouble."

Sudan also may be supporting rebels in Chad and Central African Republic to undermine their governments. Bozize is closely allied with Chad, and Chadian soldiers form a crucial part of Bozize's presidential guard. Under a security agreement, Chad's military is free to cross into Central African Republic.

Around 2,000 Chadian troops used to be on Central African Republic's northern border, keeping pressure on the northwestern rebellion. But those troops were sent to fight Darfur-based Chadian rebels in eastern Chad last year.

The result: emboldened rebels here launched new attacks, prompting Bozize's presidential guard to retaliate brutally, burning countless villages whose inhabitants were suspected of supporting the rebellion.

Vehicles frighten residents.

Along the main northern road from Paoua to Markounda on the Chad border, village after village sits silent and abandoned. Thatched roofs have collapsed and burned. Red-earth walls have been torn down and charred.

So terrorized are people that the mere sound of an approaching vehicle one recent day sent dozens of women and children running for their lives.

The villagers thought the convoy contained soldiers. They returned minutes later when they saw the vehicles carried aid workers and human rights officials.

Source: CNN.

PS. I have a few words for the UN. Go to hell. Sudan started this genocide. How dare you say it was the other way around. You are nothing but a bunch of dirty, lying dogs.