Press Release

March 1st, 2003

Sudan Government Fails to Insure Stability and Peace in DarFur

Continuous Genocide of Sudan’s African Peoples

SHRO-Cairo Calls for an All-Sudanese Conference to Insure the Rights of Sudan Indigenous Nationalities

In May 1991, members of the Zagawa people of DarFur submitted a memorandum to Omer Bashir, head of state, on the massacres that the Zagawa suffered in the areas of Khazan Jadid, Argod, Mawarit and Um Katok. The memorandum “held the Governor of DarFur Region responsible for these incidents, together with the security committee, the commanders of the military convoys, and leaders of the native administration in the area.”

The Zagawa Memorandum clearly stated that “The Khartoum government has created a major crisis by meddling with the system of native administration. This system was restored by the elected government of 1986, precisely at the time when Mr. Tigani Sisi was governor of DarFur. The functioning of the system was entirely left to the tribal chiefs without ay interference from the executive authority of the region. But the present government has ignored all these conventions and has completely disrupted the system of native administration, first by changing the age-old titles and then proceeding to appoint “Amirs” in the places of former chiefs at various levels. They now call the new administrative units “Emirates.” They have even taken upon themselves the power of appointing someone to be enthroned as the “Sultan” of the Fur country. The regime did the same thing with the Masalit (also Massaleit) native adminis!tration.

The Zagawa memorandum further stated that “the National Islamic Front regime aims to alter the demographic structure as well as the distribution of economic resources in Dar Fur in favor of ethnic groups it considers more loyal to it. It plans to put political power in the hands of Arab ethnic groups in Dar Fur. It has applied many strategies to achieve this… On its own part, the central government would work to prevent the unity of the “black: tribes by sowing seeds of discord among them. Meanwhile, it would also starve the region of any social services so that its younger people are compelled to leave their homes in pursuit of better services elsewhere.”

The Sudan Human Rights Organization (SHRO-Cairo) has been gravely concerned with the deteriorating situation of human rights in DarFur. The Organizations Sudanese Human Rights Quarterly (Issue No. 8, July 1999) alerted the Sudanese people, as well as the international community to the escalated processes of ethnic cleansing, Apartheid, and the other crimes against humanity that the Sudan Government has recklessly instigated and developed in the region since the early 1990s. The Organization correlated these egregious criminality to the prevailing conditions of Emergency Law, Civil War in South Sudan, and the unrelenting violence of the regime against the People of Sudan.

In the decade that succeeded the Zagaqa insightful memorandum to the NIF coup leader in 1991, the NIF ruling regime has systematically damaged the structure of ethnic relations in the whole region to increase the military, economic, and political power of Arab supporters of the regime versus the African-descent people of DarFur. The ethnic, religious, and politico-economic policies of the regime have finally converted DarFur to an apartheid region in which systematic genocide of the African indigenous nationalities is carried out with full government support.

In an open letter to the International Community, representatives of the Massaleit people of DarFur expressed grave concerns about the genocide of Massaleit who live in the extreme west of DarFur along the border with Chad. The letter emphasized the fact that “Like other non-Arab ethnic groups in the region such as the Fur and the Zagawa, the Massaleit have in recent years confronted systematic attack by NIF sponsored and armed Arab paramilitary militias operating in the area. These militias have repeatedly massacred non-Arab civilians, burned whole villages to the ground, and caused a massive flight of whole non-Arab communities from their ancestral lands. In short, the NIF government in Sudan has actively pursued a policy of ethnic cleansing against the non-Arabs of Western Sudan.”

The Massaleit document referred to an agreement signed by Sudan Government and the Government of Chad in N’Djemina on February, 1999. The foreign ministers of the two countries, Mustsafa Osman Ismail and Muhammad Salih Nazief (whose ethnic group attacked the Massaleit prior to the agreement) agreed to “police refugees, prevent the Chadian of Sudanese opposition forces from operating in either country, and to strengthen existing extradition agreements so that refugees who are considered criminals in their host home country can be extradited…. The Massaleit refugees in Chad can expect to no protection from the brutality of the Sudanese regime, in exile.”

The last two months witnessed serious developments in Darfur, which may deteriorate further the already tragic situation.

At the beginning of January 2003, the village of Singita, 14 km south of Kas was attacked by armed horsemen. Scores of people were reported killed, including 10 persons who were shot and allegedly subsequently thrown into the fire by the attackers.

A week later the manager of Jebel Marra Project was killed along with two of his sons in an ambush.

In mid January, 24 people were killed and many others wounded in armed clashes that took place in Kudud village in Wadi Saleh Province.

Around mid February a group of armed Fur and other groups attacked a convoy of security forces near the village of Martajelo in Jebel Marra, killing at least 12.

Few days later four soldiers and eight civilians were killed and many others were wounded in armed clashes in Nertitti area.

In the last week of February hundreds of rebels, identifying themselves as the Front for the Liberation of Darfur (FLD) seized the town of Gulu, capital of Jebel Marrah province, and installed their own administration. The FLD said it wanted to eradicate the marginalisation and injustice, which had deprived the region of development projects.

SHRO-Cairo is greatly concerned that the government may, in response to these events, escalate the cycle of violence, pushing the country into a new all-out civil war.

SHRO-Cairo considers the most recent eruption of armed violence in DarFur a continuous result of the NIF ruthless assaults, ethnic cleansing, and failures to insure peace, stability, and social justice in the region.

The organization is greatly concerned that the government may, in response to the recent developments, escalate the cycle of violence, and push the country into a new all-out civil war.

The Organization shares with the Zagawa, Fur, and Masaleit African peoples of Sudan serious grievances, rejection, and full condemnation of the ethnic, political, and economic Apartheid Policies and Practices of the NIF-controlled regime of the Sudan.

SHRO-Cairo asks the Sudan Government to:

• Stop all Apartheid policies and practices against the African-descent peoples of DarFur
• Disarm all government-supported militias
• Abolish the NIF prejudiced system of Emirates that replaced the 1989’s DarFur native administration.
• Return all confiscated lands to the peoples of Zagawa, Fur, and Massaleit.
• Compensate the African-descent groups whose property was subjected to armed rubbery since 1991 to the present time
• Encourage the victims of attacks in Darfur to come forward to give their evidence without fear with full protection against any reprisals.
• Bring to justice all individuals, whether government officials, army men or civilians, who were directly or indirectly involved in the crimes committed against the Sudanese African people in Western Sudan.
• Form an independent impartial Commission of Inquiry to make proper investigations and conclusions. The results that would be reached by the Commission should be publicly announced.

The policies of Sudan Government towards the African-descent peoples of Sudan has been gravely replicated in South Sudan, Western Sudan (the Nuba Mountains), as well as the Blue Nile groups and the Northern Sudan indigenous groups (including Nubians and the Manasir whose lands will be inundated with the construction of planned dams in the Nile). The commonness of these grievances indicates clearly that the Sudan Government is not concerned at all for the welfare of these large populations of the People of Sudan.

SHRO-Cairo calls for a National Conference on the Present Time Concerns and the Future of Sudan’s Indigenous People to discuss the present time genocide of these large sections of the Sudanese and to find ways to insure their well-being, tranquility, political, and social development.
The Organization asks the Sudanese National Democratic Alliance and the Sudan’s Civil Society Organizations to establish a National Steering Committee for this important matter with full participation of the indigenous groups whose peoples are directly facing the genocide wars of Sudan Government.