Militias force Sudanese to return home

By Matthew Writtle

Darfur, Sudan, Sept. 26 — After a murderous rampage which has left around 50,000 dead and a further 1.4 million homeless, there are growing fears that Sudan’s government-sponsored Arab militias are involved in a covert operation to force displaced people back into the homes they have fled, to divert international attention from the crisis.

Pressure has been growing on the Sudanese government to end the year-long campaign by the militiamen, or Janjaweed, and government soldiers who have have been burning, raping, looting and killing their way across the Sudanese province of Darfur in a bid to ethnically cleanse the area of black, non-Arab Africans. The terror has forced communities to flee their homes, livelihood and families and has been labeled “genocide” by the United States.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, said last week that Sudan’s government is not following through on promises to protect refugees and there is evidence that the Janjaweed who chased villagers off their land are policing the camps. Earlier this month the UN Security Council passed a resolution threatening sanctions if the violence does not come to a swift end.

Now aid workers report that Janjaweed working as camp police are offering bribes to refugees who will agree to return to their homes in the danger zones. In Kass, a town in Darfur that is home to more than 40,000 refugees, the local police have been seen offering sweets to children as a lure to return to the villages from which they fled.

Returning villagers to their homes could avoid a looming agricultural problem. The Janjaweed are nomadic Arab tribes that herd and graze camels. The black Africans, who have been forced from their lands, are farmers, whose work provides the cereals and sorghum that feed the region. The war has won the Arabs control of this fertile land but their nomadic roots mean they have little idea how to make use of it.

There is speculation the Janjaweed now want black Africans to return and work the land on their behalf, an allegation dismissed as “absurd” by Dr. Elsadig Adbdalla, press councillor of the Embassy of Sudan. “Those who have been displaced own their land. It won’t be possible for them to return as slaves to the lands they own.”

But luring people back to looted homes will not be easy. “Whenever I go to collect wood I am aware Janjaweed are near. If they wanted to they could return to the village at any time and kill everyone. I think of my mother and father and begin to cry. The only picture I have of them is them lying dead on the ground,” said 15-year-old Fatima Adam Djuma.

Six months ago her parents were killed in front of her when Janjaweed swept into her village, Tege, in central Darfur: “They attacked before morning prayers. I saw Janjaweed on camels and horses and military trucks full of soldiers entering the village. They shot my father in the head and my mother through the heart. I watched the bullet went through her heart and out of her back before she fell next to my father.”

Fatima, her eight-year-old sister Safa, and brother Mohammed, six, ran into the house and hid under the bed. But a militiaman followed, bent down, and shot Fatima in the leg. When the killers had gone, the children fled. On a donkey, they traveled for three days without food and only limited water, until they reached the town of Mershing 25 miles away. Her ankle is still a festering wound.

In Kass, aid workers say the government has set up charities as a front for security forces. Two such groups, SUGYA and AYYA, have approached refugees employed by aid agencies, to ask them how much they are paid. They then offer more — up to $7,000 — if they go home. There is evidence undercover agents are infiltrating the camps to sow distrust between refugees and Western aid agencies. The government is also suspected of bribing tribal leaders.

But despite the pressure most refugees say they will not return to their villages unless international security forces are deployed to oversee their safe passage. “Of the displaced people we have spoken to, there is no doubt they want to return eventually, but only when enough security is provided for them to do so. But at present, they do not feel that is the case,” said John English of Save the Children in Nyala. Whether or when such troops will arrive is not clear.

Proposals to increase the number of African Union monitors in the region were in the UN’s latest resolution. This weekend the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, said Sudan would have to grant Darfur autonomy to end the conflict.

Meanwhile, in Sudan and in neighboring Chad, the displaced people of Darfur have a hungry winter ahead.

Source: Observer (UK)

Afghanistan: poppy, tainted elections, and dead children

Compiled by Shane Perlowin

Sept. 29 (AGR) — The US has confirmed a big increase in Afghanistan’s opium poppy crop and says the illicit drugs trade is endangering efforts to rebuild the country.

A US State Department official said poppy cultivation in Afghanistan was expected to jump by 40 percent this year.

Another official said there were record levels of poppy cultivation in areas not previously used for this purpose.

Pentagon official Peter Rodman says the drugs trade is corrupting Afghan government institutions and that without vigorous eradication, security would not improve quickly.

“We know that profits from the production of illegal narcotics flow into the coffers of warlord militias, corrupt government officials, and extremist forces,” Rodman said.

The UN released figures earlier this year saying three-quarters of the world’s opium poppy was now grown in Afghanistan.

In Afghan election news, Mohammed Mohaqiq says he was getting ready to make his run for the Afghan presidency when US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad dropped by his campaign office and proposed a deal.

“He told me to drop out of the elections, but not in a way to put pressure,” Mohaqiq said. “It was like a request.”

After the hour-long meeting last month, the ethnic Hazara warlord said he wasn’t satisfied with the rewards offered for quitting, which he did not detail. Mohaqiq was still determined to run for president -- though, he said, the US ambassador wouldn’t give up trying to elbow him out of the race.

“He left, and then called my most loyal men, and the most educated people in my party or campaign, to the presidential palace and told them to make me -- or request me -- to resign the nomination. And he told my men to ask me what I need in return.”

Mohaqiq, who is running in the Oct. 9 election, is one of several candidates who maintain that the US ambassador and his aides are pushing behind the scenes to ensure a convincing victory by the pro-American incumbent, President Hamid Karzai.

“It is not only me,” Mohaqiq said. “They have been doing the same thing with all candidates. That is why all people think that not only Khalilzad is like this, but the whole US government is the same. They all want Karzai -- and this election is just a show.”

The charges were repeated by several other candidates and their senior campaign staff in interviews here. They reflected anger over what many Afghans see as foreign interference that could undermine the shaky foundations of a democracy the US promised to build.

Leaders of a south-east Afghanistan tribe have told its members they must vote for Karzai in presidential polls or their houses will be burned.

The decision, which was made by 300 elders of the Terezay tribe, was broadcast by radio in Khost province.

Militants from the Taliban, who are active in the same area, have repeatedly threatened to kill people who do vote in next month’s election.

A Karzai spokesman refused to condemn the announcement.

However, he did urge Afghans not to turn to violence during the campaign.

A tribal leader, Mubarak Shah, told the BBC that if tribal members did not vote their houses would be burned and they would not be allowed to attend local weddings and funerals.

There are widespread fears that the secret ballot, which will be held on Oct. 9, will be marred by violence.

Security concerns have already severely restricted campaigning. Few of the 18 presidential candidates have held political rallies.

And finally, in other news, the misadventures of US forces in Afghanistan continue to draw the ire of locals.

Rooting out the remnants of the Taliban has proved a maddening task for US forces in Afghanistan. Scattered and weakened, the militia remains a slippery foe, hidden in the crevices of the mountains. But with landmark elections just weeks away, the hunt has gained fresh urgency.

The US military is trying to quell the elusive insurgency with a mixture of friendship and force. One day its soldiers drill wells, build schools and perform lifesaving medical operations. The next they go hunting for Taliban.

The American assumption that good works buy Afghan loyalty does not always hold true. And sometimes it can go disastrously wrong.

During a medical patrol to help the sick in a remote village last Friday, commanding officer Captain Andrew Brosnan heard gunshots and mortar fire in a nearby valley. Suspecting bandits were attacking a truck convoy, he led an investigating team. As they mounted the slope, his soldiers spotted two running figures in the distance. After a verbal warning and a warning shot, Brosnan ordered his team to open fire.

But when they approached the fallen “enemy,” they discovered they had shot two children, Abdul Ali, 12, who was hit in the leg, and his brother Abdul Wali, 10, who had been shot in the head. By the time a Black Hawk helicopter landed to evacuate the wounded boys, Wali was dead.

In a briefing after the shooting of the two boys, Col Sellers insisted the rules of engagement had been followed in the “tragic accident”. But admitted it was a big setback to building relations with the already-suspicious local community.

“How can this be a mistake?” asked Abdul Nabi, the boys’ father, holding Ali’s wounded leg in his hand. “A mistake is shooting one person. Not two. If they are shooting our children how can we be their friends?”

Sources: Independent (UK), BBC, The Guardian