War and Genocide in Sudan

By Sabit A. Alley

Introduction

The Sudan, located in North East Africa, is the largest country on the African continent with boarders that touch Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Congo, Chad and Libya. It occupies an area of about one million square miles, and has a diverse population of about 28 million people, comprising 56 ethnic groups, which are subdivided into 597 tribes. All of these tribes speak more than 400 different languages and dialects.

A colony of Britain from 1898 to 1956, the Sudan is a country of contrasts and contradictions. Its northern part is arid desert with no natural resources of any significant value and is inhabited by people who consider themselves Arabs and Muslims by race and faith respectively. Its Southern part, on the other hand, ranges from green savannah land to thick tropical rain forests with plenty of untapped natural resources including water, forests, gold, iron, copper and oil. Unlike the people in the Northern part, inhabitants of the South are racially African and predominantly Christian and traditionalists by faith. In a sense, one can justifiably argue that, because of these incongruent differences in geography, history, socio-economic levels of development, race and religion, the Sudan is two countries in one. One might also argue that it was, perhaps, due partly to these differences that the British colonialists administered the two regions separately until their hasty departure in 1956.

The North-South War

For over four decades now the Sudan has been engulfed in a bitter and devastating civil war between its Northern and Southern regions. The causes of the war are varied and complex, but generally they hinge on the North's hegemonic designs over the people of the South. Since independence on January 1, 1956 successive Arab and Muslim dominated governments in Khartoum have strived to forcefully bring the South under Arab and Islamic fold. These governments, and especially the current National Islamic Fundamentalist government, have used and continue to use war methods or weapons such as slavery, Arabization, Islamization, enthnic cleansing, aerial bombardment and man-made famine to either decimate or subjugate the African people of the Southern Sudan and Nuba Mountains. The National Islamic government has even gone as far as to declare "Jihad", an Islamic Holy war against the people of the South and the Nuba Mountains, who it considers as infidels and who must be totally eradicated or brought under the banner of Arabism and Islamism.

The People of The South have bitterly resisted this Northern assault by taking up arms to wage a war of resistance and liberation. However, in the 46 years of warfare, the South has lost over two million people-that is about 8% of the country's population- and five million of its population has been internally displaced with another half a million scattered in neighboring countries and abroad as refugees. The rudimentary socio-economic infrastructure in the South has also been totally destroyed as a direct result of the war. Schools, health services and transportation systems are almost non-existent in the South Sudan and the Nuba Mountains thus rendering two generations of children in these regions completely uneducated and illiterate as well as making the whole population vulnerable to all kinds of health hazards.

Slavery and the Slave Trade

In most parts of the world slavery and slave trade are subjects that are taught in classrooms to students of history. However, in the Sudan slavery and slave trade are realities of life. In fact these obnoxious practices of modern day slavery and slave trade have never really stopped in the Sudan since the 18th and 19th centuries. They have only varied in intensity depending on who is in control of the reigns of power in Khartoum.

With the coming to power of the present regime trafficking in human beings has grown in capacity and intensity. As stated earlier in the preceding paragraphs the government of the Sudan uses slavery and slave trade as a weapon of war to terrorize and subjugate the people of the South and the Nuba Mountains. Undoubtedly, modern day slavery constitutes one of the most important factors that drive the genocidal schemes of the present Islamic fundamentalist regime led by General Omer Hassan El Bashir.

In the pretext of fighting Southern Sudanese rebels or liberation forces as they would want to be called, the National Islamic government of the Sudan (GOS) has deployed its regular armed forces and militia notoriously known as the People's Defense Forces (PDF) to attack and raid villages in the South and the Nuba Mountains for slaves and cattle. The PDF were created in 1989 by a presidential decree and they are trained and armed by the GOS. The government does not pay them salaries but has instructed them that their pay is the booty they obtain from the raids on Southern villages.

In addition, the GOS has trained and armed Arab tribes in the North with the express objective of using them to capture women and children in the South and the other marginalized areas inhabited by Sudanese Africans. In these raids the elderly and sick are usually killed on the spot and their food granaries set ablaze. The children and young women who are taken and sold into slavery in the North and other Arab countries in the Middle East are used as domestic servants, cattle keepers, farm workers, concubines, and very often given out as gifts. It is estimated that as many as 200, 000 Southern Sudanese and Nuba children and women have been taken into slavery.

The existence of modern day human bondage in the Sudan has been investigated and confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt by very credible human rights groups and individuals, academics, journalists, political and religious leaders. Just as recently as two months ago, Dr. Susan Rice, a high-ranking cabinet official in the then Clinton Administration, visited Southern Sudan and personally spoke to redeemed slaves. Not only did Dr. Rice deplore and condemn Sudan's state sponsored modern slavery and slave trade but she urged the United States Government to take practical steps to halt this egregiously inhuman practice.

Arabization and Islamization

With the departure of the British colonialists from the Sudan in 1956, the Northern Sudanese Arab/Muslim political elites to whom the administration of the whole country was handed, believed that the unity of the Sudan depended on the total forcible conversion of the South into Arabism and Islamism. To this end successive Northern Sudanese dominated governments in Khartoum put into place programs aimed at the Arabization and Islamization of the South and the Nuba Mountains. The regime of General Ibrahim Abboud (1958-1964) was notoriously upbeat on the implementation of these assimilative policies. Some of the programs to which he poured lots of funds included the monopoly of the mass media by the Arabic language to the total exclusion of indigenous languages and dialects, the exclusion of Christianity and tradition religions as evidenced by the decreeing and of imposition of Friday in 1960 as a public holiday and as day of worship for all Sudanese regardless of their faith, the decreeing in 1962 of the Missionary Society Act to restrict the propagation of the Christian religion and the subsequent expulsion of all foreign missionaries from the Southern Sudan in 1963/64; the forceful imposition of the wearing of the traditional Muslim dress, the "jalabia" and the compulsory circumcision and the giving of Arabic names to school age children as a pre-condition for entry into elementary and intermediate schools.

The current regime of Omer Hassan el Bashir has even exceeded his predecessors in the brutal pursuit of these policies of cultural and religious assimilation. Bashir's National Islamic Front (NIF) regime has put into place a very ambitious project whose aim is the radical transformation of many aspects of Sudanese political, economic, social and cultural life. Components of these NIF policies are found in their so called "Comprehensive Call" program which advocates the propagation of Islam, the saturation of all aspects of life with Islamic values, the spreading of the Arabic language and cultural values; and the repression of Christianity and African Traditional religions and values in Southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains. Not only that but Bashir's government has declared the Sudan an Islamic Republic, which must be governed strictly in accordance with the out dated Islamic Sharia laws. As a result of these draconian laws many Sudanese nationals have had their limbs amputated for petty crimes such as theft. Just last month 19 people in the Sudan were subjected to these inhuman and degrading punishments. Their hands and legs were cut off.

Oil Production and the War

Oil extraction in the Sudan began in 1998. Helping the Sudan government in oil production, are foreign companies such as Talisman Energy Inc. of Calgary in Canada, the China National Petroleum Company, Petronas, the state owned oil company of Malaysia, Lundin of Sweden, Total/Fina/Elf of France and OMV of Austria and a host of other Western European and Middle Eastern oil firms. Not only are these companies involved in providing technical know-how, they are providing military resources and materials such as mercenaries and weapons to safeguard the oil fields and pipe line. China is reported to have provided hundreds of ex-convicts to work and protect the oil sites.

With an output of 200,000 barrels of oil per day the GOS reaped an estimated $500 million last year (2000). Production is projected to double or triple this year and in the coming years. Oil extraction in the Sudan has fundamentally changed Sudan's war. It has shifted the balance of military power in favor of the National Islamic regime and has made it to shun peace negotiations, believing strongly that the solution to the war rests on military victory over the Southern rebels and other opposition groups in the marginalized regions of the country. It has helped to insulate Khartoum from world pressure to end its brutal policies against the people of the South and the Nuba Mountains. Sudan's military dictator himself has made it public that revenues from the oil will be used to procure military hard ware such as modern bombers, helicopter gun ships and other weapons to be used to prosecute the war in the South. It is therefore no wonder that fighting has erupted in several parts of the country. It is only a matter of time that the GOS will realize its scheme of annihilating or subjugating the people of the South and the Nuba Mountains if no efforts are made on the part of the international community to stop these foreign companies from exploiting the oil.

The advent of oil has also resulted in the forced mass displacement of Southern Sudanese civilians from the oil fields and the pipeline. Also, gross human abuses have become the order of the day in the areas where oil is being produced. To avoid international outrage and condemnation the Sudan government has refused to allow relief and other humanitarian organizations to operate in the areas near the oil fields.

Aerial Bombardment of Civilian Targets

One manifestation of the escalation of the war has been the ongoing aerial bombardment of civilian targets such as hospitals, schools, churches, markets, refugee camps and relief aid centers in the South and the Nuba Mountains. This is one of the many methods of choice of the GOS to terrorize and decimate the African populations of the Sudan. Humanitarian relief organizations operating in the region estimate that the Khartoum has bombed civilian targets in the Southern Sudan 300 times in the last four years resulting in the death and injury of thousands of innocent people. Not only are local Southern Sudanese citizens the target of these bombings but humanitarian relief agencies have also been indiscriminately bombed. About a month or so ago a relief center operated by the International Committee of the Red Cross in the South was bombed and destroyed by the GOS warplanes. Similarly, a school in the Nuba Mountains was bombed last year and about 15 children and a teacher were killed.

According to relief workers in the area, these deliberate aerial bombardments not only kill and maim innocent civilians; they disrupt international relief efforts and dislocate families from their land. Frank Wolf, a USA congressman from Virginia recently visited Southern Sudan where he personally witnessed the aftermath of these disastrous aerial bombings and their attendant terrifying effects on the local population. These aerial attacks on civilians are a serious violation of peoples' rights and international humanitarian norms.

Man-Made Famine

The Sudan government is notoriously known for creating famine or what Senator Bill Frist calls "calculated starvation" for the people of the South and the Nuba Mountains. It does this by bombing Southern villages and denying relief flights to areas in need of relief assistance. In 1998 the GOS, through manipulation of foreign food aid, caused a major famine in the South where up to about 2.6 million South Sudanese were at the brink of starvation. According to the US Agency for International Development between 100,000 and 200, 000 South Sudanese people perished as a result of this man made famine.

The Sudan government also uses food as a means for luring Southern Sudanese Christians into its so- called peace camps which are located in the desert far away from the amenities of the cities. These camps resemble the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Food distribution in these camps is carried out exclusively by Islamic organizations, which use the food for converting Southern Christians into Islam. If one does not bear an Islamic name one is denied food. Clearly, therefore, the Sudan government is guilty of using food as a weapon of coercion to force people to embrace the Islamic faith.

World Response to the war and Genocide in the Sudan

Apart from isolated efforts by human rights groups, individuals, churches and some religious and political leaders, the silence on the of the international community has been very stunning. Neither the United Nations Organization nor the Organization of African Unity has taken any practical steps to bring the war of genocide in the Sudan to an end. Even regional initiatives such as that of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development ( IGAD) has had less success in ending Sudan's war. The only positive achievement of IGAD has been endorsement of the Declaration of Principles (DOP) by both parties to the conflict.

The mass media, whether in Africa or the Western world, has also been dismally unconcerned and silent on this human tragedy unfolding in the Sudan. The zeal with which the media covered events in Kossovo, Yugoslavia, Bosnia etc. has been totally absent in the Sudan case.

Silence on the part of the international community has been partly responsible for the perpetual mass enslavement, mass murder, famine, diseases and the total destruction of the people of the South Sudan and the Nuba Mountains.

How You Can Help

The situation in Sudan requires the attention of any person who cares for humanity. Helping to save the African people of the Southern Sudan is not only a moral imperative but responsible an act in the interest of humanity. Each and every one of us can make a difference. As citizens of this strong and powerful nation you can exercise your rights of citizenship to help stop the genocide in the Sudan. There are many ways in which you can do this:

Write to your Congressmen and government leaders urging them to make pressure bear on the Sudan government to stop slavery and slave trade, the violation of the rights of its citizens and other atrocities it is committing against the innocent people of the South and the Nuba Mountains;
Write to your representatives in government to raise the issue of the Sudan in the United Nations Security council especially the issues of slavery and aerial bombardment of civilian and relief centers in the South and Nuba Mountains;
Write to your Congressmen and government leaders asking them to help stop the exploitation of oil in the Sudan until peace is achieved in the country;
Write letters or e-mails to your Congressman expressing your support for the Sudan Peace Act, which is currently being submitted to Congress. This bill will help direct food aid to the starving people of The South and the Nuba Mountains, establish slave tracking efforts and provide other human rights protections;
Speak to the pastor and congregations of your churches about the situation in the Sudan and ask them to write petitions to members of Congress supporting the Sudan Peace Act;
Write or e-mail your state municipal legislators voicing your concern over indirect funding of the Sudan government through state pension funds and other investment in oil companies such as Talisman Energy Inc. of Calgary, Canada and the China National Petroleum Company;
Write or e-mail your members of Congress demanding that the China National Petroleum Company and its affiliates be prevented from entering American Capital markets.

I urge you all to do what is within your powers to help bring to an end the war and genocide in the Sudan.

Visit SudanActivism.com for more ideas on stopping genocide in Sudan. —Ed.

Sabit Alley is a native of Sudan and a director of the Coalition Against Slavery in Mauritania and Sudan. His wife, Jane, and the couple's children themselves escaped a slave raid on their native village in southern Sudan. Mr. Alley delivered this paper at "The 19th Annual Holocaust and Genocide Program: Learning Through Experience" hosted by the Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies of Raritan Valley College in New Jersey on March 17, 2001.