[Home] [About IRIN] [Subscribe] [Asia Archive] [Africa Archive] [Search] [Links] [Weekly] [Feedback] [Multimedia] [Franis]

SUDAN: IRIN Focus on human rights

NAIROBI, 3 July 2001 (IRIN) - Human rights violations are increasing in Sudan, with abductions, arbitrary arrests and the forced displacement of people a daily reality, according to UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Sudan, Gerhart Baum. "There is a bad climate in Sudan as far as human rights are concerned," the Associated Press agency (AP) quoted Baum as saying at a press conference in Britain on 27 June. "The situation now is worse than one year ago."

Baum, who has held the post of special rapporteur for six months, was in Britain to press the case for greater political involvement by the European Union (EU) in ending the 18-year-old civil war in Sudan, and to meet campaigning human rights and church groups, AP reported. "It is a fact that oil is fuelling the war," it quoted Baum as saying.

"It is not a religious war. Religion is misused... It is a power struggle." The US and Europe had a responsibility to press for an end to the fighting, according to Baum. "We must help the country come to peace," he said, criticising the approach of those who believed that Sudan should be isolated until the human rights situation improved. "They will not be able to establish peace from the inside."

Baum said many of the human rights violations in Sudan were happening under the cover of war - for example, that a state of emergency had been declared, allowing the government to rule through provisional acts, and that security forces operated without oversight restraint, AP reported.

He said women and children were abducted by militias and forced to work, while young men were seized off the streets of the capital, Khartoum, for military service. In the rebel-controlled south, there had been no effort to establish a civil society, Baum added.

Meanwhile, the Sudan Human Rights Organisation (SHRO-Cairo), which recently closed its Cairo office of 10 years at the orders of the Egyptian authorities, last week said it would "continue to stand firmly in the front line of the human rights struggle for the full recognition and realisation of human rights in the Sudan".

It requested Egypt to reconsider the closure order in order to allow SHRO-Cairo to cater for the humanitarian needs of thousands of Sudanese for whom, it alleged, no other Sudanese organisation was available in Egypt, and whose interests were not being looked after by the Sudanese embassy.

In a press statement on 26 June, the SHRO-Cairo president, Mahjub al-Tijani, strongly condemned Sudanese President Umar Hasan al-Bashir's recently stated intention to apply amputations and other severe punishments according to Islamic Shari'ah law, as well as "the ongoing air bombing [in South Sudan] of innocent children, women and elderly citizens".

"The Sudan Government continues to commit extrajudicial killing and forced displacement of the indigenous population of the south and Nubah Mountains, abuses of oil and other vital resources for warfare, acts of religious persecution, and the PDFs' [Popular Defence Forces'] enslavement of our citizens," SHRO-Cairo alleged.

The organisation also called on China, the Talisman oil company and others investing in the oil sector in Sudan "to stop their activities at the present time to help the process of peace-making and the comprehensive political solution of the political crisis of Sudan".

Fighting around the oilfields has exacerbated the uprooting of people from their homes, and in the oilfields in southern Unity (Wahdah) state alone an estimated 36,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) now also require food assistance, according to the NGO Save the Children (UK).

Oil revenues had become an increasingly important source of income for the government, and were also a potential source of conflict, with much of the fighting in Western Upper Nile leading to displacement, food insecurity and a loss of assets linked to the control of oil resources, it reported earlier this year.

Children have been among the most severely affected by conflict in Sudan, through displacement, physical injury and distress, Save the Children-UK stated. "Many children are separated from their families either in flight or as a result of abduction," it said. "Children have also been recruited into armed militias and paramilitary groups supported by both sides."

Even more children were indirectly affected by conflict as limited resources were diverted to the war effort, reducing the amount spent on development and social services, according to the NGO. It cited estimates of military spending by the government as being in the region of US $336 million last year, compared to social expenditure of about US $236 million.

As bad as things are - especially in the context of a civil war which has left some two million people dead, primarily through war-induced famine, and estimates of up to four million more displaced - humanitarian agencies continue to try to work with the government of Sudan and rebel forces to promote and protect human rights where they can.

The UN system in Khartoum, while not involved in monitoring the human rights situation in Sudan, is engaged with the government in a technical assistance programme with a view to establishing and improving institutions for the protection and promotion of human rights.

"The preconditions for human rights work exist, in terms of the institutional framework and a willingness on the part of the government to explore the potential for harmonisation of international human rights norms with domestic laws," UNHCHR Human Rights Adviser Dr Homayoun Alizadeh told IRIN in Khartoum on 29 June.

"The big challenge right now is to disseminate the idea of human rights and put across the human rights information [to judges, police officers and prison officers] so that they have a reference point on international norms in these areas - even though the war makes it a difficult situation right now," Alizadeh said.

"The war - or rather, the need for peace - and democratisation are the key issues for the man on the street," he added.

UNICEF, among others, is very active in engaging the various rebel movements in the south on a range of issues in support of women and children, according to the agency's human rights focal point, Martin Dawes.

"We are engaged with the community and the military on the protection and promotion of rights - particularly on child soldiers, and especially to prevent their re-recruitment when they have been demobilised," he told IRIN on Tuesday. "On this issue, we are especially keen to get across the principle that the army is no place for children," he added.

UNICEF and a number of NGOs are also involved in advocacy and protection work on in regard to abductions in the south by pro-government Murahilin (Arab nomadic militias), or Baqqarah ("cattlemen") and the use of land mines, as well as the agency's better known work on health and education, according to Dawes.

In a recent human rights workshop in Yei, Western Equatoria, officers of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) had been engaged in dialogue on the use of child soldiers, diversion of humanitarian aid, looting, and the rights of prisoners of war as part of ongoing efforts to address issues that affect children. The officers reiterated their commitment to SPLA's stated policy not to recruit children under 18 years of age, and said they would communicate this decision through the rank and file, according to UNICEF.

The SPLA delegates also urged the UN to conduct training with community leaders. "Local chiefs do much recruiting... During war, commanders are often too busy to send back recruits, and ask for new ones, unless the conscripts are completely incapable," UNICEF quoted them as saying. Raiding by the Murahilin was denounced as a major cause of insecurity and a prime reason for the placement of children in army camps, the agency added.

Back in the capital, Khartoum, Dr Homayoun Alizadeh is working closely with the Ministry of Justice, along with other government departments and UN agencies, to finalise a programme intended to improve the institutions and instruments determining the human rights climate in the country. It focuses broadly on human rights education, national capacity building in the formal and informal sectors, the administration of justice, and legislative reform, he told IRIN.

That programme will involve projects ranging from the creation of human rights departments within universities and education for schoolteachers on human rights to strengthening the capacity of the Advisory Council for Human Rights (within the Ministry of Justice) and holding workshops with the military on international human rights law.

It will also involve training and seminars for staff in the justice system; efforts to improve the capacity of national NGOs working on the promotion of economic, social and cultural rights; research on the protection of women's rights; and support for the eradication of traditional practices adversely affecting the health of men, women and children.

"The technical assistance programme for the Sudan is a unique opportunity for both the United Nations system and the government of Sudan to establish sustainable human rights infrastructures throughout the country for the promotion and protection of rights," Alizadeh added.

Click here to send any feedback, comments or questions you have about IRIN's website or e-mail to webmaster@ocha.unon.org. Comments or questions about the content of any article on this site can also be sent directly to the editors at: irin-cea@ocha.unon.org , irin-wa@irin.ci , or irin-sa@ocha.unon.org The material contained on this Web site comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post any item on this site, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All graphics and images on this site may not be re-produced without the express permission of the original owner.

All text copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 1999-2001.