This petition was delivered to the United Nations by the Nuba Mountains Advocacy Group on June 27, 2011.
The Genocide Continues in Nuba Mountains and the International Community sits by
Petition letter to the members of the UN Security Council
New York, June 27, 2011
The people of the Nuba Mountains and Sudanese Diaspora in the United States are grateful for your enduring commitment to justice and peace in Sudan. As you know, our country has been victimized from its independence in 1956 until today because of consecutive regimes comprised of small, racist elite. These elite have ruled the nation on the basis of racial and religious marginalization, disenfranchisement and coercion for more than five decades. Over 2.5 million of Sudanese lost their lives and millions more were displaced by the genocidal war and ethnic cleansing waged by Khartoum against the indigenous people of Sudan. This regime has also been host to Osama bin Laden and has supported and participated in the global network of terrorists.
Most of the world is unaware that Khartoum’s war against the South also included the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile, and Eastern Sudan. Khartoum’s atrocities against these regions have not been fully acknowledged among Sudan’s human rights violations. But these regions experienced the same vicious and war crimes at the hands of Khartoum, on the same scale as our brothers and sisters in the South. And these regions were the actual battle grounds for most of the fights between North and South.
U.S. and global advocacy for Sudan culminated in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed by the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in 2005 in Kenya. A key step to the CPA was a Nuba Mountains ceasefire, brokered by Special Envoy John Danforth. The CPA resulted in relative peace and potential development in South Sudan, Nuba Mountains, and Blue Nile States. People dared to hope for a better future for themselves and for their children. But remaining tensions due to the NCP’s continuous violations of the CPA and its failure to implement all of the CPA provisions were exacerbated by the U.S. government and world community’s failure to hold Khartoum responsible for these violations in any meaningful way.
Eyewitnesses, Concordis International, Small Armed Survey, and International Crisis Group have all reported a heavy build-up of Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and Popular Defense Forces (PDF) in Nuba Mountains/South Kordofan State. More than 50,000 SAF are deployed in the state and along the 1956 North/South border line. Furthermore, reports show that the government has armed more than 20,000 PDF militias, to fight as Northern proxies. On April 19, 2011, The Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP) “confirmed that at least 356 structures in the town of el-Feid, located in the Nuba Mountains region of South Kordofan State, Sudan, have been razed.” More than 20 people, including two elderly women and a child, were burned to death in some of homes set ablaze by Khartoum’s PDF. And the city of Abyei was also burned to the ground and looted by Khartoum’s troops and militias.
The Nuba people in the Diaspora were keeping alert the International Community since October 2010 till June 3rd, 2011, that SAF has violated the CPA and security arrangements in the region and intending to destroy the Nuba Mountains/South Kordfan protocol before the end of the interim period by July 8th, 2011.
On May 24th, 2011 the Khartoum government declared war against the SPLA in northern Sudan by June 1, 2011. The war broke out on June 5th, when the government of Khartoum rigged the elections and imposed Ahmed Haroun the war criminal who indicted and wanted by the ICC as governor for South Kordofan State, beside Haroun attempts to disarm the SPLA joint integrated units in Um Dorien, in a clear violation to the CPA.
On June 6, 2011, heavy fighting broke out when SAF attacks the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in Kadugli, the state capital of South Kordofan, as well as in some outlying towns and villages. Since then the area has seen a worrying escalation of violence where the civilian population are currently subjected to a systematic campaign of aerial bombardment, artillery shelling, extra-judicial executions, arbitrary detention and forcible expulsion from their homeland. The Sudan Government is openly planning, implementing and sustaining this campaign, resulting in immense human suffering, culture cleansing, genocide, wide displacement, large-scale looting and the destruction of lives and material properties. On June 11, 2011, Southern Kordofan Conflict and Displaced Persons Map showed that 40,000 people were estimated to have fled Kadugli, 6,000 were internally displaced in and near Kadugli, 3,000 in Dalami, 2,500 in Abu Kershola, 10,000 in Abu Jibaiha, 3,000 in Kurchi and 5,000 in Talodi. Recently about 500,000 been displaced and hundreds killed.
The population of Um Dorein, Dilling town and a number of villages in areas surrounding Kadugli has also fled their homes. Many people are forced to leave their homes so rapidly that they have little in the way of food, shelter or basic provisions. Access to food, water and medical treatment even for those injured in the clashes is impossible. The internally displaced persons who have taken shelter at the UN compound in the vicinity of Kadugli Airport are not safe either. Some of them have been snatched by security personnel and killed. The UN should not be able to protect all the civilians and provide engough humanitarian support. The same security forces are spreading rumors that some of the displaced may be carrying weapons. Under such a pretext, the security forces in Darfur launched an attack against Kalma refugee camp in August 2010, killing innocent civilians and wreaking havoc on survivors.
Eric Reeves mentioned, “the ethnically targeted human destruction in South kordofan in sudan, directed overwhelmingly at the African people of the Nuba Mountains, continues to spread and intensify” Reeves adds” which demands that we ask the two-fold question: what should the international community namely the U.s. be doing to stop violence…and is it doing it? Unfortunately, the answer to the second half of question to be “no.” “this is going to spread like wildfire, “an Amrican official told the New York Times earlier this week adding that, without mediation, you are going to have massive destruction and death in central Sudan, and no one seems able to do anything about it.”
We perceive that the way out of this crisis is achievable through the following nine points:
(1) There is an urgent need to salvage the humanitarian situation by forcing the Sudan Government to halt all military operations, including aerial bombardment, artillery shelling, combat missions and the reinforcement of troops in the area by imposing immediate cession of hostilities.
(2) Immediate imposition of a No Fly Zone and demobilization of NCP forces in Nuba Mountains/South Kordofan States.
(3) Immediate demand disarmament of the dangerous PDF in Nuba Mountains/South Kordofan in accordance with Article 7 (a) and subsection 11.3 of the CPA.
(4) The Sudan Government should grant an unhindered access into the region to both local and international NGOs to deliver relief supplies to the needy, and the UN should seek all other means possible to elevate the suffering of the people in the region. This should run concurrently with efforts to provide the people of the region with international protection by promoting the UN mandate from chapter VI to chapter VII, as the only realistic means of bringing to an end these recurring episodes of extermination, disappearances and deliberate displacement.
(5) Reject the shameful rigging of the latest elections in South Kordofan in favor of Harun the international criminal for crimes he committed in Darfur and demand his extradite to face justice.
(6) The UN should call for an investigation into the killings, usage of the chemical weapons, disappearances and other forms of gross violations of human rights in this ongoing war in the Nuba Mountains by upholding international law and the pursuance of justice as demanded by the international community. Access to human rights organizations and international media should be allowed.
(7) The two areas i.e. the Nuba Mountains/South Kordofan and Blue Nile requires new political and security arrangement, as a concerted effort should be pursued to reach a durable, political solution to this renewed conflict through looking into the post-secession future of Sudan whereby new modalities for the co-existence of all marginalized people of Sudan could participate fully and equally in power- and wealth-sharing. By so doing, the indigenous population can have access to power and financial resources – that is, the prerequisites for political, economic and cultural development, and environmental protection.
(8) Failing to reach a new constitutional arrangement that is bases on citizenship, real democracy, recognition of the diversity and restructuring of the centre in the interest of a balance relations between the center and the different regions and state of Sudan, the international community has to recognize the right of self-determination to the people of the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile.
(9) If Khartoum regime rejects these options for new security and political arrangement including the right of self-determination, the UN and the international community should apply tough actions to protect the civilians and stop the genocidal acts in the region.
Please read and seriously consider our attached petitions, not just for the sake of the marginalized and oppressed people of Sudan, but for the sake of global security. A free and democratic Sudan would be a tremendous asset to the world. Once again, we thank you for your support and your commitment to bringing peace, justice, and freedom to all Sudanese.
Nuba Mountains Advocacy Group-USA
Amin Ismail: [email protected]; 513-732-1395
Gafar Kangam: [email protected] ; 571-331-2834