Sudan: A safe haven for for international terrorism

Hizbullah Puts Fighters at Disposal of Darfur Governor


Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has placed a "contingent of fighters" at the disposal of the Sudanese government to confront what he termed as "colonial troops" in Darfur, the Sudanese newspaper Alahram Today reported Friday.

It said Lodian Mohammed Saeed, a professor at Berlin University, conveyed Nasrallah's position to North Darfur Governor Osman Mohammed Yousef Kibir during a visit to the North Darfur State.

"Hizbullah will have the honor of fighting in Darfur," said the message conveyed by to Kibir from Nasrallah.

Nadia Plesner: A gigantic art work for Darfur

The Death of “Ahmed” of Kassab Camp

The young boy from Kassab Camp is unnamed, unidentified except by the name of his camp. He drowned last week, and notice came only in the form of a brief announcement from Radio Dabanga, which has sources throughout Darfur:


A boy died by drowning in Kassab Camp in North Darfur on Saturday. Several houses collapsed in the camp after heavy rains that fell on the region. A source said that dozens of displaced families are in the open after the loss of their homes.”

Without this notice from one of the world’s more obscure news sources, the boy’s anonymity would have been complete—joining the hundreds of thousands who have perished in similar anonymity over the past eight years. And perhaps I should be more concerned about the “dozens of displaced families”—potentially hundreds of civilians—exposed in North Darfur during the very height of the rainy season, facing ominously high malnutrition rates. But there are times when I find the world’s inability to look with any particularity at the human suffering and destruction in Darfur a cause for rage, for a desperate urge to make this suffering and destruction into a recognizable, an undeniable, an inescapably disturbing portrait. So I will construct an all too plausible history for this boy from Kassab Camp, and his place in Darfur’s ongoing agony. Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

“Clinton Says Sudan Is a ‘Ticking Time Bomb’: But Will She Be Able to Defuse It?"

Finally! A sense of urgency about Sudan. In a major foreign policy address on September 8, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the country as a "ticking time bomb" (http://allafrica.com/stories/201009090002.html ). Yet it may already be too late. The “bomb” has been ticking for over five and a half years, and neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration has been willing to devote the appropriate attention to defuse it.

Self-determination referenda are scheduled for early January 2011, in both Southern Sudan and the contested border enclave of Abyei. There is precious little time to avert a return to civil war in the next 120 days, as unresolved issues between the Khartoum regime and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in the South threaten to derail the voting process spelled out in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). A host of important electoral mechanics and procedures remain to be agreed upon, and Khartoum gives every sign that it is trying to run out the clock, thereby forcing Southern Sudan either to delay the referenda or to make a unilateral declaration of independence. Either could easily become a casus belli, as could Khartoum’s blunt refusal to honor the results of the referenda—or an attempt to preempt those results militarily.

So how can we maximize the chances of a peaceful separation within Africa’s largest, and ethnically most diverse, country? How can we deal with the perverse fact that Sudan’s oil reserves lie so near the North/South border, as do vast quantities of arable land? The question is made especially difficult by the fact that these oil reserves are chiefly in the South—80 percent is a common figure—while Chinese-constructed oil infrastructure lies mainly in the north. Moreover, the border regions, including Abyei, are among the most populous in Sudan, and ethnic tensions are close to boiling. How can we resolve the various disputes that have festered for so many years? Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Sudan: THE GATHERING CLOUDS OF WAR

By Eric Reeves

DESPITE A historic peace agreement between northern and southern Sudan five years ago, the threat of renewed civil war looms closer by the day. Any resumption of hostilities would be disastrous for a country that has suffered from years of bloodshed and unfathomable destruction. But the United States and the rest of the international community are failing to take vital steps to avert a new war, and time is running out.
More than 2 million people died, and 5 million were driven from their homes, in a north-south war that dragged on from 1983 to 2003. The linchpin of the peace agreement is a referendum, scheduled for this coming January, in which the people of southern Sudan will have the option of secession. But the brutal regime that prolonged that war with the south — the same regime that has waged a genocidal campaign against the people of Darfur — remains in power in the capital, Khartoum. This regime appears increasingly determined to abrogate the peace deal.

Dismayingly, the thugs in Khartoum, led by President Omar al-Bashir, secured a veneer of legitimacy by winning easily in April elections widely viewed as a travesty. International observers — including ones from the United States — were well aware of the extent of fraud and manipulation, but could bring themselves to say only that the elections “did not meet international standards.” US special envoy Scott Gration disingenuously declared that the elections would be “as free and fair as possible.” Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>