2 : Sudan has in the last year ceased to be an “isolated nation,” Foreign Affairs minister, Mustafa Ismail said. “Sudan has succeeded during the last year in restoring its normal international status and is now no longer an isolated nation as was the case in the past,” Ismail told reporters. 

2: Ahmad Abd-al-Qadir Arbab, the former governor of Darfur region in western Sudan, has expressed his dismay over the successive northern dominated governments in Sudan. In an interview with the Khartoum Monitor newspaper, Arbab said that the 46 years of northern rule in the country was heavily characterised by nepotism and oppression.

2: Sudan plans to increase its crude oil production by 60,000 barrels a day by May, Energy and Mining Minister Awad el Jaz announced. He said the Bentiu oilfield in Western Upper Nile, is expected to produce 30,000 barrels a day by the end of February, while another 30,000 barrels a day is expected by May from the newly discovered Menga oilfield near Bentiu. Jaz said the projection would raise Sudan's crude oil output to 288,000 barrels from the current 228,000. 

2: Sudan does not expect to be attacked by the US in the course of the US-led war on terrorism, Foreign Affairs Minister Mustafa Ismail said. “Until now we do not see a (US) attack against Sudan in sight,” he told a press conference. “There are numerous statements in the United States about a possible attack on Sudan, but we consider them as aimed at addressing domestic US issues,” Ismail said. 

3: The Sudanese government's Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC), the USAID and national and foreign organisations began an assessment of the humanitarian requirements of the Nuba Mountains, SUNA reported. The parties involved also started a humanitarian assessment in the Lagawa area on the border of West and Southern Kordofan, west of the Nuba Mountains.

3: Sudan's Constitutional Court ordered the Bar Association elections, considered to be a test of the political strength of government and opposition, be postponed on procedural grounds, lawyers said. The court postponed the elections to examine the constitutionality of an objection by opposition lawyers to the monitoring of the elections by the judiciary. The election will be contested by three factions- supporters of Sudan's traditional opposition groups, Islamist supporters of former regime ideologue Hasan al-Turabi, and lawyers associated with the ruling National Congress (NC) party, which currently dominates the association. 

6: Britain's international development secretary arrived in Sudan, the first of a series of foreign visits ahead of summit of seven eastern African nations. Clare Short was expected to meet President Bashir, SUNA reported, in a sign of improving relations between the two states.

7: Seven people were killed and 80 others wounded in a prison fight between prisoners and police putting down a riot at Khartoum’s main prison, the interior ministry said. The ministry said that five prisoners and two riot police were killed in the clashes while another 23 prisoners and 57 police were injured in the fighting in Kober Prison located north of the capital.

7: The leaders of two Sudanese rebel groups said they would join forces in their fight to achieve greater autonomy for southern Sudan. Col. John Garang of SPLA and Riek Machar of the rival Sudan Peoples Defence Forces, signed an agreement in Nairobi, which should lead to the full integration of their respective forces.

8: The Sudanese government attacked the aims of a merger of two rebel groups after a 10-year split for stressing that their aim was to fight Khartoum instead of seeking peace, a press report said. “We expected that the merger agreement would talk about reaching peace in Sudan instead of showing an intention for escalating the military operations,” Foreign Affairs Minister Mustafa Ismail was quoted by independent Akhbar Al Youm daily as saying. 

8: The US-led “war on terrorism” should not be taken to east Africa and the world community must instead work together to fight the scourge of terrorism, a senior Sudanese official said. “All countries of the region are in agreement on fighting terrorism,” Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha said amid preparations for a summit of seven east African nations members of IGAD. 

8: Kenya’s Minister for Energy, Raila Odinga insisted that Kenya will import oil from Sudan. Raila who was on a fact-finding mission in Khartoum dismissed critics who have labelled Sudanese oil “blood oil”. Meanwhile press in Khartoum reported that Raila was in Sudan to sign an oil purchase deal with the Sudanese government. 

9:  Kenya and Sudan will explore possibilities of cooperating in the energy sector, Energy Minister Raila Odinga has said. The energy minister said as members of Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the two countries will examine the potential and scope in this regard with a view to fulfilling the regional market aspirations. 

9: A joint humanitarian assessment mission to the Nuba Mountains by the Sudanese government's Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC), the USAID and other relief organisations was reported to be going “very well” and nearing a finish. A complementary multi-agency and multi-sectoral assessment to SPLA-held areas of the Nuba Mountains, co-ordinated by the UN was also under way as planned, according to aid workers. 

10: US envoy for peace in Sudan John Danforth was due to arrive in Sudan for a one-week mission to promote his proposal for an end to the Sudanese government's bombardment of southern civilians. Danforth will have talks with Sudanese officials in Khartoum and with representatives of the southern opposition in the south and in Kenya, a US official said.

10: President Bashir opened the 9th summit of the IGAD in Khartoum with a call to ban the activities of all groups that threaten the stability of member states. Bashir, whose country has been ravaged by an 18-year old civil war in the south, said that Sudan was pooling its resources to serve the region's interests. 

10: The Swiss government has invited representatives from the Sudanese government and the SPLA to Switzerland for ceasefire talks, a foreign ministry official said. Both sides have yet to reply to the offer, said Muriel Berset-Kohen, the Swiss foreign ministry spokesperson. 

10: The Sudanese government army has repulsed an attack by the SPLA on an area in the Nuba Mountains, killing three rebels, a newspaper reported. Independent Akhbar Al Youm daily quoted army spokesman General Farouq Mohamed Nour as saying “a platoon-size force of the rebel movement made an abortive attack on Rasu area in the Nuba Mountains.” 

10: The liberation struggle for an independent state in southern Sudan is set to intensify, SPLA leader, John Garang told a Nairobi daily, East African Standard. He added that an independent state was the best solution to the conflict in the country. 

10: A Sudanese delegation is expected in Kenya soon to conclude negotiations with the Kenya government on the possibilities of importing oil from Sudan via a pipeline, reported a Kenyan daily, Daily Nation.  Quoting Kenya’s Energy Minister, the paper said that the move could save the country a significant amount of foreign exchange previously spent on oil from the Middle East. 

10: The Kenya government denied that it had signed any deal to import oil from Sudan, reported the East African Standard. The paper quoted the country’s Energy Minister, Raila Odinga as saying that the government has no intentions of importing oil from Sudan. 

11: The IGAD Secretariat is concerned that some of the donations from its partners were being channelled directly to the peace secretariat. The IGAD Executive Secretary Attallah Hamad Bashir told the 21st session of the group’s council meeting in Khartoum that this was contrary to the laid-down procedures. 

11: Russian-Belarus oil firm Slavneft said it would on January 15 sign a production sharing agreement with the Sudanese government on developing an oilfield in the country. Slavneft said in a statement it was ready to start exploration works on Block 9 located in central Sudan beginning February this year and will invest up to US$126 million in the project. 

11: A Sudanese military aircraft on a night combat training mission over southern Sudan crashed, killing all four people onboard, the Sudanese armed forces said in a statement. One of the engines caught fire after the plane rammed into a high tree while attempting to land at Juba airport in Bahr el Jebel state, the statement said. 

11: Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni held talks in Khartoum with President Bashir and discussed matters of bilateral interest, especially those centering on normalising the relationship between the two countries. It is Museveni's first visit to the Sudan since relations between the two countries were severed in 1995.

11: As IGAD  summit took off in Khartoum, a Sudan government military plane, Antonov, raided three villages in Eastern Equatoria. The villages of Hiyala, Murahatiha, and Tirrangore were bombed simultaneously on January 10, 2002 at around 11.00 pm. 

12: In a first for the US, Washington is to mediate peace talks between the Sudanese government and the SPLA, President Bashir’s Adviser on Peace, Ghazi Salah Eddin said of the talks to begin in Switzerland soon. The US has never chaired peace negotiations since the civil war broke out in 1983. 

12: The leaders of Sudan and Uganda warned Somalia to rid itself of terrorists before the US takes its anti-terror campaign to the troubled Horn of Africa nation. President Bashir said he was appealing to the transitional national government in Somalia to do everything possible “to avoid this (US) strike, which will increase the suffering of the Somalis.” 

13: Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi has said that he would invite all parties interested in the Sudan peace process for a meeting in Nairobi within the next six months. Moi made the remarks when he held talks with the US special envoy for peace in the Sudan John Danforth in the Kenyan capital. 

13: US mediated talks scheduled for Mid-January in Switzerland between the Sudanese government and the SPLA will concentrate on a cease-fire in the Nuba Mountains and the technical committees will not discuss a comprehensive peace, SPLA spokesman, Samson Kwaje said. He tried to downplay the significance of the talks scheduled to begin in Geneva. 

13: President Moi said that he would send his special envoy to Cairo to discuss the Sudan peace process with Egyptian officials. Moi made the remarks when he met in Nairobi with visiting Norwegian Minister for International Development Hilde Johnson.

13: President Bashir said that his country's position on terrorism is firm and that Sudan opposes all forms of terrorism. During an interview with the US NBC television network, Bashir refuted allegations that Sudan was a “safe haven or transit point for terrorists.” 

13: The US peace envoy for Sudan, John Danforth said his first task was to see “whether the politicians want peace in this country.” The former Missouri Senator said he doesn't know if the leadership in either the Arab Muslim north or the African Christian south were ready or willing to make peace. 

14: Ceasefire talks between Sudanese government officials and SPLA began behind closed doors in the central Swiss town of Burgenstock, AP reported. Quoting a statement issued by Switzerland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the agency stated that preliminary discussions had been held on the rules and procedures of talks set to begin later on details surrounding a ceasefire in the Nuba Mountains. 

14: President Bashir offered to temporarily stop bombing SPLA positions for four weeks after meeting with US peace envoy for the Sudan, John Danforth. “We offered to declare a voluntary, unilateral cessation of aerial bombing for four weeks as a test,” Bashir’s adviser on peace, Ghazi Salah Eddin told reporters after the meeting in Khartoum between Bashir's advisers and the Danforth delegation.

14: A new effort to merge two parallel but different peace efforts on Sudan under the chairmanship of President Moi emerged from the recent IGAD summit, reported news agencies. Moi has been charged with merging IGAD's own peace initiative with the Libyan-Egyptian initiative, the essence of which was distilled in a joint memorandum in July 2001. 

14: Uganda and Sudan have said they had made progress in thawing their once icy relations during talks on sidelines of the recent IGAD summit in Khartoum, a Uganda daily, the New Vision reported. The paper quoted President Bashir as saying that the former foes had taken fresh steps towards reconciliation. 

14: The Sudanese government delegation to Switzerland for talks with the SPLA is “fully mandated,” to make them succeed, the top delegate said. Mutref Sideiq, the undersecretary in the country’s Foreign Affairs ministry told the independent Al-Sahafa daily that they would participate “with an open heart and sincere willingness to make a success of the negotiations” with the SPLA. 

15: Sudan and a leading Russian oil company signed US$200 million oil and gas exploration deal, the first such contract with a Russian firm. Slavneft plans to invest US$180 million in the project covering 126,000 square kilometres in central Sudan while the Sudan Petroleum Company (Sudapet) will provide the remaining US$20 million. 

15: Sudan’s Transport Minister Lam Akol, a former rebel leader, has defected from the government and returned to his rebel faction, the independent Alwan daily reported. The newspaper, quoting unnamed non-government sources, said Akol “fled” to his home town Fashoda in Upper Nile, then joined his forces there. 

15: President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda said that camps housing up to 400,000 people in northern Uganda could be closed by April as a result of improved relations with Sudan. Museveni told a news conference that an agreement had been reached with Sudan over the fate of Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which has long enjoyed Khartoum's hospitality and support. 

15: The Sudanese government and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) continued peace talks under US and Swiss mediation in central Switzerland, officials said. “First discussion concerning negotiation rules and procedures have started,” said a statement by the Swiss Foreign Ministry. 

16: US envoy to Sudan, John Danforth cited progress in some areas toward calming the war-torn nation, but said the Sudanese government refuses to stop bombing civilian targets. Danforth said that “very good” progress was made on instituting a cease-fire in the Nuba Mountains, allowing delivery of relief supplies and permitting monitors to check allegations of slavery. 

16: A Sudanese court jailed a journalist and fined his newspaper for alleging that slave traders transport abductees on government train. A criminal court in Khartoum North found Nhial Bol, Managing Editor of the Khartoum Monitor, guilty of printing that Khartoum allows ethnic Arabs to use its trains to transport slaves abducted from the Bahr al-Ghazal area. Bol was fined US$2000, but was immediately taken to Omdurman prison where he will remain jailed unless he produces the money. 

16: Envoy Danforth was due in Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials on ways to realise peace in Sudan. During the visit, the two sides will touch upon problems of southern Sudan and initiatives designed to solve them. 

16: The Sudanese Foreign Ministry is expected to protest a US military search earlier of one of its shipping freighters. An American military boarding party inspected the ship for six hours on January 14 but didn't find anything amiss, a US official said. 

17: Sudan and the UNICEF signed an agreement under which the children's agency will provide US$100 million to fund health, water and education projects between 2002-2006. Sudan's international co-operation minister Karamaddin Abdulmawla and UNICEF’s country representative Thomas Ekval signed the agreement in Khartoum. 

17: Negotiations on a lasting cease-fire in the Nuba Mountains have got off to a positive start in “a very favourable climate”, according to the Swiss government. An 11-member delegation from the government of Sudan arrived in Switzerland on January 14, after the arrival a day earlier of a seven-member delegation from the Nuba Mountains section of the SPLA.

17: Envoy Danforth said that Egypt is keen to work with Washington and members of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) to settle the Sudan issue. “President Hosni Mubarak's political advisor Osama el-Baz stressed Egypt's keenness on cooperation with the US and IGAD to settle the Sudanese problem,” Danforth said in Cairo.

17: A Sudanese journalist was released from prison after his newspaper paid a fine imposed on him for publishing a report on slavery in Sudan. Nhial Bol, Managing Editor of the Khartoum Monitor, walked free after his newspaper paid a US$2,000 fine imposed on him by the Khartoum Criminal Court.

17: US exporters are lobbying against a congressional measure that would bar foreign oil companies in Sudan from selling securities in the US, fearing a precedent for similar penalties against China. “We don't like it,”' said William Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents more than 500 American companies.

18: International press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders condemned the arrest of a journalist in Sudan for writing an article about slavery and a fine on the newspaper. “Levying an exorbitant fine on the newspaper demonstrates that the judiciary authorities are determined to close it down,” said Robert Menard, the watchdog's general secretary. 

19: Minister, Lam Akol, who had gone missing for several days after his annual leave ended, has returned to Khartoum to resume his duties. According to the independent daily newspaper, El Watan, Akol returned to Khartoum on January 19 and told the paper he was on an “undeclared inspection tour” of his forces in the Upper Nile.

19: Khartoum and SPLA forces agreed to stop fighting in the Nuba Mountains, opening the way for aid to reach the troubled region and boosting hopes for wider peace in the country. Under the agreement, mediated by American and Swiss diplomats, both sides agreed to cease hostilities within 72 hours in the disputed Nuba Mountains.

19: Sudan has rejected US criticism that its refusal to stop bombing civilian targets was blocking efforts to negotiate an end to the war, saying that halting the raids would give the SPLA a military advantage. This is according to a statement issued by President Omar el Bashir’s adviser on peace, Ghazi Salah Eddin.

20: No country with an “aggressive record towards Sudan” will be allowed to provide observers to monitor the ceasefire in the Nuba Mountains, said presidential adviser Ghazi Salah Eddin. “The most important of (the conditions) is that the country which will participate as the third party, first, should not have an aggressive record towards Sudan and, secondly, should not be suspected of taking sides in the current conflict,” said Eddin.

21: Sudan's armed forces were ordered to begin observing a six-month ceasefire in the Nuba Mountains, the military said in a statement. Sudan's armed forces “will be instrumental in achieving the objectives of the (ceasefire) agreement out of their firm belief that dialogue is the best means for reaching peace and for avoiding war and its negative effects on the nation and the population,” said spokesman General Mohamed Beshir Suleiman. 

21: A UN human rights commission organised a human rights seminar in Khartoum for high-ranking Sudanese security officers. The seminar for 35 security and police officers was the first joint activity between an office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) recently established in Sudan to promote expertise in rights protection and promotion, and the Sudanese government.

21: Six people were killed during clashes between Nuer and Dinka labourers on a sugar cane plantation in eastern Sudan, a police spokesman said. Police and troops used force to stop the fighting between the workers in Halfa al-Jadida, 300 kilometres east of Khartoum, said Major General Sayyed al-Hussein.

23: Uganda's Yoweri Museveni called on the world to focus more on the war in southern Sudan, saying that underlying problems inside the vast country could eclipse a recent warming of relations between his government and the Sudanese authorities. 

23:  A Khartoum criminal court found a Sudanese newspaper editor guilty of publishing false news and threatening public order, and fined him US$1,900, his newspaper reported. The Alwan daily said its editor-in-chief Hussein Khojali faces one year in jail if he does not pay the fine. The judge said Khojali had falsely reported that Transport Minister Lam Akol had left Khartoum to rejoin the SPLA.

23: The Sudanese government in 2001 took advantage of a continued state of emergency in the country to suppress opposition to the ruling National Congress party, said a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW). “The government kept in force a state of emergency to suppress Islamist and other opposition to the ruling Islamist party,” the organisation stated in the Sudan section of its World Report 2002. 

24: German technology giant Siemens said it had won a contract to build a 257 megawatt (MW) power station in Sudan worth more than US$175.7 million. Located near Khartoum, the plant would be the world's largest plant to be powered by diesel engines and run on imported heavy fuel oil, although in the medium term, there were plans to supply fuel from domestic production, Siemens said.

24: The SPLA accused Khartoum of violating a ceasefire for the Nuba Mountains that was intended to facilitate delivery of aid to the region. The group’s spokesman Samson Kwaje said government forces had launched an attack on January 23. “Government forces moved from their designated base at Rofo towards the SPLA garrison of Tulushi and attacked our forces with the purpose of capturing it,” said Kwaje.

24: The SPLA reported ongoing fighting between its forces and those of the Sudanese government in the oil-rich regions of Western and Central Upper Nile. The group said that on January 14 it had repulsed “a huge enemy force” of about 7,000 men, comprising regular Sudanese government soldiers and militias, supported by two helicopter gunships and an Antonov bomber, between Nhialdiu and Bentiu in Western Upper Nile. 

26: The ruling National Congress (NC) party has affirmed the ability of the warring parties in Sudan to reach an agreement on the disputed issues and consequently bringing an end to the war. The party’s Secretary for the Political Mediators Sector, Al-Shafi Ahmad Muhammad added that pressure should be applied on the SPLA so as to concede to a cease-fire and accept to sit at a negotiation table. 

26: The US-brokered ceasefire for the Nuba Mountains appears to be holding, although both Khartoum and the SPLA have traded claims of attacks made before then, a Sudanese newspaper al-Sahafi Al-Dawle, quoted Sudan’s Foreign Affairs Under Secretary Mutref Siddeiq. He added that people are starting to move freely in the Nuba Mountains in line with the agreement.

27: President Bashir issued a decree that strengthens a special committee tasked with eliminating the abduction of women and children. The decree grants the chairman of the committee powers similar to those of the justice minister in arresting, interrogating and taking suspected abductors to court, the official Al Anbaa daily said. 

27: Interpol has distributed worldwide a request by the Sudanese government for the extradition of an aide to Islamist Hassan al-Turabi, a newspaper reported. Al Rai Al Aam daily said Ali al-Haj Mohamed, deputy chairman of Turabi's breakaway Popular National Congress (PNC), must appear in court over alleged involvement in financial mismanagement of a highway project in western Sudan. 

27: A Sudanese official said that the government had filed an official protest over US President George Bush's decision to approve US$10 million in funding for the NDA umbrella. “This is an erroneous decision against which we have officially protested and have communicated our protest to John Danforth,” said presidential adviser, Ghazi Salah Eddin. 

28: The PNC has tasked its officials abroad to follow up the deal signed last February with the SPLA, Sudanese newspapers said. The PNC said officials who signed the memorandum “are empowered to work” with the SPLA to develop it, said PNC’s information officer Mohamed al-Amin Khalifa.

28: The Sudan Peoples Democratic Front (SPDF) claimed to have killed 165 government troops and seized hundreds of small arms in two attacks. In a statement, the SPDF said its forces ambushed government troops on January 23, between Mirmir and Pul Tutni, 600 kilometres south of Khartoum. There was also another attack on a convoy of government soldiers on January 25, in Kuac, near Bentiu where 102 government soldiers were killed.

30: A body governing southern Sudan has voted to postpone a referendum for two years in which residents of the war-torn region were to have decided whether to split from Sudan. “We have endorsed a proposal that the interim period be extended for two years, to end in March 2004,” Brigadier Gatlwak Deng, chairman of the Southern Sudan Coordinating Council, said. In 1997, the Sudanese government and seven rebel factions signed a peace agreement that established the council and set an interim period during which southern development would be pursued. 

30: A ceasefire covering all of Sudan could be in place soon, oil company Lundin Petroleum, which has drilling operations there, said. “We are cautiously optimistic about a comprehensive ceasefire in the whole country in the near future,” Swedish Lundin Petroleum's President and Chief Executive Officer Ian Lundin said. 

February 2002

1: The European Union (EU) has welcomed a cease-fire between Sudanese government and SPLA in the Nuba Mountains and said it was willing to help further efforts to end the country's civil war. “The cease-fire agreement (is) an important step toward achieving a comprehensive settlement,” the EU said in a statement.

1: Human Rights Watch appealed to President Bashir to intervene on behalf of a young pregnant Christian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. The organisation asked Bashir “to prevent this cruel and inhuman punishment from being exercised against her.” The accused is Abok Alfa Akok, an 18-year-old Dinka from Southern Darfur in western Sudan. 

1: Special “emergency courts” established in 2001 in Sudan are being used to impose inhumane sentences such as death by stoning and amputations, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said. “These recent sentences from the Sudan judicial system are nothing short of inhumane,” Jemera Rone, Sudan researcher for HRW said in a statement. 

2: Ahmed el Mufti, chairman of the newly formed Sudanese Commission for the Eradication of Abduction of Women and Children (CEWAC) in civil war affected zones has vowed to wipe out the practice within one year. The commission was created following a persistent outcry from within the country and abroad about the kidnapping and enslavement of women and children on both sides of the civil war.

3: The Sudanese government is maintaining a ban on travel abroad by NDA leaders, despite an exception late last year, the interior ministry said. Members of the domestic NDA secretariat were last month barred from travelling to Cairo to participate in a scheduled NDA meeting with a joint Egyptian-Libyan committee trying to broker an end to the country's civil war.

3: A Sudan Airways flight to London was delayed by a bomb hoax that a friend of UMMA leader Sadiq al-Mahdi allegedly made to enable Mahdi to catch the flight, police said. Mohamed Khalil Ibrahim admitted during interrogation that he telephoned the airport with a bomb threat to enable a “friend” to catch the flight, police spokesman Major General Sayyed al-Hussein said.

4: Sudanese police have launched a campaign against the smuggling of Sudanese children abroad for use as camel riders. The Immigration authorities have also started passport checks to stem the practice. Police said it was discovered that male children were being smuggled to some Gulf States to work as camel riders.

4: Sudan has ordered a crackdown on draft evaders amid what Western diplomatic sources term increasing difficulties in recruiting soldiers for the war. The sources said draft evasion has been high among university students. Sudanese are required to serve one year in the military with draft dodgers facing three years in jail. 

5: Sudanese security authorities have turned down a demand for the release of Hassan al-Turabi from more than four months of house arrest, a lawyer said. Abdel Salam al-Jizouli told reporters he and a number of other lawyers had already submitted the plea to the Constitutional court to free Turabi on the grounds that the period for which the authorities can detain a person had expired. 

5: US officials pushed Sudan's Foreign Affairs Minister Mustafa Ismail to accept third-party monitors to verify Khartoum's commitment to ending the targeting of civilians in the country’s civil war, reported United Press International. But the news agency stressed that Ismail has not agreed to accept third-party monitors to the conflict, despite promises from the US to make them unobtrusive.

5: Concern that the EU and the US are taking the demands of southern Sudanese off the agenda is rising among a broad coalition of activists critical of the National Islamic Front (NIF) government in Khartoum. A new peace process is sidelining those who favour tougher sanctions against the Sudan regime and who believe that negotiations to end the war must consider the autonomy demands of southerners.

6: Despite significant improvement in humanitarian access to the Nuba Mountains, denial of relief flights is continuing, restricting aid delivery to affected populations, said the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). “These denials significantly stress the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Sudan's under-served populations,” USAID said in a recent report.

6: The SPLA said that Sudanese government soldiers attacked its garrison in the Nuba Mountains, violating the cease-fire agreement. According to the SPLA its troops did not return fire during the attack “in respect of the cease-fire.” No one was killed during the February 3 attack on Tasare garrison, the group said.

6: A Sudanese group has launched a kidney bank to meet increasing demands for the essential human part in a country with high incidence of renal failure. The local media quoted the Sudanese Group for the Welfare of Kidney Patients and Donors, as saying it had received public response far beyond its expectations. 

7: A Sudanese convert to Christianity was forced into hiding after severe beatings and torture by state security police, who for the second time refused to allow the former Muslim to leave Sudan. Church sources in Khartoum said that after Aladin Omer Agabni Mohammed checked in for his morning flight on February 3 in Khartoum Airport, he was again turned back by security authorities and taken for interrogation by security officers who confiscated his passport as well as US$205 he had.

9: President Bashir cautioned against any attempt to link Islam or the Arab world with terrorism. “We strongly reject accusing Islam or the Arabs of terrorism or any other description that labels them with crimes or brutality and subject them to humiliation and disgrace,” Bashir said in a speech to open a three-day meeting of the Arab Parliamentary Union (APU). 

10: A Sudanese appeals court has overturned a sentence of death by stoning for a pregnant Christian woman accused of adultery, and has sent the case back to the lower court for fresh sentencing. The appeals court in Southern Darfur State, bordering the Central African Republic, ruled that the lower court should give the defendant a “rebuke” sentence, not capital punishment.

10: Sudan has welcomed a decision by British Prime Minister Tony Blair to appoint a special peace envoy to the country, the independent al-Rai al-Akher newspaper reported. “The government welcomes the step taken by the British prime minister and it promises to fully cooperate with all sincere efforts to achieve a just and lasting peace in the land,” the paper quoted presidential adviser Ghazi Salah Eddin as saying.

11: Five civilians, including a little girl, were killed and six seriously wounded when Sudan's government warplanes bombed civilian targets in the south the, the SPLA said. In a statement, the group said that Antonov warplanes bombed two relief centres in Western Upper Nile State between February 9-10, killing three religious workers and a nurse. A nine-year-old girl was killed in an air raid on Akuem in northern Bahr el-Ghazal region on January 9, the statement added. 

11:  The Sudanese government has called for a temporary ceasefire in the south to save 2 million people from starvation, a Kenyan daily, the East African Standard reported. The report quoted Sudanese Embassy Charge d'Affairs to Kenya Dierdiry Ahmed as saying that a “temporary” halt of the civil war would also boost the peace process.

12: The World Food Programme said it would protest to Sudan after two children were killed by bombs dropped by a government plane near a spot where it was handing out food.  The incident took place a day before in Akuem in northern Bahr el Ghazal. “'The WFP condemns firmly these bombings that have killed people (and) it will lodge an official protest with government authorities,” the UN agency said in a statement. 

12: Five months of global turmoil and a pressing government need to control Sudan's lucrative oil fields could help resolve the civil war, a leading analyst said. John Prendergast, former special adviser on African affairs in the Clinton administration, said the current climate in Sudan provided an opportunity for peace unprecedented in the last 18 years. “There's a window of opportunity (in Sudan) that I haven't seen in the last 18 years,” the author of a new book entitled God, Oil and Country: Changing the logic of war in Sudan told journalists in Nairobi. 

12: The South African government is investigating the alleged mercenary activities of its citizens in Sudan. An official in the South African department of foreign affairs said that the National Conventional Arms Controlling Committee (NCACC), chaired by South African Minister of Education Kader Asmal, had launched a formal investigation into the alleged activities of former Executive Outcomes mercenaries, operating as NFD, in Sudan. 

12:  The entire village of Nimne in Western Upper Nile, including a Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) medical centre, was “systematically looted” after troop movements had forced inhabitants to flee the village, according to the nongovernmental health agency. “This is a targeted act of violence against the community in Nimne,” said Arjan Hehenkamp, MSF head of mission for southern Sudan. The residents of Nimne were advised to leave on February 2, by representatives of the Relief Association of South Sudan (RASS), the humanitarian wing of the SPDF after “many soldiers” were seen heading towards the village.

12: Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, has announced that the UK’s special representative for Sudan is to be Alan Goulty, currently Director for the Middle East and North Africa at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Alan Goulty was the British Ambassador to Sudan from 1995-99, having previously served in the Sudan from 1972-75. 

12: A Khartoum newspaper reported that NDA leaders would travel to the US after the group’s meeting in Eritrea on February 23. Sources close to the NDA told Al-Khartoum paper that the February meeting is meant to prepare for the US visit.

12: An Islamist lawyer who signed a petition for the release of Turabi has been arrested, another defence lawyer told AFP. Another six lawyers on Turabi's defence team have also been individually summoned by security authorities, but none of them has been detained, Abdel Salam al-Jizouli told reporters in Khartoum.

12: A Sudanese government air raid on a WFP depot in Akuem was denounced by the State Department as an outrageous tragedy. “The US government is outraged by the government of Sudan's aerial strike against a civilian target in the south of the country,” the State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. 

13:  The Sudanese government expressed its “profound regrets” for bombing Akuem and killing two children, blaming the air strike on a “technical error.” The foreign ministry pledged in a statement that there would be no repeat of the bombing. 

13: The SPLA released nine fishing company employees after detaining them for six months, SUNA reported. The agency quoted a statement issued by the Salma company as saying efforts exerted by UN, International Committee of the Red Cross and government officials led to the hostage's release. They were captured in August last year in an ambush near Wang Kai in Western Upper Nile.

13: Foreign Affairs Minister Mustafa Ismail said that Khartoum has made an unconditional ceasefire offer to the SPLA. The offer, which has already been communicated to the group, would be unconditional, and that international observers would be invited to monitor the truce, Ismail said during a visit to Kenya.

13: The nongovernmental organisation Refugees International expressed concern that the US refugee resettlement programme for the so-called “lost boys” had not been matched by an equal effort on behalf of Sudanese refugee girls by the UN refugee agency and the US administration. The NGO said the rationale given for what it called the “neglect” of the girls was that “since these girls had been placed in Sudanese homes, they must be assimilating smoothly into the community.” 

13: Foreign Affairs Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail told an American newspaper that after nearly two decades of civil war and millions of casualties, the military government is ready to share power and its newfound oil wealth with southerners if the recently signed peace agreement in the Nuba Mountains holds. He spoke to the paper, The Washington Times during a visit to the US.

16: A Cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church has suggested that it is the time to launch an international campaign of protest against Sudan for violating human rights. Cardinal Roberto Tucci, president of Vatican Radio's administration committee, made the call when commenting on the case of a non-Muslim southern woman who had been condemned to death for alleged adultery. “The Sharia (Islamic law) has been applied to a person who is not Muslim,” he said. “It would be appropriate to start a campaign of protest against what is happening.”

16: A Sudanese health worker and four other Sudanese civilians were killed when three bombs were dropped by a government aircraft on the village of Nimne in Western Upper Nile, the international medical aid organisation, Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) said.  James Koang Mar was an MSF employee in a primary health care unit in Nimne. 

16: Sudan’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mustafa Ismail said that the Sudanese government, increasingly war-weary and encouraged by US peace initiatives, was committed to ending the country's civil war. “We are ready for a ceasefire tomorrow, and for that ceasefire to be monitored by international monitors,” he told Reuters. 

17:  A breakaway faction of Sudan's ruling Islamist government said it has built on a year-old agreement with the SPLA in a bid to end the war. The Popular National Congress (PNC) led by Islamist ideologue Hassan al-Turabi said it reached another agreement with the SPLA after talks in Germany. The two sides signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Switzerland a year ago.

17: Sudanese troops have arrived in Central African Republic (CAR) as part of a regional peacekeeping force to ensure stability, despite opposition from the African Unity. A Sudanese general arrived with the troops that are being housed at the former French military base in the northern outskirts of the capital, Bangui. 

17: A delegation of the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) concluded a visit to the US during which they met with the Sudanese Diaspora in the US. The Secretary-General of the NDA, Pagan Amun, gave a political lecture at the American Centre for Political Studies on the axis of peace and democracy, and the future of Sudan. 

18: Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) President Joseph Kabila arrived in Khartoum for a two-day official visit aimed at cementing ties that flourished under his late father, Laurent Kabila. The pro-government Akhbar al-Youm newspaper said Kabila and his Sudanese counterpart, President Omer el Bashir would discuss bilateral relations and joint cooperation.

19: Sudan and the DRC agreed on enhancing economic, trade and technical ties after talks between President Bashir and his Congolese counterpart Kabila. In a communiqué issued at the end of Kabila's visit, the two sides also called for restoring security and stability in the Great Lakes region.

19: European Union (EU) ambassadors found during a visit to the Nuba Mountains that a cease-fire agreed for the area in January this year has been respected “on the whole”, a EU statement said. The EU mission “welcomed the fact that the ceasefire has so far on the whole been respected by both sides,” according to the statement issued by the German Embassy in Khartoum.

20: Sudan has pledged its support for the lifting of UN sanctions against Iraq, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported. This was after a visit to Iraq by Khartoum’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mustafa Ismail who also briefed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on the latest economic and political developments in Sudan and efforts to achieve peace in the country. 

20: The UNICEF in Sudan has said it plans to make peace building and the promotion of human rights central themes in its programme of humanitarian assistance during 2002. “Assisting communities to resolve their differences at a grass-roots level will positively impact on support given to health, nutrition, water and sanitation and education activities,” the agency said while launching a US$48.5 million appeal to provide humanitarian assistance to women and children. 

21: The US State Department suspended talks with Khartoum after a Sudanese helicopter fired rockets at civilians gathered to receive aid food at a World Food Programme (WFP) relief centre in Bieh, Western Upper Nile killed 17 people and injured dozens more. Calling it part of a “pattern of senseless and brutal attacks by the government against innocent civilians,” the Department said, “these attacks raise serious questions about the Sudanese government's commitment to peace and the lives of its people.”

21: The Sudanese army denied it was deliberately targeting civilians, hours after WFP reported that an air force helicopter had fired on people queuing for food aid, killing 17 and wounding many others. 

21: French ambassador in Khartoum Dominic Reno has said that his country was studying the possibility of contributing money for the implementation of the Nuba Mountains cease-fire agreement. The ambassador hoped that 2002 would be a year of peace in Sudan.

22: A peace accord intended to help end decades of ethnic conflicts between the Dinka Ngok and the Arab Massyiria ethnic communities of Abyei and Muglad, Southern Kordofan, south-central Sudan, can help boost efforts to end the country's civil war, diplomatic sources in Khartoum told IRIN. In the agreement, signed by leaders of the two communities on January 31 after the support in negotiations of the Netherlands embassy in Khartoum, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the EU, the two sides vowed to put aside their differences and ensure justice among them.

22: The Sudanese army said that it has captured a major airport used by the SPLA to attack oil fields in Western Upper Nile. After fierce battles, the army took over the airport in the Nhialdiu near the Bentiu oilfields, 800kms south of Khartoum, army spokesman Gen Mohammed Bashir Suleiman said in a statement, which did not mention casualties.

22: Humanitarian field workers and local authorities have described Bieh where a government gunship killed 17 people as being “highly food insecure”, according to the Famine Early Warning System Network. The population's vulnerability follows poor harvest last year, non-cultivation by the population, which migrated further south towards “the Promised Land”, identified by a self-declared prophet and seasonal flooding damaged crops.

22: British Foreign Office Minister responsible for Sudan Baroness Valerie Amos expressed her concern over the killing of 17 people by a government aerial bomber in Bieh. “We have expressed concern at a high level of the Sudanese government about reports that a Sudanese government helicopter gunship fired on civilians. We have asked the Sudanese government for a full explanation,” she said. 

23: Eighteen Sudanese men trying to reach Libya for work died of thirst and hunger after their truck broke down in the northwestern desert of Sudan, the official Sudan News Agency (SUNA) reported. Another 81 were rescued after a camel rider came across the stranded group and brought help from a nearby oasis near Al-Fasher, capital of Northern Darfur Province.

23: Amnesty International said it is the corporate duty of Canada’s Talisman Energy to press the Sudanese government on human rights violations, a Canadian paper, The Ottawa Citizen reported. Jeff Flood, spokesman for the Canadian branch of Amnesty International, also said there is no evidence that Talisman's continued oil ventures in Sudan are directly linked to attacks on civilians in Khartoum.

24: High-profile Western campaigners who spent millions of dollars buying the freedom of slaves in Sudan have been the victims of a scam, a British daily paper, The Independent reported.  According to witnesses, local villagers are rounded up to pose as slaves when Christian groups arrive with briefcases full of money. The “slave traders” are sometimes disguised SPLA soldiers, added the paper.

24: Sudan has said it will investigate a government attack, which killed 17 civilians waiting for food aid in Bieh, SUNA reported. “The Ministry of Defence has formed a high level committee to investigate the incident at Bieh and it will present its recommendations speedily to the quarters concerned,” said a statement from the country’s Foreign Affairs Ministry.

23: Switzerland will not send military observers to Sudan to monitor the cease-fire agreed between the Sudanese government and SPLA for the Nuba Mountains. Oswald Sigg, spokesman for the defence ministry, told the Swiss daily newspaper TagesAnzeiger such a mission would be impossible without a mandate from the UN or the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). 

24: Possible US military action against Sudan poses a threat to China's energy security in 2002, a government-funded Chinese think tank said. Sudan's placement on a list of potential terrorist states by the US might interrupt crude oil imports to China, the report says, quoting an official at China’s State Information Centre, a research and analysis unit of the State Development Planning Commission. 

25: Former US President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, are scheduled to attend in early March an international conference on the eradication of Guinea worm disease in Khartoum. The duo is expected to push anew for a combined effort to make the disease the second to be eradicated worldwide. 

25: Sudan's ruling party criticised as “hasty” a decision by the US to suspend its participation in the peace process until the government explained the killing of 17 civilians in an air raid. A spokesman for the National Congress (NC) party said the US move was “hasty and lacking good intention for the realisation of peace” in the country.

25: A young Sudanese Christian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery was instead given 75 lashes and then released, human-rights activists in the US and Germany told United Press International (UPI). They said that while this punishment was still cruel, the reduction of her sentence nevertheless proved that the Sudan did heed international pressure. It was unclear whether 18-year old Abok Alfa Akok was still pregnant at the time she was flogged.

27: A conference facilitated by New Sudan Youth Association (NSYA) opened in Nairobi, Kenya, with participants urging the international community to support the initiative of peace and unity in their country.  The three-day meeting, which seeks to create an environment where peace, justice and the rights of the youth are recognised, brought together three youth groups from the SPLA, the Sudan Peoples Democratic Front (SPDF) and South Sudan Youth Development (SSYD). 

27: Sudan has struck a deal to sell cane sugar to EU countries, Industry Minister Jalal Addigair announced. He said the shipment would commence in April, adding that the agreement was part of EU's decision to import sugar from 12 of the world's least developed nations.

28: Former US President Jimmy Carter said he would speak to Sudan's government and southern rebels on ways of arranging a ceasefire to help promote health programmes in the war-torn country. “We are working...on trying to bring peace to Sudan so that we can pursue our efforts against Guinea worm, river blindness and trachoma,” Carter told Reuters. 

28: SPLA leader, John Garang was due to arrive in London in his first visit to Britain since 1989, reported Al-Ra'y al-Akhar newspaper. The paper said that will address the Sudanese community at the Emmanuel Centre in London. 

28: Khartoum said it had foiled a rebel attempt to blast a hole in the national pipeline that carries crude oil to the Red Sea. The explosives were discovered along with political leaflets on February 22, 500 kilometres east of Khartoum. The pamphlets were issued by the Beja Congress, which operates in northeast Sudan.

28: A recent escalation in military activity in Western Upper Nile could be due to a major government offensive to gain control of oil production areas, according to humanitarian sources. “An offensive which started around November has been increased in the last few weeks. We have reports that troops have come in from Kassala in eastern Sudan and from the Nuba Mountains following the cease-fire agreement there,” aid workers told IRIN. 

March 2002

1: Sudan has launched an investigation into the February 20 bombing of civilians by the army, which left 17 dead, the Sudanese embassy in Madrid said. In its statement, the embassy said that the aim of the enquiry was “to avoid such tragic incidents in the future”. 

1: The Sudanese government further restricted the areas where aid agencies can work following an increase in fighting and a government attack on a food distribution centre, a UN spokeswoman said. Each month, a UN umbrella group, Operation Lifeline Sudan, submits a request to the government requesting permission for aid agencies to fly aid into southern Sudan.

1: The SPLA has merged with the most important armed opposition force in the mostly Muslim north, their leaders said. John Garang and Abdel Aziz Khaled of the predominantly northern Sudan Alliance Forces (SAF) announced the “unification”, in a communiqué faxed to AFP. 

1: Major aid agencies in Sudan urged the UN to put pressure on the government and rebel groups to end the growing violence against civilians in the south of the country. In an appeal addressed to the UN, the EU, the US and other countries concerned with the country’s chronic civil war, the agencies said they were “observing large movements of displaced people”. Among the agencies that signed the appeal were Save The Children, Oxfam, Christian Aid and CARE International. 

1: Canada strongly criticized the Sudanese government for launching two “inexcusable” attacks on civilians and aid workers earlier this month in which at least 19 people were killed. Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham and Senator Lois Wilson, Canada's special envoy for Sudan issued a joint statement urging Khartoum to immediately stop attacking civilian targets.

2: Eight senior southern Sudanese politicians urged the EU to review its aid policy for Sudan in light of the helicopter raid on Bieh, a statement said. They said that incidents such as the February 20 raid “have made Sudan exceedingly well known for bad human rights records.” Joseph Ukel, head of the Union of Sudan African Parties, former Sudanese vice president Abel Alier, and six other top politicians signed the statement.

2: The Sudanese government will officially apologise to WFP for the army helicopter strikes on a WFP food line in Bieh, a Sudanese newspaper said. Foreign Affairs Minister Mustafa Ismail instructed Sudan's ambassador to Italy, Andrew Makur, to convey Khartoum's apologies to the Rome-based WFP, the independent Al-Watan daily reported. 

2: Sudan said restrictions on areas where aid agencies can work are only temporary to help the government verify the location of aid deliveries in the SPLA-held south, said Sulaful Din Salih, head of the government Sudan Humanitarian Aid Commission (SHAC). Salih said the restriction will be used to clarify the names and maps of places where food aid is being delivered. 

3: Jimmy Carter arrived in Khartoum for a health conference on the eradication of guinea worm. President Bashir’s adviser on peace, Ghazi Salah Eddin and the Minister of Health Ahmed Bilal received Carter at Khartoum airport. 

3: International aid agencies have warned that civilians are being increasingly targeted as fighting escalates over Sudan's southern oilfields and fear a humanitarian catastrophe unless the world acts soon, reported the Financial Times newspaper of London. After several weeks of intensifying conflict between Khartoum and the SPLA, 12 organisations - including Oxfam, Save the Children and Care International - have urged the UN, the US and Europe “to relay a clear and consistent message that attacks against innocent civilians and humanitarian facilities are unacceptable”. 

3: Three British Christian development charities called on the US and British governments to take the necessary steps to convince all parties engaged in the Sudanese civil war to negotiate peace rather than continuing to pursue military options. The call was made by the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD), Christian Aid and Tearfund in advance of the Sudan Ecumenical Forum, a conference of Sudan's religious leaders and their external friends, due to be held in London from March 4-6. 

3: A government helicopter-gunship that killed 17 people in Bieh specifically targeted the homes of civilians and fired on people as they ran for cover during an attack, humanitarian sources told  IRIN. The gunship hovered over a compound housing several aid agencies before firing horizontally, aiming at civilian homes, according to relief workers citing civilians who fled Bieh after the attack. 

3: John Garang said in London he won't declare a cease-fire in fighting with government forces despite his call for peace through negotiations. In an interview with UPI, Garang said his movement's call for peaceful negotiations “does not mean relinquishing the military option in confronting the ruling regime in Khartoum.”

3: The EU will support a “unique” proposal by non-governmental groups to locate landmines in Sudan, the Union’s ambassador to Khartoum said. The commission would provide US$1.3 million for an initial period of one year for the Sudan Landmine Information and Response Initiative.

3: President Bashir will marry the widow of a colleague who died in a plane crash in southern Sudan last year, an independent newspaper reported. Bashir decided to marry the widow of Major General Ibrahim Shams Eddin, who died last April in a plane crash in southern Sudan, Akhbar Al Yom daily reported, indicating that the marriage would be held by mid-March.

3: The Sudanese government expressed deep regret for an attack at a WFP centre in Bieh saying it was a mistake. “We deeply regret this appalling event,” said the presidential adviser, Ghazi Salah Eddin in a statement released by the Sudanese Embassy in London. 

4: Jimmy Carter urged the warring parties in Sudan to back a nation-wide cease-fire to back a project to help eradicate Guinea worm disease. Carter said this after he and President Bashir jointly opened a four-day health conference in Khartoum on the debilitating disease. 

4: Sudanese officials told the US State Department that their government will agree to end attacks on civilians and allow international monitors to verify the ceasefire. “We reached an agreement,” former US Ambassador Robert Oakley told UPI but he said the papers have not been signed. 

4: The UN system has confirmed that it was in discussions with the Sudanese government in an effort to reverse restrictions on humanitarian flights in parts of southern Sudan. “We are engaged in discussions within the UN system to get a review of this decision,” WFP spokeswoman, Laura Melo, told IRIN.

4: Sudan said it has accepted a revised US proposal to end the war, agreeing that its forces would “protect civilians” instead of “ceasing the bombardment of civilian targets” - a point strongly contested by the government. Khartoum insisted it does not target civilians in its war.

5: British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw met with Garang and urged him to do everything possible to help bring his country's civil war to an end. In a statement, Straw urged Garang to work with all the factions in Sudan to find a way of ending the conflict. 

5: A UN human rights investigator urged Sudan government to stop bombing civilian targets and crack down on an allied militia accused of mass killings and abducting slaves. Gerhart Baum, the special rapporteur on Sudan, also said oil concessions to foreign companies had “seriously exacerbated” the civil war and contributed to a deterioration in the overall human rights situation.

5: The WFP expressed concern about hundreds of thousands of people cut off by a Sudanese government ban on its humanitarian flights into the south of the country. WFP spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume said that nearly 500,000 people, already vulnerable from the effects of war and insecurity, were at risk because of the ban. 

6: US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington had warned Sudan it could forget forging closer ties with America if it violated a pledge to stop bombing civilians. He told members of the US Congress that Washington had told Sudan the “process of moving forward, of an opportunity for a better relationship, will come to a dead halt with the continuation of this kind of activity.”

6: Britain has pledged US$1 million for international monitoring of the ceasefire in the Nuba Mountains. The announcement followed a meeting in London between British Foreign Secretary Straw and Garang.

5: The WFP said that there has been a partial lifting of restrictions on humanitarian relief flights in southern Sudan. A WFP spokeswoman, Laura Melo, told IRIN that the Sudanese government had removed an effective one-week blanket ban on flights in western Upper Nile following discussions with UN officials. 

5: The US said that a deal was emerging with Sudan to end the Khartoum government's bombing of civilians. A recent upsurge of bombing incidents involving of civilians by Khartoum led to a suspension of US mediation in the country's conflict last month. 

5: The opposition UMMA party and the SPLA have agreed to restore ties and to continue engaging in dialogue to bring about peace and stability in Sudan. This was after a meeting in London between John Garang and UMMA leader  Mubarak al-Fadl.

5: The January 6, 2002 merger declaration between the SPLA and the SPDF could be put to the test following claims by a militia group that the pact has become an instrument of violence against the people of Eastern and Central Upper Nile region who are outside the agreement. An official of the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM), William Kuol Chuol, said the merger could instead rally the two rebel groups against the SSLM controlled area.

6: Talisman’s profits for last year declined by 82 percent in the fourth quarter due to falling oil and gas prices. But the company said it made record US$2.5 billion in cash flow up from US$2.4 billion in 2000, while profit was US$786million, down from US$906million a year earlier. 

6: Sudan expects international observers to arrive soon to monitor the Nuba Mountain ceasefire, a leading Khartoum newspaper said. “A joint military committee will arrive in Khartoum soon to monitor the cease-fire between the government and the rebels in the Nuba Mountains sector in implementation of the Swiss agreement,” the daily al-Anbaa said.

6:  Talisman is working hard at selling its controversial stake in the oilfields of Sudan, president Jim Buckee hinted. “We like the property a lot, we like the people, but others have approached us with respect to a sale,” Buckee told analysts. 

7: Garang denied that foreign pressure is being exerted on the SPLA to end the war. In an interview by Dubai newspaper Al-Bayan he insisted on “a constitutional separation between church and state” within the context of a single state adding that his movement was pursuing “new domestic action inside the cities”.

7: Fayizah Abu al-Naja, head of Egypt's delegation to the meeting of the Community of Sahelian and Sahara States (COMESSA), objected to a paragraph in the final statement on merging the Egyptian-Libyan and IGAD initiatives on Sudan. She pointed out that Egypt wants co-ordination between the two initiatives, rather than merging them.

7: International monitors met Sudanese army officials ahead of monitoring a cease-fire deal in the Nuba Mountains, a daily paper, Akhbar al-Youm reported. “The meeting was a briefing on the mission of the committee and co-ordination between it and the armed forces,” the pro-government paper quoted a Sudanese army official as saying. 

7: Austrian oil and gas group OMV said that it hoped to resume exploration activities soon in Sudan. OMV is part of a consortium led by Swedish oil explorer Lundin Petroleum exploring in Sudan's Block 5A. The consortium suspended drilling operations in the block, one of Sudan's choicest hydrocarbon exploration sites, on January 22 when it could no longer guarantee the security of its staff.

7: Ugandan troops will remain in southern Sudan as long as Ugandan rebels based there pose a threat, the defence minister said. “We will keep pursuing (the rebels) in Sudan,” said Defence Minister Amama Mbabazi. Uganda sent about 700 troops into southern Sudan to pursue LRA rebels on February 24.

8: A broad coalition of Sudanese civil society groups and indigenous non-governmental organisations (NGOs) called on the UN Security Council to create “safe havens” in southern Sudan in order to protect civilians from what it called a government “scorched earth policy”. The call came from the Federation of Sudanese Civil Society Organisations (FOSCO) in a statement issued jointly with the New Sudanese Indigenous NGO Network (NESI). 

10:  Sudan signed a US brokered agreement to protect civilians as the US stepped up efforts to end the country’s civil war. The deputy foreign minister, Mutrif Sadiq, and American Charge D’Affaires Raymond Brown signed the agreement, which included all mechanisms for the protection of civilian infrastructure. It also defines a civilian as a person not involved in fighting. 

10: Any agreement between the UMMA Party and other political groups in Sudan is aimed at combating totalitarianism and an agenda of war; the party’s chairman was quoted as saying by The Khartoum Monitor newspaper. Sadiq al-Mahdi said that his party was against war and will never participate in any agreement that provokes a situation of war. 

10: John Garang, arrived in Washington for a one-week official visit at the invitation of the US administration. An SPLA spokesman, Yasir Arman, said Garang will meet during the visit US officials, members of the Congress, the Senate, and pressure groups concerned with the Sudan issue, besides meeting members of human rights and civil society organisations.

11: Delegates at a Sudan Ecumenical Forum seminar held in London, warned that any peace settlement in Sudan “must be just and lasting and not a quick-fix solution.” The conference held from March 4-6 brought together religious leaders from Sudan and their world-wide church partners in an effort to promote dialogue and “find solutions to the problems that lie at the heart of Sudan's conflict”, according to Christian Aid and Tearfund, co-sponsors of the event. 

11: A US-brokered truce between Khartoum and the SPLA has made it possible for polio vaccination teams to reach about 189,000 children in south-central Sudan, a top regional official said. “This cease-fire agreement has tremendous effects here. We believe our vaccination campaign will be successful partially thanks to it,” said Bashir Ibrahim, Acting Governor of Southern Kordofan State under which the Nuba Mountains fall.

12:  The second joint sitting in the third session of dialogue between Sudan and the EU was held in Khartoum during which the two parties reviewed the Nuba Mountains ceasefire. The meeting was also informed about the signing by the SPLA of an American deal on the protection of civilians in the country.

12: John Garang questioned the effectiveness of a US-brokered deal with the country's government to protect civilians in the country's civil war. “They can sign any agreement with the United States, the question is what if they violate this agreement. What is the price of non-compliance?" Garang asked at the start of a two-week private visit to the US. 

13: Sudan gave Uganda the green light to make limited attacks on bases of LRA rebels on its territory following resurgence in attacks by the rebel group. “Now that we have agreed, working together we shall move to where (LRA leader Joseph) Kony is and finish this once and for all,” Uganda army spokesman Major Shaban Bantariza told Reuters. 

14: The government of the Sudan has offered to train police officers from the member states of the Eastern Africa Police Chiefs Conference (EAPCCO), newspaper New Vision reported. A joint communiqué issue at the end of a three-day training and planning sub-committee meeting at Seeta town, some 15 kilometres east of Kampala, said that the Sudan had agreed to train police officers at subsidised rates. Sudan, Rwanda, Kenya, Seychelles, Eritrea and Uganda attended the meeting.

14: The European Commission (EC) recently announced its decision to support a major programme, endorsed by both the government of Sudan and the SPLA, to tackle the serious problem of land mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) in the country. The programme "will involve cross-line activities, and constitute a very strong message for peace" by allowing civil society to build up an initiative to deal with land mines even as the country is still at war, according to the EC. 

14: Sudan will formally let Ugandan troops enter Sudanese territory to hunt down Ugandan opposition rebels, a Sudanese official said. The neighbouring African nations signed an agreement permitting Ugandan soldiers to "carry out limited military operations inside the Sudanese border to eliminate the Lord's Resistance Army," said Serageldin Hamed, the Sudanese charge d'affairs in Kampala, the Ugandan capital