Deimos

Translation Maurice Gruffat

Sima Sanar, special rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council, has taken a very critical view of the situation in Darfur . She deplores the excessive use of force in the South, the arbitrary arrests and imprisonments, the use of torture and bad treatments. The measures taken by the Government to reinforce the administration of justice were not followed by visible results in favour of the people who are temporarily detained: thousands of people are, indeed, kept in prison for a considerable amount of time without being given a chance to have access to legal aid. Sima Sanar urges the Government of National Unity and the authorities of Southern Sudan to carry out serious inquiries on the violations of human rights, to institute legal proceedings against the people suspected of such crimes, to offer compensations to the victims and to enforce the law.

Although the security services forbade her to go, she met with the representatives of the communities of the Nile Valley which are directly affected by the building of two huge dams across the river. It is the Government's duty to ensure the safety of the villagers, to provide them with decent houses, inquire on the measures taken to deal with demonstrations which caused several deaths, and on the accusations of torture at the security and police forces. A similar recommendation was made as regards the incidents in Port Sudan that led to blood shedding on January 29 th 2005 (ST 17-03-08).

South Sudan . SALVA KIIR, President of the South Sudan 's Government (SSG) is trying to put an end to children kidnapping, which led to the disappearance of 450 children in two years. Recently tribesmen from Murles kidnapped women and children in the Equatoria and in the Upper Nile as well as in the Ethiopian Nuerland (ST 2-02-08).

A judge of the Supreme Court in the Lakes State freed 45 prisoners mainly accused of adultery and rustling. This release of prisoners took place after the Government of South Sudan had created the year before a special Court to contain the tribal wars and clan struggles that are bringing bloodshed to the Lakes State and impeding its development (ST 08-02-08).

Tens of houses have been pulled down and their inhabitants left without shelter in order to build and equip a power station near Bor, the capital of the Junglei . The launch of this project, financed by Egypt and to be carried out by the Egyptian Public Works Department and by the Sabina Advertisements and Public Works Co, was postponed for four months, and this delay was taken advantage of to set in motion a timid attempt at finding new homes for the displaced villagers . The despoiled householders, however, are accusing tge South Sudan Governement of having put at their disposal useless plots of wasted ground in the suburbs of Bor (ST 18-03-03).

Spying. The German Public Prosecutor is accusing Acuil Adyang, who was arrested in October, of having infiltrated groups of political opponents to Khartoum and organisations for the defence of Human Rights working in the Sudan in order to spy on them (ST 12-03-08)

Terrorism . One of the two men arrested for the murder of the American diplomat John Granville is an officer of the Sudanese army . He was the head of a small cell of terrorists, which ran agents in active service in other Arabic countries, with plans for other terrorist attacks against American and British representatives in the Sudan . Last August the Security Services seized a cache of arms and arrested people who were a threat to the diplomatic missions of the Western countries The graffiti linking the Islamic Crescent with the words ‘Al Qaida Organisation in the Sudan' were getting more and more visible in the neighbourhood of the American Embassy and the residential district of the foreigners. (ST 09 02 08 & 10-02-08 & 12-02-08 & 23-02-08);

On March 18 th ARTE broadcast a documentary about the secret prisons of the CIA in the United States . As the rumour was spread around that European states were participating in the ‘restitution' of people presumed to be terrorists, the United-States moved the centre of their activities towards Africa . The documentary mentioned many cases of torture and disappearance in Egypt , in Kenya and in Somalia . Sudan was included in the list without further details. Is it possible that the CIA. would use their facilities to torture and wipe out presumed terrorists on behalf of the Sudanese Security Police?

Boycott. The People's Party for the defence of the Islamic Faith and Religion has organised a huge popular demonstration involving thousands of people to protest against the publication of the Prophet Mohammed's caricatures by seventeen Danish newspapers . Beshir publicly demanded that the Danes be driven out of the Sudan and Danish businesses and products boycotted . The Danish Minister of Foreign affairs sees in this affair a way of fuelling anti-western feelings in the Sudan , which refuses the presence of Norwegian or Swedish military contingents in the peace force of the United Nations and the African Unity . If this boycott were to be implemented, the Sudan 's request for admission into the World Trade Organisation would certainly be turned down . (AP & ST 27-02-à08).

Refugees

Since the peace agreement of 2005, two million of the refugees who were parked in the neighbouring countries and of the displaced persons within the Sudanese borders made their way back to South Sudan . Half of those still away from home, some 350000 of them, are expected to move back into Southern Sudan in the course of 2008 . The United Nations contributed to this effort of repatriation by building roads, bridges, airfields and schools. (ST 06-02-08).

Ethiopian Sudan . This year Ethiopia is planning to drive back to the South Sudan 27000 of the 36000 Sudanese refugees in the country (ST 24-02 & 02-03 & 20-03-08)

Sudan/Ethiopia. The Sudanese Minister of Home Affairs confirmed that the foreigners residing in the country were having their papers sorted out and set in order in accordance with the current legislation and the bilateral agreements with their countries . In the course of the past months, however, the Sudanese Organisation against torture has kept warning public opinion on the arrest of Ethiopians who had obtained refugee status in 2004, but who were handed back to their country of origin ; they have ever since been detained in an unknown place . The Committee for the support of Ethiopian political prisoners are accusing officials of the High Commission for Refugees (HCR) of having handed over to the Sudanese Police two men who were then taken back to Ethiopia and imprisoned in an unknown detention place . P olice raids have become the order of the day in Khartoum (SOAT 04-02-08 & 07-02-08 & 26-02-08 – ST 09-03-08 & 16-03-08)

Palestine/Sudan. The Sudanese Minister of Foreign Affairs officially welcomed into his country refugees driven out of Iraq .

Aid and development

Assistance for food . Owing to the leap in prices of all foodstuffs (an increase of 81% in 2007), the European Union is to devote 160 million Euros on emergency food shortages in the world : distribution of food supplies in countries suffering from one form of catastrophe or another, as well as long term interventions such as the distribution of tools, seeds and fertilisers. On the African continent, the Sudan is one of the ten priorities for international assistance of this type. (ST 13-03-08).

When they complained that the supplies they had been promised were not forthcoming and that they were forced to stop all food distribution by air to the camps harbouring displaced persons in Darfur, the people in charge of the UN Program for World Food Distribution received half a million US dollars from an organisation of Hollywood actors called NOW (‘Not On Our Watch). To keep 24 planes flying over North Sudan and South Sudan costs every month 6 million US dollars (ST 13-03-08)

Water. The office of civil and military cooperation of the United Nations and the Non Government Organisation CARE have set up a water distribution network for 30000 people, most of them refugees from Darfur or from South Sudan, squatting in the suburbs of Khartoum . This project was launched in September 2006 and was brought to completion in January 2008, at a cost of 75000 US dollars (ST 13-02-08)

Public Health. With the support of the World Bank, the Government has distributed 180.000 mosquito nets in the states and regions infected by malaria . The Vester Guaard Co won the contract when the Ministry of Health put the job out to tender, last september.(ST 27-02-08).