In his August 11 speech, President Beshir announced that he would: 
-- end press censorship, turning review over to the National Press Council  (not linked to Security)“Everybody can express themselves in the printed press and even on state run television”.
-- end the state of emergency as soon as peace was achieved.
-- end travel restrictions for politicians from the opposition.
-- possibly release political prisoners. “Detention is never forever”. As an example, he brought up the case of Mohamed Ibrahim Nugud, head of the Communist party, who has been in hiding for 13 years fearful of being apprehended.” I don not know where you are hiding him, but if he reappeared today, he will not be detained, nor asked any questions”. Thirty-two political prisoners have been freed. Beshir’s decision may have been taken to broaden his support with the peace negotiations (Reuter 08/05) and/or to obtain the backing to his rigor. The Sudan government’s human rights committee has been bold enough to request Turabi’s liberation.
 - - “In order to elicit constructive propositions that might shrink the gap between the government and the rebel movement so as to give answers to those points which have reached a dead end.” None of this has gone over favorably with the Security Services, who have decided to ignore the whole business.

Beshir also claimed much satisfaction over the fact that all the Sudanese be they pro-government or in the opposition were united in their antagonism for General Sumbeywwo’s peace project. Was this last declaration part of a game plan to charm? It lacked veracity. On the contrary, Parties in the opposition have asked Beshir not to withdraw from negotiations because of “narrow minded partisan interests” and to accept the Khartoum Declaration in which the same said parties have demanded a secular status for Khartoum, the end of single party rule, the release of political prisoners, and the establishment of a transitional government to oversee elections.
Beshir’s declarations stem from a call to opposition parties to “show up”. He spoke them publicly in front of members from the UMMA, the DUP, PC, Popular Congress, Turabi’s followers, and the ruling National Congress Party (AFP 08/10).
But the most important move would be to abolish the law on National Security so as to end police harassment, arrests and arbitrary detentions.
Until now, all foreigners wishing to travel outside greater Khartoum, or leave the region where he/she worked, was obliged to go to the Security Service branch and/or Military Intelligence for a permit. The Minister of Foreign Affairs has announced that these permits would no longer be necessary, “ so as to allow aid agency workers easier access to regions stricken by drought, flooding, or war”. Authorities had cancelled several diplomatic visits to the three Northern marginalized areas.

What do these promises have to do with reality?
The English language newspaper, The Khartoum Monitor had reappeared after a sanction period of two months and $416 fine for having published an article on alcohol in Islam. On the following day, the paper, whose staff is primarily from the South, became aware that its license had been withdrawn after a Crimes Against the State Court  ruling, and a $208 fine was slapped on its two editors and the paper. They appealed. The decision had come down over an article published in 2001 (sic) featuring an interview with a former minister from one of the federated states who had spoken up about slavery in Sudan. In it he said that there were slave markets in Bahr-el-Ghazal where Dinkas were sold off like chattel to the Arabs. The government has repeatedly denied that slavery exists in Sudan. Human Rights Watch asked the government to revalidate the Khartoum Monitor’s license and to investigate on the accusations of Nhial Bol, the editor. According to him,   he had been willfully struck by an oncoming vehicle while driving and believed that the government instigated the incident. (Reuter; DPA 07 10; HRW 06 01). Since then, the Court of Appeal has annulled the verdict and the National Press Council has permitted the editor to work again. However, shortly after Beshir’s speech, Mohammed Farid Hassan, the magistrate in charge of Crimes Against the State rulings, has reissued a court order to ban the paper on the grounds of Article 130 of the penal code “until a complete inquiry has been made” (RSF).
In mid August, after Beshir’s speech, the Security Forces prevented the daily paper Alwan from going to press citing incitement to sedition because of an interview with Turabi. Its suspension was due to last until the end of an inquiry. But as a “judicial official” cancelled the order, the paper reappeared for two days, then the same official in charge of Crimes Against the State, Mohammed Farid Hassan, closed it down again up to the end of the inquiry by the Security Forces (AFP 09 03; RSF 05 15; AP 09 AFP 09 26). The American Ambassador criticized the government for not ending the clamp down on the press after it said it would do so. (AP 09 15). As to freedom of movement for foreigners, much less menacing overall, it was prohibited for another month and then areas of conflict remained off limits.
It would appear that the Security has a mind of its own, which is a serious threat.

*** The United States
Mr. Southwick, an official from the State Department told Khartoum that Sudan had to improve on its transition to democracy and its respect for human rights if it wanted to normalize relations with America (DPA 08 11).The government denied that there was religious persecution (AFP 08 11).
The “Temporary Protection Status” accorded to asylum seekers desiring to go to the US was extended to Sudan considered “in a state of war”  (AFP 09 03).

The WFP and the government will begin a program at the beginning of September destined to distribute food in government-held areas, notably in Darfur, Kassala, where serious flooding has occurred, and in Bentui in the oil zone.

Libya has “pardoned” 263 Sudanese prisoners and flown them home by plane, without giving much of a clue what they were pardoned for. This was carried out on the 34th anniversary of Libya’s Revolution. Libya is a strategic stopover for Sudanese citizens on the route to Europe (AFP 09 01).

The North

Juba University (although Juba is a city located in the extreme south, its University has been relocated in Khartoum for the past 20 years) was closed indefinitely after riots broke out. The police arrested 52 students, 15 of them with “minor injuries”. The riot concerned students belonging to National Democratic Alliance (opposition) and Southern students over elections to the Student Union (AFP 08 01). Student Union elections have been suspended because most students vote against the government. 
Three of the students, Hamdi Sebit, Michael Kustober, and Mohammed Ibrahim, are in the hands of Security Forces in an undisclosed location, and there is great concern for their safety. Most of the others were freed on bail. As for the wounded who number at least 20, it is reported that the police hit them with metal objects. They were taken to the Khartoum hospital (AI 08 05).
According to police, 20 other students from the University of Sudan were arrested after setting fire to university buildings. They are said to have asked that their diplomas be upgraded (AFP 08 03). They were released on promisses of good behavior (AP 08 05).
Conclusion: It is easier to be sprung from jail for arson than for political protest.

The Episcopalian Church, with the second largest congregation, after the Catholic Church, with 2 and a half million faithful in Sudan, has complained that Security Forces are holding one of its pastors. The Church said that they feared that the pastor’s “human rights” would be violated (that he risked being tortured). They demanded that the government assure the safety of their personnel and protect and respect Church property (DPA 09 14).

Roughly 90% of the female population in Sudan undergo female genital excision. The government has taken the decision to outlaw this practice and forbid the medical corps from performing it, but recognizes that it needs the support of religious authorities, medical corps, and the media to achieve its aim. A fatwa was issued last year announcing that there was absolutely no link between female circumcision and Islam, but it was largely ignored (AFP 08 24; IRIN 09 03).

Female circumcision is carried out to various degrees. The removal of most of the clitoris is a simple excision, whereas infibulation entails clitoral removal and the stitching together of the labia, leaving a tiny hole for the elimination of body fluids and rendering the first sexual act horribly painful. In the bush, the stitching is performed with thorns. Excision is carried out on young girls between the ages of 7 and 11, and often causes severe bleeding, urine retention or serious urinary tract infections leading to sterility. The practice is said to be performed so as to “protect” the father’s honor, which is false. On the contrary, it allows for sexual intercourse before marriage, but afterward, it is essential to find a discrete midwife to repair the damage three weeks or so before the matrimonial union is consummated.

The Joint Surveillance/Military Commission in place to enforce the Nuba Mountain Cease-Fire, has suspended its patrols and aerial inspections in the area of Julud on account of mounting tensions between Northern and Southern forces, and will now operate only minimally through a liaison office run by the SPLA. [This is rather puzzling – one might expect a monitoring commission to increase its activities when there is increased tension.] Hostilities increased after the SPLA detained 8 people coming into the region without notification. According to the press in Khartoum, they were Muslim aid workers, all of whom were later released (DPA 08 22).

A part of the Abyei district, situated in the North, but whose population is largely Dinka (southerners) is under the control of the SPLA. The Irish NGO Goal went there and reported that there were no health facilities for over 32,000 people. Three years ago however, community leaders had formed “emergency sanitary posts” but as there was no medicine or funds to pay the staff, [most likely for lack of foreign NGOs] and the posts closed down. Roughly 60% of the population relies on traditional medicine, calling on “masters of the spear” who practice sorcery. The rest go to the hospital in government held Abyei, or travel to health clinics in the district of Twic. Often the sick are carried long distances on stretchers. Malaria, diarrhea, respiratory infections, malnutrition, and measles are the main causes of death. In the bush, two thirds of the people have no blankets, sleeping close to smoking fires that keep mosquitoes at bay. They fall victim to malaria when the fires grow cold at dawn. Despite a good sorghum harvest, almost a quarter of the children examined suffered from protein deficiency, especially the very young who had been weaned. No polio immunization program is operational. During the last outbreak, 8 children survived the 116 stricken. They were the ones who had been inoculated in a UNICEF vaccination campaign in the North. In spite of the cease-fire, thousands of Dinka remain displaced. Over 70,000 are camped in government held territory, and 50,000 mores dispersed across Bahr-el-Ghazal. One local NGO estimates that 1,300 households have returned this year and roughly 750 more are expected in the weeks to come. In June, a regional conference held at Agok in the Abyei district, the 700 participants exclaimed their indignation at the abysmal living conditions the displaced were subjected to throughout the district. (IRIN 07 10).
Abyei’s final status is one of the thorny points in the peace negotiations. The SPLA/M is insisting that the people of Abyei have the right to hold a referendum on whether to become part of the North or the South before the South’s regional referendum. But Khartoum maintains that the Abyei question is a local matter to which the SPLA has no say.

For sometime now, alcohol is no longer totally banned in Khartoum. It is served at:
--Receptions held at non-Arab Embassies. There it is offered openly, and not as in the past, clandestinely in “a bar at the back”. Procurement is not a problem as alcohol is integrated into the diplomatic pouch.
--At private receptions on formal invitation, where alcohol is said to be supplied by foreign embassies.
--At the Korean owned hotel, where beer is openly sold but apparently in no other hotel or restaurant.
--At the funerals of Southerners, where traditional home distilled beer is permitted.
--However it is standard practice for policemen in need of cash to raid home distilleries, tended, as is the custom, by Southern women. Either the truant pays the bakchich or else she is whipped and thrown into jail. So it is not systematic.

The South
Oil and Human Rights

ECOS’S Austrian Platform     

The Austrian section of ECOS [a coalition of 80 European associations of which VS is a member] has said that after OMV* Austria had sold off its participating share in oil development in Sudan, it declared “we had a good offer” roughly $ 70 million. However, OMV has always prided itself with acting on a code of good conduct keeping a sense of “social responsibility” in mind. The ECOS Austrian platform calls for OMV to spend a part of its profit ($17 million??) to indemnify the displaced. This could be done either by funding the WFP, or by helping the displaced relocate once the peace has been signed. All groups associated with ECOS Austria believe firmly that OMV’S pronouncement that the company had always provided humanitarian aid while in Sudan is insufficient. As long as OMV’s policy in Sudan does not conform with the national standard of cooperative involvement, and the company’s actions in the oil zone have never been subjected to independent oversight, how can it be judged to have acted in good faith with regard to local people?

*After the Canadian Company Talisman and Swedish Lundin, OMV is the third occidental petrol company in one year to sell its shares to an Asian state-owned company after criticized by human rights activists. It is selling its share in southern Sudan to India’s ONGC: 26.125% in block 5A and 24.5% in block 5B. The sale netted $115 million, and its profit is estimated to be $70 million. The sale is expected to be finalized as of January 1, 2003 (sic). The matter is pending the authorization of the Sudanese government (VS).
 

According to UNICEF, the average rate of malnutrition in Bahr-el-Ghazal and the Upper Nile has jumped significantly since 2001, attaining 20%. The figures apply to children under 5, who are 80% under the average normal body weight for that age bracket. Even though there has been a coordinated response in Bahr-el-Ghazal, there is no food distribution program in much of the Upper Nile. This is mainly due to the fact that the area is plagued by general insecurity because of militia activity in the oil zone. The UN, seriously in need of funding, is forced to fly in supplies, putting pressure on its financial resources.
Maxime Clayton from Action Contre la Faim, who recently traveled to the Upper Nile, insists on the urgent necessity to deliver not only food, but also clean water and medical supplies to prevent malnutrition (IRIN 09 02).

Today, 80% of the guinea worm cases in the world are in Southern Sudan (AFP 09 19). At the hospital in Lui, located in East Equatoria, the doctor with the Christian NGO Samaritan’s Purse, has discovered a disease, to date unknown, that attacks children and some 300 are infected. The symptoms are characteristic of a neurological disorder: the first signs being an uncontrollable nodding of the head. The children loose their appetite, cease to grow and their brain stops developing with retardation as a consequence. The disease is frightening and other families shun the children. Incoming experts’, including WHO doctors, have never seen the disease before and have no idea how to treat it. It seems to break out among children whose diet is primarily beans and high in starch. Or it could be the result of ingesting a poisonous plant or food that has past its comestible time limit. Monkey meat is also suspected. The illness might also be linked to river blindness, frequent in Lui (NYT 09 22).

The secretary general of the  Northern Traders in the South,  Siddiq Mohammed Korak came to Khartoum to complain about the downside of the peace process. “People affiliated with the SPLA/M confiscated the stores, farms and houses of several Northern shopkeepers and gave them to Southerners”. They  said they would kill anyone who did not comply. No figures were given as the victims were expected to come forth and speak for themselves.
According to Korak, the number of Northerners in the South is roughly 1 million, but only a thousand or so have commercial ventures, most of them having made important investments in tea and coffee plantations. [To us, the one million figure appears to be a serious exaggeration. At the beginning of the war, Northerners left the South in droves.  Since then, the government has given property particularly in northern Bahr-el-Ghazal mostly to Northerners in ninety-nine year leases. Who are the agricultural workers there? In addition the Baggera, nomadic herdsman from the North more and more frequent in Bahr-el-Ghazal, have no shops, farms or houses. Rumor has it that after ethnic cleansing in the oil zone the region saw the influx of Baggera, but they would have not gone to live in areas controlled by the SPLA. However, we would not be surprised to learn that members of the SPLA confiscated property belonging to Northerners, taking back what has been taken away so to speak. Southerners are surely concerned that at the moment they hold their referendum on self-determination, Northerners on the ground will vote and of course vote for unity. It is surprising to say the least given the lawless state of the South, that Southerners in the SPLA held areas did not seize Northern property sooner.] These traders want to retrieve their property and have appealed to IGAD and the US Embassy.

The United States is financing a short wave radio grid so that the general population can keep abreast of progress in the peace talks. Radio programs will also give out information on nutrition, farming techniques, civil rights and culture. The broadcasts will be made in Dinka, Bari, Nuer, Zandé, Shillouk, Arabic, Juba Arabic and English. Radio transmission will be made from Nairobi until it is feasible to do so in the South. Using an English transmitter, the broadcasts can be heard between 16h and 17h GMT at 17639kHz and from 17h to 18h GMT on 17660 kHz (Dutch Radio Network 08 10).

In 2001, the UNHCR rescued a number of Sudanese refugees in northern Uganda after their camp had been plundered by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leaving 100 dead and brought them safely to Kiryandongo in south Uganda. The Ugandan police have forcibly relocated then back in the north, despite their insistence on the fact that young among them were fair game for LRA capture and forced induction, prostitution and as porters during maneuvers. The police have shot at uncooperative refugees and forbidden area access to UNHCR personnel, even though International Conventions stipulate free and unlimited penetration of refugee camps. The UNHCR protested, but the Ugandan government declared there were no LRA troops in the vicinity [not yet] (AP 09 02). As of September 11, the UNHCR were allowed in (US News Services).