January 2004
2003 was a tumultuous year for Sudan due to peace talks aimed at ending the twenty-year civil war. While the government and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) negotiated, the conflict in the south between the SPLM/A and southern militias continued to take lives and wreak destruction. Fighting in the western region of Darfur flared up as well, with hundreds of thousands displaced and many human rights violations reported. The Sudanese government, despite promises of better human rights behavior, escalated its campaign against opposition parties, students, and the independent press in northern Sudan. Even the press, usually cited as an area of visible human rights progress in Khartoum, suffered numerous closures, confiscations, and arrests.
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Peace Talks and the Civil War in the South
Since the Sudanese government's offensive in the oilfields of Western Upper Nile/Unity State in January-February 2003, the ceasefire agreement between the government and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army has held, due to the fact-finding intervention of the U.S.-run newly created Civilian Protection Monitoring Team (CPMT) and the convenor of the peace talks, the InterGovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). Fighting between the SPLA and southern militias, however, continues in Western Upper Nile/Unity State as well as in other parts of Upper Nile where the Nuer ethnic group (the mainstay of these militias) mostly live. The fighting has resulted in civilians killed and injured, and deprived of humanitarian assistance, although these conflicts are not reported to the CPMT by either the government (which backs the militias) or the SPLM/A. Little attention has been paid to the humanitarian concerns in this area by the international community.
The IGAD-mediated peace talks, while a positive sign, are running into several long-term human rights problems. The two parties have agreed to elections within the six-year interim period of the peace agreement—which commences six months after the signing of the agreement. At the end of that interim period, there is to be a referendum in southern Sudan on self determination, whether unity or independence for the south. The elections, which should take place at the local, regional and state, and national levels, are to be conducted under international supervision. But neither party to the peace-agreement-to-be, the Sudanese government and the SPLM/A, has ever faced free elections. Elections run by the government in the north have been characterized by a web of repressive legislation and security apparatuses preventing freedom for opposition parties to campaign, assemble, associate, and speak, and by election fraud; the SPLM/A has never conducted elections nor did its leadership hold elected political office prior to the war.
There is no provision for bringing to justice those guilty of the countless abuses committed during the war. The mediators do not seem to want to push this topic, as they are facing considerable difficulty forcing the parties to reach a peace agreement in any event. No fact-finding commission or investigation to sift through the evidence has been put on the table, either.
Even enforcement of human rights seems not to be part of the peace negotiations. Although the parties to the peace talks were said to have agreed on respect for human rights and included five pages of such agreements in the provisional peace agreement, those draft pages were not made public. Treatment of combatants by either side also violates many norms of armed conflict and neither side cares enough about its troops to even report their disappearance or capture by the enemy to the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), which could have sought to trace them. Some foreign governments, however, are urging the U.N. to help set up an independent human rights monitoring mechanism to remain in place throughout Sudan during the post-conflict phase, through referendum elections at least.
The possibility of the establishment of a one-party state in the new regional government in the south is real. Although the southern government-aligned militias are ready for reconciliation with the SPLM/A, and the churches have offered a forum where that could take place, the SPLM/A continues to avoid facing that issue. It appears reluctant to share any of the expected benefits of peace with its former southern enemies, although it is sharing state power with the Sudanese government which backed these militias for the last decade.
Oil and Conflict
The Sudanese government waged a four-year scorched-earth campaign in the oilfields located in the south to displace the inhabitants, seeking to provide its version of "security" for foreign oil companies to operate in lands claimed by the rebels. On a bright note, the international human rights campaign to encourage corporate responsibility among the western foreign oil companies operating in Sudan succeeded in discouraging new western investors in Sudan's oil business, and resulted in the withdrawal of two western oil companies, and the reduction in operations of a third. Talisman Energy of Canada, the main campaign target since it commenced activities in 1998, sold out to the Indian state oil company, ONGC Videsh Ltd., in early 2003. It was followed by Lundin Oil AB of Sweden, which sold out its lead partnership in a concession under active development, retaining only interests in blocks still inactive. OMV of Austria, a silent partner of Lundin, sold out all its Sudan oil interests. The oil industry in Sudan sank into the hands of Asian state oil companies, with China National Petroleum Company leading the way, followed by Petronas Berhad of Malaysia and Videsh of India. In a report that traced the development of human rights abuses in the oil areas, and linked the abuses to the entry and activities of foreign oil corporations, Human Rights Watch in November 2003 urged the foreign oil companies to suspend activities in Sudan until minimum human rights benchmarks were met.
Darfur
As the war in the south has decreased in scope and intensity, the war in the western region of Darfur has escalated between government-backed nomadic militias and non-Arab indigenous farmers. The conflict remains linked to the southern and SPLM/A conflict in at least two ways: oil revenues from the south have enabled the Sudanese government to create a domestic arms industry, and it has imported sixteen attack helicopters from Russia in 2000-01, which have been shifted to the west from the south; and it is trying to use southern militias, previously used against the SPLA, to fight in Darfur. Despite loud alarms from the World Food Program and the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Sudanese government has also blocked access for any agency to Darfur, so that almost 600,000 civilians remained displaced at the end of 2003 and in immediate need of assistance, but are prevented from receiving it. The Sudanese government also opposes inclusion of the western conflict in the IGAD peace talks, and has backed out of peace talks sponsored by Chad, which houses some 70,000 Darfur refugees. Many civilians have been killed in attacks in Darfur, mostly by the militias, and hundreds of villages reportedly burned down by these militias. The government continues to treat the non-Arab groups targeted by the militias as "bandits" and use summary trials and death sentences to punish them.
Civil and Political Rights
Civil and political rights did not improve in the north as hoped with the peace talks. The security forces maintain their grip on political life and the legislation they enforce blocks any real multiparty democracy; the Sudanese government did not take steps to loosen these key components of its control. Security forces continue to torture political opponents, particularly students. These forces retain their immunity from prosecution under legislation requiring their agency's permission for any prosecution.
There is a persistent lack of rule of law in Sudan. Hassan al Turabi, leader of the Popular National Congress, a splinter group of the ruling Islamist party, was released from house arrest in October 2003, but political parties in general are unable to function as the government restricts freedom of speech, expression and assembly throughout the country. Claims by President El Bashir that press censorship would end have proven false, as the government continues confiscations and fines of English and Arabic-language newspapers that publish anything the government takes a dislike to––such as news about the peace talks or the Darfur war.