Chronology

22: The ICRC has signed a new agreement with the Sudanese ministries of defence and social planning, to extend support, by three years, to the National Centre for Prosthetics and Orthotics in Khartoum. Work started in 1998 to upgrade the Centre's facilities to increase assistance to mine victims and other war amputees. 28: Nearly two million Sudanese could face starvation if food stocks are not replenished by June, WFP warned in a statement released from Khartoum. The statement said there was an urgent need for pledges of food aid to avert a crisis. It warned existing stocks would run out in June.

29: The opposition umbrella National Democratic Alliance (NDA) group said it had captured the government's military headquarters, Osman Dakna camp, north of Kassala, AFP reported. According to an NDA news release, the coalition said it captured five soldiers and repelled an attack by government forces.

29: The Sudanese government has urged SPLA John Garang, to participate in Egypt and Libya's efforts to reconcile Sudan's feuding parties. Foreign minister Mustafa Ismail told a press conference in Khartoum that the SPLA should "stop vetoing" the Egyptian-Libyan initiative within the opposition NDA, news organisations reported.

30: A tripartite commission set up to facilitate the voluntary repatriation of Eritrean refugees in Sudan, formed by Sudan, Eritrea and UNHCR, held its first meeting in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, Eritrean radio reported. Eritrean commissioner Werku Tesfamikael of the Eritrean Relief and Refugee Commission thanked Sudan for its hospitality to refugees, and said in an opening speech that Eritreans had become refugees in Sudan because of atrocities by Ethiopian regimes.

May 1: The spiritual leader of Anglican Christians preached for peace during a visit to southern Sudan to swear in a new arch-bishop for Sudan. "I do not believe there is any reason either here in Sudan or anywhere else in the world for Christians and Muslims to commit violence against one another," Arch-bishop of Cantebury George Carey said in his sermon in the southern city of Juba.

2: Archbishop Carey has called for an end to the country's 17-year-old civil war. "Fighting does not solve problems of Sudan," Dr Carey told a huge congregation gathered for the enthronement of a new Anglican Archbishop of Juba Joseph Marona.

3: The Sudanese government has denied that it discriminated against its Christian minority, saying some Muslim groups have criticised it for being too tolerant. "Any talk about religious oppression in Sudan is actually far away from the reality experienced in our communities," said Abdel-Jabir Osman Mara'ie, the head of the churches department in the ministry of social affairs.

3: The pipeline carrying Sudan's crude oil to a Red Sea port has been blown up, state television reported. The secretary-general of the ministry of energy and mining was quoted as saying the export pipeline at Singat, about 345 km east of Khartoum, had been "subjected to a limited act of sabotage". State television said exports would not be delayed because of the volumes of oil stored at Port Bashir, on the Red Sea.

3: UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has welcomed an announcement by the Sudanese government of a humanitarian ceasefire until July 15 this year. In a statement, the secretary-general said he also acknowledged the decision on April 19 "to suspend air bombings in Southern Sudan to protect civilian lives and facilitate the continuing delivery of humanitarian assistance".

4: government media quoted Sudanese minister of agriculture Dr Al-Hajj Adam as saying the food situation in Sudan was "satisfactory". He said Sudan did not suffer a food gap, and that available food met domestic consumption. The comments follow a warning by WFP that aid supplies in Sudan would run out by June, leaving about 2 million people in danger of starvation.

5: Col. Garang has described the halt to air strikes announced by the government a "public-relations exercise aimed at improving international relations". The London-based newspaper 'Al-Sharq al-Awsat" said in a telephone interview from the field that, Garang rejected national elections scheduled for October, and also dismissed as "illegitimate" an internationally supported conference of southern forces, scheduled to be held in Geneva in mid-May.

5: An exiled spokesman for Massaleit civilians in western Sudan claimed in a statement issued from Egypt that government-supported Arab militia had caused death and displacement in escalating attacks over the last two years. The statement said that in February more than 50 people from the Massaleit village of Geriko, on the Sudan-Central African Republic border, were killed by attackers on horseback carrying automatic weapons.

6: The Sudanese government has urged Col. Garang, to participate in Egypt and Libya's efforts to reconcile Sudan's feuding parties. Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail told a press conference in Khartoum that the SPLA should "stop vetoing" the Egyptian-Libyan initiative within the opposition National Democratic Alliance, news organisations reported.

6: A tripartite commission set up to facilitate the voluntary repatriation of Eritrean refugees in Sudan, formed by Sudan, Eritrea and UNHCR, held its first meeting in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, Eritrean radio reported. Eritrean commissioner Werku Tesfamikael of the Eritrean Relief and Refugee Commission thanked Sudan for its hospitality to refugees, and said in an opening speech that Eritreans had become refugees in Sudan because of atrocities by Ethiopian regimes.

6: President Omar el-Bashir has accused his former ally-turned-rival Hassan al-Turabi of plotting against the government and vowed to act decisively against the party's secretary-general. General Bashir was speaking during a meeting of leaders of the ruling Islamist party , the National Congress, in Khartoum.

9: The SPLA has suspended its participation in peace talks aimed at ending a 17-year civil war in protest at what it called reckless bombing of civilian targets by the government. The SPLA said in a statement issued in Nairobi that the government had flouted its own moratorium on aerial bombardments and had bombed several civilian targets in rebel-held areas over the last week.

11: Supporters of Al-Turabi have expelled president Bashir from the ruling National Congress Party, a newspaper reported. The report of the expulsion, the latest move in a power struggle between the two men, was dismissed by government officials as meaningless.

14: The United States has again named Sudan as one of seven countries allegedly sponsoring international terrorism despite US acknowledgement of the Khartoum regime's "efforts to distance itself publicly from terrorism". In a new report on "Patterns of Global Terrorism" in 1999, the State Department says Sudan serves as a "central hub" for Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda (The Base).

15: Sudan faces an Aids disaster on the scale afflicting its neighbours without swift action to combat the deadly virus, United Nations officials say. "Sudan today is like the data for Uganda 10 years ago," said Abdalla Ismail, national country programme adviser to UNAdis, a UN group charged with fighting the disease.

Since it started the exploitation of the oil last year, the government of the Sudan has, however, not used the revenues from the resource for the development of the people of Sudan and in particular those in the oil areas who, throughout history, were neglected in terms of equitable allocation of the national resources. Instead, the oil revenues have been used for the purchase of military wares used for killing and displacing people in these oil areas. The government has assumed that it can end the conflict militarily.

Further, the government is using the roads and airstrips of the multi-national oil companies engaged in the production of oil in the Sudan, for military purposes, carrying out aerial bombardment on civilian targets (hospitals, schools, markets, churches etc) in the Southern Sudan, Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile.

In the past, the New Sudan Council of Churches (NSCC) has issued a statement with its partners calling for establishment of a Trust Fund to receive the oil revenues for the Sudan government. It was proposed that these revenues be apportioned fairly in accordance with an agreement to be developed by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development. Such an arrangement has proven unworkable.

As the shepherds of the population in the Sudan and eye witnesses to the ongoing genocide in the above-mentioned areas, we call upon peace loving people and the international community to take immediate actions to STOP the ongoing genocide in the Sudan.

This includes the withdrawal of the oil companies helping the government of the Sudan to confidently pursue the war and a call for No-fly zone for military aircraft's over the Southern Sudan, Nuba Mountains and South Blue Nile, which should be monitored. This is to reinforce our call for the same through FECCLAHA forum in Limuru (Kenya) on March 23, 2000.

Signed:

The colourful ordination of Andrea Osman Okello, the first one in Rumbek in two decades, was presided over by the Bishop of the Diocese of Rumbek, Caesar Mazzolari. It was conducted in the open outside the town's cathedral destroyed by war. Accompanying the bishop were 15 priests of different nationalities, among them the Secretary General of Southern Sudan Catholic Bishop's Regional Conference (SCBRC), Fr. Damian Adugu. The SCBRC brings together the six bishops working in the rebel-controlled territory.

Bishop Mazzolari commended the new priest's parents, both of whom have died, for giving him an education in a very difficult environment. Southern Sudan, at war for now 17 years, has seen education grind to a halt, thus condemning thousands of young people to a slavery of ignorance. Some have been forced to become refugees outside their motherland in desperate search for education.

The parents of Fr. Andrea, as the new priest is popularly known, died in 1998 with the father passing away exactly two years from the day of his ordination.

"God broke you off from war and violence and enabled you to pursue your priestly vocation," said Bishop Mazzolari, who advised the new priest to bless God's people without any distinction. "Teach the people with conviction that you believe in what you are teaching them. Denounce what is evil but be gentle on those who go astray- be a minister of reconciliation,'' said the Bishop.

A member of a small ethnic group called Thuri or Shatt, Fr. Andrea was born on January 1, 1959 near Wau in western Bahr el Ghazal. He attained his elementary education in his birthplace and the surrounding areas before taking up a job as a sound technician in the department of culture and information in Wau from 1983-86.

Andrea often took his time off to instruct young people at the town's Christian Education Centre. His determination to become a priest saw him pursue further studies in Khartoum, Egypt, Italy and Kenya.

Acknowledging that the task ahead was not an easy one, Fr. Andrea asked all Christians and his compatriots in particular to pray for him to enable him serve God's people in the best way possible.

Charles Omondi

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SUDAN CATHOLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
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