Africanews
The Khartoum regime is implementing a slow genocide of the Nuba people. In spite of the fact that the Sudan government tries to seal off the Nuba Mountains from any contact with the outside world, our correspondent visited the area and in this article he challenges the international community to come to the assistance of this people victimized by their own government. |
From June 15 to July 6, 1996 I visited the Nuba Mountains, in the heart of Sudan, about 1,100 km from the Kenyan border town of Lokichogio. My trip ended abruptly when the Sudanese army tried to capture the group of which I was part of (another priest, a brother, two journalists) and at the last minute, they shelled the plane that came to rescue us. From a certain point of view, they had the right to do so: We had entered Sudan "illegally". From a different perspective, my party had not only the right, but the duty to go there. But before explaining exactly what I mean, let me relate the facts, at least as I remember them.
In the course of the last year I visited the Nuba Mountains five times. All the trips were of humanitarian and pastoral nature. I brought relief items and visited the Catholic communities. I encouraged people in their difficulties and shared with them thoughts of peace, and of how it is possible for the Christians to co-exist in peace and justice with their Muslim brothers. On the June 15 trip, for the first time, a Sudanese priest and a Sudanese brother came with me.
As it turned out, not only Catholics but people of all faiths, received us with open hearts. Everywhere we stopped there was a spontaneous joyful celebration and people brought food and handicrafts as gifts. Often, as they got in advance the news of our passing, villagers would spot us from far and come down from the hills led by dancers and drum players, just for the sake of shouting their welcome and of shaking our hands. They saw in us a hope for peace, or at least for a return to a normal communication with the exterior.
We verified once more the dramatic isolation and creeping genocide. Everything that is not produced on the spot is missing, no salt, clothes, medicines, educational material, just to mention what people consider the most essential items. There is no medical assistance at all, while leprosy and malaria are coming back with strength. Dozens of people with the first signs of leprosy approached us imploring for treatment.
Tension is heightened by the raids carried out regularly by the government army during the dry season: Harvest and cattle are looted and what cannot be looted is burned. Women are raped, people are abducted and forced to go into the infamous "peace camps".
On June 30 I fell victim of accidental food poisoning, at a place about 50 km from Teberi. Accompanied by Albert, I forced myself to go back to the base in the hope of getting some rest, only to discover, as we arrived at Teberi on the early morning of July 2, that the same Sunday the garrison of Aggab, 30 km away, had started shelling in the direction of the airstrip. Two hours after we reached Teberi the SPLA asked us, for the sake of our security, to move up the nearby mountain.
The intention of the heavy military column that the same day moved out of Aggab in the direction of Teberi was evidently to capture us and to take control of the airstrip. The force of about 20 vehicles and 1,000 soldiers was intercepted and ambushed several times by the SPLA. After three days of fighting the government soldiers holed up in Debi, a village about 13 km from the airstrip. From the mountain we heard the sounds of the battle till the morning of July 5.
On July 3, in the afternoon we had heard Radio Omdurman, the radio of the Khartoum regime, talking about the Nuba. We had to raise the volume to be able to hear, above the sound of the shelling, a voice praising the Nuba for being in peace with the government, and exalting the historical links and friendship between them and Khartoum.
At 7.30 am of July 6 an aircraft landed at Teberi to get us out. We had come down from the mountain the previous evening. With our distress, Jean Helene was still missing. There had been no battle that morning, but as we moved towards the plane, suddenly heavy shelling started from Debi: The first shell missed the plane by some dozen metres, and the dirt from the explosion reached the pilot who was busy unloading. Fortunately for us, and due also to the reaction of the SPLA, the other shells fell much short of their target, and we were able to take off.
Later we came to learn that Jean Helene had missed the plane by few minutes. Only after more than a week was it possible for a small aircraft to go back and pick him up from a provisional airstrip.
But these facts can highlight that there are very different understandings of the principle of national sovereignty and of the right to humanitarian assistance by the civilian population.
For the Sudanese government, the sovereignty of the state is supreme. Accordingly, the United Nations' operation that was set up in 1989 with the mandate of taking relief food to the civilian population victims of the civil war called Operation Lifeline Sudan and its member agencies must respect the Sudanese sovereignty and abide by the prohibition to fly over or to land, or in any way operate in areas to which access is forbidden by the Khartoum regime, even if those areas are controlled by the SPLA. While up to this point the interpretation of the Sudan government of its sovereignty cannot the challenged, the problem starts when the same government denies access, as it is presently doing, to areas where civilians are in danger of death because of lack of food and medical assistance. For instance, Khartoum is these days denying access to humanitarian aid not only to the Nuba Mountains but also to to the cholera affected areas of the Bahr el Ghazal. Khartoum is even denying the existence of cholera, calling it "watery diarrhoea". The Pochalla area, next to the Ethiopian border, where thousands of civilians are in danger of starvation because the floods have covered the fields since May, was denied access, without any explanation, for several weeks, and permission was given only the 8 August, causing death and incredible suffering to the people.
According to a growing number of observers who reason more from a humanitarian perspective than from a legalistic stand, there are situations where the principle of sovereignty can be overruled by the human rights of the civilians. The most fundamental human right is the right to live, to have access to food and medical assistance. From this viewpoint, the concept of sovereignty as it is upheld by Khartoum is outdated, coming from ages when there was little awareness of the human rights, and when there was no attention to issues that cut across boundaries and national sovereignty like ecology.
In the particular case of Sudan, how can we take seriously the sovereignty of a state which does not care for the most basic needs of its citizens? Why doesn't Khartoum allow humanitarian agencies to take relief to the sick Nuba and to the cholera affected areas? One cannot help but think that the Khartoum regime is actually taking advantage of the natural calamities in order to punish the civilians of those areas. A friend from the Southern Sudan told me recently: "Khartoum wants our destruction, they are happy if cholera kills us, they can spare money and bullets". While this could be an exaggeration, is the international community bound to abide by such an inhuman attitude?
We live in a world where people accept that some items have a value that goes beyond the national boundaries, so the towns of Salvador de Bahia, Venice and Zanzibar, just to mention some, and even the stones lying at the bottom of the ocean have been declared "common heritage of humanity". Are the Nuba people less valuable than those stones? Can't they claim to be considered at least at the same level?
That Khartoum grossly violates the human rights of its own civilian has been denounced more than once by the United Nations observers, like Gaspar Biro, and by the United Nation General Assembly. Khartoum lives in a situation of diplomatic and economic isolation, even at regional level. July 15, 1996, the Secretary General of the United Nation, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, said in a strongly worded statement, unusual in the circles of international diplomacy: "The Secretary General is deeply concerned by the recent serious deterioration in the humanitarian situation in Sudan, as a result of the unilateral and unjustified obstruction by the Government of the Sudan of urgently required humanitarian assistance to the affected population in Southern Sudan, including Pochalla and cholera-affected areas, as well as areas of the Nuba Mountains. The Secretary General expresses the hope that the Government of the Sudan will continue its co-operation and fully abide by the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality and transparency upon which Operation Lifeline Sudan was founded in 1989, as well as adhere to its commitments to the General Assembly to assist all persons in need throughout the country."
The United Nations and their humanitarian agencies are normally bound by the respect for the national sovereignty of the member countries. Yet some people think that there is a basic human right to humanitarian assistance not yet codified as a law by the international community, and such right can, and should, overrule any other consideration. The former French President, Francois Mitterand, at the time of the Gulf War had proposed to include in the international law "... the right of humanitarian intervention in the internal affairs of a country, when part of its population is victim of a persecution". It is exactly the case of the Nuba in Sudan. But this basic human right, courageously proposed and defended in front of the United Nations by Mitterand, has not yet been accepted, even if there are some examples of humanitarian intervention.
Resolution 688 of the Security Council is a step in that direction when it establishes its competence when human rights violation reach such proportion as to endanger international relations and is a threat to peace. Resolution 43/ 131, adopted by the General Assembly under French initiative, regards humanitarian assistance to the victims of natural catastrophes, and stresses the need for establishing the right of freely accessing the victims. Maybe the time it is not too far when the right of intervention in case of political catastrophes, like civil wars, will be sanctioned.
There are only two examples of United Nations interventions against the will of a national government. One is the action in favour of the Curds, in 1991, when they were victimised by the Iraq government and the United Nations went ahead with humanitarian relief without the consent of the legitimate government (though, again, it is doubtful that a government victimising its own citizens could be considered legitimate).
The case of the UNOSOM operation in Somalia is different because at the time there was no government whatsoever in Mogadishu, however, it also proves that when the international community really wants to intervene in favor of civilian victims, it can find the appropriate ways. At a time when the mass media offer the possibility of transforming the world into a global village, we cannot use them only for singing the same tunes, but for creating that unity of action reclaimed by the human needs of the time.
Personally I do not feel guilty of breaking any Sudanese or international law because I brought medicines and clothes to the Nuba people. On the contrary I think that the Sudanese government is guilty of oppressing and killing its own citizens denying them access to humanitarian relief.
I am also deeply dismayed by the attitude of some Western governments, like the USA and Britain: They have made a big issue of the three terrorists who attempted to kill Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and threatened sanctions against Sudan for protecting them. What the Sudanese government is doing to the Nuba is genocide, the cultural and genetic annihilation of the Nuba. And yet for this the USA is not ready to raise an eyebrow.
The humanitarian agencies working in difficult situations like on the Nuba Mountains, have different guiding principles. Some would accept to work there only if they can do so in neutrality, like, for instance, for the International Committee of the Red Cross. For others, the principle is commitment to justice. For others again, the basic principle is solidarity, sharing risk and suffering with the people, even assisting them with lobbying and advocacy.
For the Christian action, the basic principle is incarnation. It is the principle of Jesus, the God, who for our sake became "incarnate", took up human flesh. The Christian community is as such not involved in power politics, in theoretical problems of law and rules, or in academic discussions. The Christian identity shines in the sharing and identification with the poor and the oppressed.
For this reason the Khartoum regime can be sure that in spite of shelling, bombing, and the permanent upheaval created by their action, the missionaries will continue to be present with the suffering civilians, in the South and in the North. Some missionaries have built their huts next to the huts of the people and nothing will move them. A missionary priest with a long, flowing beard, who at his next birthday will be 70, has made the plains of the devastated Dinkaland in Southern Sudan his home. He was recently asked by a visiting journalist: "Aren't you afraid to live here in a tent and in Spartan conditions, under the constant threat of a military incursion?". He looked back astonished and said: "But if I do not do this while I am still young, when do you expect me to do it?".
I wish there were more "young" people like him, even in the high responsibility level in the United Nations structure, ready to defy the rules in order to identify with and assist the sick and starving civilians of Southern Sudan.
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