Sudan: The Passion of the Present

African exodus: chaos and hope as hundreds of thousands of Sudanese return to homeland / Sudan struggles as millions head south

Two new, similar features:

(See also IRIN's recent interview with Dennis McNamara.)

From the UK's "Guardian" (also on the site of South Africa's co-owned "Mail & Guardian")...

(subhead: "A huge, so far unreported, migration of displaced people is taking place at the end of the continent's longest-running civil war")

The Nile has witnessed more centuries of human eccentricity than any of the world's great rivers, but what it is now experiencing must rank high in its annals of misery. Hundreds of people laden with bags, bedding and bicycles wait disconsolately on wharves. Under the unremitting sun, anxious passengers crowd the flat decks of rickety barges meant only for cargo. Narrow launches are filled to the gunnels with sweating women and children on a precarious journey to places some have never seen.

Despite the hardship, this is part of the "peace dividend" from Africa's longest civil war. With a deal agreed between the largely Arab north and the southern rebel group, the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement, hundreds of thousands of the 4 million who fled the fighting have started the dangerous journey back.

Not all are going "home". More than two decades of conflict have produced a generation who were not born when their parents fled or are too young to remember anything except life in overcrowded camps. UN officials expect 580,000 to move between now and March in the start of what could be the world's biggest return of displaced people. They are going to one of Africa's poorest regions, where war has destroyed much of what was only a flimsy peacetime infrastructure of schools and health clinics.

Adding to the looming crisis is the so-called "Darfur distraction", the fact that the main donor governments have switched attention to the victims of Sudan's most recent war.

Overseeing a mound of suitcases and sacks filled with clothes, John Gideon helped his wife and six children clamber out of a launch at Malakal this week after an overnight journey from Melut. It was the latest ordeal on a 900-mile trek which included three different minibuses from Khartoum and will continue on a barge to his home town of Juba. Her arms swollen with mosquito bites, his wife dipped a bowl into the Nile, soaped and rinsed her children, and dressed them in clean outfits on the quayside. The family had to sell some of their bedding and furniture to raise the £250 needed for their fares.

Like half the war's displaced people, Mr Gideon escaped to Khartoum, where those from the south were herded into sprawling camps which the Arab authorities periodically cleared out, forcing people further into the desert, sometimes at gunpoint.

This year's peace deal allowed people to think seriously of returning to the south at last, but for many the trigger to pack up was an outbreak of violence after a helicopter crash in August killed John Garang, the SPLM's veteran leader. At least 200 people died and tensions have not abated.

"They burned the barber's shop I owned. I can't work there any longer," said Mr Gideon. "Life will be better than in the north. There we had to pay rent. In the south we will have our own place," his wife added.

Their journey so far has been without violence, but others are not so lucky. On the wharf at Kosti where people sometimes wait for three weeks for a place on a barge, a woman breastfeeding a child said soldiers often harassed women at night.

At N'bal, a remote area in the Nuba mountains, where up to 1,000 displaced people returned this week, Siham Alamba recounted how armed men in government uniforms and balaclavas had ambushed the lorry she was on. Several passengers were injured in shooting, while she and her 15 year-old son, who had money from his stepfather to pay for his schooling, were robbed along with the others.

"There were about 50 people on the truck with 16 small children. Once we got there we had to finish our journey with a 12-hour walk," she said.

The UN office for humanitarian affairs already has monitors to check the flow of people. It is planning to set up "way-stations" along the route to provide food and one night's shelter. It is also assembling a team of protection officers to work with the police. But it is waiting until at least next autumn before encouraging the displaced to return. Recognising the huge lack of schools, healthcare and food in the south, it is urging caution while promising the SPLM, now the official government there, that it will "assist spontaneous returns".

"If people come too fast, you will have problems," Dennis McNamara, the head of the UN's internal displacement division, warned SPLM officials on a visit to the south this week. "You will push the slums of Khartoum to become the slums of the south. We have to build up basic services or otherwise we may have an explosive situation. People will be very angry."

The SPLM has a dilemma. Reasons of pride make it want to see southerners return to help build its new state. It persuaded the north to give the south a share in Sudan's national government and oil wealth, or allow a referendum on secession in a few years' time. But senior officials recognise the south's severe shortages and the fact that, in Khartoum, in spite of discrimination by many local Arabs, most children in the camps go to school and many parents work. "Conditions in the north, although pathetic compared to what others have in the north, are better than the south," said Riek Machar, the south's new vice-president "The displaced expect schools, health services and so on. We're not encouraging them to come in one go."

Sudan's Arab leaders are also not pushing the displaced to return. With a tinge of glee, Abdel Haleem Ismail al Mudafie, Khartoum's governor, told reporters: "I have a strong belief many of these people will not go back south. They've never milked a cow. They don't own a goat. I told the UN three months ago, 'I'm dead sure that if you come in a year's time, few will have gone'."

The UN is taking no chances. Tens of thousands are already on the move, and unless pledges of international aid are soon delivered, this will be yet another crisis foretold but not forestalled.

Troubled history

Sudan was a British colony from 1898 to 1956. There has been a north-south civil war since independence. Fighting stopped in 1972 and resumed in 1983 when the north tried to impose Islamic sharia law on the south. An estimated 1.5 million have died in Africa's longest civil war, which is quite separate from the conflict in Darfur. A peace accord means hundreds of thousands of the 4 million who fled are returning home.

By the BBC's David Loyn...

Millions of Sudanese displaced by Africa's longest war are now returning to southern Sudan, putting pressure on scarce resources in one of the poorest regions in Africa.

Many are coming from refugee camps in neighbouring countries, but the largest number were displaced to camps inside Sudan itself, mostly around the capital, Khartoum.

It is the largest movement of people in recent history. Nobody knows how many will come: the highest estimate is six million.

A peace deal was signed between the north and the south in January. But the return of those who fled north to escape the fighting began in earnest only after riots in Khartoum following the death of John Garang, the guerrilla leader who had signed the deal with the north.

Mr Garang died in a helicopter crash in August.

Southern Sudanese mobs rampaged through Khartoum, burning cars and property and killing people, when news broke of his death.

Gangs of northern youths then retaliated, destroying property in the camps housing southerners around the city.

Militia menace

Arriving on the quayside in the southern town of Malakal, John Gideon Jok said he decided to leave Khartoum only after his barber's shop was burnt down in the riots.

It took two long bus journeys and an 18-hour boat trip up the Nile to bring him to his home town, which he had not seen for many years.

His 23-year-old wife, Faiza, was born in the north and had never seen the south, her "homeland", before.

Faiza had hundreds of bites from malaria-bearing mosquitoes after their exposed journey, and one of their children could not open her eyes because of an infection.

Other travellers had suffered even more.

Although regular armies are no longer fighting, thousands of armed men in militia bands still roam the countryside, preying on vulnerable travellers. There have been many accounts of rape and robbery.

Starting from scratch

In a village in the Nuba mountains, a woman showed a wound on her forehead where she said she had been grazed by a bullet while travelling south.

The bus she was on was shot at and looted by a gang wearing army uniforms and masks to conceal their identities.

She was robbed of all she had saved in the camps, and cannot afford to educate her children.

She lives in one of the rare villages where there is a school.

Kenya is now providing English-speaking teachers, and training Sudanese teachers to construct the education system of the south from scratch. It will be a huge task.

Children who have been to northern schools where they teach in Arabic will have to start again.

'Unstoppable tsunami'

Manuel da Silva, the UN official responsible for humanitarian affairs in Sudan, says that the task is not "reconstruction but construction".

He was a minister in the first post-war government in Mozambique after the civil war there, and has recent experience in Liberia - but he says that building southern Sudan is a much bigger task than either of those.

Wary of poor people moving into camps in the south and becoming dependant on aid, the UN is not promoting returns yet.

But it is trying to react quickly since people are coming anyway.

Riek Machar, a warlord turned politician who is now building the new government of the south, says that when the dry season starts in November, people will come as if in a tidal wave.

"We expect a tsunami. There will be a rush. It is their home. If they choose to come back to southern Sudan nobody can prevent them," he said.

'No time to wait'

But the UN's appeals for aid to the south have been hampered by what it calls the "Darfur effect".

The immediate humanitarian crisis of Darfur soaks up emergency funding, and it is hard to persuade some donors to give to other projects in Sudan while the government in Khartoum is held responsible for the continuing violence in Darfur.

Dennis McNamara, the most senior official to visit the region, is responsible for policy on internally displaced people worldwide.

He says that the response of donors now to peacekeeping and nation-building in the south has not matched the very considerable investment in making the peace in the first place.

The UN says it needs $680m (£385m) for southern Sudan. But it has received pledges for less than half of that.

Mr McNamara is sure that it will come eventually, but he says: "We can't wait for two to three years because the people are not going to wait.

"They're coming back to very little or virtually nothing in some cases."

Darfur development workers kidnapped as situation worsens

A new Ekklesia story that ties together today's two main Darfur developments...

Three staff working for a Sudanese non-government agency supported by churches and aid groups have been kidnapped in Darfur. They were hijacked at gunpoint on Thursday while visiting the Zam Zam camp in El Fasher.

The Sudan Social Development Organisation (SUDO) is partnered by the UK-based international agency Christian Aid, which says it will stay in close contact with SUDO and will provide support as requested.

Stephanie Brigden, Christian Aid’s Sudan policy officer said: “The situation in Darfur is deteriorating and this is making it hazardous for non-governmental organisations to operate in the region. As a result, many people in Darfur are not getting the assistance they need.”

It is thought that the SUDO workers were taken by members of a local militia group. SUDO staff were told of the hijacking immediately, by residents of the camp. They have not yet been able to locate their staff or the hijackers.

The Sudan Social Development Organisation has been delivering health and sanitation facilities to people living in camps across the region. This is one of many incidents taking place in Darfur as the security situation worsens.

During the past week, in West Darfur, attacks in Gosmeina [and, primarily, Aro Sharow] have left 29 civilians [now officially 34] dead. In Aro Sharow, a camp for internal refugees, more than 80 makeshift shelters were burnt down following an attack by around 250 armed militia on horses and camels.

Estimates for Darfuri Africans killed by government forces and militia since February 2003 range from 180,000 to 400,000. Over 2.5 million people have been displaced and remain at mortal risk, facing continued violence, malnutrition and disease, say US and British development agencies.

In June and July 2005 Sojourners (headed up by the Rev Jim Wallis), Cedar Ridge Community Church, Africa Action, Genocide Intervention Fund and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in the USA organised a series of five worship vigils in Washington DC highlighting the Darfur situation. The action was called Worship for Justice.

Leading NGOs and church groups in the United States and France have been urging United Nations mandated peace enforcement operations in Darfur, Sudan. Protect Darfur (UK), backed by 118 members of parliament, is also a partner in the initiative.

Southerners get new assembly / Southern Sudanese MPs are once again united / Southern Sudan's post-war parliament sworn in

Three related items (updated to add the SAPA/DPA story):

A story from IRIN...

The Interim Legislative Council of Southern Sudan, which brings together many former military and political adversaries, was officially inaugurated on Thursday in Juba, the southern Sudanese capital.

The establishment of the new parliament constitutes a milestone in the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), signed on 9 January by the Sudanese government and the former southern rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A).

It also represents an important step in fulfilling the southerners' aspirations for greater political autonomy and the decentralisation of power, for which the SPLM/A fought during a 21-year war that claimed two million lives.

"This is clearly a significant and historic moment. This is what people have been waiting for since the signing of the CPA, and probably for the past 20 years," David Gressly, the UN deputy resident and humanitarian coordinator for southern Sudan, told IRIN at the ceremony.

"With the establishment of the new assembly, the south will have the ability to govern its own affairs," he added.

One of the first tasks of the new parliament would be to ratify the new southern Sudanese constitution, which would pave the way for the formation of a new southern government and the establishment of the various ministries.

"It is symbolically significant that all the groups that were formerly divided - the different militias, the political representatives - are together here today," a political analyst, who requested anonymity, said. "You can't heal wounds unless you're actually coming together."

He added: "The signing of the peace agreement was one thing - but not everybody believed it. The new parliament is now a concrete fact and every step further cements people's belief in a better future."

The establishment of the legislative council also opens the door for the adoption of a host of new legislative powers - from approving budgets to decisions on the framework of local governance - that are essential for the implementation of development and reconstruction programmes for the war-ravaged region.

"We stand ready to support the new government institutions as they are formed and look forward to working with the new government as they take a leadership role in the development of southern Sudan," Gressly said.

During the ceremony - attended by the Sudanese first vice-president and president of southern Sudan, Salva Kiir Mayardit, and southern Sudanese Vice-President, Riek Machar - James Wani Igga was elected Speaker of the new legislative and Tor Deng became Deputy Speaker.

Igga, a former secretary-general of the SPLM/A, is considered the third-highest ranking member of the movement. Tor Deng, a former minister of education, is a member of the ruling National Congress Party in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.

"This [the election of Deng] is once more a confirmation of our commitment to the cooperation with the National Congress Party," Igga told the new legislative.

The transitional southern parliament will remain in place until legislative elections are held in approximately four years. After a six-year interim period, which began on 9 July, the south will hold a referendum to decide whether to remain part of a united Sudan or secede.

During the ceremony, Kiir said the major tasks of the government of southern Sudan included the provision of health, education, water and food services.

The official Sudanese news agency, SUNA, reported that Kiir also announced that an institution would be set up to combat corruption in the south and called on the new assembly to adhere to its supervisory role.

A "Khartoum Monitor" editorial, reprinted on Sudan Tribune...

Southern Sudanese MPs are once again united under one roof as Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly opened its first and historic session yesterday [Thursday] in Juba, ending political fragmentation and disintegration of the people of South Sudan for the past 22 years.

In 1983, the then-Sudanese military dictator, Jaafar Numayri, in coordinated collaboration with disillusioned and egocentric southern politicians, connived to dismantle the Addis Ababa Accord and segmented the south into three autonomous states to be ruled from Khartoum.

The abrogation of the Addis Ababa Accord was received by southern masses as a deadly stab by the north on their back. Since then, the people of south Sudan have been set to bleed in agony and frustration.

Successive northern rulers were full of pride and determination for maintaining and sustaining the dagger they thrust deep into the nervous system of south Sudan to cripple its people and paralyse their efforts for development.

The war fought by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) for the past 21 years was indeed representative of the determination of southerners to plug off that deadly dagger.

With the opening of Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly yesterday in Juba, freedom, liberty and, above all, dignity of the southern people are restored.

The legislative body in southern Sudan represents the pulse of the people. It is the umbrella under which the people of southern Sudan collectively find political solace and hope for economic rejuvenation. The legislative body should take as its motto the old adage, "united we stand, divided we fall".

The unity required of them is that of purpose and their ultimate goal should be free and prosperous south Sudan governed by rule of law, respect to fundamental human rights, transparency and good governance.

Anything short of this will lead to disappointment and frustration of the people they represent.

The people of South Sudan should now put the past 21 years of the human misery and collective despair behind them. They should look into the future of the next generations to come.

The people of southern Sudan have stood their ground firmly for 21 years of destitution in the face of tyranny, brutality and heartless abuses of their human, women and child rights at the hands of ruthless, brutal merciless dictators of no match in the world.

Now, southerners have their own assembly house and they can speak up their minds without ethnic intimidation or religious petrifaction.

It is indeed freedom and liberty at last in South Sudan.

A story from SAPA/DPA...

Southern Sudan's new parliament sat for the first time on Friday in the southern capital of Juba to discuss the region's post-war constitution, according to reports monitored in the Kenyan capital.

The first-ever multiparty legislature is part of a peace deal signed in January by the Khartoum government and the former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM).

The former rebels dominate the 170-strong Parliament with 127 members, while the rest of the seats are occupied by the ruling National Congress Party and other southern political groupings.

SPLM secretary general James Wani Igga was elected as parliamentary speaker.

The development now puts south Sudan on the long-awaited path as an autonomous authority for six years, after which the south is due to hold a referendum on secession from the Khartoum government.

Meanwhile, violence persisted in Darfur despite continuing peace talks between Arab militias and Darfuri rebels in the Nigerian capital Abuja.

About 300-armed Arab militiamen attacked Aro Sharow refugee camp in Sudan's north-west Darfur region.

Twenty-nine refugees [officially now 34] were killed and 10 seriously injured in the Wednesday-night attack, according to a United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) statement.

About 2,5-million Sudanese have fled their homes for makeshift camps to escape violence since fighting broke out in the Darfur region two years ago.

The UN has threatened to stop operations in Darfur after the resurgence of violence in the vast region.

Young Christian film team documents war-zone children

From the "Christian Examiner"...

Filmmaker Jason Russell may soon see his dream in lights, but the stars of his new film aren’t any you’ll see on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

This 26-year-old San Diego man and a team of friends just returned from a six-month trip to Africa where they documented the lives of children living in the war-torn region of Northern Uganda.

“Our goal is to really create more of a global awareness in the United States about regions such as this,” Russell said. “We want to move people to help those who are suffering around the world; to get out of the American bubble and help give these children an education.”

Russell, son of Christian Community Theater founders Paul and Sheryl Russell, works for an organization called The Invisible Children, which is based in San Diego.

This is the second documentary that this group of 20-somethings has filmed in Africa. In 2003, the first one was filmed when he and two friends went to Sudan to shoot a documentary about the war; that’s when they stumbled onto the story they want to tell the world. It’s a story about children who are orphaned because of the war, AIDS and other diseases. Russell said these children live in fear of being abducted by rebels who make them commit atrocities, including murder.

“They are amazingly resilient. They have a lot of joy despite their poverty and despite their situation,” he said. “We want to help them by giving them an education.”

Russell said Invisible Children is working with the World Missions Organization to establish classrooms in the region.

The documentary is what Russell and his team hope will be the catalyst that moves people into action for the young people of Northern Uganda.

Russell said that while the first documentary helped generate a grassroots campaign for the African children, it’s the second documentary that will most likely be seen by thousands of people. He said several independent film companies are interested in seeing the footage, which is currently in the post-production stage.

Russell’s passion for filmmaking started when he was a film student at the University of Southern California. He said he went on a mission trip to Kenya and fell in love with the African people and their culture. He decided then he would go back and document stories of life there.

If all goes as planned, Russell said this second film should be released in summer 2006.

For more information on Invisible Children, you can go to invisiblechildren.com.

Equipping "Lost Boys" for life

From the "Arizona Republic" in Phoenix...

Four years ago, when the largest wave of the "Lost Boys of Sudan" arrived in Arizona after civil war forced them from their homeland, the young refugees seemed to have achieved an unbelievable dream: after a treacherous journey across Africa and a childhood spent in a refugee camp, they got a chance to start anew in America.

Many flourished in their new country. Communities embraced them, and there were widely publicized success stories about boys who worked hard, went to high school and then college.

But supporters who work with the refugees and experts who study the Sudanese refugees say they are seeing another side to their story, one in which despair and loneliness have led to depression, alcohol abuse and, in the most extreme cases, death.

They say the horrors they suffered in the past are catching up with them, often colliding with the economic hardships they face in America.

Most of the Lost Boys have post-traumatic stress disorder, said David Berceli, an Arizona State University doctoral candidate researching PTSD. He has worked with some of the estimated 500 Sudanese refugees who settled here as well as some Lost Boys on the East Coast.

"They've been in the U.S. five years. Naturally, it's trying to surface; they're having difficulty," Berceli said, adding that some are drinking and engaging in unhealthy activities.

When they were brought here, much was done to help the "poor boys" who had suffered so much, he said. "That's gone, that's faded . . . society has moved on."

The American dream is not so easy to attain. "If you're working for Kmart, how are you going to pay for college?" Berceli said.

Advocates here are focusing on getting continued help for the refugees, to keep them from slipping through the cracks. And in many ways, they're more equipped.

At the AZ Lost Boys Center, co-founder Ann Wheat loves to talk of the success stories. The education and social center helps with job placement, offers a computer lab, and holds classes on citizenship, resume writing and English as a second language.

But she's also not shy about talking about the problems.

"Unless we deal with things honestly, we can't possibly find solutions . . . . That's the only way to make things better for them."

As recently as last week, one of the Lost Boys showed up drunk at a fund-raiser.

"It's heartbreaking to see that happen," she said. "It's a way to deaden the pain. They're trying to numb themselves to those old painful hurts - the nightmares."

Success story

Jany Deng, 26, is one of the success stories.

He and his brother were among the first Lost Boys to arrive in Arizona in 1995. Since then, Deng graduated from high school and is nearly finished with his degree from Arizona State University West. In May, he became a U.S. citizen.

He works at the AZ Lost Boys Center as an outreach coordinator, teaching other Lost Boys about what it takes to thrive in Arizona.

But he knows not every story has a happening ending.

He and his brother walked across Africa together, but when they arrived in Phoenix, they drifted apart.

When they arrived, it was like coming from "the Stone Age to modern civilization," he said. It was hard, but since he was younger he lived with a foster mother.

His older brother, Simon, was on his own in an apartment he shared with roommates.

Simon had difficulty holding a job, complained about being taunted about his dark skin and talked of suicide, Deng said.

Two years after their arrival, his brother purchased a gun and rode the bus to the Catholic Social Services building, the agency that helped in his resettlement. In the parking lot, Simon fired shots in the air. Inside, he began shooting into the ceiling.

When police officers arrived, Simon refused to put the gun down; he continued shooting until he was shot by police, Deng said.

"If we had the center, I don't think my brother would have died," he said.

Teaching self-help

ASU's Berceli is working with the young men to help them recognize their trauma and learn self-help methods of recovery that involve breathing and exercise.

The center has applied for a behavioral health grant that they could use for trauma therapy and that would also make it possible to hire a member of the Sudanese community as a mental health outreach coordinator, someone who the young men trust and feel comfortable talking to, Wheat said.

"We could run AA meetings at our center and none of the guys would come, it's cultural. It's so far off the mark of what would be appropriate in their culture," Wheat said. Michael Shapiro, the center's education coordinator, said nightmares keep the Lost Boys from sleeping any more than three or four hours a night. One of the Lost Boys recalled a nightmare, Shapiro said, of how he woke up, sure that he was in Sudan, ready to be executed.

"He was convinced. He kept checking outside the window and realized he was in Phoenix."

The latest tragedy happened in February when Lost Boy, Joseph Abil, who had been suffering from depression took off on foot and wandered along Interstate 17 near Anthem during rush hour.

According to the Department of Safety, when a DPS officer stopped to question Abil, the two ended up in a scuffle. The officer tried to use his Taser but it misfired twice. Abil became more agitated and began throwing rocks. The officer shot Abil, who died in the median.

Abil, who was older and also one of the first Lost Boys, wasn't on anybody's radar screen, Wheat said.

Wheat said he had escalating depression, was unemployed probably wasn't taking the medication he'd been prescribed.

"I love the guys," Wheat said. "I don't want them all lost again."

Interview with Dennis McNamara, head of UN's Internal Displacement Division

From IRIN...

The Director of the Inter-Agency Internal Displacement Division of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Dennis McNamara, completed on 28 September a six-day mission to Sudan where he had a close look at what potentially might be the largest return operation of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in recent history.

During the mission, McNamara visited the areas of displacement around the capital Khartoum, transit areas along the Nile such as Kosti and Malakal, as well as areas of return, including the Nuba Mountains and the capital of southern Sudan, Juba. Below are excerpts from an interview with IRIN on 27 September in Juba:

Question: With the peace agreement signed between north and south Sudan, the new government of national unity in place and the rainy season ending in October, the international community is expecting - potentially - the largest displaced population in the world - an estimated 4 million people - to return in large numbers. How many people do you expect to return over the dry season from November to March 2006, and what are the kinds of problems you expect?

Answer: The United Nations' planning figure is about 580,000 returns to the south during this period, both from other areas within the south and from the north to the south. One of the largest displaced populations in the world is returning to one of the poorest areas in Africa and the world - after a prolonged war. One of the problems is always that - after a prolonged peace process - the expectations have been raised and that you get spontaneous movements regardless; that's inevitable and that's what's happening now. Even though conditions are not right in the south, and even while many people know they are not right.

It is also a country that never had a high level of development to begin with. It never had basic services in many of the villages. If you have less than 10 percent of the water supply in place for the resident population, historically underdeveloped, when you have got totally inadequate basic health and one percent - in some cases - of the children of the resident population going to school; if you superimpose on top of that another half a million, a million, or a million and a half, or a few million returnees - in a short time - you have a huge crisis. You essentially transfer the displacement problem from one part of the country to another.

So reconstruction is not really the right word. We are not recovering; we are starting. This country has been in a state of arrested development for 30 years. It's not rebuilding; it's building from scratch.

While we can't promote returns at this stage - because of the lack of services in the south - we also can't allow them to get out of control and very bad things to happen either in terms of protection or assistance. So we are not promoting, we are not organising, but we are trying to monitor and make sure that minimum protection and humanitarian assistance is available for those who need it. So it's rather a difficult balance.

The other major concern would have to be the donor focus on [the {strife}-torn western Sudanese region of] Darfur - which we asked for - and the agency focus. That has clearly detracted from some of the normal preparations and investments that one would expect in a peace process like this one.

Q: What are some of the key interventions that the UN is planning over the coming dry season?

A: One of the necessary interventions which is taking place already, is to stop the pressure in Khartoum on forcible relocations to unsuitable areas, which is a push-factor for returns. That is clear from the [UN] Secretary-General's report [on Sudan to the Security Council], and something the UN is very concerned about. Not that people are relocated, that's possible, but they need to be relocated properly with respect for their rights. That's a major issue and has to be linked to the return process.

The second thing would be to protect and monitor spontaneously returning IDPs by way-stations [points of transit] and other assistance measures that have been planned in these locations [such as shelter, sanitation, medical assistance]. Not to attract and encourage further returns, but to try and monitor and maintain minimum standards for those returning spontaneously.

Another effort is to get the US $55 million shortfall needed immediately for the returns currently taking place, and over the coming weeks and months. If we hope to have any impact during the peak of the return season, we need that money right now. We also try to get more involvement by agencies on the ground; the UN, but especially international NGOs. There is shortage of international agency presence in some of the key areas and key sectors. And that's crucial because they have to deliver at the community level.

The other factor would be starting up the new UN Mission in Sudan [UNMIS], which has a unique mandate and structure in terms of protection, for example, and directors for return and recovery as well as human rights. So starting that up and getting civilian personnel and to some extend the police and the military as well, to focus on securing the return process; which is referred to in the Security Council resolution [establishing UNMIS] to some extend: protection of civilians, but also supporting positions for sustainable return.

Q: Almost half of the IDPs are based in the Khartoum area; in settlements that are being destroyed on a regular basis, giving them little choice but to return. What is the international community planning to do about this?

A: There is a monitoring group, the Consultative Committee, chaired jointly with the EU and the government and with other donors and UN agencies, which is supposed to be the mechanism to make sure that any relocations are properly and fairly carried out to areas that are sustainable. That obviously did not have that much success because the most recent locations were not done properly and were not sustainable. But the idea is to reactivate that consultative committee and try and make sure there is a coordinated, agreed, proper process and there is no undue pressure on people to go to unacceptable conditions and maybe thereby, involuntarily return to the south.

Q: The UN doesn't want to encourage returns, but you are planning to assist people who are returning. How will the international community provide this assistance without encouraging returns? How will they strike the balance?

A: It is a delicate balance. We are essentially trying to provide minimum necessary protection and assistance on humanitarian ground, as opposed to providing incentives for return. If we were promoting returns, we would provide paid transport, we would organise convoys with escorts, with return packages, with post-return reintegration support. That would be a promotion of return. This is much more minimal assistance.

Q: The emphasis seems to be on assisting IDPs returning from the north to the south, but there is also a major component of south-south returns by people displaced within the south. Could [you] estimate the kind of numbers you are expecting to return within the south and the kind of assistance this group would need?

A: I don't know the details but the break-up is approximately 50-50, about two million IDPs around Khartoum and two million mainly in the south. So presumably the assessment of returns are roughly similar in terms of magnitude.

The major obvious factor would be that the Khartoum returns are essentially bringing back many people who have been urbanised or grew up in an urban environment, even if they had rural backgrounds. Whereas the south-south returns will mainly be to rural areas from rural areas rather than from major urban areas. One of the concerns is that Khartoum returnees, even if they came form rural areas, maybe inclined to go to urban areas after twenty years in Khartoum; stretching the services to the limit in these areas.

Q: How large is the potential risk that a large influx of people in underserved communities in the south will - effectively - lead to a transfer of IDP camps in the north to the south?

A: We have learned from refugee return movements in the south that unless you prepare them well and receive them well you put them from refugee camps into IDP camps. They turn from being refugees outside the country to being displaced inside the country. No shelter, no basic services, inadequate protection and dependent on aid. If you don't invest in these areas now, you're going to have large dependent populations who will need assistance and maybe protection, instead of in Khartoum, in Juba. If you get 200,000 who are coming to Juba next week, you're going to have IDP camps or returnee camps, and they will effectively become the slums of Juba, rather than Khartoum, if you're not careful.

Q: What is your key concern for the coming dry season?

A: I would say, protection during and immediately after the return, particularly of women and other vulnerable categories and adequate return assistance and some early recovery: the basics, water, minimal health care, some access to education, some kind of livelihood possibility. Because, unless you have those bits and pieces, it's going to be very hard to sustain, except through a large transfer of aid; leading to dependency.

These are very vulnerable people with all their worldly assets on the move and often without men, for example, women and children, or without their clan, the normal structures of protection.

What we learned through monitoring was that people were subject to incidents along the route. In places like Kosti [a major transit point on the Nile, south of Khartoum], they were left exposed, without any shelter, water, and no services. And really, as a protection measure it was decided to do these return activities: all the way stations, emergency transport and basic return packages. They really came out of concern about people's basic dignity, protection and to ensure the voluntariness of their return. This is not a basic planning exercise. We are doing this because we saw what people were up against and that they were vulnerable.

Norwegian minister travels to Sudan to push for peace

From the AP, reprinted on Sudan Tribune...

Norwegian Minister of International Development Hilde Frafjord Johnson will travel to Sudan to meet the new government and push for a nationwide peace, her ministry said Friday.

Norway helped mediate a peace accord that was signed in January to end a 21-year civil war in southern Sudan, but violence continues unabated in a separate conflict in the western region of Darfur.

Johnson will visit Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, on Oct. 1-4 to meet the government that took office on Sept. 15, as well as regional officials, her ministry announced.

"It is very positive that a new, unified government in Khartoum is now in place," she said in a statement. "We expect the government to push ahead with carrying out the peace agreement, and work to create peace in all of Sudan."

She also urged donor nations to follow through on pledges made earlier this year at a donor conference in Norway’s capital, Oslo.

"I will also raise the situation in Darfur, which is still extremely difficult," she said.

Norway, home of the Nobel Peace Prize and a mediator in some of the world’s worst conflicts, is providing economic support and expertise for Darfur peace talks lead by the African Union.

The Darfur uprising began in February 2004 when rebels took up arms against what they saw as years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin.

The United Nation estimates that the conflict has left 180,000 people dead and driven 2 million from their homes.

Zimbabwe bank chief calls halt to farm invasions / Land grabbers criminals: Gono / Farm evictions all over again / Gono contradicts Mutasa on land invasions

Five stories:

From AFP, reprinted on ReliefWeb...

Zimbabwe's central bank chief has called for a halt to farm invasions, calling those who try to seize land "criminals", a newspaper reported on [Friday].

"The invasions are totally unacceptable and should be stopped forthwith by whoever is doing it," Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono told the privately owned weekly Zimbabwe Independent.

"Those invading farms are now criminals," he said. [see below]

Gono's comments come in the wake of at least two land seizures in the small town of Chipinge in southeastern Zimbabwe last week.

In one case, Canadian coffee-farm owner Dave Wilding-Davies said he was leaving his farm after his farm manager was assaulted by a gun-toting mob.

Zimbabwe has since 2000 seized some 4,000 farms and redistributed them to landless blacks under its land reform programme, which it said is aimed at redressing colonial imbalances when white farmers owned most of the country's arable land.

A controversial constitutional amendment approved by President Robert Mugabe earlier this month allows the state to assume ownership of farms immediately after a property has been listed for expropriation, making it impossible for white farmers to seek legal redress.

Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said last week that some 4,000 farms now belonged to the state as a result of the constitutional amendment.

"Thereafter, there will be a mopping up exercise with those farms which escaped the net being accounted and gazetted for acquisition," Chinamasa added.

State Security and Lands Reform Minister Didymus Mutasa has also said that land reform would continue until all farms had been acquired by the state.

"Naturally we are going to acquire all land in Zimbabwe, make no mistake about that. After we have done that we are going to allocate that land to everybody irrespective of their race," Mutasa told AFP.

Fewer than 500 white farmers remain in Zimbabwe, where agriculture once accounted for 40 percent of the economy.

From the "Zimbabwe Independent"...

RESERVE Bank governor Gideon Gono has demanded an immediate end to farm invasions, describing the perpetrators as criminals.

Responding to questions on Wednesday during a tour of Bevking, a floriculture project at Kintyre Estate, Gono said new farm invasions were totally unacceptable and should be stopped.

"Those invading farms now are criminals," Gono said asking: "Where were they when others were being allocated land? The invasions are totally unacceptable and should be stopped forthwith by whoever is doing it."

Gono said the people who should feel insecure on farms at the moment are those who are not utilising the land as government was moving in to repossess it.

"Under-utilisation of the land knows no status," he said. "It cuts across the board, but government will not hesitate to repossess land not being used productively."

A fresh wave of land seizures hit the Chipinge and Nyazura districts of Manicaland last week when senior officers in the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), diplomats and the police are understood to have overrun at least four farms, beating and threatening farmers before chasing them off the land with the help of Zanu PF militia.

The Commercial Farmers Union strongly condemned the fresh wave of violence and appealed to the authorities to stop the campaign of assault and harassment of its members. It termed the harassment "a blatant flouting of human rights".

Gono's call contrasts sharply with State Security minister Didymus Mutasa's remarks. Mutasa, who is also in charge of land redistribution, reportedly threatened that government would step up evictions of the remaining white farmers to ensure all farmland was in the hands of blacks by the start of this year's rainy season around November.

A fortnight ago at a land audit meeting in Masvingo, Mutasa was reported as describing white commercial farmers as "dirt" which needed to be cleaned out.

Mutasa's threats have been widely viewed as having triggered last week's wave of violence on farms.

Since Mutasa's statement, at least five farmers have been violently evicted from their properties in the Nyazura and Chipinge areas. CIO agents reportedly led a gang of Zanu PF thugs which stormed Ashanti Farm in Chipinge.

From South Africa's "Mail & Guardian"...

A new wave of land invasions has rocked Zimbabwe, with at least five farmers being forced off their properties in the past week. Armed militiamen, accompanied by the police, army and the Central Intelligence Organisation, have been behind a spate of evictions in the Manicaland district.

Among those uprooted is David Wilding-Davies of the Ashanti farm who scooped the 2004 Coffee Grower of the Year Award for both quality and price. “I’m sorry I can’t talk to you, it’s too difficult for me,” he told the Mail & Guardian.

The only doctor in Chipenge town is also leaving after she and her husband were evicted from their farm, Destiny. Petra Baum Gatner told ZimOnline that she was forced to discharge sick patients and close down her Chipinge Trust Clinic because she had to leave the area. Fifteen workers, who had helped run the clinic for the past seven years, have also been left jobless.

In one incident, a group of armed men stormed the Brackenrich tea and coffee farm in Chipinge, 500km east of Harare, just before midnight on Tuesday. The distraught 68-year-old farm owner, Gideon Mostert, and his wife were forced to round up their belongings and vacate the land.

The police barred neighbours from entering the premises. At around 4.30am the couple were escorted off the grounds, leaving behind farming equipment and goods worth over R1-million. “I’m old, but will have to try and get another job. My wife is traumatised but trying to cope. My life’s savings are on the farm. It’s all I had,” Mostert lamented as he sat in the cottage of a friend who has offered him accommodation.

“What is heart-wrenching is that I had just started harvesting my coffee when all this happened,” Mostert told the M&G on Wednesday. “Now they will get all that and the proceeds that will follow.” On the farm are 20ha tea, 25ha coffee and a 50ha gum-tree plantation.

The latest land grabs sparked outrage from Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono. “Whoever is doing it is not doing it in the interests of the country, or even foreign currency generation. I don’t care who is doing it. It must stop,” fumed Gono, who is desperate to procure forex to settle the country’s debt with the International Monetary Fund and raise reserves for imports.

But the government seemingly does not share Gono’s concerns. Last week, Minister of Justice Patrick Chinamasa warned that “there will be a mopping up exercise with those farms that escaped the net”. Following the signing into law of constitutional amendments, which, among others, deny farmers legal recourse for seized land, Chinamasa said the Registrar of Deeds is now “obligated to immediately cancel all title deeds in respect of agricultural land that becomes state property”.

Deputy Minister of Finance David Chapfika also indicated this week that the government would have to renege -- for now -- on its promise to pay compensation for farm developments because the amount of money required was too much.

Despite receiving legal fees, estimated to be about R12-million, to contest the acquisition of farms since 2000, law firms can’t do anything for their clients after the recent constitutional changes effectively invalidated their claims. They are now considering taking the matter up with the International Court of Justice at The Hague. More than 4 000 white commercial farmers, some 200 being South African nationals, had lodged papers with the administrative courts.

Chris Botha (not his real name), who was evicted from his farm in Mashonaland West, said he and other farmers are lodging in flats in Harare. “We are farmers, there is nothing else we can do. We are not willing to leave; we prefer to be part of the economic recovery programme and continue farming,” said Botha.

From Reuters...

Zimbabwe's central bank governor has slammed a new wave of farm seizures in the country, branding the invaders "criminals" and warning their actions may hurt its already struggling economy, newspapers said on Friday.

Government-backed seizures of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to landless blacks largely halted a year ago, but there have been unconfirmed reports of new farm invasions in eastern Zimbabwe in recent weeks.

In the past few months, Central bank governor Gideon Gono has spoken out against what he describes as the under-use of land by some black farmers who benefited from the controversial land reform programme.

But it is not clear how widely his views are held in President Robert Mugabe's government, which on September 18 nullifed more than 4,000 court cases brought by white farmers challenging the forced acquisition of their land.

"Those invading farms now are criminals," Gono was quoted as saying by the privately-owned weekly Zimbabwe Independent during a tour of agriculture projects just outside Harare.

"Where were they when others were being allocated land? The invasions are totally unacceptable and should be stopped forthwith by whoever is doing it," he said.

The constitutional changes signed into law two weeks ago also effectively nationalised all white-owned farms.

Gono told the official Herald daily that the new invasions may have a negative impact on Zimbabwe's economy, which relies heavily on agriculture and has shrunk by about a third in the past six years.

"This would cause some disruptions in agriculture activities and as central bank, we do not condone such action," he said.

In May, Gono called on the government to allow some white farmers back on land seized for redistribution to blacks, to help revive an economy on the brink of collapse.

Critics say the land expropriation is partly responsible for waning commercial agriculture and food shortages since 2001, as new black farmers battle to raise production amid lack of funding, agricultural inputs and commercial farming skills.

Gono told the Independent the government would repossess land not used properly by the new farmers.

"Under-utilisation of the land knows no status," Gono said.

"It cuts across the board, but government will not hesitate to repossess land not being used productively."

Mugabe has defended farm seizures as necessary to correct colonial imbalances that left 70 percent of the richest land in the hands of a few white farmers.

The veteran 81-year-old leader says the economy, in its sixth year of recession, is a victim of sabotage by foes opposed to the land reforms and says the changes to the constitution will finally settle any dispute over the farm seizures.

From SW Radio Africa...

In the wake of fresh evictions and assaults on white farmers in Manicaland province, Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono is reported to have demanded an immediate end to farm invasions. According to The Independent newspaper, Gono described the perpetrators as criminals while answering questions on Wednesday during a tour of a floriculture project at Kintyre Estate. The recent farm invasions in Chipinge were perpetrated by CIO agents and government officials in the company of the local police. Farmers on the ground say they are confused about the government’s policy.

Gono’s words also contradict the message put out by the minister responsible for land reform himself. Just 2 weeks ago, minister Didymus Mutasa referred to the remaining white farmers as filth that must be cleared out. Trevor Gifford, chairman of [the] Commercial [Farmers] Union said these opposing signals have left farmers confused about government policy. He said on one hand, the financial side is telling them to produce foreign currency and feed the country. But the on the other hand, the land ministry is fuelling invasions and the theft of equipment and crops.

Gifford said the invasions have continued daily and mostly with police escorts. The police say it is a land issue, and when they approach the land officials, they are told it is a police matter. The CFU believes the government lacks the capacity to sort out the land mess.

In addition, all agricultural land was nationalised by the new Constitutional Amendment Act signed into law by Robert Mugabe. Farmers can no longer challenge the acquisition of their property by the state.

Gono also said the people who should feel insecure on farms at the moment are those who are not utilising the land as government was moving in to repossess it. Again it is government officials from the ruling party who took many of the farms now lying idle. And since Gono said under-utilisation of the land knows no status, it remains to be seen whether farms will be taken from ZANU-PF chefs.

Kinshasa says it will resist any foreign invasion

From IRIN...

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) said on Friday its army would resist any invasion by foreign forces.

"If Uganda, Rwanda, or any other country launches an attack on the DRC, we will fight," Henri Mova Sakanyi, the government spokesman, told IRIN in Kinshasa, the nation's capital.

Rwanda has not recently threatened to send its army into the DRC. However, [on] Thursday Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said the DRC government and the UN mission there, known as MONUC, had just two months to disarm 400 Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) fighters who in September crossed from Sudan to Congo's northeastern Garamba National Park.

"If the international community does not come in to do it, we shall go there," he said at a news conference in the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

Mova reacted, saying Museveni is not serious. "He will not attack, these are only threats."

The DRC government has already set a deadline for all illegal foreign combatants to leave the country by Friday. "If the foreign combatants refuse to disarm voluntarily the army will begin military operations against them," Mova said.

"We can't yet divulge the nature of those operations," he added.

Several Ugandan rebel groups have been based in the DRC near the border with Ugandan for years. Thousands of Rwandan Hutu rebels are also based in the DRC near the border with Rwanda.

UN council eyes compromise on extra Congo troops

By Reuters' Irwin Arieff...

The U.N. Security Council voted on Friday to give itself another month to haggle over sending reinforcements to the U.N. peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo ahead of planned elections.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has repeatedly asked to add 2,580 peacekeepers to the more than 16,000 already there to help prevent disorder in Congo's southern Katanga region as the vast central African nation prepares for its first democratic elections in 45 years.

The United States had previously blocked the additional U.N. soldiers but raised no objections during closed-door discussions of Annan's request on Thursday, council diplomats said, suggesting a compromise was in the works.

Council members signaled during those talks that there was "some room for flexibility on the numbers," French Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere told Reuters.

The 15-nation council normally would adjust troop ceilings at the time it renewed the U.N. mission's mandate, which was due to expire at midnight on Friday.

Instead, it voted unanimously to extend the mandate for one more month, until Oct. 31, to give Annan time to submit estimates of the extra cost of reinforcements.

The mission is already the United Nations' biggest and costliest peacekeeping operation with more than 16,000 troops, military observers and international police officers and an annual budget of about $1 billion.

The council earlier this month approved an additional 841 police officers to help train Congolese police and provide extra security as the country prepares for elections.

The goal of the U.N. mission is to implement a 2003 peace agreement ending a five-year civil war that drew in the armies of neighboring countries. An estimated 4 million people have died from fighting, disease and hunger during the conflict, which is still simmering in eastern Congo.

A transitional government is running the country until the elections, which are to be held by mid-2006.

But its reach is tenuous in the Katanga region, which is rich in gold and copper and threatened by armed groups.

In a signal of the importance it attaches to the coming elections, council members have decided to visit the Great Lakes region Nov. 4-11, traveling to Congo and neighboring Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania, de la Sabliere said.