Sudan submits rebuttal to UN Security Council over S. Kordofan abuses
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August 18, 2011 (KHARTOUM) - Sudan has submitted a rebuttal to the
United Nations detailing its objections to a human rights report,
which alleges that war crimes and crimes against humanity may have
been carried out in South Kordofan, a key oil state bordering newly
independent South Sudan.
JPEG - 31.9 kb
Southern Kordofan residents outside UNMIS Kadugli compound after
fleeing fighting that erupted in June. (UN)
The UN Security Council is expected to hold a closed meeting on Friday
to discuss the conflict in South Kordofan between Sudan’s military —
and aligned militia — and forces of the northern sector of Sudan
People Liberation Army (SPLM-N).
On Monday a report from the UN’s Higher Commission for Human Rights
said that abuses allegedly committed om South Kordofan may amount to
“war crimes” and “crimes against humanity,” and must be fully
investigated.
Sudan’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Dafalla Al-Haj,
told Sudan’s official news agency (SUNA) on Thursday that the damning
report was not credible and was based on hearsay.
Khartoum reacted angrily when the report was published on Tuesday with
foreign ministry spokesman Al-Obaid Marawih describing its contents as
“biased and predicated on no evidence.” He told SUNA that the new UN
report was a “repetition” of report leaked to the media in July, which
was authored by the recently defunct UN Mission in Sudan.
UNMIS’s mandate expired on July 9 on the last day of the Comprehensive
Peace Agreement between Khartoum and former southern rebels the SPLA.
The culmination of the peace deal was South Sudan’s independence
following a self determination vote earlier this year.
But South Sudan’s independence was in some ways overshadowed by the
outbreak of fighting in South Kordofan between the SPLA-N and the
Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) five weeks earlier.
Fighters from the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan joined the South
Sudan-based SPLA in their two decade conflict with Khartoum. However
after South Sudan’s succession the largely SPLA-aligned Nuba and other
groups remain in North Sudan being governed by National Congress Party
(NCP) in Khartoum.
Before the conflict erupted in early June the situation in the area
was already tense after the political wing of the movement (SPLM) lost
state elections to the NCP in early May. The SPLM-N say that fighting
began when Sudan’s military attempted to disarm them on June 3.
Khartoum, however, blame the "rebels" for starting the fighting by
overrunning an police station in Kadugli the state capital.
The fighting quickly escalated into heavy aerial bombardment by
Khartoum amid reports of attacks targeting the state’s African
indigenous Nuba population.
A UN official last week said that at least 200,000 people in South
Kordofan have been killed, injured or forced to flee their homes and
land since the fighting erupted. Entitled “Preliminary report on
violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in
Southern Kordofan from 5 to 30 June 2011”, the new report underscored
the gravity of the acts committed by Sudan’s army and its allied
paramilitary forces in the region.
According to the report, “serious” violations of human rights law were
committed in South Kordofan, including enforced disappearances aerial
bombardments, forced displacement, abductions; house-to-house
searches; arbitrary arrests and detentions; targeted killings and
summary executions.
“If substantiated [the actions] could amount to crimes against
humanity, or war crimes for which individual criminal responsibility
may be sought,” the report said.
June’s leaked UNMIS report observed “especially egregious” conduct by
Sudan’s army and one of its allied paramilitary groups - the Popular
Defense Forces - saying they “have targeted members and supporters of
the SPLM/A, most of whom are Nubans and other dark skinned people.”
The US, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, has
called for the reports recommendation of an investigation into the
conduct of Sudan’s army and the SPLA during the conflict to be
implemented.
Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations urged all members
of the UN Security Council to join them "in pressing for
implementation of these recommendations".
However, it is unclear whether any action will be taken considering
that Russia and China, traditional allies of Sudan, are permanent
members of the council and only last week quashed US efforts to
condemn the action of Sudan’s military in South Kordofan.
The UNMIS report recommended that the International Criminal Court
(ICC) could be the appropriate body to investigate whether war crimes
or humanitarian law has been broken in South Kordofan.
On the behest of the security council the ICC has already investigated
the conduct of Sudan’s counter insurgency campaign in the country’s
restive region of Darfur. This resulted in indictments in 2007 for
Sudan’s president and the now governor of South Kordofan, who was at
the time minister for interior. Both were charged with war crimes and
crimes against humanity,while President Omar Hassan al-Bashir was
further charged with genocide by the Hague-based court in 2009.
Sudan responded to the recommendations of the report not only by
dismissing it as as "unfounded" and "malicious" but also announcing
the creation of its own fact finding committee to assess the human
rights situation and international humanitarian law in the state.
Ambassador Al-Haj told SUNA that he had petitioned the current chair
of the Security Council and all its members to await the results of
Sudan’s own investigation before the issue of South Kordofan is
discussed. He also complained that Sudan would not be able to sit in
the closed meeting.
(ST)
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