عاجل: المتاثرون يخرجون في مسيره داخل الخرطوم... واعتقال عدد من الطلاب

Quote: Sudan: Another Darfur in the making Sunday 6 May 2007 02:30. Printer-Friendly version Comments... By Ali Askouri * May 5, 2007 — While the world attention has been on Darfur for the last four years – though with little actions – the government of Sudan has been creating another Darfur. This time in the north, the part of the country that has been - mistakenly - considered by many observers as the base of support to the government. Numerous and recurrent incidences of detention shootings and killings of civilians people have taken place over the last two years. The conflict here is basically on land and water. Perpetrators here are known and receive the full and direct support from the president and work under his direct instructions. In northern Sudan, on the Nile river Fourth cataracts the government has started since 2003 what it called the Merowe dam. The dam project will displace more than 70,000 farmers living on the river banks. The project is being implemented by Merowe dam Implementation Unit (now renamed the Dams Implementation Unit) headed by a federal Minister under the direct supervision of the president of the Republic. Supported by Chinese Exim bank, the dam unit has been given exceptional powers that exempt it from any of the country laws, despite the rhetoric of the Niavasha Agreements or any others peace accords. The unit has its own army, security forces, secret accounts etc.. It is therefore not surprising that the unit has decided to displace more than 70,000 small farmers from the river banks to the barren Bayouda and Nubian deserts without blinking. To depopulate the villages upstream from the dam, the unit - taking advantage of its exceptional powers - resorted to a recurrent campaign of terror, intimidation and abuse. The claims of poor villagers who are affected by the projects were dropped aside, and the unit carried out its own set of compensation measures by force. In 2003, small group of women and children from Korgheli village (the dam site) demonstrated around the dam site to protest their forced displacement to the desert, the dam militia immediately opened fire on them, injuring many. In the following weeks their houses were demolished and they were all relocated to a desert location called Al Multaga. Experts and journalists who visited Al Multaga reported the inhospitable conditions which don’t meet the very basics for human life. In 2004, four of the Manasir community leaders were detained by the dam security unit for seven months. They were subjected to torture and abuse. They were eventually released without charges in June 2005. In the same year, when Chinese contractors occupied water wells belonging to Manasir nomads, bloodshed was only narrowly avoided when the dam militia armed with heavy artillery and automatic machine guns surrounded a peaceful meeting attended by thousands of Manasir in Sani oasis. In 2006, however, events in the area took a new turn when the dam militia attacked a meeting in Amri village, opening fire without warning killing three of the community leaders on the spot and injuring more than forty. Video footage showing the dam militia fighting with villagers was later broadcasted on the Arabic Al Jazeera Satellite channel Whereas in Darfur the government uses helicopters and aerial bombardment to depopulate villages, here the Nile’s flood water is the weapon of choice. During the peak of the flood (August last year) the dam authority flooded 2000 families in their houses without warning in order to force them to move to another desert location called (New Amri). When the relatives of the flooded families called for relief and food aid, the dam authority cordoned the area refusing access to UN agencies and the media. In New Amri, one of the proposed resettlement sites, the houses built by the dam authority were not big enough to accommodate the families being moved. The dam authority has also denied many families housing, leaving them with no option but to share small houses with relatives or live in the open air. Journalists who managed to enter the area reported that around 800 families are living in the open air without shelter. Despite the fact that these communities don’t oppose the dam project, the dam authority utterly refuses to negotiate with them or recognize their legitimate representatives, despite the fact that the authority witnessed their election. When the Manasir, one of the three groups affected, reached an amicable agreement on resettlement with the Nile state, the dam authority used its exceptional powers to ensure that the agreements was not implemented. Instead, it has insisted on its own relocation policies being strictly followed. In March 2007 the dam security forces tried to assassinate two of the Manasir leaders when they were taking part in a peaceful demonstration in Abu Hamad town. After the failure of the assassination attempt, five battalions of the dam militia were sent into the Manasir under the pretext that they we looking for arms and rebels. The force was trapped by the local people in a narrow rocky road. Unable to move in any direction, the militia commander had to ask for help from Khartoum. A government helicopter flew in the leaders of the Manasir community from Khartoum to ask their people to release the force. Once the force was released, the leaders who helped to negotiate its release were immediately arrested and detained by the dam militia. Six leaders of the Manasir community now remain in detention for over a month without charges. As if all this were not enough! While the conflict over Merowe is not yet settled the dam authority went further north to start a new dam project (Kajabar dam)! Unlike communities affected by Merowe dam, the Nubian communities in this area are unequivocally against the dam project. Last week the communities which will be affected by the dam organized a peaceful demonstration to protest the presence of the Chinese engineers and equipment on the dam site. As at Merowe, the dam militia opened fire on the protesters injuring 7: three of them are seriously injured and remained in hospital. While the world’s attention is mainly on Darfur these conflicts and recurrent incidences of violence go by unnoticed. The dam authority still refuses to negotiate with the affected communities and has instead chosen to evict them forcibly. The dam authority is amassing militia to attack the affected communities when the time comes. Reliable sources confirmed that the dam unit is building up forces at both ends of the proposed Merowe reservoir area - in Abu Hamad (south of the affected area) and Merowe (north of the affected area). Given on one hand, the decision of the affected communities not to leave their land under any circumstances and to be resettled around the lake of the reservoir, and the dam authority insistence to move communities out of their land by force, a violent confrontation seems inevitable. The affected communities wrote to the then UN special representative in Sudan (Mr. Jan Pronk) in 2006, notifying him of their plight. . Numerous meeting were also held with him and his supporting staff. To date no steps have been taken to protect the affected communities. If the UN mission has performed the duties in its mandate, the killing in Amri wouldn’t have happened, nor the shooting in Kajabar or the detention of the Manasir leaders. Next August an estimated 7500 families face inundation by the dam authority when the dam’s reservoir is filled. These families are determined not to move to any other place. The dam authority’s plan is to flood the communities, attack them by its militia and force them to go to the desert. It was reported in 2004 that the chief dam official said his policy for resettlement is “to flood these communities in their houses like rats“. This was the case in Amri last year and the same scenario is likely to be repeated this year. As the members of these communities have sworn not to leave to any other area, it is likely that mass killings by the dam militia to terrorize the communities will take place. While the international communities is still dragging its feet on Darfur, giving Khartoum government ample time to kill thousands of innocents people, the Darfurisation of northern Sudan seems inevitable.. The question that needs to be answered is “How many Sudanese innocent lives need to be slaughtered until the international community moves?”

Quote: نعلن تضامننا اللا محدود مع اهلنا في المناصير وامري وكجبار وليتواصل نضالهم ضد الصلف والعنجهية ورد حقوقهم واتمني الا يتوقف المظلمون من متابعة القضية، ولك الود