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SUDAN
No security council seat
Bombing of civilians continues
Sudan’s nomination for UN Security Council membership is unacceptable as long as the government in Khartoum remains the principal threat to the safety of Sudan’s population, the Sudanese Episcopal Conference said.
The document released by the Sudanese bishops called on countries and multinational corporations to bring their involvement in Sudan’s petroleum industry to an immediate halt. The bishops said their help is prolonging the war that will inevitably annihilate the peoples of the Nubian mountains and the southern Blue Nile region.
Since 1983, the Islamic government of Khartoum has been waging a civil war against the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in the south where the majority of the population are black Christians. But ethnic and religious factors are not the only elements behind the conflict: it is increasingly clear that control over the oil wells in the southern part of the country lie behind the government’s offensive in the area.
“Petroleum has been discovered in southern Sudan. In addition to the war, are we slaves of international cartels as well? Do we have a right to peace, or are we slaves to petroleum?” Bishop Macram Max Gassis, vice president of the bishops’ conference, said. He has been forced to live in exile since 1990 and has only been able to operate in those areas of the country controlled by the rebel forces.
In their statement, the bishops expressed their “profound and unanimous concern over the continuous bombings of civilian targets carried out by the Sudanese government.” They called for both parties to the conflict to commit themselves to a cease-fire and for the military no-fly zones in force to be lifted to facilitate humanitarian operations in southern Sudan. The bishops’ plea follows a series of “indiscriminate bombings of civilian targets” in several areas in recent months. “The authorities in Khartoum use [military] aircraft to terrorize civilian populations. The bombings’ targets are churches, schools, and hospitals run by religious orders,” sources said.
The bishops called on the United Nations to monitor the cease-fire and enforce a ban on military flights in southern Sudan. The document also requests the Sudanese government to acknowledge the legitimacy of humanitarian operations being carried out in the area by NGOs and the Church, and to exclude these as military targets.
Despite the plea, a Catholic aid center was near the target of Sudanese government air attacks on October 11, a week after peace talks collapsed and on the same day the US prevented Sudan from gaining a seat on the influential Security Council.
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) said six bombs were dropped on the town of Ikatos in southern Sudan, landing near a school and the agency compound. The bombing was the first in three weeks after several during July and August in which civilians were targeted by the warplanes. Talks aimed at ending 17 years of war between the government and the SPLA broke down when the rebels rejected the Islamic government’s demands for the imposition of Sharia law across the country.
Meanwhile, the US took the counsel of the country’s bishops and blocked Sudan from election to the UN’s top decision-making body during annual elections. Colombia, Ireland, Norway, Singapore, and Mauritius were elected to receive seats on the council next year. The Security Council is composed of five permanent members with veto powers—the United States, Russia, Britain, China, and France—and 10 nonpermanent members, five of whose seats fall vacant each year. The seats up for election this year are currently held by Argentina, Canada, Malaysia, Namibia, and the Netherlands, whose terms end on December 31.
Sudan’s candidacy was strongly opposed by the US in a lobbying campaign that cited Khartoum’s alleged involvement in terrorism and poor human rights record. Sudan has been under UN diplomatic sanctions since 1996 for failing to hand over three men wanted for a 1995 assassination attempt in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. All council members, except the United States, want to lift the embargoes after declarations from Ethiopia and Egypt that the suspects were no longer in Sudan.
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