 |
 |
|
|
|
|
Anti-government demonstrations took place in several towns. In September, riots in Omdurman and Khartoum, the capital, in which at least three people were killed, followed changes in the price of flour and a strike by bakers.
Armed forces of the opposition National Democratic Alliance (nda), an umbrella grouping of banned political parties, began military activity close to the Eritrean border. In the south and the Nuba Mountains war continued between the government and the armed opposition Sudan People's Liberation Army (spla), led by John Garang de Mabior. In April, the government concluded a peace agreement with a faction of the divided armed opposition South Sudan Independence Army (ssia) led by Riek Machar Teny-Dhurgon. An armed group led by Kerubino Kuanyin Bol, which operated as a government militia in northern Bahr al-Ghazal, also signed the agreement with the authorities.
Serious human rights abuses were committed by all sides in continuing fighting. Millions of people remained internally displaced _ 1.8 million around the capital alone _ and hundreds of thousands were refugees in neighbouring countries. The government extended its program of creating and supporting proxy militia groups to Ugandan armed opposition movements which were responsible for gross human rights abuses in Uganda (see Uganda entry).
In May, following repeated reports of the forcible abduction of children by the paramilitary Popular Defence Force (pdf) in the war zones of the south and west, the government announced the creation of a committee to investigate allegations of enforced or involuntary "disappearances" and of slavery. The committee had not issued a report by the end of the year.
In April, the un Commission on Human Rights condemned the human rights situation in Sudan and recommended the placement of human rights field officers to monitor the human rights situation. The un took no steps towards creating such monitors. In the same month, the government agreed to renew cooperation with the un Special Rapporteur on Sudan, who had been denied access to the country since 1994. In August, the Special Rapporteur visited Khartoum. His interim report to the un General Assembly in October concluded that the human rights situation had deteriorated since April 1996. In September, the un Special Rapporteur on religious intolerance visited Sudan.
Hundreds of suspected government opponents were arrested and detained without charge or trial for periods ranging from a few days to several months. They included southern Sudanese, students, trade unionists, members of banned political parties and people suspected of having links with the nda in Eritrea. The majority of prisoners arrested in the capital and held for more than a few days were detained in a section of Kober Prison run by the security services. Secret detention centres notorious for torture, known as "ghost houses", remained in use. On release many prisoners had to report daily to security offices where they were forced to wait until sunset.
Prisoners of conscience held at the start of the year included students, left-wing political activists and southern Sudanese detained in 1995. For example, 19 students detained days before the anti-government protest in September 1995 were released in January, but three men arrested with them, among them Adlan Ahmad Abdel Aziz, a supporter of the banned Sudan Communist Party (scp), remained in detention until April and May.
In June, dozens of trade unionists and other activists were arrested in towns and cities in northern Sudan, after supporters of the nda delivered a petition to the President calling on the government to step down. Eight men arrested in Wad Medani were held for three weeks after a similar petition was delivered to the Regional Governor of Central State. The clamp-down continued into July with further detentions in Khartoum, New Halfa and Dongola. The majority of detainees were released shortly before the arrival of the un Special Rapporteur on Sudan in August, but many, for example Ismail al-Azhari, a supporter of the scp, were rearrested in early September after rioting in the capital.
Over 200 men were detained on suspicion of treason-related offences; 72 were subsequently charged, many after several months in detention in "ghost houses" and Kober Prison. For example, at least 28 civilians were arrested in January on suspicion of recruiting for the armed forces of the nda. Nine were released, but in May, 19 were charged with waging war against the state. Released on bail, they were almost immediately rearrested.
In August, the military trial of Colonel Awad al-Karim Omar Ibrahim al-Naqar and 30 others, including 10 civilians, arrested in March and April, opened days after the men had been charged with waging war against the state. Over 120 soldiers and civilians had been initially detained in March but the majority were released within two weeks. The trial, which took place in camera and did not afford the accused rights to full defence representation, was still in progress at the end of the year. Brigadier Mohamed Ahmad al-Rayah, who had been convicted at an unfair military trial in October 1991, was released in February. He had refused an offer of release in August 1995 made on condition that he withdraw a complaint that he had been tortured and raped in custody (see Amnesty International Report 1992).
Torture of suspected government opponents remained widespread; prisoners held in security offices and "ghost houses" on suspicion of plotting against the government or having information about opposition activities were particularly at risk. Methods used included beatings and forcing detainees to do physical exercises or to stand for long periods in the sun. In January, Abdallah Ali Adam and eight other men were badly beaten with rubber hosepipes and batons after their arrest in Kassala, close to the Eritrean border. Taj al-Sir Mekki Abu Zeid and others detained in Khartoum in the same month were beaten, tied and suspended from the wall, doused in cold water and locked in a deep freeze in order to extract confessions.
Amputations and floggings were imposed as judicial punishments. In May, 10 men convicted of hiraba (armed robbery) were sentenced to amputation of the right hand and left foot by a court in Darfur. In June, the Director of Prisons announced that there were 100 prisoners in Kober Prison awaiting the implementation of their sentences of limb amputation. In Khartoum 35 people, most of them school and university students, received 20 lashes in September immediately after they were convicted of instigating violent demonstrations after an unfair trial before a Public Order Court.
pdf paramilitary forces and other militias forcibly abducted scores of children in operations in the war zones which further displaced tens of thousands of civilians. In March, over 70 children were abducted in raids by pdf troops near Abyei. Some were reportedly freed but the majority remained unaccounted for. Dozens of children were abducted by pdf troops escorting a supply train in April. Hundreds of children abducted in Bahr al-Ghazal and the Nuba Mountains by the pdf and other militias in previous years remained missing, with many reported to be held in domestic slavery.
The fate of hundreds of prisoners who "disappeared" in previous years remained unknown; the commission of inquiry into events in Juba in 1992 when over 200 people "disappeared" again failed to produce a report (see Amnesty International Report 1995).
Hundreds of people were extrajudicially executed during raids by the pdf and other militias. pdf troops escorting a train were responsible for dozens of killings in villages west of Ariath in February; 13 civilians were extrajudicially executed in Marol Deng and others at Majok Kuom. Over 60 people were extrajudicially executed by the pdf in March in villages around Abyei and along the Bahr al-Arab. The village of Mabior, made up of internally displaced people returned from Khartoum, was destroyed.
Government aircraft carried out indiscriminate and deliberate attacks on civilian targets throughout the year. In August, helicopter gunships killed five people in a rocket and machine-gun attack on civilians at Kotobi in Western Equatoria.
At least 18 men were sentenced to death after convictions for armed robbery; three of them were sentenced to be hanged and their bodies crucified. There were reports that two men among those who "disappeared" in Juba (see above) were executed at a military jail in Kerrari in February.
Armed opposition groups were responsible for serious human rights abuses, including holding prisoners of conscience, torture, abducting children and deliberate and arbitrary killings. In April, spla soldiers detained and tortured community elders in Huma near Ikotos. Although the elders were quickly released, there was reportedly no further action by the spla leadership. In August, six Roman Catholic nuns and priests were detained for 11 days by an spla commander at Mapurdit after they opposed his efforts to conscript schoolchildren.
ssia forces were responsible for scores of deliberate and arbitrary killings in attacks on settlements of people from the Dinka ethnic group in territory controlled by the spla. In March, over 50 men, women and children were killed in attacks on cattle camps in Abuong; nine girls and a boy were abducted. Three children were among nine people hacked to death in an attack on Adior in the same month. Civilians were targeted in attacks on cattle camps and villages at Langkap and Akop in April. Eleven people were killed at Akop and at least 19 abducted.
Amnesty International urged both government and armed opposition groups to end human rights abuses. The organization called on the government to end detention without charge or trial and torture; to prevent extrajudicial executions and abductions; and to clarify the fate and whereabouts of children abducted and believed to be held in domestic slavery. It called on the spla and ssia to take steps to end deliberate and arbitrary killings.
In April, Amnesty International wrote to the Minister of Justice welcoming the government's decision to renew cooperation with the un Special Rapporteur. In May, the organization published a report, Sudan: Progress or public relations?, which described human rights developments since the launch of its international campaign against human rights violations in Sudan in January 1995, and renewed its call for the deployment of human rights monitors.
In March, as part of a response to the un Special Rapporteur on Sudan's report to the un Commission on Human Rights, the government accused Amnesty International of being "politically motivated against Islam". In July, the Minister of Foreign Affairs denied that the authorities were complicit in the abduction of children for the purposes of slavery. Also in July, the organization received a letter from the Minister of Justice which rejected the deployment of human rights monitors but said that the government was committed to dialogue on human rights concerns. In July and again in August, Amnesty International wrote to the government proposing to meet relevant officials in Sudan. The authorities did not respond to the letters.
In April, an Amnesty International delegation visited southern Sudan to attend a conference on civil society and civil authority and to meet senior officials. While accepting that human rights abuses had taken place in the past, the officials denied that spla forces had been responsible for specific incidents raised by the organization. In May, Amnesty International wrote to the leaders of both the spla and the ssia calling on them to investigate deliberate and arbitrary killings.
Amnesty International included reference to
its concerns in Sudan in an oral statement to the African Commission on
Human and People's Rights of the Organization of African Unity in March.
|
|
