BLUF
Sudan has been a sponsor of state terror for many years. It is also guilty of conducting genocide against its own people in the Darfur region. After years of rapes, slaughters, conflagrations against the tribes in Darfur the janjaweed are reported to continue their reign of terror with the support of the Syrian government, al-Bashir. Basjir is indicted for war crimes and wanted for trial at the International Criminal Courts, but he has yet to be arrested. Coming off of the terror list is going to allow Sudan to buy U.S. weapons. Guess who else is in Sudan. If you said Iran, you are right.
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.
Obama wants to remove an indicted criminal’s country from the State Department’s list of State Sponsors of Terror, thus opening a possible (troublesome and expensive) route for oil to come out of South Sudan. In turn, allowing the violent government of Indicted Criminal al-Bashir the opportunity to buy US weapons and restricted technology while sitting at the table with Iran.
BACKGROUND
Presence on the U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list bars a country from receiving U.S. arms exports, controls sales of items with military and civilian applications, limits U.S. aid and requires Washington to vote against loans to the country from international financial institutions. This is certainly a good list of reasons as to why Bashir would awant to come off the list.
Clinton has started the paperwork to remove Sudan from The List. The president will have to approve the recommendation. He has already stated, not in so many words, that he is going to approve it, after having opposed it in 2008 when Bush tried to remove Sudan from the list. Obama called it “reckless and cynical” then. The whole sale slaughter and ethnic cleansing of the Darfur region and having Iran in the Sudanese room does not now amount to reckless?
The janjaweed, a tribe of marauding horsemen, are of Arab origin. The word itself is Arabic for devils on horseback. One survivor of their atrocities has described his escape
“Burnt and soaking wet, I ran into the woods and climbed a tree. I stayed there all day. From my perch, I could see the Janjaweed and the Sudanese military killing people. Young boys, they beheaded immediately. Girls they killed and dumped in the river. Pregnant women had their bellies cut open with machetes and their breasts slashed.”
Reports of rape in order to breed Arab children in the black African Darfur region have also been reported.
A new UN report has reiterated claims that human rights abuses allegedly committed during the conflict in Sudan’s state of South Kordofan may amount to “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity,” and must therefore be fully investigated.
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.
“If substantiated [the actions] could amount to crimes against humanity, or war crimes for which individual criminal responsibility may be sought,” the report said.
This account was reported by El-Fadel Arbab. Mr. Arbab, you blame al-Bashir for those acts that happened and still continue today. When they happen tomorrow, will the world blame Obama? They will blame the U.S. when the attrocities are committed with Western weapons
UNMIS, whose mandate was terminated by Khartoum on 9 July, recommended the establishment of a commission of inquiry or other appropriate investigative authority, including the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the violence in Southern Kordofan and violations of human rights and humanitarian laws and to identify the perpetrators or those who bear the greatest responsibility, with the view to bringing them to justice. The UN Mission there was just visciously attacked not more than two weeks ago!
The ICC is already seeking to prosecute Sudanese individuals thought to bear the greater responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide it alleges were committed in the course of Sudan’s brutal counterinsurgency in the western region of Darfur, especially between 2003 and 2004.
The Hague-based court has issued arrests warrants for three Sudanese individuals, including the country’s President Omer Al-Bashir.
Al-Bashir denies any wrongdoing and denigrates the ICC as a tool of a Western conspiracy to dismantle his regime.The current governor of South Kordofan Ahmed Haroun is also wanted by the Hague tribunal.
The Security Council expresses grave concern about the ongoing violence and rapidly deteriorating situation in Abyei since the Council addressed the issue in its May
The Security Council strongly condemns the Government of Sudan’s taking and continued maintenance of military control over the Abyei Area and the resulting displacement of tens of thousands of residents of Abyei. The Council calls on the Sudanese Armed Forces to ensure an immediate halt to all looting, burning, and illegal resettlement.
The Security Council condemns the fact that two of the three main supply routes from the North to the South have been blocked,
Albashir Utilizes Forces from Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Nuba Mountains
July 27, 2011
Albashir regime in Khartoum has sought military support from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to fight against civilians in South Kordofan.
Obama Administration Links Sudan’s Removal From Terror-Sponsor List to Non-Terror-Related Issue
(CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration has started the process of removing Sudan from the shrinking list of countries designated as state-sponsors of terrorism, linking the move directly to Khartoum’s full implementation of a peace agreement that ended the long civil war between the north and south.
Following the finalization of a referendum on independence for southern Sudan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday the process of delisting Khartoum would now begin with the initiation of a review.
In line with statutory requirements, the president will have to certify to Congress that Sudan has not provided any support for international terrorism during the preceding six-month period. A 45-day notice period is required.
Sudan also will have to provide assurances that it will not support terrorism in the future.
But apart from those legal criteria for any country to be taken off the terror-sponsor list, President Obama last November also tied the move to an issue unrelated to support for international terrorism – Sudan’s compliance with the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended the long and brutal civil war between the Islamist-ruled, mostly Muslim north and the predominantly Christian and animist south.
Both the president and Clinton on Monday reiterated that linkage.
“For those who meet all of their [CPA] obligations, there is a path to greater prosperity and normal relations with the United States, including examining Sudan’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism,” Obama said in a statement.
For her part, Clinton said that in order to be taken off the list, Sudan must both meet the legal requirements relating to international terrorism and fully implement the CPA, including reaching a political solution with the south on the future of the disputed oil-rich Abyei region.
The Jan. 9 referendum on possible secession of the south was a key element of the CPA. According to official results released Monday more than 98 percent of ballots cast were in favor of independence.
Linking removal from the terror-sponsor list with issues not related to international terrorism has been controversial in the past.
When in 2008 the Bush administration was reported to be considering offering to remove Khartoum from the list in exchange for regime concessions on the Darfur conflict raging at the time, then presidential candidate Sen. Obama called the move “reckless and cynical.”
“[N]o country should be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism for any reason other than the existence of verifiable proof that the government in question does not support terrorist organizations,” Obama made that statement in April 2008.
Asked at a briefing Monday what the referendum had to do with not sponsoring terrorism, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley replied, “In our dialogue with the government of Sudan, where Sudan has made clear it wants more normal relations with the United States, this is one of the issues that is an issue between our two countries.”
“And we’ve indicated that going forward we are willing to work to resolve this – with the caveat again that there are particular legal requirements that have to be satisfied before this action could be taken,” he added.
When the Bush administration removed Libya and North Korea from the list, in 2006 and 2008 respectively, in both cases the decision was tied in part to the regimes’ undertakings on their weapons of mass destruction programs.
Given concerns about proliferation to terrorist groups, however, the WMD issue was seen as directly related to international terrorism.
(North Korea’s subsequent reneging on its denuclearization undertakings, nuclear and missile tests and aggression towards South Korea, brought calls in Congress and elsewhere 2010 for it to be returned to the list.)
Terror haven
Countries designated as terror-sponsors are subject to economic sanctions including a ban on arms-related exports and sales, restrictions on exports of “dual-use” items, and prohibitions on economic assistance. The U.S. also opposes loans by international financial institutions to listed countries.
Eight countries have a various times been on the list since it was established in 1979, with Sudan the most recent addition, in August 1993.
Today’s list comprises Sudan, Syria (added in 1979), Cuba (1982) and Iran (1984). Countries previously on the list were South Yemen (1979-1990), Libya (1979-2006) and North Korea (1986-2008.) Iraq was listed from 1979-1982, redesignated in 1990 after the invasion of Kuwait, and again removed after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Sudan was added to the list four years after President Omar Al-Bashir came to power in a military coup, and a year after Sudan began hosting al-Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden.
Bin Laden, who had been expelled by his native Saudi Arabia, used Sudan as his base of operations until 1996, and then returned to Afghanistan. A U.S. federal court in 2007 found that Sudan’s active support for al-Qaeda during the 1990s had been critical in enabling the terror network to develop the expertise and resources to bomb the USS Cole in Yemen’s Aden port in 2000, an attack that killed 17 U.S. sailors.
The same year as the terror-sponsor designation, 1993, the U.S. downgraded its embassy in Khartoum. It was closed entirely in 1996 “due to concerns regarding the Sudanese government’s ability to adequately ensure the safety of U.S. officials.”
After al-Qaeda bombed the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the U.S. bombed a factory in Khartoum, claiming it was being used to manufacture chemical weapons and was linked to bin Laden. Sudan denied the claims.
Relations began to improve slowly after 9/11. In 2002 the U.S. Embassy was reopened, although no ambassador has been posted and the mission is headed by a charge d’affaires.
U.S. economic, trade, and financial sanctions which were imposed in 1997 remain in place. Additional sanctions were introduced by President Bush in 2007 in response to the Darfur conflict, targeting Sudanese who were implicated in Darfur violence as well as companies owned or controlled by the regime.
Arms to Hamas
Since 9/11, the U.S. government has reported Sudanese cooperation in the campaign against terrorism.
In its most recent annual terrorism report, released last August, the State Department said “the bilateral counterterrorism relationship remains solid.”
But it also noted that members of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and “al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist elements” remained in the country during the period under review.
In one of the classified U.S. government cables released by Wikileaks late last year, the State Department in January 2009 raised concern about deliveries of Iranian-supplied arms to Sudan, destined for Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
It instructed the embassy in Khartoum to ask the Sudanese government to stop the flights, pointing out that Iranian arms exports are prohibited under U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Six months later another State Department cable referred to a “a significant volume of arms shipments to Hamas” crossing the Red Sea from Yemen into Sudan, from where they were believed to be transported north by vehicle.
Iranian Islamists Come Help Sudan Slaughter
What are we going to do about this?
Are we going to allow the Nuba people to be exterminated?
Press release
Sudan People’s Liberation Movement( SPLM)
Southern Kordofan/ Nuba Mountains
Albashir Utilizes Forces from Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Nuba Mountains
July 27, 2011
After militarily defeats on the ground and big numbers of Sudan Army Force (SAF) joining Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), the Albashir regime in Khartoum has sought military support from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to fight against civilians in South Kordofan.
SPLM’s sources yesterday monitored the arrival of 200 officers from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, accompanied with 10 advanced tanks to Kassala airport in Eastern Sudan. High security measures were on place by the time the Iranian Guards arrived to the airport. Kassala airport has previously witnessed the arrival of some Somali’s Islamic militia who was seen heading to South Kordofan two weeks ago.
In the light of this development the SPLM South Kordofan is now certain that the NCP regime is utilizing and deploying militias from outside the country in their ethnic cleansing war. In addition to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards that are heading to the area, the regime has already brought the militia of Peter Gadet from South Sudan, Somali’s fundamentalist groups and Janjweed militias from Niger and Chad.
The SPLM in South Kordofan condemns and denounces such irresponsible practices which will put the conflict in the area in a dangerous phase by deploying terrorist groups against the people of South Kordofan. The SPLM, once again, call upon the United Nation Security Council to form an international committee of inquiry to investigate crime against humanity and ethnic cleansing, and in particular to investigate the military deployment of these exported militias of terrorist groups.
The Struggle Continues.
Gamer Delman
Media adviser to SPLM South Kordofan
July 27, 2011
