Category: Sudan

Anarchy in Africa: U.S., U.K. Evacuate as South Sudan Spirals Out of Control UPDATE: Rebels Hit U.N. Mission

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The United States has evacuated non-essential personnel from its embassy in Juba, South Sudan, British nationals are being evacuated, and people are trying to make sense of the crisis that developed suddenly over the weekend:

During the final session of the National Liberation Council, one of the ruling party’s highest political organs, on December 15, there was a dispute among different elements of the Presidential Guards (Tigers) over orders to surrender their arms. According to Adwok, guards were disarmed but later the officer in charge opened the stores and rearmed only the Dinka soldiers. The Nuer guards questioned this, a fistfight ensued and more Nuer soldiers came in and broke into the stores. The Nuer soldiers managed to take control of the headquarters and the next day after some SPLA reinforcements, the mutineers were dislodged. There is no evidence of any planning, masterminding or political coordination before or during the clash.
Although ethnicity is a major factor, the crisis was actually precipitated by a deep political rift and power struggle. Yes, the President Salva Kiir is a Dinka and his rival the former vice-president Riek Machar is a Nuer. Yes, the race card is being played by both sides, and certainly it is a real dimension of the conflict especially at the ground level. But behind Riek Machar is a coalition that includes prominent Dinka politicians as well such as the former Sudanese minister of foreign affairs and the widow of the founding father of the SPLM John Garang. Other prominent non-Nuers are in the camp of the former vice president such as the now dismissed secretary-general of the ruling party, Pag’an Amum, a Shilluk.

Reuters reports that oil workers are being evacuated, and witnesses report that SPLA troops targeted ethnic Nuers.

South Sudan only recently gained its independence from Sudan’s Muslim-dominated Khartoum regime, and this sudden descent into violent tribal anarchy is profoundly disappointing for those who supported Juba’s independence. The breakdown of discipline in the SPLA is particularly disturbing, and remember that South Sudan is right next to the Central African Republic:

Armed gangs are rampaging through the Central African Republic carrying out atrocities including executions and mutilations, despite the presence of French and African troops.
Reports by two leading human rights organisations say the situation in the war-torn country is spiralling out of control and requires a robust response from the international community.
Both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International say the death toll is much higher than reported and that peacekeeping forces in the CAR must be beefed up to protect the population from further war crimes.

Have you heard anything about this on the national news? Has any reporter asked our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president about it? No, of course not. Innocent people are being slaughtered wholesale, but it’s not “news” because, hey, it’s just Africans.

On the one hand, media silence about the bloodbath in central Africa is racist, but on the other hand, it’s also “racist” to expect Obama to do something to prevent genocidal violence. So this brutality continues, and we’re not supposed to notice.

UPDATE: South Sudan is rapidly going from bad to worse:

The United Nations says it fears casualties after attackers forced their way into a peacekeeping base in South Sudan’s Jonglei state.
Rebels from the country’s second-largest ethnic group, the Nuer, attacked the base, targeting civilians of the majority Dinka ethnic community. . . .
UN spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters on Thursday that “fighting took place” at the compound in Jonglei.
“We fear there may have been some fatalities but can’t confirm who and how many,” he said.
The UN peacekeeping mission is sheltering civilians in five state capitals, including Juba and Bor. The attack on the Jonglei compound came after Nuer rebels seized control of Bor. Even before the unrest, Bor was seen as one of the most volatile areas of South Sudan.
Earlier, there were reports of gun battles in the town, as renegade officers fought with troops still loyal to the president.

 


‘Machine Gun Preacher’ Endorses Mitt

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When the cellphone rang this morning and I saw the name on caller ID, it was a pleasant surprise: “Sam, how the heck are you, man?”

Pastor Sam Childers, the Harley-riding missionary whose amazing life story inspired the film Machine Gun Preacher, caught me up on his latest activities and asked what I was up to. After I told him I’ve been out covering the presidential campaign, Pastor Sam told me how some reporters had kept after him about crazy rumors that he was diamond smuggler or a gun runner, and he threatened to run for president himself:

“There’s nobody on this earth, including Christ, who has ever done anything good that people didn’t come against him. Nobody. And I made the comment the other week: If they keep coming up with any more garbage or accusations, I’m going to run for president in 2016.”

Don’t doubt him for a minute. He’s done crazier things than that before, but he was laughing about it, especially when he said some other reporters had actually taken him seriously. Pastor Sam is truly unique — sui generis — and is politically independent.

Of course, he’s a Bible-believing Christian fundamentalist, but Pastor Sam comes from a blue-collar background and has a natural skepticism toward politics and politicians, so he’s not officially part of the “Religious Right” and, indeed, his courageous missionary work in Sudan and Uganda has won him the admiration of many Hollywood liberals. As a matter of fact, in 2007-08, the candidate who most interested him was Democrat John Edwards.

Pastor Sam’s vote for Mitt Romney? Yeah, that’s actual news.

Pastor Sam is currently preparing to go back to Africa and his Angels of East Africa ministry is raffling off a motorcycle to raise money, and God bless everyone who clicks that link and gives. He is a righteous servant of the Lord, no matter what Vanity Fair says about him.

Sam was telling me about the smears, which really do annoy him, but he’s learned to laugh about it: “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” Indeed. And never doubt the miracles God can do.

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UPDATE: Jai Simon reminds us that Sam Childers is the “only man Chuck Norris fears.” Trust me, you never want to see Sam angry.
 

U.S. Recognizes Southern Independence!

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After seceding from the North and fighting the longest civil war in modern history, South Sudan has finally gained its independence, and has been officially recognized by the United States:

President Barack Obama says the achievement is a tribute to the generations of southern Sudanese who “struggled for this day.”

So having recognized the legitimacy of secession . . .

Oh, well. Just keep this in mind, y’all.

The South Rises Again (in Sudan)

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A referendum begins, and voters in South Sudan are expected to approve their independence from Khartoum:

Joy marked the faces of South Sudanese citizens as they waited in long lines at polling stations throughout this dusty boomtown that, come July, is likely to be the world’s newest capital.
In Juba, many residents rose before dawn to get in line for their chance to vote in this historic referendum on whether semiautonomous South Sudan will secede from Sudan. Others stood in the baking sun for the chance to make the choice of a lifetime. After decades of struggle, emotions of relief, happiness, and excitement abounded among voters. . . .
“This is democracy at its most basic, where people are choosing their future, and how and by whom they want to be governed,” said former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in the country with former President Jimmy Carter’s election observation mission.
“It’s important that the enthusiasm, the energy, leads to solid results that are expected by everyone,” Mr. Annan said, while women in line to vote behind him ululated spontaneously – a sign of celebration which was a a common occurrence Sunday, the first day of polling.
A few minutes before Annan and Mr. Carter arrived, a southern man had led the hundreds of soon-to-be voters in chants of “hallelujah.”

If at first you don’t secede . . .

‘If We Go Back to Darfur, These Arabs
Will Shoot Us, They Will Kill Us’

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From an Associated Press story about the Jan. 9 referendum for South Sudanese independence:

While some Arab northerners have been selling their southern homes and businesses to move north, Darfuris say they have no plans to leave.
“If we go back to Darfur, these Arabs will shoot us, they will kill us,” Adam said. Now he works every hour he can in a sweltering restaurant in the southern town of Aweil to try to bring his wife to join him.
Darfuris say they feel closer to the south than the north because the horrors they have endured in their own region – bombing and persecution at the hands of government-backed militias – are similar to those inflicted upon southerners during the separate north-south war. Many say they also feel ethnically closer to the African southerners than the Arab-dominated government in the north.
“We are all African,” explained Musa Ali, a Darfuri man who runs a car rental and repair shop in the southern town of Aweil. “We Darfuris and southerners, we are one kind of people … In case of trouble during the referendum, I will not go back,” he said.

The AP’s Maggie Fick unfortunately leads that story with a lot of nonsensical hand-wringing over the prospect that South Sudanese independence will somehow be bad from a human-rights perspective. Ignore that crap. The problem in Sudan is so simple it can be summarized in a single word: Khartoum.

The Arab autocracy that has turned Darfur into a slaughterhouse is the same corrupt regime that fought a 20-year war to try to impose Islamic sharia law on the Christian/African south. Thank God and John Garang, the southerners fought Khartoum to a stop, negotiated a ceasefire and are now barely a week away from voting on independence.

Do not be deceived by any fear-mongering in the media. The only hope for human rights in Sudan is southern independence. If you want to help Darfur, support freedom for Southern Sudan.