Africa

September 19, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - Senior Sudanese and U.S. officials on Thursday will meet in New York to continue discussions on bilateral relations.

John Kerry (R) shakes hands with the Sudan's FM Ibrahim Ghandour as they pose for photos at the Palace Hotel in New York, October 2, 2015. (Photo Reuters/Stephanie Keith)

According to Al-Sudani newspaper on Monday, a ministerial team formed by President Omer al-Bashir to follow up on relations with Washington, would discuss with U.S. officials ways to normalize ties between the two countries and possibilities for implementing partial lifting of sanctions especially with regard to banking wire transfers.

The Sudanese team is headed by foreign minister Ibrahim Ghandour and it includes representatives from the Defence Ministry, Finance Ministry, Central Bank of Sudan (CBoS), Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC) and the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS).

Also, the governor of the CBoS, Under-Secretary of the Finance Ministry, Under-Secretary of the Foreign Ministry, and the head of the economic sector at the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) besides several economists have arrived in New York to participate in a joint business symposium with the U.S. officials.

According to Al-Sudani, the Sudanese side will seek during the symposium to inform the U.S. media on the adverse impact of the economic sanctions imposed on the country.

It is noteworthy that the U.S. authorities have exempted Sudan's permanent mission to the United Nations and the Sudanese embassy in Washington from the financial sanctions and allowed them to receive money transfers from the CBoS through a third party.

In May 2015, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) appointed Idriss Jazairy as UN Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights in Sudan.

Sudan's foreign minister Ibrahim Ghandour disclosed that he has discussed with his American counterpart John Kerry ways to elaborate a road map to normalize ties between Khartoum and Washington during the coming period.

Following a meeting in New York in October 2015, Ghandour said that he discussed with his American counterpart John Kerry ways to elaborate a road map to normalize ties between Khartoum and Washington during the coming period.

Since, the two sides held several meetings to that effect but no tangible move has so far been taken.

Sudan says Washington didn't honour its pledges to lift Sudan from the United States list of state sponsors of terrorism after the independence of South Sudan and kept sanctions for political reasons.

But Washington says Khartoum has to end the armed conflict in South Darfur and Blue Nile states and to settle Darfur crisis.

CONFERENCE ON U.S. SANCTIONS ON SUDAN IN NEW YORK

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of State said it would host a conference on Monday in New York to discuss the U.S. sanctions on Sudan.

In a media note extended to Sudan Tribune on Monday, the U.S. Department of State said it would be represented in the conference by the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan and South Sudan Donald Booth and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs Andrew Keller.

“Representatives from the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security will provide technical guidance on complying with U.S. sanctions and export controls relating to Sudan” read the media note.

“This conference is consistent with U.S. government efforts to conduct compliance outreach to inform the public about U.S. sanctions and export controls. Attendees will include domestic and foreign financial institutions. A Sudanese delegation led by the Governor of the Central Bank of Sudan will also attend,” it added.

Sudan has been under US economic sanctions since 1997 and remains on the US list of state sponsors of terror.

Washington eased the sanctions imposed on agriculture equipment and services, and allowed exports of personal communications hardware and software. Also, the US Treasury Department removed the private Bank of Khartoum from a blacklist of Sudanese entities.

(ST)

September 19, 2016 (EL-FASHER) - Tribes residing in the locality of Kabkabiya in North Darfur state have signed a document to enhance peaceful co-existence, fight against crime and promote security.

Leaders of the Abbala and Beni Hussein tribes from North Darfur's El Sereif area celebrate after signing a reconciliation agreement in El Fasher on 27 July 2013. (Photo: Albert Gonzalez Farran/UNAMID/AP)

According to the document seen by Sudan Tribune on Monday, the Kabkabiya tribes renewed commitment to unify efforts to combat various types of crime and vowed to waste blood of the outlaws who attack and loot individuals and groups.

The document also pointed to the commitment of the tribe to carry out joint work to capture criminals and to achieve peace in the locality, holding the Sudanese army responsible to protect the residents and enforce the security decrees.

The peaceful coexistence document, which is titled “Covenant and Charter”, was signed by traditional administrations leaders Al-Tayeb Abakora Ahmadai and Abdel-bagi Abdel-Rahman on behalf of the tribes in the locality of Kabkabiya.

Kabkabiya, which is located in west North Darfur state, has witnessed repeated killing and robbery incidents besides tribal clashes. Armed militias particularly those affiliated with the government and known as Janjaweed have large presence in the locality.

Last June, North Darfur governor Abdel-Wahid Youssef accused unnamed parties of seeking to keep the “insecurity and instability” situation in Darfur, pointing to “hidden hands that prompt the security chaos in all Darfur's five states not only North Darfur”.

He declared a state of maximum readiness among regular forces to control the lawlessness situation in the state and prevented riding of motorcycles, wearing of Kadamool (a turban which covers the face) and holding arms inside the capital, El-Fasher.

(ST)

September 19, 2016 (JUBA) - South Sudanese government under the leadership of President Salva Kiir on Monday revealed that it was in talks with General Peter Gatdet Yak, former Deputy Chief of General Staff in the opposition group led by Riek Machar. He defected from Machar in 2015.

General Peter Gatdet Yak addressing a conference in Pagak, South Sudan, April 20, 2015 (ST photo)

The government said approaching the defected army General through dialogue was important for consolidating peace and stability in the country.

“This country called South Sudan needs all of us to cooperate. This is our country. There is no need to destroy it. The solution can't be achieved through holding weapons. It can be found around the table of dialogue. There is nothing which cannot be solved. The president of the republic is ready to bring peace through peaceful dialogue,” Tut Kew Gatluak, Presidential Advisor on Security Affairs, said on Monday.

The presidential aide was reacting to reports that the president has approved behind the scene talks with the hold out armed and non-opposition leaders as a political strategy and tactics to weaken the support base of his main political rival and armed opposition leader, Machar.

Several government officials have repeatedly claimed in a series of interviews with Sudan Tribune on Sunday that General Peter Gatdet Yak has indicated readiness to abandon the armed struggle and return to Juba.

Yak, according to presidential sources, had allegedly spoken numerous times to the president through his security advisor during which he demanded a position of deputy commander in chief, a post which does not exist in the constitution but previously created to accommodate late Paulino Matip Nhial.

It remains unclear whether the president will accept or which position he will have to create for him.

Observers say President Kiir and his new First Vice President, Taban Deng Gai are jointly working on a strategy to influence Yak and several other opposition leaders to abandon armed struggle and return.

“We are all South Sudanese and it is therefore our duty to collectively reject any political decision by some politicians that starts with the shedding of blood,” Gatluak told Sudan Tribune on Monday.

General Yak is currently living in Nairobi, Kenya, after he left Khartoum, Sudan, two weeks ago.

(ST)

As Nigeria's Paralympians return from Rio victorious, BBC Sport's Oluwashina Okeleji asks what the faltering national football team could learn from them.

Early diagnosis of disease is literally a matter of life and death, so the race is on to produce cheaper, faster, lighter kits to help doctors and nurses in the field.

United Nations Secretary-General today expressed deep concern about the violent clashes between protestors and security forces in Kinshasa, and several other locations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Condemning recent violence in Ndomete and Kaga Bandoro in Central African Republic (CAR), the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the country (MINUSCA) called on local communities to remain calm and underlined its right to take appropriate measures to prevent destabilization of the situation.

The United Nations and humanitarian agencies in Libya today issued an urgent appeal for $10.7 million to meet life-saving emergency assistance for close to 80,000 people located within the Libyan city of Sirte until the end of the year.

The 10 remaining fluent speakers of the Kenyan language Yaaku are trying to make sure that it is not lost forever.

Nigerian novelist and writer Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani questions whether a South African school's hair rules really were racist or if something else was at play.

September 18, 2016 (JUBA) – Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) has been linked to the ongoing money laundering by corrupt government officials in South Sudan, including senior military leaders sanctioned by the United Nations in the wake of the civil war which erupted in December 2013.

The US-based The Sentry organization in its report released in Washington after a two-year investigation into the corruption in South Sudan, money movement and assets locations, it found that the Kenya Commercial Bank has taken part in transferring the stolen money outside of South Sudan by government's corrupt officials.

Among the senior army generals in South Sudan which the report named as conducted illegal money transfers to his personal bank account in the Kenyan bank is General Gabriel Jok Riak, who had been transferring hundreds of thousands of US dollars yet is monthly salary is less than $3,000 dollars, or only about $35,000 a year.

General Riak, commander of Sector One, which include Divisions 3, 4, and 5, of the South Sudan's army, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), has been under the United Nations sanctions for his brutal role in the civil war in which all his assets have been frozen and he is banned from travelling to another country.

“Specifically, Gen. Jok Riak had command authority over a full-scale 2015 offensive across three states in violation of multiple ceasefires, and resulting in the displacement of over 100,000 people and the commission of grave war crimes,” said The Sentry report, titled ‘War Crimes Shouldn't Pay.'

Eyewitness accounts, it said, collected by Human Rights Watch have detailed the conduct of soldiers deployed with Sector One, describing elderly women beaten to death, sexual violence, looting, and destruction committed under his command.

However, the General had been transferring huge sums of money through the KCB in the money laundering business.

“Bank records reviewed by The Sentry indicate that Gen. Jok Riak received large financial transfers totaling at least $367,000 to his personal bank account at Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) from February to December 2014 alone—sums that dwarf his official annual salary of about $35,000,” The Sentry report revealed.

According to The Sentry report, records of payments totaling $49,000 came from an individual who shares a name with an individual who then served as advisor in the Office of the President, while an additional $308,524.10 came from Dalbit International, a Kenyan multinational corporation operating in South Sudan that is one of the country's largest petroleum and fuel companies.

It is not clear whether or not the army commander under the UN sanctions has had the money frozen per the UN sanctions, or still keeps his bank account active in the Kenya bank in noncompliance.

Another top army official in South Sudan who conducted illegal money transfers through the Kenya Commercial Bank is General Reuben Riak Rengu, who the report investigation revealed that he was directly involved in procuring weapons and planning military offensives but also is involved in a wide range of commercial ventures and has received substantial payments from multinational firms from at least three countries that operate in South Sudan.

In January 2013, President Salva Kiir promoted Reuben Riak to Lieutenant General in the army, and nominated him as SPLA deputy chief of staff for logistics, effectively making him the army's primary interlocutor with foreign weapons vendors.

“Although Gen. Reuben Riak's official annual salary is about $32,000, information obtained by The Sentry suggests that he is living well beyond what such a salary would support and appears to have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from numerous multinational companies active in South Sudan,” the report revealed.

General Reuben has illegally transferred to his personal bank account at the Kenya Commercial Bank millions of US dollars, despite having a salary of less than $3,000 dollars a month.

“Documents reviewed by The Sentry show $3.03 million moving through Gen. Reuben Riak's personal bank account—a U.S.-dollar denominated account at Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB)—between January 2012 and early 2016,” the report further revealed.

The transactions recorded, it said, include more than $700,000 in cash deposits and large payments from several international construction companies operating in South Sudan.

Additionally, the report showed that over this four-year period, $1.16 million US dollars in cash was withdrawn from his KCB account.

The report further revealed documented proofs that General Reuben and many of his children have shares in companies operating in South Sudan.

(ST)

September 18, 2016 (JUBA) – Officials of the armed opposition faction led by former First Vice President, Riek Machar, have dismissed as “not true” claims by President Salva Kiir's government that the opposition leader returned to Juba in April to renew violence in a regime change strategy.

President Kiir last week accused the United Nations of allegedly working for a regime change and supporting Machar to carry it out. He also became bitter because the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) extracted Machar at the border and saved his life.

He said when Machar could not succeed in the two years of war which started on 15 December 2013, he signed the peace agreement in August last year in order to continue with the regime change agenda, including violence from within.

But Machar's officials said this was not true, arguing that the small number of forces they took to Juba clearly indicated that there was no plan to fight in Juba.

“It is not true. We did not return to Juba in order to fight. How could we plan to start another war inside Juba when he had only 1,300 troops brought to the capital with light weapons while Salva Kiir and his group had tens of thousands of troops in and around Juba with heavy weapons, tanks and helicopter gunships. The claim does not make any sense at all,” said James Gatdet Dak, Machar's spokesman.

Dak said their opposition faction of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA-IO) would have insisted on bringing to Juba at least all their 2,910 troops allowed by the agreement, or would have even ensured that they had not less than 10,000 troops, also with their heavy weapons transported to Juba before Machar returned, if they had planned for a fight in Juba.

He said it was instead President Kiir and his group who had the plan to lure Machar to Juba in order to kill him and scrap the peace deal.

“The United Nations report is very clear, it is Salva Kiir and Malong Awan who ordered the recent violence in July in Juba. The UN panel investigated it and clearly held Kiir and his group responsible,” he said.

The opposition leader's spokesman further added that “President Kiir and his group were responsible for all the messes in the country, “whether it is assassination attempts against Dr. Riek Machar on 15 December, 2013, or on 8 July, 2016 violence in Juba as confirmed by the UN, or corruption as also confirmed in the recent report by The Sentry organization based in the United States.”

Machar and his faction, he added, accepted to return to Juba in April despite the improper security arrangements because he thought that Kiir had changed from his violent behavior after the two years of war.

He however said the opposition group will not give President Kiir another third chance to attempt to lure in and murder Machar in Juba.

“The violent situation in Juba has to change first,” he said.

(ST)

September 2016 (KHARTOUM) - Sudanese government Sunday it would close border with the South Sudan if the government of President Salva Kiir does not implement its pledge to expel Sudanese armed groups waging war in the two Areas and Darfur.

Last August Khartoum and Juba said that First Vice President Taban Deng Gai discussed during his meetings with the Sudanese officials the presence of rebel group in South Sudan and pledged to take tangible measures within three weeks.

Last week, South Sudanese Army Spokesperson, Lul Ruai Koang, told Sudan Tribune that they will expels rebels fighting its northern neighbour once it receives directives from the high command.

State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Kamal Ismail said South Sudan's First Vice President Taban Deng Gai pledged during his recent visit to Khartoum to expel rebel movements from its territory within 21 days.

"Juba's failure to commit itself to this agreement entails stopping the transit of humanitarian aid through Sudanese territory to the South Sudan," he said in statements to the semi-official Sudanese Media Centre (SMC).

The minister further stressed that they are closely monitoring and watching Juba's decision on this respect.

"South Sudanese political authorities have to take a clear decision providing to expel (rebel) movements" and "there is no excuse for those who have been warned." he stressed.

Khartoum and Juba trade accusations of support to rebel groups since the secession of South Sudan in July 2011.

The peace agreement on the resolution of the South Sudanese conflict signed in August 2015 provides that the transitional government in Juba would expel Sudanese armed movement.

However hopes for the implementation of the peace agreement fade and observers say Machar group is preparing for a new war against the government in Juba.

(ST)

September 18, 2016 (EL-FASHER) - A vehicle belonging to the hybrid peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID) had run over a seven-year old girl in Malit town, 60 kilometers north of El-Fasher the capital of North Darfur state.

A UNAMID peacekeeper from from Burkina Fasso and based in Forobaranga, West Darfur, checks a map during a patrol to Tamar village. (Photo UNAMID/Albert González Farran)

Ahmed al-Tijani Adam, the victim's uncle told Sudan Tribune on Sunday that UNAMID's patrol vehicle has run over his niece Marwa al-Tijani Adam Idriss , saying she was killed on the spot.

“They didn't stop after the accident … they fled the scene without helping her … the members of the patrol didn't stop to relief her which led to her immediate death” he said.

“We informed the police and we went to the UNAMID's headquarters and they said the [vehicle] didn't stop because there was no interpreter among the patrol members” he added.

UNAMID officials were not reachable for comment on the incident.

A security source, who spoke to Sudan Tribune on the condition of anonymity, attributed the accident to the over-speeding and reckless driving, pointing that traffic accidents by UNAMID vehicles have lately increased.

“It is noted that UNAMID troops continued to flee after committing car accidents” he said

The hybrid mission has been deployed in Darfur since December 2007 with a mandate to stem violence against civilians in the western Sudan's region.

It is the world's second largest international peacekeeping force with an annual budget of $1.35 billion and almost 20,000 troops.

(ST)

After 25 years of vicious conflict that has cost countless lives and displaced millions of people, peace has finally broken out in south-central Somalia — at least that's what Kenya says. And the UN refugee agency, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has joined Kenya to tell the world it should now focus on helping as many refugees as possible to return home.

But I recently spoke with some of the estimated 320,000 Somali refugees in Dadaab, Kenya, the world's largest refugee camp. And it's clear that peace is the last thing some of those signing up for UNHCR's $400 repatriation cash handout are discovering.

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A newly arrived Somali refugee is forced out of the queue outside a reception centre in the Ifo 2 refugee camp in Dadaab, near the Kenya-Somalia border, in Garissa County, Kenya, July 28, 2011

© 2011 Reuters

A number of refugees told me they had returned destitute to destroyed Somali villages without health care provision and schools, or faced danger as armed groups continue to clash in and around their villages, including towns. After doing their best to survive, they fled back to Kenya, once again as refugees.

One of them is "Amina," a 38-year-old single mother. After a decade in Dadaab, she decided to try her luck and returned in January 2015 with her five children to her village, Bula Gudud, in the Lower Juba region, hoping to rebuild her life.

She told me: "After two days back home, fighting broke out between government troops and al-Shabab [armed Islamist group]. I could hear the bullets. My children were so scared. They just ran around, trying to get out of the house." The following day, Amina fled to the closest city, Kismayo. She had no relatives there but hoped she'd find safety and work to feed her children. She found neither.

She and her family barely survived for nine months with other displaced civilians in Kismayo's appalling internally displaced persons' camps. After a man in a government uniform raped her, a common occurrence in the unprotected and aid-starved camps across the country, Amina gave up and 10 months ago begged her way back to Dadaab.

But her ordeal didn't end there. The Kenyan authorities have refused to re-register her and her children as refugees, and UNHCR has not reactivated her ration card or given her any food.

"If we send 1,000 people home under the voluntary repatriation agreement but we then register 1,000 new arrivals, we would not get the job done," a Kenyan government official in Dadaab told me

Kenya, Somalia and the UNHCR had signed an agreement in November 2013 on the "voluntary repatriation" of Somali refugees. It says that both countries and the UN would make sure that Somalis return voluntarily and safely and would get help to resettle back home. A few months later UNHCR said that "the security situation in many parts of ... Somalia [is] volatile [and] protracted ... conflict has had devastating consequences, including massive displacement, weakened community structures, gross human rights violations and the breakdown of law and order".

But Kenya has repeatedly referred to this agreement as evidence that it is time for all Somalis to go home, stressing that the UN agency should help Kenya "expedite" refugee repatriation.

Somali refugees have a collective memory of previous repeated attempts by Kenyan security forces to coerce "voluntary" returns. In late 2012, Kenyan police in Nairobi unleashed appalling abuses in an effort to enforce an illegal directive to drive tens of thousands of urban Somali refugees into the Dadaab camps and from there back to Somalia. In April 2014, Kenyan security forces, primarily police, carried out a second round of abuses against Somalis in Nairobi and then deported 359 a month later without allowing them to challenge their removal.

In May 2016, Kenya announced that "hosting refugees has to come to an end", that Somali asylum seekers would no longer automatically get refugee status and that the Department of Refugee Affairs, responsible for registering and screening individual asylum applications, would be disbanded.

So far, thankfully, the Kenyan police in Dadaab appear to have been acting properly and the refugees told us they had not been harassed or directly coerced. But they are all aware that the government intends to close the camp by the end of November. Everyone we spoke to expressed the fear that those who do not take the voluntary repatriation assistance package now will be forced back later this year with nothing.

Since mid-2015, Amina and at least another 4,000 Somali refugees have either returned to Kenya after facing conflict and hunger back home or fled to Dadaab for the first time.

But with refugee registrations now closed, Amina and the others won't get food aid. Their survival will depend on the kindness of neighbours or relatives whose own rations were slashed last year by a third because of a funding shortfall. Amina and other returnees and new arrivals will also be the first to face arrest and deportation for "illegal presence" if Kenya shuts down Dadaab in three months.

International and Kenyan law require the authorities to make sure that anyone seeking asylum in Kenya is fairly heard and, if found to need protection, gets it. As long as Kenya continues to shred its commitments, Amina and thousands of others like her will languish hungry and destitute in legal limbo and wake up every morning wondering whether they are about to be deported back to the dangers that many have repeatedly fled and still fear.

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Asylum seekers behind a metal fence in the ‘Hangar 1’ detention center, in Röszke, Hungary. September 9, 2015.

© 2015 Zalmaï for Human Rights Watch

(New York) – The massive refugee crisis demands an unprecedented global response. At two summits on September 19 and 20, 2016, at the United Nations, world leaders should take bold steps to share responsibility for millions of people displaced by violence, repression, and persecution.

Leaders will gather in New York to discuss providing greater support to countries where refugees first land, just as many of those countries are at breaking point. There is a grave risk to the bedrock foundation of refugee protection, the principle of nonrefoulement – not forcibly returning refugees to places where they would face persecution and other serious threats. People are fleeing violence in Afghanistan, Burma, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Honduras, Iraq, Somalia, and Syria, among others.

“Millions of lives hang in the balance,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “This is not just about more money or greater resettlement numbers, but also about shoring up the legal principles for protecting refugees, which are under threat as never before.”

This year, Human Rights Watch has documented Turkish border guards shooting and pushing back civilians who appear to be seeking asylum; Jordan refusing entry or assistance to Syrian asylum seekers at its border; Kenya declaring that it will close the world’s largest refugee camp in November and pushing Somalis to return home despite potential danger; and Pakistan and Iran harassing and deregistering Afghan refugees and coercing them to return to a country in conflict.

The UN General Assembly has convened the September 19 summit “with the aim of bringing countries together behind a more humane and coordinated approach” to refugees. The final statement, already drafted, is a missed opportunity to widen the scope of protection and limits expectations for concrete, new commitments. However, it affirms refugee rights and calls for more equitable responsibility sharing. Given the scale of the refugee crisis and populist backlash in many parts of the world, this affirmation should be the basis for collective action, Human Rights Watch said.

On September 20, US President Barack Obama will host a “Leader’s Summit” to increase commitments for aid, refugee admissions, and opportunities for work and education for refugees. Governments are expected to make concrete pledges toward goals of doubling the number of resettlement places and other admissions, increasing aid by 30 percent, getting 1 million more refugee children in school, and granting 1 million more adult refugees the right to work. Though the participants have not been announced, 30 to 35 countries are expected to attend. Canada, Ethiopia, Germany, Sweden, and Jordan will join the United States as co-facilitators.

Boost Humanitarian Aid to Countries of First Arrival
The vast majority of the world’s 21.3 million refugees are in the global south, where they often face further harm, discrimination, and neglect. Human Rights Watch called on countries of first arrival like Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Thailand, Kenya, Iran, and Pakistan, to commit to proposals to provide refugees with better access to work and education.

The world’s richest nations have largely failed to help countries on the front lines of the displacement crisis. As of September 9, UN aid appeals were 39 percent funded, with some of the worst-funded in Africa; the appeal for refugees from South Sudan stands at 19 percent. The regional refugee response plans for Yemen and Syria are funded at 22 and 49 percent.

Increase Numbers Resettled in Other Countries
Resettlement from countries of first arrival is a key way to help refugees rebuild their lives and to relieve host countries, but international solidarity is glaringly absent. In 2015, the UN refugee agency facilitated resettlement of 81,000 of a projected 960,000 refugees globally in need of resettlement. The agency estimated that over 1.1 million refugees would need resettlement in 2016, but projected that countries would only offer 170,000 places. Representatives of 92 countries pledged only a slight increase in resettlement places for Syrian refugees at a high-level UN meeting in March.

In the European Union, the arrival by boat in 2015 of more than 1 million asylum seekers and migrants – and more than 3,700 deaths at sea – laid bare the need for safe and legal channels for refugees to move, such as resettlement.  However, many EU countries, including Austria, Bulgaria, and Hungary, are focused primarily on preventing spontaneous arrivals, outsourcing responsibility, and rolling back refugee rights.

A July 2015 European plan to resettle 22,500 refugees from other regions over two years has resettled only 8,268 refugees, according to figures from July 2016. Most EU countries underperformed, and 10 failed to resettle a single person under the plan.

End Abusive Systems, Flawed Deals
The EU struck a deal with Turkey in March to allow the return to Turkey of almost all asylum seekers on the deeply flawed grounds that Turkey is a safe country for asylum; it is on the verge of falling apart. Australia forcibly transfers all asylum seekers who arrive by boat to offshore processing centers, where they face abuse, inhumane treatment, and neglect.

The EU and Australia should renounce these abusive policies. EU countries should swiftly adopt a proposed permanent resettlement framework with more ambitious goals and a clear commitment to meet them, Human Rights Watch said. They should share fairly the responsibility for asylum seekers arriving spontaneously, and help alleviate the pressure on Greece and Italy.

Governments also undermine asylum with closed camps, as in Kenya and Thailand, and by detaining asylum seekers, as do Australia, Greece, Italy, Mexico, and the United States.

While by many measures the US leads in refugee resettlement and response to UN humanitarian aid appeals, it has been particularly slow and ungenerous in admitting Syrian refugees. And it has had notable blind spots, as with its border policies for Central American children and others fleeing gang violence and its use of Mexico as a buffer to keep them from reaching the US border.

The Obama Administration met its goal of admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees this fiscal year in the face of opposition from more than half of US governors and a lack of resettlement funds from Congress, but the US has the capacity to resettle many times that number. It should commit to meeting the Leaders’ Summit goals, which would mean doubling this year’s 85,000 total refugee admissions to 170,000.

Several other countries with capacity to admit far more refugees, including Brazil, Japan, and South Korea, have fallen woefully short. Japan admitted 19 refugees in 2015, South Korea only 42 aside from North Koreans, and Brazil only 6.

Russia resettles no refugees. The Gulf States do not respond to UN resettlement appeals, though Saudi Arabia says it has suspended deportations of hundreds of thousands of Syrians who overstay visitor visas. Most Gulf states, except Kuwait, have also fallen short in their response to Syrian-refugee-related UN appeals to fund refugee needs, according to an Oxfam analysis.

“Every country has a moral responsibility to ensure the rights and dignity of people forced to flee their homes,” Roth said. “When more than 20 million people are counting on a real international effort to address their plight, lofty pronouncements are not enough.”

“The government wants to starve us,” an Ivorian traditional leader told a local human rights researcher, describing what happened after the government evicted tens of thousands of cocoa farmers from nearby Mont Péko national park in July.

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A farmer evicted from the Mont Peko National Park walks in the remains of his village that was destroyed during an eviction operation of farmers inside the Mont Peko National Park in Duekoue department, western Ivory Coast August 1, 2016.

© 2016 Reuters

The displacement of these farmers – the bulk of whom have moved to villages bordering the park – led the Ivorian Coalition of Human Rights Actors (Regroupement des Acteurs Ivoiriens des Droits Humains, RAIDH) to today warn that the operation “puts at risk food security, health and social cohesion in the area.” The influx of displaced farmers, who have lost the cash crops they depended on to feed their families, has meant that several towns and villages have seen their populations more than double.

Restoring Mont Péko, a 34,000-hectare national park that has been devastated by small-scale cocoa farming, typifies the dual challenges the Ivorian government faces in conserving forests and the endangered chimpanzees, forest elephants, and other animals that live there, as well as respecting the rights of communities that rely on forests for their survival.

Côte d’Ivoire – which at one point reportedly had the highest rate of deforestation in Africa – saw its forest decline from 50 percent of the national territory in 1900 to less than 12 percent in 2015. To help protect the country’s biodiversity and combat climate change, the Ivorian government has committed to return at least 20 percent of its territory to forest.

But measures to protect the environment, such as the protection of national parks, should not come at the expense of the rights of those who live there. International law protects anyone who occupies land from forced evictions that either do not provide adequate notice or do not respect the dignity and rights of those affected, regardless of whether they occupy the land legally.

Human Rights Watch and RAIDH in June documented how Côte d’Ivoire’s forestry agency evicted farmers from forests without warning and without giving them alternative housing or land. “Without our land, I don’t know what we’re going to do,” one farmer said. “We don’t even have enough food to give us the energy to work.” 

“I still haven’t gotten back on my feet,” said a woman who was evicted in June 2015. “I have trouble feeding my children, and they are not going to school anymore.”

Other research by RAIDH in Mont Péko suggests that while farmers were told that evictions were planned, the government failed to ensure that villages bordering Mont Péko could shelter and feed those displaced, even if temporarily. 

An August 11 UN report concluded that the infrastructure in communities surrounding Mont Péko was “largely insufficient” to accommodate those evicted, and that social, health and education services were “overwhelmed.”

As Côte d’Ivoire restores its forests, it should work harder to balance the human cost of evictions with the environmental imperatives. When relocating communities is the only option, the government should ensure that those displaced have the food and basic services that they need.

Kenya’s repatriation program for Somali refugees, fueled by fear and misinformation, does not meet international standards for voluntary refugee return. Many refugees living in Kenya’s sprawling Dadaab camp, home to at least 263,000 Somalis, say they have agreed to return home because they fear Kenya will force them out if they stay. In May 2016, the Kenyan government announced plans to speed up the repatriation of Somali refugees and close the Dadaab camp in northeastern Kenya by November. Kenyan authorities, with officials from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), then stepped up a 2013 “voluntary” repatriation program.

By James Okuk, PhD

As my part-time top boss at University of Juba, I would like to thank the Vice Chancellor, Prof. John Akec for keeping his private hobby of public writing. Many intellectuals of South Sudan and in many other African Countries abandon their hobbies when they become bosses. He needs to be appreciated and encouraged to keep up this consistency and freedom of expression.

What attracted my attention is Prof. Akec's reference to St. Augustine and Thomas Hobbes to justify his apologetic defence of Juba's suspicion and reservation on the awaited Regional Protection Force. I'm saying this because I have been a lecturer of “Comparative Political Thought” in the esteemed University of Juba since 2012, both to Arabic and English patterned students of the Department of Political Science.

The evolution of political thought, some of which are practiced in many countries to date, is an area I have admired with great interest. Thus, I must thank the electronic engineer, Prof. John Akec, for becoming an active participant in the classic political field, though. I would have wished to invite him to attend a special lecture on the context and content on St. Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Hobbes and Jean Bodin who had put forward some rigorous political thinking in the history of human governance, especially in regard to ‘Sovereignty and the Sovereign' in time of ‘Peace' and ‘War'.

Those great thinkers of the middle ages in Europe were concerned much about “Sovereignty of the Monarch”. This political situation was broadened and cemented by the Treaty of Westphalia (October 1648) that legitimised the limited European Nation-States' Systems and Principles between the Holy Roman Emperor and the King of France and their respective Allies.

However, the French Revolution (known also as the people's bread revolution) and the American Declaration of Independence (known also as the people's land revolution) made the Westphalia Treaty irrelevant for constitutional liberalism and democratisation of the modern nation-states. The Centre of 'Sovereignty' shifted from 'I the King for the State' to 'We the People for the Nation'.

The sovereignty as far as St. Augustine and Thomas Hobbes were concerned was about “I the King” only with disregard to the centrality of the people and their dignified livelihood welfare. Is this what Prof. John Akec is trying to argue for South Sudan now?

Even Hobbes conditioned the necessity of the sovereign and the government on “not killing the subjects and also not instilling fear in them”. The Hobbesian Leviathan was for absolute peace and security of the people. Once the sovereign and the government break this condition, then they should immediately lose the value to continue ruling the nation in a state.

St. Augustine has also conditioned the sovereignty on 'Peace and Justice', with permissible 'War of a Just Cause', conducted through right intention, declared by a competent authority with good faith, and using proportional military force while discriminating the non-combatant citizens (i.e women, children, the elderly, the clergy, etc.) from the warriors of the sinful 'City of Man' who are being punished by divine authority to repent and return to goodness of 'City of God' for everlasting eternal grace. Once peace and justice is denied to the citizens, then the sovereign and government should be prayed upon for divine fire of deposition and salvation for a new replacement.

Jean Bodin defined sovereignty as “Absolute”, “Indivisible” and “Complete”, the attributes which are not nearer to the situation of the divided South Sudan on the power of their current government.

Therefore, Prof. Akec shouldn't kindly misquote these intellectual historical giants to mislead the public about ‘sovereignty' and how UN Protection Force is “Trusteeship” in another name. If the Prof. Is not yet aware and informed about the matter, let him now know that the UN Charter since the end if World War II in 1945 doesn't allow ‘UN Trusteeship” for an independent state with full UN and other regional organisations memberships.

The UN Charter and AU Constitutive Act predicate the modern sovereignty on: a)Protection of the population without discrimination, b) Undivided loyalty of the citizens to the state, c) Enforceability of government powers in all the jurisdictional and integral territory, d) Cooperation with the UN and other international and regional bodies based on treaties, mutual recognition and other legitimate obligations, and e) Viability of the state and sustainability of its government among other nations.

Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States (December 1933) is what has defined the modern and contemporary state, not necessarily the traditional medieval nation-state any longer. Article (1) defines a state as a person of international law that possesses a) permanent population (i.e, not Refugees or IDPs), b) a defined territory, c) government, and d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

Also the Westphalia principles of equality of states, non intervention of one state in the internal affairs of another state and "forgiving the sins of the past" are no longer practiced in vacuum, especially when the UNSC, in accordance with the UN Charter, defines a situation as ‘threat to international peace and security' as it came out in Resolution Number 2304 (2016) and acts via a "peace-keeping" long-term strategy or "peace-enforcement" emergency response in accordance with the principle of "the Responsibility to Protect".

The Republic of South Sudan should not be made an exception on the evolution of the power of multilateral diplomacy and international relations. The Juba Varsity Prof. Akec has missed the intellectual goal that a professor shouldn't afford to mess up with.

The Regional Protection Force and UNMISS-Plus is not and can't turn into a formal trusteeship force in South Sudan because their mandate is clear and supplementarily limited to restoring the direly needed peace and security environment in the embattled country from all fronts.

That was why Juba signed a Joint Communique on 4th September 2016 with the UNSC Members who came to the country for first hand information and experience of the gravity of the situation.

Dr. James Okuk is a lecturer of politics in University of Juba reachable at okukjimy@hotmail.com.

September 17, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - The Sudan People's Liberation Movement -North (SPLM-N) and several doctors unions affiliated to opposition parties have urged the government to declare an outbreak of cholera in the Blue Nile State a national emergency and to allow local and international response.

A child receives an oral cholera vaccine dose in the South Sudan capital, Juba (Medair Photo)

Sudanese government is refusing to declare a suspected outbreak of cholera an epidemic despite the deaths of over 17 people. Health officials are insisting that the disease is acute watery diarrhoea - a symptom of cholera -, pointing it is under control.

The government, nonetheless, has officially admitted 614 cases of " acute watery diarrhoea", while unofficial reports say cholera death toll has risen to over 100 cases.

In a statement extended to Sudan Tribune, SPLM-N Chairman Malik Agar Saturday called on the government to acknowledge cholera outbreak in the Blue Nile state, to take rapid action and provide urgent medical support to people in the areas affected by the epidemic.

Agar said he "contacted a number of specialists and doctors in connection with the deteriorating health situation in the Blue Nile, and beyond reasonable doubt he made sure that the cholera epidemic is spreading quickly, while the government lack of interest rises to the level of criminal negligence".

He further called on the regional and international organizations to pay attention to what is happening in the Blue Nile State , adding that "the government's silence is to be added to the crimes of the regime.".

The SPLM-N rebels are fighting the government of President Omer al-Bashir in South Darfur and Blue Nile states since June 2011.

An African Union mediation team is brokering a process to end the five-year conflict. The ongoing efforts for a cessation of hostilities aim to allow humanitarian access to the war affected areas and to pave the way for an all-parties constitutional conference.

Opposition doctors unions of the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP), Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the National Umma Party (NUP) released statements about the alarming situation in the Blue Nile State and asserted that all the indicators strongly suggest that the spread of diarrhea is the result of infection with the cholera bacterium.

The practitioners further called on the decision-makers to put aside political "tricks" and to deal in a professional manner with the outbreak in line with preventive medicine and public health rules.

Cholera is an intestinal infection caused by consuming food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The bacteria can cause severe diarrhoea and vomiting, leading to death, so treatment needs to be swift.

(ST)