Ethnic Cleansing in North Sudan’s Nuba Mountains

There is a pretense that Bashir and his regime are part of the solution, but in fact they are the source of the problem.

Smoke billowing out of charred huts, corpses with slit throats strewn on the ground, and satellite photos clearly illustrating mass graves. Is this a re-enactment of the heinous crimes in Darfur? Sadly, no.

Notwithstanding the continued violence in Darfur, this disturbing vignette is the recent vicious onslaught by the government of Sudan against the Nubian people, an African tribe in South Kordofan (also known as Nuba Mountains), a region bordering North Sudan and the new sovereign state of South Sudan.

This is not the first time the Nubian people have had to withstand the malicious wrath of the Khartoum regime. In the early 1990s, the government of Sudan systematically attacked and killed close to 200,000 Nubians, arguably called genocide by many.

In the current episode, no one knows the actual numbers murdered, as unfettered access together with humanitarian aid has been denied. However, numerous witnesses have consistently verified that mass atrocities are taking place. As well, a leaked U.N. report also corroborates these accounts.

President Omar Al Bashir of northern Sudan has called for South Kordofan to be “ethnically cleansed” of African people. President Al Bashir and his ruthless regime have repeatedly perpetrated crimes against marginalized Africans—the Dingka and Nuer in the south, the Nubians and the Fur, Masseleit and Zaghawa in Darfur.

He has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity for orchestrating the well-documented genocide in Darfur. Yet when the South officially seceded and became a sovereign country July 9, 2011, he stood among dignitaries in Juba as though he were a credible man of peace and reconciliation.

However, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed between the North and South tenuously hangs by a thread. The disputed region of Abeyei, which contains significant oil resources, was supposed to have had a referendum to determine whether this region would be incorporated in North or South Sudan.

The area is populated mostly by Dingka African tribes, loyal to the South, and the North has postponed the referendum over the dubious contention that a nomadic Arab tribe loyal to the regime, the Misseriya, should be permitted to vote.

The government of Sudan has violently secured the area despite the promise of Ethiopian peacekeepers moving in. Hair-trigger tensions have precipitated episodic violence between the North and South that could once more explode into a full-scale conflagration.

There is a pretense that Bashir and his regime are part of the solution, but in fact they are the source of the problem. The regime’s duplicity is well-known to long-time observers. It has signed peace treaties while demonstrating little desire to implement them completely and participates in peace talks that it has tried to sabotage. The Doha peace process in Qatar to end the conflict in Darfur has been an abysmal failure.

Regardless, the international community sends a constant parade of envoys carrying carrots to engage the Khartoum regime. When will enough be enough?

When will the world finally stand up to this cabal of serial genocidaires? When will the world wield the proverbial stick to rein in this regime’s egregious behavior?

There is much that can be done. Certainly a limited no-fly zone should be considered in South Kordofan if mass atrocities continue. Are not African lives just as worthy as Libyan lives? The U.N. Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) peacekeeping force should have its mandate strengthened to Chapter VII to intervene proactively to save lives—instead of serving as mere observers and reacting afterward.

Most importantly and urgently, economic measures should be tried first.

The government of Sudan has a foreign debt reportedly in excess of 30 billion dollars with a promise by the IMF to forgive it. The IMF could threaten to rescind this if there is not a cessation of hostilities.

A blockade of the Port of Sudan could prevent the shipping of Sudan’s oil exports, a major source of revenue. Intense pressure must be exerted on China, which has been the main benefactor of Sudan’s oil and a commercial lifeline to the regime.

Thousands of African lives hang in the balance.

Is it not the time to act with resolve to end the interminable suffering of the people of Sudan? Or in the words of Canadian icon Gen. Dallaire, “Are some humans more human than others?”

Ismail Adam is president of the Darfur Association of Canada. Shams Alsonasi is co-coordinator of the Nubian Mountains International Assoc. of Canada. Dr. Norman L. Epstein founded Canadians Against Slavery and Torture in Sudan (CASTS).