Eric Reeves
June 3, 2003
For the second time in the last few months, there is an extremely disturbing report of civilian atrocities in Eastern Upper Nile (southern Sudan), conducted by military forces directly allied with Khartoum’s National Islamic Front. Like the previous report on the evident civilian massacre at the villages of Liang, Dengaji, Kawaji, and Yawaji in Eastern Upper Nile, the present report provides a precise date and location, as well as an abundance of very particular details about the nature of the attack and its victims. This demands that investigators determine clearly whether there had indeed been yet another egregious violation of the various agreements Khartoum has made not to attack civilians. These include:
[1] “Agreement Between the Government of the Republic of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement to Protect Non-combatant Civilians and Civilian Facilities from Military Attack” (March 2002). The agreement was brokered by US special envoy for Sudan John Danforth; this created the Civilian Protection Monitoring Team (CPMT) that has chronicled in great detail the many intensely destructive attacks on civilians and humanitarian relief in the oil regions of Western Upper Nile during January and February 2003;
[2] “Memorandum of Understanding Between the Government of the Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) on Resumption of Negotiations on Peace in Sudan” (October 15, 2002). The agreement specifies that the parties will “refrain from any acts of violence or other abuse on the civilian population.”
[3] “Addendum to the Memorandum of Understanding on Cessation of Hostilities Between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army” (February 4, 2003). The “Addendum” reaffirms the October 15, 2002 agreement and commits Khartoum “to avoid further violations of the [October 15, 2002] MOU,” including, of course, attacks on civilians.
[4] These agreements are in addition to those embodied in the Geneva conventions bearing on military conduct against civilians (at least those to which Khartoum is party).
But none of these agreements seems to have mattered in Nuer villages near Longochok in Eastern Upper Nile (Longochok is approximately 65 kilometers northeast of Nasir). According to a press release of today from Servant’s Heart, a humanitarian NGO operating in the area, on May 22, 2003 (11pm local time):
“Government of Sudan-led military forces attacked the village of Longochok and nine nearby villages in a night assault that caught most villagers asleep in their grass homes. The Government-lead forces attacked using a combination of rocket-propelled-grenade launchers (RPG’s), .50 caliber heavy machine guns and assault rifles. Many of the homes in the ten villages were set on fire by the attackers, and many of those killed were burned alive in their homes as they hid from the Government-led forces.
“Government of Sudan regular army officer Second Lieutenant Mohammed Idris led the attack on behalf of the Government of Sudan.
“During the attack, the Government of Sudan-led military forces rounded up and abducted ten children and six woman. The names of the kidnapped villagers are attached. The list of the 59 villagers killed by the Government-led soldiers is being collected, and will be published once it is available. Photographs of the atrocity site will also be made available once weather and travel challenges are overcome.”
This is specific, credible, and highly detailed information (even the list of those abducted was patiently spelled out over satellite phone; it appears in the full press release, attached below). The attacks on ten locations appear to have been simultaneous and thus quite well planned. There was no opposition SPLA military presence in the villages. In this respect, the present report from Servant’s Heart is very similar to their report on the April 2002 atrocities at Liang, Dengaji, Kawaji, and Yawaji (also in Eastern Upper Nile), reported by the organization to a senior member of the State Department’s task force on Sudan in February 2003. No investigation was ever made of what happened at these sites. A reported massacre of as many as 3000 civilians, nowhere near any fighting, has never been confirmed or disconfirmed.
This is the context in which we must assess both Khartoum’s decision to launch this reported new attack, and the appalling likelihood that the reported attack will again remain uninvestigated. The US-led Civilian Protection Monitoring Team (CPMT) has already been deeply compromised by recent changes in personnel and procedures (see May 30, 2003 analysis from this source; available upon request). Its all too likely failure to investigate this present event will reveal just how fully corrupt the mission of the CPMT has become. Indeed, if the events at Liang, Dengaji, Kawaji, and Yawaji are as reported by Servant’s Heart, then there is a clear causal relation between the failure to investigate that attack and Khartoum’s calculation that this new attack would also go uninvestigated.
Certainly Servant’s Heart (which has worked in this part of Sudan for a number of years) has twice now provided much more than what must count as prima facie evidence of a massive military assault on civilians, clearly constituting a violation of the agreement that CPMT was created to enforce through its investigations. Indeed, the list of abductees is painfully specific in its detailing of name, age, and sex:
Nyanop Liech Tiek—girl, 8 years old
Nyaluak Liech Tiek—girl, 6 years old
Nyabuay Liech Tiek—girl, 5 years old
Nyanpal Liech Tiek—girl, 2 years old
Ruon Gadet Manyal—boy, 6 years old
Reath Gadet Manyal—boy, 4 years old
Nyanot Lul Nyuot—girl, 8 years old
Nyanpal Lul Nyuot—girl, 5 years old
Nyabiel Lul Nyuot—girl, 2 years old
Duoth Chuol Kuon—boy, 4 years old
Nyadeng Dew Yak—woman, 35 years old
Nyator Gay Buok—woman, 31 years old
Nyanhial Gadet Bor—woman, 30 years old
Nyaduar Deang Jany—woman, 38 years old
Nyaboth Thokier Nguoy—woman, 29 years old
Nyamuol Chuol Nhial—woman, 62 years old
There is more gruesomely persuasive detail in the press release:
“Pastor Jacob Gadet Manyiel, Presbyterian Church of Sudan, and his wife and four children were burned to death as the Government soldiers stood outside their house and threatened to shoot anyone in the family who tried to escape the flames.”
How can this go without investigation? How can the US claim credit for having created a viable or meaningful Civilian Protection Monitoring Team when such credible and detailed reports of civilian atrocities do not meet some bizarrely high evidentiary threshold? How can attacks by Khartoum’s regular military forces—involving murder, abduction, and wanton physical destruction—be anything but a primary concern of the CPMT?
Something has deeply, deeply compromised the work of the CPMT. It is not fulfilling its critically important mandate, and the reason seems to be an expedient set of calculations made by the new head of CPMT in Khartoum (General Charles Bauman) and the State Department (primarily through the charge d’affaires in the Khartoum embassy, Jeff Millington). The corruption now threatens to destroy utterly the integrity of the CPMT and its role in restraining Khartoum’s savage assaults on civilians. Inaction by the State Department’s Africa Bureau in the face of this new report—a refusal to demand an investigation—will signal yet again a failure of moral conviction and a lack of principled response to Khartoum’s ongoing effort to destroy southern civilians and civil society.
Eric Reeves
Smith College
Northampton, MA 01063
413-585-3326
ereeves@smith.edu
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PRESS RELEASE from Servant’s Heart
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Dennis Bennett
1-888-222-0793
GOVERNMENT OF SUDAN MILITARY KILLS 59 UNARMED VILLAGERS, WATCHES WHILE CHRISTIAN PASTOR, FAMILY BURNS TO DEATH.
Violates cease fire while Bush Administration does nothing
Longochok, South Sudan, June 3, 2003 —The very day when US Secretary of State Colin Powell met with Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail and discussed ways that Sudan could be removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, Government of Sudan-lead military forces attacked ten villages in Eastern Upper Nile, including Longochok. During this unprovoked attack, they killed the region’s only Christian Pastor and his family, massacred fifty-nine unarmed villagers, wounded fifteen and abducted ten children and six women.
On May 22nd, 2003, at 11:00 pm, Government of Sudan-lead military forces attacked the village of Longochok and nine nearby villages in a night assault that caught most villagers asleep in their grass homes. The Government-lead forces attacked using a combination of rocket-propelled-grenade launchers (RPG’s), .50 caliber heavy machine guns and assault rifles. Many of the homes in the ten villages were set on fire by the attackers, and many of those killed were burned alive in their homes as they hid from the Government-lead forces.
Government of Sudan regular army officer Second Lieutenant Mohammed Idris led the attack on behalf of the Government of Sudan.
During the attack, the Government of Sudan-lead military forces rounded up and abducted ten children and six woman. The names of the kidnapped villagers are attached. The list of the 59 villagers killed by the Government-lead soldiers is being collected, and will be published once it is available. Photographs of the atrocity site will also be made available once weather and travel challenges are overcome.
Pastor Jacob Gadet Manyiel, Presbyterian Church of Sudan, and his wife and four children were burned to death as the Government soldiers stood outside their house and threatened to shoot anyone in the family who tried to escape the flames.
The day the atrocities were committed, US State Department Richard Boucher said “We think there is a real prospect to reach a just and lasting conclusion to the [Sudanese] civil war.”
Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said after the meeting with US Secretary of State Colin Powell, while his soldiers were in the villages killing the unarmed civilians, that his government “would sign a peace agreement with the SPLA as quickly as possible, maybe next month.”
This attack violates the current “cease fire” between the Government of Sudan and the mainly Christian and animist Sudan People’s Liberation Army, as well as violates the Senator Danforth-sponsored agreement by the Government of Sudan to not attack civilians and non-combatants.
Dennis Bennett, Executive Director of Servant’s Heart, said in reporting this atrocity, “Since the US State Department refused to immediately and thoroughly investigate the well-documented atrocities committed by the Government of Sudan in the villages of Liang, Dengaji, Kawaji and Yawaji (North East Upper Nile province), it is completely understandable that Government of Sudan-lead military forces feel they can also kill and enslave unarmed civilians in other portions of Eastern Upper Nile with impunity.” [see press release dated February 6th, 2003 regarding the Liang atrocities].
“The US State Department is at much at fault for these atrocities as is the Government of Sudan,” Mr. Bennett went on to say.
“It is time for all Americans to contact President Bush directly, demanding that he punish those members of the Sudanese Government who are responsible for these atrocities, including Government of Sudan Second Lieutenant Mohammed Idris. President Bush and his Administration, including Secretary of State Colin Powell and the US State Department, are complicit in these brutal murders of unarmed Christian pastors and villagers, and the abduction and enslavement of their wives and children, because of President Bush’s refusal to investigate atrocities and to hold the Government of Sudan accountable,” Bennett added.
“President Bush and his State Department must insist on the immediate, safe return of the ten children and six woman kidnapped and brutalized during this attack,” Bennett said. “It is up to the US Christian community to demand equal rights and protection for the oppressed and persecuted Christians of Southern Sudan.”
Furthermore, “Both Second Lieutenant Mohammed Idris and Brigadier General Ibrahim Saleh should be arrested and tried for “crimes against humanity” for their dual roles in the deaths of the unarmed villagers in Longochok and the 2,000-3,000 unarmed villagers killed in Liang, Dengaji, Kawaji and Yawaji.”
“Additionally, there should be no further talks between the US State Department and the Government of Sudan about any subject until all abductees from Longochok are returned safely and those responsible (including Brigadier General Ibrahim Saleh and Second Lieutenant Mohammed Idris) are arrested and prosecuted for crimes against humanity.” Bennett said.
[note: Longochok is sixty kilometers, or roughly forty-five miles, northeast of Nasir in Eastern Upper Nile Province. It is located at approximately 9 degrees, 10 minutes NORTH, 33 degrees, 25 minutes EAST].
List of Abductees:
Nyanop Liech Tiek—girl, 8 years old
Nyaluak Liech Tiek—girl, 6 years old
Nyabuay Liech Tiek—girl, 5 years old
Nyanpal Liech Tiek—girl, 2 years old
Ruon Gadet Manyal—boy, 6 years old
Reath Gadet Manyal—boy, 4 years old
Nyanot Lul Nyuot—girl, 8 years old
Nyanpal Lul Nyuot—girl, 5 years old
Nyabiel Lul Nyuot—girl, 2 years old
Duoth Chuol Kuon—boy, 4 years old
Nyadeng Dew Yak—woman, 35 years old
Nyator Gay Buok—woman, 31 years old
Nyanhial Gadet Bor—woman, 30 years old
Nyaduar Deang Jany—woman, 38 years old
Nyaboth Thokier Nguoy—woman, 29 years old
Nyamuol Chuol Nhial—woman, 62 years old