Sudan Democracy First Group
Tales of the Tombstones:
The Discrimination Against Sudanese Students from Darfur in Sudanese Universities
1 October 2018
Sudan Democracy First Group releases its latest report that is titled (Tales of the Tombstones: The Discrimination Against Sudanese Students from Darfur in Sudanese Universities). The report researches and documents the extent and nature of the increasing violations against the Sudanese students descending from Darfur region in the Sudanese universities since the outbreak of the armed conflict in the Darfur in 2003.
The research report relied on a descriptive analytical approach and collected data through direct interviews with students from the region who had been subjected to abuses and violations, as well as interviews with lawyers and activists who are working in defending the rights of these students. The research team also reviewed the files of fifty-five legal cases before the courts relating to systematic violations against these students.
The report also details the violations against these students, focusing on violations of student rights and the violation of their right to complete their education, which includes the issues of tuition fees, the denial of university housing, and the administrative obstacles related to university administrations. The report also analyzes security violations and prosecutions of students from the Darfur, including the prolonged detention, physical and psychological torture in detention centers, and the political assassinations of student activists. In particular, the report referred to the role of the jihadist units in the universities (the student militias of the ruling party that are active in universities) in carrying out these violations, in addition to the role of the security apparatus and the police in these violations.
The report reviewed the unfair trials, fabricated charges and violations of the right of due process of court trials against these students, as well as the procrastination of the judges in prolonging trials hearings and judicial procedures and complicating the procedures for the bill release of those students.
As well, the report pointed out in particular to the violations of the universities’ administrations against the students of the region, which deal with negative discrimination with these students, to the extent of the refusal of implementing the decision to exempt the Students from Darfur from tuition fees, which is stipulated by the Darfur Peace Agreements. The report reviewed how this refusal led to ongoing confrontations between students and the authorities. The report also dealt with documented incidents the interference of the security services in the decisions of the university administrations of dismissing students and exposing them to other administrative and academic penalties.
The report put the following recommendations:
• The democratic forces of Sudanese society, national political forces and civil society organizations working to defend human rights should work to protect Darfuri students by providing them with protection from attacks by the regime and supporting them through all possible legal and civil means. In addition, they should give this issue the attention it deserves and push it in the forefront of the national agenda.
• The regime should be prosecuted for the crimes and violations committed against Sudanese students from Darfur through all possible means in accordance with the constitution and international law to stop these violations and bring the perpetrators to justice.
• The Sudanese government should refrain from racial discrimination against its citizens, such as the Darfuri students, and work to reform the various government agencies that practice this discrimination systematically, holding its employees who are involved in these practices accountable.
• The student Jihadi battalions affiliated with the NCP in Sudanese universities should be dismantled.
• University campuses should be protected from the intervention by the security and police.
• The Sudanese judicial system should review the procedures and judgments of all cases relating to Darfuri students, whether concluded or still before the courts. They must be reviewed fairly and students affected by unfair and summary judgments are compensated. The investigations of cases of students murdered and all other violations should also be expedited and those responsible brought to justice
• University administrations should commit to the law and guarantee the protection of students and their rights, and make honoring the right to education without discrimination a main goal, preventing security services from interfering in their decisions.
• University administration and government should recognize the right of students from refugee camps, IDPs camps and conflict areas to be exempted from tuition due to their exceptional circumstances and inability to pay.
•Ensure the right to university housing in dorms for students exempted from tuition throughout the period of their enrollment in universities and on vacations due to lack of other alternatives.
• Free media organizations should support a discourse locally and internationally which exposes the crimes of the regime against these students.
• To read the full report, please follow this link:
• To view the announcement and report in Arabic, press here:
https://us7.admin.mailchimp.com/campaigns/show?id=1569301
About Sudan Democracy First Group
Sudan Democracy First Group (SDFG) was established by a number of Sudanese Civil Society Leaders, Activists and Academics in 2010 in Khartoum. The establishment of SDFG was particularly spurred by the failure to democratic transformation in Sudan, which became acutely apparent during the April 2010 national elections, as part of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. With growing instability, caused by reoccurrence of conflict, lack of justice and accountability, and increasing exclusion and marginalization, SDFG emerged with the aim to provide a voice to the voiceless, as well as to promote democracy in its intersection, with peace, justice, and balanced development.
VISION
SDFG envisions a democratic inclusive society in Sudan where justice, equality, peace and development prevail.
MISSION
Sudan Democracy First Group considers its overall mission to promote inclusive democracy. SDFG is further committed to the raising up of marginalized groups (whether marginalization is based on culture, ethnicity, class, gender, race, region, age, political affiliation or religion) by providing platforms for inclusive and transparent engagement and promoting opportunities for participation and expression in the public sphere.
APPROACHES AND METHODS
SDFG works on addressing the problem of lack of the inclusive democracy based on complementary and multi-disciplinary approach guided by values of peace, justice and development. SDFG focusses on the provision of profound and independent research and analysis; campaigning for justice and contributing to lasting solution to the conflicts in Sudan. SDFG further works to promote civil society dialogue, collaboration and the development of a joint democratic agenda. Moreover, SDFG is committed to enhancing accountability and promote democratic governance structures. Lastly SDFG aims at facilitating the participation and engagement of a democratic and independent civil society and its leadership in the different political processes and dialogues.
AREAS OF INTERVENTION
S SDFG introduced a number of initiatives and projects since its foundation which can be categorized into three programmatic areas;
- Governance and Accountability
- Civic Engagement in Peace and Political Processes
- Policy and Advocacy
Contents
Foreword ……………………………………………………………………………………..
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………..
The methodology for preparing this report……………………………………….
Standards and sources of information……………………………………………….
Background on the war in Darfur………………………………………………………
The Impact of War in Darfur…………………………………………………………….
The student movement in the universities and the Darfur Students Association………………………………………………………………………………………..
The Crimes of the Ruling Regime Against the Student Movement………..
The impact of the Darfur conflict on students from the region…………….
Issues of Darfuri students in universities……………………………………………
Student rights issues……………………………………………………………………….
The nature of violations against Darfuri students in Sudanese universities ………………………….
Tools of students to address their issues……………………………………………
Violations by university administrations of the rights of Darfuri students Imposition of arbitrary punishments against students by security………..
Unfair trials …………………………………………………………………………………..
The nature of sentences………………………………………………………………….
Prison sentences…………………………………………………………………………….
Flogging and fines…………………………………………………………………………..
Procrastination of court judges in adjudicating cases………………………….
Complicating bail procedures and forced resignation………………………….
Murder charges and death sentences……………………………………………….
Targeting security forces and jihadist battalions for Darfur students……..
Arrest and physical and psychological torture…………………………………….
Prosecutions and displacement of the study………………………………………
Assassinations and murder………………………………………………………………
Violations carried out by the police…………………………………………………..
Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………………
Recommendations………………………………………………………………………….
References……………………………………………………………………………………..
Foreword
Every time I sat across from one of my subjects to take his testimony for this report, I would find him looking at me deeply with sharp eyes that looked beyond my expectations. I would imagine him seeing me as a clay statue, standing impassive in a Sudanese university, watching their story. A story they do not know how to begin telling nor how it would end, if it ever would.
It is not easy for them to talk about their stories. There are no happy memories, only tragedy that grows with time. Their memories are filled with contempt, blood-soaked and carved into their tombstones and their hearts. They fly with wings of tears into the skies of their tormented souls. It is a tragedy that deprives you of even of the right to scream at the moment when a son of your country, who shares its soil and its nationality with you, stabs you in the heart with a poisoned dagger for no reason other than to deny you a place as a fellow citizen. Your killer is he who you had hoped would lift with you up to the heights of the dreams of your homeland.
One of them, before giving me his testimony, chatted with me. I said to him: “Nations always rise from ashes at some time, we only have to believe that a better time will come with our unbreakable determination.” Perhaps I felt I need to say that because I was older than the 24-year-old young man to whom I was talking. He looked away from me – avoiding my face – and maybe he was thinking of me as a dreamer, for that is what I felt at that moment, before taking a deep breath and replying: “My friend, do not panic. We will continue to love this country forever and forever. Even when we die on its soil, we will not forget that he who kills us is one our brothers and countrymen.”
It is a strange thing that you can be killed in your homeland with a bullet fired at the hands of your countrymen while holding pens and studying books. They kill you because you study to benefit the homeland. They burden you with torture and contempt because you sit in university classrooms to become an active builder of a better future for the country. They expel you from the university and keep you from getting an education, just because you wanted to continue. They call you racist names although you did not choose your skin color nor your ethnicity.
It is a story of murder, torture, expulsion and displacement. It tells of a massive Sudanese tragedy of racial discrimination targeting Darfuri students in Sudanese universities.
Since the military coup which brought the Muslim Brotherhood (the National Islamic Front that later changed its name to the National Congress Party (NCP) to power in Sudan in June 1989, there have been major changes in the way the state and society in Sudan run. The Islamic regime has pursued violent, authoritarian policies based on exclusion, unleashing oppression and violence in all their forms against its opponents. It has also targeted all Sudanese people to break their will and subjugate them in order to maintain and protect its power. One of the worst forms of violence used by the ruling regime to reach its goals and the most poisonous to the Sudanese people that of racial discrimination. This policy aims to humiliate its opponents into submission. It also aims to weaken the cohesion and social fabric of the Sudanese people and thus weaken their collective capacity for resistance by deploying a divide-and-rule strategy.
Following the outbreak of war between the resistance movements and the Khartoum regime in Darfur in 2003, Bashir’s regime has used its military apparatus against innocent citizens of region in an excessively violent manner. This has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of displaced from the Darfur region, both internally and to other countries as refugees. Furthermore, the ruling regime deliberately practices racial discrimination against the people of Darfur in every aspect of life in Sudan. Even simple things like getting a job in either the public or private sector have become difficult.
University students in Sudan are considered a distinguished group whose cultural and political awareness have enabled them to play an influential role in Sudan’s political history. They have been at the forefront of the enlightenment movement and demanding political democracy and social justice. Sudan has witnessed two popular uprisings against dictatorships in which university students made major contributions: the October 21, 1964 revolution that led to the overthrow of General Ibrahim Abboud and the March/April 1985 uprising that overthrew General Jaafar Nimeiri.
There are thousands of Darfuri student in Sudanese universities, but they – especially since the outbreak of armed conflict in Darfur in 2003 – have been subjected to extraordinary and systematic authoritarian violence both inside and outside these universities. They are racially targeted for violations that include physical violence, up to and including killing; arbitrary detention; and severe torture at the hands of security officers, soldiers and the ruling party student militia. Through the arbitrariness of university administrations, which consist of staff and professors loyal to the regime, they suffer from arbitrary dismissal from study, whether temporary or permanent. The regime also employs its judicial system, which is neither independent nor impartial, as a tool of oppression. Students are subjected to political trials that do not respect the legal and judicial procedures necessary to ensure justice.
The methodology for preparing this report
This reported adopted a descriptive analytical approach to study the experiences of these students. Data were collected from primary sources, including direct interviews with a number of students, legal and human rights activists, and secondary sources including a review of press releases and research reports on the issue over the past ten years. The research team also reviewed the legal documents relating to fifty-five relevant past and ongoing cases.
Based on this, the report sheds light on the violations committed against Sudanese students from Darfur in Sudanese universities and attempts to analyze its systematic and circumstantial motives and to find out to what extent they affected these students. The report also studied to what extent these abuses represent violations of the Sudanese constitution, national and international law and human right principles.
Standards and sources of information
The names of students, lawyers and activists who gave testimonies for the preparation of the report are not mentioned in the report in order to protect them from any possible retaliation by the security apparatus of the ruling regime, since all of them are present in side Sudan in the time being.
The legal documents reviewed were returned to the legal bodies that provided them. We were not allowed to keep copies or publish them in the report.
Fifteen students, 13 males and 2 females from the University of Khartoum, Nileen University, Omdurman Islamic University, Sharq Elnil University, Holy Quran University, and Algazeera University were interviewed. Students were selected to be interviewed based on the following criteria:
- having personally been a witness to the reported event;
- having had personal experience of the reported event, especially in the case of reporting on detention and trials;
- being active in the Darfur Students Association or other fora.
Students were identified by gathering information about them acquaintances, published materials that identified victims and monitoring public activities.
The statements and testimonies provided by interviewees were compared and crosschecked with other sources to confirm authenticity and accuracy.
The selection of events and reports in this report was based on the following:
- 1 Providing clear examples of the patterns highlighted in this report. The report does not portray the whole of events, but rather a few representative examples.
- 2 The availability of witnesses who were able to provide testimonies because they either were present at the events themselves, or were in a position of to gather firsthand information at the time of the event.
We interviewed and took statements from a group of lawyers who provide legal aid to Darfuri students. We chose this body for the following reasons:
- 1 This legal body consists of a number of lawyers who provide ongoing legal aid to Darfuri students. They tackle the legal issues facing these students in the courts and police stations.
- 2 This body archives a large number of files related to cases before the courts and police.
The research team conducted separate interviews with two lawyers from this body and was also allowed access to documents relating to 55 relevant cases, including court trials. Lawyers advised against publishing these materials. Some of the reasons were legal, as some cases are still pending before courts and publishing of such documents may affect the process, and others were related to protecting the legal aid organization against targeting by the regime’s security apparatus, which could hinder its ability to continue to provide assistance.
An in-depth interview was also conducted with N, a human rights activist focusing on issues related to Darfuri students.
Background on the war in Darfur
In 2003, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) was established as a rebel movement alongside a political wing, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM).1 The SLM published a political discourse addressing issues of national concern, laying out the demands that pushed them to take up arms against the central government controlled by the Islamic movement headed by General Omar al-Bashir since 1989. That political declaration stated that the:
SLM / A views the unity of Sudan as essential, but it cannot be maintained or remain viable unless it is based on justice and equality for all Sudanese. The unity of Sudan should establish new foundations based on the recognition of ethnic, cultural, social and political diversity. This sustainable unity must be based on the right of self-determination and the free will of the people of Sudan. The main requirement of viable unity is the existence of an economic and political system that addresses the disparities in development and marginalization that have dominated the country since independence. Therefore, the interests of the marginalized majority must receive sufficient attention and to get them to the same level of development enjoyed by the ruling minority. The SLM /A will work with all political forces that espouse this vision.2
This political declaration reflects the position of the SLM/A on the nature of conflict in Sudan. What was happening in Darfur was an essential catalyst for this vision. Darfur was a model of racial discrimination and attempts to bring social and economic change through demographic engineering and launching a racist war against the people of the region were ongoing.
The Justice and Equality Movement of Sudan was founded in 2001 and is also active in Darfur. It declared its rebellion against Bashir’s regime and took up arms in Darfur demanding a democratic system and fair distribution of wealth and power. Its founding declaration states:
The racial discrimination practiced in Sudan has rarely been seen even in the case of South Africa, which makes the Sudanese people charge their rulers with the deterioration of the situation in Sudan in general and the South in particular. The intellectuals of those regions also bear responsibility for not defending to their constitutional and legal rights and submitting to neglect, exploitation, enslavement, inferiority and personal interests of some opportunists, which led to the backwardness of their regions and the loss of their rights.”3
The actual war in Darfur broke out in 2003, when the armed movements launched their military operations in the region by attacking government forces in the city of El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State. The war then expanded to the rest of the region. The government resorted to recruiting tribal militias from Arab tribes in Darfur, using them in the conflict in the region in a divide-and-rule policy. A number of government officials were assigned to oversee the recruitment of para-governmental militias outside the formal military structure. Officials provided the militia with arms and money to fight the rebels. The government worked to mobilize tribal militias against the armed movements based on a racial approach aiming to turn the war into a conflict among the people of the region themselves. The Janjaweed militias, which consisted of Arab tribesmen, emerged as a destructive force backed by government armed forces and air power.4 This led to widespread attacks on innocent civilians without distinction between women, men, children, and the elderly. These militias murdered, tortured, raped and the burnt villages throughout Darfur with the backing and guidance of the regime. The conflict led to more than 300,000 civilian causalities,5 and millions were internally displaced from their villages and homes to the outskirts of cities in order to survive. The war continued with systematic targeting of the indigenous population and their absolute domination by para-governmental tribal militias and government forces supporting them. These militias committed unprecedented atrocities against civilians in the region, exacerbating the humanitarian situation, the crisis of war and their repercussions. The crimes against humanity and atrocities committed against innocent civilians in the region attracted international attention. Mr. Mukesh Kapila, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan at the time, described the situation in Darfur in March 2004 as: “the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis” and comparing it with what had happened in Rwanda ten years prior.
International reactions to the human suffering in Darfur escalated as the US Congress passed, on July 22, 2004, a law classifying what was happening in Darfur as genocide. In September 2004, US Secretary of State Colin Powell gave testimony before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee concluding that “genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the Government of Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility – and that genocide may still be occurring.”6
With the continued killing, torture, burning of villages, mass assassinations and worsening humanitarian situation, the United Nations Security Council in March 2005 referred the situation in Darfur to the International Criminal Court, which began its investigation in 2006. The court charged several Sudanese officials, starting with the then-State Minister for Humanitarian Affairs Ahmed Haroun and the commander of the pro-government Janjaweed militia Ali Kushaib in February 2007. Later, on March 4, 2009 the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir for involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. It was the first time that the ICC issued an arrest warrant for a sitting head of state. The first arrest warrant included seven counts of murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture, rape, intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking part in hostilities, and pillaging7. Later another arrest warrnt against Bashir added three counts of genocide allegedly committed against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups in Darfur, Sudan, from 2003 to 2008.
The regime’s reaction to the ICC decision was more oppression. The regime increased the pace of the war in Darfur and supplied tribal militias with more arms, finance and care, and giving them official military ranks to enable them to strike harder with a reduced role for the army in Darfur. The militias were placed under the supervision of the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS). Later, the Janjaweed militias, restructured as the Rapid Support Forces, became a force answering only to the president according under a law issued in January 2017. The president upgraded its leader, Mohammed Hamdan Dgulw also known as Hemeti, to the rank of the Lieutenant General without any of the military qualifications or official training that would ordinarily be needed to attain such a rank.
These militias have continued to relentlessly wage the government’s war against civilians in Darfur up to the present. Tribal groups from neighboring countries such as Chad, Mali and Niger settle into the territories that the persecuted Darfuris have been forced to leave, a move aimed creating demographic change serving the racist interests of the regime. This move is also aimed at recruiting these new settlers into the Rapid Support Forces to commit more crimes of genocide, rape and abuse of civilians in the region.
The Impact of War in Darfur
The conflict in Darfur has reshaped the political and social awareness of the whole of Sudan. The Sudanese people and their political forces, like the international community, have been shocked by the unrestrained violence and atrocities committed by the ruling regime against its people. There is no doubt that the ruling regime has adopted a racist policy in targeting the population of the region. This approach is consistent with the essence of its official policies. On December 20, 2010, on the eve of the independence of the State of South Sudan, President Bashir said: “In the case of the secession of the South, we will amend the Constitution, so there is no room to talk about multiculturalism or multi-ethnicity. Islam will be the official religion of the state and Arabic will be the official language of the state.”8 These statements expressed the regime’s abrogation of the natural and constitutional rights of other Sudanese. It gave the green light to tribal militias supported by the government to continue their assault and commit more crimes against humanity against the Sudanese citizens of Darfur, as well as the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile and eastern Sudan. It also gave the green light to the rest of the government apparatus to practice ethnic, cultural and racial discrimination against other groups of Sudanese in various educational and social sectors, workplaces and other institutions.
The government’s aggressive behavior against Sudanese citizens in Darfur had disastrous consequences, including, among others:
- More than 300,000 civilian casualties in Darfur.
- The forced displacement in which more than half the population of Darfur was forced to leave their original villages. An estimated 3.2 million live in displacement camps within Sudan, while hundreds of thousands live as refugees in Chad, southern Sudan, Uganda, Egypt and other neighboring countries, in addition to Europe and America.
- The social fabric of the region has weakened sharply increasing ethnic division.
- The collapse of the economic system of the targeted tribal groups and their exclusion from the economy.
- The dominance of tribal militias and a diminished role for the formal armed forces in the region which led to increased insecurity and the absence of rule of law as these militias enjoy full legal immunity.
- Demographic change in the region by bringing foreign tribal groups and settling them in the territory previously inhabited by Darfuris.
- The adoption policies of discrimination and denying the rights of Sudanese citizens from Darfur and expanding the war against them outside the region, transferring the conflict in Darfur from a geographically based to an identity based one.
- To read the full report, please follow this link:
https://gallery.mailchimp.com/7acabab6ae470b89628f88514/files/124ae4e6-7b96-48f7-a55e-d3d44fc0f102/darfor_st_en_cov.pdf - To view the announcement and report in Arabic, press here
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