IRIN Web Special on Civilian Protection in Armed Conflict

Teaching the law of war to officers of the Sudanese armed forces in Gebeit, Sudan Credit: ICRC

Sudan's is Africa's longest running civil war. It is controversial not only because the humanitarian community has faced severe problems in securing free and unhindered access to affected populations but also because of persistent reports of the deliberate military targeting of non-combatants.

Some two million people have been killed in the war and the number of Sudanese refugees, most of whom have fled fighting in the south of the country between the Khartoum government and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), has swelled to more than half a million.

Sudan also has the highest number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the world, about 4 million people having been forced from their homes, mostly by war or humanitarian emergencies exacerbated by violent conflict.

Numerous humanitarian, human rights and state parties have, over time, accused the Sudanese government of targeting or failing to protect civilians in the civil war, and for denying or restricting access by aid agencies to vulnerable populations, despite having formally endorsed the principle of unimpeded access.

The government, in particular, has been criticised for the indiscriminate bombing of civilians, restricting or endangering relief operations, and reportedly operating a "scorched earth policy" to clear oil production areas of civilian populations.

The UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Sudan, Gerhart Baum, in November 2001 condemned "the constant disregard by both parties to the conflict of their own commitments, and lack of observance of human rights principles and humanitarian law", and drew attention to the appalling conditions of the civilian population resulting therefrom.

But a series of positive developments arising out of peace negotiations being conducted under the auspices of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) has ensued in a relatively improved humanitarian outlook for the populations of most of Sudan's war-affected regions in recent months.

This improvement in the available humanitarian space began with the July 2002 signing of the Machakos Protocol between the government and SPLM/A, which placed the issue of civilian protection high on the agenda of those talks.

A major breakthrough came in October 2002 with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Cessation of Hostilities, thereby undertaking, among other things, to take all necessary steps to facilitate the immediate voluntary return of the civilian population of western Upper Nile to their villages. Under the same MOU, the parties agreed to allow "unimpeded humanitarian access to all areas and for people in need, in accordance with the Operation Lifeline Sudan [OLS] Agreement."

The OLS agreement, signed in 1989 by the UN, government of Sudan and SPLM/A, was then considered a considerable achievement in the implementation of humanitarian principles towards securing a sound basis on which to deliver humanitarian assistance outside the traditional, bilateral framework.

On 5 February this year, the parties signed an addendum agreement that further strengthened the October 2002 MOU. It also announced the formation of a Verification and Monitoring Team (VMT), which would incorporate elements of the work of existing Civilian Protection Monitoring Teams (CPMTs) already working on the ground to verify reports of civilian violations.

Western Upper Nile

Despite the signing of these agreements, a number of problems have emerged, especially in January, when a fresh wave of attacks by government troops and allied militia were reported in the oil-rich western Upper Nile.

The CPMT team sent to verify the situation laid the blame squarely on the Khartoum government. In its January report, it stated that thousands of civilians had been forcibly displaced from their villages by direct military attack. Most villages are now empty or completely destroyed along the Bentiu-Adok road, according to the CPMT.

It cited eyewitness accounts of military attacks and subsequent actions by soldiers and pro-government militia, in violation of the letter and spirit of the agreement on civilian protection.

Humanitarian observers insist that the militias attack villages with the full backing of the Khartoum government. "Nowhere in the world do militia use helicopter gunships and heavy artillery," one such source told IRIN. "So, by definition, these are groups operating under proxy of the government of Sudan - the government is supporting them. The militia must be seriously addressed in the peace process, and be dealt with as well."

There are clear signs that fighting is continuing in certain areas of western Upper Nile, despite commitment by both parties to the conflict to agreements on cessation of hostilities and civilian protection, according to humanitarian sources.

The oil factor in the region has in particular assumed critical importance in the Sudanese conflict, adding a dynamic that has brought even more severe humanitarian consequences to the region's civilians, who are routinely displaced from their homes to pave the way for oil exploration, a recent research jointly commissioned by the Nairobi based Africa Centre for Technological Studies and the South African-based Institute for Security Studies noted.

The research's findings, documented in a book entitled "Scarcity and Surfeit: The Ecology of Africa's Conflicts", revealed that oil had become the most valuable of Sudan's contested resources, rendering civilians in the western Upper Nile region and other oil-producing areas especially vulnerable.
[See IRIN Report: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=32857&SelectRegion=East_Africa].

Senior Sudanese diplomats involved in the peace negotiations have admitted that the "skirmishes" in the western Upper Nile region were alarming, but deny any government policy deliberately targeting civilians militarily.

"This is an area where a CPMT is operating," Muhammad Ahmad Dirdeiry, the charge d'affaires at the Sudanese embassy in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, told IRIN. "I don't think anyone would be justified in saying there is ethnic cleansing, because there is a team which is on the ground to monitor and verify the situation."

Dirdeiry, while admitting some responsibility on the part of pro-government militia, has also attributed the clashes in the region to the "absence of democracy" within areas controlled by the SPLM/A. "Some of the militia have a political agenda; others exist because of some economic factors," he said. "And some of these issues are not properly being addressed by the SPLM/A. This is the reason for the clashes from time to time."

He is, however, hopeful that this problem will be addressed through the verification process that began with the CPMT to ensure that each party became accountable for the militia it controlled. "One party will always be answerable on the issue of militia," he said. "In the meantime, we think this problem should also be addressed. The militia will also have to resign to the reality and accept the fact that they have to change their way of life."

Civilian protection monitoring

The existence of the CPMTs, which are on the ground to monitor alleged abuses against civilians in disputed regions of Sudan, is largely credited to the US special envoy, Senator John Danforth, who negotiated important humanitarian agreements as part of the confidence-building measures towards a comprehensive ceasefire.

The CPMT mechanism has been hailed for addressing one of the most significant components that had been missing in the Sudan peace process: human rights and humanitarian verification and reporting. The March talks held by the IGAD extended its mandate for another year.

Humanitarian observers said the CPMT had bridged a gap that could not have been filled by OLS, the UN-led humanitarian coalition, whose humanitarian nature would have been jeopardised by documenting and reporting on abuses.

Independent human rights organisations, on the other hand, had "had little influence on the policy making process, and their recommendations were easily disregarded by the warring parties," one observer told IRIN.

"To me, the CPMT is an incredible step," this observer said. "It has a reporting mechanism that can directly influence issues at the political level. Now we have a channel everyone can feed into."

However, critics of the CPMTs argue that their mandate remains unclear and its progress has been slow.

According to Jamera Rone, a researcher with the New York based Human Rights Watch (HRW), the CPMT process is short of personnel with knowledge and experience of Sudan, its peoples and history.

The CPMT had also ignored important investigations on civilian abuses in Khartoum, where there are extensive reports of forcible recruitment of southerners living in the city by a government militia leader, Rone told IRIN. "The CPMT has not utilised its capacity fully, particularly in the crucial area of gathering information from the civilian victims it is supposed to protect," Rone said. "Examination of shrapnel alone will never tell us how many civilians were injured or killed by a bomb."

The CPMT's strength, according to the HRW researcher, has been its logistical capacity and military analysis. "It has demonstrated to the government of Sudan and its militias, and to the SPLM/A, that it can gather hard military forensic evidence of what has really happened," Rone said. "It has shown that it has the capacity to cut through the propaganda war and the parties' exaggerations and untruths about what is really going on in remote areas of Sudan."

Peter Adwok, a Sudanese scholar, is also unimpressed with the work of the CPMTs so far. "I don't think they have done anything since the team was established last year," Adwok told IRIN. "The war on civilians continues, and they don't interfere. We are wondering what they are doing. They don't even go to the ground to look for information. They just get second-hand information."

Continued?