Author:
Publication: Zenit.org
Date: April 11, 2001
Ask for No-fly Zone, and End to
"Political" Famine and Oil Exploration
The Sudan Catholic Bishops' Regional
Conference (SCBRC) issued a memorandum, to the delegation from the U.S.
Catholic Conference (USCC), during their late March visit to Sudan, Peters
Voice News agency reported.
The Sudan conference's statement
reads as follows:
The current 18-year-old civil war
waged between forces loyal to the government of Sudan (GOS) and the Sudan
People's Liberation Army (SPLA), has resulted in the suffering, deprivation,
and death of millions in Sudan. The recent escalation of the conflict by
the Khartoum regime threatens even greater destruction of lives, property,
and whole cultures. The Catholic Church in Sudan, working for an end to
the war, and a just resolution of the root causes of the conflict, urges
the Catholic Church in the United States to join us in the pursuit of the
following policy objectives:
Stop Aerial Bombardment of Civilians
1. The first policy objective of
the USCC must be to work for an end to the aerial bombardment of civilian
populations in the Nuba Mountains, Southern Blue Nile, and southern Sudan
by the GOS.
The Sudan Catholic Bishops' Conference,
the Sudan Catholic Bishops' Regional Conference, and the AMECEA (Bishops'
Conferences of East Africa), have long urged that the only effective means
of accomplishing this objective, to protect civilian populations and civilian
institutions -- schools, churches, medical clinics, feeding centers, open-air
markets, landing strips, etc. -- from the growing scourge of government-sponsored
bombing raids, is to work for the imposition of a no-fly zone on the areas
of conflict in the Nuba Mountains, Southern Blue Nile, and southern Sudan.
Working for an end to the bombing
of civilian targets is, we believe, the essential first step toward ending
the war. Without it, none of the other measures that need to be taken,
nor the creation of a political climate conducive to negotiation, will
be possible. At the very least, imposition of a no-fly zone over the principal
areas of conflict will act as a sign of the determination of the international
community to bring an end to the civil war. The imposition of a no-fly
zone will also signal the Khartoum regime that the time for declarations
and condemnations is over; and that practical measures are at hand.
A no-fly zone will help create an
immediate lessening of hostilities. This will, in itself, save countless
lives, allow the return of refugees to begin, and humanitarian relief to
reach all areas of the war zone.
Once the no-fly zone is in place,
a comprehensive cease-fire could and should be implemented.
Stop Oil Exploration and Exploitation
2. Another policy objective high
on the agenda revolves around the issue of Sudan's oil resources and the
pivotal role the exploitation of those reserves is playing in the recent
escalation of the conflict.
We call upon the USCC to join us
in urging corporations, investment firms, and other economic entities in
North America, Europe, and Asia, to cease profiting from oil riches that
are exploited at the expense of millions of central and southern Sudanese
citizens, and which only serve to fuel Khartoum's war machine and the gross
violations of the fundamental human rights, which arise from the exploitation
of those resources. In particular, we wish to call attention to the fact
that oil exploration and development is serving to justify ethnic cleansing
on a mass scale in areas of northern Bahr al-Ghazal, Southern Blue Nile,
Upper Nile, and the Nuba Mountains, and the displacement of whole populations.
We are calling for a complete halt to the exploration, extraction, production,
and sale of Sudanese oil until such practices can be shown, through independent
verification, to no longer contribute to the war effort and the human rights
violations that accompany it.
As with the campaign to end apartheid
in South Africa, the international economic interests, which wittingly
or unwittingly invest in injustice and genocide, must be confronted, if
the conflict is to be ended. The Church will also wish to stress, in the
context of Sudan and oil, that the wealth derived from the country's natural
resources must be used to benefit the people who live on the land, not
empower an unprincipled elite to engineer their dispersal and destruction.
Stop "Political" Famine; End Khartoum's
Flight Bans on Relief
3. The use of food as a "weapon"
of war by the GOS, and the food shortages and outbreaks of famine that
have come in its wake, has been, perhaps, the single most devastating aspect
of the Sudan conflict, resulting in the deaths of countless thousands,
the internal displacement of millions, and irreparable damage to the health,
particularly, of women and children. Much of this tragedy is man-made,
engineered by the GOS through the manipulation of humanitarian aid, arbitrary
flight bans, and the imposition of relief embargoes on populations in "liberated"
or non-government-controlled areas, particularly the Nuba Mountains Abyei
country, and Southern Blue Nile. We call on the USCC to join us in demanding
that food and other relief supplies be made available to populations in
any and all areas of Sudan where there is need, particularly in famine-affected
areas, and to work with the U.S. government and the international community
to put a stop to Khartoum's policy of arbitrary flight bans on relief.
Unfortunately, relief embargoes
are not the only form that the GOS's starvation campaigns take. Government-sponsored
raiders frequently bum crops, fields and food stores, particularly in "vulnerable"
districts, in order to create conditions conducive to famine.
Ensure Religious Freedom for All
Citizens
4. Religious persecution stands
at the center of the tragedy of modern Sudan, and is one of the principle
causes of the war. We know that the USCC will stand with us in our demand
that the right to freedom of religion -- with the right to life, foundation
of all human rights -- become a legal and constitutional reality in Sudanese
life. That, naturally, will include the rights of the Church to exercise
its ministry and preach the Gospel without hindrance.
The call of religious freedom is
at the heart of the political reforms that will be required to end Sudan's
long nightmare of war and destruction, Khartoum's decades-old assertion
that Sudan is an Arab, Muslim country, and its campaign to realize, by
force if necessary, the dream of one nation, one culture, one religion,
has deprived millions of non-Arab, non-Muslim Sudanese of their most basic
rights as citizens and as cultures. As the IGAD Declaration of Principles
rightly recognizes: Sudan will not resolve its fundamental problems, nor
secure a lasting peace without firmly establishing in law a constitutional
separation of religion and State. In a country of nearly unparalleled cultural
and religious diversity, Shari'a cannot function as the source of law and
public policy.
In the short term, this means that
we urge the USCC to join us in opposing not only the infamous Missionary
Societies Act of 1962, but also its various modifications and revisions,
most of which have only made the situation of non-Muslims worse. A fundamentally
discriminatory law cannot be "modified" or ameliorated; it must be abrogated
in toto.
It should also be stated that we
recognize that the Islamic ideology undergirding the current Khartoum regime
is a travesty of normative Islam and the views of many Sudanese Muslims.
Stop Slavery and Promote the Welfare
of Former Slaves
5. Slavery -- the abduction, especially
of women and children -- is yet another weapon in Khartoum's campaign of
"total" war against the populations of the Nuba Mountains, Southern Blue
Nile, and southern Sudan. We urge the USCC to stand with us, not only in
condemning this heinous violation of human rights, but in helping us to
end the practice on the ground, and to care for and educate the thousands
of former or "redeemed" slaves, especially those who live in IDP camps
and settlements.
It deserves to be noted that the
GOS helped revive this horrific trade on a mass scale, armed the principal
perpetrators, and continues to employ slave taking as part and parcel of
its strategy of war.
Khartoum targets the most vulnerable
members of the community -- women and children -- knowing that, in doing
so, it strikes at the very heart of the resistance to its policies, and
at the morale, indeed, the very future of the communities against which
it wages its campaigns.
Defend the Right of Self-Determination
6. The right to self-determination
is one of the major components of the resolution of the Sudan conflict
-- a fact to which all parties to the conflict agree, and which forms part
of the IGAD Declaration of Principles as well. We ask the USCC to join
us in underlining the importance of this principle, and in urging the international
community to ensure its implementation.
To speak of self-determination is
not to imply support for southern independence, or other secessionist aims.
It is to recognize that the citizens of Sudan, who, in differing ways,
have suffered so deeply as a result of the conflict, have their necessary
and decisive role to play in deciding the shape of a future Sudan.
In making these recommendations,
we recognize the timeliness of the delegation's visit to Sudan and the
emergence of a bipartisan political climate in the U.S. increasingly favorable
to making Sudan and a negotiated settlement of the war a foreign policy
priority. In order to take advantage of this situation and to further the
implementation of these recommendations, we urge the USCC to form an ad
hoc committee on lobbying strategy at the earliest possible opportunity.
In our view, the task of this committee would be to develop precise goals
and objectives for each of the above recommendations, and to co-ordinate
efforts to achieve them, both in Washington, D.C., and in the international
arena.
A Final Note
We urge the USCC to include the
Nuba Mountains and Southern Blue Nile, as well as the South, in their declarations
and statements on Sudan. It is not an accurate representation of the situation
to refer to southern Sudan as if it were the sole arena of the war. The
conflict affects not only the populations of the South, but all African
ethnic groups in the country, threatening the loss of their incomparable
cultures, traditions, and languages.
Submitted on behalf of the Bishops
of the Sudan Catholic Bishops'
Regional Conference by:
The Most Rev. Macram Max Gassis
Bishop of El Obeid
Chairman of the Department for
Advocacy and Media