Sudan pledges millions in Darfur compensation
October 3, 2007 (KEBKABIYA, Sudan) — Sudan’s president has promised to pay $300 million (147 million pounds) in compensation to the country’s war-torn Darfur region, tripling a previous pledge, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said on Wednesday.
Carter spoke during a tour of Darfur marred by a heated exchange between the 83-year-old former president and Sudanese security, who tried to keep him from visiting a tribal leader.
Carter told Reuters President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan had made the compensation pledge during talks with him and other members of a visiting group of elder statesmen, including South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in Khartoum on Monday.
“He promised us there would be $300 million in all coming to the Darfur region in compensation, $100 million coming from the government, and $200 million to be a loan from the Chinese,” Carter said as he set off on a tour of the northern Darfur town of Kebkabiya with the elders party.
Sudan promised to pay $30 million in compensation to Darfur under the terms of a 2006 peace agreement signed with only one rebel group. Other rebel groups that refused to sign angrily rejected the offer as too low and remained unhappy when it was later raised to $100 million.
Soon after making the statement, Carter publicly clashed with a Sudanese security chief who objected to his attempt to meet a Darfur tribal chief.
“No you can’t go. It’s not on the programme,” Kebkabiya security chief Omar Sheikh told Carter in a raised voice.
Carter angrily replied: “I don’t think you have the authority to do so. We are going to go anyway. I’ll tell President (Omar Hassan al-) Bashir.”
The tribal leader Al-Tayyib al-Bukoura, regional head of the local Fur people, eventually arrived but, refusing to speak in front of Sudanese security, drove off with Carter.
Displaced people from the town crowded the international visitors, including tycoon Richard Branson, and slipped notes into their pockets detailing attacks and rapes.
One note said the government had ordered displaced Darfuris not to talk to visiting delegations and added, “If representatives talked about the suffering of their people they would be arrested and tortured by government agencies.”
Graca Machel, rights campaigner and wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela, was visibly annoyed by security officers crowding around her as she listened to reports of rape from women’s groups. She ordered the men to leave.
SPEED HELP
International experts say some 200,000 people have died in Darfur since mainly non-Arab rebels took up arms against the government in 2003. Khartoum says only 9,000 have perished.
Sudan’s government promised to cease fire from the start of planned peace talks with rebel groups in Libya on Oct 27. But fighting has continued in the run up to the negotiations.
Eight people were killed in a shoot-out between the group that signed the 2006 peace accord, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) of Minni Arcua Minnawi, and Sudanese government forces in the southern city of Nyala late on Tuesday.
On Monday, armed men released two aid workers three days after hijacking their vehicle in the heart of Nyala.
The elders toured Darfur days after 10 African Union personnel were killed in the deadliest attack on their forces in the remote western region since they deployed in 2004.
The AU said it was investigating the attack on their base in the rebel-held southeastern town of Haskanita. Rebel splinter groups have been blamed, but key insurgent leaders have denied ordering the assault.
Desmond Tutu on Wednesday called on world governments to speed up the deployment of a replacement force of 26,000 joint U.N.-AU peacekeepers.
“I am making a call to people of good will … for goodness sake, tell your governments to get off their butts,” Tutu said.
“It is unacceptable that the AU mission is not better equipped. They couldn’t even evacuate the injured after the Haskanita attack because they don’t have military helicopters,” he told Reuters.
(Reuters)