African Union panel on Darfur to arrive in Sudanese capital on Saturday
August 20, 2009 (KHARTOUM) — The high-level African Union Panel on Darfur (AUPD) led by the former South African President Thabo Mbeki is expected to arrive in Khartoum on Saturday.
The director of the African bureau at the foreign ministry, Ambassador Ibrahim Ahmad Abdel-Karim, said in a press statement, that the AUPD will meet a number of Sudanese officials, organizations of civil society and Darfur rebel groups.
The panel was supposed to submit its final report to the African Union Summit convened in Sirte, Libya last July but it demanded a two month-period to complete their contacts and to draft the final report.
Last June the eight-member commission held a series of meeting in Khartoum and Darfur to listening to Darfurians and other stakeholders in a bid to determine a route to an effective peace process.
In July, the AU summit held in Libya issued a resolution saying that its ICC members will not cooperate with the court in the apprehension of President Omer Al-Bashir though states such as Botswana announced they will not abide by this decision.
Following this AU decision, the rebel Justice and Equality Movement said severed contacts with the panel and cancelled a meeting with its members. The rebel movement said it would not deal with the commission. However, recently JEM said it might reconsider its position.
(ST)
Samson Shawel Ambaye
African Union panel on Darfur to arrive in Sudanese capital on Saturday
Mbeki I ask you to read copy of Mr. Kate Snow’s article and answer for me why Apartheid was wrong in SA?
Bashir and Ethiopia’s former gorilla fighters are best friends. They are killing their citizens together. You are protecting Bashir. If you are unemployed and in need of income and for your income if you chose to sell blood of victims of Darfur you better look for other job. If you are protecting criminals, you are legalizing pro- Apartheid South Africans because they can also enslave black South Africans.
ProjectCensored
Friday, April 10th, 2009
Ethiopian Indigenous Victims of Corporate and Government Sources: World War 4 Report, Issue 97, April 2004, “State Terror in Ethiopia: Another Secret War for Oil?,” http://www.ww4report.com/97.html, http://www.allthingspass.com; Z Magazine Online, Source: ProjectCensored May 2004, Author: keith harmon snow
Faculty Evaluator: Tom Lough, Ph.D.
Student Researcher: Thedoria Grayson
According to Anuak sources relying on sympathetic oppositionists within the regime, the EPRDF plans to procure the petroleum of Gambella were laid out at a top-level cabinet meeting in Addis Ababa (the capital of Ethiopia) in September 2003. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi chaired the meeting, at which the militant ethnic cleansing of the Anuaks was reportedly openly discussed. December 13, 2003 marked the start of a coordinated military operation to systematically eliminate Anuaks. Sources from inside the military government’s police and intelligence network say that the code name of the military operation was: “OPERATION SUNNY MOUNTAIN.”
As of November 4, 2004, at least 1,500 and perhaps as many as 2,500 Anuak civilians have died in the recent fighting. Intellectuals, leaders, students and other educated classes have been intentionally targeted. Hundreds of people remain unaccounted for and many have mysteriously “disappeared.” Thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of Anuak homes have reportedly been burned.
The Anuak men have been killed, arrested, or displaced, leaving thousands of women and children vulnerable. Anuak women and girls are routinely raped, gang-raped and kept as sexual slaves by EPRDF forces, often at gunpoint. Girls have been shot for resisting rape, and summary executions for girls held captive for prolonged periods as sexual slaves have been reported. Reports from non-Anuak police officials in Gambella indicate an average of up to seven rapes per day. Due to the isolation of women and girls in rural areas, rapes remain under-reported. Some 6,000 to 8,000 Anuak remain at refugee camps in Pochalla, Sudan, and there are an estimated 1,000 annual refugees in Kenya. In August 2004, approximately 25 percent (roughly 50,000 people) of Gambella’s population had been displaced.
To the Anuak and other indigenous peoples of southwestern Ethiopia, the government of Prime minister Meles Zenawi is a ruthless military dictatorship.