Rebel governor says Darfur overshadowing needs of southern Sudan
By RAWYA RAGEH, Associated Press Writer
YEI, Sudan, Sep 11, 2004 (AP) — A southern rebel governor praised the international attention on government-backed militia killings in western Sudan, but said Saturday that similar tactics were used in the south and worried that the needs of southernors were being overshadowed.
Samuel Abujohn, governor of rebel-ruled Equatoria province, said international sanctions against the Khartoum government — a U.S.-backed proposal that has run into opposition — would not be enough.
“It is good that the American people now know that there is genocide happening there (in Darfur), but, we too, have suffered a lot,” Abujohn said during a visit to Yei by the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development. “There was genocide here.”
On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called the western Darfur violence genocide, the first time the Bush administration has used the term to describe the conflict, which has killed about 30,000 people and forced more than 1 million to flee their homes. Government-backed militias allegedly have burned villages, raped women and killed anyone in their way.
The Sudanese government denies the accusations and rejects the characterization of genocide, which came as a U.S. proposal in the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions encountered opposition.
Andrew S. Natsios, at the start of an eight-day visit to Sudan, responded that “we know that the same tactics have been used in the south.”
Sudan’s north-south civil war erupted in 1983 when rebels from the mostly animist and Christian south took up arms against the predominantly Muslim, Arab north. More than 2 million people have died in Africa’s longest-running conflict, mainly through war-induced famine, but fighting has slowed since the warring parties began peace talks in July 2002.
Yei, the base of several U.S. aid projects in the south, was taken over by the SPLA in 1997. A town of 200,000 living in huts 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the Ugandan border, Yei relies on supplies from Uganda and Congo.
Abujohn said development is slow in coming, but that life and business have improved. “People expect that there is peace now, so businesses are running and people are returning,” he said.
If a final cease-fire agreement is signed between the southern rebels and Khartoum — the last step to implement a framework peace accord — Abujohn said that “by the end of the year you will find it (Yei) something different.”
Today, roads are bumpy, muddy, narrow and dangerous, making aid receipt from Uganda and Congo difficult, and wartime land mines pose a danger to residents and aid workers.
“The problem is roads,” Abujohn told Natsios. “Whatever money is available will run out if we keep flying everything in.”
More aid is needed, said town commissioner David Lokongo, because about 20,000 residents who had fled Yei during the fighting were returning.
Among USAID projects in southern Sudan is the Yei-based Microfinance Institution, which gives loans to fund small businesses such as retailers.
Ilya Lasout, who runs a small shop at the Yie market, said has borrowed 1,000,000 Ugandan Shillings (US$600). “The money is too little, but I hope in time I will get more,” Lasout said.