Sudan+Conflict

 11/21/08 Capital: Abyei Muslim Arab tribes of the north of the country versus African Christian and animist tribes of the south In May heavy fighting broke out in Abyei between the northern government’s army and the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), which are supposed to have stopped fighting each other since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), signed in 2005  300,000 internal refugees in Darfur since January alone 2.7million in camps in Darfur itself, another 300,000 are in Chad 5million Darfuris out of 6 million total are in camps or relying on aid 300,000 have died in conflict. 17,000 local and foreign aid-workers in Darfur 11 humanitarian workers killed this year and 179 kidnapped. 237 aid vehicles hijacked this year, already double the number for 2007. The UN in Darfur has moved to its highest level of alert before full evacuation. All non-essential staff have left. The United Nations African Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) are the peacekeepers there to prevent the violence. only 10,000 troops and police, short of the 26,000 that were promised by the end of this year. This force is stronger than the force given by the AU previously, but has not stemmed the conflict. Just to the east of the town, for example, are the Chinese-run oilfields around the town of Heglig. These supply the northern government in Khartoum with most of its substantial revenues and help to fund a building and consumer boom in the capital. But the local Dinka derive no benefit from this money. They are not even allowed into the area around Heglig, though it is part of their old homeland.  Migrations of heavily armed Arab cattle-herders into the lusher wetlands of the Dinka at the beginning of each dry season have caused violence for decades.  The western province of Darfur is also riven by a war between the government and rebel forces that erupted in 2003. At first this battle of the Sudanese army, together with the Arab militias (//janjaweed)//, against two main rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Army. Now, the //janjaweed// militias have fragmented, fighting among themselves and occasionally against the Sudanese army, especially when they have not been paid. The rebels, too, have fractured into about 30 groups of varying size and seriousness. kidnapping and killing aid-workers  The peace agreement of 2005 between north and south agreed, for example, to share the wealth, integrate the two sides’ armies and settle the boundary between them. The peace agreement gives southerners the right to hold a referendum to secede from Sudan in 2011.  HOPE FOR THE FUTURE the prospect of national elections next year; the beginning of proceedings against President Omar al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of genocide over Darfur; the election of Barack Obama who is less likely Republican predecessors to go soft on Mr Bashir’s government for the sake of the titbits of intelligence on al-Qaeda that the Sudanese intelligence services give the Americans.
 * Sudan/Darfur **