“Gross violations” persist in Sudan

Both the government of Sudan and rebels groups have violated human rights in the civil war, say the US-based Human Rights Watch in its World Report 2001. The government has “stepped up its brutal expulsion of southern villagers from the oil production areas and trumpeted its resolve to use the oil income for more weapons,” said the report. Under the leadership of President Omar el-Beshir the government had intensified its bombing of civilian targets, denied relief food to needy civilians, and abused children’s rights, particularly through military and logistical support for the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), said Human Rights Watch. The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), the principal armed movement based in the south, had “continued to loot food (including relief provisions) from the population, sometimes with civilian casualties, recruit child soldiers, and commit rape.” Gross human rights violations in Sudan came from the fact that “On both sides, impunity was the rule.” The government’s human rights record was a factor in the UN General Assembly vote in October that denied a Security Council seat to Sudan, said the report. It said that efforts to end the war had stalled on the issues of the relation of religion to the state and self-determination. (For full Human Rights Watch 2001 report on Sudan see http://www.hrw.org/wr2k1/africa/sudan.html)