Church appeal for conflict IDPs in western Upper Nile

Church World Service (CWS), an umbrella group of Christian organisations in the US, has appealed for urgent support for relief efforts to assist thousands of families displaced in Rubkona County, southern Sudan, by government military action in the oil-rich area.

CWS said in a statement on Monday that it was helping partner organisations in the area to assist some 4,000 families (comprising 3,000 internally displaced and 1,000 host families) around Chotchar and Touc.

The flat scrub of the Upper Nile region offered no protection from the government's aerial bombardments or attacks by helicopters, it said, and people had crossed many small rivers and swamps in search of whatever limited security they could find.

The government has launched "a massive dry-season offensive in the oilfields [including western Upper Nile]... aided by thousands of its forces, redeployed as a result of the Nuba Mountains ceasefire [in Southern Kordofan]," John Prendergast, co-director for Africa of the International Crisis Group, told a US Congressional hearing on 5 June.

Khartoum has consistently denied that it is targeting civilian populations in oil areas, saying that it aims to make the areas safe for oil operations, and has accused the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) of escalating military operations and causing the deterioration of humanitarian conditions in Unity State/western Upper Nile.

The internally displaced people (IDPs) who are being reached in western Upper Nile are receiving blankets, family-sized mosquito nets, cooking pots, tarpaulins for makeshift shelters, fishing equipment and hand tools, according to CWS.

Families hosting the IDPs were also receiving mosquito nets and fishing equipment, while CWS's local partners were bring trained on ways of improving their capacity to respond to this and future emergencies, it said.

"Support is urgently needed for these relief and recovery efforts," the agency added. CWS is the relief, development, and refugee assistance ministry of 36 Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican denominations, and works with indigenous organisations in more than 80 countries "to support sustainable self-help development, refugee and emergency needs, and help address the root causes of poverty and powerlessness".
[http://www.churchworldservice.org/]

CWS called on the public to urge the US to stay involved in Sudan as long as human rights continued being violated, and to continue in its search for peace. It also urged people to urge the US Senate leadership to push forward with the Sudan Peace Act so that the discussion of capital market sanctions could move forward.

Humanitarian, religious and human rights groups have repeatedly spoken of a link between oil exploration and extraction in Upper Nile, and alleged a "scorched earth" policy by the government to depopulate oil areas and make them safe for oil production.

They have also claimed that oil revenues had enabled the Sudanese government to double its military expenditure in the last two years, escalating the violence in the 19-year-old civil war.

Numerous speakers suggested at the 5 June US Congressional hearing on Sudan that the US should move forward with this act (currently languishing in legislative limbo) in order to provide leverage on oil companies involved in Sudan, and thus on the Sudanese government, to engage meaningfully in a peace process.

US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter H. Kansteiner said the White House was opposed to sections of the proposed legislation which would sanction access oil companies active in Sudan, because it would set "a precedent for political interference in US capital markets".

American companies are already barred from investing in Sudan, which remains on Washington's list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The Sudanese ambassador to the US, Khidr Harun Ahmad, has said pressure groups intent on distorting Sudan's image are promoting the Sudan Peace Act.

Sanctions against international firms engaged in oil production in Sudan would "eliminate even the modest gains in the standard of living of ordinary Sudanese, both north and south", he said, in a note for the record of the US Congress hearing.