Sudan helped militias: :: Namibia Internet Gateway cc ::

Articles: Sudan helped militias:

Posted by admin on Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - 12:53 AM

The Sudanese government has directed the recruitment, arming and support of militias accused of murder, rape and uprooting one million African villagers in Darfur, says Human Rights Watch.
Kenneth Roth, director of the New York-based group, yesterday showed reporters translations of four documents signed by government authorities. One from Sudan's deputy interior minister, Ahmad Harun, asks for the recruitment of "knights" in apparent reference to militiamen. Others are from provincial and local authorities in February and March requesting arms for militia fighters and asking government security units to overlook "misdeeds" of key Janjaweed militia leader Musa Hilal and others. "We can no longer trust Khartoum to police itself when Khartoum is part of a large problem," Roth told a news conference. "It's like the fox guarding the chicken coop." Sudan denied the accusation on a day that saw the North African nation on the defensive over two other Darfur reports. One, from Amnesty International, accuses militias of the mass rape and kidnapping of girls as young as 8 and women as old as 80, sometimes with Sudanese soldiers looking on. Also released was a U.N. report stating that raids on civilians continue despite worldwide condemnation and Sudan's claims of efforts to stop them. Bolstering Sudan's claim that it is trying to halt, not extend, the humanitarian crisis was news that on Sunday a Sudanese court sentenced 10 Arab militiamen to amputation and six years in jail — the first conviction of Janjaweed fighters for looting and killing in the Darfur region that started last year. After years of conflict between Arab nomads and black African farmers, rebels took up arms. The anti-rebel Janjaweed went on the rampage, driving black Africans into barren camps, conducting widespread rape and killing an estimated 30,000 people.

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