Conditioning Aid in Kerdang Refugee Camp - Sudan is Coercing Displaced Persons to Return (August 17, 2005)

The Government of Sudan is attempting to forcibly return displaced persons in West Darfur and is corrupting the aid process, according to several displaced persons and other individuals interviewed by Damanga in the past month. These Sudanese government policies violate human rights principles, as described to Damanga and contributed to the altercation that occurred in Kerdang camp about 4 kilometers east of El Geneina on July 8, 2005.

One local chief was arrested for refusing to tell his people to return. Some Darfurians are reportedly being bribed to return and convince their fellow villagers to return. Displaced persons told Damanga that Sudanese security agents have been placed among the staff of aid organizations. Such Sudan government actions have provoked clashes between displaced persons and aid workers.

Three different displaced persons from the camp as well as one witness from Geneina town told Damanga that the Government of Sudan has planted some of its security forces among the staff of aid organizations in Kerdang camp.¹ Recently government officials and agencies responsible for the aid in Kerdang camp have added conditions for receipt of the aid. According to the four displaced persons interviewed by Damanga, Camp residents find the conditions unacceptable and, as described, they violate human rights principles. They told Damanga that government officials are conditioning the aid, or at least a portion of it, upon return of the displaced persons to home villages. Many in the camp do not believe it is safe to return to their home villages. Many know their villages have been devastated and do not believe they have anything left to go home to. Besides the countless Sudanese government human rights abuses that have led to the displacement,² coercing people displaced by human rights abuses to involuntarily return and conditioning their aid violate several international human rights norms, such as the U.N.’s Guiding Priniciples on Internal Displacement.³

The Chief of Libeery, Omda Suliman Deena, the Massaleit leader of approximately 25 villages east of El Geneina in West Darfur was arrested by government officials reportedly because he refused to urge his people to return to their home villages. Damanga sources learned that his arrest occurred during the last week of June 2005 in Libeery village, where the elderly chief, (an estimated 63-years-of-age) had been living.⁴

The chief is known as a defender of the rights of his people. He reportedly not only refused to promote return, but specifically told the government not to force any of his people to return, according to the people Damanga interviewed. The chief contended that the region lacks security, there are few houses standing, little if any water and no effective guarantees for the protection of his people.

The Chief reportedly was tortured badly and sent to an unknown detention center in Khartoum, according to those interviewed by Damanga. Such arbitrary and incognito detention violates several international human rights laws prohibiting arbitrary detention, not to mention prohibitions on torture.⁵ Damanga knows of no legal grounds for charging the Chief with any crime and urges the Sudanese government to release him or at least publicly charge him. The Chief’s family has been targeted in the past by the Sudanese government, heightening fears for the safety of the Chief. Damanga members documented government complicity in the killing of the Chief’s son, Dr. Ahmed Deena in the year 2002.⁶ Dr. Ahmed Deena was an officer in the army, and was working in the Omdurman Military hospital. He was assasinated During the middle of the night inside his house in the Mayo district in the southside of Khartoum.

In addition, government officials have cut back the quantity of aid delivered to the displaced persons in Kerdang camp, said the aforementioned three displaced persons from the camp as well as one witness from Geneina town.⁷ They said government officials had taken control of aid to the camp and changed the identification cards previously issued by international aid agencies they used to obtain their aid. Many displaced persons do not trust Arab-based aid organizations, some of which work in the camp. The four displaced persons told Damanga they believe it is morally unacceptable to take aid from groups associated with policies that are contributing to the human rights violations they are suffering.

As a result of this corruption of the aid process by the Sudanese government, some men in the camp attacked supposed aid workers with sticks at about 9 a.m. on Friday 8 July, 2005. Another factor contributing to the attack, according to those interviewed, was that government officials and their allied workers simply demeaned and mistreated the displaced persons with their derogatory language. In Darfur, walking sticks are carried by most men and play an important role in the cultural identity of the region. These sticks could not have been considered a weapon or a threat to the aid workers, prior to the attack. It is unknown if the attack was a premeditated plan to use force, or a spontaneous, but violent show of frustration over the aid process. Damanga has learned of unsubstantiated suspicions circulating among the refugees at Kerdang camp. It is widely believed that the government of Sudan had coerced certain individuals to start the attack.⁸

In another effort to manipulate the aid process, Damanga has learned that the Sudanese government has recruited intellectual members of the Massaleit, Zagawa, Fur, Tama and other Darfur tribes who have lived elsewhere in Sudan, with payments in the order of 3 million Sudanese pounds (approximately U.S. $1,200), to return to Darfur. They are asked to return to Darfur and to go to displaced persons camps and speak with their fellow tribespeople to convince them to return to their home villages. ⁹ Yet in many cases the displaced persons know they have little if anything to return to since their home villages have been devastated by past attacks. Damanga has also learned that some of these recruitments have returned to Khartoum, and other towns after they failed to convince their fellow tribesmen to leave the protection of the IDP camps and return home to their villages.

1. Damanga spoke with these individuals two hours after the July 8 incident.
2. See, for example, report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur to the United Nations Secretary-General, can be viewed at: http://www.ohchr.org/english/darfur.htm
3. For Guiding Principles of IDP, see: http://www.brook.edu/fp/projects/idp/gp_page.htm
4. Multiple sources gave similar accounts of this situation during the past two months.”
5. See, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_ccpr.htm Ratified by Sudan on 18 March 1986
6. See Damanga report: Killings of Massaleit Intellectuals and Civilians Continue in Western Sudan (5/4/2002) http://www.damanga.org/reports_5_4_2002.html
7. See Note 1.
8. These suspicions have been reported to Damanga through numerous sources, over the last two months. Damanga has not confirmed these suspicions.
9. Damanga first learned of this information in June of 2005, and was able to corroborate this in July with multiple sources.