N.Y.Times:Sudan Accused of Arresting Those Who Disclose Dire Conditions

New York Times
August 11, 2004
Sudan Accused of Arresting Those Who Disclose Dire Conditions
By MARC LACEY

AIROBI, Kenya, Aug. 10 - A human rights group accused the Sudanese authorities on Tuesday of rounding up scores of people in the conflict-torn Darfur region because they had spoken to visiting officials and journalists about the dire situation there.

According to the rights group, Amnesty International, the detainees included 15 men arrested in the Abushouk camp near El Fasher after a visit to Darfur by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on June 30, and 5 people taken after a visit on July 27 to the same camp by the French foreign minister, Michel Barnier.

Six men were arrested from July 15 to July 17 in Abu Jereda, a village near El Fasher, after they had spoken to members of the cease-fire commission run by the African Union, according to a report by Amnesty International, which is based in London.

"The Sudanese government should give assurances that none of those arrested will be tortured or ill-treated while in detention and that Sudanese people can speak freely about Darfur without fear of reprisals," the rights group said.

More than a million people in Darfur have been driven from their homes, caught up in a civil conflict that involves government troops, militias backed by the government and two rebel groups. Now living in camps scattered across the region, residents have been blunt in their criticism of the government - even with officials within earshot.

The displaced people, from black African tribes, freely describe how government troops supported by Arab militias have destroyed their villages and committed rapes and mass killings. "What more can happen to us?" said one man who told his story recently under the watchful eye of government officials.

As international condemnation of the government's role in the chaos has grown, Sudan has dispatched officials to Darfur to quell the antigovernment sentiment. The officials interrupt camp dwellers as they speak to foreigners, correcting their stories with authorized accounts.

In response to the Amnesty International report, Sudanese officials told Reuters on Tuesday that the detentions in Darfur have been security matters and not reprisals for speaking to foreigners.

But Amnesty International said it had gathered information from North Darfur, one of the three states affected by the violence, indicating that at least 47 people had been arrested from June 26 to Aug. 3, most of them after they had spoken to members of one or more of the many foreign delegations that have passed through Darfur.

Other forms of opposition were being squelched, the group said. A human rights lawyer, Abazer Ahmad Abu al-Bashir, was arrested July 24 by security officials in Nyala after submitting a petition to the governor that called for an end to the conflict.

There were new signs on Tuesday that the complicated armed struggle was continuing to rage despite recent pledges by the government to reign in the militias, which are known as the Janjaweed.

The United Nations issued a statement in Geneva on Tuesday criticizing the Sudanese government for ordering new helicopter gunship attacks in Darfur.

Pro-government militias also continued to attack the local population, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. The agency said the Sudanese authorities were also pressuring people to return to their villages even though there was inadequate security to protect them there.