Killings, displacements, and slave trading
show history is repeating itself

Ever since the 1994 Rwandan massacre of 800,000 Tutsis, critics of the United Nations have had added reasons to be skeptical about the competence and sincerity of the international body’s humanitarian work in Africa. Sudan is another African nation that continues to suffer due to the irresponsibility and ignorance of UN workers and a number of humanitarian agencies, say some observers whose stories rarely, if ever, reach the mainstream media.

The UN has been condemned by a wide range of people around the world, including pro-lifers, for failing to act on compelling information about an impending Hutu strike against the Rwandan Tutsis in the mid-1990s. Until recently, when UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked for an investigation into the incident, the international organization had come under repeated criticism for a full-scale cover up of the incident.

Mel Middleton of the Freedom Quest International organization has bitter memories of the tragedy. He was in Nairobi, Kenya at the time of the massacres and said there was widespread knowledge about the impending attack and that it was a topic of discussion on the streets several days before it happened. He said the UN forces had sufficient warning to prevent the carnage if they had been prepared to do so.

Mr. Middleton has lived in several African countries for over 25 years, having been born to missionary parents and later doing missionary work himself. He also worked for the Canadian High Commission in Kenya from 1993-1997, reporting to CIDA about developments in Kenya, Sudan, Rwanda and Uganda. He now works out of Alberta, educating Canadians about human rights violations in Sudan and the Horn of Africa region through Freedom Quest International.

Mr. Middleton spoke recently in Ottawa at a Christian persecution conference where his main focus was Sudan. He is convinced that there, too, the UN could bring a quick end to current human rights abuses, if the international community was prepared to do so.

He said all that is necessary is for a single nation to make a formal accusation of “genocide” or “slavery” before the UN. Due to provisions in several international treaties, the international body would be compelled to act. Due, however, to the lack of political will to act, no nation is prepared to publicly accuse the Sudanese government of either of those two crimes.

He said the same thing happened in Rwanda. “Even when it was clear in front of CNN’s cameras that it was genocide, no country would say so. We know what happens now when countries hide their head in the sand and don’t acknowledge genocide when it takes place.”

Nevertheless, history appears to be repeating itself.

Sudan’s radical Islamic government, which has been at war for about 10 years with the country’s minorities, allows just enough humanitarian activity into the country to keep the international community off its backs, explained Mr. Middleton. At the same time, it continues to carry out genocidal policies, including killings, displacement and a thriving slave trade.

Distribution of aid is carefully monitored by the Khartoum government, said Mr. Middleton. In the government-controlled north, this means foreign agencies are only permitted to work alongside local Islamic groups. He said Muslims in Sudan trade acceptance of Islam for humanitarian relief, and that the UN is well aware of the practice.

Mr. Middleton is hesitant to attribute malicious intent to UN forces, but said that regardless of their motives, they are “complying with and even promoting the policies of the government (by) whitewashing what Khartoum is doing. And it serves to fool journalists and diplomats because they all go to the UN for their information.”

In the south, the Sudanese government only allows humanitarian relief in designated areas, keeping foreigners out of areas where some of the most harsh persecution is taking place. One area off limits to foreigners is the Nuba Mountains – the origin of reports about some of the worst human rights abuses.

Mr. Middleton also scoffed at the claims that overpopulation is the source of the problems in Sudan and other African countries. He said that the famines we hear about are largely human-made. The Sudanese people plan for droughts so that they don’t face famine, he said.

It was their displacement at the hands of the Khartoum government preventing them from preparing for the latest lean times – as well as a reduction in humanitarian aid at a crucial time in the early 1990s – that led to the current difficulties, he explained. The Canadian International Development Agency cut funding to UNICEF’s food aid program in southern Sudan just as the government launched a new wave of “ethnic cleansing.”

One of the most disturbing aspects of the situation in Sudan today, said Mr. Middleton, is the support the Sudanese government receives from Canadian oil company Talisman Energy. Talisman, which bought up 25 per cent of the operation last year, is one of four partners in an oil operation in Sudan. Some of the most aggressive ethnic cleansing campaigns took place around the oil fields, for the express purpose of giving the government access to them.

Khartoum’s Islamic regime benefits from Talisman’s presence, he said, because of the royalties it receives from oil operation as well as from the reputation Canada has for being an advocate of human rights.

Because of Canada’s reputation for defending human rights, Talisman’s presence in Sudan gives the Khartoum government a cloak of respectability to hide behind while it continues to persecute its non-Muslim citizens. Mr. Middleton and the Voice of the Martyrs organization are encouraging all Canadians concerned about the persecution of Christians and other human rights abuses to make sure they are not investing in Talisman.

Talisman claims the revenue it generates will benefit all Sudanese people. It also argues that the allegations of human rights abuses are suspect. Dr. Jim Buckee, CEO of Talisman, also claims to have visited the Nuba Mountains and not seen any evidence of persecution.

Mr. Middleton counters that the executive went to Kadugli, a government-controlled garrison town in the mountains, where it was arranged that he would not see anything. “Why didn’t he go to Mendi, Um Sirdiba, or any of the other locations where concentration camps are set up and where human rights abuses are taking place?” he asked.