Day: January 31, 2023

Responding to the news that Pope Francis will begin a 6-day visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan today, Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East and Southern Africa, said:

“During his trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, Pope Francis should publicly call on the countries’ leaders to take concrete steps to end impunity for crimes under international law. Improving the human rights situation in each country will not be possible without criminal accountability for atrocities committed amid the armed conflicts.

During his trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, Pope Francis should publicly call on the countries’ leaders to take concrete steps to end impunity for crimes under international law

“While the DRC authorities initiated a “transitional justice” process, their efforts to actually achieve accountability and justice have proved half-hearted and hesitant. Meanwhile, South Sudanese authorities have failed to prosecute perpetrators of crimes under international law, or to establish the AU-backed Hybrid Court for South Sudan, despite provisions in two peace deals. Instead, they appear to prioritize truth over trials.”

“It is essential that the authorities in each country take urgent steps to address rampant impunity for the atrocities committed during armed conflicts, which have ravaged the countries in recent decades.”

It is essential that the authorities in each country take urgent steps to address rampant impunity for the atrocities committed during armed conflicts, which have ravaged the countries in recent decades

Background:

Pope Francis will visit the DRC from 31 January to 3 February and South Sudan from 3 to 5 February. The last visit by a pope to the DRC — Africa’s largest Catholic nation — was 38 years ago. Pope Francis will be the first pope to visit South Sudan.

For over 25 years now, armed conflicts in the DRC have claimed millions of lives, yet both Congolese and foreign perpetrators of these crimes have largely remained unpunished. Earlier this year, a government-appointed committee submitted the first version of a “national transitional justice strategy”, which could take years to finalize and translate into action.

In 2015 and 2018, parties to South Sudan’s latest conflict committed to setting up an African Union-backed Hybrid Court for South Sudan (HCSS) to investigate and prosecute war crimes and other human rights violations committed in the conflict since December 2013. But the creation of the HCSS has been delayed, leaving little to no prospects for accountability for crimes under international law for millions of survivors and victims.

Source: Amnesty International

Pope Francis arrives in the Democratic Republic of Congo Tuesday on his first visit to the country with Africa’s largest Catholic population. Francis will be in the DRC, a country struggling with decades of conflict, until Friday, when he goes to the world’s youngest country, South Sudan. Analysts hope for peace in the region.

Pope Francis arrived Tuesday in the DRC capital, Kinshasa, to begin a six-day visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.

The pope brings bring a message of peace and reconciliation to the two countries, which have struggled through years of conflict.

A pastor invited to meet with the pope, who asked to be identified only as Herale, told VOA that he hopes the Pope’s message will help end the fighting in the country’s east.

He said the Pope is well known both religiously and politically. Congo has numerous problems, squabbles, and conflicts. The pope only needs to say a few words to put an end to the conflict in the east, the pastor says. Francis has the ability to assist the country and bring peace.

The pope meets with Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi, government officials, diplomats, civil society leaders, and victims of conflict from the east.

On Wednesday, the 86-year-old will also hold a public prayer in Kinshasa.

Pope Francis had planned to visit Goma in North Kivu province, but he canceled his visit because of the resurgence of conflict between the M23 rebel group and Congolese forces.

Researcher and political analyst Ntanyoma Rukumbuzi said the pope will remind the world of the ongoing conflict in the DRC.

“Because of security problems affecting civilians in this region, his message was to support and call for attention to atrocities taking place in this region. During his visit, the situation has drastically deteriorated. One can expect his message as it was before would possibly change. He is going to change his tone to emphasize that civilians should be protected,” said Rukumbuzi.

In addition to the chronic unrest in several eastern provinces, the DRC is preparing for an election later this year and the prospect of political violence remains a concern.

Rukumbuzi said the pope will speak out about the political situation and upcoming elections.

“The Pope will talk about the country’s leadership and what to expect from its leaders, and as it has been mostly the stance of the Roman Catholic in DRC it plays a huge role within the political arena, domestic political arena, but they are also among the vocal critic when it comes to the way the Congolese elite manage the country. The Pope will be very clear on this issue,” said Rukumbuzi.

The country’s Catholic leadership criticized then-president Joseph Kabila when he postponed elections for more than two years starting in 2016.

The election was finally held in December 2018 and won by the current president, Tshisekedi, in a disputed vote. Tshisekedi’s term ends this year and polls are expected in December.

Pastor Herale said politicians must prioritize the interests of the country.

“Congo is preparing for elections, and politicians are competing for political positions, but security is poor. He’s coming to Congo, which is in a lot of trouble, and we hope he’ll be able to convince politicians to speak one language and agree to protect the country,” he said.

Pope Francis is scheduled to be in Congo until Friday, when he heads to South Sudan.

Source: Voice of America

The Sudanese authorities are conducting intensive investigations with former military forces personnel, and individuals from armed groups in a camp on Sudan’s western border.

Members of the armed group have been arrested by a joint force after pursuits alongside the border with the Central African Republic (CAR).

Since last December there were reports about armed groups from Sudan and Chad operating along the border area with Chad and CAR. Some reports say they are recruited by the armed movements hostile to the Russian-backed government in Bangui.

Last month, the Deputy Chairman of the Sovereignty Council, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo “Hemetti”, requested the Security and Defense Council to dissolve these forces and to arrest its members immediately.

Multiple sources spoke to Sudan Tribune, the Council in a meeting held last week directed to form

a task force to pursue, arrest, investigate members of these groups, and find out their goals.

“The authorities detained some of them, and they are currently under investigation after their transfer to Khartoum,” confirmed the sources.

Addressing the 56th shooting festival in Ad Damazin, the capital of the Blue Nile region, two weeks ago, the Commander in Chief of the Sudanese army Abdel Fattah al-Burhan expressed Sudan’s keenness on stability in the region, stressing that the army does not recruit mercenaries to destabilize neighbouring countries.

Burhan’s statement seemed to be a response to Hemetti’s speech on January 3 when he disclosed that they thwarted an attempt to overthrow the regime in the Central African Republic (CAR), and seized a group distributing the RSF “uniform” there.

Source: Sudan Tribune

This week, Sudanese authorities released Abdel Raouf Abu Zaid Hamza who was convicted of killing John Granville, an American diplomat working for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and his driver in Khartoum exactly 15 years ago. A Sudanese court found him guilty and sentenced him to death along with three other participants.

On what legal basis was Hamza released?

The high court issued a ruling that freed Hamza after inquiring with the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and confirming that Granville’s family received financial compensation as part of a larger settlement package finalized in late 2020 involving multiple terrorist incidents, his brother Abd al-Malik told Sudan Tribune.

What were the details of the settlement?

The United States announced in March 2021 that it had received $335 million from Sudan to compensate the victims of the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the bombing of the USS Cole destroyer in 2000 as well as Granville’s assassination. The specific amount received by his family was not disclosed. In return, the United States removed Sudan from the list of states that sponsor terrorism and reinstated its sovereign immunity.

Why are some suspicious of the motives behind the ruling?

There is a strong belief within some political groups that participated in the December 2018 uprising that brought about the demise of the Bashir regime that the High Court is dominated by Islamic-leaning judges who have ascended to their positions by virtue of their ideology.

Did the family of the Sudanese victims pardon the killers?

Abd al-Malik confirmed to {Sudan Tribune} that the father of the Sudanese victim Abd al-Rahman Abbas Rahma has agreed to forfeit the demand for the death penalty to the killers in 2009 in response to mediation led by Sheikh Muhammad Sayed Haj, a prominent member of the Ansar al-Sunna al-Muhammadiyah group, in which Abd al-Raouf’s late father held the position of president.

“Since that pardon removed the death penalty, the prison sentence remained until the settlement was completed in 2021. It is not clear to us why Hamza’s release was delayed since that time, as his accomplices escaped from prison, and he became the only one under punishment.”

Lawyers in Khartoum indicate that Hamza was not released at the time because he was serving a prison sentence for the “common right,” and he was released after it was completed on January 30th.

Did the man renounce extremist ideology?

Sudan Tribune met with Hamza on the morning of his release at his home in Omdurman, but he declined to give any press interviews, while his brother confirmed that the man-made deep intellectual revisions and renounced his extreme views after dialogues initiated with him by the late Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Hajj.

“I assure you, he has now been completely changed as a result of those revisions, and he has announced that he has completely rejected those ideas,” his brother said.

US State Department responds:

According to Reuters, the US State Department said it was aware of reports that Hamza had been released.

“Our embassy is engaging government officials to obtain more information. We call for full accountability for the murders of John Granville and his Sudanese colleague Abdelrahman Abbas Rahma,” a State Department spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added that Hamza remains listed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by Washington. He has been so designated since 2013.

John Granville and his Sudanese driver Abdel-Rahman Abbas Rahma were shot dead on the 2008 New Year’s Eve by men believed to be belonging to an Islamic militant group Ansar al-Tawhid which claimed responsibility for the killing.

Sudan hosted al-Qaeda deceased leader Osama bin Laden and leftist militant Carlos the Jackal in the early 1990s and became a hub for Islamic movements, which led to international isolation, as the United States classified it as a state sponsor of terrorism in 1993.

Sudan’s position changed in wake of the 9/11 attacks and al-Bashir began to cooperate with the United States to combat terrorism.

Source: Sudan Tribune

A delegation of 70 leaders of the Forces for Freedom and Change-Democratic Block (FFC-DB), will depart for Cairo to participate in the inter-Sudanese dialogue workshop brokered by Egypt for the Sudanese-Sudanese dialogue, prominent FFC-DB member has confirmed.

Mustafa Tambour, a former member of the holdout Sudan Liberation Movement under the leadership of Abdelwahid El Nur (SLM-AW), told Radio Dabanga that “delegates from a large number of political groups – with the exception of the FFC-Central Council – will participate in the Cairo workshop that will be launched on February 1”.

The FFC-CC is leading the current political process in cooperation with the other signatories of the Framework Agreement, which is to end with a Final Agreement with the junta, after which the military will withdraw from politics to make way for a civilian government. The coalition one month ago refused to “flood the political process” with parties “that are not interested in democracy”, such as the FFC-DB.

He explained that the importance of the workshop lies in “bringing together different political forces, and because Egypt has the best chance of mediating between the Sudanese parties and managing a comprehensive Sudanese-Sudanese dialogue, given its strategic relations with Sudan”.

Regarding the AU-IGAD-UNITAMS Trilateral Mechanism that is brokering the political process, Tambour called “its approach to dealing with the political crisis incorrect, its identification of the parties inaccurate, which has contributed to increasing tension”.

On January 19, the Mechanism agreed with the FFC-CC that it would take over the organisation of the conferences on the Juba Peace Agreement (JPA) and governance in eastern Sudan from the Framework Agreement signatories.

Tambour played down the importance of the conference on the JPA, that will start in Khartoum today. ”It does not have any value because the participating parties have nothing to do with the JPA and are not interested in discussing it.”

He said that the rebel members of the FFC-DB will definitely take part in the workshop on the JPA in Juba in mid-February. The South Sudanese team that mediated the negotiations that lead to the signing of the JPA in October 2020 has invited the signatories to a workshop “to develop a clear road map for the implementation of the JPA protocols”.

Source: Radio Dabanga

The trial of Mohamed Adam (better known by his nickname Tupac) and three other young men who were detained in January last year on charges of killing a police brigadier during anti-junta demonstrations in Khartoum, will resume next month.

Lawyer Eman Hasan, head of the defence team for murder accused Mohamed Adam, Musab El Shareef, Mohamed El Fateh, and Ahmed El Fateh, told Radio Dabanga yesterday that the court ruled that trial sessions will resume on February 12, after the court files returned from the Court of Appeal.

She said that the Court of Appeal has annulled the orders of the court judge against the director of Kober Prison, where the accused were tortured.

Hasan informed Radio Dabanga last week that the trial sessions were delayed because the case file, which also included the criminal case lodged against the director of Kober Prison, contained a mistake in the one of the dates.

The Court of Appeal, dealing with an appeal against the case of the prison director, first withheld the file, and then sent the complete file back to the court to correct the error.

She said that the delay “causes severe damage to the defendants and their families”.

The defence team submitted a request to the Court of Appeal to separate the case file of the young accused from the criminal proceedings against the director.

“The procedure against the director of Kober Prison is a separate judicial measure that does not require the request for the entire file,” she said. “This happened in bad faith.”

Trial history

Adam, Mohamed El Fateh, Musab El Shareef, and Ahmed El Fateh were detained on January 14 2022 on charges of killing a police officer and were subsequently subjected to torture in detention, including severe beatings and electric shocks and were denied medical aid.

The trial officially started in May but was postponed in June, when the protesters’ poor treatment inside Kober Prison sparked controversy, not only because of the torture the teenagers were subjected to but also because of inconsistencies in the police statements.

The authorities hold them responsible for the killing of Brig Bereima during the protests. Various Sudanese, however, reported on social media that Brig Ali Bereima was killed a week before. Others tweeted that the police officer was killed in the early morning of January 13, while the demonstrations started much later that day.

Lawyers also pointed to inconsistencies in the police statements issued on two consecutive days

In January, Eman Hasan told Radio Dabanga that the two detainees were questioned about the sources of funding behind the protests and about members of resistance committees, but not about the police brigadier they were accused of stabbing to death.

Adam’s lawyers and rights groups say that is where he was tortured and interrogated about the protest movement for three weeks, before eventually giving a false confession. He was suspended from his feet. He was subjected to continuous beatings, and he was deprived of water. The plaster was removed from his broken leg without medical supervision.

Resistance committees

In another criminal case against eight members of resistance committees in Khartoum charged with the murder of an intelligence officer, the court at the Institute of Judicial Sciences heard two witnesses from Military Intelligence on Monday.

Member of the defence team Mo’taz El Madani told Radio Dabanga that one of the witnesses said that he was beaten by demonstrators until he fainted. The second witness said that he saw one of the accused carrying a stick, but that he fled after his colleagues were beaten. The lawyer explained that the two testimonies have no weight because the two witnesses did not witness the crime. The court has decide

Source: Radio Dabanga