Amnesty International Report 1996 - Sudan

Hundreds of suspected opponents of the government, many of them prisoners of conscience, were detained without charge or trial for periods ranging from a few days to several months. Political detainees were tortured and prisoners were routinely flogged as judicial punishment. Scores of children were abducted by paramilitary forces and hundreds of people were extrajudicially executed in the war zones. At least nine death sentences were reported and at least two executions carried out. Armed opposition groups committed human rights abuses, including deliberate and arbitrary killings of scores of unarmed civilians. Members of virtually every sector of society, both in northern Sudan and in war zones in southern Sudan and the Nuba mountains, suffered human rights violations. The government of President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir continued to suppress all independent political activity and to maintain a state of emergency. The authorities took a number of steps designed to give the impression of action over human rights. In March the government closed a secret detention centre, the notorious "City Bank ghost house"; in May it produced an official list of 80 political detainees hitherto held in secret; and in August it announced that it had released 50 political prisoners and that there were no longer any political detainees. However, the inmates of the "City Bank ghost house" – which was just one of several secret detention centres – were transferred to a wing of Kober prison taken over by the security services. The May list of detainees was incomplete and within days of the August releases there were further political detentions. Anti-government street protests and riots broke out in mid-September in Khartoum, the capital, and other northern cities. They were sparked off by arrests of suspected government opponents and reflected widespread discontent with economic conditions. There were violent clashes between demonstrators and government supporters in which over 10 people were reportedly killed and many more wounded. The conflict between the government and armed opposition groups, which has persisted since the formation of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), led by John Garang de Mabior, in 1983, continued in parts of southern and western Sudan. In March the government announced a cease-fire, but the army and the government's paramilitary Popular Defence Force (PDF) continued to carry out military operations in which civilians were forcibly displaced and killed and villages were burned down. There were millions of internally displaced people within Sudan, and hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees in neighbouring countries. The South Sudan Independence Army (SSIA), led by Riek Machar Teny-Dhurgon, was torn by internal feuding. In January an expelled senior commander formed the Gogrial Aweil Nyamlell Tonj Rumbek Yirol Movement (GANTRY), which operated in northern Bahr al-Ghazal as a government militia. In August the SSIA split into two factions which fought against each other in central Upper Nile. The SPLA and SSIA (Machar) signed agreements in July and August respectively with the UN aid operation, Operation Lifeline Sudan, establishing ground rules for the delivery of humanitarian assistance. They included explicit commitments to respect basic humanitarian principles, and agreement to establish mechanisms for monitoring adherence to these principles. The UN Commission on Human Rights passed a resolution in March strongly condemning human rights abuses throughout the country and setting in motion the creation of a UN monitoring team to assess reports of human rights abuses. The government continued to deny the UN Special Rapporteur on Sudan access to the country. In March the African Commission on Human and People's Rights of the Organization of African Unity adopted a resolution expressing concern about the human rights situation in Sudan. Hundreds of people, many of them prisoners of conscience, were arrested, including members of banned political parties, trade unionists, lawyers, students, southern Sudanese, refugees and non-Sudanese nationals. Most were detained without charge or trial for periods ranging from a few days to a few months. Many were held in secret detention centres or "ghost houses" and, after March, in a section of Kober prison taken over by the security services. Prisoners of conscience held at the start of the year included Yousif Hussein, a leading member of the banned Sudan Communist Party (SCP) detained since June 1993, and Mohamed Babiker Mokhtar, a former leader of the banned Federation of Sudanese Employees and Professionals, detained since August 1994. Both men were released in April but rearrested in September and held until December. Prisoners of conscience were detained briefly throughout the year, including Gordon Micah Kur, a southern Sudanese former police officer and social worker, who was held from February to June for what was officially described as "hostile activity". He had previously been imprisoned between 1989 and 1991. Thirteen leading members of the Ansar order of Islam and the banned Umma party were arrested in Khartoum in May, including Sadiq al-Mahdi, a former prime minister, and Sara Nugdallah, a university lecturer, who was held until mid-July. There were reports of further arrests in the towns of Kosti, Gedaref and al-Obeid. One prisoner of conscience, Abdel Rasoul al-Nur, was released in June; the others were released in late August under an amnesty. Under the August amnesty, 32 political detainees were released. Nineteen were reported to be members of the Umma party and the others members of the banned Ba'ath Arab Socialist Party and the SCP. A few days later, 18 political prisoners convicted after unfair trials in 1991 and 1994 were also released. They included ‘Abd al-Rahman Abdallah Nugdalla and at least nine others convicted after unfair military trials in October 1991 (see Amnesty International Report 1992). Also released were five men convicted on the basis of confessions extracted under torture in April 1994 (see Amnesty International Reports 1994 and 1995). The authorities announced that there were no longer any political prisoners in Sudan. However, within days three Islamist political opponents of the government were arrested. At the start of September, 23 students and recent graduates were detained in Omdurman and accused of being communist plotters. These arrests sparked violent street protests in Khartoum and other northern cities during which as many as 800 people – some of them prisoners of conscience – were arrested. Although the majority of demonstrators were released within days, others were held for several weeks. The authorities apparently used the street protests as a pretext to round up scores of political opponents, many of them with left-wing views, such as prisoners of conscience Siddiq Yusuf, an engineer, and Kamal al-Gizouli, a lawyer and poet. There were further arrests of prisoners of conscience after the demonstrations ended. The majority were released after several weeks of incommunicado detention but some, including Mohamed Ibrahim Abdu (known as Kabaj), a businessman, and Salah Samareit, a trade unionist, were not released until December. Although human rights activists reported a reduction in the frequency of torture of political detainees in northern Sudan, many incidents still took place both upon arrest and in "ghost houses". Many of the victims were people from the south and Nuba suspected of involvement with the SPLA, both in the war zones and in the capital. Methods reported included beatings, forcing detainees to stand for long periods, and prolonged exposure to the sun. Following his arrest in January, Baha'a al-Tayeb, a recent graduate, was badly beaten by security officials. He was released in March. Scores of students arrested before, during and after the September protests were reported to have been beaten by security officials and government supporters working with the security police. A young man was reported to have been briefly held on 13 September by security officials who broke both his arms before setting him free. Shehab Ali Yusuf, a student accused of tearing pages out of a copy of the Qur'an during the protests, was badly beaten after his arrest in September. Floggings were imposed as judicial punishment. Many of the victims were women convicted of brewing alcohol, after summary trials by Public Order Courts which failed to meet international standards of fair trial. Many were internally displaced, having fled from the south where the brewing and selling of alcohol is not illegal, and had no other livelihood. The fate and whereabouts of scores of children abducted by PDF and other government militia forces in northern Bahr al-Ghazal and the Nuba mountains were not clarified by the authorities. Many were believed to be held in domestic slavery by their abductors. Others were reported to have been placed in camps run by the authorities, often in remote rural areas on the fringes of the Nuba mountains and southern Sudan, in preparation for recruitment into paramilitary forces. The fate of hundreds of prisoners who had "disappeared" in previous years remained unknown. A commission of inquiry established by the government to investigate hundreds of extrajudicial executions and "disappearances" in Juba in 1992 (see Amnesty International Report 1993) again failed to produce any report. Hundreds of unarmed civilians were extrajudicially executed in the war zones. In April at least four boys were reported to have been shot dead as they attempted to escape from a camp at Abu Dikiri, southwest of the Nuba mountains. In the same month, three villagers were extrajudicially executed by soldiers who burned down Dabiker on the edge of the Moro hills. In March and May scores of civilians were killed by PDF troops clearing people from the railway line in northern Bahr al-Ghazal in advance of government trains. In July GANTRY forces in northern Bahr al-Ghazal killed unarmed civilians in an attack on Panliet. In September the same group killed and abducted civilians at Panthou. At least nine death sentences were passed: nine women were sentenced to be hanged after being convicted of selling drugs. It was not known whether the sentences were carried out. At least two executions were carried out during the year. SPLA soldiers committed human rights abuses, including torture and deliberate and arbitrary killings of captured prisoners and unarmed civilians. In January SPLA soldiers were reported to have beaten young boys near Nimule who were being rounded up against their will to serve as soldiers, and to have raped women near Kajo Kaji with impunity. In July SPLA forces and their armed civilian allies deliberately and arbitrarily killed more than 200 people, including over 120 children, in villages around Ganyliel in southern Upper Nile. Villagers were shot in their homes and children were thrown into burning buildings. The attack was apparently in retaliation for the killing of over 100 civilians by SSIA soldiers in October 1994. Throughout the year Amnesty International urged the authorities and the leaders of the armed opposition to end human rights abuses. In January Amnesty International launched a major international campaign calling on the government, SPLA and SSIA to take immediate steps to end killings, "disappearances", torture and arbitrary detention. It also called on the international community to create an international civilian human rights monitoring team. Its report, Sudan: The tears of orphans – no future without human rights, examined the human rights situation in Sudan since the 1989 coup that brought the government to power. In July Amnesty International published Sudan: Women's human rights – an action report, and in October, Sudan: Monitoring human rights, which renewed its call for the creation of an independent civilian human rights monitoring team with full access to all parts of Sudan. The organization made two attempts to send a delegation to Sudan. In February, as part of its response to Amnesty International's campaign, the government declared that Amnesty International was banned from visiting. However, in April the Foreign Minister extended a verbal invitation. In October the government refused to accept Amnesty International's delegation. In the same month an Amnesty International delegation visited southern Sudan and held meetings with the SPLA Deputy Commander-in-Chief and the leader of the SSIA. The government did not respond to the substance of Amnesty International's appeals. In February the authorities issued a 23-page statement, The crocodile tears, accusing Amnesty International of insulting Islam, of being allied to the political opposition, and of being misinformed. In March Sudanese official trade unions issued a similar statement that accused the organization of overlooking abuses by armed opposition groups. In June the SPLA, in response to Amnesty International's campaigning, wrote acknowledging that there had been serious human rights abuses by some of its members and expressing determination that these should be rectified. However, in October SPLA senior commanders denied that incidents reported by Amnesty International had involved their forces. Both the SPLA and SSIA leaderships expressed willingness to allow independent investigators to monitor reports of human rights abuse. Amnesty International included reference to its concerns in Sudan in an oral statement to the UN Commission on Human Rights in February.