Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Fides Service)- “Peace must be built on reciprocal trust. This is why the Khartoum government should take concrete measures to show it sincerely wants peace” Sudanese Catholic Bishop Macram Max Gassis of El Obeid in southern Sudan told Fides. “It is not possible to make peace with southern Sudan and continue with war in Darfur in the east. All the people in Darfur ask for is respect for their dignity. But instead of meeting the Darfur people’s legitimate requests, the government has unleashed paramilitary militia and army troops against civilians. This war faces our consciences with the question of legitimate defence against such violence on unarmed civilians” the Bishop said. Today, 21 June, the President of the African Union Commission Alpha Oumar Konaré, comes to the end of a visit in the region. The African Union has undertaken the extremely difficult task of mediating between the Sudanese government and the two guerrilla movements in Darfur: the Sudan Liberation Army-Movement (SLA-M) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).
“All the local people ask for is a chance to improve their living conditions. The Darfur region, together with Nuba mountains and the Blue Nile region in the south, is the poorest and most neglected area. Nothing new has been built here for decades. How can it be that people asking for a school and a hospital get only bullets and bombs in reply?” Bishop Gassis asks, and he denies that the conflict in Darfur has to do with religion: “Darfur is part of my diocese. Christians here are very few, mostly immigrants from the south of Sudan now returning to where they came from because of the violence. Most of the people in Darfur are Muslims and those carrying out the massacres are also Muslims. The conflict is exclusively political”.
“I ask myself the meaning of a recent agreement to purchase sophisticated weapons from Russia” Bishop Gassis said. “If they really want peace why buy more arms? The country needs wells, aqueducts, schools, hospitals. Instead they are buying the latest fighter ‘planes and tanks by the hundreds ”. “The war in Darfur is involving also Chad. Buying more arms is a bad signal also in relations with neighbours” Bishop Gassis said. On June 17 the Chad army announced that it had killed 69 Sudanese pro-government militia who had crossed the border into Chad to attack camps of refugees from Darfur. In Chad there are at least 100,000 Sudanese refugees and in Darfur there are more than one million internally displaced persons.
Despite the war in the east the peace process for southern Sudan goes ahead. Since the cease fire was declared many southerners are returning to their villages in the south. “I saw for myself the return of people to the Nuba Mountains region” Bishop Gassis told Fides. “Trucks turned buses, crammed to capacity, unloaded hundreds of people coming back from Khartoum”.
According to the Bishop the fact that people are returning is positive, but it contains a hidden tragedy: “Most of these returnees bring with them a sizeable professional baggage which could help improve living conditions in their villages. While living as refugees in Khartoum, they learned a trade. Many are builders, mechanics and even technicians. However while living in the capital in a situation of dire poverty many were also infected with HIV/AIDS. This is now the tragedy threatening the south. What is more NGOs working in the area risk helping to spread the infection because they have recruited personnel from bordering countries with high percentages of HIV positive cases among people of working age”. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 21/6/2004 righe 48 parole 633)
