Donor governments and the United Nations must condemn the Sudanese government’s arbitrary arrest and intimidation of aid workers, Human Rights Watch said today. The Sudanese government should drop charges against all aid workers, including the head of Médecins Sans Frontières in Khartoum, Paul Foreman, who was arrested yesterday and released on bail.
The Sudanese authorities detained a second Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) staff member in Nyala, South Darfur, early this morning. Foreman’s arrest followed escalating public threats against MSF in the Sudanese media over the past few weeks. Sudanese authorities claim that an MSF report on rape published on March 8 violated Sudanese law and that the report is “false.” The precise charges against MSF are unclear but—according to an article in the Khartoum-based pro-government newspaper Al-Ra’i al-Aam include spying, provision of false information and disturbing the peace.
The government concluded that the report was false, according to Sudan’s Humanitarian Aid Commission, when MSF did not respond to government demands to produce the evidence of rapes. MSF’s report stated that the organization had treated more than 500 women and girls in Darfur in a period of four and a half months, and it called on local authorities to do more to stop the abuses. The government sought names and other details, in violation of the doctor-patient privilege.
In addition to the MSF staff, more than twenty aid workers have been arbitrarily arrested, detained or threatened with arrest in the past six months in Darfur, according to Human Rights Watch research. International media are increasingly being denied visas to the region.
“It’s appalling that instead of arresting the people who have burned hundreds of villages and attacked thousands of women and girls, the Sudanese government is detaining aid workers,” said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director for Human Rights Watch. “This is a perfect illustration of how far the Sudanese government is prepared to go to silence criticism and deny its own responsibility for massive atrocities in Darfur.”
Widespread rape committed by government-backed Janjaweed militias and Sudanese troops in Darfur has been consistently documented by the United Nations, the A.U. mission monitoring ceasefire violations in Darfur, human rights groups including Human Rights Watch, the media and other fact-finding missions visiting the region. It is impossible to estimate the number of women and girls who have been subjected to sexual violence, particularly given the stigma attached to the crime, but it is likely that hundreds if not thousands of women and girls have been raped over the past two years.
“This attack on the bearer of bad news is another assault on free speech,” said Takirambudde. “Under its peace accord with the southern rebels, the government is supposed to have restored all civil and political rights. There is no conceivable security or military reason for preventing publication of this kind of public health information.”
The Sudanese government established committees on rape in mid-2004 to investigate the claims in each state. However, according to Human Rights Watch interviews in Khartoum with members of these committees, the methodology used was a review of pre-existing police reports and public meetings at internally displaced persons camps. After submission of an initial report, no further work was done by these committees. Although largely a whitewash, the final report by the Sudanese government-appointed National Commission of Inquiry did acknowledge that there were cases of rape in Darfur.
Given their distrust of most national government institutions, and the shame attached to rape, most displaced women and girls do not report the crime to the police, and certainly did not report sexual attacks at any public meetings. The victims instead sought medical treatment from foreign medical organizations such as MSF, with assurances of confidentiality.
Until recently, Sudanese law required rape victims to file a “Form 8” with the police prior to receiving medical treatment in a public facility. Despite assurances from the Sudanese Ministry of Justice in late-2004 that the requirement for the Form 8 had been withdrawn, reports continued in this year that authorities in many states still require this from rape victims. Nongovernmental health and human rights organizations have protested that this deters women and girls from seeking medical help as needed.
“The United Nations, the African Union and donor governments need to draw the line here and ensure that the intimidation stops and that aid workers and rape victims are protected,” Takirambudde said. “If this harassment continues, the lives of millions of Sudanese who depend on aid will be put at even greater risk.”
More than two million people among Darfur’s population of six million have been forced from their homes by widespread bombing, burning and other atrocities committed by Sudanese government forces and allied militias starting in 2003, initially part of a government effort to combat two rebel groups in Darfur.
The majority of internally displaced, formerly farming families, are confined to camps in Darfur which they are unable to leave for fear of further attack, including rape and sexual violence. They are entirely dependent on the humanitarian aid provided by the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations such as MSF. Apart from those displaced, more than a million other residents of Darfur are partially dependent on food aid due to the collapsed economy and trade resulting from the forced displacement of farmers and continuing high levels of insecurity.
