MuseumDESCRIPTION:
Dr. Mohammed-Ahmed Abdallah, medical director of the Amel Center for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture in Darfur, speaks with Jerry Fowler about the current situation on the ground in Darfur. He is visiting the United States to receive the 2007 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award.
TRANSCRIPT:
JERRY FOWLER: My guest today is Dr. Mohammed-Ahmed Abdallah. He’s a physician and the medical treatment director at the Amel Center for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture in Darfur. He’s in the United States to receive the 2007 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. Dr. Mohammed-Ahmed, welcome to the program.
MOHAMMED-AHMED ABDALLAH: Thank you very much.
JERRY FOWLER: I appreciate your taking the time to come speak with us. We’ve had several of your colleagues on the program before from the Amel Center, and so I think a lot of our listeners are familiar with a lot of the important work that the Amel Center is doing with victims of torture and victims of human rights abuses. I think the first question that I wanted to ask is just to have you step back and look at the situation as it exists today in Darfur and broadly tell us, is it getting better, is it getting worse, is it remaining the same as it’s been for the last couple of years?
MOHAMMED-AHMED ABDALLAH: Yes, thank you very much. And I think to me the question is a bit difficult. But I think clearly the situation is deteriorating. Initially the situation was a question of fighting, killing, looting and other things, and all the civilians were obliged to go to any of the IDP camps. Now the situation is very difficult, most of these IDP camps were really looked after by the international organizations. These international organizations now are obliged to leave Darfur, by one way or another, because there is no security and there is government obstruction, and due to this, they are obliged to go. These people are now left without prompt feeding, no health facilities and no water or sanitation. And Sudan, there is no health facilities given to anybody except if you’ve paid money, and they are in a war area. So how do you expect somebody without any money, his properties all have been looted and he has no access to feeding and other treatment? So they are going to die due to diseases and starvation and malnutrition. So this is more serious than just killing, because if you are hit by bullet you can injure him, but in the end he will go on and be treated or can have an access to another area and can live happily. But these are now in the IDP camps, which nobody is allowed to enter except by permission. And 99 percent of the activities were run by the non- governmental organizations and international organizations. Now these have been obliged to leave Darfur for many reasons. The simple answer is that the security situation is worse and the looting of their vehicles, even inside the capitals or the big towns, is a daily thing. So how do you think-- what do you expect, except the starvation, the killing, the dying of these patients and these IDPs and-- whether by starvation or malnutrition or both of them. So that is to me, as a doctor, I think, the situation is more grave because now we have started to see many cases of malnutrition, increased cases of tuberculosis and abnormal diseases which have been treated first through vaccination and now they are now raising again to the threshold of fatality. So this is to me more dangerous than the situation before.
JERRY FOWLER: Let me ask you this. You say that the situation is more dangerous and that it’s deteriorating and in particular you talk about a lack of security. Help us understand why there’s a lack of security, who’s responsible for it? I think a lot of people first came to the issue of Darfur in the United States with an understanding that it was the government of Sudan and militias allied with it attacking civilians. And now we’re seeing a picture that’s more complex, where there seems to be a lot of different actors that are contributing to poor security. So I guess my first question is, to what extent is it still the responsibility of the government of Sudan and to what extent is there just an out of control situation that the government is just one player in?
MOHAMMED-AHMED ABDALLAH: Yes, I think the first who is going to be blamed is the government. Because it says it wants to maintain its sovereignty to hold Sudan and it’s not allowing the international troops to intervene and to bring peace to the situation. The government of Sudan is not able even to protect these civilians even in the capitals of Darfur towns and what happened in Al Fasher town and what is happening now in Nyala, is a practical thing. The other thing is that whenever you want to move from one town to another, you will find many checkpoints by the government forces and its proxy militia. And for any of this you have to pay money. And if you didn’t pay money, as long as you go about one kilo, you will be looted and everything will be taken. So whom you can blame? I think this is the responsibility of the government. And nonetheless, we can’t say that the government is the only actor in the field. Some of the rebel factors are really playing that situation, and they have to be blamed, but the major thing is that there is a government and there is a country and there must be a peace. And so the most to be blamed is the government. So this is why I can’t say, I can’t blame-- it can protect the civilians, I think, the only thing is the government to protect the civilians, even the rebels, whoever try to do this, the government have to chase them.
JERRY FOWLER: When you talk about there needing to be peace, just recently there were peace talks that were convened in Libya under the auspices of the African Union and the United Nations. And the government was there and there were a few rebels there, but there were many rebel groups that were not there. And a lot, obviously, a lot of attention is focused on this fragmentation of the rebel groups. And when we were talking before we went on the air, you were explaining to some degree that the fragmentation is part of the government strategy. How is this fragmentation coming about?
MOHAMMED-AHMED ABDALLAH: Yeah, the fragmentation is coming as I told you due to many reasons. One, it was realistic for the government of Sudan to implement the Darfur Peace Agreement, which was reached in Abuja. But none of this has happened and it manifested in the ground. So most of these rebel factions, who have been with Minni Minnawi, they have seen that there is no intention to implement even the simplest things which have been agreed upon in the Abuja peace agreement. So they went away from Minni Minnawi, and they compose about one or two rebel groups. The other group was Abdul Wahid and Abdul Wahid’s group is fragmenting into at least three groups, one with Khamis Abakar, the second was Abdul El Gasin. Abdul El Gasin al Hajj had signed an agreement with the government in Libya and now he’s a wali of West Darfur.
JERRY FOWLER: A wali is a governor . . .
MOHAMMED-AHMED ABDALLAH: Yes, a governor of West Darfur. But the question is for what-- where could the other factions, the other group of his soldiers and his group go? They have no positions and they have no salaries, and they have nothing to do. So by this way they are obliging these groups to get away from the government and to be away from the control of anyone. So by this way the government is assisting the rebel factions to be fragmented. And the mind in that, it’s a security mind, if you fragment any power, then you can easily control it by yourself. And that’s its thinking that security-wise it’s going to crush them if anything happens. That is the mentality.
JERRY FOWLER: So a mentality of what we would say in English of “divide and conquer.”
MOHAMMED-AHMED ABDALLAH: Yeah, divide and conquer.
JERRY FOWLER: Or divide and destroy even.
MOHAMMED-AHMED ABDALLAH: Divide and conquer. And the second part of the question, why these never went to Libya, I think it is very obvious. Somebody who’s not discussed about the place, you’re not negotiated about the place and the time, he cannot go. However weak he is, he can’t go. This is a fault I think maybe the Security Council or the United Nations Secretary General, who announced the peace talks in from Khartoum by negotiating with the government. That’s not the right way. They have the other stakeholders and these are the rebels and the civil society of Darfur. They have to be, and during this, in spite of all this, many who tried to go there, even the government found that these are not talking about the way it likes, and they have been dropped from the planes. So you see the mentality of the government is that either you obey me or I will oppress you to the maximum. And this will not help the situation of Darfur. The practical thing is what’s going now in Juba. These rebel factions are now trying at least to unite or to find a scope by which they can confess their ideas and during the next peace agreement, which is coming on. So I think the people, the government of South Sudan is doing the right thing.
JERRY FOWLER: The government of South Sudan, you mentioned Juba, which is the capital of South Sudan, and is trying to bring the rebel groups together there.
MOHAMMED-AHMED ABDALLAH: Yes.
JERRY FOWLER: But let me focus in on something you alluded to, because you talked about the rebel groups and about civil society in Darfur, civil society groups. To what extent do the rebels represent the civilian population in Darfur?
MOHAMMED-AHMED ABDALLAH: Yes, I think mostly the rebel groups, they represent those who are really, mostly the IDPs, and some of the civil society. But the other civil societies have their own view to the situation. They think yes, there is marginalization, there is lack of development, there are many things. But how they can rectify this, I think they have their own view, and they should be consulted in every negotiation table which is going to take place.
JERRY FOWLER: Let me ask you this about the larger conflict, because at one level you have the Sudanese government that is responding to a rebellion, and they responded by, in part, attacking the civilian population. But at another level you have conflict within Darfur, and sometimes it’s characterized, at least in the American press, as Arab and African. Can you describe or discuss some of the dynamics of the conflict within Darfur. Is it correct to talk in terms of Arab and African? Are those false categories? What is the nature of the conflict between groups inside Darfur?
MOHAMMED-AHMED ABDALLAH: Yes, the situation in Darfur, I think it is really a mixed one. But it is not a very clear one. And it’s not a new thing. I think Alex de Waal, when he talks about this problem in his book, I think he was very realistic because the sources he get is from the ground there. And the problem is that there is an intention, an intention of either to demote all the African tribes, and there is, as you remember, the question of why these chaps never went to Sirte or to Libya. Because the Libya government has been actively involved from the 1970s in the problem of Darfur through conquer of Hassan Habre and other areas. And the mind of these Arab groups, that from the ocean to the Nile and to the Gulf area should be Arabized. And there are papers which everybody knows about that first, by the Legion, the Islamic Legion, led by Libya and distributed weapons in Darfur. And the second is the civil war which had been in 1987 to 1989, when many Arab groups have attacked the Fur tribe and they reached a negotiation in 1989, and at that time, there was a clear message to the Darfur, that is, what is known as Arab Gathering, and this Arab Gathering had as its agenda that they, by the year 2020, all the Darfur should be an Arabized country. And they are not realistic in their way, but this is their view of many who are in the river Nile and in other areas, who are thinking that this should be. And if you can recall the situation, the papers, which is composing of North Africa, Central Africa and led by President Gaddafi, you can realize that this is a reality. The second thing, the name of this group is Qoreish; Qoreish is an Arab clan of Prophet Mohammed and of Islam. So you can-- everyone wants to be a part of this clan, and they think that by the year 2020, this part should be dominated by these people. So it’s not a joke that there is a question of genocide. This is a reality. And whoever stands against it, I don’t think he’s right. The third thing why these Arab groups are brought and now occupying the land of displaced African tribes. This is in reality what’s going on. Now the fourth thing is that the Arab hakuras, that means the lands possessed by the Arab tribes, none of these is attacked, and none of them is under tension now. So this gives you the clue that what’s the intention of all these people. I think what they are pushing is a genocide and whoever tries to say against-- other than this, he is not realistic. We have to face this. The Rwanda problem is again occurring in Darfur. Unless the people are thinking that, unless all these Darfuran people are killed and then later coin it as genocide, there’s no meaning to say it. I think we have to be courageous, there is a genocide in Darfur and we have to stand against this, we have to support these people. And since they are calling for a united Sudan, then I think we need to support them, we need to stand with them. Things are very easy to be solved, I don’t think there is time to kill each other.
JERRY FOWLER: Let me pursue that a little bit more. Because I understand that it is the case that there are many Arab groups within Darfur that are not part of the current conflict, that are not supporting the Janjaweed or the government and have stayed out of it. First, is that true?
MOHAMMED-AHMED ABDALLAH: Yes, it is true.
JERRY FOWLER: So it’s not a picture of all Arabs against all non-Arabs or Africans. It’s basically some subset of the Arab groups . . .
MOHAMMED-AHMED ABDALLAH: Yes, I think. I will tell you exactly. The question of non-Arab or Arab, I think is a question of some part or total. This, there are some who have never included themselves in the war, which is occurring now. But one way or another they are supporting the government because nobody had protested the situation which is going on, and they have been living in Darfur with their brothers in the African clans for thousands of years. So why not should they oppose the Sudan government which is really killing these, and using them as tools to kill their brothers.
JERRY FOWLER: What about conflict between the African groups or the non-Arab groups? Is there conflict for example between Fur and Massaleit or between Fur and Zaghawa?
MOHAMMED-AHMED ABDALLAH: No, there is no conflict. They are not available. Now they are all in IDP camps, or either in refugee camps. They are not present to form bodies to quarrel with each other. And they have no intention to quarrel with each other because everybody has his own land and nobody can attack the other.
JERRY FOWLER: One final question as we’re coming to the end of the time that we have, the Amel Center is perhaps not unique but special in the sense that it addresses both the health needs of victims, but it also addresses legal issues of accountability, and you try to get prosecution of people who are responsible for torture or for rape. What do you see as the connection between healing and justice?
MOHAMMED-AHMED ABDALLAH: Yeah, I think really they are deeply integrated. Why? Because the survivors of torture or who have been detained for no reason or who have been raped or other things, they have two factors in the same patient. He wants to be treated or to heal his wound or the area in which he was tortured and he wants his condition or his cares to be presented in the legal side. So the legal-- the medical side, he is a patient, treat him and give him the psycho-social support and then give the document to the legal side so they can understand in the justice, and they support the justice.
JERRY FOWLER: Well, when we’re talking about justice, one of the issues that has come up with regard to Darfur is the International Criminal Court which is conducting an investigation, has indicted one Sudanese Government official and a Janjaweed leader and presumably may issue arrest warrants for others. From your perspective on the ground, is the ICC having any effect on the situation?
MOHAMMED-AHMED ABDALLAH: I believe much that the perpetrators are never ever-- will never be-- now that we have 4 years, they are not presented to any court. The torture and the killing, looting and the raping is continuously going on. Who’s going to look after these people, this is only the International Criminal Court. And the government of Sudan, if it wants to get away from this problem, should have already persecuted these people. Now it’s-- now it doesn’t want to do this because it knows that if ICC is allowed, then many, many persons could be charged and by this way they can lose the power in Sudan. This is why they don’t want to be involved and, you know, most of this-- 90% of the destruction was done by the government of Sudan and the chief said-- gave an absolute order that anyone who refuses the order of government, he should be either killed and he doesn’t want anybody who’s injured or detainee, that was the order he gave in front in El-Fasher and this is why this devastation had occurred. Now who is going to be accountable for all this? I think the government is not going to charge its own, so there must be a third party who can be reasonable to all and implement justice in Darfur. And by justice I think all the things and all the chaos in Darfur will stop and I hope that the small minority group, small minority things can be dealt with during the Darfur/Darfur dialogue, where it can be taken through local remedies or through traditional solutions which are occurring in Darfur. I think this is the only way to stop the problem which is occurring in Sudan and especially in Darfur.
JERRY FOWLER: Dr. Mohammed-Ahmed Abdallah is the medical treatment director at the Amel Center for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture in Darfur and the 2007 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights laureate. Dr. Mohammed-Ahmed, thank you so much for taking the time to come speak with us.
MOHAMMED-AHMED ABDALLAH: Thank you very much.
NARRATOR: You have been listening to Voices on Genocide Prevention, from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. To learn more about preventing genocide, join us online at www.ushmm.org/conscience. There you’ll also find the Voices on Genocide Prevention weblog.
