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Sudan
Overview: Sudan
Sudan is Africa’s largest country and has been at war with only a brief reprieve (1971-1982) since its independence from Great Britain in 1956. With power centralized in the north around its capital Khartoum and natural resources concentrated in the South, Sudan is further divided by religion, ethnicity, tribal differences, and economic disparities. Lasting over two decades, the second civil war between the North and South resulted in the deaths of an estimated 2 million people and displaced 4 million others. An on-going conflict in the western region of Darfur was marked by a period of intensive, systematic targeting of the civilian populations from the Fur, Zaghawa, and Masaalit ethnic groups. In 2004, the Museum issued a genocide emergency in response to this violence.
Today, Sudan’s entire civilian population faces enormous threats from continuing and potentially new violence. The country’s future is at stake with upcoming national elections (April 2010) and a referendum on southern independence (2011), as stipulated in the increasingly fragile Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the civil war in 2005. These major political events will take place amid ongoing conflict in Darfur, sporadic incidents of violence in the South, uncertainty about the status of key transitional regions between the north and south, and rumblings of discontent in the east. Half of Darfur’s six million people are dependent on a precarious international aid effort, as displacement and insecurity continue.
The Museum’s warning for Sudan stems from the Sudanese government’s established capacity and willingness to commit genocide and related crimes against humanity. This is evidenced by actions the government has taken in the western region of Darfur, the Nuba Mountains, and the South that include:
• Use of mass starvation and mass forcible displacement as a weapon of destruction;
• Pattern of obstructing humanitarian aid;
• Harassment of internally displaced persons;
• Bombing of hospitals, clinics, schools, and other civilian sites;
• Use of rape as a weapon against targeted groups;
• Employing a divide-to-destroy strategy of pitting ethnic groups against each other, with enormous loss of civilian life;
• Training and supporting ethnic militias who commit atrocities;
• Destroying indigenous cultures;
• Enslavement of women and children by government-support militias;
• Impeding and failing to fully implement peace agreements.
While rebel groups in the south and Darfur have also committed abuses, the Sudanese government, led by Omar Al-Bashir, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, bears primary responsibility for atrocities against and continued danger to civilians.
Current Situation
An Important Step towards Accountability
After the first indictment against Sudanese President Bashir dropped genocide from its list of charges, a second indictment made public by the International Criminal Court (ICC) this week has officially added three counts of genocide.
Noting that the second warrant does not replace or revoke the first, the court stated “there are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Al Bashir acted with specific intent to destroy in part the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups.” The arrest warrant cites the contamination of wells and water pumps, forcible transfers, and resettlements as acts by Government of Sudan forces “in furtherance of the genocidal policy.”
Bashir already stands accused of five counts of crimes again humanity and two counts of war crimes for his leadership in orchestrating the conflict in Darfur.
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum characterized this decision by the ICC as an important step towards holding leaders accountable for such egregious crimes.
“This is the first time that the International Criminal Court has accused a sitting head of state of genocide,” said Mike Abramowitz, Director of the Museum’s genocide prevention program. “Justice requires that President Al Bashir respond to these very serious charges against him.”
Read the Museum’s full press release and learn more about the ICC, the first permanent judicial body set up to try individuals for “the most serious crimes of concern to the international community.”
Continued Violence and Displacement in Sudan Ahead of Referenda
An estimated 600 people died in fighting in Darfur, Sudan in May 2010, marking a two-year high in violent fatalities since the arrival of the UN peacekeeping force (UNAMID) in January 2008. The sharp increase in deaths — about five times higher than the monthly average for the last year — results from fighting between Sudan Armed Forces and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the Darfur rebel group, which withdrew from the Doha peace talks last month. As Julie Flint reports, the new fighting has, once again, targeted civilians:
UNAMID is investigating reports of ‘gross’ human rights violations by government forces and militias in the battle for Jebel Mun, with many civilians (including women) reportedly ‘assaulted and tortured’. JEM, on the run, has stolen fuel and other commodities from civilians. There are reports that, before being driven from Jebel Mun, JEM’s men engaged in extortion and destroyed wells as a ‘retaliation measure’–presumably for support given to the breakaway Justice and Reform Movement of the local Missiriya Jebel community.
Humanitarian access is obstructed and constrained by insecurity and kidnappings. More than 60,000 displaced people have been cut off in Jebel Mun for months now.
As of May 2010, at least 4.9 million people were internally displaced throughout the country — some for over two decades. In southern Sudan, over 400,000 people have been newly displaced since January 2009, as a result of intercommunal violence and attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army.
The recent violence and displacement casts a shadow over the fast approaching referendum for southern independence that is scheduled for January 2011 and the many fundamental logistical and political issues left to resolve. Thirty-three constituencies in Sudan still need to conduct or re-run elections, including the Southern Kordofan legislative assembly. Without these elections, Southern Kordofan cannot conduct its popular consultations, which will address land rights and self-determination in the border region. Questions around voter eligibility remain unanswered in the oil-rich region of Abyei, whose inhabitants are expecting to vote on a separate referendum in 2011 and whose borders — like the North-South border — have yet to be completely demarcated.
Meanwhile, after three years of inaction by the Sudanese government on the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants, the ICC sent a formal finding of non-cooperation to the UN Security Council, the first in the history of the court. In April 2007, the court issued warrants for Ahmed Haroun, then Sudan’s minister for humanitarian affairs and now governor of Southern Kordofan state, and Ali Kosheib, a Janjaweed militia leader. In March 2009, the court issued a warrant for Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s president, newly reelected in a widely criticized process.
Unrelated to the non-cooperation finding, two Darfur rebel leaders surrendered to the ICC on June 16, 2010, following summonses to appear before the court. Abdallah Banda Abakaer Nourain and Saleh Mohammed Jerbo Jamus are charged with three counts of war crimes allegedly committed during an attack in September 2007 against the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS). The attack killed 12 AMIS soldiers and severely wounded eight others.
Election Results from Sudan and the Challenges that Follow
Omar al-Bashir, who originally came to power in a 1989 military coup, won Sudan’s presidency with an official vote count of 68%. The unsurprising outcome was widely criticized by international observers who cited election-related reports of intimidation, gerrymandering, and fraud. In South Sudan, incumbent candidate Salva Kiir won 93% of the vote to remain in office as president of the semiautonomous region, which is expected to vote for succession from Sudan next year. Leaders and parties in the south, however, are hardly united on the region’s internal issues. Nine southern opposition parties have decided to challenge Mr. Kiir’s victory — and the count of 93% — in court.
Intensifying tensions along the north-south border, dozens were killed last week in clashes between SPLM soldiers and the Rizeigat tribe in the area between Western Bahr el-Ghazal and South Darfur. In an unrelated instance, on April 30, mutinous SPLM soldiers attacked an army barrack near Malakal and killed a number of people. The episodes of violence underscore the urgency and importance of resolving the common issues that face the north and south ahead of the referendum, including the demarcation of the border and the division of the oil fields.
Not Free or Fair: Elections in Sudan
On April 11, Sudanese began voting in their country’s first multi-party elections in 24 years. Even though elections were boycotted by several popular opposition parties, they were still held amidst ongoing conflict in Darfur, reports of intimidation and threats of violence in South Sudan, and the government’s habitual restrictions on political rights and freedoms.
In a comment after polls had closed, the U.S. State Department spokesman stated, “This was not a free and fair election. It did not, broadly speaking, meet international standards.”
Originally due on April 22, the final election results have been delayed by Sudan’s National Elections Commission to accommodate logistical challenges.
View striking photographs from across Sudan during the elections. Learn more by reading assessments of the elections from The Carter Center, as well as from a coalition of civil society organizations that monitored the process.
Sudan Votes
On Sunday morning, April 11, Sudanese began arriving at the polls to vote in their country’s first multi-party elections in 24 years. In the days leading up to the election, however, the number of candidates vying for office became considerably more limited.
Less than two weeks before the elections, on March 31, Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) withdrew its candidate for Sudanese presidency, Yasir Arman, and, a week later, all of its candidates in 13 out of the 15 northern state elections. The SPLM cited election irregularities and the conflict in Darfur, which prevented anything approximating a free and fair election there. The SPLM stated its intention to participate only in parliamentary and local elections in the disputed Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan states. The decision to drop out of the presidential race marked a decisive and poignant end to the South’s erstwhile dream of fighting for a reformed and united Sudan — the vision that SPLA leader John Garang carried to his death.
The day after SPLM’s decision to withdraw Mr. Arman, leading opposition parties in the north, including the popular Umma party, announced a full boycott of the elections.
Although Bashir seeks the legitimacy that befalls an elected leader, his likely victory has now been tainted by the boycott and continued reports of election irregularities. The logistics of the election have been exceedingly complicated. In order to participate in all national, parliamentary, and local elections, voters in the north have to vote eight times over the next few days and those in the south 12 times. On the second day of voting, the election commission announced that polls would be extended by two days to accommodate delays in delivering ballots papers to all 17,000 centers around the country.
Building Democracy from the Ashes of Genocide?: Elections in Sudan
In just a little over one month, Sudan will face its first major elections in 24 years.
They will be held for six levels of government, including the presidency and the national legislature. The presidential election requires an absolute majority vote (50 per cent plus one) in the first round. If none of the candidates receive this majority, there will be a second election: a run-off round. The major presidential candidates include President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir from the controlling party in the north, the National Congress Party (NCP), and Yasir Arman from the south’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).
Delivering the opening remarks at the political parties summit in southern Sudan, former Burundi President Pierre Buyoya, representing the African Union Panel on Darfur, remarked, “The challenges of building democracy and development from the ashes of war are great indeed.”
A significant political milestone in their own right, the elections are a pivotal step on the road to meeting final implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which ended the two-decades civil war between the north and the south. The conduct and outcomes of the elections will indicate the future direction of the nation, as it begins a difficult year in the lead-up to the 2011 referendum on southern independence. While many challenges lie ahead — including resolving the status of the oil-rich border regions between the north and south — the elections next month present many of their own concerns.
Violence, displacement, and political marginalization are still a reality for many of Sudan’s citizens, and several ongoing issues threaten the viability of the elections:
Referendum
It is important to understand the electoral process in context with the overall requirements of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Alongside the 2011 referendum on southern independence, the CPA set up distinct terms for determining the futures of the hotly contested border regions: Abyei, Southern Kordofan, and Southern Blue Nile.
Although Southern Kordofan has been considered part of the north through the transition period since the signing of the CPA, its population was split between supporting the north and south during the war. The fighting was intense and brutal, particularly in the Nuba Mountains. According to the CPA, the core issues that have divided the population, including land rights and self-determination, can be readdressed through “popular consultations” led by state assembly members.
Inhabitants of Abyei will have the right to vote on a separate referendum in 2011 on whether they want to be permanently a part of the north or south.
Census
A prerequisite of the elections, a national census was completed last April after numerous delays. Its conclusions would help determine the distribution of wealth and power, including seats in the National Assembly. Southern Sudanese rejected the findings, arguing that the census substantially undercounted the population of Southerners. The NCP and SPLM have, however, recently reached a deal on the contested census by agreeing to allocate an extra 40 seats to the south in the National Assembly. The deal also apportions two more seats to the border region of Abyei and four to the oil state of Southern Kordofan (includes the Nuba Mountains.)
To resolve SPLM’s specific concerns about Southern Kordofan, the north and south agreed to postpone the region’s state elections until a more thorough census could be conducted. Getting the census — and the subsequent distribution of seats — right in Southern Kordofan is especially important because it is the state assembly members who will lead “popular consultations” on the future of the state.
Political Freedoms
Tasked with monitoring the elections, the Carter Center has expressed concerns about the political environment in Sudan. Recent incidents that have undermined political rights and fundamental freedoms include arbitrary arrests and detentions and harassment of civil society and political party members. In addition, the Center warned about the government’s security forces restricting legitimate activity related to the exercise of freedom of assembly, association, and speech.
In Darfur, state election committees have been unable to access IDP camps, where a low rate of voter registration indicates the extent to which thousands of displaced persons have been excluded from or boycotted in opposition to participating in the elections. Carter Center observers reported seeing military units, police, and security service agents not only present at registration centers in Darfur, but sometimes actively engaged in voter registration.
Violence
Over the past year, villages in South Sudan have been attacked in serious clashes that have targeted women and children. The violence and a corresponding increase in ethnic tension are exacerbated by a noticeable influx of weapons in the region.
Meanwhile, just days after a milestone ceasefire signed between Darfur rebel group Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudanese government, violence erupted in central Darfur. Government forces engaged a faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), which had not agreed to the ceasefire. This latest fighting raised the number of displaced around the town Deribat to 100,000. Adding another layer of complexity, JEM has threatened to pull out of its ceasefire if Khartoum negotiates with SLM on a parallel track.
Straining already fragile conditions, violence in both Darfur and South Sudan will likely affect the upcoming elections. The only question is how significantly.
Major presidential candidates include:
Omar Hassan Al-Bashir — National Congress Party
Born in 1944, Bashir orchestrated a military coup in 1989 that overthrew President Sadeq al-Mahdi’s democratically elected government. He assumed control by banning all political parties and cracking down on the press and other independent voices. Shortly after attaining power, Bashir appointed himself chief of state, prime minister, and minister of defense. He intensified the ongoing war with the south, presiding over brutal attacks against civilians, including Bahr al-Ghazal, the Nuba Moutains, and clearances of populations from oil-rich areas.
In 1999, President Bashir consolidated his dictatorial control when he removed his chief threat: once ally and former leader of the National Islamic Front, Hassan al-Turabi, who was then serving as Speaker of the National Assembly. That same year, Bashir declared a state of national emergency, suspended the constitution, and disbanded the National Assembly.
In 2004, Bashir’s government negotiated an end to the two-and-a-half decade civil war between north and south Sudan that killed at least 2 million people, mostly civilians, and displaced more than 4 million people. Around that same time, however, Bashir’s government implemented systematic assaults against civilian targets in Darfur, Sudan’s western province where hundreds of thousands have died and millions have lost their homes since 2003.
On March 4, 2009, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant charging Bashir with five counts of crimes against humanity and two counts of war crimes for his leadership role in orchestrating the conflict in Darfur. This decision marks the first time the ICC has issued an arrest warrant for a sitting head of state.
Yasir Arman — Sudan People’s Liberation Movement
A northern Muslim who joined the SPLM 24 years ago, Arman is a senior figure in the party. He serves as Deputy Secretary General for Northern Sudan and the head of the SPLM bloc in the National Assembly.
The SPLM decided to nominate Arman instead of Salva Kiir, the party leader and current president of southern Sudan. Kiir intends to seek re-election to the post of southern president, a vital position to occupy as the region prepares for the 2011 referendum on southern independence.
Sadeq Al-Mahdi — Umma Party
Oxford educated, Mahdi is a spiritual leader and head of the Umma Party. He was elected prime minister of Sudan in 1966 and again in 1986. In 1989, his government was toppled in a bloodless military coup by officers including the current President Bashir. Mahdi was imprisoned until early 1991. Although Mahdi’s party was the largest in Sudan in 1986, it has since split into factions, although it continues to enjoy mass support in Darfur.
Mahdi is Imam of the Isalmic Ansar, a Sufi sect with allegiance to Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed messianic savor (the Mahdi), who famously fought the British General Gordon in the 19th century.
Abdallah Deng Nhial — Popular Congress Party
Nhial is the only southern candidate in the presidential race. A south Sudanese Muslim, Nhial was part of Bashir’s government before Hassan al-Turabi lost his leadership battle with Bashir and split to form his own opposition Popular Congress Party.
Nhial is Dinka, the largest southern Sudanese tribe, and is from a multi-faith family that includes Christians, Muslims, and followers of traditional religions.
Hatim Al-Sir — Democratic Unionist Party
Sir represents the Democratic Unionist Party, a sectarian party that formed a coalition government with Mahdi in Sudan’s last democratic elections in 1986. Sir is a distant relative of the powerful al-Merghani family, which commands the leadership of the Democratic Unionist Party, although the party has split many times. Sir left Sudan in 1989 to follow the party’s religious leader into exile, and he only returned in 2009.
Director of National Intelligence Emphasizes Risk in Southern Sudan and Concern for Bosnia
Addressing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence, emphasized — above all other parallel risks — the potential for mass killing or genocide in South Sudan. His analysis came as part of the Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Blair discussed the definition, triggers, strategies, and recent cases of mass killing:
The mass killing of civilians — defined as the deliberate killing of at least 1,000 unarmed civilians of a particular political identity by state or state-sponsored actors in a single event or over a sustained period — is a persistent feature of the global landscape. Within the past three years, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Sudan all suffered mass killing episodes through violence, starvation, or deaths in prison camps. Sri Lanka may also have experienced a mass killing last spring: roughly 7,000 civilians were killed during Colombo’s military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), according to UN estimates.
The risk for mass killing is driven by the presence of ongoing internal conflict or regime crises, combined with relatively poor socioeconomic conditions, international isolation, recent protest activity, discriminatory policies, or frequent leadership turnover. In such contexts, mass killings are typically deliberate strategies by new or threatened elites to assert state or rebel authority, to clear territory of insurgents, or to deter populations from supporting rebel or antigovernment movements.
Looking ahead over the next five years, a number of countries in Africa and Asia are at significant risk for a new outbreak of mass killing. All of the countries at significant risk have or are at high risk for experiencing internal conflicts or regime crises and exhibit one or more of the additional factors for mass killing. Among these countries, a new mass killing or genocide is most likely to occur in Southern Sudan.
Blair’s statement fulfilled a recommendation presented in the final report of the Genocide Prevention Task Force, which the Museum convened with the U.S. Institute of Peace and The American Academy of Diplomacy. The report offered a blueprint for improving U.S. government response to threats of genocide and mass atrocities and included the following recommendation: “The director of national intelligence should initiate the preparation of a National Intelligence Estimate on worldwide risk of genocide and mass atrocities.”
Blair’s focus on the risk for mass killing or genocide in southern Sudan reflects growing international concern for Sudan as the nation approaches presidential elections in April and the 2011 referendum for southern independence.
Blair also emphasized to the Senate Committee the principal challenges to stability in the Balkans and highlighted several worrying signs in Bosnia:
I remain concerned about Bosnia’s future stability. While neither widespread violence nor a formal break-up of the state appears imminent, ethnic agendas still dominate the political process and reforms have stalled because of wrangling among the three main ethnic groups. The sides failed to agree on legal changes proposed jointly by the EU and the US at the end of 2009, undercutting efforts to strengthen the central government so that it is capable of taking the country into NATO and the EU. Bosnian Serb leaders seek to reverse some reforms, warn of legal challenges to the authority of the international community, and assert their right to eventually hold a referendum on secession, all of which is contributing to growing interethnic tensions. This dynamic appears likely to continue, as Bosnia’s leaders will harden their positions to appeal to their nationalist constituents ahead of elections this fall.
Second Chance for Genocide Charges Against Bashir
Appeals judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have reversed a decision of the Pre-Trial Chamber of the ICC not to include genocide in the charges against Sudanese President Bashir. The Pre-Trial Chamber will have to reconsider anew the charges, which include three counts of genocide.
In March 2009, when the ICC announced its historic decision to issue an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Bashir for his leadership role in orchestrating the conflict in Darfur, the Pre-Trial Chamber issued an indictment with charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, but did not accept the prosecution’s charge of genocide. The pre-trial judges believed that the prosecution had not provided enough evidence to support the genocide charge.
The prosecution subsequently appealed the decision to the Court’s Appeals Chamber. Prosecutors argued that the time to provide such evidence was during the main trial and not when they were simply seeking to bring charges. In reversing the decision, the Appeals Chamber explained that the standard of evidence used by the Pre-Trial Chamber to reject the charge of genocide was “higher and more demanding than what is required” and that it was “materially affected by an error of law.”
Prosecutors will now have to re-present the case for charging President Bashir with genocide.
“Mass graves? We’ve never had mass graves.”
The year 2009 was the most violent South Sudan has seen since the signing of the 2005 peace agreement, with the death rate higher than in Darfur. In clashes far more serious than simple cattle raids, villages — rather than cattle camps — have been attacked and women and children targeted. “Violence is surging,” reports Medecins Sans Frontieres. “Plunging people from one disaster to the next.” UN officials have noticed an unusual “ease and availability of ammunition” in the region, which suggests an influx of weapons, possibly from northern Sudanese officials interested in breeding chaos in the south.
“This is madness,” said Diing Akol Diing, a county commissioner near Duk Padiet, one of the sites of recent violence. Showing a photograph of a dozen people wrapped in blankets, buried in a ditch, he tells The New York Times, “Mass graves? We’ve never had mass graves.”
In Darfur, the situation remains unstable, unpredictable, and dangerous. In December, five peacekeepers from Rwanda, members of UNAMID, the UN force in Darfur, were killed in separate incidents by unidentified gunmen. The UN’s latest report on UNAMID documented repeated cases of government officials harassing and limiting movements of the international peacekeepers in violation of the Status of Forces Agreement with the government of Sudan.
International organizations are beginning to ring alarm bells for the entirety of Sudan as the nation’s April elections approach. In a new report, “Sudan: Preventing Implosion“, the International Crisis Group (ICG) warns that “Sudan is sliding towards violent breakup.” It insists that without cooperation to support the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and additional negotiations to settle conflict in Darfur, a “return to North-South war and escalation of conflict in Darfur are likely.”
The report further explains that the National Congress Party (NCP) — the controlling party in Khartoum — and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in the South want elections for the wrong reasons. The NCP hopes to regain legitimacy for President Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The SLPM hopes that elections will help South Sudan focus on its self-determination referendum in 2011. According to the ICG, “[The SPLM] threatens to declare unilateral independence if pushed to accept a referendum postponement.”
The dominating interests of the NCP and SPLM threaten to squeeze out opposition parties in both the north and south, as well as disenfranchise millions of citizens who could not register to vote. ICG reports that at least two million Darfur IDPs who have been unable to return home may be kept from the political process, while occupiers of their lands elect local representatives.
While a return to war is not inevitable in Sudan, international actors as well as key players across Sudan must redouble their efforts to guarantee the people of Sudan a secure and politically stable future.
African Union Panel Outlines A Way Forward for Darfur and Sudan
After spending more than 40 days in Darfur over the course of six months and engaging in over 2,700 consultations with people across Darfur, the African Union Panel on Darfur has delivered its final report. Chaired by former South African President Thabo Mbeki, the Panel described Darfur as a “Sudanese crisis” and stated:
It [the crisis in Darfur] results from a legacy of the unequal distribution of power and wealth in Sudan, whereby peripheral regions, including Darfur, have been historically neglected. The war in Darfur cannot be resolved outside the context of a response to the wider challenges facing Sudan as a nation, of democratic transformation, of creating a new and equitable political and developmental dispensation, and of giving the best chance for national unity.
The report offered recommendations on a range of critical issues, including: establishing a roadmap to end the violence; offering compensation for individual and communal losses; strengthening the UN force in Darfur; and mobilizing Sudan’s neighbors to support the peace processes.
Addressing the difficult subject of justice and reconciliation, the Panel recommended forming a hybrid court with international and national judges and investigators. This recommendation was intended to response to what it described as a polarized discussion of justice after the ICC arrest warrant for President Bashir. By including an international component, the Panel sought to alleviate concerns many Darfurians have about Sudan’s justice system, while also acknowledging that the government of Sudan has not recognized the ICC’s jurisdiction. Other mechanisms recommended include a truth, justice and reconciliation commission, reparations, and a plan for economic and social recovery.
Although the Panel sets a new standard for African leadership in resolving crises on the continent, the strength of this report will ultimately lie in its implementation. Meanwhile, signs of progress across the whole nation are being watched for carefully, as Sudan beings a month-long voter registration drive in a key step towards the April 2010 presidential elections, the first democratic elections in 24 years.
The final report of the African Union Panel on Darfur is available here.
