Sudan

I’ve updated my blog with two new posts.

One I had written before violence started last weekend. It’s the lighter one, on my first week back in Khartoum.

The other I wrote yesterday evening. It’s a darker post, on the events of the past weekend and how they influenced me.

 

Let me write about the past days and how the recent events in Khartoum affected me.

 

First of all I have to stress the fact that me being here doesn’t mean that I realise or know everything that happens. In fact, I only found out about the fighting over an hour after it had started. It was 5.30 pm – one hour after fighting had started – on Saturday when I left the youth hostel to go out for pizza and some freshly squeezed juice. I had spent my first day of the weekend indoors until then and was quite content I could finally go outside and walk under the setting sun. When I left the youth hostel the Sudanese owners of the hostel and one Egyptian guest were standing outside. Normally they don’t talk to me, but on Saturday they asked me where I was going. I was taken back by the question and stumbled “to the pizza place… Why?”. The Sudanese owner told me that a government curfew was about to enter into force in less than half an hour and – pointing in the direction of the Egyptian – that I should “do like this guy and get enough food and water to last for the night”. I didn’t pay much attention to the nervous behaviour of the Egyptian at that point who told me “there’s a little shop over there. Get Pepsi, like me! And if you want bread, I have a lot. I’m in room number 7. Hurry. And come back fast! I’m in room number 7”. I walked down the street. Slowly. Relaxed. Like I always do. I noticed that there was nobody left on the streets. The shops were all closed. The juice bar as well. And even the pizza place, which is usually the first to open and last to close, was completely deserted. The only shop still open was the little one the Egyptian had talked about. It started dawning on me that this was real. I wasn’t sure why yet, but the curfew was real. I got lots of water, some coke and small things to eat. When I got back to the hostel I went up to room 7 to get myself a few of the dozens of bread the Egyptian had bought. When I first noticed the amount of breads he had bought upon leaving the hostel, I hqd thought he was crazy and exaggerating. But now I wasn’t so sure anymore… He was still very nervous. Rambling. I found it difficult to make sense of what he was saying. He said he had first heard about ‘it’ on the radio while he was having a nap on his bed. He didn’t explain what ‘it’ was, so I had to guess. I had heard at the party the previous day that a number of guests couldn’t come because their Embassy had imposed a curfew on their staff. Something related to the JEM (Justice and Equality Movement; Darfur rebel group) being in Kordofan. And something about clashes between JEM and SLA/MM (Sudanese Liberation Army, Minni Minnawi faction; another Darfur rebel group). But nobody paid much attention to the rumour. We just thought it was stupid for those people under curfew that they couldn’t come, but were happy for ourselves because it was already crowded and the alcohol was flying out the window.

 

In the Egyptian’s room I remembered the talk of the previous night and asked him if the curfew was related to JEM and Minni Minnawi. He didn’t seem to understand what I was talking about and just shook his head and stared at the television. I asked him if I could get some bread. “Of course! Take, take. Take five. No, no. Take five”. I only needed two, but I took three to be polite and left. Back in my room I was still totally oblivious about what was going on some 20 km away. I was preparing myself for an evening stuck inside, watching movies. Which is what I do anyway, so I didn’t mind the curfew.

 

A couple of minutes after I had returned to my room, I received a phone call from my colleague Andrea. She sounded a bit in a panic. Asking me “where are you? … In the hostel? Ok. Don’t move, ok? Stay there. We are coming for you, ok? Don’t move.” I didn’t know who “we” was, but her voice had grabbed my attention. Andrea is always calm. Andrea is always able to assess the situation clearly and rationally. And now she sounded like she was panicking. That’s when I realised that this might be more serious than I thought. And that I should be ready for anything. Starting with having to spend a couple of nights in other places. So I packed as if I was going away for the weekend. Strangely enough, even with Andrea’s voice I still had that exact feeling of just going away for a couple of days. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing special.

 

I was picked up by Andrea, Anja and Mohamed. Anja and Mohamed are friends of Andrea and people I know and get along well with. When we drove off they asked me if I knew what was going on. I told them I had no clue. They told me we were going to Mark’s (an official from the Delegation) “because he has a radio” (i.e. walkie-talkie). I remember Mohamed laughing very loud as we drove off. Not at me and my ignorance, but about the Egyptian guy. When I was leaving the youth hostel to get into the car, he had come outside and asked me where I was going. I told him my people had come for me and I had to go somewhere else. He immediately turned completely pale, stuttering “take care, ok? Be safe. Take care. Ok? …”. Mohamed thinks he was more scared for himself, seeing a white guy being picked up by his colleagues, while he had to stay behind with Sudanese people who couldn’t move because it was their hostel and home. I think Mohamed was right.

 

In the car Andrea asked me if I had received the messages from Achim, our Security Officer. I hadn’t. Apparently he didn’t find it necessary to notify the intern. I was completely left in the dark. Because only when Andrea explained me the content of the messages, the full scope and seriousness of the situation became clear to me. JEM had come to Omdurman . They were clashing with the government forces, trying to reach the capital of Khartoum itself. This was bad. Potentially very bad. And I took it surprisingly well. I didn’t feel panic. I kept thinking clearly and asked to which Delegation official’s house we were going and whether we would have enough water and food. Mohamed showed me a water tank. I was reassured. And I remained completely calm ever since then. Somehow I knew that I was never going to be in any kind of danger. The Sudanese army is not the heap of misfits that makes up the Chadian armed forces. The Sudanese army is strong and has relatively good equipment and lots of it. Unlike the rebels of the JEM. Plus: the rebels came from Darfur . Which is thousands of kilometres away. And they came through Kordofan where they were probably fighting before. So they were never going to be on full strength and they were not going to have a back-up force to supply them. There was no way they were going to win this. There was no way they were even going to be able to cross the bridge to Khartoum . I was safe. We were safe. It was not something I was just trying to make myself believe. It was a fact right from the start. And I think this is why I was able to get hungry and eat pasta with a lot of taste that evening. Or why I was able to feel bored and watch X-Men 3 on Mark’s big screen television. And why I was sitting outside on the grass, talking like normal with Anja and Andrea around midnight. It’s also why I slept well that night and left Mark’s place the next morning after the official curfew had ended.

 

Don’t get me wrong. There was a point where I didn’t feel completely at ease. I had never heard the sound of shellings and weapons being fired in real life. I still don’t know what kind of weapons we were listening to, but they were definitely heavy artillery. In the beginning all we could hear were low pitched thuds, sounding like they came from very far away. I don’t know how to describe it, but I think listening to the sound of thunder while you are using earplugs comes pretty close. At first I couldn’t even hear it. Andrea was the first one to notice the sound. She told us to listen. We asked “listen to what?”. “The sound like thunder. Of the bombs”, she said. I focused. And now I could hear it too. It sounded surprisingly dull. “This is not what bombs and explosions should sound like”, I thought. But the sound kept repeating itself. And it became louder, little by little. At a certain point we could not only hear the thud of the weapon firing, but also a crushing sound. The weapon striking its target. Exploding. Shredding objects to pieces. We looked at each other and everyone knew what the rest was thinking. “This is close, eh? This is definitely coming closer!”. That is the only time I wasn’t so sure that I was completely safe. And the only time I started worrying. But then the noise calmed down again. And a few minutes later we couldn’t hear anything at all anymore. The heavy fighting was over. From then onwards I was just trying to entertain myself and escape the boredom. Mohamed was clearly very stressed because he wasn’t with his family (they are fine by the way). Anja and Andrea were nervous. On edge. Listening to the walkie-talkie all the time, even if they couldn’t make sense of the noises coming out of the speaker. In the end going to Mark’s was completely useless. He had the radio but we couldn’t understand anything people shouted through it most of the time. And when we could make words out of the grunts, we realised it were just checks to see whether the radio was working. Mark also doesn’t have any news channel on his satellite tv. As a result he is entirely disconnected from reality. He has no clue about what is happening in Sudan . He has no idea about how it impacts people’s lives. About how it could potentially also impact him. He was just worried about the fact that he had a flight that night and whether he was going to make it or not. He even got excited like a little child when he received a message on his cell phone from Lufthansa. “They sent a message to reschedule the flight. I’m flying at 10 in the morning now. Oh, look! They sent it all the way from Germany . That is real service! It’s from a German number”. He would repeat his appreciation over Lufthansa sending him a message all the way from Germany the entire evening. In fact, all he did the entire evening was complaining in his usual style, which could indicate he is completely retarded, superficial or simply doesn’t care about anything. He just kept planning his flight for the next day as if nothing was going on outside. I think he ignored everything going on outside to make himself not worry. I’m sure he would have been shitting his pants if he would have been alone. I’m also sure I would have been a lot more nervous if I would have been alone as well. Because I would have no clue about what was going on and would have to call people all the time to keep informed. But now I was calming down other people. Making sure nobody worried too much. In the house and at home in Europe . In fact, the biggest concern I had was that people that really care about me were going out of their mind from worrying and were panicking because they couldn’t reach me. Luckily I was more or less successful in making those feelings and worries in other people go away. In general, I have learned that I perform very well in the type of situation I was in. Which is not the same as a situation where they are fighting at your doorstep, in which case I still have no clue how I would react.

 

As you may know, the fighting in Omdurman ended on Sunday morning. At that time we had already moved to Andrea’s house. I spent the night there on Sunday with Mohamed and her because it was not clear yet whether there was a curfew or not. In the end we found out that there was no curfew in Khartoum on Sunday after 10 am. But it’s probably good that we stuck together, following the news, cooking and watching stupid movies.

 

Today (I am writing this on Monday evening) I went back to work in the morning. We had a security debriefing in which we weren’t informed about anything. I’ll summarise what I know below, but the only positive result of the meeting for me was that Achim (the Security Officer) now has my cell phone number. Actually, he always had it. He just didn’t send any of the messages to me. I asked him “apparently you don’t have my number because I didn’t receive any of the security messages the rest of the staff received to warn them to stay inside” He replied that he did have my number but that he couldn’t send me the messages because he was “in a difficult situation legally speaking”. “You know Stijn, the Commission can not take any responsibility for you because you are officially not connected to us. In case something would happen, the Commission would be liable, so I can’t send you these messages”. I replied angrily that I didn’t get it, but that I would in the future then just ask someone else to forward them to me, which would be the same to me. Upon which the Ambassador stepped in and said he didn’t see any harm in adding me to the sms list, because it was just informing the staff and not taking any responsibility. Luckily at least someone had some common sense left. So in the future I won’t go around without a clue for hours if something like this is happening. I don’t want to imagine what could have happened if I had gone to Omdurman that day, to go to the cheap market or to watch the Nubian wrestlers.

 

I have read some Belgian websites and reports on what happened in Khartoum are total crap on www.deredactie.be. Reporting is a lot better on BBC news. In fact, that is where you can probably find the most reliable information.

 

Over the past days I have been bombarded with contradictory information. 3000 rebels versus 200 maximum. The currently cited figure of 800 seems plausible even if probably at the high end. Hundreds of vehicles versus 20-30 cars. The truth lies somewhere in the middle again I assume. No official figures are available on casualties. Civilians, nor combatants. An often cited figure is 100 rebels arrested. Sudanese television showed a long line of arrested people, but there was no way to be sure they were all rebels. And I’ve seen pictures of shot rebels, dead on the streets, but JEM says that the names of the dead rebels claimed by the government to be high ranking officials within JEM, don’t exist apart from one. And that he was arrested when his car broke down and then killed while under detention and not during a fire fight like the Sudanese military claims. There is clearly a lot of disinformation being circulated, meant to exaggerate what happened. State owned television keeps showing the same 3 or 4 burning car wrecks again and again. And the same dead body on the streets. As a result of the mixed reports I have no way of knowing what really happened and the full extent of the situation. There are rumours that mid-level military people were involved on the rebels’ side but Paul, a very experienced guy at the Delegation and expert on Sudan in general and Darfur in particular, told us that the Sudanese army always needs to balance because 20% or more is made up of Darfurians who need to be kept in check and can never be used in sending troops to fight Darfurians. And that is the main reason for regular purges of potentially subversive elements within the military. So it sounds plausible that the government has just used this attack as a pretext to clear some ‘risky’ elements from the military, while at the same time showing the rest not to mess with the government and follow in line. One thing you can’t accuse this government of is that they’re bad manipulators…

 

This morning the government also seized the opportunity to arrest Turabi (leader of the hard line main opposition Islamist party; Popular Congress Party if I’m not mistaken) and four of his main advisors (he has been released now – Monday evening). There is probably a link between Turabi and JEM, although this has always been denied by both parties and never proven. Turabi used to be part of the ruling NCP but then he had a falling out with El Bashir and he started his own party. He has been arrested and jailed on many occasions since then and now again. The leader of JEM (Ibrahim Khalil, if I remember correctly – me and names…) was a close follower of Turabi and reportedly the links between the two are still strong even if Khalil is no longer officially part of Turabi’s movement. A while ago there were some rumours that weapons were being smuggled in and out of a house in Khartoum that is generally regarded to be owned by Turabi. One of our colleagues saw this smuggling with her own eyes. The government now assumes that Turabi was supplying the rebels here in Khartoum . And they are not necessarily wrong. In fact I am inclined to think that they are right on this one. The problem is that they are also abusing the situation to crack down on suspected subversive elements in the city. Which basically means that they go around arresting Darfurians mostly. People are checked at many check points, in cars and on foot, asked to show their ID. If they don’t have one or if it turns out they are from Darfur , the chance of being arrested and taken away increases. There were also several reports of shootings in Khartoum itself today and while we have no further information I am assuming the shootings are related to individual arrest operations targeting suspected rebels and not organised violence.

 

We’ve also heard some personal stories. During the weekend we were told of people we know getting a grenade crashing through their house, as by miracle not wounding anyone. Mohamed received news about a friend of his being shot and killed by a stray bulled that pierced the wall of his house. Today a colleague received a phone call from a friend who was picking up his children from school (schools had advised their parents to do so since there were rumours about renewed fighting and curfew so people wanted to be with their families) and saw police shooting a guy in a street we frequently use… And I don’t even know many people, so similar stories are probably endless.

 

To offer an opinion on the backdrop and aim of this attack is not easy, but I see a couple of options. On the rebel side I think the primary objective was never to take the entire city by force. I think the aim was mainly to destabilise, to create chaos, showing the government that they (the rebels) also have the power to take the fight from Darfur to Khartoum . And maybe they were somehow hoping their move would create a popular uprising against the regime. Which luckily didn’t happen. Because this regime might be one of the worst on the planet, exhibiting horrible disrespect for the lives of its citizens, both during the North-South war as well as during the currently still ongoing genocide in Darfur, but the worst thing to happen to this country right now would be the sudden, violent removal of that regime. Because no rebel force that would cause that fall, is able to fill the gap. The country would enter a power vacuum and would almost surely fall back into brutal civil war. No, I have my sight set on the democratic process. I still believe that implementation of the CPA is the only way to go and free elections the only way to have any chance of sustainable change in Sudan . What will happen if the NCP threatens to lose the elections? What kind of election violence might break out? What if Darfur is not resolved? What if the South really tries to gain independence in the 2011 referendum? All questions I can not answer. All questions that offer perspective for renewed violence across the country and a resumption of civil war. All questions that leave me very sceptical about the possibility for a peaceful future for this country. But still the only way to go is to fully support the democratic process set in motion and somehow keep believing in it. Because if we give up on that option, the ones that are left are too terrible to imagine…

 

Of all the opinions I’ve been hearing about these events, the ones that scares me the most is the one suspecting the government of letting this happen to have an excuse to crack down on elements it considers a threat and to build momentum for popular support. It scares me the most because it might just be true. This regime would do everything to hold on to power and has shown it is capable of anything. So it does not sound implausible to me that they would allow the rebels to come from Kordofan to Omdurman – which is hundreds of kilometres so why did they not engage them somewhere in the desert – only to stop them at the gates of Khartoum and crush them there. After which they on the one hand gain the support from the local population and the population of Khartoum for defeating the rebels from the periphery who came to threaten their lives and on the other hand take the opportunity to cleanse the army, make random arrests, attack opposition forces and once again take an aggressive stance on a neighbouring country without much protest. And so what if some innocent people in Omdurman die in the process? They are the poorest people of the Khartoum region and thus the most expandable anyway…

 

One last thing I want to say and on which I won’t go into detail: I can not believe how little people can care about locals as long as they and their families are safe!  

 

I haven’t updated this blog in a while. It must be nearly a month ago now since I last sat down to right a couple of lines to be posted online. But now that I’m back in Sudan for a couple of months, I promised myself I would resume writing on a regular basis.

 

The title “back for a short while…” refers to the fact that I’m back in Sudan for only a short time now. A little over two months of my internship are left. And I plan to make the most of it!

 

The three weeks I have spent at home in Europe with the most important people in my life has given me more than enough energy to tackle life in Khartoum with a positive attitude. I won’t go into details about my holidays, how important they were and how great a time I had. Nor will I write about how much I wished I could just have stayed. Because the people that need to know this, already know it. And the other readers of this blog will be more interested in what’s going on in Sudan .

 

Even though I’ve only been back for a week now, I have a lot to write. Many things have happened or are going to take place soon.

 

On the general situation in the country, I assume most of you will have followed the news about the plane crash in the southern part of the country, killing a number of important members of the Government of Southern Sudan including the Minister of Defence (or Army) and a Presidential Advisor. I’ve actually received questions from friends about the nature of this accident and based on the information available to me – this is also the official version and generally accepted explanation – the plane crash was really an accident and not in any way related to an attack/assassination. The reason for the crash is as simple as it is regrettable: African governments and local airlines don’t have money for decent airplanes so they purchase old Russian Antonovs that are not reliable anymore. Yesterday, a person working in Uganda told me that in the whole world only 12 airplanes of the type that crashed are still registered as reliable to fly. The others are no longer allowed in the air and should in principle not be sold anymore, but obviously that that makes them extremely cheap. You can figure out for yourself how many of these 12 planes are flying in Africa …

 

On another development: the census has finished now. It started with a slight delay but when I first arrived I was impressed that it appeared to be a success. However, I soon figured out that first impressions are often misleading. In my absence – and therefore I didn’t know this – the SPLM (the main party in the South) had decided to boycott the census because it wasn’t satisfied with the way in which it was designed. Before I left, the government was discussing the demands of the SPLM to include a reference to religion and ethnicity in the questionnaire, so I assume these discussions did not harvest the desired result for the SPLM. But that was not the only disappointment about the census. Apparently it was not very inclusive. I have talked to my colleagues and several of them have not been included in the census or know of many people who haven’t. One colleague said she was waiting at home the entire opening day of the census, which was proclaimed a national holiday to ensure maximum participation, but nobody showed up. And these are people living in Khartoum . So I very much doubt the overall participation and inclusion of the census. We’ll have to wait for the official results…

 

As far as I know these where the main developments in the country the past month.

 

Myself, I have been back for a week now and am more or less getting used to working and living here again. Actually, things are going a lot smoother than I thought they would. I don’t have that feeling of being hopelessly lost, thinking “what the hell have I started here?”, that I had when I first arrived to the country, when I was staying in the same room in the same hostel I’m writing this post from now. But as an extremely important and infinitely wiser person than myself told me, it’s probably because now I don’t have that prospect of spending six months here, which can feel overwhelming. Instead I know that in principle I’ll be out of here in two months time. Which is nothing. And I have to be honest: keeping that positive thought in mind makes me want to make the most of my time here instead of feeling slightly miserable like I often felt before leaving. It also helps to have a number of plans that I hope I’ll be able to somehow achieve the coming months. First of all I would like to travel across the country, to at least see a different part of this so diverse country. It would be a real pity if I were to spend six months here without ever venturing too far outside of Khartoum . Of course the same financial and logistical restrictions that have existed since the start of the internship are still bothering me. But I’m going to try and overcome them. I have already talked to my boss about tagging along on missions with my colleagues and he reacted in a positive way. There were two missions that interested me a lot: one joining the consultant we are contracting to train Sudanese NGOs to Juba and one to visit a torture project in Nyala. My boss advised against Nyala because even if it is safe, it is still Darfur and he only wants to send those people there that are really necessary to be sent. So I’ll be focusing my attention on getting to Juba . It will first require me to do some administrative things at the Delegation to get permission to go from the Administration Section, but that shouldn’t be a problem. The tricky part will probably be the money again. Ideally I would want to fly there with an UNMIS flight because they are for free. But of course they are designed for flying UN personnel to certain regions. As a consequence, the government – who checks the flight log obviously – can always decide to kick off non-UN staff in case they don’t have a good justification to be on board. And if this happens last minute, there’s no time left for commercial alternatives – that would cost around euro 150 for a return flight – so there is definitely a risk connected to the UNMIS flights. But I do have to think about the costs… Because it’s not only the flights, I’ll also have to stay in a hotel and pay for it. And hotels in Juba are not cheap, because they come far and in between and are almost exclusively designed for internationals and business men… A mission that I would be sure to join if it takes place is a potential trip to the Blue Nile State , because this mission would be organised by car so I could join without worrying about the financial aspect… But this mission is not sure to take place. So in the end I might end up not going anywhere… Which wouldn’t be a disaster because I’d be able to use the money saved for my September – somewhere next year plans! Anyway, I’ll keep you updated here on progress made towards this travelling across Sudan plan.

 

A second plan/little idea is to teach a bit of French to the children of one of my colleagues. She is looking for a private French teacher, so I offered to test what I could do for them with my limited French speaking skills. Since the kids are around 12 I think I would actually still be able to teach them some things. And their mom has bought French exercises books, so that would be a great help. I’m not sure yet how concrete she is about me teaching her daughters… She said yes when I asked her if she would still like me to teach her kids (we had already discussed this before I left on leave), but we didn’t decide on a real first day for me to go to her home and meet her kids… We’ll see what happens here, but the plan might just die out…

 

In work related matters, I am still working on evaluating a high number (50 by the end of next week) of concept notes received in application for a call for proposals we launched entitled “Non State Actors and Local Authorities in Development”. It’s really interesting and keeps me busy all day, but it can get pretty frustrating as well to see the poor quality of the vast majority of these concept notes. People requesting € 750,000 for a project on “Fishing for Peace”… In general the quality of these things is sub-standard. I have read 20 of them by now and passed 4 or 5. And some of the ones I passed, I intentionally passed with a low score because they deserved to pass, but not to get selected for the second phase (full proposal) of the call because there were some major problems with the design. So in the end I think I read 1 concept note so far that actually deserves to receive a grant… Really really sad if you know that these concept notes are only 4 pages long and it is clearly indicated what is expected from the applicants… And still even international NGOs are incapable of convincing me as an intern to pass them to the second phase… The good thing is that I have now discovered the biggest advantage of doing this internship for me. You see, it’s my opinion that there is no way anyone can do a job like this for any donor without and practical experience in implementing projects in the field for NGOs. And like I wrote earlier, I really want some hands down experience. So I will try to find a job within an NGO in the field (Latin-America is first on the list; South-East Asia and West Africa and the Great Lakes Region are a little further down) for my next professional goal. And then I will definitely be able to use the experiences I had now and incorporate them in my future function. At least I’ll be able to write a concept note that is almost sure to pass the first phase, if the quality is this low everywhere! Because I’ve seen things through the perspective of the donor and I know exactly what kind of information the donor wants to find in the concept note.

 

This week I have had my first training! Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you: I received training by the European Commission, even though I am just an intern! The three day training was organised in Khartoum for the entire region, but most participants came from the Delegation here. There were 5 other people from Nairobi and Kampala , but that was it. The training was on Internal Project Monitoring and basically explained how Task Managers should monitor their projects in an efficient way. I’m not a Task Manager so I found it sometimes difficult to participate actively but I learned a lot and I’ll definitely be able to use this training in the future. It will of course also look great on my relatively empty cv… It was also a lot of fun and got me fed until I was stuffed like a balloon. We received so much food on such a continuous basis (breakfast sandwiches and cake at 10.30, extensive lunch buffet at 12.30 with soup, salads, a myriad of main dishes and an even bigger selection of fruits and desserts, and even more cake and little pizzas around 15.00), I was simply not hungry at all anymore until and couldn’t eat anything in the evening until around 22.00 – 23.00, which fitted perfectly with the eating schedule I got used to in Spain! The training also got me to eat out  in a real restaurant since I arrived here in January. Yesterday (Thursday) we went for dinner with all participants to an Indian restaurant – called very originally “Little India” – and I had a very good time and tasty food, even if it was a bit expensive for my normal Sudanese budget.

 

This evening we also have a party at someone’s house and on Sunday evening we’ll have an official celebration at the Delegation for Europe Day, so I won’t be bored fast!

 

I mentioned above that I’m staying in the hostel again. That’s because I had been looking for a new apartment ever since I got back. And now I think I have found one! I will normally sign the contract this afternoon. It’s above my budget because it’s a two bedroom apartment, but it is extremely difficult to find something within my budget here so I will have to take it. It’s a quite small apartment, but it is located in an ideal area and it has air conditioning, which were the two main preconditions for me to consider any new place. I might try to share with someone else and actually already have someone in mind, but first I have to discuss this possibility with my landlady. Sharing would of course be perfect to cut down the cost, but I’m not sure whether my landlady will like the idea, nor whether the apartment is not a bit too small to share… I’ll take some pictures on Sunday or Monday when I move in and post them online somewhere.

 

Why not? Well, because I can’t really write about Sudan when I’m not there…

I am now on holidays for three weeks. I managed to get annual leave as an intern, yes

I’ll be spending some days at home in Belgium, but most of my holidays I’ll be enjoying in Spain!

Back to Khartoum on 3 May so a next entry will have to wait until then… Ocuppy yourselves in a more useful manner in the meantime

I could answer your question in Dutch, Mathias. And I was planning to. I mean, most people won’t understand the article in De Standaard anyway and there’s no sense in translating the whole thing. But then again, people will get the purpose of the article by my comments on it, and I don’t want to discriminate those of you that don’t speak the interesting Dutch language, so I decided to write in English after all.

Preliminary note: I use the word film instead of documentary to describe Wilders’ work and I use inverted commas below at “‘other’ documentaries” to indicate that Wilders’ work is NOT a documentary. It is a populistic piece of propaganda, designed in a failed attempt to prove a subjective and wrong theory.

In general, the article posted by Mathias and the one-liners referred there-in perfectly capture my opinion on Fitna. It’s also the only conclusion that can be reached by dissecting the film in a rational, objective manner. The film is a collection of footage, taken from ‘other’ documentaries, news broadcasts, newspapers and youtube. It’s all put together in a very clumsy way, making the whole seem amateuristic at best. Nothing apart from the fundamentally flawed link to Wilders’ theory is original to the maker of the film. Wilders’ only aim was to find ‘evidence’ for his theory that Islam is going to take over the world by force, starting with the Netherlands… Which is a completely absurd theory. 

The main problem I felt with the film – which is also mentioned in the article – is that Wilders attacks and accuses an entire religion (“the Islamic ideology needs to be conquered”), but he does it by showing only footage of extremists who are abusing the religion and do not represent the mainstream Muslims. This is why he can never achieve his aim of proving his theory. His whole methodology and logic is fundamentally flawed. It would be like trying to prove that all adult Belgian males are pedophiles who need to be locked away by referring to the case of Marc Dutroux.

One comment in the article on which I tend to only partly agree is where the author writes that commentaries on Wilders’ film that say, “yes, we’ve seen all of this” and then laugh the film away as a technical disaster are a sign of desensitisation to the issue of extremist Muslims that are committing and advocating horrible violence towards other human beings. The author refers to documentaries on the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, saying that those still schock him every time he sees them, even if he has seen the footage thousands of times.

The footage Wilders uses is shocking and when I see for instance a documentary on 9/11 I am shocked by the images of the planes flying into the WTC towers even if I have seen them hundreds of times before, on the news and in previous documentaries. But the difference lies in the purpose of the use of the footage in Wilders’ film, compared to their use in objective documentaries. The images themselves are indeed shocking, no matter in what context they are used. When I see them in an objective documentary I feel horrified, disgusted and angry about what I’m seeing and how people can do such things to other human beings. But when they are abused in a subjective sense as propaganda by a politician who is trying to convince people of his flawed, perverted and simply wrong theory, my feelings of shock, disgust and anger turn themselves towards the maker of the film. Which is the whole point I was trying to make with my initial comments on the film: I resent you for abusing these images of horrible crimes and inacceptable behaviour to try and indoctrinate people into believing something that is simply not true.

Where I would agree completely with the newspaper article is the situation in which people only say “yes, we’ve seen that before” and then not follow through the entire argument I have made – that Wilders is wrong in abusing these images to indoctrinate people into believing a populistic theory – but only comment on the low technical quality of the film. Because this would be a sign that they are not affected by the images they’ve seen, nor by the fact that Wilders is abusing them to preach discrimination and hatred towards an entire religion. The technically poor quality of the film is a completely irrelevant issue. Even if it was a film of high quality, it would still be morally disgusting. 

Where I also definitely agree is that people in general should be aware that they are not desensitised by brutal images and no longer have any negative feelings when confronted with them. Because that would mean that they lack the sensitivity to imagine the situation or – worse – simply don’t care. But they should also be aware that abuse of these images doesn’t lead them to be indoctrinated into generalisation and come to be followers of people like Wilders…

Somebody should really explain some Imams that not everyone is cut out to be a singer. Especially the one I’m listening to right now should really consider a change of careers. His voice can’t handle the high tones in his sermons, so it sounds more like a cat who is being violently strangled than someone conducting a religious service. Luckily, only part of the service is being broadcasted through speakers at the mosque… Only the faithful people inside will continue to suffer for an hour or so while this particular Imam continues to push his vocal chords to the limit.

Now that we’re sort of on the topic of Islam… I downloaded and saw Geert Wilders’ film Fitna. And, seriously, we should never ever again generate this much free publicity for such a populist politician whose main aim is to frighten people so that they would listen to his ridiculous theories. Because it’s the massive negative attention that has been given to the film in the period leading up to its release that has ensured that over 3 million people saw it in the first 24 hours it was online… Achieving Wilders’ result of reaching as many people as possible, thus guaranteeing at least a fraction of them will be tricked into believing him, without him even having to do much for it. And I don’t know if you saw the film, but it’s really not worth any debating. Yes, there are verses in the Qur’an that can be interpreted as preaching violence against disbelievers, yes Al Qaeda flew planes in the WTC towers, yes there were bombings in Madrid and London, yes there are fundamentalist Imams out there preaching hate and destruction towards Jewish people and disbelievers in general and yes, a very small fraction of Muslims has made the move towards extremism. We all know this. We watch the news. We read newspapers. We don’t need a summary made by Mr. Wilders. Because that is basically all the film offers. There is no opening for debate. No room for discussion. Only those images that are then linked to ultimate disaster for the Netherlands, which will be conquered by Islam according to Wilders, through the depiction of the Danish cartoon of Mohammed with bomb in turband – the film opens with the fuse being lit on fire and a countdown of 15 minutes initiated and ends with time running out and the bomb exploding. Most disturbing and angering to me is the message Wilders presents at the end of the film. He addresses the public through texts scrolling over the screen in a way that is supposed to convince us of his cause. “Islam doesn’t respect you”, “Islam aims for the destruction of our Western society”, concluding with “in 1945 Nazism was conquered in Europe, in 1989 communism was conquered in Europe , now the Islamic ideology must be conquered”. This person is clearly either retarded or of bad will. He just poses a propaganda statement lacking any sense of nuance and precedes it with a variety of documentary style images that are supposed to evidence the truthfulness of his message. I wonder if he even believes it himself… Because that would define his own mental state – retarded or evil.

In either case, it sounds ridiculous to me that he could ever succeed in convincing people by attacking an entire religion, instead of those people that abuse the religion to fight their own personal war against the ‘infidels’. Because I think we can not ignore that Islam is being abused on a certain scale to preach intolerance, hatred and violence. No one should accept Imams literally calling for the extermination of all Jewish people. No one should accept terrorists murdering people in the name of Allah. In the West, nor in the Middle East where most of the victims (fellow Muslims) of these terrorist fall. No one should accept the government of Sudan exterminating part of its Muslim population while the political Arab and Muslim world does nothing to come to their assistance and doesn’t even strongly condemn Sudan ’s practices.

I believe that in this respect Muslims in the West could have an important role to play. They could form a bridge between the Western world and the Muslim world. They could show that people living in these worlds are not different at all and that it’s just at the extremist ends of both of them that people are preaching intolerance, hatred and violence towards the other. Because right now both worlds are living in an atmosphere where the loudest voices – and these are generally the extremist ones – are dominating the debate. Leading most of the people in both regions of the world to be simply misinformed about the other region and the people living in it.

On a funnier note, I noticed that Wilders did not include Jyllands-Posten in his list of sources for the film. I wonder if he got permission to use the cartoon of Mohammed with bomb in turband… Could be hilarious if the Danes end up suing him!

Also: only 12 days left ’til I fly to Belgium and only 13 ’til I’m in Madrid! I can’t wait!!! And of course right now time seems to be creeping by ever so slowly… I want it to move faster. A lot faster!

(written at home on Friday) 

Not a whole lot of progress has been made at work the past week. Sure, I’ve attended a high level meeting on the elections that are projected to take place by July 2009. And it was highly interesting. Obviously I can not write anything here about what was discussed at the meeting. But in general I very much like attending these meetings. I learn a lot about the situation of the country and the coordination between all actors involved. It feels like I am a lot more involved in things than I usually feel, because generally I get most of my information from the newspapers. Of course I got a little overenthusiastic during the meeting, because afterwards I voluntarily offered my colleague to prepare a draft of the minutes for her…

 

Other than that, conflicting time schedules have prevented my boss and I from sitting down and discussing the expansion of my responsibilities. He’s on leave now and I expect to go on leave a couple of days after he gets back, pushing everything to May. But he did recognise that my capacities – read: my presence – are not being utilised to their full extent and said that they will abuse me in the future. I hope he meant the latter in a non-sexual sense. While I have no problem with being the bitch of the office in the sense that the intern takes care of all the slave labour, I would strongly object to being violated at their will by the rest of the staff. Apart from maybe by the cutest girls… In the meantime I have proposed my boss to have me assist a colleague from the other section in the DDR (Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration – of adult and minor soldiers, militia and rebels after armed conflicts end) project the EC Delegation is funding. I have some knowledge on this topic and the guy in charge has just been burdened by taking over the DDR file from my former boss, so he’ll probably appreciate whatever help he can get his hands on. I plan to discuss things with him on Sunday.

 

I’m still looking forward a lot to my leave. I need some normal social contact with people. Contact that involves joking, playing, drinking and just having fun. Some Guitar Hero would be enjoyable… And for some reason I also feel a lot like swimming since yesterday…

 

Don’t get me wrong, I like it here. Overall the job is still great even though I could be doing a lot more than I have been doing so far. But I have good perspectives of work becoming a lot more hectic by the time I get back from leave. And in the meantime I’ll keep myself busy with the usual, plus hopefully the DDR file.

 

I also keep telling myself that this is just a first step in my professional career. It’s not supposed to be perfect yet. I’m still completely ignorant about so many aspects and I still have so much to learn. And this internship is teaching me a lot. It will also look great on my cv, I think. With mention of titles such as Task Manager of this, Programme Manager of that and Observer of yet another thing. In Sudan ! I’ll also hopefully be able to make use of my insider knowledge on donors’ approaches and procedures once I’m working for a Children’s Rights NGO – my next plan after I finish here.

 

What I do regret a little bit – and has become clear to me through talking to some friends about this topic recently – is that I have hardly any contact with anyone here. At least not the kind of contact that could evolve into friendship. Contact with internationals and parties don’t really interest me that much. In the end, I will be seeing these kinds of people for the rest of my life. And I think ‘friendships’ you make with internationals will always be fluid. They’re just a means to pass the time while you’re in the same country and in that sense not real. I’m also already investing enough time in maintaining the friendships with the people I’ve met over the course of the past year. I don’t really want to add another one. The international that convinces me to do that would have to be pretty damn special to be able to compete with my present friends.

 

Contact with the Sudanese population is something that does still interest me. In the end, I am here as a guest in their country and while I do not like to think in terms of ‘discovering new cultures’, because I tend to fight against anything that divides people and living here has shown me that the cultural divide – for instance between “Western capitalists” and “fundamentalist Muslims” – is definitely strong these days, I am interested in how people live their daily lives and how they are personally. It’s difficult to find out these things about Sudanese. As I’ve written before, I’ve found that they are extremely friendly and helpful, but that’s about where it ends. I am not able to dig deeper. My main obstacle is language. Of course when you are not able to understand each other, it is impossible to ever get to know each other. Other than that I get the impression some Sudanese shun from internationals, occasionally even react agitated by my presence. I think it has to do with the fact that they are socially very much tied to traditional linkages of family and tribe. Outsiders have many difficulties to penetrate these barriers. Combine that with my more withdrawn personality and you’ll understand why I spend most of my off-work time by myself here. The weather is also not assisting in that respect. During the day from noon to four it’s simply too hot to venture outside in the sun. Everyone is resting somewhere during those hours – on a bed put outside under a tree appears to be a tradition. Even the kids don’t play outside during this time of day. Only around four or five they start playing.

 

And they all play football. Yesterday I was watching two groups of ‘kids’ play for about an hour. On the real pitch – still only made of sand but at least with real goals, albeit small – there were two teams of older youth playing, with a real football and real shoes. On the side of the pitch – filled with rocks, some of which were used as goals – a group of young kids was practicing to become like the big boys, with a deflating ball and without football shoes (barefoot or on sandals). What surprised me was how good their technique is. The little kids perform the most amazing moves, even when playing on clumsy sandals. And I can only imagine the amount of hardened skin they must have on the soles of their feet to survive running on those rocks… The bigger lads were playing more or less organised. Of course in African style: the entire focus on the attack, with defenders doing stylish moves even when they’re the last man, causing them to lose the ball and give away an easy goal. But of course their technique is incredible too. No wonder. These kids have been playing every day for several hours for the past ten or more years. On a pitch that demands tight control of the ball and in general playing through the air rather than over the ground. Not only in Brazil and Ivory Coast do kids train to become great football stars one day. Also in Sudan . Only, for some reason it hasn’t yielded any concrete results yet. The Sudanese national team played abysmal at the African Nations Cup. And that’s why it surprised me that these kids were playing so well. It was the first time I took the time to sit down and actually watch them play. I think I’ll do it more often.

 

On a completely different note, I can strongly recommend the Oscar-winning documentary “Taxi to the Dark Side” on US policy regarding the use of torture in the ‘war on terror’, exemplified by the case of an innocent Afghan taxi-driver who’s tortured to death in a prison in Bagram.

First of all I’d like to say that it’s getting a bit ‘cooler’ again over here. Or maybe my body has adjusted itself to the heat. In any case, the weather is feeling a lot more bearable these days. Today there is even a welcome breeze flowing through the apartment, making writing this entry as enjoyable and relaxing as before. As long as the temperature doesn’t suddenly go up by 10 degrees, you won’t find me complaining about the weather any time soon again.

At work I’ve also been offered promising perspectives. My new boss told me yesterday that he and I need to discuss what new responsibilities I can assume within the team. He said he wants to accord me more managerial responsibilities! What this means concretely, I’ll find out once we have our talk somewhere early next week. But he did tell me he would like to reshuffle the management of our running human rights project. I would then be managing 5 to 10 of those directly, to alleviate my colleagues somewhat as they are now taking on too many projects to be able to manage all of them efficiently. This is of course excellent news. I will have to educate myself on the projects, after which I will be the person within the Delegation that will monitor every issue of the project (contractual situation, implementation, financial payments, etc.). This will come on top of me staying the manager for the new human rights programme that will be launched – most likely – early April. So I expect I’ll be getting very busy and active at work from then onwards, until the end of the internship. Because April is when the busy period starts for the Section. And it doesn’t stop until the end of the year.

Of course they’ll almost immediately have to miss me for a while because I’m planning my leave for somewhere around mid-April, but I’m sure they will survive without me. By the way, I’ll not be taking my leave in Belgium, so those of you at home who were hoping to (not) see me over the coming months, can have their moment of disappointment/excitement now.

… The wind just made the terrace door slam shut, causing a piece of the wall to fall off. Sudanese-style construction…

 

The main topic I wanted to write about today is government propaganda again. This will basically be a follow-up to what I wrote earlier about the Sudanese-European Relations Forum.

In the last entry I commented on reporting on the Forum in a Sudanese newspaper. This was an independent newspaper. Yesterday, following the closing of the Forum on Wednesday, the Sudan Vision reported extensively on the Forum. The Sudan Vision is the English government controlled newspaper. I normally don’t read it, because you basically can’t trust anything they write as it is a propaganda tool for the NCP regime. However, sometimes – as in this case – it provides for an interesting study on misinformation and even indoctrination of Sudanese citizens.

On a side note, I can only imagine how much worse it is in the many Arabic newspapers.

First headline on the front page of the Sudan Vision’s edition of Thursday 13 April: “ICC Intervention Prolongs the Crisis in Darfur, Hoile”. Hoile is the Director of the infamous ESPAC I wrote about earlier. Some extracts from the article: “the deployment of UN troops in Darfur is more likely to fuel rebellion rather than bring peace”; “through its support to the International Criminal Court, the European Union has further complicated the situation in Darfur”; “[he] urged the [European] Union to oppose Washington’s calls for escalating the crisis in Darfur”. Hoile – who is a UK citizen! – furthermore insinuates that it are the “rebels” who are obstructing the peace process as they are unwilling or unable to negotiate and that therefore (economic) sanctions against Khartoum are unjustified.

Further on in the newspaper, the Final Statements and Recommendations of the Forum can be found.

The Statement starts as follows: “The Forum aspired to run a national and composed dialogue to explore common factors that will boos these [Sudanese-European] relations and push forth means of cooperation between the two sides to better be able to dedicate efforts of development, establishment of the milestones of comprehensive peace, triggering a positive transformation in the progress of these relations and enhancing the European dialogue via the outcome and recommendations of the Forum. The Forum was also aimed at taking note of the dimensions of Sudanese-European relations, foreign policy trend of the two sides, the feasibility of investigating the prospects of these relations and the creation of political, media-oriented and diplomatic bent that underscores the need for upgrading political, economic and cultural ties between the two sides as well as open outlets with the European Union as an influential group in view of its role in the international community”. Very noble, albeit vaguely formulated, intentions. And they sound promising on paper. Only, there was no dialogue. The Statement gives the impression the EU was actively involved in the Forum. It was not. The ‘European’ co-organiser was a private organisation whose opinions and objectives are completely out of line with those of the EU. In fact, the organisation appears to be nothing more than another pawn – or conspirator – in the hands of the NCP propaganda machine. More than a dialogue, the Forum was a one-sided Sudanese construction, meant to boost the regime’s image.

Under recommendations, the Statement includes the following: “2- Activating the role of the media to undertake its role to reflect the true image of Sudan in order to counter the premeditated distortion of that image by the mechanisms of the international media. 3- [...] maintain a Sudan that is unified in both territory and people [...] 4- [...] exploiting the technical aid via the African-Caribbean Pacific Group. [...] 6- Building a comprehensive national strategy to control and endorse the routes and progress of the national economy. 7 Establishing a balanced and equitable economic and developmental partnership between Sudan and Europe in view of the abundant potential and resources of Sudan and Europe’s need for these potentials and resources.” The message is clear: international media have misguided Europe’s perception of Sudan, which should be remedied so that Europe can re-enter into substantial economic cooperation with a Sudan in which the ruling regime will ensure its full control of the economy and all resources through maintaining a unified Sudan. It also indicates the primary reason for which the ruling regime wants to maintain the unity of the country – the South will hold a referendum on self-determination and thus possible independence in 2011 – namely the presence of rich natural resource (=oil), the majority of which is located in the South.

Further on, the entire text of one of the papers presented at the Forum is printed. The article, entitled “American Influence on the Progress of Sudanese-European Relations”, is written in an apparently academic style, but reveals along its lines a few questionable statements and a general line insinuating a Zionist and Christian conspiracy against (northern) Sudan. Examples are: “The second change was the eruption of the Darfur crisis and the expansion of its scope, which could not have happened without the intervention and pressures made by the same parties [United States, Europe and United Nations]”; “[t]he success of Israel and neo-conservatives in imputing to Sudan the charge of supporting terrorism despite Sudan’s intelligence cooperation with the CIA and President Bush’s persistence of accusing Sudan of genocide at each and every turn is a matter that is difficult to understand. [...] Sudan has become the underdog that can be kicked about whenever the American or European countries elections loomed in the horizon”; “European countries cannot watch passively the loss of markets and resources such as exist in Sudan because of pressures of Zionist lobby and theories of the neoconservatives”.

On the back page, Sudan Vision published pictures taken at the Forum. In colour. Most depicting male or female white ‘Europeans’ attending the Forum. Without indication as to who they are.

Lastly, I would like to mention that, although there were no EU representatives present to my knowledge, the US Chargé d’Affaires to Sudan did attend the Forum and delivered a speech in which he defended US policy towards Sudan.

Unrelated to the Sudanese-European Relations Forum, but a further example of the ‘quality’ of Sudan Vision, is an article entitled “US Foolish Joke no Longer Amusing! Is America Qualified for Talking about Human Rights?”. The article, which focuses on Guantanamo Bay and the US prison system, is clearly a counter-action from the government to the recent publication by the US State Department of its yearly country human rights reports. Obviously Sudan did not score very well in the State Department’s report – by the way, these reports are quite accurate and a good source for general information on the human rights situation in individual countries. So the government of Sudan decided to go for the diminish-the-credibility-of-your-enemy-to-distract-attention-from-your-own-situation strategy. The article is published on the page prior to the one containing the article on “American Influence …”

…

 
While writing this I thought of something related. You might already know this, but for those who don’t – I actually didn’t before I came here –, the official position of the Sudanese government is that only 9,000 people have died in the Darfur conflict since it started in 2003, as opposed to the generally accepted estimate of 200,000 – 250,000 victims.

I just wanted to write shortly about an event that has been taking place the past days in Khartoum, because it shows perfectly how proficient the Sudanese Government – more in particular the National Congress Party (NCP) of President El-Bashir – is at creating confusion and using propaganda to its advantage.

 

All over Khartoum , fliers and posters are being spread about something called the ‘Sudanese – European Relations Forum’. Sounds pretty official. We also received an invitation at the Delegation. The invitation describes the whole three-day conference, indicating that various EU Ambassadors and Sudanese officials will discuss a paper on American influences over Sudan and Europe . It also offers a timetable of speeches and debates to take place, on which Ambassadors of the UK, France , etc. feature either as keynote speaker or as moderator. Our Head of Delegation is also listed as speaker. Only, we have never heard of this Forum. The Head of Delegation has not been asked to speak. And more than likely neither have the other Ambassadors.   

 

After some research, it turned out the whole Forum is being orchestrated as a PR stunt by the Sudanese Government. The main organising body from the Sudanese side is the Sudanese Media Centre, an organisation firmly controlled by the NCP. Not surprisingly, the most important speaker to actually turn up was Vice-President Taha of the same party. On the ‘EU’ side ESPAC (the European-Sudanese Public Affairs Council – although the explanation of the acronym is not mentioned on the invitation) is the organising ‘body’. Turns out this ESPAC is not a governmental institution related to the EU at all, but a private organisation, run by a certain David Hoile. One of the main objectives found on ESPAC’s website (www.espac.org) is to “challenge inaccurate and questionable coverage of Sudan and Sudanese affairs”. A bit further it says that “the Council believes that conflict in Sudan has historically been artificially prolonged by poor journalism and the propaganda war so often associated with civil wars – both of which have significantly misrepresented events in Sudan and adversely affected some international perceptions of the country”. Mr. Hoile himself is a British former far-right ‘activist’ known for having a row with the Guardian over pictures of him wearing a sticker on his tie saying “Hang Madela” in the 80s, when he was a young Tory. Now he is basically a lobbyist for the Sudanese regime, publishing highly questionable articles and books that are to prove that the international community is misinforming the public about Darfur and did so in the past about the North-South civil war in an effort to demonise Sudan , i.e. the Sudanese regime of the NCP. Take a look at his website for yourself.

 

Of course the newspapers reported today on a speech held at the Forum by Vice-President Taha, commending European development aid to Sudan and advocating the need to strengthen Sudan-EU ties. The public is buying it. Another success for the NCP in its domestic disinformation and propaganda campaign…