Canada in Sudan by Peter Pigott

Author:Peter Pigott [Pigott, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781770705142
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Published: 2009-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

The above were also accompanied, at different times, by three Canadian foreign service officers: Kerry Buck, deputy director, human rights and humanitarian affairs, Foreign Affairs, Ottawa; C. Senay, political officer, Canadian High Commission, Nairobi; and Hugh Adsett, political officer, Canadian embassy, Addis Ababa.

In Khartoum these people met with GOS officials, leaders of opposition parties, human-rights groups, and diplomatic representatives, as well as with displaced Southern Sudanese and the U.N. officials trying to help them. Talisman co-operated fully, even putting its helicopter at the team’s disposal. Visits were made to oil pipeline sites north and south of Khartoum, and to Dilling in the lower reaches of the Nuba Mountains. Three days were also spent at Talisman’s Heglig operating base.

The central question to which the assessment mission turned was whether the GOS had been “sponsoring” the raids against the Dinka and others through the practice of “hiring” Baggara tribesmen, the murahleen, as a protection force, which the Canadians were told took its payment not in cash or kind from the GOS but as booty — “the goods and people they can make off with.” GOS officials “strongly” informed the assessment team that “slavery does not and could not exist” in Sudan. Foreign Minister Osman Ismail assured Harker that he would personally intervene in any case of slavery brought to his attention. Earnestly attempting to explain local tradition, a Sudanese Foreign Affairs official told the incredulous Canadians: “The Baggara don’t kill women and children. They just take them as war booty.”

The team saw different phenomena in the slavery/abductions issue:

There was armed and organized raiding in which the role of the GOS wasn’t clear. “Sometimes,” the team reported, “we were informed the GOS provides arms, sometimes the groups of murahleen go off on their own. Tribal groups have been known to organize raids with ‘representatives’ from other Arab groups, returning with children, women, and cattle taken in these raids.”

The team was also told about joint punitive raids carried out by the GOS and the murahleen who, under the Popular Defence Act, enjoyed status as state-sponsored militias — the Popular Defence Forces (PDFs).

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