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NGOs Sudan Denounces Rights Group
for Link with GarangBy Alfred Taban
Reuters
March 25, 1999
Khartoum - Sudan's Islamist government condemned Swiss-based human rights group Chriatian Solidarity International (CSI) for hosting rebel leader John Garang at the annual session of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. It said in a statement late on Wednesday that CSI's action was no surprise. "What this invitation can only but to do, however, is focus considerable attention on the honesty, objectivity and credibility of CSI and...its claims with regard to Sudan."
CSI recently accused Khartoum of condoning slavery, and announced that it had bought the freedom of 1,050 slaves, mainly children, in Sudan for $50 per person in January. The government said CSI openly associates with the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) led by Garang, but does not highlight alleged human rights abuses by the SPLA. "It is indeed a surprise to see how closely CSI, which presents itself as a human rights organization, has identified with the SPLA, an organization with one of the worst human rights records in the world," the statement said.
It said SPLA atrocities, killings, theft and other abuses during the civil war raging in southern Sudan since 1983 had been fully documented by international human rights bodies. "Yet the man directly responsible for this and other horrific massacres has been brought to the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva by CSI to talk of human rights in Sudan.... If John Garang were to appear before any UN body, it should perhaps be as a war criminal, and not as a guest speaker," the statement said.
During the conference, Garang, a key figure for around three decades in resistance in the south to Islamic rule from the north, made clear his movement would be pushing at peace talks next month for a confederal stae in the mainly Arab and Moslem north and the largely Christian or animist south. On Monday, Garang told reporters in Geneva on the opening day of the annual six-week session of the UN Human Rights Commission that the government in Khartoum was seeking to impose a "theocratic, Islamic state" throughout the country.
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