Previous PageTable Of ContentsNext Page


 

III. ARMED FORCES AND ARMAMENTS

In 1997 Sudan’s armed forces were estimated by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies to number 79,700 troops, all but 4,700 of whom were in the army (including 20,000 conscripts), and some 85,000 reserves, as well as 15,000 active irregulars in the paramilitary PDF militia (under the Sudanese Army).35 The army had almost doubled in size from the start of the decade, while the Iranian-trained PDF militia further expanded the government’s available manpower.36 With the addition of at least 20,000 more troops under the command of former SPLA leaders who broke with the mainstream rebel movement in the early 1990s, together with members of various tribal militias operating in southern Sudan in alliance with the government, this gave the government of Sudan by far the largest fighting force in the region. Several thousand re-defected with Kerubino Kwanyin Bol to the SPLA in January 1998. In 1997, the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimated the SPLA to number 20-30,000 troops, the SAF less than 2,000, and the other armed opposition groups based in the north less than 3,000.37

Weapons Stocks

During a July 1997 visit to SPLA-held areas, Human Rights Watch observed large stocks of arms, ordnance and landmines that were stored in former government military bases in Yei, Lanya, Morobo, and Kaya, as well as along the roads at small bases between these towns. This weaponry was in such a condition (dirt- and dust-covered, as if in place for considerable lengths of time, much of it degraded and of no use on the battlefield) as to give credibility to SPLA claims that it had been captured from the government of Sudan in battles three months earlier, when government forces were routed in surprise attacks.38 SPLA cadre were removing the ordnance that was of current military use and transporting it to their own storehouses nearer the front lines. SPLA officials attempted to block Human Rights Watch from photographing or observing at close range arms and ordnance marked for delivery to Uganda, which they said belonged to the SPLA and had not been captured from Sudanese military forces, while leaving them at liberty to photograph without supervision caches of weapons they claimed they had captured from government forces.39

The hodgepodge of ordnance observed in southern Sudan and the surrounding region is representative of the duration of the conflict and the complex history of Sudan’s political patronage—going to both the government of Sudan and the rebels—and that of its neighbors since the 1950s. An assessment of Sudan's current arsenal shows that its armed forces are saddled with a diverse and often incompatibleassortment of aging NATO and Warsaw Pact weapons systems, with different caliber munitions. However, this also typifies the post-cold war black/gray arms market, where older and cheaper weapons are sold to the highest bidder.

The “weathering” of some of the equipment observed in southern Sudan and its western origin indicated that it had been in the region for a long period. Large quantities of arms and munitions originated in China and were of more recent vintage. However, a significant portion of newer ordnance originated in Iran, as indicated by Farsi markings stenciled onto it. This included large quantities of G-3 assault rifles, landmines, and mortar ammunition.40

Among the weapons and ammunition that had allegedly been captured from Sudanese government forces and which Human Rights Watch observed directly and was able to photograph were:

Artillery and Tanks
73mm SPG-9 recoilless guns (China or former Soviet Union)
105mm Type 75 recoilless guns (China)
122mm M-30/Type 54-1 howitzers (China or former Soviet Union)
122mm M-30 howitzers (former Soviet Union)
122mm Type 54-1 howitzers (China or former Soviet Union)
122mm D-30 howitzers (China or former Soviet Union or possibly former Yugoslavia)
122mm BM-21 multiple rocket launchers mounted on trucks (former Soviet Union)
T-54/59 tanks (China or former Soviet Union)
T-55 tanks (former Soviet Union)
T-59 tanks (China)
Alvis Saladin armored car with 76mm L5-A1 gun (U.K.)

Antipersonnel Mines
PMD-6 Box Mines (Russia—blast mine)
No. 4 Pedal Mines (Iran—green plastic with Farsi writing, shoe mines)
PMN (Russia, China or Iraq—black rubber top, round, with brown bakelight case)
M-14 (U.S.—plastic case, Vietnam era)
Type 72 (China and South Africa—size of a hockey puck)
Type 69 (China—bounding mine)
TS-50 (Italy—small, round, plastic with rubber pressure cap)
POMZ-2M (Russia, China, former East Germany, North Korea—fragmentation stake mines)
VS-T (Italy—illumination stake mines)
Maus (Italy—very old)

Antitank Mines
YM-III (Iran, copied from Chinese Type 72 mine)
PRB M-3 (Belgium, transferred from Saudi Arabia)
TM-57 (China, former Soviet Union, Iraq, or Bulgaria)
TM-46 (former Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Poland, Egypt, or Israel)
Type-72 A (China)
TMA-3 (Yugoslavia)
>TMD-B (Russia)
M-15 (U.S.)

Rifles, Machine Guns, Light Support Weapons & Anti-Aircraft Guns
7.62mm AK-47/Type 56 assault rifles (China, Bulgaria, or former Soviet Union)
7.62mm AKM assault rifles (developed in the former Soviet Union and produced in many countries)
7.62mm Heckler and Koch G-3 assault rifles (developed in Germany and produced under license in many countries—these were from Iran)
7.62mm AND-65 assault rifles (Hungary)
7.62mm PKM/type 80 machine guns (China or former Soviet Union)
7.62mm MG-3 machine guns (developed in Germany and produced under license in several countries)
12.7mm Type W-85 machine guns (China)
12.7mm Type W-77 machine guns (China)
12.7mm Type 54 machine guns (China)
37mm Type 55-1 automatic anti-aircraft gun (China)
37mm M-1939 automatic anti-aircraft gun (former Soviet Union)
40mm Armscor 176L-6 shot grenade launcher (South Africa)

Ammunition
7.62mm ammunition for Type 56 (AK-47/AKM) assault rifles (China)
7.62mm ammunition for Type 53 light machine gun (China)
12.7mm Type 54 machine gun ammunition (China)
12.7mm AP-I B32 machine gun ammunition (former Soviet Union)
30mm grenades for AGS-17 grenade launcher (former Soviet Union)
2-inch mortar shells SMK MK-2 (Israel—smoke shells)
37mm HE-T high-explosive shells for Type 55 anti-aircraft gun (China)
40mm M893 1A1 red phosphorus smoke grenade (South Africa)
57mm OR-281 for S-60, SZ-60/Type 59 anti-aircraft gun (former Soviet Union)
60mm M 73 HE mortar shells (former Yugoslavia)
60mm HE mortar shells (Iran—many)
60mm HE mortar shells (China)
73mm HE/HEAT projectiles for SPG-9 recoilless gun (former Soviet Union)
76mm HEAT L45-A1 and HEAT L40-A1 ammunition of uncertain origin
82mm HEAT projectiles Type 65 (China)
82mm HEAT projectiles BK-881M (former Soviet Union)
82mm HE fragmentation projectiles O-881A (former Soviet Union)
84mm HEAT rounds (Sweden)
85mm rounds for Type 56 field gun (China)
100mm HE OF-412 projectiles (Bulgaria)
100mm HE OF-412 projectiles (former Soviet Union)
106mm HEP-T rounds (U.S., obsolete)
106mm HEAT cartridges M-344 (probably U.S., possibly Iran)
107mm HE rockets Type 63 (China)
120mm Type 55 HE mortar shells (China)
120mm mortar shells (Iran)
122mm HEAT projectiles (former Soviet Union)
122mm HE projectiles (China)
122mm D-30 HE projectiles (China)
PG-7M HEAT projectiles (Iran)
MILAN wire-guided anti-tank rockets (France)
blank training ammo (U.K.)

In the Yei area alone, Human Rights Watch saw eight damaged Chinese 122mm towed howitzers, one Russian 122mm howitzer, five Chinese-made T-59 tanks and one Chinese 37mm anti-aircraft gun, which appeared to have been abandoned when Sudanese government forces fled the town hours after being attacked by the SPLA in March 1997. On the SPLA side, Human Rights Watch observed two new 4-barrel 12.7mm anti-aircraft guns of unknown origin.

The Use of Landmines

The most common antitank mines observed by Human Rights Watch among captured government stocks were Iranian YM-III and Belgian PRB M-3 plastic mines, and Russian TM-57 and TM-46 metal mines. The most common antipersonnel mines were No. 4 pedal mines (found in especially large quantities in Kaya, on the border with Uganda, with Farsi writing stenciled on the sides, indicating they were produced by—or at least supplied by—Iran) and Chinese Type-69 bounding mines.41

A U.N. mine-assessment team surveying the landmine problem in Sudan in 1997 found landmines from Italy, Iran, Belgium, Egypt, Russia, the U.S., China, the former Czechoslovakia, and Israel. Antitank mines found by the team included the M-15 (U.S.), TM-46 (USSR), Type 69 (China), PRB M-3 A1 (Belgium), TM-57 (USSR), Type 72 (China), PRB M-409 (Belgium), TM-72 (USSR), and VS-3.6 (Italy). Antipersonnel mines found by the U.N. team included, M-14 (U.S.), No.4 (Israel), PMD-6M (USSR), POMZ-2 (USSR), Type 58 (China), VS-MK2 (Italy), M-16 (US), OZM-3 (USSR), PMD-7 (USSR), POMZ-2M (USSR), Type 69 (China), Valmara 69 (Italy), Maus (Italy), OZM-4 (USSR), PMN (USSR), T/79 (Egypt), Type 72 (China), and VS-T Illumination (Italy).42

Sudanese government officials gave various, sometimes contradictory, accounts of the use by government forces of antipersonnel landmines. Maj. Gen. Muhammad Sanousi Ahmed, deputy chief of staff for military intelligence in the Sudanese armed forces, told Human Rights Watch that government forces have laid and recorded landmines in front of permanent defensive sites in an effort to “slow down the enemy,” but he claimed that the mine fields were marked and fenced.43 Another government official claimed that the government does not use antipersonnel mines at all in the conflict, and that antitank mines are deployed only in a limited, defensive manner, using maps.44

Dr. Riek Machar, a former rebel field commander holding a cabinet-level position with the government of Sudan and commander-in-chief of the South Sudan Defence Force (the armed wing of theUnited Democratic Salvation Front), told Human Rights Watch that it was common government practice to use antipersonnel mines around garrison towns, laying them at night and removing them in the morning. He also claimed that rebel forces placed landmines at watering points, as well as on routes they knew government forces used.45 A Sudanese government official interviewed later claimed that the government of Sudan had not laid antipersonnel mines in fifteen years and that any such mines discovered in the ground would be the responsibility of either a previous Khartoum government or the rebels.46 Other sources claimed that government forces based in Malakal, a garrison town in Upper Nile, laid landmines around their positions each night, clearing them in the morning. When it rained, the mines were often left in place, resulting in high levels of civilian casualties.47

Sudanese army defectors claimed that the government stepped up the use of landmines after 1994, using large quantities of mostly plastic mines to block infiltration by opposition forces in contested areas. One defector said he saw tens of thousands of such mines at army garrisons in southern Sudan, shipped in large black boxes. The antipersonnel mines he said he saw were the size of a lemon, green in color, and weighing perhaps half a kilo. They were used to defend the perimeter of military positions, often temporary ones, and were not removed when troops changed location, after being buried five centimeters under the ground with no warning anywhere in evidence, the defector said.48 One Sudanese government official acknowledged the mixed use of antipersonnel and antitank mines for what he termed “permanent defenses.”49 A U.N. assessment team determined in 1997 that “evidence in the South shows that the GOS [government of Sudan] routinely uses large numbers of AT [antitank] and AP [antipersonnel] landmines both to defend positions and to prohibit movement.”50 Human Rights Watch interviewed victims of both antipersonnel and antitank landmines in Kenya, southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains in October 1997.

On a visit to Gulu in northeastern Uganda, Human Rights Watch was shown stores of landmines and other ordnance which Ugandan military officials claimed were taken from Lord’s Resistance Army units operating in northern Uganda and which former LRA abductees claimed had been supplied to them by thegovernment of Sudan. The landmines were stored at a UPDF barracks. Human Rights Watch also interviewed escapees from the LRA—formerly kidnaped children who had been forced by the LRA to participate in execution-style murders of other children and in other LRA operations. (See chapter 5.) Two LRA escapees interviewed separately and alone by Human Rights Watch claimed that rebel units were given training, equipment, uniforms and arms by the government of Sudan at bases inside Sudan and that among these arms were landmines for use inside northern Uganda.51

Both the antitank mines and the antipersonnel mines seen and photographed by Human Rights Watch in Gulu matched landmines (in type and markings) that the team observed and photographed in Eritrea on earlier missions. These mines included some that were in the hands of Eritrean officials who claimed they had dug them up on rural roads and one landmine that Human Rights Watch directly observed when it was discovered buried in a well-traveled roadway on which the researchers were then driving. They also matched captured stocks of government landmines Human Rights Watch observed and photographed in southern Sudan. These findings tended to confirm claims that the government of Sudan supported rebel groups operating in both Eritrea and Uganda.

Officials of the Sudanese government interviewed by Human Rights Watch gave differing versions of the government’s current landmines policy. Two high-ranking officials interviewed in November 1997, who claimed that landmines have only been used for defensive purposes, said that the government was planning to sign the Mine Ban Treaty banning production, trade, stockpiling, and use of antipersonnel landmines, and was planning to seek international help to destroy current stocks.52 The government signed the treaty in December 1997. Sudanese officials have estimated that there are upwards of three million antipersonnel mines in the country, mainly in the east and south, extrapolating from surveys carried out in Libya and Egypt and drawing on reports from their own military. One official claimed that as many as 50,000 landmine victims were on the waiting list for medical rehabilitation at the end of 1997.53 A representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross suggested a 4-5 percent rate of landmine injury among patients treated at the ICRC hospital for Sudan in Kenya.54 One government official insisted that the government of Sudan was prepared to sign an agreement establishing “safe corridors” for demining teams and that the government had no reservations on the monitoring of the Mine Ban Treaty.55 However, another official said that demining could not begin until peace was established.56

A freelance U.S. journalist traveling with the SPLA in southern Sudan in March 1997 saw direct evidence that the SPLA planted landmines in territories under its control, when he got out of a truck near Aswa, an abandoned camp for displaced people. He was warned by SPLA officials not to step off the road as the surrounding area was mined. Though these officials claimed that local residents knew the locations of the mines, the journalist saw no markings.57 Dr. Riek Machar acknowledged to Human Rights Watch that his rebel forces had commonly used antipersonnel and antitank mines, especially during sieges of towns and during the withdrawal from engagements when they wanted to delay any pursuing force. The antipersonnel mines included what he termed “one-leg” (i.e., stake) mines, “shoe” mines, booby traps, and “form-2” mines made by China and former Warsaw Pact nations. The antitank mines included U.S.-made M-15s and Russian-made TM-57s. All of these types were still in use in 1997, he said.58 The Executive Committee of the SAF pledged, in a statement on January 2, 1998, to comply with the Mine Ban Treaty.59

New Arms Acquisitions

New conventional arms reaching the government of Sudan since 1996 include helicopter gunships, medium tanks, artillery—some of it with enhanced guidance systems—and large quantities of light arms, ammunition, and landmines. The reported introduction of SCUD missiles, if true, has a potential for fueling a regional arms race, and therefore a broadening of the conflict.60 The government of Sudan also makes use of large numbers of foreign military advisers and technicians, especially from Iran and Iraq, who play an important role in the execution of military operations by Sudan’s regular armed forces as well as by the many irregular forces based there but operating in other countries.61

In addition to this, Sudan has become a transshipment point for arms going to rebel groups operating in the immediate region as well as to armed forces as far away as Eastern Europe, where Slovene authorities broke up an arms smuggling ring at the Maribor airport in 1993 after seizing twelve crates containing automatic rifles, mortars, rocket-launchers, landmines, and ammunition that had arrived from Khartoum andwas destined for Bosnian Muslim fighters.62 In June 1997, during a visit to Bujumbura, Burundi, Human Rights Watch discovered that Aeroflot flights were delivering arms, ammunition, and armored vehicles to Burundi at least twice a week, arriving from Ostend, Belgium, via Khartoum.63

One aspect of the civil war of devastating impact on the civilian population has been the growth in the Sudanese government’s use of air power. A government official acknowledged to Human Rights Watch that the government has transport aircraft from both the U.S. (C-130s) and Russia (Antonovs), that it has since 1989 acquired fighter bombers from both China and Russia, and that it has Russian-model helicopter gunships, acquired from various unnamed sources since 1996.64 Antonovs have frequently been used as bombers and not just as cargo planes. For example, an Antonov reportedly bombed civilian targets in Achana, eighteen miles east of Wau, in February 1998, killing and wounding a number of civilians.65 On March 5, 1998, a Sudanese Air Force plane dropped thirteen bombs on the hospital in Yei, of which five hit the hospital directly, destroying the operating theater and a bomb shelter on the hospital grounds. Fifteen persons were killed and another forty wounded. The one-hundred-bed hospital was run by the international NGO Norwegian People’s Aid. Two other hospitals in the SPLA-held towns of Labone and Chukudum (Eastern Equatoria) were attacked in February 1998.66 A Sudanese government official claimed in November 1997 that the air force only targeted “the military camps of foreigners—Eritrean and Ugandan bases inside Sudan.”67

Relief agencies based in Nairobi with operations in southern Sudan say that the introduction of the Mi-24 helicopter gunships has had an additional significant impact on civilians in the south. One attack by helicopter gunships was directly observed by relief workers and occurred in the town of Kotobi at 9:35 a.m. on August 23, 1996. According to the U.N., “the attack destroyed the village and resulted in six deaths and 41 wounded.”68 SAF sources claimed their forces shot down a helicopter gunship with anti-aircraft fire near Hamesh Koreb, along the Eritrea border, in January 1997. Sudanese government sources acknowledged the loss of the gunship, but claimed it was shot down by Eritrean forces using a SAM-7 ground-to-air missile.69 A SAF source claimed this attack helicopter was one of four provided to the government of Sudan in 1996by one of the former Soviet republics, which were airlifted to Khartoum and reassembled by Russian experts.70 Diplomatic sources have identified Ukraine, Belarus, and Romania as possible suppliers of the gunships. (See chapter 4.)

Sudan has also used cluster bombs, according to relief workers in Nairobi, who said that field representatives witnessed the aftermath of the attacks in Chukudum in 1996.71 During a visit to southern Sudan in October 1997, Human Rights Watch interviewed a prison official at the SPLA’s camp for detained government combatants (whom the SPLA terms “prisoners of war,” POWs) at Yei who described how an Antonov, flying high, had dropped “about a hundred bomblets in one bomb that floated to the ground” on October 10, 1997. Some of the bomblets fell into one large room in the camp, killing three Sudanese prisoners.72 Human Rights Watch saw and photographed the cluster munitions, which appeared to be of Chilean design. (See chapter 4.) These weapons are highly inaccurate when dropped from high altitudes—as has been the practice in the civil war in Sudan—as they scatter from larger canisters upon release over a wide area while still airborne. Those which fail to explode upon impact then function much like antipersonnel landmines, putting civilians at risk from unexploded ordnance.

The government of Sudan also has used a variety of long-range arms of a type whose impact in a war of shifting military positions and mobile guerrilla operations is often felt most directly by resident civilian populations. Among them were 120mm mortars manufactured in China, Russia, and Iran; Russian- and Iranian-made and modified 122mm artillery, known as D-30s (with Russian experts teaching a conversion course for the new versions, according to one former NCO trained at the special center for artillery in Atbara, Sudan, in August 1993);73 Chinese-made 130mm howitzers; and 12-, 30-, and 40-barrel 122mm multiple rocket launchers, often generically termed “BMs” by field sources, and made in Iran, China, North Korea, the former Yugoslavia and former Soviet republics, including Russia and Ukraine.74

One SAF field commander claimed that the government was introducing new arms onto the battlefield in northeastern Sudan, citing SPG-9s, a 73mm recoilless gun first produced in the former Soviet Union but probably copied by China, and T-59 tanks, which are Chinese copies of Russian T-54s. He also claimed that the government of Sudan was laying large quantities of antitank mines in this area. The rebel commander, a former Sudanese brigadier, said he was based in Karora, Sudan, and was responsible for SAF forces in territory captured in March and April of 1997, stretching from the Eritrean border north along the Red Sea coast to Marafit and inland to Togan, outside Kassala. This source also said that most of theequipment the SAF captured from Eritrean Islamic Jihad in the Togan area of northeastern Sudan in April 1997 bore Farsi writing and was Iranian-made, from boots to light weapons.75

Allegations of Chemical Weapons Production and Storage

Some NDA leaders have charged that Sudan has stored chemical weapons for Iraq at the Yarmouk Military Manufacturing Complex, located in Sheggera, twelve kilometers south of Khartoum. Sudanese opposition leaders, supported by officials in Eritrea and Ethiopia and by diplomatic sources in the region, have also charged that the government of Sudan has been working to develop a chemical weapons capacity. However, government officials have strenuously denied the charges.76

In a written statement given to Human Rights Watch in February 1997, the NDA claimed that the government of Sudan established a special committee in early 1995 to investigate the possibility of manufacturing chemical weapons.77 The secretary general of the NDA, Mubarak al-Mahdi, told Human Rights Watch that two Iraqi army colonels were responsible for the operation, an engineer and a security officer, with twelve Sudanese chemical engineers working for them on the project. He charged that Bulgarian experts trained Sudanese participants and remained in Sudan at least through 1996 to work directly with the trainees.78

Meanwhile, a Sudanese diplomat who defected in the summer of 1997 told Human Rights Watch that he was present during discussions on chemical weapons at the Sudanese embassy in Kuala Lumpur at the end of 1996 that were led by Sudan’s deputy minister of external relations, Dr. Mustafa Osman Ismail. According to the defector, Dr. Ismail declared in a meeting with the ambassador, the deputy chief of mission, and himself that the government of Sudan was planning to take stronger action in conflict areas rich in minerals, including the Nuba mountains, and that he was going to Iran to shop for chemical weapons.79 When Human Rights Watch asked Dr. Ismail about these charges, he declined a direct answer, but referred instead to “rumors in the newspapers” to the effect that Sudan was buying chemical weapons abroad. He then added: “Anybody who wants to come and check on whether we have chemical weapons can do so, including a United Nations technical mission. But they would have to make a clear declaration at the end that there is nothing there.”80

Sudan has so far declined to sign the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention or to accede to the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention banning these weapons, though most government officials insisted that thiswas only a “procedural” problem. However, one high-ranking official in the Ministry of External Relations claimed that Sudan was holding back out of concern that Israel had not signed or acceded to these conventions.81 Meanwhile, the government of Sudan maintains a special unit on chemical warfare with an office in the Amarat section of Khartoum. The senior military officer there insisted that the government of Sudan has neither acquired nor used chemical weapons, but told Human Rights Watch that new army recruits were trained in the use of protective clothing and overhead cover, as well as instructed about the effects of specific weapons.82

35 International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance: 1997-98 (London: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 259-60. 36 World Weapons Review, No. 136 (May 1997), p. 12. 37 International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance: 1997-98, p. 260.

38 Journalist James Hooper, who later published an article on Sudan in Jane’s Intelligence Weekly, told Human Rights Watch that he entered Yei on March 21, 1997, twelve days after the SPLA captured the town, and saw large stocks of arms and ammunition taken from the government and not yet catalogued by the SPLA. Interview, London, May 24, 1997.

39 Several of the crates, of which Human Rights Watch has a photograph, were marked in a framed rectangle: “MOD Uganda J4951208WMH,” and underneath the rectangle “DAR ES SALAAM ITEM(B) NOS.250.” “MOD” presumably stands for “Ministry of Defense.” At least one of the crates contained rocket-propelled grenades (photograph available).

40 The G-3 is a German Heckler and Koch assault rifle that is manufactured under license in a number of countries, including Iran.

41 A pedal mine looks much like a shoe box with a hinged cover. It is activated when pressure on the “lid” crushes the fuze, which ignites the explosive. A bounding mine (also known as a “Bouncing Betty”) operates with two separate explosive charges when disturbed. The first charge propels the mine into the air and then, at a predetermined height (usually three to four feet), the second detonation will scatter metal fragments in all directions.

42 U.N. Department of Humanitarian Affairs, Mine Clearance and Policy Unit, “The Landmine Situation in Sudan: Assessment Situation, Mission Report” (August 1997), pp. 10-11.

43 Human Rights Watch interview with Maj. Gen. Muhammad Sanousi Ahmed, Khartoum, November 20, 1997. Be that as it may, landmines are known to shift position in the rainy season, as they are sucked up in the mud, and it is during this season that increased casualties are reported.

44 Human Rights Watch interview with Ambassador Ghaffar A. Hassan, director of the Department of Technical Cooperation at the Ministry of External Relations, Khartoum, November 20, 1997.

45 Human Rights Watch interview with former SPLA/SSIM commander Riek Machar, since 1997 president of the Coordinating Council of the Southern States, Khartoum, November 22, 1997. He also said that when his forces were fighting in the south prior to his alliance with the government in 1997, they used to improvise booby traps of varying strengths by tying a string to the pin of a grenade and either burying the grenade or hanging it from a tree, by attaching a mortar shell to the grenade with a string to create a massive explosion, or by stacking an antitank mine under an antipersonnel mine to increase the explosive impact when the former was detonated. For additional information on the government’s use of antipersonnel landmines, see Stephen Buckley and Karl Vick, “A Peaceful People Caught Up in a War with No End,” Washington Post, June 8, 1998.

46 Human Rights Watch interview with Ambassador Awad Muhammad Hassan, director of the Department of Environment, Disarmament, War and the New World Order at the Ministry of External Relations, Khartoum, November 19, 1997.

47 Human Rights Watch interview, November 1997.

48 Human Rights Watch interview with a former Sudanese military officer who was based in Torit in southern Sudan until he defected on February 15, 1997, Tessenei (Eritrea), March 10, 1997.

49 Human Rights Watch interview with Maj. Gen. Muhammad Sanousi Ahmed, deputy chief of staff for military intelligence, Sudan People’s Armed Forces, Khartoum, November 20, 1997.

50 U.N. Department of Humanitarian Affairs, “The Landmine Situation in Sudan,” p. 8.

51 Human Rights Watch interviews with two teenagers who had been forced to join the LRA, Gulu (Uganda), July 15, 1997.

52 Human Rights Watch interviews with Maj. Gen. Muhammad Sanousi Ahmed, deputy chief of staff for military intelligence, Sudanese People’s Armed Forces, Khartoum, November 20, 1997, and former SPLA/SSIM commander Riek Machar, Khartoum, November 22, 1997.

53 Human Rights Watch interview with Dr. Hussein Elobeid, general commissioner, Humanitarian Aid Commission at the Ministry of Social Planning, Khartoum, November 20, 1997.

54 Human Rights Watch interview, Khartoum, November 19, 1997. This figure excludes members of the armed forces of the government of Sudan (who are not treated at the ICRC hospital in Kenya).

55 Human Rights Watch interview with Ambassador Ghaffar A. Hassan, director of the Department of Technical Cooperation at the Ministry of External Relations, Khartoum, November 20, 1997.

56 Human Rights Watch interview with Dr. Hussein Elobeid, general commissioner, Humanitarian Aid Commission at the Ministry of Social Planning, Khartoum, November 20, 1997. The use of landmines directly affectscurrent and future development and economic activity for much of the population of southern Sudan, with the mining of roads, railways, and canals disrupting transportation. This is one of the reasons why international aid agencies ship most of their relief food by air and barges. According to the U.N., 50 percent of the funds for relief operations is spent on air transportation. U.N. Department of Humanitarian Affairs, “The Landmine Situation in Sudan,” pp. 12-13.

57 Human Rights Watch interview with James Hooper, London, May 24, 1997.

58 Human Rights Watch interview with Dr. Riek Machar, president of the Coordinating Council of the Southern States, Khartoum, November 22, 1997.

59 Sudan Alliance Forces, “Resolutions of SAF Executive Committee,” January 2, 1998.

60 Former Malaysia-based Sudanese diplomat Abdelaziz Ahmed Khattab charged in November 1997 that China had sold sixty SCUD missiles to Sudan at the end of 1996 or early 1997, “just before Ramadan.” Human Rights Watch interview, The Hague, November 15, 1997. In an earlier public statement, the former diplomat said that the deal had been financed in part by a Malaysian government loan. “Statement by the Administrative Attaché, Embassy of Sudan, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: To the People of the Sudan and World Public Opinion,” signed by Abdelaziz Ahmed Abdelaziz Khattab, the Netherlands, September 29, 1997. In the same statement, he also said that the NIF’s aim in acquiring the SCUDs was to be able to strike Asmara, “the regime’s stated justification being that Eritrea is harboring Sudanese opposition groups.”

61 Human Rights Watch interviews with defecting Sudanese military officers in Tessenei (Eritrea), and with diplomatic sources, Asmara, Addis Ababa and Nairobi, September 1996 and March 1997.

62 “Slovene Gun-runners,” Jane’s Foreign Report, August 5, 1993.

63 63 Human Rights Watch observations and interviews, Bujumbura, June 1997. See also, Human Rights Watch Arms Project, Stoking the Fires: Military Assistance and Arms Trafficking in Burundi (New York, 1997), p. 54.

64 Human Rights Watch interview with Maj. Gen. Muhammad Sanousi Ahmed, deputy chief of staff for military intelligence, Sudan People’s Armed Forces, Khartoum, November 20, 1997. African Business reported in February 1998 that Sudan has several dozen F-7s, ten MiG-21s, nine F-5s (U.S.), nine JSs (MiG-17) (China), and nine J6s (MiG-23) (China). Quoted in Emmy Allio, “Battle Set for Juba,” New Vision (Kampala), February 12, 1998.

65 “What Is Really Happening in the Town of Yei,” Africa News Service (Nairobi), May 4, 1998.

66 Africa News Service, Complex Emergency Situation Report, May 12, 1998.

67 Human Rights Watch interview with Maj. Gen. Muhammad Sanousi Ahmed, deputy chief of staff for military intelligence, Sudan People’s Armed Forces, Khartoum, November 20, 1997.

68 68 U.N. Department of Humanitarian Affairs, “1997 United Nations Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal for the Sudan, January-December 1997,” February 18, 1997.

69 Human Rights Watch interview with Dr. Mutrif Siddiq Ali, deputy director-general of Sudan’s External Intelligence Agency, Khartoum, November 19, 1997.

70 Human Rights Watch interview with SAF commander Esam Mirghani, Asmara, March 2, 1997.

71 Human Rights Watch interview with international relief agency representatives, Nairobi, September 5, 1996.

72 Human Rights Watch interview, Yei (Sudan), October 22, 1997.

73 Human Rights Watch interview with a former military officer who defected in February 1997, Tessenei (Eritrea), March 10, 1997.

74 Human Rights Watch interviews with a former noncommissioned officer based in Juba in 1994 and Damazin in 1995-97, and two former military officers, western Ethiopia, March 29, 1997; and with other defectors, Tessenei (Eritrea), September 1996 and March 1997. “BM” stands for BM-21, the truck-mounted version of the multiple-rocket launcher.

75 Human Rights Watch interview with SAF field commander Esam Mirghani, Asmara, June 28, 1997.

76 Human Rights Watch interview with Maj. Gen. Muhammad Sanousi Ahmed, Khartoum, November 20 1996. See also “Sudan Government Uses Chemical Weapons in the Country’s Civil War,” a report issued by the opposition National Democratic Alliance on November 30, 1997.

77 Human Rights Watch interview with Gen. Fathi Ahmed Ali, the former head of the Sudan armed forces under the Sadiq al-Mahdi government, Asmara, September 10, 1996. The NDA document referred to has the title, “The NIF Regime is Producing Chemical Weapons” (in Arabic), and is dated June 1996.

78 Human Rights Watch interview with Mubarak al-Mahdi, Asmara, March 8, 1997.

79 Human Rights Watch interview with Abdelaziz Ahmed Khattab, The Hague, November 15, 1997.

80 Human Rights Watch interview with Dr. Mustafa Osman Ismail, Khartoum, November 20, 1997. In February 1998, Dr. Ismail became Sudan’s minister of external relations.

81 Human Rights Watch interview with Amb. Ghaffar A. Hassan, director of the Department of Technical Cooperation at the Ministry of External Relations, Khartoum, November 20, 1997.

82 Human Rights Watch interview with Lt. Col. Abd-al-Rahman, head of the governmental Administration of Chemical Warfare, Khartoum, November 22, 1997.

Previous PageTable Of ContentsNext Page

This Web page was created using a Trial Version of HTML Transit 3.0.