VZCZCXRO6904
PP RUEHROV
DE RUEHKH #0272/01 0371143
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 061143Z FEB 06
FM AMEMBASSY KHARTOUM
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1284
INFO RUCNFUR/DARFUR COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 KHARTOUM 000272 
 
SIPDIS 
 
AIDAC 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR AF/SPG, PRM, DRL, AND ALSO PASS USAID/W 
USAID FOR DCHA SUDAN TEAM, AF/EA, DCHA 
NAIROBI FOR USAID/DCHA/OFDA, USAID/REDSO, AND FAS 
USMISSION UN ROME 
GENEVA FOR NKYLOH 
NAIROBI FOR SFO 
NSC FOR JMELINE, TSHORTLEY 
USUN FOR TMALY 
BRUSSELS FOR PLERNER 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: EAID PREF PGOV PHUM SOCI KAWC SU
SUBJECT:   Darfur:  2005 Protection Year in Review - 
Overview of Protection Trends and Human Rights Violations 
 
REF:  (A) 05 Khartoum 0051 (B) 05 Khartoum 0976 
 
------- 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1.  In analyzing protection trends in 2005, it is striking 
to note how many issues remained similar when compared with 
2004 (reftel A).  The large-scale humanitarian needs in 
Darfur have been the result of widespread human rights 
violations, including the attacking and killing of 
civilians, rape as a means of terrorizing populations, 
forced displacements, denial of the freedom of movement, and 
criminal impunity.  In a continuation of the complex 
political and human rights crisis, violence and multiple 
waves of displacement continued throughout 2005 in Darfur 
with internally displaced persons (IDPs) remaining captive 
in camps and subject to harassment by armed groups.  Other 
protection issues in need of increased programming attention 
include child protection, destruction of crops, and 
protection of legal aid lawyers.  This cable is the first in 
a series of three to review the protection situation and the 
humanitarian response in 2005.  This cable focuses on the 
general trends that unfolded in 2005, and the two subsequent 
cables will focus on the larger level response by the 
international community and specific non-governmental 
organization (NGO) programming in the field of protection. 
 
---------------------- 
Human Rights Framework 
---------------------- 
 
¶2.  Violations of human physical security in Darfur include 
killings, beatings, rape, harassment, discrimination, theft 
of property, denial of the freedom of movement, access to 
justice, or effective compensation.  The protection 
framework invoked to document and describe the violations in 
Darfur is the Guiding Principles n Internal Displacement 
(GPID) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  It 
should also be noted that Sudan is party to the 
International Covenant of the Civil and Political Rights; 
the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural 
Rights; the Convention on the Rights of the Child; and the 
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of 
Racial Discrimination.  All of these tools provide a 
comprehensive legal framework in which to monitor and 
document human rights violatiojs in DArur. !However, tis 
berT  nd`lj%,huiniDaYc seq0on}"ibDas~uQ Bhi2Ij89QiQhYpgIPYD l&utXIA~$B0KQ'CRfSubNPm#lh4OI?*|QpQ}7H$QzLWuP zQ-qmgk*A[deQ\Qe]h;qording to the 
observations and documentation of U.N. agencies, NGOs, and 
USAID field staff.  At the end of 2005, approximately 2 
million people were displaced, either within Darfur or 
across the border into Chad, and new displacements continued 
to occur throughout the year.  The ongoing destabilization 
combined with criminal impunity has created an environment 
ripe for widespread insecurity and individualized violence. 
 
¶4.  In addition to numerous Abuja agreements calling for 
disarmament of militias, the Sudanese government signed a 
joint communique with the U.N. on July 3, 2004, committing 
itself to:  end impunity; ensure all persons and groups 
accused of human rights violations are brought to justice 
without delay; deploy a strong, credible, and respected 
police force in all IDP areas; train all police units in 
human rights law and make them accountable for upholding it; 
ensure that no militias are near IDP camps; and finally, 
disarm Janjaweed and other armed groups.  After a year and a 
half, these commitments have not been fulfilled and some 
observers would argue that they had not been seriously 
attempted. 
 
KHARTOUM 00000272  002 OF 004 
 
 
 
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SGBV 
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¶5.  In 2005, mass rape of civilians as a weapon of war was 
replaced by individualized attacks by armed security forces 
- police, military, Janjaweed, and other militias - often 
while in uniform.  U.N. personnel characterize IDPs as 
"terrorized" by the threat of sexual violence within their 
communities.  During 2005, attacks on women and girls 
occurred primarily when venturing away from villages or IDP 
camps to collect firewood and fodder.  Over the course of 
the year, many agencies concluded that despite positive 
rhetoric and the formation of committees, the Sudanese 
government has failed to stop attacks on women and children, 
investigate and prosecute these crimes, and convict 
perpetrators.  For example, one local legal aid group in 
South Darfur, a USAID Office of Transition Initiatives 
(USAID/OTI) partner, submitted 27 rape cases to the Nyala 
courts in a 9-month period in 2005.  Of that number, only a 
handful generated investigations by local police and none 
resulted in trials or prosecutions.  Many observers view 
this lack of action by authorities to be related to the 
policy of continued destabilization and harassment of 
displaced communities.  For example, in South Darfur, which 
has been the most active Darfur state to commit on paper to 
addressing sexual violence, U.N. Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) 
Human Rights reported that authorities prosecuted only 3 
cases of the 130 rapes verified by monitors.  In two cases, 
rather than the charge of rape that compels capital 
punishment for convictions under Sharia law, authorities 
charged two military men with gross indecency and they are 
reportedly serving five years each.  The third case concerns 
10 men from the Popular Defense Forces charged with raping a 
girl.  The men were all convicted and served 1.5 months in 
jail until the military ordered their release.  This is the 
sum total of justice served for the 130 recorded victims of 
rape.  UNMIS Human Rights and NGOs providing medical 
treatment are certain that these cases are only a fraction 
of those that have gone unreported to the international 
community - in one Darfur state. 
 
¶6.  Despite the work of the humanitarian community, rapes 
did not stop or lessen throughout 2005.  Additionally, 
toward the end of 2005, a disturbing trend of child rape and 
sexual assault began to emerge in North and West Darfur 
involving girls between 7 and 12 years of age.  Often the 
recorded incidents indicate that the perpetrators were 
uniformed and associated with one of the security forces. 
Another trend is that multiple perpetrators commit the 
assaults.  It is clear that mass rape is not occurring at 
the same levels as during the height of the conflict, but 
individualized attacks on IDPs and women moving outside of 
population centers continued unabated.  This is primarily 
due to 1) lack of rule of law ensuring general security, 2) 
continued existence of armed militias, 3) criminal impunity, 
4) collection of firewood and grass by women both for 
cooking and for sale, and 5) confusion and lack of 
coordination surrounding African Union Mission in Sudan 
(AMIS) Civilian Police (CIVPOL) firewood patrols in many 
locations - although some notable exceptions exist. 
 
---------------------- 
Protection of Children 
---------------------- 
 
¶7.  After two years of residing in camps, children - defined 
as those under 18 years of age by the 1990 U.N. Convention 
on the Rights of the Child, which Sudan has signed and 
ratified - are now without secondary school options and many 
are turning to religion-only education, manual labor, early 
marriage, military recruitment, and street begging.  The 
deputy of the South Darfur State Social Welfare Department 
reported that Nyala town hosts an estimated 4,000 street 
children, noting the dramatic increase in the breakdown of 
families, social networks, and schooling options within 
displaced and war-affected communities.  The USAID 
Protection Officer recently witnessed children as young as 
four years old following older siblings making bricks to 
sell in IDP camps.  In West Darfur, NGOs noted an increase 
 
KHARTOUM 00000272  003 OF 004 
 
 
in parents sending away male youth to military training 
because of the perception that this was the only remaining 
option.  Idle and frustrated male youth have been 
responsible for instigating riots, participating in the 
October 23 hostage-taking incident in Kalma camp, and 
forming small gang-like groups to "patrol" their sectors, 
harassing community members.  In one incident, a youth 
patrol was found guilty by local sheiks of raping a female 
IDP in Kalma Camp. 
 
------------------- 
Freedom of Movement 
------------------- 
 
¶8.  It is impossible to document individual violations of 
the freedom of movement, as espoused in the GPID and the 
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, because nearly every 
IDP in Darfur is having his or her freedom of movement 
curtailed, if not violated.  In only a few locations, IDPs 
and village residents can safely move short distances 
outside of camps or towns.  Even where the U.N. High 
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other agencies have 
documented return to villages of origin, residents are often 
still restricted within the village perimeters.  Not 
including the returns documented in 2005 (reftel B), mostly 
by UNHCR in West Darfur, freedom of movement for Darfurians 
was restricted because of direct government policies and 
actions.  Examples include the more than 200-day ban on 
commercial goods entering or exiting Kalma IDP camp and the 
lack of action taken to secure roads, villages, farmland, 
and IDP concentrations from violence by armed militia.  The 
lack of freedom of movement for IDPs and conflict-affected 
residents ensures a continued reliance on humanitarian 
assistance in 2006. 
 
¶9.  Many IDPs experiencing a second or third 
displacement due to violence are opting to travel to 
larger population centers where humanitarian assistance 
and services are available in an improved security 
environment.  For example, many of those displaced by 
fighting outside of Tawilah in late September fled to 
the large IDP camp of Zam Zam outside El Fasher, despite 
closer facilities in the area.  Because of this trend, 
Darfur will likely experience further urbanization 
during 2006. 
 
¶10.  Existing tensions between IDPs and host communities 
could become more pronounced given the trends in 
multiple displacements and increasing pressure on host 
communities to provide for additional IDPs.  In fact, 
tensions have also been noted within IDP communities 
such as in Ryad camp outside Geneina, where the 
population refused the entry of new arrivals to the 
camp.  Also, inter-Arab nomad fighting in Abata, north 
of Zalingie West Darfur, resulted in more than 1,000 new 
Arab nomad IDPs who were not welcome in the established 
camps in Zalingie town. 
 
¶11.  IDPs express concern over actual and perceived 
vulnerability within the confines of the IDP camps. 
Camps such as Kalma have experienced continuous security 
incidents and collective punishment by the Sudanese 
government in the form of the commercial ban.  Many 
camps over the past year have been the subject of 
attacks and abuses that directly targeted the camp 
population:  Aro Sharow, Mornei, and Ardamata in West 
Darfur; Abu Shouk and Al Salam in North Darfur; and 
Mershing in South Darfur are but a few notable examples. 
 
-------------------- 
Killing of Civilians 
-------------------- 
 
¶12.  UNMIS Human Rights recently released a report "Six 
Month Overview of Human Rights in Sudan" that documented at 
least eight significant attacks by Sudanese government 
soldiers on civilian targets from September to November 
¶2005.  These attacks, as detailed in the report, displaced 
thousands of people and killed numerous civilians.  Specific 
examples given include a September 24 attack on the South 
Darfur village of Toray, multiple villages in the North 
 
KHARTOUM 00000272  004 OF 004 
 
 
Darfur areas of Tarny and Thabit on September 18 and 19, and 
multiple villages in the area of Shangil Tobiya, North 
Darfur, on September 11 and 12.  These attacks resulted in 
39 confirmed deaths and an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 people 
displaced.  UNMIS Human Rights also reports that attacks and 
killings of civilians by Darfur opposition groups occurred 
in 2005, but figures are not available. 
 
¶13.  In addition, on October 23, USAID staff members visited 
the village of Tama in South Darfur two days after being 
attacked.  IDPs reported that more than 50 civilians had 
been killed in the attack perpetrated by armed militia with 
the support of government soldiers and vehicles.  Tama is 
located within a 10-minute drive from a Sudanese government 
police and military post, but received no assistance during 
the attack. 
 
¶14.  Random killing of individuals, both men and women, 
continue to be reported in multiple venues such as U.N. 
Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) briefings, 
protection working groups, NGO meetings, and by IDPs 
themselves when visited in the camps.  Many killings are not 
reported or not investigated - it is as if agencies and even 
the IDPs have accepted a certain level of killings and rapes 
per week to be expected given the current insecurities in 
Darfur. 
 
----------------------- 
Other Protection Issues 
----------------------- 
 
¶15.  During the course of 2005, other protection issues have 
surfaced including land occupation, returns coerced by 
material incentives, beating of persons attempting to farm, 
intentional destruction of crops by nomads grazing their 
livestock, abandonment of infants, harassment of unwed 
pregnant women, beating of nomad women by IDP women, 
harassment of local NGOs, and arrest of local lawyers.  The 
following two cables will outline the response of the 
international community in the field of protection in 
Darfur. 
 
HUME