People against Injustice (PAIN) in collaboration with the Global Save Darfur Coalition organised a two day Press Conference and Symposium in commemoration of the ‘Fourth Global Day for Darfur ' on the theme ‘Don't Look Away Now' was held on the15 th and 16 th September 2007 at the St. Augustus Catholic Hall in Banjul, The Gambia.
 In his overview, The Director of PAIN, Shaka Ceesay describes the role PAIN has been playing in the past four years in recognition of the people of Darfur . The central and critical importance of PAIN in the lives of Africans in building democratic rule and culture, promoting civilise conditions and relations between states citizens.
PAIN appreciates the progressive introduction and development of regional and continental institutions by the African Union to promote, protect and defend the rights of African people, such as the African Commission on Human and People's Rights, the African Court of Justice and others. PAIN also appreciates the progressive growth in the numbers and capacity of civil society organisations dedicated in promoting the rights of African people.
According to Shaka Ceesay, it is therefore our task to work assiduously with the regional and continental mechanism and civil society groups at home and abroad so as to strengthen, sustain and promote their relevance, as integral institutions in our lives for better. On this ground, PAIN and other partner organisations around the globe will mark Sunday 16 September 2007 as the ‘Fourth Global Day for Darfur ' and activities are currently place in several countries all over the world.
Shaka Ceesay said PAIN is using this opportunity to organise this press conference in order to add an overlay action for the people of Darfur and complement the efforts of the Gambian government in accomplishing an everlasting peace for the people of Darfur . He also emphasised that there are many dangerous, painful, shameful pictures of the faces of the people of Darfur and disturbing situation of heinous violations of human rights and the destructions of peace in a number of regions and countries in our continent.
The highlight of violations found today in Sudan and specifically Darfur are the most dangerous ones.
In his conclusion, the Director of PAIN, Shaka Ceesay, proposed that African leaders, Civil Society Organisations, United nations, NGO's and the Media must gear up and be more active and out spoken on Darfur than we have been up to now. “We are all contributing to development and progress; we need to work more closely together to promote a strong and broad social movement for the advancement of human rights, democratic rule and civilised social conditions in Africa .”
According to the Secretary General of PAIN, Fabakary Bojang who has just returned from Ghana and Darfur in Sudan gave an overview of the humanitarian situation of Darfur . According to Fabakary Bojang, recently the UN Security council passed resolution 1769 which authorised the deployment of much needed peacekeeping force in Darfur region of Sudan . This resolution provided that the AU and UN work closely and swiftly to deploy the AU-UN Hybrid Peacekeeping Force by generating the necessary military, police and civilian personnel, as well as essential financial and material resources. Pending full deployment of the hybrid force, UN member states must promptly provide AMIS (African Union Mission in the Sudan ) with the necessary financial, material, logistical and human resources to allow for a strengthened and effective presence to halt the immediate and continuing widespread human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law.
Fabakary further explained that AMIS is at present the only peacekeeping force on the ground in Darfur with a mandate to protect civilians, therefore full implementation of the UN support package to AMIS should be completed with great urgency. Presently the AU forces remain unable to protect civilians. It is under-funded, under-supported and itself an increasing target for attack. If the commitment to protect civilians is to mean anything, then UN member state donor, the UN and the AU must work together to provide sufficient support to AMIS under its current structure as well as commit to longer-term protection measures.
This situation in Darfur he said is characterised by displacement of civilians, resulting from violence and insecurity which increases in Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), mounting tensions in camps and violence against humanitarian staffs is also increasing. At least 205, 000 civilians were displaced during the months of May and June 2007 with more than 160, 000 persons now identified as new arrivals of IDP's cases in the increasing population of refugees in camps and other camps no longer absorbed new arrival in areas, in and around the camps found in El Fasher in North Darfur and Nyalla in South Darfur are now full to capacity.
Meanwhile Zam Zam camp which can still accommodate more IDP's and camp soon be full. The constant influx of new arrivals also poses problems with land availability and compensation for the private land owners, whose property the IDP's are living. At Hamadiya camp in Zalingei in western Darfur , approximately 600 IDP's households are currently living on private lands. The camps cannot accommodate more IDP's and the issue of acquiring other lands have proven difficult.
On 6 th June 2007 , officials comprising of UN and NGOs visited the outskirt of Hamadiya and identified two potential locations but some IDP's indicated that they will not moved in fear of attack. The heightened tension inside many camps is also a serious concern, in West Darfur, armed elements have weaken NGOs activities and NGOs Clinic Centres in Zalingei and in Kalma camps in May 2007, in other camps in southern Darfur, IDP's mainly women claiming that they have not received any relief food ration which resulted to three members of the food distribution teams were been hospitalised in 14 th May 2007 and food distribution has to be halted. Dorti camp in West Darfur , saw humanitarian operations been suspended twice in June 2007 as precautional measure to avoid any possible incident.
By the end of June 2007, humanitarian vehicle belonging to UN and NGOs were been hijacked. In some cases these served as an increase in the physical and psychological violence during and after the attacking of humanitarian compounds which occurred very recently in locations such Zalingei and Nerrtiti in West Darfur, Sania Afandu in South Darfur . In some location, Aid workers were forced to perform their work in situation of cross fire for expounds to conflict, abduction of humanitarian workers, although temporary in major are also becoming increasingly common.
On the 28 May, 20 UN workers were temporarily held against their will, when their convoy was seized during an assessment mission whereby 30 more people were reportedly held in June 2007 alone, while rebels and securities continued to obstruct their movement and regular access in many areas of Darfur . Continuous methods are been made to maintain humanitarian presence, in June 2007 the world food programme (WFP) distributed 29,000 metric tonnes of food for over 2.3 million beneficiaries across Darfur . The polio vaccination campaigns manage to reach most areas of Darfur region covering 1.3 million children, 102% of the targeted figure.
During May and June 2007 despite clashes between the military and the opposition group, Sudan Liberation Army in at least several occasions in Jabel Marra area in June, relief workers continue to advance into the areas leading to renew their humanitarian assistant for approximately 12,000 IDP's. Despite this, a NGOs asked by authorities to withdrew their staffs from katrum and a curfew was imposed Nertiti. It was estimated that 566 people across Darfur are currently cut off from all humanitarian assistance and protection while this is an improvement compared to February 2007 when 900,000 were inaccessible, it is not attributable to improve security but to the increase efforts to the humanitarian workers to reach conflict affected population through an often expensive means such as the use of helicopters which WFP announced to have donated 18 millions dollars for the continuation of helicopter operations until October 2007.
During the signing of the joint communiqué to facilitate administrative procedures governing humanitarian activities in late March 2007, the high level committee comprises of representatives from the government of Sudan and UN was set up to explain the mechanism of the communiqué to consider any issue that remain to be address. Fabakary further explained that Darfur humanitarian assistant continued to be an uphill struggle whichever access and increasing insecurity leading to declining quality and consistency in aids operation. There are now 12, 300 aids workers which is a decrease in a year ago and at the same time the dense load of the conflict affected population have increased by more than half a million to 4.2 million. As of June 2007, the Darfur operation was at 62% funded with 396 million dollars aid committed or pledge out of 662 million dollars required.
It is absurd that the emergency in Sudan western region of Darfur represent the static challenge in the world since Rwanda genocide and as a result the People against Injustice have no time to spare in getting people aware of what is happening in their sister countries. It has become our ultimate responsible for us to put hands on deck to see a lasting peace, freedom in Darfur region. On that note ladies and gentlemen, I call on all of you once again to take this message on. Fabakary Bojang also call on all journalists particularly from the Network of Human Rights to add their voice to pass this message on and on, so many people can be aware and know exactly what is happening in Darfur. “So you tell others and let others tell other people so that the message can continue.”
In his keynote address, Musa Sheriff, the Coordinator of the Network of Human Rights Journalists in The Gambia gave an overview of the Human Rights situation in Darfur . He said that as of February 2003 the death toll in Darfur has reached up to 400, 000, more than 2.5 million people have been driven from their homes, more than 200, 000 have fled into neighbouring Chad living in refugee camps, as many as 1 million civilians could die in Darfur from lack of food and from disease within coming months, 80% of the children under five years old are suffering from severe malnutrition and many are dying each day, Humanitarian aid organisation have access to only 20% of those affected.
Musa Sheriff also gave a background history of the crisis in Darfur as to be erupted in early 2003 when the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Army/Movement rebels attacked and capture the capital in central Darfur . They demanded inclusion in new power-sharing arrangement between the North and South of Sudan. The rebellion in Darfur alarmed the Sudanese authorities and posing a threat to the continued viability of the country as a whole. The authorities feared that similarly neglected region in the East, taking their cues from Darfur , would demand large degree of autonomy, if not, the right to independence. Khartoum became decidedly committed to achieving a military solution to the crisis. The government's response was to mount a campaign of aerial bombardment supporting ground attacks by an Arab militia, the Janjaweed, recruited from local tribes and armed by the government. The Janjaweed are killing civilians, razing and burning villages, raping of women and young girls, abducting children and destroying sources of food.
The conflict has economic, political and ethnic dimensions. Its economic roots lie in the competition between pastoralists (generally Arab Africans) and agriculturalists (generally non-Arab Africans) over resources, such as land and water. Political marginalisation has not also contributed to the conflict. Finally, it has acquired an ethnic component in which civilians are deliberately being on the basis of their ethnicity.
The present state of affairs in Darfur is to be blamed on the government of Sudan failing to protect its own people and territory. The saddest part of the whole situation is that most of the women and young girls have been raped by these warring factions and who knows, the may have been infected with HIV/AIDS and most of these women and young girl were been afraid to go for HIV/AIDS test for the fear of stigmatisation within the refugee camps. In this juncture, we as Human Rights Journalists in The Gambia have to add our voice to the clarion call to end the human rights abuse and violation in order to foster peace in Darfur . In other words, all those perpetrators that were responsible for the heinous crimes in Darfur should be prosecuted and brought to justice.
Musa sheriff also said that the situation in Darfur today is to be solely blamed on the African leaders for failing to address this issue. They failed to adequately address this issue when they met at the AU meetings and even when the African Commission met in the ordinary sessions. The problems in Darfur today has resulted into conflict of interest and double-standard as nobody wanted to be blamed for arming Darfur rebels and nobody wanted to be blamed for arming Sudan, so where are all these armed coming from and another issue was that there were rogue states surrounding Sudan that are keeping dissidents, Musa Sheriff stressed.
Other speakers at the press conference are Miss Amie Hydara of the member of the National Youth Parliament of The Gambia, the Speaker of the National Youth Parliament Mr Lamin F. Bojang. A Statement from African Women in the Diaspora Organisation (AWDO) was delivered by human rights activist Monsieur Nicholas who added their voices particularly on the issues of raping of women and young girls in Darfur and the state of the refugees and also gross violations of human rights. Monsieur Nicholas expressed that the situation in Darfur today is a gross violation of human rights and a breach of International principles such as those contains in the African Charter on Human and People's Rights on the rights of the African Women, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other United Nations mechanism such the International Humanitarian Laws.
The Press Conference was concluded by interactive questions and answers were posed to the organisers of the program by human rights journalists. The occasion was graced by members of The Gambia youth for Peace Ambassadors, members of The Gambia Youth Parliament, African Commission on Human and People's Rights, Human Rights NGO's and members of The Gambia Press.
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