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From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Tue Jul 05 2011 - 08:10:51 EDT
"The official confirmed that a current State Department contract to PAE, an
American military contractor, provides provisions, salaries, and limited
logistical support for Ethiopian forces who are training southern forces in
a remote army training camp called New Kush, nestled in the Imatong
Mountains on Southern Sudan's border with Uganda"
US millions fund SSudan army; worries over abuses
By MAGGIE FICK, Associated Press – 2 days ago
JUBA, Sudan (AP) — Only six years ago the Sudan People's Liberation Army was
a ragtag group of guerrilla fighters battling a bloody civil war with
Sudan's north. Next weekend, when the south breaks away and becomes the
world's newest country, the SPLA becomes a national army.
The U.S. is investing tens of millions of dollars into this fledgling
military, one that is massing troops on the internal north-south border as
tensions — and violence — with the north rise. SPLA troops are battling
rebel militias in hotspots around the south, and fears of renewed war with
the north remain high.
But international rights groups say those soldiers have been responsible for
human rights abuses, including killings.
U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, who sponsored a law that prohibits the U.S. from
giving assistance to foreign military units that violate human rights, says
he is concerned about reports of abuses.
The State Department is giving nearly $100 million in yearly assistance to
train and support the SPLA, and it says it is monitoring the behavior of the
former guerrilla fighters.
But monitoring the 140,000-plus-member army of a developing nation the size
of Texas is a nearly impossible task, opening the way for abuses.
In April, a 700-member battalion of SPLA Commandos — the most highly trained
of the SPLA's fighters — fired indiscriminately on unarmed men, women and
children during an attack on a rival ethnic group at a remote Nile River
village in Jonglei state, killing or wounding hundreds of civilians,
according to witness accounts in a confidential U.N. report.
After an inquiry from Congress, the State Department investigated and found
that no U.S. assistance is being given to the two commanders named in the
U.N. report or to the commando unit as a whole. The State Department said it
would exclude those involved from receiving future assistance until an
investigation proves they were not involved in violations.
"The Leahy Law serves a vital purpose in seeking to ensure that U.S. aid
does not go to foreign military and police forces who commit heinous
crimes," Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, told The Associated Press. "I am
concerned with the reports of abuses by Southern Sudanese troops and expect
the law to be applied vigorously and consistently."
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International on Thursday released a report
that urged the new southern government to prosecute and prevent abuses by
southern security forces.
The report noted that since the south's independence vote in January,
"soldiers have been responsible for grave human rights abuses, including
unlawful killings of civilians and looting and destruction of civilian
property."
"The government needs to demonstrate its commitment to combat a growing
culture of impunity for abuses by its security forces," Daniel Bekele,
director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch said. "It should make
sure that rank-and-file soldiers and their officers, as well as the police
service, know and understand their obligations, and are held accountable for
violations."
Since Sudan's decades-long civil war ended in 2005 — a war in which some 2
million people died — the U.S. government has given more money than any
other to programs aimed at professionalizing the SPLA. According to research
by the Open Society Foundations, the Obama administration is requesting
nearly $160 million in assistance to the armed forces in Southern Sudan for
fiscal year 2012.
Southern Sudan becomes a new country on July 9.
Sudan experts say a responsible and professional southern army will be
essential to improving security in the vast and underdeveloped south, where
basic principles of rule of law and justice have yet to be upheld and
enforced by southern security forces.
Violence is high in the south already. According to the U.N.'s latest
statistics, local conflicts such as cattle-raiding and battles between rebel
militias and the SPLA have claimed more than 1,800 lives this year.
The U.S. assistance is to help the SPLA develop logistics, engineering
abilities, medical, and command and control abilities. A State Department
official who spoke on the condition of anonymity told AP by email that the
support is intended to "transform" the SPLA "from a guerrilla force into a
standing army under civilian control and respectful of international
humanitarian law."
The official, who was not allowed to be quoted according to State Department
rules, said that U.S.-funded training "includes a component on respect for
human rights and respect for rule of law."
The official confirmed that a current State Department contract to PAE, an
American military contractor, provides provisions, salaries, and limited
logistical support for Ethiopian forces who are training southern forces in
a remote army training camp called New Kush, nestled in the Imatong
Mountains on Southern Sudan's border with Uganda.
New Kush has proven to be a problem for U.N. human rights investigators, who
have sought access to the camp for more than two years to follow up on
allegations by community members living near the training camp that southern
troops had taken young women from the nearby village as "wives" and that
rape and other abuses were occurring inside the site.
Although U.N. staff from the mission's child protection unit were allowed to
visit New Kush in February 2010 as part of a delegation led by the southern
army's own child protection division, no independent investigations of the
human rights conditions inside the camp have been conducted since the U.N.
mission was established after the civil war ended in 2005.
Since 2006, the New Kush camp has been used for training the SPLA's special
forces — or Commando units, the same forces involved in the Jonglei civilian
deaths. Both international trainers, Western contractors and consultants,
and Ethiopian troops — all funded through State Department programs — have
worked at New Kush.
The State Department official told the AP on Thursday that the "commando
training conducted by the Ethiopians focuses on professional military
tactics and specialized skills."
But the SPLA has a lot of growing up to do as the world's youngest national
military. In a report last November by the Small Arms Survey and authored by
Richard Rands, whose own British company Burton Rands previously was
subcontracted through U.S.-funded PAE contracts, the author concluded that
an "overarching strategy" for the long-term transformation of the SPLA from
a guerrilla movement to a conventional army "has not yet emerged."
Rands wrote that "diplomatic pressure and international support and advice"
will be needed to urge the army to conduct its own strategic review after
independence and then to develop a "coherent defense strategy."
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