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TOOLS PRINT E-MAIL DECEMBER 28, 2006, PROMOTING HUMAN RIGHTS INSIDE OF DARFUR BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Hello, this is Bridget Conley-Zilkic. I am sitting in today for Jerry Fowler. WE have with us today Adeeb Yousif who is from Darfur, from the Jebel Marra area, and he works now with the Sudan Social Development Organization. Adeeb, thank you for joining us today. ADEEB YOUSIF: Thank you, you are welcome. BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Can you just tell our audience briefly, what you are doing here in the United States on this trip? ADEEB YOUSIF: Thank you for this opportunity. I am here with the International Center for Tolerance Education as a guest program with the Millennium Foundation just having meetings, attending a conference, and attending some classes at Columbia University, mostly Human Rights classes and Peace building classes. BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Can you tell us a little bit about what your organization, the Sudan Social Development Organization, does in the Darfur region? ADEEB YOUSIF: Sudan Social Development Organization is a human rights organization, based on human rights, but we quickly realize that there are another human rights activities we are supposed to work on. Right now we are engaged in water, so providing water to the IDPs and the host communities in Darfur. We provide education; we provide health; we provide nutrition; we work at the culture; we work in environmental liquidation; we work in sanitation; we work sexual support for the victims of rape, and we generate income for activities in the same sector. We work in the protection, and we provide workshop training for the IDPs, host communities, soldiers, students, and teachers. We teach them the international human rights laws, international humanitarian laws, basic human rights, Geneva Conventions and additional protocols, gender-based violence. We also get legal aid. Then again, we engage in the peace building just by making conference, making workshop training to the traditional leaders. BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: How long have you been with SUDO? ADEEB YOUSIF: I have been with SUDO since 2001 and I am one of the people that voted this organization in 2001. Since my school days, I was human rights advocate or activist. As soon as I finished the university in 2000, we formed this organization in 2001. BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Where did you do university? In Khartoum? ADEEB YOUSIF: I did my university in North Sudan, in the University of Donglass. By proficiency, I am a teacher. I specialize in English and Psychology. BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: I just wondered if you could briefly tell our audience—I think we have some student activists in our audience—what was it like for you in Sudan as a student activist? What kind of actions did you engage in? ADEEB YOUSIF: Yes, it was at that time that we just engaged in making presentations, teaching students about human rights issues. Then again, we teach even the students the human rights issues. We pay the price for this because we want to make change. We want to have a change. During the school days, we have been arrested several, several times as a result of this work on human rights and teaching students and the community about human rights. BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: When you came back then to Darfur—you said in about 2001 then—you started working with SUDO. How has your work changed in your ability to work from 2001 to today, in 2006? What pressures have you faced? Have they changed? How is your day to day work? ADEEB YOUSIF: Yes, in fact, we work in Darfur in the activities that I mentioned earlier, so this has helped a lot of the IDPs and to the host community through assistance that we provide to them, that we give them, that we are working with them very, very close; that we address their violence to the international community to recognize that there is violence taking place in the specific place that is Darfur. For that reason, we pay the price for our work as human rights advocates. I have been in jail, in detention for 11 months, but still we try to have a change, and we will continue trying to have a change because the issue of human rights is an ideal that I hope to live for and to achieve. BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: And you were arrested for what? What charges were brought against you? ADEEB YOUSIF: In fact, I have been arrested in Khartoum in September 2004, and they just accuse me that I spy and addressing the international community, and I report to the international community to tell them. Then they accused me again of Christianity; that we are trying to change the religion there in Darfur from Islam to Christianity, so that is the main accusation for me at that particular time. BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: I wonder now if I could ask you to describe a little bit for our audience where you grew up in Darfur, what Darfur was like for you as a child. If you were to give us a tour of Adeeb’s youth in Darfur, what would we see? ADEEB YOUSIF: I grew up in a very small village, deep inside Jebel Marra, and Jebel Marra is the mountain of Marra. It is one of the first mountains in Sudan. I grow up there, and during that specific time, it was a time that I cannot forget. I keep always remember, remember, remember that particular time because my childhood with my brothers, sisters, with my cousins, relatives, and the village was a very nice one. We use to go out to play there, to look after the cows, the sheep, the goats, and play in the valley, in the wadi. At the end of the day, we would return to the house where we have stories that are told by the grandmothers. We used to sit in a circle; then the grandmothers told us the stories which is very, very useful for us. That is my childhood. Then, I moved from there to Zalingi, which is west of Jebel Marra where I took my education, and because the people at that time they use to live in a very peaceful time, you cannot distinguish between the Arabs, the Africans, so all of them are there, and we lived in a very peaceful way. You can go from the village to the fareeg, which is the home of the elder. They help you; they give you assistance; they host you there. At that particular time, it was a very, very nice time. BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Now if you had to give someone a tour of what you would see if you would travel through Darfur, how would you describe it today as a result of the war and genocide? ADEEB YOUSIF: As a result of the war and genocide, you cannot be able to move because previously we use to move from place to place freely without any fear. If you feared at that time, you can fear from the animal, but right now you fear the Janjaweed, from the people on the horse, and again I mean the Janjaweed, because if you want to go, there is no village right now in Darfur. In the past, there are a lot of villages. They destroyed everything. Imagine the water resources; the Janjaweed poison it; they put the poison on that water. If you are not being killed by the weapon, if you drink from that water, you are going to die. Imagine that the trees have been cut down. The people attack even their culture and their civilization. Imagine that the girls have been raped, mass raped. Imagine that a young man put them in a line and shoot them straight forward in front of their wives, fathers, mothers, relatives. They just put them there and shoot them straight in line. Imagine a woman being cut in her source to kill the child. That is the current situation. Imagine also the villages that used—hundreds, thousand of villages in Darfur—right now, there are no villages; they burned all the villages; they killed all the people. Then again, they destroyed even the nature of Darfur. BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: In your village, where you are from, have there been attacks there as well? ADEEB YOUSIF: Yes, my village has been attacked several, several times, but there are some people there. They attack the village, and they used to use it as a road. They attack several villages over the mountains there. While they are going, they attack the village, and while they are coming, they attack the village. Most people, they have no other choice because if they want to go to Zilingi which is the very close place to them, they cannot be able to make it because the Janjaweed are still there in the road. If they want to go to another village, also they cannot make it because the Janjaweed are still there. They are just there in the village waiting for their death. BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Is your family still there? ADEEB YOUSIF: Yes, my family is still there, so no choice for them, no choice for them. BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Are you able to speak with them or communicate with them regularly? ADEEB YOUSIF: No, unfortunately we have no means of communication to that place. There is no telephone there, there is no internet there, so you cannot make it. BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: I also wanted to ask you about some of the peace initiatives that SUDO has been working on. You spoke earlier about working with peace capacity building among the rebel groups. Can you talk a little bit about why it is necessary, what has happened with the rebel groups, and what are some of the efforts that you and SUDO are making right now? ADEEB YOUSIF: Yes, in fact, the rebel groups started splitting so since the Conference, the rebels start splitting, and since they signed this DPA, the rebels also continue splitting, and this is splitting even by the assistance of the African Union. They assist the rebels so as to split, because they want them to sign an individual peace agreement. There is a peace agreement that has been signed in Addis Ababa, there is one in Khartoum, there is one in Nyala, and those people that signed the agreement, they just represented themselves; they did not represent the commanders on the ground there. This is the kind of thing that makes the splitting. We recognize that unless we work very, very hard to join the rebels together, we will not get a sustainable peace, or a peace at least, not even sustainable. So, we work very hard with the different factions of the rebels group, and we convince them to unite, to have a conference, then they can have a peaceful negotiation, a political, peaceful negotiation. Before we start this process, we support the government, and we tell them let us have a united rebel group. This is assist for two points of view. It assists from the humanitarian point of view and it assist from the political point of view. In the humanitarian point of view, we want to speak with the elder persons and we want to have access to reach the victims wherever they are, in the rebel territories or in the government territories. We want to reach them, and we cannot be able to reach them unless we have one united rebel group to speak to them, to take responsibility, to allow for us to help the victims there. From the political point of view, we have one rebel group to sign on the agreement, so no one else signed. We do not want this. We want united rebel group. The government agree on that, and we fixed it that it is supposed to take place on 17 November 2006, but unfortunately, the government started bombing the place before the date. Up to now, we are in the effort so as to make it again. BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: How many rebel groups are we talking about now? ADEEB YOUSIF: Right now there are six rebel groups on the ground, and these six rebel groups just come as a result of what I mentioned earlier, the peace agreement and this splitting that took place. BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: The meeting in November then, you had to cancel because it was no longer safe after the government started bombing the agreed upon location. What are your plans moving forward? How will you continue this? ADEEB YOUSIF: Yes, in fact, we started putting 200 commanders from all the rebel groups, from the 19 group, from the Hamid’s group, from all the 6 rebel groups, we have convinced them so as to be united. We felt that since the government bombed the place, we are in a very hard place so as to make it. This time, we have an opportunity to make it outside Sudan, but we dislike that. We want to make it internally there, and it is just a matter of time and this we will make public so that anyone can attend. It is not going to be in a hotel, so the people can attend, the TVs, the newspapers, they can attend. They can assist us as protection because as soon as you announce for that, it will stand as a protection for the people who are attending the conference. BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: How far apart are the rebel positions? What are they asking for? It is very different or did they all have similar demands? ADEEB YOUSIF: Yes, the rebel group, because this problem it is a political problem. It is not a tribal problem; it is not a problem between the African and the Arabs, so it is a political problem between the minority Islamic group in the center and the other different regions in West Sudan, in South Sudan, in the east of Sudan, and even some part in the center. The marginalization, the underdevelopment, the multi-culture, this problem; it is not a tribal problem. BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: We have been hearing that the situation today is on the verge of a catastrophe, as bad as it has been up until now, that the humanitarian supplies are not getting through, that the increase in violence makes it more and more difficult for international organizations to work, and that civilians are increasingly being targeted, even in displaced camps. Do you agree with this? How would you describe where we are now, in terms of the threat, particularly to civilians? ADEEB YOUSIF: Despite the Darfur Peace Agreement which was signed in May 2006, the violence after the signing of the agreement and the security situation, it is even worse; more killing going on, more rebel violence going on, more burning going on. The humanitarian organizations get out from there as result of the insecurity, as a result of the Khartoum government splitting them and pulling them out of there. The refugee council, they pull out from Kalma Camp. The Khartoum government insists on getting the international community outside of Darfur. Unfortunately, the war it used to be outside in the rural areas, but now, it is even worse because three days ago, and even yesterday, they attack a very big town which is El Fasher; it is the capital of North Darfur, and this is a very dangerous indicator because right now they kill all the people in the village and start reaching inside the town. By killing them in El Fasher, as I said this is a very dangerous indicator because in El Fasher there is a presence of the international community. The missions, UN missions, the AU mission are in El Fasher, the international organizations headquarters and regional offices are there in El Fasher. In the presence of the international community in El Fasher, the Janjaweed managed to get inside there and to attack the civilians inside El Fasher and kill them. That means that they killed the people in the villages, and again, they want to kill them in the town, and it is not going to stop in El Fasher because we may expect to be in Nyala, in Al-Geneina, in the big cities where the IDPs are. BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: What do you think needs to happen, say in the next two to three months for the situation to turn around, for it to get better? ADEEB YOUSIF: I think that there needs to be three things. I do not have a motivation from the UN forces to be in Darfur because you see, it is basic to be there, but right now is not the time because there is no peace agreement so as to keep, therefore, we have to unite this rebel group initially, then a no-fly zone in Darfur. BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: A no-fly zone. ADEEB YOUSIF: A no-fly zone, then to have this peaceful negotiation, to have Darfur-Darfur dialogue composition, to have the presence of the international community so as to help the refugees, the internally displaced persons to return back home in safety and dignity. The UN forces are basic to be there. BRIDGET CONLEY-ZILKIC: Adeeb, we thank you for being with us today, and I hope that you can continue your work in safety. Thank you. ADEEB YOUSIF: Thank you.