wfn.org | Sudan Humanitarian Crisis

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Contact: Wendy McDowell, NCC News, 212-870-2227
Email: news@ncccusa.org  Web: www.ncccusa.org

65NCC5/28/99 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SUDAN IS WORST HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN THE WORLD, EXPERT SAYS
Urges Churches  to Join "Domestic Political Disturbance" on 
U.S. Sudan Policy

 NEW YORK, May 24 ---- With more than two million war-
related civilian deaths in recent years and four million 
internally displaced people, Sudan is unarguably the worst 
humanitarian situation in the world, and a "domestic 
political disturbance" is needed to change United States 
policy toward Sudan.

 So reported Roger Winter, Executive Director of the 
U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR), to the Immigration and 
Refugee Program Committee (IRP/COM) of the National Council 
of Churches/Church World Service.  The USCR is a nonprofit, 
nongovernmental organization based in Washington, D.C. that 
regularly monitors the plight of refugees and displaced 
people around the world.  Mr. Winter has been a close 
observer and often eyewitness of events in Sudan for 18 
years.

 "One of the three priorities of IRP/COM is to focus on 
Africa," said Mr. William Sage, CWS/IRP Interim Director.  
Church World Service is the NCC's , emergency response, 
human development and refugee assistance ministry and works 
in more than 80 countries around the world.  "With the 
largest population of internally displaced people in the 
world, Sudan is the most extreme example of the suffering of 
refugees in Africa and throughout the world.  We need to not 
only deliver relief supplies there but to push for policy 
changes."

 Mr. Winter described his drive to "build a constituency 
among churches and non-governmental organizations" that is 
focused on Sudan and will raise the important questions with 
policymakers.  To that end, Mr. Winter provided startling 
statistics and extensive analysis about Sudan and urged his 
listeners to become educators about the issues.

"A Country That Never Gelled"

 "Sudan is a country that never gelled," Mr. Winter 
said.  "It was shaped by colonial decisions made in the 
1800s but the chances for a peaceful, unified country have 
been continually undermined by divisions.  Ill-intended 
leaders have used these divisions as a political strategy to 
maintain their positions of power."

 "In the center of the country around Khartoum there are 
families, clans and religious structures that have 
traditionally been the power elite," he continued.  "Layered 
on top of this struggle between the power center vs. the 
periphery are other, intersecting fault lines, between 
Muslims and non-Muslims and between the Arab world and the 
non-Arab world."

 Thus, although "Sudan achieved its independence in 
1956," Mr. Winter said, "in its 43 years, Sudan has been at 
war for 32 of those, the longest ongoing civil war in the 
world.  The effects of the war include not only a huge body 
count, surpassing the death toll in any war since World War 
II, but an extreme level of vulnerability to famine and 
disease among those who survive."  Four out of five Sudanese 
are either internally displaced or have fled as refugees.  
Meanwhile, the infrastructure of the country has been 
destroyed and there are regular slave raids.

Sudan Neglected by Policymakers

 "Sudan is as big as the United States east of the 
Mississippi and is clearly the poorest, most destitute 
society in the world," he said.  "Yet it is suffering not 
even benign neglect" from U.S. policymakers.

 "How is it that we can take action in other situations 
but not condemn the situation in Sudan which is so 
dramatically worse?"  Mr. Winter asked.  He stressed that he 
was not suggesting that the United States should take 
military action in Sudan, but that Sudan "should be on the 
foreign policy screen" rather than mostly ignored.

 Mr. Winter said he believes the reasons for the lack of 
U.S. response to the Sudan conflict are complex.  "U.S. 
policy tends to be driven by the issue of international 
terrorism rather than balancing this with peace and justice 
concerns," he said.  Also, "Sudan is seen through a Middle 
East prism, and will soon be producing oil, so the problems 
in the southern third of the country are eclipsed.  The fact 
that people are dying in droves doesn't touch our hard 
political interest."

 "The conflict in Sudan is like most wars these days," 
Mr. Winter explained further.  "It is a communal, civil war, 
where one ethnic-religious group is pitted against another.  
It is genocide prone."  Yet "the trend is for governments of 
developed countries of the world to try to stay out of these 
kind of conflicts.  The international community needs to 
find mechanisms to deal with genocide and ethnic cleansing."

"Racism is also a factor in the mix of why Sudan 
doesn't get more attention," Mr. Winter said.  "If two 
million Europeans of any stripe had died, I think the 
conflict would be in the news more."  He added, "Africans 
don't represent a strategic priority for the United States 
and their lives are devalued."

Religious Issues and Involvement in the Sudan

Yet Mr. Winter hopes to change this devaluation with the 
help of people of faith and supporters from refugee and 
humanitarian agencies.  In order to raise awareness, he is 
asking refugee agencies and religious organizations to focus 
on Sudan both within their churches and in their advocacy 
work on government policy issues.

 Because "although it doesn't seem that the warring 
parties are yet done warring in Sudan," he said, "it is also 
the case that there isn't much pressure from the outside to 
resolve the conflict.  We need a political drive to bolster 
the movement toward peace."

Mr. Winter said there are two reasons that people of 
faith should be concerned about Sudan.  Firstly, "religion 
is a factor in the conflict."  Although the religious issues 
are too often oversimplified in media and other accounts, 
the current government does promote a militant form of Islam 
and there is persecution against Christians, who live mostly 
in the South.  "Churches are burned and destroyed regularly 
and the church is so poor that words can't describe it," he 
said, although he stressed that at the same time "the church 
in the south of Sudan is vibrant and growing."

Secondly, the humanitarian facts and statistics are 
"clearly the worst in the world," so "any kind of spiritual 
command to be concerned about people who suffer would point 
to the Sudan."  Mr. Sage also noted that "NCC/CWS 
denominations are interested in the Sudan crisis because it 
is an issue of peace and stability for Africa's largest 
country."

Historically, many U.S. and European churches and 
church organizations have been involved in the Sudan giving 
direct development aid, Mr. Winter said.  He highlighted the 
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for "real leadership in trying 
to negotiate solutions between Southern groups."  The 
Episcopal Church and Norwegian Church Aid also have been 
heavily involved, he said.

Though food and medical aid is being provided through 
governmental and non-governmental channels, Mr. Winter said 
"a key thing not being provided is capacity building and 
training."  He explained, "There is an aging population with 
skills and experience, but a whole group of young men and 
women who have not been given formal education.  They have 
learned either how to just survive or how to make war, but 
have not been trained in a full range of skills, including 
governance, agronomy and public health."

Mr. Winter stressed that he didn't have the answers 
himself.  "What is needed is to get the attention of people 
in the Clinton administration who have the diplomacy skills 
and can start to hash out solutions."

"Both conservatives and liberals, Republicans and 
Democrats can understand how unacceptable the Sudan 
situation is," Mr. Winter said.  Indeed, in the coming week, 
three congressional leaders will be traveling to the Sudan 
to make firsthand observations, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-
Kansas), Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colorado) and Rep. Donald 
Payne (D-New Jersey).

"CWS/IRP has resettled Sudanese refugees here in the 
United States and has been concerned about the refugees who 
have fled to other countries in the region such as Kenya and 
Uganda," Mr. Sage said. "Our interest is to see an end to 
the uprootedness in Sudan."

"Sudan has long been synonymous with crisis," Mr. Sage 
said.  "If the U.S. would demonstrate some leadership in the 
international community to bring about a new peace process 
there, maybe the crisis pattern could break and hope could 
emerge.  Too many people have already been lost."

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