South Sudan News Agency

Open Letter to Ambassador Susan Rice-Nuba Mountains Crisis and Absolute Silence by Members of the Atrocities Prevention Board

Dear Ms. Rice:

April 8, 2013 (SSNA) -- We, scholars of genocide and human rights activists from around the world, are writing to you about our vital concern about the ongoing crisis in the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile and the fact that despite multiple attempts to address such concerns with the members of the Atrocities Prevention Board (APB) we have come up short. More specifically, we’ve sent four letters to three different individuals (Ms. Samantha Power (twice); Mr. Steven Pomper, Senior Assistant Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights; and Mr. Donald Steinberg, Deputy Administrator, USAID) (please see letters at the very end of this letter) with the APB and none of them have even acknowledged the letters. Cognizant of your important and good work on the behalf of the people of the Sudan, we are writing to you in the hope that you will be able to assist us in reaching the members of the APB.

As you well know, the people of the Nuba Mountains continue to face daily bombings by Government of Sudan (GoS) Antonovs, periodic attacks by MIGS, and ground fighting near the major population centers in the region. Hundreds of thousands of people in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile have been forced from their homes and villages. While many have sought sanctuary in refugee camps across the border in the Republic of South Sudan, huge numbers of other people remain internally displaced. All of the people also face hunger as a result of being forced off their farms. Not a few have had to resort to eating roots, leaves and insects and as a result an unknown number have starved to death. Just this past week (March 26^th), Radio Tamazuj reported the following: “Nearly 22,000 thousand displaced citizens at Kao Nyaro in Abu Jubeiha County and Werne (Verni) in Talodi County in South Kordofan State are suffering from hunger and poor health conditions….Al Haj Al Dewan, the SPLM-N Political Secretary…described the conditions of citizens as ‘miserable and very difficult from the lack of food and poor health conditions,’ adding that there is a sharp rise in the mortality rate among children, mothers and elderly, amid a complete absence of organizations working in the humanitarian field…. ‘Everyday people are dying from hunger and sickness especially children and elderly,’ he said.”

As you know, early in 2012 both the U.N. and the United States considered the possibility of opening up a humanitarian corridor in order to get desperately needed food and medical aid to the people of the Nuba Mountains. Unfortunately, such discussion came to naught. As a result, quasi-secret efforts are underway to get at least a modicum of food into the region. In fact, this past December/January a small group of scholars and activists (among whom are several signatories to this letter: Samuel Totten, John Hubbel Weiss, Slater Armstrong, and Mark Hackett) inserted five tons of food into the Nuba Mountains, both raising the funds to purchase and transport such and sent a member to the region to oversee the effort. It was costly, time-consuming, complex, difficult and, ultimately, dangerous. That is how serious, though, some of us are about what has transpired in the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile over the past eighteen months or so.

In light of the fact that President Obama seemingly established the APB to address issues such as those in the Nuba Mountains, where crimes against humanity have been perpetrated on a daily basis over the past year and a half by the Government of Sudan, we thought it behooved us to contact the APB board members to underscore our concern and to inquire as to what the APB has done in addressing the crisis in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile. At the worst, we anticipated receiving a typically bureaucratic response that the situation is difficult but the U.S. is apprised of it and working through diplomatic channels to ameliorate the situation. We never expected, though, to have our letter (and now letters) go unanswered. We sent the first copy of the letter to Ms. Samantha Power on December 12, 2012, the second letter to Ms. Power on January 20, 2013, the third letter to Mr. Pomper on March 26, 2013, and the fourth letter to Mr. Steinberg on March 29, 2013.

In reaching out to various members of Congress, we have been informed, for example, that “it appears that President Obama has not yet named a replacement for Samantha Power,” and “It  seems that the APB is not very active at the moment.”  Both situations are extremely unfortunate. First and foremost, as you well know, there are numerous crises around the globe where crimes against humanity are being carried out on a daily basis (i.e., in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile, all in Sudan; the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Syria) and suspected of being carried out (i.e., North Korea, Burma), and thus should be the focus of the APB. Second, when President Obama reported on the establishment of the ABP during a speech at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on April 23, 2012, he voiced a real urgency in addressing genocide and crimes against humanity, which obviously has fallen by the wayside if, in fact, the ABP is “not very active at the moment.” More specifically, during the aforementioned speech, when he touted the APB as something unique in the annals of U.S. history, President Obama declared the following:

Three years ago today, I joined many of you for a ceremony of remembrance at the U.S. Capitol.  And I said that we had to do “everything we can to prevent and end atrocities.”  And so I want to report back to some of you today to let you know that as President I’ve done my utmost to back up those words with deeds.  Last year, in the first-ever presidential directive on this challenge, I made it clear that "preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States of America."

Now we’re doing something more.  We’re making sure that the United States government has the structures, the mechanisms to better prevent and respond to mass atrocities.  So I created the first-ever White House position dedicated to this task.  It’s why I created a new Atrocities Prevention Board, to bring together senior officials from across our government to focus on this critical mission.  This is not an afterthought.  This is not a sideline in our foreign policy.  The board will convene for the first time today, at the White House.  And I’m pleased that one of its first acts will be to meet with some of your organizations -- citizens and activists who are partners in this work, who have been carrying this torch. Going forward, we’ll strengthen our tools across the board, and we'll create new ones.  The intelligence community will prepare, for example, the first-ever National Intelligence Estimate on the risk of mass atrocities and genocide.  We're going to institutionalize the focus on this issue. Across government, "alert channels" will ensure that information about unfolding crises -- and dissenting opinions -- quickly reach decision-makers, including me…. In short, we need to be doing everything we can to prevent and respond to these kinds of atrocities  -- because national sovereignty is never a license to slaughter your people. 

Ms. Rice, unfortunately, when one hears that “the APB is not very active at the moment” and when we, scholars of genocide studies and human rights activists, fail to receive a reply to a letter that we first wrote back in December 2012 and have now sent five times to four different individuals affiliated with the APB, it, indeed, feels as if the APB and its focus/work is little more than “a sideline in our foreign policy.” Furthermore, and again, unfortunately, President Obama’s words that “across government, ‘alert channels’ will ensure that information about unfolding crises -- and dissenting opinions -- quickly reach decision-makers, including me….” are little more than hollow words churned out for a public relations opportunity and a photo op.

At the very least, it seems, the APB, by this time, could have privately and publicly prodded the UN to open a humanitarian corridor in order to provide desperate people in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile with food and medical aid; argued in favor of establishing an on-the-ground investigation (at  least in the refugee camps in South Sudan) to the crimes against humanity that the Government of Sudan has perpetrated against the people of the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile (just as the George W. Bush Administration did in 2004 in regard to the atrocities committed by the Government of Sudan in Darfur); and, made the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile a major issue by addressing the tragedy unfolding there by addressing the mass media.

As you will note, scholars and activists from around the world have signed this letter, and that’s because many across the globe (Australia, Canada, England, Israel, The Netherlands, Germany, Sudan, Wales) were hopeful that President Obama was serious about making a sea change vis-à-vis the prevention and intervention of crimes against humanity and genocide; that is, away from the expression of fine sounding sentiments cum concern to real action.

All that said, we, again, hope that you will be able to help us get our letter on to the desk of President Obama and into the hands of each and every member of the APB. We thank you in advance for your consideration of this request and for all of the good work you have done on the behalf of the beleaguered people of Sudan.

Dear Mr. Steinberg:

I am writing to you in relation to your position on the Atrocities Prevention Board (APB). More specifically, in the absence of a current Chair of the Atrocities Prevention Board, I hope that you will be able to assist me in getting the attached letter to the various members of the Atrocities Prevention Board. I wish to thank you in advance for your consideration of this request.

Just prior to my departure for the Nuba Mountains this past December, I sent a letter c/o of Ms. Samantha Power to the Atrocities Prevention Board about the ongoing crisis in the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile. The letter was signed by 50 plus genocide scholars and human rights activists from around the world (please see the attachment). Upon my return to the U.S. in mid January I discovered that Ms. Power had not acknowledged receipt of the letter. Just as I was about to resend the letter to her I found out that she had resigned from her government position. Following a series of inquiries about whom I should now address the letter to in the absence of Ms. Power, I was informed by former U.S. Ambassador Evans that we would likely hear from Ms. Power's replacement or a member of the APB in a relatively reasonable amount of time and thus I decided to wait for such a response. To date, we still have not received a response to the letter from anyone affiliated with the APB.

In light of the fact that on the day (April 23, 2012) President Obama announced the establishment of the APB during a talk at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum he said public input would be welcomed by the APB, we were hoping that our concerns/suggestions would have been readily acknowledged. 

I am writing to you to inquire as to whether you would be willing to forward the letter to members of the APB or to provide us with a key contact person either in the White House or with the NSA who could forward the letter on our behalf. 

Thank you very much for your consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

December 5, 2012

Dear Members of the Atrocities Prevention Board:

We (scholars of genocide studies and human rights activists) are vitally concerned about the ongoing crisis in the Nuba Mountains, Sudan. Since July 2011, the Government of Sudan (GoS) has carried out a scorched earth policy against the Nuba Mountains people. Using both aerial and ground attacks the GoS has, as it did in Darfur, not only attempted to quell the actions of the rebels active in the area but murdered innocent civilians (including children and infants), displaced between 200,000 and 300,000 people from their villages and homes, purposely destroyed the peoples’ farms thus leaving them bereft of food on which to exist, and prevented humanitarian aid from reaching those now seeking sanctuary in the mountains looming over their destroyed farms. As the rainy season has come to an end, the GoS is ramping up for a more concerted aerial and ground campaign against the Nuba Mountains people and those of the Blue Nile. Both the U.S. Government and the international community have largely stood by and watched this tragedy unfold.

We are well aware of U.S. Envoy Princeton Lyman’s varied diplomatic efforts and his attempts to reason with Khartoum. Unfortunately, though, his efforts have not sufficed and clear evidence of that is the fact that the attacks by the GoS have been relentless and more murderous as time has gone by. We are also cognizant of the fact that small quantities of surreptitious aid provided by the U.S. have been welcomed by people of the Nuba (although none reached the people of Blue Nile); but it provided only a very small fraction of what is needed.  The dry season has begun and it is once again possible to move food, medicine and other supplies on the ground, but without secure access, this improvement in transport conditions counts for little.

There is a point, we believe, when it should become self evident that the continuation of endless dialogue with a state that has engaged in serial crimes against humanity, genocidal-like actions, and ethnic cleansing and engaged in habitual denial of its responsibility and been a purveyor of deceit and broken promises, is total waste of time. As hundreds of thousands of innocents needlessly suffer, there is a moral imperative that the continual “diplomatic” talking, negotiating, pleading, and ultimately begging with leaders of such openly deceptive and destructive strategies must be replaced by concrete and effective action  -- action that stanches the killing and death due to mass starvation as a direct result of the destruction of farms and foodstuffs and the obstruction of humanitarian aid to those in need. That time, we believe, is now.

As you undoubtedly know, the time to address a crisis heading towards mass violence is early on; only in that way is it likely the crisis will be nipped in the bud. Unfortunately, that has not happened in the case of the Nuba Mountains. Some three months after the establishment of the Atrocities Prevention Board (APB), the GoS began bombing the Nuba Mountains and carrying out ground attacks, and those attacks quickly morphed into an even greater disaster: the dislocation of hundreds of thousands, a massive food crisis, and the ongoing destruction of farms, villages and the murder of even more people, which continues to this very day.

Presidential Study Directive 10 (August 4, 2011) states that “America's reputation suffers, and our ability to bring about change is constrained, when we are perceived as idle in the face of mass atrocities and genocide.” From our perspective that is exactly the situation we are now seeing vis-à-vis the Administration’s stance in regard to the atrocities, mass displacement, and mass hunger that the GoS has unleashed in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile.

In light of that, we wish to inquire as to whether the APB has addressed the dual crises in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile; and if so, how?

President Obama has stated that one of the results of the creation of the APB was that “Our diplomats will encourage more robust multilateral efforts to prevent and respond to atrocities.” Quite frankly, we are still waiting to see this happen in the case of the Nuba Mountains. To date, ineffective diplomacy has substituted for action and as a result the crisis in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile has not only gone on for 17 long months but is now on the verge of spiraling totally out of control. The GoS is not only bombing village after village but destroying farm after farm by burning them to the ground.

We understand that along with the APB the President has promised to establish “alert channels” that avail lower-level officials of the right to draw attention (or raise red flags) about potential or actual atrocities in areas of conflict. Have, in fact, the crises in South Kordofan and Blue Nile been the subject of such alerts?

In recent correspondence with U.S. Envoy to Sudan Princeton Lyman we were informed that since it was impossible for anyone to reach the Nuba Mountains due to the prohibitions of the GoS it was impossible to conduct a study into the percentage of people in the Nuba Mountains who are suffering from severe malnutrition and starvation or how many people have perished from starvation. Since a specific component of the APB is to “increase the collection and analysis of information relating to atrocity threats and situations,” would it not make sense to conduct an investigation in the refugee camps inside South Sudan? After all, thousands of people have been crossing the border from Sudan to South Sudan for months on end in flight from the terror inflicted on them by the GoS in both South Kordofan and Blue Nile. The point is, there is a solid sample of those who have been in the camps for a relatively long while versus those who have just arrived.

We also must ask: has the APB considered recommending that the U.S. Government prod the UN Security Council to issue a Chapter VII mandate in order to install a peace enforcement contingent in the South Kordofan and Blue Nile to attempt to halt the violence?

Also, has the APB suggested that the U.S. government, either alone or in conjunction with the international community, design and apply tougher sanctions on the GoS for the ongoing and serial murder of its own people, destruction of their villages and farms, and mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of innocent people?

If little to nothing concrete has been attempted or accomplished by the APB along the aforementioned lines, then we strongly urge that the APB immediately call an emergency session to examine how the U.S. Government could use the full range of instruments at hand  --   diplomatic, economic, humanitarian, and military –  that can be brought to bear on this, the latest, crisis in Sudan.

It is our ardent hope that the new approaches, “tools and expanded capabilities” developed by the U.S. Government for the express purpose of the prevention of atrocities will be implemented in order to prevent the current tragedies in South Kordofan and Blue Nile from expanding into the years-long and deadly affair that Darfur has become. Here, we are referring to, for example, the following, all of which were touted by the White House as approaches that the APB would implement: new kinds of targeted sanctions, financial levers, and getting truly tough on impunity. The latter is especially relevant in light of the fact that President Omar al Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide for the atrocities perpetrated in Darfur, and that the Governor of South Kordofan, Ahmed Haroun, is also wanted by the ICC on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes for atrocities committed in Darfur by the GoS.

As you might recall, when the Genocide Prevention Task Force report, in 2008,  called for creation of the Atrocities Prevention Board, it alluded to situations exactly along the lines of the current situation in the Nuba Mountain and Blue Nile regions of Sudan. Indeed, it was clearly stated that the express purpose of an agency such as the APB was to deal, in a decisive fashion, with such humanitarian emergencies in the face of the deep failures of US policy in recent years, especially the case of Rwanda.

We are counting on the APB to honor its charge to “ensure that key decision-makers receive early warning and hear dissenting views” in regard to potential or actual crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and genocide.  For well over a year now, we have written and submitted letters to Congress, the White House, State, and individual U.S. officials, and to date we’ve only received replies from Special Envoy Princeton Lyman. While we certainly appreciate his engaging with us, we believe he needs the full-fledge support of top decision makers with the Administration.

We believe it is absolutely critical for the APB and the Administration to address, openly with the rest of the U.S. Government and U.S. citizens, the fate of the people in Nuba Mountains (South Kordofan) and the Blue Nile. Indeed, we believe that silence is acquiescence and goes totally against the grain of President Obama’s declaration in April of this year that atrocity prevention is "a core national security interest and core moral responsibility,” and “a high priority for his Administration.” A lack of attention and action by the APB to these matters would go counter to its stated mission.

We thank you in advance for your serious consideration of our concerns expressed herein, and we await both your written response and your determined action.

Sincerely,

By “Papa” Maury Clark

March 24, 2013 (SSNA) -- In many ways far too much time has passed between us without connecting these past twelve months. You see, this 72 year old man has been quite ill. I contracted malaria in Juba, South Sudan last year, and took a pretty bad fall. I simply thought that I was not acclimating to the heat, even though it had never hit me like this before. I really thought that the hot sweats would go away, but it got worse.

I apparently passed out as I fell, and I don't really recall much of it, but since my return to America, I have been slowly recovering. My detached retina has healed, and after three operations on my back and left leg, I am beginning to move fairly normally.

A more basic impact of my malaria has been liver damage that is a common result, restricts my diet, and leaves me very exhausted much of the time. Exhausted, but still alive. And that brings me to the real subject of this piece: MALARIA!

The western, white world really does not really internalize the death, and personal tragedy inflicted by malaria upon the black people of Sub-Saharan Africa. To paraphrase a saying that is a reality in this case: “One death is a tragedy, one million deaths is a statistic”.

I hope to bring the tragedy of loss due to malaria home to those who are blissfully unaware. Perhaps I can translate the “statistics” to a comprehensible awareness level for good people who are caring, but at an intellectual distance from the grief suffered by every family in Africa due to malaria.

More than ONE MILLION people die of malaria every year according to the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) report #151. Malaria is a preventable disease. The death of so many people caused by a mosquito bite that could largely be prevented by use of treated bed nets is incomprehensible to me.

To bring this statistic home- 90% of the deaths due to malaria occur in Africa. 900,000 PEOPLE IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA will die needlessly of a disease that could easily, and inexpensively be prevented. A bed-net would reduce that statistic so much that it could become rare to find a death caused by malaria.

An even more terrifying statistic is that 70% of those deaths will be children under the age of five. That means that 630,000 CHILDREN WILL DIE EVERY SINGLE YEAR- more than 1,731 deaths every single day. Your children! Our children!- needlessly, painfully lost to us because we didn't have the necessary $10 USD to buy that net.

I was walking through the village of Yirol early one evening in 2007, accompanied by Laat Bec who is a member of my family, and brother to three of his siblings here in America with me. Laats wife is a nurse at the clinic. And as we walked toward that bombed-out building, there were perhaps forty or more women and children who were camped under a big, old mango tree because the clinic had no more beds.

Lying on a mat in the fading sunlight of the evening was a young mother with her two year old son. This child could not have weighed much more than 20 pounds. He was curled up like the child in Kevin Carters picture that is at the beginning of this story. Laat translated into Dinka when I asked of this childs mother to tell me his name and what horrifying illness he suffered with. His name was Deng, and he was stricken with malaria. His mother held him up to me, and I cradled this child in my arms and said a prayer before carefully returning him to his mother. I could hardly breathe as he curled up again on the mat.

The following morning, I again returned to the clinic, but the mother and child were no longer there. I asked, and was told that Deng had died that night, and that his mother was returning with the body of her son to her village for burial. I wept. I had held that child in my arms. I had said a prayer for healing, or a welcoming of this young child named Deng into Gods kingdom if Deng was to be called home. YOU CANNOT TELL ME THAT THIS YOUNG BOY WAS A STATISTIC! I will not ever forget him.

I am anguished simply by remembering Deng. Just one more number in the cold hard statistics of needless death and starvation of my people, my family, and all families in South Sudan. I am the old white Dinka called Papa Maury, and the world needs to know that statistics are made of real people and real loss.

I would like to think that my story will prompt action that will help the world understand the tragedy that is an everyday reality to the Dinka, Nuer, Shilluk, Bari and all of the great people of Sub-Saharan Africa. My “statistic” had a name:

THAT “STATISTICS” NAME WAS DENG!

By the grace of God, maybe the world is awakening to the devastation of malaria. Great medical strides are being made toward medical prevention and a real cure for malaria thanks to the dedication and gifts of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

In the meantime, a childs life can be saved today if you have $10.00 to spare. That is the cost of a treated net. One childs life- $10.00.

The Author is a retired investment banker/broker, as well as a Called and Commissioned Deacon in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), Northwest Washington Synod. He served under Bishops Appointment as pastor of Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church in Maple Valley, Washington in 1990 and 1991, and also served four years on the Synod Council. He has been deeply involved with the people of Southern Sudan since 1996, and is an advisor to the Government of South Sudan.

February 18, 2013 (SSNA) -- On November 27, 2012, over 50 scholars of genocide studies from around the world wrote a letter to U.S. Special Envoy Sudan Princeton Lyman regarding their concern about the crisis in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile in Sudan. Mr. Lyman, for some reason, chose not to respond to the letter. Shortly after the genocide scholars sent the letter to Lyman, he, for whatever reason, tendered his resignation. (The copy of the letter Lyman did not respond to is included below.)

Then, on December 12, 2012, over 60 scholars of genocide studies and anti-genocide activists sent a letter to the U.S. Atrocities Prevention Board (APB), a board that President Barack Obama personally established and has touted as being part of a sea change in regard to how past administration had dealt with issues of crimes against humanity and genocide. The letter was sent in care of Ms. Samantha Power, a member of the National Security Council and Chair of the Atrocities Documentation Board. That letter also went unanswered. Subsequently, in January 2013, Power, for some reason, submitted her resignation and left government service. (The copy of the letter sent to the Atrocities Prevention Board is included below, following the letter that was sent to U.S. Special Envoy Lyman.)

The aforementioned genocide scholars are preparing to resend the letter to the Atrocities Prevention Board in the hope of getting a response to their concerns. The lack of response, thus far, seems to speak volumes to the APB’s lack of interest in and concern about the opinions of scholars and activists. That, though, is in direct contradiction of Obama’s words that “citizens and activists, who have been carrying the torch,…are partners in this work.” 

November 27, 2012

Dear Envoy Lyman:

First, thank you for your recent letter of November 1, 2012, in response to our (scholars of genocide studies’) missive regarding the ongoing crises in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile in Sudan. Second, thank you, too, for inviting us to take part in your conference call on November 14, 2012, during which you provided an update vis-à-vis the various situations in Sudan (Darfur, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile), and the U.S. efforts regarding these ongoing situations.

Prior to positing numerous concerns and questions we have in regard to issues you raised in your letter and conference call, we wish to convey our appreciation of the tough situation you face: dealing with a regime in Khartoum that is better at making promises than keeping them; making food available along the border of The Republic of South Sudan and Sudan only to realize that many (especially infants, the elderly and the ill) are continuing to starve to death in the Nuba Mountains; witnessing the UN Security Council  repeatedly issue Chapter VII Resolutions vis-à-vis the humanitarian crises in Sudan but never following through by getting truly tough; and having to swallow  Khartoum’s cavalier dismissal of U.S. entreaties and UN resolutions. 

At the outset, we feel compelled to duly note that the debilitating and deadly malnutrition and desperate conditions currently faced by the Nuba Mountains people are not caused by crop failures or flooding. Indeed, we have solid information from local sources that the bombing of civilians by GoS aircraft, which began in June 2011 and have continued unabated throughout the rainy season (even if less regularly), is responsible for the decimation of people’s villages, homes and farms. Tellingly, when various organizations and individuals have suggested the critical need to transport humanitarian aid to the region, the response (from both the U.S. Government and the UN) is that the GoS has threatened to halt all such efforts by any means necessary.

Statements by President Bashir, backed up by videos recording the words of his subordinates on the ground, make it very clear that Khartoum's intent, from which it will not be deterred by outside diplomatic pressure, is to physically eliminate the peoples of the Nuba mountains. By destroying the people’s farms and preventing humanitarian aid from reaching the Nuba Mountains, the GoS’ actions indicate an attempt to perpetrate "genocide by attrition." The armed attacks by troops and planes, carried out without meeting any effective opposition, only accelerates the attrition. The Obama Administration, which claims to be in favor of early prevention vis-à-vis crimes against humanity and genocide, has much to answer for.

As for your comments, first, we wish to draw attention to the contradictory information we’ve garnered from various sources regarding the actual amount of food that has reached those remaining in the Nuba Mountains. In your letter of November 1, 2012, you stated that as a result of the United States’ effort “we have reached 470,000 people in South Kordofan with food and 88,000 with non-food items, such as medicines, seeds, tools, and other material. The food represented roughly half-rations that could sustain the recipients through the rainy season.”  Conversely, another authoritative source has informed us that no more than 5.5 thousand tons of food were delivered into the Nuba Mountains during this year’s dry season – and absolutely nothing into Blue Nile. That is extremely disconcerting in light of the fact that humanitarian logisticians estimate that roughly 1,700 metric tons of food per month are required per 100,000 of population in need. Using the current UN figure for South Kordofan and Blue Nile, and not including Upper Nile and Unity, this means roughly 3,000 tons per week are required. A dramatic shortfall by any calculation.

Do you, in fact, know how much food has reached the people still stuck in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile? Do you have any sense – even a rough estimate –  how many individuals are suffering from severe malnutrition? Starvation? Or, even a crude estimate as to how many individuals have perished by now due to severe malnutrition (or the effects thereof) and starvation?

Second, in your letter of November 1^st and during your conference call on November 14^th, you suggested that the seeds and tools that were donated to the Nuba Mountains, along with the fact that this is harvest season, could bode well for the people. However, based on sources in the Nuba Mountains, we fear the situation is not that sanguine. More specifically, it is our understanding that while the situation may look “bright” for some since they will be able to harvest and eat their produce, “it is also a fact that due to the lack of adequate amounts of food in August and September people began eating their produce even before it was ripe. Furthermore, under normal conditions a family would not even start eating the fruits of the new crop until January or February” (Nuba Reports, November 1, 2012). Essentially, this means that an untold number of families have already tapped into next year’s food supply. Furthermore, the same source reported that “some areas of the Nuba Mountains got very little rain and thus some crops were poor this year.” The point is, the efforts of the U.S. have been far from enough to ameliorate ongoing hunger or worse.

A classic example of “worse” was documented in a recent statement issued by “Nuba Reports”: Dr. Raphael Veicht, a physician with Cap Anamur Emergency Doctors, who is heading up a tiny hospital in the Nuba Mountains, has reported witnessing “a sharp increase in malnourished children over the past five months.” Many of the young children “were suffering from severe malnutrition.” He also reported “it was likely that there were people who were so weak they could not make the long trek to the hospital and were starving to death.”

Concomitantly, reports coming from highly reliable sources in the Nuba Mountains assert that “most villages in Abassyia County in north eastern South Kordofan have been burned down recently and these villagers’ food stocks were destroyed and they were not able to farm. They are currently displaced in the mountains. Not only will these people not have food but they are in a region that is extremely difficult to reach.”

Additional information we’ve received indicates that the food being provided by the U.S. along the South Sudan/Sudan border was being given to the refugees; and in turn, the refugees purposely limited their consumption of the rations so that they could carry what they had left to those remaining in the mountains. The point is, it seems that much less food is getting up to the Nuba Mountains than some seem to think. Is this your understanding of the matter as well? If so, is there a reason why the U.S. has not at least doubled the amount of food donated?

The upshot is that while food donated by the United States may have warded off mass starvation in the Nuba Mountains, there are still plenty of people suffering and dying there due to the GoS’ obstructionary actions. And many of those perishing are the youngest of the young, the oldest of the old, and the sickest of the sick. Does this not resonate with the highest levels of power within the White House? From our perspective, it seems as if it doesn’t.

Indeed, in a very real sense, it seems that the international community is fine with this latest crisis in Sudan as long as the numbers of dead do not creep too high and no concentration-camp-like skeletal bodies appear on television news channels and in local, state, regional and national newspapers across the globe.  Half-hearted efforts to stave off starvation are akin to attempting to stave off a tsunami by erecting paper fences along a beachfront.

Third, during your conference call, when asked by Samuel Totten, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, whether the US government had any statistics in regard to the extent of severe malnutrition and starvation in the Nuba Mountains and/or the mortality rates of the people in the Nuba Mountains, you replied that since no outside organizations or agencies are allowed into South Kordofan or Blue Nile, there was no way to conduct a formal assessment along those lines. Our question is this: If the U.S. government is truly interested in conducting such assessments, why couldn’t they be carried out in the various refugee camps in The Republic of South Sudan, where literally hundreds of individuals are flowing over the border every single week seeking sanctuary? Not only would the researchers have tens of thousands of individuals to choose from but the latter would likely be from various areas within South Kordofan and have been in the camp for various amounts of time, all of which would be ideal for such a study.

Fourth, during the conference call you mentioned that numerous sanctions have been applied against Sudan. In doing so, you seemed to suggest that sooner or later Sudan will feel their effect and thus begin to cooperate with the international community. Perhaps. But how can the U.S. and the international community allow month after month after month (and in many cases, year after year after year) to go by while Sudan continues to kill its own people in Darfur, carry out murderous attacks against its own people in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile, starve to death its own people in the Nuba Mountains, and engages in one ethnic cleansing spree after another in various regions of its nation?  It makes absolutely no sense. Essentially, it is giving credence to vacuous promises and abject lies by a government, Sudan, that has absolutely no compunction about engaging in bald-faced lies. Our question for you and President Obama is this: Why in the world has the Obama Administration not applied and/or pushed for sanctions against Sudan as tough as those that have been applied to Iran?

If the point of sanctions is to push and prod a nation into better behavior and the sanctions applied thus far are ineffective then it is obvious that the sanction regime must be ratcheted up. It is high time for the Obama Administration (and the international community) to recognize and admit that the sanctions imposed on Sudan have not had the desired effect.

In your letter you stated that the U.S. continues to “strongly condemn” the actions of al Bashir and the GoS, but that means little to nothing to the culprits. Indeed, their translation of such condemnation, sans tough action, seems to be: “Who cares? In the end, we have no punitive actions of consequence to deal with.”

Fifth, as you well know, the Government of Sudan and its leaders, particularly President Omar al Bashir, are untrustworthy, unreliable, and experts at dissimulation. Time and again, both during the crisis in Darfur and now during the crises in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile, the GoS and al Bashir have made promises one day only to break them the next. Currently, the GoS is playing games with the international community --  and, literally, with peoples’ lives – in regard to the “tripartite initiatives,” which would have allowed for the creation of a humanitarian corridor to provide humanitarian assistance to people affected by the crises in South Kordofan and Blue Nile areas. Sudan waffled over whether it would even sign onto the initiative (February-July 2012), and then when it signed a memorandum of understanding to implement the initiative within 90 days  (August 5, 2012), it allowed the period to elapse without any movement at all. Then, on November 3, 2012, Ahmed Haroun, the governor of South Kordofan, vowed “that no talks will be held with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) until the defeat of the rebel group” (Sudan Tribune). Days later, on November 6, 2012, Agence France-Presse reported that the GoS asserted that “There is no humanitarian crisis in the war-torn South Kordofan and Blue Nile States.” And then, a day later, the GoS blatantly lied that it had “fulfilled all its commitments toward the implementation of the [tripartite] initiative” (November 7, 2012).

That is not the entire story. What has not been mentioned is that the GoS and al Bashir got away with exactly the same murderous plan in the 1990s in the Nuba Mountains. And the impunity for the latter crimes swiftly dovetailed into the genocidal crisis in Darfur. As a result of the killings in Darfur, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant for al Bashir’s arrest on charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide and an arrest warrant for Haroun on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. What leads the U.S. government to continue to believe that the GoS and al Bashir will eventually, one of these years (not days or months, but years), honor an agreement, especially when it is aimed at helping their putative enemies (meaning, the civilians of the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile, including women, children and infants and the elderly)?

Year after year after year, diplomacy has been tried and yet the GoS continues to kill at will and thumb its nose at international law and the will of the international community. Talk has lorded it over action. It is time to act, and to act boldly. People are dying and it is untoward to be silent and passive in the face of such atrocities. Likewise, it is unconscionable to accept the status quo; more of the same by the U.S. and international community (i.e., talk, talk and more talk) is bound to result in more of the same by the GoS (i.e., broken promises, more destruction, more deaths, more heartbreak).

With all due respect, Envoy Lyman, for the last dozen years the GoS and al Bashir have been treating both the United States and the international community as fools: “a person [or entity] who has been tricked or deceived into appearing or acting stupid.” By all accounts, the GoS and al Bashir have hoodwinked and duped the U.S. and the international community time and again by issuing fatuous promises that the latter never intended to honor. One can almost hear the laughter of derision in the corridors of power in Khartoum as they celebrate yet another successful act of bamboozlement.

Sixth, word has it that a key, if not the main, reason why the United States has taken a kids-glove-like approach to the genocidal actions and serial ethnic cleansing by the GoS in such places as Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile is because Sudan is playing ball with the U.S. vis-à-vis America’s “war on terrorism.” Seemingly, the U.S. Government’s war on terrorism supercedes all other policies and promises, including the Obama Administration’s purported dedication to preventing crimes against humanity and genocide.

Rumors are also rife that an adjunct reason for the U.S. going easy on Sudan is that it (the U.S.) has drone bases dotting Sudan and wishes to retain them – if not at all costs then certainly at the cost of the lives of those residing in Sudan’s peripheries. Is that, in fact, the case?

In light of the above and the ongoing death and destruction in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile, we call on you  -- and we do so in full appreciation of the gravity of our request  --  to resign in protest over both Sudan’s habitual tendency to act in bad faith while murdering its own people and the totally inadequate response of the United States and the United Nations to the crises facing the people of the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile.

We believe it would be the honorable and heroic thing for you to do, and that such an action by an individual of your stature might finally prod the United States, if not the international community, to begin to deal with al Bashir and the GoS with the firm resolve that has been missing over the past dozen years. In the end, you, Envoy Lyman, could be instrumental in saving the lives of countless numbers of people in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile, all of whom undoubtedly cherish life as much as we (you, President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, and the signatories to this letter) do.

We must all ask ourselves: “When all of the bodies in the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile are buried, how will history judge us?”

We thank you in advance for your serious consideration of our concerns, questions and request. We look forward to receiving a written response from you.

Sincerely,

December 5, 2012

Dear Members of the Atrocities Prevention Board:

We (scholars of genocide studies and human rights activists) are vitally concerned about the ongoing crisis in the Nuba Mountains, Sudan. Since July 2011, the Government of Sudan (GoS) has carried out a scorched earth policy against the Nuba Mountains people. Using both aerial and ground attacks the GoS has, as it did in Darfur, not only attempted to quell the actions of the rebels active in the area but murdered innocent civilians (including children and infants), displaced between 200,000 and 300,000 people from their villages and homes, purposely destroyed the peoples’ farms thus leaving them bereft of food on which to exist, and prevented humanitarian aid from reaching those now seeking sanctuary in the mountains looming over their destroyed farms. As the rainy season has come to an end, the GoS is ramping up for a more concerted aerial and ground campaign against the Nuba Mountains people and those of the Blue Nile. Both the U.S. Government and the international community have largely stood by and watched this tragedy unfold.

We are well aware of U.S. Envoy Princeton Lyman’s varied diplomatic efforts and his attempts to reason with Khartoum. Unfortunately, though, his efforts have not sufficed and clear evidence of that is the fact that the attacks by the GoS have been relentless and more murderous as time has gone by. We are also cognizant of the fact that small quantities of surreptitious aid provided by the U.S. have been welcomed by people of the Nuba (although none reached the people of Blue Nile); but it provided only a very small fraction of what is needed.  The dry season has begun and it is once again possible to move food, medicine and other supplies on the ground, but without secure access, this improvement in transport conditions counts for little.

There is a point, we believe, when it should become self evident that the continuation of endless dialogue with a state that has engaged in serial crimes against humanity, genocidal-like actions, and ethnic cleansing and engaged in habitual denial of its responsibility and been a purveyor of deceit and broken promises, is total waste of time. As hundreds of thousands of innocents needlessly suffer, there is a moral imperative that the continual “diplomatic” talking, negotiating, pleading, and ultimately begging with leaders of such openly deceptive and destructive strategies must be replaced by concrete and effective action  -- action that stanches the killing and death due to mass starvation as a direct result of the destruction of farms and foodstuffs and the obstruction of humanitarian aid to those in need. That time, we believe, is now.

As you undoubtedly know, the time to address a crisis heading towards mass violence is early on; only in that way is it likely the crisis will be nipped in the bud. Unfortunately, that has not happened in the case of the Nuba Mountains. Some three months after the establishment of the Atrocities Prevention Board (APB), the GoS began bombing the Nuba Mountains and carrying out ground attacks, and those attacks quickly morphed into an even greater disaster: the dislocation of hundreds of thousands, a massive food crisis, and the ongoing destruction of farms, villages and the murder of even more people, which continues to this very day.

Presidential Study Directive 10 (August 4, 2011) states that “America's reputation suffers, and our ability to bring about change is constrained, when we are perceived as idle in the face of mass atrocities and genocide.” From our perspective that is exactly the situation we are now seeing vis-à-vis the Administration’s stance in regard to the atrocities, mass displacement, and mass hunger that the GoS has unleashed in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile.

In light of that, we wish to inquire as to whether the APB has addressed the dual crises in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile; and if so, how?

President Obama has stated that one of the results of the creation of the APB was that “Our diplomats will encourage more robust multilateral efforts to prevent and respond to atrocities.” Quite frankly, we are still waiting to see this happen in the case of the Nuba Mountains. To date, ineffective diplomacy has substituted for action and as a result the crisis in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile has not only gone on for 17 long months but is now on the verge of spiraling totally out of control. The GoS is not only bombing village after village but destroying farm after farm by burning them to the ground.

We understand that along with the APB the President has promised to establish “alert channels” that avail lower-level officials of the right to draw attention (or raise red flags) about potential or actual atrocities in areas of conflict. Have, in fact, the crises in South Kordofan and Blue Nile been the subject of such alerts?

In recent correspondence with U.S. Envoy to Sudan Princeton Lyman we were informed that since it was impossible for anyone to reach the Nuba Mountains due to the prohibitions of the GoS it was impossible to conduct a study into the percentage of people in the Nuba Mountains who are suffering from severe malnutrition and starvation or how many people have perished from starvation. Since a specific component of the APB is to “increase the collection and analysis of information relating to atrocity threats and situations,” would it not make sense to conduct an investigation in the refugee camps inside South Sudan? After all, thousands of people have been crossing the border from Sudan to South Sudan for months on end in flight from the terror inflicted on them by the GoS in both South Kordofan and Blue Nile. The point is, there is a solid sample of those who have been in the camps for a relatively long while versus those who have just arrived.

We also must ask: has the APB considered recommending that the U.S. Government prod the UN Security Council to issue a Chapter VII mandate in order to install a peace enforcement contingent in the South Kordofan and Blue Nile to attempt to halt the violence?

Also, has the APB suggested that the U.S. government, either alone or in conjunction with the international community, design and apply tougher sanctions on the GoS for the ongoing and serial murder of its own people, destruction of their villages and farms, and mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of innocent people?

If little to nothing concrete has been attempted or accomplished by the APB along the aforementioned lines, then we strongly urge that the APB immediately call an emergency session to examine how the U.S. Government could use the full range of instruments at hand  --   diplomatic, economic, humanitarian, and military –  that can be brought to bear on this, the latest, crisis in Sudan.

It is our ardent hope that the new approaches, “tools and expanded capabilities” developed by the U.S. Government for the express purpose of the prevention of atrocities will be implemented in order to prevent the current tragedies in South Kordofan and Blue Nile from expanding into the years-long and deadly affair that Darfur has become. Here, we are referring to, for example, the following, all of which were touted by the White House as approaches that the APB would implement: new kinds of targeted sanctions, financial levers, and getting truly tough on impunity. The latter is especially relevant in light of the fact that President Omar al Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide for the atrocities perpetrated in Darfur, and that the Governor of South Kordofan, Ahmed Haroun, is also wanted by the ICC on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes for atrocities committed in Darfur by the GoS.

As you might recall, when the Genocide Prevention Task Force report, in 2008,  called for creation of the Atrocities Prevention Board, it alluded to situations exactly along the lines of the current situation in the Nuba Mountain and Blue Nile regions of Sudan. Indeed, it was clearly stated that the express purpose of an agency such as the APB was to deal, in a decisive fashion, with such humanitarian emergencies in the face of the deep failures of US policy in recent years, especially the case of Rwanda.

We are counting on the APB to honor its charge to “ensure that key decision-makers receive early warning and hear dissenting views” in regard to potential or actual crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and genocide.  For well over a year now, we have written and submitted letters to Congress, the White House, State, and individual U.S. officials, and to date we’ve only received replies from Special Envoy Princeton Lyman. While we certainly appreciate his engaging with us, we believe he needs the full-fledge support of top decision makers with the Administration.

We believe it is absolutely critical for the APB and the Administration to address, openly with the rest of the U.S. Government and U.S. citizens, the fate of the people in Nuba Mountains (South Kordofan) and the Blue Nile. Indeed, we believe that silence is acquiescence and goes totally against the grain of President Obama’s declaration in April of this year that atrocity prevention is "a core national security interest and core moral responsibility,” and “a high priority for his Administration.” A lack of attention and action by the APB to these matters would go counter to its stated mission.

We thank you in advance for your serious consideration of our concerns expressed herein, and we await both your written response and your determined action.

Sincerely,