A Day I Will Always Remember

July 9^th 2011 is a day that the people of Sudan will remember forever. This day marks the first day of South Sudan’s independence. Years spent under the brutal authoritarian regime of President Omar Al-Bashir has left a deep scar on the ‘black’ Sudanese population. The country has been engulfed in civil war since 1955 and conflict has been characteristic of the Sudanese legacy for years before that. Since 1989 alone it is estimated that between 200,000 to 400,000 people have been killed and approximately 2.5 million have been displaced. Although the road to recovery can only be expected to be a long and trying one, July 9^th signals hope for a population that has been oppressed and ethnically targeted for decades.

                I had spent a great deal of time learning about the historical and present context of the country over the past two years, prior to my internship. Being in Uganda, and celebrating this day alongside many of those who had been exiled from Sudan because of their courageous dedication to human rights work, is something I will never forget.

                Interning with an organization that supports human rights defenders, we worked closely with Sudanese human rights defenders living in exile in Uganda. Meeting them and learning from them has been an exceptional experience.

                This day is not only a day of victory and freedom for Sudanese people; it is also a day which signals the achievements of the global human rights movement. Uniting across borders, the courageous individuals who often risk their lives fighting for the basic human rights which are, by law, entitled to each and every human being, should be equally celebrated. I know I have posted in this regard before within this blog but it cannot be stated enough or with enough emphasis.

                In the last two weeks of my internship I met a woman (who I will not name for security reasons) who had just arrived in Kampala. A human rights defender from an area which borders between North and South Sudan, her story will stay with me. To look at her perhaps you could not imagine that this woman had seen the things she had seen, done the work she had done and will likely continue to do. She witnessed the massacre of virtually her entire community. Walking hundreds of miles pushing a wheelbarrow that carried her elderly mother, to find refuge, only to be denied. She had to relocate her family and feared for their safety and her own.

                She is a remarkable woman. There are many others like her in the world. And they need to be celebrated with every gain that the human rights movement makes. No matter how big or how small, how obvious or seemingly meaningless.

                However, her story has a special place in this blog posting. As many people prepared for a brighter future in South Sudan, this woman, her family, her village, her community and many more like it, may not see Sudan’s seccession with the same optimism.

                The conflict in Sudan has been a war waged between Arabic-Sudanese and African-Sudanese. The large population of Sudanese who consider themselves to be of Arabic decent, have terrorised the ‘African’ or ‘black’ Sudanese population for nearly a century. With the coupe which saw the rise of Al-Bashir to Presidency in 1989, a systematic ethnic cleansing, which Bashir is currently facing charges on at the International Criminal Court, has been deemed genocide. So while the South, which does indeed hold a concentration of ‘African’ Sudanese, can celebrate this day of independence as a sign of a new direction for their people, the reality is that there are thousands of ‘African’ Sudanese who are still geographically and politically controlled by the Northern government.

                So I say here, I will forever remember this day as a great signal for a better brighter tomorrow. But I use caution. And I encourage everyone to continue to make yourself aware of the situation in Sudan. I worry that the Secession will confuse the international community into thinking that the conflict in Sudan is over. It is not. Even since independence, the Blue Nile State and South Kordofan regions have been the target of aggressive attacks between the armed forces of both the North and the South. People are still being murdered. Homes are being destroyed. And a great deal of this tension is over resource control.

                Drawing of abstract borders and political statements do not stop conflicts. There needs to be a great deal of attention given to overseeing the situation in Sudan and I hope that the international community will not turn another ‘blind eye’.