U.S. downplays concerns as Libya’s post-Gadhafi rulers call for Islamic law

A cell phone photo of Moammar Gadhafi in Sirte Oct. 20, 2011. (Philippe Desmazes/Global Post)

By Laura Rozen | The Envoy

The Obama administration and European allies congratulated the Libyan people as Libya’s interim rulers declared formal victory in their nine-month struggle against the recently killed strongman Moammer Gadhafi on Sunday.

Still, underneath the surface festivities, it seems that some forces aligned with Libya’s interim leaders may be mimicking brutal aspects of the unmourned Gadhafi’s repressive style, even as they seek to distance themselves from his legacy.

Investigators with the international human rights advocacy group Human Rights Watch reported Monday that they had discovered the dead bodies of 53 Gadhafi supporters apparently executed with their hands tied behind their backs at an abandoned hotel in Gadhafi’s hometown of Sirte.

Meanwhile, Global Post reported that its analysis of video images of Gadhafi taken before his execution last Thursday apparently shows him being sodomized by a member of Libyan National Transition Council forces wielding a weapon.

The allegation came as the bodies of Gadhafi and his son Mo’tassim were put on public display in a cold storage facility for two days in the Libyan city of Misrata.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton–who on a visit earlier last week to Libya expressed the wish that Gadhafi be captured or killed–said on the Sunday talk shows that it would be appropriate for Libyan authorities to pursue an investigation of Gadhafi’s death.

Libya’s interim rulers took up the suggestion on Monday, saying they would proceed with such an investigation, the New York Times reported.

“In response to international calls, we have started to put in place a commission tasked with investigating the circumstances of Muammar Qaddafi’s death in the clash with his circle as he was being captured,” Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, chairman of the National Transition Council, told journalists in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi Monday, the Times’ Adam Nossiter and Rick Gladstone reported.

But past such pledges–to investigate, for instance, how the Libyan rebels’ military commander Abdel Fattah Younes was assassinated in July,  apparently at the hands of one Islamist militant rebel faction–have so far gone nowhere.

In the meantime, Western officials got another stiff reminder Sunday that Libya’s victorious rebels plan to steer the country toward greater public observance of Islam.  Libya’s interim leader Abdul-Jalil pledged at Sunday’s festivities commemorating the successful struggle to topple Gadhafi that Islamic Sharia law would be the basis of the new government.

“We are an Islamic country,” Abdul-Jalil told crowds celebrating in Benghazi Sunday, the Times reported. “We take the Islamic religion as the core of our new government. The constitution will be based on our Islamic religion.”

Abdul-Jalil promised that “Islamic banks would be established in the new Libya,” the Times’ Nossiter and Kareem Fahim reported. “He also talked of lifting restrictions on the number of women Libyan men can marry.”

His comments “reflected not only the chairman’s personal religious conservatism and the country’s, but also the rising influence of Islamists among the former rebels,” Nossiter and Fahim wrote. “The Islamists, who include some influential militia commanders, have warned that they will not permit their secular counterparts in a new government to sideline them.”

“Any law that violates sharia is null and void legally,” Abdul-Jalil said, according to Agence France Press’s Simon Martelli, who added that the NTC leader specifically referenced plans to void Gadhafi’s former ban on polygamy. “The law of divorce and marriage . . . . This law is contrary to sharia and it is stopped.”

Abdul-Jalil’s pronouncements are already provoking sharp rebukes from feminists and teir progressive-minded sympathizers  in LIbya. “It’s shocking and insulting to state, after thousands of Libyans have paid for freedom with their lives, that the priority of the new leadership is to allow men to marry in secret,” a Libyan feminist who gave only her first name Rim told the AFP’s Martelli. “We did not slay Goliath so that we now live under the Inquisition.”

The specter of Islamist rule is provoking “feelings of pain and bitterness among women who sacrificed so many martyrs,” Adelrahman al-Shatr, a Libyan opposition politician, told the AFP. “By abolishing the marriage law, women lose the right to keep the family home if they divorce. It is a disaster for Libyan women.”

Former American officials who have worked in the North African nation tend to downplay concerns that Libya’s post-Gadhafi rulers plan to institute extreme, Taliban-style restrictions on expression, women’s dress code and behavior, stressing that there’s a broad range of interpretations of Islamic law. They also contend that Libya which under Gadhafi had made cultural strides toward secular modernity, is not fertile recruiting ground for Islamist extremism.

But Abdul-Jalil’s pronouncements Sunday indicate a continuing struggle for influence between Islamist militant and more secular factions of Libya’s anti-Gadhafi forces.

And documents found in Gadhafi’s seized intelligence ministry in August support previous reporting that showed the CIA was long concerned about al-Qaida links to factions of anti-Gadhafi militants, including the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. Indeed, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, a top anti-Gadhafi rebel who has become a leading figure in the post-Gadhafi leadership in Tripoli, told reporters in September that he was arrested in Thailand in 2004, tortured under interrogation by the CIA, before he was rendered back to Gadhafi’s Libya. (Belhaj strongly denied any allegiance to al-Qaida or Osama bin Laden.) U.S. officials have also acknowledged concerns about the possibility that Gadhafi’s huge stockpile of surface-to-air missiles and other weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists, including al Qaida’s north African affiliate, al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, which has been active in Libya.

In the short term, however, the United States, like much of the rest of the world, is focusing mainly on Libya’s achievement in toppling a long-ruling dictator–with the assistance of NATO air-power. “On behalf of the American people, I congratulate the people of Libya on today’s historic declaration of liberation,” President Obama said in a statement Sunday.  “After four decades of brutal dictatorship and eight months of deadly conflict, the Libyan people can now celebrate their freedom and the beginning of a new era of promise.” Libya’s transition authorities must now turn “their attention to the political transition ahead,” he urged.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/envoy/u-downplays-concerns-libya-post-gadhafi-rulers-call-182959670.html

Graphic pictures mark coverage of Gadhafi death

By DAVID BAUDER – AP Television Writer | AP – Fri, Oct 21, 2011

• This video frame grab image taken from Libyan TV, purports to show former Libyan …

NEW YORK (AP) — An opposition figure provided Al Jazeera with cellphone video of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s violent death on Thursday, testing media organizations around the world on their capacity for showing gruesome pictures.

In the first shaky video viewers saw, Gadhafi was on the ground bloodied, either dead or near death. Other video and even more graphic still pictures emerged throughout the day. One of the most chilling images from the Al Arabiya network depicted a bloody and dazed Gadhafi walking toward a car, then shouting as he struggled with revolutionary fighters; it wasn’t clear how quickly he died after that scene.

Al Jazeera showed its video at 8:46 a.m. EDT on Thursday and it was swiftly picked up by other organizations before official word came that the longtime dictator was dead.

“It’s pretty chilling video when you think of it — that they got him alive and now he’s dead,” CNN’s Wolf Blitzer said.

Al Jazeera obtained and aired the video nearly two hours after reporting that Gadhafi was dead, network spokesman Osama Saeed said. It was obtained by Al Jazeera reporter Tony Birtley in Sirte, Libya.

“It was nothing more complicated than a lot of people running around and he was there,” Saeed said. “People were wanting to give footage to reporters.”

Producers at Al Jazeera were confident that the video depicted Gadhafi primarily because Al Jazeera had already reported from multiple sources that he had been killed, he said.

Before showing video footage, The Associated Press first ran still images taken from the Al Jazeera video, its editors confident of the veracity of the images because AP editors had carefully examined the full video, spokesman Paul Colford said. The ease with which photos can be doctored has made news organizations careful about distributing images.

The AP also provided its members with video obtained from Arab television networks and the AP’s own sources.

The Al Jazeera video was used quickly on U.S. cable news networks CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC. Al Jazeera had no problem with others running their video, as long as credit was given, Saeed said. Some rivals asked for permission, others didn’t, he said.

Broadcast networks also used the video in special reports on Gadhafi’s death that interrupted daytime programming. ABC did not air video until a short special report with President Obama’s statement shortly after 2 p.m. EDT. ABC later preceded the Gadhafi pictures with a warning from anchor George Stephanopolous: “I warn you that it is graphic and gruesome.”

Despite the content, “these images are the very definition of news,” Jeffrey Schneider, ABC News spokesman, said.

NBC similarly aired video of Gadhafi being led to a vehicle and then briefly showed his corpse in a special report. Network officials carefully vetted the material for appropriateness, David McCormick, NBC News vice president for standards, said.

“We want to give our audience the most accurate reports possible without crossing a line into offensive or unnecessarily graphic material,” he said. “We feel the footage that has aired has met those boundaries, and we’re constantly in touch with producers about what is and is not acceptable.”

Still, the presence of the pictures ignited a debate among news consumers about how much of Gadhafi’s final moments should be shown.

“It’s enough to know the world is rid of a brutal, oppressive dictator,” said Carlos Galindo-Elvira, an executive at a nonprofit agency in Phoenix. “The Libyan people can now move forward. The world is not made into a better place by displaying the graphic photos of his demise.”

Bradley McRoberts, a college student from New Haven, Conn., said that if the news media didn’t use the pictures, they would be censoring history.

“We must always err on the side of openness in journalism, even in times when the images are grotesque,” McRoberts said. “Understandably, there should be a warning presented before these images or videos are shown. If someone chooses not to look, that is their choice. It should not be the decision of the news organization.”

Many websites that prominently carried the news gave viewers a choice about whether they wanted to see images or not. At the top of The New York Times’ website, there was a slide show that began with a picture of a revolutionary fighter outside the drain pipe where Gadhafi apparently hid. A visitor needed to click through a series of nine celebratory shots and archive photos of Gadhafi before reaching a black slide with the warning: “The following is a graphic image said to show Colonel Gadhafi’s corpse.” Another click was required to see a picture of the Libyan leader, his eyes closed, and face and fatigues bloodied.

The home page for MSNBC’s website carried four pictures, none showing Gadhafi’s body, but visitors were provided a link to graphic video. A BBC slide show offered three file photos of Gadhafi alive and two of Libyans celebrating his death.

However, viewers who went to Al Arabiya’s website were met first with a large picture of a dead Gadhafi’s face contorted and bloodied. It then switched to another bloody photo without a visitor needing to do anything but watch.

The AP received an email from medical student Amin Demerdash from Cairo, Egypt, with a simple message: “Stop it. We have seen enough already.”

Meanwhile, there was some tension between American journalists and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was in Pakistan on Thursday after visiting Tripoli, Libya, earlier in the week.

During its coverage of Gadhafi’s death, some American networks aired footage of Clinton that had been shot during breaks in a series of interviews she gave to TV reporters traveling with her in Pakistan. Clinton was handed a Blackberry during one break to read news of Gadhafi’s reported capture, and she said, “Wow.” She quickly noted that the report was unconfirmed and there had been similar reports in the past that had turned out to be false.

CBS News’ website ran a different clip of Clinton, before another interview began, in which she was apparently joking about the story. “We came, we saw, he died,” she said, laughing.

Philippe Reines, an aide to Clinton, said he had complained to the traveling network representatives that filming Clinton in between the interviews was a breach of protocol. They wouldn’t show her applying makeup before an interview, for example, even if cameras were set up.

“I think it’s outside the bounds of the relationships we have with our traveling press corps,” he said.

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NBC and MSNBC are controlled by Comcast Corp.; CNN is a unit of Time Warner Inc.; Fox is owned by News Corp.; ABC is a unit of The Walt Disney Co.; CBS is a subsidiary of CBS Corp.

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AP National Security Writer Mathew Lee contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/graphic-pictures-mark-coverage-gadhafi-death-222122899.html

National Anthem Composing Team chairperson appears in court

The Chairperson of the technical team that was tasked with the writing of the national anthem has appeared in the South Sudan Supreme Court to answer charges of misappropriation of funds.
Samuel Mido appeared in court Wednesday accused of misuse of funds, operating an office without consulting the team, and failing to organize and attend meetings.
Mido was dragged to court by his deputy, Edison Arkanjiro, who also told court that the accused embezzled 55,000 South Sudanese pounds.
Mido pleaded guilty to the charges.
Court ruled that the accused should return the money to the national anthem composing team and also advised the aggrieved team members to settle the rest of the issues out of court.

Dr. Lam is not a prodigal, but a vigilant son of RSS.

By. Dr. Peter Adwok Otto.

The opinion of Paan Luel Wel from Washington DC, on 11 October 2011 that was posted in Gurtong website, bearing sugar-coated skepticism with an aroma of ethnic hatred for Dr. Lam filtering through his analysis on the meeting of H.E. Salva Kiir the president of RSS and Dr. Lam Akol the chairman of SPLM-DC in Nairobi Kenya on 28/9/2011 is quite contestable in some parts, as it is full of hypothesizing, misinformation and instigative material posing political assassination on the personality of Dr. Lam. Thus it can never be reflected that the author is neutral offering a scientific scrutiny of the status quo as the political history of the SPLM-DC Chairman is at palisade.

The author’s first theory "Politics is usually more about pre-conceived perceptions, not facts;"

Is seemingly true in the third world, However, that "and there lie the downfall of Dr. Lam. It will take lot of effort and time to undo the damage, if ever it will be feasible", Is his own concoction to tally with his inner craving.

The author will benefit from this lecture if he is not opinionated about the supremacy of Dinka. South Sudan during the 1970s and early 1980s was known for unfailing democracy that was described as "Westminster Democracy" which saw the rise and fall of Abel Alier through the poles. Rise and fall General Lagu through the poles, rise and fall Thumbura through the poles. The elections in the south in the last century had no tribal tinge as the author emotionally wants us to belief. There is no Anti-Dinka or Anti-Nuer or things of the sort. There is anti-corruption, anti-mismanagement unlike the sentiments the author entertains. Therefore, there will never come a time when the whole Dinka tribe of the RSS shall rally behind their tribe man in an election, because in the corruption and the bad governance practiced, not all the Dinka are involved or will benefit from the spoils. But there are true sons and daughters of the south who are Dinka that will not condone corruption. This is true for all the tribes. This theory, it’s rightful place is the dustbin. But after all where does the author comes up with the idea of a small tribe? You think Collo is smaller than the Azande and Madi of RSS? It is the essence not the number that will matter. Your early elections propaganda would do well if it deploys tools other than tribal galvanization. One more reminder is, if the author never learnt about the faked April elections, it will be quite unfortunate as the whole world knows what happened.

The author relishes in chastening one of the people he can not matched "Moreover, in spite of his sharp mind, critics argue that Dr. Lam was a poor military strategist when he was posted to the frontlines He was almost captured by the Arabs when he was a zonal commander". The fact that he was not captured is a success story of military strategy, especially when your army is mainly composed of deserters and imprisoned soldiers. His capture would have embarrassed SPLA that he did not allow. The propaganda of enemies never worry strong leaders, rather the silence of friends do.

" Contrast that with Dr. Machar who, it is said, almost captured the current president of Sudan, Omar Bashir".

If Machar captured Omar El Bashir, it would have been a credit for the SPLM/A. One wonders why Machar did not?, Was he not a good military strategist? Wishful thinking never matter on the ground, idle people keep telling stories to gather people around them, without heeding real things in life.

Why don’t you conduct an opinion poll today and see the result. The fact is that most southerners stay in their ethnic confinements and can hardly know the opinion of others or intentionally sensor them. Many southerners contrary to the opinion of the author believe that the 1991 split in SPLM/A was a blessing in disguise for these reasons (1) It stopped the wanton killing of southern leaders in cold blood e.g. Benjamin Bol Akok, Martin Majer,Joseph,Malth,Joseph Oduho and the list goes on.(2) It brought democratic transformation to the SPLM crowned by first ever party convention in Chukudum in 1994. (3) It brought about the Self-determination into the political vocabulary in the Sudan and enshrined it in the constitution put to experiment by Khartoum-Fashoda peace agreements that became the pillars of Naivasha in 2005. Thus lamenting over the spilled milk never matters. But after all, split in liberation movements is a common place e.g. ANC in South, ZAPU in Zimbabwe, SWAPO vs SWANU in Namibia, FRELIMO vs COREMO in Mozambique, MPLA vs GRAE and UNITA in Angola, this makes split in south Sudan no different or special.

As for senior members defecting from SPLM-DC, there were people joining the SPLM-DC. by the time Eng. Charles defected(they were only 4), 17 people some members of SPLM Liberation Council defected to SPLM-DC. When Sandra B.Malual defected with tow others, Four joined SPLM-DC in Junglei State, it is the political dynamism which can not be controlled by any official in a party. However, each and every member will give reasons either true or false. Many parties in the south had splintered let alone the defections. The SPLM had split into SPLM-Torit and Nasir, SPLM and SPLM-DC, UDSF etc. But 347 had quit the SPLM and ran elections as independents. This is political dynamism which will only be combated with more and more democracy.

In conclusion, in this hustled confusion, we hue out a piece of hope for our new RSS. Thus coming together of the President of RSS with Dr.Lam Akol should be viewed affirmative not otherwise. For most skeptics, the drive is parochial interest.

__._,_.___

Yasir Arman Condemns Silence of International Community

Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement- North

The Office of The Secretary General

Press Release:

· For all its Marshalling of hordes of Mercenaries, the NCP forces suffer huge losses in the Battle for Salei, Blue Nile.

· Arman Condemns the Inaction of the International Community while the NCP Continues to Commit Grievous crimes Against its Peoples with Impunity.

In spite of the National Congress Party’s (NCP) deployment of huge numbers of mercenaries (mainly Janjaweed) in its fateful operation in Blue Nile, on Thursday 20th October, they have suffered heavy losses at hands of SPLM-N forces in both men and armouries. The assorted forces of the regime left behind 85 dead, among them 6 senior officers; and a further 1211 injured, including 5 officers. In addition to 2 downed helicopter gunships, further 6 tanks and a large number of military vehicles were also destroyed.

The NCP military has been, of late, actively engaged in recruiting Janjaweed militias- mostly non-Sudanese- from North and West Africa, particularly Niger. The airports of Al-Geneinah and Nyala, Darfur, recently witnessed a flurry of flights transporting mercenaries to Damazin.

A military expert commented that considering the size of forces amassed by the NCP and bolstered by the Janjaweed and foreign fighters, the SPLM-N have achieved an epic victory in repelling them in the battle for Salei. This fact has been indirectly admitted by the official spokesperson of NCP army, who described battles in Blue Nile that continued for 12 hours- though in truth the fighting lasted for more than14 hours.

The SPLM-N fought the battle of Salei under the command of the SPLM-N chairman, Lt. General Malik Agar, the elected and legitimate governor of Blue Nile State,

Yasir Arman, Secretary General of SPLM-N, said: ‘the NCP is replicating the Darfur experience and the crimes committed there in Blue Nile State’. He strongly condemned the International Community’s inaction in the face of clear-cut evidence from impeccably independent sources, that war crimes (religious and ethnic-cleansing, targeting of civilians and the withholding of food

from IDP’s) are committed by the regime. He further deplored world silence towards the regime’s rejection of proposals of opening safe corridors to deliver humanitarian aid to the needy, and its airforce’s systematic targeting of civilian areas and civilian infrastructure- e.g. the bombing of the water supply tower in Kurmuk.

Arman, added that the NCP leadership have achieved a new qualitative leap in prosecuting its war by employing mercenaries from abroad, thereby unpicking and tearing apart the social fabric and inherited social ties that played vital role in constituting contemporary Sudanese society and state. The Blue Nile area was the seedbed of one of the first Sudanic Islamic kingdoms. It was founded on an alliance between two Sudanese kings, Amara Dungus and Abdallah Jamaa; an epoch-making pact that ruled over central Sudan unchallenged for more that 3 centuries (AD 1504- AD 1821), until the Turkish Ottoman conquest by Mohammed Ali in 1821. As a result, the area of Blue Nile had been a model of Christian-Muslim amity among its peoples who professed either of the two great Abrahamic faiths.

The NCP leadership is currently engaged in destroying that humane inheritance in the name of Islam. Human conscience must recoil in horror at the crimes now committed by these habitual war criminals- though, properly indicted by the International Community, and yet allowed to go on undeterred killing more of their peoples with impunity,

Arman calls on the international community to pay heed to widespread human rights violations now taking place in North Sudan: from Darfur to Damazin, and from Damazin to Kassala- where the Security Police barbarously put-down civil peaceful protests.

The Secretary General, noted that those who wish good neighbourly relations between North and South Sudan while the NCP regime remains in power, are akin to the ‘Vichyste’ who hoped for entente between France while Hitler was in power in Germany; or appeasers who thought Italy could be entrusted with good neighbourliness during WWII when Mussolini ruled there. Those who wage war against their own peoples will not balk at aggression against others.

Yasir Arman, concluded that the Sudanese people will stand up to the NCP autocracy and will replace with a new regime based on peaceful co-existence with its neighbours and for bread and liberty for all its peoples.

The Office of Secretary General

22nd October, 2011

The Wedding of President Kiir ‘s daughter to Ethiopian Man

South Sudan’s first daughter Adut’s wedding in pictures
New Sudan Vision
(Juba, South Sudan NSV) – President Kiir’s oldest daughter, Adut, was handed over in marriage on Saturday, in a church ceremony attended by almost the entire cabinet for South Sudan. Hundreds of South Sudanese, government ministers and dignitaries …
http://www.newsudanvision.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2470:south-sudans-first-daughter-aduts-wedding-in-pictures&catid=1:sudan-news-stories&Itemid=6

Pres. Kiir walks with Adut inside the Rejaf Cathederal church on Saturday, October 22, 2011. Photos by Mading Ngor/The New Sudan Vision. 

Nardes and Adut at the marriage ceremony…

Nardes and Adut display marriage certifate at the Rejaf Cathederal…

Salva Mathok, Deputy Minister of Interior, Pres. Salva Kiir, and first lady Ayen Mayardit at the church ceremony..

Kiir stands with Nardes and Adut, after the wedding ceremony…

Salva Mathok, Deputy Minister of Interior, Pres. Salva Kiir, and first lady Ayen Mayardit at the church ceremony..

Nardes and Adut at the church…

Adut and Nardes

A girl holds a flower at the wedding ceremony…

Rejaf Catheral receives guests at the church 

Spectators…

Angelina Teny and Vice President Machar at the wedding ceremony in Rejaf

Hon. Riiny Thiik (left) and Gier Chuang, Minister of Roads and Transport (Red tie) at the church 

Group of women dancers outside the Rejaf Saints Catheral…

Choir at the wedding ceremony…

Hon. Aldo Ajou and Molana Abel Alier (Centre) at the wedding ceremony…

Minister of Interior, RSS, Manani Magaya (Centre), and Hon. Awet Akot, Deputy Speaker of National Legislature.

A spectator at the church…

Nhial Deng, Minister of Foreign Affairs, RSS, and Jonglei Gov. Kuol Manyang Juuk at the church ceremony….

Dr. Cirino Hiteng (right) at the wedding ceremony…

Minister of Higher Education, Adwok Nyaba, and Michael Makuei, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs at the ceremony..

Hon. Bari Wanji, Acting Chairperson, Economic and Finance Committee, National Legislature…

Angelina Teny, wife of Vice President and First Lady Ayen Mayardit, shake hands at the State House on Saturday as President looks on…

Gov. Kuol Manyang, and Hilde Johnson, UN special representative for South Sudan at the wedding reception at state house…

Elijah Malok, Former Governor of the Bank of South Sudan, with his wife Asunta, at the wedding ceremony…

Dr. James Okuk Arrested: South Sudan opposition protests “targeted” arrest of its members
Sudan Tribune
By Ngor Arol Garang October 23, 2011 (JUBA) – A major South Sudanese opposition party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement for Democratic Change (SPLM-DC) on Sunday protested against the “targeted” arrest of its members. Onyoti Adigo, leader of the …

SOUTH SUDAN: New nation’s PS a ‘shambles’

A campaign to find around 65 per cent of South Sudan’s Public Servants believed to have falsified their educational qualifications and other credentials has begun.
According to the Deputy Minister for Information, Atem Yaak Atem Atem, it appeared that many Public Servants may have won their jobs through family connections, while others had presented forged documents claiming false educational credentials.
Mr Atem said as a result, the public sector in the newly-formed country was in a shambles.
“There are a lot of people with so-called degrees that haven’t even completed high school,” Mr Atem said.
“Some of us will go to extra lengths and send an e-mail to the institutions in question, and if the answer is no, the next thing is to prosecute that person, because this is fraud.”
South Sudan plans to spend about 42 per cent of its almost $2 billion Budget this year on salaries, while President Salva Kiir has vowed to fight corruption and increase transparency.
The Ministry of Labour and Public Service found 21 of its senior staff members held forged academic documents, Mr Atem said.
“I have a feeling that throughout the Departments they could be in the thousands,” he said.
“For this job I think I will need a bodyguard. Some people will be very angry if we take drastic measures.”
Government Ministries received a letter last week ordering them to begin the screening process.
The Government has announced monthly cash limits for spending Agencies and further steps, effective from next month, include controls over payments to vendors and the signing of Government contracts.

Church Faces Increasing Hostility in Sudan

Constructing worship buildings more difficult since secession of South Sudan.

By Compass Direct News

KHARTOUM, Sudan – Emboldened by government calls for a Sudan based on Islamic law since the secession of South Sudan, Muslims long opposed to a church near Khartoum have attacked Christians trying to finish constructing their building, sources said.

The Sudanese Church of Christ (SCOC) congregation in Omdurman West, across the Nile River from Khartoum, has continued to meet for Sunday worship in a building without a roof in spite of opposition from area Muslims and local authorities, the sources told Compass. Claiming that Christianity was no longer an accepted religion in the country, Muslims in the Hay al Sawra, Block 29 area of Omdurman West on Aug. 5 attacked SCOC members who were constructing the church building, the sources said.

“We do not want any presence of churches in our area,” shouted members of the mob as they threw stones at the Christians, the sources said.

Muslims in the north, where an estimated 1 million Christians still live following the secession of South Sudan on July 9, fear the potential influence of the church, they said.

“They want to reduce or restrict the number of churches, so that they can put more pressure on believers,” said a church leader on condition of anonymity.

The SCOC has been trying to erect a church building on the site since it obtained the land in 1997, but both government officials and area Muslim residents have used delay tactics to prevent it, according to a Christian who lives in the area. The SCOC in that area of Omdurman is still trying to get permission from the Islamic government in Khartoum to construct the new church building, Christian sources in Khartoum said.

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Muslims and local “popular committees” – responsible for issuing residence certificates necessary for obtaining citizenship or an ID card, with authority to strike down proposals for erecting church buildings – assert that no church is necessary because there are no Christians there. But there are many Christians living in the area, sources said.

The government-appointed members of the popular committees tend to consist of radical Muslims who monitor Christian activities in neighborhoods so they can report them to security authorities, Christian sources told Compass. Previously, area Christians were upset to learn that the popular committees had divided another piece of land they hoped to obtain into two lots – one designated for a mosque, and the other for a Muslim school, sources said.

“We have already raised our objection over the way we are being treated in regards to obtaining permission to build this church,” said a church leader who wished to remain unnamed.

The church had filed a complaint with the Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowments, which last month informed the SCOC that officials will investigate the matter, though they gave no time frame.

Meantime, the congregation finds that rain or whirling dust makes worship difficult, members said.

“I think we have much experience in how difficult it is to obtain permission for new church buildings in this country,” said a Christian leader who requested anonymity.

All religious groups must obtain permits from the Ministry of Guidance and Social Endowments, the state ministry of construction and planning and the local planning office before constructing new houses of worship, according to the U.S. Department of State’s 2010 International Religious Freedom Report.

Earlier this month, Sudan President Omar al-Bashir again asserted that the government has decided that Sudan will have a strictly Islamic identity. Al-Bashir, wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in Darfur, made the statement to leaders of his party in Khartoum on Oct. 12.

Last December, one month before South Sudan’s vote for independence, Al-Bashir declared that if the south seceded as expected, Sudan would amend its constitution to make sharia (Islamic law) the only source of law and Arabic the official language.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/church-faces-increasing-hostility-in-sudan-59159/

Colonel Mu’ammar Al-Gadhafi, The SPLM/A and Pan-Africanism

Let the free people of the world know that we could have bargained over and sold out our cause in return for a personal secure and stable life. We received many offers to this effect but we chose to be at the vanguard of the confrontation as a badge of duty and honor.Even if we do not win immediately, we will give a lesson to future generations that choosing to protect the nation is an honor and selling it out is the greatest betrayal that history will remember forever despite the attempts of the others to tell you otherwise.—Colonel Muammar Gadhafi of Libya in his “Last Will” as published by the BBC.

By PaanLuel Wel, Washington DC, USA.

For the record, I don’t consider myself a staunch supporter or a sworn critic of Muammar Gadhafi of Libya. Personally, I do conceive a bigger problem—a malignant symptom of an underlying problem ailing Africa—in dictators across the continent rather than an individualized and personalized problem that can be solved, once-and-for-all, by publicly parading them in a kangaroo court of law (Mubarak of Egypt), forcing them into exiled (Ben Ali of Tunisia), or unleashing tribalized-mob justice by summarily executing them (Al-Gaddafi of Libya).

As I have once argued in one of my article “Making Sense of Mubarak’s Mega-trial: Will Africa Learn Anything From It?” Africa’s poor leadership and dictatorship is a direct byproduct of the society that produces such kind of leaders. As long as the African society remain as it is (and there is no slightest indication it won’t) it will continue prolifically producing all sorts of Mubaraks, Ben Alis, Al-Gadhafis, Mugabes, Musevenis, name them! Killing, exiling, humiliating, or court marshalling them won’t make a dent on the surface of the underlying tumor. Look at Egypt today and you would understand what I am talking about. What change (s) has that historic Tahrir Square Uprising brought to the Egyptian people?

That, and the history of South Sudanese struggle against oppression and political domination wherein Al-Gahdafi was more than a monster, is the reason I was strongly taken aback to see The Standard Media, one of the Kenyan leading newspapers, carrying a cartoon entitled “end of an error” on Friday to mark the brutal passing of Colonel Muammar Gadhafi of Libya.

That Al-Gadhafi’s 42-year reign had been notorious is incontestable. In the heydays of what he himself once acknowledged as “our revolutionary blood was young and hot,” Libya under Al-Gadhafi became a state sponsor of terror. On the international front, Libyan agents were accused by the West of bombing “La Belle” nightclub in West Berlin and for placing a bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 that brought it down. He expelled all the Jews from Libya though his grandmother is rumored to have been a Jew, technically making Al-Gadhafi a Jew himself according to the rule of “who is a Jew” which follow maternal lineage. When Palestinians agreed to make peace with the state of Israel, he also expelled them from Libya.

Regionally, Libya fought bitters wars with Egypt and Chad and had sustained squabbling with numerous other neighbors, some of whom planned assassinations and counter-assassinations against the “brotherly leader.” Within Libya, secret police and spies used terror to quell and crush internal dissents resulting in the death of many innocent people. Daringly, Al-Gaddafi used his state agents to hunt and track down his political opponents in foreign countries like Europe and the US. And to put the ice on the cake, he would announce both the intended missions and any subsequent successes on state television!

So a menace was Al-Gadhafi regime to the West that President Reagan of the USA was not only compelled to bombard Tripoli killing over hundred people, including Al-Gadhafi young daughter, but also to brand him as the “mad-dog” of the Middle East. It is believed that Al-Gadhafi retaliated by bringing down US plane over Lockerbie, killing over two hundred passengers. The West swiftly responded with crippling sanctions that saw Al-Gadhafi confined to the periphery of international affairs, making Libya an international pariah state. The sanctions on Libyan oil and gas saw the deterioration of the economy leading to a considerable amount of economic constraints and poverty.

It was not until Gadhafi renounced terrorism, gave up his right to acquire nuclear and biological weapons, accept responsibilities for the Lockerbie bombing and agreed to monetary compensation for the victims that the West finally lifted sanctions and welcomed back Libya into the league of nations. That rapprochements was smoothly progressing well and Al-Gadhafi was afforded red-carpet welcomes in the European capitals till the Arab Spring exploded in Tunisia; an event that culminated in his brutal summarily execution this week in his hometown of Sirte.

That Al-Gadhafi distinguished himself among his fellow ruthless African dictators is beyond doubt. What is questionable though is the ostensibly concerted attempt to characterize his entire 42-year rule as “end of an error” without full account of his other endeavors in Libya as well as across the continent of Africa. That is a travesty of justice and fairness to say the least!

Take, for example, the case for South Sudanese liberation struggle. Although the Israelis and the Christian missionaries had helped organized, trained, armed and sustained the Anya-Anya One movement, it was Al-Gadhafi who offered the first substantial military assistances to both the Anya-Nya Two movement and the SPLM/A.

Anya-Nya Two movement was formed on 20 February 1977 by the remnants of the 1975 Akobo Uprising. Based in Bilpam, Ethiopia, the movement was led by Lieutenant Vincent Kuany and his deputy Corporal James Bol Kur. In his book “Sudan’s Painful Road to Peace” Arop Madut has this to say about the kind of support that Colonel Muammar Gadhafi gave to the Anya-Nya Two movement:

“The Anya-Nya Two…visited Libya to seek some military help. Although Al-Gadhafi did give them some assistance, he was, however, disappointed with the Anya-Nya Two movement’s poor leadership quality. In Gadhafi’s calculation, the Anya-Nya Two was not in a position to withstand nor inflict a deadly blow on Nimeiri’s regime” (pg 91).

But if Al-Gadhafi had no faith in Anya-Nya Two’s ability to take on the Nimeiri regime in 1977, he didn’t have to wait for too long before the well-organized and better-leadered SPLM/A emerged in 1983. Just like the Anya-Nya Two movement, the SPLM/A was housed in Ethiopia and it was again Libya under Colonel Muammar Gadhafi that they had to turn to for military assistance. In the same book, Arop Madut wrote this to illustrate the kind of reception that SPLM/A received from Gadhafi:

“Soon after the launch of the SPLM/A, Dr. John Garang de Mabior, the SPLA leader, was invited by Gadhafi to visit Tripoli. After the SPLM’s delegation visited Tripoli and proved to be a strong movement founded and organized parallel to the Libyan system, Al-Gadhafi immediately embraced them as true allies. Gadhafi hoped that they would be the one to inflict a deadly blow on Nimeiri’s regime” (pg 91).

Furthermore, Dr. John Garang, the former SPLM/A leader, in his 1987 interview with Arop Madut, had this to say about the kind of helps they secured from Al-Gadhafi:

“We reached a good understanding with Gadhafi and so he gave us lots of arms and ammunition, including anti-aircraft missiles….so, we stockpiled a lot of arms and ammunitions. Having received these arms, we became very strong and began overrunning enemy camps; making ambushes and virtually annihilating military convoys and taking over all of their equipment” (pg 90).

Of course, Al-Gadhafi’s help was not procured on pure humanitarian ground: he had a political score to settle with President Nimeiri and the SPLM/A were counting on the wisdom that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” indeed. It is the same principle informing the working relationship between NATO and the Libyan Rebels: nothing in common other than Al-Gadhafi who is ideal “enemy of my enemy” to both parties. Those ‘liberated” Libyans will be crying “Death to Yankees” within a year!

Still, that is beside the point because in international politics, double standards is the name of game and opportunism is the currency of the business. Have you ever wondered why NATO is not yet in Syria to protect the besieged inhabitants of Hama city from President Al-Bashar’s regime just as they did in Benghazi, Libya? That Al-Gadhafi, an Arab Muslim, would support and arm an overwhelmingly Christian and African rebellion in South Sudan against another Arab and Muslim leader is a living testimony by itself.

In fact, the SPLM/A were not sincere in their dealings with Al-Gadhafi since they ended up swindling him out of arms and ammunitions. The SPLM/A delegation led by Cdr. Lual Diing Wuol that visited Al-Gadhafi had read and crammed a lot of quotations from Al-Gadhafi’s Green Book on Third World Theory. Al-Gadhafi was greatly flattered and impressed by the numerous quotations used by the SPLM/A delegation.

This is what Arop Madut reports, in the words of Cdr. Lual Diing Wuol, about SPLM/A’s tactics to acquire ample supply of arms and ammunitions from Libya after the SPLM/A’s delegation visit to Libya:

“Subsequently, arms and ammunitions were ferried daily to Bilpam and Bonga training camps. When the Libyan commitment to supply logistics became evidently clear, the SPLA adopted a strategy: to graduate one battalion every month and each time the [Libyan Ambassador] in Addis Ababa was invited to attend the passing out of new recruits’ celebration. Each time a battalion was graduating, the Libyan office in Addis Ababa sent large quantities of arms and ammunition equal in number to the new graduates. What the Libyans did not know or expect to know was that it was actually the same battalion that was graduating every month, just to secure more arms quickly” (pg 91).

The lesson here being that Al-Gadhafi was very instrumental in the long struggle of South Sudanese quest for independence. To assert that his death mark the “end of an error” is to subjectively overlook and to blindly disregard the other side of Al-Gadhafi which does not necessarily fit in the grand narrative manufactured by his critics and enemies. Of course, it was not only the South Sudanese liberation struggle that Gadhafi supported; he was also involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as in the IRA-UK fight, and possibly lately in Darfur.

In addition to lending his hand to localized conflicts in and outside Africa, Al-Gadhafi was also heavily involved on continent-wide problems and solutions. After his over 40 quests to mold Pan-Arabism, Al-Gadhafi turned back on Arab Unity and embarked on Pan-Africanism. As reported by Abdelaziz Barrouhi in 1998, this is how Al-Gaddafi framed and explained his rationale:

“I had been crying slogans of Arab Unity and brandishing standard of Arab nationalism for 40 years, but it was not realized. That means that I was talking in the desert. I have no more time to lose talking with Arabs…I am returning back to realism…I now talk about Pan-Africanism and African Unity. The Arab world is finished…Africa is a paradise…and it is full of natural resources like water, uranium, cobalt, iron, manganese. I would like Libya to become a black country. Hence, I recommend to Libyan men to marry only black women and to Libyan women to marry black men.”

With that apparent shift in ideology, it was Libya under Al-Gadhafi that funded the African Union (AU) and the African Development Bank among other continental institutions. That explained why the Addis Ababa based organization was too hostile to the rebel governing body—the Transitional National Council (TNC). And as the head of the AU between 2009 and 2010, Al-Gaddafi called for the establishment of the United States of Africa (USA) to galvanize and strengthen African Unity both within Africa as well as on the international level.

In effect, Al-Gadhafi renewed the same call echoed by the pioneering Pan-Africanists like William Du Bois, Khamwe Nkrumah, Marcus Garvey, Julius Nyerere, Jomo Kenyatta, Haile Selassie, Gamal Nasser, and Robert Mugabe among others. According to Pan-Africanists’ philosophy, the unity of the people of African descent across the globe would give them greater voice and protection from perpetual persecutions and humiliations by other civilizations.

Arguably, Africa has enough natural and human resources, and much greater landmass than the USA, Europe, Russia and China—if there is unity and cooperation—to play a pivotal role in world affairs instead of being the constant underdog. By offering financial supports to African’s institutions, Al-Gadhafi, in the eyes of Pan-Africanists, was not only doing the talking but also walking the walk!

Al-Gadhafi was a mortal with double sides: both bad and good according to what he did and to whom he did it to. Thus, on the one hand, he was a murderer of his own people. He sponsored and exported terror worldwide. Sometimes he was delusional. So controversial was the “King of Kings” and the “Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution of Libya” that his name has garnered over 27 different and distinct spellings in English! And on the other hand, he did many other things which the beneficiaries are appreciative of and grateful to him: South Sudanese and their long struggle against repression and subjugation, for example.

To depict him only as a devil while he was a human with both sides is a subversion of justice! That is what makes me mad about The Standard’s cartoonish depiction of him because it is overly one-sided and biased against a man who is just but one among many despots on the African continent!!

You can reach PaanLuel Wël at paanluel2011@gmail.com, PaanLuel Wel (Facebook page), PaanLuelWel2011 (Twitter account) or through his blog account at: https://paanluelwel2011.wordpress.com//

Colonel Muammar Gadhafi, the SPLM and Pan Africanism.pdf