DOCUMENT: SUDAN.TXT U N I T E D N A T I O N S THE SYSTEMATIC DEPOPULATION OF SOUTHERN SUDAN BY DR. DENG DONGRIN AKUANY REPRESENTATIVE OF SOUTHERN SUDAN GROUP A Speech Delivered to UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations - 11th Session, Held in United Nations, Geneva, Switzerland, on the 19th - 30th July, 1993. Madam Chairperson, Honourable Members of the Working Group, Distinguished Representatives of States and Indigenous Peoples. On Behalf of the People of Southern Sudan, may I thank you all for giving me this great opportunity to deliver this speech to the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations 11th Session, in order to enlighten you on the current systematic depopulation of Southern Sudan and other regions by the Islamic Fundamentalist fascist and racist regime of General Omer Bashir and Dr. Hassan el Turabi in the Sudan. I have followed in this conference with utmost interest and concern all the deliberations and various comments from both the honourable chairperson and distinguished representatives of the States and Indigenous Peoples and have found that the Working Group has great and challenging responsibilities towards the indigenous peoples, who are facing appalling abuses of human rights. I have equally found that the UN working Group has been doing marvelous services to the Indigenous Peoples during the eleven years of its existence. But to my profound surprise not a single of its ten sessions has ever been attended by any member of African indigenous peoples of the Sudan. I trust, Madam Chairperson, that the representative(s) of the oppressed and enslaved people of the Southern Sudan, Nuba Mountains and Ingessina Hills shall from now on be kept informed and to participate in all the conferences, if not all activities of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Peoples, until all the Indigenous Peoples through out the entire world have totally achieved their set goals or objectives. Madam Chairperson and distinguished delegates, the origins of the current state organized terrorism systematic massacres, murders, ethnic cleansing, raping of women, slavery, the use of food as a weapon and the likes in Sudan can be traced to the period when the Arab invaders long distance traders and Slave raiders established an Arab Settler colonialism in the Northern Sudan early 19th century, where Southern Sudan was subjected to Arab slave raiders. Southern Sudanese People were however, able to resist Arab Imperialism and remain independent or free from the Arab colonialism until January, 1956 when the British who had colonized both regions (South and North) for 60 years, handed the South to the Arab Settler political and military leaders who had inherited state or political, military and economic power. Therefore, the Arab Colonialism in the Southern Sudan was actually established in 1956. The relations between the people of the Southern Sudan and the Arab Settlers have always been violent or in state of war whether before, during, and after the British Colonial rule. For the Arab settlers in the Northern Sudan have always treated, Southern Sudan, Nuba Mountains, and Ingessina Hills as a reservoir for cheap labour, slaves and other material goods, only to be raided, looted and controlled like personal properties. Madam Chairperson, it is now 38 years since the Arab Settlers had inherited political, economic and military power in the Sudan. During these years, there have been two recurrent civil wars, two million Southern Sudanese have died, over half a million Southern Sudanese women have been raped and several thousands illegal and fatherless children have been born in poverty or destitute, the entire social system and economic system in the Southern Sudan have been destroyed, four million Southern Sudanese out of seven million have been displaced as refugees either in the neighbouring countries or inside the Sudan, and in short the entire population of Southern Sudan is currently facing physical and cultural extinction specially under the present Islamic Fundamentalist, fascist and racist regime of General Omer Bashir who has decreed and implement forcible Arabization of all and Islamization of all Christian and non-Muslims southern Sudanese or else they face Jihad (holy war) leading to the final destruction of the Southern Sudan. All the attempts to resolve these man made problems in the Sudan peacefully, justly and honestly have failed because all the successive Sectarian civilian and Military leaders have refused to accept freedom, justice, equality, prosperity, democracy, and human dignity as a basis for any peaceful solution to the existing problems. They have instead continued to maintain weak policies or strategies through which the established structures of domination, oppression, exploitation, marginalization, and alienation of indigenous African majority are to be realised. In view of the fact that the nationalities in conflict in the Sudan have not only failed to resolve the problems in question but will never be able to solve them alone, without international intervention, I call upon all of you in this august 11th session, to support our sincere demand for the UN to intervene now in order to save the remaining population before it is too late. I believe Madam Chairperson that it is within the United Nations powers to convene or sponsor peace talks between the warring nationalities in the Sudan. I equally believe that the UN can create safe havens or demilitarization zones, non-Military flight zones and apply mandatory sanctions against the regime in the Sudan, if it refuses to comply with any UN resolutions made therein. In conclusion, I thank you all once again for having patiently bear to listen to my long and tedious speech. And I trust you will leave this meeting with suffering Southern Sudanese people as a part of your political agenda, Thank you very much. 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