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7:00 A.M. Up early to have breakfast with members of the delegation in the hotel. I talk with various members of the delegation about their impressions thus far of our fact-finding mission. Some people feel that they were not being told the truth. Some people feel that the real “bad guy” or “boogieman” in the Darfur crisis is the U.S. government and its international partners in trying to keep the Sudan in a state of turmoil in order to gain access to its potential natural resources, including vast oil resources in the North, South and in Darfur. I am still pondering my impressions of what I heard against what I have been fed by the “Save Darfur” folks in the U.S. There are more briefings scheduled for today at the Republican Palace, the Presidential residence. The Palace is under heavy guard. Maybe we will get more precise answers and a better understanding of the crisis in Darfur in today’s briefings.
9:30 A.M. The delegation departs the hotel heading for another government briefing.
10:15 A.M. We arrive at offices of the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports who will talk about the Darfur Peace Agreement (“DPA”) and its implications for the Sudan and the crisis with the people of Darfur. This particular government official repeated the numbers cited by other government officials in Khartoum, except that he advised us that the number killed in Darfur was more likely 8,000. A slight discrepancy or a major blunder on the Sudan talking points? I wonder. Setting all that aside, the briefing broke up with our delegation still trying to grapple with what they had heard about the struggle and crisis in Darfur. We are now ready to see the crisis up close.
1:00 P.M. We return to our hotel to pack up for our visit to two refugee camps housing “Internally Displaced People” from the Darfur region.
2:00 P.M, We board our bus and head to the airport to catch a plane to the City of Nyala in the Southern District of Darfur where we will stay overnight and also greet the Prime Minister of Malaysia who will be visiting to show his support for the government of Sudan’s efforts to resolve the Darfur crisis. This will be a two-hour flight to Nyala, Darfur, Sudan.
5:45 P.M. The delegation arrives in Nyala, Dafur. The regional governor and a bevy of men and women from Darfur, ranging in age from 15 to 65 years old, with traditional Sudan colorful dress, greet us. It was a wonderful greeting for the delegation. After a brief meeting in the airport and watching the Prime Minister of Malaysia’s plane land at the Nyala Airport, we are assigned to various SUVs and we move out to our first camp and meeting with the internally displaced people of Danfur..
6:30 P.M. We arrive at the Nyala Camp. We see a sea of sad and happy faces greeting us. Kids posing for photos –indeed begging us to take their pictures. The children also walk cautiously through dusty pathways of the camp amid makeshift cloth and plastic tents. We talk with numerous “refugees” at the camp outside the ears of our security handlers and ask about their conditions in the camp and they universally have nothing but muted praise for how they are being treated or cared for by the Sudanese government now as the world watches government’s response to the crisis and as the African Union Mission In Sudan, assigned to keep the peace in the region, stands by to protect them in the camps. We are told by several refugees that much of the violence against the them and other refugees over the last four years was the result of the government of Sudan’s attempt to suppress the rebellion in the area and to suppress traditional tribal disputes over the allocation of scarce resources. The refugees tell us that that the real bad guys, the Janjawee, simply took advantage of the chaos created by the rebel warfare and the traditional tribal clashes, to rob, to kill and pillage villages throughout the Darfur region. Very confusing. The refugees want to return to the home villages with some security. I move about the camp taking photographs of the displaced people of Darfur and their living conditions. The camp is made up of hundreds of cloth and plastic tents where whole families live day-to-day with the hope of someday returning to their home villages and to a normal life. We ask the various refugees we met in the camps about whether the women of he camps were being raped and abused by the government or anyone within the camps. The refugees responded by indicating that women are being raped within the camps but the incidents are low in number. Prior to coming to Darfur, I was under the impression that rape and abuse of women were widespread in the refugee camps throughout Darfur. That part of the Save Darfur propaganda, at this point in time, proved false out of the mouths of these refugees. Perhaps the refugees have a different story to tell. Time is passing quickly. It is now nearly
7:15 P.M. Time for us to go the formal reception for the Malaysian Prime Minister.
7:30 P.M. We leave the Nyala Camp heading toward the reception.
7:45 P.M. We arrive at the Governor’s residence for the reception for the delegation and the Malaysian Prime Minister. The Governor for the Darfur region and lots of colorful dancers greets us. The place is packed with about 200 – 300 folks packed into a 50 x 75 foot space with a colorful tent to protect us from the scorching sun and heat at around 98 degrees in the shade. We hear perfunctory congratulatory speeches by the government officials in charge and from the Malaysian Prime Minister. Our delegation leader, Akbar Muhammad, greets the crowd also and pledges his support to get at the truth of the crisis in Darfur.
10:00 P.M. This first evening in Darfur ends and we head to our “hotel” in Darfur to spend the night and rest for the trip to the next refugee camp at Elseraif 8 miles on the outskirts of the Nyala. The delegation splits into two groups for hotel purposes. The first group will stay at the Airport Hotel and my group will stay at lesser-known hotel or guest house. There goes democracy and egalitarianism. We arrive at our lesser know “hotel”. We are told that we must share a room with one other delegate. I am ok with that. However, we cannot quite call this a “hotel”. It is nothing more than a one-story cinder block structure with five rooms with two beds sitting on top of concrete floors. There is no toilet facility or formal bathroom to speak of in this “hotel”. Ok, so I have to go to the bathroom real bad. I inquire about the “bathroom” and I am told that the bathroom or “toilette”, as it is referred to by the Sudanese, was just around the corner from my room. The bathroom is simply a hole in the ground and squatting is the order of the day. My producer for the Show, Brother Fatiyn Muhammad and I decide to share a room. I head to the hole in the ground bathroom only to find that the hole is absolutely filthy. I just can’t squat in that hole. Given the existing state of feces already in the hole in the ground, I decided to squat somewhere else on the exterior of the hotel in a cleaner setting. I should not have been surprised by the lack of toilette facilities. As uncomfortable as we are in our rooms, like the other members of our delegation, Fatiyn and I accept our overnight plight and finally doze off to sleep at around 2 A.M. We wake up at 7:00 A.M. This is Africa. |
