Human Rights Watch advises ways to prevent another Malakal battle

May 21, 2009 (NEW YORK) - The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a letter today to the Presidency of Sudan urging action to prevent another flare-up of violence in Malakal of South Sudan.

Malakal was the location of a battle on February 23, 2009 between soldiers with Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) General Gabriel Tang Ginye and units of South Sudan's army.

HRW said that the incident, in which an estimated 57 people died, "represents the third major breach of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement's ceasefire provisions," after fighting Abyei in May 2008 and a similarly sparked incident in Malakal in November 2006, in which 150 people were killed.

During the February clash, former militia now serving as SAF soldiers in a Joint Integrated Unit (JIU) engaged in widespread looting and destruction of property, notably at the University of Upper Nile, said the rights group.

The letter, signed by HRW Africa Director Georgette Gagnon, recommends urgently that the Joint Defense Board relocate the troops of the Joint Integrated Unit stationed in Malakal. Such a recommendation has already been voiced by some southern figures, including Col. Malaak Ayuen Ajok, Director of Information and Civil-Military Relations of SPLA general headquarters.

Relocation of the JIU has been advised also by the United Nations' and government Ceasefire Joint Military Committee (CJMC), which on the night of February 24 had facilitated General Tang's departure from Malakal, reportedly stepping in to escort him from the SAF barracks where he had been trapped for more than six hours in a gun battle with enraged SPLA soldiers seeking his arrest.

Sudan's JIUs, which are meant to form the nucleus of a national army if South Sudan opts to remain part of the nation, are under-funded and under-equipped. Therefore the rights group suggested that the government and donors "should urgently support the Joint Integrated Units in Malakal to implement the recommendations pertaining to rotation and relocation of the troops with both material and technical assistance."

Grignon further encouraged appropriate authorities from the Southern Sudan Ministry of Legal Affairs and Constitutional Development and the Judiciary of Southern Sudan to promptly investigate and prosecute soldiers and armed civilians who committed crimes.

According to Human Rights Watch research done in Malakal in April, on February 23 an SAF tank fired indiscriminately on a civilian neighborhood, killing at least eight people who had gathered to drink tea.

SPLA soldiers also committed violations, said Human Rights Watch, targeting civilians who appeared Arab and on February 25 killing six civilians in a residential compound.

"To date, the Government of National Unity and the Southern Sudan government have failed to investigate alleged crimes against civilians during and after the February clash," said the letter.