Former Lost Boy of Sudan returns home to build for the future

An interview on IRIN NEWS . Yes! Something positive does come out of Sudan

Separated from his family as a child when his village was attacked during Sudan’s civil war, Valentino Achak Deng fled on foot with a group of young boys, eventually finding safety in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya. The group became known as the “Lost Boys of Sudan” and in 2001 many of them were resettled to the United States. The story of the hardships Valentino faced as a refugee in north-west Kenya’s Kakuma camp and upon arrival in the US, are recounted in the best-selling novelized biography, “What is the What” UNHCR Senior Public Information Officer Tim Irwin reached Valentino by phone in Nairobi in between his frequent trips to his former hometown of Marial Bai in South Sudan.

Excerpts from the interview:

Sudan archaeology: Mysterious church and palace from the beginning of the 1st millennium A.D. discovered

Source: Science and Scholarship in Poland

Mysterious church and palace from the beginning of the 1st millennium A.D. discovered by Polish archaeologists in Sudan

Archaeological site in Selib

At the beginning of this year, archaeologists from Warsaw University, headed by Dr Bogdan Żurawski discovered the remains of an Early Christian church and an even older palace. “During research in the area of Selib, a village located on the right bank of the Nile, between the 4th and 3rd cataract, the remains of a build ing erected on the plan of a huge rectangle were found. It soon turned out that this was one of the most unique churches found in the area of ancient Nubia, that is modern Sudan” - Dr Zuzanna Wygnańska, editor of “Archewieści Centrum Archeologii Śródziemnomorskiej” (Archaeo-new from the Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology) informed. Thanks to geophysical research and aerial photographs made from a kite, it was possible to establish that a circular building eight metres in diameter made from red brick was adjacent to the main building.

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IRIN film Sudan: From North to South - Sudan’s displaced head home - April 2006

Source: IRIN

From North to South: Sudan’s displaced head home - April 2006

When Sudan’s warring factions signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in January 2005, millions of southerners displaced by the war started to plan their long journey home. But a stark reality awaits these people as they return to a region devoid of services and utterly devastated by war. View Transcript

[English]    [English]    [Duration: 15:30]

Uganda & Kenya: short course on Participatory Planning Monitoring and Evaluation

Source: Development Gateway

IIRRs short course on Participatory Planning Monitoring and Evaluation

The International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) is now accepting applications for the Participatory Planning Monitoring and Evaluation course.

• Uganda: 5-16 MAY 2008
• South Sudan: 9-14 JUNE 2008
• Kenya: 17-28 NOVEMBER 2008

Our theme is ‘capacity building for poverty reduction’.

IIRR empowers the rural poor and strengthens local institutions to eradicate poverty. The PPM & E course is useful for all development workers, especially for PPM & E and Management Information System officers, program and project managers, CBO and NGO leaders.

After the training, participants will be able to:

1. Explain and apply concepts related to planning, monitoring and evaluation
2. Link planning, monitoring, evaluation to learning and accountability
3. Plan and conduct impact monitoring and evaluation
4. Adapt and apply various participatory planning, monitoring and evaluation tools and method
5. Design simple monitoring and evaluation systems for projects, programs and organisations
6. Mainstream gender in PPM & E tools, analysis and processes
7. Promote a culture of efficiency, inclusion, accountability and sustainability among development actors.

To register, please send an e-mail to training@iirr-africa.org to receive an application form and more details. Register today, spaces are limited.

Sudan: oldest proof of human sacrifice in neolithic Africa

Source: Yahoo News via Anthropology net

Anthropology net has some interesting comments about the news that a new discovery in Sudan, “the oldest proof of human sacrifice in Africa,” pushes back the date of the Neolithic in Africa to at least 5,500 years ago. Go here to read the post.

“The tomb of a 5,500-year-old man surrounded by three sacrificed humans, two dogs and exquisite ceramics were exhumed north of Khartoum by Neolithic expert Jacques Reinhold and his 66-year-old Austrian wife.

“This is the oldest proof of human sacrifice in Sudan, in Egypt, in Africa,” Reinhold told reporters next to the remains in El Kadada village, a three-hour drive north of the Sudanese capital.

“I don’t know of another example in Africa at this level… We don’t have anything as strong in other excavations in other countries,” said Reinhold.”

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Sudan: Reporters Without Borders Annual Report 2008

Source: Reporters Without Borders

Sudan - Annual Report 2008

Area : 2,505,810 sq. km.
Population : 37,707,000.
Languages : Arabic, English.
Head of state : Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

The Sudanese press appearing in Khartoum was once again in 2007 a regular target for the security services who will not allow journalists to get in the way of government action. Several arrests and a generally bad atmosphere do not however detract from the fact that newspapers and civil society play an active part in ongoing debates, including on the crisis in Darfur.

With around 30 independent daily papers across the range of political tendencies, and an active and critical civil society, Sudan is a paradox. Its poor reputation on the international scene, mainly because of its intransigence and complicity in the killings in Darfur, has tended to mask the robustness of the media in Khartoum.

As in many armed conflicts worldwide, the crisis in Darfur sets both the national and international media complex difficulties in trying to cover it effectively. The intrinsic problems - the multiplicity of armed factions, absence of a “front line” and the lack of distinction between combatants and civilians, the inhospitable terrain and so on - are exacerbated by a “bureaucratic corral” thrown up round it by the authorities in Khartoum in a bid to “regulate” the work of journalists. A whole raft of administrative and security obstacles hamper everything from obtaining a visa, to getting a special “travel permit” for Darfur, and also ban access to camps for the internally displaced. Reporters Without Borders, following an on-the-spot investigation, released a report on the difficult situation faced by Sudanese and foreigners journalists, highlighting these obstacles but also the pluralism, robustness and rigour of the newspapers in the capital.

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African archaeology: Egypt’s desert art in danger

Archaeologica.org is a great site and newsfeed for archaeological news. I try and keep an eye on it for Africa news. The following item shows how the increase in tourism to formerly inaccessible places is bringing a mixed blessing to those regions.

Egypt’s desert art in danger
(AFP)

22 November 2007

CAIRO - A rising tide of travellers seeking out the new frontier of Egyptian tourism is threatening priceless rock art preserved for millennia in one of the most-isolated reaches of the Sahara.

In Egypt’s southwest corner, straddling the borders of Sudan and Libya, the elegant paintings of prehistoric man and beast in the mountains of Gilf Kabir and Jebel Ouenat are as stunning in their simplicity as anything by Picasso.

But lying 500 kilometres (330 miles) from the nearest habitation, the desert offers little sanctuary for these masterpieces and any effective protected designation first requires a deal between the three sometimes quarrelsome nations.

Not only the rock art is at stake, but the region’s entire cultural and natural heritage.

More 

Sudan Studies Association 27th Annual Conference

Seen on H-Net list for African History and Culture

Sudan Studies Association 27th Annual Conference

May 16-18, 2008
Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida

Call for Papers

Theme: Sudan’s Wars and Peace Agreements

The next few years will be decisive for Sudan’s future as it resolves its protracted conflicts. Currently two peace agreements are being implemented:
the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and the Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement (ESPA). The Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) is incomplete although partially being implemented. It is hoped that by the time of the holding of the 27th SSA Annual Conference, there will be a comprehensive peace agreement in Darfur.

Will the signing of these peace agreements lead to the end of the over half a century period of protracted conflicts in Sudan? Do the agreements address the root causes of the Sudanese problem? What are these root causes of the problem - cultural, historical, economic, political, environmental, ethnic, etc.?

How are these agreements being implemented? What is the state of the implementation of the human rights provisions enshrined in the various agreements? Does the implementation of the various peace agreements lead to the creation of the New Sudan, now common in Sudanese political vocabulary?

What exactly are the fundamental features of the New Sudan? What are the consequences of non-compliance with the terms of the peace agreements?
Should the referendum at the end of the CPA end in separation? What are the implications for the new separate countries, border communities, etc.? What areas of cooperation should the separate countries pursue as neighbors? How will reconciliation among neighbors, who have been pitted against one another, be promoted in Darfur after the war and the resettlement of the victims of war in their original villages? What are the roles of the intra-Darfurian Dialogue, intra-Southern Dialogue, and other talks aimed at promoting reconciliation at various levels of society?

How will the marginalized majority in rural Eastern Sudan avoid continued under-representation given the preponderant political domination of the rich in Gadarif, Kassala, Khashim al Girba, and Port Sudan; and the alliance of the rich in the East with the Khartoum establishment? Does the implementation of the various peace agreements simultaneously lead to the transformation of the central power in Khartoum? What is the role of major and regional powers in the Sudanese conflicts and their resolution?

What about the conflicts over the construction of dams at Meroe and Kajbar?
What are the expected national and local benefits of these projects? How much were locals involved in the planning of the projects before their implementation? In addition to the new dams, other controversial major projects in Sudan, with questionable impacts on the locals, include the mechanized schemes (Damazin, Gadarif, and Habila), Roseires Dam, Khashim al Girba Scheme, Jonglei Canal, the oilfield areas among others.

Proposals:

The tradition of the SSA conference is to give priority in timing and prominence of presentation to papers that address the theme of the conference, but papers on other issues relating to Sudan are also welcome.

Abstracts of proposed papers (150-200 words) should be sent by February 1,
2008 to Dr. Stephanie Beswick, 2008 SSA Panel Organizer, Department of History, #212 Burkhardt Hall, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, USA 47304, Tel. (765) 285-8700, e-mail: sfbeswick@bsu.edu A preliminary program will be announced on March 15, 2008. Late proposals for papers will be considered only if space is available. Proposals and paper abstracts submitted earlier will receive preferential treatment in scheduling.
Acceptance for presentation will depend on the quality of the abstract and the judgment of the program committee. Small stipends of $200 are available for assistance to a limited number of graduate students and interested persons should contact SSA President Dr. B. Yongo-Bure, Kettering
University: byongo@kettering.edu

Registration forms and fees are available at the SSA website and should be sent to Dr. Richard Lobban, Executive Director, Sudan Studies Association, Rhode Island College, 600 Mt. Pleasant Ave., Providence, RI 02908.

The Chair of the Local Arrangements Committee is Dr. Peter Garretson, Florida State University, Tallahassee; pgarret@mailer.fsu.edu

Accommodation information will be available on the SSA website:
http://www.sudanstudies.org

African book (Sudan): The Mediator. Gen. Lazaro Sumbeiywo and the Southern Sudan Peace Process - Waithaka Waihenya

The following new book is available from African Books Collective. The books are available from Michigan State University Press in North American and African Books Collective, UK throughout the rest of the world.

If you would like to receive monthly new title information from African Books Collective in PDF, Word or Excel formats please send an email to Justin Cox - coxju@msu.edu
The Mediator. Gen. Lazaro Sumbeiywo and the Southern Sudan Peace Process Waithaka Waihenya

This is the story of the peace process in Sudan. It is told by one of Kenya’s most distinguished writers, well placed to narrate the extraordinary story of how peace in Africa’s largest country was mediated over a period of over five years by General Lazaro Sumbeiywo, a passionate and indefatigable soldier. Sumbeiywo managed to achieve what top-level international diplomats had failed to do: to reconcile the positions represented by the President of the Khartoum Government, Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, on the one hand, and on the other, by the late Colonel John Garang, leader of the southern-based resistance movement/army, the SPLM/A, until his untimely death in 2005. The process culminated in the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in January 2005, which effectively ended over two decades of conflict, and marked a major breakthrough in the history of the African continent.

The author has drawn on key people who were instrumental in the peace process, and those who played a central role in Sumbeiywo’s life and career:
the former President of Kenya, Daniel arap Moi, John Garang, the first Vice-President of Sudan, Sumbeiywo’s family, as well the scholar Khalid Mansour, known for his in-depth analysis of the problems afflicting south Sudan.
Former Kenyan President, Daniel arap Moi contributes a foreword.

Waithaka Waihenya is an award-winning journalist, creative writer, and essayist in Kenya.

“This book is a celebration of a major breakthrough in the history of the African continent.”
- Daniel arap Moi, Second President of the Republic of Kenya

978-9966-25-480-1 202pp. 2006 East African Educational Publishers
$29.95/£19.95

http://msupress.msu.edu/bookTemplate.php?bookID=3240

Ancient mega-lake discovered in Darfur, Sudan

The following article was seen on NEW SCIENTIST

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11593-ancient-megalake-discovered-in-darfur.html

Ancient mega-lake discovered in Darfur

• 18:01 12 April 2007
• NewScientist.com news service
• Catherine Brahic

Enlarge image

The researchers identified the dark line (seen as a vertical line in the centre of this image) as the shoreline of an ancient lake; here, the radar image is overlaid with a topography that shows depressions in blue and reveals a very small lake next to the mega-lake (Image: Boston University Center for Remote Sensing / Ghoneim)

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This image, modelled using satellite radar data, shows the hills that surround the ancient lake, and a few ancient rivers (dotted lines) (Image: Boston University Center for Remote Sensing / Ghoneim)

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The study was carried out in northwestern Sudan (Image: Boston University Center for Remote Sensing / Ghoneim)

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At its peak, the ancient mega-lake covered 30,750 square kilometres (Image: Boston University Center for Remote Sensing / Ghoneim)

 

The discovery of a massive ancient lake in Darfur could help explain how the world’s biggest groundwater reservoir came to be under one of the driest parts of the planet.

 

It is also indisputable evidence that the Sahara was once a wet, green region, researchers claim. Eman Ghoneim at the Boston University Center for Remote Sensing in Massachusetts, US, was using satellite imagery to study the ancient hydrology of north-western Sudan when she noticed a dark, 250-kilometre-long segment on the radar images.

 

The discovery came as a complete surprise, Ghoneim says. The radar waves penetrate through the sand that covers the region, revealing the structure of the substrate below. Ghoneim says the line was very dark, contrasting with the bright white of the surrounding solid rock, and 1 kilometre wide. The dark colour is typical of a mixture of gravel and sand, suggesting there was an ancient shoreline buried underneath the sand.

 

This was confirmed by other lines that intersected the main segment, representing the rivers that once supplied the lake in water. “There were nine tributaries in total,” says Ghoneim. “Three were major rivers.”

 

“Also, in one section, there was not one shoreline but four next to each other,” she adds. “This gives us an idea that at one point the lake began to shrink.”

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