ARAb StAtES diSMAyEd At WESt'S cOMPlAcENcy - Kuwait Times

SATURDAY, MAY 4, 2013
INTERNATIONAL
Syrian opposition blames regime for village deaths
At least 80 killed in
Darfur tribal battles
KHARTOUM: At least 80 people have been killed in the latest
outbreak of fighting between Arab groups in western Sudan’s
Darfur region, tribal leaders said yesterday.
“Fighting was going on until last night and from our side
we have 37 dead,” said Ibrahim Al-Sheikh, a leader of the Beni
Halba tribe. He claimed more than 100 members of the rival
Gimir group were also killed but a Gimir chief, Abaker Al-
Toum, said 44 of his people had died.
The fighting took place in Edd Al-Fursan, about 100 kilometres
(60 miles) southwest of the South Darfur state capital
Nyala. Both sides agreed they were fighting over land, with
each side claiming ownership. The UN’s Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), cited the Sudan
government’s Humanitarian Aid Commission as confirming
“new inter-tribal fighting between the Gimir and Beni Halba
tribes over land ownership” in South Darfur.
“Seven people from the Gimir tribe were reportedly killed
in an attack on 26 April. The fighting is continuing”, OCHA
said in its weekly humanitarian bulletin issued late on
Thursday. —AFP
Arab states dismayed...
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international community where majority of states are in
consensus on defining Israel as a rogue state, “ Al-Mubaraki
said in the remarks.
“Israel is a rogue state by all standards, for there is no other
state in the world that deals with the United Nations” and other
international agencies and organizations with contempt, he
said, criticizing the Western trend to pressure India and
Pakistan regarding their nuclear potential, while refraining
from adopting such an approach toward Israel.
Such policies and stands may eventually lead to nullifying
the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty, ambassador Al-Mubaraki
warned. Kuwait and other GCC states are bound with the US
and other Western powers with alliances and cooperation
treaties, however “we are at odds with them on this particular
topic.” The commission, which began the meetings on April
22, closed the sessions yesterday. — KUNA
BEIRUT: Syria’s main opposition group
yesterday accused President Bashar
Assad’s regime of committing a “largescale
massacre” in a Sunni village near the
Mediterranean coast in which activists say
at least 50 were killed with guns, knives
and blunt objects.
The killings in Bayda reflect the sectarian
overtones of Syria’s civil war. Tucked in
the mountains outside the Mediterranean
coastal city of Banias, the village is primarily
inhabited by Sunni Muslims, who
dominate the country’s rebel movement.
But it is located in the heartland of
Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite
Islam that is the backbone of the regime.
In amateur video purportedly taken
after the killings, the bodies of at least
seven men and boys are seen strewn in
pools of blood on the pavement in front
of a house as women weep around them.
“Don’t sleep, don’t move,” one woman
sobs, leaning over to touch one of the
men, who appeared already dead. The
video appears genuine and consistent
with reporting by The Associated Press
from the area. The war has largely split
the country along sectarian lines, with the
divide deepening over months of bloodshed.
There has been heavy fighting in
recent weeks between Sunnis and Shiites
over villages near the Lebanese border,
while Islamic extremists in the rebel ranks
have injected a radical fervor, often referring
to their adversaries with derogatory
names insulting their sects.
The regime has so far kept a relatively
solid grip on the Alawite heartland, centered
on the mountainous region along
the coast. The area is dotted with Sunni
villages, but they are surrounded by larger
Alawite communities, so the anti-Assad
revolt has had a harder time taking hold.
Early Thursday, there was an eruption
of fighting in Bayda and then in the afternoon,
Syrian troops backed by gunmen
from nearby Alawite villages swept into
the village, according to the Britain based
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
They torched homes and used knives,
guns and blunt objects to kill people in
the streets, the group said. It said it has
documented the names of at least 50
dead in Bayda, but that dozens of villagers
were still missing and the death toll
could rise to as high as 100.
Syria’s state news agency said late
Thursday that the army conducted a raid
in Bayda, killing several “terrorists” and
seizing machine guns, automatic rifles
and other weapons. The government
refers to those trying to oust Assad as
“terrorists.” Syrian troops were still in
Bayda yesterday, conducting house to
In this citizen journalism image released on Thursday by a group that calls
itself The Syrian Revolution Against Bashar Assad, a Syrian man (center)
identifies dead bodies, who were killed according to activists by Syrian
forces loyal to Bashar Assad, in Bayda village. — AP
KHARTOUM: Around 100 miners are estimated
to have died inside a collapsed gold
mine in Sudan’s Darfur region and nine rescuers
trying to free them are now trapped,
a miner said yesterday.
“Nine of the rescue team disappeared
when the land collapsed around them yesterday
(Thursday),” said the miner, who had
visited the scene and asked to remain
anonymous. On Monday the unlicensed
desert gold mine began to collapse in Jebel
Amir district, more than 200 kilometres
(125 miles) northwest of the North Darfur
state capital El Fasher. The stench of death
is now seeping out of the baked earth, the
miner said. “Yesterday eight bodies have
been found and still they are looking for
the others,” he said. “According to a count
by people working in the mine, the number
of people inside is more than 100.” On
Thursday the Jebel Amir district chief,
Haroun al-Hassan, said “the number of
people who died is more than 60”, but it
was unclear whether anyone might still be
alive. Hassan could not be reached yesterday.
Earlier he said rescuers were using
hand tools out of fear that machinery
would cause a further collapse.
But the ground fell around some of the
rescuers anyway. Production from unofficial
gold mines has become a key revenue
source for the cash-strapped government
in Khartoum. It is also a tempting but dangerous
occupation for residents of Sudan’s
poverty-stricken western region of Darfur
which has been devastated by a decade of
civil war. A humanitarian source said earlier
this year that close to 70,000 people were
digging for gold in Jebel Amir. Sudan is trying
to boost exports of the precious metal
and other non-petroleum products after
house searches, according to the
Observatory’s director, Rami Abdul
Rahman. He added that phone and
Internet service to the village was cut,
making it impossible to verify the final
death toll or pin down more details on
what happened.
If confirmed, the bloodshed in Bayda
would be the latest in a string of alleged
mass killings in Syria’s civil war. Last
month, activists said government troops
killed more than 100 people as they
seized two rebel-held suburbs of
Damascus.
On Thursday, President Barack Obama
said his administration was looking at
every option to end the bloodshed in
Syria. Speaking at a news conference in
Mexico City, Obama said the administration
was proceeding cautiously as it
looked at options to ensure that what it
does is helpful to the situation rather than
making it more deadly or complex.
In Washington, US Defense Secretary
Chuck Hagel, became the first top
American official to publicly acknowledge
that the administration was rethinking its
opposition to arming the Syrian rebels.
Hagel said Thursday that “arming the
rebels - that’s an option,” but added that
the administration was looking at all
options. The Syrian conflict, now in its
third year, started with largely peaceful
protests against Assad’s rule in March
2011, but shifted into an armed insurgency
as opposition supporters took up
weapons to fight a harsh regime crackdown
on dissent. — AP
100 dead, rescuers trapped
in Darfur mine disaster
AL-ABIDIYA: Sudanese men panning for gold at the village of Al-Abidiya, in
northern Sudan. Around 100 miners are estimated to have died inside a collapsed
gold mine in Sudan’s Darfur region and nine rescuers trying to free
them are now trapped, a miner said yesterday. — AFP
the separation of South Sudan two years
ago left Khartoum without three-quarters
of its crude oil production.
The lost oil accounted for most of
Khartoum’s export earnings and half of its
fiscal revenues, sending inflation above 40
percent while the currency plunged in value
on the black market. Sudan’s Mining
Minister Kamal Abdel Latif said traditional
mining produced 41 tons of gold worth
$2.5 billion (1.9 billion euros) from January
to November last year. In 2011, the government
estimated there were more than
200,000 unlicensed artisanal gold producers,
generating most of the country’s output
of the resource. Sudan’s central bank
has entered the market, trying to buy from
the small producers.
Seven weeks of clashes over gold
between two Arab tribes in Jebel Amir early
this year killed more than 500 members of
the Beni Hussein tribal group, a Benni
Hussein member of parliament for the area
said previously. The violence uprooted an
estimated 100,000 people. The fighting
between the Beni Hussein and Rezeigat
erupted when a leader of the latter tribe who
is a border guard officer apparently laid claim
to a gold-rich area inside Beni Hussein territory,
Amnesty International said. —AFP