China 'is fuelling war in Darfur'
By Hilary Andersson
BBC News, Darfur
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The BBC tracked down Chinese-built military trucks inside
Darfur
The BBC has found the first evidence that China is currently
helping Sudan's government militarily in Darfur.
The Panorama TV programme tracked down Chinese army lorries in the
Sudanese province that came from a batch exported from China to
Sudan in 2005.
The BBC was also told that China was training fighter pilots who
fly Chinese A5 Fantan fighter jets in Darfur.
China's government has declined to comment on the BBC's findings,
which contravene a UN arms embargo on Darfur.
The embargo requires foreign nations to take measures to ensure
they do not militarily assist anyone in the conflict in Darfur, in
which the UN estimates that about 300,000 people have died.
More than two million people are also believed to have fled their
villages in Darfur, destroyed by pro-government Arab Janjaweed
militia.
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Plates on the first truck show it was imported after the
embargo
Panorama traced the first lorry by travelling deep into the remote
deserts of West Darfur.
They found a Chinese Dong Feng army lorry in the hands of one of
Darfur's rebel groups.
The BBC established through independent eyewitness testimony that
the rebels had captured it from Sudanese government forces in
December.
The rebels filmed a second lorry with the BBC's camera. Both
vehicles had been carrying anti-aircraft guns, one a Chinese
gun.
Markings showed that they were from a batch of 212 Dong Feng army
lorries that the UN had traced as having arrived in Sudan after the
arms embargo was put in place.
The lorries came straight from the factory in China to Sudan and
were consigned to Sudan's defence ministry. The guns were mounted
after the lorries were imported from China.
When it is shooting or firing there is nowhere for you to move and
the sound is just like the sound of the rain
Hamaad Abakar Adballa describing attack by anti-aircraft gun
The UN started looking for these lorries in Darfur three years ago,
suspecting they had been sent there, but never found them.
"We had no specific access to Sudanese government army stores, we
were not allowed to take down factory codes or model numbers or
registrations etc to verify these kinds of things," said EJ
Hogendoorn, a member of the UN panel of experts that was involved
in trying to locate the lorries.
Culpability
China has chosen not to respond to the BBC's findings. Its public
position is that it abides by all UN arms embargoes.
China has said in the past that it told Sudan's government not to
use Chinese military equipment in Darfur.
Sudan's government, however, has told the UN that it will send
military equipment wherever it likes within its sovereign
territory.
An international lawyer, Clare da Silva, says China's point that it
has taken measures in line with the arms embargo's requirements to
stop its weapons from going to Darfur is meaningless.
"It is an empty measure to take the assurances from a partner who
clearly has no intention of abiding by the resolution," she
said.
Ms da Silva said the BBC's evidence put China in violation of the
arms embargo.
The UN panel of experts on Darfur has said it wants to examine the
BBC's evidence.
Homes scorched
The BBC found witnesses who said they saw the first Dong Feng which
the BBC tracked down being used with its anti-aircraft gun in an
attack in a town called Sirba, in West Darfur, in December.
"When it is shooting or firing there is nowhere for you to move and
the sound is just like the sound of the rain. Then 'Bang! Bang!
Bang! Bang!'" said Hamaad Abakar Adballa, a witness in the Chadian
refugee town of Birak.
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The Chinese are accused of training pilots to use Fantan fighter
jets
The lorry's powerful anti-aircraft gun fired straight into civilian
houses. The gun carries high calibre shells that explode on impact,
spreading hot shards of metal and causing terrible wounds
Witnesses saw one hut take a direct hit from the gun:
"An intense wave of heat instantly sent all the huts around up in
flames," one witness, Risique Bahar, said. "There was a lot of
screaming."
In the attack on Sirba one woman was burnt to death, another
horribly injured.
Genocide accusation
Sudan's government has been accused by the United States of
genocide against Darfur's black Africans.
The terms of the embargo cover not only just the supply of weapons,
military vehicles, paramilitary equipment. It also covers training
any technical assistance, so the training of pilots obviously falls
within the scope of the embargo
International lawyer, Clare da Silva
Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) say war
crimes by Sudan's Arab-dominated government have included summary
executions, rape and torture.
Recently the conflict has deteriorated into more confused fighting,
with rebel and militia groups also fighting each other. Two hundred
thousand people have been displaced already this year.
Malnutrition rates are set to soar in South Darfur later this year
due to insecurity and drought.
Darfur's landscape is spotted with blackened circles representing
the hundreds of the villages that were burnt down by government
forces and their Janjaweed allies.
Air attacks
In these attacks Darfur's civilians have been hunted not just from
the ground, but from the sky.
Most civilians who tell stories of aerial attacks talk about
Russian made Antanovs and helicopter gunships.
Many also talk about fighter jets being used, but no-one has ever
answered the question of which type of fighter jets these are.
Kaltam Abakar Mohammed, a mother of seven, watched three of her
children being blown to pieces as they were attacked by a fighter
jet on 19 February in the town of Beybey in Darfur.
The BBC has established that Chinese Fantan fighter jets were
flying on missions out of Nyala airport in south Darfur in
February.
Panorama acquired satellite photographs of the two fighters at the
airport on 18 June 2008, and its investigations indicate these are
the only fighter jets that have been based in Darfur this year.
When Kaltam heard the sound of fighting early that morning, she
took her children and ran.
"We start running near the well," she said. "We hid behind a big
rock. Something that looks like an eagle started coming from over
there. It looked like an eagle but it made a funny noise."
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Jem rebels used a BBC camera to film a truck fitted with an
anti-aircraft gun
When the plane unleashed two bombs Kaltam's five-year-old daughter,
Nura, was dismembered from the chest up.
Her eight-year-old son, Adam, was killed instantly, as was her
20-year-old daughter, Amna.
Kaltam's 19-month-old grandson still has shrapnel in his head from
the fighter jet bombing. He cries a lot and often calls out for his
mother, but she was killed in the attack.
Kaltam's 13-year-old girl, Hawa, cannot grasp what she saw happen
that day to her brother and two sisters. She rarely speaks now.
Pilot training
The Chinese Fantan jets are believed to have been delivered to
Sudan in 2003 before the current UN arms embargo was imposed on
Darfur.
But the BBC has been told by two confidential sources that China is
training Fantan fighter pilots.
Sudan imported a number of fighter trainers called K8s two years
ago - they are designed to train pilots of fighters like
Fantans.
"Clearly this is what they used to train for operations with the
Fantans," said Chris Dietrich, a former member of the UN panel on
Darfur.
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This second truck also had plates identifying it as being from
China
International lawyer Ms da Silva says if China is training Fantan
pilots, this represents another Chinese violation of the UN arms
embargo. "The terms of the embargo cover not only just the supply
of weapons, military vehicles, paramilitary equipment. It also
covers training any technical assistance, so the training of pilots
obviously falls within the scope of the embargo."
There are strong economic ties between the China and Sudan.
China buys most of Sudan's oil and believes that what Sudan needs
is good business partners, help with development and a solid peace
process in Darfur, instead of confrontation and sanctions from the
West.
So when China's President Hu Jintao visited Sudan in 2007 he wrote
off millions of dollars worth of debt and donated a multi-million
pound interest free loan for a new presidential palace to Sudan's
President Omar al-Bashir.
In April last year, China's military leaders pledged to strengthen
co-operation with Sudan.
Panorama: China's Secret War will be on BBC One at 2030 BST on
Monday 14 July 2008.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7503428.stm