Society for Threatened Peoples calls attention to decades of genocide and urges support for establishment of democratic South Sudan

On the occasion of the referendum on independence for South Sudan this Sunday, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) called attention at a press conference in Berlin on Friday to the decades of suffering on the part of the sub-Saharan population in South Sudan. The President of the STP International, Tilman Zülch, called on the German government to support the establishment of a democratic state after five and a half years of genocide.

As a "clear signal of active support" Berlin should immediately set up a representative diplomatic mission in Juba, the south Sudanese capital, said the human rights activist. Furthermore, the Max Planck Institute for international law in Heidelberg could provide valuable support in the development of a constitution. The southern Sudanese exile community in Germany would also appreciate assistance in structuring a school and university system, as well as trade and technical training facilities, Zülch continued. Germany should also increase its developmental aid and give generously for the re-integration of southern Sudanese refugees, so they can return home from northern Sudan and the neighboring countries.

"Three generations of Dinka, Nuer, Shilluk, Anuak, Bari, Zande and other sub-Saharan peoples have practically never known peace," said Zülch. From 1955 to the present, four million sub-Saharan Africans in South Sudan, in the Nuba mountains and most recently in Darfur were killed in genocidal wars. After the British colonial powers left the southern part of the country in the hands of the Arab rulers in the north, the regime in Khartoum wiped out entire villages in the 1950s and 60s. Christian communities were locked inside their churches and burned; southern Sudanese executives were liquidated, and countless residents of South Sudan tortured to death. After a brief period of peace, from 1983 onward the war of destruction continued with massacres, mass displacements and targeted bombing of schools, hospitals and other civic facilities. Hunger, too, was used as a weapon, and large portions of the country were systematically laid to waste. Millions of sub-Saharan Africans fled.

The South Sudan has become a symbol of decades-long genocide – unseen, ignored, denied. The policies of religious repression, economic exploitation, "racial" persecution and social discrimination continued right up until 2005. "For many years, European and North American governments supported the various Sudanese regimes," said Zülch. "Now it is time to finally make amends."

Translated by Elizabeth Crawford