Solidarity Statement with the people of Sudan
July 2023
Read also: Solidarity statement of the CSIPM Coordination Committee with the People of the Occupied Territories of Palestine“We cannot find our daily sustenance,” is a phrase most Sudanese people repeat again these days amid the most recent war that erupted between local military forces mobilized and funded by global and regional powers. More than 1.4 million people have been displaced until now in this round of fighting including people who were already refugees in Sudan.[1] Inside or outside Sudan, there is no escaping systemic racism and discrimination.
“I have been here for five days and no one has offered me work. I no longer have money, and I don’t know how will I be able to get food.”
Mohammad
Mohammad, a Sudanese land worker trapped in Al-Qadarif state in Sudan explains how they arrived to work on lands but they remain jobless, and how the summer agricultural season is on hold due to the ongoing battles. Thousands share his same experience and are ready to risk their lives working on farms caught in conflict zones to secure a livelihood as well as to save the season, which if lost, will cause a severe food problem for the refugees, the displaced, and those who have remained in their cities and villages. It will affect their food security while the conflict will continue to affect their safe access to their resources. These problems in the agricultural sector, both plant and animal, will extend its impact to neighboring countries that depend on Sudanese agricultural exports.
Ever since Sudan gained its independence from British colonization back in 1956, the country was not allowed to complete two consecutive decades of peace. The rich African Arab country once known as a “world’s food basket” was kept deliberately unable to provide for its own people through war, imperialist foreign interventions, division of its land, blockade and sanctions, as well as corruption added to environmental challenges. The country remains severely impoverished despite its exceptional richness with valuable resources such as gold, which continue to be robbed and smuggled outside Sudan up until today. Sudan is a sheer example of how the richness in natural resources of countries in the global south and Africa especially, turned out to become the main source of instability and impoverishment due to the limitless imperialist greed to seize control over these resources. An unstable Sudan means that the theft of its resources and wealth, as well as human trafficking and arms trade, can continue on its lands unhindered.
The Coordination Committee of the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism for relations with the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) expresses its full solidarity with the Sudanese people and supports their right in a sovereign and stable country.
We call on CFS Members and all relevant UN bodies and other actors to make the necessary efforts to re-establish peace and guarantee the unity of Sudanese lands by not using them as a battlefield for foreign interests as a first step to start addressing and preventing the root causes of food and nutrition insecurity in Sudan. We also urge them to implement the Framework for Action on Food Security in Protracted Crises (FFA), adopted by the United Nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS) through:
- Meeting the immediate humanitarian needs of those in need in Sudan, refugees and displaced persons without discrimination, and ensuring safe and unhindered access to humanitarian and food aid, and the United Nations assuming its moral responsibility to ensure that this aid reaches them.
- Protecting those affected by or at risk of protracted crises and focusing on nutritional needs.
- Building resilient livelihoods and promoting effective and adequate financing to address food security and nutrition challenges in protracted crises.
- Contributing to building peace through food security and nutrition, sustainable management of natural resources and disaster risk reduction, and strengthening the effectiveness of national and local governance.
- Supporting the establishment of food reserves at the local, national and regional levels.
- Supporting policies that promote local food systems as a key component of development and support resilience, particularly ensuring small-scale producers’ access to productive resources and markets.
- Promoting food safety throughout the food chain to prevent contamination and disease, which are common in food aid reaching affected communities.
- Encouraging purchases from local producers and the use of local organizations in implementing humanitarian and development aid programs.
- Not to use food as a means of political or economic pressure and the need to refrain from taking unilateral measures that do not take into account international law, including the Charter of the United Nations, and that endanger food security and nutrition, as stipulated in the Rome Declaration of 1996.
- Facilitating the return of refugees to Sudan.
- Supporting affected countries’ ownership of programs and obliging foreign humanitarian organizations to work through state institutions so as not to undermine them or create parallel systems as well as using local organizations in the implementation of humanitarian and development aid programs.
[1] https://reliefweb.int/report/sudan/sudan-clashes-between-saf-and-rsf-flash-update-no-14-28-may-2023-enar
“Denouncing Israeli Aggression in Gaza and Expressing Solidarity with the Palestinian People”
In the early hours of Tuesday, May 9, 2023, Israeli forces launched a severe assault on three residential complexes in the Gaza Strip. A squadron of 40 warplanes was deployed in this assault on the densely populated residences. The immediate consequence was the tragic loss of 13 Palestinian lives and numerous injuries, including 7 children and 3 women. With the initiation of this military operation in Gaza, the death toll has exceeded 30, with 24 women and children among the casualties, and many more left in shock and distress.
The assault was initiated while the residents were sleeping, and no significant events preceded this devastating act. Entire families were obliterated in their sleep, a distressing act that underscores the severity of the atrocity committed against civilians. Israel justifies the assault by identifying the target as three activists involved with Islamic Jihad, disregarding the fact that these activists were residing with their families in residential buildings. This act is yet another in a series of transgressions committed by the Israeli forces against the Palestinian people, who have been engaged in a struggle for their liberty for the past 75 years.
This ongoing aggression, now in its fourth day, has also targeted farming communities and agricultural lands in the border areas and has persistently barred fishermen from venturing into the sea. From the onset of the assault, the Israeli forces have continuously bombarded thousands of acres of agricultural land, preventing farmers from accessing their fields. This has inflicted significant losses on the farming community, resulting in a critical shortage of food, particularly vegetables, on which the entire Gaza Strip is dependent.
For the past four days, Israeli forces have relentlessly bombed residential areas throughout the Gaza Strip, showing an alarming disregard for the civilian population, primarily composed of women and children. The Gaza Strip has been under a severe blockade for over 16 years, which has led to the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians due to a shortage of essential medicines and medical care.
We, at La Via Campesina and the Coordination Committee of CSIPM, vehemently condemn these brutal acts and we urge the free people of the world to actively support the Palestinian people’s struggle for liberation in all possible ways. It is the duty of the international community to eliminate double standards in dealing with this occupation.
We demand the end of the occupation and freedom for the resilient Palestinian people.
The Coordination Committee of the Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism (CSIPM), July 2023.
This statement is also available in Arabic