In May Suleiman Rahhal, Director of International Nuba Coordination Centre and myself travelled to Slovenia to attend several meetings arranged by best selling Slovenian writer Tomo Kriznar, who has been campaigning on behalf of the Nuba in central Europe. Suleiman Rahhal was recieved most warmly by the the Sloveian government, and his meeting with State Secretary Franco Juri was shown on Television news. He also met with Eva Tomec, head of the Human Rights division.
In April, at the UN Human Rights Committee meeting in Geneva, Mrs Tomec managed to get the qustion of humanitarian access to the liberated mountains adopted in the UN resolution on Sudan, prompted by intensive lobbying by Kriznar who had pointed out that OLS aid was only going to the government side of the mountains.
Suleiman and myself were guest speakers at the launch of Kriznar’s latest best seller: Nuba - Cisti Lujundje (‘Nuba - A Pure People’). The audience at the sold out meeting in Lubijana’s Spanish Veterans Hall included a high level delegation from the Foreign Ministry, as well as Stefka Kucan, wife of Slovenia,s president and the country’s most influential humanitarian, human rights and media personnel. Suleiman was also a guest on several TV and radio programmes, including the most popular chat show, Studio City, as well as interviewed in Slovenia’s major newspapers. We also met with representatives of the pharmaceutical company Lek, who have been donating medical supplies to the liberated areas.
Kriznar’s work on the Nuba is currently book of the month, resulting in further continuous media coverage in this this small but politically significant young European country, whose mountainous landscape and recent history makes its population all the more receptive to the Nuba’s predicament. Slovenia currently has a seat on the UN Security Council, and her government appears determined to do all it can do help the Nuba in the face of international apathy.