| UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER |
ACRONYMS:
DUP - Democratic Unionist Party
IGADD - Inter-Governmental Authority on Drought and Development
NDA - National Democratic Alliance
NIF - National Islamic Front
NSCC - New Sudan Council of Churches
NUP - Nationalist Unionist Party
PDF - Popular Defence Forces
PRMSS - Patriotic Resistance Movement of South Sudan
RASS - Relief Association for Southern Sudan
RCC - Revolutionary Command Council
RCCNS - RCC of National Salvation
SCC - Sudan Council of Churches
SEOC - Sudan Emergency Operations Consortium
SPLA - Sudan People's Liberation Army
SPLM - Sudan People's Liberation Movement
SSIM - South Sudan Independence Movement
** CARTER CEASEFIRE **
CARTER CENTER STATEMENT ON RECENT PEACE AND HEALTH INITIATIVES IN SUDAN
(Carter Center News 25 Jul 95)
ATLANTA, GA--Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said today upon returning from a trip to Sudan that all sides in that nation's civil conflict had agreed to continue observing the cease- fire as long as good faith talks are being held under the auspices of the Inter- governmental Authority on Drought and Development (IGADD), chaired by Kenya President Daniel Arap Moi. The cease- fire, originally set to expire July 28, has allowed international health workers to implement interventions to prevent Guinea worm disease, river blindness, and other diseases.
During the trip, President Carter delivered peace talk invitations from President Moi to the Sudanese government, Sudanese People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), and the Southern Sudanese Independence Movement/Army (SSIM/A). All sides accepted the invitations for peace talks to begin soon in Nairobi.
"All sides agreed to continuation of the four- month cease- fire as long as significant progress was being made toward achieving a lasting peace," President Carter said...
MINISTER SAYS RELEASE OF 72 HELD BY REBELS CONDITION FOR START OF TALKS
(SWB 26 Jul 95 [RSR in Arabic, 24 Jul 95])
The president of the republic, Lt- Gen Umar Hasan Ahmad al- Bashir, has reiterated Sudan's firm stance to establish peace in the south within the framework of a united Sudan. He praised the efforts of the former US President Jimmy Carter in this respect...
Meanwhile, Dr Ghazi Salah al- Din, the minister of state at the Foreign Ministry, referred to Carter's efforts to halt the bloodshed in the south. He said: The extension of the cease- fire and the commencement of serious talks with the rebel factions are conditional on the release of 72 people held by the rebel movement.
KHARTOUM MAXIMIZES MILITARY GAINS UNDER THE UNSUPERVISED CEASE- FIRE
(SDG Jul 95, p.9)
...At the end of May, Khartoum received a consignment of Chinese weaponry. Two ship loads docked at Port Sudan including tanks, artillery pieces and assorted heavy weaponry and spare parts. In addition, some aircraft were delivered including the remodelled old planes which the Chinese had been maintaining over the past year. The equipment has since been reassembled and transported to Southern Sudan.
It is not clear who is financing this consignment. In the past, Iran has taken care of such things. Although the publicly available documents of the latest agreement between Khartoum and Tehran do not mention any payments for military equipment, it does speak of military cooperation in vague terms. This suggests that the Iranians have at least guaranteed Khartoum's ability to pay the Chinese.
Military equipment has also been supplied to the regime from rather surprising quarters in the Arab world. Jordan is believed to have contributed weaponry. Iraq's involvement comes as no surprise to anyone. Russia has agreed to supply arms on a strictly down payment basis, which, if it is true, will severely limit Khartoum's ability to make purchases unless a third party is willing to pick up the bill for them...
SUDAN ARMY ENDS CEASEFIRE BY TAKING BORDER TOWN
(Reuter 13 Aug 95)
KHARTOUM - A four- month ceasefire between Sudan's government and separatist rebels in the south ended over the weekend when the army attacked and took Kaya, a small town near the border with Uganda and Zaire.
A statement issued by the Sudanese army's general command and read on state television said that the armed forces, after being subjected to "repeated agressions," had taken Kaya at sunset on Saturday from the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA).
Ugandan military sources in Kampala confirmed the claim...
Each side has accused the other of breaking the ceasefire accord, but the Sudanese army's capture of Kaya was the first major offensive reported.
Sudanese rebel sources said the attack marked the end of the cease- fire.
The army statement said the Sudanese army has "proceeded to crush the remnants of the traitors, agents and outlaws, and entered Kaya at sunset on Saturday."
With the recapture of Kaya, the whole of Bahr- el- Jebel (White Nile) region was now "free of rebellion," the Khartoum statement said...
** PEACE EFFORTS **
INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR PEACE IN SUDAN
(Press release May 1995)
/HAB/ A draft version of this statement appeared in HAB 2/95. In light of subsequent revisions, the latest version appears here.
European Working Group on the Horn of Africa; Horn of Africa Policy Group - Canada; Coalition for Peace in the Horn of Africa - USA
After consultation with faith, business, labor, women's, and political groups of Sudanese both within and outside Sudan...
WE CALL FOR THE FOLLOWING:
1. Endorsement of the IGADD Declaration of Principles.
We call on governments, human rights organizations, non- government organizations, faith groups and other independent agencies around the world to follow the lead of the Heads of State of Kenya, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Uganda in affirming the Declaration of Principles as the basis for a negotiated settlement of the Sudan conflict. We call on the Government of Sudan to accept the Declaration of Principles, which most of the major political groups in Sudan have done, as a starting point for serious negotiations.
2. Support of Multi- Track Peace Diplomacy at the National, Factional and Community levels.
We call for a fresh coordinated effort to encourage peacemakers both within and outside Sudan to simultaneously work in formal and informal ways to bring peace at all levels of society. Participants should be drawn from governments, non- governmental organizations, faith groups and indigenous communities.
National/Regional:
The war in Sudan is not only a "Southern Problem," but a national problem with major implications for regional security. The IGADD initiative, whose members are now having to address regional security issues, must be the arena for national mediation between the Government of Sudan, the SPLM, the SSIM and other Sudanese groups who may be added to the process representing significant population groupings. Friends of IGADD and friends of Sudan, whether governmental or non- governmental, must continue to be enlisted to lend support to the IGADD initiated regional peace process. Efforts to undermine an African led regional process must be resisted by all as a sabotaging of the peace process. We call for the appointment of a Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) to support the IGADD process and to follow its lead in working for peace in Sudan and for regional security. We also call for an immediate unconditional cease- fire to be declared by all parties. The Government of Sudan, its militia and Popular Defense Forces, the SPLM/A, SSIM/A, and all commanders must observe the Geneva Conventions and expect to be held accountable by international bodies for their actions.
Inter- Factional:
The SPLM/A and SSIM/A must fully implement their declared cease- fire, pursue a mutually agreeable mediation process and negotiate ways to live side- by- side in a manner that respects the human rights and needs of civilian populations and indigenous cultures. Where conflicts cross the lines of factional authority, we call on the factional leaders and local commanders to fully embrace and participate in community level indigenous peace processes involving elected southern politicians, faith groups, women's organizations and other civic groups.
Community:
Indigenous peace efforts among Sudanese neighboring peoples offer the greatest hope for peace at a community level and help create an atmosphere and momentum for peace that can have significant effects on both inter- factional and national efforts. When indigenous peoples, acting through their chiefs, elected representatives, faith groups, women's associations and civil administrators, initiate peace efforts, governments and non- governmental agencies must be ready to provide material and personnel support to strengthen and facilitate the process.
3. Focus on Self- Reliance and Principles of Access and Accountability:
The international donor community must lend further support to the policy of strengthening local capacity that builds on the social capital inherent within local cultures and requires both freedom of access and open accountability. This includes:
* Conditioning all aid on respect for humanitarian principles and focusing emergency aid on the resettlement of displaced peoples and enhancement of self- reliance.
* Expanding cross- border aid and commerce routes from neighboring countries, minimizing aid by air, and pressing for a restoration and practice of the concept of "corridors of tranquility".
* Focusing on non- food assistance that enhances local food production and seed banks, builds internal commerce, and trains local personnel for primary health care, education, and animal health.
* Strengthening local organizations and institutions that respect cultural and traditional patterns. Traditional and civic structures, faith organizations, women's associations and indigenous non- government organizations build on traditional social capital and methods of self- reliance that resist dependency pressures in crisis settings.
* Resourcing independent monitoring, evaluation and assessment.
4. Generate Pressure for Peace, Justice and Human Rights:
Peacemaking, humanitarian relief and self- reliance activities must be linked with strong multi- track pressure on all parties toward ending the war a establishing a just society. These pressures should include the following:
* Challenge the Government of Sudan, SPLM/A and SSIM/A to live up to their rhetoric of democracy, autonomy for non- military institutions, protection of human rights, religious freedom, press freedom and promotion of women's rights.
* Promote and support the deployment of an international civilian human rights monitoring group that can place monitors in both government and rebel areas of suspected abuse. Enhance the capacity of the UN Human Rights Rapporteur.
* Ensure the observance by all member countries of the European Union's Arms Embargo of Sudan and work to include an embargo of police, security and intelligence equipment and cooperation. Support an international debate and study on the wisdom of an energy embargo as called for by numerous Sudanese opposition and civic groups.
* Oppose all multilateral bank credits to Sudan.
* Find an international broadcast news mechanism that will beam radio news on a weekly basis into all of Sudan, giving news about the course of the war, the cost of waging war, and peace initiatives. Objective information puts pressure on leadership groups and provides hope for all peoples in Sudan working for a peaceful future.
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND ACP PARTNERS TO VISIT SUDAN
(NNS July 95)
This month a delegation of representatives from Joint Assembly of European Parliament and ACP [African, Caribbean, Pacific] members of the Lome convention (a multilateral aid framework of the European Union) are going to Sudan - a member state - to review the Human Rights situation there. Funds to Sudan under Lome's Human Rights, Democracy and Good Governance provisions have been frozen for some years although Humanitarian Aid continues.
The Joint Assembly has had frequent debates on the situation in Sudan, and has agreed to send a delegation on the basis that they would be able to go wherever they choose and visit anyone they ask to see...
The group will visit Khartoum from August 28, and plans to travel to the Nuba mountains, Asmara and Nairobi. Its report will be presented to the Joint Assembly meeting in Brussels on September 27/8.
In the meantime the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning the government of Sudan for its Human Rights record on July 13. The resolution condemns the "massacre of the Southern Population" and calls on the goverment to respect human rights across the country. The Parliament is also urging the European Union to exert pressure for an international arms embargo.
MARIDI DIOCESE PEACEMAKING SEMINAR ENDS
(NSCC Partner Update July 1995)
Peacemaking has become one of the most important concerns of the NSCC member churches. Since the beginning of the war church leaders have been undertaking great efforts, often risking their lives, [to] mediate between conflict factions as well as in communal violence.
The NSCC concept of grassroot peacemaking seems to be gaining ground among many church leaders. Early this year the Presbyterian and the Catholic churches launched successful peace conferences at Akobo and Torit respectively. 18th- 24th May, it was the turn of Episcopal Church of Maridi Diocese to strengthen traditional peacemaking skills.
Rt. Rev. Joseph Marona, the ECS Bishop of Maridi Diocese, took the opportunity of the conference to call on his flocks to choose sixty people who will act as peace monitors...
** OPPOSITION **
/HAB/ For more on the opposition meeting and subsequent relational difficulties with Eritrea, see "Eritrea--Sudan" under Eritrea.
OPPOSITION MEETING IN ASMARA
(ION 1 Jul 95, p.1)
Financed by Egypt, housed by Eritrea, and supported by the presence of numerous Western diplomats (including US ambassador Robert Houdek), the conference of Sudanese political opposition movements last week fired off a declaration of war aimed at Khartoum. Not without difficulty, the Asmara conference achieved the revival of the National Democratic Alliance (which was then joined by the new "ethnic opposition" movements - Beja, Four, Nouba), the creation of a politico- military committee to prepare to overthrow the regime of general Omar Al Bechir, and a joint orientation on reorganizing the country. NDA came out in favour of State- Church separation, devolution of centralized administration, and a referendum on self- determination after a transition period (of unspecified length).
The organization plan of NDA (with Mohamed Osman Al Mirghani of Democratic Unionist Party as chairman, general Fathi Ahmed Ali as vice chairman and head of military affairs, Mubarak Al Fadil Al Mahdi of Oumma as secretary general, Mansour Khaled of SPLA as deputy secretary general and head of foreign affairs) strongly favours pro- Egyptian and moderate pro- Saudi elements. However, the strategy of armed struggle against Khartoum will play into the hands of colonel John Garang's SPLA, the ethnic oppositions, and ground- root members of SSIM (represented at the conference by majors Gatkuoth Gatkwot, James Biel Bak and Steven Duol Chuol). It means opening up new military fronts (in the east or the west, or both together) and preparations for a revolutionary insurrection in the north. Fracture lines are clearly visible within the Sudanese opposition: Mohamed Taher Abubakar, secretary general of Beja Congress, wants self- determination for Eastern Sudan, but Al Mirghani is against it. Ahmed Ibrahim Draig, longtime political leader in Darfour, joined DNA despite some misgivings about DUP and Oumma. The ultra- federalism of the "ethnic opposition" groups does not suit NDA centralists who want to maintain Sudanese unity, a theme on which Garang is attentive. And the non- Arab Muslims within NDA are more open to suggestions of a lay state than the Arab members.
As conference chairman, colonel Garang tracked down every possible compromise since he urgently needs an alliance with the "ethnic opposition" in order to give life to his project of destabilizing the Khartoum regime militarily. On this point, Mohamed Taher Abubakar (who was elected to the committee, as was general (in exile) Abdelaziz Khaled Osman) makes no mystery of his intentions: according to him, Beja supporters have been preparing for armed conflict against the Sudanese government for more than a year, they already control the buffer zone along the Sudanese- Eritrean frontier, and are now getting ready to launch fresh military operations in eastern Sudan. The Eritrean government is not deaf to this radical theme. One of their representatives summed up the situation, in private, as he saw it: the Islamic regime in Khartoum must be swept away, Asmara cannot mount any military operations against it, but will nevertheless give some backing to operation mounted by the Sudanese opposition in this direction. Egypt does not see things that way at all, even after the failed assassination attempt on head of state Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa and makes a distinction between NIF headed by Al Turabi which it would indeed like to see removed, but the government headed by general Al Bechir is tacitly offered an agreement with DUP and Oumma in order to install a "military system" similar to earlier regimes under Abboud and Nimeiri. Both Egypt and Saudi Arabia are therefore very wary of the presence of Garang's SPLA and the Sudanese Communist Party in NDA. On the sidelines, the United States are not budging for the moment but are keeping all their irons in the fire.
A VOTE FOR ARMED STRUGGLE
(AC 7 Jul 95, p.3)
...Key decisions of [the NDA] meeting [in Asmara, June 15- 23] include:
1. Accept right of and referendum on self- determination (with reluctant and fudged independence option) before end of transitional government period for South and Abyei area (Ngok Dinka, Southern Kordofan) but not southern Blue Nile (Ingessana area) or Nuba Mountains (South Kordofan).
2. `Efforts to remove disadvantage' for Nuba and south Blue Nile with referendum on political/administrative future.
3. To reach `just and decisive' settlement of war, with adherence to principles and mechanism of Inter- Governmental Authority on Drought and Development (a signal to neighbours and West).
4. Adherence to international human rights instruments.
5. Equality of citizenship, regardless of religion, gender, ethnicity, culture.
6. No political party on religious basis (problem for Umma and DUP?). The secular constitution issue was again fudged: though the above three clauses supposedly avoid Sharia without saying so, they allow Umma/DUP obstruction.
7. Legitimacy of armed struggle to remove regime (contradicts Sadig el Mahdi's stress on peaceful `civil jihad'; victory for SAF and allies.
8. Transition: decentralised state; four years maximum.
9. Maulana Mohamed Osman elected NDA Chairman, Fathi Ahmed, Vice- Chairman (John Garang declined); powerful, controversial Secretary General is Mubarek el Fadil; LC and SAF failed to reunite (a condition of Eritrean military facilities--SAF's NDA membership should satisfy President Isayas); SAF's Brigadier Abdel Aziz Khalid Osman refused executive post because of LC hostility; John Garang outmanoeuvred SSIA: helped ensure they were not invited by appearing as South's true representative and stressing national unity; many secularists wanted SSIA invited.
IGADD AND THE NDA CONFERENCE IN ASMARA
(SDG Aug 95, p.3)
...Now that the results of the Asmara Conference have been received approvingly by the Sudanese public, both the IGADD peace committee and the international community should move to endorse them. That endorsement need not be a practical one but certainly should be a political one. It is important that the international community acknowledges the principles of Democracy and Self- determination as the basis for reaching peace in Sudan and expresses this openly...
Pressure needs to be brought to bear so that the regime negotiates with the NDA in its entirety and not merely with the SPLA.
The IGADD peace committee now needs to call a conference which will involve the NIF regime and the entire NDA so that the Asmara agenda can be discussed and moved forward. If the regime refuses to attend, then the NDA should be invited separately so that its new agenda can be formally received. Neither the IGADD nor the international community should force the South to make a peicemeal peace with the regime when it is possible to have a comprehensive peace for the whole of Sudan...
SUDANESE OPPOSITION TO START RADIO BROADCASTS
(Reuter 5 Aug 95)
CAIRO - Sudanese opposition groups said on Saturday they would start radio broadcasts next week within Sudan aimed at mobilising opposition to Khartoum's Islamist- backed military government...
** REGIONAL/ FOREIGN RELATIONS **
SUDAN AND ERITREA SQUARE UP FOR A FIGHT
(AED 3 Jul 95)
Sudanese foreign minister Ali Osman Mohammad Taha says his country is prepared to confront Eritrea following reports of military tension on their border.
"We want the world to know the truth behind the situation between Sudan and Eritrea and to know that we have the right to confront the government of Asmara with all means," Taha told the London- based Arabic newspaper al- Hayat.
"But we will not be the ones who will start any aggression against our neighbours," he added.
Sudan's government had evidence of Eritrean involvement in military activities in Sudan and that it has complained to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).
"We kept hearing Eritrean accusations that Sudan is sheltering rebels to its government and extending backing to Eritrean opposition groups but we haven't received one single proof," Taha said.
"But we noticed that the government of Isayas Afewerki is supporting - publicly and shamelessly - elements opposing the Khartoum government."
Mohammad Abdalla Oweidsa, head of the security and defence committee of Sudan's Transitional National Assembly, says security has been tightened at Sudanese government buildings and installations on the border areas.
Army and police forces had also heightened vigilance at border posts, bridges, main roads and ports, he added.
He said the move was in response to a meeting last week in Asmara of Sudanese rebels and political exiles.
Sudan had close ties with the former Eritrean rebels during most of the guerrilla group's 30 years of struggle for self- rule from Ethiopia, giving it logistical facilities and allowing it to open representative offices on its territory...
/HAB/ For more news on Eritrean- Sudanese relations, see "Eritrea--Sudan" under Eritrea.
FORMER MINISTER ON SUDAN'S PLANS TO ISLAMIZE REGION
(The Observer via RBB 25 Jun 95, by Mark Huband])
Rusted metal sheets welded into a 5ft sculpture of an iron fist stood red hot as the heat rose to 40C in the garden of the Hamas militia office, hidden in a maze of sandy streets on the edge of Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. Neat coils of barbed wire topped an iron fence surrounding the Palestinian group's two- storey building...
Along with Hamas, officials of Hizbollah, the Abu Nidal Group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Algerian Islamic Salvation Front regularly travel through Khartoum. Sudan and these groups see themselves as the radical revivalists of the Islamic world. `The Islamic model is considered incomplete until its political component is implemented,' said Ghazi Salah el Din Atabani, Sudan's Foreign Minister and a key member of the inner circle now forging Sudan's Islamic programme. `It's affecting our relations with other Islamic countries adversely, at least in terms of relations with governments...
Mohamed Ahamed Abdelgadir Al- Arabab, a former Minister who is now hiding in exile, said: `The Front has a long- term plan which will mean that all Ministers, state officials and soldiers will be Front members by 2002. It intends to be the leader of the Islamic world by then.
'It has targeted 10 African countries for military action by fundamentalist groups, which are being trained at eight different camps in Sudan.'
The targeted countries are Sudan's neighbours, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Zaire, Central African Republic and Chad, as well as Djibouti, with a total population of 200m.
As a Minister, Al- Arabab said he had been involved in preparing the training camps for Sudanese and foreign Islamists. `No decisions are being taken by the government - everything is decided by Tourabi. President Omar Beshir is just a front man. This is why I fled,' he said.
Al- Arabab, who left Sudan in March, said Uganda and Eritrea were the immediate targets of the Sudanese government...
UGANDA/SUDAN--BORDERING ON WAR
(AC 21 Jul 95, p.3)
Relations between Kampala and Khartoum are far from restored: that much is confirmed by Uganda's offer of a radio station to the Sudan People's Liberation Army. The radio station deal was made at a 9 July meeting between Uganda's Minister of State for Security, Colonel Kahinda Otafiire, and SPLA representatives Stephen Wondu, Phillip Lomondong and Michael Garang, we hear. The station, said to be in Eastern Equatoria, Sudan, is due to open in late July. The SPLA has decided to go it alone after a dispute in Sudan's opposition National Democratic Alliance (to which it belongs) over who should control a transmitter offered by Eritrea. The new station is believed to have United States' backing. The USA supports the SPLA via Uganda but denies this: the only support to Uganda it acknowledges is training for the National Resistance Army.
Kampala severed diplomatic relations with Khartoum on 23 April...
The decision to `gradually' restore relations came after mediation by Malawian President Bakili Muluzi but has little to do with reality on the ground. On 11- 12 June, Presidents Yoweri Museveni and Omer el Beshir met in Blantyre. Muluzi, whose government's lacklustre performance was crying out for a foreign policy success, mediated as Chairperson of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, to which Sudan and Uganda belong. They agreed to form a multilateral border monitoring team and a permanent joint ministerial team...
Yet only two days after Blantyre on 14 June, Ugandan Foreign Affairs Minister Ruhakana Rugunda handed Khartoum a set of further conditions, including dismantling LRA camps at Paloteka and Parajok and a West Nile Bank Front camp at Morobo (all in Sudan), plus expelling Kony and the WNBF chief, Col. Juma Oris, once President Idi Amin's Foreign Minister. Khartoum did not respond, so the Blantyre accord is dormant. Ugandan Foreign Ministry officials insist Uganda is committed to Blantyre, yet on 9 June (Heroes Day), only a day before he left for Malawi, Museveni had warned: `We have the arms and the means and the will. We shall fight anybody or any force that wants to antagonise the peace of Ugandans'...
SUDANESE FOREIGN MINISTER PRAISES MOI FOR BOOSTING REGIONAL COOPERATION
(SWB 29 Jul 95 [RNU in Arabic, 26 Jul 95])
Text of report by Sudanese radio on 26th July
The foreign minister, Mr Ali Uthman Muhammad Taha, has praised the great role being performed by Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi in boosting regional cooperation and towards bringing about peace in the region and in Africa...
The foreign minister said President Moi's recent visit to Sudan had opened the way for boosting cooperation between the two countries.
PRESIDENT BASHIR RECEIVES MESSAGE FROM ETHIOPIAN COUNTERPART
(SWB 21 Jul 95 [RSR in Arabic, 28 Jul 95])
Text of report by Sudanese radio on 28th July
Lt- Gen Umar al- Bashir, the president of the republic, has received a written message from the Ethiopian president, Meles Zenawi, within the framework of the continuing contacts between them about issues of common interest. Lt- Gen Bashir this morning received, at the guesthouse in Khartoum, Mr Hagos Gebre [phonetic], the special envoy of President Zenawi.
The president of the republic commended the developing relations between Sudan and Ethiopia and called for greater cooperation between the two countries in various fields in the interests of the two brotherly peoples.
USA SAYS NO
(AC 23 Jun 95, p.8)
In a clear snub to the Sudan government, Washington has turned down Presidential security advisor Major Fatih Erwa as Khartoum's next Ambassador, Africa Confidential has learned. Though his name, which Sudan put forward in May (AC Vol 36 No 10), must still go to the Senate, it has little or no chance of going further, we understand...
** EGYPT ACCUSES SUDAN **
CALLING THE SHOTS AFTER ADDIS ABABA
(AC 7 Jul 95, p.1)
President Hosni Mubarak's insistence that Khartoum was behind the attempt on his life on 26 June marks a point of no return. This is a political rather than military confrontation. Egypt will try to undermine the Sudan government and will support--and attempt to control--the Sudanese opposition. Mubarak's condemnation of the National Islamic Front government as a `gang of criminals' which it could `overthrow within ten days' and his warm welcome for the Sudanese opposition will give way to discreet and covert action...
Ethiopia said little. But after a band of Egyptian security officers arrived in Addis Ababa, Egyptian media started quoting Cairo officials as saying there might be Ethiopian security involvement in the plot. Ethiopia issued a furious statement on 3 July, denouncing the `Egyptian appetite for the fabrication of lies'. Egypt's Information Minister Safwat el Sharif responded next day that `no responsible Egyptian source' had implicated Ethiopia. On the same day, Egypt's El Gama'a el Islamiya claimed the attack. Also on 4 July, Sudan's London Embassy circulated the Ethiopian statement, inserting, under the Egyptian government heading, its own opening paragraph claiming the statement showed Sudan was `victimized by baseless Egyptian allegations'. The statement, which had not mentioned Sudan, looked at first glance like a joint declaration.
Sudanese links are clear. President Meles Zenawi was already aware Khartoum- trained Islamists had infiltrated Ethiopian security, we hear (which may explain the spat with Cairo). Ethiopia noted that Sudanese had previously rented the house allegedly used by the presumed Egyptian attackers. Soon after the attack, it arrested a Sudanese, Siraj Mohamed Hussein, claimed to work for the Addis branch of Moafak el Hairiya (`Blessed Relief'), an NIF agency. Siraj, we understand, is married to a Cairo- based Egyptian and a Jeddah- based Saudi Arabian. The Toyota Land Cruiser used to block the path of Mubarak's armoured Mercedes is thought to have arrived two months earlier from Sudan and acquired Ethiopian number plates. Abandoned Kalashnikovs and RPG- 7 shoulder- held rocket launchers may provide further evidence: Mubarak declared that arms seized a few days earlier in the southern town of Kom Ombo had been smuggled from Sudan. He also publicly accused Sudan Security's Horn of Africa expert Fatih Erwa and Military Intelligence Director Mohamed Ahmed el Dhabi of involvement...
HALA'IB SKIRMISH
(SU 15 Jul 95 [VOA 30 Jun 95; AP 3 Jul 95])
At least two Sudanese were killed in a border skirmish in Hala'ib at the end of June that left another six soldiers injured. In a response, a group of Sudanese attacked Egyptian diplomatic residences in Khartoum and evicted the families living there. On 30 June Sudan accused Egyptian troops of killing another Sudanese soldier in the disputed border area of Hala'ib. Khartoum complained to the United Nations Security Council about alleged Egyptian attacks in the disputed Hala'ib area, and asked for the Arab League to mediate. In Cairo, military officials denied that any units had been moved south, although they did not rule out redeployments within the southern region.
MUSA SENDS MESSAGE TO UN SECURITY COUNCIL REJECTING SUDAN'S CLAIM TO HALA'IB
(SWB 15 Jul 95 [MENA news agency, Cairo, in Arabic 13 Jul 95])
Excerpt from report by the Egyptian news agency MENA
United Nations, New York, 13th July: Egypt's Foreign Minister Amr Musa has stressed that Egyptian sovereignty over all the territories to the north of the 22nd parallel was historically and legally confirmed since before Sudan's independence in 1956 to this day.
In the message he sent to the Security Council chairman on 10th July and which was released today in the United Nations as an official document, Musa said that Sudan's doubts about Egypt's sovereignty over the Hala'ib area had no historic or legal basis and were no more than untenable claims which conflicted with the sound legal interpretation of the nature of arrangements made to some Sudanese tribes so as to deepen the historic ties between the two peoples...
SUDAN CHANGES VISA RULE
(DN 7 Aug 95 [AP])
KHARTOUM, Sunday--Sudan today ended its policy of allowing all Arabs and Muslims to enter the country without visas, a move that follows Egypt's recent requirement that Sudanese have visas to enter its territory...
The radio quoted a Ministry statement as saying citizens of countries that accepted Sudanese without visas would also be allowed to enter Sudan without the travel documents...
** SPLA--SSIM **
SSIM IS DECOMPOSING
(ION 8 Jul 95, p.2)
The leader of Southern Sudan Independence Movement, major Riak Machar, is increasingly contested within his own movement and an SSIM clone which opposes him has begun to take shape. This faction was represented at the Sudanese opposition conference in Asmara by majors Gatkuoth Gatkwot, James Biel Bak and Steven Duol Chuol. Machar has already expelled Daniel Koat Mathews, John Luk and George Maker Benjamin from the movement and recently had to face up to opposition from William Nyuon...
GARANG, MACHAR, AKOL TO MEET
(SNV 15 Aug 95)
...It [has been] reported that a meeting will be held on 15 August in Nairobi between the three factions in an effort, initiated by USAP (United Southern African Parties), for re- unification. The meeting will be attended by the faction leaders John Garang, Riak Machar and Lam Akol.
This latest initiative comes in the wake of fierce fighting reported between Garang and Machar forces in Western Upper Nile province. SSIM claims that Garang forces had burnt down 35 villages, killing 147 people mostly women and children, destroyed crops and looted 4,000 cattle. The SPLA denied it had carried out the attack, adding it might have been the result of cattle rustling which is common in the area.
UNITED STATES CONDEMNS SOUTHERN SUDAN MASSACRE
(Reuter 23 Aug 95)
KHARTOUM - The United States on Wednesday called on the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) to investigate the massacre of more than 200 villagers in Western Upper Nile province last month.
A statement released by the U.S. embassy in Khartoum said that independent sources indicated SPLA soldiers had been involved in the killings, which took place on July 30.
The embassy statement condemned the killings and called on the SPLA to investigate and take appropriate measures against those responsible.
It said most of the dead were civilians, more than a half of whom were children already rendered homeless when their villages were burned down.
Three weeks ago one of the SPLA's rival rebel groups in southern Sudan accused it of carrying out the killings.
South Sudan Independence Army (SSIA) said a total of 145 people, mostly women and children, were killed and more than 250 wounded.
It said SPLA gunmen took 4,000 head of cattle, burned down 35 villages, destroyed crops and looted mosquito nets, fishing nets and hooks in the attack.
The SPLA has denied attacking Ganyliel and breaking a peace agreement with the SSIA, which split from it in 1991...
/HAB/ The peace agreement with the SSIA is the so- called Lafon Declaration of April 27. (See HAB 3/95 pp.29- 30.)
WFP HOSTAGES IN SUDAN RELEASED
(WFP 21 Jul 95)
ROME, 20 July--Sudanese rebels released five hostages on Thursday, 13 July, including two World Food Programme (WFP) staff members held captive for a month and a half.
The staff members were taken prisoner by the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) on 8 June. Their freedom came two days after the release of two doctors, an Italian and a Sudanese, who had been held by the Government of the Sudan since late May.
The hostages were picked by a United Nations plane and flown to the town of Lokichokkio, Kenya.
The WFP staff members, Kodendera Beliappa, a logistics officer and an Indian national, and El Fateh Hassan Bakhlet, a warehouse supervisor and native of the Sudan, were captured by the SPLA when they flew to the area to pick up the doctors held by the Sudanese Government.
Also taken prisoner were Nabawi El Hag, a Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) programme assistant, and two Sudanese government officials. The government officials were along to ensure that the Sudanese military released the doctors...
The current hostage situation developed when the doctors, working for Comitato Collaborazione Medica, an Italian non- governmental organization, landed in Pariang in the Nuba Mountains area without clearance from the Sudanese Government. They were immediately arrested.
The WFP obtained clearance to pick up the doctors from both the Sudanese Government and the rebels. However, the WFP airplane became stuck in mud upon landing. Instead of being met by Sudanese military authorities, members of the SPLA showed up the next day and took all aboard into custody.
The release followed long- running negotiations among the parties involved.
** HUMAN RIGHTS **
JAILED SUDANESE MOTHERS AND CHILDREN SET FREE
(Reuter 4 Aug 95)
KHARTOUM - All women prisoners in Sudan who were jailed with their children and women who committed minor offences have been freed, a Khartoum newspaper said on Friday.
The privately- owned Akhbar Al- Youm paper quoted Safiya Abdel- Rahim, head of parliament's Social Affairs Committee, as saying only extreme cases should be punished with jail.
The paper's report followed a warning late last month by Sudan's director- general of prisons Major General al- Shaikh al- Rayah that there had been a marked deterioration in the country's jails.
He said prisoners were going hungry and some were dying for lack of medical care. Financial assistance to prisons was totally inadequate, he added.
There were 1,000 sick women in jail and 300 children with their imprisoned mothers, he said, and called for the release of all prisoners with children and those serving sentences shorter than six months.
SUDAN SAYS POLITICAL PRISONERS TO BE RELEASED
(Reuter 23 Aug 95)
KHARTOUM - Sudan will free all political detainees within 72 hours and has urged political opponents in exile to return home, state radio said on Wednesday.
The radio said the decision to free detainees "without exception" was taken at a meeting of the national security council headed by President Omar Hassan al- Bashir.
It quoted Minister of Justice Abdel Aziz Shido as saying that the council urged opposition elements living abroad "to return home to contribute to security and stability in the country."...
The radio gave no indication of how many detainees would be covered by the amnesty.
Sudanese officials have said in the past that there were only a couple of dozen political detainees but foreign diplomats and human rights groups have disputed this, saying the real figure is much higher...
AL- MAHDI `TO BE CHARGED WITH ATTEMPT TO TOPPLE REGIME'
(Guardian via RBB 16 Aug 95, by Kathy Evans)
Sudan's main opposition leader and former prime minister, Sadiq al- Mahdi, is to be tried in the next few days for attempting to overthrow the government, according to the speaker of the country's national assembly, Mohammed Amin al- Khalifa, who is visiting London.
He said Mr Mahdi faces a jail sentence of between one and 12 years.
Mr Mahdi, aged 59, leader of Sudan's Umma party, was arrested three months ago and taken to Khartoum's notorious Kober prison after giving a speech accusing the National Islamic Front, led by Hassan Turabi, of spending too much money on support to foreign Islamic militants...
UNLICENSED JOURNALISTS IN SUDAN RISK JAIL, FINE
(Reuter 2 Aug 95)
KHARTOUM - Journalists in Sudan who are not licensed with the state- run press council risk being jailed and fined, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Al- Fatih al- Seed of the journalist's committee, an affiliate of the government- appointed National Council for Press and Publication, warned that unlicensed journalists face a one- month jail term and a fine of 500,000 Sudanse pounds ($910), according to the private Akhbar al- Youm daily.
Seed said committee members would pay unannounced visits to newspaper offices to find journalists who were working without the necessary certificate from the council, which was formed in 1993 and is supervised by President Omar Hassan al- Bashir...
GOVERNMENT CAMPAIGN AGAINST FAX MACHINES
(SNV 15 Aug 95)
The security forces in Khartoum had recently raided a number of offices and houses of Sudanese businessmen who owned fax machines, searching for foreign press cuttings and opposition literature which are believed to be received by fax from abroad, and distributed widely in Khartoum. Many fax machines were confiscated.
One prominent businessman, Sid Ahmed Abdalla Akod, almost 70- years of age, had been arrested on July 16. He is still being kept in detention, and Amnesty International had started a campaign for his release. To be able to use a fax machine in Sudan, you have to obtain the approval of the Ministry of Commerce, a license from the Ministry of Telecommunications and a cleaance of the security forces.
EURO- PARLIAMENT CALLS FOR TOUGH STAND ON SUDAN
(Reuter 13 Jul 95)
STRASBOURG, France - The European Parliament urged the European Union on Thursday to intensify pressure for strengthened U.N. sanctions against Sudan for human rights abuses, including an international arms embargo...
It said the aim of the sanctions would be to "bring pressure to bear on the Sudanese government to stop the massacre of its southern population and respect human rights throughout the entire country."...
ECOSOC EXTENDS MANDATE OF SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR
(UNIC 28 Jul 95 [ECOSOC/5622 27 Jul 95])
GENEVA, 25 July -- The Economic and Social Council this afternoon adopted 59 resolutions and decisions on human rights concerns, including the right to development and the rights of ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities...
In a decision on the situation of human rights in the Sudan, the Council approved the Commission's decision to extend the mandate of the Special Rapportur on that subject for an additional year...
** SUDAN ACCUSED OF GENOCIDE **
AFRICAN RIGHTS ACCUSES SUDAN OF GENOCIDE
(Reuter 21 Jul 95, by Peter Smerdon)
NAIROBI - A human rights group accused Sudan's Islamist- backed government on Friday of a 10- year campaign of "genocide by attrition" against the Nuba people of central Sudan.
In a 350- page report, London- based African Rights said its findings were the result of the first on- the- spot investigation of rights abuses in the Nuba Mountains since the start of war.
The government in Khartoum has repeatedly denied previous reports of human rights violations against the 1.5 million Nuba who follow Islam, Christianity and traditional religions.
"Genocide need not be perpetrated by huge massacres. There are more insidious but equally effective ways of committing the crime," African Rights said in a statement after visiting the area which it said had been sealed off for the past six years.
"The Sudan government is committing genocide by attrition: it is slowly and methodically grinding down the society and economy of the Nuba to a point where they simply do not exist."
"Meanwhile in the garrison towns, 'peace camps' and mechanised farming schemes, the government is remoulding the political and social identity of the Nuba by force; the aim is to transform them into a deracinated underclass, the loyal servants of an extremist Islamic state," the rights group said.
The Nuba Mountains are closed to foreign aid agencies, which operate in government- and rebel- held areas of southern Sudan where rebels have been fighting Khartoum's forces since 1983.
The report said spearheading the strategy of genocide were huge "combing" operations by the military in which the troops avoided confronting the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) but burned undefended villages, looted and destroyed.
"The people who remain in rural areas are dressed in rags, without medicines, and reduced to destitution," the group said.
"The aim is to create permanent famine so that SPLA soldiers surrender or run away and the villagers submit themselves to government "peace camps", hoping at least to be fed," it added.
African Rights accused the government of systematically eliminating all independent Nuba leaders and said anyone with an education was liable to be arrested, tortured, executed or to disappear...
/HAB/ To order a copy of "Facing Genocide: The Nuba of Sudan", contact African Rights at 11 Marshalsea Road, London SE1 1EP, UK. Tel: (+44) 171 717 1224. Fax: 171 717 1240.
THE NUBA: LIVING ON THE BRINK
(IND 23 Jul 95, by Julie Flint)
...The Nuba are already on the brink - an amalgam of African tribes located not in the tribal south of Sudan but in the Islamic north, just above the great fault line that divides both continent and country. As black Africans, the Nuba have suffered for decades at the hands of greedy northern elites who have monopolised power and seized much of their land; as a result, in 1985 they threw in their lot with the southern rebels of the SPLA, fellow black Africans who have been fighting the government since 1983. The Nuba rebellion, however, poses a more fundamental challenge to the government than the rebellion in the south. Not only are the Nuba part of the north, and so an example for other northerners, but they also have a tradition of religious tolerance that threatens Khartoum's ambition of establishing an Islamic state. And so they now face, alone, a genocidal war in which the international community, silent and submissive, is complicit...
A collection of more than 50 tribes with different traditions, customs and languages, the Nuba live peacefully among themselves and know no discrimination of class or religion. Christianity, Islam and older, animist religions are all accepted and often found within a single family. Kuwa is Moslem, his wife Christian; their children will decide for themselves. "Inter- marriage between Moslems and Christians is permitted and anyone who preaches or agitates against it shall be disciplined," Nuba religious leaders declared last December at the end of a four- day religious dialogue conference held in the mountains after reports that some preachers had been making "divisive" noises. The conference also asserted that "all people have the freedom to practice games and leisure, including dancing and the consumption of alcohol, without undermining community values." To the fundamentalists in Khartoum, such a doctrine is anathema, but the Nuba are proud of their tolerance...
Today, fewer than a quarter of an estimated 1.5 million Nuba remain in the rebel- controlled mountains, stubbornly defending their heterogeneous, non- Arab culture against a regime determined to remake Sudan in its own conformist, extremist, image...
** HUMANITARIAN ISSUES **
NGOS AT WORK: WHO NEEDS CAPACITY BUILDING?
(NNS June 95)
"Capacity building and relief work should go together," says Alison Ayers, co- ordinator of the Operation Lifeline Sudan Institution Capacity Building programme "in fact, we think it makes no sense to separate them". A five day workshop on June 26- 30 which UNICEF/OLS and Catholic Relief Services organised, challenged local and international NGOs and donors to take a hard look at what building capacity should be about...
Some 35 people, including four Southern Sudanese NGOs, SRRA, RASS, 12 international NGOs (operational and non- operational), UNICEF/WFP and donors signed onto a final statement which called on international donors and NGOs to commit more resources to building capacity. It also set out their views on what capacity building must be if it is going to work (see text of Nairobi Joint Statement attached to this MU)...
THE NAIROBI JOINT STATEMENT II
1. The future of civil society in South Sudan lies in the establishment and development of indigenous organisations which can enable its people to become as self- reliant as possible.
These indigenous organisations include churches, traditional community groupings, the new non- government non- profit organisations and the humanitarian wings of the movements - all having been formed to deal with the needs of the people of South Sudan...
We, the participants in the Capacity Building Workshop at the Fairview Hotel, (26- 30 June 1995) are convinced that the future of international assistance to South Sudan must be linked to the development of indigenous organisations. It must involve helping them to develop into strong, competent and effective organisations with the mission of increasing the self- reliance of the people of South Sudan.
2. The implication of this belief is that:
(i) international NGOs working in South Sudan should commit a significant portion of their resources - human, material and financial - to building the capacity of indigenous organisations, thereby improving their effectiveness and sustainability.
(ii) donors sincerely interested in the future of South Sudan should consider committing their resources to capacity building processes, either directly to indigenous organisations or via international NGOs committed to this process.
3. We recognise that support to organisations must address all the necessary components of a healthy organisation...
4. We encourage all international agencies in South Sudan to lend their support to the processes, principles and practices outlined above.
Nairobi, June 30 1995
WFP REPORT
(WFP report #23, 9 Jun 95)
...As a result of limited donor response to WFP cash funding needs contained in the consolidated appeal launched in January 1995, WFP is considering scaling back operations during the second half of the year. Most urgent funding needs remain for support costs, monitoring and special transport. To date, WFP special operations for humanitarian assistance in Southern Sudan have received in cash donations of USD 7.44 million against required cash needs of USD 25.4 million...
SUDANESE GOVERNMENT WANT CENSUS OF ERITREAN AND ETHIOPIAN REFUGEES
(NNS July 95)
The Sudanese cabinet has ordered a census of refugees from Ethiopia and Eritrea, to take place very shortly. They claim that there are 300,000 Ethiopians and 500,000 Eritreans living in Sudan as refugees. According to UNHCR reports, Ethiopian refugees number between 50 and 60 thousand only and there are around 450,000 Eritreans - although here the discrepancy may be a result of counting numbers in camps only (which UNHCR do), and including those living in towns who do not request assistance. The proposed census is linked to the fact that the government of Sudan has complained about insufficient funds being provided for refugees - some aid agencies have suggested that the inflated numbers are a ploy to get more money.
** DOMESTIC NEWS **
BASHIR ORDERS SECURITY SHAKE- UP
(Reuter 12 Aug 95)
KHARTOUM - Sudan's military leader Lieutenant- General Omar Hassan al- Bashir announced on Saturday he had dismissed his interior minister, police commander and heads of security in a government shake- up.
Bashir's presidential decrees announcing more than a dozen changes were carried by the official news agency Suna. No reasons were given for the reshuffle, believed to be the 10th since Bashir seized power from a civilian government in 1989.
Brigadier Bakri Hassan Saleh, an adviser to the president, was made minister of interior, replacing Brigadier al- Tayeb Ibrahim Mohammad Khair who was transferred to the ministry of labour and administrative reform.
Saleh had been a member of the military council that ruled from 1989 until it dissolved itself in 1993.
Police force commander Lieutenant General Hassan Ahmad al- Siddig was replaced by Major General Abdel Moneim Said Suleiman.
Major General Mohammad Mustafa was put in charge of external security, replacing Nafie Ali Nafie, while Brigadier al- Hadi Abdalla Hassan was appointed head of internal security, replacing Hassan Dhahawi. Both new men were previously state ministers.
Commerce Minister Taj al- Sir Mustafa was dismissed and replaced by Mohammad Tahir Aila who had been minister of tourism and environment...
AL BASHIR ATTACKED FROM THE MINARETS
(AA 30 Jun 95, p.3)
KHARTOUM--Sudan's Islamist regime is facing a new challenge from a seemingly unexpected quarter--conservative Islamic purists. But like the traditional political opposition, the new enemies of General Omar al Bashir's regime are weak and lack the wherewithal to stage a successful insurrection. So far their opposition is uncoordinated and is restricted to diatribes in mosque sermons against the Khartoum regime.
In the forefront of the new onslaught are a number of imams (religious leaders) in Khartoum and Omdurman as well as members of the Ansar al Sunnah al Muhammadiya--a grouping of puritanical followers of the Sunnah (the way of the Prophet Muhammad). The group has several eminent imams--all attacking the government. The most prominent of these are Sheikh Abu Zeid, the imam of a mosque in al Thawra town in Omdurman, where a number of worshippers were killed in February 1994, and Professor Al Hibir Yusuf Nur el Daim, an imam of a mosque in Shambat in Khartoum North. He belongs to a splinter group from the Muslim Brothers (Ikhwan al Muslimin) but which has retained the original name. Another surprising opponent of the regime is the popular Dr Issam, the imam of the mosque in the Amarat neighbourhood of Khartoum. Known as a `good Islamist', Dr Issam is also a member of the transitional national assembly, the country's legislature.
The disident imams attack the government on strict Islamic teachings and are united in their belief that the rulers in Khartoum are using Islam as a cover for nefarious ends. Corruption is the principal charge levelled against the regime. Business is tightly controlled by members of the ruling clique who are said to operate `Mafia- style'...
HOW THE NIF RUNS SUDAN
(AC 7 Jul 95, p.2)
Power lies not in the overt structure of government (central and federal ministries) but in a covert parallel government headed by a secret secretariat, often known as the `Council of 40' (though numbers are uncertain), which meets on Thursdays; headquarters are in Manshiya Extension, Khartoum, where Hassan el Turabi owns a block of four houses. Lieutenant General Omer el Beshir is nominal national President, while the real ruler is Turabi, head of the National Islamic Front (which, in theory, is illegal as all parties are banned). Many names can be found in both structures (NIF stalwarts only) but the structures do not overlap: the covert system controls the overt one, in both administration and planning.
1. Top names are well known (AC Vol 33 No 15), for example Ali Osman, Ghazi Salah el Din, Naf'i Ali Naf'i. Major Ibrahim Shams el Din and Colonel El Hadi Abdullah control the armed forces through the Specialised Committee, which regularly purges army and police.
2. Influential figures unknown to the public include El Fatih Hassanein: in charge of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bosnia- Herzegovina affairs; Abdel Mohsen: Turabi's office manager; Brigadier Abbas Medani: ex- soldier, ex- Nimeiri security man, now at Faisal Islamic Bank; Abdel Waheb Gandi: based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, handles finance from Gulf.
3. The overt central and state (regional) governments include a minority of non- NIF figures; this confuses the picture: many journalists still describe the government as `NIF- backed' when it is NIF- run.
4. There is a separate, parallel system for women, which feeds the system at high and low levels but is subordinate to the main (male) system.
5. The ubiquitous security services are woven into the structure. NIF men from State Security control the committees. Distinct security organs include Revolutionary Security, Turabi's private security, State Security, Military Intelligence, police security, foreign security (monitoring exiles).
6. Control techniques have become more subtle. There has been less gaoling and torture in Khartoum because of: external human rights pressure, most politicians in exile, cost of detention, climate of fear fuelled by increased harassment (`suspects' reporting daily to security, pressure from neighbourhood Popular Committees).
7. But there were hundreds of arrests in May (El Sadig el Mahdi, Umma Party activists, non- Umma trades unionists); the government did not deny them when contacted by the United Nations.
8. Detention and torture have increased in the provinces, especially the war zone. `The overall situation has deteriorated', UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur Gaspar Biro told us. He is planning another mission to Sudan this year, which he said was `very much needed'.
[/HAB/ Diagram on state structure omitted.]
SUDANESE CAMPS READY TO PROVIDE MILITARY, RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL TRAINING
(SWB 10 Jul 95 [Suna news agency, Khartoum, in Arabic 8 Jul 95])
Khartoum, 8th July: The Department of Popular Defence in Khartoum State has made preparations and set up programmes to train citizens in open camps. Lt- Col Abdullah Umar al- Sharif, commander of the Popular Defence Force in Khartoum State, said preparations for training programmes in the city's various districts had been completed.
He said (?the first) batch graduated as part of the celebrations of the sixth anniversary of the National Salvation Revolution under the auspices of the governor of Khartoum State. He pointed out that the training was military, religious and spiritual. He appealed to everybody to take part in this patriotic activity.
SUDAN PLAYS DOWN ANTI- GOVERNMENT STUDENT RIOTS
(Reuter 30 Jul 95, by Alfred Taban)
KHARTOUM - The Sudanese press on Sunday played down a student riot at Khartoum University against the Islamic government of President Omar Hassan al- Bashir, calling it an incident staged by a small isolated group...
Sudanese students demonstrated on Saturday at Khartoum University, Sudan's oldest and most prestigious institution of higher learning, as al- Bashir addressed them in an open meeting.
Riot police used tear gas to disperse the students who shouted slogans against Bashir's military government...
ISLAMIC EDUCATION FOR THE NON- MUSLIM SOUTH
(IPS 1 Aug 95, by Nhial Bol)
KHARTOUM - Sudan has decided to impose Islam- inspired education throughout the country, including the non- Muslim south, by next year.
According to Education Minister Kabashour Kuku, changes introduced by his ministry are aimed at bringing up children according to the tenets of Islam.
By the end of the year, he said, new books written for his ministry will be distributed to all regions, including non- Muslim southern Sudan which had been exempted from the Islamic laws imposed in september 1983.
He said about 1,000 school teachers had been trained to teach Arabic and Islam in the south and that by the end of the year, all southern teachers would be trained to read Arabic books as part of the government's plan to arabise the region.
Kuku said there would no longer be a special education system for southern Sudan, where the medium of instruction has been English since the days of British rule, which ended in 1956.
In 1991, thousands of students from secondary schools in Juba, the main town in the south, fled en masse to Uganda and Zaire, or joined the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) after the government attempted to impose Arabic as the medium of education in the southern states.
Khartoum shelved the idea for a time but brought it up again last year. When the governments of southern states objected, the central government appointed southern Muslims to head state ministries of education in the south to prepare the arabisation.
Sudanese President Omar al Bashir decreed last year that people who memorise the entire Koran would be absorbed at some universities or appointed as senior teachers in schools across the country.
Khartoum strongly believes that Arabic and Islam will help unite the northeast African country, split between the Arab Muslim north and the south, whose people are mainly Christians and followers of traditional African religions...
** ECONOMIC NEWS **
CANADIAN CHURCHES LAUNCH CAMPAIGN AGAINST ARAKIS DEAL
(Inter- Church Coalition on Africa 19 Jul 95)
Earlier this year we learned that a Canadian oil exploration firm, Arakis Energy Corp., had purchased Sudan's State Petroleum Corp., giving Arakis a 100% interest in blocks covering five million hectares and options on another 12 million hectares. These were fields perviously abandoned by Chevron Overseas Petroleum Inc. It has been Arakis' goal to raise US$750 million dollars to build a pipeline from the Hegleg and Unity oil fields, in the Bentiu region, to Port Sudan. ICCAF's sister coalition, the Taskforce on the Churches and Corporate Responsibility (TCCR), has written twice to Arakis' president, Terry Alexander, to raise concerns about his company's business dealings with the Sudanese regime, one of the world's most egregious human rights abusers. Obviously, the Government of Sudan stands to benefit from Arakis' oil production activities. As the potential profits are considered to be quite substantial, money generated could be used by the regime to significantly boost its war effort. Neither letter has received a response.
Given the unstable climate of civil war, we did not think Arakis would be successful in raising what would surely be considered high- risk capital to build the pipeline. We were wrong. Two recent reports in The Financial Post detail Arakis' success in this regard...
Today's report also indicates that Arakis believes it can complete the pipeline as early as October 1996 and swing into partial production (65,000- 85,000 barrels a day) shortly thereafter, reaching full production (100,000 barrels a day) by January 1997. If such rapid development is actually feasible, the Government of Sudan could be reaping the fruits very soon. In view of this concern, it is imperative that as much pressure as possible be put on Arakis. Pressure should also be applied to the Government of Canada...
/HAB/ ICCAF is a project of Anglican Church of Canada, Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, Presbyterian Church in Canada, United Church of Canada, Joint Ministry in Africa--Disciples of Christ/United Church of Christ.
SUDAN CHURCHES OBJECT TO OIL EXPLORATION BY ARAKIS
(APS 21 Aug 95)
NAIROBI--Churches operating in southern Sudan have protested to the Canadian Government over the oil exploration activities of a Canadian multinational corporation, Arakis Energy Corporation, in the region and its implications for peace initiatives to end the Sudanese conflict.
In a strongly- worded letter the New Sudan Council of Churches draws the attention of the Canadian Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister, Andre Quellet, to "the consequences of Arakis Energy Corporation business dealing with the Sudan Government and on the future of IGADD peace initiatives in which your Government is one of the supporters"...
...The oppressed people of southern Sudan feel let down by the Canadian Government because of the action of Arakis, the NSCC says, adding that: "While we acknowledge with appreciation that Canadian policy towards the Islamic Government is one of diplomatic pressure, we feel dismayed at your policy, which separates human rights concerns from trade related matters."
How can business opportunities exist in a country like Sudan," asks the letter, "where citizens are humiliated, tortured and killed just because they happen to belong to a different religion and race or colour?"
The letter signed by the NSCC Executive Secretary, Rev (Dr.) Haruun L. Ruun asks the Canadian government to "do everything in your power to encourage Arakis to disinvest in Sudan in order to persuade the Sudan to opt for peaceful solution in the current civil war."
SPLA THREATENS ARAKIS
(Lloyd's List via RBB 15 Aug 95)
Opposition groups in Sudan have reportedly threatened to disrupt development of oil installations by Canada- based Arakis Energy Corp.
The Sudan People's Liberation Movement and Sudan's People's Liberation Army both warned that Arakis' production, pipeline and port facilities will all be regarded as legitimate military targets...
SHAREHOLDERS APPROVE ARAKIS DEAL
(Reuter 24 Aug 95, by Cynthia Osterman)
VANCOUVER - Canada's Arakis Energy Corp. won shareholder approval Thursday for a controversial $750 million financing deal with a Saudi prince for its Sudan oil project, but there was no word on when the company's battered stock would resume trading.
"I am happy to announce that the transaction ... has been approved by our shareholders, and we are proceeding with the financing," Arakis President Terry Alexander told reporters after the meeting.
Arakis stock, which was halted from trading Tuesday, has tumbled in recent days amid investor worries that the financing for Arakis' huge Sudan oil project would unravel...
IMF DEFER COMPULSORY WITHDRAWAL PROCEDURES
(MEED 14 Aug 95)
The executive board of the IMF decided on 4 August to defer a decision recommending that the IMF board of governors initiate compulsory withdrawal procedures against Sudan. Finance Minister Abdalla Hassan Ahmad said after the meeting of the executive board that the IMF appreciated what he called Sudan's commitment to pay its $1,700m of debt and the continuation of its economic reforms.
"The Sudanese authorities were urged to develop and implement quickly a detailed and comprehensive economic programme to allow Sudan to continue and strengthen the economic progress made to date and resume repayment of its arrears to the IMF," the fund said in a statement sent to MEED on 8 August. "The staff will monitor the programme and report to the executive board which will give further consideration to this matter in the next few months."...
SUDAN'S IRRIGATION PLANS BLOCKED BY CASH CRUNCH
(Reuter 10 Aug 95, by Alfred Taban)
KHARTOUM - Sudan's ambitious plans to divert Nile waters to irrigate large areas of agricultural land have been put on hold because of cash shortages, a Khartoum newspaper reported on Thursday.
The privately- owned Akhbar al- Youm paper quoted Irrigation Minister Yacoub Musa Abu- Shora as saying total money available for irrigation was less than half the $65 million needed for the plan to divert waters from the Blue Nile.
He said work on two canals, which would have added an extra 1.5 million acres (600,000 hectares) to Sudan's current four million acres (1.6 million hectares) of irrigated land, had now stopped.
The canals, which would have been 200 km (125 miles) and 300 km (190 miles) long, would have branched off from the Blue Nile near Damazine, close to Sudan's eastern border with Ethiopia.
The government said the canals, due to have been completed in 1997, would have guaranteed the country's food security irrespective of climatic changes and drought...