unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (09/19/89)
SUDAN PEACE CONFERENCE NO ALTERNATIVE TO TALKS, DIPLOMATS SAY
Posting Date: 09/18/89 Source: UNITEX Network, Hoboken, NJ, USA
Host: (201) 795-0733 ISSN: 1043-7932
(Reuter Library Report, September 14, 517 words, DATELINE:
KHARTOUM)
A hastily-called conference in Khartoum is being publicised by
Sudan's state media as the most serious attempt yet to end a
ruinous war and decide how Africa's largest country should be
governed.
But diplomats say it offers no alternative to direct talks with
rebels in the non-Moslem south. Negotiations collapsed last
month over the touchstone issue of Sharia or Islamic law.
Southern rebel leader John Garang is absent from the Khartoum
debates.
Diplomats say there is little chance his Sudan People's
Liberation Army will fall in with any plan produced unless it is
so vague that it leaves key issues to be settled by direct
negotiation.
"If the conference turns out to be a public relations exercise
and direct talks resume, then the question of Sharia will
inevitably become the main hurdle," says an Arab diplomat.
Nor has the conference shed light on the intentions of the junta
headed by General Omar Hassan al-Bashir who overthrew the
elected government of Prime Minister Sadeq al-Mahdi on June 30.
Sudanese and diplomatic sources say the 15-man junta is itself
divided over Sharia.
Islamic law was introduced by military ruler Jafaar Nimeiri six
years ago. It has been largely dormant since 1985 but the issue
blocked peace efforts during Mahdi's democratic interlude.
Abolition of Sharia was one of the conditions listed by the SPLA
when the junta invited Garang to the Khartoum debates.
The junta rejected the demands and the SPLA, whose 40,000
guerrillas control large areas in the mainly animist and
Christian south, called on Sudanese to boycott the conference.
More than 100 public figures, politicians, academics and retired
army officers are taking part in the month-long debates. The
junta says participants represent all regions and political
forces in Sudan, which stretches 2,000 km (1,200 miles) up the
Nile from Egypt to the heart of Black Africa.
State radio and television have been broadcasting lengthy
coverage of the conference debates but the discussions have so
far been vague and theoretical.
Conference delegates, chosen by the junta, include several
politicians associated with Mahdi's elected government.
Sudanese and diplomatic sources say, however, that leftists and
communists, many of whom sympathise with the SPLA, have been
virtually excluded and a disproportionate number of those taking
part subscribe to or tolerate militant Islamic ideology.
Fighting, floods and famine killed some 250,000 southerners last
year. At least three million have fled to neighbouring states or
other parts of Sudan.
State radio has for weeks been blaming the SPLA for failure to
make peace, calling the guerrillas racists and separatists and
ridiculing their declared aim of creating a new Sudan.
Diplomats believe Sudan's broadcasting service has since the
coup fallen under firm but discreet influence of Moslem
fundamentalists.
When General Bashir told Sudanese students in Belgrade that
Sharia had been revoltingly implemented and tarnished the image
of Islam, the faith of Sudan's majority, his remarks, received
little attention from the state media.
* Origin: UNITEX --> Toward a United Species (1:107/501)
---
Patt Haring | United Nations | FAX: 212-787-1726
patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu | Information | BBS: 201-795-0733
patth@ccnysci.BITNET | Transfer Exchange | (3/12/24/9600 Baud)
-=- Every child smiles in the same language. -=-