‘We feel our relationship with the US is the key to
stopping the war’

 

You have recently been re-elected as president. What is the main agenda for your new term?

President Omar Hasan Al Bashir

Our program is called the continuation of the building of the country. We would like to continue what we have achieved in the past few years.
One of our first priorities is to achieve political stability in the country. We would confidently say that with the implementation of the constitution we started to achieve the first step towards political stability in the country. That will be complemented by achieving peace and stopping the raging war. And also achieving full political participation by bringing all of the political parties and groupings into the political process.

We can also say that we have achieved economic stability now. In the future we are hoping that our economy will take off. The second phase of our economic program is to concentrate on issues of development, especially the infrastructure, building railways, roads, airports, power plants and irrigation schemes.
We achieved in a major way the improvement of services in the country, and we want to further enhance them in the future.

Also on our agenda is to achieve social development, including improving the literacy rate.
In our foreign relations we made a number of good steps in our Arab and African relations, but there is more work to be done with the European Union and, especially, the United States.

Your identity as an Islamic government has raised questions in Washington. How would you characterize your government?

It is no shame to say that we are an Islamic government. It is an advantage to have an Islamic orientation. All governments would like to have an ethical standard, and religion provides the basis for ethics in government. For example, in all the major United Nations conferences, we always find our positions compatible to those of the Vatican.

Recently there was a split between your government and Hassan Turabi. How has his removal from official positions affected your government?

His removal has not changed our Islamic orientation. But when it comes to internal and external policies there are some differences.

Can you say what they are?

Internally, the split created an atmosphere conducive to the inclusion of various elements and political groupings in society, whereas internationally it created an atmosphere that has enabled us to improve relations because Dr. Turabi was perceived as a major supporter of radical and Islamic groups.

What are your hopes for relations with the United States under the administration of George Bush?

We can say that the former administration because of misinformation and wrong reports and because of lobby groups in Washington, took wrong decisions regarding Sudan, which culminated in the bombing of the Shifa Pharmaceutical Plant. Because of this position taken by the US, we have lost here in the Sudan, but at the same time we can say that America has also lost. The main losers are the American companies who missed opportunities here in the Sudan. The new administration cannot take the blame for the previous administration. It has a great opportunity to develop good relations with Sudan and we are always ready to cooperate. This will benefit both sides.

Do you have any indications, other than the letter sent you by George Bush, that there is a change of attitude in Washington?

We feel that the general attitude of the new administration when it comes to the sanctions, not only against Sudan but also to sanctions as a policy, will take us half way towards better relations.

How could America play a more constructive role?

The American administration has been given an ample opportunity to evaluate the situation through the teams sent here and the charge de affaires who is residing in Khartoum and also the experts who visited the Sudan and evaluated the situation and developments in the country. This could lead to normalization of relations with the United States which would lead to the normalization of our relations with international organizations and financial organizations such as the IMF and World Bank.

It seems that Washington has supported the south and State Department policy has been quite hostile to Khartoum. Do you believe it is in America’s hands to put an end to the civil war?

Any positive approach from the United States will neutralize the regional powers who are playing a part in the conflict in southern Sudan and that will force the rebels to come to a negotiated settlement.

There is talk in Washington about the president appointing a special negotiator for Sudan. Would you welcome such a special envoy?

Unless the American position on the Sudan changes completely we are not willing to hand over the issue of the south to the United States because it is completely in support of the southern rebels.

What has been the human and financial cost of the war?

The war is highly costly but there is no specific estimate of how costly. The destruction of the economy in the south has made it a non-productive part of the nation and a real burden on the government, and forced people to be displaced. This has also made it very difficult for the country to deliver services to the people of the south, especially the education and health services.

How would you describe what you are offering the rebels to bring an end to the war?

The first demand of the rebels was that we create a federal system in the country. We have done that. They also seek equitable participation in the central government. Through their participation in the various levels of the federal system we feel we responded to their demands. They also demand an equitable share of the wealth and we have taken various measures to respond to that demand through the constitution and in reality. They also ask for fair development around the country. We have initiated programs but because of the war we have not been able to deliver what they wanted.

In the constitution it says that citizenship is the basis for rights and duties. We guaranteed all kinds of freedom: freedom of worship, speech and education. We are confident that foreign agendas are the main reason for the continuation of the war. This is why we are very concerned with our relationship with the United States, because we feel it is the key to stopping the war.

Looking ahead, do you have a sense of when and how the civil war will end?

The base for peace is already there with the conviction of the southern people of the positive role peace can play. The confidence building that has been achieved between the southerners and northerners through the displacement of southerners to the north has contributed to making an atmosphere conducive to peace.

The aim should be towards eliminating the foreign component and after that we can speak together as Sudanese and make ours the shared goal of achieving peace. The final stage could be implemented in a transitional period under the guarantee of regional and international observers. After the transitional period we can evaluate the situation and reach a final reconciliation and remove all the sources of conflict by removing the weapons and normalizing the situation in the war zones.

One obstacle to a resolution of the war is that the southerners say they cannot trust the promises of the north.

We took action on measures that could have been saved for the negotiating table in order to build confidence. For example, all previous presidents refused to adopt federalism, but we have adopted it. The measures we have taken towards the south have been to prove that we are serious about making peace.

Opposition figures, like Sadiq Al Mahdi, are returning to Sudan, but do you think the political atmosphere has changed sufficiently that they would be able to take power through elections?

We adopted the constitution with guarantees of the right to participate in the political system for all out of the conviction that it is the right of others to participate. We were under no pressure to do so.

The constitution should be put to the test. Those who participated in the last election, such as former president Jaafer Nimeiri, won more votes than I did in some districts. We postponed the election in response to their [Umma Party of Sadiq Al Mahdi] demands. They asked for a one-month delay, but we gave them eight months. They did not participate anyway. Sudanese parties are typically active only during election times, and inactive otherwise. The reason is that they are based on sectarian allegiances rather than on programs. If they focused on programs they would always be active to see those programs realized.

Please respond to the accusations that your government practices, supports or condones slavery, international terrorism and religious persecution.

Regarding slavery: We have invited those who have accused us of involvement in slavery to come and investigate directly. However all they have done is make films in the rebel-held areas. We are not responsible for those areas. Our southern brothers are in high positions in the north. They are in the presidency, they are judges in the high court and officers in the army and police. Could they be in such positions in the north and their brothers subjected to slavery in the south?

The accusation is that the northern slave traders raid the south to capture slaves, but two thirds of the southerners now live in the north in areas where there is no government presence. Why would slave traders go south if they wanted to enslave southerners? They could abduct them in the north much more easily. Two thirds of the southerners are living in the north among the same tribes accused of abducting them. If there was slave trading in the north, the southerners would not be coming here.

There are about 280,000 southerners living in neighboring countries according to estimates by the UN High Commission for Refugees, but about four million living in the north. Usually refugees flee the forces they fear. If they were afraid of the north they would seek refuge in other countries, not in the north.

Regarding Sudan supporting international terrorism: At the end of the war in Afghanistan, many Arabs who had fought with the Mujahideen against the Russians, with the support of the United States, wanted to return home but their countries would not accept them.

At that time we held a conference for Arab investment in Sudan. One of the requests of Arab investors was that visa requirements for Arabs would be suspended. We implemented that and allowed the “Afghan Arabs” to enter the country. But some of them worked against other countries, even though we had clearly prohibited this.

Arab governments asked us to re-impose visas. We did that and deported those we found working against other governments. The vast majority did leave.

Regarding religious persecution: In Sudan, Christmas, New Year and Easter are national holidays. The official weekend is Friday, but on Sunday Christians are given two hours off work to attend church. We have had no incidence of attacks on churches in Sudan, from the government or individuals.

Muslims believe that Jesus is a prophet of God and the Bible a book revealed by God. We could ask: “Do Christians have a similar view of Mohammed and the Koran?” It is part of our Islamic faith that Moses and Jesus are prophets of God and that you cannot be a true Muslim unless you believe in them. And it is part of our faith that Judaism and Christianity are part of our belief and Jews and Christians deserve protection as “people of the book.”

Furthermore, the Muslim state is responsible for the churches. And the Muslim state must pay to help those who need assistance, such as the handicapped, to be able to attend services. It is important for those who accuse us to look at how Muslims have treated Christians. It is a complicated issue and requires special research.

What is the religious breakdown of Sudan?

There are 30 million Sudanese, about five percent of them Christians. Six million belong to the south. Among these, 17 percent are Christians, 19 percent Muslims and the rest animists.

What is your personal hope for the future of Sudan?

We have a very positive and clear vision for the future. If you look at Sudan realistically in terms of human or natural resources, you will see there is a huge potential. We have a vast area of fertile land, probably unrivaled in the world. We have water resources, and a variety of climates. The oil deposits underground look like they might be considerably more than Saudi reserves. We have minerals, like gold (in the north, south and east). In South Africa they dig 3,000 meters under ground for gold, but here it is on the surface.

We have 30 state universities and 26 private colleges now, with 50,000 students newly enrolling in them every year. No other African country compares with this.

And there are not less than two million Sudanese living around the world who have gained experience and expertise and are a resource for the country. The future is ours.

 

Sudan claims US policy has prolonged the civil war

Sudan’s civil war has been staggering on for 18 years now. Neither side has been able to defeat the other and both publicly accept that only a political solution will bring it to an end. So why doesn’t it stop?

The rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army would say that the government in Khartoum does not live up to the commitments it has made in earlier negotiations, while Khartoum would say that foreign parties have kept the war going in pursuit of their own interests.

Foreign Minister Mostafa Osman Ismail

Khartoum has repeatedly called for a comprehensive ceasefire as a precondition to a final settlement, but the SPLA says that a ceasefire that was continued for many months or even years without an agreement would work in Khartoum’s favor, since the SPLA’s very existence depends on it fighting a war whereas the national government can start and stop fighting whenever it wants. Thus after some time, with the SPLA seriously weakened due to inaction, the national army would be able to achieve a military victory at last.

Clearly now, though, there is a mood favoring an early end to the fighting. Opposition leaders from the north, in particular Sadiq Al Mahdi, have abandoned the rebel cause and returned home to engage in the political process in Khartoum.

And Khartoum’s relations with its neighbors have improved dramatically in recent years, especially with Egypt, Chad, Ethiopia and Eritrea. Only Uganda remains a committed foe and is the main backer of the SPLA.

The language heard from the government is encouraging.

It has seen to the adoption of a constitution that views Sudanese based on citizenship and not ethnicity or religious affiliation.

“We need a new Sudan,” says Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail, “in which everyone shall be able to live as a first-class citizen.”

Ismail says the federal structure enshrined in the new constitution is “suitable for Sudan” providing sufficient autonomy to the various states (there are 26 in all) which may have large numbers of minority groups that have special needs and demands.

Sudan’s last ambassador to Washington, Mahdi Ibrahim

Ismail says that the two sides should “address issues through dialogue to find a solution acceptable to both parties, so that we can live in a united Sudan acceptable to all of us.”

He says there should be an “immediate, comprehensive, monitored ceasefire” which would create the conditions for providing relief aid to the needy, would reduce the suffering of the people in the war zone and would be conducive to peace negotiations.

The two peace initiatives currently in play are those of IGAD (the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development), which groups Sudan with its African neighbors and is based in Nairobi, and the Egypt-Libyan initiative. Ismail says Khartoum is willing to respond to any initiatives from either one.

But he is also blunt at pointing his finger at Washington and the role Khartoum sees it playing in the war.
“The main supporter of the rebels has been the outgoing US administration, which has worked against a ceasefire,” he says.

As proof of this policy, he mentions a recent meeting of the IGAD Partners Forum, which includes the US, Britain, France and some other concerned parties. A call for a ceasefire put forward by IGAD and the European Union was supported by all Forum members except the United States.

Ismail also says that the non-governmental organizations directly supporting the rebels should also cease in this activity if they want the war to end.

Agnes Poni Lukudu Woro, a Christian from the south and a former governor of Juba, is Khartoum’s nominee for its next ambassador to the United States. She says, “The US can play a very key role in bringing peace to Sudan.”

Like most officials in Khartoum, he stresses that the war is not over religious issues and was in fact started before then president Jaafer Nimeiri instituted sharia, or Islamic law, nationwide.

Under the new constitution (which is guided by sharia, past practice and consensus), he says there will be no sharia implemented in the south, and that the states there will be free to follow a secular system.

Furthermore, the National Assembly decides the law of the land and needed legislation can be adopted by it.
Ismail believes that there are three main problems causing the prolongation of the conflict.

First, he points to the SPLA leadership, in particular John Garang, who “never attends negotiations and never authorizes decisions to be made by his deputies.”

Garang has refused to meet Bashir despite mediation efforts by the likes of South Africa’s former president Nelson Mandela and Kenya’s President Arap Moi. Ismail says Garang has had key players in forging a peace killed.

Second, Ismail believes the negative intervention of some IGAD members, especially Uganda, is a serious problem. “Uganda’s [president Yoweri] Museveni loves this war,” Ismail says.

Pointing to Uganda’s military involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda as well as Sudan, he says, “Uganda is too small for [Museveni].”

Third, Ismail points to the “negative role of the United States,” which has provided both direct support to the SPLA and its political wing, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, and indirect support through NGOs active with the rebels. Ismail says Washington’s policy “does not encourage a shift to a culture of peace.”

Among other vocal Washington critics in Khartoum (and there are plenty) is Sudan’s last ambassador to Washington, Mahdi Ibrahim.

He spent the years leading up to the bombing of the Shifa Pharmaceutical Company in August 1998 trying to get American officials to take a new look at Sudan and in particular changes brought about by the government in Khartoum. He had little success.

Susan Rice, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, refused to see him before the bombing had put a seal on Washington policy. She took several trips to the south but not one to the north.

The same pattern, with a couple of exceptions, was followed by congressional leaders, who always chose to visit the south. The most active anti-Khartoum advocate in the House, Frank Wolf (R-VA) visited the south four times but the north not once.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation in a June 24, 1998 letter from Assistant Special Agent in Charge David Williams declined an invitation from the state minister and director general of the External Security Branch, Lt. General Gutbi Elmahdi, to discuss security issues just two months before the missile attack on Shifa

Even the White House-initiated Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad, whose first meeting was convened by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on February 13, 1997, declined more than one invitation to visit Khartoum to see if allegations of religious persecution by the government had a foundation.

Its chairman, Assistant Secretary John Shattuck told Ambassador Ibrahim in a June 3, 1998 letter that, “...we do not believe a visit [to Khartoum] would be worthwhile at this time.”

In the meantime, the State Department under Albright had worked to destabilize Khartoum through uniting a coalition of neighbors against it, a policy that ultimately failed as Khartoum engaged in an aggressive and successful counter-offensive to mend fences with its neighbors.

To justify support for the southern rebels, Albright and others, including in particular Susan Rice, have made John Garang and the SPLA out to be the virtuous, victimized party in the conflict.

Albright in a story carried by AFP on October 23, 1999 was quoted as describing Garang as “a very dynamic leader,” and in a story in the Los Angeles Times the next day described him as “sophisticated and dedicated and determined.”
This rosy characterization is simply not factual, however. International NGOs that have had occasion to work with the SPLA or in SPLA-controlled areas are largely united in their condemnation of the organization.

A month after the Albright pronouncements on Garang, eight US-based humanitarian organizations working in Sudan, including CARE, World Vision, Church World Service, Save the Children and the American Refugee Committee, voiced their concerns in a joint press release issued on November 30, 1999.

They said the SPLA had “engaged for years in the most serious human rights abuses, including extra-judicial killings, beatings, arbitrary detention, slavery, etc.”

This view was echoed by Human Rights Watch, which, quoted in a Reuters story on December 14, 1999, responded to the Clinton administration’s decision to provide logistical support to the SPLA by saying, “The SPLA has a history of gross abuses of human rights and has not made any effort to establish accountability. It abuses today remain serious.”
Ambassador Mahdi Ibrahim says that the Clinton administration got off on the wrong track by depending on “polluted” sources of information, especially from friendly countries such as Egypt, Israel and Britain, all of which had issues with Sudan at the time.

One feature of Washington policy has been to blame the Bashir government for the war, even though it started some six years before he took power.

Khartoum was first vilified, and then became a target of US foreign policy, Ibrahim believes.

And certain little-known factors, such as the long-standing personal friendship between Garang and Museveni have had too much to do with US policy, he says.

He also says that Albright went so far down the path of accepting the Garang-Museveni line that when she brought together neighboring countries for meetings in Adis Ababa and Kampala in 1997, she openly called for the overthrow of the government in Khartoum.

(Albright was in fact implementing a containment of Sudan policy devised in part by former Clinton security advisor Anthony Lake, whom a Sudanese informer had erroneously said was a target of a Khartoum terrorist hit team.)

But this backfired, as Egypt, which has always stood for a united Sudan and was increasingly alarmed by the State Department policy on Sudan, switched from a hostile to a friendly attitude towards Khartoum, beginning a movement of regional reconciliation that left Albright’s strategy of encirclement and destabilization in tatters.

Most of the anti-Sudan “allies”, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda, Zaire, Rwanda, Angola and Zimbabwe developed their own conflicts, mainly with one another.

One of the sharpest critics of US policy towards Sudan has been the former president, Jimmy Carter.

He was quoted by the Boston Globe on December 8, 1999 as saying, “The people of Sudan want to resolve the conflict. The biggest obstacle is US government policy. The US is committed to overthrowing the government in Khartoum. Any sort of peace effort is aborted, basically by the policies of the United States.”

He went on: “Instead of working for peace in Sudan, the US government has basically promoted a continuation of the war.”

Accusations of slavery based on bias and misrepresentation of
ancient tribal abductions

Abducted women and children are now protected in Peace Centers set up by the government’s Committee for Eradication of Abduction of Women and Children (CEAWC), and run by Save the Children and UNICEF.

For more than a decade now, Sudan has been pictured in the West as a beastly place, a nation ruled by Islamic fanatics who crucify Christians and engage in a slave trade of children.

So well-established has this inhuman image become that western charities solicit donations to buy Sudanese children out of slavery, and the popular, family-oriented television show Touched by an Angel last year featured a program in which giving to such a charity was represented as a laudable act of generosity.

But what is the basis for the accusations of slavery made repeatedly against Sudan and are they grounded in fact?
For many years an organization called Christian Solidarity International, headed by Britain’s Baroness Cox, has been actively working to make a case against the Islamic-oriented government in Khartoum, to paint it as a violent perpetrator of crimes against the Christians of the south.

CSI is joined by the US-based Christian Coalition and some political leaders, such as Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA), in keeping up a noisy campaign against “slavery” in Sudan.

Through a number of reports and sensational media stories that were based on them, CSI and its allies have turned Sudan into the global front line of Muslim-Christian conflict, with the government in Khartoum the villain.

However, research by credible international organizations has shown that the allegations of slavery are little more than a misrepresentation of a centuries-old practice of child abductions, usually by rival tribes, to increase manpower needed for herding and other agricultural activities.

The practice has nothing to do with Islam or with the policies or practices of the government in Khartoum, and is forbidden by Sudan’s laws. It is practiced between southern tribes as well as by northern tribes against southern tribes.
“I don’t see this as a religious practice,” says Sir Robert Ffolkes, the head of Save the Children (UK) in Khartoum, which has spent years looking into allegations of slavery in Sudan.

According to western diplomatic sources in Khartoum, there is some evidence that both the government and the rebel Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) have in the past exploited the tribal practice of abduction to gain advantage over its enemy, but there is no evidence of a slave trade, with or without the participation or support of the government.
“I have seen no evidence at all of slave trading,” says Ffolkes emphatically. “And believe me, we have looked,” he adds.

Ffolkes does say that the work of his organization and other non-governmental organizations concerned with the plight of women and children who are victims of the civil war in Sudan has been greatly benefited by the government’s 1999 admission of the existence of the problem of abductions, which do indeed have the hallmarks of slavery but which the Sudanese themselves certainly do not view as such.

It was “an enormous gain,” Ffolkes says, of the government’s change of heart.

Save the Children had been working on the problem of abductions against a background of government denial, but now is able to work directly with the government in a much more productive way.

Sir Robert Ffolkes, program director of Save the Children (UK) Thomas Ekvall, representative of UNICEF in Khartoum The permanent secretary of the Ministry of Justice and Chairman of CEAWC, Dr. Ahmed Al Mufti.

The new government policy also facilitated a program of European Union support for an initiative to deal with the problem of tribal abductions, and last year the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) also opened an office in Khartoum to help tackle this and other human rights issues related to women and children.

Ffolkes says that now, “No one would deny that women and children have been and are being abducted.”

The government has always strongly denied any involvement in slavery but stung by the international criticism and the stigma attached to it has taken a number of steps to identify and address the problem of abductions and human rights violations in general.

In the revised constitution adopted by the parliament in 1998, for the first time a Bill of Rights included language to protect the human rights of all citizens.

The new constitution, the first since Sudan gained independence from Britain in 1956, also established a court to deal specifically with complaints of human rights violations.

But there are a number of other important developments that Sudan has made in the field of human rights that deserve note.

Dr. Ahmed Al Mufti, the undersecretary of the Ministry of Justice, is the government’s key figure responsible for human rights matters. He has been involved in these issues for a decade and says there has been a great advance in government concern.

Before 1989, when President Omar Hassan Al Bashir took power, there was only one small department in the Foreign Ministry dealing with human rights. Now there are such units in virtually all the main government departments.

Mufti realizes that his own government’s explanation of its human rights record is not likely to be taken at face value by a skeptical international community, but he believes that at least the reports of credible international human rights bodies, such as the United Nations’ Commission on Human Rights and Amnesty International, should be used to evaluate Sudan, and not the views of groups with a vested interest in the political and religious issues that divide the country, north and south.

In recent years, the criticism from these mainstream international organizations has subsided, especially since the European Union began submitting reports to the UNCHR on Sudan after the United States dropped this function in the aftermath of its 1998 bombing of the Shifa Pharmaceutical Company in Khartoum, an action that in itself was a gross violation of human rights in Sudan.

Most significantly, in April 1999 the CHR accepted that the problem being referred to as a slave trade in Sudan was in fact a centuries-old practice of tribal abductions and counter-abductions that can be found in other parts of Africa as well.

The CHR said that the government should take firm action to stop this practice and that the international community should support the government in that effort.

Khartoum had informed the EU that it was willing to tackle the problem of tribal abductions and proposed the creation of a Committee for the Eradication of Abduction of Women and Children (CEAWC).

The EU expressed its willingness to back the CEAWC, which was formally established in May 1999 and since then has developed into the main body carrying out the government’s program to counter abductions. Mufti of the Justice Ministry chairs the organization.

As a measure of the international support for this approach, and the implication that the problem is not slavery as depicted by Khartoum’s detractors, several international groups have joined forces with CEAWC, including Save the Children (UK and Sweden) and UNICEF.

Furthermore, so far half a million dollars has been donated by such charities and the EU to fund CEAWC, and another $600,000 has been allocated by the EU to the effort.

The money is used to support eight state-level committees dealing with the problem as well as 30 tribal committees, several hundred staffers in all.

The main thrust of the CEAWC program is to document abductees, locate their families and mediate their return. The tribal committees have members of both tribes involved: the tribe of the perpetrators and the tribe of the victims.
Mufti and NGO officials stress the difficulty of documentation and restoration of children to their families, a process Mufti describes as “long and tedious.”

So far, some 2,000 abducted children have been documented and photographed, and of these 350 have been returned to their families. They are kept in a network of Peace-Building Centers which are run by UNICEF and Save the Children.

The director of UNICEF’s office in Khartoum, Thomas Ekvall, says that his organization, after working for a year on the problem of abductions, believes there are about 14,000 women and children who have been abducted, but from this number there are unknown numbers who have made their way back home, joined relatives or in some other way ceased to be victims of crime. This figure is also the one given by Save the Children.

But it is much smaller than the 40,000 to 50,000 child slaves the Christian activist groups are claiming.

Ekvall stresses that UNICEF has seen “no evidence” of such large numbers of abducted children. And that it would be “extremely rare for a child to be bought or sold.”

Ffolkes notes that if CSI or other groups pushing this figure have evidence to support it, they should come forward with the identities of the victims so that the groups equipped to deal with the problem can contact the women and children and help them return to their homes.

The NGOs working with the problem clearly find the practice of buying the freedom of child slaves, as the Christian groups claim to be doing, to be highly objectionable.

Ekvall points out that it is morally wrong to buy or sell anyone for any reason: “We believe to buy the freedom of abducted children... is fundamentally wrong,” he says.

Mufti is highly suspicious of the organizations engaged in this practice, wondering aloud if they are not simply using the allegation of slavery to raise funds for themselves.

What’s more, if there are families in Sudan who are willing to part with their children for money, it is the Christian groups offering these funds that are the ones engaged in unethical behavior.

And, as one western diplomat suggested, it might well be that the SPLA is in fact using the “purchase of slaves” as a way to make money, since all of these activities are carried out in areas that it controls.

It is apparent that politics is a prime mover in the slavery debate.

The Christian-dominated SPLA (and its political wing, the SPLM, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement) can only benefit in the international public relations war by aligning themselves with groups claiming Khartoum condones or even participates in slavery.

It would seem, though, that more objective and professional international groups working in Sudan do not now buy these allegations and are working with the Khartoum government to address a deeply-entrenched practice that is centuries old and will take decades to eradicate.

A recent addition to the UNICEF office in Khartoum, Briton Andrew Mawson, is a social anthropologist who lived with the Dinka tribe, which has been the main target of abductions, and later worked with Amnesty International in Sudan.

He says it was important for the government to begin to talk about the problem openly, and that the creation of CEAWC was “an important step.” But “it can’t stop there.” The government has to do more to eradicate the problem, he says.
He is encouraged by the progress he has seen: “The mere fact that I am here [working for UNICEF on the problem of abductions] is an indication that I am encouraged by the progress being made.”

Ekvall says that if the international community really wants to help put an end to child abductions and other human rights violations in Sudan its first task should be to put much more effort into ending the civil war.

It should also make more resources available to the work of tracing abducted children and restoring them to their families. And then it should hold the Khartoum government responsible for progress in this effort.

Return of Sadiq Al Mahdi confirms political
liberalization in Khartoum

Perhaps the most significant indicator of the changed political climate in Khartoum has been the return to Sudan of Sadiq Al Mahdi, the head of the Umma Party and the man deposed by President Omar Hassan Al Bashir in 1989.

Former Prime Minister Sadiq Al Mahdi, ousted by Bashir

After years of frustration as an opposition figure during the early 90s, in December 1996 Al Mahdi went into exile in Cairo. He eventually joined up with the National Democratic Alliance, the umbrella political organization dedicated to overthrowing the government and which included the long-time rebel Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement.

Al Mahdi left Khartoum because he saw the government proceeding with non-democratic methods and acting contrary to its rhetoric of tolerant inclusion in the political process. He felt the only course of action open to him was to join the resistance.

“I left because I thought there was a total lack of dialogue in the country... They did not accept any other attitude,” he said in a recent interview at his home in Omdurman, one of the three metropolitan areas that are joined to make the capital.

He said that almost as soon as he left the country, in 1997, a “new language” was evident in statements made by Bashir and other government leaders.

The first reaction came from neighbors, who had been at odds with Khartoum because of its apparent support for dissidents opposing them. Relations began to improve significantly.

Egypt and Libya then also embarked on a joint initiative to reconcile the opposition with the government which paved the way for the Tripoli Declaration of August 1, 1999, which set the stage for an all-party conference.

“We concluded there was a serious chance for a negotiated settlement in Sudan,” Al Mahdi says.

After meeting Bashir in Djibouti to discuss a reconciliation, the two leaders signed an agreement that opened the way for Al Mahdi to return. They also issued a joint declaration that confirmed mutual commitment to democratic transformation and a just peace agreement.

Parliamentarians wait for session to begin. Traditional dress and a mobile phone.

Four months later Al Mahdi declared his party’s withdrawal from the NDA and a ceasefire by his Eritrea-based armed militia, the Umma Army.

He then sent several senor Umma Party officials back to Khartoum in June last year, and returned himself on November 23, 2000.

He is now actively working to rebuild his party, which had held the majority of seats in the pre-Bashir parliament.

It was the instability of Al Mahdi’s government, in power from 1986 to 1989, that ultimately invited the bloodless coup of Bashir.

Al Mahdi says it is now his “aim to reorganize the party… which will take more than a year.”

In the meantime, he and the Umma Party do not recognize the elections that have been held, including the recent presidential elections.

But he realizes that the country has to continue running while a more inclusive democracy is put in place.
“We recognize [earlier elections] de facto not de jure,” he says.

An articulate and philosophical man, descended from the Mahdi who raised a rebellion against the British when Lord Gordon was the governor, Sadiq Al Mahdi believes that Sudan is in many ways ahead of its neighbors in dealing with the thorny issue of bridging its traditional past with the modern world of today.

For most other countries in the region, whether African or Middle Eastern, the types of cultural conflicts based on ethnic and religious divisions that have resulted in civil war and great suffering in Sudan have been swept under the rug by authoritarian governments.

In Sudan, the problems are on the surface and are being dealt with, one way or the other.

As they are solved, Sudan will gain strength and will grow as a state that has institutions that accommodate its diversity.

Therefore, it should not be blamed for dealing with these difficulties, Al Mahdi says.

“There is no way that you can arrive at a cultural tabula rasa,” he believes. And “whatever we do has to belong to the modern world.”

He goes on: “The present shakeup in Sudan will inform itself of Sudan’s experiences and will allow us to sustain our basis of identity without looking backwards to the past. It will allow us to look to the world without subservience.”

He also clearly believes that political leaders alone are not equipped to manage the transition well.

“This is a process for our intellectuals, our cultural elites, to be involved in,” he says.

And “if Sudan manages to spell out this synthesis, it will benefit other countries” by its example, he believes.
Many of those countries have “bunker regimes” with their guns pointed at their own people. In such climates, dissidents see no way out but to destroy the government. “Both positions are untenable,” he says.

And opposition movements that rely on foreign support are paying “too high a price for a patriot.”

In short, Al Mahdi believes that although Sudan looks a lot worse off than many of its neighbors, it is in fact the healthiest because it is dealing with its problems and will be healed of them as a result.

Al Mahdi believes Washington was correct to censure the Bashir government for human rights violations and in helping the opposition, but that “Ironically, when the [Bashir] regime started to reform, US policy under Clinton started to become more extreme.” This was “incomprehensible” to him.

Only after 1999 did the US begin to offer financial support to the NDA and military support to the SPLA, he says.
He says the Clinton administration was the most “Africa conscious” of any US administrations, but that it failed to see Sudan as “Afro-Arab”. It therefore viewed it in the same light as Apartheid South Africa.

“This is nonsense,” Al Mahdi says emphatically. And the ideological stand of the Clinton administration lead to “political blunders.”

Al Mahdi says he has written to President George W. Bush because it is now “opportune for Sudan to seek a comprehensive settlement,” and “we expect America to be supportive of a comprehensive settlement.”

He adds that he hopes Bush will “appoint an open-minded envoy who will meet all parties, do his homework well and come up with an enlightened US policy.”

The new policy will have to be free of two fundamental weaknesses of the Clinton administration, he says. These weaknesses were its openness to idealistic, utopian policies and acquiescence to lobbyists and special interests.

In conclusion he stressed that Sudanese in general do have a good view of America and “do want the US to play a positive role.”

Turabi-Bashir split has improved political
climate and foreign relations

On February 21 this year Dr. Hassan Turabi and several of his close aides were arrested in Khartoum to be questioned about an agreement signed three days earlier between his Popular National Congress party and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army in Geneva.

This was the latest, and by far the most radical, action taken by the veteran political leader since being pushed from his positions of power as the secretary general of the ruling National Congress party and speaker of the National Assembly by President Omar Hassan Al Bashir and other political leaders in December 1999.

Minister of Information and Culture Ghazi Salah El Din Atabani

Puzzling but revealing is the new alliance Turabi has forged with the organization most opposed to his Islamist ambitions for Sudan, the SPLA.

Turabi has for years lead the Islamist forces in Sudan, first as an opposition figure in the north, then as the prime political force behind the “national salvation revolution” of Bashir in 1989. In following years Turabi was assumed to be the power behind the throne, with Bashir little more than a figurehead.

The SPLA, on the other hand, started out as a Marxist rebel organization with a primarily Christian leadership. One of its main goals has been to resist the imposition of sharia, or Islamic law, on the south. It continues to lead the military opposition to Khartoum in the 18-year-old civil war in the south of the country, although there are rival factions also engaged in the war.

When Sudan experimented with socialist/communist government in Khartoum during the 1960s Turabi spent years in prison because of his religious-based opposition to the regime.

Why is Turabi alienated from Bashir and why has he forged this strange alliance with his former arch-rivals, the SPLA?
It would seem to all boil down to a power struggle that Turabi lost and wants to avenge. He has become the biggest opposition thorn in the government’s side, having formed his own breakaway political party and earlier this year launched a newspaper, Rai Al Shaab (People’s Opinion).

His alliance with the SPLA would appear to amount to treason, although no such charge had been made at the time of his arrest.

Among the current crop of government leaders there are several men who were part of Turabi’s inner circle but who are now loyal to Bashir. According to some of these men, their problem with Turabi had to do with his autocratic leadership style, which jarred with his democratic rhetoric and eventually alienated and antagonized many of his admirers and followers in the National Congress party.

One of the key figures involved in the Turabi-Bashir split is the current minister of information and culture, Ghazi Salah El Din Atabani.

He says that the removal of Turabi from the center of power in Sudan was a “significant development in the history of Sudan and Africa” because he was removed through democratic means and despite his charisma and strong hold over the reins of power.

Parliamentarians wait for session to begin.

By seeing the process in which Turabi’s opponents within the ruling National Congress party expressed their opposition in a peaceful but effective way, people in Sudan in general “are beginning to appreciate the benefits of the democratic process: greater stability and economic development,” he says.

The issue that brought Turabi into conflict with other party leaders was one of changes in the party rules. In December 1998 ten members drafted a proposal that was an alternative to a program of changes put forward by Turabi, the party’s secretary general.

Atabani says that Turabi was used to having his own way within the party and was stunned when the rival proposal won the party vote.

This proved to be the turning point, from which he was step by step sidelined from the political center in Khartoum.
Stung by this defeat, he used all the levers at his disposal to rally opposition against his rivals, including popular sentiment, media attacks and his position as speaker of the parliament, a key post in Sudan.

“He thought he was invincible,” Atabani says.

But he was “surrounded by intelligent people who could not tolerate his leadership style any more,” leadership that was clothed in democratic rhetoric but whose method was to “manipulate institutions” to suit his will.

There was a general feeling in the party rank and file that, “enough is enough,” and “something had to be done,” explains Atabani.

The internal dissension was leading to an open clash between Bashir and Turabi, which was only avoided through the party vote.

At a party convention in October 1999 Turabi tried to get rid of his opponents, although they had followed the proper procedures in tabling their proposal. But doing so only exacerbated Turabi’s problems.

By this time he was no longer following party resolutions and had become, de facto, a leading opposition figure to his party’s own government.

Party members felt his could not continue and he was voted out of his party office, a decision approved by the Shura Council (elders’ council) in July last year and confirmed by the party convention in October.

Atabani says that although the Bashir and Turabi factions are both committed to creating an Islam-based government in Sudan, there are differences.

He describes Turabi as a man who is an “ideological type... who would do anything to achieve his objectives.”
“We have the same convictions,” he says, “but the way we go about it are different,” referring to the Bashir administration’s practice of Islamic government.

The Bashir government is more interested in seeking common ground with others, whether opposition parties, rebels in the south, neighboring countries or western democracies, says Atabani.

“We believe in the modern ways of mobilizing public opinion to reach our goals, rather than force and manipulation,” he adds. “This is the essence of democracy and pluralism.”

Bashir himself echoed these sentiments in an interview printed in full at the beginning of this report.

The president said the split with Turabi had, “Internally... created an atmosphere conducive to the inclusion of various elements and political groupings in society, whereas internationally it created an atmosphere that has enabled us to improve relations because Dr. Turabi was perceived as a major supporter of radical and Islamic groups.”

As part of his current campaign against the Bashir government, Turabi has claimed that it has abandoned principles of Islam, but this is denied by Atabani and others.

“We see no contradiction between free markets, democracy and the Islamic state,” he says.

“Islam is against monopolies and advocates a fair distribution of wealth and social equality,” he adds. “This [Islam-based system] is suitable for Sudan, not for the United States or other countries.”

Atabani says the common principles of democracy, for Sudan as everywhere, are “accountability and transparency.”

And accountability is not only achieved through an objective division of powers and a free press, but also through subjective criteria provided primarily by morality and ethics taught by Islam. “The concept of the umma, or community of believers, is very important, instilling a sense of self-accountability through the group.”

He also says that in Islam there are some principles that are fundamental to government policy, such as opposition to abortion and homosexuality, but he points out that there are more than differences of appearances among western democracies as well.

He says that if the Islamic government does not succeed its leaders will have to face the fact and respond to the will of the people.

“If we do not perform, we could be changed. We respect the will of the people,” he says.

Atabani is typical of the young Sudanese intellectuals who have been at the center of the Bashir revolution and take the task of building a viable Islamic state in the modern world very seriously. They recognize that there are no good models to follow, including Iran, but they are committed to making a go of it.

Atabani says that he and his colleagues in government “like to comfort ourselves” by looking to examples from the past in which a weak and poor people affected the course of history through an enlightened idea.

The rise of Islam against the powerful Byzantine and Persian empires in the seventh century AD is a favorite example.

“Islam was able to expand because it was based on a liberating ideology,” he says.

And he believes the Sudan experiment is important “because even though it is outwardly weak it is potentially powerful.”
But he recognizes that theirs is “a complex experiment for Islam, facing many big challenges.

“If we succeed in our mission we will have put Islam in a different orbit, an orbit suitable for the modern age.”

There is no evidence that Sudan is a state
sponsor of terrorism

When the United States sent 17 cruise missiles to blow up the Shifa Pharmaceutical Company in Khartoum on August 20, 1998 it was taking to the logical conclusion a policy set in motion by the Sate Department’s August 1993 listing of Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The Shifa Pharmaceutical Company was a major supplier of medicines in Sudan. Over two and a half years since bombing it, Washington has still not provided evidence it was used to make precursors for the deadly nerve gas VX, as alleged.

This listing put Sudan in the same unsavory club as North Korea, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Libya and Cuba.

But was it justified?

All the evidence brought to light so far about the actual activities of the Shifa plant, as well as the background to the listing, indicate that the State Department misread the evidence available or simply punished Khartoum for political reasons. There is no evidence that Sudan is a state sponsor of terrorism.

When you mention the Shifa bombing to people in the know in Khartoum, including western diplomats, their eyes tend to roll. It is universally assumed there that Washington made a major blunder but is not ready to admit it.

What is clear, not a single piece of credible evidence has been brought forward by the United States government to support its contention that the plant was in fact making precursor chemicals, in particular EMPTA, for the production of the deadly VX nerve gas.

The Sudanese government has invited anyone concerned, including the United Nations Security Council and the US government, to send teams to investigate the site. The invitations have gone unanswered.

Nevertheless, Washington continues to stick by its claim, saying that it has secret evidence that it cannot reveal because to do so would compromise its intelligence-gathering methods. Of course, that excuse works perfectly well if there is no evidence anyway.

Their liaison in Khartoum is Yahia Hussein Babiker, a very senior official in the security administration. Quiet and articulate, he is the epitome of a professional, far removed from the world of ideological rhetoric and propaganda.
He says his government has nothing to hide and that whatever information the State Department team has requested Khartoum has done its best to supply.

“We have been as transparent as possible. We have made all information available,” he says.
A final report is due out in March. If given a clean bill of health, Sudan should have US sanctions lifted, which is likely to lead, in turn, to the lifting of the UN sanctions.

Babiker explains that Sudan got a bad name in anti-terrorism circles from a policy it adopted shortly after the bloodless coup that brought President Omar Hassan Al Bashir to power.

This was shortly after the war in Afghanistan ended with the withdrawal of Russian troops based on a 1988 agreement.
Many of the Arabs who had gone to Afghanistan to fight side by side with the anti-Soviet resistance, the Mujahideen, were now without a reason to stay there or in neighboring Pakistan.

But many of their own governments did not want them back, especially since they tended to be radical Islamists and trained in the art of guerrilla war and terrorism, thanks in large measure to the work of their CIA mentors.

Afghanistan was the largest, most expensive, military operation ever run by the Central Intelligence Agency, and, with the cooperation of conservative Islamic regimes like Saudi Arabia, massive amounts of finance and military equipment were provided to the Mujahideen and the “volunteers” who went to fight by their side “for Islam.”

At a conference for Arab investors convened in Khartoum shortly after the Bashir coup, Sudan was asked to open its borders to all Arabs to facilitate investment.

Through a combination of ideological affinity with the pro-Mujahideen forces and wishful thinking, Khartoum removed visa requirements for Arabs.

Many of the “Afghan Arabs” used the opportunity to settle in Khartoum.

Some of these hardened revolutionaries took up activities against their governments. They were encouraged in part by the rhetoric of the main figure behind the Bashir government, Hassan Turabi, the leader of Sudan’s answer to the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt.

Turabi’s movement had been the National Islamic Front in the government of Sadeq Al Mahdi which was overthrown by Bashir, but once in power it became the National Congress party.

Furthermore, in the aftermath of the 19991 Gulf War, in which Sudan was aligned with the Arab states who advocated an Arab solution to the conflict rather than the US-led alliance that drove Iraq from Kuwait, Turabi set up an organization designed to mobilize political support for Iraq and for other “friendly” movements in the Arab world and in Islamic nations beyond.

Called the Popular Arab and Islamic Conference, it provided ideological support to many radical Islamic and leftist groups, but had no organizational links with any of them outside the Sudan.

And, Babiker says, the organization was more talk than action. It held three international conferences in Khartoum, but nothing much came of them.

And he stresses that the government itself never had a policy of supporting terrorism or terrorists anywhere.

“There was no policy decision to sponsor, support or provide refuge to terrorists or terrorist groups,” he emphasizes.
On the contrary, Khartoum forbade any activities aimed at overthrowing other governments and if anyone was found engaged in such activities they were forced to leave the country.

“Anyone suspected to be linked to a terrorist group was told to leave,” explains Babiker.
By 1995, after neighbors had complained about its visa policy, Khartoum reversed itself and began demanding visas from Arab visitors.

Qutub Al Mahdi, Minister of Social Affairs

But the damage had been done and Sudan had gained the reputation as a country harboring terrorists and supporting international terrorism.

The most controversial “Afghan Arab” to take advantage of Khartoum’s open-door policy was Saudi-born Osama Bin Laden, now considered by Washington to be the most dangerous terrorist leader in the world.

A member of the powerful Bin Laden family business group in Saudi Arabia, which itself has done some projects in Sudan, including the construction of the airport at Port Sudan, Osama was a radical Muslim not wanted in the conservative kingdom that is his home.

Babiker says that he was “not very vocal” while in Sudan, and he began life in his adopted home by trying several investments in agriculture, most of which failed.

His most successful project was the construction of a 325-kilometer road from Khartoum to Atbara, to the north. His investment in this was $25 million, but, Babiker says, he still owes the company a $15 million tranche of his investment.

He was never an investor in the Shifa Pharmaceutical Company as originally claimed by Washington. (In fact, that plant had shortly before the US bombing been approved by the United Nations to ship medicines to Iraq as part of its food [and medicines] for oil program.)

In 1996, responding to pressure from Washington, which was worried that he would build an international force of Afghan Arabs, and Saudi Arabia, Khartoum asked Bin Laden to leave. He moved to Afghanistan, where he remains to this day.
Another infamous terrorist who made his way to Khartoum was Ilyich Ramirez Sanchez, or Carlos, who arrived on an Arab passport and set up house with an Arab woman who claimed to be his wife.

Babiker says that because of his swarthy South American visage he did not stand out particularly in Khartoum, where Arabs of all shades of brown and black can be found. Even his accented Arabic was not much different from that of Arabs who had grown up in non-Arabic countries.

Carlos used to hang out at the Syria Club, but eventually was found out when the French government tipped off Khartoum that they suspected him to be in Sudan. He was arrested in 1997 and extradited to France to face trial.

Babiker says that the offices of Hamas in Sudan are similar to those maintained by the Palestinian Islamist organization in other countries, including Jordan, West European states and even the United States. The Khartoum office has just two or three staffers, engaged in political activities.

Other radical/terrorist groups that were in Sudan, such as Abu Nidal, have been forced to leave by the government.
But Babiker recognizes that it will not be easy for Washington to change its mind about Sudan.

“The minds of people in Washington are so set that they can’t see things objectively,” he says.
In fact, this might indeed be a major hurdle to overcome as the State Department team wraps up over half a year of work in Sudan and submits its report.

One of the problems that has bedeviled US-Sudanese relations has been the absence of an American embassy in Khartoum since 1996, when all the staff were moved to Nairobi in Kenya.

Various sources in Khartoum agree that Washington has been fed a great deal of unreliable or fabricated information from people paid to inform.

Sudan’s last ambassador to Washington, Mahdi Ibrahim, is one of the most outspoken critics of the formation of US policy based on this erroneous, paid-for information.

President Omar Hasan Al Bashir speaks to parliament on his inauguration day.

Ibrahim points out that one of the main sources of US policy on Sudan in the early 90s was Egypt, which said it had evidence of terrorist training farms and camps in Sudan, where Islamists fighting the government of Hosni Mubarak were being taught their trade, in cooperation with Iran.

Again, it appears that the “proof” was nothing more than hearsay and bogus information provided by paid informers.
Nevertheless, when terrorists attempted an assassination of Mubarak in Adis Ababa in June 1995, Egypt, based on information provided by Ethiopia, accused Khartoum of harboring three of the 11 men believed involved in the attack.

But Khartoum, which had strongly condemned the attack, was only given information about the three, who were said to have escaped to Sudan, some 28 days after the fact, and then was provided with the full name of only one.

A manhunt was mounted in Sudan, and the scanty information publicized in the press and posters, but the men were never found.

Later, the only named escapee to Sudan, Mustafa Hamza, was located in Afghanistan and interviewed there by the London-based Arabic daily Al Hayat on April 29 1996.

Even so the United Nations continued to demand that Sudan extradite all three, and later in 1996, under American pressure, imposed sanctions on Sudan, limiting the staff at its diplomatic missions abroad and restricting the travel of Sudanese officials. It also restricted the flights of the national carrier, Sudan Airways, but these restrictions were never enforced.

In the meantime, however, Sudan’s relations with Egypt and Ethiopia have improved dramatically, and both countries have written to the UN Security Council proposing that the sanctions be lifted.