19 - 25 April 2001
Issue No.530
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 19 - 25 April 2001 Issue No.530 |
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Broken eggs
Christians are lashed for rioting in Sudan amid international outcry, while efforts to mediate between Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir and his former ally Hassan Al-Turabi fail, writes Gamal Nkrumah
Fifty-eight Christians, including two 12-year-old boys and four women were lashed for rioting last Wednesday when thousands demonstrated near All Saints Church in the centre of Khartoum. Christians objected to the Sudanese government's decision to have the Easter service relocated to another venue on the capital's outskirts. Minister of Interior General Abdel Rahim-Mohamed said the ban on the Easter service in central Khartoum was enforced because of animosity between rival Christian sects. The Sudan Council of Churches (SCC) denied the existence of sectarian divisions among Christians and strongly protested the government's decision. Christian leaders demanded an audience with Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, which was promptly denied.
"This is a glaring example of the totalitarian nature of the regime. Authoritarian measures such as banning the Easter service is detrimental to the cause of both Islam and Christianity in Sudan and constitutes a danger to national unity and a violation of human rights," John Garang, leader of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the most powerful armed opposition Sudanese group, told Al-Ahram Weekly.
Garang was careful to note that leading Sudanese Muslim politicians were against the government's move. "The three principal Muslim leaders in Sudan -- the opposition Democratic Unionist Party's Othman Al-Mirghani, the Umma Party's Sadiq Al-Mahdi and Hassan Al-Turabi, leader of the Popular National Congress (PNC) -- are all against the regime," Garang said.
Distinguished southern Sudanese and Christian journalist Alfred Taban, Reuters and British Broadcasting Corporation correspondent and publisher of the Khartoum Monitor, Sudan's leading independent English language publication, was also arrested last Wednesday for participating in the protests -- along with 100 other worshippers.
Religious tensions have worsened lately and are compounded by the fact that the vast majority of Sudan's Christians hail from the war-torn south of the country. Some two million of them reside in and around Khartoum. Matters came to a head over the Easter celebrations because Christians felt that the government was deliberately provoking them into protesting so that the regime could then justify a harsh clampdown. SCC Secretary-General Enoch Tombe Stethen explained that the proposed venue was "unsuitable" and that the churches could not make the necessary preparations at such short notice. His parishioners were outraged and felt abandoned by the international community.
The British-based group Christian Aid recently released a report entitled "The Scorched Earth" in which it criticises the complicity of foreign oil companies in Sudan, Western governments and even the United Nations with the Sudanese government in deliberately depopulating the oil-producing areas of southern Sudan. The ranks of southern Sudanese refugees and displaced people are swollen because of the government's scorched earth policy. Christian Aid head Mark Curtis singled out Special UN envoy Carl Bildt for retribution. "Bildt is paid by the UN to bring peace, yet his company profits from war," Curtis said. Bildt, a former Swedish Conservative Party premier (1991-94) sits on the board of Lundin Oil, which is involved in oil exploration and extraction in Sudan. Canada's Talisman Energy Incorporated has also come under fire.
Christian Aid's protests have angered the Sudanese authorities but other groups such as the American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG) and Christian Solidarity International (CSI) have joined the anti-Sudan chorus. The three groups have emerged as the most vociferous organisations lobbying for retaining sanctions against Sudan. The lifting of the UN sanctions, imposed in 1996 to force Sudan to hand over gunmen who attempted to assassinate President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa in 1995, is up for discussion in the UN Security Council in August.
The United States insists that Sudan must stop "harbouring terrorists" before the sanctions are lifted. The non-aligned movement (NAM) introduced a draft resolution in the UN Security Council urging the lifting of sanctions. In the US itself, Muslim organisations have become more vociferous in their calls for lifting the sanctions against Sudan. "American Muslims have grown increasingly concerned that the issue of Sudan is being used by those with anti-Islamic political or religious agendas to stereotype Islam and Muslims worldwide," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
In a separate development, leading Islamist clerics from several Arab and Muslim countries flew to Khartoum to mediate between Al-Bashir and Al-Turabi, who still languishes in jail. The high-powered delegation of distinguished religious scholars and Islamist activists was headed by Abdel-Majid Al-Zandani (Yemen) and included Mohamed Omar Zubeir (Saudi Arabia), Fathi Yaken (Lebanon) and Abdel-Latif Arabiyat (Jordan). The delegation was on a special mission to ease tensions and mend fences between Al-Bashir and his former ally Al-Turabi. The mediating mission failed because Al-Bashir and his ruling National Congress insisted that Al-Turabi must revoke the agreement he and his party reached with Garang before any reconciliation between Al-Bashir and Al-Turabi can take place.
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