Nine years ago Vigilance Sudan was founded by Fr. Hubert Barbier and several friends concerned with the turn of events inside the country . For nine years we have kept out readers up to date and informed on political rights and freedoms in Sudan: nine years of interviews, face to face meetings, and gathering information. In 1993, we requested that a UN Special Rapporteur for Human rights be appointed , a request that came to fruition. Along with a monthly bulletin, we have put out a French newsletter every three months since 1996, and one in English since 1997, and in 1998, we created our own internet web site. This issue, number 100 to date, makes for 540 pages. It was “Formalhaut”, who beginning in 1992, wrote all of our leading articles until No 76, at which time his pen was silenced. But we strived  to carry on despite his death.
Our organization is one of volunteers, minimal funding, and nine years of dismay and anger, but also friendships and encouragement from our readers in Sudan, in France, and across Europe.
During this nine year struggle for human rights and freedoms, what kinds of changes have we seen?
We have seen two improvements. Harassment of the country’s citizens has diminished to a certain extent, at least those Northern Nile riverain Muslim population, who steer clear of politics. Roughly ten individuals in Sudan enjoy a quasi-unrestrained freedom to speak their minds; but this is not an irrevocable right, as just recently prominent political figures were rounded up and imprisoned.
And we have seen a serious, consistent and enforced effort on the part of the current government to appear “virtuous”.
All the same, there has been a very important deterioration regarding human rights in the country’s numerous war zones.