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English edition -1st quarter 1998
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Silent opposition
| Since mid-December 97, the Sudanese opposition, northern and southern,
has been totally absent from the media. There have been no press releases
from the NDA which regroups the different opposition movements in Asmara.
No news has been heard from the eastern front. On the southern front, on
which no movement has been signalled, the Khartoum government has
claimed the rallying and enrolment of some ten thousand southern rebels
without attracting the least denial.
At the very least situation is strange. As much as it is accompanied by a sudden re-warming of relations between Egypt and the Sudan, relations which were, as you remember, damaged as a result of the attempt on the Egyptian President’s life in Adidas Ababa. Egypt charged the Sudan with supporting, sheltering and training the Islamic terrorists who regularly carry out attacks on tourists. Land and river communications had been suppressed and flights between Cairo and Khartoum reduced to the bare minimum. What’s more, Egyptian forces occupied the Halaïb region on the Red Sea between the two countries, a desert zone, in theory Egyptian, but administered by the Sudanese since the beginning of the century. Two factors probably played a role in the re-warming. The Sudan is supposed, according to certain Egyptian newspapers to have delivered terrorists, which had tacked refuge on its territory to its large northern neighbour. Also John Garang’s visit to President Moubarak at the end of November 97 does not seem to have convinced the people he was talking to as to his attachment to Sudanese unity, unity for which Egypt is willing to make heavy sacrifices since it guaranties a certain status quo in the agreement on repartition of the Nile water. At the heart of the Sudanese opposition there are clues to a certain dissension. In fact, Sadek el Mahdi, Ansar’s charismatic leader and president of the Oumma party who recently escaped from Sudan to join the opposition in Asmara, has not managed to seize the leadership as without doubt he had hoped. Seen as a latecomer, he was challenged not only by his eternal rival Mirghani, leader of the Khatmiyya and Democratic unionist party, but also by John Garang, and above all by a new completely independent group of Northern opponents. Wishing, probably to make things clear, Sadek el Mahdi has publicly approached his brother in law Tourabi in order to open a debate which could eventually lead to an agreement. In front of these stalemates, the silence of the opposition is particularly unusual, so much so that it arouses suspicion, and this apparent confusion maybe the prelude to a wide ranging political or military offensive. As regards Human Rights, a march of 37 women lawyers demonstrating to ask for the return home of high school students conscripts sent to the south of the Sudan was recorded at the beginning of January. While their peaceful demonstration headed towards the Council of Ministers, the women were arrested by the Security forces and judged in the middle of the night. All the demonstrators were sentenced to a fine of 10,000 Sudanese pounds (about 40 French francs) and a flogging. Amongst them So’ad Ibrahim Ahmed, retired Khartoum university professor from one of the most important Sudanese families. According to the London Arabic newspaper "all Wasat" which reported the matter, voices were raised in Khartoum to complain about the brutality of the repression. Some on the other hand, justified it, arguing that the flogging of women in this case was not contrary to the chari’a (Islamic law). It has to be admitted that at the very least this line of argument is deceptive. |
| (V.S. January 1998) Fomalhaut |