The visit to Paris of Sudan’s Foreign Minister, Mustafa Osman Ismail, was in the end no ordinary one.
Speaking through Charles Josselin, deputy minister for Co-operation, France assured Sudan that it had every intention to obtain the reopening of Lomé credits from its European partners (1), frozen since the June 89 putsch.
In doing so, France states clearly its strategic partnership with Sudan on the international scene.
In Paris as in Khartoum, the highest State representatives cannot find words to praise the democratic evolution of the Sudanese regime and its positive role in stabilising the region from the Horn of Africa to Kinshasa, via the Great Lakes (2).
Sadiq el-Mahdi, former Prime Minister forced from office by the putsch, announces his visit to Paris in the coming days. This is a proof of France’s involvement on Khartoum’s side. In fact, it follows on the surprise meeting last month between Sadiq el-Mahdi and Hassan el-Tourabi at Geneva in view of preparing the possible return of the former to Khartoum.
However as far as principles are concerned in Sudan nothing has changed to justify the alliance of a lay, democratic state with the present regime. The war continues unabated and it is certainly not the arrival of the petroleum boom that will encourage the regime to share its profits with the rightful owners : peoples of the South or the Western regions where petrol can be found. In this regard when the petrol terminal of Al-Bachaïr was inaugurated, even those Southerners rallied to the regime were excluded from the official photo showing Hassan el-Tourabi, Omer el-Beshir and the former dictator Nimeiri, just back in the fold (3).
The president of the Council of the South, ex-rebel leader Riak Machar, chief signatory of the "April 1997 Peace Agreement" is looking for a way to leave the country, while his forces are at grips with those of another group allied to Khartoum, whose leader is Paulino Matip, both fighting to be the only one protecting the petrol fields.

 At the same time, in the South bombing raids on civilian populations carry on and famine looms on the horizon, in the North there is no improvement in the situation of fundamental freedoms. The regime prides itself on tolerating a certain freedom of the press, but only to the extent of allowing the different tendencies that share power to end their quarrels. Moreover, few ordinary Sudanese citizens can offer nowadays to buy a newspaper when the prime daily problem of 90% of the population is how to find something to eat  (4).
 Le Monde dated  June 15th, reported the following : A group of young men and women from Khartoum university were arrested and flogged, the latter for wearing trousers and all, for joining up to picnic by the Nile, a traditional and quite inoffensive way of passing leisure time during the torrid summer. This incident suffices to give a very different idea of the Sudan from that reported by our diplomacy.
 Just as in the case of destruction of churches and harassment of priests and Christian communities, repression is carried out in an erratic and chancy way without any precise juridic basis and by security agents who are not easy to identify. Indeed by using different measures  in the codes of good conduct, Islam is brandished at random so as to keep the population in a permanent state of uncertainty about what is licit or not and on the penalty that can be either mild or atrocious.
 However, behind this false appearance sometimes grotesque or fantastic, the regime possesses a strict internal cohesion especially when its vital interests are at stake.
 The current negotiations about having recourse to Sadiq el-Mahdi or any other leader in exile will not lead to curve the regime, just as the protests of good will towards the international community does not prevent the regime from remaining a major fact of destabilisation of its neighbours and other countries in the region.
 Since there is no public debate about our Sudan policy in France either in public opinion or the Parliament, one can only surmise about its origins and motives.
 Do we share with Khartoum a common vision of the future in Africa ? Or of the role Islam will play in tomorrow’s world ? Do we stick to our Egyptian friends' positions, they were the tutelary power of Sudan till 1956 and consider they have certain rights in Sudanese affairs because of their vital need of the Nile’s waters  Or do we try to promote the interests of our companies ? Or even, last but no least, to trick our American allies ? -

 Or a mixture of all that ? 

 Whatever the reasons, it is to be feared that this unexpected face of our « new African policy » on a very badly known subject, bears all the hallmarks of a haphazard policy. 

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(1) who are themselves ever better disposed towards the Khartoum regime for commercial reasons.

(2) witness Khartoum’s involvement on the side of Lauren Desire Kabila in Dem. Rep. Congo (see item in this issue).

(3) Remember that when the Bentiu petrol fields were discovered, Nimeiri then President of the Republic decided in 1983 to partition the South and avoid the building of a petrol refinery in the South, so that the Southerners would be deprived of resources enabling them to start a process of economic development.

(4) The items suspension of three newspapers and international day of support for torture victims from Reporters without Borders show the degree of this press freedom.