A Secular Regime Will End the Suffering

By Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil

The heartrending human suffering in the southern Sudan raises the question of the feasibility of yet another intervention in the Horn of Africa. By creating secure zones and by prevailing on the government to stop the air bombardment of helpless villagers and on both the government forces and the Sudan People's Liberation Army to cease harassing relief activities, concerted international intervention may well make food, medicine and other provisions available to the hundreds of thousands who presently face starvation.

Such intervention, however, cannot have more than a limited effect. As U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Herman Cohen told the Subcommittee on Africa of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on March l0th, "Isis. . . clear that the only long-term solution to the southern Sudan's humanitarian nightmare is an end to civil strife."

So long as the present fundamentalist regime continues in power, the chances of an end to the eight-year-long war on acceptable terms are quite remote. Since Sudan obtained independence, there has been, on and off, a conflict between southern rebel organizations and the government's armed forces. The source of southern grievances are neglect of economic development, a poor level of social services and an inequitable share in the governance of the country.

Perhaps the only redeeming feature was that, despite policies which have reinforced fears of a plan of Arabization and proselytization, the Sudan remained until the early 1980s,byandlarge, a secular state. Its constitution guaranteed freedom of conscience, expression and association, and equality between citizens irrespective of sex, race or religion.

In the courts, matters of personal status were governed by the relevant sectarian authorities or customary law of the parties. Criminal law was based on a version of the Indian Penal Code, an attempt at a rationalized codification of the principles of criminal responsibility in English common law.

A drastic change in the legal regime took place under Jaafar Mohamed Nimeiri, who underwent a spectacular transformation of character. He became a self-proclaimed fundamentalist, jockeying for the position of imam of an Islamic state.

In September 1983, he promulgated a set of "Islamic" enactments, including a penal code which prescribed the punishments of flogging, limb amputation, stoning and crucifixion. This "Islamization" drive spawned the present rebel movement, popularly known by its military wing's acronym, SPLA.

A Transitional Government

Following the downfall of the Nimeiri regime, a transitional government was setup which, in protest against failure to abrogate the 1983 Islamic legislation, the SPLA refused to join. Consistently with its manifesto, which calls for the establishment of a united, secular, modern Sudan, SPLA has made the abrogation of the Islamic laws a condition for a peaceful settlement of the conflict.

Despite unequivocal electoral promises, the government which took office after the general elections of May 1986 kept dragging its feet on the issue for three years. It was only in March 1989 that a national coalition, which the National Islamic Front (NIF) declined to join, was charged with implementing a program to end the war and, to that end, abrogate the fundamentalist penal code.

A draft repeal law was finally to be approved by the council of ministers on June 30, 1989. The meeting, however, was never held, as a result of a successful coup staged by the NIF a few hours earlier.

The new regime reinstated the disputed penal code and also embarked on a course of stark, unabashed violation of basic human rights. What had been a war engendered by inherited prejudices, and allowed to drag on by the lethargy of successive governments, was converted into a full-fledged jihad, motivated by bigotry and zealotry.

It would be idle to expect a fundamentalist party which usurps political power by coup in order to balk a peace process to agree to a peaceful settlement within the framework of a liberal, democratic, pluralistic constitution. To divert attention from its ethnic cleansing atrocities in the Nuba Mountains and its sordid human rights record, however, the NIF government has recently agreed to facilitate the delivery of relief provisions.

Similarly, in an attempt to placate the West, on the eve of the Pope's visit to Khartoum a spokesman announced that the government was contemplating exemption of the southern region from the application of the Islamic penal code. Even if that promise is honored, however, there still remain about two million southerners presently living in the north, and just under a quarter of a million indigenous Coptic Christians.

Half-measures will not provide a lasting, satisfactory solution to the problems of the Sudan. The southerners have amply demonstrated their resolve not to be content with the status of second-class citizens subject to the application of fundamentalist Muslim laws from which they are granted only such exemptions and concessions as the regime may consider expedient.

Testifying at the March 10 hearing of the House subcommittee on Africa, Roger Winter, executive director of the U.S. Committee for Refugees, said there are only two alternatives: a secular state or separation of the south. That may well be so, but when asked whether, in his view, the former was a serious possibility, he confidently answered in the negative.

I submit that political events during the first half of 1989 showed there was a national consensus on the removal of the fundamentalist laws from the country's statute-book. This action was aborted only by the coup d'etat which illegitimately brought NIF to power.

Concern about the inordinate suffering in the south should not blind us to two other aspects of the nature of the present regime in the Sudan. First, its spiritual leaders are indoctrinated in a version of Islam which shuns pluralism as divisive and denounces democracy as intrinsically Western.

It also is shamelessly contemptuous of fundamental human rights. Since the current regime came to power, the country has been subjected to a continuous state of emergency. This includes a total ban on the freedoms of expression and association, as well as arbitrary arrest and frequent detention without trial, often accompanied by physical and psychological torture.

It is crucial for the consolidation of the New World, which is morally, and in large measure legally, committed to the cause of fundamental human rights, that transgressions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights be avoided, whether inflicted on non-Muslims or on Muslims. Secondly, the present regime in the Sudan, having agreed to be an accomplice in Iran's aspiration to export its version of Islamic revolution, constitutes a geopolitical menace.

For these reasons, any idea of tolerating the present fundamentalist regime in the Sudan would be politically short-sighted and morally deplorable. There is no hope for peace, tranquility, social development, economic reconstruction and the enjoyment of basic human rights under a liberal constitution for the peoples of the Sudan while that regime is in power.

Separation of the south is not an answer to Sudan's problems, considering such factors as the disputed boundaries of the area of oil prospecting, the country's single outlet to the sea and the historic tribal conflicts reflected in the recent political rift in the SPLA. Secession would create more problems than it would solve.

While some southern politicians advocate self-determination, such a right can only be properly exercised in a situation of normalcy under a regime which respects basic human rights, not under the stress of suffering or impatience for delayed political aspirations.

Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil is a former speaker of the Sudanese Parliament.