Sudanese and the national cake
Sudan, Analysis, 8/22/1997

"We support the call of South African President Nelson Mandela for a ceasefire with the SPLA (Sudan People's Liberation Army)," Sudan's President Omar Bashir said after a Pretoria meeting, but he refused to comment on whether he will directly meet with John Garang, the SPLA leader.

It's known that Bashir's peace offers have been rejected before by Garang, who wants to see reorganization of the Sudanese political system and says that this system is not about to change, especially since Bashir is trying give his government a veneer of respectability by electing governors for the Sudan's 26 states.

The governor of the state of Khartoum, Majzoub Khalifa, who is a staunch backer of the Islamization policies pushed by the government, will remain in office because he was elected by a government-appointed legislation council. He is a hard-liner and has led several heavy-handed campaigns to pacify the two million refugees sheltering in the capital after fleeing the war in the south of the country.

Khalifa has also clamped down hard on anti-government forces in the army, universities, Labor unions and civil service.

Bashir has ruled by decree since he usurped power in a military coup in 1989, and his political system are patterned on the Libyan model--that is, based on the formation of citizens' committees and councils.

In the Sudan, these committees are dominated by the supporters of the National Islamic Front (NIF), led by Sudanese parliament speaker, Hassan Al-Turabi. The Sudanese citizens' committees and councils, like their Libyan counterparts, dominate political discussions and theoretically are the main decision-making bodies in the country at the local, state, regional and national levels.

These days, Bashir continues his attempts to put an end to the war in the Sudan, so he promised to have a referendum within four years to determine whether the South wants to be part of a united Sudan or become independent.

Garang and his allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), grouping southern and northern opposition forces, rejected Bashir's promises as false. Many believe that fighting that has been going on since 1983 is essentially about the distribution of the national cake. The SPLA argues that successive Sudanese governments have not been fairly distributing the wealth of the country. The SPLA also says income differentials have widened considerably since Bashir came to power.

The Sudanese government, once reliant on foreign aid for almost half of its budget, is now denied most foreign funds because of international embargoes and the hostility of the west towards Khartoum's Islamic government. The deplorable state of the country's infrastructure and educational and health services constitutes a perennial obstacle to social and economic development.

Previous Stories:
  Sudan talks with SPLA delayed   (8/19/1997)
  Sudan to discuss peace talks with South Africa's Mandela   (8/13/1997)
  Sudan's Christian Nubians being brutalized   (8/7/1997)

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