Sudan ready to talk church-state separation with Christian, animist insurgents
Special to World Tribune.com
MIDDLE EAST NEWSLINE
Friday, February 18, 2000
CAIRO [MENL] -- Sudan has signalled its readiness to consider changing the
character of the Islamic state.
A senior official said the regime in Khartoum is ready to discuss
demands by non-Islamic insurgency groups in the south to end the imposition
of Islamic law throughout the country. The insurgency in the south has been
fueled by protests that Khartoum oppresses the country's Christian and
animist minority.
Vice President Ali Othman Mohammed Taha said on Wednesday that his
government is prepared to discuss with southern rebels demands to separate
church and state. The demands have been supported by the United States and
African allies of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, which has been
waging a 16-year civil war in south.
Arab diplomats said the offer by Sudan is unprecedented. They said until
now the regime headed by President Omar Bashir had refused to make any
changes in the Islamic regime. But the diplomats said the ousting of
Bashir's rival, former parliamentary speaker Hassan Turabi, has allowed for
changes. Turabi was regarded as the founder of the Islamic regime when it
captured power in a 1989 coup.
Taha's statement was immediately questioned by Islamic fundamentalist
leaders in Sudan. They pointed to a pledge by Bashir that he would not make
any changes in the Islamic state.
But some opposition elements praised the remarks. "It is a boost to the
camp that believes that there is room to all citizens in a Sudan that is
free of a single party's hegemony and fanaticism," Taj Mohammed Saleh, a
member of the Democratic Unionist Party, told the Al Ayyam daily in
Khartoum. "Every person has his own party and belief but we should get
together as Sudanese to agree on the country's supreme interests, through
dialogue, rather than coercion."
In Doha, Bashir, on a tour of the Gulf, reiterated that he would not
change the Islamic nature of Sudan. But he added that the Islamic movement
made many mistakes and that Islam does not force its views on nonbelievers.
In Washington, the Clinton administration has imposed economic sanctions
against Sudan's state-owned oil company Sudapet Ltd. and to the Greater Nile
Petroleum Operating Co. Ltd. In 1997, President Bill Clinton authorized a
trade embargo against Sudan.
Friday, February 18, 2000
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