Event Remarks
Religion, Nationalism, and Peace in Sudan

U.S. Institute of Peace Conference
September 17, 1997

Sudan
The Authentic Portrait

Remarks by Ambassador Mahdi Ibrahim Mohamed

I welcome the opportunity afforded by the United States Institute of Peace to address this esteemed audience on a matter of urgent concern not only to the long suffering people of Sudan but to the entire Greater Horn of Africa: the blossoming peace in Sudan. I wish to commend the efforts of the Honorable Chester A. Crocker, Mr. David Little, and Mr. David Smock in organizing this symposium in the best traditions of free speech enshrined in the customs and Constitution of the United States. As Winston Churchill taught, it is better to jaw-jaw than to war-war, a lesson he had yet to learn when he crusaded with Lord Kitchner down the Nile to avenge the death of "Chinese" Charles Gordon, who earned his first military fame in China.

I. The Sudanese Landscape

The Institute of Peace is dedicated to an objective that responds to mankind's loftiest aspiration from biblical times onward: to turn swords into plowshares. The Government of Sudan is equally dedicated to that holy quest.

Upon accession to power in 1989, the GOS inherited a nation perched on disintegration and anarchy. The economy had been steered backward into the Stone Age by massive nationalization of the economy. International debt had spiralled to $18 billion, a frightening level for any less developed nation. All political power had concentrated in Khartoum with no tolerance for regional diversity or autonomy demanded by Sudan's varied array of tribes, languages, ethnic groups, cultures, and local histories. The two dominating political parties--the Umma and the DUP--operated like religious monarchies where pedigree to the al-Mahdi or al-Mirghani was a litmus test for political leadership. Parliamentary democracy was a sham, reminiscent of the so-called "People's Democracies" in Eastern and Central Europe under the thumb of Joseph Stalin. Then Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi had waged war against the southern insurrection with supreme ineptitude (even Khartoum had been threatened) and had demoralized the Sudanese military.

Immediately upon assuming office, the Government planned a measured but unswerving transition to genuine democracy in Sudan that has been scrupulously executed. Parallel to the transition initiative was a tireless effort to negotiate peace in the South, toils that were richly rewarded with the signing and implementation of an April 21, 1997 comprehensive Peace Agreement with six of the seven warring rebel factions.

The Government developed its democratic transition plan after unprecedented and exhaustive consultation with every distinct Sudanese grouping: Arab and African; Muslim, Christian, and animist; southerners and northerners; men and women; urban dwellers and farmers; and so on. The consultations were informal and dispersed, an imitation of African or Athenian direct democracy. No wealth or consanguinity with the al-Mahdi or al-Mirghani was required to be heard. The consultations were strong proof that the Government was devoted to breaking the rigid and circumscribed hierarchy of political authority that had been nemesis of Sudan since its independence in 1956.

Faithful to the transition plan, the GOS established 26 States with popularly elected legislatures and sweeping autonomous powers akin to States in the United States. The 10 States in the South were exempted from Sharia law. National power was methodically given a popular base, which reached fruition in March 1996 with a popularly elected President and 400 Member National Assembly featuring a voter turn-out of 72.6%. Scores of outside and impartial international observers, including a United Nations electoral unit and the OAU, pronounced the March 1996 elections free and fair.

President Omar al-Bashir vied with 30 other contenders and captured approximately 75% of the popular vote. He brought into the GOS in high ministerial office men and women from the South and the Christian community. Similarly, the National Assembly featured a membership in which southerners and Christians were represented in greater numbers than their respective percentages of the Sudanese population. The Vice President of Sudan is a Christian. Ditto for the Deputy Speaker of the Assembly. Christians also sit on the independent Supreme Court of Sudan.

The 1962 Missionaries Act placed a straightjacket on freedom of religion, including the freedom to proselytize. It had been left undisturbed by Sadiq al-Mahdi and all of his predecessors. It was the Administration of President al-Bashir that struck a landmark blow for religious freedom in Sudan by rescinding the 1962 law, consulting closely with representatives of Christians, animists, and Muslims, and then providing strong legal safeguards to protect the missionary activities of all religious sects.

The al-Bashir Administration has also taken giant steps towards restoring private enterprise in Sudan. Sadiq and his predecessors had presided over an economy shackled by the communist nationalization debacle of President Jafar Numeri. He had placed virtually every economic sector in government hands, including hotels and restaurants, and Sadiq left the consequent economic disaster undisturbed.

Under President al-Bashir, in stark contrast, thousands of state businesses have been sold to the private sector. By the end of 1998, most of the state sector will have been liquidated.

The al-Bashir Administration has also joined the World Trade Organization, slashed tariffs and barriers to foreign investment, lifted restrictions on wages, prices, and foreign currency exchange, and offered incentives for foreign participation in the development of Sudan's vast oil and gas resources. Malaysia, Canada, France, China, and Qatar are heavily invested there, and Sudan contemplates the exportation of oil in 1999. Sudan is also rich in minerals, fertile agricultural land, water resources, and a cultural ethic of self-reliance that disparages dependency.

The GDP has grown under the wing of the al-Bashir Administration at approximately 6-7% annually, and inflation has tumbled from a galloping three digits to a slow walk of 33%. The IMF recently acknowledged Sudan's economic strides.

Sudan's blossoming new democracy and economic robustness are especially impressive because they have surmounted a hostile international environment. Sudan has been subject to ongoing aggression by Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Uganda acting directly and as sponsors of the SPLA and the NDA. It has confronted sanctions of the United Nations Security Council, and adverse pressure from the United States, such as the transfer of $20 million in military equipment to three of Sudan's belligerent neighbors. The GOS has worked assiduously and successfully to melt some of the international chill, but it will pursue its democratic, private enterprise, and peace path irrespective of misinformed or antagonistic external forces. Its creed is national dignity through self-reliance.

II. Peace Initiatives

The April 21, 1997 Peace Agreement capped years of unstinting efforts by the GOS to jaw-jaw rather than war-war over the South. It has been ratified by the National Assembly and enshrined as the 14th Constitutional Decree, and has elicited acclaim as a solid foundation for negotiating the last chapter of the civil war by the United States Embassy in Khartoum, former President Jimmy Carter, the European Union, the OAU, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, and the IGAD regional group of African nations.

That broad acclaim is fully justified. Highlights of the 14th Constitutional Decree include the following:
*Sudan is a multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-religous state;
*All constitutional and individual rights based on citizenship alone irrespective of race, religion, gender or otherwise;
*Complete freedom of religion, including a right to proselytize and preach without regulation;
*An independent and decentralized judiciary empowered to review the constitutionality of government action and to afford redress for violations;
*Free enterprise and social justice as the guideposts of the economy;
*An equitable sharing of national wealth and infrastructure development among the 26 Sudanese States;
*An equitable representation of southerners and Christians in the national corridors of power;
*A referendum in the South on unity or secession at the conclusion of a 4 year transition period and monitored by international observers to insure that the vote is both free and fair;
*A strong system of federalism which lodges sweeping autonomous powers with the 26 States, including matters of taxation, schools, transportation, medical care, and application of Sharia; and
*The establishment of a Southern States Coordinating Council to oversee the transition with economic and political reconstruction of the South in the period prior to the referendum.

Implementation of the Decree has begun by selection of the chairman of the Coordinating Council, the appointment of State Governors, and the scheduling of State legislative elections this month. Moreover, there is one enormous safeguard against any dishonoring of the Decree that cannot be overemphasized. ALL OF THE SIX SIGNATORY REBEL FACTIONS WILL MAINTAIN THEIR EXISTING MILITARY FORCES AND ARMS UNTIL IMPLEMENTATION OF THE DECREE IS FINALLY COMPLETED WITH THE REFERENDUM IN THE SOUTH. That safeguard is unprecedented not only in the peace annals of Sudan but in all of Africa.

The GOS has not stood complacent with the Peace Agreement and its implementing Constitutional Decree. During a July 8-9 IGAD Summit in Nairobi, President al-Bashir accepted the IGAD Declaration of Principles as the basis for peace talks. IGAD was also tasked to arrange face-to-face negotiations between President al-Bashir and Col. Garang. In parallel action, South African President Nelson Mandela and Malaysian Prime Minister Mathahir Mohamed have offered to facilitate and bridge the differences between the parties under the IGAD umbrella. President al-Bashir visited with President Mandela on August 12 in hopes of meeting with Col. Garang, but the latter balked at negotiations. A repeat visit with President Mandela was made on August 31.

President al-Bashir, it should be stressed, has for long years offered to negotiate peace with Garang face-to-face without preconditions of any sort coupled with a promise of amnesty for all who swap the bayonet for the ballot box. All the offers have been cold-shouldered.

To reinforce its peace initiatives and the 14th Constitutional Decree, the GOS has established a national constitutional commission to forge a new political dispensation in Sudan that will entrench authentic democracy for the ages. At present, the commission is consulting every distinct opinion in Sudan representing every distinct group. The National Assembly will vote on the end constitutional product, and, if it approves, the charter will be then submitted to the people for popular ratification. Even the United States did not submit its Constitution to a direct popular vote.

III. The Role of Religion

Contrary to popular mythology in the West, religion is not and has never been a chief incendiary of the civil war in the South.

The Republic of Sudan is largely Muslim, and nowhere are Christians a majority, even in the South. Christians constitute approximately 5% of the total population, and are represented by more than double that percentage in the National Assembly. The religious dispersion in the South is 17% Christian, 18% Muslim, and 65% animist.

Since independence, Sudan has never attempted to impose Sharia hudud punishments on Christians or override Christian practice in family law matters such as marriage, divorce, or inheritance.

Freedom of religion is further augmented in the 14th Constitutional Decree. It declares: "Freedom of religion, belief, worship rites, dawaa, missionary and preaching activity are guaranteed to all, and no citizen shall be coerced to embrace any religion or creed." No religious test oath is imposed as a condition of holding any public office, unlike in Great Britain where Anglicanism is required of the Royal Family.

In sum, the religious freedom decrees fully satisfy the religious plank of the IGAD Declaration of Principles, which provides: "FREEDOM OF BELIEF AND WORSHIP AND RELIGIOUS PRACTICE SHALL BE GUARANTEED IN FULL TO ALL SUDANESE CITIZENS."

Freedom of religion in Sudan is celebrated not only in letter, but in spirit. Churches flourish everywhere, and Khartoum is brimming with scores. The Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury are greeted with universal applause.

Churches are frequently situated within blocks of mosques, and Christians and Muslims are integrated in neighborhoods, professional and social clubs, and in a broad array of similar community organizations. There are no religious ghettoes anywhere in Sudanese life. Christians educate their children in public and Christian schools, and the reputation of the latter for educational excellence attracts scores of Muslim children as well.

Christmas is celebrated as a National Holiday in Sudan, and elicits the same reverence as the holiday commemorating the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed.

The GOS has not asked the international community to accept its religious freedom credentials on trust alone. It acknowledges the wisdom in President Ronald Reagan's memorable words to then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev: Trust, but verify.

Thus, the GOS has invited more than a score of Honorable Members of Congress to visit Sudan to make first-hand appraisals of religious freedom and human rights. The same invitation has been extended to the State Department's 20-Member Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad. The 1997 State Department Human Rights Report related that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Religious Tolerance received the full cooperation of Sudan on a visit to areas under GOS control last year.

In other words, the GOS is seeking international sunshine, not stygian darkness, on its religious freedom, which is not the posture of a nation fearing embarrassment.

Characterizing the Sudanese civil war as a conflict between Islam and Christianity would be thoroughly wrong-headed. To be sure, conflicts over religion abound in the world, but they are as likely to pit Muslim against Muslim, as in Pakistan, or Christian against Christian, as in Northern Ireland, as to cut across religions. There is no inherent antagonism between Islam and Christianity. The Holy Koran states: "There shall be no compulsion in religion." The Prophet himself generously cared for a visiting Christian delegation from Najran and permitted them to pray in the Masjid in Medina. In addition, the treaty between the various religious communities in the city recognized the rights of all to their own property and practice of their faith.

The genuine causes of Sudan's civil war were two-fold: a denial of regional autonomy in the South; and, an inequitable distribution of national wealth and infrastructure, such as schools, roads, hospitals, etc. The 14th Constitutional Decree, however, answers those grievances, and has set in motion the final stages of peace.

The GOS is anxious to negotiate peace with Col. Garang, but he seems equally anxious to avoid direct talks with President al-Bashir under IGAD auspices or otherwise. President al-Bashir is not seeking a Carthaginian peace, but a peace with magnanimity, or, in the words of President Abraham Lincoln, a peace with malice towards none and charity for all. But if Col. Garang remains intransigent and chooses only the gun, the GOS will be forced to complete the peace process without the SPLA. Israel and the PLO concluded peace without Hamas. Great Britain and Ireland did so without the IRA. The SPLA should ponder those examples.

The views expressed above do not necessarily reflect views of the United States Institute of Peace, which does not advocate specific policy positions.

For More Information

Please contact the Religion and Peacemaking Initiative by e-mail at religion@usip.org. Written inquiries may also be sent to the address listed below.