THE SUDAN SINCE 1989: NATIONAL ISLAMIC FRONT RULE.

INTRODUCTION

THE SUDAN, AFRICA'S LARGEST COUNTRY, is often viewed as being peripheral to both the 'Arab' Middle East and non-Arab Africa. As a dominantly Muslim country it is often included in regional Middle Eastern political geography, while its important role in Islamic Africa is often ignored. The non-Muslim Nilotic and other minority peoples in the Sudan are usually forgotten except as they are referenced in terms of the "southern problem" in the country's chronic and protracted civil war, unbroken since 1955 except for about a decade of negotiated peace, 1972-83. The latest round of civil war since 1983, has unleashed a period of political developments resulting in unprecedented loss of life, human rights violations, and displacement of Sudanese citizens, and ecological destruction. On the political front this period witnessed the toppling of the military dictator Ja'afar Nimeiri in 1985, followed by a period of civilian democracy in which Sadiq al-Mahdi (great grandson of Muhammad Ahmed the 19th century Mahdi) was elected and ruled as Prime Minister until the nascent, fragile democracy was overthrown in an Islamist military coup d'etat in 1989 led by General 'Umar Hasan al-Bashir and politically backed by Muslim Brother leader Hasan al-Turabi. The Bashir-Turabi regime was built upon the relatively narrow political base of the National Islamic Front (NIF), a party that was the direct descendant of the Muslim Brotherhood and created by Turabi in 1985 after the overthrow of Nimeiri with whom he had been closely associated.

The turbulent decade of the 1990s that this special issue covers begins with the 1989 coup which launched the decade and saw the entrenchment of an extremist Islamist regime that isolated the Sudan as a pariah nation on a number of fronts, including its African neighbors whose borders were affected by its civil war causing the displacement (or death) of over 2 million southern Sudanese, and most recently the disruption caused by the Ethiopian-Eritrean war. The alienation of much of the Arab-Islamic Middle East for its Islamist extremism (with the exception of Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan), and in particular its key rival-ally Egypt has also been witnessed. The Bashir-Turabi regime has drawn the wrath of the American-led West in reaction to its alleged support of terrorism. America's frustration with the Sudan grew over the decade during which it alleged that Sudan was involved in the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, the attempted assassination of Hosni Mubarak in 1995, and saw the Sudan as the chief source of aid and support to Usama Bin Laden. Its frustration culminated in the U.S. bombing of the al-Shifa factory in Khartoum North in the wake of the bombing of the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar As-Salaam in 1998. The improbability of the Sudan as a hotbed for terrorism began to gain some credibility. At the same time Hasan al-Turabi became an international figure presented as a cosmopolitan, multilingual, 'modern' Islamist whose theories about the nature and future of the Islamic state became highly regarded in Islamist circles and feared by military and monarchical regimes in the Arab-Islamic world and were rejected in the West as undemocratic and not in conformity with the western notion of 'civil society'. The intense political rift between Bashir and Turabi during 2000, in which the ultimate power of Bashir's guns over Turabi's words was proven, leaves open a number of questions about the long-term viability of the NW regime. Since the political break Bashir has been trying to recast himself as a "democrat" with the promise of elections, while Turabi has been left to try to mobilize his supporters in a new National Congress Party which he has thrown against the "deviationist" regime, no longer committed to pure Islamist goals. The Bashir regime moved to make peace with the opposition traditional Umma Party and Khatmiya sect leaving the united front National Democratic Alliance opposition group floundering. The complex political twists and turns of the decade are ably reviewed and critiqued by Abdullahi Gallab in his paper.

CRISIS IN HUMAN RIGHTS

The past 12 years in the Sudan under the NIF has also drawn the world's attention to the human rights abuses involving allegations of war crimes, ethnic cleansing, a revival of slavery, torture of the regime's opponents, and an unprecedented number of refugees fleeing across Sudan's immense borders into Uganda, Kenya, Eritrea, Egypt, as well as Europe and North America. Large and politically active communities of Sudanese refugees now exist in such disparate locales as Nairobi, Kampala, Cairo, Toronto, and Washington, D.C., and many are active on a number of Sudan-related websites where free dialogue about Sudanese affairs is underway. Raqia Abu-Sharafs paper puts a feminine face on this new out migration with a generation of Sudanese growing up in exile communities and an unprecedented number of women emigrating to the West. The war in the south has spread to other military fronts on the east, south central, and western regions of the Sudan and a liberation of the north from the south remains an option. In short, the decade of the 1990s was one of unprecedented crises, out of which multiple transformations and political opportunities have arisen.

As co-editors we are grateful to the editors of ASQ for the opportunity to present this Special Issue on the Sudan in which leading Sudanese and Sudanist authors critically review this exceptional period in Sudanese contemporary history.

THE SUDAN UNDER NIF RULE

Before the Islamist coup of 1989 the Sudan had already instituted a number of measures that had steered it along the path of politicized Islam and an Islamic state. In 1983 under General Ja'afar Nimeiri declared that Shari'a was to be the sole law in force in the Sudan, thus Islamizing a basic state institution. This immediately precipitated resumption of the civil war with disillusioned southern forces now certain that the north had no intention of constructing a secular democratic state. Hasan al-Turabi was Attorney General at this time and was the key legal advocate and implementer of this change. By 1985 application of hudud punishments for theft -- amputations of hands and feet upon non-Muslim southerners as well as Muslims -- had reached over 200 in number as Courts of Prompt Justice carried out the state Islamic law with a vengeance upon the poor and lumpen social elements. As the Nimieri regime was on its last legs, the head of the Republican Brothers reformist movement Mahmoud Muhammad Taha was decl ared an apostate from Islam and was hanged. This unpopular move became a factor in the intifada that overthrew the Nimieri military regime in April 1985, later installed General Suwar alDahab as interim military leader with the promise of a return to civilian rule within a year. Democratic elections with numerous old party and new political factions were contested in 1986. This culminated in victory for one of the old parties, the Umma, whose traditional leader Sadiq al-Mahdi was elected Prime Minister.

The Umma Party head with its traditional Islamic base dating to the 19th century Mahdiya was politically and religiously unable to rescind Islamic law as state law with any clarity and certainty. The linkage of the 1983 Islamization of law and resumption of civil war meant that no progress toward a negotiated peace was possible during the period of democracy 1985-89. This failure to end the civil war by democratic rather than military means was more than a missed opportunity for it revealed the intractability of northern rule, irrespective of military or democratic regimes, on the fundamental political dominance of Islamic institutions. In an effort to stall the advances of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA, the armed wing of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, SPLM) Sadiq al-Mahdi mobilized irregular 'Arab' militias along the southern border. This reopened old patterns of kidnapping and enslavement of southerners that have historically bred dominant-subordinate relations and distrust between the regions. As Sudan's fragile democracy faded and military takeover loomed once again in the background, Sadiq's last-minute attempt to reign in the Sharia and move toward a negotiated settlement to the war was preempted by the 30 June 1989 coup d'etat led by 'Umar Hasan al-Bashir.

Within the first weeks of Sudan's third period of military rule since independence in 1956 it became apparent that there was a shadow government led by Hasan al-Turabi that was, point by point, instituting the political program of the National Islamic Front. Alarm grew when al-Bashir declared on 13 July that he would not object to "separation" of the south if that is what they wanted; the issue of Sharia, he said, would be settled by referendum. The free press journals and periodicals were closed down, opponents of the regime disappeared or were tortured in "ghost houses", any open assembly or public expression of opposition to the new regime was banned, and the only legitimate party recognized was the NIF. An opposition front, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was organized comprising nearly a dozen groups, but representing the major old political parties, the Umma, Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), and significantly the SPLM. The NDA found its base in Asmara and was significantly housed by the Eritrean government in the former embassy of the Sudan Government, which opposed the NIF-led government.

These predictable signs of an emerging fascism became all too real when critics of the regime were arrested and detained in "ghost houses" where torture was used to suppress dissidents. It was at this point, in 1990-91, that the world began to take notice that this was no ordinary militarist state. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch published lists of the ghost house detainees and an international campaign was launched to put pressure on the Bashir-Turabi alliance to release these political prisoners and to stop their use of state terror. Early in 1993 the Sudan Human Rights Organization (SHRO) was abolished and many of its most active members were forced into exile, primarily in Cairo, Egypt, but also to Asmara, Eritrea and London, all locales becoming centers of democratic opposition. When Hasan al-Turabi ventured out of the de facto Islamic Republic to the UK and U.S. in 1992 he was met with Sudanese and other protesters at every stop, was harangued in the U.S. Congress for the human rights disas ter Sudan had become, and was attacked and beaten unconscious in Ottawa by an exiled Sudanese leaving him in a coma from which he eventually recovered to return to the Sudan. When he recovered he blamed western anti-Islamism for his treatment abroad. Mahgoub El-Tigani, a founder and leader of the SHRO in Cairo and now in exile in the U.S. adds an important voice from the democratic opposition as he reviews the human rights abuses of the Bashir-Turabi regime, and offers a political solution through the right of self-determination.

It was also during these early years of the Bashir-Turabi regime that allegations about support for international terrorism emerged primarily from the US and its chief European allies. At first difficult to comprehend, certain of the allegations gained credibility once a number of Sudanese with ties to the Sudan UN Mission were implicated, then indicted on charges of involvement in the World Trade Center bombing. Later allegations that the Sudan was harboring Usama bin Laden and was cultivating ties with the U.S.'s major enemies in the Middle East, chiefly Iran and Iraq, but also Afghanistan through the bin Laden connection put the country on the list of pariah nations for the U.S. and its western allies. When the Sudan was implicated in the attempted assassination of Mubarak in 1996 in Ethiopia, the U.S. and its client state Egypt mounted a major campaign to isolate the country in every way, politically, economically, and culturally. In 1995 the U.S. severed all ties with the Sudan recalling its Ambassador D onald Petterson and imposing a total ban on trade or any other economic activity.

PROTRACTED, SEEMINGLY NON-NEGOTIABLE, UNWINABLE CIVIL WAR

The underlying central issue to every regime since independence is the conflict between Sudan's ruling elite in the north and its minority populations, most especially the southern masses, predominantly the Nilotic Dinka and Nuer peoples of Bahr al-Ghazal, and other ethnic groups in Upper Nile and Equatoria. Juba in Equatoria is the unofficial capital of the South. The historical enslavement of southerners and the contemporary revival of slavery is a controversial and much debated topic in the popular press. Campaigns by U.S. school children to donate money to free enslaved Sudanese and television programs, such as on the popular religiously inspired show "Touched by an Angel" have served to make the issue of slavery in Sudan a topic of national moral and political concern. Richard Lobban's article on slavery in the Sudan adds the much-needed scholarly analysis of the complexities of slavery in precolonial, colonial, and post-independence Sudan. The subject is a critical part of understanding the civil war.

The protracted civil war fundamentally stems from the unequal distribution of political and economic resources and the stranglehold on power relations that northern, riverine Sudanese have monopolized since independence. This is complicated today by substantial oil reserves discovered in the south and used primarily for export and hard currency by the Khartoum regime making pipeline security a priority for the government and a target for the SPLA. Added to the political issue is a cultural one of the dominance of the Muslim religion and Arabic language as well as a racial component in the purported Arab identity of northerners each of which have been used to subordinate non-Arabic speaking, non-Muslim southerners. In the latest round of this unremitting war, other political and cultural minorities from the Nuba Mountains, the western provinces of Kordofan and Darfur, Blue Nile and eastern Sudan have joined in opposing the traditional elites. In 1995 the "New Sudan Brigade" was formed by the SPLM as the vehic le to extend the civil war into the north. The Sudan Alliance Force (SAF) has sought to liberate territory in eastern Sudan using Eritrea as a staging area.

John Garang, founder and military commander of the SPLM/SPLA is a key player in Sudanese politics, although northern figures inside the government and some outside in the opposition movement are reluctant to admit it or permit him to play the national role that he should be playing. As the central opposition force in military resistance to governments in Khartoum at least since 1983 (not counting the previous resistance movements, such as the Anya-Nya) he has demanded and generally been denied a prominent role at key points in the changing of the national political scene. For example, he refused to recognize either the Suwar al-Dahab coup that overthrew Nimieri or the elected Sadiq al-Mahdi government because neither set terms for a negotiated settlement to the civil war. Virtually every Khartoum government has tried to win the war militarily which every objective observer says is not winnable.

The SPLM was an important part of the democratic opposition (NDA) for a time but the inevitable usurpation of the movement by the traditional parties who continued to dominate the opposition meant that the race, religion, and culture typifying the old order still prevailed despite changes in power. This was especially true in the case of the role played by Umma Party leader Sadiq al-Mahdi who defected from the NDA and joined a coalition government with Turabi in 1999, and the leadership of the Khatmiya sect followed suit in 2000. With the virtual collapse of the NDA once again the only effective opposition movement to Khartoum is the SPLM.

During the NIF-Bashir decade of the 1990s a number of attempted negotiated settlements to the civil war were conducted including major peace talks hosted by Nigeria referred to as Abuja I, and Abuja II. These failed due to their being stalled or halted by seemingly non-resolvable points. Talks initiated by the IGAD countries (Intergovernmental Agency for Development, comprised of African states) likewise failed to end the war or set the terms for a just and lasting peace. The Bashir-NIF regime refuses to negotiate any amelioration or abrogation of Shari'a as state law, for example to its pre-1983 status as a system of courts serving the personal and family law of the Muslim community. The SPLM rejects this position utterly demanding as a sine qua non for serious negotiation the principle of a secular state in which the Shari'a is only one source of law. Ann Lesch's article on the impasse in the civil war provides an excellent review of the attempts and the reasons for the failures at negotiation. A review of her 1998 book, Sudan Contested National Identities is printed in this special issue.

POLITICAL BREAK BETWEEN BASHIR AND TURABI

During the years 2000-2001 there has been a serious, and seemingly final, political break between General 'Umar al-Bashir and Hasan al-Turabi with the military wing of this tactical alliance taking the initiative in sacking Turabi (in his capacity as leader of the NIF National Congress Party) as Head of the Sudanese Parliament and dismissing the Assembly altogether. Deprived of this formal public political role Turabi fought back in the domestic and international press and by threatening civil strife led by NIF cadre. Indeed, his threat seemed to be carried out with demonstrations that occurred in major northern cities in the fall of 2000 but these led to no significant change in his status. The question of how large, well disciplined, and loyal the NIF cadre are remains untested and open for the time being. Turabi also announced that he was forming an independent opposition party, the National Congress Party, which holds the "correct" line on the Islamic state rather than the "deviation" the al-Bashir Islam ist represents. Amazingly, he also attempted an alliance with his SPLA rivals. Bashir has promised "democratic" elections in December 2000, but the ability of serious opposition parties to contest in these promised elections could not seriously materialize. The elections that took place by a military regime in a population thirsty for democracy convinced virtually no one. Meanwhile, Turabi who is a legendary survivor was imprisoned by the al-Bashir regime early in 2001 in the infamous Kober prison that housed many of Turabi's political enemies over the past decade. His imprisonment ironically brought protests of human rights violations against her husband by Wisel al-Mahdi, sister of Sadiq al-Mahdi who has returned from exile in Cairo to live yet another day in a fragile alliance with al-Bashir. The showdown between al-Bashir and Turabi proves once again that political power does indeed come from the barrel of the gun as al-Bashir's military wing of the government easily triumphed over Turabi's ideological br anch. In the political scramble that ensued other quirky alliances were forged and then broken, as the temporary alliance between Turabi's failing National Congress Party (the successor to the NIF) and John Garang's SPLM. As of March 2001 charges carrying the death penalty have been levied against Turabi and his supporters unless they withdraw their anti-state activities and provocations.

It is clear that the present situation is highly unstable. The possibility of another popular intifada or new military "corrective" coup are always possible in alternating periods of military rule and democracy that have characterized Sudanese politics since independence. The political sidelining of Turabi, who has been the international symbol of Islamic extremism, has caused the international isolation of the regime that now may be reduced. The U.S. under a new Bush administration is contemplating re-establishing relations and a low level diplomatic presence was sent out in the fall of 2000 and new sympathies with the Christian and anti-slavery movements in the south are emerging with the Bush government. Relations between Sudan and Eritrea are less hostile and the NDA in exile in Asmara is in a more precarious position. However, in October 2000 the U.S. opposed and was successful in blocking the Sudan from taking its seat in the United Nations Security Council. Some predict that with a change in administr ation a more formal diplomatic presence will be re-established.

Nearly fifty years after its independence Sudan is still grappling with the basic elements of building a democratic, just, and stable state. An Islamic state for the culturally and religiously plural Sudan is both inappropriate and morally unjust with a third of its population being non-Muslim. Any continued attempt to Islamicize the south by politics or force will be met with fierce resistance, as has been the case historically. The domination of the northern elites and of the politically bankrupt old parties must be brought to an end. This is made more difficult in the case of the religiously based Umma Party and DUP (based in the Khatmiya sect) but they must adopt a new, truly national face and break with their traditional northern base. The disarray of the democratic opposition is largely a function of the old parties remaining in control and not incorporating the political as well as military dominance of the southern forces, primarily the SPLM.

In sum, there will either be a new Sudan or two Sudans, with separation of the south the inevitable result of failed politics over the decades. The NIF-Bashir regime from 1989 to the present certainly cannot be blamed for all of this historic failure, however the precious democracy that they overthrew in 1989 was probably the last best chance for a people's resolution to the unremitting conflict. The right wing political extremism of this period, cynically couched in terms of Islam and an Islamic revolution, has only exacerbated the wounds of the past decades. And mostly the world, including sectors of the Arab world and Middle East preoccupied with more important conflicts, does not care even though an estimated two million Sudanese have died or been displaced during this period.

Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban and Richard Lobban are professors of Anthropology and African Studies at Rhode Island College, Providence.

USEFUL REFERENCE BOOKS ON SUDAN SINCE 1989

Alier, Abel. Southern Sudan, Too Many Agreements Dishonoured. Exeter: Ithaca Press, 1990.

Burr, J. Millard and Robert O. Collins. Requiem for the Sudan: War, Disaster, and Disaster Relief on the Nile. Boulder: Westview Press, 1995.

Garang, John. The Call for Democracy in Sudan, edited and introduced by Mansour Khalid. London: Kegan paul, 1992.

Hale, Sondra. Gender Politics in Sudan: Islamism, Socialism and the State. Boulder: Westview Press, 1996.

Jok, Madut Jok. War and Slavery in the Sudan. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.

Khalid, Mansour. The Government they Deserve, the Role of the Elite in Sudan's Political Evolution. London: Kegan Paul International, 1990.

Lesch, Ann. Sudan Contested National Identities. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998.

Lobban, Richard, Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban and Robert Kramer. Historical Dictionary of the Sudan, 3rd edition. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2001.

Petterson, Donald. Inside Sudan, Political Islam, Conflict, and Catastrophe. Boulder: Westview Press, 1999.