The global community is allowing Sudan’s militant Islamic regime back into its fold without insisting on critical demands, according to a prominent lawyer from the war-ravaged country’s mostly Christian and animist south.
The National Islamic Front is an illegitimate government with the character of the Taliban and al-Qaida, declared Telar Deng in an interview with WorldNetDaily.
Unless the U.S. puts pressure on Khartoum through tough sanctions, the essential issues of forced Islamization and self-determination for the non-Arab south will be ignored, he contends.
“This is a regime that by its nature will not constructively engage with anyone,” said Deng, peace coordinator for the New Sudan Council of Churches, an umbrella of denominations regarded as the “visible symbol of Christian unity in southern Sudan.”
The United States has attempted to renew a working relationship with the NIF to gain intelligence on Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network, which once operated from Sudan. A special envoy, former Sen. John Danforth, recently has traveled to the country to mediate peace talks.
Deng believes the kind of sanctions called for in the House version of a bill known as the Sudan Peace Act will hit Khartoum where it hurts. The White House and Wall Street oppose those restrictions, however, which would target oil revenues Khartoum is using to fuel its war effort. Oil companies operating in the country would be barred from raising capital through U.S. markets.
“With the sanctions, Khartoum will listen,” Deng said. “But as long as it is still given a freehold on a number of issues – as long as people give indication that Khartoum is improving its human rights record – the more it will become intransigent and not listen to anyone.”
Backed by Muslim clerics, the NIF regime in the Arab and Muslim north has declared a jihad, or holy war, on the south. Since 1983, an estimated 2 million people have died from war and related famine. About 4.5 million have become refugees.
“Whatever is done to isolate Khartoum would be a tool that will effect some changes,” Deng said. “Lifting sanctions actually legitimizes an illegal regime.”
The U.S.-mediated peace talks between the NIF and rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement have focused on a localized temporary cease-fire, stopping the government bombing of civilian targets and securing unhindered delivery of aid. But Deng insists that if negotiations are to have any meaning, Khartoum must be forced to come to the table to discuss the two critical issues.
“There has to be a combination of right of self-determination and a recognition of the fact that Sudan is multi-religious, multi-ethnic – a diverse country – and that no religion should be imposed on others,” he said.
The regime is slaughtering Christians who refuse to convert to Islam, according to human rights groups and aid workers in the country.
The north also is using slavery to achieve its purposes, Deng says, despite denials by Khartoum and others.
“For people who deny it, it depends on how they define slavery,” he said. “The situation we have in Sudan is absolutely slavery. If people are captive because of their race, because of religion, because of their ethnic background, and are subjected to inhumane treatment without any basic rights and treated as property, that is slavery.”
In February, Danforth helped negotiate an agreement with the government to halt bombing of non-military targets and ensure unhindered relief distribution.
“Immediately after Danforth left, the civilian populations were bombed in the relief distribution center in Western Upper Nile,” Deng noted.
On February 20, Government helicopter gunships killed at least 17 civilians, including women and children, and seriously injured many others during relief distribution by the U.N.’s World Food Program. The attack was one of many that form the regime’s “scorched-earth policy” aimed at ridding the oil-rich area of civilians, according to analysts.
Deng came to Washington, D.C., last week along with Haruun Ruun, executive secretary for the New Sudan Council of Churches, to give perspective on the conflict from the “common people,” in contrast to the frequently heard military and political voices.
Southern Sudanese churches are advancing a grass-roots effort to bring peace between north and south, Deng said. They already have seen success in reconciling warring ethnic groups in the south.
Deng, a former judge who has a degree from the University of New York, designed a process that secured peace agreements between six southern ethnic groups. The “People-to-People Peace Process” drew on local peacemaking traditions and religious commitments to resolve long-standing conflicts.
Related stories:
U.S. expanding involvement in Sudan
Sudan jihad forces Islam on Christians
Sudan Islamists kill more women, children
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