Rémi
de Laquintane
Master
religion et société
WEB
AUDIT:
Political changes in Sudan.
By Micael Negre.
This Web review attracted my attention at
first glance. Indeed, the political situation in the horn of Africa
is so complex that soon turns into an incomprehensible issue for an
African non-expert. I expected this Web review to clarify things for me.
More precisely, this report focuses on the
political changes in Sudan after the National Salvation Revolution in 1989.
The population, which is extremely divided into
many ethnic, linguistic and religious groups, is completely wounded by the war.
Moreover, this country appears to be a
theatre of manipulation where the regional countries are involved as the
main protagonists, and the greatest economic powers as producers.
Do the political changes bring back to the
Sudanese a peaceful and respectable life?
COMPLETE INVENTORY
1.Form
In the first place, the first page of the web
review is meant to be the guide page. This page is made up of different
elements:
-A Sudanese flag
-A picture of the
presidential palace
- A navigation through
a very simple tree structure through four links.
The first link:
Presentation.
This page contains a map of Sudan in colour,
which gives us a good geographical overview.
Well-divided into four parts, using the red colour for the
titles, the page is easily navigable.
The second link:
Political changes after the National Salvation Revolution.
A map that brings out the administrative subdivision
policy illustrates this page.
The Web reviewer introduces his sources by some
general information about the political situation.
Each source is followed by a personal
commentary on the article.
The third link:
Personal statement.
This page is devoted to his personal
point of view on the political situation in Sudan.
The last link:
Bibliography.
The Web reviewer presents and analyses all
his sources.
We can reach the photo of each main personality
simply by clicking on the name.
2.Contents.
The website’s author directly takes
stance in favour of the southern Sudanese, and wishes us to be promptly
aware of this unacceptable “barbarism” which is taking place in
Sudan. For an explicit example, you can click on the Human Rights Watch
website. This article denounces the violent punishments, such as the death by
stoning and amputation, carried out by
Sudan’s justice system.
His presentation does a historical,
geographical, political and economic portrait of the country.
The reader is invited to click on the hypertext
links to get further information.
The Web reviewer mentions that the data
obtained from certain sources would not be relevant due to the
dictatorial regime.
The site’s main part deals with the political
changes after 1989. After this coup, the policy has dramatically changed; Omar
al-Beshir became the president of Sudan, nevertheless most of the control was still
in the hands of the National Islamic Front’s leader: Hassan
al-Tourabi.
The web reviewer demonstrates that the main official trends supported by the government of al-Beshir
in parallel with the adoption of federalism are:
-a transition from representative democracy to participative
democracy by the system of committees
-a wide liberalization of the economy
-an islamization of society and the economy.”
From my point of view, these three points represent a manipulation carried out by the government leaders to take definitely control of the oil resources. It is crucial to specify that after the Addis-Abeba agreement in 1972, the south has been declared self-governing.
And from 1972 to 1983, Sudan was on the path to peace. But suddenly, in
1980 an American company (Chevron) discovered oil resources in the
south. Then, Jaafar
Mohammed Nimeiri, who took power through a coup
in 1969, decided to invade the south in May 1983. His real intention was to
embezzle the oil resources and not the implementation of the charia, known as
the” September laws”. At this moment, the Sudanese government feared that the
SPLM/A (Southern Popular Liberation Movement/Army) would use the oil profits
to overthrow them. After the National Salvation Revolution, Omar-al Beshir
decided to become westernized in order to attract foreign companies to
invest in the oil’s exploitation. Basically, the” participative democracy” and
the “wide liberalization of the economy” are only a mask in order for
multinationals to get a good ethic image.
Furthermore, an islamization of society and the economy has enabled
the Sudanese Government to instrumentalize Islam.
By declaring Sudan to be an Islamic country, the leaders are directly
using the dijhad and indirectly different moudjahidins from the whole world to protect
the oil resources against the south, which is considered to be an enemy,
because of the differences in religion and ethnicity.
To consolidate his opinion, Micael Negre uses
various articles extracted from:
-The site of the
World Bank: Thoughts on the experience
of local authorities in Sudan by Gamal Hamid.
- a French review, Politique Africaine: “Le nouveau système
politique soudanais ou la démocratie en trompe l'œil” by Marc Lavergne.
- The site of the
United States Institute of Peace. The road to peace in Sudan : prospect for
pluralism in northern Sudan by Alex de Waal.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
1.Form
-Positive points:
The web site is very well designed, with a
simple navigation through the different links.
It was very relevant to illustrate the site
with maps and photos.
-Negative points:
On the home page, the colour of the background
is not in harmony with the colour titles. Indeed, it is almost impossible to
read some of the links.
2.Contents
-Positive points:
The stereotype of an ambivalent vision of the
Sudanese conflict has been avoided. The simple division north/south represented
by the Muslims against the Christians or Animists would
definitely be a very bad conflict interpretation.
Moreover, there are many Arabic in the south
who have been involved in slave trade for centuries. In the same way,
there is an big southern community which lives in the north.
-Negative points:
His brief modern history does not make sense if
he does not discuss the latest events which occurred between 1999 and
2003.
Chronologically, since 1999 the oil resources
have been exploited. The Chinese and the Canadian have built a pipeline.
There are two consortiums which are exploiting
the resources:
-Greater Nile Petroleum and Oil Corporation
(GNPOC) have the main oil production, its partner is the China National
Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), very close to the Chinese government.
- Petronas Bhd is a company from the
Malaysian government with Talisman Energy.
And there are many other companies: Agip
(Italy), Elf-Aquitaine (France), Gulf Petroleum Company (Qatar), National
Iranian Gas Company (NIGC), TotalFina (France) and Royal Dutch Shell
(Netherlands).
In July 2002, under the American influence, President
Beshir and John Garang (Sudan People ‘s liberation movement leader) signed a
peace agreement.
Nevertheless, this agreement has been broken
off during the Darfour conflict.
Again the real reason of the conflict is an economic
issue.
The United States of America and the United
Kingdom (and some Scandinavian countries) are very interested by the Arabic gum
from Darfur. Sudan is the first world producer of Arabic gum; this substance is
used for the pharmaceutical, cosmetic and the food industry.
CONCLUSION
Hence, this web review is a good research,
which gives us the main lines of the political situation of Sudan since the
National Salvation Revolution. Nevertheless, I will reproach Micael Negre with
not having developed further crucial points, such as the resource
issues and the strong involvement of many foreign countries.
Unfortunately, there are millions of victims
who are being moved from their village, or directly killed, just for
their sub-soil.