A new Nile-water deal between Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia and a tripartite alliance between Jibouti, Ethiopia and Sudan directed against Eritrea ï a common adversary and neighbour ï have somewhat eased Khartoum’s embattled position, by complicating Washington’s declared effort to finance opposition-groups fighting to form a breakaway republic in the south of the country.
Less than a month after Sudan became an oil-exporting country, Sudanese opposition groups claimed responsibility for an attempt to destroy a section of the pipeline linking the Hegleig oilfield in the west of the country to the Bashair terminal on the Red Sea.
Sudan officially became an oil exporting country on August 30, when it shipped its first barrels of high-quality crude oil from the Bashair oil terminal on the Red Sea. The oil was from the Hegleig oilfield in western Kardofan, and had been transferred to the Bashair terminal through a 1,610km pipeline.
A draft resolution submitted simultaneously to the US house of representatives and the senate calls on the Clinton administration to arm the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), led by John Garang...
The US suffered what should have been a major international humiliation on May 3, when it was obliged to unfreeze the assets of Salah Idris, the Sudanese owner of the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum which the US bombed in August
The peace deal signed in Doha, Qatar, by Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir and his Eritrean counterpart Issaias Afwerki on May 2 has left Sudanese opposition groups in disarray, with some, like former prime minister Sadiq al-Mahdi, simultaneously holding secret and separate talks with other Sudanese officials.
In his born-again African phase following his recent rejection of Arab nationalism as a racist concept - and perhaps mindful also of the possibility of international rehabilitation following his sending of the Lockerbie suspects to trial in the Netherlands - Libyan leader colonel Mu’ammar Qaddafi seems to be joining in the west’s crusade against Sudan.
Persistent charges over several years by Christian Solidarity International (CSI) that slavery is rife in Southern Sudan finally backfire as Khartoum, in an unprecedented move, invites the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to investigate the allegations, and the agency accuses the Swiss-based but British-led Christian group itself of encouraging slavery in the area.
At a time when millions of Iraqis are being starved to death and a Pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan was destroyed by US missiles for allegedly producing chemical weapons, a South African doctor has revealed that he had unresticted access to western chemical and biological weapons programmes in the eighties.
Over the last two weeks, American officials have outdone themselves telling blatant lies in public. The attempted justifications for US missile strikes against Sudan and Afghanistan have revealed the depth to which they can sink.
The August 20 US missile strikes on a Pharmaceutical factory in Sudan and alleged camps of Islamic activists in Afghanistan have underscored one point clearly: Washington is an international outlaw.
Links between Sudan and Egypt are on the mend, a development Sudanese opposition groups and their western backers are not celebrating. And while US president Bill Clinton’s visit to Uganda, part of a flying tour to five African countries...
For the first in the history of the Sudanese conflict, Khartoum has conceded to southern rebels the right to exercise self-determination through a properly-supervised referendum.
