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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Sudan
Index
In 1991 Sudan was a member of several international
organizations including the United Nations and its specialized
agencies, the League of Arab States, and the Organization of
African Unity.
The policies of the RCC-NS, however, alienated all the
European countries that traditionally had provided economic and
humanitarian assistance to Sudan. Britain suspended several
million dollars of grants and loans for development projects in
January 1991 after the government released from prison five
Palestinians who had been convicted of the 1988 terrorist murder
of five Britons at a Khartoum hotel. Subsequently, London broke
diplomatic relations as well. The twelve-member European
Community issued a statement in February 1991 expressing its
collective "shock and dismay" at Khartoum's failure to cooperate
with nations and international organizations trying to assist
Sudanese victims of drought and civil strife. The RCC-NS tried to
counterbalance these deteriorating relations with expanded ties
to such countries as China, Iran, Nigeria, and Pakistan. None of
these countries, however, had the resources to replace the
significant and needed aid that had dried up in the Arabian
Peninsula, Europe, and North America.
* * *
Several excellent studies exist of Sudan's politics since
independence in 1956 and up to the overthrow of the Nimeiri
regime in 1985. There is a paucity, however, of published sources
for the more recent years. The best overviews of pre-1985
political history are Peter Bechtold's Politics in the Sudan
since Independence, Tim Niblock's Class and Power in
Sudan, and Peter Woodward's Sudan, 1898-1989: The Unstable
State. An excellent analysis of the movement to establish the
sharia as the basis for Sudan's law is Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban's
Islamic Law and Society in the Sudan. (For further
information and complete citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of June 1991
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