Sudan a General Fulfills a Promise

By JANICE C. SIMPSON

When the military overthrew the 16-year regime of President Gaafar Nimeiri in a bloodless coup last year, Lieut. General Abdul Rahman Suwar al Dahab, the Defense Minister who spearheaded the rebellion, moved into the colonial-style Presidential Palace on the banks of the Blue Nile in Khartoum. Grateful citizens slaughtered a cow in a traditional housewarming gesture to welcome the new leader, but Suwar al Dahab told them his stay would be short. Within a year, he promised, he would hold free elections and turn power over to a civilian government. Last week, Suwar al Dahab showed that he meant to keep his word.

As dry, hot spring sandstorms blew across the country, millions of Sudanese went to the polls to elect representatives for a new 301-member National People's Assembly, which will write a constitution and choose a permanent government. After years of Nimeiri's harshly autocratic, one-party rule, Sudan seemed to revel in its new chance at democracy. Candidates representing some 30 different parties, ranging from Muslim fundamentalists to Communists, competed for assembly seats. Major cities like Khartoum and Omdurman were swathed in campaign posters and political banners. "The Sudanese nation," said Suwar al Dahab, "has decided to go ahead with democracy."

The voting began on April 1 and will continue over a twelve-day period so that Sudan's 6 million registered voters (out of a population of 21.8 million) will have a chance to participate. The vast, sparsely populated country has no modern nationwide telephone system and only a rudimentary road network. Mobile voting booths were trucked to some particularly remote regions. Nonetheless, enthusiasm for the balloting was apparent. Said Mohammed Abbas, 32, a graduate student at the University of Khartoum, who had been imprisoned under Nimeiri: "Sudan is a better country today. There is a real attempt here at freedom and democracy."

The elections are being closely monitored in Washington and throughout the Arab world. Sudan strategically abuts several Arab and African countries, including Egypt, Libya, Chad and Marxist-ruled Ethiopia. It also lies just across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia. The U.S. has considered the country an ideal staging area for its forces in the event of a military threat to the gulf region. Even when Arab nations shunned the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat for entering peace negotiations with Israel, Nimeiri was staunchly pro- Western and firmly allied with Egypt. The U.S. has attempted to ensure Khartoum's loyalty by granting about $200 million in economic aid and $19 million in military assistance to Sudan, more than to any other African nation except Egypt. While Suwar al Dahab has been friendly with the U.S., he has re- established ties to Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi, who also supplies the government with military aid. "The camel has got his nose under the tent," observes one Western diplomat. "If they are not careful, the Sudanese will become dominated by Libya."

Most of the major Sudanese parties profess nonalignment with the superpowers and avow unity within the Arab world. The leading contenders in the elections, the Umma Party and the Democratic Unionist Party, share traditional religious roots. Neither, however, is as militant as the National Islamic Front, which pushed Nimeiri to adopt the strict Islamic law that mandated punishments like amputating the hands of thieves. The party and its charismatic leader, Hassan al Turabi, 53, still have a large constituency among the poor and the young. But analysts predict that the Umma Party, lead by former Prime Minister Sadiq al Mahdi, 50, the great-grandson of the revered leader whose forces defeated British General Charles Gordon at Khartoum in 1885, will emerge as the main force in a new governing coalition.

That fragile civilian government will inherit formidable problems. Famine still afflicts almost one out of every five Sudanese. In addition, the country must cope with more than 650,000 refugees who have fled famine and war in neighboring countries. Repaying the $9 billion foreign debt piled up by Nimeiri will prove equally difficult. In February the International Monetary Fund, citing the government's inability to repay more than $200 million in overdue loans, took the unusual step of declaring Sudan ineligible for additional assistance. The economic pinch forced Suwar al Dahab's 15-member ruling Transitional Military Council to increase taxes, raise prices on some basic foods and gasoline by as much as 50%, and devalue the Sudanese pound, currently at four pounds to the dollar, by 30%.

The most dangerous threat to a new civilian government, however, is the four-year civil war being waged by the estimated 20,000 guerrillas of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army. Led by John Garang, a renegade army colonel, the insurgents now control much of the southern half of the country, where the government last week was forced to postpone indefinitely voting in 37 of the 68 constituencies in the region. The rebels claim that the mainly Muslim and Arab north discriminates against the predominantly animist and Christian blacks in the south, and have vowed to keep fighting, whoever wins the election.

So far, neither side has shown much interest in a negotiated settlement. That stirs uneasy memories of the 17-year civil war, in which 500,000 people were killed, and the failure of the last democratically elected civilian government to resolve the conflict. The result: the 1969 military coup that brought Nimeiri to power.

With reporting by Scott MacLeod/Khartoum