by Daniel Pipes*

It’s not every day that the leader of a brand-new country makes his maiden foreign voyage to Jerusalem, capital of the most besieged country in the world, but Salva Kiir, president of South Sudan, accompanied by his foreign and defense ministers, did just that in late December. Israel’s President Shimon Peres hailed his visit as a “moving and historic moment.” The visit spurred talk of South Sudan locating its embassy in Jerusalem, making it the only government anywhere in the world to do so.

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by Damla Aras*

The referendum held on January 9, 2011, was a milestone for Sudan. With an overwhelming majority of 98.3 percent, southerners decided to secede from the north and to create Africa’s youngest state — the Republic of South Sudan. While this momentous development was expected to end Khartoum’s decades-long struggle with the southern Sudanese rebels, it has set off a number of ticking time bombs and exacerbated existing conflicts. On top of Sudan’s financial problems and the wider impact of the Arab upheavals, President Omar Bashir’s government is now facing a number of pressing issues in the post-referendum era. With the rise of new disputes and the escalation of protracted conflicts, is Bashir’s Sudan on the verge of further instability?

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by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi*

Three months after the birth of South Sudan, how is the northern neighbor of the world’s newest nation faring?

The country, witnessing minor demonstrations, generally managed to escape the large-scale protests that have swept across the Middle East and North Africa since last winter, but as the Financial Times reports, Sudan’s economy has been hit severely by the secession of the south, which was by far Khartoum’s largest source of oil revenues.

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by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi*

The recent declaration of independence by South Sudan from its northern neighbor is certainly a welcome event. After two civil wars (1955-1972 and 1983-2005) that took the lives of more than 2.5 million Christians and animists, secession was the only reasonable option. Of course, there are immediate challenges for South Sudan, as it seems unlikely that 7,000 UN peacekeeping troops can protect a new nation that has vast oil reserves and a population living largely in abject poverty.

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by Janice Boddy
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. 402 pp. $65 ($24.95, paper).

Reviewed by Arvid Vormann*
WADI

Recent years have seen serious debates in leftist and feminist circles over the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), which prevails in parts of Africa as well as in the Middle and Far East. The debate has been shaped by the old tension between universalism and cultural relativism: For many of those who adhere to the latter, FGM has become an anti-imperialist, feminist symbol, an expression of female pride and self-determination, like the head scarf.[1] Among such analysts, the oppressive aspects of these traditions tend to be neglected. Their endorsement of FGM’s cruelties may be the most cynical way yet of challenging the universal claims of Western values.

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By Harvey Glickman and Emma Rodman*

Islamism in Sudan reflects both modern and older cultural-historical movements in Sudanese life. Similar to Islamist movements in the Middle East, it is distinguished by the sophisticated leadership of its ideological and strategic engineer–Dr. Hasan al-Turabi, by a period of official empowerment, and by violent campaigns of implementation during the 1980s and 1990s. Yet the character of historical Islam in Sudan, as well as the demographics of the Sudanese population, remain pluralistic, not isomorphic. The revolutionary project of Sudanese Islamism remains stalled, incomplete and divided today, but unexpired as an attempt to fabricate and impose a a national identity.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Once again, we see how easy it is for the Muslim world to get whipped up into a frenzy of hatred over nothing (a teddy bear?). Do we need further proof of the prevailing attitude of hatred that exists in much of Islam — especially when thousands of people tell us that they’re intolerant (or when we see Iraq’s Sunnis and Shiites, both Muslim groups, kill each other by the thousands)? From the AP:

Thousands of Sudanese, many armed with clubs and knives, rallied Friday in a central square and demanded the execution of a British teacher convicted of insulting Islam for allowing her students to name a teddy bear “Muhammad.” …

They [the protestors] called for Gibbons’ execution, saying, “No tolerance: Execution,” and “Kill her, kill her by firing squad.” …

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Sudan’s Muslim “clerics” are stoking the fires of anti-Western hatred — just as Danish imams threw gasoline on the cartoon “controversy:”

A Sudanese court convicted a British teacher Thursday of insulting Islam for letting her students name a teddy bear Muhammad and sentenced her to 15 days in prison, avoiding a heavier punishment of 40 lashes. The teacher wept in court, insisting she never meant to offend. …

The defense said the case was sparked by a school secretary with a grudge. But it escalated as Muslim clerics sought to drum up public outrage against what it called a Western plot to insult Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and demanding Gibbons be punished. …

Of course, most of the Muslim parents have taken absolutely no responsibility for anything. The British teacher in question asked her Muslim pupils to choose a name for the teddy bear:

… Ms Gibbons suggested the name “Faris”, which is Arabic for “horseman”. In spite of her recommendation, 20 out of the total 23 class members voted in favour of calling the mascot Mohamed — the name of one of the most popular boys in the class. …

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

…The prosecutor says most of the killings were done by the Sudanese army and the janjaweed, Arab militiamen backed by the Sudanese government. Their war on Darfur rebels, which turned against all black African villagers, has become the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with more than 200,000 dead and 2.5 million made homeless. …

- AP

When will the government in Khartoum be held accountable for its campaign of ethnic cleansing? Will the atrocities be stopped before the evidence is all covered up? Read on:

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Conflict Securities found that 86 public pension funds collectively had $91 billion invested in 93 companies active in Sudan.

- BusinessWeek

Arab paramilitary groups, backed by the Sudanese government, have been carrying out horrific atrocities against Black Africans in Sudan’s western region of Darfur. While all the high-paid diplomats at the UN sit around giving speeches and wringing their hands about the genocide in Sudan, the private sector has taken the lead. Today, one of the UK’s top companies took action:

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

I generally give kudos to the BBC for providing comprehensive coverage of the genocidal campaign of the Muslim government in Sudan and its Arab militia proxies against the county’s Black African population… until recently. Some editor at the Beeb seems to have decided that articles regarding Darfur must contain a disclaimer as to who is at fault for the “conflict:”

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Since February 2003, the Sudanese government in Khartoum and the government-sponsored Janjaweed militia have used rape, displacement, organized starvation, threats against aid workers and mass murder to kill more than 400,000 and displace almost 2.5 million people. Violence, disease, and displacement continue to kill thousands of innocent Darfurians every month.

- Genocide Intervention Network

That any government would sponsor such an atrocity is unconscionable. Maybe a little bit of embarrassment? Not at all. The Khartoum government continues to support this genocide, is completely unrepentant, and now very angry at the UN because one of its envoys, Jan Pronk:

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

There’s been no let-up in Sudan’s Arab/Muslim genocide against Black Africans in the Darfur province. So the UN will maybe pass another resolution which someone else will have to enforce? From the BBC:

Hundreds of Sudanese have been killed in attacks in Darfur, with the apparent knowledge and support of the government, a UN report says.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, today “gave a sharp reminder of the scale of Darfur’s problems,” regarding Arab/Muslim atrocities being committed against Sudan’s Black Africans:

On her last visit to Sudan the UN’s top human rights official spoke to women who had been raped by Arab Janjaweed militia.

This time many of those same women had given birth to young babies.

Arbour said that the crisis in Sudan’s western Darfur province had “deteriorated since she last visited in 2004:”

“I was there in the fall of 2004, which was bad enough,” she said.

“We thought then it was at the height of the displaced population’s misery. And frankly now, not only there’s no improvement in their predicament.”

She added that sexual violence, rape of women who collect firewood was showing “virtually the same level of victimisation”.

For a full background of Arab/Muslim war crimes in Sudan, see netwmd’s Sudan Monitor.

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Sudan’s government is as it again — this time providing close air support for its Arab militias’ terrorizing of black African refugees. According to the BBC:

The African Union has accused Sudanese government forces of supporting Arab militiamen targeting civilians in the troubled region of Darfur.

The head of the AU mission in Sudan said government helicopters gunships had flown overhead during a recent militia attack on a refugee camp. …

On Wednesday at least 32 people died during an attack by pro-government Janjaweed militias on Aro Sharow refugee camp in western Darfur.

The head of the AU’s peacekeeping mission in Sudan, Baba Gana Kingibe, told reporters that army helicopters had been flying overhead in an “apparent air and land assault”.

He said this gave “credence to the repeated claim by the rebel movements of collusion between the government of Sudan forces and the Janjaweed”.

While Israel remains the focus of politically correct yammering, genocide and ethnic cleansing in Sudan goes unnoticed, in the “I don’t want to hear it — this doesn’t fit into my multicultural fantasy world” sense.

netWMD has not and will not allow these Sudanese Arab and Muslim crimes against black Africans to go unnoticed:

• UN High Commissioner: Sexual Violence in Sudan Unabated
  http://netwmd.com/blog/2006/05/05/579
• Sudan: Peace in Our Time?
  http://www.netwmd.com/articles/article842.html
• Sudan Death Toll Rises
  http://www.netwmd.com/articles/article747.html
• Colin Powell Calls Sudanese Rampage “Genocide”
  http://www.netwmd.com/articles/article702.html
• Sudanese Terror Continues Despite UN Deadline
  http://www.netwmd.com/articles/article700.html
• Sudan Continues Atrocities Against Black Africans
  http://www.netwmd.com/articles/article665.html
• Arab League Supports Sudan Genocide
  http://www.netwmd.com/articles/article661.html
• Sudanese Arabs Burn Black Africans Alive
  http://www.netwmd.com/articles/article644.html
• Don’t Believe Khartoum for a Second
  http://www.netwmd.com/articles/article612.html
• Arabs Engineer Mass Starvation in Sudan
  http://www.netwmd.com/articles/article576.html
• More Arab/Muslim Terror Against Black Africans
  http://www.netwmd.com/articles/article553.html
• Sudanese Arabs Massacre Black Africans… Again
  http://www.netwmd.com/articles/article520.html
• Sudanese Arabs Massacre Black Africans
  http://www.netwmd.com/articles/article494.html

netWMD - SUDAN MONITOR