Islamist Governm

Christian Solidarity International http://www.csi-int.org

CSI Press Release October 21, 2002

CSI Applauds Signing of Sudan Peace Act President Bush Condemns Islamist Government for “Acts of Genocide”

(Washington D.C., Los Angeles, October 21, 2002.) CSI welcomes today’s signing by President Bush of the Sudan Peace Act. This landmark legislation was passed overwhelmingly in both Houses of Congress earlier this month.

By signing the bill into law, President Bush joins Congress in indicting the Islamist Government of Sudan (GOS) for acts of “genocide,” as defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Among these acts of genocide, according the new law, are ethnic cleansing, the enslavement of women and children, the aerial bombardment of civilian centers, and the creation of famine conditions.

The Sudan Peace Act obliged the administration to report to Congress on acts of genocide and to certify within six months whether the GOS and the predominantly Christian Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) are negotiating in good faith. Failure of the GOS to negotiate for peace in good faith would lead to U.S. opposition to international loans, credits and oil revenues to Khartoum, and an American initiative for the UN Security Council to impose an arms embargo on the GOS.

Among the main Congressional backers of the Sudan Peace Act were Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Congressmen Frank Wolf (R-VA), Donald Payne (R-NJ), Tom Tancredo (R-CO) and Eleanor Holmes-Norton (D-DC). Under the leadership of Congressman Payne and retired Congressman Walter Fauntroy (D-DC), the Caucus gave strong support to the legislation.

In a letter delivered to President Bush at today’s White House signing ceremony, CSI’s Dr. John Eibner thanked the President for launching the new American initiative for peace in Sudan, led by former Senator John Danforth, and for signing the Sudan Peace Act into law. “This initiative will be welcomed globally by Christians, Jews, Muslims and others who respect the sanctity of human life, without respect to race, creed or gender, and the inviolability of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Eibner stated.

However, Eibner also cautioned that despite the announcement last week of a new ceasefire and the resumption of peace talks in Machakos, Kenya, the struggle for a just and lasting peace in Sudan is not yet over. Slavery, man-made famine, social discrimination and political repression continue to affect millions of Sudanese, Eibner said. CSI, he continued, will “press for peace and justice until all Sudanese are equal before the law, the perpetrators of crimes against humanity are punished, and the right of self-determination is freely and fairly exercised by the people of Southern Sudan and other marginalized areas.” Eibner furthermore pledged CSI’s support for the campaign to eradicate the ideology of violent jihad, which has produced in Sudan alone over two million dead, over five million displaced and tens of thousands of slaves.

The passage of the Sudan Peace Act evoked an angry response from Sudan’s ruling Islamist elite. The ‘National Assembly’ in Khartoum urged Arabs and Muslims throughout the world to denounce the law, calling it “a breach of Sudan’s sovereignty.” (Suna, Khartoum, Oct 12.) The Sudanese charge d’affaires in Washington, Dr Harun Khidir, blamed “members of the extremist Christian rightist groups, and a group of the black masses” for pushing the Sudan Peace Act through Congress. (Al-Anbara, Khartoum, Oct. 13.) Following Congressional approval of the legislation, Islamist officials organized a mass demonstration in Khartoum in support of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, during which an effigy of President Bush, wrapped in American and Israeli flags and labelled “the corpse of imperialism,” was torn to shred and burnt. (AFP, Khartoum, Oct. 16.)

Over two million black, non-Muslim civilians have died as a result of warfare, since the GOS imposed Sharia law on the multi-religious country in 1983. In the early 1990s the extremist regime in Khartoum openly transformed the Sudanese civil war into a declared “jihad” against the “infidel” communities of Southern Sudan. Sudan is on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist states. (end)