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Sudan Tribune

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Bin Ladin and the Sudan’s CPA

Editorial, the Khartoum Monitor

April 25, 2006 — On his audio tape pronouncement, the most sought world terrorist Osama bin Ladin has criticized the Sudanese government for signing what he described an “unjust agreement”, that could lead the south to secede, and for failing to enforce Islamic Shari’ah law across the country. Bin Ladin further said the Comprehensive Peace agreement (CPA) in Sudan is “not worth the ink it was written with”.

Bin Ladin was not speaking out of vacuum. He lived in Sudan in the early 90s during the peak of the civil war in southern Sudan. During his time in Sudan, the Sudanese government had been openly addressing the Arab world and the Islamic countries that it was waging a Jihad (holy war) against the ‘infidels’ in southern Sudan supported by “western crusaders”. It maintained that Islam was in danger and the Arab’s back fence in Africa (Sudan that is) was under threat.

The US was overtly and covertly referred to as the number one enemy of the Sudan and Islam. There were calls for Muslims all over the world to stand up and defend their faith in the Muslim lands of southern Sudan. The regime orators said southern Sudan is the dam that holds Islam behind it and once removed, Islam will flow uncontrolled and sweep the whole of southern Africa. These were the messages that Bin Ladin used to hear when he was living in Khartoum. He needs to be told things have changed and the then infidels are in Khartoum to run the country in partnership with the very [ruling] National Congress party that once hosted him.

Again, what Bin Ladin said about Darfur is not far from what we did hear from Sudanese officials. Those keeping records of events in Sudan would recall that Darfur projected as a foreign conspiracy. Western NGOS are carrying out “missionary activities” to convert the Muslims in Darfur into Christianity. Efforts to bring stability to Darfur through a UN-led initiative have been termed as a “western” conspiracy” against Islam and the Arabs.

Bin Ladin has not come up with anything fresh about the Sudan . What he did say about the CPA has been already articulated by anti peace fundamentalists, who even went as far as describing the entire agreement as a sell out of Islam.

The current intransigence and hurdles laid before the CPA fall in this agenda. Same applies to Darfur. Social injustice, marginalization and wide-scale abuses of human rights were canned in to the package of “western and crusaders conspiracy” by fundamentalist Sudan officials.

Overall, the Sudanese government officials should not fret about Bin Ladin’s statements . He is a parrot mimicking what he once heard being said by Sudanese fundamentalists. We need to see a change of heart and mind towards the implementation of the CPA through deeds, not words. The way the National Congress party treats its SPLM partner, refusal to implement the Abyei protocol and the stand off over the constitution of Khartoum as a national capital translates well into Bin Ladin’s pronouncements.

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