The biggest successes of John Garang's four-day visit to Britain came not at his brief encounters with the government which had invited him for the first time but at his long meetings with Sudanese. Almost 1,000 of them, including scores of cheering north...
Western governments still don't get the measure of Sudan's resourceful rulers
Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, First Vice-President, National Islamic Front (National Congress) leader and the country's most powerful man, is ill. A reported heart attack took him to Jordan and Geneva, Switzerland, for treatment. Though he has apparently recove...
The ceasefire for the Nuba Mountains which the National Islamic Front government signed with the Sudan People's Liberation Army in Bürgenstock, Switzerland, on 19 January, went (with NIF help) around the world's headlines as a 'peace agreement'.
Many unusual cargoes have been delivered to Sudan in recent years, as former resident Usama bin Laden knows. Yet one of the strangest (though not necessarily most dangerous) must surely be the 300 haggis airlifted to Khartoum last month. Haggis is the hea...
A born-again Executive Outcomes operation is at the centre of allegations of a military contract between ex-South African Defence Force soldiers and the Sudanese army. A former director of EO told Africa Confidential that the contract was widely known in ...
The Islamist International needs its friends in Khartoum but the price is rising
Egypt and Libya intervene to block southern and northern opposition hopes while the NIF plays off everyone against each other
Ever since it seized power on 30 June 1989, the National Islamic Front has been declaring its desire for peace while accelerating the war. The first speech by Brigadier General Omer el Beshir after the NIF made him President declared that the prime task w...
On 26 June, the international Arab press began speculating about a new Egyptian-Libyan Initiative. Ten days later, the nine points emerged and became headline news. Some are reminiscent of the Declaration of Principles (DOP) accepted by all parties (inclu...
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