Since the Machakos talks began in June 2002  it has got away with:  presenting the war as the only issue; making people think a lasting peace can be established without democracy or human rights; massacring civilians to clear oil areas in Upper Nile; air bombardment of civilians in Darfur; getting rid of the effective United Nations Human Rights Special Rapporteur  Gerhart Baum; building the Western Upper Nile oil road it had agreed under Machakos to halt; convincing foreigners it wants only power and money  not an Islamist revolution; convincing outsiders it alone represents Sudan  Sudanese and Islam; convincing people its 'project' has failed  so peace is inevitable; convincing Westerners and Arabs that what Hassan el Turabi stands for is no longer NIF policy; making people forget it that it had offered the south self-determination (even secession: infisal) in 1989 and the 1997 Khartoum Peace Accord (in February 2003  Britain's then Development Secretary  Clare Short  called it a 'breakthrough'); transforming the debate about secular Sudan into one about the capital or part of it; establishing moral equivalence at Machakos with the far less powerful Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement; taking over the economy in the guise of privatisation: we hear hundreds of NIF companies are moving to Indonesia and Malaysia; convincing the International Monetary Fund and World Bank it's broke when it has the oil-money it needs for military expenditure; the Bank's Ishaq Diwan enthuses about a post-war 'quick impact programme'; giving the impression it was reluctant host to Usama bin Laden and Al Qaida  not part of the same Islamist strategy; making gestures of anti-terrorist cooperation; confirming Egypt's belief that an independent south threatens the Nile; convincing the Arab world the Sudan war is against Arabism and Islam...
	 
    
    
    
    
        
	
	      When Khalil Ibrahim  a Darfurian close to Hassan el Turabi's NIF faction  claimed the SLA as an ally  many oppositionists began to suspect it was a government ploy...
	 
    
    
    
    
        
	
	     In 1991  another NIF leader Yassin Omer el Imam (and another former deputy to Hassan Abdullah el Turabi) tearfully embraced Saddam at an Islamic conference in Baghdad...
	 
    
    
    
    
        
	
	     The NIF  with links to both  wants to give Washington and London what they want  presenting Hassan el Turabi as holding the secrets of a Qaida-Iraq axis...
	 
    
    
    
    
        
	
	     Its two main factions Ali Osman's National Congress and Hassan Abdullah el Turabi's Popular National Congress are talking about rapprochement (AC Vol 44 No 1)...
 Hassan el Turabi was quoted as agreeing to this...
	 
    
    
    
    
        
            Vol 44 No 1 | 
            - NORTH AFRICA
	      The 'good cop  bad cop' script will continue; Hassan el Turabi will stay under house arrest while the USA focuses on Islamist networks he started (the Turabi and Ali Osman factions met in London this week)...
	 
    
    
    
    
        
	
	     The claimants note that he was 'invited' to Sudan by Hassan el Turabi and describe him as 'under the protection of the Sudanese regime' in a 'symbiotic' relationship (AC Vol 42 No 19)...
	 
    
    
    
    
        
	
	     Nimeiri then declared Islamic law (his Attorney General was Hassan Abdullah el Turabi); the government fuelled ethnic rivalries by manipulating politicians seeking power in a 'decentralised' south...
	 
    
    
    
    
        
	
	    '  Many Sudanese  north and south  claim this is also a description of the SPLA's widely condemned agreement with Hassan Abdullah el Turabi's Popular National Congress...
	 
    
    
    
    
        
	
	     Hassan Abdullah el Turabi's faction  the Popular National Congress (PNC)  led by Ali el Haj Mohamed  met the SPLA's Pagan Amun (who is also NDA Secretary General) and Yasser Arman (SPLA representative in Asmara)...
 They were celebrating their 'Memorandum of Understanding' of the previous year the official cause of Hassan el Turabi's arrest  by which they agreed to work together for democracy and self-determination...