Below information is provided by the
Economist of Feb. 2002.
"Sudan's long-running war has paused,
but peace is still distant." The Sudanese people are now celebrating
the ceasefire, which was announced on January 23rd. However, the
celebration is only the first step toward peace.
The continuing war stems from the religious
and ethnic difference within the nation. Its history has divided
the whole nation into north and south. The military government in
khartoum has been dominated by Muslim Arabs from north. The situation
leads to an emergence of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army consisting
of the southern rebels. They are largely black Christians. The demand
of the SPLA for democracy and secular government, which is another
mean of southern secession has raised the national tension for over
decades. The conflict also requires international interference to
alleviate the level of violence. The United States has in part played
a signifact role in pursuing international peace.
The Islamic government proposed the formular
for peace called "one country, two systems." However,
there is still a problem of losing its sovereignty. It said that
"the difficulty will be deciding how much autonomy the south
is to be allowed." Apparently, if the second government was
to erected without much power to exercise in the political, economic
and social areas, it would not be different from the SPLA, except
being a legitimated group. Most southerners believe that self-determination
can guarantee their freedom and security.
A ceasefire may bring a temporary peace,
but for a long-term one cannot yet be guaranteed as long as slave
trades still keep continuing. "Sudan's government hotly denies
that there is slavery." In the past two year, 670 captive children
were returned to their homes from an effort of a joint tribal committee
of Arab and Dinka elders. The Dinka claimed that over ten thousand
of women and children have been kidnapped in the past decades. Most
were forced to marry their captors or do labor tasks.
Along with a ceasefire, many
non-governmental organizations have made an effort to disrupt the
cycle of slave trades. The common method of redeeming people is
through exchanging with the money. It actually increases incentive
"to prompt slavers to mount more raids, in order to capture
more slaves to sell the organizations." Lacking of an understanding
about the cause of slavery may result in little achievement and
prolonging the problem. In fact, peace and the human rights issues
should be pursue together. Pursuing one without another is a mistake.
As long as the Sudan's government deny its responsibility, a ceasefire
cannot really stop the problem of slavery. Thus, we still have to
see how the new system can protect the southerners' rights as they
had hoped. How could a ceasefire be a real peace without human rights
protection?.
