Washington watches nervously as Nimeiri battles a rebellion Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiri, 54, launched the new era by
ceremoniously pouring a can of beer into the Nile. Five million
dollars' worth of liquor followed, as thousands watched from the
riverbank, chanting, “Wise decision, Gaafar.” Thus did Sudan pass under
Islamic law this fall. At a stroke, alcohol was banned, and the harsh
strictures of the Sharia eliminated the last vestiges of Western-style
criminal justice. Thenceforth Muslim adulterers would be stoned,
murderers beheaded and boozers flogged . The most graphic evidence of the change to
date came two weeks ago, when a convicted Muslim thief had his right
hand amputated while a crowd of 500 looked on at Khartoum's Kober
Prison. The return to Islamic purity was a two-edged sword for Nimeiri. It won
him widespread popularity among Sudan's Arab Muslim majority, but it
pushed his divided, impoverished nation of 22 million a step closer to
civil war. Sudan's largely black, non-Muslim minorities, who inhabit
the southern part of the country, had already been seething with
resentment over what they regarded as persistent discrimination by the
Arab-dominated central government. Encouraged by Libyan Leader Muammar
Gaddafi and by the Marxist government of neighboring Ethiopia, pockets
of armed rebellion have erupted in a number of southern regions. While
fighting to subdue the rebels, Nimeiri must protect himself from
periodic attempted coups. As one U.S. State Department official puts
it, “We've got some concerns about the stability of the country.” The Reagan Administration has a strategic stake in Sudan's wellbeing.
Under Nimeiri, the country has strengthened its ties with Egypt,
America's major Arab ally in the Middle East. Sudan shields Egypt's
southern flank from attack and safeguards the upper reaches of Egypt's
economic mainstay, the Nile River. In recent years, Sudan has also
served as a buffer against the designs of Libya's Gaddafi, whom Nimeiri
derides as having “two personalities, both of them evil.” Finally,
Sudan's key location might make it an ideal staging area for U.S.
forces in the event of a military threat to the Persian Gulf. Last
February, President Reagan dispatched four AWACS surveillance planes
to Egypt in response to anxiety about a Libyan military threat; in
August, Reagan sent a personal message to Nimeiri assuring him that
“aggression against Sudan will not be tolerated.”
