Emergency declared

Press, 1 May 1984, Page 10

Emergency declared

NZPA-Reuter Khartoum The Sudanese President, Field Marshal Jaafar Nemery, has declared an indefinite state of emergency in the country in an attempt to combat turbulent opposition to his Islamic Government. In a speech on radio and television yesterday announcing a ban on meetings and demonstrations and a mobilisation of the public services, he said, “The enemies of the Government have become active both inside and outside Sudan.” Field Marshal Nemery has survived several attempts to topple him,' for some of which he has blamed Libya. In March Sudan accused Libya of masterminding a bomb attack near Khartoum, an allegation supported by Egypt and the United States but denied in Tripoli, the Libyan capital. Field Marshal Nemery said that opposition political parties, dissolved when he took power in a bloodless coup in May, 1969, had become active and “gathered against the State.”

He said that some had filed court cases against Islamic law but he made it clear the laws he imposed last year would continue.

“There are some faithful Sudanese people ready to defend Islam,” he said. The application of Islamic law has faced strong opposition in southern Sudan, in-

habited by some three million people, mostly pagans and Christians. Even in the mainly Muslim north some religious leaders have criticised the haste with which it was introduced. Field Marshal Nemery said that rebels in the south had declared war against development in the country, using slogans of communism. The rebels have forced the suspension of oil exploration by the United States oil company, Chevron, which used to produce 500,000 barrels of crude a day, and stopped work on vital irrigation. In Cairo Egypt’s official Middle East News Agency

reported from Khartoum that there had been “some incidents of unrest” in southern Sudan recently which had claimed “some casualties” but it gave no details.

The agency gave details of martial law which it said banned “any person from causing a rebellion or a mutiny within the armed forces or inflicting damage to the country’s railways, transportation and installations.”

Sudan is one of the poorest countries in the world. Its foreign debts of around SUS7.S billion (about $11.4 billion), high inflation, and poor exports make it heavily dependent on foreign aid. Hampered by poor communications and infrastructure, the central authorities in Khartoum have at times maintained only a tenuous hold over the country’s ethnically diverse population. In the largely Christian, sub-tropical south, guerrillas waged a 17-year campaign for secession from the Muslim north before a peaceful settlement in 1972 granted them regional autonomy. In May last year, after an abortive rebellion in the south, Field Marshal Nemery decided to split the region into three provinces, each with its own governor, to help sort out the area’s political, economic and social problems.