At these "Abuja I" talks, the two SPLA factions drew together and called jointly for a popular referendum on "self-determination." But the government rejected any discussion of independence, so both SPLA factions dropped the referendum idea and agreed to review the Nigerian federalism proposal. Garang's faction, at that point, indicated that it considered "secular democracy" more important than self-determination, and thus re-opened the rift with Machar's people who continued to stand for total independence. This established the context under which the present struggle continues. The "Abuja II" conference was scheduled to take place in June 1993, but the Khartoum government launched a major offensive in the South, thus killing the conference and ending diplomatic efforts to date.

Since the late 1980s, the war has produced a flood of millions of refugees both into the north of Sudan (where they are vulnerable to kidnappers and slavers) and into the several bordering states. Starvation has taken hold in the South for the past five years, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Food relief into the region by international agencies has been severely obstructed by both government and rebel attacks against planes, trucks and personnel that have attempted to provide it. At least two million people are at immediate risk of death by starvation in and around the "famine triangle" between the cities of Ayod, Waat, and Kongor. Some people have been forced to turn their children over to Arab slavers who promise to feed and return the children when the parents can buy them back, but then typically sell them off. The government distributes food only to those who pledge loyalty to the state under Shari'a Law and the religion of Islam.

In February 1993, Pope John Paul II paid an eight-day visit to Sudan. He was told by a Sudanese bishop that he would be shaking a hand "dripping with the blood of Christians" when he met with Beshir later in his trip. While he celebrated mass, 70 government troop carriers were seen headed toward an offensive against SPLA forces. Three southern villages had been bombed by government planes only a few days previously.

The Beshir regime is not apparently responsive to moral appeals (especially by Christians), and much less to external intervention. It is notorious for down-playing the ferocity of its attacks upon and enslavement of the indigenous people of the South. In fact, any person found to have reported Arab atrocities and enslavement is subject to indictment for treason, indefinite detention, summary execution. Professors Ushari Mahmoud and Suleyman Baldo, both of the University of Khartoum and both Arab Muslims, have languished in prison since 1987, when they documented the massacre at Diein. Ironically, this documentation was made during the "democratically" elected regime of President Sadiq el-Mahdi (1985-89), for which only northern Arab men were permitted to vote. These professors are examples of the thousands of victims of human rights abuses with which the succession of Sudanese governments has been associated (Amnesty International blames both sides of the SPLA, as well as the government, for perpetrating massacres and atrocities).

Sudan's primarily agricultural economy has been devastated by the long and costly war, with its attendant features of massive casualties, destruction of property, hyperinflation, high unemployment, 6.5 million internally displaced persons, and 3 million refugees who have fled the country. Disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrest, extrajudicial detention and executions, forced exile, denial of due process, and general violation of international human rights law have all become the norm since the imposition of Shari'a Law upon the indigenous peoples of the South. It is clear that with the new self-recognition of those peoples as subjects of the developing standards for treatment of indigenous peoples, within the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations, that it is time for the forging of new alliances. It is clearly time for acknowledgement that universal indigenous rights apply in the African context as much as in any other place on earth.

Fourth World Bulletin • December 1993

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