Consideration of reports, comments and information submitted by States parties under article 9 of the Convention (continued)
Eighth periodic report of the Sudan (continued)
CONSIDERATION OF REPORTS, COMMENTS AND INFORMATION SUBMITTED BY STATES PARTIES UNDER ARTICLE 9 OF THE CONVENTION (agenda item 4) (continued)
Eighth periodic report of the Sudan (CERD/C/222/Add.1) (continued)
1. The CHAIRMAN invited the delegation of the Sudan to reply to the questions asked the previous day by members of the Committee.
2. Mr. EL-MUFTI (Sudan) welcomed the questions and observations of members. They would help the Government, which was resolutely determined to give the highest importance to human rights, to improve its implementation of the Convention. It would also provide an opportunity to make good the gaps in the report and correct some misperceptions.
3. He noted that most of the information given by Mrs. Sadiq Ali came from persons who had probably never been to the Sudan. To illustrate the current situation, he cited one highly significant fact: among those who had paraded to celebrate the third anniversary of the revolution had been representatives of the Indian community in the Sudan. They had demonstrated their support for the Government, because, as they put it, it respected their freedom, particularly in economic matters and because it had put an end to corruption, theft, aggression and the climate of insecurity.
4. Describing the situation in the Sudan prior to the revolution, he said armed gangs had been pillaging the west of the country. Civil war raged throughout four-fifths of the south. As for the centre, it was in the grip of a drought which compelled hundreds of thousands of persons to flee the region. According to IMF, the growth rate had been negative (-1.3 per cent in 1989). The country's situation had been almost as catastrophic as that of Somalia before the United Nations intervention, and had posed a threat to the stability of the whole region. The revolution had remedied the situation. In the west of the country, all weapons had been confiscated and peace restored, while the Government had brought 80 per cent of the south under its control. The aim was not to subjugate the south, which was just as much a part of the country as the north, but to restore peace. In its first communiqué, the Revolutionary Council had proposed a ceasefire. It had then decreed a general amnesty for the benefit of all those who agreed to lay down their arms.
5. The National Dialogue Conference had formally recognized the legitimate rights of the population of the south. The Government had acknowledged that the south was economically backward in comparison with the north and an agency had been established to promote the development of the south. In the political sphere, the Government had set up a federal system of government under which resources and positions of responsibility were to be equally distributed. The Government had also decided that the Shari'a would not be applied to the minorities in the south, whose cultures had been recognized.
6. In the economic sphere, the Government estimated that the rate of growth of the national economy, which, according to IMF, had been 9.6 per cent in 1992, should rise to 15 per cent in 1993.
7. With regard to education, he said that there were currently 25,000 students enrolled in universities, as against 5,000 in 1989.
8. Contrary to its predecessor, the Government had decided, not to allow displaced persons to enter the capital, where they would not find housing and would live in insanitary conditions. Out of concern for their dignity it had been decided to provide them with plots, which they would be able to acquire, in the vicinity of the capital. All those measures testified to the value attached by the Government to human liberty and dignity.
9. As far as relations between the executive, legislative and judicial branches were concerned, he said that the judiciary was independent and still governed by a 1986 law. The legislative and the executive branches, had initially both been exercised by the Council of the Revolution. In order to terminate the monopoly of both branches of authority, it had been decided to entrust legislative authority to the Supreme Transition Council, composed of over 300 individuals representing the country's different provinces and population groups. Even though the members were not elected but appointed, the Council, which it should be emphatically stressed was transitional, was none the less a step towards democracy. As for executive authority, which was henceforth separate from legislative authority, it was exercised by ministers.
10. It should be mentioned that local elections had recently been held, in which 1,600 municipal councillors had been elected by some 5,300,000 voters. Those developments all testified to the Government's determination to progress towards democracy.
11. In the document entitled "Overall national strategy", emphasis was placed on all the fundamental rights that should appear in the future constitution. The 1985 Constitution was no longer in force.
12. Turning to the religious issue, he said that as Islam was a revealed religion, it could not be the subject of a political debate. The only body of law in which the Shari'a appeared was the 1991 Penal Code, which contained a chapter on the penalties applicable to those who committed violations of the Shari'a. All the other chapters of the Penal Code were the same as those of the Penal Code promulgated by the British in 1898. He pointed out that in order to preserve the rights of minorities the chapter in question did not apply to the population of the south or to non-Muslims who lived in the north. For example, a non-Muslim who consumed alcohol could not be penalized, unless, of course, he caused a disturbance.
13. Flogging was indeed a form of punishment. It had not been instituted by the 1991 Muslim Personal Law, but by the Penal Code promulgated by the British in 1898. It was considered to be one of the best forms of punishment, not from a religious angle, but from that of modern criminology.
14. Apostasy was not in itself punishable. Any Muslim could convert to Christianity. Although that might appear to be a new development, it was perfectly verifiable: it was clearly set down in the Penal Code. However, what was punishable was the call to apostasy, which could constitute a threat to peace and public order. Even so, the call to apostasy was not immediately punishable; persons guilty of it were brought before the courts which gave them plenty of time before actually handing down a sentence against them. If they abandoned their call to apostasy, the conviction was immediately quashed.
15. With regard to the war in the south of the country, he said that the Government attached the highest importance to preserving peace, which it was sincerely and resolutely trying to achieve. The rebel movement had realized that and on 23 February 1993 its leader, John Garang, had for the first time since the movement came into being in 1983 consented to sit at the same table as the representative of the Government.
16. All those factors - revolution, religion, war - undoubtedly affected human rights, and the Government by no means denied the violations that had been committed. However, it wished to assert that it was taking every measure necessary to avert any further violations. The recently adopted amendments to the National Security Act were specifically designed to achieve that aim. They were part of the measures taken by the Government to bring about national reform.
17. Resolution 47/142 concerning the situation in the Sudan, adopted by the General Assembly on 18 December 1992 concerned human rights violations prior to the adoption of the amendments in question. In that resolution the General Assembly called upon the Government of the Sudan to ensure a full, thorough and prompt investigation of the killings of Sudanese nationals employees of foreign government relief organizations (operative para. 7) and permit humanitarian assistance to be delivered to the civilian population (operative para. 8). The Government had complied in full with the request of the General Assembly. The Inquiry Commission had been set up on 25 November 1992, although its report was not yet ready. It would be published as soon as it became available. As for humanitarian assistance (food, medicine), the Government had made every effort to supply it to the civilian populations in the south - in the region of Juba in particular - but rebel elements had prevented it from being taken by surface transport (road or sea). As a result the Government of the Sudan had been compelled to transport it by air, i.e. at considerable expense. In July and August 1992 the town of Juba had come under armed attack by the rebels, and the Government armed forces had naturally responded to the attack. The human rights violations committed at the time had to be seen within the context of a very difficult situation. Nevertheless, the Government had accepted its responsibilities and set up an inquiry commission.
18. Returning to the question of humanitarian assistance, he said that according to information provided not by the Government but by the United Nations, the Government had met its commitments in that respect. Following an agreement with the rebels at the beginning of December 1992, under the aegis of the United Nations, the Government had sent 1,300 tons of food and medicine from the town of Kosti in the north of the Sudan to the south, but as soon as they had reached the area under rebel control, the convoys had been attacked. The United Nations was well aware of that, but it did not wish to recognize that the rebels had deliberately prevented the humanitarian aid from reaching its destination. The rebels' aim was to arouse world opinion against the Government, and they were apparently succeeding. It was in the interest of some parties that they should do so.
19. One member of the Committee had referred to the draft resolution on the situation of human rights in the Sudan submitted to the Commission on Human Rights at its current session (E/CN.4/1993/L.32) which was due to be put to a vote. The draft resolution was a typical case of the exploitation of the United Nations for political manipulation. The previous year, the Commission on Human Rights had decided to send an independent expert to the Sudan in order to investigate all aspects of human rights (racial segregation, religious intolerance, arrests, etc.). The Government had accepted that decision and in November 1992 the expert had spent seven days in the Sudan. He had prepared a report which he had submitted to a working group of the Commission. It would have been normal for the Commission to have cognizance of the expert's report and of the recommendations of the working group responsible for examining it. However, certain Western countries, including the United States of America, had opposed that. They had succeeded in having consideration of the report and of the recommendations of the Working Group postponed until draft resolution L.32 had been adopted. After its adoption (secured by intrigue and various forms of pressure), the same Western countries would say that it was not necessary to consider either the independent expert's report or the working group's recommendations as draft resolution L.32 had been adopted.
20. With regard to the allegations of torture and arbitrary trials and arrests, he would abstain from providing any information from the Government and restrict himself to the conclusions of an independent expert appointed by the United Nations, whom he had accompanied during his visit to the Sudan, in his capacity as Secretary-General of the Sudanese Commission on Human Rights. On that occasion, the expert had been able to ascertain that the allegations of torture or arbitrary imprisonment had never been attested. More significant, he had been able to meet a person who, according to Amnesty International and Africa Watch, had allegedly been tortured and had died, a fact he had recorded in his report. He had also noted, with regard to persons who had allegedly been arbitrarily arrested or tried, that the persons in question had either been acquitted or convicted by written sentences of which they had been informed. Moreover, the expert had ascertained that the conditions under which the prisoners were incarcerated were normal since they had access to newspapers, could watch television and received visits from their families.
21. One member of the Committee had mentioned a report on the CNN television channel concerning famine in some regions of the Sudan. The facts reported were true, although the report did not indicate the causes of the famine. As the competent United Nations bodies would be able to testify, the Government was unable to transport food to the regions in question as they were in rebel hands.
22. While he realized perfectly well that some of the observations made were not attributable to the Committee, he wished, in so far as possible, to reply to all the questions asked and was at the Committee's disposal to provide it with any further information. In addition, he cordially invited any members of the Committee who were interested to visit the Sudan to observe the situation on-the-spot.
23. He was not acquainted with Amnesty International's 1993 report, although he had read the report published by the organization on 30 November 1992, in which it was stated that the Government had perpetrated a massacre in Malakal similar to that which had taken place in Juba. The Minister of Justice had visited the scene in the company of high judicial officials to investigate the allegations. Of the 20 persons cited by name by Amnesty International, seven had never been arrested, 12 had indeed been arrested and questioned before being released and one person had been tried by an ordinary court for embezzlement and sentenced to four years' imprisonment. Unfortunately, the Amnesty International report had been distributed to the Commission on Human Rights and publicized throughout the world without the Government being given the possibility to reply to the accusations made in it. Amnesty International had perhaps acted in good faith, but the procedure was nevertheless questionable.
24. In reply to another question, he said that racial and religious discrimination was an offence under Sudanese law, statutory as well as case law. Furthermore, well before independence the international instruments to which the Sudan had acceded had been part of domestic law, over which they took precedence. They were numbered in the order in which they had been ratified and published in the Official Journal.
20. With regard to the number of refugees in the Sudan, United Nations statistics set the figure at 1,100,000 whereas, according to official Sudanese Government statistics, there were 2.5 million. That discrepancy was attributable to the large number of refugees not registered by the United Nations. The fact that many people from countries without a border with the Sudan (Cameroon or Rwanda, for example) had decided to seek refuge in so poor a country as the Sudan was sufficient testimony to the non-discriminatory treatment they found there. If the conflict raging in the Sudan was a tribal or religious one, he asked how it was possible to account for the flow of displaced persons from distant southern regions to the capital.
26. As far as trade union freedoms were concerned, it was true that the Revolution had frozen the activities of political parties and trade unions, although in 1992 a new trade union act, which guaranteed the organization of free elections had been promulgated. When the unions had begun several months ago to organize the elections, the Government had sent a written invitation to the ILO inviting it to attend the elections. The ILO had turned down the invitation on the grounds that the Government had suspended the activities of trade unions and political parties. In that regard, he insisted that the measures taken against trade unions immediately after the Revolution had been temporary and exceptional and that they had been abrogated by the new act. It was to be hoped that the ILO would be able to observe on the spot that the position of trade unions was now satisfactory.
27. With regard to the percentage of non-Arabs in the armed forces and the proportion of southern and northern Sudanese in them, he assured the Committee that strange as it might seem, there were far more non-Arabs than Arabs in the armed forces. Membership of the popular defence forces did not depend on religious considerations. The forces were not regular forces in the true sense of the word, but training organizations whose purpose was to support the regular forces.
28. On the question of language, Arabic was undoubtedly the language of most Sudanese. However, it was not the official language for that reason, but because it was the language employed by all the 500 tribes in the Sudan. English, which was indeed the language of the elite, had preserved its important position within Sudanese society. Thus, all the laws that had been adopted prior to 1956, when the country had become independent, and which were drafted in English, took up four volumes of the collection of Sudanese laws and were still in force in their original version. In addition, under the 1974 Interpretation of Laws and General Clauses Act, the English version of laws was the authentic version before the Sudanese Courts, despite the existence of an Arabic translation. Allegations of forced Arabization of the country were torn to shreds by the official recognition of an important volume of legal texts in a foreign language.
29. The "national dialogue" referred to by one member of the Committee was a conference which had been held several months after the current Government had come to power; the Government had given considerable weight to its recommendations, particularly those concerning linguistic and religious minorities.
30. Regarding the religious composition of the population of the south of the Sudan, he said that according to statistics that did not come from the Government of the Sudan, 18 per cent of the population were Muslim and 17 per cent Christian in the southern provinces.
31. Mr. Aboul-Nasr, who knew the Sudan well, had rightly drawn attention to an anomaly in paragraph 50 of the report: the second line should not read an "Arab Muslim" but simply a "Muslim".
32. In general terms he recognized that there were a number of mistakes and gaps in the eighth periodic report of the Sudan. That should be put down to the inadequate means available to prepare the report. The Government wished to cooperate with the Committee, although there was a problem of resources. When the Committee's questions were sent to it in writing, it would make every effort to provide detailed replies.
33. The CHAIRMAN thanked the delegation of the Sudan for having explained how its Government implemented the Convention. The explanations provided were a useful complement to the eighth periodic report (CERD/C/222/Add.1). In addition, the representative of the Sudan had announced that his Government would reply to the questions of the Committee as soon as it received them.
34. Mrs. SADIQ ALI thanked the representative of the Sudan for his clarifications. However, she would have preferred them to have been included in the eighth periodic report. She thought that it would not be possible for the Sudan to achieve stability until the question of the insurrection in its southern provinces was solved. Unfortunately, that situation had persisted since independence and the various negotiations that had taken place over the years, particularly in Addis Ababa in 1972, but also in Nigeria and in Kenya had still not achieved anything. She requested information on the current likelihood of a peaceful settlement.
35. The representative of the Sudan had declared that the information published by Amnesty International about his country was not accurate. However, in reply it had to be said that the Government had not allowed the organization to visit the area. Access to the southern provinces had also been denied to the press for several months. If, however, the Government wished to move towards democracy, as its representative had stated, that should solve many problems. Lastly, she said that the Commission on Human Rights had just adopted draft resolution E/CN.4/1993/L.32 on the situation of human rights in the Sudan.
36. Mr. de GOUTTES also appreciated the information provided orally, which was a valuable complement to the contents of the eighth periodic report. Nevertheless, he had been disappointed by the attitude of the delegation of the Sudan towards draft resolution E/CN.4/1993/L.32 of the Commission on Human Rights which had just been adopted. He deplored the reference to manipulation in the Commission. In fact, the resolution adopted was based on a series of earlier texts: General Assembly resolution 47/142 and the reports submitted to the Commission at its forty-eighth session by the Special Rapporteurs on the question of torture and on summary or arbitrary executions and at its forty-ninth session by the Special Rapporteur on the question of religious intolerance. Furthermore, the resolution noted a number of positive developments in the situation, in particular the Governments' intention to set up an independent judicial commission. The Commission had however, expressed its deep concern about the grave human rights violations committed in the Sudan and had urged the Government to respect human rights fully and comply with applicable international human rights instruments, in particular the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The Commission had mentioned the rights of members of all religious and ethnic groups, with whose protection the Committee was concerned.
37. He thought that the information provided by the representative of the Sudan was still not sufficient and that it should be supplemented in writing as soon as possible. The Committee should make use of the option available to it to request further information, under article 9, paragraph 1 of the Convention.
38. Mr. YUTZIS said that the presentation by the representative of the Sudan had greatly helped him to understand the difficulties facing the Sudan and the complexity of the situation there. The Sudan was a developing country which undoubtedly faced fundamental problems. In the political sphere, the persistent insurrection created a situation about which the international community expressed its deep concern through the United Nations and governmental and non-governmental bodies. It was apparent from the eighth periodic report and from the oral information provided that politics in the Sudan was still considerably restricted. It had been said that citizens were free to take part in politics, although it was apparent that in fact they had little choice. For his part, he could not accept that fundamental freedoms and rights should be suspended in the name of the revolution, on the pretext of better defending them. The emergency measures adopted in the Sudan could not continue indefinitely. Moreover, the situation of certain minority groups was a source of deep concern and in general the resolution of the serious problems currently facing the Sudan was a matter of deep concern.
39. Nevertheless, the fact that the Sudan had submitted its eighth periodic report as required, and that it had sent a delegation that was prepared to engage in a thorough dialogue with the Committee was a source of satisfaction. The Government should now be asked to take into account the recommendations and resolutions addressed to it, and to do so within a reasonable period.
40. Mr. WOLFRUM also thanked the representative of the Sudan for furnishing important information orally that helped to provide a better understanding of the complex situation in the Sudan. He would have appreciated it if the information had been included in the eighth periodic report. However, he noted that the questions he had put regarding summary executions, arbitrary arrest and ill-treatment of prisoners had still not been answered. It was to be hoped that those questions would be studied by the independent judicial commission which had been set up on 26 November 1992.
41. In addition, it was a matter of satisfaction that the Government had acknowledged the existence of human rights violations in the Sudan and had expressed its intention to pursue a constructive dialogue with the Committee and seriously to study its recommendations. With that prospect in mind, he would like the findings of the independent judicial commission to be communicated to the Committee as rapidly as possible, together with those of other investigative agencies that the Government might set up. He also requested information on the situation of the Nuba mountain people. The Committee could not wait for two years for the information it requested; it should be provided earlier in order to maintain a satisfactory dialogue.
42. Mr. ABOUL-NASR also thanked the representative of the Sudan for the further information he had provided. The delegation had shown honesty and sincerity in acknowledging the existence of serious problems in its country. Those problems should be addressed urgently in order to prevent the situation from deteriorating and transforming the Sudan into a new Somalia.
43. One question in particular was still not clear to him. Mr. El-Mufti had emphasized that acts of racial discrimination were indeed offences under Sudanese legislation and in that connection had referred to two articles of the Penal Code. He asked, however, whether those articles prescribed punishment, and in particular prison sentences.
44. He understood the Government's feeling that it faced a degree of political prejudice in the United Nations. It was true that the General Assembly, the Security Council and the Commission on Human Rights and other bodies chose to reserve special treatment for certain situations, while neglecting others that were worse. However, that should not compromise the dialogue between the Government and the Committee. In that connection he shared Mr. Yutzis' hope that the Committee's recommendations would be seriously studied.