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Sudan
Relations with Other Countries
In 1991 Sudan was a member of several international organizations
including the United Nations and its specialized agencies, the
League of Arab States, and the Organization of African Unity.
The policies of the RCC-NS, however, alienated all the European
countries that traditionally had provided economic and humanitarian
assistance to Sudan. Britain suspended several million dollars
of grants and loans for development projects in January 1991 after
the government released from prison five Palestinians who had
been convicted of the 1988 terrorist murder of five Britons at
a Khartoum hotel. Subsequently, London broke diplomatic relations
as well. The twelve-member European Community issued a statement
in February 1991 expressing its collective "shock and dismay"
at Khartoum's failure to cooperate with nations and international
organizations trying to assist Sudanese victims of drought and
civil strife. The RCC-NS tried to counterbalance these deteriorating
relations with expanded ties to such countries as China, Iran,
Nigeria, and Pakistan. None of these countries, however, had the
resources to replace the significant and needed aid that had dried
up in the Arabian Peninsula, Europe, and North America.
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Several excellent studies exist of Sudan's politics since independence
in 1956 and up to the overthrow of the Nimeiri regime in 1985.
There is a paucity, however, of published sources for the more
recent years. The best overviews of pre-1985 political history
are Peter Bechtold's Politics in the Sudan since Independence,
Tim Niblock's Class and Power in Sudan, and Peter Woodward's
Sudan, 1898-1989: The Unstable State. An excellent analysis
of the movement to establish the sharia as the basis for Sudan's
law is Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban's Islamic Law and Society in
the Sudan. (For further information and complete citations,
see Bibliography.)
Data as of June 1991
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