Sudan constitution team reach religion compromise

By Edmund Blair

CAIRO, June 1 (Reuters) – A team drawing up an interim constitution for Sudan has agreed that a traditional Islamic phrase will appear in the text for the Muslim north but not for the non-Muslim south to bridge a sensitive religious divide.

Sudanese vice president Ali Osman Mohammed Taha, left, and John Garang, chairman of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army share a joke before they signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, Sunday, Jan 9, 2005 at Nyayo stadium in Nairobi, Kenya. (AP).

Southern Sudanese leader John Garang told reporters in Cairo, other than the Islamic preamble, the texts for the two regions would be the same.

“We are working in order not to divide the Sudan. We want unity in diversity,” he said when asked whether the compromise was a sign the country was heading towards division.

Garang’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) fought a 21-year war with the government of the mainly Muslim north that was partly sparked by the imposition of Islamic sharia law over the country, including the largely Christian and animist south.

The two sides signed a peace deal in January that includes dividing wealth and power, and giving southerners the right to hold a referendum on secession after a six-year interim period.

It also involves splitting state and religion so sharia law would not apply in the south.

A 60-member constitutional commission has been working on an interim constitution. The SPLM wants no religious references in the constitution, which has caused some tensions with the Islamist government.

One debate surrounded whether the constitution should start with the Muslim phrase “Bismallah al-Rahman al-Rahim” or “In the name of God the Gracious the Most Merciful”, which is often used to begin speeches or official documents in Muslim countries.

“That has been resolved,” Garang said, adding that the agreement was based on principles laid down in part of the peace deal that was agreed in Machakos, Kenya, that allows for sharia to be imposed in the north and secular system in the south.

He said he expected the constitution to be ratified by July 9, when a new government is expected to be formed.

“We will have the same constitutional text which is being prepared. The text that is being used in the north will contain the words ‘Bismallah al-Rahman al-Rahim’, according to the Machakos protocol, and the text that will be used in the south will not contain these words,” he said.

Garang, speaking after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, also repeated an appeal for aid for the south, where he said limited resources after a poor harvest were being strained by hundreds of thousands of southerners returning home.

“People are actually starving to death in some places in southern Sudan. It is a very horrific situation … I appeal for international intervention, humanitarian intervention in southern Sudan,” he said.

Garang made a similar appeal to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan when he visited the south on Sunday. Annan said he would press donors to deliver on their aid pledges.