Minister defends government in Durban

The justice minister and head of Sudan delegation to the World Conference against Racism, Ali Muhammad Uthman Yasin, has held a number of meetings on the sidelines of the Durban conference during which he denied allegations of continuing slavery practices in Sudan, to give briefings on the situation in the country, and also to tackle other issues relevant to the proceedings, the official Sudan news Agency reported on Tuesday. Among those Yasin met was the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and Secretary-General of the World Conference against Racism, Mary Robinson, with whom he reviewed technical aid to Sudan in the field of human rights, it reported. [see Sudan human rights focus at: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/cea/countrystories/sudan/20010703.phtml] Speaking in Durban, Yasin said the Sudanese constitution was drafted in conformity with the International Bill of Human Rights, particularly those sections dealing with rights, freedoms, duties and responsibilities. The constitution stipulated that there should be freedom and sanctity of life for all Sudanese, as well as freedom from subjection to slavery, forced labour, humiliation and torture, he said. The constitution stipulated that “there shall be no discrimination for reasons of sex, race or religious creed”, and provided for sanctity of life, freedom of movement, freedom of creed and worship, freedom of thought and expression, and for freedom of organisation and association, he said. Furthermore, Article 27 of the constitution provided for the sanctity of cultural communities by stipulating that “there shall be guaranteed for every community or group of citizens the right to preserve their particular culture, language or religion, and rear children freely within the framework of their particularity”, Yasin added. Sudan and Mauritania were singled out for practising slavery and racial discrimination in a study of countries on the Afro-Arab borderlands released in Geneva, Switzerland, on 30 August by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), an autonomous agency which carries out research on the social dimensions of contemporary problems affecting development. The UNRISD research paper was prepared for the organisation’s “Racism and Public Policy Conference” from 3 to 5 September, on the sidelines of the UN racism conference in Durban. [see: http://www.unrisd.org/racism/index.htm] “Possibly nowhere in the Afro-Arab borderlands is the problem of race, class, and citizenship in such a high state of tension between Arabs and Africans (or possibly Arabised Africans and Africans) as in the Sudan and Mauritania,” the UNRISD paper, entitled “Race, discrimination, slavery and citizenship in the Afro-Arab borderlands”, stated. The decades-long Sudanese civil war had led to “growing and persistent reports of enslavement of Africans by Arabs, genocide in the Nuba Mountains area, and ethnic cleansing in the Blue Nile area,” AFP quoted it as saying. On 31 August, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) called on the racism conference in South Africa to consider the Khartoum government an “apartheid” regime. “The regime in power is characterised by a religious and cultural arrogance, a contempt for cultures and beliefs of society... and by attempts to remodel Sudanese citizens in the name of Islam,” rebel spokesman Yasir Arman said in a statement.