Word: nimeiri
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Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiri, 54, launched the new era by ceremoniously pouring a can of beer into the Nile. Five million dollars' worth of liquor followed, as thousands watched from the riverbank, chanting, "Wise decision, Gaafar." Thus did Sudan pass under Islamic law this fall. At a stroke, alcohol was banned, and the harsh strictures of the Sharia eliminated the last vestiges of Western-style criminal justice. Thenceforth Muslim adulterers would be stoned, murderers beheaded and boozers flogged (40 lashes for Muslims, 30 for disorderly non-Muslims). The most graphic evidence of the change to date came two weeks...
...return to Islamic purity was a two-edged sword for Nimeiri. It won him widespread popularity among Sudan's Arab Muslim majority, but it pushed his divided, impoverished nation of 22 million a step closer to civil war. Sudan's largely black, non-Muslim minorities, who inhabit the southern part of the country, had already been seething with resentment over what they regarded as persistent discrimination by the Arab-dominated central government. Encouraged by Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi and by the Marxist government of neighboring Ethiopia, pockets of armed rebellion have erupted in a number of southern regions...
...Reagan Administration has a strategic stake in Sudan's wellbeing. Under Nimeiri, the country has strengthened its ties with Egypt, America's major Arab ally in the Middle East. Sudan shields Egypt's southern flank from attack and safeguards the upper reaches of Egypt's economic mainstay, the Nile River. In recent years, Sudan has also served as a buffer against the designs of Libya's Gaddafi, whom Nimeiri derides as having "two personalities, both of them evil." Finally, Sudan's key location might make it an ideal staging area for U.S. forces...
...bitter struggle between Sudan's Arab north and African south has a long and bloody history-one, ironically, that Nimeiri thought he had ended more than a decade ago. After overthrowing a civilian government led by Mohammed Mahgoub in 1969, Nimeiri negotiated an end to 17 years of bloody civil war in 1972. Nimeiri has remained in power since then, staging three referendums that have overwhelmingly returned him to office. Residents of the southern part of the country, however, cite numerous grievances. They complain, for example, that when the Chevron Oil Co. discovered oil in the south, the government...
...Nimeiri does not have much to be proud of as far as the economy is concerned. Though Su|dan has some 200 million acres of arable land, only 10% of it is under cultivation. Some farmers have given up trying to market their produce because of the country's abominable road system. Shortages of skilled labor and raw materials have forced factories to operate at a fraction of capacity. Electrical blackouts are commonplace; one outage in Khartoum this past summer lasted 24 days. Sudan has rescheduled its foreign debt (currently some $8 billion) five times since...