05385
July 19, 2005

Sudanese Christians expect more freedom      

Church leaders cautiously hopeful
that peacetime government will be less abusive

by Fredrick Nzwili
Ecumenical News International 

NAIROBI — Sudanese church leaders have welcomed the introduction of power-sharing arrangements in the national administration, but some have been more guarded about the development, which paves the way for a government of national unity after decades of war.   

     “The politicians’ move is encouraging,” the Rev. Santino Maurino of the Sudan Catholic Bishops’ Regional Conference told Ecumenical News International in Nairobi on July 13. “Our country has been at war for a long time. The people have yearned for peace for many years.”      

     The civil war between Sudan’s mainly Islamic north and Christian and animist south was Africa’s longest-running conflict before a peace deal was clinched in January. An estimated two million people have been killed and more than four million displaced.

     In the new era, Christians expect more freedom to worship and to build additional churches, especially in the north, where the imposition of Sharia (Islamic) law) had frustrated such efforts.     

     “Christian groups in the north have in the past found it difficult to get places to build churches, schools or health centers. We hope now we will be able to get such places,” said Santino. He said churches in the north hope tensions that often erupt over the display of crosses will end, as well as annexation of church property. Santino noted that the government has promised to compensate churches for past losses.   

     On July 10, Christians in Sudan celebrated the swearing in of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army leader John Garang as first vice president. This paved the way for the formation of a government of national unity. Before that, President Omar Bashir signed a new power-sharing constitution and lifted the state of emergency he imposed in 1999. It will, however, remain in effect in Darfur and eastern states.      

     “Sudan has now entered a new era,” an Anglican priest, the Rev. Luzai Lemi said in All Saints Cathedral in Khartoum, the Associated Press reported. “The government of lies and oppression ended on the 8th of July.”