Behind the Red Line: Political Repression in Sudan; Beset by Contradictions: Islamization,Legal Reform, and Human Rights in Sudan; Facing Genocide: The Nuba of SudanReview by: Gail M. GerhartForeign Affairs, Vol. 76, No. 3 (May - Jun., 1997), pp. 147-148Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20048093 .

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Recent Books

1990, the Communist Party lifted its informal ban on domestic research and

publications on human rights, and since

1990 China has experienced an "un

precedented upsurge" in such publica tions. Nonetheless, China remains an

authoritarian regime and, as this ad

mirably balanced report indicates, as of

1995, 99.65 percent ofthe people tried for criminal offenses were found guilty.

Africa GAIL M. GERHART

Sovereignty as Responsibility: Conflict Management in Africa,

by Francis m.

deng et al. Brookings: Washington,

1996, 265 pp. $42.95 (paper, $18.95). In the new world order, should the com

munity of nations continue to adhere to

the old principle of nonintervention in the internal affairs of sovereign states so

long as their domestic policies do not constitute a "threat to international

peace"? Not if the world recognizes, as

these authors argue it should, that sover

eignty carries responsibility to fulfill a social contract in which the legitimacy of rulers derives from their efforts to pro

mote the welfare and dignity of all their citizens. Predatory or

incompetent states

that fail to discharge this duty must ac

cept the right of other countries or inter

national bodies to intervene to resolve

conflicts and rescue victim populations from disaster. To help nudge interna

tional opinion closer to an acceptance of

sovereignty as conditional, this study,

drawing examples from Africa, lucidly

sets out a framework of concepts and ar

guments to show how states can prevent,

manage, and resolve conflicts that

threaten their legitimacy, as well as how

international and regional organizations can work to promote norms of responsi

bility within and among states.

Behind the Red Line: Political Repression in Sudan. NewYork: Human Rights

Watch, 1996,343 pp. $12.00 (paper). Beset by Contradictions: Islamization,

Legal Reform, and Human Rights in Sudan. New York: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, 1996, 98 pp. $12.00 (paper).

Facing Genocide: The Nuba of Sudan. London: African Rights, 1995, 344 pp. $14.95 (paper).

Since coming to power in a coup in 1989, the regime of Lieutenant-General Omar

al-Bashir has consolidated its power in

Sudan through systematic detentions,

abductions, torture, executions, "special" courts that bypass due process, and a

security apparatus that operates outside

the law with impunity. Declaring its pur poses synonymous with the will of God, the regime has ruthlessly restricted rights to free expression, association, assembly, and religion, while carrying out an ambi

tious program to remake the country? one of Africa's most

ethnically di

verse?into a homogeneous, Arabized

state ruled by an extremist version of

Islamic law. To this end, Bashir has de clared the ongoing

war against southern

insurgents a jihad and is pursuing a ten

year campaign of forced Islamization,

pillage, rape, and murder against the

people ofthe Nuba Mountains in cen

To order any book reviewed or advertised in Foreign Affairs, fax 203-966-4329.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS - May/June 1007 [147]

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Recent Books

tral Sudan, where allies ofthe regime covet scarce arable land.

Each of these reports issued by human

rights organizations takes a different

angle. Human Rights Watch offers a

broad overview ofthe regime's human

rights record, explaining in painstaking detail how its policies violate interna

tional norms of law and justice. The

Lawyers Committee for Human Rights focuses more narrowly on the Sudanese

legal system and in particular on how

criminal justice, the judiciary, and the

legal profession have been affected by the

regime's flagrantly political manipulation of Islam to reinforce its despotic rule.

African Rights looks at the campaign against the Nuba, who are now threat

ened with cultural extinction. Politically allied to southern secessionism but geo

graphically separated from the southern

heartland, the Nuba are facing Khartoum's

onslaught alone as the international com

munity averts its eyes, lest an acknowl

edgment that this is genocide entail an

obligation to act.

Orphan ofthe Cold War: The Inside Story of the Angolan Peace Process, 1992-3. BY MARGARET JOAN ANSTEE. New

York: St. Martin's Press, 1996,

566 pp. $45.00. This is an important book about the

"dos" and "don'ts" of U.N. peacekeep

ing. Although South Africa agreed in December 1988 to remove its forces from

Angola in exchange for a Cuban troop

withdrawal, and the United States and the Soviet Union likewise agreed to end their military support for Angola's

war

ring parties, the country's devastating civil war

raged on until the signing of

the Portuguese-brokered Bicesse Ac

cords in May 1991. In February 1992, veteran U.N. undersecretary Anstee was

named head ofthe U.N. Angola Verification Mission, a

low-budget op eration charged with a limited mandate: to observe and verify whether the

multiparty election carried out under the

terms ofthe Bicesse Accords was "free

and fair." The situation was fraught with

political, bureaucratic, and logistical

difficulties, but nobody could argue after

ploughing through this meticulously narrated account that Anstee did not

give it her best shot. The cards in her hand were weak because ofthe ill-designed terms ofthe Bicesse Accords, the deter

mination of unita's Jonas Savimbi not

to accept electoral defeat under any cir

cumstances, and the loss of interest in

Angola among key players on the U.N.

Security Council following the Cold War. Thus, although the operation (the

September 1992 election) was a success,

the patient (Angola's people) went on

dying through another season of blood while Anstee, defeated and blamed by

some for the debacle, moved on. Thanks

to Anstee's gifts as a raconteur, the

book, despite its dismal subject, is a

very enjoyable read.

The Egalitarian Moment: Asia and Africa 1950-1980. by D. a. low. NewYork:

Cambridge University Press, 1996, 131pp. $44.95.

One theme is explored in this lively series of lectures by a noted British historian: the near-universal failure of African and

Asian political reformers in the third

quarter ofthe twentieth century to im

plement programs of rural egalitarianism.

Inspired to one degree or another by the

rapid modernization ofthe Soviet Union

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