Are there any similarities between Sudan today and South Africa during the apartheid era?
Yes, I think there are similarities and differences. The major similarity is that Sudan, like the then South Africa, is a divided society and there are people who hold the view that the best way to deal with a divided society is to divide the country. In South Africa that was tried out by setting up independent homelands or areas where the blacks would be all concentrated together according to their tribes or origin. The whites would be in their own exclusive areas and so would be the coloured. In Sudan, there are certainly people who would seem to be saying that the only way out is to have the south decide for itself where it goes, whether it goes completely independent or it remains an autonomous unit within a confederate or federal system. There seems to be a very strong feeling among some people that you have to separate Christians and the others from the Muslims otherwise there would never ever be any lasting peace. On the other hand one picks up from the government and others who
