Sudan - Christian cemetery wanted for shopping centre

["Nadia & Giovanni" <nadia.joe@tiscalinet.it>]

Sudan
Christian cemetery wanted for shopping centre
Religion

By AFRICANEWS Correspondent

The Sudan government decision to take over part of a Christian cemetery has
not been received kindly. Christians and local media say the action is a
violation of human rights and a disrespect to sacredness.


The Sudan Council of Churches (SCC) issued a strongly worded letter last
month protesting over the government's partial confiscation of the Christian
cemetery located south of Khartoum City.

In their September 12 joint letter to Khartoum State Governor Dr. Majzoub
Al-Khalifa, leaders of the SCC's nine member churches said: "The meeting you
held in our absence about our cemetery that resulted into your negative
decision to confiscate part of the cemetery is an insult, disrespect and
violation of our rights as Christians in the Sudan."

As for "the fencing and the services you intend to do and improve, who told
you that the cemetery needs fencing?" said the letter. "Who told you that we
need the type of services you have in mind? And what made you to think of
helping Christians at this time if you do not have a hidden agenda?"

The letter demanded that building materials already brought to the cemetery
for the construction of shops be promptly removed. "We are not ready to part
with any part of our cemetery," the letter concluded. "It is inhuman to
continue disturbing us when alive or dead."

Khartoum's State Engineer Ali Mohmoud Samsaa had earlier written a letter,
dated July 26, to SCC General Secretary Rev. Engineer Enock Tombe. The
letter informed Tombe "of an approval granted to the Department of Small
Industries and Traders at Sahafa Residential Areas, to construct workshops
at Sahafa Christian Cemetery in return for fencing and services within the
cemetery."

The same letter requested SCC to remove "what you describe as graves" - the
"you" standing for Christians, as Muslems in Sudan do not recognise
Christian burials - at the edge of the eastern part of the cemetery, as it
would obstruct the construction of the shops.

But even before getting SCC's reaction, state authorities went ahead with
its plan. In August, it ordered the traders who got approval for plots in
the graveyard to proceed with construction work. Some Christians alerted SCC
authorities that there were bricks and other building materials in the
southern tip of the Christian Cemetery.

The governor had approved the exhumation and relocation into the cemetery's
interior of corpses lying along the strip of land between the road and ten
metres inside the cemetery. This area is the cause of dispute between the
SCC and state authorities.

Alfred Taban, Khartoum's BBC Correspondent and also a Christian from
Southern Sudan writing for the newly-established only English Daily in the
country, The Khartoum Monitor, said: "The Governor's action is an affront to
all Christians and is an unforgivable act of insensitivity to the dead.. By
demolishing those graves, Dr. Khalifa has disfigured sacred rites that do
not belong to his family. He has tampered with the dead who are not his
relatives. He has defiled our dead."

Taban also demanded that Khalifa be fired. "The least our President Omar
Al-Bashir can do to appease the angry Christian Community is to dismiss the
Governor of Khartoum at once."

Nichola Unango, also a Christian from southern Sudan, lamented the
government's decision. "My uncle's wife was buried just at the disputed part
of the cemetery in February this year," he said. "My cousin's sister was
also buried in the southern part of the same cemetery on August 26, 1999.
This action makes me feel the government does not respect me as a person."

A communiqué SCC released on September 18 that was signed by SCC staff,
executive committee members, and representatives of the SCC's seven regions,
stated: "We, the SCC staff and Inter-Church chairmen of the SCC seven
regions, have been made aware about the Khartoum State Government's action
of confiscating part of the Christian Cemetery in Sahafa, Khartoum.

"We are deeply shocked and disturbed by this action of the Khartoum State
authorities' decision to construct buildings for small industries,
cafeterias, restaurants and workshops inside the graveyard as if the dead
Christians did not matter in the eyes of the Moslem authorities in the
State," the communiqué said.

A columnist writing for the Al-Rai Al-Akhar Arabic Daily in Khartoum
attacked the behavior of the Islamist state authorities in an indirect tone.
He wrote, commenting on a complaint written earlier by a Christian teacher
from southern Sudan, Martin Mading: "How come that Mr. Martin Mading does
not know that those who do not respect our sacredness while we are alive,
can not also respect this sacredness when we are dead?





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    and I will answer you and will tell you great and hidden things
       which you
           have not known." - Jeremiah 33:3