Sudan census will avoid religion, ethnicity

KHARTOUM, SUDAN — Census-takers will soon fan out across Sudan's vast and famously inhospitable terrain in the first nationwide head count in 25 years.

But the checklist of questions won't include two hot issues that lie at the heart of this nation's recent history of conflict: religion and ethnicity.

The government, led by President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, has decided not to tally numbers for Muslims, Christians and other faiths, nor will it gather data about tribe or ethnic origin.

Officials say they are worried such information will open old wounds at a time when Sudan is struggling to quell an insurgency in the western region of Darfur and recover from a 21-year north-south civil war.

But critics say the Muslim-led government is afraid the new census will reveal demographic changes, such as high population growth in the non-Muslim south, that might pose a challenge to its authority. The country has long been divided between those who see Sudan as an Islamic nation leaning toward the Arab world and others who advocate a secular government oriented toward its African neighbors.

"They are using religion in the government as a basis for power," said the Rev. Mark Akec, deputy secretary-general of the Sudan Council of Churches, which recently called for the census forms to include questions on religion and ethnicity. "But the Arab population is declining. [The census] might show the world that they no longer have a majority."

Government officials said they had been advised by international post-conflict experts that gathering such information in the current climate might increase tensions.

"What is the need for those questions?" asked Yasin Elhag Abdin, who was appointed this year to head Sudan's Central Bureau of Statistics. "We know Sudan is a multiracial country. No one is disputing that."

Leaders of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, the former southern rebels who are now part of the government, said Sudan needs to confront the sensitive issues head-on.

"This census is about finding out the reality of Sudan," said Pagan Amum, SPLM secretary-general. "The [north-south] conflict was about the denial of the diversity of Sudan. Determining this diversity is what will bring peace."

He said one of the root causes of the north-south civil war was an effort by Sudanese Arab northerners to impose Islamic law on southerners, including Christians and other non-Muslims.