Edited/Distributed by HURINet - The Human Rights Information Network
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## author     : ISDN-N...@HP-MOUNTAINVIEW-GEN1.OM.HP.COM
## date       : 17.11.97
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THE RESIGNATION OF ABDELAZIZ KHATTAB

Statement by the Administrative Attache
Embassy of the Sudan, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
============================================

To the People of the Sudan and World Public Opinion:
====================================================

By this statement, I, Abdelaziz Ahmed Khattab,
Administrative Attache at the Embassy of the Sudan in Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia, declare my resignation from my
aforementioned position which I have occupied since January
1996.

I was working in the [Sudanese] Ministry of Foreign Affairs
in various capacities from 1994 until writing this statement
on September 29, 1997. I would like to explain the reasons
that prompted me to take this decision and to declare my
affiliation with the opposition, and the Sudan Alliance
Forces (SAF).

These reasons are as follows. Members of the National
Islamic Front (NIF) have been in doubt concerning my loyalty
to their regime whenever I made a criticism or denounced an
action in which the Sudanese Embassy in Malaysia was used
for purposes contrary to the interests of the people of the
Sudan and against the stability and peace of certain
countries.  When the NIF regime became convinced of my
disloyalty to them, I was recalled by the Sudanese Ministry
of Foreign Affairs for questioning in Khartoum alleging that
I had divulged state secrets. Since I feared for my life and
that of my family, on account of the brutality of the NIF in
Khartoum, I sought political asylum in the Netherlands.

The Sudanese Embassy in Malaysia has been working diligently
in coordinating the concluding of arms deals between the
Sudanese regime and dealers and producers of the machinery
of war in East Asia.  Most of the funds collected by the
Embassy from the Malaysian government and from Islamic and
charitable organizations in the name of the Sudanese people,
are going to foot the bills for these deals, and the balance
goes to nightclubs and mistresses, at a time when children
in the Sudan are dying from shortage of food and medication.

The NIF regime has been procuring heavy armaments (aircraft,
tanks, mortars, etc.), from China, Indonesia, and from
Russian Mafia, in order to ensure that war continues in
southern and eastern Sudan. Arms deals agreed upon have been
shipped by sea in the name of the Malaysian National
Petroleum Company and that of the Chinese National Petroleum
Company, under the guise of petroleum exploration equipment
according to an agreement concluded between the government
in Khartoum and these companies in Kuala Lumpur under which
they provide weaponry and military equipment in exchange for
being given concessions for oil explorations. The two
companies are currently operating in petroleum exploration
in Adari Yel in southern Sudan, in the two districts of Abu
Jabra and Muqlad in western Sudan, and in the Red Sea hills
in eastern Sudan. The Sudanese regime has succeeded in
concluding a Chinese arms deal in kind  [barter] that
includes sixty Scud missiles.  The Malaysian loan to the
Sudan of U.S. $200 million will be diverted to finance part
of this deal. The NIF regime is anxious to acquire
long-range Scud missiles with the aim of striking Asmara,
the regime+s stated justification being that Eritrea is
harboring Sudanese opposition groups.  The Sudanese
government had previously obtained sophisticated chemical
weapons from Iran, with the assistance of Iraqi experts, to
be used in striking Sudan Alliance Forces (SAF) in eastern
Sudan and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) in the
South, following the massive defeats of the NIF militias
that are defending the Khartoum regime.

The Khartoum government needs large quantities of weaponry
in order to support fundamentalist movements that are
opposing the regimes in certain neighboring countries,
notably Eritrea, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Uganda. The Sudanese
government aims to change the system of government in these
countries in order to put them under the political will of
the NIF regime in Khartoum and furthermore the Sudanese
government is not happy with the regime in Chad and will
endeavor to change it to become fully affiliated with NIF.
NIF leaders are convinced that the Islamic revolution in the
Sudan will only become entrenched when the systems of
governance in the neighboring countries are changed at the
very least to be in agreement  with the NIF Islamic and
religious vision. Ghazi Salah Aldin [Atabani], the second
man in the NIF organization and the chairman of the
secretariat of the National Congress, in an address to
Sudanese Embassy staff in Malaysia, made a statement urging
them to collect money and support the Islamic jihad in the
Sudan, saying:  "The Islamic regime in  the Sudan can never
stabilize unless the regimes in all neighboring countries
become Islamic." He stated specifically that the regimes in
Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Uganda, are in a position of
priority as far as the importance of changing their
political regimes because these countries are affiliated to
America and harbor Sudanese opposition, and said: "Men have
come to the Sudan from all parts of the world with the
determination and desire for jihad in the name of God and
they are short of nothing, except money and weapons, and we
must strive to equip them with whatever is needed, because
they are going to work with their brothers in the Sudan to
protect the Islamic Revolution and export its principles."
By this he meant the elements of terrorist fundamentalist
groups that are sheltered by the Khartoum regime, Iranians,
Afghan Arabs, and criminals from various parts of the world.
In another meeting at the Sudan Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Ali
Osman Mohammed Taha, one of the NIF leaders and Minister of
Foreign Affairs said: "Malaysia has a strong economy and is
sympathetic to us, and the Embassy must play its role in
gaining the necessary funds to support the jihad in the
Sudan", adding: "at the present time the revolution of
salvation [in the Sudan] suffers from a strong attack from
opposition elements, and unless we settle the  case of the
rebel who opened a new front in eastern Sudan and occupied
three vital areas in the provinces of the Blue Nile and the
Red Sea, then all we have done in eight years will be cast
to the wind." (What he means by the rebel is Brigadier
Abdelaziz Khalid, the commander of the Sudan Alliance Forces
(SAF).

All visits of NIF leadership and their emissaries to
Malaysia since January 1996 have been designed basically to
obtain money to procure weapons of destruction at a time
when the Sudanese people are suffering from famine and
almost complete breakdown of essential services such as
health and education, in addition to the high cost of
living, lack of necessities such as food and medicine, poor
means of transport, and delayed payment of [government]
staff salaries.

Furthermore the Sudan suffers from accelerated inflation,
recession, and diminishing production, as a result of the
policies of the NIF regime in directing all the economic
capacities of the country to armament, and continuation of
the war which it wages in the name of jihad, pushing all the
Sudanese people into a war they want nothing to do with.

In concluding this statement, I would like to indicate that
I have in my possession new information and documents
confirming the implication of the NIF regime in the
attempted assassination of the Eritrean President  Isaias
Aferwerki, and I have delivered these documents and this
information to the leadership of the opposition organization
SAF with the 1 aim of passing them safely to whoever is
concerned among the sons of the people of the Sudan and from
international public opinion. I also have  documents
testifying to the political and moral corruption of the NIF
leadership which I intend to present in a special press
conference.  With  all this, I would like to reveal the true
and criminal face of the NIF regime which has been ruling
the Sudan through military force since June  1989, and I
declare my affiliation to SAF, which is working diligently
and conscientiously to topple the dictatorial NIF regime and
which advocates a new Sudan and a civil democratic state
that achieves justice,  equality and peace on the basis of
citizenship and not on the basis of religion or race.

I hereby call upon world public opinion to condemn the
regime in Khartoum and to support the Sudanese people in
their ongoing uprising to gain their legitimate rights and
freedoms, and let truth be my witness.

Abdelaziz Ahmed Abdelaziz Khattab

Former Administrative Attache
The Sudanese Embassy in Malaysia
The Netherlands,
September 29, 1997