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| Lecture
by Sudanese Ambassador, February 2005 |
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Sudan, the Current Situation and the Future
On February 22, at the Nippon Press Club, Sudanese
Ambassador to Japan spoke on the current Sudan and its future. Ambassador,HE Musa M.OMER
Saeed, is a graduate of Waseda University and an architect. Having lectured on an outline
of historical and geographic feature of Sudan, he ex-
plained several issues responding to the myriad questions from the audience. Sudan
has more
than twelve times the number of pyramids found in Eygpt. They are not the monumental
graves
of the powerful, however, but rather structures for worship, rather like Japan's village
shrines to local deities. The White Nile, arising from Lake Victoria, is an opaque,whitish
river flowing slowly across the plain, while the Blue Nile, which has its source in
Ethiopia, is blue, due to its fast current. The name "Sudan" originally meant
"land of black man" and once referred to the whole
of central Africa from the Red Sea to the Atlantic.The Darfur conflict is not one of
Arabism
against Africa as is often said but rather a conflict of interests of the farmers and the
nomads. Expectations of ODA from Japan are high. During the Q & A session, the
Ambassador frequently broke into Japanese, to the delight of the audience. |
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