A Tooth for a Tooth

One court sentenced an Italian monk found in possession of alcohol to 25 lashes, 30 days in prison and a fine. Another decreed that a convicted thief should be hanged, his body publicly displayed for 30 minutes, then crucified. A third punished two men found guilty of shattering a victim's tooth by removing a tooth from each of the attackers. Such are the rulings that have characterized the first seven weeks since emergency courts were set up to enforce the Islamic law of Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiri. In September the President may make his system even more implacable, Western diplomats suspect, by declaring Sudan a full-fledged Islamic state.

That prospect has led a wide range of political and religious groups to band together in opposition to the government. In an effort to reassure Sudan's principal backers, Egypt and the U.S., that it is not seeking a leftist revolution, the opposition is proposing to set up a secular democracy that would be overseen by a triumvirate during its first five transitional years. "It is no longer a struggle between the Christian and pagan south [of Sudan] and the Muslim north," observes one of the President's opponents. "It is now a struggle between all political groups and Nimeiri."