VZCZCXRO9776
RR RUEHROV
DE RUEHKH #1029/01 1211421
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 011421Z MAY 06
FM AMEMBASSY KHARTOUM
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 2571
INFO RUCNIAD/IGAD COLLECTIVE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KHARTOUM 001029 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR AF/SPG AND AF/PD 
DEPARTMENT PASS USAID FOR AF/EA, DCHA SUDAN TEAM, AND 
DCHA/OTI 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/01/2016 
TAGS: PHUM KPAO SCOM SU
SUBJECT: A CONVERSATION WITH KHARTOUM MONITOR EDITOR ALFRED 
TABAN 
 
REF: A. KHARTOUM 897 
 
     ¶B. 05 KHARTOUM 997 
     ¶C. 05 KHARTOUM 853 
 
Classified By: CHARGE D'AFFAIRES A.I. ANDREW STEINFELD; REASON:  1.4(B) 
 AND (D) 
 
1 (C) SUMMARY:  Alfred Taban, the outspoken editor of the 
Khartoum Monitor, is back at work after being briefly 
"detained" by police on April 12.  Taban noted that his 
treatment was much better this time than the last time he was 
arrested, in 2004, though he remains skeptical that 
Government attitudes towards press freedom have changed since 
the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.  In fact, 
Taban remains skeptical about the entire North-South peace 
process.  Still, he isn't looking to get out of the newspaper 
business anytime soon -- Taban not only hopes to nearly 
double the Monitor's circulation by the end of the year, but 
to launch an Arabic language version for marginalized 
Northerners.  END SUMMARY. 
 
Arrested for "Publishing False News" 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶2. (C) Alfred Taban sipped his tea and apologized for 
standing up PolOff at their last meeting:  "I was summoned to 
the Palace for 'consultations.'"  Taban, aged 48, outspoken 
editor of the Khartoum Monitor -- "Sudan's leading 
independent daily," according to the masthead -- has been 
arrested multiple times for "publishing false news" and 
"defamation," most recently on April 12 (Ref A).  A week 
later, however, Taban was called away from his office not by 
the police but by First Vice President Salva Kiir.  "He 
wanted to talk about ways the media could support the 
Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)," Taban explained with a 
smile. 
 
¶3. (C) With a circulation of 5,000, The Khartoum Monitor is 
the largest English language newspaper in Sudan; the paper 
and its editor act as a kind of barometer for press freedom 
throughout the country.  The last time Taban was arrested, in 
2004, the police came to his office, stuffed him in the 
backseat of a car between two guards, and locked him up for 
several days.  "I don't remember why they did it -- it's 
happened so many times," he laughed.  Last summer, 
authorities closed the Khartoum Monitor for six weeks for an 
alleged breach of national security; the paper resumed 
publication only after Post's Public Affairs Section arranged 
for a pardon from the President, in return for a "letter of 
apology" from Taban (Refs B, C).  By contrast, Taban admits, 
his latest visit to the police station was not even an 
"arrest," but mere "detention."  The police came to his 
office, asked him to go with them -- even allowing him to 
follow them in his own car -- and questioned him for five 
hours; they wanted Taban to identify the author of unsigned 
April 4 article accusing the police of beating several Juba 
University students during a demonstration.  "They never 
locked me up.  I was treated very well, actually." 
 
¶4. (C) Taban is not sure who ordered his "detention," nor why 
his treatment was so much better this time than last.  "It 
must have been someone high ranking in the Khartoum police," 
Taban surmised; as soon as he called a high-ranking official 
in the Ministry of the Interior -- an SPLM friend -- the 
police agreed to let him go.  Taban's connections with the 
police might have helped, too.  "The officer who came to 
"detain" me was a Southerner -- he's the cousin of one of my 
staffers -- and the officer who questioned me was from my 
tribe, the Dinka."  But Taban was skeptical at PolOff's 
suggestion that the CPA might have fostered greater freedom 
of the press in Sudan.  "Maybe.  I have a little bit of hope 
in the CPA, but not much," he replied. 
 
Losing Faith in the CPA, but Not in Himself 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶5. (C) In print, at least, Taban seems not only to have lost 
faith in the CPA, but appears downright dismissive of it -- 
though he claims he's actually toned down his rhetoric to 
give the process a chance.  In an April 26 editorial he 
accused George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden of "working 
together to subvert the independence of the South."  Taban 
admitted that he wrote the article out of frustration at the 
slow pace of CPA implementation, but sticks by his basic 
premise.  "The United States doesn't want South Sudan to be 
independent; you want it to choose to be unified with the 
North.  But this is an insult to Southerners!" he declared, 
citing years of discrimination, underdevelopment, and 
 
KHARTOUM 00001029  002 OF 002 
 
 
misrule.  In fact, according to Taban, the only good thing 
about the Government's half-hearted efforts to implement the 
CPA is that most Southerners are now agreed on separation. 
"The NCP is always trying to play the Kiir faction and the 
Garang faction off against one another, and Salva just plays 
into their game.  But the NCP has managed to bring both sides 
of the SPLM together on one thing:  everyone wants to leave." 
 
¶6. (C) Still, Taban isn't planning on leaving Khartoum 
anytime soon, or moving the Monitor south to Juba.  Not only 
does he plan to increase the Monitor's circulation to 9,000 
by the end of the year, but he also plans to launch a weekly 
Arabic language supplement.  (The first edition is due out as 
early as May 4; the project is funded by a three month, USD 
32,000 grant from USAID/OTI.)  "There are 17 Arabic 
newspapers in Khartoum, and none of them are very good," 
joked Taban, who also reports for the BBC World Service.  "We 
want to reach out not only to Southerners who can't read 
English, but to marginalized Northerners as well," said 
Taban, sipping his tea again.  "It's the only way things will 
change in Sudan." 
STEINFELD