Tabita Shokai is the NHS nurse who became a rebel
activist, then health minister - a black woman, a Christian - in
Sudan's predominantly Muslim Arab government.
The Sudan government is accused of killing 200,000 people in Darfur,
western Sudan. The government is said to be a UN pariah and is under
US sanctions. Discussions about whether actually to let in a UN force to
stop the killing have stalled. Meanwhile, Sudan, which has just
discovered oil, has to grapple with the worst health indicators in
Africa, where a woman is more likely to die of childbirth than complete primary school. I talked to Shokai and found her remarkably optimistic....
The government is fighting "rebels" in Darfur. You are also a rebel butpart of the government. I think people are a little bit confused......
My movement, the SPLM, is based in the Christian, black south and
fought the government until 2005. Then we made a peace agreement. The
rebellion in Darfur, western Sudan, inhabited by black muslims, is
different.
What do you do all day?
I attend the weekly cabinet meetings, I chair one of the sectors - in
charge of education and health, the first Sudanese woman to do so. I
travel around Sudan a lot. The rest of the government has many grand
schemes, but I am constantly lobbying for a bigger budget on health.
It's an investment, not an expenditure.
Aids is your special priority?
Aids has grown. We now have the highest rate in the middle east and
north Africa. The borders with Kenya and Uganda are now wide open,
the
peace agreement means people move around more. Soldiers are coming
home. Still, we have a public education campaign. People are more
honest about reporting Aids. though it is difficult to change people's
culture.
Aids is not our only problem: Malaria is big. In the past people
refused to use malaria nets although they got them free - people
didn’t seem to want that. But now they are very grateful. Malaria kills
millions per year. However avian flu gets much more attention; it's a
press disease.
What about female genital mutilation, or female circumcision; Sudan is
one of the leading countries to practise it?
It is illegal, all official bodies in Sudan have pronounced it bad, but
again it is difficult to change cultural habits. Male circumcision
could help reduce Aids, though.
Are the large number of rapes in Darfur contributing to the rise in
Aids?
Well, a lot of those rapes are exaggerated. It is the concern of the
justice ministry.
There is a lost generation, is there not? People who now would have
been in their thirties or forties, are dead. Who will take your place?
Does it mean you in power will have to rule forever?
It’s a problem. We have a programme for Aids orphans.
Isn't the Aids in soldiers a cause of the violence of soldiers - they
have nothing else to live for?
In Rwanda, where the Aids rate is 3 percent, former soldiers travel the
country as Aids counsellors, which is something we are trying to
arrange here.
I met someone who met a delegation of women coming off a plane and
realised "That's the 12 educated women in Sudan and I know all of
them".
Yes, the problem in south is very bad. But in the north, despite being
Muslim, there are still a lot of educated women who work as doctors,
judges.
So how do you reach out to uneducated women. Isn’t that part of the
health problem too?
We run illiteracy classes....it is an enormous challenge. Everything is
so difficult. But
we hope it will get better and better.
Is it true that you have secretly been phoning pharmacies in Khartoum
to tell them to stock condoms?
No, I would not do something like that secretly. In fact after a debate
about AIDS i stood in front of parliament advocating condoms. Someone
asked me if I was shy. I am not shy.
Why did you join the Sudanese people's rebel movement?
I joined it because the principal vision of our party was
non-discrimination and the the promise of equality. It wants to end
discrimination against women in public services. I also admired the
party's leader, John Garang, who was killed in a helicopter accident
last year shortly after we joined the national government. He was a
great man, much loved, and knew a lot.
After the peace agreement was signed in 2005, I became an MP in
Khartoum and was asked to be one the SPLM's three ministers in the new
coalition government. The government had set up a male candidate but I
won out. I know Khartoum well, having done my schooling here.
What is it like to be a African woman in an Arab Muslim-government,
which in the eighties was close ally to Al Qaeda and which introduced
tough sharia laws in the 80s?
Well, you know in the Nuba mountains where I come from the women are
quite free. Leni Riefenstahl, who made films about Hitler and was a
very strong woman herself, came to the mountains in the 1980s and made
films and wrote books about us. Khartoum is still male dominated, but
one of the SPLM's goals is to have 25% women in public life. Women in
Khartoum are, how to say, more laid back.
The black Christian south, where you came from, and the Muslim Arab
north have been fighting since Sudan's independence in 1956. Why?
It is a myth to say that northerners are Arabs. The Arabs came from
Egypt and mixed with the local African population; so we are all black,
one shade or another. You go to Lebanon and Syria, real Arabs, and you
can see the difference. Sudanese "Arabs" who go abroad come back and
say: "I am Sudanese!" Some of their treatment of "Africans", comes
because they hate themselves. With religion, in the Nuba mountains, it
is 50% muslim, 50% christian, but we all sing, dance, make clothes and
drink beer together.
The war was really about resources, not religion or skin colour.
About wanting a proper share of Sudan's oil?
Oil was discovered in southern and western Sudan. But it is not our
only resource. We have agriculture too
The US has declared what is going on in Sudan a genocide. Why did the
fighting start there? Is it because in spite of the generous peace deal
the government gave you and the SPLM, the rebels in Darfur wanted their
share of the oil you had?
Something like that. But it could be different. I met Minni Minawi, who
was one of the rebel groups' leaders. Two groups refused to sign an
agreement and are still fighting the government but Minni Minawi joined
the government. I See him at every cabinet meeting; he shakes
everyone's hand.
Why does your president Omar al Bashir not want UN forces to come and
make peace in Darfur. Is it because he fears the Americans will come
in, seize the oil and turn it into another Iraq?
Well, we already have UN troops in southern Sudan and they have done a
good job. It is a very political matter, for the National Congress
Party. They are very political about it.
The US does not allow its companies to do business in Sudan because it
accuses the country of supporting terror. Do you have problems with the
international health community as a result?
Not at all. A few weeks ago I had dinner at the British Ambassador's
with Hilary Benn, the UK development secretary. NGOs are very good,
very supportive. The Sudanese people just want peace in Darfur.
What is your relationship with the UK? Tony Blair has talked of
sanctions against Sudan.
My relationship with the UK is very good. I went there as a refugee,
worked in the NHS and was given a British passport, which I still
possess. There was respect. My late father was archbishop of Sudan and
the archbishop of Canterbury was present at his enthronement.
You are a woman in President Omar al-Bashir's cabinet. Bashir is one of
the most hated leaders in the world, accused of carrying out a genocide
in Darfur. What is he like as a man?
He likes children, he has a great sense of humour. He has been very
supportive. When the bird flu vaccine was discussed, he was there
straight away with $7m.
Do you miss the UK, where you worked as a nurse from 1988 - 2005 and
took a PHD in nursing?
Very much. But this is my country.
