Has the Scorpion Lost Its Sting?

In the southern Sudan, the long-awaited rains have left the countryside carpeted in a lush green. The valley of the rain-swollen Upper Nile is alive with gazelles, dik-dik and brightly plumaged birds, and the elephant grass is five feet high. Over the past several years, that luxuriant growth often concealed guerrilla fighters of the dread Any a Nya (Scorpion) independence movement, but now there are signs that one of the most long-lived conflicts in Africa has begun to ebb. Last week, TIME Correspondent William Smith visited the Sudan and filed a report on a hopeful lull in the bitter, 14-year-old struggle that so far has cost untold thousands of lives.

The Sudan's three rebellion-wracked southern provinces sprawl across the turbulent boundary line between the Arab world to the north and Black Africa to the south. It is in these provinces, where the grassy savannah meets the tropical forest, that the clash between the two worlds has been bloodiest. Africa's largest country in terms of area, the Sudan is dominated by the 9,000,000 Arabs of the north; the south's 4,000,000 blacks have long felt ignored by the Moslem politicians in Khartoum. In 1955, a year before the Sudan achieved independence, black soldiers mutinied in Torit, slaughtering 78 Arab officers. The terror had begun. Villages were harassed by the army and by rebels in turn; thousands of tribesmen were killed. Refugees flocked south into Uganda and the Congo; today, about 70,000 black Sudanese live in the two countries.

Massacre at Juba. In 1965, Khartoum's leaders began talks with black leaders, but no agreement was reached.

Instead, in the bloodiest single period of the war, Anya Nya rebels attacked government forces, brutally mutilating an Arab sergeant at Juba in the process. The Arab soldiers went berserk, killing hundreds of blacks and burning countless huts.

Last May, a military coup toppled the Sudan's civilian government, and policy toward the south began to change. There is little doubt that the southern problem is the chief concern of Major General Gaafar Mohamed Nimeri, leader of the new government. Within two weeks after taking power, he set down a four-point plan calling for southern regional autonomy, and he has ordered the army to help build up the south's economy. Addressing his troops in the south two weeks ago, he said: "Now you must carry a rifle in one hand and a tool in the other."

Cruise Snooze. There are ample signs of the lull. Captains of the weekly Nile steamers no longer sandbag their wheel-houses against snipers, and soldiers riding shotgun on the boats now snooze through the voyage. Most of the schools closed down after the 1965 massacres have reopened. Journalists, long barred from the south, are now welcome. "Go anywhere you like," an official urged, "and stay as long as you wish. We want you to learn the truth." According to Brigadier General Mohamed Abdul Gadir, head of the Southern Command since the May coup, the Anya Nya are short of arms and ammunition.

That is putting it mildly. There are at least five more or less active political organizations. Western diplomats are clearly skeptical of their effectiveness. "You can just imagine them sitting around a campfire, saying: 'You can be my finance minister if I can be your defense chief,' " said a foreign observer. "The guy who owns a typewriter is the guy who can start a new Southern Sudanese provisional government." There is no doubting the passion of the rebels. "There will be no solution until the Arabs leave the south," said one leader. "We have nothing more to lose, so we will fight on to the end." Said another: "I know the West believes peace will come when there is a good leader in Northern Sudan. But this is not true." Nobody knows, because Khartoum has not had a truly effective leader since independence. Whether Nimeri fits that description remains to be seen. Right now, his government is lavishing attention on the Communist governments of Eastern Europe in an effort to establish its socialist credentials; last month six U.S. diplomats were expelled for trying to "sabotage our revolution." In any event, since Nimeri's coup, the Scorpion seems to have lost at least some of its sting.

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