SUDAN: Embarrassing Freedom

The Sudan moved closer to the pleasures and perplexities of freedom. In Khartoum the Sudanese Parliament voted unanimously last week to ask the British and Egyptians to withdraw their two remaining battalions of troops from the country within 90 days. Under the 1953 Anglo-Egyptian agreement, this clears the way for the Sudan, by referendum or election of a Constituent Assembly, to settle the one big question about its future: Shall the Sudan (pop. 8,800,000) become an independent nation or join with Egypt?

In his zeal for independence, Prime Minister Ismail el Azhari has been "Sudanizing" the protectorate rapidly by installing Sudanese in administration and defense posts. In the equatorial bushlands of the primitive south, this meant bringing in Moslems from Khartoum to replace Britons in command of the gangling Fuzzy-Wuzzy natives, who worship bulls. Last week, just three days after the solemn proclamation in the capital, black troops in the south mutinied against their new officers, killed at least three of them and fled into the jungles.