Sudan Accused of ‘Brutal Repression’ of Opposition : Human rights: Hundreds were jailed, tortured or hanged, the Africa Watch group reports.

The military government of Sudan has imprisoned and tortured hundreds of opposition figures, hanged prisoners after brief show trials, and used live ammunition on demonstrators in pursuing an “exceptionally cruel and intolerant” policy of repression, an international human-rights group has charged.

The report by London-based Africa Watch supports increasing indications that the military government of Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, which seized power last June 30, is perhaps the most brutal to have afflicted Sudan in its 34 years of independence.

“In a mere nine months since its seizure of power,” the report states, “the Revolutionary Command Council has . . . embarked upon a systematic and brutal repression of political opposition in Khartoum which already surpasses even the worst excesses perpetrated by Numeiri.”

Jaafar Numeiri was the Sudanese dictator overthrown in a popular revolution in 1985, amid increasing famine, war and an attempt to impose a fundamentalist Islamic state on this heterogeneous country.

The Africa Watch report comes as the government’s international friends are rapidly dropping away. At the end of February, the United States, which had been an ally of the previous democratically elected government, cut off an estimated $60 million in aid. The reason was that federal law prohibits continuing aid to unelected governments that overthrow democratic regimes without establishing a timetable for new elections.

Several other major international donors to Sudan, including Britain, the Netherlands, France and West Germany, have also scaled back their aid programs. Among the Bashir regime’s few remaining friends is Libya, which is said to have stepped up its sale of petroleum to the regime. After returning to Khartoum from a recent visit to Libya, Bashir announced new plans for a Libyan-Sudan federation to be formed over the next four years.

More recently, possibly in response to growing international criticism, the Bashir regime has announced the freeing of 21 trade unionists held in prison for as long as nine months. The government also said it would shortly release all other political prisoners except those charged with corruption, a caveat that Africa Watch charged is so broad that it could cover most prisoners otherwise considered political detainees.

The government also said that long-delayed visits by families, friends and diplomats would be permitted prisoners after the end of the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, or after the end of April.

“That’s so far off that we don’t put any store in it,” said Rakiya Omaar, executive director of Africa Watch.

Meanwhile, a continuing famine in southern Sudan, caused in part by years of warfare in that region, has cost as many as 500,000 lives since 1986, the watchdog group contends. A U.N.-sponsored relief program operating from Kenya and Uganda was suspended after last June’s coup; in recent statements, the government has said it might resume in April.

The new military government arrested about 300 leading Sudanese politicians almost immediately upon assuming power. These included not only Prime Minister Sadek Mahdi but also leaders of all major opposition parties. Many, including Mahdi, have since been released.

The military rulers increased the level of repression after a series of strikes and protests late in November and December. After a doctor’s strike Nov. 26, four doctors were charged with “waging war against the state,” a capital offense, the watchdog group said. The leader of the strike was condemned to death, although his sentence has evidently since been commuted; but he was reportedly so severely beaten that he was in a coma for four days.

Other prisoners have been physically abused or denied medical treatment, including insulin required by at least two diabetics in custody.

Two days after the doctors’ strike, security forces fired on a crowd of demonstrators at a Khartoum university, reportedly killing four.

At the same time, the Bashir government has broadened the application of the sharia, or Islamic law, to cover more offenses than were considered either by Numeiri or Sadek. Sharia has been the single greatest polarizing issue in Sudanese society since Numeiri first imposed it in 1984. Remarkable for the harshness of its punishments, it calls for the amputation of limbs of thieves, stoning to death of heretics, and flogging for a multitude of other offenses.

Sadek’s refusal to rescind sharia during his administration was partly responsible for his inability to come to terms with the Sudanese People’s Liberation Front, the guerrillas waging war in southern Sudan, during his administration.

The guerrillas spurned Sadek’s proposal to put the issue to a plebiscite, on grounds that any consideration of imposing harsh Islamic law would make the Christians and animists of the south second-class citizens.

The military government’s more outspoken support for sharia has stalemated any further talks.