Sudan

Political Suicide of a Nationalist Disguise

Mahgoub El-Tigani

April 1, 2004

The NIF ruling party secretary-general Ahmed Ibrahim Omer urged his government “not to collaborate with the international prosecution of the suspects” identified by the UN Commission as perpetrators of gross human rights violations in the region of Darfur. The top Brotherhood leader, unlike the Islamist fundamentalist doctrine that moves beyond all national frontiers, asked for “a strong nationalist stand” to avert the international aggression against his ruling junta!

The party’s call on the government to reject the Security Council’s decision mirrors the political disarray of the ruling regime, which might face grave possibilities of international action if it rejects the UN decisions, as its party advises, in addition to the ongoing challenges of democratic transition, especially the developed contradictions of the regime’s theologian methods vis-à-vis the SPLM/A secularist style in the course of implementing the Nivasha Protocols, added to major political hostilities with the northern opposition umbrella, the National Democratic Alliance despite the untimely pragmatism of the Umma Party.

The performance of the regime with respect to both security matters and humanitarian affairs in the Sudanese interior are equally disastrous. For one, the attitude of the authorities towards the essential climates of peace continues to repress the popular movement, civil society groups, and the student activities in institutes of high education. Most recently, the police suppressed fiercely a peaceful assembly of Darfurie students at the campus of the University of Khartoum. Earlier, the headquarters of the Democratic Unionist Party was savagely attacked by government supporters and arbitrary arrests were never abated.

The performance of the government regarding the due process of law was never improved. In spite of the dreadful massacres of the Beja Congress peaceful demonstration in Port Sudan by the regime’s killer police a few weeks ago, the government did not act promptly to investigate the extra-judicial killings of the innocent citizens slaughtered by the murderer employees.

Days ago, the minister of justice announced the formation of a fact finding committee on the crimes in question. Led by Judge Ismat Mohamed Yusif of the Court of Appeals, the committee included only representatives of the accused side: the Police, Attorney Chamber, and Governorate of the Red Sea Region, besides the Khartoum’s Ministry of Interior and National Council (government parliament).

Clearly, the committee failed to accommodate a neutral element such as the Bar Association or to voice, in any reasonable manner the Beja Congress victimized party, let alone the larger opposition body of the NDA that has been painstakingly pursuing active negotiations with the government to ensure a peaceful transition to democratic rule.

The negligence of the civil society groups in resolving the state-made crises of the country is explicit in the government’s ill-advised decisions towards the crisis of Darfur. Not only that the ruling junta deliberately excluded the NDA, the non-governmental professional associations, and the Umma parry from all official plans to control the deteriorating situation in the region. Determined to subdue the Darfurie African Sudanese of whom a sizeable population supports the NDA, the SLM, and the Umma with nationally-recognized ideological and political connections, the Khartoum authoritative bureaucracy failed to honor its own agreement with the Umma leadership that aimed to convene a broad national conference to end the crisis since January 2004.

The irresponsible prejudice of the ruling junta against the majority of the Sudanese civil society and opposition groups has been a major motive for the warring parties to pursue armed conflict in the beleaguered societies; thus escalating huge losses in the lives of the Sudanese African women and youth of the whole region. The insistence of the Khartoum authorities to establish only government-controlled committees to conduct judicial investigations on the crimes committed against humanity in the region deepened the regime’s political isolation.

Largely criticized by the opposition and civil society groups, the government’s judicial committees failed to gain the confidence and the collaboration of the parties to the conflict, as a most essential element of the due process of justice, especially from the part of the victimized individuals and their prejudiced communities.

Meticulously monitored by the major suspect of the crisis, i.e., the janjaweed leaderships and the many senior army officers, police, and administrative officials supporting them in Khartoum and Darfur, the Judge Yusif Judicial Committee failed to collect factual data on the horrible rapes of women and children and the other well-known atrocities, let alone the crucial task of transferring the suspects to fair public trials.

Faced by these shortcomings, it was clearly visible to the Sudanese people, as well as the observing international community, that the Sudan Government was practically disqualified to deal with the suspects in any acceptable manner. A competent International Court was properly placed on call to act on the matter with the promptness and the legal maturity the situation definitely deserved.

The government’s political dilemma is aggravated further by the non-principled attitude of the ruling junta towards the peace negotiations with the NDA, including the Sudan Liberation Movement and Army (the major rebel group of Darfur). The government’s reluctance to re-structure representation of the opposition groups in the next transitional parliament froze the NDA/Government peace negotiations and escalated the ongoing hostilities in the political arena. These unhealthy climates posit a direct threat to the Nivasha Peace Agreements and the national hope invested in them to salvage the Nation from the Islamists’ military nightmare.

And yet, the ruling junta would not re-instate the purged staff of the armed forces and the other state agencies as a necessary step to establish a consensual polity. Also the government refused arrogantly to allow fair representation of the Sudanese democratic opposition and civil society groups in the constitution draft committee whose input is considered a key factor to regulate the entire transition to democratic rule.

Of all ambiguities of the Sudanese current politics, nonetheless, the Umma alone continues to maintain an ambiguous position, one standing somewhere between the political hostilities of the democratic movement versus the NIF regime and the cautiously growing SPLM/government bureaucracy. The Umma pragmatic policy, however, did not strengthen the party’s relations with the government, to say nothing of the short-lived collaboration of the Umma dissident faction with the military rulers before the latter purged the former in a humiliating show down a few months ago.

On the other side, it is true, the NDA is strongly supportive of the idea of convening a national constitutional conference to resolve the crisis of the country – the same idea that the Umma and the Ansar consistently support. And yet, the Umma obscured pragmatism has not yet enhanced the party’s ties with the opposition movement to help exert unified pressures on the repressive regime, or to resolve the Darfur crisis, in spite of the mounting national and international concerns about the country’s fate.

The fact that Imam al-Sadiq al-Mahdi launched a severe attack against “the Africanization and the secularization of the country that aim to exclude Islam from the political stream,” as the Imam claimed in his most recent khutba (religious sermon) to the Ansar, rendered al-Mahdi’s closeness to the Turabi-led Brotherhood faction more evident than before. Apparently, the Imam’s newly-developed hostility adds a new prejudice by the side of the ruling Arabo-Islami fanaticism at expense of the country’s democratic striving to straighten out the State’s theologian structures and public policies.

For many observers, a re-strategic alliance between the Umma leadership and the Turabi’s NIF faction is quite possible. Should that occur, it would possibly strengthen the NIF authority’s anti-secularist commitment that has relentlessly antagonized the NDA/SPLM and the civil society consensus to ensure secular governance in the country with due respect to religious tolerance and the freedom of religious beliefs…

In the face of the escalated isolationist policies of the NIF government, the performance of the authorities would hardly salvage the “Salvation Revolution!” from a complete collapse, despite the skilled efforts of the ruling party and its politicized army officers to stay in the seats of power.

Without principled negotiations with the NDA and the Darfur rebels, a clear commitment to the international obligations, and a straightforward convening of a constitutional national conference ensuring indiscriminate equal participation of all parties and civil society groups, the NIF ruling faction will continue to proceed with the political suicide it has been recklessly pursuing to the detriment of the whole Nation in defiance of both national and international consensus to change the faltering realities of the Sudan.