Sudan between April 85-89 and June 89-06
By Mahgoub El-Tigani*
July 4, 2006 — This 4th of July, the al-Khalas, a new rebellion group announced in Darfur by the Justice and Equality Movement, launched an attack on the Humrat al-Sheikh town in Northern Kordofan in alliance with a rebel group related to the Federal Alliance (which until recently has been an advocate of peaceful negotiations rather than military action).
As always, the government air force retaliated with serious casualties that victimized civilian population and establishments. The rebel attack, however, indicated a violent denouncement of the African Summit decision (Banjul, June 2006) to keep the AU force in Darfur until December 2006, instead of a UN force.
The Darfur rebels, apart from the Manawi-led Sudan Liberation Movement and Army group that signed the Abuja Agreement with the Government of National Unity (GONU), have repeatedly accused the AU of “making deals at expense of the rebels,” including the Abuja Agreement, with the NIF-controlled regime.
Emphasizing unrelenting demands for “a just and lasting peace based on fair political representation, as well as development sharing of the country’s wealth by the marginal regions that constitute at least 40 percent of the total population of Sudan,” a rebel spokesperson (Jazeera: 4 July 2006) justified the attack by strong rejection of the “unfair provisions of the Abuja Agreement.”
The military escalation of the conflict provides continuous evidence on the inevitable failure of the bilateral government-rebels’ peace talks. Equally importantly, the situation testifies to the increasing need to convene a national constitutional conference based on equal and effective participation in the peace process by the Sudanese political parties, trades unions, professional associations and the other civil society groups – together with the armed rebels – to resolve the Sudan’s Crisis.
Caught into the complex conflicts of Darfur and Eastern Sudan, in addition to mounting tensions with the South concerning implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreements (CPA), and a new conflict that erupted in northern provinces resisting unpopular dam constructions on the Nile, the poor governance of the NIF theocratic-military rule produced continuous disruptions between GONU on one hand and the Sudanese public opinion, the United Nations, and the International Community on the other.
The most potentially decisive partner to resolve this conflict, however, namely the People of Sudan, has been regrettably ignored by both GONU and the International Community to the detriment of the whole situation due to the monopolistic partisan arrangements of the Naivasha peace talks that excluded the largest constituencies of Sudan from playing any direct or influential role in CPA.
It goes without saying, however, that the existing GONU is not representative of the People of Sudan. It is simply a transitional authority composed, for the most part, of two main players: the NIF-controlled regime and the SPLM/A.
That the CPA’s mentors (IGAD and the IGAD Friends) have unnecessarily rejected the participation of a well-deserved national representation by the majority Sudanese parties, trades unions, and civil society groups in the Naivasha peace talks has already made of the CPA a narrow-focused bilateral structure whose authority functions, as well as potential activities, have been fully reserved by the legal provisions of the peace treaty to the NIF-SPLM partners.
This unprecedented alienation of the Umma, DUP, trades unions, and the other Sudanese national groups will continue to hurt the unity and stability of the Nation, as the NIF-SPLM ruling alliance, in its turn, continues to exhibit unresolved intrigues along with the atrocious suppression of people by the NIF tools of war, namely the regular army, the NIF militias, and the notorious forces of the Security Department.
The public disappointment in the persistent brutalities of the NIF security (of which, most recently, the physician Omer Taj al-Najeeb was brutally tortured by the Salah Gosh Security Department for regular activities in the Doctors’ Union) has been clearly documented by the SHRO-Cairo women activists (Sudan Tribune: June 28th, 2006).
Apart from the weak handling by the president and the other NIF leaders of high-level diplomacy issues with the United Nations and the African Union, etc., concerning the humanitarian situation of Darfur displaced population and many other pressing agenda, the women activists mentioned, in particular, the worsening standards of living for the majority of people, except for corrupted ruling elites.
On the other side, the mounting climates of hostility and mistrust, in addition to unabated policy conflicts between the NIF rulers and the SPLM/A followed by resignations of key SPLM leaders from strategic positions of the Movement in the North, have been received with a diminishing interest in GONU by many Sudanese people, especially those earlier excluded from the CPA negotiations.
Most recently, the GONU poor performance surfaced clearly in a number of stands. These included a sharp contradiction between the NIF/SPLM partners with respect to the government’s response to the UN resolutions on Darfur, especially the urgent needs of the region to ensure international relief in full collaboration with the UN/African Union personnel and human rights NGOs.
The NIF rejection of the UN/NGOs field visits to the region of Darfur and the hostile announcements and security-arranged street demonstrations by the ruling party constituted a flat rejection of agreements of cooperation previously approved with the UN by the GONU government. Needless to mention the ensuing embarrassment of these impulsive reactions, insomuch as further cooperation was evidently sought between the government and the UN to carry out international and humanitarian obligations in the war-trodden region of Darfur.
Between the short period of April 1985 and May 1989, the Sudan witnessed a great level of consistency in government performance between ruling political parties, unions, and professional associations than accomplished by the Bashir 17 years of single-party rule or his predecessor Nimeiri, as well as advancing standards of national unity and successful interaction with an international diplomacy fully appreciative of the country’s diversity and political pluralism.
All these positive aspects of the post-Nimeiri transitional democracy helped the signing of the Sudanese Peace Agreement between the DUP Leader Mohamed Osman al-Merghani and the late SPLM/A Leader John Garang de Mabior in November 1986, which was further adopted by the Sadiq al-Mahdi-led government in healthy climates of national unity, genuine popular support, and full participation by both state and society.
Hailed by a public free of security brutalities, NIF terrorism, or party militias; approved by a democratically elected Constituent Assembly (parliament); guaranteed by a faithful command of the Armed Forces by the late Commander-in-Chief General Fathi Ahmed ?Ali; and further blessed by a lively existence of an Independent Judiciary, a cabinet meeting was scheduled on June the 30th 1989 to prepare the necessary grounds to put the Sudanese Peace Agreement to task.
From June 30th 1989 up to the present time, the NIF coup and its monopolistic system of rule, including the GONU partisan agreements and governance arrangements, have failed in every aspect of life to produce the desired levels of national unity, economic development, and political pluralism all over the country.
In place of the elected national parliament that approved in 1988 the Sudanese Peace Agreement with massive popular support, free press, and international satisfaction, the 2000s peace talks were controlled by external powers that shaped the agreement’s provisions and selected its players and partners without regard to the Sudanese national democratic groups.
Since June 1989to the present time, the nation’s state of affairs has never improved: state corruption is well above all known records in the history of the country; security savagery is exercised in day light, despite clear prohibition by constitutional rules; the press is “lawfully” curtailed; and the Sudanese democratic organizations, NGOs, and professional associations are continuously harassed, silenced, ignored, or shamelessly suppressed by GONU authorities.
After 17 consecutive years of authoritative rule, the NIF has nothing to boost about: the civil wars of the regime with almost every corner of the country testify to the disasters of a theocratic state imposed by military coup upon a diverse multi-religious multi-ethnic society. Deprived of all democratic sureties and the decency of a democratically-elected law-abiding governance body, the living standards of citizens, especially the displaced populations in the South and Darfur and the low-income working force in the private or the public sectors, have steeply deteriorated.
The succeeding transitional or elected governments of April 85-89 were not perfect: they were loaded with the heavy burden of 17 years of repression by the Nimeiri junta. They failed to sustain the momentum of the March/April Popular Uprising (1985) that paved the way for a lasting removal of the Nimeiri/Muslim Brotherhood (NIF) backward regime.
It is true, the hesitation of the 1986-89 elected government in abrogating the Nimeiri/NIF laws, among other defaults, opened the door for The NIF counter-revolution, i.e., the ongoing Inqaz or Salvation regime. But the NIF governance is unprecedented in terms of primitive accumulation of wealth via modern systems of Islamic banking, oil deals, and other corruption of the state treasury, partisan politics, and the commission of gross human rights violations.
The intensity and the extent of violations are incomparable with those committed by the short-lived democratic government. Still, state/militia violations are never abated; both military and civilian forms of repression continue to embezzle the state financial and administrative resources. The foreign policy never before was so poorly oriented or badly implemented, as it has been practiced in about 2 decades by the NIF rulers.
The failure of GONU is a legitimate extension of the illegitimate coup and system of rule of the National Islamic Front. Still, the Sudanese people have not yet lost sight of the dangers encircling their national unity or integrity. The Sudanese have often surprised the world with consensual decisions that stand high above State bureaucracies, repressive policies, or suppressive security.
Who knows: a new alliance of the Sudanese Armed Forces and civil society (as occurred in the Uprisings of October 1964 and March/April 1985) may successfully resolve the governance crisis. And yet, a national constitutional conference is the only viable path to avoid further confrontations in a country bleeding from civil wars and armed conflicts.
* The author is a member of the Sudanese Writers’ Union. He can be reached at [email protected].