Islamists plan to sabotage the revolution and take over the state
The Results of the farm meeting and the Emir of the Islamic Movement
By Yasir Arman
The Islamic Movement which is affiliated with the National Congress Party and led by Mr Ali Karti, has held an important meeting that is of great significance not just for the Movement itself but for the Revolution, the state and the future of Sudan.
The meeting took place in June on a farm in Al-Ailafoun area that belongs to the emirs of the Movement. The meeting was attended by two deputies of the former President, Omar al-Bashir, and several former state governors, the most famous of whom were two governors from Darfur and one from Eastern Sudan, a former general in the security apparatus who was the office manager of one of the Islamic Movement’s former leaders and who has travelled from Turkey, and many of the group’s other leaders.
The meeting put the final touches on a comprehensive plan to sabotage the Revolution and regain control of the state, especially after the disbanded parallel security organs, such as Popular Security, were revived and reorganized. The discussion focused on the possibilities and opportunities offered by the 25 October coup.
The Movement’s leaders were enraged that the military had been so slow in taking the steps required to carry out a complete coup. They confirmed the need to keep pushing them in this direction using the Islamic Movement’s grip on state agencies as leverage to nudge the military leaders into regaining its lost paradise.
The Islamic Movement’s leaders confirmed that they would work towards early elections in 2023 so that they could return in the name of democracy. They developed a plan to continue subverting the Resistance Committees, sowing strife among the forces of the revolution, preventing them from forming alliances and reaching an agreement among themselves, and creating sham pro-revolution bodies inside the forces of the revolution to exacerbate factionalism by promoting wayward revolutionary demands and encouraging parallel initiatives, in cooperation with the Sufi sects, to cause a distraction and sabotage any possibility of reaching a political solution.
The meeting focused on the urgency of regaining possession of public and private funds and properties belonging to the Movement, its organizations and members, and reinstating those dismissed by the Empowerment Dismantling Committee, especially those in senior positions. The gathering paid special attention to the justice system, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the economic and media sectors. They also discussed how to manage the Sudanese public and the regional and international forces opposed to the group’s return.
It is paradoxical that the disease of racism and hatred that the Movement has spread in the wider community surfaced in this meeting and infected its own ranks. The members of the Movement present could not agree on the renewal of its emir for a new period of four years and were divided into regional, geographic, and ethnic lines. “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice deceiving”, to quote Sir Walter Scott.
The Islamic Movement is working to tighten its control over the regular forces and create a wedge between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, although it faces a real challenge in trying to control the Rapid Support Forces.
The Movement is working to sabotage any fruitful political process between the military and civilians, especially with the Forces of Freedom and Change. It is deeply afraid of the return of democratic civilian rule which is seen as the biggest bogeyman facing the group. It is worth noting that important figures who are currently not in prison did not take part in the meeting, including a declared chairman of the National Congress Party. This raises questions about the unity of the group. There are also rumours that one of the influential members of the Islamic Movement, who was an ambassador in a superpower, is working on building a new organization and has many resources to hand.
Whatever the case, it is clear that the Islamic Movement hasn’t learned from the lessons of the past, especially that of the glorious December Revolution, and does not want to renew itself by addressing the real issues that are facing the Movement and Sudan as a whole. Its purpose is to regain the power that it enjoyed for thirty years, whose legacy has led Sudan to its current condition. Today, however, the movement no longer has people with the ability of Dr Hassan al-Turabi or of its previous leaders, who managed to secure state power. The Islamic Movement faces active rejection by a popular movement of great vitality on the street in which millions of young people are taking part. This makes regression impossible, particularly in the light of a local, regional, and international situation that is very complex.
Mr Ali Karti needs to renew the Islamic Movement and leave it to a new generation that has come to terms with the burden of its legacy, with the inevitability of democracy, freedom, and justice, and with the fact that the Movement has corrupted the state, is beset by the revolution and needs a truce within its own ranks, more so now than with others outside it.
The most laudable attempt at re-evaluation made by Islamists at present – despite the reservations of some – is the position taken of Dr Ali Al-Haj, who, from inside prison, chose to stand with the restoration of democracy. Significantly, Dr Ali Al-Haj also remains the historically legitimate presumptive heir of Dr Al-Turabi.
If the counter-revolutionary forces are striving for a clear plan, then it is all the more necessary that the plans of the revolutionary forces should be clearer and propelled forward and inspired by the unity of the martyrs. There is a big opportunity available now to unite the forces of the revolution, beginning by seizing the opportunity to build a body to lead the movement and coordinate action on the ground between revolutionary forces. The objective basis which makes such unity attainable already exists. We are already witnessing actual unity amongst the organisations of doctors, emergency lawyers, coordination bodies of the Resistance Committees, university professors, staff of higher education institutions, and many professional associations that includes all the colours of the political spectrum among the revolutionary based on equal partnership. It is possible for this group to undertake coordination on the ground until political coordination can be achieved on the basis of a minimum platform leading to democratic civilian rule.
It is noteworthy that the revolutionary forces are more united in the states and regions, and some of them have managed to form a united civilian front. The unity of revolutionary forces in those states is less complicated than in the capital. What they have achieved is a positive and promising sign.