Sudan’s NCP hard-line approach to the Darfur issue is hate-driven

By Mahmoud A. Suleiman

November 15, 2010 — Ms. Umm Salama al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, daughter of former Sudanese Prime Minister, writing in the cyber journal Alrakoba, an article entitled “The National Salvation Revolution has been created from Crooked Oud: Evidence is Darfur!” and she wondered as to why the National Salvation Revolution (NSR) cliques threw their weight heavily on the Darfur conflict mercilessly and without being best mediators right from the beginning. This is a legitimate question, though loaded and a complex question which is difficult to give a ready and a definite answer without delving into the recent past of the Sudanese politics along with a brief background history of the Islamists movement in this ill-fated country which has been plagued by totalitarian regimes and fundamentalist extremist elements over the decades that followed the independence in 1956 from the British colonial rule.

The National Islamic Front was the offshoot of the Islamic Charter Front (ICF) that was known as the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) during the 1970s, taking its inspiration as a modern, urban-based Islamic party from the Muslim Brotherhood founded in March1928 by the then schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in the Egyptian city of Ismailia. The Muslim Brotherhood movement in Sudan campaigned for the application of Islamic (Sharia) law and regularly used Islamic sloganeering and they engineered to expel the Communist Party led by Abdel-khalig Mahjoub from Sudan’s parliament. That was in the aftermath of the Sudanese general elections in May 1965 when the party won 11 parliamentary seats, including one seat for the first woman to ever be elected to parliament in the entire Middle East, namely Ms. Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim, a member of the Central Committee of the party. Following this victory, the Muslim Brotherhood, threatened by the growing influence of the Communist party started to campaign against the communist using “Islam” as a weapon. They accused the communists of being atheists seeking to undermine the values of the Sudan…which to them was Islamic values. As a result of this the party was disbanded and the members of the parliament expelled on November 24, 1965, just six months from assuming parliamentary duties. The Muslim Brotherhood movement in Sudan thrived considerably during the Cold War period and benefitted both from the United States anti-communist policy and the Saudi financial support for Islamic groups through the Faisal Islamic Bank which provided substantial support for the National Islamic Front in Sudan. It is worthy to point that the political model adopted by the Islamism movement in Sudan starting from Muslim Brotherhood (MBH) followed by Islamic Charter Front (ICF), National Islamic Front (NIF), National Congress Party (NCP)/ Popular Congress Party (PCP) was focused on attracting high school and college students for recruitment and to a lesser emphasis on canvassing workers and trade unions. However, the most important steps they have taken lately in this respect has been their secret work within the armed forces establishment which help them
to stage a coup and seized power.Their work among the public masses has been limited or weak. That weakness was considered the main reason for their failure to attract the hearts and minds of the people of Darfur who are 99% devout Muslims with more egalitarian tradition of Ansar and Tijaniyya Sufi Sects and that 50% of those who memorise the Holy Qur’an in Sudan are from Darfur. The freelance writer Ismail Kushkush said in his article in Islam online that Ali Dinar, the last sultan of Darfur was renowned for his annual caravan to the holy land that always included a kiswa, a covering for the Kabah in Makah. Alex de Waal (10 December 2004) in his report: Who are the Darfurians? Arab and African Identities, Violence and External Engagement, indicated that the dominant Sufi orders in Darfur are West African in origin (notably the Tijaniyya), and the script used was the Andalusian-Saharan script, not the classic Arab handwriting of the Nile Valley. On the other hand, the people of Darfur lived time in memory harmoniously without problems originating from the current alien unheard of notion of the Arab-African ethnic divide. As school children or students at higher school or the university, people of my generation never talked about today’s divisive matters because they were considered ridiculous, sign of stupidity, waste of time and unnecessary at all. It was needless to know the ethnic or the tribal background of a neighbour, colleague or of a fellow classmate. This repugnant behaviour is the product of this bad era during which a monstrous group of NIF/NCP dominated on the fate of Sudan and its citizens through their evil hypocritical slogan of religiosity to bamboozle while they are far away from the true teachings of the Islam. The horrifyingly wicked acts committed by the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and its predecessor National Islamic Front (NIF) against the civilian citizens in Darfur were motivated by hatred to revenge for not supporting their policies at the general elections during the intermittent short-lived periods when Sudan enjoyed Democracy and rule of law. Analysts consider the National Islamic Front (NIF) was a political movement with considerable political power in Sudan but little popularity among voters. This was the reason for their recurrent failures when democratically free and fair elections are held. This NIF gang continued to claim monopoly of Islam exclusively while their behaviour unmasks them showing the public what they really are.

We can cite examples of the political failures and defeats suffered by the Islamist the National Islamic Front (NIF) in the Muslim Darfur. The most characteristic of its kind was the results of 1986 General Elections where 34 out of 39 Parliamentary seats in Darfur were won by the Umma Party led by the former Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi whereas the National Islamic Front (NIF) won only 2 seats in spite of its Islamic slogans. Similarly or even worse, the Islamic Charter Front (ICF), the predecessor of (NIF) failed to secure even a single seat in al-Fasher, the capital of Greater Darfur Region in the 1960s.That was when the then candidate, High School Teacher, late Abbo Hamad Hassaballa, who belonged to the National Democratic Party (NDP) led by the late Sayed Ismail al-Azhari, won the parliamentary seat defeating the Islamic Charter Front (ICF) candidate Mr. Suleiman Ahmed. Bearing in mind that Islamic slogans were not a means of political polarisation of the National Democratic Party (NDP) at the time. Moreover, there was an outright negative propaganda against ICF as a pariah of the political parties and was depicted as a grotesque comic creature! To make matters worse to the Darfurians in the NIF era was the rebellion of the Darfur SPLA leader, former NIF member Daoud Yahya Boulad who was arrested by the forces of the then Governor of the region of Darfur Medical Corps Colonel Dr. Al-Tayeb Mohammed Kheir (AKA Sikha) in Wadi Salih Province and summarily executed. Dr. E -Tahir El-Faki writing about late Daoud Boulad said that his militancy became an example to galvanise and transform the consciousness of the people of Sudan in the region of Darfur gave them a newly inspired political and military strength. This background history gives some clue as to why the National Congress Party (NCP) and the National Islamic Front (NIF) have been taking hard-line approach towards the crisis in Darfur and committing heinous hate crimes and prolonging the suffering of the citizens. This diabolical entity practised doctrine of “Divide and Rule” by employing tactical manipulation of tribal and ethnic identities, organisation of armed militias and political mobilisation along religious and ethnic lines into Arab/African within Darfur. Those wicked repulsive things had never been heard of by our ancestors or by the generations that came after them. And thus began Sudan’s problems in Darfur which continued haunting local, regional and global conscience. These crimes continue to happen under the reign of the outrageous NIF entity which is guilty of falsehood and slander by claiming that what they do in Darfur is for the sake of Islam, while Orthodox Islam is as innocent as the innocence of the Wolf accused of shedding the blood of the Prophet Yusuf, son of Prophet Jacob, Peace Be Upon them.

The NIF elements’ hatred for the Darfuris in general struck even the sons of Darfur, who were loyal members of the so-called ‘Islamic Movement’ such as the veteran former Minister of Federal Government Dr. Ali El-Hag Mohammed Adam who the NCP continues to spread unfounded smear campaign to defame him , Dr Farouq Ahmed Adam, former governor of South Darfur State Dr. El-Hag Adam Yusuf, Al-Shafie Ahmed Mohammed, Mohmed al-Amin Khalifa who was a member of the so-called Salvation Revolutionary Command Council (SRCC) was subjected to humiliation for his difference of opinion, Yusuf Mohammed Salih Libis who remains incarcerated for six years in the notorious Kober Prison in Khartoum bearing in mind that Libis was the elite among the leaders of the Popular Defence Forces (PDF) branch with a code-name or cryptonym “Dabbabeen” meaning human tank made up of a small group of “Mujahedeen” who decided to stand in the face of the advancing laser tanks coming from Uganda as part of the so called “The Heavy Rains” operation), Nasr El-Din Mohammed Omer and many others who had suffered discrimination in spite of their dedication and sacrifices for the cause they thought it genuine. Nevertheless, they were denied senior positions in the hierarchy of the establishment. Some of those members, I cited their names as example, became victims of smear campaign to damage their reputation by false unwarranted accusations even after they have been expelled and their membership has been terminated. The ruling regime elements in Khartoum do not hesitate to target their former fellow members through the official state media machine without observing the contribution of previous fellow colleagues, ignoring the sanctity of such conduct in the Islam they claim to adhere to. The high-ranking elements in the National Congress Party (NCP) or the Popular Congress Party (PCP) and in their former National Islamic Front (NIF) and the Islamic Charter Front (ICF) preach what they don’t Practice. The stories about the ‘Dabbabeen’ were dramatised by the (NIF) media propaganda machine on the National television called “In The Arenas of Redemption” and portrayed as a group of 120 from a group of the Mujahideen Army with a great spiritual energy, even greater than the laser power. Those young faithful fighters decided to compensate the lack of technological power at the Sudanese military machine by their spiritual power and the deep faith they had!

As to how this entity managed to enrol people as members into their establishment, they adopt same methods used by their clan esoteric Global Network of Political Islamism Movements that governs Sudan through the veil of the National Islamic Front (NIF/NCP). They prey on boys and young people from schools and universities and lure these naïve individuals to join small groups (a Cell) which are refereed to as (Family Arabic Usrah), on the pretext of studying the Holy Qur’an. The majority of the members of the death squads and torture gangs are usually lured and picked up by the Islamism establishment as young boys at education institutions, brainwashed through religious lessons advocating jihad, for the sake of God, against infidels who include political opponents. These young boys are trained on violence at workshops. They target pupils and students in this tender age because this is a transition period from boyhood to young adulthood that makes up the personality. This teenage phase is characterized by impulsive attitudes towards maturing politically and intellectually. It is the stage of vulnerability which yearns for identification with social symbols such as the nearby teacher, school and political figures and others such as writers, musicians and singers, scholars and religious clerics. Therefore, educational institutions in the country become the ‘fisheries’ for youth recruitment. Thus, schools would eventually become fertile breeding ground for picking up pupils and students to be groomed up and brainwashed as potential members of torture and death squads at the notorious “ghost houses”. At the same time the Political Islamism Movement managed to overwhelm schools and other educational institutions with large number of loyal individuals to engage in the teaching corps in order to directly impact on pupils and students. Salim Ahmed Salim wrote his scholarly article ‘Death Squads and Torture in the Ghost Houses’ the forgoing happened in concert with the operation of emptying the field of teaching of qualified teachers under the libel charges of Communism. Thus, with the fall of Sudan in the grip of the World Islamic Political Network, came the great disasters and calamities which made the country to slip (slide) into the abyss the extent of which only the Almighty God knows. It is unfortunate that there is no ‘quick-fix’ solution at hand for the Sudanese public other than uprooting the National Congress Party (NCP/NIF/PCP) clique and try to repair what has been destroyed by the junta over the past decades. However, many argue that the devastation of the country is so huge that it would require generations to eliminate its effects. Nevertheless, observers believe that the Broad National Front (BNF) which has been formed recently may be the seed for political action to mobilise the Sudanese people to achieve the desired end.
We must not forget the infamous ‘Hamdi Triangle’ in which the former NIF finance minister, Abdulrahim Hamdi, in his paper ‘Strategy for the Elections’ he proposed a future financial plan, adopted by the NCP, that considered the Southern Sudan as out of the ‘Civilization Oriented Project’ equation as it is going to secede by Sunday 9th of January 2011 and that they have lost hope in Darfur; Hamdi advised his clan to focus on directing the development and investment of the money comes from the Arab World in projects on patch of land that forms a Triangle made-up of Dongola-Sinnar- Kordofan Axis but keeps out Darfur and the South, hence the area has become known as the “Hamdi Triangle”! Thus The National Congress Party is preparing for this eventuality. The economic investment of the regime is focused on this “Hamdi Triangle” and completely ignoring the rest of the country. Noah Kodi writing under the title “The road to Self-determination, where does it lead says: “According to the evidence before our eyes they will consolidate their defences around the Hamdi Triangle using security agencies staffed exclusively from the Three Tribes and play divide and rule with the remainder finding many willing takers in the tribes who will lose out in any self-determination for the marginalized.”

The despotic entity, the National Islamic Front (NIF), which in the following years, innocuously renamed itself National Congress Party (NCP) engineered the military coup d’état that was masterminded by their godfather and the prime architect Dr. Hassan Abdalla al-Turabi but militarily led by Brigadier Omar Hassam Ahmed al-Bashir to overthrow the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi in June 30th 1989. This was because they realized that victory in multiparty democratic free and fair parliamentary elections would not be in their favour in Sudan generally and in Darfur in particular. Observers believed, at the time, that Brigadier Omar Hassan al-Bashir, nominally led the 1989 coup, but is regarded more as a figurehead than as politically powerful in his own right They gave their military coup the code name ‘National Salvation Revolutionary Command Council (RCC)’; and then the villainous National Salvation Revolution (NSR) alleging that they had resorted to military takeover to rescue Sudan from eminent ruin. To deter opponents the junta demonstrated a high degree of ruthlessness and the use of unprecedented levels of physical violence. . They do not hesitate to subject opponents to insult, humiliation, blackmail and torture to extract confession in secret locations referred to as Ghost Houses Since its coup in 1989, the military and religious dictatorial regime (NIF/NCP) of Sudan used secret detention and torture chambers the “ghost houses,” where their occupants see their humanity disappear as they become living ghosts! Those are the dungeons of the Islamist dictator who has been indicted for War crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague, Marshal Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir.

Here is an extract from a horror story of a Khartoum University Professor who was arrested by security agents and detained for several months in what the Sudanese called “the ghost houses” because of his views were against fundamentalism. He went through a prolonged painful horrific experience. He describes the suffering and says: “You go into a cell. Sometimes it’s very dark. There’s nothing in it except the floor. Sometimes you are placed in a small, crowded room; sometimes in a large, empty one. It all depends on the situation they want to put you in. They keep you up all night and cuff you to the door, forcing you to stand. Beating is the normal thing.”

On 23 April 1990, the then Brigadier Omer al-Bashir declared a state of emergency and dissolved the parliament. An alleged coup attempt prompted that move. The following day, in April 1990, twenty-eight army officers were court martialled and summarily executed. To date, the families of the victims have not been given any information where the bodies of their loved ones were buried. Furthermore, the regime has purged the civil service in what was nicknamed forced retirement/ dismissal from employment in the ‘Public Interest’. This ruthless action has led to displacement and unemployment of thousands of civil servants in all sectors without compensation or the rights of after-service. Those in the uniformed employment (police, prison officers and military) as well suffered from the arbitrary dismissal from the service.

In 1992 government of the (NIF) waged an unprecedented offensive in the name of alleged Jihad (Holy War) against the people of Sudan in the Southern part of the country, labeling them as infidel and agents of foreign countries. The atrocious war between the NIF and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) led by late Dr. John Garang Mabior resulted into increasing casualties among the noncombatant civilian population and displaced persons with the latter numbering, at times, over four million. After a marathon rounds of negotiations a transitional military agreement was signed in late September 2003 in Naivasha, Kenya, between the Government of the Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and the Machakos Protocol, signed between the Government of the Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army, represented an agreement on a broad framework on principles of governance, as well as procedures for a transitional process. As part of the Protocol, the Parties reached agreement on the right to self-determination for the people of south Sudan. According to the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (or CPA), also known as the Naivasha Agreement, was a set of agreements culminating in January 2005 that were signed between the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the Government of Sudan. The Naivasha Agreement was meant to end the Second Sudanese Civil War, develop democratic governance countrywide and share oil revenues. It further set a timetable by which Southern Sudan would have a referendum on its independence.

While the war in the Southern Sudan was attenuating and calming and the peace process efforts started and making progress in the Kenya, a fresh rebellion was brewing fast in the region of Darfur in Western Sudan. A group of disfranchised rebels from Darfur demanded the government of the National Islamic Front (NIF) to give some attention to the Darfur Region which has suffered chronic neglect from the successive Northern region dominated post-independence governments in the form of lack of development, non-participation of its people in Power sharing, deprivation of Wealth sharing and decision-making in spite of the large population size of seven million who contribute to the national income by their livestock exports and payment of taxes without grudge or grumble! They sought peaceful dialogue to resolve their grievances and injustice that afflicted the region for decades. Nevertheless, the NCP president Omer Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir told the rebels that his regime would not negotiate with anyone not carrying arms. He ordered his troops that he did not want see a prisoner of war (POW) or a wounded captured warrior belonging to the rebels. He furthermore indicated boastfully that his regime assumed power by force and anyone longing for power has to resort to arms!

A former officer in the National Intelligence security Services (NISS) wrote documenting the rebellion of the marginalised people of Sudan in Darfur as follows: On 13/04/2003 President al-Bashir made a surprise visit to El Fasher where he met his counterpart, Chadian PresidentIdriss Déby. Apparently Déby’s decision was to crush the rebellion and discipline all those who raise arms in the face of the state; al-Bashir declared war, saying (I do not want wounded or captured)! President Idriss Déby was reported to have made an ultimatum in a famous statement that (young people from the Zaghawa should not play with fire in the border)!

A defected former National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) officer gave a background for the turn of events in that the National Islamic Front (NIF) decided to convene a sham dummy meeting chaired by Maj. Gen. Salah Abdallah Gosh, the Chief of the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS), with people from Darfur in Khartoum under the slogan of (Brainstorming meeting to contain the crisis in Darfur). That fake meeting had been able to gather people of Darfur in all segments including average number of communities between 300 to 400 person, including ministers, judges, journalists, politicians, academics and civil servants at al-Zubair Mohammed Salih Tribal Hall of in Khartoum. The meeting concluded that the basis of the crisis in Darfur was the lack of development and then how to develop the Darfur region and solve the seasonal recurrent tribal conflicts. Eighty 80 people were selected from the audience to visit the Territory and to identify the condition on the ground. The chosen delegation left Khartoum to El Fasher. The delegation met for two days i.e. 24 -.25.2003 at El Fasher with the Government and the governors of North, South and West Darfur States under the auspices of the Interior Minister Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein and the head of the National Intelligence Security and Services (NISS) Salah Abdallah Gosh, the meeting addressed the main issues of the conflict in Darfur. That meeting which was referred to as (El Fasher Consultation forum) culminated into the agreement that the problem of Darfur lies in the absence of development, deterioration in basic services, lack of security and environmental degradation. Four Committees were formed to seek the views of all delegates on the proposed solutions to the identified problems. Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein and Salah Gosh took with them the recommendations and left El Fasher for Khartoum to further study the recommendations and arrange for the next step while the Committees continued their contacts with the rebels in the Jebel Marra and Karnoi area and an agreement was reached with them to hold a dialogue on their demands. However, on 13.04.2003 president Omer al-Bashir made a surprise visit to al-Fasher to meet his counterpart, President Idriss Déby for consultation. It was learned that President Déby advised al-Bashir to crush the rebellion and discipline those dared to take up arms against the state. Furthermore, President Déby was quoted as saying his ‘famous’ statement: (young people from the Zaghawa should not play with fire in the border)! At that juncture, President al-Bashir declared war against ‘bandits/rebels’, stating that he “Did not want to see a prisoner of war or a wounded combatant”. In other words, the President al-Bashir ordered and gave a green light to his army to shoot and kill indiscriminately in total disregard to the wartime international conventions, (The Geneva Conventions which comprise four treaties and three additional protocols that set the standards in international law for humanitarian treatment of the victims of war).

Those who met in El-Fasher and the committees were shocked by the surprising decision taken by President al-Bashir. On 18th April 2003 Sudan Air Force began heavy bombardment of the areas thought as rebel stronghold such as the mountainous terrain of Ein-Sirow in North Darfur County of Kutum. The Sudanese army moved troops and artillery from El-Fasher and Kabkabiya to surround and encircle the rebels in Ein-Sirow. Nevertheless, the rebels under the command of General Abdalla Abbaker launched an attack characterized by surprise and audacity on city of El-Fasher on 25th April 2003. This gallant assault enabled the rebels to have full control over the city, the Military Headquarters and airport. The rebels managed to destroy 2 Antonov aircrafts and 5 Helicopter gunships and a cargo military plane loaded with bombs and a rocket launcher and other enumerable armaments. During this operation, the rebels entered the garrison killing more than 70 military officers and noncommissioned officers and soldiers. They captured 50 military personnel including the commander of the Sudanese Air Force Major General Pilot Ibrahim Bushra Ismail along with booty made up of vehicles, weapons, ammunition, 106-mm and 120mm Soviet-made anti-aircraft rocket launchers and seizure of military intelligence documents and destruction of stores of arms and ammunition and fuel depots. As expected, the rebels suffered casualties; 26 of their comrades were killed and 5 of their vehicles were destroyed.

The attack on the City of El-Fasher and its occupation for several hours a watershed (turning point) and a landmark in the history of the conflict in Darfur and refuted the theories and speculation which tended to belittle and underrate the risk that the Revolution could pose. The NIF no longer consider considered the war in Darfur tribal in nature of low intensity. The attack, understandably, infused the Rebel Movements self-confidence while it left a negative impact on the government of Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) which had been fighting its own people, especially those in the Southern part of the country, for fifty years, based on ideological identities varying in each stage of the conflicts!

In the wake of the successive victorious military operations of the rebels, the NIF/NCP regime realized that the Darfur issue was serious and that the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Mujahedeen are unlikely to fight sincerely against their fellow Muslim compatriots in Darfur. Bearing in mind that majority of the foot soldiers and the lower-ranking officers in the Sudanese army are ethnically from Darfur and Kordofan or from other marginalised parts of the country. The elements in the NCP resorted to awakening the “Sleeper Cells” which were already in place, but ready to act. Those were the minority dormant clandestine supremacist elements, namely the Arab Congregation (AC) and the Guraish Organisation. Abdellatif Abdelrahman (Sudan Tribune 08.08.2010) in his article ‘Bashir’s Last Part of Genocide’ indicates that in 1989 when the Fur tribe militias defeated the Legion of Islamic Forces (LIF) in west Darfur; the National Islamic Front (NIF) assumed power via a coup d’état against the Prime Minster Al- Mahdi on June the 30th 1989; the Arab Congregation (AC) was changed to Pan-Arab belt in the sub-Saharan region of Africa, under name of (Guraish 1 and Guraish 2); aimed to create an Arab- Islamic state in Sudan after wiping the Negroid African tribes (Zurga), from their lands by force and replace them by Arabs from Sudan and the neighboring countries. Mr. Abdelrahman gives more details about the background of those race-based groups in that the Legion of Islamic Forces LIF (Arabic: Al-Failag Al- Islami) was led by two prominent Islamists, Asil and Sheikh Ibn Omer in the period 1984-1989. Some of the Libyan troops were based in El-Fasher, the capital of Darfur region at the time, under the pretext of developing Sag Al-Naam Agricultural Scheme; 30 km south east of El-Fasher, these troops were the principle force, which helped the Janjaweeds to evacuate scores of Fur villages. The Legion of Islamic Forces (LIF) was thought to have provided financial and military training to the Janjaweed militias who carried out systematic and well organized attacks against Fur tribe in West Darfur State, in undercover operations of the so-called Armed Rubbery (Arabic: al-Nahab al-Musallah) which was part of the evil plans implemented by the government. Armed Rubbery was a NIF malicious plot that plagued the Darfur region and caused suffering to its people for a considerable period of time. The Sudanese newspaper Al-Medan published series of authentic articles in July 2004 detailing the origins and transformation of these bigot Arab supremacist Organisations thrived under the auspices of the Sudanese governments, whether democratic or autocratic, who turned a blind eye or publicly supported them.

The increasing rebel raids and their military operations on police stations and government military garrisons in the areas of Jebel Marra, particularly in the Golow area and the alarming reports of National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) acted ass a wakeup call warning signal to the central government, the National Security Council convened a meeting with some of the founders of the (Guraish) Organisation. The majority of them as reported were high-ranking officers in the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) while others were militia leaders. The names of the Guraish leaders are needless to be mentioned here as they have been in the public domain and published in the news media and elsewhere. The meeting, as expected, decided to unleash the Janjaweed militias for a proxy war and authorised for them to kill indiscriminately with impunity, burn villages, loot property, rape women, possess land and take livestock as war booty. Furthermore, the Janjaweed were promised that the Janjaweeds to become part of the regular government army, given numbers, weapons, vehicles, salaries and rewarded with a lump sum of money. The Janjaweed leaders will be offered jobs in constitutional positions while those nomadic Arabs who were brought from the neighbouring countries to be granted Sudanese nationality and issued identity cards. Besides appointing some Janjaweed as tribal chiefs referred to as Umara (pleural of Emir!). In recognition of their services, they were allowed to permanently occupy the Land (Hawakeer) of the citizens who had been forcibly displaced from their homelands. The rest as all know is a history! It is noteworthy to state the fact that the Arab tribes which have land (Dar or Hawakeer) such as Beni Hussein in the county of Siraif in northern Darfur and the Baggara that include Rizeigat, Habbaniya, Beni Halba, Ta’isha and Mahriya of northern Darfur remained neutral and refused to participate in the so-called counter-insurgency because they learned lessons from past experiences where the Khartoum regimes exploited the Darfuri Arabs in losing proxy wars staged against their neighbours.

Observers and many others equally wonder as to the reasons prolonging the hardship of the people of Sudan in the war-stricken region of Darfur. The answer comes from political analysts that the stumbling block to peaceful settlement of the conflict is the extreme hate and the deep resentment towards the people of Sudan in Darfur by the National Congress Party (NCP) led by the fugitive, Marshal Omer Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to stay longer in power. The analysts add ‘We can never stop hate crimes, as long as there are politicians!’ However, hate crimes are bad, they should be stopped; but how? This is the SIXTY FOUR DOLLAR Question ($64 Question)! It may need to be answered by the Sudanese people who teamed up in the Broad National Front (BNF) to work collectively to oust the NIF regime once and for all.

Dr. Mahmoud A. Suleiman is the Deputy Chairman of the General Congress for Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). He can be reached at [email protected]