End the impunity on the killings of Darfuri students
By Mahmoud A. Suleiman
December 19, 2012 — As part of the Continuing genocide and ethnic cleansing in Darfur and hateful racist approach against all international norms and humanity rights conventions, the National Congress Party (NCP) regime and its militias carried another massacre in which four students from Darfur at the University of Al-Gazira, Central region of Sudan on the 3rd December 2012 lost their lives tragicly. This happened in spite of the lip service paid by the ruling clique of being part of International Islamic Movement (IM) and their claim of being guardians for the values of goodness and justice on the earth; the militias and security agents of the regime of the (NCP) committed most atrocious crime in the right the four students from Darfur at University of Al-Gazira. The four students from Darfur who have been murdered were among other students in a peaceful protest in their university on December 3, 2012, when they were arrested by the National Intelligence and security Services (NISS) apparatus and were found dead and their bodies dumped in a canal near the university campus.
This heinous crime of massacre has made us feel extremely sad and angry and discontent. In the circumstances, there do not seem to be any means to stop such reprehensible crimes other than to resort to the removal of the despotic ruling entity led by the war criminal fugitive from international justice and the ICC indicted Omar Hassan Ahmed Al-Bashir and finishing his killing apparatus formed of the so-called National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) which support the continuity of the suffering of the people of Sudan. The ousting of this regime is not possible by popular protests or peaceful demonstrations as being advocated by some opposition political parties in Khartoum. This can only be achieved by the use of armed force. And the use of lethal force in self-defence to match deadly force of the enemy is justified. The NCP regime’s President, Omer Hassan al-Bashir, tended to dance on the bodies and skulls of the honourable martyrs from the Darfur region who have been killed by his army, in contrast to the attitude of his counterpart the President of the United States of America, Barak Obama in one of the most poignant moments of his presidency when he struggled to maintain his composure moved to tears while Speaking and expressing condolences to victims of the School Shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, State of Connecticut, resulting into brutal killing of twenty-seven people, 20 were school children aged between 5 to 10 years.
The corrupt tyrannical regime of the Islamist fundamentalist National Islamic Front/ National Congress Party (NIF/NCP) that has been decaying and rotting to the core for years showed its most grotesque, and obnoxious acts of brutality against the people of Sudan in Darfur. This has culminated in the assassination of Darfuri students at al-Gezira University: martyrs (RIP) three students, Mohamed Younis al-Nil, Adel Mohamed Ahmed, and Alsadiq Abdullah Yagoub, whose bodies had been found in a sewage canal near the Nishashiba campus of al-Gezira University. The body of the fourth student, Nu’man Ahmed Koreishi was also found later in the canal. Earlier, the deceased students were reported as unaccounted for following the week during protests over the al-Gezira university’s authority’s refusal to register Darfuri students unless they paid full tuition. Under the Darfur peace agreements of Aboja in 2006 and the infamous Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD) in 2010, the Darfuri students qualify for a tuition fee exemption (fee waiver) which was considered as an affirmative positive discrimination action to address the chronic historical disadvantage suffered by the marginalised people within the Sudanese educational system. What makes bad state of affairs worse is the reported obnoxious behaviour of the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Mohammed Warrag Mohammad Omar of the University of Gezira a public university located in Wad Medani, Sudan and the Dean of Student Affairs Dr. Ridwan Ahmed. They have been implicated in the tragic massacre and the deaths of the four students through allegedly colluding with the notorious National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS), militias of NCP affiliated students dubbed as Rabbata gangs. But Professor Khamis Kaju Kinda Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research was reported as saying in a press conference held at the Sudanese Media Centre (SMC) which belongs to the (NISS) of the government of (NCP) in the presence of the duo made up of the Rector (Vice-Chancellor) and the Dean of Student Affairs, that “the university had fulfilled its obligations according to acceptance law and regulations” Thus granting them indulgence for the remission of part of their implication in the deplorable circumstances that led to the tragic death of the four students and exonerating them from any wrongdoing. This is a continuation to the 31st July 2012 massacre carried out by the Sudanese police and National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) when they fired live ammunition and tear gas into mass public protests in Nyala, South Darfur. They used machine guns and artillery to shoot at protestors, with orders to shoot to kill. Twelve individuals who had participated in the protests in response to the rising cost of living have been killed; most of them were school children. Many civilians who were peacefully protesting suffered gun shot wounds and wounds caused by sharp weapons.
The Sudanese political parties disappointed the people of Sudan who have been waiting for a strongly worded statement of condemnation followed by moving their supporters in the constituencies but instead they issued a tiny lacklustre communication instead. They did not have the courage to take concrete steps to mobilise their bases – if any – to the streets for sit-ins and demonstrations demanding the punishment of those responsible for the killings of students and bring the perpetrators to justice.
Ironically, the Sudanese political opposition parties’ group that dubbed itself The National Consensus Forces (NCF) has just merely offered a prayer for the souls of the Darfuri students in absentia, apparently with no further action. What’s more ironic is that the prayers were led by the National Umma Party (NUP) leader Sadiq al-Mahdi who has been calling against the overthrowing of the pariah regime of the NCP. Al- Sadiq al-Mahdi and his son Colonel Abdelrahman, an advisor to the NCP president Omer Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir, worked tirelessly to extend the life span of the NCP regime in power. In doing so, they let down the constituents of the NUP and betrayed the Sudanese people’s revolution and sold out the pure blood of the martyrs that was shed for the sake of Sudanese people’s Revolution and in lieu of the sacrifices of the young activists who have been arbitrarily detained and incarcerated in the NISS prison dungeons.
That said it is clear that there will be no end to the ongoing Darfuri Students’ massacre as long as the NCP Regime stays in office to further its cling on power. Therefore, the NCP assassins left us no option but to use force. It is clear that peaceful means or the so-called ‘smooth change of the NCP regime’ advocated by the leader of the NUP al-Sadiq al-Mahdi had outmoded, given the arbitrary arrests, killings and torture along with deteriorating living conditions of the Sudanese people. We need to see an end to the continuing suffering of the Sudanese people in general and the citizens in the regions of Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile in particular.
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].