Who is Whose Sedition, Mr. President?!

By Mahgoub El-Tigani

August 3, 2005 — The address by the President of the Republic Mr. Omer Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir today (August 3rd) for the Sudanese people to “stay united, patient, and calm to stop [an alarming] sedition” is politically ineffective.

The president decided to establish: 1) a national committee in collaboration with the SPLM to investigate the air crash; 2) a committee to assess the losses of the most recent riots; and 3) a directive to some states to take firm security and administrative measures to secure the tranquility of people and the safety of property.

Without firm, daring, responsible, and immediate democratic civil and political steps by the President to end his party’s monopoly of political power, rather than the failing negotiations with the opposition groups for a meager 14 percent power representation vis-à-vis his party’s 52 percent control, let alone any additional security measures “in some states” or some renewed “threats” to the Sudanese “to be careful what they write or say,” as he insistently emphasized in his address today – a real “sedition” might unfortunately overshadow the whole situation sooner or later on.

The President’s decision to conduct investigation of the air crash of the late First Vice President Dr. John Garang de Mabior antagonized the clear demand by many Sudanese political groups to have an internationally-based investigation in this important matter. In fact, Mr. Pagan Amum, a leading member of the government’s peace partner, the SPLM, said, “the group hoped the United Nations, Uganda, Kenya, the United States, and Britain would take part in the probe” (Sudan Tribune: August 3rd).

The President’s unfortunate decision would certainly re-ignite the national and international concerns for his earlier refusal to collaborate with the International Criminal Court and the other United Nations decisions on Darfur.

Correctly and timely, President Museveni of Uganda has already “decided to create a panel of three experts to look into this crash. We have also approached a certain foreign government to rule out any form of sabotage or terrorism,” as announced by Kampala on August 1st, 2005).

On another level, the United Nations Security Council has timely issued a statement asking for firm commitment to the peace and order of the country. It goes without saying, international collaboration in the investigation of the air crash, which took place in between international borders, is an unquestionable necessity that goes beyond the president’s decision to incarcerate the investigation only within his ruling party “in cooperation with the SPLM.”

Besides the global sorrow for the great loss of John Garang, as a great African leader, and the grave concerns for the need to emphasize his commitment to the Neivasha Comprehensive Peace Agreement by both his party and the Sudan Government, the sudden death of the distinguished de Mabior has certainly affected a great population in the North.

For 2-decades or more of a principled political partnership between his party, the SPLM, and the broad secular opposition, many Sudanese secularists and democrats considered the late Garang a strong symbol of secular democracy for the whole Sudan.

The left-wing groups and the secular democratic associations had faithfully hoped that Garang’s ascendancy to the key powerful executive and political position of the First Vice President of the NIF-controlled governance would make a real difference in the anti-democratic authoritative State of Sudan with the promising enabled powers of Dr. Garang as a top figure in the State Presidency.

Moreover, a large Northerner Muslim population expressed deep sorrow for the death of Dr. Garang. For one, the Khatmiya Guide, Mohamed Osman al-Merghani, who is also the Chairperson of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) besides the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and a close political partner of the SPLM, mourned Garang as “Our Path’s Comrade and Our Struggle’s Partner.”

The most heartfelt and deepest sorrow, however, has obviously emanated from the Southern Sudanese in and outside the country for whom the late SPLM leader was a popular advocate of their human dignity and a vibrant hope to rebuild the devastated South into a modern polity. The thousands of people who roamed the streets, southerners and northerners – as evidenced in many captions by the Jazeera T.V. coverage on the spot these past days – were naturally trying to show up a decent farewell to their beloved leader via peaceful demonstrations, before they were harshly crushed by government troops in accordance with many reports.

It is further understandable that the regrettable violence in the Khartoum riots has aroused deep concerns for the safety of millions of the displaced southerners who had earlier made a legendary reception to Dr. John Garang on his return to Khartoum on the 9th of July, 2005, accompanied by a massive march of his northerner supporters. The Sudan T.V., however, did not report fully this historic event at the time.

A number of earlier fatawi (religious decisions) by the government-supporter the Sudan ?Ulama outlawed in offensive terms any civil collaboration with the SPLM. The unchecked control of thousands of mosques all over the capital, in addition to many universities and other school campuses by the ruling party’s armed groups (that recently attacked the Gezira University after a dreadful destruction of the Ahliya University), has been sending alarming signals of a “sedition” of the sort that the president cautioned about in his address to the Nation today.

An immediate lesson is that, the President of the Republic and his ruling party must act speedily, ahead of all other groups, to control the growing sedition by curbing their own government’s apparatus, media instruments, and armed groups from developing a real sedition!

Related to this, an important call on Senator Jon Corzine was submitted by a southerner Sudanese in New Jersey today. The call was widely disseminated by the Freedom Now News (August 3, 2005). The appeal reads: “I am a Sudanese American residing in the State of New Jersey. I am writing to draw your attention to the recent indiscriminate mass killing of innocent South Sudanese citizens in the suburbs of Khartoum, Sudan by Arab Muslims.”

The appeal further reads: “Though the BBC, New York Times, AP and other media have reported 36 deaths and 300 injuries on Tuesday, reports from numerous eyewitnesses indicate that Northern Sudanese Arab Muslims in the suburbs of Khartoum are slaughtering hundreds of innocent South Sudanese civilians, and that the killing is escalating. These reports also say that Muslim religious leaders, using loudspeakers inside of their mosques, are mobilizing their followers to carry out retaliatory killings on South Sudanese living in Khartoum.”

This dramatic appeal might not be accurately true. But it adds significant alarm to another factual report by the Khartoum Monitor Editor, Mr. William Ezekiel, who stated with reference to victims amongst the displaced southerner residents that: “residents reported that 47 were killed overnight in Khartoum suburb of Mamoura and 15 were killed in the district of Kalakla” (Sudan Tribune: August 3rd, 2005).

It remains to be investigated why and how such peaceful demonstrations were suddenly turned into “violent riots” in the Sudan T.V. and other media. “Who triggered the violence,” is a question for independent judicial committees to answer with concrete facts.

Still, the Sudanese authorities, in particular, and the large public, in general, are urged to pay equal attention to these reports, not only because there is a possibility that violence reactions might continue to hurt more people in Khartoum or other cities in Sudan, indiscriminately or in any selective manner; but also because the Sudanese Government has not yet acted in any effective way to ensure the lasting tranquility of all citizens, in and outside the country.

The Sudanese Government has not yet delivered daily, regular, detailed, and updated follow-up media statements on these serious tensions by the most concerned officials, the Minister of Information, the Minister of Interior, the Minister of Defense, and the Governor of Khartoum on the situation of security and peace in the capital.

In particular, the interior, the defense, and the Khartoum Governorate top officials have mobilized large armed forces that still are roaming the streets. The Governor of Khartoum, without consultation with any legislative civilian bodies, especially with respect to the vulnerable displaced population, hurried to enforce a state of emergency law by which all residents were forced to stay in paralysis, wherever they happened to be although many were injured in need of immediate medical attention! These security procedures are in need of no more “firm security measures,” as the president decided today.

The same measures have already disallowed, in practical terms, the most urgent need to mobilize active participation of the civil society groups and all political parties, together with the ruling party and the SPLM, to remedy the growing tensions to end the violence with political and civil procedures, rather than the notorious suppression by the government’s repressive policies.

The State’s media performance is also permanently disastrous: the Sudan T.V. has been showing only one side of the ongoing violence specifically that of a few citizens who repeatedly continued to condemn and to complain from unidentified wrong-doers that “committed thefts, destroyed cars, and injured people”. Some of the Sudan T.V. interviews, however, indicated insinuating remarks on ethnic groups of whom many are members of the ethnically-marked large displaced population in the Khartoum shanty towns.

Thus far, the public needs to know if any investigation has been held, with whom, where, and when, and by whom. The Sudanese public needs to know who of its citizens has been so far murdered, by whom; how many citizens have been placed in police custody or security detention, under what charges, and if any legal assistance has been offered, etc.

Daily up-dated reports are required by the Minister of Information via all available media in collaboration with civil society, political parties, and human rights groups on the steps thus far adopted by the Khartoum Government to:

· Stop religious violent and war-inciting groups, of whom many have been threatening until very recently with death penalties any citizen collaboration with the SPLM;

· Ascertain that all mosques and other places of worshipping are never used to incite violence; and

· Allow local leaders of the displaced people all around Kharoum, Omdurman, and Khartoum North to speak out in the Sudan T.V. and other media, side by side with the outspoken officials to help maintain peace and the good order.

Without such clear and responsible actions, the government twisting media and selective T.V. interviews would not help control the developing crisis.

On the political level, it is crystal clear the unwavering determination of the President and his NIF ruling party not to negotiate the establishment of an All-Sudanese National Unity Government on a flexible and realistic way with the opposition groups, especially those with large voting backgrounds, would more likely than not fuel unnecessary additional tensions in the fragile situation of the country’s peace.