Absent diplomacy, moving opposition, and aging bureaucrats
By Magoub El-Tigani
October 1, 2006 — These past weeks, the Sudanese council of ministers asked the African Union to remove forces from Darfur by the end of September 2006 – a surprising step many commentators predicted would unnecessarily worsen the government’s troubles with the UN Security Council that decided unanimously to replace the ill-equipped AU forces with effective UN troops.
Suppressed by the aging regime, while still downplayed by the international decision-makers, the Sudanese opposition gatherings in Khartoum and the other cities of Sudan, however, have been strongly rallying in support of the Security Council’s resolutions vis-à-vis the Government of National Unity (GONU).
“We hope the international troops would work in the region with a clear mandate, specific locations, and strict agenda,” said al-Sadiq al-Mahadi, leader of the Umma Party, one of the largest constituencies of the Sudanese democratic arena in a political forum accommodating a broad alliance of opposition parties and civil society groups.
A few of the opposition groups, however, are participants in the Naivasha-based Government of National Unity (GONU) that has been failing the comprehensive peace agreement, being fully controlled by the al-Bashir-led Muslim Brotherhood NIF/Congress party.
In 17 years of the most repressive policies and authoritative practices, the NIF-controlled military government of President al-Bashir succeeded in one thing that, nevertheless, has been increasingly backfiring to the detriment and continuous failures of the Naivasha and other peace agreements:
The tight security surveillance of the Sudanese militant democracies (the Umma, DUP, Communists, and others) that the ruling bureaucrats pursued with a view to transcend the entrenched powers and influences of these democratic groups unto the hands of the International Muslim Brotherhood power structures and diverse plans in and outside Sudan.
Most recently, the UN insistence on a principled way to end the crisis of Darfur through the effective implementation of peace agreements has been strongly supported by western powers, in addition to the African Union and the Arab League.
What is equally clear, however, is that the pursuance of the unresolved crisis from the part of the ruling regime of Sudan exhibited a legacy of unprincipled pragmatic striving for power rather than any logical compliance with the national and international humanitarian agenda of Darfur.
In practical terms, the AU political and logistical shortcomings still fare well, compared to the Arab League lip-service polemics-politics, which hardly involved any material support to the GOS miscalculated confrontation with the Sudanese national agenda and the supportive International Will.
Both AU and the AL stand out as defaulting partners in the conflict-resolution of the Arab-African State of Sudan, a country whose president assumes top offices in both regional entities. So much, however, remains to be seen from the part of a key forgotten player, the Sudanese Democratic Opposition.
On his return from Havana in a conference led by regional US foes (Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran) that leaves open lots of questions about a right-wing International Brotherhood “possible deal” with the left-wing leaders of latin America, the Sudanese President reiterated rejection of the high-level security cooperation the UN Security Council Resolution 1706 stipulated with GOS and the Darfur rebels on Darfur.
President al-Bashir emphasized his government “would find the support it needs from trade with non-Western nations.” This defiant statement affirmed the 17-year ruler’s nostalgic thinking, recalling his regime’s decade of regional and international isolation (1989-2005).
The extremist-right ally of the international leftist movement, however, should have cared to place the agenda of his own war-trodden nation before the agenda of warring with the very powers that offered his anti-democratic tyranny a new life by the Naivasha agreements to salvage the South from the brutalities his NIF military junta pursued versus the people of South Sudan, only for the disaster of the whole country.
In the meantime, the Sudan and the world have considerably changed: the world has been deeply shaken by the persistence of the GOS tyranny and genocidal war against the innocent people of Darfur.
Equally importantly, the bulk of the Sudanese parties and civil society associations whom al-Bashir suppressed harshly all over his rule by the Muslim Brotherhood authoritative governance, the National Islamic Front/Congress Party and its chaotic militias, were once again stepping in full length to defy the aging rule in city streets.
The increasing defiance of the ruling junta is a tradition previously experienced against similar tyrannies in Sudan throughout the 20th century, long years before the East European Solidarity movements erupted versus the Soviet Union.
Compared to the relative negligence of the UN and the International Community to the GOS genocidal war against the people of South Sudan, one which victimized millions of citizens and devastated the South under the direct command of the Bashir rule, the Darfur crisis was met with clearer vigilance and a stronger opposition from the part of the Sudanese people and the International Community, most notably the UN Secretary-General, the UN Security Council, the US Government, and the European Union.
It is true nowadays that the European Union has been showing more flexibility towards the beleaguered president and his isolated regime. Still, there is not any reason to believe that the EU is less determined than the People of Sudan, the UN, the AU, or the US Government about the urgent need for a principled enforcement of the UN resolutions that aim to establish stable peace and humanitarian support efficiently in Darfur.
Most recently, the President of France and the Prime Minister of Britain stressed the need to pursue diplomatic enforcement of the UN resolutions with the GOS; still, the possibilities of further effective economic and diplomatic sanctions were not overruled.
What is equally important, however, is the role to be played in the conflict-resolution of the Darfur/Sudan’s crisis by the long-forgotten majority of the Sudanese people, the democratic opposition of Sudan.
THE OPPOSITION ROLE
The UN, AU, AL, EU, and US pressures upon the Bashir aging rule to collaborate in a principled way with international resolutions would not suffice to end the Darfur crisis without full, active, and highly internationally recognizable role by the Sudanese people, civil society and political parties.
The breadth, depth, and length of the Sudanese democratic opposition fares well compared with the situation of opposition groups in most Arab and African states.
Backed with a history of intensive power sharing, as well as power striving with the coup-minded Sudanese Armed Forces, the democratic opposition of Sudan cannot be ignored any more in the world’s ongoing efforts to enforce the rule of law in Darfur.
The international strategies that envisioned an expedient efficient quick fix to the North-South civil war by bilateral peace agreements between the GOS and the SPLM/A were unnecessarily placed under an ordeal of national testability by the wrongful exclusion of the largest democratic constituencies (basically the Umma Party, the Democratic Unionist Party, the trades unions and professional associations, and the other opposition groups) from the peace process and its final product.
The adherence of the same short-lived strategies in the Abuja peace agreements on Darfur exhausted dear time that should have been effectively invested by the UN/AU and the other mediators to bring to the table the Sudanese democratic constituencies that comprise by all decent measures the sole possible real guarantee to accomplish the desirable implementation of the peace, political stability, and development of Darfur.
The UN Security Council, the AU, the AL, and the world powers concerned with the political and humanitarian crisis of the region should take a serious pause, reconsider the strategies thus far processed, and work closely by a clear UN Mandate with the Sudanese democratic parties and civil society groups side-by-side with the Darfur rebel groups and the government to bring the isolationist regime to full cooperation with the UN resolutions.
Time is now for the world strategies to hear the voice of the voiceless that has been deprived of the means of utilizing State powers and media campaigns, or exercising the international legitimacy that the Government of Sudan and its self-imposed Naivasha-aging bureaucrats alone have been enjoying over 17 consecutive years of tyrannous rule.
The suppressed opposition, nonetheless, is the real potential for a determining say in the Darfur crisis, as well as the country’s fate.
* The author is a member of the Sudanese Writers’ Union. He can be reached at [email protected].