General ‘Ali: the urgency of civil-mind in a warring army
By Mahgoub El-Tigani
June 25, 2007 — There is popular anger and denouncement of Authority every time the State police, security, or army forces brutalize demonstrating students, poor farmers, or other protesting groups against government policies. In this year, for example, continuous massacres took place in different locations in Darfur, Upper Nile, the National Capital, and the Nile provinces. This ruthless abuse of firearms and tar gas constituted a gross violation of Sudan criminal law, military and police laws, and other censorial tools of authority.
Thus far, nothing in the news indicated, at any given point of time, that the parliamentarians of the Government of National Unity and the South Sudan Government, including the NDA and the SPLM representatives, uttered a word to condemn this craze, or appointed a non-governmental fact-finding committee to bring the State’s security spoils to a little sense of constitutionality, or at least reminded the NIF rulers with the need to apply the law with some sanity. As a result of this negligent behavior, more innocent citizens are almost daily brutalized by government armies, police, militias, and perhaps other troops.
The confrontations between the State armed forces and unarmed civilians, however, never ceased to occur for 17 consecutive years of the NIF so-called Revolution of National Salvation. Similarly, the same system of repressive rule by the single-party single-candidate presidential dictatorship of the May Revolution forced its way for 17 years all over the country by iron and fire. Earlier, the Generals’ Supreme Revolution Council that seized the political power for seven years of repressive governance exercised same confrontations.
To complete this tragic picture of governance relations, we should recall that the 19th century Egyptian-Ottoman rule in Sudan was nothing but a historical culprit agitating the violence of the central government and developing the largest State-incited enslavement ever occurring amongst the Sudanese. Although formal ways of slavery were lately prohibited by the colonial legal system, the succeeding British administrations infused the country with exploitative projects of uneven development, as well as imbalanced relations of local government between the Khartoum center and all provinces of the country.
This State administration-and-development crisis reformulated its debilitating context, whether by classical or renewed forms of servitude, in all aspects of life of the post-independence times: for example, the class-based salary structures of civil service and the military that continued to pauperize the poor majority of the population despite formal prevention by law; exactly as the imperial powers did.
The crisis was subsequently transcended to higher levels of State repression by the authoritative rule and security spoils of the NIF Muslim Brotherhood special brand of terrorism. The latter escalated the horrors of tribal feuds by the People’s Defense Force, the Janjaweed governmental highwaymen, and many other North and South ethno-regional militias. All these security spoils aimed to subdue the protesting populations to enforce a false sense of State power and unity, which signifies the same historically-based and deeply-rooted governance dilemma in the structure and functioning of the State-People’s relations, generation after generation.
Although originated in the shameless dehumanizing enslavement pursuits of the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, Mohamed Ali pasha and his slave-gold-hunt of Sudan since 1821 up to the successful “formal” eradication of his notorious rule by the Mahdiya national revolutionaries, the same pattern of authoritative rule and security spoils survived as one of the most long-enduring modalities of power seizures and wealth acquisitions by both colonial and post-independence regimes.
The persistence of Sudan’s State violence through the Center’s totalitarian rule by unconstitutional, uncensored, and non-prosecuted security operations and other heinous spoils – as a means to consolidate Authority versus civilian agency, democratic minded-ness, peaceful protests, and organizational independence – has always handicapped principled implementation of the country’s yearning to national consensus. Not only that the Center-South agreements failed to maintain the minimum standards of political stability, economic arrangements, and military cooperation, for example; but the most sophisticated Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) has expectedly passed through the ordeals of the same syndrome:
The most important provisions emphasized by the two ruling partners had been gradually focused upon centralized forms of authority, security spoils, and military prowess. The CPA most vibrant provisions of enhancing the national unity of the two parts of Sudan by social services and amenities, the promotion of human rights issues, and the building-up of democratic bridges between government units and civil society groups simply lingered behind as second-class agenda.
Exactly as occurred in the 60 years of the Egyptian-Ottoman imperialism over Sudan, the Mahdiya nationalist rule, the British colonial administration, and the post-independence governments and ruling regimes, the reinforcement of inherited systems of State violence by the centralized finances and security spoils – rather than empowerment of the civil society – was never abated. Hereby, the same pauperization policies and practices of the old regimes continued in modern times to generate popular repulsions of government policies, accompanied by lacking of confidence in state managers and the fearless confrontations between civilians and government firearms.
The latter conflicts evidenced of course in the October 1964’s and the April 1985’s popular uprisings, which overthrew the repressive dictatorships of General ‘Aboud and Marshal Nimeirie respectively; but then brought to power short-lived democratically elected governments that rushed to enjoy the same center-province relations. Eventually, the situation led to renewed civil wars and governance failures, only to perpetuate army interventions in civil rule.
Until recently, the compelling question was how to put a final stop on this vicious circle of State centrism versus the marginalization of provincial administration. But the NIF ultra-violence vis-à-vis protests of a non-succumbing opposition added a new dimension to the dilemma: namely, the resort of political leaderships to the use of extremist security measures to crush all signs of popular resistance, whether in the civilian arena or in the disciplinary barracks of the police and armed forces. Still, the thought and action of enlightened army officers to support the civilian movement for a stable system of democracy, social justice, peace, and even development for the whole Nation never ceased to occur.
The Sudan Police and Armed Forces have definitely shared the massive protests of the Sudanese Popular Movement back in the Turk-Egyptian and Mahdiya times throughout a new decade of the 21st century. These influential protests have been consistently led by the country’s non-governmental workers and farmers unions, in addition to other professional associations, since the early 1920s up to the present time. The State disciplinary forces played further a significant role in the successful overthrow of dictatorial regimes by their flat rejection to massacre the protesting civilians. In this connection, the glorious stands of ‘Ali ‘Abd al-Latif and ‘Abd al-Fadeel al-Maz (1924), Hashim al-Atta and Farouq Hamad-Allah (1964), and Osman Baloal and his gallant colleagues (1985) are always remembered.
General Fathi Ahmed ‘Ali, the legitimate Commander-in-Chief of the Sudanese Armed Forces, who had been deposed by the NIF military coup in June 1989, exemplified a new hope of developing civil-mindedness in the disciplinary forces of the State to help: 1) stop military intrusions in civilian rule; 2) democratize the military as a constitutional institution; and 3) support the process of peace and healthy international relations between Sudan and the external world.
To stop military intrusions in civilian rule, General ‘Ali refused to lead a military coup in 1989 to overthrow the elected government of Sadiq al-Mahdi. Instead, the General led a civilian movement inside the army that issued a serious alert to the government to speed up the process of peace by approving the Sudanese Peace Agreement with the SPLM/A. The consequence of the General’s move was that a stronger government of national unity was created by Prime Minister al-Mahdi and the participant parties, except for the NIF which had been planning even before that time to destroy democratic rule, as it subsequently did in June 1989.
General ‘Ali’s term of office in the General Command of the Armed Forces, prior to the NIF coup, was intensively utilized to establish consistent constitutional relations between the general command of the army and the political leadership of the State. The General was gravely concerned for the deteriorating army-security status under Nimeiri’s rule, which required under constitutionality of democratic government that the State Security Department, then largely run by army officers, should be democratized and made to respect the political will of the Constituent Assembly, i.e., the elected parliament.
In fact, al-Mahdi should be commended for the decisions his elected government approved at that time to make of the former authoritative State Security of dictator Nimeiri a new professional Information Center unauthorized to arrest or detain, let alone exercise State violence to subdue civilian activities (as is now daily practiced by the NIF dictatorship).
Unfortunately, under immense pressure by the NIF strategic alliance with the Umma Party, the al-Mahdi elected government (1986-89) did not choose to spread the same spirit of civilian democracy in government decision making to expedite the peace process with the SPLM: the insistence of the Umma/NIF political leadership to recruit militias with State logistical support and moral recognition undermined the Army Command, which then reacted with the February1988’s ultimatum that asked the government to come to terms with the SPLM/A for the sake of peace, social justice, and national unity.
There are commentators who considered the Army Ultimatum in that particular time a destructive threat to the democratic system because it paved the way to the NIF coup. A careful reading of the text, however, reveals that the civil-minded General and his national democratic colleagues provided the best reasoning possible to end civil war, endorse and implement the Sudanese peace Agreement (including a freeze on the NIF-supported Nimeiri Shari’a Laws, besides all military pacts by the North against the South), and remove the international isolation of the government that posited the severest threat to the Nation’s interests, prosperity, and unity.
Today, 17 years after the Armed Forces Ultimatum to the political leadership of Sudan to restructure both internal and external policies in the favor of the permanent peace and political stability, graver conditions surround the state of affairs of the country: the performance of the National Government of Unity and the South Sudan Government is at best ineffective, if not a crystallizing failure with respect to the far-sighted horizon or tangible expectations of the CPA.
A new cycle of ultra-violence erupted between the Sudanese and their governing bodies, which is daily escalated by the same syndromes of the 1960s and the 1980s: the isolation imposed on the country’s civil society groups and opposition parties; the obsessive monopoly of authority by a State ruling party; the unresolved crisis with the United Nations and the United States Government, as well as the International Community supporting the peace process at large; and the overwhelming reliance on armed police, security, and army forces to perpetuate a false sense of national competencies and international controls by a bunch of bureaucratic managers!
All these wasteful expenditures depleted the Sudan treasury and potentialities, to say nothing of the exploitative un-principled financial deals and arms’ sales with China and Russia in support of the ruling regime’s violence versus the protesting people of Darfur and the Kajbar Dam.
The NIF Brotherhood Government does not listen to Sudanese advisement on governance affairs, including sound proposals by the NDA/SPLM members of the National Council that has been regrettably placed under the sole control of the NIF Congress Party by the CPA. Still, the South Sudan Government might listen to advices: GOSS better start civilizing the huge army and militias incorporated in the South (which spends almost 60 percent of the GOSS budget). This means that all salaried personnel of the SPLA and its militias, irrespective of rank, should provide some kind of regular agricultural and other civil services at the same time they might be in active service or on reserve.
It is well-known that the late Dr. John Garang, himself an academic expert in agricultural development, had been seriously concerned about the feasibility of implementing such strategies with a view to boost the agricultural and animal husbandry foundation of the South, instead of orienting all government programs to the oil or minerals sector. The consideration of such advices, however, is left to the GOSS policy makers who are equally invited to accommodate non-SPLM/A southerners and other expertise in the South development.
There is not any easy way to overcome the crisis of the Khartoum’s Central Government, nonetheless. In fact, several contradictions surfaced lately in the scene, only to complicate the situation: for one, the Sudanese State is not run any more by a National Center, that is to say a government controlled by national parties accountable to a Sudanese political constituency. This is simply true because the NIF National Congress Party is not a national organization; the NIF political constituency and decision-making ability is an organic part of the International Brotherhood Foundation, a global entity that supports with men, ideology, and finance all its member groups in the world, including political parties, and economic firms, as well as the governance bodies of the NIF ruling regime in Sudan.
This Foundation is closely monitored and supported by Iran. The Sudanese remember, for example, the protection announcements of Rafsanjani since the early 1990s about the Islamic Republic of Sudan, irrespective of the country’s struggle to remove the NIF rule.
Second, the inexperienced, reckless, and unacceptable security spoils of the NIF rulers to frustrate the Sudanese popular movement and civil society on a permanent basis have been fully transferred to the international arena: since they seized political power in June 1989, years before the escalation of the Darfur Crisis in the 2000s, the president of the State with all his party specialists and foreign affairs’ experts has been engaged in a whirlpool of ill-relations with the United Nations, the US superpower, and the other concerned parties with the country’s democracy and peace.
In his management of this wasteful policy, the president and his aides exhibited a dangerous show of security parades, including highly calculated short-term anti-terrorism collaboration with external powers. Internally, however, the self-proclaimed anti-terrorist NIF leaders pursue synonymously intensive acts of terrorism against their own fellow citizens. For sure, the Sudanese appreciate the need to combat terrorism by the regional and international powers; and yet, being themselves victims of the NIF terrorist rule, they certainly maintain little confidence in the kind of information that the spoiled system of the hypocritical NIF State Security conveys to the concerned parties in or outside Sudan about security affairs.
The updated record of the NIF political and security leadership is self-explanatory: the earlier involvement of the State-financed Islamic Arab Popular Conference in acts of terrorism with Ben Laden and his groups against several Arab and African States in the early 1990s; the attempt on the life of President Hosni Mubarak in the mid 1990s; and the most recent recurring assaults by the Sudanese Armed Forces and militias over the border against Chad and Central Africa within the unconstitutional abuses of Authority against Darfur and the other Northern provinces.
Despite this gloomy portrayal, the egalitarian structure of the Sudanese communities and the confrontational nature of their fearless members, of whom the peaceful Southerners, Darfurians, Beja, Manasir, and most recently Nubians continue to challenge the NIF State’s hegemony, despite dear losses in lives and property, will always struggle to overthrow repressive regimes. Moreover, the people’s willpower will never cease to motivate noble army and police officers to stand by the side of people against the State injustices at some point, as they did in the October and April uprisings with similar regimes and situations.
There is little hope that the existing NIF power-thirst rulers would peacefully give way to a democratically-elected regime in a year or so. They have already entrenched, in the absence of internal and external censor, different kinds of armament, militias, security groups and People’s Defense Forces to stay in authority. They also receive sufficient arms from China and Russia.
Besides the hemming hostilities over the regime in every village of Sudan, the city streets have been roaming with thousands of retired army officers and other former members of the police since they were purged by the NIF coup in June 1989 and the aftermath. Still, more members of these forces are almost daily dismissed, only to join the army of the unemployed colleagues. Most of the purged officers are experienced calibers that have been technically trained in army, police, and other disciplinary affairs and security matters. But the government refused to reinstate them or to compensate them fairly.
Many of this retired personnel have been earlier trained by General ‘Ali and his legitimate commanders for long years to respect constitutionality of the country (which is represented nowadays by the Naivasha Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the Interim Constitution). They were equally taught to respect civilian rule and to honor regional and international relations. What role those taught by the General would be prepared to play to end the agonies of their country folks, without seizing power for their own ranks, as the Democratic General always dreamt, remains to be seen.
* The author is a member of the Sudanese Writers’ Union. He can be reached at [email protected]