The state of spy agency in Sudan
By Steve Paterno
September 16, 2007 — The status of espionage between Khartoum and the Southern Sudan government varies considerably with Khartoum having much improved espionage capabilities while the South is virtually decapitated. To put it into clearer perspective, even though Khartoum and the South are known as Sudan under the definition of colonial disarrangement of nation state, the two are enemies to each other. They are not only fighting one another but spying on each other. Khartoum’s espionage activities of late are already showing its negative toll on the South.
Khartoum espionage apparatus have witnessed a gradual but yet an impressive evolution from employing simply unprofessional amateur intelligent officers who focus on loyalty to personalities into a shift of employing a more sophisticated and educated professionals who are more loyal to the cause than the personality cult. This evolution is not only witnessed at the national level but internationally.
Today, Khartoum is far more important than any African country on the international intelligence stage due to the significant intelligence role it plays in the war against global terrorism. After the Islamic terrorist hit the U.S. on 2001, ironically, Sudan which the US placed in the list of terrorist sponsoring States, suddenly found itself working hand in hand with a surprising ally, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), arguably the best spy agency in the world. The infamous chief of Sudan national security, Saleh Gosh who is notoriously known for human rights violations including war crimes became Washington and London darling. The CIA has to arrange a special and private expensive aircraft to fly Gosh to Langley for a tea and coffee, served the Sudanese way. In its part, London pays blind eye to the international outcry of sanctioning Gosh. London can sneak Gosh into the country whenever Gosh is in need of shopping for items such as a pair of glasses from London glamorous shopping centers. Of course, the pretext is as always that Gosh is in need of urgent medical attention, therefore, must be transported to London for treatment, even though secretly . Gosh was believed to have been responsible for Osama Bin Laden security when he was in Sudan before the Al Qaida chief departed for Afghanistan
Gosh and his agency in Khartoum continues to remain instrumental as both Washington and London consult them. Among Gosh’s outstanding performance: he had captured, detained and handed over terrorist operatives from Sudan to either the West or other Arab countries. He disrupts terrorist activities in Sudan. He provides crucial lists of terrorist operatives to the West and countries concerned. His agency continues to monitor and track terrorists and their activities in Iraq. The agency plays crucial role in dealing away with the Islamic fundamentalist in Somalia. The Khartoum intelligence apparatus also manages to fill the Khartoum missions abroad with its operatives who always play instrumental role in not only sustaining Khartoum good image abroad but dealing with its enemies. The list is impressive and it can go on and on, but what it means is that Khartoum is very significant as far as intelligence is concerned at international level.
Not surprisingly, the CIA is building its biggest operation center in Sudan, intended for monitoring activities in East Africa. The CIA operation center in Sudan is said to be the biggest spy operation center in the region. The facility, which is said to be under construction, will be equipped with all the necessary espionage equipment and will house the largest CIA operatives in the region. Just in the recent days, Khartoum minister of defense, Lt-Gen Abdel-Rahim Mohamed Hussein, bragged in public due to the fact that Khartoum has an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with aerial surveillance capabilities. And that the UAV only needed a technology of mounting a missile on it. With such revelation, one wonders whether the minister of defense is referring to the CIA’s UAV, which Khartoum can take advantage of sharing since the two are partners on intelligence gathering and sharing. Khartoum is also believed to have numerous intelligent and military co-operations with Arab and Islamic countries, former Soviet Union countries and China, which can help Khartoum along with such capabilities of UAV aerial surveillance.
On the domestic front, Khartoum spying capabilities evolved well too. Its intelligent agency has the ability to routinely infiltrate Southern Sudan government. According to a Southern Sudan minister, the minutes of Southern Sudan council of ministers proceedings find themselves in Khartoum before they leave the Council Meeting Hall. Khartoum capability in monitoring military activities in the South is equally impressive. Whilst members of Sudan People Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) would complain of the presence of Khartoum armed forces in the South, Khartoum on the other hand provides statistics in form of figures and numbers as well as locations of the presence of SPLA in the Northern regions. Yet, Khartoum maintained armed groups and sleeping cells in the South. Not only that, Khartoum is more daring to the point that it tracks the SPLA movements in the Northern regions and detains them if need be. Recent incidents of detaining SPLA soldiers in the North can attest to that fact. Most impressively, Khartoum employs strategic analysis in its intelligence operations in dealing with its enemies both domestic and international and that pretty much contributes into its long term and short term successes. It double-crosses the international community and US in particular in its crafty dealings.
Traditionally, Khartoum intelligence agency evolved as a result of internal opposition to the government in power. In those instances, the government in power always employs loyal intelligent officers who are there just to maintain the status-quo and once the government is overthrown, they disappear with that government, as was the case of the dreaded State Security agents of Numayri’s regime. One primary responsibility of these agents is following around their targeted individuals and eventually implicating their victims with no regards for evidence. These agents are the ones responsible for torture, and in most cases, their victims die as a result of torture not because they intend to kill them but because of their poor judgments. They are the ones who terrorized the locals including their own friends and relative also due to their poor judgments. This was and is still the crux of the problem of lower quality of intelligence, because most of those intelligent officers are opportunists who for the most part are brained washed and wrongly indoctrinated. A good number are uneducated or school dropouts who could not survive the rigorous school work but can find comfort running the streets. Particularly, they are rather dump individuals who compensate their lack of intelligence with the survival skills.
Sadly though, this is the very system of intelligence with all its defects that the Southern Sudanese inherited through the SPLM/A. Salva Kiir, the SPLM/A chief of security since day one, is currently the president of South Sudan and vice president of Sudan. It is worth mentioning that Salva Kiir presided over SPLM/A security agency that showed to it innocent South Sudanese leaders tortured to death, imprisoned, exiled, and intimidated. Thus, it created a system within SPLM/A where loyalty is not anymore to the movement or the cause, but to the individuals. It is also the very system that decimated the structural system within SPLM/A. What it created in replacing structural system is individual camps manned by commanders who tend to act more less independently and suspicious of one another. In the ideal army, the soldiers pride is based on the distinction of their units where, for example, the artillery units boast about their firepower; the infantry show off because of their bravery; the tank units don’t stop bragging of their mobility and firepower; the air force boast of their adrenaline with speed; the navy show off their adoptability skills, and so forth.
However, within SPLM/A soldiers, it is a quite different story, because they take pride along their commanders and act like their bodyguards. Speaking of bodyguards, they are not just handful per a commander but hundreds of them situated allover the camps or the headquarters of the commanders. They simply refer to it as re’asa, meaning in the camp of. Those in the camp of Cdr. John Garang, the commander in chief of SPLM/A, always privileged themselves by being the bodyguards of C-in-C. It is not a surprise to know that many top SPLM/A officials today have been in the camps of Cdr. John Garang as bodyguards, errands or intelligent officers. Those SPLM/A soldiers who are in the camp of Salva Kiir, the chief of security pride themselves by way of intimidating others as security and intelligent officers. Those in the camps of responsible combatants/commanders show off to others with their military gears as the best dressed and equipped soldiers; and there the SPLM/A exist in such fragmented and defunct system.
Even though the South inherited a defunct intelligent and security system through SPL/A, it still has great opportunity to redeem itself. The South stands better opportunity than Khartoum to compete on international level as far as intelligent gathering and sharing is concerned with other nations. For one, the South is not considered as an enemy of any nation, therefore, making gathering and sharing of intelligent information very easy with all the nations, which it deemed necessary to deal with. Secondly, the South has the capacity that can capitalize by spying on Khartoum. At the moment, per the comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) deal, the SPLM/A suppose to participate within Khartoum intelligent systems where they can be able to penetrate even deeper in the secrets of Khartoum. Another area of opportunity for the Southern Sudanese to capitalize on is through Khartoum Foreign Service where Southerners are participant in greater and even top levels such as directors and ambassadors. Of course, this can only be accomplished by overhauling the entire intelligent system in the South. The reform should begin by establishing an Intelligent Agency whose head must be answerable to the South Sudan people through its Legislative Assembly as oppose to individuals. Such an agency must emphasize recruitment of capable and competent new generation of intelligent analyst cadres and professional training to replace the current groups dominated by errand boys who survive by loyalty to individuals not nation and know only how to intimidate the populace. Otherwise, Khartoum is giving the South a real bloody nose in this field.
*Steve Paterno is a Sudanese residing in the U.S.A and the author of the upcoming book, The Rev. Fr. Saturnino Lohure: A Roman Catholic Priest Turned Rebel, The South Sudan Experience. He can be reached at [email protected]