Facts and lies about the 25 October Coup in Sudan
by Khalid Mukhtar Salim
[email protected]
“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
Winston Churchill
A Planless Coup
Sudan’s October 25, 2021 coup led to the dissolution of a reliable civilian government to run the country. The effect of its removal was exacerbated by the inability of the putschists to form a government or cabinet capable of managing national affairs. Many in the military component, led by Lt General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, seek to justify this failure under the excuse that they are seeking national consensus. Ironically; they carried out a military coup on October 25, under the pretext of a lack of comprehensive representation. Something they failed to achieve after the coup. Instead, they plunged the country into a cycle of economic and social crises, not to mention the dozens of martyrs and wounded who fell as a result of the excessive use of force.
The truth is that they tried several times to appoint a cabinet and a prime minister. A number of names were publicly circulated since the first day of the coup. Many people were contacted and some of them have agreed, either with some nominal conditions or snapping up for the position without any. But the reason for the putschists’ failure to appoint any of them was an intrinsic one; the inability of the coup partners to agree on the formation of the cabinet.
No one should be deceived by the justifications of the coup leaders for the crime they committed on October 25. Coups are not justifiable by anything and they are criminal offences. The claims about the impact of the civilian political strife and conflicts between civilians, and the preferred justification being marketed by the putschists and their messengers in the African Union; particularly the AU envoy (Mohamed el-Hacen Ould Lebatt), who is being widely nicknamed as the Merchant of Venice in the Sudanese political circles, to the international community and the United Nations about the lack of agreement and divisions among civilians, are nothing but a Bloody Shirt campaign orchestrated by those who want to create a new dictatorship in Sudan. Those who are buying and spreading it in the circles of the international community are nothing but the prophets of totalitarianism and dictatorship in the 21st century.
Who is Who in the making of the Coup
The military putschists invested in creating a controlled political alliance to be their agent in creating the image of an illusive division among civilians. The alliance of the civilian putschists imitated the same name of the original alliance by calling itself the Forces of Freedom and Change – the National Charter. It consisted of different actors who seek political power and accumulation of wealth as the only objectives of the transition in Sudan. It is an alliance of those who view Sudan’s transition as replacing the kleptocratic Islamist elite that ruled through the National Congress Party, with a new kleptocracy that continues to treasure the country’s wealth and plunder it for its own benefit. Ethnic and regional pretexts are being disingenuously and excessively used in the justification of this. But what is in a name? That which we call corruption by any other name would smell as foul.
Some of those forming the pro-coup coalition are political aspirants who were bribed with wealthy government ranks and positions in the army owned companies – such as Mubarak Ardol, director of the state company for the management of mineral resources, which controls the extraction and export of gold, and Ali Askouri, who was granted the membership of the board of directors of the Defence Industrial System, in addition to appointing him as financial director of the Zadna Company, a huge military agricultural project that puts its hand on millions of acres of fertile land. Both men broke away from SPLM for reasons related to their personal ambitions before the signing of the Juba Peace Agreement. Askouri eagerly demanded that the SPLM put his nomination as governor of River Nile State, while Ardol rejected the SPLM’s delay in engaging in the power-sharing agreement in 2019 and its insistence – with the rest of the Revolutionary Front – on having the separate track of the Juba peace negotiations, which delayed its accession to the transitional government until October 2020. When the two men did not achieve what they wanted, they broke away from SPLM in late 2019 and early 2020 and began contacts with the military component, which did not hesitate to pressure placing them in government positions. In 2021, they formed with direct support from Military Intelligence what came to be known as the Democratic Alliance for Social Justice just a few months prior to the coup.
Moreover, the Military Intelligence did not forget to use its previous products, particularly Tamazuj movement. This movement is composed of a group of northern Sudanese mercenaries who engaged in the civil war in South Sudan. As part of Juba’s mediation of the JPA and Khartoum’s mediation of the peace in South Sudan, they got attached to the JPA to have security arrangements conducted within a period that does not exceed one year, as per the text of the agreement. However, since the signing of the JPA, the Military Intelligence provided Tamazuj with significant financial and logistical support to expand and strengthen its ranks. Tamazuj went into an extensive recruitment campaign over the first half of 2021 which led to a massive increase in its forces. MI’s original plan was to use Tamazuj as a proxy tool in confronting RSF, but with the changing political dynamics, it was given a more urgent political task. On the other hand, Tamazuj seeks desperately to legitimise its political presence and its existence beyond the one-year JPA arrangement. This engagement on the pro-coup alliance does not only grant it this but also gives Tamazuj the civilian identity it thirsts and needs to justify its long-term political existence.
Several one-man political entities from the ranks of the revolutionary front were also part of the civilian putschists allience. Altoum Hago who defected from the Democratic Unionist Party and claimed to be heading a non-existing faction of the DUP that joined the Revolutionary Front prior to the revolution. He also signed the burlesque Central Track agreement of the JPA, Muhammed Sayed Ahmed Sirelkhatm (Al-Jakoumi), a member of the Revolutionary Front and the innovator of the not serious Northern track of the JPA, and Alamin Daoud of the Popular Front for Liberation and Justice that signed the Eastern track of the JPA. Ironically, but understandably due to the opportunist nature of this alliance, The pro-coup civilian alliance also included the tribal leader Nazir Turk, who has been calling for the abolition of the JPA Eastern track to the extent that he actually closed the main and only seaport of the country in the preparation for the coup. Their motives were very clear. To obtain a share of the power cake that the unrealistic and unimplementable farcical tracks of the Juba Peace Agreement did not provide for them, so they resorted to engaging in support of the coup to grab it.
There are only two components of the coup-supporting coalition that can be taken seriously; the Sudan Liberation Movement, the leadership of Minni Minnawi, and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the leadership of Gibril Ibrahim. Both movements are signatories to the Darfur track of the Juba Peace Agreement and both are far from being described as inclusive. Both movements are composed of one tribe: the Zaghawa tribe and both have close ties to the Chadian government. They jointly met with the commander of RSF, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti) in Chad in early 2019. The meeting was arranged by the late Chadian President Idriss Deby, who belongs to the same Zaghawa tribe. It was reported that Minni Minawi’s insistence on assuming the position of governor of the Darfur region after the JPA, and his refusal of a seat in the Sovereign Council or any other position, was based on the advice of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki, who is another Chadian politician. Faki does not hide his political ambitions in Chad that can use Sudan support -especially in the neighbouring Darfur to achieve. On the other hand, Gebril Ibrahim and JEM were considered by many in the Revolutionary Front and the Sudanese political circles at large -Including Minnawi himself- as a trojan horse of the Islamists. This is based on the roots of the establishment of JEM that was supported and funded by the centres of political Islam and the historical pertinence of the founder and late leader of the movement Khalil Ibrahim and his brother the current chair Gebril Ibrahim to the Islamic movement and the NCP regime. Both brothers were leaders in the Islamist movement and assumed important leadership positions since the June 1989 coup that brought the Islamists to power till the early 2000s. It was common knowledge at the time that Gibril Ibrahim, the current chairperson of the Justice and Equality Movement and the Minister of Finance was the government liaison and the administrator in charge for managing Osama bin Laden’s affairs during his stay in Sudan during the 90s. This connection alone is sufficient to explain the inflammatory attack led by Jibril and followed by the rest of the coup against the Empowerment Removal Committee, whose purpose was to dismantle the centres of corruption, influence and Islamist control over the state apparatus and the economy.
The Full Recoil and the Return of the Islamists
Islamists are another factor in the equation. Recently, Almahboub Abd al-Salam, a former Islamist cadre and a long-time aide to the late Hassan al-Turabi, publicly warned the Islamists against remaking history by adopting another coup and not understanding the depth of the change made by the December 2019 revolution. He blamed those of them who donated the poisonous advice to General Al-Burhan to seize power on October 25, in a repetition of what they did on June 30, 1989. [1] However, evidence of events confirms what was narrated by Almahboub. Since last January, the coup leaders have begun releasing Islamist leaders, including Ibrahim Ghandour, chairperson of the dissolved National Congress Party, and Anas Omar, an extremist security cadre with the rank of major general in the Popular Security who has close ties with Ali Karti; the leader of the most extremist battalions among the Islamists. Karti and his battalions were connected to the assassination attempt of the former Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdouk. This also coincided with the gradual return of some Islamist elements who had taken refuge in Turkey after the victory of the revolution. Moreover, the imprisonment of ousted President Omar al-Bashir was significantly eased. Bashir was transferred, along with a number of leaders of the ousted regime, such as his deputy, Bakri Hassan Saleh, to the military hospital. Videos of Bashir wandering freely in the corridors of the hospital, visiting patients and receiving guests were heavily circulated on social media. It was clear that the purpose of these videos was to send a reassurance message from the coup authority of the Islamists and raise their morale. In parallel, the leaders of the coup reappointed the Islamists to sensitive positions in the security and military institutions and the state apparatus. For example, the leader of the coup Lt General Abd-Alfatah Al-Burhan promoted, Lieutenant Colonel Mudathir Osman as his office secretary in the army headquarters. Lt Colonel Osman is the son in law of the fugitive Islamist leader Ali Karti. He served as the office manager of the last Minister of Defense and Vice President Awad Ibn Ouf during Bashir’s time. It is widely believed that Osman is sheltering Karti in his house and protecting him from arrest since the revolution. Osman could be the main coordination link between the coup leaders and the Islamists. Burhan also appointed General Abdel Nabi Al-Mahi as head of the Positive Security and General Abdelmonim Jalal as head of General Security within MI. Both are well known committed Islamists in the ranks of the Sudanese Armed Forces. Moreover, he appointed the office manager of the former NISS director Mohamed Atta and Islamist security figurehead; Husham Hussein as deputy director of the General Intelligence Service. Hussein owns Al-Mogran oil company, that participated in founding and organising the pre-coup ”palace sit-in”. Also, Hussein is very active in coordinating the suppression of the ongoing demonstrations against the coup. He was identified as the main supervisor of the Central Reserve Police in a report published by Redress in the wake of sanctioning CRP [2]. As well, the coup leaders also reappointed more than 100 Islamist diplomats to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in January of this year, who were dismissed earlier because of their appointment in violation of the rules of the civil service, which was made on the basis of their political affiliation to the Islamists during the era of Bashir. The impact of the reappointment of those diplomats who were trained during the 30 years of Bashir’s era was direct and clear. The tone of the Sudanese Foreign Ministry was immediately changed to adopt a confrontation line with the international community and resorted to the old tricks in using the African Union against the United Nations in a manner similar to what happened in the formation of the UNAMID mission in 2008 to complicate and prevent reaching any real political solution via the ongoing good offices efforts.
The putschists also continued to reverse the decisions of the Dismantling Empowerment Committee, and to return the economic assets that had been confiscated to the Islamists. This took place with the help of a judicial circuit that is formed by judges who have been themselves dismissed by the Dismantling Committee previously. Furthermore, in April, the putschists cancelled the decision to dissolve the Islamic Call Organization (MADA) [3], which had been taken in the early days of the revolution. It is a regional charitable organization headquartered in Sudan and has been operating as a cover for financing Islamist political activities and sponsoring terrorist activities since the 1980s, with an active presence in Somalia, Sudan, Niger, and other 41 African countries.
How Long Can A lie Survive?
While the return of the Islamists to the arena appears to be in contradiction with the putschists’ regional alliances, especially with the Saudi, Egyptian, and Emirati axis, it continues strongly, revealing more disintegration among the coup. Moreover, it fuels the internal contradictions and the increasing frictions between the Army on the one hand, and the Rapid Support Forces on the other. RSF fears the deep hostility of Islamists against it and Islamists continue to exploit and feed the restlessness and discontent among the army ranks over the militia’s growing military influence. confrontation strategies that were developed from early times within the Islamists-Controlled military intelligence, and whose control increased after the coup, are being revived. However, all of this proves the extent of the multiplicity of centres for decision-making in the coup, and the absence of a unified leadership of the country since the October 25 coup.
It is clear that the coup camp is made up of several actors that are not guided by any national interests or hemogenous political or ideological line. They are only united by their desire to monopolize power and rule the country to serve personal interests, and democracy appears to them only as a cosmetic slogan. In fact, this is consistent with the real causes and circumstantial motives of the October 25 coup, which attempts are made to make it forgotten and buried by claiming other pretexts, such as those being promoted by the Merchant of Venice, Lebatt. The October 25 coup took place as a result of the dispute over the approaching dates for the transition of the chairmanship of the Sovereignty Council from the military to civilian, which the military desired to avoid. Appointing a prime minister or having a government to manage the country’s affairs and solve its problems was not part of their coup plan, and that is why it has not happened so far. What the putschists only wanted was to get rid of those annoying people who reminded them of the political and constitutional obligations of the transitional period, without thinking about any other consequences of their actions. The coup partners lie insistently about their lack of ambitions to rule. The October 25 coup alone exposes this lie, no matter how hard Shylock tries to obliterate it under the guise of uniting divided civilians.
To solve the crisis of the coup -or any other problem for that sake- , we need to address its real reasons that led to it, not succumb to cosmetic pretexts. Anything else would be just a circular process to buy time in legitimizing the coup.
References:
[2] https://redress.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Briefing-Central-Reserve-Police.pdf