Why we won’t talk to Sudan’s Islamo-Fascists

By Abdel-Wahid Al-Nur, The Wall Street Journal

June 18, 2008 — The international community is horrified by the situation in Darfur. While the massacres of black Africans have been documented and their perpetrators — government troops and their Arab militia — identified, the political causes are less known.

One theory popular in the Western media is that the conflict is the result of ethnic or economic rivalries that are too complex and too entrenched to solve. There lies perhaps Khartoum’s greatest misinformation success: Making the world believe that the situation is so confused that there is no cohesive opposition, and therefore no solution to the crisis.

Part of the blame for this misconception has to go to our party, the Sudan Liberation Movement. We haven’t done enough to explain the situation to the international public, simply because we decided to rely only on ourselves.

We founded the SLM in 1992 in response to the violence perpetrated by the Arab-Islamist dictatorship of Gen. Omar al-Bashir. His National Islamic Front had seized power three years earlier in a military coup and immediately engaged in a brutal jihad against the African population in South Sudan, in the Blue Nile and Nuba Mountains regions.

With men and women from all of Sudan’s ethnic and religious groups, the SLM peacefully worked against the regime to bring about a democratic, secular government that guarantees equal rights for all citizens.

But 10 years of violent persecution left us no other option than to create a military wing — the Sudan Liberation Army. We concentrated our resistance operations in Darfur, where isolated, armed groups had tried since the 1980s to protect African populations against raids by government troops and Arab militia, armed by Khartoum and Tripoli. Deprived of all external support, the SLA seized its weapons from the enemy. Our initial operations were so successful that when faced with this groundswell of freedom, Khartoum panicked and intensified its scorched-earth policy.

Over 400,000 civilians, including women and children, have been slaughtered, raped or robbed. Millions of people were chased from their land to make space for Arab settlers. By using Arab militias, the Janjaweeds, to perpetrate most of the massacres, Khartoum hoped to be able to avoid international condemnation. It was a rather transparent ploy to misrepresent the conflict as some sort of civil war beyond the regime’s control.

After years of fighting this war alone, I decided last year to come to Europe to bring the plight of Darfur to the attention of the international community, to plead for the protection of our civilian population, and to seek support. Even though many in the West are now beginning to sympathize with our struggle, I have been criticized for refusing to resume peace talks with Khartoum.

Some members of the international community apparently believe that it is possible to negotiate while being bombed. They hope our surrender will appease Khartoum and solve Sudan’s problems. But at least a dozen negotiations have taken place since 2004 without any results. We’ve signed several cease-fire agreements, only to see them violated by Khartoum.

More than anyone else, we want peace in Sudan. Nonetheless, we refuse to abandon our ideals of justice, freedom and equal rights for all. Some Western “realists” believe rather cynically that the “stability” Khartoum could bring about by force is preferable to our continued fight for freedom. What these people are really saying is that democracy is a Western prerogative and that we Sudanese should feel grateful for merely being allowed to live.

We beg to differ. Before any negotiations can commence, we need security. The first stage must be to disarm the Janjaweeds, stop the massacres and rapes of civilians, and repel the settlers. Furthermore, we need a clear United Nations mandate for the combined U.N.-African Union peacekeeping operation, whose deployment has been repeatedly postponed.

Similarly, we resist international pressure to participate in the 2009 elections. These elections were planned under the terms of a peace agreement Khartoum signed in 2005 with our friends of the South’s Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement/Army. The vote is supposed to lead to a referendum in 2011 on self-determination for the South.

I’m afraid these elections are nothing but a charade designed to confuse the international community. How can we believe that these elections will be free and fair? How can those displaced people possibly cast a democratic vote when they still linger in refugee camps and have to fear the Janajaweed? Who will be allowed to run for office?

Let’s not forget that this Islamist regime came to power in a military coup after a disastrous election defeat. Given the horrendous crimes it has committed, Khartoum knows it would lose any free contest at the ballot box. It would therefore never allow fair elections. Despite all its goodwill, the international community is incapable of guaranteeing anything even resembling free elections in Sudan. We will not lend legitimacy to these sham elections.

It is inconceivable that the racist, Islamo-fascist regime in Khartoum can reform itself. It must disappear. Did the world ever attempt to “reform” the Nazi regime?

We must prevail to preserve the unity of Sudan. In a truly democratic and secular Sudan, neither the South, nor Darfur, nor any other region would be tempted to secede. We must prevail to eliminate the presence of terrorist groups, such as al Qaeda and Hamas, which are guests of the regime in Khartoum. We must prevail to stabilize the region and spread democracy.

We must prevail to help Sudan return to its natural, legitimate geopolitical place — which is the African continent and not the Arab or Muslim world. At the same time, we must forge new alliances, no longer based upon race or religion, but upon shared values of freedom and democracy. This is why we opened a representative office in Israel last February.

We know we can prevail over a regime which, despite its appearances, is weak. We are well-organized and increasingly popular throughout the country. With the help of those who share our values and cherish freedom, victory is within reach.

Mr. al-Nur is chairman of the the Sudan Liberation Movement.