Sudan towards another Lebanon

By Justin Ambago Ramba

October 6, 2008 — Sudan is in practice a country without a national army. This situation came into the Sudanese political history when the Islamists’ of sheik Hassan El Turabi after staging their military coup d’état in June, 31st of 1989 which saw the Islamisation of everything in the country from the public service, militarisation of the youth as well as the heads of departments by sending them to the transformation jihad training camps, not even the university professors where spared.

The Sudanese national army was systematically restructured by eliminating all the top officers who were of different political background in the sense that the new devilish system was preparing themselves to plunge the whole country into the current Islam motivated political chaos.

All Sudanese military, police, public service were all turned upside down for the sake of establishing a system assumedly would retain the by then collapsing Arab Islamic political dominance in the face of the south Sudanese resistance led by SPLM/A.

Turabi-Bashir- Taha-Nefie and the company did all in their best to dehumanise the other Sudanese just to see that the people of the northern reveira region remain in power and of course intelligently using their newly version of political Islam to break the defences of the other Sudanese. Thus the entire Sudanese security organ was re-structured using officers with dubious backgrounds with their subordinates from those youth who come from the disadvantaged groups who were mainly from the black marginalized groups.

Currently the so-called Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) is in reality an army belonging to the National People’s Congress which is the in power continuation of the National Islamic Front, historical known as the Muslim Brotherhood, there is nothing national in this army as the cadres are consistently coming from Islamic fanatics from the northern regions of the Rivera( Al Shimalia).

After the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed between the SPLM/A and the ruling NCP, the expected Joint Military Unit which we were all delusional made to believe to be a future nucleus for the Sudanese national non party Army. Unfortunately both armies which actually form the Joint Military Unit are not in any way united and each is keeping its distance, an indication of political influence as both of them are political formed and indoctrinated armies programmed to antagonize each other as a natural result of the bitter wars fought between the two groups.

In South Sudan as represented by the GOSS, the army (SPLA) which is the military wing of SPLM, will find it difficult to see all the south Sudanese as equals in nationalism and their deep love for the welfare of South Sudanese if their mental set up is not separated from the umbrella political institution. SPLA shall not automatically mean loyalty to SPLM, at least not after the CPA.

The fact that there are other political parties in the GOSS and outside it who, though are working hand in hand with the SPLM to improve the politico-socio-economic for the general populace of south Sudan, these groups still strongly believe that SPLA should distant itself from being taken hostage by the ruling SPLM party and should transform itself into the national army of South Sudan which are expected to defend the national security of the people in a professional way, whenever they come under attack from the Islamic army of Omer Bashir or any other outside dangers to the people of South Sudan.

Now a new scenario is unfolding in the western region of Darfur, which we hope its political grievances should addressed and tackled before the 2009 Sudanese National Elections. But still not far from the truth, any solution to the Darfur problems will also come with a Darfur factional or united army to safe guard the to be reached agreement if it has to be no less than the SPLM/A – NCP CPA.

In Eastern Sudan, the Lions of the Eastern Valley will not as well accept to have no party military backing to reassure them that whatsoever political settlement that is reached between them and the ruling Arab cliques wouldn’t be tempered with by these greedy reverians of the Northern Sudan. The obvious is that, as late Dr Garang had put it in the SPLM/A manifesto – No military absorption which took place in the post Addis Ababa Accord of 1972 will happen again in the so called united Sudan.

Worse still is the sentiments amongst the other Arab tribes of Darfur and Kordufan, be them Rizeigat, Messriya , Kababish or other smaller Arab groups of western Sudan, as they have been used by the witty-crafty Arabs of the centre as war fuels against the negroid groups in the north–south war and currently in both Abyei and Darfur, any political settlement would obviously be seen by them as a political sell out as they were already promised the unquestionable ownership of every piece of land they conquered from the indigenous African communities. Any comprehensive peace agreement will definitely send the Arabs packing as were the case in the south-north agreement. This is also a seed of another rebellion against (the very) central government in an active and non reversible making.

Putting all above into a political equation the SPLM former senior central government minister’s analysis made him to declare the Sudan a failed state unfortunately it costed him his position in the cabinet. This article is not exhaustive of the Sudanese multi-military dilemma and a voice in the wilderness to warn any concerned citizen of what is possibly awaiting the Sudan’s artificially amalgamated people if any united Sudan becomes our ultimate fate.

As we have many different antagonizing regional armies in the country, who are largely religiously affiliated and ethnically orientated, in other words a totally non national in spirit, with their maximum loyalty to their power hungry creators, then why should we not get prepared for a minimum of four separate new nations in the near future to avoid unnecessary bloodshed in a country which has been bleeding since the day of it conception?

The author is a South Sudanese doctor living in the UK and can be reached at: [email protected].