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Sudan Tribune

Plural news and views on Sudan

Who is the real Sudanese President’s uncle?

By Luke Kuth Dak

October 21, 2008 — Each passing day, the Southern Sudanese people keep praying for the day when their leaders, government, parties and communities will not be subjected to ill-treatment. They are looking forward to happier days without the kind of vicious personal attacks and insults being propagated and disgorge by President Omar al-Bashir’s uncle al-Tayib Mustafa. They long for the day when such words as wahoosh (wild animals) and Kilabul al-Harraka (the dogs of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement-SPLM) will never be used to insult them.

Furthermore, on the occasions where he must mention, or say something about the founder of the SPLM, late Dr. John Garang de Mabior, he uses the terms such as (Hallik) destroyed, which is, to my knowledge, contradicts the Islamic teachings, which condemn and prohibit the disrespecting and being heartless to the deceased, even if they were your worst enemies. This in accordance with the general rule that suggests that, sins are forgiven upon one’s death.

But, loath him or love him, EL-Tayeb Mustafa, the former national television chief, the owner/editor-in-chief of the Arabic daily newspaper (al-Intibaha), the spokesman for (al-Hamdy Triangle) racist group, and President Omar al-Basher’s uncle, has proved to be one of the most, if not the powerful and the wealthiest media moguls in the entire country, of not the world at large.

For the obvious reasons, his tabloid style and heavily public funded- al-Intibaha- is the only such publication in the whole of Sudan, that is not with in reach of the strong-armed security agencies, charged with the enforcement of the harsh and brutal media code of ethics, or censorship, if you will.

Unless one is out rightly ignorant, there is all the evidence that Mr. Mustafa is not acting alone, in his wanton attacks against Southern Sudanese leadership and people. If he has the goodwill, his nephew- the embattled President of Sudan, Omar al-Basher, can end this in an instance. In addition, most Sudanese people- if not all- believe that, no force could have removed him from his lucrative prestigious job, as the national televising chief.

His departure was in fact, a well-thought out plan, by the so-called Islamic National Front’s regime, to allow him to smear the Southern leaders, and to go after the President’s adversaries and opponents in the North. This makes a lot of sense, given the fact of the matter that, Mr. Mustafa began his dirty campaign right off the bat. After the signing of the comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), in 2005, he wasted no time to attack the SPLM leadership and Dr. John Garang de Mabior, personality. He did not even allow the SPLM leaders a fair chance of establishing a record that could be criticized or challenged.

Hence, I have nothing against Southern leaders being criticized. As a matter of fact, as Sen. Hilary Clinton once said,” It comes with the territory.” Criticism is a normal practice in all countries of the world. But what I do have a problem with, however, is that the extremists of the likes of al-Tayeb Mustafa, Mohamed Mandour al-Mahedi, Nafia Ali Nafi, Kamal Hassan Bakeit, Al-Rashid Abdel-Rahim and Hassan Sati, accuse everybody of corruption, while they avert their eyes when it comes to the well-documented systematic wide spread corruption of the (Ingaz) regime, which led the United Nations to put Sudan on the top of list of the most corrupt regimes on earth, long before the SPLM leaders set foot in Sudan.

No true Sudanese person should be happy, about this artificial kind of smear tactics and dirty tricks campaign by the President’s uncle. After all, this is the kind of attitude that had divided the country, in the first place. Basically, Sudan has enough room for everybody -including those who continue to identify themselves as anything else but Sudanese. Frankly, we do not have to like each other very much, but at the same time, if we could only treat one another with all due respect and dignity, the coexistence really is possible. It is therefore, upon those immigrants who have been here for centuries but have remained unappreciative and ashamed of their association with Sudan, and would much rather prefer to be identified and connected to where their invaders forefathers came from, to either respect the host or go back to their sweet home, and leave (our) Sudan for those of us who love it unconditionally.

Moreover, what is very true in the ordeal is that, the President’s uncle could not simply digest the fact that, change is indeed inevitable in Sudan, and the rule of his nephew will soon be history, and there is virtually very little that he can do to stop it. In truth, this is a bitter man and an angry one, who has everything to lose if Sudan becomes united, but, of course, everything to gain if it remains otherwise. Therefore, he is out there, doing what anybody, who is about to lose his kingdom, would do, to resort to the last options, and that is to indulge in misleading and blackmailing the Northern public, against the rest of the country, especially the South. Fortunately, however, his rhetoric had been anything but backfired. Today, Southern Sudanese are pretty much united in support of their leaders. They have discovered that, the relentless campaign is nothing more than pure racism and hatred against anything that begins with an (S). More so, it has enlightened the Sudanese people, all across the board, of who the enemies of Sudan’s unity really are!

Finally, I think all of us will forever remember what Ustaz al-Tayeb Saleh, a renowned Sudanese writer (who does not need an introduction), for his words after the INF muscled themselves into power in 1989. “Where did these people come from?” he asked. Though he recently eulogized al-Basher and praised him as statesman (ibinul al-Balad), Mr. Saleh was right then, just like he is right now. Certainly, without the (Ingaz) regime, no one would have ever heard of the bigoted bunch, especially al-Tayeb Mustafa. To this day, I find it very difficult to comprehend, how anyone who claims to be related to Prophet Muhammad, could be so morally deficient and linguistically poor. Mr. Mustafa’s Arabic, reminds me of a Somali man, with whom I share the state of Georgia, in the United States of America. Ahmed Farah, dose not only thinks he is an Arab, he believes- from the bottom of his heart- that he is a descendent of the Holly Prophet, Muhammad, whose name he can’t seem to pronounce correctly, which is another story.

The author is a former Radio Juba anchorman, South Sudan Nation and Sudan Tribune contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected].

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