Former Sudan spy chief stripped of his position at ruling party

May 8, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – The ruling National Congress Party (NCP) in Sudan conducted a mini-reshuffle in its top jobs and removed the former director of the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) Salah Gosh from his position as head of the party’s workers’ secretariat.

The shakeup also included replacing the NCP Secretary of Information Fathi Sheila with Ibrahim Ghandour who was the party’s the Secretary for Political Affairs. Al-Amin Dafa’allah, Secretary General of the Supreme Council for decentralized governance, took over from Gosh.

Qutbi Al-Mahdi, the former head of the organizations bureau at the NCP, was given the political sector portfolio while Mutrif Sideeg took over his previous post. Al-Haj Adam, who recently defected from the Popular Congress Party (PCP) led by Hassan Al-Turabi, assumed the political secretariat.

A statement by the NCP emphasized that the shakeup was not made for the purpose of expelling Gosh from the party leadership but it was part of a reform effort and a preemption of an NCP conference next September.

Gosh, who was considered a powerful figure within the state and the ruling party, was abruptly fired by president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir from his position as presidential adviser for security affairs last month. No reason was given for the decision.

It was in the same manner Gosh was unexpectedly sacked by Bashir from his NISS role in 2009 and brought in as an adviser.

The former adviser holds a parliamentary seat as a representative of the Merowe constituency. He is also on the joint NCP-SPLM committee for CPA implementation.

A few days before his dismissal, Gosh and powerful presidential assistant Nafie Ali Nafie clashed in the media over dialogue with opposition parties.

Nafie, who is the NCP deputy chairman, criticized in a radio interview the dialogue conducted by Gosh’s Presidential Security Advisory (PSA) with opposition parties, and said it was not sanctioned by the NCP’s leadership, prompting Gosh to retort a day later with assertions that his dialogue enjoys approval by Bashir and his Vice-President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha.

Some observers in Khartoum have speculated that Gosh was planning a coup against Bashir with the consent of the US administration while others linked his removal to an Israeli strike carried out in East Sudan against suspects arms smugglers in early April. The government had claimed that Israel had informants on the ground who provided the intelligence to carry out the operation.

Qutbi Al-Mahdi confirmed one of the theories last week by saying that Gosh had “presidential ambitions” but did not elaborate.

Gosh is better known internationally for being the engineer of enhanced counter-terrorism cooperation with the United States over the last decade. It was revealed in 2005 that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) flew him on a private plane from Khartoum to Washington.

The links with the CIA generated criticism from the regime’s Islamic base but Gosh defended it in 2007 by saying that this has prevented a “destructive backlash” from the U.S. in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Sudan remains on the U.S. list of countries that sponsor terrorism for harboring Islamic militants in the 90’s but officials in Washington promised to remove the East African nation as a reward for recognizing the South Sudan referendum result which came in favor of secession from the North.

Gosh is also accused by human right groups for being instrumental in the brutal counterinsurgency campaign against rebels in Darfur which took a heavy toll on civilians.

In a rare interview with Reuters in 2004, Gosh said the government had armed tribes against Darfur’s rebels. He said human rights violations had taken place but promised to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Estimates of the death count in the war in Darfur since fighting started range from 10,000, according to Khartoum, to 300,000, according to the United Nations.

Many observers in Sudan as well as the public believed that Gosh’s intimate knowledge of state secrets during his tenure in NISS guaranteed him a lifetime role in the government. Some have even likened him to the late FBI director J. Edgar Hoover who stayed in his post for so long because no U.S. president dared to dismiss him.

The NCP downplayed any prospects of Gosh causing a split within the party. Hago Gism Al-Seed, a leading figure in the NCP, said that Gosh has no followers and was not an active figure in the party to trigger any divisions.

(ST)