Opinion

Al-Mahdi and his futile alliance with Al-Bashir

2 December 2013
In Opinion

By Mahmoud A. Suleiman

December 2, 2013 – Omer al-Bashir and his ailing brutal regime have been procrastinating over the growing political crisis in Sudan for the last twenty-four years. Omer al-Bashir, the head of the National Congress Party (NCP), wants to entice the Sudanese Revolutionary Front (SRF) into further fruitless tortuous negotiations and turns to his ally Sadiq al-Mahdi, famous for indecisiveness for breaking the political impasse. As for as the Sudanese people are concerned, this is akin to a jump from a frying pan into a fiery fire. Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi has played a catalytic role for the survival and continuation in power of the genocidal NCP regime. His incessant scaremongering orchestrated the myth that departure of the NCP regime would result in chaos, Somalisation/Balkanisation, of the remaining Sudan.

The NCP has squandered over forty peace agreements it signed with various Parties in the Sudanese crises. The ruling regime of the National Islamic Front (NIF) and its offshoots are renowned for their deliberate failings to honour contracts and peace agreements entered into and signed with other parties. Al-Mahdi’s positions have proved politically costly to his party and his constituents over the years. The blurred political positions of Sadiq al-Mahdi and his unlimited support of the policies of the NCP have led him to lose credibility and hurt the unity of the Sudanese opposition and weakened their resistance across eras. Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi’s indecisiveness cost the people of Sudan the time that was lost in vain, making them look weak and unprincipled.

A journalist wrote, “Sadiq al-Mahdi ravaged Sudan”. He did not only ravage Sudan but also gave an extra lifespan for the owners of his grace in the NCP. The reporter, said in his concluding remarks, “therefore, without defamation or reap, that Mr. Sadiq al-Mahdi is the largest vandal for the Sudan’s fundamental politics. When people’s baffling increased and more flabbergasted by the unprecedented volatile political positions taken by Mr. al-Sadiq al-Mahdi especially his absolute support for the NCP, an elderly wise man told them to read the political history of al-Mahdi to know more about the facts of his personality. He indicated that would uncover as to why al-Sadiq behaves as such besides getting answers to the questions along with learning lessons and admonitions for future dealings with him. The prudent man said that the science of recorded history stands out as a judgement of the past and lesson for the future. To explain this, he pointed out the following:

• The first position Mr. Sadiq al-Mahdi assumed after graduating is the Prime Minister after the electoral Constituency of Jabalain vacated for him and deposing the then Prime Minister Mr. Mohamed Ahmed Mahjoub. Al-Mahdi sat in Mahgoub’s place without any previous experience. He started working to perpetuate the party presidency and the leadership of the affairs of supporters in his grip, without taking into account the separation of politics from the affairs of Ansar religious / sect; and without regard to any partisan or institutional hierarchy even with his uncle Imam al-Hadi Abdulrahman al-Mahdi. Thus, he spectacularly failed in his prime mission of taking care of the state and in establishing of a foundation of inclusive democracy and justice in the country.
• Mr. al-Mahdi did not provide any services for the development of areas of influence of the Umma Party in Darfur, Kordofan and, Blue Nile. He kept the citizens there in ignorance without education in their transgression to serve many economic projects of the al- Mahdi dynasty and exploited them in the form of forced/bonded Labour in agricultural projects.
• In the Nuba Mountains area, al-Mahdi kept the taxation laws , which are called Digueniah (Head Tax), notorious policy of forced Labour imposed since the era of colonialism and has been applied even after independence for a long period and did not work or even trying to remove it, despite the content of the exploitation and humiliation and contempt for the people of the region.
• Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi buried democracy alive in the Umma Party and then devoted his efforts to move his style to the other political parties and nascent organizations so as not to develop democracy.
• Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi is the first to establish tribal militias in Sudan under the so-called forces Murahelin. He armed and funded the militias and then handed them over to the NCP who codified and legitimized and transformed them into the notorious militias of Popular Defence Forces (PDF), the Border Guards (BG). These unruly militias are now enforced by include Janjaweed forces, mercenaries, extremist groups and remnants of Al-Qaeda.
• Sadiq al-Mahdi is the first to seek the help of foreigners to create the so-called Arab belt; under the pretext of spreading Islam and the Arabic language in Sudan, especially in contact zones between the north and the south and in the south Sudan itself, and this was the seed of discord in Darfur between the so-called ‘blue/black’- so-called Zurga and Arabs.
• Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi is the first to cooperate with overseas participants to lead a failed coup attempt famously known as the “Mercenary Invasion “I n July 1976, with money and support from dictator al –Gaddafi. In spite, al-Sadiq al-Mahdi is the first to denounce the Operation Long Arm (OLA) carried out by the Darfuri rebel group, Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) led by the late Dr. Khalil Ibrahim Mohammed, on Omdurman, to overthrow the criminal military junta regime of al-Bashir on 10 May 2008.
• After his leadership of the National Front, and after a failed attempt to invade Khartoum, Sadiq al-Mahdi dived into the arms of the military government of May for a ‘national reconciliation’, and signed a lone agreement with Jaafar Nimeiri in the city of Port Sudan away from his companions in the opposition.
• Mr. al-Sadiq al-Mahdi promised to remove the infamous September laws to promote national unity, but he did not do that. Even worse, he entered into a coalition government with the National Islamic Front (NIF), led by the Godfather of Muslim Brotherhood, Dr. Hassan Abdullah al-Turabi and kept the laws to continue and maintained those notorious laws to continue until today for the humiliation of the Sudanese women.
• During his rule of Sudan as a Prime Minister, al-Sadiq al-Mahdi missed the chance and opportunity to join the peace agreement signed between Mohammed Osman al-Mirghani and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) Dr. John Garang Mabior. With his indecisiveness and bias against the peace camp, al-Mahdi chose to stand with the extremists and against the wishes of the people of peace, and the majority of the people of Sudan.
• Sadiq al-Mahdi was thought to have handed over power to al-Bashir, the leader of the 30th June 1989 Coup d’état, despite his knowledge of the coup plot and possibly zero hour, but he did not do anything, neither before nor after the coup against his own elected government.
• After the departure of the opposition, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and the intensification of its activity came to them al- Sadiq al-Mahdi in the opaque process that was fabricated and dubbed “Tahtadoon – Guided “, and soon embarked on a block and brake activities of the opposition by claims of restructuring. Everybody knows what restructuring, and between the blink of an eye that surprised the people, al-Sadiq returned to Khartoum to fall in the arms of the NCP and sign the Djibouti Conventions or the so called” Home call” in 1999, which he described as “he went to hunt a rabbit , instead hunted an elephant”!
• And at the time, no one believed him; nevertheless, he received billions of pounds and succeeded to hire his two sons, and the signature of the “National compromise convention” in 2008 in Omdurman and thus al-Sadiq al-Mahdi succeeded to thwart the work of the opposition aptly.
• Then the opposition returned home and reunited with Mr. Sadiq al-Mahdi in the name of “national reconciliation” and agreed to work together to change the regime of the National Salvation Revolution by all possible ways and means, and they began the actual work, overt and covert. To the surprise of everyone, Mr. Sadiq al-Mahdi continued his meetings with al-Bashir.
• Not only that, but Mr. al- Sadiq al-Mahdi began issuing initiatives one after the other included: Home Call, the National Compromise (Consensus) Agreement, Cairo Agreement , the True Dawn , Freedom Ticket, the New System , Broadband Sudan, ………. , and modulating the desire of the masses from “The people want to overthrow the regime” to his motto of “The people want a new system” – and before one of his initiatives achieved or arriving at a feasible result, Mr. Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi would jump up to new ones!
• The position of Sadiq al-Mahdi during 23rd September 2013 glorious uprising conducted spontaneously by a passionate youth who were anxiously concerned of their families, whose livelihoods became narrowed and hardship of life hit them hard as a result of the actions and financial decisions of recent increase in fuel prices; instead of standing with them in his leadership capacity and helping in the organization of the demonstrations, al- Sadiq al-Mahdi’s position was less than what is expected. He was described as shameful and droopy and leaving the protestors pray for al- Bashir regime’s weapons at the hands of his militia and mercenaries of his ilk. Furthermore, al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, unashamedly, still argues that there is no alternative to the NCP regime. Moreover, his fear that the country was slipping into a wave of violence and chaos and waiting to the worse to follow if the Sudan Revolutionary Front participated in the popular uprising! All of that was considered the fabric of his imagination and illusions.
• Above all, Mr. al- Sadiq al-Mahdi is fueling racism in Sudan through his negative attitude about the people of the Western Sudan, Darfur and Kordofan, and the marginalised people in general and the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Sudan – north, the SRF in particular. Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi went into a frenzy of racist accusations against the SRF describing it as anti-Islam, Anti-Arabs, anti-River Nile Sudan and intent on collaboration with foreign powers.
• Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi has forgotten that he laid the foundations for seeking help of the foreigners. Nevertheless, he continues to the public through fictional unjustified nonsensical rubbish to Intimidate people to believe that the Sudanese Revolutionary Front extremist with racist intentions against Islam and against the Arabs and Muslims and that the armed opposition cooperates with foreign countries. In that, he seems to have forgotten it was he who laid the foundations of help from foreigners!
• The question, which imposes itself, is whether Omar al-Bashir is still counting on al-Sadiq al-Mahdi to resolve the complex issues of Sudan after reflecting on what have been listed in the history of his failures and along with his dishonored political positions as a n Imam for the Ansar Sufi sect.
• Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi tries to find justifications for criminals to evade accountability by suggesting the South African model that adopted reconciliation and forgiveness after the confessions of perpetrators and victims; so-called truth commissions and reconciliation CONVENTION FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOUTH AFRICA (CODESA). CODESA, which al-Sadiq al-Mahdi seems to be infatuated with will not be accepted in Sudan where genocide has been among the crimes perpetuated.
• Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi – without modesty – suggests the Apartheid model, which applied in the (racial discrimination) state of South Africa in Sudan as a service to the NCP to achieve the chance of impunity and escape accountability and punishment for the criminal perpetrators: Omar al-Bashir, Abdul Rahim Mohamed Hussein, Ahmad Muhammad Harun and Ali Abd Rahman Kosheib and their ilk. They have committed the most heinous crimes the world witnessed in the right of the people of Sudan in Darfur who were the supporters of the Umma Party during general elections, and a large number of them belong to the Sudanese Ansar religious sect.
• The Model that dealt with the legacy of Nazi Germany and was based on the trial and the mop and the exclusion of members of the Nazi party that model remains fit to apply to the criminals of the NCP in Sudan.
• The contemptuous attitude of Sadiq al-Mahdi towards the citizens in the marginalised regions of Sudan and represented by the SRF in coalition with the National Consensus Forces (NCF) and all the Sudanese people will go ahead with the Revolution to overthrow the NCP regime and dismantle its militias and security institutions. This will be followed by immediate cessation of war, agreement on the Transition Period, formation of a Transitional Government for a specific period, Population Census, Constitutional Conference to reach a Permanent Constitution for Sudan, free and fair Nationwide General Elections under international supervision and hand over Power to a Democratically elected Government. The money wasted in wars will be used instead for public services and the reconstruction of the war-ravaged infrastructure and development. The application of Transitional Justice for the trial of the perpetrators of the heinous crimes follows. Efforts will be exerted to return the public money looted by corrupt elements of the NCP regime to be employed for the welfare of the deprived people.
The world would be a safe place to live in in the absence of the racist minority NCP regime led by the genocidal fugitive from the international justice, Omer Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir who has been rejected and avoided by the citizens of the free world as if he were a mangy!

Dr. Mahmoud A. Suleiman is the Deputy Chairman of the General Congress for Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). He can be reached at [email protected]