Security forces keep Sudan capital under iron grip

KHARTOUM, Sept 26 (AFP) — Sudanese security forces maintained a clampdown on the capital Khartoum on Sunday after a reported coup attempt which the opposition dismissed as a ploy to divert attention from the Darfur crisis and an excuse to crush opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi’s banned party.

Police manned checkpoints throughout the city and on access roads, stopping suspect vehicles and questioning drivers and passengers under the impassive gaze of locals.

“I don’t believe the country has just escaped (plunging into) chaos,” commented one bank worker, Osman Ahmed, as he hurried to get to work.

His comments echoed the disbelief voiced by the opposition and rebels after the authorities announced on Friday that security and intelligence agencies had foiled an attempt by members of Turabi’s Popular Congress party to overthrow the regime, just hours before it was due to be carried out.

“It is all made up to divert international attention and pressure it (Sudanese government) is getting over the Darfur conflict and other related issues,” Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army spokesman Samson Kwaje told AFP in Nairobi, where the two sides are engaged in peace talks.

According to the United Nations, some 50,000 people have been killed in Darfur during a 19-month-old rebellion, and more than one million made homeless. The crisis has brought UN Security Council demands that Khartoum act to rein in the killings.

Western leaders have blamed the Janjaweed militia, supported by Khartoum forces, for many of the deaths and human rights abuses, including widespread rape and burning of villages.

The prime target of Sunday’s continuing manhunt is the alleged leader of the coup attempt, Al-Haj Adam Youssef, the Popular Congress party’s communications secretary.

Officials said Youssef had escaped the police net which had, however, caught most of the coup conspirators. A warrant published in the press urged the fugitive to give himself up and called on the public to help capture him.

According to the authorities, civilians and military personnel including retired officers belonging to the Popular Congress party had planned a coup attempt for Friday during weekly prayers.

Security forces however were able to foil the attempt.

On Saturday night, President Omar al-Beshir at a meeting in Khartoum accused the party of “having its eyes turned towards the United States”.

Washington says the killings in Sudan’s western region of Darfur amount to genocide for which Khartoum is responsible by its failure to act.

Beshir called on Sudanese youth to go to training camps so as to be able to defend the country against its enemies.

“The real enemies of Sudan are not the foreigners, but their collaborators inside the country… The collaborators aspire to see again a licentious Khartoum. They do not want sharia (islamic law). They want a return of the bars. But these bars will not return again… We are ready to confront them, arms in hand,” Beshir said.

The second-in-command of Sudan’s military regime, rejected suggestions of a “fratricidal struggle” between islamists.

“The struggle is not between islamists. It is between the people and those who want to undermine the country’s security and stability,” he said in comments carried by the media.

Turabi, 74, helped Beshir to gain power in a coup d’etat in 1989, and was for 10 years seen as a power behind the president. But in December 1999, he was abruptly pushed aside and parliament, over which he presided, was dissolved.

He was arrested in February 2001, then released, and again detained in March 2003.

Another leading opposition figure, retired general Abdelrahman Said, has also questioned the truth of the coup reports. Said, who heads the exiled National Democratic Alliance, told AFP he did “not believe they were true”.