Sudan’s Al-Mirghani comments on peace talks, elections, democracy
LONDON, Dec 29, 2004 (Al-Sharq al-Awsat ) — Mohamed Osman al-Mirghani, leader of the Sudanese opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA), has said that the government’s agreements with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) “will not prevent bringing to justice officials responsible for crimes against the Sudanese people, even if this was included in the articles of the agreements.
“In a meeting organized by the opposition alliance in London the evening before last, Al-Mirghani, who rarely talks to the media, said, “The south agreements will not transcend the crimes.” However, he noted the difficulty of bringing the entire regime to justice, saying, “We cannot bring the entire regime to justice, but it would be possible to bring specific individuals to trial. The south agreements will not transcend the crimes.”
Al-Mirghani is also the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which is the oldest Sudanese party. He is currently visiting the British capital following a visit to the United States. He revealed that SPLM leader Dr John Garang informed him, by telephone, that the Sudanese negotiators in Naivasha, Kenya, had reached an agreement on a date for general elections. This has been the most important demand of the NDA.
He added, “Local, regional, and legislative elections will take place within the first three years from the signing of the agreement. Presidential elections will be held in the fourth year.” Al-Mirghani affirmed that the primary concern of the NDA was to set a date for elections. He said he told both sides in the Naivasha negotiations that he had no objection to any agreement. He is primarily interested in setting a date for general elections and the establishment of democracy. He added, “We have waited many years for the establishment of democracy. So, we can wait for another three years.”
Al-Mirghani explained that the Cairo negotiations between the NDA and the government, which have been suspended since October, faced the obstacle of setting a date for the elections. He said, “The government wants peace from us without any commitments in return. We wanted the government to set a date for elections and the establishment of democracy. We did not want to make peace abroad and go back to fighting at home again.”
Al-Mirghani said that the NDA is placing all its weight behind the elections. It has raised this issue in all the meetings with Sudanese officials. He added, “When I met with Dr Ibrahim Ahmad Omar (chairman of the ruling National Congress party), I told him: you say that you are working for the interest of the people, and we are saying the same thing. Why do we not let the people express their opinion about us through elections?” He explained that during his recent meeting with US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington, he raised the question of the restoration of democracy in Sudan. He said, “I told him that Bush and Blair are always talking about a democratic Palestine, democratic Israel, and democratic Iraq. We also aspire for democracy in Sudan.”
Al-Mirghani said that Eritrean President Isayas Afewerki asked him not to escalate the battles in eastern Sudan and sit down with the Sudanese government to solve the pending problems through peaceful dialogue. He said, “Afewerki assured me that he has no intentions to overthrow the Sudanese regime, as rumoured in Khartoum. He told me this is your issue as Sudanese, and when you solve it, the problem between Khartoum and Asmara will end.”
Al-Mirghani expressed his appreciation for Asmara’s positions toward the Sudanese opposition. In the meeting attended by several NDA officials in London and Cairo, he explained, “The Sudanese eastern front is now quiet and will remain quiet as long as there is dialogue with the government. We hope that the negotiations will not take too long or collapse, because then we do not know what will happen.” He noted the existence of a “gentleman’s” agreement with Khartoum to keep matters as they are as long as dialogue was taking place. Asked about demands reportedly made in Nifasha to include articles in the agreement to prevent bringing officials in Khartoum to justice on charges of crimes against humanity, Al-Mirghani said, “The agreements will not transcend the crimes.” However, he added, “We cannot bring an entire regime to justice, but it would be possible to bring specific individuals to trial. The south agreements will not transcend the crimes.”
Al-Mirghani praised Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s promise to end the state of emergency after the signing of the peace agreement in the south. He said, “This is something necessary and basic for releasing freedoms and restoring democracy. These laws must end to open the door for wide-scale public activity.”
Al-Mirghani related his long experience with the Sudanese peace process since the agreement he signed with Col John Garang in November 1988. He noted that everyone except a small number of Sudanese officials welcomed his agreement. He also talked about his prison experience following the coup led by President Al-Bashir in 1989. He said that a Sudanese official visited him in prison and told him that the peace agreement he signed with Garang was against Islam. He said, “I told him: let your religious scholars come and convince me about it.” He explained that before he met with Garang, he consulted Sudanese Islamic scholars, the Al-Azhar shaykh, and pastors.” He said the Sudanese official told him after the meeting that his stay in prison “will, therefore, be long.”
Al-Mirghani said that they agreed in prison to reactivate the NDA, noting that he was the one who chose the current name. He said that after the coup, he was temporarily released from prison to come to London for treatment on condition that he would return. He explained that the Sudanese embassy in London refused to renew his passport when he decided to travel to Gulf states. He added, “The embassy told me that I must return to Khartoum to renew my passport, but I refused and told them that I will travel with my current passport to any country I wanted.” He said, “Indeed, I travelled with it to several Arab countries, although the officials in these countries knew about my passport.”
Al-Mirghani revealed that during a meeting in Tripoli in 1999, Libyan Col Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi asked him to return to Sudan. He said, “I told Al-Qadhafi that many things must be accomplished for the homeland and the citizens. We do not want to go to Khartoum to have a quarrel there.” He added, “I asked Al-Qadhafi to join Egyptian President Husni Mubarak in trying to solve the Sudanese problem.
After the meeting, he invited us to dinner, and said to me that he will meet with the Egyptian president in Marsa Matruh, and there, the joint Egyptian-Libyan initiative was born.” Al-Mirghani expressed his appreciation for the major role played by the late UAE President Shaykh Zayid Bin-Sultan. He said that Shaykh Zayid offered to host a quadripartite meeting between Al-Mirghani, Ummah Party Leader Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, Garang and the Khartoum government. He said, “All the parties agreed without reservations except the Khartoum government, which rejected it.” He noted that Garang accepted the invitation immediately, saying Shaykh Zayid was a distinguished wise man, and we must listen to him.
Al-Mirghani then talked about the Ummah Party’s decision to leave the NDA after a memorandum of understanding was signed in Djibouti between the Ummah Party, represented by Mubarak al-Fadil, who served then as the secretary general of the NDA, and Khartoum. He said, “In a recent meeting in Cairo, I told Al-Mahdi that he should not have left the NDA. Mubarak al-Fadil took you out of the alliance, split from you (by forming a party), and was expelled from the government (he was an assistant to the president).” Al-Mirghani also talked about negotiations proposed by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and said, “Museveni proposed to hold negotiations between Khartoum, Garang, Al-Mirghani, and Al-Mahdi under his auspices, but the government rejected his proposal and said it did not want to negotiate with a group that does not carry weapons.” He also discussed the Cairo declaration, which he signed with the SPLM and the Ummah Party, and affirmed, “The agreement was not directed against anyone.” He said, “President Al-Bashir initially welcomed it, but then demonstrations were staged in Khartoum against the agreement, suggesting that the article in the agreement regarding the national character of the capital meant its secularity.”
Al-Mirghani denounced this, saying, “If the word national means secular, then the Islamic National Front should be called the Islamic Secular Front.”
Material from the BBC Monitoring Service, original text in Arabic.