From Doctrinal Repression to Institutional Suppression
By Mahgoub El-Tigani
April 17, 2005 — The shift of the dictatorships of Sudan (1958-64, 1969-85, and 1989 to the present) from repressive regimes controlled purely by military groups that run the state affairs via a revolutionary high military council to some sort of a “professional” ruling club that since the June coup of 1989 continues to collaborate closely with the Islamist businesspeople and party politicians in and outside the country is intriguing.
The shift marked the beginnings, or perhaps the end, of succeeding decades of single-handed military governments that disrupted the country’s march to democratic rule, including the ongoing NIF ruling club, since the early years of national independence up to the present day. The only change from the part of the NIF Ruling Club that might have allowed a few political deals to surface (of which the Nievasha Peace Protocols are genuinely important) is perhaps related to the Club’s willingness to negotiate with the opposition, as far as negotiations help to maintain the club’s upper hand over the opposition.
Significantly observable, however, is the fact that the Club is evidently insecure; hence, it would negotiate the opposition only as fragmented groups (the NDA without Umma, or the Umma without the NDA; also the SPLM without both NDA and Umma!). Equally importantly, the Club would do whatever maneuverings it could do not to negotiate with these opposition entities or the other civil society associations as a national collective body.
This insecure mentality of the regime motivated the IGAD sponsored mediators to force a bilateral model of negotiations upon the Machekos rounds to avoid a quick failure of the negotiations. But the ensuing results of this strategy were seriously detrimental to the political well-being of the Sudanese opposition groups as a whole. The results surely helped to strengthen the Club’s mode of negotiation. But they restructured the opposition’s unified mode of struggle that managed to force its way amidst all difficulties since the opening days of the NIF coup in 1989 until the inauguration of the Kenyan-based peace negotiations.
The zigzagging performance of the Ruling Club has not yet changed with respect to the key agenda of the nation: 1) the committee to draft the transitional constitution; 2) the negotiations with the al-Merghani-led NDA; 3) the situation with the al-Mahdi-led Umma; 4) the reconciliation with the Turabi-led NIF opposition group, Hizb al-Mutamar al-Sha’bi; and 5) the escalated conflict with the United Nations’ Security Council regarding the international obligation conferred upon Sudan, as a State Party to international law, not as a ruling club or revolutionary junta, to surrender the suspects of the Darfur massacres to the internationally-designated criminal court for prosecution and perhaps trial if proved guilty.
Seen in light of the de facto governance of the country, it is theoretically feasible the Ruling Club prefers to protect its vulnerable position in the face of the non-removable escalated disputes with the national democratic opposition groups and the international mandatory entities, specifically the United Nations treaty bodies to which Sudan is obligated by international law. Practically, however, the Club cannot use similar local politics to resolve the crisis it originally pursued with the United Nations Security Council. This is an endangering situation to the whole Nation that warrants nothing but full-fledged national solutions.
Compared to the earlier dictators of Ibrahim Abboud (1958-64) and Ja’far Nimeiri (1969-85), the Brothers’ junta seemed partially willing to underemphasize its doctrinal suppression for lack of an acceptable language when addressing itself to the concerned world where only international law is the possible medium.
The NIF Ruling Club, however, is unwilling to abandon institutional suppression of the opposition and the civil society groups as a strategic policy that the ruling junta strictly pursues by exclusionary policies against the opposition. The institutional suppression included the emergence and growth of necessary disputes with the Turabi-led faction of the NIF party, despite strenuous pressures by the International Brotherhood groups (including succeeding delegates to Sudan) to reconcile the two factions.
Founded on the fundamentalist authoritative mode of the Brotherhood’s doctrines of governance, the repressive nature of the NIF ruling coalition between the armed forces and the civilian party has never changed. The ruling regime continues to suppress the opposition parties and civil society groups with state powers, even under the current promising transition to democratic rule by the Nievasha Peace Agreements.
Most recently, for example, the ruling group attacked the DUP, the Umma, and the communist leaderships by the State Security forces. Arbitrary arrests never ceased in Darfur, Eastern Sudan, the Northern Provinces, and the National Capital Khartoum. Moreover, the NIF’s militia attacks are frequently condemned by the regional and international cease-fire teams.
The Ruling Club has recklessly mounted up public hostilities against the United Nations Security Council, including non-diplomatic assault on the respectable person of the UN Secretary General Mr. Kufi Anan and the whole international body. The harsh, unpolished assaults were directly announced by the president personally, the state party top officials, and the minister of foreign affairs before the public as well as the global media.
Facing the Security Council’s serious decisions to surrender the suspects of the Darfur “genocide,” the government is already in disarray. Still, the regime pursues desperately the same offensive policies of challenging both the internal and the external pressures to be able to rally support among the Islamist circles in the local and the international arenas as a revolutionary Islamist government – one determined to stay to reap the fruits of pragmatism as much as might be obtainable by political offensive!
Ironically, except for the ongoing complex crisis of the regime versus the Security Council, the NIF offensive pragmatism enabled the pariah regime to suppress the civil society inside the country with state institutions, using party militias and the state security and police forces. The regime maintains essential economic and political ties to sustain the basic activities of the state via a stringent system of taxation and state monopolies augmented by the Muslim Brotherhood’s financial and political deals in the Gulf, Malaysia, and Pakistan. Lucrative oil contracts with China, nonetheless, remains a major source of the Brotherhood’s repressive rule!
The ensuing state business-led corruption of the large Sudanese society have definitely added to the difficulties the democratic opposition has been facing to combat the Ruling Club with all its frustrating tactics, or to increase the popular mobilization as is increasingly required to improve the negotiating stature of the opposition vis-à-vis the repressive junta.
The willingness of the opposition groups to strike some national balance with the un-balanced demands of the regime has negatively affected the possibilities of a massive popular uprising against the Ruling Club, as earlier occurred in October 1964 versus the Abboud regime as well as in April 1985 against the Nimeiri junta.
Days ago, the opposition leader Mohamed Ibrahim Nugud expressed his grave concerns about the government’s policies that led the country to fall directly under international patronage. “Government should’ve carried out the trials of suspects without stoppage,” emphasized Nugud. The lack of an independent judiciary in Sudan, however, besides the unabated suppression of democracy by the NIF Ruling Club have done great damage to the cause of democracy and sustainable relations with the United Nations and the International community.
As days approach the Security Council’s allowable time for the Sudan to surrender the suspects, much democratic homework is de facto required from the Ruling Club:
1) Activate the Committee to Draft the Transitional Constitution with full representation of all opposition groups and the civil society associations, without hesitation or discrimination. The latest governmental vetting of civil society associations that completed registration by law, however, should never exclude the Sudanese civil society groups in or outside the country from active participation in the committee’s activities;
2) Resume immediate negotiations with the al-Merghani-led NDA, without hesitation;
3) Stop suppression of the al-Mahdi-led Umma;
4) Release Sheikh Hassan al-Turabi and all members of the Hizb al-Mutamar al-Sha’bi, including the convicted Darfuri sympathizers of whom many are members of that party; and
5) Resolve the escalated conflict with the United Nations’ Security Council regarding the international obligation conferred upon the Sudan, as a State Party to international law, not as a ruling club or revolutionary junta, by the immediate surrender the suspects of the Darfur massacres to the internationally-designated Criminal Court.
In a statement released on April 16th, 2005, SHRO-Cairo urged the Sudan Government to end the state of emergency, re-instate the dismissed judicial personnel (since June 1989) who included a sizeable portion of the most experienced judges of the country; re-structure the Judiciary by the Judiciary to be able to maintain its own High Council and autonomous entity, apart from governmental military or party influences; and ascertain the independence of the Bar Association.
To ascertain fair implementation of these measures and the other relevant law provisions, many human rights group advised the government must re-instate the Sudanese Judiciary under a democratic system of justice in full accordance with international norms and the rule of law.
In this round, many observers note, the Ruling Club would have to abandon its doctrinal repression and institutional suppression, all together, to avoid a definitive crisis with the Security Council – a crisis that is indeed very difficult to avoid, or to maneuver with by the NIF’s Ruling Club’s doctrinal repression or institutional suppression!
*Member of Sudanese Writers’ Union (in exile) and the president of Sudan Human Rights Organization Cairo-Branch.