Is the Sudanese regime laughing at the international community?
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By Salah Shuaib
October 31, 2014 - The most recent news pointed out that a number of
international and regional powers are trying so hard to convince all
Sudanese rivals to find, through negotiation, a peaceful solution to Sudan's
deepening crisis.
So far, war, as a dominant factor in the crisis has claimed the lives of
more than two millions, and displaced more than four million Sudanese
citizens over the world. Moreover, it is estimated that there are hundreds
of thousands of those who were wounded throughout more than three major
wars, during the period between the independence, 1956, and now.
This let alone other aspects of the crisis that has brought so many
miserable impacts on the life of millions of those whose destiny is whether
to die or live in Sudan. We found even some neighboring citizens have paid a
price for what Sudanese rulers did while intervening in their states
affairs.
In short, the people of Sudan now face a "to-be-or-not-be" challenge to
overcome this existential mess that wasted their energy, money, time,
resources and opportunities of tolerance, co-existence and development.
It was highly expected that the deepening crisis could have been gradually
resolved after the current regime and the Sudan People Liberation Movement
(SPLM) signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in Nairobi, 2005.
But Sudan's Islamists skillfully invested in the CPA in a way not to create
stability in the country but to underpin their political, ideological and
economic gains. Instead of focusing on seeking serious approaches to deal
with such a penetratively valuable agreement, the ruling group was intending
through logistical obstacles to impede the implementation of the CPA, since
the beginning of the process.
The death of Dr. Grang in the month following his return to the country,
unfortunately, came to be as an opportunity for the regime to exploit the
charismatic vacuum the late great leader had left. As a result, Bashir's
security agents clandestinely supported many streams from within the SPLM to
undermine its ability to share real power, reach out to all Sudanese in the
capital and the boundaries and have a chance in the public domain to explain
the thoughts of change. More than that the governing Islamists were
practicing the policy of blackmail at every moment in which the SPLM and
central parties tried to initiate positive roles to advance change for a
better future.
In such a political atmosphere - lacking vitality, assumed to be then
witnessed thanks to this qualitative transformation - the Islamists were the
only winners versus those losers from all national and ideological parties
in both the North and South.
As a result, the agreement failed to make any essential changes on the
grounds. Instead, it was as an arena for political skirmish between the two
parties, and also between them and other forces participating in the
process. Consequently, the opposition parties and civil society
organizations were unable to survive organizationally, through connecting
with their social grounds. And because of its ability to possess financial
mechanisms and media instruments, the Sudanese Islamists have succeeded in
defeating all reform activities of oppositional parties.
Enhancing dominance over the political spectrum and national fields of work,
the National Congress Party (NCP) got advantage from the climate of
international support to the implementation of the agreement.
So, too, the NCP used oil revenue, then, to advance faked parties and help
its ideological members through trade deals linked to private sectors.
As for reforming the government's apparatuses in order to be national and
effective, nothing had been changed, given that the Islamists were totally
dominating all senior positions after the period following their military
coup, which took place in 1989.
Due to the structure of the state the Islamists built and controlled in
ideological manner, the public sector was not prepared enough to adopt the
spirit of the peace agreement.
As a result, the governing Islamists alone were having the supreme decision
over all of the stakeholders of the agreement to address the Darfur dilemma.
The regime's prominent men in their unilateral method made it harder for the
SPLM and other central forces to contribute in finding solutions for the
dilemma that have preoccupied the whole world.
While they supposed that there were different roles to play to achieve such
solutions, the stakeholders thus found themselves helpless.
At that time the Islamist leaders, somehow, were characteristically
substituting moments of "political naturalization normalization?" with the
world to wage wars against the armed forces, which led to the genocide that
was committed by the Janjaweed in Darfur.
On the other hand, the regime, after the cessation of the South, returned to
the policy of crushing the forces of change in the center, escalating the
wars in conflict areas, and aiding a number of militias in South Sudan to
disrupt the stability of the newly independent state. Most of the heavy
weapons used in the outbreak of the violence in South Sudan came from the
governing Islamists, Moreover, the regime failed to implement the Doha Peace
Document (DPD) and this was what has led to the complication of the
situation in Darfur, South Kurdofan and Blue Nile.
As it worked to exploit the logistical weakness of the African Union -
United Nation Mission in Darfur, UNAMID, the Bashir regime succeeded in
putting hurdles in front of the mission's forces moves while attacking its
troops.
When the regime assured that it had deceived the international community in
appearing willing to solve the crisis, it found plenty of room to create the
Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in order to be an alternative to the Janjaweed
militia that had committed war crimes at a time the CPA was under
implementation.
Such new, highly equipped, and organized forces have replaced traditional
roles of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in fighting rebellion throughout
the history of the country's armed resistance to the central governments.
Unlike the Janjaweed, the RSF has a clear support by President Bashir who
personally founded these forces to protect his regime. And that is what
happened practically during the September, 2013 protest, in which hundreds
had been killed by the RSF's snipers in Khartoum and elsewhere.
However, the regime didn't indict any person after promising that it would
investigate and prosecute those who killed the protesters. Despite pressures
from the UN, world human rights organizations and Central opposition, there
is still no answer from the country's judicial system.
In the capital, the regime's security forces put hundreds of prominent
opposition politicians in jails for months - among them former Sudan's prime
minister Elsadiq Al-Mehdi and his daughter, Mariam. In addition, the
security forces closed cultural centers, newspapers and put journalists in
jails without a single charge, beside that they censor articles and news
before printing.
Now, given all these facts, it is high time for international and regional
powers to recognize that the Bashir regime is the most dangerous one for
Sudan's present and future, as well for South Sudan, and the region.
And so it should be restricted - if not eliminated - for the sake of peace
in the country, for stopping genocide and war crimes in Darfur, beside
aerial bombardments and ground attacks against civilians in both the center
and the peripheries; and also a better future in the region, which has been
- for decades - suffering from instability, due to Islamist propaganda and
terrorism.
In fact, the international community had tried more and more in the past to
participate with logistic aids, platforms and ideas in all peace talks
between the regime and its rivals, but Sudan's ruling Islamists just have
been using these efforts as room to continue their controlling power.
Actually, they have been laughing, for decades, at the world and some of
opposition leaders who agreed with the government to try a peaceful
solution.
Despite all these atrocities Sudan's Islamists want to continue in
dictatorial governance, no matter if that results in the fragmentation of
the country, beating women in thousands, committing genocide and forcing
millions of Sudanese citizens to be eternally displaced, immigrants and
refugees.
It is a moral and humane duty for the international community to help save
Sudan before it is destroyed by the Sudanese Islamists who came to power
just to stay in for ever - as God's Khalifs in the earth.
The writer is a Sudanese journalist and author living in U.S. He can be
reached at salshua7_at_hotmail.com