Weekly Press Columns Digest
20 March, 2022
KHARTOUM (Sudanow) - These are summations of the editor’s selections from the week’s press editorials and commentaries. The three articles tackle: the recent reports about a symposium in which some (in- service) military generals called for the national army to stay away from politics, the disturbing news about rape committed by a group of a security force members against a student and the widely hyped (but later on denied) news that resigning Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok will be reinstated in office:
In the first event of its kind, the army last week held a symposium to discuss the hot issue of the relation between the military and the civilians.
On this symposium and its outcome wrote Mr. Yousif Alsondi in Altahreer (the Liberation) newspaper:
In a symposium organized by the Army Chiefs of Staff at the Nimeiry Military Academy, military experts have voiced the need for the military to get out of the political equation.
This revelation tells that the military have arrived at the fact that the relation between the citizens and the Army has deteriorated so gravely and in a manner unseen since the country’s independence in 1956. And that if the generals would continue to dominate the political scene in the name of the Army, things would deteriorate further leading the country into a complete breakdown of the relation between the nation and its army.
Whether this call for the Army to quit politics is genuine or just talk from the military to gain time and pretend to be objective, the lesson to be drawn is that the concerned military experts now understand the need for the Army to quit politics. This is, by itself, an evidence that the civilian revolution has succeeded to shake the military establishment, forcing it to conduct revisions about the Army’s role and function in the country’s political affairs.
The military experts who spoke during the symposium know that the military had ruled Sudan for 54 years since its independence, while the civilians have ruled the country for just 11 years.
And despite the fact that some politicians had paved the way for the military to take over, the government had finally become purely military with the Army dominating the scene, both politically and ideologically to the extent that the Army itself turned into a political institution during the rule of Omar Albashir and the Army officers’ barracks swarmed with members of the dissolved National Congress Party.
This sequence of events has led to the deterioration we see today as represented in the arrogance of the military and the seizure of power by the Army generals, as if the political authority is a private property of the Army and part of the Army’s natural rights.
We know that this call from this symposium for the Army to stay away from politics will, sure, be rejected by General Burhan and his clique of generals, who, as usual, will seek to punish these military experts by dismissal from the Army.
But this call from these military experts will remain as an indicator that any objective study of the Amy’s deteriorating conditions and the hate they face from the citizens as created by this military coup authority, would certainly lead to an open call for the Army to quit politics, cede power and go back to the barracks.
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On the shocking news about the security’s violations against women taking part in the ongoing popular uprising, the last of these the raping of a young woman by personnel dressed in riot police uniform, wrote Ms. Sabah Mohammad Alhassan in the daily journal Aljareeda (the Newspaper):
The entire World is currently celebrating the “Women's International Day” and the “Mother’s Day”.
All of these celebrations are well deserved, dictated by a lot of changes that occurred on the public life and the emergent intellectual personality of women, their struggle and their ascension to the top of the pyramid of events and high professional positions.
In Sudan women take pride in what they have done in the past, what they do at present and what they are capable of doing in the future. The Sudanese women have drawn a bright portrait, wrote their names in letters of light.
They continue to lead the marches towards change, jumping over social barricades and barriers, making their voice heard across the Globe.
Regardless of this beautiful picture, the month of March is overshadowed this year by the malpractices of a despotic, arrogant rule where women face all sorts of aggression and blatant assaults from the security forces.
Yesterday news came through about the raping of a young woman who happened to be passing nearby to a security patrol handling demonstrators in central Khartoum.
This incident was coupled with the manhandling by the security of teachers in the Western City of Nyala.
Amid these horrible news, there came information about a girl (16) whose family said they lost any trace of her, in a strange, alien incident.
The police has started a search for the missing girl, using sniffer dogs. The police said feels it was an abduction.
(From Sudanow: Fortunately earl Saturday the police said they managed to “free” the girl, promising more details).
Women seem to bear the brunt of most robberies committed by gangsters on motorbikes. In these cases women are beaten and robbed of their money and other valuables.
Women at work places are also subject of injustice, dismissals in some cases.
We have seen Ms. Amani Idris Alkenain, the principal of the Algetaina School in the White Nile district, dismissed from office because she took part in a strike declared by the teachers union after they reached a deadlock with the authorities about their pay dues.
These incidents speak about clear hazards the women face under this wicked coup and that their lives are not safe under the coup authorities who lost control over most things: in politics, economy and security.
The Sudanese women need to be allowed to smile once again and light the candles of celebration on the month of women. It is enough for us to see the pain, sorrow and sadness on the faces of the mothers of the martyrs whose number increases by the day.
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News leaks early in the week spoke about a return of resigning Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok to his former office or as chairman of the Sovereignty Council (head of state). But very soon, Dr. Hamdok’s wife, Dr, Muna Abdallah, tweeted that her husband had no such intention.
Some reports have also said that the idea was originally suggested by the United Arab Emirates during the friends of Sudan conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in January but was rejected by most conference members as a consolidation of the military coup in the country.
On this issue wrote Mr. Bushra Ahmed Ali in the electronic publication Sudanile.
Mr. Ali has looked at the matter from a sarcastically ironical angle saying that the most to benefit from Mr. Hamdok’s return to government office will be the enemies and spoilers of the Sudanese revolution (both civilian and military), who will find a good chance to put hurdles in his way to tell the public that the revolution is a complete failure.
Wrote Mr. Ali:
The first to wish for the return of Mr. Hamdok are the military for the reason that he will open for them the treasures of the West and lift the sanctions and economic siege off their shoulders.
Also the presence of Mr. Hamdok will ease the public pressure and fury created by the dire economic situation. Here the military will find free time to realize their big dreams, build alliances with other countries, sell the Red Sea ports and engineer their project for taking hold of the country under the political cover provided by Dr. Hamdok.
The return of Hamdok will also divide the public scattering the revolution’s slogans among those who back him and those who don’t.
The provocative address of the armed movements has now waned and their political project has collapsed for lack of financial resources, prompting them to shuttle between countries in search of funding, always returning empty handed. The return of Mr. Hamdok will allow these the opportunity to speak to the media (as they used to do previously) and meet Western ambassadors to revive the funding of the Juba peace pact project.
Hamdok was one of the staunchest backers of the Juba peace accord. In his resignation address, he considered the pact one of his government’s most important achievements, quite unaware that the pact had taken the war to every Sudanese doorstep, and also causing the deterioration of security in Darfur itself.
Another category that would wish for the return of Mr. Hamdok to the political scene is the Eastern tribal group led by tribal Chieftain Tirik that faded away once Hamdok has gone. And even this group’s threats to shut down the sea ports and national roads now go unheeded.
President Sisi of Egypt will also hope for the return of Mr. Hamdok in order for the Army generals to have enough time to spend on the issue of the Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam and help Egypt create trouble in Ethiopia via the helping of the Tigre rebels.
There are also the Salafi Islamic groups who will find the chance provided by Hamdok’s return to draw a connection between the economic deterioration and “the decadence and immorality created by the civilian government!”
The current crisis has silenced all the backers of the military council, even those who staged the freak sit in at the gates of the state house (the Republican Palace) to encourage General Burhan to stage his military coup.
So.. What is the alternative solution?
The alternative solution is the destruction of the satanic hopes calling for the return of Mr. Hamdok, by rejecting this issue both as a proposal and as an idea.
True.. the present situation does not please anybody, But at least things are clear. I have liked the statement by the former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that: “No deal is better than a bad deal!”
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