Weekly Press Columns Digest

Weekly Press Columns Digest

KHARTOUM (Sudanow) - The week’s press columns have tackled issues ranging from the dubious Israeli plane that reportedly landed in Khartoum military airbase to evacuate an important coronavirus victim, to the frequent manhandling of medical cadres, the regional tours of some senior officials despite the travel ban, the call for launching a new party power-based by the resistance committees that guard the revolution, to the sensational statements by the deputy chair of the sovereign council, General Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo (Hemdaidti).

Columnist Hanadi Alsiddiq has lashed heavily, in her column in Aljareeda newspaper on Friday, at the Army spokesman who denied that the plane that landed at Khartoum Airbase to evacuate Ms Najwa Gadah Addam who later on died of coronavirus infection, was Israeli, saying it was Turkish. The woman was known to be special advisor to Ugandan President Yweri Musseveni and also (very recently) advisor to the chairman of Sudan’s Sovereign Council, General Abdelfattah Alburhan. She was widely believed to have engineered the recent meeting between Burhan and Israeli Premier Netanyahu in Uganda which was the first ever encounter between Sudanese and Israeli officials.

The incident was reported by the Israel press that said a medical team had arrived Khartoum military airbase to evacuate the woman for medication abroad but, given her poor health condition, the plane returned empty, leaving behind some medicines to help her. A few hours later the woman was declared dead.

The Army spokesman, Brigadier General A’amir Mohammad Alhassan had categorically denied the plane was Israeli. He said there was no agreement between Sudan and Israel allowing Israeli aircraft to land in the country.

What the Army spokesman had said was totally untrue, contradicted by facts the spokesman did not grasp, unfortunately.

The Israeli TV channel was more candid and knowledgeable of facts. The Israeli channel said the plane trip to Khartoum could have been kept secret, but its exceptional route was monitored by internet applications. The Israeli channel had said the plane was carrying a medical team and medicines to treat Najwa in addition to a senior Israeli official involved in the relations with Sudan. The aim was to take Najwa for medication in Israel. But after it became clear her health condition was critical and would not permit her evacuation, the evacuation idea was dropped. She died a few hours later, said the TV channel.

Then there remain the questions that require convincing answers:

Why did the army spokesman hide the identity of the plane while his master, General Burhan, does not deny the reality of his prior relation with the Israeli entity?

Though I lean towards the Israeli narrative, I must ask about the facts about this obscure trip by an Israeli plane to evacuate Najwa for medical treatment in Israel?

Was there an Israeli plan to secretly and quickly get rid of Najwa as Israel always did with its agents when their mission was over just by way of burying intelligence information, given the fact that Najwa was  the engineer of Burhan’s meeting with Netanyahu in February?

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Writing in Altayyar newspaper Ms. Asma’a Juma’a has condemned the repeated assaults by some members of the public (military personnel sometimes) on hospital medical cadres. She wrote:

These incidents have become phenomenal. The media has been discussing the different aspects of these attacks, often suggesting solutions. But the government did not find a solution. The attacks continue. Very recently over 30 persons attacked the medical manager of Omdurman hospital and his staff. Details of the incident say a wounded man was brought to hospital, bleeding from stabs in the body. The medical cadre tried to aid him despite the absence of any relative of his. But the man died because it was too late to try to save him. He had to be carried for a long distance and had bled heavily. And when his kin arrived and learned about his death, they attacked the medics with rocks and bricks, holding them to blame for his death.

No doubt this behavior is very shameful, primitive and condemnable.

But the question: why do citizens do this to the medical personnel, while it is common knowledge that the public had always admired and loved the medical cadres. The medical doctor was always adored by the public and everybody had used to hope for his son to become a doctor. What is this change? Or is it the heritage of the ousted regime?

This barbaric conduct had first emerged during the ousted regime, when the human being lost his value and there appeared new phenomena unknown before, like assaults against medics and teachers and other civil servants.

The matter has something to do with the culture of violence, purposefully sown in the society by the defunct regime through the policy of impoverishment and brainwashing. As a result, some members of the society became rash and senseless.

More important is the collapse of the medical system that gave the (justified) impression that the citizen faces neglect when he goes to hospital.

Another cause of these assaults is that some people think that once the sick person reaches the hospital, he should not die and that the doctors are able to save him if they want to. And when the sick person dies, they vent their wrath on the medical staff who may have done their best to save him.

Generally, there is need to think in a scientific way and remove the causes of this phenomenon. But this requires a long time.

Until that happens there is need for a law that punishes anyone who attacks a medic. There is no solution for this problem at the moment except a strong law that punishes such misdemeanor.

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Mohammad Almekki Ahmed, writing in the Altahreer electronic publication of Tuesday, commented at length on the recent revelations by the deputy chairman of the Sovereignty Council, commander of the paramilitary force ‘the Rapid Support Forces’, Lt. General Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo (Hemaidti) in a TV interview in which he explained the current state of affairs in the country and the threats that face the transition.

The general had sent messages to the public, the government, its power base the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) and the regional states: Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Libya.

“Daglo’s talk about the need for collective action is a call for unity of ranks in the face of the challenges that face the country, some of which are government-made and others because of continuous conspiracies woven be the remnants of the defunct regime whose rule was ejected out by the people. Some of these pressures are the work of regional and international powers and some of them are because of economic problems and hostile media.

The call for public cohesion is a warning against the threats of rifts that may fail the transitional government and lead to the collapse of the country, allowing the chance for conspirators both local and external.

It was obvious that the man was speaking his mind and not as do some politicians of the Third World “who with volatile temperaments and many tongues.”

He was not at ease with the government achievements, as he, like the revolutionaries had expected quick, comprehensive changes.

One of the most important messages he had sent was to Qatar, and indirectly to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Libya .

He said there were no problems with Qatar, disclosing how some members of the Military Council (before the formation of the civilian government) had conspired to destroy the country’s relations with Qatar by telling the other Council members that the foreign minister of Qatar was already in the Sudanese skies, a matter that obliged these Council members to reject the visit because it was made without prior notice. This had reflected negatively on the two countries’ relations. It is now Doha’s role to respond to this clear message and open avenues of interaction with the Sudan.

I call upon Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain to deal with the Sudan in a spirit of fraternity and not to try to pull Sudan towards axis against Doha “because we respect all of you and seek to cement our relation with all of you.”

The government of the revolution should seek the independence of the Sudanese options and decisions and should prevent Sudan from falling into the existing feuding in the Gulf Region.

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Wrote Abdelhameed Awad on Wednesday in the daily newspaper Alsudani questioning the field visits by senior government officials to the regional areas at a time when the country is in a state of lock down to ward off the threat of the coronavirus pandemic.

“In the last week of the Holy Month of Ramadan, we have seen Sovereignty State members Mohammad Alfaki Suleiman and Hassan Sheikh Idris, along with a government delegation on a tour of Kasala, Gedarif and the Gezira states. Whatever the purposes of those tours might be, they are in violation of the precautions against the pandemic. A striking evidence of this is that Sports and Youth Minister Ms. Wala’a Albushi had directly after the visit was over declared that she was infected with the virus and quarantined herself. This has also prompted other delegation members to be quarantined also, together with all the people they were in contact with in those districts.

It was my hope that the Government, specifically the Sovereignty Council, could have stopped those visits, in particular because those officials were on the move between the regions and were visiting states with very little pandemic infections. I was wrong in that. And here they are: The members of the Sovereign Council are at large in the regions.

This is a disrespect of the health precautions, in particular the regulations for social distance, which was very difficult in the presence of the heavy entourages of body guards, protocol personnel and the media staffers who accompanied those officials, and also the regional officials who received and accompanied them during the visits.

All the aims of those visits and the speeches those officials had made could have been communicated by video conferences. I do not know how these gentlemen could again ask the public not to travel to the outlying districts now that they were the first to have violated those rules.

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In his column in the Aljareeda newspaper of Thursday, famous writer Alfatih Jabra called for the launch of a new party from what he called the silent majority of the public.

“The votes of the silent majority had used to be scattered after the transitional periods that followed our previous popular uprisings, while the political parties that came to office could not achieve the ambitions of the silent majority a matter that led to the failure of the democratic experiment and return to military coups.

It is my belief that the launch of a party that brings the millions who made the revolution together in one bond is a way out to preserve the revolution under the current sharp polarization on the political scene and the foreign attempts to influence the country’s politics. The essence of the idea was to launch a party to be made primarily from the youths and the silent forces who ignited the revolution, and when the elections are held they could get the sweeping majority votes.

This is a call for the millions of youths who made the revolution and for the silent majority to form a body that reflects the real will of the masses. This would be an entity that expresses the willpower of the masses, an entity that belongs to the Sudan, maintains the country’s democracy and realizes the aspirations of those valiant youths who made the revolution and made sacrifices for it.

The aim now is to prepare for the upcoming elections after the expiry of the transitional period. This could be done by organizing the silent majority with the help of neighbourhood committees in Khartoum and the other regions. If this is done the new party could be declared to harvest the majority votes and change the country’s politics.

 

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