Weekly Press Columns Digest
03 May, 2020
KHARTOUM (Sudanow) - The statement by the head of the Sovereign Council, General Abdelfattah Alburhan that the remnants of the defunct regime are seeking to undermine the transitional government and also the reports about the harsh police treatment of civil servants at curfew check points have triggered a lot of press commentaries during the week. The decision by the National Umma Party to suspend its activity within the forces for freedom and change for two weeks also drew some discussions on the week’s publications.
Columnist Yousif Alsindi, writing in the Altahreer electronic publication last Monday, in a comment on the statements on the national TV by General Burhan, head of the Sovereign Council that they had received coup threats from the defunct National Congress Party, said that: “There is no wonder in what Burhan had said if we remember that the former Army Chief of Staff Hashim Abdelmuttalib had conceded in a leaked video when he was under investigation that he belonged to the Islamic Movement.”
“Then, what should we expect from the rest of the Islamic elements staying behind in the Army whose chief of staff is like this? The Islamists had thoroughly studied the history of revolutions in Sudan and closed all the gaps from which a revolution against them would come through. In that, they have embarked on implementing a three-axes short and long term plan to thwart possible revolutions.
The first axis of this plan was to target the major political parties of the country.
The second axis was to tame the Army.
The third axis was to win the allegiance of the upcoming generations.
Targeting the major political parties was done by arrests, confiscations, layoffs and a ban on political activity. They, the Islamists, in particular, targeted the popular parties the Umma (Nation) Party and the Democratic Unionist Party through media campaigns of defamation against these two parties’ leaderships.
In the second axis they targeted the Army by trimming it through layoffs and through taming campaigns. Many honest army officers were dismissed. The Islamists also sought to make sure new recruits belonged to their party, or were endorsed by Islamist leaderships. They also confined promotions to senior or sensitive Army posts to their party’s adherents.
In the third axis they targeted the young generations on the grounds that the youth are the fuel of revolutions. They spent lavishly to attract the intermediate, secondary schools and university students to their ranks.
The rule of the Islamists is now over, but many indications of their systematic targeting of these categories remain. Burhan’s statement is an evidence of this. The revolution leaders should take into consideration that what Sudan had inherited from the defunct regime persists in the conscious and the subconscious mind of our nation and should be erased by enlightenment and relentless work in order to keep the Islamists away from power.
----------
Writer Hanadi Alsiddiq has another view about those statements of General Burhan:
“General Burhan thinks he was opportune in his answers, forgetting that the people he rules have enough intelligence to differentiate between what is true and what is untrue,” she wrote in the daily newspaper Aljareeda .
“Contradictions are clear in his answers, reflecting the state of confusion and anxiety he lives in and tries to conceal.
The youngest of Sudanese knows what the remnants of the defunct regime are doing. There was no need for a statement from Burhan on this. The citizens were waiting for resolutions (or draft resolutions) regarding the crimes of the defunct National Congress Party and its future in Sudanese politics.
“I don’t feel the detention of those whom he said were plotting against the government, whom he said he knows them in advance, is a difficult job. A signal from him is enough to arrest the leaders of the National Congress Party and its fat cats -who are now free- and put them in jail until the situation is cleared.
He can monitor and stem all the brokers, and consumer hoarders who profiteer from the people’s food and medicine.
He can stop all types of crimes that threaten the security of the citizens. He can turn the pains of the citizens into smiles.
But Burhan wants to distract us from the crimes committed during the sit-in break up when he (Burhan) said was waiting for the report of investigation committee while he knows that the result of the investigation does not need a month to come to light. Why doesn’t he urge the tortoise –like investigation committee to come up with the report which he thoroughly well knows will condemn him personally because he was the chair of the ruling military council at the time of the crime.”
She said his Excellency has also spoken about foreign troops occupying lands in Eastern Sudan but he avoided to speak about the lands occupied in the North of the country by Egypt (the Halaib and Shalateen enclaves). We know his mouth is full of water on this last issue.
“General Burhan said the defunct National Congress Party is disrupting the transitional period and that the transitional government would go ahead despite impediments. It is incredible that Burhann has all the threads in his hand and he does not take a single step to hit the source of danger.”
Burhan had spoken. It is our view that he should have kept silent, she concluded.
----------
“Police Is At the Service of the People” is a motto always visible on the walls of police stations.
But writer Ramzi Almasry of the Altahreer electronic publication considers this motto “empty and has no real presence on the ground.”
Ever since the imposition of the curfew, wrote Almasry, unusual frictions have occurred between police units at checkpoints within the Capital and some citizens, a matter that raises doubts about the motives behind this conduct on the part of policemen.
The first of such police misconduct had occurred towards the director of the gynecology hospital in Omdurman when he was going to work. Though he was riding the hospital car, a policeman insisted to detain him for sometime.
The other day all Sudanese had followed what had happened between a policeman and the Minister of Sports. The policeman did not allow the Minister to move on until after personal intervention from the Minister of the Interior.
And yesterday a team of maintenance workers from the Electricity Corporation were severely beaten by the police.
All these incidents had been recorded in just three days and may be there are many more such incidents we don’t know about.
All of this happens while we could not hear an explanation from the Minister of the Interior nor the police general director. I don’t mean the Minister’s view upon a certain incident: In this case the minister or the police chief will sure say an investigation committee was set up and “we will inform you about the details when the investigation is over.”
My point, Mr. Minister and Mr. Police Chief, is that: What is the secret behind this animosity some policemen started to show towards the civilian citizens?
To be more clear with you: This violent and inhuman behavior on the part of some policemen was clearly on the increase directly after the success of the Revolution. It is our right to question the causes and the motives behind this.
----------
About the recent decision by the National Umma (Nation) Party freezing its membership for two weeks in the Forces For Freedom and Change (FFC), writer Abdelhameed Awad urged the FFC not to bother much about the move and gave the Umma Party the option to seek new alliances if it wants to.
“If the Umma Party has reached a deadlock with regard to the reformation it is seeking in the FFC, it has the right to pull out of the coalition and seek new alliances. It is their natural right and if they do so, that will not be the end of the World.” Wrote Awad in the daily newspaper Alsudani.
And if the Umma Party wants to strike an alliance with the banned National Congress Party (along a new national understanding,) or ally itself with tiny parties such as the Reform Now Party, the Popular Congress Party and the Justice and Liberation Party, it is also their right to do so.
The FFC coalition will lose nothing if the Umma Party breaks away. May be some brief confusion may occur and that is all.
In return, the Umma Party will not lose much if it quits. That is because the presence of the Umma Party in the FFC was a grave mistake committed by the two of them: The FFC line of political thought is absolutely different from that of the Umma Party. The latter had used to refuse all forms of escalation with the defunct National Congress Party during the Revolution. It had, for instance, refused the build up for the civil disobedience. It had also refused to join the great June 30 mass processions that changed the rules of the game after the bloody break up of the sit-in around the Army General Command.
It is sure that both sides will emerge winners if the Umma Party pulls out from the FFC.
It is my suggestion for the FFC to stop any communication with the Umma Party during the Party’s two-week freeze of its activity and give them the option to leave altogether or stay in the coalition under new conditions the Party should commit to if it chooses to stay.
Awad then sarcastically, using the Umma Party political jargon, advised the Party to begin its new coalition project by (a workshop), followed by (a conference), then (a document) and then from the document emanates (a contract) and so on!
He also did not forget to remind the Umma party of its past in breaking alliances: “The Umma Party has to remember the outcome of its breaking away from the National Front, from the National Democratic Alliance and from any alliance it doesn’t chair!”
E N D
YH/AS
Post your comments
Photo of the Week
Everybody alive today came from one African country (The Independent) Ariana Baio Khartoum, Jan.1 (Sudanow)-It is well known that all humans alive today can be traced back to a common ancestor but a study may have found where that ancestor originates. Researchers at the University of Oxford’s Big Data Institute mapped the entirety of genetic relationships among humans t...
More-
01 January, 2023
Phone battery killed nine persons, injured twelve
Zalingei, Jan.1 (Sudanow) - A dispute over a phone battery, in Marin Market, Central Darfur, led to the killing of nine persons and injuring of another twelve. The Director of Central Darfur Police, Salah Omar Al-Tayeb told SUNA last Thursday that main reasons behind the events in Zalingei began with a dispute over a phone battery, where one of the citizens stabbed to death. The police official added that the police forces moved to th...
Contact Us
Address: Sudan News Agency (SUNA) Building, Jamhoria Street, Khartoum - Sudan
Mobile:+249 909220011 / +249 912307547