Weekly Press Columns Digest
21 July, 2019
KHARTOUM (Sudanow)—Columnist Zuhair Sarraj devoted his column of Sunday in Aljareedah daily newspaper to atrocities reportedly made by men of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia in what was termed as a barbaric raid on innocent sit-inners beside the Army General Command on June 3rd.
It is incorrect to say that the assailants committed the hideous crime only against the innocent sit-inners but it was in fact made against the Sudanese people, rather against the entire humanity and was therefore a crime against humanity as regarded by international laws and by the Holy Books, including the Koran of which a verse reads that if someone kills a single person for no reason, he will be considered to have killed all human-beings, said Zuhair.
The spokesman and other members of the Transitional Military Council confessed to the crime of shooting to death, injuring, torturing and raping protesters in the act of dispersing the peaceful sit-in that was planned and ordered by the high command and carried out by armed men (seen on videos donning RSF uniform), the columnist said.
The military will be naïve if they believe that the sharing of power through agreement with the revolutionaries would exonerate them from the criminal responsibility; but they will later on be pursued and brought to justice to account for their crimes, he added.
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While the Transitional Military Council (TMC) brags of achieving substantial financial and economic tasks, it was reported that a Saudi-UAE ship has been moved to Port Sudan for rescuing the agricultural season in Sudan, commented Al-Tahir Satti in a column that was published by Al-Sudani daily newspaper of Monday.
Satti said the Chairman of the TMC Sectorial and Social Committee, Lt. Gen. Salah Abdul Khaliq, boasted that the Central Bank of Sudan holds more than a billion dollars and that the TMC has repaid a hundred million dollars from the Sudan's external debts.
Continuing with his bragging, the military general said at a recent press conference that his Council purchased fuels that would cover the country's consumption until next August in addition to quantities of wheat, wheat flour and drugs and that all those commodities "were purchased from the Sudan's own pocket," Satti said.
He added that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are rescuing the country's farming season in the form of a grant, not from their billions and millions of dollars the General is bragging about.
The rescue ship, however, is not the first one of its kind but similar ships used to arrive throughout the toppled regime, despite the country's rich natural resources of water, vast arable lands, precious minerals, animal wealth and dense, extensive forests besides the human resources, but the country will bid farewell to the rescue ships only when the revolution comes to a complete success, Satti said.
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While the blood of protesters killed and injured by militiamen of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sennar not yet dried, four persons of one family in Omdurman were killed under the wheels of a vehicle belonging to the RSF militia, wrote columnist Shamail al-Nour in a column that appeared on Altayyar daily newspaper of Tuesday.
It seems that those forces consider murder as an entertainment they enjoy regardless of the grief and tears shed by families as a result of what has become a daily loss of lives of Sudanese civilians, Shamail commented.
She said before the RSF attempt to deny the crime, one of its men documented the Sennar incident in a video by directing the camera to his face to display his identity and to send a threatening message to civilian protesters.
The columnist made reference to the June 3rd raid on the General Command sit-in in which tens of sit-inners were killed and others injured and raped and which was mainly launched by the RSF militiamen as was manifested by their uniform.
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Columnist Mustafa Abul Azaim warned against a number of difficulties he predicted would confront the forthcoming civilian government of qualifications to be formed by the Freedom and Change Forces (FCF) group that is made up of a number of political parties and organizations and is led by the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA).
Writing in a column that appeared on Al-Akhbar daily newspaper of Wednesday, Abul Azaim said the first obstacle would be disagreement over formation of the government. A recent statement by the Secretary-General of the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP) in opposition to a draft agreement with the Transitional Military Council (TMC) may cause a split among the Party and consequently within the FCF, the columnist speculated.
Another problem the FCF will face, as predicted by Abul Azaim, is connected with naming the prime minister and the ministers who must be independent and qualified persons. The persons to be chosen for those positions must not only be qualified but must be well versed and experienced in Sudanese politics and in dealing with the local organizations, not only in international ones, the columnist said.
He added that the government positions cannot be assumed by such theoretical experts, for instance, as university teachers because, Abul Azaim went on, running a ministry requires practical application rather than imposition of theories.
Economic experts may deem it necessary to abide by the IMF prescriptions of a free economy and lifting subsidies from such basic commodities as wheat flour and fuels, something which would raise the prices and would eventually move the people back to the streets against the government, the columnist said.
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There is nothing new in the agreement that was signed by the Transitional Military Council (TMC) and the Freedom and Change Forces (FCF) on Wednesday.
Following a painful 12-hour delivery and a long night of anticipation, the Sudanese people received a deformed, incomplete baby to discover that the resounding noise was intended to alleviate the pressure by the Sudanese public and by the regional and international powers, said Ahmed Yusuf al-Tai in a column that was published by Alintibaha daily newspaper of Thursday.
He said what was reached on Wednesday was simply a postponement of controversial issues till Friday in what the columnist considered as adjournment of contentious issues the parties failed to resolve or reach a settlement and, to compensate, they boasted of signing a political deal the contents of which they have already agreed upon.
The contentious issues on which they failed to resolve include the jurisdictions of the sovereign council and cabinet, the immunities for members of the sovereign council, the appointment of a chief justice and an attorney-general and the status of security apparatus. And in order to appease and further anesthetize the Sudanese public, the parties decided to initial an old agreement and announced that it would not be binding to the FCF unless a constitutional document is signed.
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'The Corrupt, Sick Islamic Movement' is a title chosen by Abdul Jalil Suleiman for his daily column that appeared on Alyoum Altali daily newspaper of Saturday in which he said the Islamists who are not convicted of corruption, murder and subversion cannot be excluded from practicing politics following the transitional period, although they toppled a civilian government in 1989, committed economic and social corruption, traded with the religion, blood, ethics, national honor and resources and sold away everything for a cheap price.
But before going into politics, those Islamists must conduct a self-criticism of their corrupt experience, apologize to the Sudanese people for the harm they inflicted upon those people, said Suleiman.
He added that those Islamists have to establish political parties that believe in plurality, democracy, devolution of power and in a civilian state.
Those accusations against the Islamist movement are not false, said Suleiman, citing a list of corrupts, including ousted president Omar al-Beshir, Nafie, Ali Osman and others who were founders and are still members of the movement which overlooked their corruption, even defended them by inventing Islamic fatwa to justify their deeds.
The columnist criticized the Islamists of describing in a recent statement the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP) as bloody, although he said it was not the SCP that sent the Sudanese youth to be killed in the South and Darfur in the name of jihad, staged the war and formed the Janjaweed in Darfur.
He added that no SCP leader has plundered the country's wealth, set up business in Dubai, Kuala Lumpur and Istanbul, laundered and deposited money in banks in Switzerland or elsewhere.
The Islamist movement can criticize the SCP by citing facts rather than lies, the columnist said.
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MAS/AS