Weekly Press Columns Digest
03 January, 2021
KHARTOUM (Sudanow) — The newspapers columnists last week pondered the unjustified delay in the go-ahead in implementing the Juba peace accords, the imminent withdrawal of the Hybrid UN-African Union peace force (UNAMID) from Darfur and the unruly conduct of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forcec(SRF) of Deputy Chairman of the Sovereignty Council (the presidency) Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo (Himaidti)
Wrote outspoken columnist of the Alsudani daily newspaper Abdelhameed Awad on the delay in the implementation of the Juba Peace Pacts, calling the Sudanese Revolutionary Front (party to the accords with the government) “The Tweeter Front”, because its leaders had been busying themselves with tweets, rather than going into serious peace action:
It is now 95 days since the Juba peace pacts were signed (2280 hours). It is also 43 days (1032 hours) since the leaders of the SRF landed in Khartoum and the outcome is as follows as far as the peace accords’ implementation is concerned:
Minni Arko Minnawi, Leader of the Sudan Liberation Front, had tweeted 60 times in which he covered, in writing and pictures, the events of his tours of some parts of the country, his meetings with tribal and religious leaders, during which he criticized the government and the coalition of the Freedom and Change Forces.
In addition he (Minnwai) had held press conferences and spoke for hours in TV talk shows and press interviews. The only thing in which Minnawi did not do anything was implementing the peace accords, the sole purpose of his return to Khartoum.
Then we have Djibril Ibrahim, Chairman of the Justice and Equality Movement:
He spent his 43 days in Khartoum paying condolences to the kin of those who died in his absence from the country and meeting ambassadors and tribal chiefs; not a serious move with respect to peace implementation. The outcome is a big zero as far as the implementation of the peace accords is concerned.
Malik Agar, the Chairman of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/ North (Agar) was equal to Djibril and Minnawi in terms of effectiveness.
He has forgotten his main job of implementing the peace deals.
His deputy Yasir Arman devoted his time for speaking to the press.
Arman also scored very well in the writing of articles, in particular in eulogies and in publishing his photos on Twitter.
The same applies to Altoam Hajo (chairman of Central Sudan Group) and Mohammad Sidahmed (chairman of the North Sudan Group) in the Juba peace process.
I see no reason for the impasse in peace implementation and for the parties’ to this peace devoting their time to marginal matters.
Even worse, these armed struggle movements did not go out to the public about the delay in the reformation of the Sovereignty Council, the Council of Ministers, the appointment of legislative council (parliament) and the launch of independent commissions.
These movements and groups did not so far show us the way of forming the joint civilian protection forces, in particular following the UN Security Council’s decision to withdraw the UNAMID force from Darfur.
Days, months and years will go by and everybody would be taken by surprise by the return to war. Then everybody will be sorry for the opportunities missed.
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Wrote Ms. Asma’a Juma’a, Editor-in-Chief of the Akdimograti (Democrat) daily newspaper upon the imminent pull out of the UN-African Union (UNAMID) peacekeeping forces from Darfur:
The UNAMID is preparing to withdraw from Darfur after a mandate of thirteen and a half years upon a decision from the UN Security Council, under the UN Seventh Chapter.
The cause of the deployment of these forces was the bitter war between the armed movements of the region and the regime of ousted President Omar Albashir that entailed horrific human rights violations and threatened the region.
The withdrawal of the UNAMID comes two years after the downfall of that regime and is a UN response to deploy a new political mission that will get into action at the beginning of the UNAMID withdrawal in January 2021.
Reports said displaced citizens in some IDP camps in Darfur had demonstrated protesting the UNAMID withdrawal, arguing that the security situation is still uncertain.
But the UNAMID withdrawal had become imperative after Bashir’s downfall and, in particular, after the signing of the peace agreements and the return of a big sum of the Darfuri movements’ leaders to the country.
Accordingly, and in theory, the problem of Darfur can be considered over, though incompletely: The necessary climate is now in place for resolving all the problems. That means the Sudan should now regain its responsibility of its territories. It is my belief that leaders of the signatory movements to the Juba peace pacts who returned to the country should have helped the Government in keeping peace in the region through an immediate implementation of the security arrangements and the formation of security forces under special specifications to fill possible security void.
The Government is busy with many things, which are also national priorities. And if the Government does not find somebody who can provide it with plans and ideas, solutions cannot come by.
It was hoped that the armed movements should give those solutions, but! There are many buts that stop the movements from moving quickly.
Generally, the UNAMID pullout can be difficult, but useful. It is useful because it puts the Armed Forces before their responsibilities.
Yes, that is a new job the Armed Forces have to handle. There is no way out. In the same way as the Armed Forces are readying to control the Eastern border, recklessly ignored by the defunct regime, these Forces should also regain their role in the defense of civilians everywhere around the country. And they should succeed in this.
Sudan can today swiftly build a big army with little reorganization, training and redeployment.
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Writing in the electronic publication “Alrakoba”, Mr. Mohammad Alhassan Alshai’r has criticized the misconduct of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces of deputy Chairman of the Sovereignty Council Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo (Himaidti):
The state of insecurity and taking the law by hand will not come to an end unless the Rapid Support Forces are dissolved. (Instead of the word rapid (Saree’), Alshai’r uses the Arabic word (Fathee’), which translates “horrible”, in reference to the horrid acts of this unruly force that detains, tortures and sometimes kills civilians, acts not within its mandate in any way.
“Today I say any patchy solutions carried out by the revolution and its activists without the dissolution of these Forces, the integration of some of their personnel in the Armed Forces and the demobilization of the others is but an incomplete, improper solution after which these Forces would return to their arrogance and despotism.
That is because they were groomed for killing and assassination. Everybody does what he is used to!
”Unfortunately, it is for the second time that those responsible for the political matters fail to impose the revolution’s will on the military and the paramilitary,
The masses that went out to pay tribute to martyr Baha’addin Nuri have been a replay of the scenes of the December 2018 Revolution, when the masses marched in defiance of the deposed Bashir and, then against General Burhan who tried a rebellion to take power all by himself. These masses, if directed to raise the one slogan that “The Rapid Forces Should Be Dissolved and Demobilized” and if they had refused to quit the streets unless this demand is realized, then this could have been the end of this hateful militia that created a state of horror unprecedented in Sudan.
The citizen is now insecure in his own home or in the street.
The declared official statements by the SRF Commander Himaidti upon the lifting of immunity from the perpetrators of Nuri’s killing are simply an attempt to anesthetize the public and cool their fury. That was just bending to the storm of public anger to pass, and when this anger cools down these killer forces will escape with their crime.
The crimes of the killing of Nuri and before him Ahmed Alkhair were erroneously classified as criminal acts, whereas they, originally, are crimes of compound political assassination.
The political redemption in these cases should have been the dissolution of these forces in the first place, before looking into criminal punishment.
These two martyrs were watched, stalked and kidnapped and then tortured to death.
In some cases the Rapid Support Forces’ personnel had purposefully driven vehicles over their victims, killing them.
Because these crimes were very much repeated, the existing miserable laws have to be reconsidered.
The laws of the revolution should be imposed with summary trials for these Rapid Support Forces’ personnel in the same quick way as these Forces kill the citizen, without even giving him a chance to drink water before he is killed.
When those who contemplate killing and torture see the long arms of justice, they will think a hundred times before committing such horrific, ugly crimes.”
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YH/AS
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