Weekly Press Columns Digest
15 August, 2021
KHARTOUM (Sudanow) - The three issues that drew public attention and consequently won a lot of press commentaries were the proof by a court of law that the commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), deputy chairman of the Sovereignty Council Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo (Hemaidt), was recruiting minors and involving them in armed conflict, the inauguration of former rebel leader Minni Arko Minnawi as governor of Darfur and the controversial selection of new diplomats in the Foreign Ministry .
About the ruling by a court of law at the Midwestern city of Alobied in which six elements from the Rapid Support Forces of General Hemaidti were convicted to death for killing protesters in 2019 while a young recruit was relegated to the minors court, wrote Lawyer, Mr. Ali Ajab in Sudanile:
The court findings were a mixture of ignorance about the law and a blatant violation of judicial norms.
This ruling reveals the magnitude of the influence of the defunct regime on criminal justice.
These judges are originally members of the security apparatus, some of them involved in torture committed at the ‘ghost houses’ while some others sat at court and general attorney podiums to abort justice.
We have never heard at a court of law that a judge could base his ruling on newspaper writings. The judge at Alobied trial had even mentioned the names of the journalists he had quoted, citing what they wrote as if they were precedents accredited by the High Court.
Worse than that, the judge has condemned the convicts saying they acted on their own, without orders from above. That is absolving the RSF leadership from the crime. Criminal justice does not see crimes committed by troops as unilateral behavior unless the nature of the offence is unilateral.
The judge has overlooked the evidence presented to him and went to look into the newspapers writings.
He also referred to the findings of an investigation committee set up by the RSF command, in addition to report of the North Kordofan State Governor who is (in principle) the first accused.
This judge did not find any evidence that the convicts behaved on their own and instead said that the RSF were free from any misconduct.
We have never heard in the history of the judiciary that a judge bases his ruling away from the findings and evidence in question.
Such a judge must have been bribed or is afraid of the executive. In either case he should be dismissed from the judiciary.
It is obvious now the judiciary and the attorney general are in need of just kicking off the likes of this silly judge and the attorneys who refer cases to the courts without responsible investigation. The need now is for changing this deliberate tendency to protect the military leaderships and present the soldiers as escape goats.
The judge has said that the third accused Mohammad Ahmed Abdalla was a minor when the crime was committed. This is an additional catastrophe that reveals the judge’s ignorance about the law. He did not know that the minors law prevents a criminal court from looking into a case when the accused standing before it is a minor and out of its jurisdiction.
The most important aspect of the matter is that the judge had received evidence that the RSF affiliate standing before him was a minor. Based on this it could not be said the minor had joined the RSF as “a personal behavior” and received a machine gun with which he killed the victims, so behaving unilaterally.
This hasty judge had tried to absolve the RSF command from the crime and has unknowingly involved the RSF command into an international crime. This is a crime against humanity and is, necessarily, against the children law.
The judge, if he was not really ignorant about the law, should have returned the case papers to the attorney general for investigation on suspected recruitment of minors.
This could have lead to the inclusion of the RSF commander as the first accused in a crime against humanity.
In this respect we remind of the case of Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga who was convicted before the International Criminal Court for the recruitment of minors and involving them in armed conflicts. The ICC has considered these offences as crimes against humanity and so condemned Lubanga who is now languishing in ICC jail, spending a ten-year imprisonment term. He was also ruled to pay ten million dollars in indemnities for the children recruited.
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Upon Minnawi’s inauguration as governor of the Western Region of Darfur, wrote the chief editor of the daily newspaper Aldemocrati (the Democratic) Asma’a Juma’a:
Mr. Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok who had left his excellent career in the United Nations and returned to Khartoum as Prime Minister with consent of the majority of the People of the Sudan did not get an inauguration ceremony and no worthless committees whose funding was deducted from the people’s food were set up to receive him upon arrival.
And those who went to greet him were not invited to do so, their sole aim was to enjoy the moment of truth that confirms the Bashir nightmare was over.
Then Dr. Hamdok took the oath of office and assumed his demanding duties like what any other government employee would do. And that was all..
We had really wanted this example of Mr. Hamdok to become a norm followed by all employees to be hired by the transitional government. But the reception and inauguration of Mr. Minnawi as governor of Darfur on 10 August at Alfashir (capital of Darfur) was a different story. A high-level committee was set up for the purpose, branching into other committees. The seven airplanes Minnawi had said would take the senior guests to the inauguration at Alfashir were made to do the job. You can imagine the cost of this celebration which was deducted from the people’s money for a few moments of celebration, though the occasion could have been better if it was made without this much spending and the sums spent on it directed to resolve a problem of the country’s so many problems.
The celebration marking Minnawi’s inauguration is a symptom of corruption the state still permits, with its institutions taking part in it when they allow the use of public money in this way.
For instance, the mineral resources company has urged mining companies to donate funds for these Minnawi inauguration celebrations, justifying the move as part of these companies social accountability, comparing it to donations for rainy season emergencies and the digging of water holes …and others.
For more justification the company’s manager said they were having an initiative entitled “Stand Up For Darfur.” My goodness! This is also a door of corruption. The company had to disburse the money into the public coffer in order for the government not to be in need for money to help Darfur.
Of course there are some institutions, other than the mineral resources company, that did the same. But this was what has leaked from the corridors of the mineral resources company.
Anyway, there is no need to celebrate the inauguration of Minnawi. He did not win a free and fair election. He is not the Nelson Mandela of our time. The conditions that took him to this office should have obliged him to sit on this chair without any publicity. A government position is needed to put an end to such corruption symptoms. Keeping silent over such practices is a bigger corruption.
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About the controversies surrounding the recent intakes for new diplomats in the Foreign Ministry, an incident that drew a lot of discussions in the press and the social media, wrote Dr. Nahid Gurnas in the daily journal Aljareeda (The Newspaper):
The Foreign Ministry’s new appointments that caused a big public stir have really exposed the weakness of the educational curricula introduced by the defunct regime.
Those appointments and the result of the admission have revealed to us the magnitude of deception under which we have lived for sometime.
For instance out of 442 candidates who sat for an exam paper on international relations only 80 have passed.
Worse than that names of some of those failures in the international relations paper (so vital as it is for the would-be diplomats) were included in the Ministry’s new appointments.
I have received a message from one of those candidates who sat for all the exam papers and scored excellent results, added to his long experience with international voluntary organizations.
He said he was surprised not to find his name among those admitted.
He said he was surprised at the Ministry’s revelation that the final result was also determined by the personal interview. But he said the said interview had contained no substantial questions, just some personal queries that have no relation with the required job. In that way the failures went up and the successful went down.
It is a black comedy that the Minister had issued a statement saying she has set up an appeal committee for those who think they were wronged.
I want to say this, your highness the Minister: This idea is wrong. For us the people of Sudan the problem is not about those who were rejected, because they will file complaints. The problem is about those who were admitted despite their low standard. Your decision did not mention these. It simply means: let our people stay in these jobs and let us find seats for those who have passed the exam.
No Your Excellency. Without any much talk, we will not be contented but with the cancellation of the entire intake and the holding of a new exam all anew, in full transparency and
clarity.
E N D
YH/AS
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