Weekly Press Columns Digest
24 April, 2022
KHARTOUM (Sudanow) - Three of the week’s most important issues that won pubic interest and, consequently, the press commentaries were:
- The declaration of a new political alliance that groups together different Islamist factions, including the dissolved National Congress Party and its splinter group: Reform Now.
- The Call aired by General Burhan for national dialogue
- The increasing incidences of detention and torture of political activists and protesters.
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About the declared unification of the Islamic groups in a single alliance, wrote Mr. Ashraf Abdelaziz, Editor of the daily journal Aljareeda (the Newspaper) :
A feverish move is now underway to unify the wide Islamic current with its different factional groups under one umbrella.
This call for the unification of the Islamists has gained momentum following the expulsion from power of the Forces For Freedom and Change (FFC) after the military coup on 25 October 2021.
At that time the lovers of the Islamic movement thought it opportune for the Islamic factions to bypass the bitterness of the past and reunify once again, thus turning the political table on other political forces and taking control of the political scene through a new alliance with the military.
That is why we can see that all those Islamists joining the new alliance are backers of the military coup.
It is now visible that the dissolved National Congress Party (NCP) wants to solidify its position by unifying the Islamists and overhauling its household.
That is why the Party is tickling the feelings of the Islamists that “our enemy has become one” and that “if we do not stand together that would mean the final departure of the Islamic movement from the political scene”, leaving the playground for “the secular groupings represented in the communists, the ba’athists,” etc and that “as long as the Islamic movement is in control of the electorate represented in the tribal leaders, return to power is possible.“
But the biggest challenge that faced the National Congress Party was the difficulty of achieving the unity of the Islamists through the existing Islamist institutions.
For instance, Dr. Ali Alhaj, the General Secretary of the Popular Congress Party (a splinter from the NCP) could not be persuaded by NCP Chairman Mr. Ali Karty about the necessity of unifying the ranks of the Islamists.
Dr. Alhaj has presented himself as the staunchest opponent of General Burhan’s military coup, coupling this attitude of his by effecting changes in the Party in which the frontline leaderships were removed.
But before this (lame ) unity they are after, the Islamists should realize that their problem is not with the FFC and the secular groups, but rests with their own experiment whose political order came to an end by the arrest of its founder and thinker, Dr. Hassan Alturabi in 2000.
The Islamic movement should further understand that it had failed in the playground it had chosen. That is the playground of morality. In this the Islamists had presented Sudan as one of the World’s most corrupt countries, by the ruling of the Transparency International that ranked Sudan the fifth from the bottom in terms of corruption. As part of its mismanagement of the country’s affairs, this movement has failed to keep Southern Sudan as part of the country.
It has also killed innocent citizens in Darfur as conceded by General Bashir during a Ramadan breakfast event organized at the home of Darfuri politician, Dr. Altijani Alsisi.
This movement was also behind the wars in the two areas (the Southern Blue Nile and the Southern Kordofan districts) as well as the other grave mistakes it had committed against the people of Sudan.
Many of the preachers of the unity of the Islamists are still of the view that this unity should not only mean the control of the government, but should also mean the redrafting of all the aspects of human life in the country.
For these the Islamic regime should determine for its citizens not only who should rule them, but also their moral, cultural and artistic priorities. But as experiment has shown, this is against the essence of human nature, violates the principal freedom of choice and the right to privacy. And this is no longer acceptable after the revolution, let alone the fact that the symbols of this call for unity are the same leaderships we have already seen in the movement’s dark past.
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On General General Burhan’s declared call for national dialogue, wrote outspoken news analyst, Editor of the daily newspaper Aldemograti (the Democrat), Ms. Asma Juma’a.
Her editorial has come under the title: “Caution… Burhan is Bargaining….Not Negotiating.”
She has said:
Burhan has said in those statements of his that: “We are in a difficult time in which we, all of us, should give concessions for the sake of the country.”
He also spoke about the deteriorating economy and security. He said they were ready to offer all that prepares a conducive climate for dialogue.
But he did not concede that he is the cause of this mess.
His insistence upon the issue of dialogue confirms his bad will: He does not want to reach agreement as much as he wants to use this dialogue as a weapon with which to defeat the political forces opposed to his coup by dragging them to negotiations that could continue for years as the dissolved National Congress Party had used to do. And when this dialogue comes to an end the political parties could have been divided even more worse than they are now. That would certainly avail the military with a good opportunity to give the political forces the last blow, particularly that this dialogue would embody the former rebel movements, the tiny political forces created by the Bashir regime, the Sufi orders and the tribal administrations.
This dialogue may also embody the criminal gangs created by Bashir’s ousted regime whom Burhan had rallied to his side. All of these bodies have no vision and no aim other than to appear on the stage and profiteer.
It is clear that Burhan, though he is the person who put the country in this crisis and the only wrongdoer who should bear the responsibility and confess to his misstate, ask for pardon, or even resign if he is really concerned with the country’s interest, is still arguing, giving justifications and trying to hold others responsible for his own crime.
He is even very keen to convince the people that he is the person most concerned about the country’s interests and whose advice should be accepted and carried out.
He is assuming this attitude though everybody is sure that the man is doing so just for his own interest, to keep his position in power, run away from the truth and all that is right and escape justice that awaits him.
Accepting this menu of Burhan would end up into a deadlock or giving undeserved concessions to the military, concessions that weaken the political forces as happened in the Constitutional Document of 2019 that materialized a fruitless partnership.
For that reason, it is better to commit to the slogan: No negotiations….No partnership with the Military and No bargaining with them.
In sum: Burhan does not want a solution that saves the country. He wants a solution that saves him through a dialogue based on bargains that lead to a partnership worse than the previous one.
He is bargaining not negotiating.
It should be understood that the military do not know (negotiation). This is a word which they use to deceive the people.
For that reason the political forces and the forces of the revolution are advised not to give this opportunity to the military once again.
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Upon the escalating security arrests of political figures and the leaderships of the resistance committees, wrote the Editor of the newspaper Almaidan, the mouthpiece of the Sudanese Communist Party, Ms. Madeeha Abdalla:
The group of lawyers known as the emergency lawyers that rushes to the defense of political detainees has revealed a mounting rise in the number of political detainees.
The arrests include leaderships of the resistance committees and political leaderships.
The coup authority employs mean methods of psychological and physical torture on the detainees.
This torture takes many forms, including the storming of houses to frighten the protesters families.
Kin of the protesters are also taken hostages to force the protesters turn themselves in to the security.
The methods also include firing tear gas and rubber bullets inside the neighborhoods.
This is in addition to the maltreatment of the detainees, depriving them from their basic human needs in this merciless harsh summer weather.
Some of the detainees have been transferred to jails far away from where they live.
Detainees’ relatives are denied the right to know about their conditions or contact them.
Several crimes stem from this crime of detention:
First: The confiscation of the person’s right to political activity and his/her right to free expression and peaceful organization.
Second: The detainee is denied his personal freedom, his privacy is violated and he/she is monitored continuously.
Third: the violation of home privacy and its entailment of scaring the concerned household’s children and elders.
More worse, the detainees pay an unseen cost represented in the danger their families, their homes and their livelihoods face.
The coup perpetrators have lost self-control as a result of the soft ground they stand on which is created by the mounting popular resistance.
The ordeal we pass through obliges us to work swiftly for wider solidarity with the detainees and their families.
Here it is not enough to quickly exchange the news about the arrests. There should be work to provide due care and attention to the detainees, especially the sick, the elders, the children and those who look after families under these harsh economic conditions.
Pressure should be exercised by all means for the immediate release of the detainees.
Every minute that passes represents a violation of the detainees’ rights and a high social cost for them and their families.
This dictates the escalation of resistance and the founding of legal, social and cultural action that lays the groundwork for the culture of rights, the elimination of impunity and protection against violations and injustices.
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