Weekly Press Columns Digest
31 January, 2021
KHARTOUM ( Sudanow) - Hereunder are summations of some newspaper columns that touched upon the most outstanding issues that preoccupied the public during the last week, with focus on the protests in some cities against the political and economic situation, the recording in circulation in which former Foreign Minister Ali Kerti urges adherents of the Islamic Movement to work for a comeback to government and another issue of interest was the developments of the Sudanese-Ethiopian crisis.
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Commenting on the protests staged against the political and economic situation, wrote Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper Aldimoqrati (the Democrat) Ms. Asma’a Juma’a, calling for new ways for protesting.
The political and economic crises Sudan is passing through at the moment are but an outcome of a long history of political failure that continued for 65 years, well groomed by sectors from the society quite lacking in wisdom, decency and enlightenment and, so ruled the country as they pleased always, believing that none was better than they were.
The current political scene is now full of this category that squabbles for government offices, no mater the public suffering. For that, and what is needed now, is pressure through continued revolutionary actions to remedy the historical culture of failure that produced politicians unable to resolve the simplest of crises. For that, there is need to depart from the barricading of roadways and demonstrations, because they are no longer suitable, increase the public suffering, consume the energy of the masses and wastes a lot of time. Further, this approach adds salt to injury when it allows psychologically and mentally unqualified persons to become part of the scene and take front positions, thus becoming bad leaders in the future. By this we could have harmed ourselves, preserved the culture of political wrongdoing and give it new blood.
It is imperative to devise new methods that work in two directions:
The first is to pressure the government and force its partners to change, go forward and put forward new youthful politicians.
The second direction is to help the government find solutions through the energizing of the society and driving it towards more positive, effective and enlightened action.
For instance, we can form active social and political working groups that can lend a helping hand: We have a ready example for this. These are the resistance and services committees launched by the youths. But these cannot do much. They need more groups to come through, from all categories. For instance, in order to press for the formation of the government and the parliament, a popular parliament can be selected from all the Sudanese territories, exactly like in the parliament we are about to appoint as dictates the Constitutional Document. These popular parliamentarians can stage a sit-in at the gates of the parliament premises on behalf of the public that must support them. This popular parliament can also do other things. In the neighborhoods, the people are in need of groups that press for the delivery of and promotion of services. Further and above, the citizens should abstain from greed and brokering in hard currency and consumer goods that intensify crises and shortages and should turn, instead, towards production. Benefit can also be made from the social media in a better way. In this way the government will feel more pressure and respond quickly. In this way the citizens can get better results.
In general, the masses should have a new strategy for getting the Sudan out of its real crisis, not only the tackling of the bread and fuel crises and the other problems through public pressures as we did with the defunct regime. If we do as we did in the past, the real crisis will continue to prevail and the climate of failure will persist. We have to promote the vehicles of revolutionary pressure: The road barricades and demonstrations are not enough to achieve the ambitions of the people.
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Under the title:”The Lone Wolves”, wrote Mohammad Musa Heraika in the electronic publication “Sudanile” on the outcries for mutiny by the remnants of the Bashir regime:
“The howling of the wolves of the defunct regime intensifies whenever the high-level committee charged to retrieve money and properties stolen by the operatives of that regime, takes or about to take new action against one of those financial empires built under the economic umbrella of that ruling group which was built by the marrying of religion, finance and politics. The result was the ugliest form of law-protected corruption Sudan had ever known. Former Foreign Affairs Minister Ali Kerti was the biggest pirate of that economic order.
Ali Kerti’s psychological set up proves in decisive evidence that the man does not see in Sudan anything but a property he should usurp in the name of Islam or jihad.
In 2004 and during the Naivasha (Kenya) peace talks between his government and the Southern Sudanese rebels (SPLM/SPLA), peace facilitators in the European-American Troika asked the two sides to include the Northern Sudanese opposition of the National Democratic Association in the peace talks, in the hope of reaching a comprehensive peace deal. Here Kerti lead a group of the regime’s hawks to foil that proposal saying : "We will not leave it for the birds after it has ripened.” That means we in the Islamic movement should take all the bounty i.e. the country should become all ours. Notice this greed when, for Kerti, the entire country of Sudan becomes a free field on which the struggle goes on, instead of the country being its people’s.
That lone wolf emerges on us in the midst of protests in some parts of the country with a recording in which he instigates the people for rebellion against the newborn democratic regime that faces many challenges, persuading his lunatic party to reunite to bring back that earthly glory they built from the people’s food.
Kerti was not the only lone wolf: In the River Nile State there seems to exist a herd of wolves that went astray to block the road in the face of the committee assigned by Governor Ms. Amna Almekki that decided to retrieve stolen government money and properties.
In Khartoum some others had assembled (like lone wolves) at the gates of the State House to condemn the resolutions of the committee that destroyed the empire of Fadl Mohammad Khair.
In Port Sudan some mobs had attacked the offices of a similar committee to protest the freezing of the bank accounts of former State Governor Mohammad Tahir Aila, held to have usurped public money and properties also. The mobs had attacked the committee offices, meddled with the documents and scared the officials in the building. That Port Sudan scene may not be the last such a scene.
It is our hope that the economic space in which these committees operate manages to dry up all the pools of corruption perpetrated by that organization.
Now the question: Will the Transitional Government allow these committees fight alone under a fluid law and under a clear lack of cooperation on the part of the security organs while facing that wild herd?
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Writing his regular column in the newspaper Alsudani (The Sudanese), Dr. Abdellatif Alboony said the Ethio-Sudanese crisis is taking shapes, new colors and is escalating.
It is surprising and alarming that Ethiopia has extremely hiked its demands when it asked the Sudanese Army to go back to its positions before November 2020.
Translation: the Sudanese Army should cancel its redeployment in both the big and small Fashagas and let the Ethiopian farmers return with their tractors, harvesters, trucks and armed militias to the Fashaga (look at this rudeness), and by that time it will be prepared to negotiate with the Sudan.
Yes, Sudan had exploited the fluid situation resulting in Ethiopia as a result of the Tigrai war and restored its occupied territories in the same way like when Ethiopia exploited the incident of the attempt on the life of Egyptian President Husni Mobarak in Addis Ababa in 1995 and (colonized) repeat (colonized) the Fashaga. The proof of this is the lease contracts present with Sudanese sides today. The most Ethiopia can ask for is compensations for its farmers’ crop of this season and for their mobile belongings. Even in this case it is sure that the Ethiopian farmers had stopped paying land leases for a long time and with encouragement from their government. These Ethiopian farmers could have been evacuated by the force of the civic law in both countries if it were not for hidden political ambitions. For that we consider the Ethiopian demand that the Sudanese army pull out to its positions before November 2020 an exaggeration.
For sure we should stand solid in the face of this strange Ethiopian demand. Whatever we say about Ethiopia, it is a wise country that does not make idle talk. That is why we should make a stop, in fact stops, at this weird demand, analyzing it and, further, taking due care. That is because these neighbors of ours are well known to us.
Did Ethiopia raise the ceiling of its demands in anticipation of future talks?
Does Ethiopia want to unify its internal front by claiming that the Fashaq is Ethiopian territory, thus rekindling the Amhara myth and their favorite song?
Is there a secret agreement between Ethiopia and the defunct government in which the latter gives the first an acquired right in the Fashaga? Even if such an agreement exists, it would not be binding to any Sudanese government, simply because the international land law does not allow for secret articles. Any amendment in the borders should be declared and a copy of it should be handed to the United Nations. Does Ethiopia feel that there is a rift in the Sudanese public opinion about the redeployment of the Army in the Fashaqa?
By and large, the Sudanese authorities should probe that extreme Ethiopian demand in and out and find a way for making Ethiopia swallow it.
END
YH/AS
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