Talking heads, Sudanese style
Khartoum's distress calls are being heard in neighbouring Arab capitals as the tense regional situation casts a dark shadow over the Sudanese crisis, writes Gamal Nkrumah
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Mubarak and Al-Bashir in Khartoum during the Egyptian president's first visit to Sudan in 14 years
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Sudanese opposition groups are searching for a wider and more inclusive approach to peace in Sudan than that restricted to peace talks between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the country's largest armed opposition group. Sudanese opposition groups want northern-based parties to play a role in the peace process. They also want to include Egypt, Libya and other Arab and African countries in the Sudanese peace process.
The Sudanese government and the SPLA have held peace talks in Kenya under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD), a regional organisation that groups seven East African countries, including Sudan.
Sudan appears to be poised for radical change. In spite of armed insurrections in Darfur and other parts of the country, the foundations for democracy and lasting peace are being laid. "Free and fair multi-party elections are a forgone conclusion. A bill of rights under international supervision is being drafted. And, a more inclusive approach to peace is being sought," Mansour Khaled, special political adviser of SPLA leader John Garang told Al-Ahram Weekly.
The Sudanese National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the umbrella opposition organisation grouping the SPLA and other mainly northern Sudanese opposition parties, met in the Eritrean capital Asmara last week to chart a strategy and plan of action. Khartoum accuses Asmara of supporting the SPLA and other armed Sudanese opposition groups. Eritrea hotly denies the charge, but the NDA is headquartered in Asmara. Sudan, on the other hand, gives shelter and support to armed Eritrean opposition groups.
Today it is not only the southern Sudanese but people in the west and east of the country who are waging war against Khartoum. "Is Khartoum going to wait for all the economically and politically marginalised groups to take up arms against it before it is forced to the negotiating table. The marginalised groups want a say in how the Sudanese government is run, they want to be part of the decision-making process," added Khaled who attended the Asmara meeting.
Other leading Sudanese opposition figures concurred. "People in Darfur are hungry, jobless and angry and so they took up arms against the Sudanese government. The uprising in Darfur was spontaneous and included different ideological strands and shades of political opinion," Farouk Abu Eissa, the head of the Cairo- based Arab Lawyers Union and official spokesman for the NDA told the Weekly.
The ruptures and divisions within the Sudanese government appear to have widened in the aftermath of the United States's aggression against Iraq and the eruption of an armed rebellion in Sudan's westernmost province of Darfur. The Sudanese government appears to be split between hard-line militant Islamist ideologues and a more moderate faction headed by Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir.
Al-Bashir has in the past given the more militant Islamist elements in his government plenty of leeway. But now there is considerable speculation that he is preparing to rein them in. With the Sudanese army's backing, Al-Bashir's standing on the domestic political front has been strengthened considerably. However, recent military setbacks in the western Sudanese province of Darfur where an armed opposition group, the Sudan Liberation Army, has made significant advances against government forces weakens and compromises Al-Bashir's position. Still, with Al-Bashir having the upper hand politically, the situation looks good for achieving an end to the Sudanese civil war -- Africa's longest-running.
A lasting settlement to the Sudanese political crisis seems closer than ever before. Al-Bashir is eager to revive the Egyptian-Libyan peace initiative on peace in Sudan and is supported in his bid to quell the influence of the more hard-line militant Islamists by his neighbours to the immediate north. Ironically, Al-Bashir also has the tacit support of his once arch-enemy the SPLA leader Garang. In a flurry of diplomatic activity, Al-Bashir flew to Libya in an unscheduled visit to brief the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on the latest developments concerning Sudan. Al-Bashir was accompanied by his special assistant Mubarak Al-Fadel Al-Mahdi who defected from the opposition Umma Party to join Al-Bashir's government last year. Libya, which borders Darfur, was rumoured to have supplied Darfur's SLA with logistical and military support. Al-Bashir's surprise visit to Libya came soon after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's visit to Khartoum last Wednesday.
IGAD, Washington, London and other Western powers are likewise supportive of Al-Bashir's efforts to clip the wings of the more militant elements in his government. It is in this context that support given to Al-Bashir by moderate Arab countries assumes critical importance.
Mubarak flew to Khartoum for the first official visit by the Egyptian president to Sudan since the attempt on his life in Addis Ababa in 1995. In 1996, the United Nation Security Council imposed diplomatic and travel sanctions against Sudan for involvement in the plot to assassinate Mubarak in the Ethiopian capital.
Significantly enough, the core group of hard-liners were not in Khartoum during Mubarak's recent visit to the Sudanese capital. Vice-President Ali Othman Mohamed Taha was in London, Security Chief Salah Goash and Sudan's Minister of Federal Government Nafie Ali Nafie -- key militant Islamists -- were similarly out of town during Mubarak's visit. Sudanese Energy Minister Awad Ahmed Al-Jaz, Nafie and Goash, in particular, are suspected of facilitating Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden's sojourn in Sudan between 1991 and 1996.
"Those people [the hard-line Islamist clique within the Sudanese government] realise that they are cornered, that they are in a state of siege," a prominent Cairo-based Sudanese opposition figure told the Weekly. "They desperately want to remain in control of the country. They still have links with terrorists. Their hands are bloodied. They know that the Egyptians want peace and a strengthening of Al-Bashir's position," he added.
There is now a growing consensus among Sudanese opposition figures that Al-Bashir himself genuinely wants peace, and that he is prepared to pay its price. Other members of his government, even though keen on peace, are not so eager for it that they are willing to pay any price.
The core group of Islamist hard-liners in the Sudanese government is especially fearful that reconciliation between Al-Bashir and more moderate Arab countries and a permanent peace deal with the SPLA and other NDA parties will entail the opening up of old files and that they might be penalised for their dubious past.
So what are Al-Bashir's chances of stifling the militant Islamists' power and influence? Al-Bashir has developed a cordial working relationship with Garang, who has openly indicated that he can work with Al-Bashir, but not with his more hard-line colleagues in government.
Of critical importance is the role to be played by the US, British and other interested Western powers and their awareness of the schisms and divisions among the Sudanese ruling clique.
Hawks in the Bush administration argue that Washington's arm- twisting tactics have paid dividends. The US Congress Sudan Peace Act, sponsored by the Congressional Back Caucus and the Christian Right authorises Washington to act against Khartoum if it does not make a genuine effort to reach a peace deal with the SPLA. While Washington is pleased with the cease-fire agreement signed between the Sudanese government and the SPLA in the Kenyan town of Machakos last October, it insists that a comprehensive peace deal be signed between the two parties first before trade and economic sanctions are lifted and relations between the two countries are normalised.
The US State Department reiterated that it considers Sudan a state that sponsors terrorism, thereby angering the Sudanese authorities. Sudanese officials expressed regret of Washington's decision which entails the imposition of US trade and economic sanctions, including a ban on the sale of arms to Sudan. Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Othman Ismail pronounced the decision to keep Sudan on the list of states sponsoring terrorism as "unfair and unjustified".
