Saturday, August 17, 2019

Sudan's TMC Hemeti and AFC al-Rabie sign deal

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: Sudan's big deal was signed today amidst banners saying "Sudan's joy". I fear for what lays ahead. The old regime has not vanished and Hemeti, a psychopathic camel herding upstart mercenary from Chad, who has four wives and hates politics, doesn't fit in with Khartoum's elite and its social scene.

Sixteen years ago I started this blog Sudan Watch during which time I lost count of the number of agreements signed in Sudan. They all ended up being worth less than the paper they were written on. 

The ink wouldn't be dry before fights started between rebels and government troops. Rebels would then fall out with each other and split into different groups with new names. How else could they make a living?

In the early years I lost count of the number of rebel groups after noting 48. In my view, today's deal is no different from all the others. The youngsters protesting in Khartoum were babies when this blog started.  Sad to say they'll be disillusioned, soon. 

South Sudan is, I believe, a failed state and Sudan is on the brink of becoming one. I wonder whether Sudan and South Sudan are governable. They're so diverse and backward in many ways. They need water.

Sudanese civilians living far from Khartoum are still suffering being attacked and killed. Recent floods caused unhealthy conditions. People are in need of mosquito nets and medicines especially for malaria.

Meanwhile, South Sudan government officials are proposing a house be built for ex-rebel President Kiir in his home town and a private jet be bought for him. He spends tons on constant unnecessary travels. Puke.

Article by AFP.com from Businesslive.co.za
Dated 17 August 2019 - 15:53 AFP.COM
Sudan generals, protest leaders sign transition deal
Heads of state from several countries attended the ceremony in Khartoum
Sudan's protest leader Ahmad Rabie (R), flashes the victory gesture alongside General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (2nd-R), the chief of Sudan's ruling Transitional Military Council (TMC), during a ceremony where they signed a "constitutional declaration" that paves the way for a transition to civilian rule, in the capital Khartoum on August 17, 2019. Picture: EBRAHIM HAMID / AFP

Khartoum - Sudan's military council and protest leaders on Saturday signed a hard-won "constitutional declaration" that paves the way for a transition to civilian rule.

The agreement was signed by Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, deputy chief of the military council, and Ahmed al-Rabie, representing the Alliance for Freedom and Change protest umbrella, an AFP reporter said.

Heads of state, prime ministers and dignitaries from several countries -- including Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Egypt's premier Mustafa Madbuli -- attended the ceremony in Khartoum, and the signing was met with applause.

The constitutional declaration builds on a political declaration that was agreed by the military and protesters on July 17.

It formalises the creation of a transition administration that will be guided by an 11-member sovereign council, comprised of six civilians and five military figures.

The agreement follows nearly eight months of protests -- initially against longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir, who fell in April, and then against the military council that deposed him.

Talks between the protesters and the military were mediated by the African Union and Ethiopia, which brought the two sides together again even after a protest sit-in outside military headquarters was brutally dispersed by men in military fatigues on June 3.

Some 120 people were killed during that crackdown, according to doctors linked to the protesters.

The signing ceremony started with Sudan's national anthem, followed by a reading of verses from the Koran and the Old Testament, while the words "Sudan's joy" were emblazoned on banners. AFP
- - -

Hemeti BBC interview broadcast ahead of signing ceremony

A BBC News online report dated Saturday 17 August 2019 states that the above mentioned deal was signed by Hemeti and Lt-Gen Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman Burhan for the military council, and Ahmed al-Rabie for the Alliance for Freedom and Change umbrella group of pro-democracy protesters.

“We will stick to every single letter we have agreed on," Hemeti told the BBC's Zeinab Badawi in an interview (see below) broadcast ahead of the ceremony.

"Even without the agreement we [would] have to work in this direction because it's in the country's interest," he added. 

"Therefore we have to carry out the agreement, stick to it and support it."

[Sudan Watch Ed:  Puke]

To visit the report and video interview click here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-49379489

Sudan Constitutional Charter signed by TMC and FFC

HERE is a copy of a tweet by Irfan Siddiq @FCOIrfan the British Ambassador in Khartoum, Sudan timestamped 6:58 am 17 Aug 2019, saying “An honour to be present for the signing of the transition agreement to civilian rule in #Sudan. Dawn of a new Sudan, I hope. One honouring the principles of freedom, peace and justice.”
 To visit the above tweet click here: https://twitter.com/FCOIrfan/status/1162725279934140416

Corruption among staff of the UNHCR and the Sudanese government’s Commission for Refugees

THIS is sickening. Corruption among staff of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and the Sudanese government’s Commission for Refugees which it partners with, is one of the reasons refugees prefer to head to neighbouring Libya, before trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. A graft probe led to the suspension of resettlement for refugees in Sudan, it hasn’t restarted. Let's hope that UNAMID stays in Darfur.
To visit the above tweet click here: https://twitter.com/newhumanitarian/status/1162113485892980736

Hat tip and thanks to Eric Reeves @sudanreeves for retweeting the following by @LaurenPinDC 16 Aug 2019:Corruption among staff of the UNHCR and the Sudanese government’s Commission for Refugees, which it partners with, is one of the reasons refugees told TNH they preferred to head to neighbouring Libya, before trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.”
To visit the above tweet click here:
Note, in reply to the above tweet @umasalam commented saying:
“There are structural issues involved - the rarity of resettlement places makes them a very valuable commodity. The involvement of corrupt security and humanitarian staff is almost inevitable, sadly”

Dickens & Madson lobbyists don't know their Darfur Sudan client Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo aka Hemeti

Note from Sudan Watch Editor: With respect to the following nonsensical quote taken from the below copied article, it seems apparent that Canadian firm Dickens & Madson's lobbyist Mr Ari Ben-Menashe does not really know who he is dealing with, his client Hemeti is the "commander" responsible for unspeakable atrocities and destruction, including the maiming, raping and slaying of a countless number of unarmed civilians in Darfur and elsewhere, affecting the lives of millions of civilians.
"The lobbyist also compared Dagalo to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “In spite of his past — if it’s a morality contest, [Dagalo] would beat Netanyahu hands down. How many people died in the Middle East trying to make quote, unquote ‘Israel safe’? Sorry, but I have to make this comment.”
Article from Middle East Monitor
Dated 23 July 2019 at 1:46 pm
Ex-Israel spy admits lobbying US on behalf of Sudan military council
Photo: Israeli businessman Ari Ben-Menache [Twitter] 

A former Israeli spy has admitted to signing a multi-million-dollar contract with Sudan’s Transitional Military Council to lobby the US to support its rule.

The deal was signed by Ari Ben-Menashe, a 67-year-old Israeli businessman based in Montreal, Canada, who heads the “Dickens & Madson” lobbying firm. Menashe is a former Israeli spy and boasts a long, controversial career which has reportedly seen him lobby for African opposition figures, witness US-Iranian hostage deals and execute arms deals.

Dickens & Madson recently signed a $6 million deal with Sudan’s Transitional Military Council, which has ruled the country since former President Omar Al-Bashir was ousted in April.

The documents – submitted to the US Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act – stipulated that Ben-Menashe would lobby “the executive and/or legislative branches of the government of the United States and its agencies to support the Transitional [Military] Council of Sudan’s efforts to establish a democratic government”.

The firm would also work on improving the military council’s media coverage, Haaretz reported yesterday. In a separate deal also disclosed in the documents, Dickens & Madson would work with Venezuelan opposition to replace embattled President Nicolas Maduro and lobby Russia to support his proposed successor, Henri Falcon.

Though the documents were first made public last month, Ben-Menashe confirmed the deals in an interview with the Israeli daily this weekend.

Ben-Menashe discussed his Sudanese client Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo – often known as Hemeti – who heads the country’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary unit formed from the remnants of Darfur’s Janjaweed militia. Since 2005, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been investigating allegations of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity against Janjaweed leaders for their actions in Darfur.

Though the official documents show that Dickens & Madson is also representing Transitional Military Council head Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, Ben-Menashe said that Dagalo “is the one with true power”.

Ben-Menashe told Haaretz that despite the RSF’s brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters last month – which saw as many as 100 demonstrators killed, tents burned and women raped in Sudanese capital Khartoum – Dagalo has “promised him that all he wants is for Sudan to have fair elections”.

“I’m not his fan really,” he said of the military leader, “[but] he’s the only guy that can keep order until this civilian government takes hold. What we’re also banking on is that there’s an army and there’s the Rapid Support Forces: one would put [a] check on the other.”

The lobbyist also compared Dagalo to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “In spite of his past — if it’s a morality contest, [Dagalo] would beat Netanyahu hands down. How many people died in the Middle East trying to make quote, unquote ‘Israel safe’? Sorry, but I have to make this comment.”

Ben-Menashe also touched on Dagalo’s relationships with regional powers, which are known to include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt.

Ben-Menashe told Haaretz that the Sudanese leadership is struggling to balance its support of US President Donald Trump’s administration with the president’s “Saudi friends”, who he claims are pressuring Dagalo to continue sending Sudanese troops to Yemen. Ben-Menashe claims that Dagalo “knows the arrangement is not a good thing for Sudan”.

The Transitional Military Council leadership has met with its regional allies on a number of occasions, with council head Al-Burhan in May visiting the Saudi city of Mecca for emergency summits of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to discuss the “threat” of Iran in the region.

This came just days after Al-Burhan met Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, who “stressed the importance of dialogue between the Sudanese people in this sensitive phase”, as well as Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, who stressed “Egypt’s readiness to fully support the brothers in Sudan”.

Almost immediately after Al-Bashir’s ousting, Sudan and the UAE agreed to send Sudan $3 billion worth of aid in a bid to support the military council. The deal was understood to include $500 million to be deposited in the Sudanese central bank, while the rest would come in the form of food, medicine and petroleum products.

Friday, August 16, 2019

Career opportunities at International Criminal Court

APPLY for an #internship at the #ICC and make it a springboard for your career.  Here is a copy of a tweet by the International Criminal Court @IntlCrimCourt #ICC dated 15 August 2019.  Its vacancy announcements for future internship and visiting professional opportunities will be posted on their new eRecruitment systemCheck all the available positions here: https://bit.ly/2MjjuN4
To visit the above tweet click here:  https://twitter.com/IntlCrimCourt/status/1162046477323132928

Flooring Hemeti Dagalo the monster from Darfur Sudan may require more than unarmed protesters

  • The interim vice president, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemeti” Dagalo, was in charge of the brutal janjaweed militias. Now he is calling the shots in Khartoum
  • By creating the janjaweed and relentlessly empowering them under Hemeti, the Sudanese regime has created a monster it cannot control
  • In 2006, armed with new equipment, he led several hundred men on a raid across the rebel-held area of North Darfur. The janjaweed rammed non-Arab men with their pickup trucks and raped women in the name of jihad—according to witnesses I met at the time
  • When Sudanese troops joined the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, Hemeti’s RSF played a key role alongside a Sudanese army contingent
  • Even those who used to laugh at his blunt speeches stopped seeing him as a joke and now saw him as a threat to their democratic hopes
  • Given that the Bashir regime repeatedly failed to abide by its international commitments to disarm the janjaweed, it seems even less likely now
Full story below.

From Foreign Policy
Dated 14 May 2019, 2:34 PM
The Man Who Terrorized Darfur Is Leading Sudan’s Supposed Transition
The interim vice president, Mohamed Hamdan “Hemeti” Dagalo, was in charge of the brutal janjaweed militias. Now he is calling the shots in Khartoum.
Gen. Mohamed Hamdan “Hemeti” Dagalo, the deputy head of Sudan’s military council, speaks at a news conference in Khartoum on April 30. ASSOCIATED PRESS

After Omar al-Bashir was deposed on April 11, Western diplomats made no mistake about who was in charge. Ambassadors from the United States, Britain, and the European Union did not shake hands with the transitional military council’s president, the little known army general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan; they met with his younger deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known by the nickname “Hemeti.” 

The story of how an uneducated 40-something chief of the janjaweed—the Arab militias that brought death and destruction to Darfur 16 years ago—became more powerful than his seasoned mentors in the Sudanese junta is, to many, a mystery. 

In fact, Hemeti is the main legacy of Bashir’s 30-year rule. Bashir himself was a product of an alliance of the army and the Muslim Brotherhood, unseen elsewhere in the Arab world, but the army grew tired of the wars it had to fight in Sudan’s south, and the Islamists fragmented. When a new war began in Darfur in 2003, Bashir was convinced by Darfuri Arab hard-liners that turning their youths to militias would allow him to win. But by creating the janjaweed and relentlessly empowering them under Hemeti, the Sudanese regime has created a monster it cannot control and who represents a security threat not only for Sudan but also for its neighbors.

It seems that for a few days after Bashir’s ousting Khartoum’s civilian opposition trusted that it could negotiate a civilian transition with Burhan and Hemeti. Darfuris were more skeptical, given that they were more intimately familiar with the new men in charge. Burhan was a military intelligence colonel coordinating army and militia attacks against civilians in West Darfur state from 2003 to 2005, at a time when Hemeti was already a known warlord, who would gradually become the janjaweed’s primary leader. 

During its first, most intense years, the war in Darfur led to the deaths of several hundred thousand non-Arab civilians and displaced about 2 million people, earning Bashir an arrest warrant for genocide from the International Criminal Court. 

I met Hemeti a couple of times in 2009, first in a vaguely Orientalist furniture shop he owned in South Darfur’s state capital of Nyala (one of his early business efforts), from which I was driven to a more private office setting. He was a tall man with the sarcastic smile of a naughty child—yet he was then the newly appointed security advisor to South Darfur’s governor, his first official government position, obtained through blackmail and threats of rebellion.

Hemeti hails from a small Chadian Arab clan that fled wars and drought in Chad to take refuge in Darfur in the 1980s. As he told me, his uncle Juma Dagalo failed to be recognized as a tribal leader in North Darfur state, but South Darfur authorities welcomed the newcomers and allowed them to settle on land belonging to the Fur tribe, Darfur’s main indigenous non-Arab group. The place, called Dogi in the Fur language, was rebranded Um-el-Gura, “the mother of the villages” in Arabic, an old name for Mecca. The authorities also armed Dagalo’s followers, who, as early as the 1990s, began attacking their Fur neighbors.

Hemeti was then a teenager who, as he told me, dropped out of primary school in the third grade to trade camels across the borders in Libya and Egypt. When the Darfur rebellion began in 2003, he became a janjaweed amir (war chief) in his area, leading attacks against neighboring Fur villages. To justify joining the government-backed militias, he said the rebels had attacked a caravan of fellow camel traders on their way to Libya, allegedly killing 75 men and looting 3,000 camels. That fell short of his own brutal record as a militia leader. 

In 2006, armed with new equipment, he led several hundred men on a raid across the rebel-held area of North Darfur. The janjaweed rammed non-Arab men with their pickup trucks and raped women in the name of jihad—according to witnesses I met at the time.  His violent methods even created tensions with accompanying army officers. 

At the same time, Chad and Sudan began a proxy war through their respective rebel groups. The Chadian government used its own Arab officials to push the janjaweed to betray Khartoum. Bichara Issa Jadallah, a cousin to Hemeti, was then the defense minister in Chad. In 2006, he invited the janjaweed leader to the Chadian capital, N’Djamena, and had him sign a secret nonaggression pact with the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement, behind the back of Khartoum. 

Shortly afterward, Hemeti announced that he had become a rebel. He then received a visit from a TV crew working for Britain’s Channel 4, which shot a documentary in his camp—his first exposure to TV—a medium to which he has become addicted since. But the journalists reportedly came late, and, as they were filming, government negotiators were also in the camp, bargaining over the price to bring Hemeti back into the government fold.

He remained a rebel for only six months before going back to Khartoum’s side. “We didn’t really become rebels,” he told me in 2009, sitting in his governor advisor’s chair. “We just wanted to attract the government’s attention, tell them we’re here, in order to get our rights: military ranks, political positions, and development in our area.” 

Other janjaweed leaders were increasingly critical of the government, including the most powerful among them, Musa Hilal, who in 2013 quit his post as presidential advisor in Khartoum and began forming his own movement. At the same time, some janjaweed were openly fighting the Sudanese intelligence service in downtown Nyala. Hemeti was one of the few janjaweed leaders to remain loyal to Bashir’s government. 

Consequently, Hemeti was picked to lead the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an enhanced paramilitary force—initially in an effort to retake control of the janjaweed, but it didn’t work out as planned. The RSF became uncontrollable and engaged in looting, killing, and rape in Darfur, as well as in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states.

The RSF also began exporting Darfur’s violence to central Sudan, ransoming civilians at highway roadblocks north of Khartoum and taking part in repressing demonstrations in the capital in September 2013, when at least 200 protesters were killed. First under the intelligence service, then under the direct control of the presidency, the force became Bashir’s praetorian guard, whose role was to protect the president from protests or from any coup attempt by the army—it turned into a third pole of power within Sudan’s security apparatus, rival to both army and intelligence. Hemeti was appointed brigadier general.

Then, in 2016, as Europe began cooperating with Sudan to curb migration flows, Hemeti’s men began to intercept migrants, from Sudan itself as well as other parts of the Horn of Africa, on their way to Libya, exhibiting them on local and foreign TV stations to demonstrate to the European Union that they were the right people for the job. In fact, the RSF played a double game and filled their cars with migrants whom they sold to Libyan traffickers, who would then often jail them in torture houses. Since Muammar al-Qaddafi’s fall in 2011, migrants in Libya are commonly tortured until they call relatives and convince them to pay a ransom to set them free; those who cannot pay are turned into slaves. But on Sudanese national TV, Hemeti claimed to be acting on behalf of the EU, which he also threatened with reopening the border if he was not paid a ransom for his “hard work.”

When Sudanese troops joined the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, Hemeti’s RSF played a key role alongside a Sudanese army contingent led by Burhan, then the ground forces chief of staff. The two men got along well. They reportedly had meetings with Emirati and Saudi officials, discussing the post-Bashir era and telling them that they were the men the Emirati, Saudi, and Egyptian regimes were looking for: Arab military leaders who were not Islamists friendly with Qatar, Iran, or the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. 

The RSF reportedly received Saudi and Emirati support, including money and weapons. Recently, at a press conference, Hemeti claimed to have set aside some $350 million to save Sudan’s finances and explained that he obtained this money for his role in Yemen and mining gold in Sudan. (He had competed with Hilal for gold concessions and eventually managed to have his rival arrested in 2017.)

In another recent TV appearance, Hemeti described how, in April, Bashir asked him and other military leaders to open fire on protesters, quoting an Islamic law supposedly allowing a ruler to kill 30-50 percent of a population in order to save the rest. He said he then decided “not to resist the change” and not oppose the protesters. 

The first head of the transitional military council, Gen. Awad Ibn Auf, resigned after 24 hours, reportedly disagreeing with Hemeti, who preferred Burhan. In the following days, Hemeti continued his public relations campaign, visiting a wounded protester in the hospital. But at a press conference on April 30, he made clear who he was, accusing the protesters of being drug addicts and stating he could not tolerate them continuously “blocking the streets.” Even those who used to laugh at his blunt speeches stopped seeing him as a joke and now saw him as a threat to their democratic hopes. 

Indeed Hemeti positioned his troops—reportedly 9,000 soldiers who were already in Khartoum and 4,000 who came recently from Darfur—at strategic locations all over the city, ready to fight protesters, the army, or anyone else. (On Monday, protest leaders blamed the RSF when five demonstrators and an army major were shot.) 

Hemeti is reportedly backed by some of the same Darfuri Arab politicians who created the janjaweed 16 years ago. If they rise to power, it would threaten to “steal the revolution from the people,” as one protest slogan put it, transform Sudan from a military regime into a militia state, and replace Islamism with Arab supremacism. 

While the West seems passive, other countries are more worried, especially Chad. In recent years, in spite of his cousin still being a close advisor to Chad’s president, Idriss Déby, Hemeti has appeared more hostile to the Chadian regime and may be supportive of an Arab takeover in N’Djamena. Chad’s president took power a year after Bashir in Sudan, and Bashir’s fall might legitimately worry him. While relying largely on his own non-Arab Zaghawa tribe, Déby also accommodated other groups, not least Arab politicians who held key positions such as the defense and foreign ministries. 

Even so, ambitious Chadian Arab politicians might not refuse Hemeti’s armed support. The RSF’s ranks include hundreds of Chadian Arab youths and ex-rebels against Déby who took refuge in Sudan. Such combatants may well be more interested in regime change in Chad than in Sudan, risking an unprecedented exportation to Chad of Darfur’s racist violence. 

Given that the Bashir regime repeatedly failed to abide by its international commitments to disarm the janjaweed, it seems even less likely now.

Even in the most optimistic scenario—whereby a new civilian government in Sudan tries to disarm the janjaweed—at least some of them will inevitably get involved in armed activities across Sudan’s borders, in countries where they have already been active, including Chad, Libya, and the Central African Republic. There are also reports that janjaweed were among Sudanese who joined jihadi groups in Mali. 

The janjaweed’s strength is now comparable to that of the Sudanese regular forces or other armies in the region. Opposing them by force could trigger bloodshed, making the stakes of the ongoing negotiations higher than ever before. 

Flooring the monster may require more than unarmed protesters.

Jérôme Tubiana is a researcher and journalist who has covered conflicts in Chad and Sudan for more than 20 years and the author of Guantánamo Kid: The True Story of Mohammed El-Gharani.

Can Sudan Achieve Peace and Democratic Transition? (Dame Rosalind Marsden)

Article from Chatham House, UK
Associate Fellow, Africa Programme
Dated 09 August 2019
Can Sudan Achieve Peace and Democratic Transition?
  • Sudan has a unique opportunity to embrace democratic transition but there is no room for complacency
  • Comprehensive reforms and a united democratic front will be key to achieving peace, freedom and justice, as will continued international pressure
Photo: Sudanese demonstrators in Khartoum celebrate a hard-won transitional agreement on 4 August 2019. The agreement provides for a joint civilian-military body to oversee a civilian government and parliament for a three year transition period. Photo: Getty Images.

A compromise agreement

After more than seven months of peaceful pro-democracy protests, leading to the fall of former President Omar al Bashir’s regime in April, Sudan’s Transitional Military Council (TMC) and the opposition coalition of the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) agreed on 4 August to form a civilian-led transitional government, paving the way for democratic transition. 

The agreement is a step forward but still leaves considerable power in the hands of the military. Given the power imbalance between the military and unarmed civilians, the FFC concluded that a compromise was needed in order to establish a transitional government, however imperfect, so that civilians could push their reform agenda from inside government and avoid a political vacuum. Such a vacuum could leave room for counter-revolutionary coups or escalating violence by Sudan’s many security forces.

The TMC realized the limits of its power when its attempt to halt the revolution with a brutal crackdown on 3 June backfired, sparking international outrage. Defiant protestors continued to demonstrate, with many Sudanese determined to sustain the revolution and the FFC able to mobilize mass support.

Strong African and international pressure for the rapid formation of a civilian-led transitional authority, US/UK diplomatic intervention with the TMC’s backers, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt, and a coup attempt by counter-revolutionary Islamist forces may all have persuaded the TMC that they had to strike a deal with the pro-democracy movement.

Will Sudan have a genuinely civilian-led transitional government?

Mediated by the African Union and Ethiopia, the deal provides for a transitional period of three years and three months to prepare for national elections in 2022. During this period, the government will be composed of three transitional bodies: a joint military/civilian Sovereign Council acting as a collective head of state, with six civilian and five military members; a civilian prime minister and Cabinet of technocrats; and a Legislative Council to be formed within 90 days.

The constitutional declaration initialled on 4 August builds on a power-sharing deal agreed in July and details the powers and responsibilities of the three bodies. A signing ceremony is expected to be held on 17 August with the members of the new government to be announced shortly afterwards.

Some opposition forces have criticized the agreement for being too weak, particularly as the military will chair the Sovereign Council for the first 21 months and will be able to veto its decisions. FFC negotiators point to gains made in the constitutional declaration, such as confirmation that the FFC will have 67 per cent of the seats in the Legislative Council, the increasingly powerful RSF Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia will come under army control and government officials will not enjoy blanket immunity from prosecution.

But political dynamics will matter more than pieces of paper. The unity of FFC forces has been strained by the negotiation process, continuing street violence and internal bickering. If civilian authority is to prevail, the FFC will need to create a united political front.

Ending Sudan’s internal wars

While civilian rule and civic rights are the main demands of protestors in urban areas, Sudanese living in conflict zones attach more importance to achieving peace and ending the marginalization of Sudan’s peripheries.

The armed movements in the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), which fought for years against Bashir’s regime, have stressed that peace and democratization must go hand in hand if the revolution is to enable people in the peripheries to become equal citizens and take full part in national elections – putting an end to long-established forms of governance which favoured a privileged political elite in Khartoum.

The constitutional declaration recognizes that achieving a comprehensive peace settlement should be the first priority for the transitional period and includes a peace agenda developed with the SRF.

However, the SRF are calling for the constitutional declaration to be amended before it is signed so that formation of the transitional government can be calibrated with the peace talks. Solutions will also have to be found for the armed movements who remain outside the agreement.

Other challenges facing the new transitional government

The incoming transitional government will face huge challenges, including strong public pressure for justice and accountability, especially for the 3 June massacre, and a national economy in collapse that will require immediate stabilization and fundamental structural reforms.

The biggest challenge facing the government will be dismantling the Islamist deep state created over thirty years by the former regime, which took control of all state institutions and key sectors of the economy, including hundreds of businesses owned by the military-security apparatus.

Key to dismantling the deep state will be the implementation of a comprehensive programme of security sector reform aimed at establishing a professional and inclusive national army and reducing the power of the intelligence service.

Much will depend on whether it is possible to control the RSF by reducing its funding from the Gulf states and the gold trade, as well as containing the political ambitions of its commander, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemeti), who will be an influential figure during the transition.

Recruiting from Chad and Niger as well as from the Janjaweed Arab militia in Darfur, the RSF is an ill-disciplined transboundary militia, which could destabilize Sudan as well as the wider region. As a first step, the RSF should be withdrawn from all law enforcement activities across Sudan.

Another challenge will be to ensure proper representation of youth and women in the new governance structures. These groups were the driving force of the revolution but have been largely excluded from FFC decision-making bodies. Including these new social forces and other marginalized groups in the political process will be crucial if Sudan is to transform established patterns of power and privilege. 

Robust support for security sector reform, as well as political and economic restructuring should be prioritized by the international community if there is to be any prospect of democratic transition, development and stability. Given its size and strategic geopolitical position, the stakes in Sudan and for the wider region are high.

With its vibrant civil society, plural political environment and new social forces, Sudan has a unique opportunity to embrace democratic transition and equal citizenship. If this opening is wasted, the country could be plunged into further chaos or revert to military dictatorship. 

Thursday, August 15, 2019

Gulf states are mapping Khartoum’s future

Article from Chatham House, UK
Written by MOHAMED EL AASSAR
Senior Journalist at BBC Monitoring’s Middle East and North Africa team
Dated 29 July 2019
Gulf states are mapping Khartoum’s future
Fate of power sharing deal in Sudan rests in the hands of wealthy donors
Photo:  Sudanese deputy head of the Transitional Military Council, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo
Since Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese leader, was forced to step down in April by pro-democracy street protesters, the governing Transitional Military Council has received strong backing from the Gulf states of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Bashir and Saudi Arabia have a long and tangled history. For many years, the two were sworn enemies. But since 2014, Saudi Arabia has co-opted Bashir to remove him from Iran’s sphere of influence. Money flowed in and Saudi lobbying helped remove United States sanctions on Sudan. Iranian cultural, medical and military facilities were closed and diplomats expelled.

In 2015, Sudanese troops joined the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Similarly, the UAE wanted to ‘turn’ Bashir from his Islamist roots, and thus deprive its long-term enemy the Muslim Brotherhood of a safe haven in Khartoum.

All this changed earlier this year. As the street protests began to threaten Bashir’s grip on power, the Saudis and Emiratis started to look to a post-Bashir world.

Despite the Gulf monarchies’ known aversion to Arab uprisings, Saudi and UAE media were uncharacteristically upbeat in their coverage of Bashir’s overthrow – in many cases even appearing to support the protest movement.

This contrasted with Gulf rival Qatar’s Al Jazeera, which depicted the crisis as a conflict between military and civilian rule, and warned of a ‘coup’ against Bashir.

This didn’t help the Sudanese president, however. A past master at playing Gulf rivals off against each other, this time he had suddenly lost his touch.

After Bashir                                                                             
At the height of the protests he visited his long-time Qatari patron to ask for Doha’s money and backing. He returned empty-handed. For its part, the UAE reportedly refused to extend further support until he purged his administration of Islamists. Something he refused to do.

After the fall of Bashir, Saudi Arabia and the UAE announced a $3 billion aid package to meet Sudan’s most pressing needs. At about the same time, Sudanese media were gripped by the return of Major- General Taha Othman al-Hussein to Khartoum. Once Bashir’s chief of staff, he had fallen out with his former boss and turned up in Riyadh as a Saudi royal adviser.

He returned to Khartoum at the head of an Emirati delegation. It is widely believed that he was the architect of Sudan’s participation in the Yemen conflict, having overseen the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) as part of his earlier role at the presidency.

As well as playing a much-feared security enforcement role in Sudan, the RSF also provides the main component of the Sudanese forces fighting in the Saudi-led coalition against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The Sudanese are posted at Yemen’s volatile border with Saudi, have fought in battles for control of Yemen’s west coast and provide security in cities in the coalition-controlled south.

The Yemeni rebels call them ‘mercenaries’ and ‘Janjaweed’ – the latter a reference to the RSF’s role in laying waste to Darfur in the early 2000s.

The Sudanese media don’t like them much either. They too refer to the forces as Janjaweed and accuse them of terrorizing civilians and carrying out ‘barbaric and brutal assaults’ against peaceful protesters.

Their leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who is also known as Hemeti, is loathed by the opposition. Facebook groups have branded him ‘a devil’ and the RSF the ‘Rapist Savage Forces’.

A former camel trader turned military leader, he was described by the influential pro-opposition website Dabanga as a man who has ‘never entered a military college, even for a single day, never trained or attended any military course, and never achieved any academic or any military awards’.

When Hemeti recently boasted about the large Sudanese contingent in the coalition in Yemen, another opposition website questioned why the lives of 30,000 Sudanese were being put at risk in a war in which Sudan has neither ‘a camel nor a mule at stake’. A column in the privately owned Sudanese newspaper Al-Jaridah said the Sudanese military ‘do not represent us and are not authorized to speak in our name when they say that Sudanese soldiers will remain in Yemen’.

Hemeti’s central role in the Transitional Military Council (TMC) and the violent dispersal of protests have not helped improve the military’s popularity. In April, videos circulated on social media depicted the Sudanese army ‘protecting’ the demonstrators outside military headquarters in Khartoum. Now the media make little reference to Sudan’s armed forces.

Saudi changes tack                                                              
As negotiations between the opposition and the military leaders stalled, the Saudis shifted tactics.
Their media prominently featured veteran Sudanese opposition figure Sadiq al-Mahdi, who was calling for compromise between the opposition and the military.

Saudi-owned, Dubai-based Al Arabiya TV tried to present itself as an objective observer. It gave equal air time to opposition and pro-TMC voices and regularly hosted representatives of the Sudanese Professionals Association, the group that had spearheaded the protests.

To their credit, Al Arabiya’s Sudanese reporters regularly reframe loaded questions by anchors and question TMC accusations against the protest movement in their live two-ways.

In July, the military and the opposition finally signed an agreement on a joint sovereign council that will rule during a transitional period.

Whether or not this compromise deal holds, Sudan’s future will continue to be heavily influenced by Gulf rivalries – backed by huge amounts of Gulf cash.

AUTHOR: Mohamed El Aassar is a Senior Journalist at BBC Monitoring’s Middle East and North Africa team