Rumblings for Change in Sudan's Governing Party
By ISMA'IL KUSHKUSH
Published: December 9, 2012
KHARTOUM, Sudan - When the Sudanese government
<
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/23/world/africa/sudan-13-arrested-on-charges
-of-plotting-coup.html> announced late last month that it had disrupted a
"plot of sabotage" and had arrested 13 people, including senior members of
the armed forces and the security services, it shed light on what was
already an open secret: the growing discontent within its ranks.
Since
<
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/so
uth-sudan/index.html?inline=nyt-geo> South Sudan
<
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/world/africa/10sudan.html> seceded last
year, Sudan has faced a seemingly never-ending series of problems: a
struggling economy and a 50 percent drop in the value of the Sudanese pound,
dangerously unsettled issues with South Sudan, conflicts within its borders,
concerns over the health of President
<
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/omar_hassan_al
_bashir/index.html?inline=nyt-per> Omar Hassan al-Bashir, and a bombing of a
military factory that many believe was carried out by Israeli fighters.
The grumbling voices are many. But in addition to the expected challenges
from marginalized groups and longstanding enemies of the government, there
has been loud criticism from younger members of the Sudanese Islamic
Movement, an organization that represents the Islamist core of the governing
National Congress Party.
When the Islamic movement held its much-anticipated convention in
mid-November, with thousands of attendees jamming the Chinese-built
Friendship Hall here, reformers were eager to push their agenda of fighting
corruption and expanding dialogue with the opposition. But when the movement
elected a conservative, conciliatory figure as a new leader, frustration
soared among the camp supporting change.
"We want total reform of the country!" said Mouiz Abdalla, 29, a lawyer who
once belonged to a volunteer corps of college students who fought for Sudan
in its civil war.
With other problems to juggle, a challenge from within its own base is not
what the Sudanese government needs. Mr. Abdalla, like other mujahedeen, once
fought for a revolutionary Islamist Sudan, at a time when the civil war in
the south was rendered a jihad, Osama bin Laden was a guest resident and
support for groups like Hamas was fervent.
His thin body may not give the impression that he was a fighter, but his
hawkish eyes and determined voice beg to differ. Mr. Abdalla said he was
critical of "widespread corruption, incompetence, the concentration of power
in the hands of a few and the rise in tribalism" in the government.
He and other disheartened mujahedeen met last year to follow up on one
another, check on the families of fallen soldiers and reminisce.
Reminiscence, however, turned into a desire to put things straight. Out of
those meetings came an informal group whose members remain connected mostly
by Facebook. They chose a name, Al Sa'ihun, or the wanderers, from a special
operations unit active in the civil war, Mr. Abdalla said.
The group began to gain momentum with the former mujahedeen, holding
meetings in houses, on soccer fields and under bridges. They took their
concerns to Sudan's top leadership late last year through a memorandum, "The
Memorandum of One Thousand," a call for reform signed by members of the
group.
"It was initially received well, but then was sidelined through continuous
postponement," Mr. Abdalla said.
One of the memorandum's architects was Abdel-Ghani Idris, 36, a journalist
and the author of a book, banned in Sudan, with a telling title, "Islamists:
The Crisis of Vision and Leadership."
The book, which explores Sudan's political history since the Islamist
takeover in 1989 and calls for democracy, "is an attempt to raise a loud
voice for political reform," he said. "We want to help rebuild the national
platform, not just for Islamists, but all political forces, to save what is
left of Sudan."
<
http://abdelwahab-el-affendi.net/> Abdelwahab El-Affendi, a political
scientist at the University of Westminster in London, said he believed that
young Sudanese "have been influenced by the general atmosphere of the Arab
Spring, and were also dismayed at the high level of corruption and
incompetence" in the government.
The Sudanese opposition said it welcomed the move by the young Islamists but
remained skeptical.
"It is a positive phenomenon," said Faruq Abu Issa, 75, a spokesman for the
opposition National Consensus Forces, "but they should not simply patch the
regime."
Abdel-Rahim Ali, 67, a senior member of the Sudanese Islamic Movement and
the governing party, acknowledged the frustration of some of the movement's
young members.
"Yes, you can feel it," he said. "Some in the middle ranks of the movement
feel it's time for the top leaders to be changed."
Mr. Abdalla, however, emphasized that it was not about positions in the
party.
"Some of us were offered better party positions and refused," he said.
"Others lost their good jobs because of calling for reform."
The "plot of sabotage" that the government said it had foiled was followed
by the arrests of a former head of intelligence, Salah Gosh, and, more
surprisingly, of Brig. Gen. Muhammad Ibrahim, who is revered as a war hero
among many of the mujahedeen.
In an
<
http://news.yahoo.com/sudan-urges-south-sudan-expel-rebels-oil-restart-0700
29252.html> interview with Reuters last week, Al-Haj Adam Youssef, Sudan's
second vice president, said that the plot was in fact a coup attempt, and
that those arrested would receive a fair trial.
"They had prepared their weapons but not shouldered them yet," Mr. Youssef
said.
But Mr. Idris, the journalist, doubted the government's claims about the
plot.
"The official agencies, unfortunately, have deliberately lied to create an
atmosphere of abhorrence and reluctance among citizens," he said. "It is no
secret that these brothers used to offer constant and continuous advice to
the people in power."
He warned that "a disastrous formula" now existed in Sudan, saying: "The
political climate is congested, there are choking economic conditions,
conflicts on the country's peripheries and rumblings in the ruling party's
ranks. This is a dangerous situation."
But will the leaders in Khartoum respond to the calls for reform by members
of their own political base?
Dr. Affendi is not optimistic.
"I think it is as usual," he said. "Such regimes will not realize the need
to change until it is too late."
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Received on Sun Dec 09 2012 - 17:57:42 EST
