KHARTOUM

(

14 Oct

.) -

A senior official of the opposition Reform Now Movement (RNM) has confirmed that a leaked document containing the minutes of a Sudanese high-level security meeting in August is “100 percent genuine”.

Dr Osama Tawfig, prominent member of the RNM, established early December by dissidents of the ruling National Congress Party, told reporters in Khartoum on Sunday that the document is certainly genuine. “I know their tactics because I was part of them.”

The document was leaked to the American Sudan researcher and analyst, http://sudanreeves.org/Dr Eric Reeves, in September. It contains the “Minutes of the Military and Security Committee Meeting held in the National Defence College” in Khartoum on 31 August.

The minutes disclose numerous highly consequential internal and external policy decisions, Reeves wrote in a comment published by http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article52529Sudan Tribune on 26 September.

“We learn, for example, of Sudan’s continuing involvement with international terrorism and radical Islamic groups, including an ongoing "strategic" partnership with Iran. There is certainly evidence here that Khartoum has reneged on its putative commitment to provide the US intelligence community with information relevant to counter-terrorism.”

“More explicitly, the document reveals a determination to continue bombing agriculture and food supplies as a means of waging war against the people of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, with an explicit, declared goal of starvation,” the researcher commented.

Authentic

According to Reeves the document is authentic. RNM member Tawfig agrees.

“The minutes confirm the methods adopted by the Khartoum regime to dismantle the political parties and the armed movements, and buy their leaders during the past period,” Tawfig said. “They planned to instigate dissent within the Sudan Revolutionary Front rebel alliance, the Eastern Front, and the traditionally largest political parties, the National Umma Party, and the Democratic Unionist Party.”

“That the meeting agreed on continuing to break down demonstrations and protests with live ammunition, is far from surprising,” the RNM official said. “It is also no news that politicians or journalists criticising the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, commanded by the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), will be charged with cooperating with the enemy and espionage.“

The meeting was attended by First Vice President of the Republic, Bakri Hassan Saleh; Minister of Defence, Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein; NISS director Gen. Mohamed Atta; director general of the police forces, Hashim Osman Hussein, along with the director of the People's Security, the coordinator general of the paramilitary Popular Defence Forces, and the coordinator of the National Military Service, according to the leaked minutes.

Arabic Forum