To Al-Bashir's Apologists

28/02/2008

Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed

In a recent article, I dealt with the Sudanese involvement in Chad and the continuation of the Darfur crisis. It was an article written out of concern, yet the followers of the regime in Khartoum attacked me, heaping praise on how Islamic, successful, stable, and even victorious that regime was. I said to myself: 'this is their right to defend themselves'. Until I saw how the regime sloganeered on the issue of the Danish caricatures which are offensive to Islam and started making announcements of boycott. Its followers cheered and applauded as usual, but I know that such regimes habitually resort to smoke screens to cover up for other acts.

The same day the regime proclaimed its unending rage and said it was boycotting Danish products, it agreed to accept non-African UN forces despite the fact that it swore over and over that it would not do so. However, it may truthfully swear this time that it will not import from Denmark because it does not import anything worth mentioning from Denmark to begin with. So this is just another cheap propaganda ploy. We have grown accustomed to the comic political theater in Khartoum which always brings us laughs even though it brings tears to the Sudanese people. We pray for Allah's mercy each time it exports paper heroism to cover up for something. Those who defended the regime this last time now compel me to admit that I made a mistake, not about what I did say but about what I did not say and did not detail. When I talked about the Government's adventures outside Sudan by sending rebels to overthrow the ruling regime in Chad, I was citing the statements made by the rebels themselves before their defeat. There were hours of festivities in the Presidential palaces in Khartoum before the merrymakers discovered they have lost the money they paid. The coup failed dismally.

These days were regrettably days of mourning over the thousands of people who were who lost their lives in this attempt, including a Saudi family killed when the coupists targeted the Saudi Embassy with bombs. If the lie of boycotting Denmark is aimed at hiding the Chad defeat and covering up for the acceptance of the international forces, there is a worse record for the Sudanese regime since its own coup 20years ago. The regime claims it is an Islamic one, but ask how many Muslims have been killed in Darfur by the regime's militias and how many Sudanese lost their lives in the War of the South. Its relationship with the Islamists is strange. It deported Bin Laden after taking his money. It used him for political bargaining.

You should hear the opinion of the regime's old friend, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and how he denounced it and its stances and record. If Al-Zawahiri and his comrade belong to a criminal gang whose word should not be taken seriously, let us hear from "the father of the regime" and its Guide Dr Hasanal-Turabi. He has publicly beseeched Allah for forgiveness because he supported a regime which showed no respect for his years or [theological] knowledge and which rewarded him for his 15 years of support by removal, imprisonment, and then house arrest. If we say that al-Turabi's imprisonment was merely a settling of accounts, the regime has not spared the Sudanese people the same suffering.

There are three peoples who have been made homeless in the Arab World, namely the Palestinians, Iraqis, and Sudanese. We can say that foreign powers caused the tragedy of the Palestinians and Iraqis. But the Sudanese, who are dispersed in various parts of the world, are the only Arab people made homeless by their own regime. To make the dimensions of the tragedy clear to you, the Bashiri regime is the only Sudanese regime which Allah has blessed with petroleum but the citizens were cursed by it because it increased their misery through wars, famine, and persecution. The list is a long one, but I do not want to cause more distress to the reader.

http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=11932

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