The culture of Arms and the Military Umpired by The Revolution and Democracy Part 1 By: Saeed M.

04:26 AM May, 21 2019

Sudanese Online
سعيد محمد عدنان-UK
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– London – U.K.
A translation of an essay I published on 28/12/2007
I retell here a subject I had published in 2005 soon after the Naivasha accord over what I read in Sudanile of the press interview conducted by Mr. Diaa Al Din Bilal with Mr. Yasser Saeed Arman, head of the parliamentary block and Deputy Secretary of the SPLM, as I foresaw the importance of looking into it for what appeared lately of mixed signals between the NCP and the SPLM. For the contingency of the inclusion of the SPLM that fought and martyred its people one by one, and subjected its people and land for ripping and displacement, and were drenched cups of agony and painful hunting, was not numb of the of the bitterness of injustice and the harshness of the venom of fundamentalism and the theological tutelage intimidation; so Dr. Garang did came forward, still echoing his principles reaching for a United Sudan, freedom and democracy; and his famous speech in the Green Sauare, and the immense approval displayed by the huge crowd of Northerners before Southerners had a clear signal of his shining as a new hope to lead Sudan and the ebb of Al Bashir’s whirlwind and the fundamentalist Islamists… and non-Islamic! That was what spawned out of the next pace: the air accident that led to his death, as the fate of all who have their star shone or their horn sturdied – and we I will visit in a later discussion that weird relationship between Revolutionists and the Military, but for now I will go back to the subject I had written this essay about at the time:
I shall begin here that that meeting which flinted my brain with a hot argument in London between me and one of the leaders of the SPLM, soon after their signing of the Naivasha accord with the Sudanese government. I began by asking the leader who was tipped he had been nominated for a ministerial post in the Southern Sudan cabinet, asking him after shaking hands with Al Bashir, would he settle his mind that the country shored at land of safety to assume correct devolution of power and begin the restoration of the Sudanese dignity that had been severed and ripped apart through time؟ His conclusive reply was that they are on the verge of a new era for a new fight; and in an answer to another question, he confirmed to me that they will not get swept in the hullabaloo of Al Bashir, for the other opposers are the old revolution partners and cannot be betrayed. But he went harsher in his speech about coordination with the remaining opposition factions about the arriving to the remaining demands of repealing the succession rules, putting the democracy obliterators to account, dealing with crimes against the citizens, defyingly overriding the judgement on the ex-president Nimeiri, and honouring him snootily, the scandals and deceit to wield power with the Islamic Front and on top of all the war crimes he is internationally being summoned to account for.
I was stunned when he challenged me they did what they thought of only, which surprised me, but what stunned me really is when he told me: whoever wants to have a word should have a gun, otherwise no word for hotels opposition.
Again, I was stunned and retorted that no gun is ever the trigger of a revolution or reform; it is the dissent and campaigning, which is a struggle like no other. For me it was forfeiting six-years salaries and
Benefits, subjection of my family to violence about to waste the lives of some in a painful manner, and now my family and I are prisoners of injustice, a prototype for almost every rebel in refuge in the “five star hotel opposition”, who probably would have been better of as armed rebels in charge of their fate, and settling scores with their aggressors, and mostly ending up with spoils and clear prizes on resolving their rebellion. That does not conclude the delivery of the duty, as duty is concluded has to be accomplished under the auspices of the demands of high moral grounds and within the bounds of legitimacy, not via guardianship nor duress. But soon did I find myself in a confrontation with the remaining ex-military friends who went priding themselves with the gun that it was the honour and dignity.
I recalled that as those sat with Al Bashir, not sharing power with him, as they lost their feeling when the World cried out for stopping Al Bashir’s genocide, the same world that cried for their rights against Al Bashir, only this time they are partners with him in the “bread bite” and the epigram on military “Jacks of all trade and masters of none”
For they are not philosophers of ideologies and therefore have no right to ban ideological debate, nor political exercises that supply ideologies and political movements with cerebral maturity and cultural tidying up, inclusively in where their simplistic feel of their feasibility; and are not good to protect the country as they are preoccupied with what is not their prescribed tasks, and would shatter national unity if they sided with any strong block of citizens. Not least their involvement in genocide and rape and displacement, plus casting a legitimacy on the spillage of a Sudanese blood by his brother Sudanese, documenting it too to the whole world, even though their prescribed task is is defending the constitution, where they were the first to violate it, and continuing to violate the World Order (and the Islamic Maxims) of human rights. Thus, they neither perfected politics nor peace nor war, while holding the reigns of the country, jubilant with their ignorance and weakness.
Mr. Arman found himself in a predicament when shaking hands with Al Bashir whether to reflect his opinion of Al Bashir’s ponderous fit in his tri-vow not to respect the international resolution nor its Ethical Maxims for human rights, or to contend only with keeping his distance from Al Bashir “and track of safety even for a year journeying is closest>>> a Sudanese motto on caution”; so he simply chose survival and the pleasure of ruling, till he forgot what pressurised Al Bashir would equally pressurise him, added to it the pressure of Al Bashir on him, for he would never be written to Al Bashir as trustworthy nor an ally, for a shock absorber would never be a full spring.
This way the armed movement tried to follow various routes most significant of which a bilateral trend: a trend concocted by Arman to side follow Al Bashir to secure the power trophy, a trend mesmerised by the minister of the Movement to the cabinet Mr. Deng Alor, with the Movement codifier Lam Akol, who unburdened Al Bashir of the spell of his solemn oath against permitting entry of the UN forces, really wrap with him, under the disdain and dispise of the international community and, and the mocking him for his Armanization (stubbornness from Arabic). As to other trends, they are an attesting with “holding the cane from the middle”, or as Arman himself set an example for it a probable acceptance of UN forces under Chapter Six as meeting point where allies would meet without bearing on wounded hands, that is in best cases, bargaining to sell and buy, the same that had complained of by both sides, except that the forfeited lives in both sides, under the banner of his own plight of freeing Sudan, then following his new ally to declare Jihad against the attack against Islam… and people crammed the ally with their contempt of his foul play over for Jihad, and was time to cram the Movement too over its foul play of claiming to liberate Sudan.
This way the it came clear the truth I wondered about when I expressed my contempt of shaking hands with the Salvation Regime to my friend the nominated minister from the SPLM, that the SPLM revolution is now stationed before its own power trophy which is the best of two cadavers: one being “good to reconcile”, the other being the choice of the UN forces under Section Six, so as not to disturb the power trophy it tasted, nor the international support it consistently milked, the other being “shame our dear”, if the UN force forced its way in, it would not read right from the Movement’s role other than sitting on the fence, may be taking the role of a mediator, being the best it could offer before siding the winning party.
But I thoroughly contemplate and find none other than what worries me most, being what he span in argument and shameful slippage from what he meant that other liberation movements “other than his” are conspiring to settle scores via the International Forces, and if we reflect on what those forces role might be and what they most conceivably may serve as a tool via which scores could be settled, we would be the more wiser about what Arman uttered, whether an unwarranted mistake or an off the Radar principle.
Role of the International Forces is to protect, observe and seurity. Protection is for preventing aggressions lest they develop to a ull fight, observation is for documenting credibility of parties claims and reading possibilities of contraventions to get prepared for, and security to avert reneging or deterioration instead of improvement. This last one is what Al Bashir and his band fears now. For intimidation has no strategy left with the region ripped apart, and the observation, accordingly, becomes not worthy after he got what he wanted, and all the world witnessed what he wanted them to witness. Of course, the dignity of the State and its sovereignty is only a fiddling to improve the scene, for the International Forces are everywhere. But for the insurance, it is handy to ensure the functionality of the International Criminal Court to arrest war criminals wanted for prosecution. That is why Al Bashir is furious, and Arman believed he had a good cause to fret.
Weapon is the best companion of dictatorship, that is why you do not find a vision of starting an armed movement within the Armed forces to restore democracy, even though that is its role, for he who wields power then give it up without knowing where it ends when leaving it, cannot have a good sleep that what he did was the right thing to do, and that wielding that flag is promising one day to be the promising devotees path. That is in our third world, the reconciled hearts. Despite that there are examples of military candidates of that calibre buried under the culture of weaponry, General Swar el Dahab, is a most revered of an unlikely to recur example, of grandeur, who faded away under the attack of leftists for providing space for the Islamic Front, who rebuffed his plea for signing the decree of Protection of Democracy, with a swift onslaught on the democracy entrustment soon after left it with them. Two other examples are on in Turkey where the army presided to observe the democracy preservation and preventing plans of antidemocratic factions of its abduction; same case with Algiers.
As to the freedom movements and revolutions they had more presence in the rest of the world, and Dictatorship only cajoles the dictator revolutions like communism. But liberal revolutions had all preserved democracies and freedom, despite the difficulty encountered amidst the financial corruption accompanying capitalistic practices, taking refuge in and abusing its complacence.
With patience and diligence these societies prospered when each driver took hold of their steering wheel proscribed for them. In our eastern revolutions, they are either aborted like that of the October and the April revolutions in Sudan, or the Najib revolution in Egypt, or its forced into a dictatorship like it had changed to the Nasiri July afters, or the Iraqi revolution, Libya etc. As to Hams it landed under the religious guardianship by refusing to recognise Israel, as though refusing to recognize the world order with all the weight it carries from the human scuffles based on the law the survival for the fittest towards the active trend of peaceful co-existence. But the block headed revolutionists there do not want that and will find no friend for them there
Now here in the SPLM, the revolutionists shook hands with the dictatorship, then no sooner, as expected in such a case, became tools for it to use for restorative cosmetics, then to the inevitable task of accusing other freedom fighters of working for foreign powers and wielding foreign support to settle scores, then the forthcoming task of certainly joining the resistance against the freedom movements and their supporters of the free world by joining armies poised to crush them under Al Bashir.
That is what I published before. Now I add to it before indulging in the second chapter what is worrying me and what I consider most alarming of what flinted in the minds of the Salvation band, whereas Sylvakir looks of the best, unaware and completely absented from that dangerous exercise played by the Salvationist band with the hideous from the oriental slouch of the region rulers debasing and corrupting the Sudanese struggle movement of which we aspire a national narrative to pull Sudan rom the pit it is thrown in, which made an international strike is becoming the only talk of the dialogue of the deaf between the military and their allies from the revolutionists, and between the unfortunate people of Sudan.

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