{"id":258317,"date":"2023-04-25T15:23:55","date_gmt":"2023-04-25T13:23:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/omar-al-bashir-brutalised-sudan-how-his-30-year-legacy-is-playing-out-today\/"},"modified":"2023-04-25T15:23:55","modified_gmt":"2023-04-25T13:23:55","slug":"omar-al-bashir-brutalised-sudan-how-his-30-year-legacy-is-playing-out-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/omar-al-bashir-brutalised-sudan-how-his-30-year-legacy-is-playing-out-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Omar al-Bashir brutalised Sudan \u2013 how his 30-year legacy is playing out today"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Since independence in 1956 the Sudanese have lived through 35 coups, attempted coups and coup plots<\/a> \u2013 more than any other African country. When the 2019 uprising against long-time dictator Omar al-Bashir<\/a> created a military-civilian transitional government, the Sudanese hoped that their country would transition to democratic rule<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But their hopes were dashed in October 2021 when Abdel Fattah al-Burhan led a coup<\/a> against his civilian counterparts in the transitional government. <\/p>\n

In the latest round of conflict that began on 15 April 2023<\/a>, civil war looms as the security actors who benefited from Bashir\u2019s downfall battle for supremacy.<\/p>\n

I have studied Sudanese politics<\/a> for 15 years, and this latest round of conflict is the worst in the country\u2019s recent history. And the legacy of Bashir\u2019s rule is central to this calamity.<\/p>\n

Bashir bent government institutions<\/a> to serve his regime. He chose conflict over compromise in dealing with politically marginalised groups in Darfur<\/a>, in Sudan\u2019s west, and in the south. He used force<\/a> to hold on to power. This fuelled his support<\/a> of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which was used to check regional rebels and the army. <\/p>\n

Bashir\u2019s legacy has continued to play out today. His former allies have mobilised to block the transition to civilian rule. This had been promised to the Sudanese people under a framework agreement<\/a> signed in December 2022 by the military and a coalition of civilian actors.<\/p>\n

In my view, Burhan\u2019s fear of civilian attempts to rein in military privileges led him to preserve key elements of the Bashir system. This is playing a divisive role in the current conflict.<\/p>\n

The ideology of Islamism<\/h2>\n

Part of Bashir\u2019s legacy has to do with Islamist politics. It\u2019s this legacy that Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti<\/a> and who heads the paramilitary force, sought to exploit to his favour when he labelled Burhan a \u201cradical Islamist<\/a>\u201d. <\/p>\n

This characterisation was designed to appeal to Western powers<\/a>. But it\u2019s inaccurate. To understand why, one has to understand the ideological trajectory of the Bashir regime.<\/p>\n

When Bashir staged the coup in 1989, he was acting as a representative of a cell in a military carefully cultivated by the National Islamic Front<\/a>. The political party co-ordinated the coup with Bashir. <\/p>\n

The National Islamic Front was led by Hasan al-Turabi<\/a>, who had run Sudan\u2019s Islamic Movement since the 1960s. He had grown frustrated at his failure to introduce his version of Muslim law (Sharia), through parliamentary means. <\/p>\n

Soon after the coup, Bashir and Turabi initiated a process of tamkeen<\/em> (empowerment). This policy, the legacy of which still remains, enabled them to give adherents of Islamism<\/a> and security bosses willing to ally with them control over almost every part of public life in Sudan.<\/p>\n

Formally, Bashir installed an independent, technocratic government. In practice, however, power lay with a military-Islamist coalition that ran the country behind the scenes. <\/p>\n

Throughout the 1990s, Bashir set about ruthlessly purging Sudan\u2019s independent civil society organisations and political parties. By the end of the decade, he\u2019d fallen out with Turabi. <\/p>\n

He ejected Turabi from the government in 1999 and co-opted selected representatives of the opposition into his regime in the decades that followed. Bashir maintained the military-Islamist coalition as the basis of his National Congress Party. This kept the edifice built through tamkeen in place.<\/p>\n

Making amends<\/h2>\n

In the 1990s, the Sudanese government hosted radical Islamists<\/a> who sought to export revolution abroad and topple neighbouring regimes deemed to be Western proxies. However, after the split with Turabi in 1999, the Bashir regime attempted to repair its international image<\/a> by distancing itself from such militant groups. It also began to cooperate with Western intelligence agencies. <\/p>\n

In the later Bashir period, the Sudanese government supported<\/a> the Saudi-Emirati coalition against the militant Islamist Houthis in Yemen. Burhan oversaw this deployment<\/a>. <\/p>\n

When he emerged as the transitional military leader<\/a> in 2019, Burhan benefited from the perception that he was a professional soldier more than an Islamist. <\/p>\n

His principal interests are aligned with the military\u2019s core interests: maintaining its privileged social and political status, as well as its numerous business enterprises. Burhan made the political calculation<\/a> in 2021 that National Congress Party-era security bosses and bureaucrats were his best allies in the battle to both prevent civilians challenging the military\u2019s grip on the economy, and Hemedti\u2019s Rapid Support Forces emerging as an alternative power centre. After taking over power, he co-opted these former security bosses into government.<\/p>\n

The Islamism of the Bashir-era stooges Burhan has been returning to government is defined by<\/a> three elements. These are socially conservative authoritarian politics, including the return of morality policing<\/a>; a hostility to the Sudanese left; and corruption.<\/p>\n

While these leaders are mostly not the \u201cradical Islamists\u201d the West fears, for many Sudanese, their ongoing commitment to a narrowly defined Arab-Islamic identity is divisive.<\/p>\n

A difficult dismantling<\/h2>\n

After he seized power in 1989, Bashir insisted that his coup was a conventional military movement designed to return order to public life. Bashir, who has been in jail since April 2019, still maintains<\/a> that line. The military that overthrew him has been reading the same script.<\/p>\n

Four months after the military<\/a> had removed Bashir<\/a>, it signed a constitutional declaration<\/a> with the main civilian coalition, the Forces of Freedom and Change.<\/p>\n

This led to the formation of a joint military-civilian transitional government. The government established an Empowerment Removal Committee to dismantle the network<\/a> of parastatal charities, media enterprises and banks that had enabled Bashir and his allies to maintain their grip on Sudan. <\/p>\n

But Burhan\u2019s October 2021 coup disrupted this. The committee was pushed aside and most of its prominent members arrested<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But even before this coup, dismantling Bashir\u2019s regime was an enormous challenge. <\/p>\n

The media is a case in point. In the Bashir period, the media was controlled by nominally independent proprietors. In practice, they were National Congress Party cronies, thriving off the party\u2019s domination of the Sudanese economy. <\/p>\n

The notorious al-Intibaha newspaper, for instance, is known for its hostile rhetoric towards the South Sudanese. It continued to act as a platform for Bashir\u2019s warmongering uncle, al-Tayyib Mustafa, even after Mustafa was arrested<\/a> for posing a threat to the transitional government.<\/p>\n

After Mustafa\u2019s death in 2021<\/a>, the paper retained his style. A piece<\/a> published shortly before the April 2023 outbreak of conflict characterised the civilians in the 2019-2021 transitional government as dual nationals serving foreign interests. It attacked efforts to curtail the security services\u2019 powers.<\/p>\n

Bashir may have fallen in 2019, but his military successors have preserved much of his regime\u2019s infrastructure. The remnants of this continue to undermine democratic transition in Sudan, with ultimately disastrous consequences.<\/p>\n

Source: The Conversation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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