Sudan’s opposition urges freedom and an end to ‘meaningless slogans’
Sudan’s opposition, both unarmed and armed, signed the agreement in Kampala in January. Bashir’s government, meanwhile, is making noises to indicate it seeks open political dialogue. To this end, it recently released seven political prisoners involved in the signing of the charter.
Seddik Youssef, head of the delegation of the opposition group National Consensus Forces (NCF), warned, however, that words and promises were not enough.
Human rights groups have said the Khartoum government continues to hold an unspecified number of dissidents following a security services crackdown on protests against austerity measures announced by Bashir last year.
A dialogue under the status-quo is at its best like that of deaf people.”
To enhance political freedom, the state must to ditch laws, such as the National Security Law, which enables the arrest of political activists, Youssef said. There is no point in releasing only six or seven detainees.”
Youssef, who is also a member of the Communist Party Central Committee, described the government’s calls for dialogue as meaningless slogans” as long as around a third of the country is in a state of emergency and media and political freedoms remain absent. A dialogue under the status-quo is at its best like that of deaf people,” he said.
The government has already signed several agreements without adhering to them, he said, mentioning the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the agreements of Cairo, Abuja and Doha. The problem does not lie in the agreements themselves, but in the government’s refraining from committing to them.”
Youssef said the recent New Dawn Charter had fulfilled its goal of uniting the opposition -- he said the aim was to avoid a repetition of the numerous Arab Spring revolutions which were dented by the oppositions’ inability to unite behind a transitional programme.
Although the Arab Spring had clocked up considerable successes, he said the opposition in those countries was responsible for the post-revolutionary confusion, something we aim at avoiding in Sudan”, he said.
He said people struggled against these political regimes because of their faulty economic policies as well as weak healthcare and educational services.
The opposition in Sudan would have to present a united front on such programmes, he said: We must agree on the finest details since the state’s resources are weak and there are huge problems and destruction inflicted on the country over twenty years... Therefore, we should decide what to start with -- and we should decide that before toppling the regime to avoid any conflicts among the political forces,” he added.
We must agree on the finest details since the state’s resources are weak and there are huge problems and destruction inflicted on the country over twenty years.”
Youssef explained that the Communist Party had sent a letter to Malik Agar, in which it pinpointed its reservations regarding the Charter, including relations between the state and religion, a point left ambiguous by the charter and objecting to plans to form an army by merging the official armed forces and armed organisations.
He also said they objected to the presidential system as the country political regime since it would enable new dictatorships, preferring the parliamentary system instead.
Youssef said both internal and external oppositions agreed to continue debating the Charter.
Malik Agar and I have agreed to hold a meeting soon for a mini-committee featuring representatives of NCF and RF to revise the objects of disagreement,” said Youssef without providing further details about the time and place of the meeting.
Youssef added that it was essential to do more than call for democracy and freedoms. These key demands, he said, neither end people’s suffering nor lead to true democratic change.
The demand of democracy, therefore, should be linked to development and social justice and a program should be developed to settle them; otherwise, the revolutions’ problems will not be solved,” he added.
