Sudan generals face off in post-coup power struggle

Sudan generals face off in post-coup power struggle
Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan speaks during the 5th Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC5) in Doha on March 4, 2023. (AFP/File)
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Updated 16 March 2023

Sudan generals face off in post-coup power struggle

Sudan generals face off in post-coup power struggle
  • Once united front of army chief Al-Burhan, his deputy Daglo has devolved into ‘brinkmanship’

KHARTOUM: Sixteen months since Sudan’s top generals ousted a transition to civilian rule, the coup leaders are embroiled in a dangerous power struggle with deepening rivalries within the security forces, analysts warn.

Army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo worked together in October 2021 to remove the short-lived transitional authorities put in place following the toppling of Omar Bashir’s regime in 2019.

Magdi Al-Gizouli, from the Rift Valley Institute think tank, said their once united front has devolved into “brinkmanship.”

“The power struggle in Sudan is no longer between military and civilians,” Gizouli said. “It is now Burhan against Daglo, each with his own alliance.”

The coup triggered international aid cuts and sparked near-weekly protests, adding to the deepening political and economic troubles of one of the world’s poorest countries.

Burhan, a career soldier from northern Sudan who rose the ranks under the three-decade rule of now jailed general Bashir, has said the coup was “necessary” to include more factions into politics.

But Daglo, also known as Hemeti, the commander of the much-feared paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, has since called the coup a “mistake.”

Created in 2013, the RSF force emerged from the Janjaweed militia that Bashir unleashed a decade earlier in the western region of Darfur against non-Arab rebels, where it was accused of war crimes by rights groups.

Daglo — from Darfur’s pastoralist camel-herding Arab Rizeigat people — said the coup had not brought change but rather the return of Bashir-era regime loyalists, angering religious factions.

Disagreements between the two generals also reflect long-running divisions between the regular army and Daglo’s RSF, said military expert Amin Ismail.

“Burhan wants the RSF to be integrated into the army in accordance with the rules and regulations within the army,” said Gizouli.

“Daglo seems to want restructuring of the top army command to take place first, so that he can be part of it before the integration.”

In December, Burhan and Daglo signed a tentative deal with multiple factions — including the key civilian bloc, the Forces for Freedom and Change — as part of a two-phase political process toward a civilian-led transition.

But critics called the deal “vague” and cast doubt on the generals’ pledge to exit politics after a civilian government was installed.

“The December deal highlighted the disagreements which have their different aspirations at its core,” said Ismail.

Gizouli says the accord was “a delaying tactic” for Burhan, while Daglo sought “to improve his competitiveness” and bill himself as “an ally to the FFC.”

He said: “It is clear that neither of them has any intention to exit politics, as they have been investing in alliances that would allow them to continue.”

Daglo has been jet-setting across the region drumming up support, traveling to neighboring Eritrea and Equatorial Guinea, two African nations with close ties with Russia.

The day after Burhan visited Chad last month, Daglo started a visit of his own.

Analyst Kholood Khair said a recent initiative by Egypt has appeared to favor Burhan and “catalyzed renewed tensions between the generals.”

In February, Cairo hosted a workshop among multiple Sudanese factions including those who opposed the December deal, notably two ex-rebel commanders — Finance Minister Gibril Ibrahim and Darfur governor Minni Minnawi.

Khair, in an article for the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, said the Cairo initiative left political groups seeking to make pacts “with one general over the other.

“This is a false choice, and one that can only lead to further polarization of the political space and, potentially, an armed confrontation between Burhan and Hemeti’s forces, with disastrous consequences.”

Daglo, in a recent speech to RSF troops, said his disagreement was not with the armed forces.

“The disagreement is with the people clinging on to power,” said Daglo, insisting he backed the installation of a civilian government.

“We are against anyone who wants to be a dictator.”

On Saturday, Sudan’s armed forces hit back, dismissing accusations of “the unwillingness” of the army’s generals “to complete the process of change and democratic transformation.”

It said in a statement: “It is an open attempt to gain political sympathy, and to obstruct the transitional process.”

On Sunday, Sudan’s ruling sovereign council said Burhan and Daglo held security talks.

Ismail said that while the outright military confrontation that many fear is unlikely, it is not the only potential outcome. “It’s a political disagreement ... but it could push the Sudanese people to rise up and turn on all of them,” Ismail said.


US says ‘strongly urges’ Israel leaders to find compromise

The North Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC. (AFP file photo)
The North Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC. (AFP file photo)
Updated 47 min 31 sec ago

US says ‘strongly urges’ Israel leaders to find compromise

The North Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC. (AFP file photo)
  • Some three months since taking office, Netanyahu’s nationalist-religious coalition has been plunged into crisis over the bitter divisions exposed by its flagship judicial overhaul plans

WASHINGTON: The United States is deeply concerned by events in Israel and “strongly urges” leaders there to find compromise as soon as possible, a White House spokesperson said on Sunday after the firing of Israel’s defense minister triggered mass protests.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday, a day after Gallant broke ranks with the government and urged a halt to a highly contested plan to overhaul the judicial system.
“We continue to strongly urge Israeli leaders to find a compromise as soon as possible. We believe that is the best path forward for Israel and all of its citizens,” White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement.
Some three months since taking office, Netanyahu’s nationalist-religious coalition has been plunged into crisis over the bitter divisions exposed by its flagship judicial overhaul plans.
The overhaul package would tighten political control over judicial appointments, handing the executive wider freedom to name judges to the Supreme Court.
“As the president recently discussed with Prime Minister Netanyahu, democratic values have always been, and must remain, a hallmark of the US-Israel relationship,” Watson said.
“Democratic societies are strengthened by checks and balances, and fundamental changes to a democratic system should be pursued with the broadest possible base of popular support.”

 


Group says Libyan coast guard fired shots over rescue ship

Group says Libyan coast guard fired shots over rescue ship
Updated 27 March 2023

Group says Libyan coast guard fired shots over rescue ship

Group says Libyan coast guard fired shots over rescue ship
  • The Libyan coast guard vessel “dangerously” approached the rescue ship, threatening its crew “with guns and firing gunshots in the air,” the SOS Mediterranee said in a statement

CAIRO: Libya’s coast guard fired warning shots over a humanitarian vessel as it attempted to rescue a rubber boat carrying migrants off Libya’s coast, a sea rescue group said. The coast guard went on to return some 80 Europe-bound migrants to Libyan soil.
The incident Saturday in international waters was the latest reckless sea interception of migrants by the Libyan coast guard, which is trained and financed by the European Union to stem the influx of migrants to Europe, said the SOS Mediterranee group, whose vessel was warned off by the coast guard.
A spokesman for the coast guard didn’t respond to a request for comment. The Italian coast guard said it had received a report about the incident, but complained that SOS Mediterranee didn’t follow correct procedures in reporting it.
The Ocean Viking, a rescue ship chartered and run by the non-profit SOS Mediterranee, was responding to a distress call to help the rubber boat carrying migrants in the Mediterranean Sea when a Libyan coast guard vessel arrived at the scene, the group said.
The Libyan coast guard vessel “dangerously” approached the rescue ship, threatening its crew “with guns and firing gunshots in the air,” the SOS Mediterranee said in a statement.
The coast guard was caught on camera threatening the vessel and firing a weapon into the air. In the footage, the coast guard vessel is seen traveling at a high rate of speed before maneuvering, apparently to prevent the Ocean Viking from reaching the migrant boat. At one point, gun shots are heard.
“You can’t shoot at us. You can’t shoot at us. We’re leaving the waters now,” a person on the Ocean Viking is heard saying.
Under threat, the Ocean Viking sailed away while the Libyan coast guard intercepted the boat and “forcibly” took the migrants back to war-wrecked Libya, it said.
Seabird 2, a civil surveillance plane owned by the German non-governmental organization Sea-Watch, reported seeing migrants who had fallen overboard from the rubber boat before the coast guard recovered them.
In further footage from the group’s civil surveillance plane, the coast guard was seen maneuvering and approaching the rubber boat, before forcing the migrants to disembark on the coast guard vessel. Gunshots were also heard in the footage, with people on board the surveillance plane saying, “They are shooting in the water ... They are shooting at the people.”
Saturday’s incident was the latest report from European NGOs operating in the Mediterranean Sea of threats or violent behavior by the Libyan coast guard, which is trained and financed by the European Union, part of efforts to stem the flow of migrants from the North African country toward Italian shores.
Libya has in recent years emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants seeking a better quality of life in Europe. The oil-rich country plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
Human traffickers have benefited from the chaos in Libya, smuggling in migrants across the country’s lengthy borders with six nations. The migrants are then packed into ill-equipped rubber boats and other vessels and set off on risky sea voyages.
So far this year, some 20,000 migrants have arrived in Italy, far exceeding the 6,000 who came in the same period in each of the preceding years, according to Interior Ministry figures.
Over the weekend alone, an estimated 3,300 migrants — many departing on small boats from Libya or Tunisia’s coastal city of Sfax — were rescued in the Mediterranean and were heading toward Italian ports to disembark, the Italian coast guard said.
At least three rescues were conducted by the Louise Michel rescue ship, which is financed by the street artist Banksy. The group said its vessel was detained Friday off Lampedusa after it rescued 180 people in several operations. Thirty-four were plucked from the water after their boat capsized.
The Italian coast guard said the vessel had been seized because the crew disobeyed orders to head to a port in Trapani, Sicily after the first rescue and instead picked up other migrants in three other rescues. The coast guard said that disobedience put migrants at risk and complicated its own efforts to coordinate rescues during a particularly busy weekend.
“The instructions given to the NGO ship, given its small size, were also aimed at preventing it from taking on board so many people that would jeopardize both its safety and that of the migrant boats it would be rescuing,” the coast guard said in a statement.
It added that the NGO aircraft that were also sending reports of boats in distress “overloaded the communications system” of the Italian coordination center, duplicating alerts that government aircraft were already providing.
In recent months, the hard-line Italian government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has made it harder for humanitarian vessels to operate, often assigning ships to ports farther north after a single rescue, which the groups say limits their ability to save lives.
Meloni’s allies say the presence of so many rescue ships in the Mediterranean encourages migrants to risk their lives on smuggler boats.
 

 


Israeli consul in New York resigns, says cannot serve Netanyahu

Asaf Zamir. (Twitter @AmbAsafZamir)
Asaf Zamir. (Twitter @AmbAsafZamir)
Updated 27 March 2023

Israeli consul in New York resigns, says cannot serve Netanyahu

Asaf Zamir. (Twitter @AmbAsafZamir)
  • “I can no longer continue representing this Government,” Asaf Zamir said on Twitter

JERUSALEM: Israel’s consul-general in New York said he was resigning on Sunday in protest at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s firing of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in a surging dispute over a judicial overhaul sought by the government.
“I can no longer continue representing this Government,” Asaf Zamir said on Twitter. “I believe it is my duty to ensure that Israel remains a beacon of democracy and freedom in the world.”

 


It’s no joke: club helps Jordanians win comedy gold

It’s no joke: club helps Jordanians win comedy gold
Updated 27 March 2023

It’s no joke: club helps Jordanians win comedy gold

It’s no joke: club helps Jordanians win comedy gold
  • Since its 2019 inception, Amman Comedy Club has trained people in stand-up comedy, sketch shows, satirical writing

AMMAN: When life gave them lemons, two Jordanians launched a club to train people in the art of comedy in a country where years of economic woes have left little to laugh about.

Since being founded in 2019, the Amman Comedy Club has been training aspiring comics, offering free, three- to four-month workshops in stand-up, improv, comedy sketches and satire writing.

Aided by foreign institutions such as the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, and with the help of Chicago-based comedy club The Second City, the club has already trained more than 140 people.

The new comedians hoping to put a smile on Jordanian faces range in age between 18 to 40 and include students, doctors and lawyers among others, keen to learn the art of comic timing and delivery.

“Comedy is a message, and our message is to make people laugh,” said Moeen Masoud, one of the club’s co-founders. “If you come to this place and spend two hours laughing and forget about your problems and worries, this means I have fulfilled my message.”

It is part of the founders’ broader social mission. “In our daily lives, we face a lot of economic, social and psychological pressures, and the best way to relieve these worries is to laugh,” the other co-founder Yazan Abu Al-Rous added.

Jordan’s deep economic difficulties were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to official figures, unemployment rose in 2021 to about 25 percent — and up to 50 percent among young people.

With public debt exceeding $47 billion, or more than 106 percent of the gross domestic product, the poverty rate also increased to an unprecedented 24 percent that year.

Shining a light on social issues through comedy could also help the country as societies need criticism “in order to grow and be able to fix their defects,” added Abu Al-Rous.

Masoud lamented that “comedy did not get the attention it deserves in Jordan.” “We have great ambitions, beyond Jordan. We aspire to have a tour in the Arab world and the wider world for Jordanian comedians and hope to train many people around the world.”

The duo has also spearheaded efforts to dispel one lingering notion about their compatriots.

“There is a stereotype that Jordanians do not laugh,” said Abu Al-Rous, who has a master’s degree in business administration.

“We at ACC wanted to challenge this idea and prove the opposite to the world, that we love laughter and jokes.”

So far, the club graduates have performed shows across Jordan and are also training students at private schools in stand-up comedy.

The club also runs psychological support courses for children in areas that host Syrian refugees.

Among the club’s graduates are now well-known comedians, who have amassed hundreds of thousands of followers on social media and perform weekly shows in Amman.

Graduate Abdullah Sobeih, 25, said his training taught him “how to choose topics that affect people’s lives, how a comic story is built.”

With over 340,000 followers on Instagram, the business graduate hopes his new career can help fellow Jordanians “make them forget their worries.”

“We know that people suffer from problems and pressures ... we are trying to bring them to this place in order to offer some relief,” Sobeih said.

He is among four of the club’s better-known alumni, alongside Kamal Sailos, Abdulrahman Mamdouh, and Yusef Bataineh, who are slowly establishing themselves as household names in Jordan.

In the 350-seat Al-Shams Theatre, the trio perform separate stand-ups to an audience of mostly young men and women.

“Our country is the only country in the world that when you google its name the results would show Michael Jordan,” said Yusef Bataineh to roars of laughter at the comparison of the Hashemite kingdom with the legendary US basketball player


Sudan coup leader urges troops to back democratic transition

Sudan coup leader urges troops  to back democratic transition
Updated 27 March 2023

Sudan coup leader urges troops to back democratic transition

Sudan coup leader urges troops  to back democratic transition
  • Army has a long history of staging takeovers and has amassed substantial economic holdings

KHARTOUM: Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan called on troops on Sunday to “end” support for authoritarian leaders as talks begin on military reforms, part of a prolonged transition to civilian rule.

Burhan seized power in a 2021 coup that had derailed a short-lived democratic transition following the 2019 ouster of Gen. Omar Bashir.

“During our history, the armed forces have supported dictatorial governments, and we want to put an end to that,” Burhan, a career soldier during Bashir’s three-decade rule, said in a speech to soldiers.

Reform of the security forces in a key point of tension in discussions on a two-phase political process launched in December, envisaging generals’ exit from politics once a civilian government is installed.

Critics have decried the deal, agreed by Burhan with multiple factions including a key civilian bloc, as “vague.”

The proposed reforms include the integration into the regular army of the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, led by Burhan’s deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

Created in 2013, RSF emerged from the Janjaweed militia that Bashir unleashed a decade earlier in the western region of Darfur against non-Arab rebels, where it was accused of war crimes by rights groups.

While experts have pointed to worrying rivalries between Burhan and Daglo, the two men took turns speaking on Sunday in the capital Khartoum, pleading for a successful integration.

Daglo said he wanted “a unified army,” while Burhan called for “a professional army that stays away from politics.”

The December deal came after near-weekly protests since Burhan’s October 2021 takeover, which had also triggered international aid cuts, adding to the deepening political and economic troubles in one of the world’s poorest countries.

Daglo, the RSF commander also known as Hemeti, said earlier this month he was against “anyone who wants to become a dictator,” and that he opposed those “clinging on to power.”

He said the latest coup had “failed” because it had not brought change but rather the return of the “old regime” of Bashir loyalists.

The talks this week follow a framework deal agreed in December between the military and the civilian Forces for Freedom and Change alliance, which aims to turn the page the coup which led to mass protests and cut Sudan off from much international financial support. 

Sudan’s army has a long history of staging military takeovers and has amassed substantial economic holdings. It wants to see the RSF, which by some estimates has up to 100,000 fighters, integrated under its control.

The two sides are expected to formally adopt the deal on April 6 and launch a new civilian government on April 11.

The agreement had left several sensitive issues, including the security reform and transitional justice, for further discussion.

Power jostling between Dagalo and Burhan, along with uncertainty over how and when the RSF could be merged with the army, has been a source of recent tension.

Dagalo has put himself at the forefront of the planned transition toward democracy, unsettling fellow military rulers and triggering a mobilization of troops in the capital Khartoum in recent weeks.

Burhan asserted on Sunday that the country’s army would be brought under the leadership of a new civilian government, restating pledges that it would withdraw from politics.

“The process of security and military reform is a long and complicated process and one that cannot be bypassed,” he said.