The Sudanese Army: A History of Brotherhood Hegemony
Posted: 08 May 2023, 13:55
- The Sudanese Army: A History of Brotherhood Hegemony |
The Sudanese Army and Politics is a book that sheds light on the historical roots of the Sudanese army's entry into politics.
Monday 05/08/2023
KHARTOUM - The fundamental problem in the Sudanese crisis is represented in the method of rebuilding the army, which was subjected to ideological politicization, and to the whims of three military regimes described as “dictatorship and coup”, which swung from the far left to the far right, which led the army to the grip of the Muslim Brotherhood, the “National Front.” The Islamic Revolution,” especially in light of its infiltration into its formation and its control over the government, and then the coup of Omar al-Bashir, one of its elements in 1989, which lasted until 2019, and the liquidation of the national elements within it by expulsion, exemption, or execution.
In this book “The Sudanese Army and Politics” by the researcher in military affairs, Brigadier General Essam El-Din Mirghani (one of the founders of the political-military opposition to the regime of the National Islamic Front), the writer sheds light on a period of time that extends for an entire century, beginning with the formation of the “Sudan Defense Force” that was established in The year 1925, then the declaration of the “Sudanese Army” in January 1954, and finally the “Sudanese Armed Forces” to this day.
Mirghani believed that during most of these periods of time, the Sudanese army was at the forefront of the political events that shaped the modern history of Sudan. As a result, Sudan became one of the most dominant and ruling African countries under the shadow of dictatorial military regimes.
The book, which comes in two parts, also covers the roots and expansion of political action within the Sudanese Armed Forces in an attempt to monitor most of the political-military events that carved their lines on the face of Sudan. In the second part, it stops at the experience of the political-military opposition in resisting the totalitarian military regimes in Sudan.
In his book, Mirghani deals with the penetration of the Muslim Brotherhood (the National Islamic Front) into the Sudanese army since 1949, and devotes many of its chapters to the strategy of their penetration of the army and the building of an Islamic military army, and their assault on everything to secure their authority, observing the names of the leaders who were affiliated with the organization from its inception until the takeover. It came to power in 1989 under the leadership of Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir, and after that it betrayed the Sudanese Armed Forces, expelled and exempted its non-affiliated members, and confronted the March 1990 movement, then committed the 1990 massacre by executing many officers and described officers with the blessing of its ruling elements represented by al-Bashir and the new army leaders.
During most of these eras, the Sudanese army was at the forefront of the political events that shaped the modern history of Sudan
Mirghani traces the birth of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Sudan when the Brotherhood officer, Abu al-Makarim Abdel-Hay, fled to Sudan to escape the July 1952 revolution in Egypt and its pursuit of the movement’s elements. Secrets and the full experience to Sudan, to form the basic structure in the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood movement's dealings with the army and in the method of secret work and planning to reach power for later periods.
He points out that the first serious attempt by the Brotherhood to enter the corridor of power through the Sudanese army was in 1959, when Rashid al-Tahir Bakr, the general observer of the Muslim Brotherhood at the time, was able to create intimate contacts with some army officers working in the eastern command in the city of Gedaref, and opened with them an alliance project to overthrow the rule of Lieutenant General Ibrahim Abboud, and the seizure of power, and this attempt was known as the coup of the ninth of November 1959, or the coup of Lieutenant Colonel Ali Hamid, and it was aborted before execution, and after that a death sentence was imposed on five of the officers and Al-Rashid Al-Taher Bakr was sent to prison, sentenced to five years.
The Muslim Brotherhood movement disavowed responsibility for the November 9, 1959 coup, although it held absentee prayers for the souls of the executed officers and demonstrated during the burial.
Mirghani confirms that the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood has focused all its efforts on building bases for its spread since the fifties among the student movement in primary and secondary schools, to strengthen that spread and strengthen it at the University of Khartoum later.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the Sudanese army relied mainly on recruiting military students after they completed secondary school, and recruitment for college decreased from lower educational levels, or from the ranks of officers. There were many officers with Brotherhood tendencies since the study period, and the army command did not notice them at the beginning of their service, and this was evident in their appearance as retired workers who were reabsorbed into the organizations of the Islamic Front after 1985.
He believes that the Muslim Brotherhood understood the failure of their attempt to overthrow the Mayan regime (1969-1977) and the failure of the experience of the armed external opposition, and the necessity of reconciliation with the regime before all other parties constituting the “National Front.” They were the first to send a memorandum from inside Kober prison in 1977, Asking for reconciliation and involvement in the Mayan regime.
This was achieved for them on July 7, 1977, when Al-Sadiq Al-Mahdi, head of the opposition National Front, signed the National Reconciliation Agreement in the city of Port Sudan. All their efforts after the reconciliation focused on organizational work, which is the real beginning of serious secret organizational work in the student movement, their only credit until that time, and their secret activity extended to all other sectors, including the armed forces and security services.
The late Brotherhood leader, Hassan al-Turabi, says, “As for after the reconciliation in 1977, a comprehensive organizational renaissance took place, starting with the experiences of the jihad period, and assimilating its fruits in the extensions of social, economic, security, and external work, and so on. This renaissance lasted for years, and it brought about a transformation.”
The Brotherhood movement helped in its organizational launch and spread, the large financial capabilities available to it during the period of external work and the profitable commercial investments made by the organization’s cadres, especially in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region.
Mirghani points out that al-Turabi developed his strategy to build the organization on four kinetic pillars: proliferation, penetration, occupation, and seizure. The movement moved in four main axes: the economic field, the student movement, media and publishing, and the armed forces and other regular forces.
The Brotherhood movement succeeded in creating all the conditions conducive to building and spreading the political and military organization of the movement, as its leadership cadres reached decision-making centers.
And he says, “All sources agree that the serious beginning of building an effective military organization for the Muslim Brotherhood movement within the armed forces was after 1980, and that the first military official of the organization who was appointed after that date was Lieutenant Colonel Pilot Mukhtar Muhammadeen, who was killed while he was in the rank of colonel when his plane crashed in the city of Al-Nasser at the top of the Nile at the end of 1988. The sources also agree that the recruitment of Colonel Tayyar Muhammadeen was carried out by Rashid Abdul Rahim, who is one of the Brotherhood cadres working in the field of journalism, and is directly related to Mukhtar Muhammadin. Lieutenant Colonel Mukhtar Muhamadeen started a secret recruitment campaign in the Air Force. Colonel Pilot Mustafa Al-Duwaihi told me that he was on an official mission to Germany in the early eighties, accompanied by Mukhtar Muhamadeen. The latter tried hard to recruit him to the Islamists, but he refused his attempt, sticking to the nationalism of belonging to the armed forces. . Colonel Air Force Engineer Abd al-Rahim Muhammad Hussein was the right-hand man of Mukhtar Muhammadin in the organization, and together we were able to build a good base for the Brotherhood within the Air Force, and this is clearly shown in the number of technical officers participating in the Air Force in the coup of the thirtieth of June 1989.
He reveals that the second man in the organization, who made great efforts in building the secret military organization, and was assigned vital tasks before the coup, is Brigadier General Kamal Ali Mukhtar, a committed cadre in the Brotherhood since his studies at Dongola Secondary School, but withheld that information by showing the absolute nationalism of the forces. armed forces, applying the utmost secrecy and caution in its movements and organizational activities. At the end of the seventies, Mukhtar was sent on loan to the Gulf region to work in the army of the United Arab Emirates. That period was the golden stage for the work of the Brotherhood organization in the Arab Gulf regions and Saudi Arabia, and it was invested intelligently to develop secret organizational work and build economic capabilities. During his work in the Emirates, Mukhtar recruited Many cadres of the organization, and he was assisted directly by Lieutenant Colonel Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, who was also seconded to the UAE army at that time.
Mirghani points out that Omar Hassan al-Bashir was the leader of the National Islamic Front coup and head of the National Salvation Government in 1989, after the dispute and division that broke out within the corridors of the Islamic Front in December 1999 between Hassan al-Turabi and the group led by Ali Othman Muhammad Taha (who had a relationship with al-Bashir since they were together at school). Khartoum Secondary School, which was on the Brotherhood’s list in the school students’ union elections and won its presidency).
Al-Bashir revealed in a press conference held at the headquarters of the National Congress Party - the ruling Islamic Front party - on the evening of the fourteenth of December 1999, the truth of his affiliation, which he had been denying for ten years.
Mirghani says in his book, “Lieutenant General Omar al-Bashir, President of the Sudanese Republic, revealed clearly that he had joined the ranks of the Islamic movement since he was a first-year high school student. He said that the seizure of power on June 30, 1989 was ordered by the leadership of the Islamic Front.
The Sudanese army is at the forefront of political events
He explains that in the year 1983 the Brotherhood movement succeeded in creating all the conditions conducive to building and spreading the political and military organization of the movement, as the Brotherhood’s leadership cadres reached decision-making centers in the ministries and sovereign agencies of the Mayan regime, and thus they had the opportunity to know all the secrets of the state and obtain the most accurate details and practice in Governance style.
The movement was able to contain the Mayan regime, which was faced with failure in its policies and the escalating internal and external opposition, and pushed it to take shelter behind repressive laws covered in Islam that were formulated by Brotherhood cadres, and were metaphorically called the laws of Islamic Sharia. Imam of the Muslims. The civil service and civil society institutions took a large share of these new policies, so the leaders with a liberal and secular orientation were excluded, and Sudan entered the penultimate stages of the era of decline and a return to the Middle Ages, which will be completed later in the nineties.
And he believes that the share of the Sudanese Armed Forces was greater, and most of it is in favor of the Brotherhood movement, which pursued the supreme military leaders, and publicly flogged the officers, and the walls of the military units were opened to preachers and missionaries from among the Brotherhood’s cadres, and for those like them who are advocates of religious obsession, to give lectures and hold religious courses under the name Preaching, religious guidance, and moral guidance.. It was surprising that a large number of soldiers of the armed forces, of Christian faiths and worshipers of souls from southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains region, were forced to attend lectures by force.. As for the leaders of the armed forces, who held the guardian of the wise leadership that It was planned by “Imam Al-Numeiri” as she was in a coma.
Mirghani reveals that the biggest achievements of the Muslim Brotherhood came from its tributary, and its committed institution that it controls, called the “African Islamic Center.” It was planned to make the most of it after it chose the branch of moral guidance in the armed forces, which rode the religious wave, so it planned the required courses in guidance. And religious guidance, and prompted the Officers' Affairs Branch to send officers regularly to attend the center's courses. The argument of the Moral Guidance Branch was that the armed forces benefit from the training of these officers in spreading awareness and religious commitment in line with the Islamic orientation of the state. The sessions of the African Islamic Center were an open cell to recruit armed forces officers into the ranks of the Brotherhood movement, and at the very least gain their sympathy and support for its policies.