Garang is in Cairo, Al-Bashir threatens to execute his mentor Al-Turabi and the Darfur catastrophe worsens: Gamal Nkrumah examines crisis-ridden Sudan As Sudanese government and opposition forces were preparing for peace talks in Cairo this week the meeting was abruptly postponed. Sudanese Vice President Ali Othman Mohamed Taha, who was to lead the government delegation, was apparently in Khartoum airport ready to board his plane when news of the postponement broke. The Sudanese political crisis is fast unravelling. The humanitarian situation in Darfur is worsening because of a renewal of fighting. Stalled peace talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja between the Sudanese government and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the two main armed opposition groups in Darfur, were followed by a resumption of fighting and the influx of another wave of refugees into restive camps in neighbouring Chad. Peace talks between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) are scheduled to commence next week in Kenya. And in Cairo, talks between the Sudanese government and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Sudan's chief umbrella opposition grouping that includes the SPLA and northern opposition parties, originally scheduled for this week, have been postponed indefinitely "for logistical reasons", Abdul-Rahman Said, the NDA vice chairman, told Al-Ahram Weekly. Egypt focussed instead on SPLA leader John Garang's Cairo visit this week, culminating in yesterday's meeting between Garang and the Egyptian president. The SPLA leader said that the talks took place in a very positive, friendly and relaxed atmosphere. "President Mubarak agreed that the key to peace and political stability in Sudan and to solving all Sudan's problems, is the completion and implementation of the peace agreement between the Sudanese government and the SPLA in Naivasha, Kenya," Garang told the Weekly. Once a deal with the SPLA is struck, other agreements could be concluded with regards to Darfur and the NDA, he said. Garang added that he expected Arab countries to invest in the reconstruction of war-torn southern Sudan. "Arab political goodwill is of utmost significance. And Arab investors are of vital importance in the struggle to rebuild Sudan," Garang told the Weekly. However Garang urged Arab investors to put pressure on the Sudanese government. "Arab investors should not invest in Sudan now because of the deplorable security situation and political instability. They should wait for the Sudanese government to sign the Naivasha cease-fire agreement with the SPLA before investing in Sudan. Reconstruction will only be possible after a formal peace treaty is signed," Garang told the Weekly. Garang said that he discussed the Darfur crisis with President Mubarak, as well as the upcoming NDA-Sudanese government meeting in Cairo. "But we didn't discuss Hassan Al-Turabi," Garang said, in a reference to the rounding up of members of the opposition Popular Congress Party led by Al-Turabi in Khartoum. "My husband is in solitary confinement in Cooper Prison, Khartoum," Wisal Al-Mahdi told the Weekly yesterday. "He doesn't have access to radio or television. He is not allowed to read newspapers. He is only permitted the Qur'an," she said. "He didn't even know that his son Siddig is also incarcerated. He didn't know that Al-Bashir has threatened to execute him if found guilty of involvement in the alleged coup which the government says it has thwarted," said Wisal Al-Mahdi who last visited her husband in prison last Saturday upon her return from England where she met with British politicians and Amnesty International in a bid to secure the release of her husband and to lobby support for his cause. Wisal Al-Mahdi is currently seeking permission to visit her son, Siddig Al-Turabi, 42, who now languishes in Port Sudan's dreaded Black Prison, where Sudan's most hardened criminals are jailed. "Can you imagine they locked him up with hard core criminals, murderers and armed robbers," Wisal Al-Mahdi told the Weekly. "This is the first time he has been jailed and the twins, his daughters, are especially distressed. They are very close to their dad." She added that her son's family -- wife, two sons and two daughters, are now staying with her in Al-Turabi's Khartoum home. So why is the Sudanese regime persecuting Al-Turabi? "They are afraid of him. He engineered the coup that brought Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir to power," Farouk Abu-Eissa, former foreign minister and current NDA spokesmen told the Weekly. "Al-Bashir hijacked Al-Turabi's revolution. The PCP wants the Sudanese government removed, they don't want to negotiate with it. They have an axe to grind with the government. Two of Al-Turabi's followers recently died under torture in Sudanese jails... Security, however, is so tight at the moment in Sudan that it is inconceivable that anyone would stage a coup, not even Al-Turabi," Abu-Eissa said. In a separate development, the UN Security Council met last Saturday to discuss a US sponsored resolution on Darfur threatening sanctions against Sudan's oil sector if Sudan did not stop violence in Darfur. Commenting on this turn of events, the Sudanese president, Al-Bashir, told Al-Ahram 's Mahmoud Murad: "The United States is embroiled in the Darfur crisis. The US trained the rebels in Eritrea in special camps. The US armed the rebels and backed them financially." In 1997, the US banned American companies from investing in Sudan, including the Sudanese oil industry. Washington also blacklisted Sudan as a state sponsoring terrorism. When the SLA bombed Al-Fasher airport in Darfur in February 2003, sparking the uprising against the government, Sudan couldn't deploy its forces in Darfur because some 50 per cent of the 90,000-strong regular Sudanese army soldiers are from Darfur. Instead it armed the Janjaweed militia who are recruited from a number of Arabised tribes including the Jalul, Erigat and Mahariya to put down the rebellion. JEM is composed in the main of ethnic Zaghawa and it has strong ties to Al-Turabi and his PCP. But JEM also managed to galvanise a broad spectrum of Darfur's disgruntled and politically sidelined youth. The SLA on the other hand is more broadly represented by the different ethnic groups in Darfur. Both groups, however, are aspiring to strike a similar deal to that garnered by the Garang's SPLA. It remains to be seen -- given their ideological differences and organisational weakness -- whether such a goal can be attained in the near future.
