Khartoum is given the runaround, even as Northern opposition figures and South Sudan show how to stand up to Al-Bashir, notes Gamal Nkrumah Sheikh Hassan Al-Turabi, Sudan's chief Islamist ideologue and leader of the opposition Populist Congress Party (PCP), has set out in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly a vision for liberalising Sudan's ruling National Congress Party (NCP)-controlled political system. "We, the PCP, urge the disparate Sudanese opposition parties to unite and call for the downfall of the regime," Al-Turabi exclaimed. He refuted rumours that he is dead. "I am well, in reasonably good health, I am participating in the politics of Sudan -- in short I am alive and kicking". Al-Turabi and a host of other Sudanese politicians feel obliged to show the faith. The consensus is that religion, in Sudan's case Islam, cannot be absent from issues that resonate beyond the country's borders. Sudanese politicians are now struggling to repair the damage left behind by the vacuum created by the secession of South Sudan. Principles that impact Sudan as a whole count for more than a little local difficulty, for it includes the prickly question of petroleum. North Sudanese have shown poor judgement in their handling of the South Sudanese question. The political crisis in the peripheral northern provinces of Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile has demonstrated a worrying lack of leadership at a moment when it was most needed. Extremists wreak havoc on the Sudanese political scene. "What we now so desperately need is a moderate Islam and we should learn from the mistakes of the past, during the era of the National Islamic Front (NIF). Al-Turabi's stance softens when it comes to the people of Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile. He supports their quest for greater participation in the decision-making process in Sudan. The Sudanese opposition as a whole struggles to gain from disenchantment with the government. Al-Turabi and Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir have signalled in recent months that they are willing to ringfence the South Sudan question in order to reach a conclusion concerning the far more prickly topic of the Islamisation of Sudanese politics. Al-Turabi favours a moderate strand of Islam as opposed to the more militant version favoured by Al-Bashir. In a flurry of diplomatic activity, United States Presidential Envoy for Sudan Princeton Lyman told the London-based Pan-Arab daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that Sudan is in dire need of democratic and constitutional reform. Nevertheless, Lyman stressed that Washington is not interested in fomenting an Arab Spring in Sudan. "This is not part of the US agenda," he insisted. Lyman also noted that Washington had no interest in transforming Sudan into a failed or collapsed state. He said that the US wanted to see a prosperous Sudan that could become a viable trading partner. In a separate development, the International Criminal Court (ICC) based in The Hague, Netherlands, issued an arrest warrant this week against Sudanese Defence Minister Abdel-Rahim Mohamed Hussein. The ICC has already issued an arrest warrant against the Sudanese President Al-Bashir, Darfur security chief Ahmed Haroun and the Arabised Janjaweed militia leader Ali Khushayb. ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo accused Al-Bashir of having personally instructed his armed forces and allied militias to decimate members of the three major ethnic groups in Darfur -- the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa people. Al-Bashir is charged with orchestrating genocide and gross human rights violations. It is against this melodramatic backdrop that leading members of the Sudanese opposition forces have teamed up to form the Allied Resistance Forces (ARF). Their goal is to ostensibly oust Al-Bashir's ruling NCP from power. However, rumours that some of the leading Sudanese opposition figures are mending fences with Al-Bashir are rife in the Sudanese capital Khartoum. The debacle that has played out in Khartoum has left many Sudanese infuriated and confused. Mohamed Othman Al-Mergani, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, the Khatimiya Sufi Order, and a leader of ARF is accused of secretly aligning with Al-Bashir and indirectly participating in Al-Bashir's government using his son Al-Sadig Al-Mirghani as a surrogate subterfuge. Likewise, Sadig Al-Mahdi, presumably also using his son Colonel Abdel-Rahman as a ploy, is flirting with Al-Bashir. Colonel Abdel-Rahman Al-Mahdi is a member of the Sudanese Armed Forces suspected of waging wars of genocide against defenceless civilians in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile. The tendency among Sudanese opposition figures to regard every military move and political scheme as not expressly forbidden as being permitted is widespread. The Sudanese political state of affairs is in peril and the country's economy is hard hit by the loss of oil revenues to South Sudan. Khartoum claims South Sudan owes $727 million on four shipments of oil released and transferred through oil installations in North Sudan since July. In retaliation, South Sudan has threatened to divert its oil through the construction of a pipeline to Kenya and end its dependence on North Sudanese ports as the chief outlet of the South's oil exports. Khartoum threatened to seize South Sudanese oil as a counterstrike. And, it is against this grim backdrop that China comes into play. Beijing this week dispatched its Chief Envoy to Sudan Liu Guijin to calm the situation. China relies on Sudanese oil for five per cent of its oil imports. China was instrumental in constructing the pipelines that export South Sudanese oil to North Sudanese terminals on the Red Sea. Khartoum has threatened to block the 1,600 km oil pipeline traversing its territory. Adding to the confusion, the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) is a 40 per cent stakeholder in Sudan's Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC). A more complicated problem lies in a set of co-ordination deficiencies between CNPC and GNPOC. It is essential that resolute decisions concerning the export of Sudanese oil to China be taken now. The partnership risks going down in history as a litany of regrets. Khartoum is floundering in response to Chinese overtures. Better yet, for the South.
