Omar Al-Bashir and Africa's Longest War

by Paul Moorcraft

  Yet the northern elite were not in the mood to say ‘I told you so’. They had genuinely believed that the south was not ready for independent statehood – and Khartoum’s many critics would add that the north had helped to create the political, cultural, economic and tribal maelstrom that was South Sudan. Khartoum’s press coverage on the south’s new war was notable for its lack of censorship. A few examples of snide racism and schadenfreude were evident, but generally the mood was of compassion about the unfolding humanitarian crisis. Gloating was rare, not least because South Sudan’s misfortune was hurting the north as well. Also, the self-evident impact on the north made it easier for Khartoum to justify the tough austerity measures.

  A complete collapse of the southern economy could implode the north. The politicians and economists had done little long-term contingency planning for the oil crisis and had failed to diversify the economy sufficiently during the boom years. The intelligence and military chiefs in Khartoum now had to look at all the immediate options. No one wanted to re-occupy the whole south. The military challenges were far too great, especially after the initial military drubbing by the SPLA at Heglig. And, of course, the diplomatic repercussions would bring down the wrath of the UN and AU on their heads. Nor would the Chinese let them get away with it; the US had little leverage left, except for even more sanctions. Khartoum was almost past caring what Washington thought. The optimal solution, said the intelligence people, was – in extremis – to re-occupy just the key oilfields and pipelines and hold them – temporarily. The PR line would be that they were safeguarding them for Juba once the civil war was resolved. Indeed, Salvia Kiir had asked his northern counterpart for military support, and al-Bashir was prepared to help with intelligence, logistics and some air power and air transport. Khartoum, however, had caught the contemporary American disease: it was reluctant to put boots on the ground. The military in Khartoum were very irritated by what they considered to be the trigger-happy intervention of the Ugandans, especially their air force. The last civil war in the south had lasted for over two decades; millions were killed. If the current war within the SPLA continued for anything like that period, South Sudan would run out of people.

  Both parts of the former Sudan faced an uncertain future. South Sudan was already a failed, devastated state at independence; then it became far worse. Visitors to Khartoum would see gleaming office blocks and fancy hotels. Brand new 4x4s jammed the streets. Behind the façade, the inheritor state of the old Sudan faced many of the problems of rapid growth suddenly halted – unemployment, rapid price rises caused by inflation and hidden poverty in the shanty towns on the edge of the capital. Unlike many African cities things by and large worked – even the traffic lights and lifts. And Khartoum was still the safest and friendliest, if also one of the most boring, capitals in Africa. The two parts of Sudan could not survive without peace and each other. They were destined to live or die in each other’s economic embrace.

  Conclusion

  Omar Al-Bashir’s Legacy

  The Western media has often portrayed Omar al-Bashir as a ruthless thug in the mould of another Arab Field Marshal-President with a moustache who had been in power for over two decades: Saddam Hussein. I have tried to portray the Sudanese leader as a far more interesting, complex and, frankly, more humane character, although Saddam is hardly a cherished yardstick. Faced with the almost impossible legacy of keeping Africa’s largest country together amid endless war, a better comparison might be with Marshal Josip Tito. I have worked extensively in Iraq and ex-Yugoslavia and al-Bashir – for all his many faults – had done, arguably, a better job than either his Iraqi or Balkan counterparts.

  One of the most colourful and long-term critics of the Khartoum government, the prominent human rights lawyer Ghazi Suleiman, had always insisted that al-Bashir has been a moderate in the ruling party. In perhaps a deliberately crunched metaphor, he said, ‘Al-Bashir is a pigeon, not a hawk.’

  In his recent book on Sudan, A Poisonous Thorn in our Hearts, the BBC’s James Copnall – certainly no friend of the president – commented on al-Bashir’s charisma and the fact that he has more popular support ‘than many in the West believe’. The ICC indictment certainly boosted his popularity among his own countrymen, even those who did not normally support him. As the NCP party boss, Dr Ghandour, succinctly put it: ‘I’d rather him stay, but it’s not a technical question of immunity as head of state. It is a question of national pride.’

  Alex de Waal, one of the West’s leading scholars on Sudan and a critic of the government, said of al-Bashir: ‘He was often a puzzling figure: a simple soldier at heart, yet intensely proud; prone to fiery outbursts in public speeches, yet a good listener in private and open to discussion, even with Westerners.’ Above all, de Waal said, ‘he was a master of survival’. The president has indeed survived many potential threats to his rule, and life. He weathered the US storm about Osama bin Laden’s sojourn. Washington rained down cruise missiles and also tried regime change by indirect leverage and direct sanctions. He resisted armed invasions from nearly all his neighbours. Despite a massive debt crisis, he funded his counter-insurgency campaigns for decades. The president fought wars in the east and west, and a major internationally supported insurgency in the south led by a charismatic and tough military commander, John Garang. Al-Bashir’s greatest threats were internal, however. His arch-nemesis was his erstwhile mentor, Hassan al-Turabi. Despite years of plotting amounting to treason, al-Bashir refrained from imposing more than token and usually comfortable imprisonment or regular house arrest. Al-Bashir remained in power for over twenty-five years, while other politicians were worn down and defeated by the sheer intractability of the country’s problems. He negotiated endlessly with the Americans and British, but felt in the end that the Chinese were more reliable allies. He came to a conclusion shared by many Africans: the Chinese build things that can be of use, while Westerners just bring ideas. Although to be fair, they – and especially the Americans – also supplied food and medicine for decades. Al-Bashir was hostile to UN intervention because he feared that the blue helmets might be part of the plot to depose his government. Two of the largest-ever UN missions, in Darfur and south Sudan, were allowed in, however. He withstood all the Western attempts to topple him directly or by proxies, while working endlessly with chameleon allies and enemies in the neighbouring states, especially truculent governments in Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia and Eritrea. Much of the time al-Bashir had also to keep a straight face and a sharp sword, while handling the madcap Gaddafi who at times posed a very serious threat to Sudan’s territorial integrity.

  Was survival a sufficient accolade? What did al-Bashir actually achieve with his twenty-five years in power? He did not keep the country together, although that was probably impossible even before the death of John Garang, who also believed in unity. The president himself would claim only one major legacy – the rapid development of infrastructure in the north. It is true that Khartoum changed from almost a medieval backwater to a modern city – albeit with many slums – in a remarkably short time. The developments, however, were largely confined to the riverine settlements; Darfur and the east outside Port Sudan were still under-developed. For too long the governments in Khartoum and, later, in Juba obeyed the traditional dictum that they would listen to the peripheries only when they were carrying guns.

  I asked the president about his greatest regret. He said it was the breakdown of the Naivasha accord. Unless he was an Oscar-quality actor, al-Bashir showed great compassion about the lives lost in the south. He said in early 2014:

  More people have been killed since 2005 in the south than in twenty years of fighting. Now it is far more killings of civilians – five hundred were recently killed in Jonglei, for example. And the fighting between the Dinka is something new. Dinka never fought or looted cows from each other.

  This was from a man who was an authority on tribal divisions, who was judged to be an expert practitioner of divide and rule when he was a military command
er in the south and later as president determined to win a COIN war there. At the end of his career, he was again acting as a peacemaker – using all his expertise in tribal nuances to talk to the mercurial Machar and rather stolid Kiir to curb, not exacerbate, their war. Al-Bashir showed great statesmanship in signing the Naivasha peace accord, and laboured tirelessly to end the post-2013 civil war in South Sudan. He failed to curtail the Darfur uprising in 2003 by military means and has been savagely vilified by the West and indicted by the ICC for the conduct of that war, although it can be argued that the ICC prompted the Darfur insurgents to stall in negotiations and wait for Western-backed regime change, rather than settle.

  Many of the atrocities inflicted by multiple sides in the numerous wars cannot be ignored. But the previous analysis of Darfur’s war does not confirm the allegations of genocide, despite the carnival of celebrity accusations. The ICC has proved counter-productive in Sudan as in much of the rest of Africa, by delaying settlements and peace in the name of largely European ‘justice’. It is often said that ICC indictments are likely to entrench authoritarian leaders because they cannot resign and risk their successors handing them to The Hague.

  President al-Bashir has said he has had enough of power, or so he told me. Nearly all politicians pretend that they don’t want to stay in power and only do so because their supporters insist on it. I believe that Omar al-Bashir, after twenty-five years in the hot seat of one of the most difficult jobs in the world – trying to stop Sudan’s endless fighting – wants to retire and write his memoirs. Like Cincinnatus, he yearns to return to his plough, almost literally. He is genuinely passionate about developing his small farm just outside Khartoum. He was a proud host when I walked around the six-acre array of grapes, mangoes, dates, grapefruit, lemons and chickens. The NCP bigwigs insisted that he cannot stand down, but every single member of the president’s family was passionate that he should retire, not least because of his failing health; and because, they said, twenty-five years in the army and twenty-five years as president is more than enough service to his country. In October 2014 the NCP would decide whether al-Bashir should stand again for election in 2015. Whether the family or party will win the battle is unclear, although the presidential election may be delayed for a year. The Khartoum rumour mill was full of alternatives, preferably younger candidates or a radical but balanced ticket: the current official successor (if the president were incapacitated), the hard-line General Bakri teamed up with a reformist female vice president; a successful woman candidate is very unlikely, however.

  Al-Bashir inherited the war in the south and spent most of his presidency trying to end it, first by military means and then diplomacy. Some statesmen earn their spurs by breaking the historical fetters that imprison their polities – for example Charles de Gaulle’s granting of freedom to Algeria or Richard Nixon’s rapprochement with China. Algeria’s peace was largely tragic; China is now America’s greatest challenger. In the famous Nixon-Zhou Enlai meeting, the Chinese leader was asked what he thought of the French Revolution, and replied, ‘It’s too early to say.’ The remark, 200 years after the revolution, buttressed the image of a far-thinking, patient Chinese civilization compared with the short-termism of the West. Sadly, the story was a result of a mistranslation – the Chinese politician thought he was being asked about revolutionary protests in Paris in the late 1960s. The translator at the time decided not to correct the misconception because it was so apt. It remains so. It all depends on the timeframe to make a proper historical judgement. In the immediate aftermath of South Sudan’s independence and current chronic civil war there, a sound adjudication of al-Bashir’s legacy might be premature. Many in the West would say they want the tyrant to go, unlike many of al-Bashir’s own voters, and many regional leaders, who worry that chaos would follow his departure. Après moi, le déluge. The fear that no-one could follow successfully is often the curse and yet occasionally the truth of African and Middle Eastern politics. Nevertheless, al-Bashir has a proven track record over twenty-five years of keeping the lid on the cauldron of Khartoum politics. Far more privileged and educated men, such as Sadiq al-Mahdi, usually faltered after a few months. In the summer of 2014 a savage civil war was engulfing South Sudan, and even more barbarous conflicts raged in Syria and Iraq that are redrawing the maps of the Middle East. The elders of the ruling party in Khartoum would no doubt argue that they needed the old warrior even more than before.

  Sudan’s history has witnessed a tragic recycling of repetitive themes. The ‘Turks’ over-centralized and ruled by force. The British favoured the riverine Arabs, while treating Darfur as a distant and occasional security problem, and failed to make any real decision on the south. The imperial rulers could have created a southern independent non-Muslim state in an informal federation with the British colonies of Uganda and Kenya. Not without its pitfalls as a solution, true, but it probably would have saved millions of lives. When the Sudanese nationalists took over in 1956 they practised roughly the same policies as their colonial predecessors: centralized authoritarian rule, while ignoring the peripheries. Unlike the British, the new government in Khartoum enforced Islamicization and Arabization in the south, which was bound to cause perpetual conflict. Even if John Garang had lived beyond 2005 it was unlikely that he could have created a democratic unified state. After all, he had many authoritarian instincts himself. When the southern war almost inevitably led to independence, Juba repeated the Khartoum experience by concentrating on the capital and the army and failed to even begin dealing with the needs of the peripheries.

  Since 1956 probably no Sudanese, north or south, has had sufficient vision or a sufficient following to forge a unified democratic state. The more powerful neighbour, Egypt, didn’t manage it, despite boasting a potentate once reckoned to be the most charismatic of all modern Arab leaders. And, despite the large Coptic community, until recently Egypt did not have to suffer chronic Islamist versus Christian enmity; that was during the brief Morsi presidency in Cairo – to which, inevitably, the perpetual meddler, al-Turabi, offered advice. It is too easy for Westerners to blame most of Sudan’s problems on excessive interference of religion in politics. The essence of Islam is the fusion of both while modern Western democracy demands the separation of Church and state. Also, many Arab nations have had to endure the fusion of military and politics, unlike the Clausewitzian model, common but not universal in (very) recent Western history. It is simplistic to assert that Islam and Western democracy are incompatible, albeit with a grudging nod to Turkey. Or submit to racism and say that Arabs are not ready, or fit, for democracy. Or that they simply don’t want to slavishly adopt the model of late Western crony capitalism or tax-oppressed northern social democracy. The debate on poor Arab governance – is it a question of faith versus modernization? – could fill another book. So it might be more useful to take a short cut by making a brief comparison with an earlier European leader who had to balance religion, politics and soldiering.

  It is often difficult for a Western audience, especially a secular or Christian one, to understand the context of Omar al-Bashir’s Sudan. I do not want to argue for an Islamic or African exceptionalism – that Africa is different and that different standards, not least of human rights, should be applied. Clearly, UN definitions of individual rights are, or should be, universal. To make a comparison of Omar al-Bashir and Oliver Cromwell might be instructive, albeit controversial.

  Al-Bashir might be considered ‘Allah’s general’ by his more religious supporters. Cromwell, dubbed God’s Englishman, was famous for being a passionately religious man and the leading general of mid-seventeenth century England. Born from fairly humble, if not peasant, stock, Cromwell spent his early life in obscurity. He was more interested in farming than politics. As the Protector of the Commonwealth (England, Scotland and Ireland) he believed that a religious revolution was required to reform the state and the army. Cromwell overcame the hereditary ruler, King Charles, by reluctantly executing him. The comparison with S
udan is al-Bashir’s religious revolution against the equivalent of royalty, Sadiq al-Mahdi, the successor of the Mahdi. Both Sudanese and English generals were unprepossessing physically, but achieved national and international status. Both led their men from the front in combat and rose through the ranks on merit. Both Cromwell and al-Bashir had to fight constant wars on the peripheries of their central domains. Both were accused of genocidal conflicts and what we call today ethnic cleansing. Cromwell was exceptional in British history in being a parliamentarian and a serving general; nevertheless both generals were accused of excessive military intervention in politics. As a result, both men struggled to balance messy civilian politics with army discipline. Both were decisive in closing down their parliaments when necessary. Both were accused of ruthlessness in suppressing some of their own more radical supporters (the Levellers in England and the ‘fundamentalists’ under al-Turabi). They believed in providentialism – that God used them for the good of their people. Both were accused of sometimes allowing captives of their army to be sent into servitude. Above all they had to balance their political authoritarianism with their strong faith. Both have been castigated equally as hero or villain – or sometimes as brave bad men – in their own countries. Over 300 years separate their rule, and the context is, of course, different. The comparison may be instructive, however, even though it may need another three centuries for a true evaluation. And it may still depend on the eye of the beholder: perhaps a Catholic Irishman or Equatorian may see it differently from a Protestant Londoner or an imam in Khartoum, perhaps in 2314.