Really, it is the qisma of zizi
D. Mansour Khaled
Quoted from Sudanile
Under the title “Division of Dizi,” Dr. Al-Tayeb Zine El Abidine wrote, mourning what he called “the final draft of the power-sharing agreement” between the government and the SPLM for its disdain for the rights of the people of the north. Although it is true that the ideas contained in that draft do not express the opinion of either negotiating party, but rather are an extraction by the mediators and censors from all the opinions stated by both of them, those ideas are, in essence, a correct indicator of where things will turn out. Why did the matter end in what the writer called the draft agreement: the marginalization of the northern states? This is a question to which the honorable writer did not answer, and perhaps the answer was not his plan. The question, then, requires an answer before we go to discuss the conclusions reached by Dr. Al-Tayeb, with their various ramifications.
Prior to the Machakos Agreement on 7/20/2002, the movement proposed, as a price for its participation in governance in a transitional period, the establishment of a confederal system consisting of two equal states (North and South) governed at the confederal level - that is, the level of central government - by a constitution that is neutral in the matter of religion. The two key words in that proposal are confederation and a neutral constitution on the subject of religion, and these are two matters that the regime’s delegation was not confident in accepting for obvious reasons. In light of the intervention of mediators and observers, the regime’s delegation ended up accepting what was stated in the Machakos Framework Agreement as a compromise. Since the situation that the regime accepted and the mediators adopted creates a dysfunctional constitutional structure, the movement’s delegation alerted to that defect, and explained that the absence of a northern entity corresponding to the southern entity makes the (joint) federal government a government for the entire country and for the north as well. This is an opinion that was not only rejected by the regime, but also did not please the mediators much. The regime said to the movement’s delegation: “We came here to agree with you on solving the problem of the south and to share power at the national level by mutual consent, and you have nothing to do with how the north is governed.” For their part, the mediators said to the movement: “The Machakos Agreement satisfies the ambitions of the South, recognizes historical injustices, achieves a division of power and wealth at the federal level through which those injustices are addressed. It also guarantees the neutrality of the constitution in the issue of religion at the federal level, and opens a window for your allies in the thick wall erected by the Front through which they can penetrate with you and with it to participate in formulating new constitutional and legal frameworks, and allows them to participate in power in a broad-based government, so what about you continuing to do so? Sharia as a source of authority in the Constitution of the North, or How does the North govern?
This is a necessary clarification so that some people do not suspect that the disdain for the rights of the people of the North was due to a project that the movement created or a thesis that it insisted on, or that some others’ paranoid delusions do not overpower to portray the project as if it were a foreign conspiracy. If the regime had not insisted that the situation in the north remain in its current form, observers from the United States, Norway, or Great Britain would not have been able to insist that the governance structure in the north remain as it is. The goal of the regime, or rather the goal of its real stakeholders, was - and still is - to maintain the current structure because it perpetuates the dominance of that group over the North. Their goal was never to protect the rights of the people of the North, which the writer laments wasting in the peace proposals. Perhaps this is what Dr. Al-Tayeb meant when he said: “The government was keen to take its full right and increase the division of power with the movement, but it fell short in the right of the people of the North.” This is why it is useful for reformers to turn to treating the source of the disease, instead of running away from it forward, or starting a fight with windmills.
The situation in which the two parties colluded in Machakos, despite its apparent hybridity, is not an innovation in constitutional architecture. For example, since the unification of its two main parties (England and Scotland) in 1707, Britain has been suffering from this constitutional imbalance, without it harming its unity. Scotland has its own currency (the Scottish pound), and its own central bank, which is why the oldest central bank is called the Bank of England and not the Bank of Britain (it was established as a private bank in 1694 to finance the war in the Netherlands, and was transformed into a resort lender of last in 1844). Scotland also has its own judicial system in which its Supreme Court - not the High Court of Appeal in London - is the highest level of litigation, with the exception of some cases being referred to the House of Lords. The decentralization pursued by the Blair government increased matters when it granted the regions of Scotland and Wales the authority to issue legislation on issues pertaining to the two regions, while the British Parliament and the British government remained the ones that legislated for the England region, in addition to legislation of a national nature. This, however, is a situation that arose from certain historical circumstances, and is not necessarily a situation worthy of emulation in Sudan.
As a consequence of the above, the main issues raised by the writer become relevant if we address them from a Sudanese political perspective, not from the perspective of constitutional architecture or constitutional precedents in the world. When the writer says, in his criticism of the draft agreement, “There is no constitution for the North that the people of the North made in order to protect their rights from the interference of the central government,” he is right as a neutral political observer, but does the writer’s desire to protect the rights of the people of the North extend to also protecting their right to choose the constitution and laws that govern them - as is the case for the people of the South? This includes their right to accept or reject the text that calls for Sharia to be a source of legislation, or to abolish laws of a religious nature. We hope so, but behind the writer’s revelation are words that cause concern and are most likely to his benefit. About this, he says, “The draft stipulates that there is (perhaps the obligation) respect for human rights, basic freedoms, and all religions, beliefs, and customs within the federal capital. It is known what the customs are intended here, and in any case it is a lighter expression to the soul than the word secularism.” Although there is reason to believe that the writer, based on much of what we have read of him, is an honest man who only wishes for the Islamic movement to remain and struggle in a free democratic atmosphere in which it accepts everything that is “heavy on the soul,” as long as what weighs on the souls of some is what the people of the North want or desire of their own free will, his objectionable sentence brings us into a rift between doubt and certainty.
The writer also did not miss the mark when he said that the South, at the regional level, enjoys rights that the Northern Region does not enjoy, such as its right to reduce the existing states, and reducing the states is something the movement announced its intention to do after the states of the South developed from three to nine during the era of the Front to expand the base of bribery and appeasement, not because good governance and efficient administration require that. As long as the North does not have its own regional government - as the regime insists - any reduction or reformulation of its mandates will take place through the federal government in which the southerners participate. These contradictions that the writer explained reveal to the “real stakeholders” in maintaining their hegemony over the North, the political and administrative dilemmas they got themselves into during their pursuit of that hegemony.
Regarding the legislative bodies, the writer did not find any objection to the fact that a third of the members of the lower house of parliament (the National Assembly) were from the south, according to the size of the population density of that region. However, he raised some confusion about the upper house (the Council of States, which will consist of two representatives for each state). Since the proposals state that any amendment to the constitution will not become effective unless approved by 75% of the members of this council, the writer believes that this text gives the South the right to veto the decisions of the numerical majority. Yes, it is. Curbing the unbridledness of the numerical majority, specifically, is what is meant by that text. It is worth mentioning that the differentiation that poisons the two chambers of the American Congress was also intended to create a balance between the powers of the two chambers (the House of Representatives and the Senate) so that the numerical majority in the House of Representatives does not overpower the will of the states. When members of the House of Representatives are chosen on the basis of population density in each state, such that the number of representatives of a highly populated state (California or New York, for example) may be many times greater than the representatives of Connecticut, the first state to join the Union (January 9, 1788), or Alaska or Hawaii, the last two states to join it (January 3, 1959 and August 21, 1959, respectively), each state, regardless of the size of its population, is represented by two senators. This is where small Vermont meets sprawling California. The Council of States in Sudan not only provides protection for the south against the possibility of the northern government reneging on peace agreements, but it is also a shield with which all regional states in the north protect against Khartoum encroaching on their authorities. The defect is not in the proposed project, but rather in the absence of the will of the northern states by not granting them the same powers that were granted to the southern states, or allowing them to create a constitutional entity that brings them together and whose powers are equivalent to those of the southern entity. That will was not absent from the Machakos Protocol, as the protocol is a bundle of paper, but rather it was absent from those who expressed, as they claim, that will in the Machakos negotiations.
The writer also has an opinion about the powers of the presidency, which we think is creative. He mourned the president of the regime for accepting the partnership of the president of the movement in exercising specific powers so that there would be consensus between the president and his deputy on those decisions. Among these decisions: “Appointments made under the peace agreement and the transitional constitution, including the formation of the central cabinet, and the convocation, dissolution, or suspension of the assembly.” The writer faulted the president for accepting this restriction, as he “could not tolerate all these restrictions on his decisions from within the Council of Ministers... and could not tolerate the quarrels of the former Speaker of the National Council, Sheikh Al-Turabi, within the framework of his legislative apparatus”? This approach to the topic is deeply mistaken unless its intention is to heal the wounds between the two enemy brothers, or to mock them. Perhaps there was something in the writer’s expression that suggested this sarcasm when he said: “It seems that the shura that the Islamic Movement state lacked will come through an agreement with a rebellious Marxist movement!” Whatever the case, the excessive focus of many on that point (the consensus of the president and his vice president on decisions that directly affect the peace agreement), and the beating of drums around it, indicates ignorance of what peace is. The agreement between the ruling regime and the rebel Marxist movement, or as he said, is not an agreement between two parties to participate in an existing authority with all its concepts, institutions and laws. Nor is it a consensus between two parties of the same movement whose paths diverged and then returned to each other, as “the lame woman returns to her resting place.” It is a peace agreement from beginning to end. Peace means that there was a war going on. Wars do not break out, rage, or last unless there are reasons for that. To address these causes and provide guarantees so that they do not rear their heads again, the makers of just peace, not deceptive peace, will turn their attention. If Team Al-Bashir accepts that division considering that peace is a necessary evil, and that peace has a price worth paying, then this is a matter that counts for him, not against him.
The writer also touched on other topics in a manner that lacked precision, such as talking about the adoption of peace agreements, the central public service, and the flag and emblem. So that there is no ambiguity or confusion in the matter, we will discuss these topics in a comprehensive manner, starting with the lowest ones: the flag, the slogan, and adopting the agreement. The issue of the flag and emblem is not a topic for debate, as all the people of Sudan know that the national flag and emblem do not replace the distinctive flags and emblems of the governorates, states and districts. They know very well that the Khartoum District has a flag with the slogan “The Elephant’s Trunk,” and that the Northern District has a flag with the slogan “The Three Palms,” and that the Gezira Directorate has a flag with the slogan “A bird, whose origin we do not know,” and so on. This is a reading of texts that is inspired by illusions. Rather, it is an exhaustion of effort without the goal of splitting the hairs.
Regarding the adoption of the agreement by the party authorized to ratify the agreement, the writer mixed up various matters to arrive at a conclusion that had settled in his mind in advance. This result is that the draft agreement grants the South rights that are not equivalent to the rights of the North, but rather allows it to object to everything its people decide. It is clear that the writer mixed the ratification of the agreement after its signing through the existing legislative bodies, with the commitment of the legislative body, which will emerge from a new constitution drawn up by a national committee to draft that constitution, to the peace agreement. He further confused the reader by suggesting that obligating all political parties during the transitional period to respect the provisions of the peace agreement represents a veto by the movement (which is one of the two parties to the agreement) over the will of others. He said that the agreement stipulates that the “National Liberation Council of the Popular Movement” and then the “Interim National Assembly” must ratify the peace agreement, and the word “then” has no place in syntax because the project does not assume laxity in ratifying the agreement on the part of this or that party. Then he went on to say: “It does not seem that the National Assembly has the right to make a change in the draft approved by the movement’s Editorial Council because the draft says: The two parties are committed to adopting this text that respects the peace agreement literally.” This is where the error lies, because ratification of the agreement is required by the current National Council and not by the prospective National Assembly. In this regard, the draft stipulates that it is the duty of the contracting parties to force their institutions and individuals to accept the agreement literally (as is), that is, to oblige the Editorial Board and the National Council to ratify the agreement literally. This procedure must take place immediately after the agreement is signed and before, or prior to, the formation of institutions for the pre-transitional period (six months). As for the prospective National Assembly, it will be established as one of the institutions of the transitional period following the establishment of the “National Representative Commission” to establish new legal and constitutional frameworks. It is useful to mention, as memory benefits believers, that the concept of the “National Representative Committee” was the subject of a violent dispute between the two negotiating parties. When the government insisted that an agreement be reached between the two parties first on a draft constitution, and then submit it to other forces for approval, that is, their fingerprint, the movement insisted on the active participation of “political forces and civil society” in drafting the constitution. Had it not been for the support of the mediators and censors for the opinion that it is necessary to clearly indicate these forces, the project would not have come out in the form it did. With the absence of the will of the people of the North to maintain the current governance structure in the North, the regime also seeks to restrict their freedom to adapt the future constitutional situation.
In his concern for the rights of the people of the North, the writer stopped at the percentages of representation among the political forces in the National Constitutional Committee (50% for the regime, 27% for the movement, 16% for the northern political forces, 7% for the other southern forces), and then went on to classify these “political” forces geographically, that is, classifying them into northerners and southerners. According to this classification, it concluded, once again, that the draft gives the South the right to veto any decision agreed upon by the numerical “Northern” majority, given that any amendment to the agreement can only be made by a 75% majority of members. If these numbers, which the two parties have not yet agreed upon, are correct, the writer’s question will raise astonishment, and results will emerge from him that may not be consistent with his basic thesis about the south and inclusiveness of the issue. We are surprised, for example, to see the writer granting southerners - assuming the southernity of the movement in the writer's opinion - 34% of the seats in the Council, a number that is objectively proportional to their population size in the country, and it does not surprise him that the regime has 50% of the seats. If he says that this is something imposed by the political facts on the ground, the facts do not stop only with the de facto government in Khartoum, but also include the reality of the war that spread in the south and expanded to the center and the east and created a political reality that forced the regime to negotiate seriously with the movement alone, after refusing to negotiate with it as a faction in an entity that brings together all the people of the north without its supporters, and the people of the north are the ones the writer cares about most.
In fact, it is not the movement alone that does not want to shake the trunk of the Machakos palm tree. The regime also does not want that shaking, because if the size of the political forces was measured by an objective scale (the results of the previous elections, for example), it would not have demanded fifty percent of the seats. If he had given up that “dizi division,” he would not have had the strength to maintain what he wanted to maintain from the Machakos Agreement, such as preserving the current governance structure in the north and the laws that govern it. We are absolutely certain that if the matter had ended with the status of the Front - indeed, the entire Islamic political movement in its true size - the alliances within the Constitution Committee would not have become ethno-geographic alliances, as the writer hopes and is at pains to say, but rather political alliances that bring together most of the people of the North and all the people of the South against some of the people of the North. We do not think that this situation would please a man who cannot stand the word secularism, whatever the meaning of the word.
The writer also touched on the issue of public service and said that the draft agreement gives the South between 25% and 35% (according to the results of the upcoming population census) of jobs in the central public service. Then he added: “It seems that the reference here is to the central national service that operates in the north, while those who work in the south are affiliated with the regional government.” We do not know how the writer expressed this belief, and the text is clear in its reference to the central public service. It is beyond dispute that the power-sharing project specifies clear duties for the government of the southern entity, and known duties for the federal government, whose authority extends over the entire country. Therefore, the assumption that the government of the southern entity supervises the employees of the federal authority working in that region becomes an assumption that is not supported by an impressive argument or clear evidence. The center's powers that may be exercised in the southern region, as in other regions, include economic duties (collecting customs and excise), security duties (passports, immigration, central criminal investigations), educational duties (higher education and scientific research), and regulatory duties such as controlling the waters of the Nile, or international flight paths. Where did the writer get the opinion that those working in these fields would all be “subservient” to the regional government? In the absence of this evidence and this argument, the statement becomes a confusion, or creates - if we think well - confusion that makes intelligent dialogue impossible.
We see this confusion in the twisted manner in which some deal with the issue of power-sharing. Some say: “The southerners have monopolized the rule of their region, so why do they want to share with us in ruling the north with a third of the jobs?” The letter nūn attached to the word share reveals the nature of the crisis. The federal government is the government of all of Sudan, and therefore the people of the north, south, east and west have a right to it. If some wish that the South would not participate in it by virtue of its being part of one nation and the size of its population density, all they have to do is take the important step that precedes achieving that goal: separating the South. As for them continuing to shout from the rooftops: unity, unity, unity, without awareness that this unity has foundations, components, and consequences, this is an undesirable confusion, and even unbecoming rudeness. Denunciation, without a doubt, is due if southerners demand that they have a share (regardless of its size) in state public service positions in the North. The states of the North - just like the states of the South - should be governed by their people, and this is not the case with the federal government, which everyone shares in a way that reflects their real presence in that authority. The writer was right when he said: “The movement did not leave anything to chance or to the good faith of the government.” How can it do so when behind it is a long legacy of promises that the governments of the North made to the South, only to be aborted, starting in December 1955 and ending with the peace agreement from within in 1996? This is history, and history is not threads woven by spiders on the walls of an abandoned house, but rather it is facts that are engraved in the conscience, and are not subject to statute of limitations. Perhaps what is happening today in Darfur at the hands of Islamist youth who were from the people of the “constants” - and not at the hands of “rebels of a Marxist movement” - is what alerts those who are unaware of the legitimate demands of the people of the borders, in the south as well as in the east and west. With the combination of all the disasters staring at us from the south, east, and west, our souls still refuse to look into our inner selves and to contemplate what is around us. Even if we were unable yesterday to gain insight into the reasons that led Sheikh Abdul Qadir Okir and Muhammad Ahmed Awad to join hands with Abel Alir and Philip Abbas Ghabouch against their northern Muslim “brothers,” or should the writer haunted by the concerns of the Muslim people of the north wonder what prompted the “Islamist” Daoud Boulad to take refuge in a “rebellious Marxist” movement, just as he pushed his son Farouk Ahmed Adam to seek support from those who had dowry with his hands the “treason agreement,” The name given by the Front to the Mirghani-Garang agreement (November 1988). It is appropriate for the person who used that harsh description: “treason” to be absolved of it, just as a menstruating woman is absolved of her blood after Machakos’ menstruation. “Say it is harm.”
It is surprising that the regime persists, in the negotiations taking place today, not only in alienating the will of the people of the Nile North, but also the will of the marginalized. What do you say about the faltering negotiations over the marginalized areas in Karen* outside the city of Nairobi due to the regime’s insistence that Nihal Deng (the southerner) not head the negotiating delegation, which includes representatives and advisors from the people of these areas? This is something that logic would allow if the people leading the delegations in these regions were Kabshour, Majak and Adlan, and not Amin, Mutarrif, and so on, from the Nilotic north. This happens, even though the movement kept saying that these areas are not part of the geographical north, but rather they are part of the equation of war and peace. Otherwise, the regime would not have signed the ceasefire agreement in the Nuba Mountains with the People’s Army, and why it would have included those areas in the cessation of hostilities agreement.
What we conclude is that the regime, even in its symbolism, is intent on emphasizing that it alone, without a partner, is the representative of the people of the North, including its Muslims and Christians, its Nuba and its Negroes, its Khatami and its supporters. If he had told the movement, for example, let us withdraw a little so that the people of these regions can talk to each other and collectively express their legitimate demands, without us breathing down their necks, that would have been less logical. Those who should truly express these demands are the people of these borders, their soldiers, their politicians, their rabbis, their Kujur, and their Muslim imams, who do not like anything like “Kadruk” meat, as is the case with our Anqsna people. But the regime, despite all these facts surrounding it, wants marginalized people like it and according to its visions.
The Sudanese problem, in reality, is the Khartoum Club. We are not referring to the club located in the Al-Amarat neighborhood, which some of the people’s secrets flock to, seeking nothing but pleasure. Rather, we are referring to what Professor Al-Fatih Al-Nur (Kordofanian) rightly called it three decades ago: “The Republic of the Three Cities.” In that "Platonic" republic, there are citizens who have all rights, and subsequent subjects who have all duties. Unfortunately, since its inception, this republic has not been led by a philosopher-ruler. We rarely think, for example, that the monopoly of the people of the Nile North over the entire cake of governance at the level of the central apparatus: the Council of Ministers, the leadership positions in Parliament and the High Judiciary, raises the revolt of other peoples. This intellectual coma calls to mind a reference with heavy connotations that appeared in a speech by Dr. Al-Jazouli Dafallah during his presidency of the Council of Ministers. He said: “We were surprised that half of the Council of Ministers came from one region in Sudan.” I have no doubt that Al-Jazouli was surprised by that fact, and that is why he was honest in what he said. Here is the key. If the neglect of the people of the borders had been the result of an intentional policy, the matter would have been trivial, and those whose rights were deliberately stripped from the rest of the people of Sudan might have said: “The swindler fills his net,” especially after they learned from the people of the south how to fill the nets. The truth of the matter is that we never notice that there is something rotten in the Kingdom of Denmark*, even though it is something we made ourselves. We in the North always live on the enchanted floor of the old-boy's network, trapped in its impossible closed orbits. We only see those inside this window when we gather in our professional clubs, party houses, and political decision-making kitchens in our spacious homes. If the kingmakers had realized after the uprising that among the people of Beja there are teachers, that among the people of Darfur there are engineers, and that among the people of the South there are skilled jurists, and that all of these are no less competent or capable than those whom the trade unionists chose to ascend to the high ranks of government, Dr. Al-Jazouli would not have found himself in that critical situation. Therefore, one is puzzled when a prudent writer from the people of the North comes to stir up storms about the first serious attempt to redraw the political map in a way that restores the inherited injustices and removes the political tensions that swelled, festered, and then exploded (Darfur, for example), and then he never remembers that the rights of the people of the North have been squandered since June 30, 1989, at the hands of an actor that the writer obligatorily or permissibly covered up, and he knows best about his assessment. We are all embarrassed to realize that the old has died, and all that remains is to announce its death, and that the new has not yet been born. The new will not be born as long as we continue to revolve in our imaginary orbit, and are deceived by false suspicions that nothing is more creative than the situation we are in. What a miserable situation.
* Named after the famous Danish writer Karin Blixen, author of the book (Out of Africa), who lived her prosperous life in that region, and published her first books under the name Isak Dinstein.