Sudan at Cross roads – Building Democratic Institutions RL Vol XIII No 412 MMXIX

Sudan at Cross roads –

The Saga of Decadence, Regime Change & Building Democratic Institutions

Respublica Litereria Public Lecture - RL Vol XIII No 412 MMXIX

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy & Sustainable Institutional Reforms

https://addisababa.academia.edu/CostyCostantinos

Abstract

As Africa’s largest landmass inhabited by forty million people of a kaleidoscope of shades and colours, Sudan is one of Africa’s impoverished, but well-endowed nations. The AU Technical Mission on Darfur was headed by the author. Its research questions focused on the following. What brought about Sudan’s conflicts? What are the impact of these conflicts and ripple effects in the Horn of Africa? What are the strategic options for enhancing human security and prospects for democratic governance and resolving ethnic conflicts? The atrocities that citizens and IDPs refer to in Darfur and elsewhere are all too evident to demand any major explanation and too terrifying and menacing to believe. According to the IDPs leaders (Sheikhs), women, girls, NGOs, and human rights groups interviewed by the research team and existing reports, murder, rape, beating, and bigotry are common in Sudan by heavily armed militias. In some of the accounts Government soldiers and the police are implicated in participation and often abetting this horror. In the following, is presented the various human right abuses in Sudan. These include rape as a savage instrument of humiliation, rise of vigilante gangs, death of non-combatants, and systematic destruction of villages, IDP camps were turned into IDP prisons and armed robbery, abductions, and delivering relief aid become dangerous and break up within the SLM and JEM.

On 13 Nov 2018, a report was released by the IMF on the state of consumer subsidies in Sudan to protect low-income families, was expensive, ineffective and counterproductive. The protests against al-Bashir removing subsidies sparked massive nation-wide protests. The string of protests, beginning in 2018, show no signs of tapering off and may serve as a more serious challenge to the rule of al-Bashir than ever before. In highlighting the uniqueness of this round of protests, some observers have pointed to these protests’ longevity as well as a number of other factors such as apparent rifts within al-Bashir’s own political party and the unity between opposition groups against the ruling regime. The will of the Sudanese youth is unmasking the dogma of a violent regime. Revolution has begun in Sudan. It is over for the current Sudanese regime; there is no going back. One would think that the idea of removing a long time authoritarian leader, especially one who has had an arrest warrant issued by the ICC, would be a welcome development from the perspective of many western countries. However, there does not appear to be any real support for the protests from western powers apart from statements that express some apprehensions about the way with which the protests are being dealt with. To avoid the Libya, Syria and Yemen scenario, Mr. Bashir should build democratic institutions that can be explained with reference to two institutional factors political organisations and political rules. The central hypothesis is that the relative strength of political agencies determines the rules of the political game that are installed. Democratisation requires a plural set of political organisations, which promote and protect rules of peaceful political participation and competition.

Key words: Sudan, human rights, Darfur, IMF, popular protest, Bashir, Media, Arab Spring, political organisations and political rules
See lecture here or https://www.academia.edu/38316274/Sudan_at_Cross_roads_Regime_Change_and_Building_Democratic_Institutions_RL_Vol_XIII_No_412_MMXIX.pdf