January 2012

This study updates and supplements the ITIC’s June 2011 study of the Muslim Brotherhood. It examines the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and other Arab countries in the wake of the past year’s regional uprisings. It deals with the nature of the movement in each country, its relations with the various regimes and evaluates its chances of exploiting regional unrest to its own ends. It also examines the Muslim Brotherhood’s branches in Western European countries and the implications of its activity for both internal European affairs and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The website of the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan, March 2011

Overview

The Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan^[26] has a strong social, organizational and political foundation. The Sudanese branch has remained independent from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, with a unique Sudanese version of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology and political conduct. For several decades the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan has taken an active role in the country’s political life, both within the parliament and in support of the coups staged by Jaafar Nimeiri and Omar al-Bashir. Its involvement occasionally gave the movement power to influence Sudan’s regimes and the officers who led the revolutions. However, due to political changes in Sudan and in the region at other times, the movement lost its influence, faced persecution from the authorities and saw its leaders imprisoned for lengthy sentences.

Milestones in the Movement’s History in Sudan

The Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan has a long history. Bordering Egypt and affected by Egyptian politics, Sudan was influenced by the establishment of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Many Sudanese students studying in Egypt in the 1940s were exposed to the movement’s ideology and organized into networks in universities, forming the nucleus of the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan.

In 1946 Jamal al-Din al-Sanhuri and Sadiq Abdallah Abd al-Majid were sent to Sudan by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to recruit members, establishing branches in several peripheral towns between 1947 and 1949. However, the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan was subsequently prohibited from acting openly unless it declared independence from the Egyptian movement, which at that time was illegal. Another founding member of the Sudanese movement was Al-Sa’im Muhammad Ibrahim, a former teacher who in 1947 founded the Islamic Liberation Movement (ILM), whose stated objective was to combat Communism. The early adherents of the ILM came mostly from the rural areas of northern Sudan, where the predominant faith was the Sufi school of Sunni Islam.^[27]

The Sudanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood was officially founded on August 21, 1954. It was headed by Al-Rashid al-Tahir, one of the most prominent leaders of the Sudanese student group exposed to the Muslim Brotherhood ideology in the 1940s. Al-Tahir, who later became the general guide, established close relations with the Free Officers in Egypt, especially with their representative in Sudan. When the Egyptian authorities turned against their own Muslim Brotherhood, the movement in Sudan cut off its ties with the Egyptian movement and joined the political forces advocating Sudan’s independence.

After the 1958 military coup led by Gen. Ibrahim Abboud, the army’s commander-in-chief, the Muslim Brotherhood was allowed to continue its activities as a religious movement, while all other political parties were banned. On November 9, 1959 Al-Rashid al-Tahir plotted to overthrow the regime with the help of an illegal cell within the army, composed of Muslim Brotherhood supporters, Communist activists and others. The plot was exposed, the conspirators were arrested, and the Muslim Brotherhood lost the support of the army and its freedom to act in Sudan.

A revolution in October 1964 toppled Gen. Ibrahim Abboud’s regime and facilitated the establishment of a national unity government. In 1964 Abdallah Hassan al-Turabi and several leading Muslim Brotherhood activists returned to Sudan from their studies abroad. Al-Turabi, who joined the movement while a student at Khartoum University, had completed his studies in London and Paris and was offered a teaching post at the university. He emerged as an important spokesman for the movement and later became its leader. Most of the mass demonstrations organized at the time which ultimately led to Gen. Ibrahim Abboud’s downfall were led by Muslim Brotherhood activists in the university. Compared to the Communists, however, the movement suffered from certain disadvantages within the intelligentsia. In 1965 it therefore founded a party called the Islamic Charter Front (ICF), with Al-Turabi as secretary general. The party was a convenient platform for Al-Turabi to promote the Islamization of Sudan’s elites and occupy positions of political influence.

Between 1965 and 68 the ICF cooperated with Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi’s wing of the Ummah party^[28] in its anti-Communist drive and to promote religious legislation. The Muslim Brotherhood allied with other parties and in 1965 succeeded in having the Communist party outlawed. The ICF drew up a religious constitution which was not implemented owing to the officers’ coup in May 1969, led by Jaafar al-Nimeiri and his Communist allies. Following the coup, some of the Muslim Brotherhood’s leaders, including Al-Turabi, were arrested; others fled to Egypt and other countries.

Al-Nimeiri suppressed his opponents, including the Muslim Brotherhood. However, after an unsuccessful coup in 1971, Nimeiri removed the Communists and pursued a rapprochement with the Muslim Brotherhood. In July 1971 Al-Turabi met with Nimeiri and received permission to resume the movement’s activities in Sudan. In 1972 the Students Unity Front, the Muslim Brotherhood’s new organization, took control of the Students Union of Khartoum University. In those years Al-Turabi concentrated his efforts on restructuring the movement with those who had supported him in the 1960s. After another abortive anti-Nimeiri coup in July 1976, the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood founded a new party, the National Islamic Front (NIF), and became integrated into Sudan’s political system. Al-Rashid al-Tahir, the leader of the Sudanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, was appointed vice president and prime minister in 1976.

The elites appointed by Al-Turabi filled the void left by the Communists in the administrative and military leadership, and occupied key political positions. Shortly thereafter, in 1983 Nimeiri imposed Shari’ah — Islamic religious law — as state law. His decision sparked a rebellion in southern Sudan led by Col. John Garang, leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), and a bloody civil war ensued.^[29]

The Muslim Brotherhood gained considerable political power in Sudan in the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s. In 1979 Hassan al-Turabi was appointed attorney general and many of his followers were given senior government positions. The NIF party became better organized and was successful in the 1986 elections, becoming the third largest party. The NIF’s success was partly due to its financial resources, as in the 1970s it had gained control of Sudan’s Islamic banking system using its connections with Saudi Arabia. The establishment of the Faysal Islamic Bank in 1978 enabled the Muslim Brotherhood to infiltrate the Sudanese financial system and gain power, assets and popularity with the population.

The strong resistance of the Christian population of southern Sudan to the enforcement of Islamic law (Shari’ah) motivated the government to launch peace talks with it. The talks led to an agreement according to which Shari’ah would not apply to residents of the south as of June 30, 1989. On that day, Gen. Omar Suleiman al-Bashir, with the support of Islamic officers influenced by Al-Turabi, seized power by force. The new regime began enforcing an Islamic policy inspired by Al-Turabi.^[30] At the same time, the regime launched a cleansing campaign in the army and the administration, accompanied by executions and torture.^[31]

In the first half of the 1990s the NIF consolidated its control of the banks, building industry, transportation and media. In 1996, for the first time since the military coup, elections were held in Sudan. Al-Turabi won a seat in the National Assembly and was appointed its speaker. The influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, and of Al-Turabi himself, greatly increased through the presence of Osama Bin Laden, who had moved to Sudan. He met Al-Turabi on several occasions in late 1989 and decided to transfer Al-Qaeda headquarters from Afghanistan (where it was under pressure from the Soviets) to Sudan (now under a regime which had adopted an Islamic orientation). In addition, Bin Laden cemented a personal bond with Al-Turabi by marrying his niece, and in return Al-Turabi arranged for Bin Laden to import construction equipment and vehicles customs-free.^[32]

Once in Sudan, Osama Bin Laden, with a group of veterans of Afghanistan who had come with him, established an economic empire. It included leather factories, construction companies, a bank, farms, and import-export ventures. The extensive economic network provided him and his associates with sources of income to finance their subversive and terrorist activities in various conflict zones around the globe (Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, etc.). His stay in Sudan came to an end in May 1996 when he was forced to leave Sudan and return to Afghanistan.^[33]

In the 1990s, in addition to involvement with Al-Qaeda, Al-Turabi formed close relations with radical Islamic and terrorist elements. He established ties with the Islamic regime in Iran, as well as with the PLO and Hamas, which had offices in Khartoum (the relationship came to an end in 1993, when Israel and the PLO started negotiations in Oslo).^[34] In 1991 Al-Turabi launched the annual Popular Arab and Islamic Conference for Muslim groups from across the globe. Participants in the conference included terrorist organizations such as Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, etc. He also received visits from operatives belonging to Abu Nidal’s terrorist organization and Hezbollah, as well as terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez from Venezuela, aka Carlos. In 1995 Al-Turabi signed a statement expressing support and solidarity with Hamas, which was printed in the Londonbased Al-Hayat, according to which jihad was the only legitimate alternative the Palestinians had for the liberation of Palestine.^[35]

However, Hassan al-Turabi, who hosted Carlos in Sudan, had no qualms about making a deal to hand him over to the French in return for several million dollars, which he received through a French bank (and which Sudan used to pay its debt to the International Monetary Fund).^[36] According to Al-Turabi, he asked Carlos to leave Sudan as quickly as possible, and when he refused he handed him over to France. Interviewed by the Washington Post on May 3, 1995, he said that Carlos was not a Muslim, and therefore extraditing him to France did not pose a moral problem. France, for its part, provided Al-Turabi’s party (NIF) with weapons and satellite photos of the rebel bases in southern Sudan (according to an interview with a senior French officer, August 14, 2002).^[37]

The growing strength of Al-Qaeda in Sudan, as well as Al-Turabi’s drift into extremism and his ties with terrorist networks, led to external pressure on the Sudanese regime and internal conflicts within the regime itself. On the domestic scene, a split emerged within the intelligence services as well as between the army and the NIF, as a result of which the army once again assumed control of the intelligence services. On the foreign scene, pressure exerted by Egypt, the United States and Saudi Arabia, concerned about the radicalization on Sudan’s internal situation, prompted President Bashir to cut off his relations with Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda and to expel them from Sudan.

In the late 1990s internal changes and external pressure signaled the end of the influence of Al-Turabi and his party. In 1999 Al-Turabi was imprisoned on charges of conspiracy; he was arrested two years later under the pretext of trying to limit Bashir’s powers. He was released in October 2003, but served another prison term from March 2004 to June 2005. He was detained once again in 2008, but was questioned and released without charges. In January 2009 Turabi was among those who called on Omar al-Bashir to surrender himself to the international tribunal for war crimes in Darfur. Immediately afterwards he was detained for two months and kept in isolation. He served yet another prison sentence from May to July 2010. In January 2011, as instability in Sudan increased, he was detained once again.

In 2008 Dr. Al-Hibir Yusuf Nour al-Dayyim was appointed the general guide of the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan. Al-Dayyim has a PhD from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He chaired the Education Committee of the Sudanese parliament and was head of the Department of Arabic Language at Khartoum University.^[38]

General Guide Al-Dayyim gives a speech during the 2010 election campaign (Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood website)

Abdallah Hassan al-Turabi: Profile

Abdallah Hassan al-Turabi (blog.aljazira.net)

Abdallah Hassan al-Turabi, born 1932, is a Sunni cleric who imposed Shari’ah law in many parts of Sudan. His father was a Sufi sheikh in the city of Kassala, in northeast Sudan. As a child, he received a traditional Islamic education. He studied law in Khartoum and at Oxford, and received his PhD in law from the Sorbonne. In the early 1950s he was one of the founding members of the Sudanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. He headed the movement in Sudan and was its general guide from 1964 to 1967 and from 1969 to 1979.^[39] He later became the most prominent Muslim Brotherhood figure.

Al-Turabi is a pragmatist. His ideological view advocates the renewal (tajdid) of Islam, and argues that Islam is open for reinterpretation by the Islamic community. He supports rapprochement between the Sunna and the Shi’ah, the incorporation of music and singing into religion, and the enhancement of women’s rights. For example, in 2006 he issued a fatwa allowing a Muslim woman to marry a non-Muslim. He has also made it permissible to consume alcohol under certain circumstances.

However, Al-Turabi’s pragmatism did not prevent his supporters in the army, the security services and the urban middle class from imposing an intolerant Shari’ah state which was unpopular with a vast number of Sudanese.^[40] Furthermore, when Al-Turabi gained political power, he helped Al-Qaeda establish a foothold in Sudan, supported Hamas and its terrorist attacks, and had relations with other Middle Eastern and global terrorist groups and networks.

The heyday of Al-Turabi’s political influence in Sudan was in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1992 he was injured in an assassination attempt at Ottawa Airport. The would-be assassin was a Canadian Sudanese man who opposed the Islamic regime in Sudan. However, Al-Turabi political influence declined beginning in 1999 and was repeatedly detained and released, as noted above.

Read the other sections here:

1. The Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab World and Islamic Communities in Western Europe: an overview

2. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt

3. The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria

4. The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan

5. The Muslim Brotherhood in Algeria

6. The Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan

7. The Muslim Brotherhood in Saudi Arabia

8. The Muslim Brotherhood in The United Arab Emirates

9. The Muslim Brotherhood in Lebanon

10. The Muslim Brotherhood in Morocco

11. The Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia

12. The Muslim Brotherhood in Europe

Notes:

[26] For this section used material from the essay “The Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan: From Reforms to Radicalism” by Prof. Gabriel R. Warburg, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, August 2006.

[27] Sufism is a faith as ancient as Islam, combining asceticism and austerity with a mystically-oriented yearning to become one with Allah. Sufis belong to groups called tariqas (orders), headed by teachers or leaders (sheikhs). The Muslim Brotherhood has roots in Sufism. As a young boy, Hassan al-Banna joined a Sufi order known as Ikhwan al-Sahafiyya (named after Hassanain al-Sahafi), which had splintered from the Shadhiliyya order. In his teachings, Al-Banna included Sufi elements of spiritual affinity to Allah. For more information, see John Calvert, Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005) pp. 9, 81, 83; see also Uriya Furman, Islamiyyun — Religion and Society in Contemporary Islamist Thought (Tel-Aviv: Ministry of Defense Publishing, 2002, in Hebrew).

[28] The Ummah party — an Islamic movement in Sudan. It is the party of the Ansar, the descendants of those who followed Muhammad Abdallah, who had declared himself Mehdi (Vanished Imam) in the 19th century and fought a holy war (jihad) against the British forces until his defeat in 1898.

[29] See Ephraim Herrera and Gideon M. Kressel, Jihad – Fundamentals and Fundamentalism (Tel-Aviv: Ministry of Defense and Dvir Publishing, 2009; in Hebrew), p. 199.

[30] Herrera and Kressel, Jihad – Fundamentals, p. 199.

[31] Ibid., p. 200.

[32] Warburg, “The Muslim Brotherhood,” p. 10.

[33] Saul Shai, The Never-ending Jihad: The Mujahidin, the Taliban and Bin Laden (Herzliya, Mifalot Publishing, the Interdisciplinary Center, 2002; in Hebrew), pp. 131-132.

[34] Warburg, “The Muslim Brotherhood,” p. 10. Also see the Wikipedia entry on Al-Turabi, with a citation from an article in Asia Times dated February 23, 2002.

[35] Warburg, “The Muslim Brotherhood,” p. 10.

[36] Millard Burr, Robert O. Collins, Revolutionary Sudan: Hasan al-Turabi and the Islamist State (New York: Brill, 2003), p. 161.

[37] Jonathan C. Randel, Osama, the Making of a Terrorist (London and New York, I.B Tauris & Co., 2005), p. 315.

[38] Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood website, February 2010.

[39] Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood website.

[40] Warburg, “The Muslim Brotherhood,” p. 8.

Tue, Nov 01, 2011 | Middle East Forum | The American Spectator | by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi

Sudan in Crisis

Three months after the birth of South Sudan, how is the northern neighbor of the world’s newest nation faring?

The country, witnessing minor demonstrations, generally managed to escape the large-scale protests that have swept across the Middle East and North Africa since last winter, but as the Financial Times reports, Sudan’s economy has been hit severely by the secession of the south, which was by far Khartoum’s largest source of oil revenues.

Indeed, the oil boom in the early 2000s made Sudan one of the fastest growing economies in Africa. Yet owing to a 75 percent drop in oil revenues since July, the Sudanese pound — Khartoum’s currency — has dropped by up to 60 percent on the black market, while annual inflation reached 21 percent last month, with the price of meat now reaching $10 per kilogram. Of course, these developments could well re-ignite popular protests.

Meanwhile, the ruling autocrat Omar al-Bashir has vowed to adopt a constitution completely in accordance with Sharia (Islamic law). As Bashir himself put it, “Ninety-eight percent of the people are Muslims and the new constitution will reflect this. The official religion will be Islam and Islamic law the main source [of the constitution].”

This statement neatly fits in with his outlook elaborated on in December of last year, when he declared: “If south Sudan secedes, we will change the constitution and at that time there will be no time to speak of diversity of culture and ethnicity.… Shari’a and Islam will be the main source for the constitution, Islam the official religion and Arabic the official language.”

This will naturally pose problems for the million or so southerners still residing in the north, as well as the Christian populations residing in Sudan’s southern border states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan, both of which were granted a degree of autonomy on religious and cultural issues as part of the 2005 peace deal that recognized the “cultural and social diversity of the Sudanese people.”

While the Catholic Church in Blue Nile did not hesitate to voice its anxieties back in February over a potential extension of Shari’a law, it is disconcerting to note that Bashir’s initiative apparently has strong support from local Muslims in Blue Nile.

In fact, Blue Nile and South Kordofan merit special attention because the Sudanese government is still waging an active, indiscriminate bombing campaign in these areas against rebels who, consisting of Christians and some Muslims, belong to the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N). South Kordofan, situated in the Nuba Mountains, contains a substantial proportion of Sudan’s remaining oil reserves, and by August had already seen the displacement of nearly 400,000 civilians, amid claims of rebel advances against government troops.

As for Blue Nile, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that more than 27,000 refugees have fled into neighboring Ethiopia as a result of the conflict, and state media are reporting that the Sudanese army is closing in on the rebels as it has seized control of the town of Sali, just 5.6 miles north of the rebel stronghold of Kurmuk, which has been almost completely emptied of civilians. On the other hand, the SPLM-N is denying that this event has occurred.

Precise information as to the balance of power in the fighting in Blue Nile and South Kordofan is difficult to obtain because aid agencies have been denied access to both areas. Hence, the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan — Princeton Lyman — has called on Khartoum to allow “credible” international NGOs to reach the two states to assess the humanitarian situation.

In any event, it is clear that the events in the two border-states could well provoke a war between Sudan and its southern neighbor, with the former accusing the latter of orchestrating the rebels’ activities. South Sudan denies this allegation, but may feel compelled to support the SPLM-N in the near future should Khartoum’s forces overwhelm the rebels and carry out mass killings on a similar scale to what happened in Darfur.

At this point, many are inclined to dismiss the role of the Sudanese government’s Islamist and Arab supremacist ideology behind its policies in South Kordofan and Darfur. Granted, there is a desire to secure a monopoly for Khartoum itself (where much of the wealth from the oil boom years was spent for the benefit of the Arab elite in the capital city) on the country’s remaining petroleum reserves.

However, the regime’s key goal of imposing Islamic law and Arabization on the Christian and black African Muslim ethnic groups in the country is evident from the statements made by the Sudanese elite. Bashir’s desire to extend the realm of Sharia and enforce an Arab identity over the entire country has already been noted.

When it comes to Darfur, where an inflow of arms from Libya could now revive the Darfuri rebels’ fight against the government, Sudanese officials and Janjaweed militias have consistently defined their actions of ethnic cleansing against the native population of the region as “jihad” against peoples perceived as insufficiently Islamic and Arabized. For example, as armed forces spokesman Mohamed Beshir Suleiman put it in August 2004, “The door of the jihad is still open and if it has been closed in the south it will be opened in Darfur.”

As Sadiq al-Mahdi, a leading opposition figure in Sudan, summed up: “The catastrophe that afflicted our country began with the takeover by a minority party that imposed an Arabic Islamic identity on a country of diverse religions and cultures, treating whoever did not agree with it as a renegade to be fought by jihad.”

And so it is today that activists in South Kordofan and Blue Nile point to the real solution required if Sudan is ever to move forward. In the words of Amar Amoun, a Nuban MP from South Kordofan, there must be a “democratic, secular Sudan where we all have rights.” Yet the international community at large seems unwilling to acknowledge the role of jihad theology and Arab supremacist attitudes behind Khartoum’s behavior.

In the meantime, where are the calls for a UN-mandated no-fly zone over South Kordofan and Blue Nile? Where are the demands for a NATO bombing campaign against Sudan’s armed forces? Answer: they do not exist.

Why? Because, unlike Gaddafi, Omar al-Bashir has not been abandoned by the Arab League, which gave him a red-carpet welcome at the group’s summit in Qatar in 2009; nor have members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which is increasingly replacing the Arab League as an inter-Arab political body, thought it necessary to denounce the Sudanese president. Such is the racist hypocrisy of the Arab governments, which have similarly failed to condemn the horrific treatment of black migrant workers in Libya at the hands of militias that were fighting against Gaddafi.

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is a student at Brasenose College, Oxford University, and an intern at the Middle East Forum.

Mon, Oct 10, 2011 | Turkey Analyst, vol. 4 no. 19 | By Halil M. Karaveli

Turkish foreign policy?

Turkey’s Foreign Policy “Revolution”: Assuming a “NeoConservative” Mission in the Middle East?

This article was first published in the Turkey Analyst (www.turkeyanalyst.org), a biweekly publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center. © Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center, 2011.

The Arab spring has catapulted democracy and human rights to the top of Turkey’s stated foreign policy priorities. Turkey’s assumption of what almost amounts to a “neoconservative” foreign policy mission in the Middle East is far from risk-free. Ankara was recently served a first, dire public warning from Iran. The greatest danger for Turkey is that its rulers indulge in the conviction that they are on the right side of history, in tune with the forces of change. The new dictum of Turkish foreign policy might be labeled “freedom at home, freedom abroad”, but the AKP government’s celebration of “freedom” has a hollow ring to it. It may be that Erdoğan is in tune with the aspirations of the Arab street, but he is not paying close enough attention to the simmering anger on Turkey’s Kurdish streets.

Background

Turkey and Iran have been strategic rivals for centuries. Recently, however, Turkey had sought to improve its relationship with its eastern neighbor. Commercial ties have deepened and Turkey had, not least, broken ranks with its Western allies over the issue of Iran and its nuclear capability; Ankara opposed U.N. sanctions on Iran, and in May 2010 Turkey, Brazil and Iran brokered a deal that was clearly intended to relieve some of the international pressure that was building up against Iran. Since then, however, Turkey has taken the decisive step to join NATO’s missile defense shield that is being deployed precisely with the intention of warding off any potential Iranian missile threat to the Middle East and Europe. Turkey has also taken its hands off its erstwhile friend Syria that is a close Iranian ally, and has begun to court Egypt, with which it desires to establish a strategic partnership. That such a partnership would aim at reining in Iranian ambitions in the Middle East can be taken for granted; indeed Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan specifically spoke out in defense of secularism when he recently visited the countries of the Arab spring in North Africa. Erdoğan’s remarks in Cairo, where he extolled the virtues of secularism, exhorted the Egyptians to enshrine secularism in their new constitution and challenged anyone to prove that secularism is against the nature of Islam, could not have been farther from the Iranian vision.

On Saturday, October 8, Turkey was served a first, dire public warning from Iran. In an interview with the semi-official Mehr news agency, a military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Major-General Yahya Rahim-Safavi, assailed Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan. The Iranian leader’s adviser impressed that Turkey must radically rethink its policies on Syria, the NATO missile shield and about promoting secularism in the Arab world — or face trouble from its own people as well as neighbors. Erdoğan’s invitation to the countries of the Arab spring to adopt Turkish-style democracy and secularism was deemed both “unexpected” and “unimaginable.” What was particularly unexpected and unimaginable was Erdoğan’s call for secularism: “This fact was unexpected and unimaginable since the Egyptian people are Muslims”, stated the Iranian supreme leader’s military adviser, who called it a “strategic error”.

There can be no doubt that Turkey’s decision to deploy a radar station as part of NATO’s missile shield hurts Iran in strategic terms. Ankara is accused of serving U.S. interests:”The behavior of Turkish statesmen toward Syria and Iran is wrong and, I believe, they are acting in line with the goals of America,” the Iranian military official went on. “I think the Turks are treading a wrong path. It might very well be that the path was set for them by the Americans,” suggested the Iranian general.

In strategic terms Turkey is indeed — once again — treading the same path as the United States, although Ankara’s anti-Israeli stance sets it apart from Washington’s sensibilities and priorities. Yet even though the Iranians feign surprise, the fact that Turkey seeks to balance and counter Iranian influence is less remarkable, given the geopolitical heritage, than it would seem against only the backdrop of the — by now abandoned — Turkish attempts to court Iran. But the Iranians, presumably, did not expect Erdoğan to mount a challenge to them in ideological terms; his strongly worded plea for secularism must have genuinely rattled the Iranians; in any event, the specter of a leader who enjoys wide popularity on the “Arab street” and whose Muslim credentials are impeccable calling for secularism should be ideologically disquieting for those who nourish the hope that the Arab spring is going to pave the way for an Islamist awakening in the Middle East.

Implications

Sedat Laçiner, an influential Turkish foreign policy strategist who is close to the AKP, recently wrote that what has taken place is nothing less than a “revolution” in Turkish foreign policy. He observed that non-interference in the internal affairs of others has been a near-sacred rule of Turkish foreign policy, a tradition from which Erdoğan has departed by dispensing advice to Egyptians, Libyans and Tunisians and not least by stating that Syria is an “internal affair” for Turkey. Indeed, the Syrian example makes clear that the AKP government has by now to all intents and purposes abandoned the much vaunted “zero problems with neighbors” doctrine. Laçiner also observes that the quality of its neighbors’ democracies — or rather lack thereof — used to be of little concern for Turkey.

What Turkish pro-government analysts and commentators have in mind when they make such observations is the ways of the old, Kemalist regime; for instance, Kenan Evren, the general who took power in a coup in 1980, befriended and coddled Pakistan’s dictator Zia ul-Haq. What is conveniently overlooked is that Erdoğan had until very recently remained faithful to this foreign policy tradition that cared little about democracy: Erdoğan hastened to congratulate the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad upon his victory in the fraudulent presidential election in 2009, and he went out of his way to defend Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir against accusations of complicity in genocide; he also has a historical footnote reserved for himself as the last recipient of the Qaddafi Human Rights prize, which he was awarded in December 2010.

It is the Arab spring that has catapulted democracy and human rights to the top of Turkey’s — stated — foreign policy priorities. As Laçiner writes, it is Turkey’s responses to the Arab spring that serve to demonstrate that Turkish foreign policy has shifted from “rigid realism and pragmatism” to an “ethical, indeed idealist” line. That is obviously a self-celebratory narrative that glosses over the all-apparent inconsistencies. Yet beneath the rhetorical surface, there is nonetheless continuity: Turkey’s advocacy for freedom in the wake of the Arab uprisings is in fact another expression of unsentimental realism and pragmatism. Turkey had sought to maximize its influence in its neighborhood by maintaining good relations with the rulers, by having zero problems with them; now, as the ruled have gained a say with the Arab spring, it makes good sense in power terms to champion freedom, to stay tuned to the Arab street. Indeed, the AKP’s own history would have taught its leader that freedom is an unrivalled lever for power.

Turkey’s assumption of what would almost seem to amount to a “neoconservative” foreign policy mission in the Middle East — with calls for regime change, advocacy for liberty, human rights and secularism — has been just as unexpected as the former Islamists’ conversion to conservative democrats was when the AKP was founded a decade ago. The AKP came to power because the Islamists remade themselves, embraced liberal values — and befriended Europe and the U.S. — championing those values against a state establishment whose authoritarianism was hopelessly out of touch with a vibrant society. It is tempting for the ruling party of an ascendant Turkey to apply that lesson to a wider regional context. Turkey is not afraid of promoting democracy and human rights, hold establishment analysts, precisely because it has solved its own “identity crisis”, and put its own house in order; the observation of strategist Laçiner that “we feel free to act, since our prisons are no longer torture chambers” offers a glimpse into the mindset of the Turkish ruling elite. Yet, he does add the caveat that “liberty and leadership also come at certain risks and costs”. That is indeed presumably one reason why Prime Minister Erdoğan has come to deploy a rhetoric in the countries of the Arab spring that has led the Iranians to accuse Turkey of acting in concert with the United States; just like the case was on the internal front a decade ago, the AKP recognizes that U.S. support is critical to ward off challenges to its power; today that challenge emanates from those countries, Iran and Syria, that are poised to exploit Turkey’s Kurdish problem.

Turkish Headline: "Iran finally warned: if Turkey does not change its course, you are serving the Zionist regime".

Conclusions

Turkey’s foreign policy used to be guided by the dictum “peace at home, peace in the world”, once pronounced by the country’s first president, Kemal Atatürk. “Peace” at home always had a hollow ring to it, since it was secured at the prize of a severe repression of not least the Kurds; yet the Kemalist republic remained haunted by the constant fear that its internal frailties — above all the ethnic split — was going to be exploited by hostile neighbors and others, which it was. That was indeed one chief reason why Atatürk — long before foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu coined the dictum — in all but name prescribed zero problems with neighbors as the guideline of a foreign policy that saluted “peace in the world”. The new dictum of Turkish foreign policy might be labeled “freedom at home, freedom abroad”, even though the AKP government’s celebration of “freedom” does have a hollow ring to it, just like the Kemalist celebration of “peace” once had; the clampdown on Kurdish politicians, elected officials and non-violent activists continues unabated, with nearly four thousand having been arrested since April 2009.

Turkey’s image will suffer if it is perceived as being hypocritical; yet, what poses a real danger is that its rulers indulge in the conviction that they are on the right side of history, in tune with the forces of change, having offered, as they see it, enough freedom to satisfy the Kurdish population, enabling Turkey to safely assume an assertive foreign policy mission. However, the country’s identity crisis is far from being settled. It may be that Erdoğan is in tune with the aspirations of the Arab street, but he is not paying close enough attention to the simmering anger on Turkey’s Kurdish streets.

Halil M. Karaveli is Senior Fellow and Managing Editor of theTurkey Analyst at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center.

Mon, Sept 26, 2011

Ali Ahmed Karti, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of the Sudan (UN Photo/Rick Bajornas)

FM Ali Ahmed Karti Addresses the General Debate of the 66th Session of the General Assembly

Address by His Excellency Mr. Ali Ahmed Karti, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of the Sudan at the General debate of the 66th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations (New York, 21-24 and 26-30 September 2011).

Sudan, General Debate, 66th Session

Statement Summary:

ALI AHMED KARTI, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sudan, said his country was approaching the international community with new momentum, choosing peace and stability despite sacrificing a dear part of its land. Sudan had chosen peace and displayed patience amid obstacles to its implementation, accepting the result of South Sudan’s referendum for independence and welcoming it into the community of nations. However, that did not mean a “final divorce” in an era of globalization and alliances that transcended political boundaries. Sudan was committed to settling all the problems related to its peace agreement with South Sudan, in particular border issues and oil revenue. It would deal with all tensions and had accepted the choice of separation, not because it did not want unity, but because it wanted sustainable peace and stability.

The Doha Document for Peace in Darfur had been accepted and signed because it responded to all the aspirations of the people of Darfur, he said. That text had been considerably supported by the people of the international community, and he reiterated thanks to all regional and international partners who had contributed to the agreement’s conclusion. Sudan would continue to implement the five pillars of the strategy for political settlement of the Darfur dispute, giving priority to refugee resettlement.

He said he had expected the Secretary-General, in his speech to the General Assembly, to give a special paragraph about Sudan’s commitment to peace, and called on international organizations not to be hoodwinked by some countries that refused to pay their dues. The leadership of President Omer al-Bashir had brought peace and deserved respect, and not the levelling of accusations promoted by the International Criminal Court. President al-Bashir was the legitimate leader, elected freely and fairly. Unilateral economic sanctions adopted by the United States were unjust measures against the people of Sudan while the country moved in a more open manner and was determined to play an active role as a member of the international family.

The international financial crisis had increased poverty in developing countries, dropping social services at a time when climate change exacerbated problems in those countries, he said. Increased aid for famine in the sister republics in Africa, notably Somalia, was a priority. The African Union and early warning systems had also helped maintain peace and security. African efforts for peacemaking, such as the Council of Wise Men, led by former South African President Thabo Mbeki, played a key role in settling disputes. But reform of the Organization, notably the Security Council, was still required. Real reform of the Council would stop it from being exploited in a way that casts doubt on the Organization’s credibility.

Sat, Sept 24, 2011 | WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks: Turkish FM Davutoglu: “Yes, We are the New Ottomans”

Turkish foreign minister Davutoglu explaining “New Ottoman” strategy of the Turkish Islamist government in this 2009 Wikileaks cable.

In a recent speech before the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) retreat, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Davutoglu appeared to embrace the concept of Neo-Ottomanism as a framework for Turkish foreign policy. Though Davutoglu and the MFA have tried to step back from the statement (which they insist was taken out of context), the concept reinforces Turkey’s aspirations to re-engage estranged neighbors and to serve as mediator in conflicts in the Middle East and the Balkans — particularly coming so soon after Davutoglu’s Sarajevo speech, which raised some hackles in the region. It also leaves AKP open to criticisms of “creeping” Islamization, naivete, and anti-Westernism.

Source: WikiLeaks

Reference ID: 09ANKARA1717
Created: 2009-12-03 13:52
Classification: SECRET
Origin: Embassy Ankara

VZCZCXRO6456
PP RUEHDBU RUEHFL RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHNP RUEHROV RUEHSL RUEHSR
DE RUEHAK #1717/01 3371352
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 031352Z DEC 09
FM AMEMBASSY ANKARA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1364
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUEHIT/AMCONSUL ISTANBUL 6595
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC//J-3/J-5//
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHDC
RUETIAA/NSACSS FT GEORGE G MEADE MD
RUEHAK/TSR ANKARA TU

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 001717

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT ALSO FOR EUR/SE

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/01/2019
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR TU
SUBJECT: FM DAVUTOGLU: YES, WE ARE THE NEW OTTOMANS

REF: A. ANKARA 1688
¶B. ANKARA 1618
¶C. ANKARA 1651

Classified By: POL Counselor Daniel O’Grady, for reasons 1.4(b,d)

¶1. (C) SUMMARY: In a recent speech before the governing
Justice and Development Party (AKP) retreat, Turkey’s Foreign
Minister Davutoglu appeared to embrace the concept of
Neo-Ottomanism as a framework for Turkish foreign policy.
Though Davutoglu and the MFA have tried to step back from the
statement (which they insist was taken out of context), the
concept reinforces Turkey’s aspirations to re-engage
estranged neighbors and to serve as mediator in conflicts in
the Middle East and the Balkans — particularly coming so
soon after Davutoglu’s Sarajevo speech, which raised some
hackles in the region. It also leaves AKP open to criticisms
of “creeping” Islamization, naivete, and anti-Westernism.
END SUMMARY.

¶2. (C) Twice yearly, AKP party leaders and members of
parliament meet at Kizilcahamam for a consultative retreat to
go over party policies and the state of Turkey in a relaxed,
informal environment. At the most recent retreat, held
November 21 and 22, FM Davutoglu co-opted his critics’
derisive term for his personalized foreign policy, saying,
“Yes, we are the New Ottomans.” In so doing, he made
coherent the past six years of Turkish foreign policy, which
has seen an intensive interest in being part of peace
negotiations stretching from Bosnia through Palestine to
Afghanistan, the opening of embassies throughout much of
Africa, and rapprochement with previous rivals, such as Iran,
Syria, and Armenia.

¶3. (C) Davutoglu had previously hinted at such a policy in a
speech made in Sarajevo on October 16, in which he envisioned
an economically and culturally integrated Balkans and Middle
East as the driver of a peaceful, affluent civilization, and
not the crisis-ridden periphery it is perceived to be today.
In his estimation, the Ottoman Empire is the “only positive
exception” to have created such an entity, and Turkey, as
successor to the Ottoman state, should be the focus of the
re-establishment of a strong Eastern Mediterranean. Turkey’s
relative power, stability, and affluence would allow it to
recreate what Davutoglu sees as fundamental to a strong,
self-assured political environment: cultural integration,
economic interaction, and political authority.

¶4. (C) Davutoglu and the MFA have both tried to distance
themselves from the concept of Neo-Ottomanism, claiming that
the press reported his statement entirely out of context.
Nonetheless, the term roughly coincides with Davutoglu’s
world-view and adds an academic and ideological backbone to
his pragmatic “zero problems with neighbors” policy. It
trades on common historical and cultural traits among the
countries in Turkey’s larger neighborhood to form the basis
for closer cooperation rather than conflict. The theory
conveniently justifies why Turkey — as a comparatively
stable, democratic, affluent country — should serve as the
anchor for such a geopolitical alignment.

¶5. (C) Borrowing from Western rhetoric that Turkey is a
bridge between the East and the West, Turkey is aspiring to
broaden its horizons to include not just Europe but the
Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia in its strategic
considerations as well. The policy also attempts to promote
two popular trains of thought among conservative Turkish
intellectuals: the concepts of a global Islamic solidarity
(previously promoted by former Prime Minister Necmettin
Erbakan) and the concept of a Turkish-Islamist synthesis
(popular in nationalist circles and also among members of the
Fethullah Gulen religious community).

¶6. (C) AKP’s domestic detractors, however, see the policy as
more evidence of Turkish society slowly turning away from the
West; embracing regional autocrats, such as Bashar al-Assad,
Mahmud Ahmedinejad, and Omar al-Bashir; and Islamization of
the populace as part of their plan to one day install Sharia
law “overnight.” Turkey’s choice of regional friends does at
times highlight its religious outlook more than cultural
ones: estranging historical trade and military partner
Israel over the Gaza crisis sits unsteadily when Turkey comes
to Sudan’s defense. But Turkey does not only seek friendship

ANKARA 00001717 002 OF 002

with Muslim countries, as its recent outreach to Armenia and
Serbia underscores. Still, individual players in the region
may have reason to be skeptical of Turkish motives, be it
because of geopolitical rivalry (Egypt and Iran),
historically-based distrust (Armenia, Serbia, and Cyprus), or
the perception of being unfairly treated (Israel).

JEFFREY

“Visit Ankara’s Classified Web Site at http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Turkey”

Mon, March 21, 2011 | Turkey Analyst, vol. 4 no. 6 | By Joshua W. Walker

Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan (L) meeting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (R) on a trip to Tripoli in 2009. (Photo by EPA/BGNES)

Turkey’s Regional Leadership in the Middle East: Principle or Realpolitik?

This article was first published in the Turkey Analyst (www.turkeyanalyst.org), a biweekly publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center.

In stark contrast to its support for the protest movements in Egypt and Tunisia, Turkey has abstained from taking a principled, democratic stand in the case of Libya. Turkey has opposed the imposition of sanctions and military measures against the Libyan regime. The failure of the Turkish government to live up to the democratic ideals that purportedly guide its policy toward the Middle East reveals the limits of a foreign policy which seeks to balance ideals and “realism”. Ultimately, the effect of Turkey on regional dynamics will only be as strong as its ideals and principles.

Background

“Enough we say, the decision belongs to the people of the brotherly Egyptian and Tunisian nations…Turkey shares the grief of these nations as well as their hopes”, declared Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a prime-time speech in which he was the first world leader to explicitly call for Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to “step down” and “take steps that will satisfy his people.” Erdoğan and Turkey won wide praise throughout the Arab world and beyond for clearly articulating principles that Turkey, as an indigenous democracy, had the credibility and “soft power” to speak about in a way Iran and others lacked. Yet Turkey has failed to muster the same passion for democratization in the case of Libya. In striking contrast to its support for the protest movement in Egypt, Turkey has conspicuously abstained from publicly condemning Colonel Qaddafi’s brutality towards his own people, and has been opposed to the imposition of sanctions and to military measures.

Turkish foreign policy under the Justice and development party (AKP) has come to articulate a vision for improving relations with all its neighbors, particularly by privileging its former Ottoman space in the Middle East, where agreements are being negotiated for a free-trade zone and an eventual Middle Eastern Union. The growing economic and political engagement of Turkey with the Middle East has already led to a significant realignment in the region.

With the fastest growing and largest economy in the Middle East, Turkey is uniquely placed to play a decisive role in providing alternatives models for the newly emerging governments of the region. As a longtime ally of the West and new partner of Iran and Syria, Turkey has been seeking the role of mediator and model. However, Turkey’s aspiration to present itself as a democratic model could be easily undermined by even one miscalculation.

Libya might be just such a miscalculation. Turkey’s muted reaction to the unfolding events in Libya, and notably its opposition to taking action against Colonel Qaddafi’s regime was initially explained with the massive evacuation efforts that were being implemented., and which are by now completed .Turkey has transported the vast majority of its citizens from Libya, in what was the country’s largest evacuation effort of all time. In addition, 20 other nations including the United States requested and received help from the Turkish military that was conducting the operations. However, Turkish diplomacy towards the Libyan crisis ended with the evacuation when it could have played a crucial role as a credible and respected regional power that promotes democracy.

Instead, Prime Minister Erdoğan has expressed opposition in principle to economic sanctions and to military intervention. Turkey has justified its stance by arguing that sanctions will hurt the Libyan people and by claiming that no one in Libya wants military intervention. In fact, contrary to what Turkey has argued, the opposition forces who are fighting against Qaddafi have explicitly asked for international help, including Turkey’s.

Libyan resistance wall mural

Implications

Turkey’s position on Libya is critical because of its potential role as a bridge between Libya and the West. Turkey is sensitive to sanctions given its experience with neighborhood effects in Iraq in the 1990s and Iran today, along with being opposed in principle to Western militarily interference in the region.

Having clearly placed Turkey on the side of the pro-democracy movements throughout the Middle East less than a month ago by proclaiming that, “Turkey is playing a role that can upturn all the stones in the region and that can change the course of history.” Prime Minister Erdoğan shone a spotlight on his government’s pursuit of “foreign policy with character.” The fact that the Turkish Prime Minister was the first world leader to call for Mubarak to step down at a time that other leaders, including President Barack Obama, were hedging their bets showed that Turkey could potentially lead the way in encouraging democracy in other Muslim countries based on its own experiences and lessons. Turkey’s position on Libya risks compromising this potential and appears to be short-sighted.

Turkey’s position on Libya is basically rooted in its large investments in the country and close personal contacts between its leaders. In addition to the well-publicized “human rights” award that Erdoğan received from Qaddafi in December 2010, there are more pressing national economic interests at play. Over the past ten years Turkey has won almost all lucrative construction contracts in Libya and consequently as many as 30,000 Turkish citizens were working and doing business in Libya at the time of the uprisings.

The expanding domestic economic interests and regional dynamism represented by business constituencies that support the ruling AKP has seen, for the first time, new rural Anatolian businesses led by devout Muslims competing with traditional metropolitan businesses in western Turkey. These Anatolian businesses have emerged as strong advocates for further Turkish expansion into emerging Middle Eastern rather than European markets. It would be hard to make sense of Turkish foreign policy towards the Middle East without taking into consideration these new business interest groups. As Turkey becomes more interdependent with the Arab world it will have a higher stake in the stability and prosperity of the region. Hence it is only natural that Turkey will play a more active role in trying to mediate regional tensions; and when it does not, questions will be asked.

Clearly, Turkish leaders were mindful of Turkey’s investments when they formulated Ankara’s stand toward the Libyan uprisings. However, even if Gaddafi prevails and Ankara keeps its contracts, there will be costs in terms of regional prestige and in neighboring countries. Additionally, those who have risen against Gaddafi will most certainly remember who helped them and who did not.

Turkey’s embrace of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s oppression of the democratic opposition in 2009 and of President Omar Al-Bashir’s regime in Sudan have been inconsistent with the high-minded principles that purportedly guide Turkish foreign policy. Turkey did, however, live up to them in the Egyptian and Tunisian cases, where Turkey appeared to be leading the way in its support for the popular outbreak of democracy across the region. Taking a principled stand is nonetheless never easy and involves costs that perhaps were not initially considered. Yet the Turkish passivity, indeed opposition to taking action against the Libyan dictator vindicates those critics who have long claimed that Turkish foreign policy under AKP is in fact not universally guided by democratic concerns. The ad-hoc nature of Turkey’s policy in reaction to the Arab uprisings is confusing at best.

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan receives the Gaddafi Prize For Human Rights on the sidelines of the Africa/EU summit in Tripoli November 29, 2010. (REUTERS/Ismail Zitouny)

Conclusions

The AKP has long promoted its foreign policy as being one of idealistic realism which would balance Turkey’s support of democracy and human rights with the geopolitical realities of its neighborhood. And on the whole, the Turks have been embraced by the region because they have been both pragmatic and principled. As seen from the region, Turkey’s strategy of diplomatic and economic engagement has been a welcome one. With its non-sectarian and pragmatic focus, Ankara offers the greatest economic incentives to find a political and sustainable as opposed to violent solutions to the problems of the Middle East

The Libyan case has exposed the limits of this idealistic realism, as idealism has been sacrificed to what has been deemed to be realism. Turkey’s initial silence, and then Erdoğan’s defense of Qaddafi, has called into question Turkey’s sincerity and credibility as a democratic role model in the Middle East. If the behavior of the Iranian government after the 1979 revolution and of the Kuwaiti government after it was liberated from Iraqi occupation in 1991 are any guides as to how a post-Qaddafi government will act in Libya, then neither will “realism” pay off. In both cases the new governments in power politicized their foreign trade and contract awarding procedures. Nations that were perceived to have been friendly during the struggle were rewarded with profitable contracts while those perceived to have been hostile were ignored.

Turkey has substantial business and geopolitical interests to consider in Libya that do dictate caution; however if Ankara assumes that it can pick and choose which dictators to support, it no longer will be presiding over a foreign policy with character, but simply realpolitik. In fact, by not joining the international community, including the Arab League and United Nations that are moving against Colonel Qaddafi, Turkey risks losing not only its hard earned credibility in the region as a champion of democracy but also its access to the Libyan economy regardless of Qaddafi’s immediate future.

Often interests and principles are indeed in conflict, but for Turkey the choices in the Middle East should be quite simple: The leadership role to which Turkey aspires to crucially depends on an ability to live up to those democratic ideals and principles that the Turkish government claims that it promotes. Ultimately, Turkey’s effect on regional dynamics will only be as strong as its ideals and principles.

About the author,

Joshua W. Walker, Ph.D., is a post-doctoral fellow at the Crown Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Brandeis University and is a research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Wed, March 09, 2011 | The Rubin Report | By Barry Rubin

Police officers and paramedics transported the body of Pakistan’s minister of minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti (the government's only Christian cabinet minister), who was shot dead on Thursday in Islamabad. (Photo: Irfan Haider/AP)

Egypt and the Middle East: Romanticism Meets Reality

The projected million-women march turned out just 400 and they were harassed and in some cases attacked. Meanwhile, thousands of Muslims and Christians demonstrated and clashed in part due to the burning of a Christian church by Muslims. Eleven people were killed. The new governmental team has been outspokenly anti-Israel — and that doesn’t mean criticism but real hostility.

Crime has reportedly zoomed upward. including armed robberies, arson and street battles between rival criminal gangs over territory. One innovation has been for gangs to stop cars, partly by throwing eggs on the windshield so the driver can’t see, then demand that the driver sign a bill of sale to them for the automobile and hand it over, or else.

All revolutions produce some anarchy. But the divisions between Christians and Muslims, (massive numbers of) Islamists and (tiny numbers of) secularist, treatment of women, and other issues have a structural component that just isn’t going to go away easily. The same applies to the underlying hostility toward Israel, the United States, and the West in general.

Meanwhile, the military junta gave a warm welcome to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who has been credibly accused of mass murder. In Tunisia, protest demonstrations have been broken up by the military government there. Muammar al-Qadhafi may well fall in Libya but he’s still holding out. In Pakistan, the government’s only Christian cabinet minister was assassinated rather obviously because of his religion and none of his colleagues would dare defend him publicly.

The idea that everything has changed in the Middle East from the winter of dictatorship and extremism into a springtime for democracy is — unfortunately — likely to turn out to be wrong.

Some of those many people with a limited sense of history has compared the events in the Middle East to 1848 in Europe. Basically, all of the revolutions of that year failed. In France, where the uprising succeeded, within three years Napoleon III had become dictator, ruled the country for 23 years, and led it into a disastrous military defeat.

The journalistic romanticizers of the Arab transformation — ignoring that meanwhile Lebanon was being transformed inthe exact opposite direction — will no doubt soon be scratching their heads wondering how things that seemed so terrific (to their superficial view) quickly turned tragic.

Mon, Feb 07, 2011 | Turkey Analyst, vol. 4 no. 3 | By Halil M. Karaveli and Svante E. Cornell

Anti-Mubarak demonstration in Turkey. Text reads: abd kölesi Hüsnü Mübarek = slave states Hosni Mubarak.

Turkey and the Middle Eastern Revolts: Democracy or Islamism?

This article was first published in the Turkey Analyst (www.turkeyanalyst.org), a biweekly publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center.

Turkey’s leaders have embraced the popular revolts in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries, with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and President Abdullah Gül publicly urging Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to respect the will of the people and resign. Yet where authoritarian regimes are Islamic as in Iran and Sudan, Ankara has propped them up and refrained from any criticism; only where Islamists are in opposition has the Turkish government come out in support of change to the status quo and “democracy”. In fact, the AKP foreign policy is in ever clearer terms motivated primarily by Islamic solidarity and ideology. Contrary to expectations that Turkey will serve as a moderate example to emulate for the forces that clamor for change in the Middle East, the convulsions in the Arab world risk giving further impetus to Islamic radicalization in Turkey itself.

Background

After a string of vociferous attacks on Israel the last two years, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has become perhaps the most popular political leader on the “Arab street”. Now, Erdoğan has stepped into the fray to back the protesters in Egypt. The Turkish Prime Minister exhorted Egyptian president Mubarak to step down, stating that “no government can remain oblivious to the democratic demands of its people”. Addressing Mubarak in person, Erdoğan urged him to “know that governments that turn a blind eye to their people cannot last long”. He also saw fit to remind Mubarak that “We are mortals and each of us will die and will be judged by what we have left behind.”

From a Western perspective, statements by Turkey’s leadership criticizing Mubarak and calling for democratic change in Egypt may seem only natural and welcome; at first sight they confirm the widespread perception among international observers that Turkey, ruled by what is generally deemed to be a moderately Islamic party, represents a democratic model for the Muslim Middle East. Indeed, there is no doubt that Erdoğan and Gül sought to reinforce that image by calling for the resignation of the embattled Egyptian leader. However, promotion of democracy is not something that characterizes Turkish foreign policy toward the Muslim world in general.

In fact, the Turkish Prime Minister’s celebration of democracy in Egypt lacks credibility. The Turkish leadership displayed no concern for democratic reform or human rights when mass protests were brutally suppressed in Iran after the theocratic regime rigged the presidential election of 2009. (See 19 June 2010 Turkey Analyst) Far from asking Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to resign or reminding him of his mortality, Erdoğan was among the first to congratulate him by telephone. Likewise, in interviews, Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu refused to discuss the validity of the Iranian presidential elections, promising “to respect the outcome of Iran’s political process” – in marked contrast to the decision to take sides in Egypt’s internal struggle.

Similarly, far from objecting to the rule of Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir, Erdoğan has repeatedly exonerated him from charges of wrongdoing in Darfur, claiming that Muslims “cannot commit genocide”. When the popular protests in Tunisia and Egypt spread to Sudan, resulting in a violent crackdown on protesters and on the media by Bashir’s regime, no statements urging the Sudanese government to respect the will of the people were issued by Ankara.

Erdoğan Mübarek'i uyardi = Mubarak warned Erdogan

Implications

The diverging approaches taken by Turkey with regard to Middle Eastern governments and democratic yearnings in the region strongly suggest that something other than a supposed democratic sensitivity is at play. The common denominator of the Middle Eastern regimes facing popular discontent that have nonetheless been rewarded with the support of the Turkish AKP government – Iran and Sudan – is their adherence to Islamic principles. The Sudanese regime of Al-Bashir is essentially the heir of an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, although there have been political conflicts between the Egyptian and Sudanese Islamists. Hamas, the ruling party in Gaza, with which Turkey has more or less allied itself against Israel even though it has suppressed opposition, is similarly the Palestinian branch of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

Thus, AKP-ruled Turkey sides with Middle Eastern dictators who are Islamists, while it calls for their resignation in countries where Islamists are the main opposition force. Erdoğan’s exhortation to Egyptian President Mubarak to resign is revelatory not so much of his democratic spirit, as of his Islamist core ideology. Indeed, to the AKP, the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt serve to validate the notion that the Islamists are on the right side of history, and may in that sense work against continued Islamist moderation: pro-government commentators in the Turkish media have notably argued that what is happening in North Africa – popular uprisings against authoritarian, supposedly ”secularist” states – is just another version of what has recently occurred in Turkey, where a popular force – Islamic conservatism, represented by the AKP – has defeated an authoritarian state apparatus.

In this view, Kemalists and secularists are the ones who are swept away from power, from Tunisia to Turkey. Turkey’s secularist founder Kemal Atatürk had indeed once been an inspiration for mid-twentieth century Middle Eastern modernizers like Habib Bourgiba, Tunisia’s first president, as well as for Egyptian presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat. Although the fortunes of secularists and Islamists are reversed, history may nonetheless be repeating itself: Like Atatürk, who was a modernizer, but who fatefully failed to infuse his enterprise with a democratic spirit as he made himself the sole master of his country’s destiny, Erdoğan can claim to be a successful modernizer as Turkey has made significant economic progress during his tenure, but he is also well on his way to establishing an authoritarian one-man rule not experienced in Turkey since the days of Atatürk. As the Turkish example shows, the new power elite is not necessarily going to be inclined to dismantle the edifice of state tutelage. (See 10 January 2011 Turkey Analyst)

The prominent Muslim intellectual Tariq Ramadan, who is the grandson of Hasan al-Banna, (the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition force in Egypt) recently stated that the “moderation” of the Turkish AKP represents a model for the Egyptian Islamic movement. Some secularist Turkish commentators have similarly expressed the hope that the AKP will indeed have a moderating effect on the Egyptian Islamists, through the example it sets and through personal contacts. However, contrary to what appears to be a general expectation among international observers – that Turkey is going to serve as a moderate and democratic model which others in the troubled Middle East are encouraged to emulate – it could instead turn out the other way around: that the convulsions in the region give Muslim radicalization in Turkey itself renewed impetus. Indeed, the zeal with which Erdoğan has seized on the occasion to push for Mubarak’s overthrow serves to underline Turkey’s own drift toward Islamism, which has recently caused alarm among Turkish liberals. (See 24 January 2011 Turkey Analyst)

The restriction of the sale of alcohol to “children” up to the age of twenty four, the fact that punitive action has been taken against a television series that hurt religious conservative sensibilities, and Prime Minister Erdoğan’s call for the destruction of a statue of Turkish-Armenian friendship that he deemed to be a “freak” led disappointed liberals – who had lent crucial support for the AKP since it was founded – to conclude that the fine line that separates Islamic conservatism from plain Islamism has become dangerously blurred as the “moderate” Islamists have gained full control over the state.

Conclusions

In a 1994 book (Civilizational Transformation and the Muslim World) Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu explained that the collapse of socialism was no victory for the West, but “an indication of a comprehensive civilizational crisis”. The problem with the West, according to Davutoğlu, is that it relies too much on reason and experience, “neglecting revelation”. Instead, Davutoğlu explicitly advocated an Islamic world order as an alternative to Western hegemony, particularly in the Middle East.

These works are not simply arcane academic writings, but appear to strongly affect the AKP leadership’s worldview and thinking. A summer 2010 dialogue between one of this article’s authors and a deputy chairman of the AKP is most illustrative. When asked why Turkey had a stronger rhetoric on Israel than even the Arab countries, the deputy AKP leader answered that “you should never confuse the Arab leaders with the Arab populations. These monarchies – and I include Egypt in that term – will all fall, and democracy will come to the Middle East. Policies will change then.” Such comments, Davutoğlu’s writings, and Erdoğan’s inflammatory rhetoric targeting the “Arab street” strongly hint at an expectation on the part of the AKP leadership that a fundamental remake of the Middle East is inevitable, one from which Islamist forces are believed to be destined to emerge victorious.

In that light, the conclusion that imposes itself after the official Turkish reactions in the wake of the eruptions in Tunisia and Egypt is that Turkey is indeed positioning itself to assume a leadership role in this future, illiberal configuration. And as his recent, dismissive remarks about his liberal critics who had called for greater respect for freedom of expression and cultural tolerance – “the language of the intellectuals is not that of the people” – suggest, Prime Minister Erdoğan has not come out in support of the popular revolt in Egypt because he believes that such people power will give birth to freedom and an open society.

Halil M. Karaveli is Managing Editor of the Turkey Analyst and a Senior Fellow with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center. Svante E. Cornell is Research Director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center.

Sun, Jan 16, 2011 | The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center

South Sudan Independence referendum

Concerns in Iran over South Sudan Referendum

This week, Iran’s conservative press expressed dissatisfaction with and concern over the referendum held in Sudan, in which the African residents of southern Sudan will decide if they want to be fully independent from the country’s Arabic/Islamic-oriented north.

The conservative daily Keyhan defined the referendum as a new Western plot in Africa designed to split Sudan in two. According to the daily, the U.S., Israel, and the West have always had their eyes on southern Sudan, a region endowed with 85 percent of the country’s oil and natural sources and a critically important source of water for Egypt, Sudan, and nine other African countries. The referendum may now turn the Western countries’ plots into reality.

The daily reported warnings issued by senior officials from northern Sudan about the possible implications of the referendum on regional stability, as well as the remarks made by southern Sudanese leaders on their intentions to establish diplomatic relations with Israel after becoming independent. The daily claimed that Israel intended to build dams on the rivers of southern Sudan to gain control over 11 countries in northern and eastern Africa to fulfill the vision of Greater Israel.

Keyhan warned that southern Sudan could become a stronghold for the U.S. and the Zionists, that a “second Israel” could be established in Africa, and that, following the Sudanese precedent, other African countries could be split in a way that would serve Israel’s interests (Keyhan, January 9).

The daily Jomhuri-ye Eslami also called the referendum an imperialist plot concocted by the West to split Sudan. An editorial published by the daily earlier this week says that the effects of the dangerous plots against Sudan will not be limited to that country alone. The daily criticized Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir’s agreement to hold the referendum, claiming he had succumbed to pressure exerted by the West to pull his country out of political isolation. According to the daily, Al-Bashir was willing to sell a part of his country to retain control over the remainder of Sudan’s territory.

The daily argued that Zionist circles are interested in establishing a “second Israel” in that sensitive part of Africa, and therefore took an integral part in the plan to split the country in two. The autonomous administration in southern Sudan already has extensive ties with the “Zionist regime”, and many of the region’s hotels and trade centers have been purchased by Zionist companies. Unofficially, the leaders of southern Sudan have been purchasing considerable quantities of weapons from Israel. The Zionist lobby in the U.S. also played an active role in the implementation of the plan to divide Sudan.

According to Jomhuri-ye Eslami, the division of Sudan is an act of aggression against Muslim countries and the interests of the Muslim world. It is the silence of Muslim countries over the developments in Sudan that facilitated the activity of Zionist-related anti-Islamic circles. If the silence continues, the Zionist schemes will expand to many other Muslim countries (Jomhuri-ye Eslami, January 9).

The conservative daily Siyasat-e Rooz also addressed the Sudan referendum, claiming it was part of a project implemented by the West in recent years to tighten its hold over the world under the pretext of promoting democracy and liberty. The first phase in the implementation of the project is the occupation of Afghanistan, the second is the occupation of Iraq, then followed by attacks on Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen.

The organizers of the referendum want to divide Sudan. It will not be the last country to fall victim to the Western plot, making the unity of the Muslim world absolutely essential (Siyasat-e Rooz, January 11).

Tue, Dec 28, 2010 | The Guardian: Document 1, Document 2, Document 3, Document 4, Document 5

Muslim president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, has been accused of instigating genocide in Darfur. (Photo: Philip Dhil/EPA)

WikiLeaks: Sudan, Chad and the quest for resolution

Document 1: A debrief on Nicolas Sarkozy’s visit to Chad reveals growing moves against Sudan.

Document 2: Chinese officials urge caution on prosecution president Omar al-Bashir, insisting it will only serve to destabilise Sudan.

Document 3: ICC prosecutor outlines his strategy for bringing the Sudanese president to justice, but finds French and Chinese hurdles that need first to be overcome.

Document 4: Luis Moreno-Ocampo argues that the ill-gotten gains of the Sudanese president need to be exposed to destroy his reputation among his countrymen.

Document 5: A senior UN official insists that the UN take charge of ceasefire plans in Darfur, and speaks up for the regions Arabs.

Source: WikiLeaks

Thursday, 13 March 2008, 06:12

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PARIS 000461
SIPDIS
SIPDIS
EO 12958 DECL: 03/12/2018
TAGS PREL, EUN, MARR, PHUM, CD, SU, FR”>FR
SUBJECT: CHAD/SUDAN/EUFOR: FRENCH PRESIDENCY ON SARKOZY’S
VISIT TO CHAD AND POSSIBLE NEXT STEPS
REF: A. PARIS 431 (NOTAL) B. PARIS 273 (NOTAL) C. PARIS 432 (NOTAL)
Classified By: Political Counselor Andrew Young, 1.4 (b/d).

1. (C) SUMMARY: Romain Serman, AF-advisor at the French Presidency, on March 10 reviewed Sarkozy’s February 28 visit to Chad and discussed possible next steps. In Chad, Sarkozy stressed to Deby the importance of determining the fate of the missing opposition leaders and to develop a meaningful political dialogue in Chad, based on the August 13, 2007, agreement. In the short term, concerned countries should try to make it difficult politically for Sudan to allow Chadian rebels to mount a new offensive prior to the May/June beginning of the rainy season, which would allow EUFOR and UNAMID to deploy in a peaceful environment. Serman said that the Zaghawa rebels no longer seemed willing to fight Deby and might be willing to go over to his side (one of the objectives of a renewed political dialogue); only the Nouri/Gorane faction seemed willing to fight, and had been fully resupplied by Sudan. Sudan should also be placed under increased scrutiny, which would help to discourage its support for another rebel offensive. The South Africans told Sarkozy during his February 28-29 visit that they could play a role by sending a bilateral mission to Sudan to persuade Khartoum to avoid another round of fighting and could make Chad and Sudan priorities during South Africa’s tenure as UNSC president in April. Other possible leverage against Sudan included a reference to potential International Criminal Court interest and increased engagement by China, which was beginning to see the threat Sudanese regional adventurism could post to China’s oil interests in Sudan. Serman welcomed feedback from the U.S. and other concerned parties. END SUMMARY.

2. (C) Romain Serman, one of the two working-level AF-advisors at the French Presidency, on March 10 met with acting AF-watcher and UK Embassy Paris AF-watcher Lucy Joyce to discuss President Sarkozy’s February 28 visit to Chad and possible next steps on the Chad/Sudan/EUFOR cluster of issues. (Ref A reports Serman’s comments on the death of the EUFOR soldier in Sudan; septel will report his comments on France’s evolving military and basing posture in Africa, which Sarkozy announced in Cape Town after his visit to Chad.)

Sarkozy’s Visit

—————

3. (C) As reported Ref B, Sarkozy faced a skeptical media and NGO community prior to the February 28 trip to Chad, with criticism centered on France’s support for Deby, who himself faced strong criticism on human rights and the fate of three missing opposition leaders. Serman reported that Sarkozy met with representatives of the press and NGOs to exchange views before announcing his decision to make the February 28 stop in Chad en route to South Africa. Serman said that the press and NGOs appreciated his willingness to discuss Chad with them but that there was no perceptible shift in their views. Nonetheless, it was useful for Sarkozy to speak directly to his critics, Serman said, if for no other reason to provide them with the presidency’s political perspective, directly from the president. Serman reported that Sarkozy and other elements of the GOF continued to be frustrated with Amnesty International, which maintained that it possessed a document that allegedly showed that France knew about, and even approved of, the detention of the oppositionists even before they disappeared. Amnesty International refused to provide a copy of this purported document, Serman said, even when pressed to provide evidence for its assertions.

4. (C) According to Serman, Sarkozy had two priorities in Chad — first, to insist that the fate of missing political opponents be determined and to obtain Chadian agreement that a commission of inquiry be established to address that issue. Second, Sarkozy wanted to urge Deby and Chad’s political class to commit to developing a meaningful dialogue, in accordance with the framework suggested in the August 13, 2007, agreement.

5. (C) On the oppositionists, Serman asserted that French pressure yielded positive results, if only partial, citing the release of Lol Mahamat Choua, the subject of earlier French entreaties, and the eventual reappearance of Ngarlejy Yorongar in Cameroon (who subsequently received asylum in France). Serman added that the GOF, while respecting

PARIS 00000461 002 OF 003

Yornogar’s status as a Deby opponent, did not put much stock in his political judgment or his position on most issues. Serman said that Chad still had to account for Ibni Oumar Mahamat Saleh and to establish a credible commission of inquiry to determine in a transparent manner what had happened to Deby’s political opponents during, and in the wake of, the rebel offensive early in February. Serman said that the GOF had no concrete information on Saleh, although there were rumor-like indications that he was still alive. The GOC had to rename the commission of inquiry (its present title, along the lines of “Commission to Investigate Sudanese Aggression in February 2008,” was unacceptable, if not ludicrous, in Serman’s view) and to include a range of interested parties to supplement its pro-government members.

Political Dialogue and Next Steps

———————————

6. (C) Serman stressed the importance of making progress on Sarkozy’s second priority of encouraging meaningful political dialogue in Chad. Serman noted the key role the August 13, 2007, agreement could play. Acknowledging that the August 13 agreement “was not perfect,” Serman said that it still could serve as a good point of departure — “let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water,” he stressed. Referring to comments he had made earlier (Ref B), Serman said that the long-range goal of promoting political dialogue in Chad and, hopefully, laying the groundwork for political reconciliation, would be to deprive the rebels of a reason to continue opposing the government and to entice the rebels into working with the government instead. France’s demand that the government account for its treatment of opposition leaders was another signal to the rebels that France was trying to influence the government into taking steps that would enable the rebels to stop the fighting.

7. (C) After discussing the facts of the EUFOR soldier’s death (ref A), Serman said that all concerned parties should work to see that Sudan did not “escalate” tensions with Chad. Serman believed that the killing of the EUFOR soldier was a Sudanese measure to test the EU’s resolve with respect to EUFOR’s deployment. Serman said that the killing, so far, seemed to have no effect on the EU’s willingness to deploy EUFOR and to have it carry out its mandate to protect refugees in eastern Chad and in the C.A.R.

8. (C) Serman said that steps should be taken to deter Sudanese “escalation” with respect to Chad because Bashir seemed ready to fight. However, in France’s view, the Zaghawa elements of the rebel forces no longer seemed willing to renew the fighting and might be willing to go over to Deby’s side. Nouri’s faction (ethnically Gorane) remained committed to overthrowing Deby and had been fully resupplied by Khartoum, Serman said.

9. (C) In the immediate term, the objective was to avoid another Sudan-backed rebel offensive before the onset of the rainy season in May/June. This would allow EUFOR, as well as UNAMID, to deploy more fully. Serman suggested that the way to do this would be to make it difficult politically for Sudan to allow another offensive to take place. This could be accomplished by dispatching multilateral missions (which he did not specify in detail) to Sudan, “activating existing international fora” (which he also did not specify in detail), and to increase general diplomatic “static.” He summarized by stating that Sudan had to feel that it was under intense and continuing diplomatic scrutiny, which, he believed, would discourage Sudan from pushing the rebels into launching a new offensive. This would allow EUFOR to continue its deployment in a peaceful environment and its growing presence in Chad and C.A.R., and the continued deployment of UNAMID in Darfur would serve to deter renewed fighting.

10. (C) When Sarkozy visited South Africa after the stop in Chad (ref C), the South Africans told him they could play an active and helpful role as well. The South Africans said they might send a bilateral mission to Sudan to advise against renewed fighting, and could make Chad and Sudan priorities during South Africa’s presidency of the UNSC in April.

11. (C) Serman mentioned that other signals could be sent to Sudan, including subtle reminders of possible International Criminal Court interest in Sudan. Serman noted that “we know the U.S. has strong reservations about the ICC,

PARIS 00000461 003 OF 003

but we think the specter of ICC involvement could serve as an additional lever to discourage Sudan from backing a new rebel offensive. Those who do not share your reservations could send a signal to Khartoum.” Serman said that the GOF believed that Sudan was extremely sensitive about the ICC and thus subject to a signal along the lines he mentioned. Serman said that the French had been talking to China, which was slowly becoming aware of its own stake in the issue, aside from the criticism it had been receiving. Serman noted the growing Chinese concern about possible North-South fissures in Sudan and the possibility that its oil interests could be threatened should there be a some sort of more permanent North-South break. The Chinese were beginning to see more clearly that Sudan’s behavior towards Darfur and Chad could only increase the possibility of a North-South rupture with a possibly severe effect on China’s stake in the oil sector.

12. (C) In conclusion, Serman summarized French priorities — increased political dialogue within Chad, including resolution of the controversy over GOC treatment of opposition leaders, which could lead to reconciliation with Zaghawa rebel elements; increased engagement by the international community, including South Africa and China, to encourage Sudan from backing another rebel offensive, which would allow deployment of EUFOR and UNAMID before the beginning of the rainy season in May/June; and the use of tools such as the ICC to discourage Khartoum’s regional adventurism. Serman said that the GOF would welcome dialogue with the U.S. and other international partners on how best to reduce the possibility of further Chad-Sudan conflict via their rebel proxies.

Please visit Paris’ Classified Website at: http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.cfm

STAPLETON

Source: WikiLeaks

Thursday, 04 September 2008, 10:56

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KHARTOUM 001354
SIPDIS
DEPT FOR AF A/S FRAZER, S/E WILLIAMSON, AF/SPG
NSC FOR PITTMAN AND HUDSON
ADDIS ABABA FOR USAU
EO 12958 DECL: 08/12/2018
TAGS PGOV, PREL, KPKO, UNSC, AU-1, SU, CM
SUBJECT: CHINA COUNSELS SUDANESE ENGAGEMENT, U.S. RESTRAINT
IN ICC PROCEEDINGS AGAINST BASHIR
Classified By: CDA Alberto M. Fernandez, for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

1. (C) Summary: During his recent visit to Sudan, Chinese Special Envoy Zhai Jun strongly counseled the GOS to remain prudent in dealing with the threatened arrest warrant for President Bashir and to continue to engage with the international community, according to Chinese Ambassador Li. Zhai even suggested that Sudan contact the ICC itself. Li encouraged the USG to consider shared interests in Sudan,s stability and not to veto a UNSCR postponing the ICC proceedings. CDA Fernandez thanked China for its helpful message to the GOS, and reported that the USG has made no decision whatsoever regarding an Article 16 vote. He emphasized that the USG’s primary concern remains tangible improvements in the situation in Darfur, the recent violence by the regime in Kalma Camp was a setback, and thus far the USG sees no reason to postpone ICC action. End Summary.

Special Envoy Zhen,s Message to Khartoum

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

2. (C) On September 3, Chinese Ambassador Li Cheng Wen briefed Charge Fernandez on Chinese Special Envoy and Assistant Foreign Minister Zhai Jun,s recent visit to Sudan. Zhai, who is responsible for Africa and the Middle East, inaugurated the new Chinese consulate in Juba and discussed the possible ICC indictment of President Bashir with GOS officials in Khartoum. On the latter issue, Li stated that Zhai expressed grave concern about the negative effect an ICC indictment would have on resolving the Darfur crisis. Zhai found Bashir to be quite receptive.

3. (C) According to Li, SE Zhai praised the GOS for its calm handling of the matter thus far, and encouraged GOS officials to continue to mobilize internally and engage the international community, including the UN Security Council and especially the P-5. Zhai also made a “friendly suggestion” that the GOS consider communicating with the ICC itself, either directly or indirectly. Li expressed hope that such contact could influence and perhaps “curb the next steps” in the ICC process. He stated that the GOC views ICC indictment not only as a political, not a legal matter. As such, it is encouraging the GOS to pursue both legal and political solutions to the problem.

ICC Action Threatens Darfur Progress

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

4. (C) Li stated that the GOC is extremely worried about how the ICC indictment will affect stability in Darfur, asserting that it has hardened the rebels’ stance towards peace. He believes that GOS officials now understand the gravity of the situation they have created over the years, and hopes they will heed GOC advice continue to engage with the international community. “Not heating up this matter is in the interest of all parties,” he said.

5. (C) CDA Fernandez thanked Li for China,s helpful and useful message to the GOS. He noted that while the United States shares GOC concerns about Sudan,s stability, its primary focus is achieving tangible improvements in the situation in Darfur, especially in regards to humanitarian access. He continued that while GOS contact with the ICC might influence P-5 members France and the UK, it does not by itself concern the United States, which is not a party to the ICC.

6. (C) Li concurred that the GOS could do more to speed up humanitarian access and take other positive actions but cautioned that “only pressuring the Sudanese government is no use.” Continued antagonism serves to strengthen the suspicions of hardliners within the NCP that the West is plotting against Sudan, he said. Rather, “we need to engage with them” to help solve the Darfur crisis. Both agreed that there is some anecdotal evidence of regime infighting about what is the best strategy: cooperation or escalation.

7. (C) Li expressed puzzlement at perceived British and French support for ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo. He stated that “whoever had a role in creating this problem will bear responsibility” if Sudan descends into chaos as a result of the ICC indictment, adding that such an outcome could have been easily forecast. He declared that destabilization of Sudan is in no one,s interest, adding that “to help Sudan is to help ourselves. I hope the British and French understand this philosophy.” He observed that French companies have oil interests in Sudan as well as in Chad. CDA Fernandez agreed that an ICC indictment will

KHARTOUM 00001354 002 OF 002

present great challenges to achieving peace in Darfur, but commented that the decision to indict President Bashir was may bave been made by an overzealous prosecutor and is not the result of “high politics” or a conspiracy by the West. He noted President Bashir’s sweeping claims to want to change the situation in Darfur for the better, “we want to see tangible results, not words or process.”

U.S. Should Not Block Delaying ICC Action

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

8. (C) CDA Fernandez’ meeting with Li followed a flurry of erroneous media reports that China is expected to “veto” the issuance of an arrest warrant for President Bashir. (Note: For example, the newspaper Akher Lahza ran a story with the headline “China Does Not Rule Out Veto To Invalidate Ocampo’s Allegations,” which noted that “President Bashir received a verbal message from his Chinese counterpart expressing a his country’s support for Sudan regarding Ocampo’s allegations,” but that “Peking denied reaching the stage of using a veto to invalidate the ICC prosecutor’s procedures because the case is still in its primary phase.” Another daily, Al-Rae’d, ran a headline “Chinese veto awaits Ocampo.” End Note.) Li acknowledged that these reports suggest a fundamental misunderstanding of role of Article 16 of the ICC Statute by the Sudanese public, and that it is a P-3 veto of a deferral of the ICC proceedings that GOS must worry about. He urged the USG to think of its and Chinese “mutual interests” in Africa when making a decision. “Stability is in the interests of all parties,” he said. “It’s what we should work for in the New World Order.”

Comment

- – - -

9. (C) Li’s concern that the issuance of an arrest warrant for President Bashir could have profound destabilizing effects are well founded. Combined with the end of the rainy season and renewal of rebel activity on both sides of the Chad-Sudan border, the ICC indictment could set off a chain reaction of violence and instability. China’s encouragement of GOS internal mobilization and international engagement, including with the ICC, is both useful and helpful, but its unclear whether the NCP even has the capability, let alone the willpower, to take any action towards solving the crisis if it can decide what those steps should be.

FERNANDEZ

Source: WikiLeaks

Wednesday, 03 December 2008, 21:13

C O N F I D E N T I A L USUN NEW YORK 001130
SIPDIS
EO 12958 DECL: 12/02/2018
TAGS PGOV, PREL, PHUM, KPKO, SU, AX, CG, UG
SUBJECT: ICC’S OCAMPO: BASHIR ARREST WARRANT IN JANUARY OR
FEBRUARY
Classified By: Ambassador Alejandro Wolff for reasons 1.4(b) and (d)

1. (C) SUMMARY: ICC Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo on December 2 spoke with Ambassador Wolff at the UN on the situation in Sudan. Ocampo said the arrest warrant for Sudanese President Bashir would be issued in January or February. He said Arab leaders were frustrated with Bashir, and French President Sarkozy should be told it is time to move on Sudan’s president. Bashir won’t turn over indicted Minister Harun, according to Ocampo. He said China, as long as it keeps its oil concessions, does not care what happens to Bashir. Ocampo said arresting Lord’s Resistance Army rebel leader Kony soon would encourage armed groups in both Sudan and the DRC to negotiate. END SUMMARY.

BASHIR ARREST WARRANT IN JANUARY OR FEBRUARY

2. (C) International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo and two ICC officials met with Ambassador Wolff and Poloff on December 2 at the UN. Ocampo expects the ICC to grant his request for the arrest warrant for Sudanese President Bashir “not before January and not after February” 2009. He asked for continued Security Council pressure on Bashir, saying Bashir would seize any perceived weakening of international pressure to further entrench himself.

ARABS FRUSTRATED WITH BASHIR; FRANCE NEEDS CLEAR MESSAGE

3. (C) Ocampo reported Arab League Secretary-General Amre Moussa told him all Arabs were frustrated with Bashir, but Ocampo believes Arabs could not publicly disavow Bashir. Ocampo said Libya thought Bashir was irresponsible. Ocampo also said African leaders were all “hiding behind France,” hoping the French would find an exit strategy for Bashir, which, according to Ocampo, was “non-existent.” Ocampo said Bashir was politically dead, but France “put him on artificial respiration,” and said French President Sarkozy needed to receive a clear message that it was time to move on Bashir. (NOTE: Sarkozy reportedly met with Bashir in Doha November 29. END NOTE). Ocampo said the European Union is doing “nothing.”

BASHIR WON’T GIVE UP HARUN

4. (C) When asked by Ambassador Wolff what he expected Bashir to do, Ocampo said Bashir would never turn over indicted Minister of Humanitarian Affairs Harun to the ICC. Ocampo said Bashir’s next steps will depend on Security Council action.

CHINA ONLY WANTS OIL, IT DOESN’T CARE ABOUT BASHIR

5. (C) Ocampo said China, as long as it continues to have oil concessions in Sudan, does not care what happens to Bashir, and would not oppose his arrest if its revenues were not interrupted. Ocampo suggested the United States give China assurances about its oil concessions.

GETTING KONY NOW WILL “BRING THEM BEGGING” TO NEGOTIATE

6. (C) Ocampo said arresting Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony in the next month would send a strong signal to the Sudanese leaders and rebels, as well as Laurent Nkunda, leader of the DRC rebel group CNDP. Ocampo said quick action against Kony, under the legal framework of MONUC, would “bring them begging” to the table for negotiations, giving “two quick wins” -one in Sudan, one in the DRC-to the international community.

Wolff

Source: WikiLeaks

Tuesday, 24 March 2009, 22:17

C O N F I D E N T I A L USUN NEW YORK 000306
EO 12958 DECL: 03/23/2019
TAGS PGOV, PREL, UNSC, PHUM, SU, XW”>XW
SUBJECT: (C) ICC’S OCAMPO ON SUDAN: GO AFTER BASHIR’S MONEY
AND CALL FOR HIS ARREST; REASSURE CHINA
Classified By: Ambassador Alejandro D. Wolff, for reasons 1.4 b/d

1. (C) International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told Ambassadors Rice and Wolff on March 20 that Sudanese President Bashir needed to be isolated. Ocampo suggested if Bashir’s stash of money were disclosed (he put the figure at possibly $9 billion), it would change Sudanese public opinion from him being a “crusader” to that of a thief. Ocampo reported Lloyd’s Bank in London might be holding or knowledgeable of the whereabouts of his money. Ocampo suggested simply exposing that Bashir had illegal accounts would be enough to turn the Sudanese against him, “as with Pinochet.”

2. (C) Ocampo said Bashir invents conflict to create a better negotiating position, and thought Bashir was using the expulsion of the NGOs to divert attention away from his arrest warrant. Ocampo suggested the U.S. and the international community also needed to push for Bashir’s arrest to isolate him. Ocampo likened Bashir’s situation to “a bleeding shark being surrounded by other sharks,” with no loyalty, only greed, motivating those competing for power. By promoting the possibility of Bashir’s arrest, Bashir would be further marginalized within Sudan’s ruling elite, Ocampo thought.

3. (C) Ocampo suggested it would be beneficial to reassure China that its access to oil would not be jeopardized. If China believed Bashir was becoming a destabilizing influence, Ocampo said China might be more open to his removal as long as his replacement would guarantee support for China’s economic interests.

Wolff

Source: WikiLeaks

Thursday, 11 December 2008, 05:59

C O N F I D E N T I A L KHARTOUM 001768
DEPARTMENT FOR AF A/S FRAZER, S/E WILLIAMSON, AF/SPG, IO”>IO”>IO/PSC
NSC FOR PITTMAN AND HUDSON
ADDIS ABABA ALSO FOR USAU
EO 12958 DECL: 12/07/2018
TAGS PGOV, PREL, ASEC, KPKO, UN, AU-1, SU
SUBJECT: JSR ADADA DISCUSSES CEASEFIRE, IMPORTANCE OF
ARABS, AND ROLE OF MINNAWI
REF: A. KHARTOUM 1737 B. KHARTOUM 1751
Classified By: CDA Alberto M. Fernandez, Reason: Section 1.4 (b) and (d)

1. (C) SUMMARY: On December 7, UNAMID’s Joint Special Representative Rodolphe Adada said that UNAMID continues to work on its plans for a ceasefire monitoring mechanism and asserted that UNAMID, not the UN/AU Chief Mediator, should take the lead with ceasefire plans. Adada also said that UNAMID needs to give more attention to the important role of Darfur’s Arabs. Adada expressed concern about the lack of DPA implementation, saying that the GoS’s failure to honor its agreements does little to persuade non-signatories to the negotiating table. He was also scathing about wildly inaccurate statements about loss of life in Darfur made by ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo. END SUMMARY.

CEASEFIRE MECHANISM

- – - – - – - – - – - -

2. (C) Adada opened the meeting saying that he had just returned from a trip to UN Headquarters in New York where he briefed Undersecretary General for Peacekeeping Operations, Alain LeRoy, on the U.S. proposal for a Darfur Monitoring Team (DMT). Adada reported that he was surprised that Special Envoy Williamson did not raise the DMT with Le Roy in their last meeting, as Adada had prepped Le Roy on the USG proposal. Reflecting on the U.S. offer, Adada stated, “This is normally our job – but if you can help us with equipment, we would appreciate that.” Once the US raises this with the UN in New York, they will respond formally.

3. (C) Adada said that UNAMID continues to draft its plan for a ceasefire mechanism. (Note: Adada did not appear to be aware that his political chief, Abdul Mohammed, had discussed UNAMID’s ceasefire mechanism in depth with us on December 2 (ref. A). End Note.) He noted that most rebels are currently against the ceasefire offer, in particular SLA/Unity, which attack GoS assets to sustain their movements. “I have talked to SLA/Unity leaders like Sharif Harir and they have told me outright, ‘We attack the GoS because it is like our marketplace,” said Adada. Adada noted that any successful ceasefire must incorporate non-military logistical support for the rebel movements. He stated that although it was far from perfect, the generous monthly stipend allowance provided by AMIS served as almost a form of non-military logistical support for the rebels. Adada also hinted that the GoS will likely resist any form of assistance to the rebels as “the GoS wants the rebels to cause problems for everyone and make them (i.e. the rebels) look bad.” He noted that while the international community may be eager for a ceasefire, they probably won’t be ready to pay for the rebels not to fight.

4. (C) CDA Fernandez asked how the Joint Mediation Support Team (JMST) led by Chief Mediator Djibril Bassole and UNAMID were coordinating their efforts on a ceasefire. Adada responded by saying that “Bassole can speak in general terms about the need for a ceasefire, but this is our job in UNAMID to monitor violence in Darfur.” Adada then stated that UNAMID Force Commander Agwai had a meeting the morning of December 7 devoted to coordination between the JMST and UNAMID on ceasefire issues. Adada then asserted that Bassole should focus his energy on the political negotiations necessary for a ceasefire, not the details of any mechanism that will monitor the agreement. CDA urged closer coordination between UNAMID and Bassole.

NEED TO ADDRESS THE ARAB TRIBES

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5. (C) Unprompted, Adada then asked about the place of Darfur’s Arabs, asking: “No one is taking care of them; what should we do about Darfur’s Arabs?” Adada said that the Arab tribes are essential for the stability of Darfur, and provided an example of how Arabs, loosely integrated into GoS security forces, attacked GoS assets in the spring of 2008. He said it is important to differentiate between the Arab tribes and the janjaweed, and admitted that UNAMID has not done enough outreach to the Arab tribes. CDA Fernandez agreed with Adada and noted that it is important to encourage Darfur’s Arabs to take a position independent from the GoS. He noted that the U.S. (at least the US Embassy in Khartoum) has attempted to reach out to a broad spectrum of Arab leaders (e.g. ref. B), and said that successful USAID programming in Arab areas in Darfur (such as Ad-Daien) should be expanded. Adada agreed with CDA Fernandez that the GoS has very weak control in Darfur, and that it uses the Arab tribes to rule the region.

IMPORTANCE AND COMPLEXITY OF SLM/MM’S ROLE

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

6. (C) Adada next turned to the role of SLM/Minnawi, saying that the GoS needs to implement the Darfur Peace Agreement in order to make a statement to the non-signatories. He joked, “The GoS better implement the agreement, otherwise every movement that signs an agreement with the government will be ‘minni-mized’ like Minni has been!” CDA Fernandez concurred, and then briefed Adada on the GoS’s failure to make any significant progress in DPA implementation since Vice President Taha’s agreement with Minnawi on September 19. Adada appeared surprised by the CDA’s remarks, and said that implementing the DPA is one way to support CPA implementation, a clear priority to the U.S.

OCAMPO’S IMAGINARY NUMBERS

- – - – - – - – - – - – - -

7. (C) Adada poured scorn on the “wildly inaccurate” recent statements of ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo that “5,000 people were being killed each month in Darfur.” He added that who would be so naive and ill-informed to believe such a thing? He noted that this would be over a hundred people a day being killed, a level of violence not seen in Darfur for several years (Note: probably not since 2005). Even the horrific Kalma camp massacre of August 25, 2008 which killed 33 innocent people was “one crime on one day, this doesn’t happen very often.” He mused that such patently absurd and false information put out by Ocampo doesn’t make him look very credible in the eyes of those who actually know something about the reality of Darfur.

COMMENT

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8. (C) Adada appeared reluctant to discuss the ceasefire mechanism in any detail and made it clear that he would like UNAMID (and not the Chief Mediator nor the USG) to take the lead. Adada’s dismissive remarks about the Chief Mediator indicate once more the existence of a strained working relationship between the latter and UNAMID. Adada appeared poorly informed about the status of SLM/MM and the lack of any real progress in DPA implementation since the September Minnawi-Taha agreement. This is particularly disappointing considering the relatively substantial resources at Adada’s disposal, the fact that he needs to focus solely on Darfur, and the abundance of SLM/MM contacts in Adada’s headquarters in El-Fasher and in Khartoum.

FERNANDEZ