By Justin Ambago Ramba, MD
June 20, 2010 (SSNA) — The much-awaited Sudan’s central government cabinet formation has at last come out of President Omer al Bashir’s drawer. As he (al Bashir) promised earlier to have an inclusive cabinet, I think that he has for the first time lived up to his words as his latest cabinet contains all, the good, the bad and the ugly. However what such a cabinet is bent to achieve is obviously not anything near the area of unity, thus technically it should be called the Central Government, and not a government of national unity (GoNU) as we are falsely made to assume.
According to local NIF observers’ analysis on the London based Arabic daily, Al Sharq Al Awsat (18/06/2010), this new cabinet which is made of 77 ministers, is in fact controlled by 10 people who are either military men or security agents or both, in conformity with how the country was since the eve of the 30 June 1989 coup. The first three are of course Omer Bashir himself, Lt. Gen. Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein (Minister of Defence), and Lt. Gen. Bakry Hassan Saleh (Minister for Presidential Affairs). All three are intimate friends and they remain very close to each other since 1989. The militant government militia chief and new Foreign Minister, Ali Karti belongs to the above group considering his role in the ‘Holy War,’ against the South. This is the man who commanded the jihadist military force a.k.a the Popular Defence Forces.
While the rest of the group are all linked to the security and intelligence since NIF/NCP’s organisational structure operates through a great deal of over-lap between party work, spying and national security intelligence network, as represented by Dr. Awad Ahmed Abu Jaz, who have occupied several ministerial posts, and is now the new minister for Industry. (Former minister for presidential Affairs, then the ministry of Energy which witnessed the beginning of Sudan’s Oil boom during his office term, and the last minister of finance).
This second group as well includes the Minister for Human Resources Development, Kamal Abdel Latif (formerly the state minister at the Council of Ministers), the minister for Dams and Electricity, Osama Abdalla, the minister of Youth and Sports Haj Majid Sowar (a leading cadre in the Mujahidin Youth Organisation), as well as being very close to the inner circles to the many secret organisational offices and finally the state minister in the ministry of foreign affairs, Kamal Hassan Ali (formerly the led man in NCP Office in Egypt).
The composition of this new cabinet basically underscores the sensitivity of the period ahead, as the Sudan will face one of its most difficult hurdles and that is the Self Determination Referendum in the South, the Darfur Crisis, and how the country relates to the international community/ICC arrest warrants, and the mounting internal pressure for democratic transformation.
June 16, 2010 (Khartoum) — South Sudan’s army said on Wednesday 10 members of a renegade militia and three soldiers were killed in a gunbattle in the region’s Jonglei oil state.
A 35-strong search team came across George Athor’s rebels on Tuesday, a day after it had flushed him out of a hideout, according to the southern army (SPLA).
Athor launched a rebellion after failing to win Jonglei’s governorship in an April election, accusing the south’s dominant Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) of rigging the vote. Last month Athor said he was coordinating attacks with two other militia leaders in Jonglei and neighbouring Unity state, raising fears for regional stability in the run-up to a potentially explosive secession referendum due in January 2011.
There have been reports of scattered attacks but they have not coalesced into a large uprising.
"The reconnaissance platoon found his new place suddenly and there was an exchange of fire near Dier village in Khorfulus County," SPLA spokesman Kuol Diem Kuol said.
"From the SPLA side, three were killed and eight wounded and from Athor’s side 10 killed."
Athor did not answer calls on Wednesday.
Earlier Kuol said SPLA troops attacked Athor’s forces in the village of Wunlam on Monday night, after they were led to the hideout, also in Khorfulus County, by one of Athor’s men captured in an earlier fight.
"He is running with less than 30 soldiers. They are his close relatives from the village … Our forces are now pursuing him. We expect his capture within days," said Kuol, adding the SPLA captured 13 of Athor’s men and radio equipment on Monday.
Last week the SPLA said it chased militia commander Galwak Gai out of his base in Unity state, which includes oilfields operated by the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC), a consortium led by China’s CNPC. French group Total holds a largely unexplored oil concession in Jonglei.
South Sudan, the source of most of Sudan’s oil, secured a referendum on whether to split off as a separate country in a 2005 peace deal that ended more than two decades of civil war with the north.