South Kordofan Archives - Jean-Jacques Cornish

Military and protestors in Sudan reach agreement on three-year transition to democracy

Jean-Jacques Cornish — Tue, 14 May 2019 22:00:00 +0000

Sudan’s military and pro-democracy protestors have reached an agreement on a three-year transition leading to elections.

The exact composition of a sovereign authority with a civilian majority will be agreed and signed today.

The agreement comes a day after security forces are accused of firing live rounds at protestors killing at least five. An army major has also been shot.

The Military council that deposed President Omar Al Bashir last month denies the shooting and blames what it calls infiltrators trying to scuttle any peace deal.

Military spokesman General Yasser Al Atta says the first six months of the transition period will be spent securing peace deals with rebels in conflict zones including Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan,

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Sudan voting wraps up

Jean-Jacques Cornish — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 22:00:00 +0000

Sudan’s presidential, parliamentary and state elections wrap up today after three days of voting.
Sudanese living abroad will have three days from Friday to cast their ballots at embassies in seven centres in Europe and the Arab world.
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Voting has been extended for two days in 160 polling stations that were slow to open for logistical and organisational reasons.
Voters in areas of Darfur and South Kordofan deemed too dangerous for electoral officials will be allowed to cast their ballots when more security forces are concentrated there.
Because opposition parties have boycotted the election, its success is being measured by the size of the turnout.
President Omar al Bashir and his ruling National Congress Party are a racing certainty to win the contest.
In the capital yesterday I saw no queues outside polling stations.
A hundred kilometers down the road, in Jazeera state, officials at Wadelmadji said 860 of the 1200 people registered at their voting centre centre had cast their ballots.

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Sudan wants to be next in line to fall into US favour

Jean-Jacques Cornish — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 22:00:00 +0000

By Jean-Jacques Cornish
Days after a handshake ended a half century of US enmity with Cuba and weeks after Washington ended 36 years of daggers drawn with Tehran by striking a deal limiting Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity, Sudan is voicing expectations of being next in line for better treatment by the last remaining superpower.
The country made it onto the U.S. terrorism list for, among other things, sheltering Osama Bin Laden and stayed there because of its harsh suppression of separatism in its western province of Darfur. Sudan’s president Omar al Bashir is still wanted by the International Criminal court to face charges of crimes against humanity in Darfur.
But in 2011 it accepted the secession by South Sudan, earning kudos from Washington and the international community at large.
On Monday, 13 million registered voters head for the polls for presidential, parliamentary and state elections that the Sudanese government is at pains to demonstrate are free and fair.
It is doing this in the face of a boycott by a small but vociferous group of parties who maintain Bashir has stalled on the political dialogue he launched at the start of 2014.
Washington, together in the western troika on Sudan with Norway and Britain have criticised holding the election before the promised national dialogue.
The European Union holds that this timing undermines the legitimacy of the process.
This provoked an angry response from Khartoum that the EU stance amounts to spiritual support for armed rebel movements fighting the government in the Blue Nile and South Kordofan provinces.
The Sudanese government says its constitutionally obliged to hold elections now. It’s statement stipulates that it will return to national dialogue after the poll.
The dialogue was necessitated by violent protests against Bashir in 2013 that left a number of dead.
Nafi Ali Nafi, who as presidential advisor until last year was considered the third most powerful man in Sudan and is now a parliamentary candidate, says the dialogue was bogged down in procedural issues raised by the opposition.
“They were not interested in engaging on substantive matters,” says Nafi. “They were insisting on the government dissolving and becoming a transitional administration.
“In other words they wanted their prize even before the talks proper started.”
Bashir, who came to powering coup 25 years ago and subsequently won two elections , has further complicated matters by going back on an undertaking not to seek another term.
“That was not his decision to make,” insists Nafi. “It is a matter for the ruling National Congress Party to decide.”
While there is a significant body of international opinion dismissing the poll as a sham, Washington is coming around to the view that Bashir is the best of a number of bad options.
US sources say the strongman manages to maintain stability in a dangerous neighbourhood.
By supporting the government in Yemen against mounting rebel attack, Sudan is squarely onside with the U.S.
Above all, though, the fear in Washington and indeed in other Western capitals, is of a repetition of the Libyan nightmare where they pushed for and won the first prize of getting rid of Muammar Gadaffi and ended up with a catastrophic failed state feeding and arming terrorists in the region and beyond.

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