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Sudan's Islamist Leader Hassan Al-Turabi Arrested
KHARTOUM, Feb 21 (News Agencies) - Hassan al-Turabi, the leader of a breakaway faction of Sudan's ruling Islamist party, was arrested here Wednesday after his party struck a deal with southern opposition members, Turabi's deputy said.
Turabi, head of the Popular National Congress (PNC), was arrested around 7:30 pm (1630 GMT) at his home in the capital, Khartoum, by President Omar al-Beshir's security forces, PNC deputy Mohammed Al-Amin Khalifa said.
Government spokesman Ghazi Salah Eddin Atabani, who told a press conference that, along with Turabi, "some leaders" of the PNC had also been arrested, later confirmed the arrest.
He declined to identify them.
At the same time, Beshir went on national television, describing Turabi's deal with the southern opposition as a "violation of the law."
"The government will not tolerate such acts and will safeguard the country's security and stability," Beshir said.
Turabi's arrest heightens a 14-month political drama in which Beshir has tried to sideline a fellow Islamist who helped him seize power in a bloodless military coup in 1989, but who has since posed a challenge to his own power.
One of the policemen told Turabi, 69, he was wanted for questioning about a deal his party and the southern-based Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) signed in Switzerland on Monday, Khalifa said.
The "memorandum of understanding" calls for joint "peaceful resistance" to Beshir's government.
The SPLA said the deal did not mean it had to stop armed action, but that it would work with Turabi's party to stage peaceful protests and strikes to force Beshir to "hand over power for a national consensus government."
But Ibrahim Ahmed Omar, secretary general of Beshir's National Congress (NC) party, earlier Wednesday slammed the understanding as "an alliance for carrying arms for overthrowing the government from within the country."
SPLA leader John Garang is "known for his military means of toppling the government," Omar told reporters, adding the deal means "nothing short of that."
"It is an alliance against the nation, peace and stability and does not serve the country and its interests," he added.
The government's spokesman, who said the memorandum of understanding was an "alliance for fighting the government", echoed the sentiment.
He slammed the deal as one of "conspiracy, subversion and a threat of violence."
He went on to voice bitter dismay that a group that "professes Islam, the leaders of yesterday, place themselves at the disposal of the rebellion and those behind it."
He added that the government does not object to contacts with the SPLA for reaching a peaceful solution to the country's problems, but "coordination with the movement for toppling the regime by force is unacceptable and intolerable."
SPLA official Yasser Arman, interviewed by AFP on Tuesday, said the understanding he signed along with Turabi's cousin, Omar Ibrahim Turabi, marks "a greater unity of action and vision" among the Sudanese opposition.
The first SPLA-PNC dialogue comes as Beshir was to name a new cabinet on Thursday or Friday, his advisors said, after he won a five-year term as president in elections in December that were boycotted by the opposition.
The memorandum calls "for a historic settlement and comprehensive peaceful solution to the problems" in the country.
Such a solution requires "first of all to end the civil war through a just agreement, real democracy and the voluntary unification of Sudan," the document said.
The SPLA has waged a 17-year war against governments in Khartoum, including Behsir's Islamist government. Northern opposition groups joined the SPLA in taking up arms in 1995.
Turabi, an erudite and wily politician who has a strong following among university students, is a veteran champion of Islamic causes at home and abroad.
He ran into trouble with General Beshir, whose power base is the military and security forces, when, as parliamentary speaker, he sponsored laws to curb presidential powers.
In December 1999, Beshir declared a state of emergency and ousted Turabi by dissolving parliament. In May, Turabi was suspended from his post of secretary general of the National Congress, prompting him to form the breakaway PNC.
He was arrested three times in the 1970s under the government of Gaafar Nimeiri.
During his alliance with Beshir, he became what many considered to be the real power behind the throne of a country, which he directed towards rigorous Islamic practices, particularly affecting the rights of women.
His moves also earned Sudan a place on the international blacklist, from the United States to Egypt, which accused Khartoum of harboring Islamic "terrorism."
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