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Sudanese Opposition To Use Arms If Leader Is Harmed
additional reporting by Bedour
el-Malki
DOHA, Qatar, March 1 (IslamOnline) - A leading Sudanese opposition member said Wednesday that his party might resort to violence if Sudanese authorities executed dissident Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi, who was arrested last week.
"We know the government is plotting to execute him to get rid of his political influence," Ali al-Haj Mohammed, deputy president of Turabi's breakaway Popular National Congress (PNC) party, told IslamOnline. "If this happens, the country will have to deal with non-peaceful options."
Al-Haj, described as Turabi's right hand man, currently visiting Doha, said the arrest was "an irrational act."
"We wanted a peaceful dialogue with the regime… not this.
"If the government does not [want] peaceful talks and attack[s]s us…then we will retaliate in kind. This is a religious and an international principle that we will follow," Mohammed commented.
Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir has stepped up security measures in Sudan following Turabi's arrest in a new twist in a 14-month political showdown between the two former allies.
Armed police were reportedly still deployed around PNC party headquarters, as well as the offices of Turabi's Rai al-Shaab newspaper.
Beshir said Turabi was arrested after his PNC struck a deal with southern opposition waging war against Beshir's Islamist government. The animist southern opposition have been fighting the central government, mainly Arab Muslim, for more than 17 years. Northern opposition groups joined the SPLA in taking up arms in 1995.
For a decade after Beshir came to power in a military coup, Turabi was seen as the main ideologue behind Beshir's Islamist government. But under international pressure, Turabi fell out with Beshir in 1999, and has since sought to present himself as a democracy activist.
The government slammed a memorandum of understanding which the PNC and the southern opposition, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), signed last week in Switzerland as "an act of treason."
Turabi has been asked to explain why his party signed an agreement with the SPLA to work together. News agencies reported it was understood that they were trying to force Beshir to hand over power. The understanding took many by surprise.
No formal charges have yet been announced against Turabi or his colleagues.
Turabi had been regarded as a symbol of Sudan's Islamist policies, a key factor in the country's long-running civil war. The document his party signed with the SPLA calls for democracy, a just peace and a federal government.
But by remembering Turabi's past, it is being seen as extraordinary that he and the southern opposition should agree on anything at all.
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."
Turabi ran into trouble with Beshir 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 2000, Turabi was suspended from his post of secretary general of the National Congress, prompting him to form the breakaway PNC.
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.
His moves also earned Sudan a place on international blacklists, from the United States to Egypt, which accused Khartoum of harboring Islamic "terrorism" and blamed Turabi for a 1995 assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 1995.
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