Omar Al-Bashir and Africa's Longest War

by Paul Moorcraft

  The fashionable Khartoum line at this time – and it had some resonance in Washington – was that President Clinton, who had form in the trouser department, had used the raids to distract the media from the Monica Lewinsky scandal which threatened his impeachment.

  Nevertheless, the terrorist attack in 2000 on the USS Cole was blamed on an increasingly active al-Qaeda network. After 11 September 2001 the worldwide manhunt for bin Laden re-awakened interest in the Sudanese connection. The bin Laden question was part and parcel of a larger diplomatic row. Khartoum argued that Washington was demonizing Sudan because it wanted to topple the Islamist government. This was the era of the US doctrine of regime change. The Americans were the real terrorists, said al-Bashir in various speeches, because Washington had, at different times, encouraged Uganda, Eritrea and Ethiopia to support guerrilla and conventional incursions against Sudan. Because of lobbying by the US black Congressional caucus and by the religious right, Washington had consistently supported with diplomacy and money (almost $30 million per annum of overt, non-lethal aid) the southern rebels. Such dangerous meddling, said Khartoum, along a Christian Muslim fault-line, could plummet Sudan into anarchy, a second Somalia, and create further breeding grounds for international terrorism. Khartoum also emphasized that it had handed over Carlos the Jackal and claimed, repeatedly, to have discreetly offered to extradite bin Laden to the US. And at the very least they had clearly told bin Laden to leave, because of US demarches. After the 1998 cruise missile attacks, Khartoum offered to allow US inspectors to examine al-Shifa and other alleged WMD sites in Sudan. As one Sudanese diplomat explained later to an American audience: ‘You guys bombed Iraq because it blocked UN weapons inspectors. We’re begging for a UN inspection and you’re blocking it.’

  Washington finally took up the intelligence liaison invitation in May 2000: a joint FBI-CIA team arrived in Sudan to investigate the alleged terror connections. The visiting team was given carte blanche, said Khartoum, to search for any terror infrastructure – camps and banking networks. According to Sudanese intelligence sources, after a year the joint FBI-CIA team was prepared to ‘sign off’ – dismiss – the main terrorist allegations. Even after 9/11 US intelligence showed little immediate interest in the 400 major files on al-Qaeda affiliates that were held in Sudan’s intelligence HQ in Khartoum. The files were very detailed and had full CVs on key al-Qaeda operatives, with photos in most cases. (I examined some of them myself.) This perhaps paralleled the Western failure to collect valuable Taliban data when the Northern Alliance and US special forces captured Kabul in late 2001. The Russians moved in quickly and took much of it away. British and American agencies had to resort to trying to debrief Western journalists and securing photographs from them. A CIA team did arrive in Khartoum in late 2001 (with a large photocopier in a transport aircraft) to make copies of the extensive Sudanese files. Sudanese intelligence also claimed that they offered access to their former colonial masters. They said, however, that MI6 showed little interest in the al-Qaeda files, but were more prepared to look at Sudanese data on Hamas and Hezbollah. An intelligence team from London was scheduled to visit, but was cancelled by London at the last minute. This is all from Khartoum sources. The British and Americans said that the Sudanese were never as helpful as they pretended to be. As one senior Foreign Office official told me: ‘They have a lot of skeletons in their cupboard. They do not want us to get too close. And you should not take their offers at face value.’ Caution noted.

  The Sudanese intelligence top brass were definitely rattled and feared another dose of cruise missiles. In January 2002 I gained access to the shiny new Sudanese intelligence headquarters to meet Yahia Hussein Babiker, whose role was roughly equivalent to the deputy head of MI6. Sitting in his deep grey-green swivelling leather chair, he conceded that the possibility of another US missile strike was ‘low’, but ‘suitable preparations’ had been made. He did not expand on how Sudan could counter cruise missiles. As the intelligence boss conducted his one-on-one briefing, a TV screen by his side showed an American NBC programme with a prominent map of the USA’s potential counter-terror targets. It included Sudan.

  Khartoum’s nervousness about an attack was palpable – despite the official line that they were not a target. This was highlighted by an unsolicited offer to interview the head of state. In January 2002 I was shown into the presidential palace for my first face-to-face meeting. I asked President al-Bashir what specific steps his government was taking to help Washington in the war on terror.

  Speaking in formal Arabic, he said, ‘What we can offer the US government in the fight on terror is that we can exchange information and also we have given our commitment to not allow a haven or transit for terrorists.’

  I pressed him on whether his Mukhabarat, perhaps one of the best intelligence agencies in Africa, was certain no terrorists were operating in the vast country.

  ‘I can assure you that there are no terrorists in Sudan because no Sudanese has been accused of being a terrorist.’ I did not interrupt this rather sweeping statement. The president continued, ‘All of those who have been accused of terrorism are not Sudanese. We have good control of all those non-Sudanese who are living here. We know that we do not have cells nor individual terrorists.’

  At the end of the interview, the president added one of his favourite debating points: ‘John Garang’s group is not listed as a terrorist organization by the US. This is the important question we are asking of the Americans who compiled this list [of states sponsoring terrorism].’

  The Sudanese explanation for the CIA’s foot-dragging on intelligence co-operation was not entirely convincing. The agency was spending billions on tracking al-Qaeda so why didn’t they jump at the Khartoum offers? The Sudanese counter was that ‘US intelligence was too politicized’. A presidential adviser, Dr Ghazi Salahahudin Atabani, told me that ‘US policy has been ideological not pragmatic. There was no way to break the barrier.’ The UK-educated physician may have had a point, because British and American intelligence processes had been distorted by politicization in the run-up to the war against Iraq. But it was deeply ironic because Khartoum too had indulged in intensely ideological politics.

  Eventually the CIA piled into the Mukhabarat treasure trove of al-Qaeda files. And even MI6 and MI5 became less reserved about Khartoum’s offers as the British beefed up their previously lacklustre or ill-resourced monitoring of Islamist extremists in the UK. (This was the period when French intelligence nicknamed the British capital ‘Londonistan’.) Perhaps the unofficial Sudanese jibe to the Americans – ‘If you want to bomb a country with Islamist terrorist cells you should try hitting London or Saudi Arabia’ – had found its mark.

  One of Khartoum’s many critics, the London-based deputy editor of Africa Confidential, Gill Lusk, warned that the whole intelligence lure was just spin.

  The National Islamic Front government is trying to delay as long as possible any US military reprisals because Sudan is perceived as a poor third-world African country by Western and Arab governments and the longer the government is seen to be appeasing Washington, the worse the international backlash will be against an American attack.

  She summed up their policy as ‘diplomatic deterrence by a very manipulative government’ in Khartoum.

  After bin Laden was driven out of Afghanistan by Afghan and American troops, it was often rumoured that the Houdini of international terror had returned to his old haunts in Sudan. One Canadian diplomat in Khartoum said mischievously, ‘There have been lots of sightings of Osama – about the same number as the sightings of Elvis in fact.’ (The CIA, however, generally believed that bin Laden was comfortably ensconced in Pakistan, though it was awkward to accuse Islamabad, its purported ally in the war on terror.) Over the years I spoke to many people in Sudan who knew bin Laden well. In elite government and business circles all described him as gentle, intense and courteous. He always asked people about their children and enjoyed talking in fine detail about construction equipment. A
pparently he was most happy discussing JCBs, not jihad. His Khartoum travel agent fondly reminisced about the warlord giving him lots of business and paying with his American Express gold card.

  In 2014 I asked a confidant of the president whether history could have been different if the Americans had let bin Laden remain in Sudan with his engineering projects, perhaps 9/11 might not have happened.

  ‘And at least the road to Port Sudan would have been a lot better,’ I said.

  ‘Actually,’ the Sudanese said, smiling, ‘the main road bin Laden built soon fell apart.’

  In retrospect, the offer to hand bin Laden over was probably just spin. In 2014 I spoke to many senior politicians who admitted that it would have been ‘un-Islamic’ to hand over a Muslim guest. The powerful former vice president, Ali Othman Taha, said, ‘The maximum we could do was to tell him to go away.’ In a frank admission Taha added:

  I tried to persuade the Americans to talk to him, not to kick him out. He hadn’t dropped the jihadist issues, but his main concentration was on engineering … I told visiting US diplomats to engage him. [As they had done when they were effective allies over the Russian occupation of Afghanistan.] But they always fobbed me off with an excuse about it not being part of their mission in Sudan. Then Osama bin Laden’s concentration was genuinely with commerce. Those Americans made the mistake of their lives.

  The what-ifs of history aside, bin Laden’s five years in Sudan cast a long shadow on the Khartoum government, and particularly his main host, Hassan al-Turabi. The spiritual architect of the 1989 revolution and its very public showman was becoming an anathema to many at home, not only in the army, but even in the ruling party. He was called all sorts of Arabic variants of ‘he is a Machiavellian windbag’. The joint ruler, al-Bashir, emerged slowly from the background, but still bided his time. Discontent had started in 1991, but al-Turabi’s nemesis took years to evolve; finally the president’s patience was exhausted and his religious patron was overthrown in a constitutional coup. Meanwhile, the tempo of international pressure mounted, as did the endless war in the south.

  1. Sudan’s pyramids at Meroë are much smaller than their Egyptian counterparts, but their lonely and largely unvisited location is very atmospheric.

  2. General Charles Gordon was a religious crank who disobeyed explicit orders to evacuate British and Egyptian officials and troops from Khartoum in 1884.

  3. Gordon’s death made him a Victorian icon. There were no reliable Western eye-witnesses to his death, but that did not stop the British media reporting lurid accounts of his ‘martyrdom’ to the imperial cause.

  4. General Horatio Herbert Kitchener defeated the Mahdists at the Battle of Omdurman in 1898. Sudan remained under British control until independence in 1956.

  5. The leader of the Mahdists was Muhammad Ahmad ibn Abdullah. He proclaimed a jihad not only in Sudan, but also throughout the Middle East. His tomb in Omdurman. (Author.)

  6. Contemporary picture of the governor’s palace where Gordon was killed. After independence it became the presidential palace. (Author.)

  7. The command vehicle used by General Omar al-Bashir in the 1989 coup. (Author.)

  8. Al-Bashir greets Sadiq al-Mahdi, the former premier, in early 2014. (Sudan government archives.)

  9. The Sudanese President greets his old rival, Dr Hassan al-Turabi, during a reconciliation process in early 2014. (Government archives.)

  10. Dr Hassan al-Turabi was more interested in international jihad rather than the details of domestic governance, but he was a highly gifted intellectual and spiritual leader. He was equally at home in tie or turban, and in English and French as much as Arabic.

  11. For the first years after the revolution of 1989, al-Bashir concentrated on military matters, but eventually he removed al-Turabi from power and became politically dominant by 1999.

  12. Bigwigs in the ruling National Congress Party, Dr Ibrahim A. Ghandour (left) and Ali Othman Taha, who led Khartoum’s team during the peace talks with the south (2002-2005). (Tony Denton.)

  13. The charismatic but authoritarian leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, Dr John Garang. He died shortly after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

  14. Garang’s successor was Salva Kiir, who became the first president of independent South Sudan. (Irwin Armstrong.)

  15. Riek Machar became Kiir’s deputy in the new republic, but rebelled against him in December 2013.

  16. In 1998 US President Clinton sent cruise missiles to destroy the Al-Shifa facility in Khartoum. It was not producing WMD precursors, but instead anti-malaria and veterinary medicines. (Author.)

  17. In 1996 Riek Machar joined Khartoum as part of the ‘Peace from Within’ policy. In June 1996 government troops march as a part of a peace rally in Juba, the southern capital. (Author.)

  18. Tribal dancer taking part in a peace rally in Torit, June 1996. (Author.)

  19. Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) insurgents, near El Fasher, Darfur, 2004. (Author.)

  20. SLA insurgents, Darfur, 2004. (Author.)

  21. Cameraman Irwin Armstrong with SLA troops, 2004. (Author.)

  22. Government counter-insurgency forces, Darfur, 2005. (Author.)

  23. US aid for IDP camp near El Fasher, 2004. (Author.)

  24. Mosque in Sarasir, the village where al-Bashir grew up. (Tony Denton.)

  25. Diplomatic duties: al-Bashir at the 12th AU summit. (Government archives.)

  26. Unlike most heads of state in Africa, al-Bashir is a patient and ready listener, even to Western journalists. (Tony Denton.)

  27. Al-Bashir’s second wife, Widad Babiker Omer. She is the widow of a fellow conspirator in the 1989 coup. The President’s second marriage made it fashionable in northern Sudan to marry widows of ‘martyred’ soldiers. (Tony Denton.)

  28. Mohammed Hassan, the President’s younger brother and look-alike. (Tony Denton.)

  29. Hadiya, the President’s mother. She was 88 when interviewed for this book. (Tony Denton.)

  30. Al-Bashir is very much a family man, seen here with his second wife and stepdaughter, at his farm near Khartoum. (Tony Denton.)

  31. The President doted on his youngest stepchild, Amna, pictured here in conversation with the author, at the presidential farm. All the stepchildren, nephews and nieces speak English fluently, albeit with an American accent. (Tony Denton.)

  32. Al-Bashir accommodated his three nieces (the children of his brother, Mohammed Hassan)

  33. Salva Kiir voting, in Juba, during the 2010 election. He had trouble finding his name on the voting lists at the correct election centre. (Irwin Armstrong.)

  34. SPLA policeman guarding a voting centre in Bentiu, April 2010. Police and party workers were often accused of ‘helping people to vote’, although the majority of the population, especially females, were illiterate. (Tony Denton.)

  35. Author interviewing an election official near Juba during 2011 referendum. Irwin Armstrong was the cameraman. (Marty Stalker.)

  36. In private, al-Bashir was usually a quiet considered man, but he took on another persona in front of crowds. A fluent orator, not to say rabble-rouser, his rhetoric sometimes got the better of him and he would launch into sweeping over-statements and colourful threats to his opponents. But this is very much in the style of Arab political speeches. (Government archives.)

  37. The President at his farm in January 2014. He insisted he wanted to retire to take up farming full-time. (Tony Denton.)

  38. Breakfast with Bashir. The Sudanese are famously hospitable to foreigners. On the author’s first visit to the country, however, he was arrested by the Minister of Justice himself. On the last visit, nearly 20 years later, he enjoyed a late breakfast with the President at his farm, January 2014. (Tony Denton.)

  Chapter 6

  The General Takes the Reins

  The fall of al-Turabi.

  President al-Bashir had always seen himself as a soldier first and a politician second. That is one reason why he left the religious and pol
itical manoeuvrings to al-Turabi, who had avoided formal political office. Al-Turabi was committed to what he regarded as far more important, his world Islamic renaissance. Petty local politics and administration were beneath him. As the frictions within the regime began to intensify, al-Turabi decided to seek political power. This was a mistake. Al-Turabi’s soaring rhetoric and calls to jihad did not directly challenge the diarchy; moving into formal politics did.

  Al-Bashir had studiously concentrated on his power base: the military and security services. The man who held it together was Major General Bakri Hassan Saleh. Born in Dongola in 1949, at around six feet four inches and thick set, he was physically imposing. For an officer in charge of the intelligence services and later defence minister, this proved a useful attribute especially when, as a colonel, he helped al-Bashir first seize power in 1989. Tough, big and smart, he was said to terrify even his superiors. He certainly terrified me. In January 2002 he gave his first ever interview to a foreign journalist. The towering officer wore dark sunglasses inside, which added to his sinister image. I asked him about the recent controversial defence expenditure, using the new petro-dollars to buy expensive foreign kit, including, it was rumoured at the time, Russian MiG-29s.