Al Bashir’s dictatorship in Sudan will last, says uncle

The uncle of Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir says he has been forced out of his chairmanship at El Intibaha newspaper, in a dispute with Bashir’s “military dictatorship”.”I believe this regime cannot be reformed,” El Tayeb Mustafa, 67 years old and a former member of Bashir’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP), told a journalist of AFP. “Nobody in the NCP is able to stand up to Bashir. NCP leaders do what he wants. Anyone who has a different position from him will be kicked out.” A senior ruling party official, Rabie Abdelati Ebeid, rejected the accusations. “Bashir cannot do each and every thing individually,” Ebeid said. He said the government was elected in 2010 and is not a military regime. El Intibaha newspaper Mustafa has founded El Intibaha newspaper in 2006, but is not writing any more columns and has resigned as chairman of the daily board. Authorities banned the newspaper for ‘political reasons’ but allowed it to return on 3 November on the condition that Mustafa would step down as chairman. He has begun legal action against Sudan’s corporate registry which revoked his 60 percent share ownership. Daily circulation of El Intibaha reached 80,000 but has dropped since he departed, Mustafa said. NCP official Ebeid said he does not think the ruling party now controls the newspaper, although individual NCP members may be involved with it. That is a commercial matter, “far away from politics”, Ebeid said. Politically, El Intibaha had been deeply critical of the decision to cut the subsidies of fuel price, which caused people to protest in September. They were cracked down by security forces. ‘Military dictatorship’ Although Al Bashir first took power in a 1989 Islamist-backed coup, his government uses the religion “only as slogans”, Mustafa says. “All Sudanese people know this. There is no freedom. This is a military dictatorship. And all of this is against Islam.” Mustafa proposed that Al Bashir leads a transitional government, ahead of transparent elections. “But politically he wants to stay in power to protect himself from warrants issued by the International Criminal Court over alleged war crimes in Darfur,” he said. The former chairman of El Intibaha asked his nephew to keep their political and family relations separate. “Now my family relations with him are not so good.” (Source: AFP) File photo: El Intibaha (AFP) Related: Sudanese security forces launch campaign of mass arrests (29 September 2013)