Sudan Ba’ath party leader: ‘Warring parties seeking to narrow public discourse on conflict’

Ba’ath party leader Ahmed Babiker discusses the ramifications of a Sudan TV programme called Khoyout El Zalam, which aired on Saturday and asserted that Yousef Ezzat, the political advisor to the RSF commander, had issued a coup statement from the National Broadcasting Corporation building before the outbreak of war on April 15 last year.

In an interview with Radio Dabanga, Ahmed Babiker, the leader of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party, downplayed the media conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Before the programme, which translates to Threads of Darkness aired on Saturday, Lt Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan, head of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, said in a statement: “We have documented videos proving the involvement of the so-called Yousef Ezzat and his attempt to record eight statements for radio and five for television to announce the seizure of power, and soon [the videos] will be up to the scrutiny of public opinion.” Babiker noted that a few days later, Sudan TV promoted an episode of Threads of Darkness on the attempted RSF coup.

“Ezzat issued a statement to mitigate the campaign, acknowledging that he had begun to announce the coup”. In the statement, seen by Radio Dabanga, he said: “It was not my initiative, but after [the outbreak of violence] I proceeded to read the statements on the evening of April 15, 2023. It was broadcast and heard by everyone in the cities and regions of Sudan through Radio Omdurman, not on television as the army commander claims.”

The RSF political advisor added: “We are considerate of the circumstances of the army commander, who only heard about the announcement now, but those statements do not indicate that the RSF was assuming power. We are not interested in authority. Our entire country was burned, and its people were killed, tortured, and displaced because of an ill authority.”

He noted that those who “moved television broadcasts and vehicles to other locations days before the war were the ones who planned the conflict” and asserted that stopping the war and holding those who initiated it accountable is the only solution.

‘Limited thinking’

Babiker dismissed the significance of who reached the radio tower first. “Both parties are trying to constrain the Sudanese people to narrow choices and limited thinking about who fired the first shot and who planned the coup.” He emphasised that both the RSF and the SAF leadership opposed the December 2018 Revolution.

He accused both factions of disrupting the process of change in Sudan. “They are the ones who brought us to this situation. It is a shared responsibility because both parties were planning to seize power.

“The conflict between the RSF command and the SAF leadership revolves around power. Historically, it is known that the army in Sudan did not bring democracy. Not only the army alone, but no armed military force has ever achieved democracy for the people in Sudan.”

The political leader pointed out that even after South Sudan’s secession, “which followed a war, the rule of a single organisation and a specific political trend was established”. He avoided calling it a dictatorship because it became a separate country but noted that it did not produce democracy nor celebrate diversity.

He believed that both the army and the RSF were preparing the atmosphere to ignite the war. “Even the civilian forces, as we knew, were trying to stop this war. However, each side of the conflict was working to exclude the other to monopolise power.”

Babiker said that the debate over who went to the National Radio and Television Corporation first to broadcast the coup statement, “whether it was Ezzat or someone from El Burhan’s group”, is not the main point. “Both sides had clearly been preparing for war, threatening each other and seeking supporters along political and tribal lines.

“All of this is not important and does not distract us from our call to stop the war.” The continued fighting “has harmed the country and is thrusting Sudan into the game of international disputes and conflicts among major powers.

“This is evidenced by the fact that each party is seeking external support and may make possible concessions to win the battle, as both parties are moving towards a stage of balance of weakness,” he stated.

“At this stage, we, as civil forces, must think strategically and escape the duality imposed by both parties. The narrative that benefits the Sudanese people the most is the one against the war; they must not support any of its factions.”

Prisoner release

Commenting on the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) unilaterally releasing 739 prisoners of war (PoWs) on Saturday, Babiker linked it to the Wad El Noura massacre and an attempt to cover up crimes committed by the RSF in El Gezira. He described the situation in the state as a “scandal and an unprecedented moral and political defeat for the RSF.

“Although the RSF is advancing in the field, this progress is not decisive,” Babiker said, noting the dynamic nature of wars, with fortunes changing daily.

He expects that in the coming period, the RSF will weaken while the army will become stronger. “However, the critical point is that both parties have now entered a state of unnatural weakness and humiliation.

“The SAF visited Russia to make concessions and give Russia everything in order to obtain weapons,” he said. “The RSF will also reach the point of taking weapons from anywhere, ready to make all concessions without any problem, as it controls a large part of Darfur. Things are moving in this direction.”

Babiker pointed out that releasing the prisoners is an attempt to improve the RSF’s image, but their actions on the ground do not support this. “We assert that there should be no prisoners, and that both parties should treat prisoners better. We have seen and followed how the RSF treats detainees, both civilian and military. It is bad treatment and unnatural humiliation to degrade the other.”

The Ba’ath party leader urged all parties impacted by the conflict to remain aware and unite to stop the war.