Muslim Brotherhood exploiting conflict in Sudan

Sudan has very highly educated people, probably more than any other country in Africa. It was the bread basket of the Arab world. But it has also been home to more extremism than all others. Home of Bin Laden, Darfur war criminals, Muslim Brotherhood.

There’s an Islamist movement in Sudan that grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood. It’s the National Islamic Front. Bashir’s party, the National Congress Party, is emblematic of that.

In June 1989, a Brigadier-General in the Sudanese Army, Omar al-Bashir, took power in a coup, overthrowing the elected civilian government. Al-Bashir allied himself with Hassan al-Turabi, the leader of the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood, who had created a Brotherhood-style Islamist organization, the National Islamic Front (NIF). 

In 2000, Al-Bashir arrested Al-Turabi, and would have him arrested several more times before Al-Turabi’s death in 2016. Al-Bashir sought two goals by doing this: to secure total power within Sudan and to explore ways of lifting Sudan’s isolation internationally. 

This proved to be well-timed: after 9/11, Al-Bashir could present his moves against Al-Turabi and the militant Islamists Al-Turabi had gathered in Sudan as part of the “War on Terror”. But the potential opening was short-lived.

In 2003, the non-Arab, mostly black African Muslim population in the Darfur area of Sudan erupted in rebellion after years of discriminatory policies and Al-Bashir’s regime responded with a ferocious campaign of massacres and ethnic cleansing. 

The Sudanese government utilised not only its own army and police, but—an important actor at the present time—paramilitary formations of Arab nomadic tribesmen known as the Janjaweed. 300,000 people were killed in the Darfur war, which the United Nations declared officially over in August 2009, though a low-intensity conflict and various “peace” initiatives continued long afterwards.

Five months before the “end” of the war, any possibility of the international community engaging with Al-Bashir was ended when he became the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC): an arrest warrant on charges of genocide was issued against Al-Bashir.