 Sudan's quest for democratic transition, and that's not easy. I'm with Mutasim Ali and Mutasim is in Arlington, Virginia, but he's from Sudan, and we're going to talk about that here on Sync Tech at four o'clock clock. A very interesting subject because when you look at some of these countries we've been studying with project expedite justice and transitional justice, you feel that maybe this could happen anywhere, and I have come to believe that it can happen anywhere. Welcome to the show, Mutasim. Thank you very much, Jay, for having me. So let's talk about Sudan for a minute. We have a little map. Can you kind of place it for us and tell us where the action is and where cartoon the capital is and the difference between North and South and how the country is like shaping up in the region? Okay, here's the map. Sure, wait, this is actually the new map. It does show South Sudan at the bottom, which became an independent state in 2011 after they exercised their rights to to serve the termination. And right to your question as to where are the actions in Sudan, and unfortunately I have to say actions are everywhere, but most importantly I would have to indicate to the western part of the country, which is called region Darfur. This is where most of the atrocity crimes, and I remember last time I was in the show, we spoke about the atrocity crimes and primarily we refer to war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and serious human rights abuses. Then in the southern part, which is a little upper than South Sudan, we have an area we call the two areas. We refer to regions of South Kordofan and Blue Nile. These regions are still not in peace, human rights violations continue to happen, though not in extent as in the former regime of the former president, Omar Bashir, who is now in the custody of the Sudanese government. But that's another region that we should highlight, again because of the crimes, human rights violations in that region. Then we have the eastern part where recently a lot of people are speaking about the Black Haid, and that's in the eastern part of Sudan, definitely will elaborate a little more, but that's another region to look at. And I think the importance of looking at the eastern part of Sudan because it sort of neighbors two countries, one Eritrea. We know Eritrea is one of the most oppressive regimes in the world. It's a one-man show country. Most of their friends knew only one president who was still in power until today. And then below Eritrea, we have Ethiopia, which is also you have the Tigray region. Also, Tigray region has also came up because of the atrocities that are being committed. And some experts even suggest that there is a genocide in the Tigray region. This is yet to be proved, but in any event, it is a very turbulent region. And then we have Khartoum, this is where everything happens in terms of political leadership and power and decision-making center. And so this is more or less about the mouth of Sudan. I googled the news for Sudan this morning, and I wanted to step through some of the top headlines. It seems like a lot of things are happening in Sudan right now. First of all, you mentioned the blockade. So we have a blockade on the east there in Sudan's main port by protesters. And they are stopping the entry of fuel oil and food in that blockade. What's going on in the blockade? And so unfortunately, this is part of the political fragility in Sudan. Ever since the removal of the former regime, people continue to protest some for basic needs, food prices, fuel on all of that. And others have political demands as in the eastern Sudan. And some experts suggest that the protest in eastern Sudan is ignited by the military leaders in Sudan to delegitimize the efforts of the civilian leaders. And to say that civilian leaders have failed to address the concerns of the Sudanese people. And as such, the cabinet should be dissolved and formed a new cabinet that is more inclusive. But I think this is an argument that be used by military leaders often to strengthen their grip on power. And so the protest in the blockade in eastern Sudan, though they have legitimate demands, yet they're all concerns about that they are being used by military leaders just to strengthen their grip on power. Well, that all opens Pandora's box because the blockade reflects so much and has so much effect on things. I mean, for example, we have port failures in the east coast and the west coast now in the United States. That's going to affect supply lines. It is affecting supply lines. And I guess it's over labor issues and unavailability of the workforce. Bottom line, though, is that it's going to affect supply lines. And any blockade is going to affect supply lines in Sudan the same way. So if the military leaders are doing this and fomenting the unrest around the port, the main port for Sudan, they're going to have a supply line issue. And that's going to exacerbate the frustration and the risk for the country in government. You told me before the show about these repeated coups all in the past couple of weeks. So it's a sign of instability. It's a sign of fundamental disagreement between government and military. Can you talk about it? Absolutely. I think this is a very important event as Sudan or Sudanese people have sacrificed just to realize freedom, justice and peace. And unfortunately, we have in Sudan a long history of military coups. Some were successful, including the former regime that was removed by the Sudanese Revolution in April of 2019. But the recent military coup, which was September 21st, it was an effort to undermine the democratic transition. Both civilian leaders and military leaders condemned the attempt, even though civilian and military leaders have tremendous disagreements, power sharing and blaming each other. But they agree that the attempt was endangering the democratic transition in Sudan. So the civilian leaders think that the attempted coup was organized by the remnants of the former regime of President Omar Bashir, as they are still in the civil service, they're still in the military, intelligence police. And so that's part of reason why in Sudan we have, there is a committee called anti-corruption and the, you know, this empowerment committee to remove the elements of the former regime from the government offices. And so this is really a huge concern for many Sudanese people. The Sudanese people were very hopeful for change. But now they sort of realize the threats to the revolutions and to their sacrifices. And they think that the military, I mean, from majority or some Sudanese, at least, think that the military leaders who are chairing the first, you know, period of the transitional period are not interested in the democratic transition. And as such, they create all these events, whether security concerns or civic unrest to undermine the democratic transition. And to say that the only way for Sudan to move forward is to, for the military to be empowered to ensure security and peace in Sudan. And so this is really a huge concern. And, but I believe that people would have a say that they would not, I mean, definitely Sudanese people super determined that there would be no more military in Sudan. I hope so. You know, there's a very interesting parallel, a very interesting lesson in all of this is that the two lessons that I can see, I was I'm thinking really like your reaction to it. Number one lesson is that there's an agreement for the transfer of power. That is, it's a really odd agreement. I've never heard of this before, but here you go. The military has power by agreement for 21 months. And then it rotates to the civilian government for the next 21 months. And it's supposed to be a peaceful transition from one to the other. Just like, you know, we thought we had in this country, a peaceful, agreeable transition from administration to administration. But if the, you know, the people in power want to preserve their power, want to stop the peaceful transfer of power to the next, the next organization, next group that's supposed to take power, like, for example, the ones who win the election, or in Sudan from the military to the civilians, their one obvious strategy for them is to disrupt things and to try to pose blame on the group that's supposed to take power and undermine them. Then in that, in that way, I suppose, the strategy is clear that they want to stop the transition of power from the first to the second. And indeed, you could, you could find that phenomenon happening here in the United States. But certainly it's an obvious strategy in Sudan. Your thoughts? Absolutely. So I think you've perfectly highlighted this. And we've seen that here in America in, you know, January 2020. And so in, you know, actually January 2021, this year. But in the case of Sudan, it's even, you know, more obvious, right? Because in Sudan, we do not have democratic institutions. Guess what? Until today, since the removal of the former regime, Sudan does not have legislative body to hold the executive body accountable, right? To, you know, to maintain the, you know, the, the balance of power, check and balance, and so on and all of that. And so this is not the case in Sudan. So you can only imagine how, you know, how easy would it be for the, whether military or civilian leaders to remain in power. And so the, the recent events from the civil unrest in the East, in, in Eastern Sudan, or the attempted coup, or many other events in, in Sudan, including some of the, you know, terror attacks that happened lately in Khartoum, they all indicate that there is no interest, at least from the military part to transform the power to civilians. Here's, this, this is not to say that civilians are willing to also transform into democracy and need for free and fair elections, right? Because also politicians, the political parties were part of the, we call it the political incubator of the, the cabinet, the, the, the, the councils of ministers, and they seem to be selfish. The, the, the cabinet is less inclusive, basically politically speaking. And so that's like another concern by ministers. And so everything indicates that there is no real interest from both military and civilians to move into, or to successfully, you know, accomplish democratic transition. And so that's really, It doesn't bode well, it doesn't bode well. But the second point that comes from my mind anyway, just in this discussion, is this, is it in a democratic society, ideally, you have a right to a fair vote, have that, and you have the people who are elected are civilians. They're, you know, the government, so to speak, the civilian government. And in a democratic society, the military works for, responds to, is subordinate to the civilian government. And that's the way it is in the US Constitution. But, you know, questions have been raised about that. And in various places in the world, you know, it's not settled that the military should respond to the civilians. It's not settled that the civilians, the representatives of civilians, the democratic or elected civilians should be in charge. And there are people, including people in the United States, who, you know, believe that the military should be able to speak out against the civilians, and exercise a certain amount of power. And, you know, are not necessarily subordinate to the chain of command, to the commander in chief, so to speak. And I think that just a thought, and I like your reaction, if you don't have this sort of general consensus that the military works for the civilian, and the civilian works for the people is represented, you know, represented by a vote of the people, then you really can't have democracy. Am I right? Absolutely. And this is one of the reasons why, when the Sudanese people, all Sudanese people from different parts of Sudan, as we, you know, we explained earlier from Darfur, the two areas, the Blue Nile and South Kudufan, Eastern Sudan, Northern Sudan, and Khartoum, all the people demanded one thing, civilian rule. And I think that is just a response to, you know, to the tiredness of the Sudanese people, to the all, to the former military rules. And so the idea here is the military should be subject to civilian leadership. They should be subordinate to civilian, you know, leaders in the country. And so that's why, in the context of the transitional justice in Sudan, we speak of one of the key elements, of course, is to, you know, conduct or undertake, you know, institutional reforms. And the idea of institutional reforms is to reform all the security sector to make sure that the army would not be loyal to individuals, rather to the Sudanese people. The army and the military on the security sector should not be, should not be a political party, should not be involved in politics, rather a professional institution that their sole goal is to protect the land and the people. This is not the case so far. The security on the military institution in Sudan seem to act like a political party. They participate in political events. They campaign sometimes. And that's part of the reason why I am worried about, you know, the democratic transition in Sudan. And so one of the things that, you know, we recommend is to undertake institutional reforms to begin with. And that begins with, you know, reform in the legal military laws, like the army law, the police law, and on the other laws that are related to the security sector. And people even say that we need to restructure the entire, you know, you know, military institution, right, so as to be inclusive to all Sudanese people with respect to the area. Who would do that, Mutasim? And, you know, if the military is running things right now, then in charge in their rotation, if you will, are they going to agree to that? You know, reform comes hard when the reformers are in charge, but rather the ones who oppose reform are in charge. Surely that's a big question. And I do think that the Sudanese people are brave enough to push for this. They were able to remove the former regime from power. One of the most oppressive regimes in the world, a regime of, you know, an authoritarian president Omar Bashir, who committed atrocities in Darfur, in the two areas, eastern Sudan, pretty much all, you know, in all the country. They were able to remove that regime from power. And I believe that these same Sudanese people can make that reform. But again, unfortunately, it's not going to be that quick. Will the army go along with it? Will the military go along with these reforms? Have they indicated they will? I know so far there seems to be no interest from the military because it does not serve their interests. The military leaders, they tend to act as politicians. And so by restructuring and reforming the military institution, that would definitely would not be in line with their with their with their interests and political, you know, objectives. And so when Sudanese people protested to remove the former regime, not that the military wanted to, you know, win that change, but because people's will was stronger, right, than their desire. And so they had to remove the former regime. And so I believe that even though the military leaders would not cope with the demands of the Sudanese people for a total civilian rule and the situation of reform, but I think there is a chance to make it happen because the powers, the power of the people is, you know, overweight. The where does the where does the trial and conviction of what's his name, Bashir, who was in the custody now of the International Court in Amsterdam. But you know, what is what is the how does that affect what you're describing? Will it help if he is affirmatively prosecuted and convicted and and given a sentence? Will it hurt if he is not? Well, I think there seems to be a consensus among the Sudanese people that Bashir must be prosecuted. This is even, you know, among the military leaders, right, because in the end, if the Bashir regime is back again in power, the first people to be in danger are the military leaders. And so there is a consensus, you know, regarding the prosecution of the Bashir and his members of the regime. The disagreement, though, is regarding the whether Bashir should be tried in Sudan or extradited to the ICC. On one hand, the military leaders, some of the military leaders think that, you know, it may be appropriate to prosecute him in Sudan. And that the incident, they are independent, you know, competent judicial institutions. And so there is no reason to extradite him to the ICC, whereas others think I think for, you know, because this is the demand of the Sudanese people, particularly the people of, you know, in Darfur. And I think one way to achieve peace is to extradite Bashir to the ICC. And so there is like that split, even among the military and civilian leaders. And it does seem like, you know, nobody wants to champion the extradition of Bashir to the ICC. And this is, you know, sort of, it really causes a lot of frustration. So you think he'll be tried in Darfur in Sudan? I would like to think, well, I mean, it's hard to tell where would he be tried. But, you know, the way I see it, he might not be extradited to the ICC. You know, I follow the news and I analyze the statements of the government officials, particularly the military, because they are empowered, they are the ones to decide whether to extradite him or not. And they do not seem to be interested in doing so. But there's also, you know, sort of a technical legal aspect to the extradition, because Bashir is also being tried for the military coup of 1989, which brought him to power back then. And so the question, you know, that people are asking if Bashir is extradited to the ICC, what about the, you know, the tribe for the coup he conducted in 1989? And so these are really the major questions that are hard to go here and there. But I think for enlisting peace in Sudan, the, you know, the best way is to extradite him to the ICC, the Sudanese judicial institutions are not competent or independent at this point to prosecute at least senior leaders like Bashir. Would you say there's a resistance, not only in, you know, in Sudan, but in other countries, especially in Africa, where there have been, you know, atrocities and the like, to resist the influence of the involvement of international organizations and to say we can handle it. We can do it here. We don't need you to come around because you're really not from our country. Is that in play here? Yes. This is really, you know, sort of, you know, an argument that we hear all the time that the International Criminal Court primarily focuses on, you know, African leaders, right? And that none of the Western leaders, like, you know, they give example of Joey W. Bush or Tony Blair, right? None of them were sort of, you know, united by the ICC. So that's really a thing that being raised by many Africans. But I do think that, you know, that argument is flawed for many reasons. Number one, you know, regardless to whether Western leaders were indebted by the ICC or not, the fact is, people like Bashir killed hundreds of thousands of people, right? This is number one. Number two, this argument is mostly used by, you know, dictators, right? Like, so the idea is basically to shield, you know, their power. And so they continue to do so, to argue that. And thirdly, we haven't really seen any African leader who committed atrocities would be prosecuted by, you know, by their countries. And so if that's not the case, then are we calling for, you know, impunity or what? And so in the case of Sudan, I think regardless of what African countries think of the ICC, the Sudanese people, particularly the victims of the atrocities in Darfur, you know, call for extradition of Bashir to the ICC. And so it is up to the Sudanese people to determine that, but not other countries. As it should be. A couple of other things I wanted to ask you about, Mutasim. There's a group, let's call them the militia. There were five members of the Sudanese intelligence organizations, according to the press that were shot dead two weeks ago in Sudan, by the militia. Who is the militia? Who do they work for? How do they play in this political environment you've been describing? Yeah, so the murder of the intelligence members in Sudan or at least to the information that we have so far, you know, was carried out by a cell of a group that is loyal to the Islamic State organization, the ISIS group. And so that's, you know, if, you know, I mean, we'll get to see evidence for that. But if that's the case, it is a concerning because, you know, this is, you know, another attempt to, you know, sort of to challenge the democratic transition in Sudan. This is actually, you know, this is not the first time that the members of the intelligence were killed. This is actually the second time in less than a month. And so it is a terrorist cell, as the government allocates. We, you know, we really do not have information to further analyze this, but we will treat it as, you know, the government says, but yes, that's really a serious concern. Stabilizing, you know, and the idea now is to stabilize things. And that certainly not, you know, doesn't stabilize anything, it destabilizes. And my last question for you is an article I saw about Facebook, about how Facebook had recently indicated that it was going to remove propaganda networks which are linked to the military in Sudan. Apparently the military camp here has been using Facebook to spread propaganda. And only when would this happen? Oh, today. Facebook has taken the military networks down or Facebook. I mean, that's pretty shocking in the sense that, A, the military was using a propaganda technique, as in view of our discussion today, it's not a surprise. But also it's shocking that Facebook, which has been testifying in Congress about its, you know, its action to disrupt things and its acceptance of information that's divisive to a country, to a democracy, was doing that, has been doing that in Sudan, which is so fragile, vulnerable, and Facebook was there making things worse. What are your thoughts on that? Well, I mean, that's a very interesting news to me, because I haven't really read that I haven't seen that, but that's really interesting to look at. And for me it's even more interesting that the military and the militias are using, you know, social media platforms to sort of go after, you know, after people who they think threat to them, particularly human rights defenders, journalists and all of that. And in Sudan, you know, you know, aside from Facebook, we have, you know, the government enacted a law in 2020, which is called cybersecurity law. And so, you know, as part of that, many human rights defenders were interrogated, were called, you know, were charged for, you know, writing posts on their Facebook accounts, that are critical to government efficient, primarily the militia and military leaders. And so, to see this, you know, the news that you're reading to me, I think for me is super interesting. On one hand, we have, where does the freedom of expression, you know, where do we put the line between the freedom of expression and, you know, also on one hand, on the other, limiting the, you know, the threats and all the restrictions that the military and repressive regimes, you know, sort of try to impose on. Very troubling to find that. Definitely, that's very interesting. You know, again, it's not necessarily true. And again, in a democracy, you need to have truth in you. And of course, there's a First Amendment, a right of expression, but there's also a need to keep it true. And the same issue that exists in this country with Facebook apparently exists in other countries. We know in Myanmar, it was very divisive and they caused tremendous violence in Myanmar, or perpetuated it. And here, now, we find that the same kind of thing exists, you know, in Africa, in Sudan. So, this is a global kind of issue, global phenomenon, and it's very disturbing. So, we'll have to follow the story. We'll have to follow the story going forward, because we can learn so much from the way, you know, things evolve in Sudan, in other African countries, you know, to bring home here, and to better examine and analyze our own experience in democracy, and to examine the risks we have to losing it. We should know what's happening in Sudan and elsewhere. Thank you so much for coming around with us. Thank you very much, Jay, for, you know, offering this platform to raise awareness about what is happening in the parts of the world. Thank you very much. I know we'll see you again soon. Thank you so much.