Trial By Fire
They were some of the highest-ranking officers in the Sudanese army and, last year, they became enemies of the state. Their crime? They refused to bomb civilians
BY Benjamin Joffe-Walt
Photography by Alexia Webster
A member of the crowd mutters something in Arabic. “There is confusion” is the best translation. There are about 15 armed men in blue guarding the metal stairs to this Sudanese court. If you look important and scream loud enough you’ll be allowed to enter, but first you must push through the herd of soldiers blocking the stairs.
Inside, there are many more men in blue—about 90 of them. There are also 30 lawyers wearing black cloaks and about 150 others in this tiny courtroom. It is more crowded in here than in a subway car at rush hour and the courtroom furniture is covered in sweat. The lawyers, some of the most famous in the country, stand in the sticky stiffness.
The accused are not brought to the compound. A defence lawyer asks why and the public prosecutor tells the court, “This is only a procedural session.” But there are 300 soldiers in the compound waiting for the accused to arrive. The government would not go to such great lengths for this “procedural session” if not for the seriousness of the accusations. The accused men are being held for refusing to bomb civilians.
This temporary, hyper-secure court is hosting the Darfur trial of the year. Few know about it and only a handful of foreign journalists have managed to gain entry. The men on trial en absentia are a group of 26 Darfurians accused of plotting a coup to take over the Sudanese government. Ten of the accused are high-ranking officers—soldiers, pilots, even a colonel. They were arrested in March 2003, and have been in detention in a military prison charged with treason (a civil offence) but no military offences. They all face the death penalty.
“The Western media are completely naïve about these things,” says a high-ranking UN official who asked to remain anonymous. “Very few Sudanese even know about it.”
Since February 2003 when the fighting began, the conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan between the government-supported militia and the non-Arab people of the region has become a bloody, brutal, barbaric war. The Sudanese government’s military strategy in Darfur has featured indiscriminate aerial bombing. Both state and independent media have documented the barrel bombs filled with shrapnel dropped from Antonov planes. Now the government is trying to make an example of these men who refused to follow orders, using state media to deflect attention from the fact that they have dealt a huge blow to the credibility of the government’s campaign in Darfur.
Early last year, all 10 officers were fired from their military jobs. They were arrested as civilians, accused first of espionage then of launching a coup attempt. “We were in the prison and they brought them in in khakis with black sacks over their heads and a long chain holding them together,” says one witness from Kobir Prison, where the men were taken. “Then they put them away. It was the last we saw of them.”
Lawyers for the men say many have been tortured and one was put in solitary confinement without cause. “We’ve seen no evidence of a coup,” says Hafiz Ahmed Abdalla, a lawyer on the defence team. “Everyone knows this is a political case but it’s happening in criminal court.”
“He said, ‘I’d rather be killed than help bomb my own people,’ so now they are going to kill him,” says Gihan Ahmad Omir, the wife of one of the accused men. “The government says he was planning a coup but we don’t know the truth. How can 10 soldiers take over the government?”
“He was sent there to do bombings but he said it is inhumane to bomb civilians so he came back,” says Aza Abakkir, the sister of Colonel Moheldein Salih. “He is a hero for refusing.” The highest ranking officer to refuse, Salih’s case is particularly sensitive for the government, as he was supposed to lead the government forces in Darfur. “He was a very good pilot working 20 years in the Air Force,” Abakkir says.
Salih’s children are surprisingly blasé about the situation. While the family has visited him four times since his arrest, the children are too young to understand where he is. Calm and doe-eyed, they know nothing of resistance, what the Air Force is or where Darfur is in relation to their home. There is nothing to say about this thing tearing at their country that has taken their father.
The case of the Darfur refusers speaks to the joke justice rampant on the Sudanese political scene since the onset of the conflict more than two years ago. Opposition parties are broken and spied on, political leaders and lawyers put in arbitrary detention, families hassled. “It is important for security departments in regimes like these to say there is a security threat just around the corner [to justify their behaviour],” says the UN official.
Dr. Mudowi Ibrahim was arrested and detained for more than six months for helping found the Sudanese Democratic Movement, an opposition party calling for peaceful negotiations between the government and the rebel movements. “They say there is freedom of [political] parties,” Ibrahim says, “then they try to say we are leading the armed conflict in Darfur.”
It seems the fastest way for political prisoners in Sudan to be released is to go on a hunger strike. Otherwise, it could be years before they see a judge. Such was the case with Ibrahim. Only after he gave up food and water did the government put him on trial. “They charged me with waging war against the state, spying and seven other death-penalty-related charges,” he says. As evidence against him, the government produced two satellite phone boxes and amnesty appeals people sent on his behalf. “Even the judge laughed,” Ibrahim remembers. Prosecutors later withdrew the case. “They want to show the international community that they know what they’re doing in this country and that no one is stronger than security,” he says, adding “the resistance is only increasing.”
Mohammed Tahir was in prison for seven months because his number was found in the cell phone of a suspected opposition organizer. A Darfurian student in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, Tahir was released only after waging two hunger strikes. “I have no relation to the rebel movements in Darfur,” he says. “It is only because I am from Darfur [that I was put in prison].” Tahir now needs medical care because of the damage caused by the hunger strikes, and the security forces follow him everywhere. “You can write a book about the abuse of Darfurians in Khartoum,” he says.
Sudan is a classic police state—army uniforms replace school uniforms. Children sell plastic sniper rifles in the streets. In the presence of security forces, people seem crazed—as if they have been chemically drugged. They speak fast and walk erratically, their eyes never fixed on person or point for more than a second. It is not simply the Darfur conflict that has caused this, people seem used to this type of fear. Rumour has been exhausted to the point of obsession, yanked at everyone’s nerves, taken away their capacity to think. Information leads to a kind of profound psychological mania. Activists don’t talk to other activists, victims keep quiet, internationals fear deportation, and journalists—forget it.
Alexia Webster, a photographer travelling with me, is detained twice for carrying a camera. She commiserates with a team of European camerawomen for Channel 4. “That’s nothing!” the Channel 4 team tells her. They have been arrested on four separate occasions. Earlier, the Channel 4 team met up with a team from Channel 13. Turns out, they too have been arrested and detained. Channel 4 is thrilled. Being arrested has wasted all their time. On deadline for a story, here one has fallen into their lap: the trials and tribulations of being a Channel 13 journalist in Sudan.
After a break in proceedings, my translator and I are in a taxi, driving back to the court. “Do you find Sudan peaceful?” the driver asks with a smile. I think about this question. “No,” I say simply, trying to be honest despite the la-di-da tourist jabber expected of the moment. My response surprises him. “We are so relaxed” he says. On the side of the road young boys are selling plastic AK-47s and sniper rifles. They simulate a loud pop while pretending to pull the trigger. We buy one. The driver’s older son is already in the Air Force and his 11-year-old is obsessed with weapons. “My son,” he says, “he will love this.”
Back in the courtroom, there are 50 pairs of eyes on my translator and me. Soldiers are everywhere. It is an over-the-top pageant of ostentatious militarism. Several men stand at the exit, hands on hips, holding tear gas and stun grenades—should anything get out of hand in this room of judges, lawyers and security personnel, rest assured the guys at the door can blow us all to hell.
The prosecutor, a representative of the security forces, stands up and begins to speak, even interrupting the judge. They focus on jurisdiction—the defence claims the detainees are being held illegally in a prison of the security forces, when they should be held by police.
The prosecutor interrupts, arguing that security forces are responsible for security in all of Sudan and, besides, the men are being held by the police. This brilliant articulation of propaganda seems to satisfy the army men in the courtroom. They all purse their lips and nod confidently, as if this response makes all further questions unnecessary and at the same time amuses everyone just a bit.
Judge Moatasim Taj Assir quickly rules in favour of the government security forces. The whole thing is sloppy, comical, and outrageously abusive of any degree of justice. There is an outcry—but even this is difficult to gauge. It is commonplace here for voices to elevate incrementally throughout discussions, so by the time the defence lawyers have finished responding to the judge’s decision, there are so many hands and so much spit in the air that the future direction of the whole matter is difficult to discern. The judge writes a letter allowing the lawyers to visit their clients. Everyone is happy.
We are given a similar note, but when we visit the prison, my translator and I, like the lawyers, are told the accused are not there. We press, arguing the judge himself says they are here. No, they say, they are not. They simply do not exist, these men who refused to bomb their own people.
