Islamist Foreign Policy in Sudan

Between Radicalism and the Search for Survival

Mohammed H. Sharfi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781351032841
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Regional Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Examining the role played by ideology, internal politics and key figures within Sudan after the 1989 coup, this book analyses policymaking in the Sudanese administration in-depth and studies its effect on international and domestic politics and foreign policy.

The military coup undertaken in June 1989 by the Sudanese Islamist movement, known to them as the 'National Salvation Revolution', established Sudan as a central actor in the instability of the region. This book explores the foreign policy, international and domestic politics of the new government, from post-coup Sudan to the present day. The intriguing political issues in Sudanese foreign policy during the period pose many questions regarding the dynamics of the government's domestic and international policymaking. Studying the fragmentation of the Islamist movement into various political bodies, this book examines the role of foreign policy as a contentious point of Sudanese domestic politics. Islamist Foreign Policy in Sudan also looks at the major factors in the relations of Sudan, such as the civil war, terrorism and human rights issues.

Islamist Foreign Policy in Sudan will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations, African politics, human rights studies and Islamic studies.

Part 1
Radical agenda

1
The radical foreign policy ideology in the 1990s

Introduction

Sudan’s interaction with many neighbouring states (nine before the secession of South Sudan) with different regimes and contradictory interests causes continuous difficulties in the choice of policy action. Probable threats related to economic, political or security interests were many in such a large country with a diverse multi-ethnic society. The inherent weakness of the economic, social and political bases required a pragmatic external policy to guarantee the achievement of national security objectives. However, ideology has always played a central role in the Sudanese domestic politics and is seen as an advantage in countering the external complications. Dunstan Wai presented in a case study of President Nimeiri’s regime the failure of “rhetorical radicalism” and the inherent internal impediments to its sustainability in the Sudanese context.¹ Following the toppling of Ibrahim Abboud’s regime, the provisional government (October 1964 to June 1965) adopted a revolutionary posture by supporting progressive movements in the region viewed as a moral responsibility. Howel and Hamid argued, “This new adventurism and militancy in foreign policy was partly a reaction to past conservatism, but in the exultant aftermath of the revolution, popular demonstrators and the re-emerging left-wing press kept up demands for reappraisal of Sudan’s world role.”²

In this context, the NIF ascendance to power in June 1989 through what it labelled the NSR—another ideological political phase in foreign policy. In particular, the first five years of the regime have had lasting ramifications in the Sudanese state.³ The new regime belief system necessitated its engagement with other Islamic movements, sharing to a large extent the same political agenda with some variations. The NIF support for Islamist movements around the world aim to inspire them to follow the NIF model of political action was one of the foreign policy objectives.

The foreign policy agenda of the NIF

The control of state institutions in parallel with Islamisation and Arabisation policies reflected the convictions of the NIF elite in constructing a model that could inspire other Islamic states. Decision makers advocate that the revival of Islamic glories in the international arena should begin with the implementation of domestic policies that would induce and mobilise Muslim communities around the Islamic agenda. The rigid and fundamentalist government policies contravened the diversity of Sudanese society and its tolerant nature, which required inclusive policies encompassing all existing cultures and traditions. It also demonstrated how the NIF elite looked towards the Islamic Umma as a united front in the effort to challenge the international system’s status quo.

This outlook created a new direction in the form and shape of Sudanese engagement in the region and in the international sphere. The urge to back Islamist groups stemmed from the government’s objective to advance these groups politically in their respective countries. The NSR’s elite viewed the weakness of the Muslims around the world as having a direct link to the Christian West’s attempts to control and undermine Muslims. There are three crucial themes that need to be explored in debating the regime’s overarching external agenda at the time, including the regime’s revolutionary claims, the leadership of political Islam and the alternatives for political survival. These themes generated a new style of politics that the Sudanese state currently continues to endure.

Revolutionary claims

Woodward argues that the 1989 coup was “less revolution than a continuation of themes in Sudanese politics,” making his case from the standpoint of domestic politics dynamics.⁴ He refers to the role of Sudanese society with its heterogeneous composition as a major constraint on any revolutionary mobilisation. The control of the state has always been difficult for any regime in Sudan, unless it is able to bring together a “mixture of social bases.”⁵ As an ideological movement, the NIF did not have this versatile social base. In addition, Woodward points out that “a coup is not a revolution: it is what happens afterwards, and how different the situation becomes, that will be judged in deciding whether a revolution has taken place.” Based on this argument, the constraints confronted the NSR due to Sudan’s internal social and political traits raised some valid questions regarding the rationale of an external revolutionary agenda.

Rose and Van Dusen argued that Sudan experienced a revolutionary regime in 1989, applying Stephen Waltz’s “balance of threat” theory to its external behaviour.⁶ They contended that the political change in 1989 was more than a “simple coup,” presenting their evidence through Waltz’s security competition analysis. They tested various aspects of Sudan’s foreign relations activities in relation to ideology and foreign intervention, taking the example of two neighbouring states (Egypt and Ethiopia). Sudan’s external policy was viewed as a threat to the stability of other states in the region, which intensified and triggered antagonistic atmosphere between its neighbours:

Revolution causes security competition by means of two mechanisms: by altering perceived levels of threat between Sudan in the international sphere and its neighbours, and by encouraging at least one of the sides to calculate that hostile actions could overcome the threat.⁷

David Armstrong maintains that revolutionary states represent the concept of “revolt against international society” defined in terms of established principles of non-intervention, sovereignty and respect for international law.⁸ States such as Libya, Cuba and Iran fit these criteria of revolutionary states with their radical foreign policy.

The question of revolution as a political phenomenon from an external threat dimension raises the issue of the NSR’s intentions with its ideology of political Islam. The NSR foreign policy in practice exhibits a resemblance to revolutionary state behaviour as described by Armstrong. Rhetoric about the use of SPLA/M and traditional political parties as agents for external powers and hostility towards the United States, the imperial state with oppressive and unjust policies, were prevalent among NSR elite. Armstrong also referred to the existence of a political thinker as one of the features of any revolution. For example, Khomeini in Iran, Castro in Cuba and Gaddafi in Libya provided this model, while for the Sudanese regime, Dr Hassan Al-Turabi was regarded as the historical and spiritual guide. Al-Turabi was the eminence grise in raising the NIF to power; hence, his vision of how the political change in 1989 would position Sudan in the international sphere was the principal model for the new regime.

Although the NIF did not come to power with a blueprint for foreign policy strategy, the movement viewed Islamic revivalism as the reference point for state identity and the principal determinant of Sudan’s position in the world. A cornerstone of the concept of “national interests,” as prescribed by the NIF, was the consolidation of Islamism in both the domestic and the international spheres through all the means available to the state:

The international dimension of the Islamic movement is conditioned by the universality of Umma (community of believers) and the artificial irrelevance of Sudan’s borders. Therefore, the revolution is easily exportable. This is especially true in the relations of the Sudan to Black African neighbours.⁹

Revolutionary zeal does not imply a rebuff for pragmatic policy during this radically oriented period, but “realpolitik” was the exception in an overarching policy of ideology. Pragmatism could not make breakthrough in shaping policy due to internal and external factors. Internally, the NIF clique worldview dominated policy formulation and implementation. The new decision makers have no experience whatsoever in the sphere of public policy combined with uncompromising stands and a belief in their ability to deliver their ideals.

Diplomacy: revolutionary features

Diplomacy during the NSR early years bore a striking resemblance to the practice of revolutionary states. Armstrong demonstrates a similar diplomatic attitude distinguishing revolutions that contradicts standard conventions of diplomacy. These states perceive traditional diplomacy as

belonging to a world dominated by such post-Westphalian assumptions as reason of state, the primacy of foreign policy, the right of great powers, and the importance of the balance of power… in its form, and its content; therefore, diplomacy could be seen as the antithesis of revolutionary values.¹⁰

One of the NSR’s first acts was to hold a conference on diplomacy in December 1989, which reflected the regime’s policy direction. Its ideological principles were stated as the main guidelines in the practice of Sudanese:

The diplomat is a political representative who should not be neutral; and an authorised agent that should not be cautious […] he is a personal representative for the revolution acting for powerful notion and confronting huge undertakings.¹¹

During this period, the pragmatic policy strand represented by career diplomats was sidelined in the foreign ministry.

Considered a third column, and lacking the revolutionary dedication needed to further the radical objectives abroad, a large number of Sudanese diplomats were purged. This has been a typical feature of revolutionary states since the Bolsheviks, Chinese, Iranians and other revolutionary regimes similarly flushed out significant numbers of diplomats due to a suspicion of their commitment to the values of the revolution.¹² The NSR practice of diplomacy included peculiar aspects, such as stationing political watchdogs and “thought police” in embassies, the confrontational behaviour of its diplomats abroad and demonstrations against foreign embassies in Sudan and propaganda on the regime’s behalf. These were also distinctive characteristics of revolutionary states such as Iran, Libya, China and Cuba. According to a former ambassador during that period, high-ranking diplomats overseas feared junior cadres associated with the NIF who regularly reported to Khartoum the attitude and political commitments of personnel in different embassies.

In many instances, the NSR abused diplomatic privileges, violated international norms of diplomatic conduct and used embassies for espionage activities. Militancy went as far as Ibrahim Al-Sanousi, a leading member in the NIF, threatening in a political rally to take Western diplomats as hostages, recalling the Iranian hostage crisis.¹³ The smuggling of arms to Egyptian Islamists who attempted to assassinate President Mubarek in Addis Ababa through Sudanese airlines by the regime’s intelligence agency exhibited similar facets of revolutionary diplomacy.¹⁴ This was similar measure to the use of diplomatic bags to import weapons by Libya, which led to the killing of a police officer in London in 1984, and “Cuban and Vietnamese diplomats expelled by Britain in 1988 for incidents involving guns” were parallel cases of diplomatic privilege abuse.¹⁵ Diplomacy was also utilised for surveillance and intelligence purposes against Sudanese communities abroad, which were viewed as a threat to the stability of the regime. This has led to deterioration in relations with different countries and the expulsion of Sudanese diplomats from countries such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Tunisia and the United Kingdom. In the meantime, the NSR, like other revolutionary states, found diplomacy a valuable tool in engaging with the outside world as part of its overall agenda.

The leadership of political Islam

The regime deemed ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Prologue
• Introduction
• PART 1 Radical agenda
• PART 2 Foreign policymaking
• PART 3 The future
• Index