PANAPRESS
Panafrican News Agency
Sudan: Omar Al-Bashir's fiercest critic, Turabi, dies
Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - Veteran Sudanese opposition leader, Dr. Hassan al-Turabi, the only Sudanese politician to support a warrant issued for Bashir's arrest by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide over the regime's conduct of the conflict in Darfur, died of a heart attack on Saturday at the age of 84, PANA reported.
One of the fiercest critics of President Omar al-Bashir's government, Turabi was taken to the intensive care unit of Khartoum's Royal Care hospital "after suffering a heart attack in the morning."
When news of his death spread, state television interrupted its regular programming and broadcast Islamic verses from the Koran that are usually recited for the dead.
A key figure in Bashir's regime for a decade after the 1989 coup, Turabi later became one of its fiercest critics and led the opposition.
He was detained in May 2010, a month after Sudan's first competitive polls since 1986 for denouncing the election as fraudulent.
After breaking ranks with Bashir, he formed his own party, the Popular Congress Party.
Turabi was detained several times over a career spanning four decades, including in January 2009 two days after he urged Bashir to surrender to the ICC.
A towering figure with influence beyond Sudan's borders, Turabi was one of the driving forces behind the introduction of Islamic sharia law in Sudan in 1983, which sparked a devastating 22-year civil war with the mainly Christian, African south that cost an estimated two million lives.
Observers believe that the death of Turabi has dealt Sudan’s political identity yet another blow, just like the secession of South Sudan in 2011.
Turabi, the Islamist who not only tried to give the Sudan a distinct Islamic identity - away from the pull and push of whether the country is Arab or Africa, or afro-Arabic, ceaselessly laboured for over half a century to drag Sudan away from the Egyptian Islamic influence but at the same time place it at a position far moderate compared to its eastern neighbours in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region. None of the two camps was happy with him.
He had wanted to see a tolerant and moderate Islam in the Sudan.
Turabi was the first Islamist in the Sudan to say that a Muslim woman can marry a Christian or a Jewish. He also condoned the idea that a woman can lead prayer, or become Imam, including over men -- a concept abhorred by most Muslim clerks and the Muslim orthodoxy never tolerated this idea.
However, in the eyes of the West, Turabi remained a source of confusion. It was him who, after inviting Usama Bin laden to visit the Sudan in the 1990s, created the Arab and Islamic Poplar Conference that brought renegade elements and opposition from 54 countries to the Sudan in 1996, ruffling the feathers of all western and Arab Governments.
It was Turabi who also lured in, Carlos the Jackal, an international rebellious leader sought by a number of countries including France, the US, Israel and UK on charges of international terrorism. But it was the same Carlos who was seen by some freedom fighters as an international hero.
Both Carlos and Bin Laden were forced to leave the Sudan under western pressure, including placing the Sudan in the list of countries who sponsor international terrorism.
Turabi was the Islamic leader who in 1983 as Sudan’s attorney general encouraged former president Jafaar Nimeiri (1969-1995), to apply the Islamist sharia laws in the country. And when after 1986, politically parties gathered to write off these laws, Turabi encouraged and stood behind the bloodless coup d’état that brought the then Brig.-Gen. Omar Bashir to power in 1989.
Still the man disagreed with his disciple in 1999 over his call that the governors of the region, 25 states, be given fare more authority and that the president has no say over them.
Turabi and President Bashir did not agree on that and when the president sensed the pragmatic Islamist was going to dethrone him, he quickly moved in to strip Turabi off his powers as parliamentary speaker, dissolved the parliament and declared a state of emergency.
Turabi once again found himself locked behind the bar from 2001-2003, and shortly before his death, Turabi once again made a comeback, reconciled with Bashir, and supported the National Dialogue -- seen as a ploy to return to power.
But then, at 84, his health was failing him.
Reports say he was doing his usual habit of reading all newspapers in the morning, when he fell and lost consciousness in his office. He was rushed to the intensive care unit of the Royal Care International Hospital in the capital, Khartoum, where he died of cardiac arrest.
-0- PANA MO/VAO 6March2016
One of the fiercest critics of President Omar al-Bashir's government, Turabi was taken to the intensive care unit of Khartoum's Royal Care hospital "after suffering a heart attack in the morning."
When news of his death spread, state television interrupted its regular programming and broadcast Islamic verses from the Koran that are usually recited for the dead.
A key figure in Bashir's regime for a decade after the 1989 coup, Turabi later became one of its fiercest critics and led the opposition.
He was detained in May 2010, a month after Sudan's first competitive polls since 1986 for denouncing the election as fraudulent.
After breaking ranks with Bashir, he formed his own party, the Popular Congress Party.
Turabi was detained several times over a career spanning four decades, including in January 2009 two days after he urged Bashir to surrender to the ICC.
A towering figure with influence beyond Sudan's borders, Turabi was one of the driving forces behind the introduction of Islamic sharia law in Sudan in 1983, which sparked a devastating 22-year civil war with the mainly Christian, African south that cost an estimated two million lives.
Observers believe that the death of Turabi has dealt Sudan’s political identity yet another blow, just like the secession of South Sudan in 2011.
Turabi, the Islamist who not only tried to give the Sudan a distinct Islamic identity - away from the pull and push of whether the country is Arab or Africa, or afro-Arabic, ceaselessly laboured for over half a century to drag Sudan away from the Egyptian Islamic influence but at the same time place it at a position far moderate compared to its eastern neighbours in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region. None of the two camps was happy with him.
He had wanted to see a tolerant and moderate Islam in the Sudan.
Turabi was the first Islamist in the Sudan to say that a Muslim woman can marry a Christian or a Jewish. He also condoned the idea that a woman can lead prayer, or become Imam, including over men -- a concept abhorred by most Muslim clerks and the Muslim orthodoxy never tolerated this idea.
However, in the eyes of the West, Turabi remained a source of confusion. It was him who, after inviting Usama Bin laden to visit the Sudan in the 1990s, created the Arab and Islamic Poplar Conference that brought renegade elements and opposition from 54 countries to the Sudan in 1996, ruffling the feathers of all western and Arab Governments.
It was Turabi who also lured in, Carlos the Jackal, an international rebellious leader sought by a number of countries including France, the US, Israel and UK on charges of international terrorism. But it was the same Carlos who was seen by some freedom fighters as an international hero.
Both Carlos and Bin Laden were forced to leave the Sudan under western pressure, including placing the Sudan in the list of countries who sponsor international terrorism.
Turabi was the Islamic leader who in 1983 as Sudan’s attorney general encouraged former president Jafaar Nimeiri (1969-1995), to apply the Islamist sharia laws in the country. And when after 1986, politically parties gathered to write off these laws, Turabi encouraged and stood behind the bloodless coup d’état that brought the then Brig.-Gen. Omar Bashir to power in 1989.
Still the man disagreed with his disciple in 1999 over his call that the governors of the region, 25 states, be given fare more authority and that the president has no say over them.
Turabi and President Bashir did not agree on that and when the president sensed the pragmatic Islamist was going to dethrone him, he quickly moved in to strip Turabi off his powers as parliamentary speaker, dissolved the parliament and declared a state of emergency.
Turabi once again found himself locked behind the bar from 2001-2003, and shortly before his death, Turabi once again made a comeback, reconciled with Bashir, and supported the National Dialogue -- seen as a ploy to return to power.
But then, at 84, his health was failing him.
Reports say he was doing his usual habit of reading all newspapers in the morning, when he fell and lost consciousness in his office. He was rushed to the intensive care unit of the Royal Care International Hospital in the capital, Khartoum, where he died of cardiac arrest.
-0- PANA MO/VAO 6March2016
