KHARTOUM -

The name of the Central Reserve Forces of the Sudanese police has jumped to the forefront of events after being affected by US sanctions, due to its elements' suppression of peaceful protests calling for an end to the military's control of the reins of power and the restoration of the civilian democratic path.

Yesterday, Monday, the US Treasury announced the imposition of sanctions on the Central Reserve Forces, due to serious human rights violations, and accused them of using excessive force against peaceful protesters, the first of its kind after the actions of Army Commander Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan on October 25, which have caused since then Time in protests, and the US Treasury based its decisions on the International Magnitsky Accountability for Human Rights Act.

A statement issued by the US Treasury Department and published by the US Embassy in Khartoum said that the Central Reserve Forces were at the forefront of the Sudanese security forces that resorted to a "violent response" to deal with peaceful protests in Khartoum, accusing the force's elements of firing live ammunition at the demonstrators last January. She said that these forces chased the demonstrators who tried to flee from the place, and arrested and beat some of them, and shot demonstrators, killing one of them and injuring others.

The statement stated that as a result of (yesterday's) actions, all property located in the United States, transiting through the United States, or in the possession or control of American persons has been blocked, and must be reported to the Office of Foreign Assets Control, and Al Jazeera Net tried to obtain comment from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Sudan's interior to no avail.

Impact of sanctions

Sudanese security experts' reactions ranged regarding the impact of these sanctions against the Central Reserve Forces and the rest of the military factions affiliated with the security forces.

In the first official reaction to the decision, the director of media for the police forces, Brigadier General Muhammad Al-Hassan, told the local newspaper Al-Seeha that they had not received any letter or official notification of imposing US sanctions on the Central Reserve Forces, and that they had seen the decision via satellite channels.

He said that they will come out to public opinion with a clarification statement, whenever they receive an official notification of the penalties, because the Central Reserve is a major faction in the police.

But the researcher in military and security affairs, Muhammad Mansour, asserts that the US sanctions have a great impact on the performance of the security forces.

In his interview with Al-Jazeera Net, he pointed out that the "Magnitsky" law means depriving a major faction of the police forces of weapons, technology and external training, and placing all its activities under surveillance, which necessarily applies to the entire police force.

In turn, the security expert, Major General Muhammad Ajeeb, downplayed the US Treasury's sanctions, calling them "ridiculous and useless."

He explained this by what he called the absence of any military or training protocols, or financial and banking transactions linking these forces with the United States, and he told Al Jazeera Net, that this punishment is intended to address parties within the United States, such as Congress.

Among the tasks of the Central Reserve Police forces is to combat riots and secure peaceful marches (Reuters)

Strength composition

The Central Reserve Forces were formed in the seventies of the last century, as a striking police force that operates in emergency situations.

Among its tasks stipulated by law are combating riots, securing crowds and peaceful marches, resolving tribal conflicts, combating armed robbery, protecting national economic projects, securing government facilities, and participating in preventing disasters, in addition to any other tasks assigned to it by law.

The emergence of these forces in the conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan was remarkable, which was attributed by the security expert and retired police officer, Omar Othman, to the growing phenomenon of armed robbery in the region in the eighties of the last century. (April 2019), especially the Minister of Interior at the time, Ahmed Haroun, in arming the force and giving its members wide powers up to the implementation of combat missions.

Al-Bashir and Haroun are among the 5 people requested by the International Criminal Court to appear before it on charges related to genocide and crimes against humanity in the Darfur region from 2003 to 2008.

Othman said, "The Central Reserve is one of the police departments that are used mainly in the event of the inability of police personnel to deal with riots."

Noting that members of the force are subject to high-level training, to carry out specific tasks, in accordance with the law, especially in the case of resorting to the use of firearms.

In the line of protests

About this, Muhammad Mansour says that the observer of events notes that the entry of the Central Reserve Forces, as organized forces in the line of protests, began following the declaration of a state of emergency that followed the exceptional procedures for restricting the army on October 25 last.

"These forces did not have any appearance in the demonstrations that ousted President Omar al-Bashir from December 2018 to April 2019, and their elements were not involved during the era of the isolated transitional government led by civilians from September 2019 to October," he said. The first 2021 in the security dealings with the marches in the capital and the states, Mansour says, stressing that the intervention of these forces of a combative nature, in protests of a peaceful nature, exacerbated the numbers of victims in an unprecedented way.

The Central Committee of Sudan Doctors - a parallel entity to the Sudanese Doctors Union - says that 89 protesters fell from October 25 to March 21 as a result of excessive repression by the security forces.

For his part, retired police officer Omar Othman expressed his astonishment at what he called the transformations that occurred in the Central Reserve Forces, limiting entry to the US blacklists, and condemning the crimes attributed to a police force, considering that this calls for extensive reviews of forces that were previously an example of discipline and professionalism.

However, Major General Muhammad Ajeeb confirmed that the intervention of these forces is in line with their tasks in dispersing riots and dealing with cases of violence and chaos, and said that the reserve forces, by virtue of the specificity of their tasks, deal today with cases of violence that fall at the core of their tasks, and include the liquidation and assassination of their members, and the burning of their personnel carriers and headquarters. And it does not end with closing streets and roads to pedestrians and cars.

Expectations

Security expert Omar Othman expected that the US Treasury's sanctions will cast a shadow over the police's handling of the protesters, in the form of a retreat in the use of force.

At a time, a researcher in military and security affairs, Muhammad Mansour, considered that "the operations of restrictions on the military lead to excessive repression and abuse."