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Last Updated: Oct 27, 2009 - 9:33:43 PM |
Conquering our fear, we still have proud and admirable tradition of civil resistance in Sudan.
"The struggle of a Man against Power is the Struggle of Memory against Forgetting" Milan Kundera
The dignified practice of peaceful and non violent resistance has traditionally been practiced in Sudan specially in the North namely during October/1964 uprising against Abud regime, and April/1985 against Nimury regime, these powerful methods such as (symbolic protests, hunger strikes, specific and general strikes, civil disobedience, political non cooperation, public demonstrations, social boycotts) have contributed to the downfall of these two regimes, the NIF aware of such history and traditions they have sacked thousands of people from the civil services and universities and the health service and professional union activist such as medical doctors engineers etc, banned political parties any dissent have been treated harshly by imprisonment and torture, their only solution to Southern Sudan rebels is more war and a holy war this time, many of the political active elites left the country in mass exodus in the early 1990s to neighboring countries and to the gulf and to Europe and North American this have created a vacuum, and the country have lost millions of its highly trained, well educated citizen, and who ever left behind inside Sudan have no energy or political ability or resist the evil that landed on the country, NIF lust for blood and violence is well documented even before they took power, during ordinary students union elections in 1960s 1970s and 1980s they have introduce physical violence into the students environment.
Their trade mark after they took power by force is to challenge the Sudanese opposition and Omar El Bashier famously been quoted saying "We took power by force and whoever want to take it back he should use force" the irresponsible president acting as school bully, however his call has being heeded by the war in the eastern front initiated by SAF (Sudanese Alliance Forces) led by ex-Sudanese army commander named Abdel Aziz Khalid in the early 1990s, and the war intensified in the south, and spread to the Nuba Mountain, and southern Blue Nile, during those days the regime genocidal nature have become apparent to all, and his war by proxy strategy or according to Alex Da Waal "Counter insurgency on the cheap" have become part of the regime military vision to repress rebellious and their constituency.
John Donne an English Poet (1572-1631) wrote 400 years ago this heartfelt appeal for humanity "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee………." In all press releases from the news and media outlet around the world have this amazing detachment specially when they casually informing the readers about the number of people died in the Sudan civil war (South/North) and Nuba mountain exceeding 2 millions and the number of IDPs around 4 millions the largest IDPs in the world, then the tragedy of Darfur start the number of people died increased exponentially in few months from 30000 to 70000 according to the UN in December 2004, by march 2005 the number jumped to 180,000.00 according to the United Nations' top emergency relief official Jan Egeland, then to 450,000 according to Dr. Eric Reeves (28 April 2006), and most NGOs use 400,000 figures. Sudan becomes country of map full of dead innocent people spreading all over the land, while the statisticians still counting our dead not a single voice cried so loud as John Donne did 400 years because we have all been diminished to nothingness by the number of people died in our country. Given the length and the magnitude of the suffering in the country not many Sudanese ventured to document the tragedy. However, Munier Shiekh Aldeen a Nuba mountain political activist documented the atrocities in the Nuba Mountain during the early 1990s, its one of the rare books written by Sudanese that has been able to capture the scale of the suffering of the Nuba people the book tilted "Those who immersed in the nation blood" published in London 2000/2001.
No doubts the nature of the regime itself have invited and attracted violence from the oppressed people of the Sudan, as Dr Shafiea Khider a highly regarded Sudanese Communist party member noted in a political forum organized by SCP in London two years ago he inquired "Why we only expected revolt against this regime to come from the urban area and the capital city Khartoum?" according to him the dynamic of change is coming from the rural and the marginalized area of Sudan this time, this considered to be a huge departure from the SCP political gospel of the 1980s about the role of "Modern forces and political change in Sudan" which is technically means (City dwellers and its political activist) this type of politics have informed the political tactics of many of the main opposition parties in northern Sudan specially from the left, however some of these peaceful tactics have become obsolete by the very pathological nature of the regime, as if NIF regime echoing O'Brien in George Orwell 1984 novel sentiment when he said "Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power…………………. Power is tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing".
It could be argued that NIF project of civilizing the whole country is master plan borrowed from a discredited secular dictators manuals and their holy manifesto once again reiterating O'Brien thoughts "……………….There will be no laughter, except for the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science." they successfully managed as (all totalitarian regime around the globe do) to install fear, apathy among the citizen of the country, but the reverse of such psychological state of mind possible and this the time to defeat our fear, Alfred Taban (Khartoum Monitor editor on 30 May 2006) commenting "Sudan is the only country in the world that has toppled two notorious military dictatorships in popular uprisings and is in the process of defrocking the third".
Sudan government after long years in the political wilderness regionally and internationally, have gain for the first time since 1989 a partial legitimacy through the signing of the CPA, but the pariah state in real term have not changed but conveniently camouflaged its true colors under the international pressure, but discreetly kept its draconian security and the notorious public order laws intact. and still control through shady secretive companies run via security forces the economics of this country, accoridng to insider have clear understanding about the monopoly of the security forces on the economy of Sudan in all sectors specially the OIL sector "No body should kid them self this country run by the NIF and its security force period"
Civil resistance is not necessary out of context or dated, Sudan today is in desperate needs for such practice, the late political visionary El Kahtim Adlan commenting on the CPA agreement between GoS and SPLM he stressed that northern Sudanese opposition parties should give credit to the SPLM that have taken at least %50 from the NIF power, what left is up the northern political parties and civil societies to struggle in Khartoum and other major northern cities in the country to resist oppression and to reveres the specter of tyranny and demand the implementation of their constitutional rights that have been illegally taken away from them in June/1989.
The CPA and the interim Constitution have obvious human rights provisions, however the Government of Sudan as mentioned in Amnesty International 2006 report still violate basic human rights and according to the report "Hundreds of political prisoners continued to be held arbitrarily in Khartoum. Arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detention, torture and restrictions on freedom of expression persisted, aimed in particular at human rights defenders, student activists and internally displaced people in and around Khartoum."
The recent interim constitution tackles range of issues including Education and according to article (44.2) "The State shall provide free primary education" where the opposite occurring today and millions of poor families burden by their children education fees. In health sector the situation even worth, although the interim constitution stated in article (19) the following "The State shall promote public health and provide basic medical services and facilities" then article (46) confirm the above "All citizens shall have equal access to public health care and basic medical services" given all the above provisions enshrined in the constitution, the reality for most of the Sudanese is grim and hideous, the Sudan Health Service is in dismal state suffering from unprecedented brain drain and the service have lost more than %60 of its highly train doctors, then the problem compounded by a cruel privatization policy administered by GoS through the 1990s rendered many elementary and basic health treatment beyond the financial means of the majority of the population, according to WHO report (2004) the expenditure of the Government of Sudan in relation to the GDP is 0.8% consider to be one of the lowest in the world.
Issues related to un constitutional laws such as Security forces law and the notorious Public Order Law where women in the northern Sudan continued to be harassed and ill-treated by this Law which restricts women's freedom of movement, behavior and dress, because its contradicting article (32) in the interim Constitution confirming "Equal rights of men and women to the enjoyment of all civil and political rights and all social, cultural and economic rights, including the right of equal pay for equal work, shall be ensured"
Ordinary Sudanese people are willing to fight the injustice that they have endured under the NIF regime, its encouraging news that young people of New Sudan from 9 political organization represents (The North , South, East, and western Sudan) get together in Khartoum on the 21/05/2006 united against division; oppression; marginalization; for democracy, respect for cultural and ethnic diversity, women rights human rights and the unity of the country and they are determined to undo the damage that have been done to the country, these young Sudanese they need inspiration and hope and dream to guide them through these difficult times to reverse the tyranny that have ruled their country for so long.
Ahmed Elzobier
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