The Sudanese Intifada: A Great Contribution to the World

Activists,

Twenty years ago the Sudanese people went out to the streets of the major cities of Sudan and continued their strong acts of civil disobedience until they forced down one of the strongest Reagan administrations’ allies in Africa. The dictator Nemeiri’s regime ruled the country from 1969-1985 with a strong support from the Nixon and Reagan administrations.


The term ‘Intifada’ (the Arabic word for up-rise) become then known in the media of East/North Africa for the first time however, it did not fly globally until the Palestinian intifada borrowed it two years later… The success of the Intifada depended mainly on the strong heritage of grassroots organizing that the Sudanese people excelled and used before in toppling down another US-supported military regime (1958-1964) which is known as the October Revolution, the first successful African civil disobedience.


The 10-day intifada methodology had depended on creating different under-cover ‘revolution centers’ that mainly operated its organizing work, of next day rallies, after dark (the labor and power engineer unions shut off the electricity in most of the country’s cities). In my middle class neighborhood there were three Centers, while in the neighboring Burri (poor/lower middle class) there were at least ten Centers.



The current military regime stupidly thought that activists will use the same methodology in defeating them. They did not know how genius is the resistance and human rights movement. While the Intifada become an ongoing action since 1989 in Sudan (many martyrs paid their lives to keep this ongoing intifada on the streets, at check points or in the Ghost Houses) but there was a new methodology has been developed and added up to the heritage of the Sudanese revolution.


The mass exile of Sudanese people to neighboring countries (Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Egypt, and later Chad) has become another weapon in the hands of the grassroots leadership of the new Intifada. The Sudanese activists in exile learned how to use the international human and civil rights conventions and treaties to besiege the religious-right regime of Khartoum.

With strong support from and ally with human rights orgs and activists, they managed to pass the UN Resolution of the Security Council 1593 that made it a global responsibility to bring the Darfur genocide masterminds to the International Criminal Court. These 51 names on the Wanted List of the UN are the same masterminds of the Ghost Houses (the first mass torture system created and admitted by a Government) where thousands of brave community organizers were systematically tortured and maimed, physically and mentally.


I hope you would show your support and celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the African Intifda and take action. Please write a letter to your newspaper and request more pressure on the Bush administration to stand strong with the UN to bring the Genocide and Ghost Houses perpetrators to the ICC. It’s one way to show apology to the Sudabnese people based on the fact that number of these 'defendants' on the UN List were trained in the School of the Americas, directly or indirectly.

Mohamed Elgadi
Philadelphia, USA

P.S. This message was originally sent to a number od non-Sudanese lists of humman rights activists

Arabic Forum