Daoud Salih, a Darfurian refugee, spoke about the escalating attacks in Sudan. (Photo credit: IRD) |
The Islamist regime that rules Sudan continues to oppress people from one end of the country to the other. They also violate international law by crossing the border to bomb refugee camps in the Republic of South Sudan.
Beja Cultural Day Brings Visibility to Khartoum Oppression in Sudan
Last week IRD partnered with the Beja Congress and Beja Friends to shine a light on the regime’s marginalization and oppression of eastern Sudan’s indigenous African Beja people. Our “Beja Cultural Day,” co-sponsored by numerous Sudan advocacy organizations and by the Sudan Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, took place on Wednesday, February 1, at the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill. The room was filled with Sudanese participants that came from various cities around the United States and Canada, joined by American activists and congressional staff members.
U.S. Representative Frank R. Wolf (R-VA), one of the great congressional human rights advocates, reiterated his dedication to Sudan’s marginalized, persecuted people. He confessed that he had not known much about eastern Sudan and said he was happy to help the Beja in whatever way he can. We were pleased that our event brought another oppressed people group to Mr. Wolf’s attention.
Juliana Stebbins of The Enough Project attended Beja Cultural Day and wrote how oppression of the Beja has been underreported for years. Omar Hammad Gimi and Ibrahim Tahir Ahmed spoke about the ancient history of the Beja, and how lack of health care, potable water, and proper nutrition, along with high incidence of maternal and infant mortality place them on the road to extinction as a people.
Dr. Walid Phares spoke about the worrisome changes taking place in the Middle East and Africa. Extremist ideologies and rights-violating jihadist movements, rather than democracy, are taking the place of falling dictators. Phares explored this in his book The Coming Revolution, published the year before the advent of “Arab Spring.” He declared that events such as the Beja Cultural Day were important because they create awareness of the Beja. He urged the Beja to make themselves as visible as possible. Visibility through You Tube, Facebook, and Twitter brought the world’s attention and help to the Egyptians in Tahrir Square. But the Beja also need to be organized with the other marginalized people groups and bring the right kind of change to Sudan. Unfortunately, the ideals of the young Egyptians who began the uprising in Cairo were quickly devoured by the more-organized Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists.
David Condron, the final panelist, introduced the crowd to the plight of Beja living as refugees in the United States, such as our friend Mohamed Idris Hadeghe. David explained ways in which concerned Americans can help the Beja, delineating points contained in a petition to Congress. We will use this petition to encourage activism on behalf of the Beja in the near future.
The afternoon ended with remarks from numerous representatives of other Sudanese marginalized people groups, including Darfurians, Nuba, and Nubians. The crowd was treated to traditional Sudanese music by the Beja “Adrob Band” and “Ana Sudani,” with singers Nancy Ajaj and Mohamed Tahir. It did not take long for many to join in the dancing that featured the famous Beja throwing stick that helped to “break the British Square.” (This is explained in Kipling’s poem “Fuzzy Wuzzy,” which seems extraordinarily politically incorrect to our 21st century American ears, but of which the Beja are extremely proud.)
The Latest Act for Sudan Campaign for the Nuba Mountains
We also continue to expose the regime’s ongoing atrocities against the people of the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State. Currently we are working with other advocates in the Act for Sudan alliance in a “They Can’t Wait” campaign, to urge the U.S. government to stronger action to protect the people and provide food aid for those who are on the brink of starvation.
Although some 30,000 people from the Nuba Mountains are now seeking shelter in a refugee camp in the Republic of South Sudan (also the target of bombing by Khartoum!), hundreds of thousands remain in the Nuba Mountains. Many have been hiding in caves, and now Khartoum has amassed troops to shut them off from escape and stop food and medical aid from getting in. Satellite imagery from the Satellite Sentinel Project shows that Sudan’s armed forces are “creating a chokepoint” on the refugee route to South Sudan. The Enough Project’s Jonathan Hutson says, Khartoum “is creating a kill box . . . encircling the Nuba people of the Nuba Mountains, as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign.”
Because of this dire situation, Act for Sudan, the alliance of Sudan activists of which IRD is a member, is currently leading a campaign to facilitate the ability of concerned Americans to contact senior officials in the Obama Administration and declare “They Can’t Wait!” by sending them a fax asking that the United States to take immediate steps to save lives. The two steps are in regards to aid and protection.
First, the faxes demand that the U.S. initiate immediately cross-border relief aid to the Nuba Mountains and other affected areas in spite of the refusal of the Khartoum government to allow relief aid to be brought in from South Sudan. In some cases the food supplies are waiting, almost within sight, but the World Food Program will not cross the border from South Sudan to Sudan without the permission of the Khartoum regime. (This happened for over two decades in Sudan’s jihad on the South and the Nuba Mountains.)
Second, the U.S. is asked to consider the destruction of offensive aerial assets of the Sudanese government and/or (as long requested by the affected Sudanese civilians) the imposition of a no-fly zone. In spite of the Sudan armed forces’ greater supply of weapons and even of personnel, in ground combat the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N), the forces that are defending the Nuba, as well as the people of Blue Nile State, are winning the battles. But Khartoum continues to kill and displace the civilian population with vicious aerial attacks.
The Obama Administration and other world leaders persist in the fantasy that war can be resolved if “both sides come to the table.” In spite of Khartoum’s track record for violating every agreement, and in spite of its repeated declared jihad against all who oppose its agenda of Arabization and Islamization, these leaders says that “there has to be a political solution.” Many of us wonder why they did not say the same thing about Egypt and about Libya, where the people had not been subjects of two genocides, and now the keys of the kingdom are in the hands of Islamists and terrorists, thanks to our intervention.
Please do consider joining our campaign. As of Wednesday of this week, over 2000 faxes had burned up the fax machines at the State Department and the White House!
Continue to pray for a real change in Sudan.
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