The veteran Sudanese communist leader al-Tijani al-Tayeb passed away today in Khartoum at the age of 85 years. Tijani was the editor in chief of the party's mouthpiece, al-Midan, and belongs to the founding generation of the Communist Party of Sudan. He survived the prisons and exiles of the successive Khartoum dictatorships and died struggling against one. Farewell Tijani, farewell..
In 1982, during the reign of Jaafar Nimayri, a military court in Khartoum sentenced al-Tijani al-Tayeb to ten years imprisonment. He was brought before the court after a two years "stay" in the custody of Nimayri's state security. Tijani went underground in the aftermath of the failed communist coup led by Hashim al-Atta and his comrades in 1971. Nimaryi's men caught up with him in 1980.
I take the liberty here to reproduce below an English translation of his lengthy statement to the court published in the July 1983 edition of the Review of African Political Economy. Nimayri, eventually, did not last last the ten years of Tijani's sentence. In 1985 the regime crashed under the blows of the Intifada, and Tijani walked out of Cooper prison a free man. It is to the memory of this great communist, teacher, and friend that I share here his testimony of the party' s struggle.
Mr
President, and honourable members of the court! With this trial, once again
I join the
long queue of patriots
who, since colonial times,
have been persecuted for their
political beliefs in
accord with fascist
laws. Fundamental human rights, e.g. the right to free expression, are transformed into punishable offences. Yet, no such harassment will deter our
people from their struggle against repressive law. In fact, our fight for independence
and our struggle against the colonialist's anti-democratic legislation were
one and the same
coin. The post-independence struggle
for socio-economic change has
been inseparably wed to
the unceasing fight for democracy. Undoubtedly,
the modern history of our
people's political and social movement is
knit together by one
long thread of struggle
for democratic rights and
civil liberties. The
most colossal success
in this respect was
the October uprising [1964] which demonstrated the
resolve of our people
in pursuit of democracy.
The
present regime is intent on
obliterating this resolve. They
are institutionalising their
endeavour through one man rule, the
one-party system, the famous State
Security Law, the foiled trade union
laws, the state controlled media
and various other
methods of repression. Paramount among the means of oppression are the State Security Law and the notorious State Security
Organisation (SSO). These are the regime's vehicles for
inflicting unprecedented maltreatment
of citizens; they infringe on one's right to personal
freedom, confiscate his right
to a livelihood, arrest him indefinitely without
trial and subject him to
physical torture. Peaceful demonstrations are
fired upon with live ammunition, with
intent to kill. The citizen is denied
his basic legal rights.
No political detainee can be released on parole
and, even before
investigation starts with
him, he is treated as if he
were convicted. Physical and psychological
torture are invariably used
to squeeze information and
confessions out of detainees.
Moreover, as evidenced by my
case, the political
detainee is often the
object of a media campaign full
of lies and slander,
without giving him a
chance to defend himself. Following my
arrest, the regime-controlled newspapers published a
series of statements by SSO officials accusing me and the Communist Party (CP) of
being agents for 'foreign
circles'. On the 20th of August
(1981) El Sahafa published
an interview with
the chief of the SSO, quoted
from an
Egyptian paper, in which he reiterated
the regime's allegation that
'the communists have always
been receiving their instructions from
abroad'. As a patriot who
has uncompromisingly dedicated his entire
life to his country and people, I
find these allegations slanderous, cheap
and cowardly. These
lies, however, failed to materialise among the accusations with which
the prosecution panel have faced
me inside this court. Obviously, they
have failed to find a single shred of evidence in the hundreds of CP documents presented
before the court.
Any judgment
of the CP would not fail to
perceive its positive role
in the history of Sudanese nationalism.
The CP is in fact the only party
in this country completely innocent
of foreign allegiance.
Rather than tutelage,
it is friendship that binds
the CP to the progressive movements
the world over. It has global
relations built on parity, mutual respect,
solidarity and joint
struggle for the joint noble
goals.
The aforementioned propagandistic paper describes the CP
as 'the outlawed party'. Isn't
this tautology clear evidence for the absence of democracy? Parties
are banned in favour of the one-party system
decreed by the regime's
constitution. The state party,
the Socialist Union (SU), is claimed to be an alliance of the working people
- a format which
unifies the people in place of
party rivalries. In reality,
these are self-defeating arguments,
for the SU is by no means a popular
alliance. It is
just another class-oriented
party, speaking for
the interests of the state
and commercial bourgeoisie. It is
a deformed institution at the
beck and
call of its boss, the head
of state. The
recent liquidation of its leading bodies and the appointment of a new
central committee by presidential decrees
are further evidence of its precarious and
rickety nature.
Independent of the
SU, the Sudanese people actually
proceed to conduct political
activities of which the SU is never capable,
notwithstanding its facilities.
Recent proofs of this are the all-out
railway strike, the Darfur uprising and
the nation-wide uprisings of December
1981-January 1982.
There are, however,
some parties which are allowed
some degree of open political
activity. The repressive laws
and machinery of the
regime deliberately turn a deaf
ear to those activities.
These are mainly
the Muslim Brotherhood and the
Islamic Republicans. The head of the regime
has declared in the meeting
of the Central Committee of the
SU of 22 June 1982 that political parties
have also reappeared in the Southern Region.
Add to this the fact that the
leaders of some other
rightist parties actually
move about with relative ease
thanks to the matrix of economic and social relations that
bind them to the state
commercial bourgeoisie in power.
The regime, to all intents and purposes,
is fully aware of the activities of the
Muslim Brothers. These
parties are being
tricked into coming
to the surface to be
contained, manipulated and
eventually crushed.
Obviously, the only object of strict
illegality is the CP. No
wonder it is singled out
in this way, for it is radically
different from the
other parties. It is
the only party that never
entertained compromise with the present dictatorship. Experience
has shown that
the attitude of any regime
towards the CP is an indication
of its attitude towards
democracy. It is axiomatic that the victory
achieved in October 1964
by our people was not merely in deposing
a military dictatorship but in
restoring democratic rights.
Another allegation
levelled at the CP and myself is 'the
attempt to sabotage national unity'. The evidence produced
by the prosecution is the
equation 'the CP calls for power to be put in
the hands of the working class, therefore the CP is instigating class
antagonisms!
How simplistic
and naive! The
prosecution counsel speaks
for a regime that identifies itself with the interests
of a minority. It has
usurped power through the use of
force, and it subjugates the
absolute majority of our people
by means of repression. It reaps
the toil of the masses and
plunders the resources of the
country, heeding nothing
but their narrow
interests and those of their imperialist
masters.
It is in
fact true the CP's
long term strategy
pertains to the slogan
of power to the working class.
But it is far from true
that what would ensue in the circumstance would
be class antagonism. If we ever
achieve such a success, power will
lie with the broadest sector
of the masses - the majority
rather than the minority. Government
would be not by repression
or subjugation, but by the willful
consent of the absolute
majority of our people.
Only then can we enjoy real
national harmony and unity. The working class
is not exploitative and it is
only the
national unity built
around the interests
of the workers that can
transcend the parochialism, chauvinism,
and religious strife that bisect
our society.
It
is worth mentioning that the working
class movement has always been conscious of the vital need for unity. Experience has shown
that unifying the ranks of
the workers often results
in colossal successes and achievements. That
is why the adversaries of the working class always
try untiringly to sow
divisions within its ranks.
It is also common knowledge that
the working class cannot ultimately eradicate
capitalist exploitation without aligning
itself to the broad masses. Unity
is vital for the working class in its
struggle for the twofold goal of securing
the interests of the workers
and the overall interests
of the nation.
The
modern history of this
country is illuminating
about the working class's quest for unity. The workers have always
come to the assistance of the
peasants, the students etc. in their
struggle. The massive solidarity
on the part of the trade
union movement with the police
force strike of 1951
bears testimony to the positive attitudes of the
working class. The workers' movement was even
in alliance with the national
commercial bourgeoisie during the struggle
for economic and political independence.
The
CP identifies itself with
the ideology of the working class. That
is why the CP is an incarnation
of national unity, as it
spreads all over
the country, cutting across
tribalism, sectarianism, regionalism
and religious divisions. The programme
of the CP suggests solutions for
the problems of the whole Sudan, by no means
favouring one sect or region
or social grouping to the others. It
is the only
party in Sudan whose
leaders are composed
of workers, women, Southerners
and intellectuals who come from different religions, tribal backgrounds and all the regions of the
country. They have been democratically
elected, not appointed by a
presidential decree or an ordinance
from the leader of a sect. The merits that qualify them for leadership are their dedication to the
struggle and their ideological
and moral integrity.
Moreover, the CP
is well known for its
broadminded and undogmatic approach. We
played active roles in all the nationalist and anti-colonial fronts, even those
that included bourgeois
parties. We were a party to all political groupings, co-ordinating
efforts or fronts that
endeavoured to unify the masses,
starting from the Front for the Struggle
Against the Legislative Assembly
in 1948 until today.
One of the most
outstanding achievements of the CP
in the field
of national unity is its
theorising for and handling of the issue of Southern Sudan.
It was the first
party to adopt the
'special status' concept,
as early as the 1953 pre-independence elections, in
recognition of the objective differences between the
two parts of the country. During
the 1955 mutiny, the CP was the only party
that did not succumb
to the emotions of revenge
and call for bloody
reprisals. We provided
a cool and objective analysis
of the situation, calling upon
the government and the (Northern)
army to exercise
self- control. We demanded the
rescinding of the death sentences
issued against the leaders of the mutiny
and we appealed for
magnanimous treatment of the convicts. In its
Third Conference, which
convened six months after
the mutiny, the CP came forward
with the slogan 'regional
self-autonomy for the South'.
That was an
utterly unprecedented achievement
in the history
of Sudanese politics.
The
CP was unmatched in issuing a daily English paper
called Advance, addressed to the
Southern readers, since 1958.
It has also issued a series
of publications in English tackling
the problem of Southern
Sudan, always calling upon our Southern
brethren to align
themselves to the Northern
movements of the working class
and democratic forces
in a unified struggle for a
national democratic Sudan.
The
CP's efforts culminated in the Declaration of 9 June 1969, which
was extracted from the CP's manifesto. The Declaration was broadcast
by the Minister of Southern Affairs,
the late Comrade Joseph
Garang (who was a member
of the CP's Politbureau until he
was executed by Nimeiri during the counter coup of
22 July 1971). The CP's ideas
on the problem of Southern
Sudan were embodied in the
Declaration, as evidenced by this quotation:
“We
deem it of paramount importance
that a democratic and
socialist movement should
be allowed to develop in the South
as a prerequisite for the
realisation of our aspirations of progress
both in the North
and the South.”
Only when
the progressive movement
matures in the South
can we be
assured of a lasting
application of the principle
of Self-Autonomy, and that
is the most powerful antidote
to the colonialist intrigues currently
going on in the South. The regime
started in 1969 by adopting
the CP's programme for the South. No sooner had
they staged their
counter coup of 1971
than they reneged
on everything they declared on 9 June 1969. That accounts for the series of crises
ravaging the South at the
moment. The realities
of the situation in the
Sudan look like the following:
1.
National unity is jeopardised primarily
by the present anti-democratic policies of the
regime. National unity
cannot thrive except
in democracy, and the free will of
the Southern people cannot be
realised except in a democratic atmosphere.
2.
Because the regime
follows a capitalist path,
the problem of the South
as a region that needs special
care is sustained. Capitalists
are motivated by nothing except
quick profit. The traditional
sector is henceforth subjected to ruthless plunder
on the part of the imperialists
and Arab finance capital in
collaboration with the local compradors. Regions
such as the South suffer from the neglect of long-term
projects in favour of
short term investments that bring
fast gains for the investors. Our resources have waned,
in the process and
the already existing social and economic structures have
been obliterated.
Consequently, development continues
to be uneven between
the various regions
of Sudan, and the
Southern situation in
particular has gone from bad to worse.
Likewise, the capitalist's foul intervention has
created other problems
along the 'Savanna Zone', where the indigenous nomadic
tribes have been frustrated by
the phenomenal spread of mechanised plantations
owned by urban compradors
and Arab princes. The regime
has drawn a veil of secrecy upon
the news of the tribal wars
going on currently in the 'Savanna Zone'.
The
regime's propaganda machinery
explains all these problems away
in terms of administrative complications. They preach decentralisation as the
remedy. As a matter of fact,
the regime is capitalising
on the under-development of such
regions as the South to consolidate
its dictatorial grip.It is the
same old tactic
of divide and rule;
that is why they
have done littleto reconcile the warring
tribes along the 'Savanna
Zone'. And from that, not
from the working class
nor the CP, the real
menace to national unity
is posed.
Mr President
and members of the court.
Another accusation I and
the CP are facing is 'opposition to the
government'. According to the
prosecution, this is against the law. The right to oppose,
like the right to support any particular regime,
should have been
an automatic and irrevocable
right of all citizens. Confiscating
it runs counter to human nature.
The experience
of our people
shows that a serious and
deep-rooted opposition will be
impossible to eradicate by force. The
objective causes of such
an opposition are related
to the distinctions between the
various social forces in the society. Contradictions are
natural and inevitable
in a multi-class society. Add to
that the ethnic, cultural
and religious divisions
within our own society. What a
great pity the Sudanese
people have always
been denied the opportunity to air
those differences in a healthy
democratic atmosphere!
Nor
is the present regime the first
to be opposed. Since the first
days of independence the bourgeois parties
have been involved in conflicts
and squabbles. Simultaneously, consciousness
grew of another contradiction
- that between all bourgeois
parties and the
classes they represent
on the one hand, and
the masses of workers, peasants
and revolutionary intelligentsiaon the other. The former tried to
perpetuate the colonial political
andeconomic structures, while
the latter aspired
to translate independence into better
living conditions for the masses.
The progressive camp wanted to participate in
the building of a new
Sudan by means of a national democratic revolution
that paves the way for socialism.
In
the aftermath of the October uprising,
two major programmes came
to the surface, one adopted by the national/democratic forces
and the otherpropagated by the forces
of capitalist development. The first
called for a democratic constitution and the
liberation of the economy from
the dominance of foreign capital pursuing following a national/democratic path of development and an
anti-imperialist foreign policy.
The latter, that of
the reactionary bloc, called
for a presidential
republic and the curtailment of
democratic rights as a
precondition for imposing the capitalist path
of development.
When
the present 'May' regime first came to power it adopted the programme of the national democratic
forces. However, it did not
take the leadership long to renounce it in a dramatic reversal
that antagonised the progressive forces
who had found the
regime's programme favourable.
The differences with those forces
grew when the regime started
to confiscate freedoms. By July
1971, the political turbulance
reached a crescendo when the national democratic
forces within the
army staged a coup
that lasted for three days. Their defeat at the hands
of the present regime marked
the beginning of a reign of
terror. The leaders of the July movement were summarily court
martialed and three
of the leaders of the CP were executed. Hundreds of communists
and democrats were
detained and dismissed
from their jobs.
The counter revolution unleashed in the
wake of July 1971 laid
the foundations for the
capitalist path, thereby achieving the most
important goal in the
rightist programme. Total
lack of democracy descended
on our country. The trade unions
were transformed into puppets
and all parties and organisations
were completely banned.
Mr President
and members of the
court. Eleven years
have elapsed since
this regime came to power.
On the economic
level we still
export the same
crops, among which cotton
is still predominant. We import
the same manufactured goods. If there is change,
it is for the worse. The
regime has encouraged the
influx of foreign monopoly
capital, namely from
the Arab countries, the
multinationals, and neo-colonialist institutions.
The country is drained of
foreign exchange while
indebtedness to the IMF and
foreign commercial banks has
exceeded $5 billion. The
loans were actually squandered on
ill-conceived projects, on augmenting
the bureaucracy of the SSO
and the SU and on luxurious and ostentatious installations.
Bad planning,
impetuousness and inefficiency
are rampant throughout
the economic sectors.
Productivity has deteriorated to the
lowest ebb in our modern history. The downward
spiral in the balance of payments
and the chronic deficits
in the budgets
have been worsened
rather than remedied
by the accelerating taxes,
loans from local
and foreign banks
and finance from abroad.
In short, the country's economy
is in shambles. The five-year
plan has been abolished. The trend
is just to encourage
foreign investment, irrespective of
the fields which the foreign investors choose
for their activities. Curbing
of government expenditure has
resulted in mass unemployment, and of
course no alternative
employment has ever been considered.
Thousands of people are left
with no alternative but to
emigrate. The government
has embarked on a plan
of weakening the public sector. Their objective is its
ultimate disintegration,
with a view
to transferring the
profitable projects to the private sector. Our
people bear the brunt of
these policies by having
to cope with the ever
rising direct and indirect
taxes. They suffer the
consequences of the inflation
in the form of ever
soaring prices and dwindling
incomes.
Economic
activity is in the
hands of neo-colonialism and the parasitic capitalism. A plethora
of non-ethical channels for quick
wealth have been opened
up by the regime for
a close-knit elite.
Our society is
beset by corruption, graft and
malpractice of all types. The atmosphere
is rampant with the moral disintegration and the scandalous behaviour of
ministers and government officials. The majority of our people,
on the other hand, live from hand to mouth, even worse. They are
deprived of facilities in the fields of housing,
sanitation and education. They
live in horrible conditions of dire poverty and epidemics.
The regime's
foreign policy is
one of relinquishing
the country's independence and
jeopardising its sovereignty and territorial
integrity. The regime has aligned itself to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the
US. I would like to make three
points in this respect.
1.
The regime has
been producing quixotic
noises about an
impending Soviet invasion through neighbouring countries. Everybody
knows that the Soviet Union has no geopolitical
stakes in our
country and it has always been
the noble friend
of our people
and of all
the Arab peoples.
The imagined invasion is merely the
regime's pretext for
backing away from non-alignment and falling onto the lap of American imperialism. The head of the
regime has shamelessly declared that
his regime is
a pawn of the
American led alliance directed against
the peoples of the region. The US has now been offered naval, air and other
facilities in the Sudan, to be used by the
Rapid Deployment Force (RDF)
to subjugate the
Arab and African peoples and
to protect American interests.
2.
The regime has signed a military pact with Egypt according to which any internal turmoil
in either of the two
countries is tantamount
to foreign invasion. Under the
circumstance the other signatory should come
in with instantaneous assistance, even if not asked to do so. The regime
has recently signed a 'treaty of economic and political integration' with
Egypt. It is to be viewed in the light of
the American hegemony over both Sudan and Egypt. Within this
context, joint military manoeuvres were
recently conducted on Sudanese soil by
American, Egyptian and
Sudanese troops (Operation Bright Star).
3.
The regime has always been outspoken in
its support of the Camp David Accord. It
is now more
forthcoming than ever;
following the fierce Zionist/imperialist attack on the Palestinian and Arab
people, the regime is no
longer shy of fully assuming
it's role as an American puppet.
Our independence was priced at heroic sacrifices,
and our people have never ceased
defending it. They
defeated all the
post-independence American attempts
to turn Sudan into a client state, c.f.
the Middle East Alliance, the Eisenhower
Plan, the American Aid Project and the
Islamic Pact. Yet, the regime
deliberately oblivious of this history, has transformed our country into a tunnel through
which military aid is syphoned to other puppets in the area e.g. Mobutu of
Zaire, the French-backed regime of
Central Africa and Hussein Habre of
Chad. Our country is
involved in aggressive activities against Libya, Ethiopia
and Southern Yemen. Our role as supporters of the Arab and African
Liberation movements has been
reversed. The regime flagrantly
violates the principles of non-alignment.
Mr
President and members of the court. I was asked in a previous session about the CP's
position concerning the
so-called 'national reconciliation'. The CP has
issued a number of statements
on the issue
of reconciliation. As you know,
the campaign for the so-called 'national
reconciliation' was a consequence of one
of the regime's political
crises. It was a fake slogan designed for
local consumption. If they
were in any way
genuine the regime should have accompanied their offer with the restoration of democracy. They failed
to do that.
The
CP was not intransigent as regards the dialogue
with the regime. We were
actually involved in preliminary
talks with some of the regime's leading figures. We asked them a
vital question to which we have
hitherto received no answer. What
would happen to our negotiating team
if they emerged from
under-cover, took part in
the negotiations and
failed to arrive at an
agreement with the regime?
The
reconciliation was a thinly veiled
attempt by the regime to mark
time and distract people's attention from their
economic dilemma. Their promises
to rescind the
anti-democratic laws were just a camouflage for further
repression. Five years after the
reconciliation was launched, the country is still
under emergency laws. At this moment 250 political detainees are
languishing in the abodes of Kober [Cooper Prison in Khartoum], Port Sudan
and Medani. Some of them have
been in detention for 3-7 years, without
trial. Political prisoners are
still tortured, and only two weeks ago one
of them was physically tortured
in my hearing.
Mr
President and members of the
court. Our country is in the crux of a crisis. We appeal
to all the patriots of Sudan
to rally round two slogans,
if we are to salvage our country:
1.
The abolition of all fascist laws
and the release of political
detainees.
2.
The recovery of our
identity and national
sovereignty by condemning
the
Camp David
Accord and withdrawal
from all treaties
and pacts with
the US
and
Egypt.
Achieving these
two objectives will pave
the way for building the Sudan
of the future. We can then proceed
to achieve the following strategies:
1.
The erection of a democratic society
on the firm foundations of a just and democratic constitution
that safeguards civil
liberties and basic
rights. It should guarantee
the independence of the
judiciary and restore
the rule of law.
Legislative authority should
rest with a
democratically elected parliament to which
the executive authority
should be answerable.
The head of the state
should have limited
mandatory powers vis-a-vis the
sovereign's ceremonial
activities.
2.
We should once again revert
to our positive role among the Arab and African progressive
movements. We should
follow an independent foreign policy built on vehement
opposition to
neo-colonialism, on the one hand, and
cordiality with the socialist
and non-aligned countries on the other.
3.
We must release our economy from
the fetters of foreign monopolies. We should begin by an urgent action programme to salvage
the services' sector and
parastatal corporations. Another
urgent priority is a new
fiscal policy and a
development programme that
should aspire to uplift the sufferings of the masses. The wage
structure should be revised
so that the highest salary
should by no means exceed tenfold the lowest. The basic commodities should
be made available at stable
and affordable prices.
Simultaneously, we
should embark on a
long term development
plan whose primary objective
is redressing the uneven
development between the
various regions. Closely connected
to this is the
gradual modernisation of the traditional sector.
Mr President
and members of the court.
This is not my first
time to be tried for my political convictions.
I have been involved in our people's struggle since my very early
days. I have not been stimulated
by any individualistic tendency to make
the above statements. I find no
gratification except in welding
myself to the whole which
is the Sudanese revolutionary
forces and in claiming no gratuity
for that. I realise myself
only through identification with the values
and aspirations of my
people's struggle. I identify myself with the heroic
history of our people, and I am a product of that history.
That is why
this trial is not
intended for me
alone. It is a desperate attempt on
the part of the despotic May
regime to uproot the movement and obliterate the history which I represent.
This will prove an intractable mirage.
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