OCTOBER 2007
African
Muslims of the Fur tribe in the New Sereif Refugee Camp
outside of Nyala, Darfur
Daoud Boulad -The
Revolutionary Legend of Darfur
Below is a piece written about
late Mr. Doud Yahaya Bould a Darfurin Muslim and former
member of Omar al Bashir's party who discovered the
government's racist machinations against his African
people in Darfur and decided to break rank with them. He
joined the SPLM of late Dr. John Garang early in the 1990
but could not survive the government intelligence. Let
the African Muslim communities who blindly support Bashir
in his crimes in Darfur read it.
By: Dr El-tahir El-Faki
Daoud Boulad’s militancy for which he gave his life
became an example
throughout Darfur to galvanise and transform the
consciousness of the region
into a newly inspired political and military strength.
His courageous struggle
which cost him his life turned him into a heroic symbol
in Darfur. Boulad
became a catalyst that has awakened Darfur to rise
against tyranny of corrupt
Khartoum rule and fight to end marginalisation that has
besieged the whole
country.
Boulad was born in the early 1950s in Darfur and went to
public school after
memorizing the Koran and learned the basics of reading
and writing. It should
be noted here that all children of his age who went to
high secondary schools
had no choice but to leave their homes for towns or
cities further away from
their homes to where such schools were available. For
that reason, he went to
the government‘s high secondary school in the city
of Al-Fasher in Northern
Darfur and studied Islamic/Arab history and culture as
well as science. As a
young man, Boulad joined the Muslim Brotherhood Movement,
which its members
considered themselves superior class of Muslims and
regarded their Sheikh as an
exclusive divine leader of all Muslims over the globe. He
made it to the
University of Khartoum, which was not an easy task for a
Darfurian in the early
seventies where limited places were available in hard
competing atmospheres. He
was elected President of the Student’s Union of the
University of Khartoum in
1973/74. His charismatic personality captured the
imagination of his fellow
students who were attracted to his eloquent and fiery
speeches against the
Nimeiry regime in the rallies held at the university
courtyards. Although
Arabic was not his mother’s tongue, he managed to
shed aside native accent
and the Fur dialect to speak perfect standard Arabic. I
had the honour of being
his colleague and close associate as a member in the
student’s union at the
University of Khartoum sharing the same values.
Boulad was regularly harassed by the security forces of
Nimeiry and spent some
time in Dabak prison in the Northern part of Khartoum
where politicians
considered to be dangerous to the regime were held. At
one time, he managed
heroically to evade his captors and escaped from his
confinement. As we will
see, that incident was later abused by the National
Islamic Front (NIF) and
cost him his life. Having finished his university
education in Khartoum, he
then returned to his region of Darfur where he lived for
years working as a
businessman. He continued to be an active member of the
Islamic movement until
it took power in Sudan in June 1989. His long waited-for
vision and faith in
the Muslim ideal of a perfect Islamic state did not
materialise and above all
contradicted those held by his fellow Muslim brothers
from the Northern part of
Sudan. It then became obvious to him that his Northern
fellow party members
monopolised power, enjoyed great economic privileges and
enormous political and
social influences under the new Islamic regime. That
phenomenon was not in
Darfur alone, but all over the Sudan. Boulad was perhaps
one of the few among
the Muslim Brothers to realise that the new spirit of
Arab nationalism and
Islamic faith he shared with the ordinary members of his
Movement proved to be
a divisive factor negating the ideals he believed in.
Soon after, Boulad came out once more in the active
political life as an
insurgent SPLA/SPLM commander claiming to propagate its
armed struggle into the
heart of Darfur. Despite the lack of evidence so far to
support the views that
Boulad switched allegiance to join the secular and the
liberal Dr John Garang
of the SPLA/SPLM, subsequent to a specific incident, it
seems reasonable to
suggest retrospectively that he became alienated and
frustrated when he saw the
(Islamic civilisation project) falling apart and ending
into a tool for
repression and perpetuation of backwardness. The strains
and stresses of power
struggle among members of the NIF, blandishments,
nepotism, wide spread
corruption, threats of plots and of internal fighting
each pursuing its own
interests and its policies led to tyranny and repression
of the same people the
NIF came to help. NIF’s economic failure brought
hardships and poverty and
its army suffered great losses in the South. All these
predicaments combined
created deeply troubled and discontented Boulad. For him
as a Darfurian,
mounting sense of marginalisation, humiliation,
inferiority and frustration
compounded with his inability to solve even the simplest
of problems for the
region diverted him to the side of the SPLA/M.
It wasn’t clear to the observant how the SPLA would
uncritically accept
Boulad into the movement without authenticating his
departure from his old
objectives and visions of an Islamic State! He must have
efficiently
demonstrated his seriousness to be received into the
movement. Boulad knew very
well that for Darfur to have a viable movement against
the NIF, it needed
support by a strong political body like the SPLA/M. It
was well known that the
SPLA/SPLM laid down strict requirements and harsh methods
to recruit followers
before allowing them to engage in military operations. It
was therefore that
the events preceded his defection to the SPLA would not
have developed
overnight. Whether he deserted the Islamic movement and
transferred his
allegiance to his once old enemy or entered into a
temporary alliance with the
SPLA/M remains to be explored. It was also not known
whether his defection was
pre-arranged with others holding high offices and who
were to join him later
should he succeed. Nevertheless, Boulad gained military
training in Southern
Sudan under the SPLA command and was dispatched in a
mission as a commander of
a small battalion to Darfur early in July 1990 and
emerged in the region later
by October 1990. At the same time, Dr Al-tayeb Ibrahim
Mohammed Kheir, nickname
‘Sikha’, who was once one of the bodyguards for
Daoud when he was the
president of the student’s union was the appointed
governor of Darfur. The
expedition was not well-organised and suffered serious
hardships. As soon as
Boulad reached Darfur, the government security forces
knew all about his
movements. As Boulad’s passage to homeland in Jabal
Marra was huge and
inhabited by hostile Arab tribes to the SPLA/M, it was
not difficult for the
government to pursue its old favoured strategy of using
local Arab militias and
arming them to fight against Boulad’s forces. The
expedition ended in
disaster and Boulad was soon captured following betrayal
by his own Fur tribe.
As it was reported, Boulad arrived at a small area in
Jabal Marra called
Dilaige dressed in rags, unshaven and unkempt to approach
a farmer working
along with his son. He asked them if they knew Boulad?
Their answer was no. He
told them that he was Boulad and that he needed to wash
and shave. They allowed
him in and went to continue with their work. At that
moment officials from the
local municipal were looking for stolen herd when they
came upon the same
farmer and his son. The farmer’s son told the
officials that Boulad was in
their compound washing himself. He was then caught and
handed over handcuffed
to his once former junior Dr Sikha.
The government was jubilant and Al-Bashir himself flew to
Al-Fasher to handle
the matter personally. The media then portrayed Boulad as
an apostate, a
convert to Christianity and an infidel who was inciting
sedition and blasphemy.
It was reported that he was brought before Sikha himself,
looking exhausted and
given little opportunity to speak out. Given his
experience with Sikha whom he
knew very well, he must have understood that he would not
survive the ordeal.
As it was later reported, Boulad requested to be taken to
Khartoum for trial
but his pledge was refused. Al-Bashir declared that
Boulad was persona non
grata and should be disposed of. Three days later the
governor’s media
announced that Boulad was shot while trying to escape and
later died of his
wounds. The scenario of his execution was based on the
previous precedence of
his escape from Dabak’s prison in the early
seventies. Boulad was never seen
again and the whereabouts of his grave is not known. The
story of his alleged
escape has never been independently verified. The answer
still rests with
Al-Bashir, Altayeb Sikha and the Islamic junta.
Boulad abandoned the ‘NIF’ because of its
apparent non-adherence to justice
and equality ideals. He started to understand that those
issues could be
addressed by other means such as secularism where it
practically failed under
the theocratic values of the ‘NIF’. Above he
realised that it was nothing
wrong for him as a Muslim to adopt secular sentiments and
fight for its cause.
This view is supported by the fact that he joined the
SPLA/M fighting the
rights of the marginalised in a secular state and did not
shift to join or
formed another Islamic movement of his own.
Boulad’s legacy was of utmost importance in the new
political struggle for
power and wealth in the region. His rebellion was not
directed against Islam or
religion as such. It was directed against the use of
religious argument and
against sentiments to justify corruption and domination
by privileged
minorities and suppression of those seeking to exist as
equal citizens. In
other words, his stand was part and parcel of the
movement of the marginalized
against the tyranny of a corrupt State. The rule of the
NIF witnessed the
emergence of a new upper class of Muslim brothers that
possesses enormous
fortunes in cash and property supported by the political
might of the state.
These fortunes were achieved by holding government posts
with unlimited
opportunities for illegal earnings by trade or banking,
loans or tips and
exploitation of property and other means. Having
witnessed such widely spread
corruption and evidenced manipulation of his Darfurian
people who were sent for
the so-called martyrdom in the war against the SPLA,
Boulad became disappointed
with the regime that he helped to establish.
Boulad’s action signified the fact that Darfurians
do not lack initiatives,
courage and energy for change on their own. It is equally
true that during past
regimes too few of Darfur leaders rose for a common cause
for Sudan as a whole
using an armed struggle. Boulad became a pioneer by
joining the SPLA/M that
calls for a united Sudan through an armed struggle.
Contemporary Darfurian
elites who joined the government of the ‘NIF’
and later defected to the
current rebellion in Darfur view Boulad as their hero and
aspirant for
instigating the revolution against what was once their
Islamic vision. Their
action is analogous to what he did in his course for
seeking truth and
political certainty. Therefore, it is unreasonable to
exploit past political
affiliations to justify sanctions against some of Darfur
leaders simply because
they were once members of the ‘NIF’.
The material result of what was termed “Islamic
civilisation project”
adopted by the NIF was disappointing to most of the
Darfurians who recall the
propaganda of idealism which the Islamic movement used to
advocate. They
were led to believe in a new era of equity and justice
for all. Boulad set the
precedence for the new generation to shed away their old
ideological ties
without shame and join armed resistance or constitute
opposing forces and
movements of their own.. The failure of the “Islamic
civilisation project”
as a whole, and the ridicule it brought against those who
believed in it, made it
possible for others who critically but constructively
opposed it in private to
come out to the surface and oppose it in public. The
“Islamic civilisation
project” ultimately disintegrated and turned into a
mechanism for recruiting
its own enemies from among those Darfurians who ardently
professed and fended
it. The decline and eventual collapse of the
“Islamic civilisation project”
equated the enthusiasm by which it was first prescribed.
The final result of
its demise has been the seeds of the current Darfur
crisis.
Dr. El-tahir El-Faki, is the Secretary General of the
legislative Council,
Justice & Equality Movement. He can be contacted at:
Email
tahirlefaki@yahoo.co.uk
|Posted by TheBlackList
|http://www.theblacklist.net
An
African Muslim chief of the Fur tribe in the New Sereif
Refugee Camp
COMMENT BY
http://www.bnvillage.co.uk/news-politics-village
In a way yes. Darfur would have been much better off , Politically
or Economically like the South of Sudan if the people of
Darfur had not betrayed Daoud Boulad. Daoud was
in the South and he was sent by the SPLA/SPLM to explore
the possibility of persuading the Darfurians on how to
join the SPLA and fight for a Secular and United Sudan in
which all are respected. However at that time period of
1990 and since Sudan's Independence in 1956, Eastern
Sudan and Darfur who speak Arabic and at the same time
Muslim assumed that they were part of the Arab system
(with the Arab government of Sudan), but they were
mistaken. It took Darfurians 40 years to figure out who
is the real enemy and 48 years for Beja of Eastern Sudan
to rise against the establishment of the Islamic and
Arabic North. So when Daoud Boulad arrived in Darfur
with a small force of less than 700 men, he was long
betrayed by Darfurians.
The Arab islamic Government was already waiting for him
and a trap was set. Daoud Boulad walked right into the
trap that was set by his old friends in the NIF (National
Islamic front) regime. Daoud did not come with a fighting
force but rather with an exploratory force to explore the
possibilities of rallying the Darfur and that force was
smashed right from the beginning. It took almost fourteen
(14) years before the Darfurians would realize what a
mistake they had done by betraying Daoud Boulad.
African Moslems in Sudan and throughout the World have
been fooled for long time in northern Sudan that the
enemy is not from within. Southern Sudanese were quick
to recognize this fact and acted very quickly forming the
first rebellion from 1956-1972, and later the Sudan
People Liberation Movement/Army from 1982 -2002. They
(Southerners) started to fight for their rights long
before the people of Darfur, Nuba Mountains and Eastern
Sudan. The policies of Arabization and Islamization
are the major causes of war in Sudan.
A Federal system might have solved Sudan problems which
South Sudan requested before independence but was
rejected by the Islamic north.
As the last champion for Unity, the late Dr. John Garang
used to say that the only solution in Sudan is to
implement the SPLM vision of New Sudan in which everybody
is respected and accorded equal opportunity by state
before we become Arabs, Africans, Northerners,
Southerners, Christians or Muslims or anything you want
to be; we must all be Sudanese. The vision championed by
Garang was outright rejected by the Arab Islamic North.
As Yasser Arman a Northern Arab and Official Spokesman
and a High Ranking SPLA/SPLM Commander used to say
this despite he himself being Arab, "The behavior of
the so-called Arab in Sudan is as if when Irish
Immigrants from Europe to America 100 years ago wanted
all the early settlers in United States such as Germans,
English, Italians and many others to become Irish, act
Irish and speak Irish and follow Irish religion. I wonder
if that was the case, what would have become of America
today."
The SPLA/SPLM despite being a Southern based Movement had
many Arabs and Moslems among its ranks who believed in
the Vision of the SPLA/SPLM among them is Dr. Mansour
Khalid former Foreign Minister of Sudan in the 1970s.
Dr. Mansour Khalid was one of the leading members of the
SPLA/SPLM Political Bureau and Senior Foreign Affairs
Advisor. Another Moslem who was third in command to Dr
John Garang and Dr. Riak Machar was the Late Yousif
Mekhi Khuwa who was Moslem. Yousif Mekhi Khuwa was
replaced by another Moslem Abdul Azziz el Hilu
after Yousif died from Prostate cancer in England in
2001.
It must also be noted that after the war in the South
ended, the SPLA/SPLM handed over 12,000 Northern Army
Prisoners of war that were captured in battle. The
Arab Government of Sudan had no Prisoners of war to
hand over because captured SPLA/SPLM troops were
summarily executed by the Arab Government of Sudan.
So we can see here who are the butchers and incapable of
respecting the Rules of War and Engagement as stipulated
by the United NAtions Geneva Convention.
School
children in New Sereif Refugee camp outside of Nyala,
Darfur, Sudan
photos: www.lnsart.com/
Another important aspect to
remember was that the SPLA/SPLM Troops were under
strict orders not to touch or shoot any Wild Animals.
This is evidence when it emerged last moth that South
Sudan has the highest concentrations of Wild Animals,
Elephants and other species in the World and Southern
Sudan rivals Masai Marra in Kenya and Serengeti in
Tanzania combined when it comes to the sheer amount of
Wild Life. While Wild Animals are being wiped out in
other parts of the World, they are flourishing in
Southern Sudan. The SPLA even deploys Conservation
officers among its troops to ensure that no one touch
Wild Animals for the last 26 years of the instability in
the South. This is unheard of anywhere especially in war
conflict zones of Africa where Wild-Life usually suffers
or are wiped out. That is because the SPLA/SPLM realized
that Wild Animals and Wild Life are a resource just like
oil and must be preserved and protected by all means
necessary.
