FAILURE OF SUDAN’S TRANSITIONAL PERIOD

Sudan’s history since its 1956 independence consists of failed transitional periods.

In Episode 17 of African Stream’s ‘Pan-African Attitude’ podcast, Editor-in-Chief Ahmed Kaballo delved into what brought Sudan to the point of a foreign-backed proxy war with prominent politician, academic and economist Sidgi Kaballo. Sidgi, Ahmed’s father, is also a member of the Sudanese Communist Party.

In this clip, the pair explored the failures of Sudan’s fifth transitional period (2019-21), which came at the heels of the popular December 2018 revolution that ousted the country’s 30-year-long ruler Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. The transition that followed was supposed to set the country on a democratic, civilian-led path and away from the remnants of the Islamists’ regime.

Continued……However, many expressed scepticism about a power-sharing agreement between the military and civilian leadership. The Sudanese Communist Party, for example, wanted the military to return to their barracks so Sudan could be under civilian leadership.

Nonetheless, a transitional period of 39 months went into effect, during which the military would lead the Sovereign Council for the first 21 months, then hand over to the civilian leadership for the next 18 months. However, this process was interrupted by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the United Arab Emirates-backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF) coup in October 2021. The SAF had invited the RSF into the capital, Khartoum, to reinforce the suppression of the 2019 people’s uprisings. Experts warned that two powerful armed groups in the centre was a recipe for disaster.

Then, in 2021, Sudan agreeing to International Monetary Fund (IMF) measures like currency devaluation and subsidy cuts exacerbated the instability, culminating in the foreign-backed proxy war and creating the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with over half its population in need of assistance.

Watch the whole conversation on Rumble, Patreon and Editor-in-Chief @ahmedkaballo’s YouTube channel (@ahmedkaballo4170).

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e46Nmw1neZc&t=1588s

https://www.idea.int/publications/catalogue/dilemma-political-transition-sudan-analytical-approach

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/overcoming-history-sudans-uncertain-transition-democracy-face-military-pressure

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2023/04/resolving-sudans-crisis-means-removing-those-fighting

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/how-will-sudan-s-army-chief-decision-to-dissolve-rapid-support-forces-affect-war/2987074

https://www.cfr.org/blog/sudans-coup-one-year-later

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/1/19/imf-working-very-intensively-with-sudan-for-debt-relief

https://www.ossrea.net/publications/images/stories/ossrea/ssrr/ssrr-series-10.pdf

https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/CR/Issues/2021/06/30/Sudan-Enhanced-Heavily-Indebted-Poor-Countries-HIPC-Initiative-Decision-Point-Document-461368

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/5/25/africa-dont-bite-the-poison-pill-of-austerity-any-more

https://horninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/HORN-Bulletin-Vol-VII-%E2%80%A2-Iss-IV-%E2%80%A2-July-August-2024.pdf

https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2023/04/the-fight-for-sudan-was-inevitable.html

On 18-24 April 1955, representatives from 29 newly independent or soon-to-be independent countries met in Bandung, Indonesia, for the Asian-African Conference, better known as the Bandung Conference. It marked a pivotal turn for the quest for freedom across the colonised world, with attendance from some of Africa’s most prominent anti-colonial leaders, such as Kwame Nkrumah (1909-72) and Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-70).

From Africa came the newly independent states of Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia and Libya, and the soon-to-be independent Ghana and Sudan. Apartheid South Africa was not invited. The Central African Federation, also known as the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, consisting of what is now Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, but under racist settler-colonial rule, declined to send a representative.

Continued……The conference’s theme was promoting peace and cooperation amongst these new states. Indonesian President Sukarno (1901-70) famously declared, ‘We are often told ‘Colonialism is dead.’ Let us not be deceived or even soothed by that. I say to you, colonialism is not yet dead. How can we say it is dead, so long as vast areas of Asia and Africa are unfree.’

The conference produced a charter known as the ‘Ten Bandung Principles,’ which contributed to the definitions of national sovereignty and independence.

The Bandung Conference’s legacy includes influencing the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), founded in Yugoslavia in 1961. It would also go on to inspire the 1966 Solidarity Conference of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America, also known as the Tricontinental Conference, which drew more than 500 representatives from the national liberation movements, guerrilla movements and independent governments of 82 countries in Havana, Cuba.

Sources

https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/asian-african-bandung-conference-fact-and-fiction

https://www.southcentre.int/question/revisiting-the-1955-bandung-asian-african-conference-and-its-legacy

https://ces.uc.pt/en/agenda-noticias/agenda-de-eventos/2016/legacies-of-the-tricontinental

Continued…. Khalil's arrest was amongst the first in a series of arrests of pro-Palestine student activists. Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts University, was detained by immigration authorities on 25 March. Yunseo Chung, a US permanent resident born in South Korea and a Columbia University student, was arrested on 5 March. More recently, on 14 April, another Colombia student and a permanent resident, Mohsen Madawi, who co-founded the Palestinian Student Union with Khalil, was also arrested. US agents reportedly lured Madawi into a citizenship interview, upon which he was detained. 

The Trump administration has said it has revoked hundreds of other students’ visas over what it calls their 'anti-semitic' stance, an umbrella term used to delegitimise those who denounce Israel’s military onslaught. So far, Israel may have k*lled at least 186,000 as of early July 2024, according to the Lancet medical journal.

Since World War II, Israel has been the largest recipient country of US aid.

Sources

https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/dhs-to-begin-screening-aliens-social-media-activity-for-antisemitism

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=854e49b0-9704-4bdc-831c-443b4d15aead

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/additional-measures-to-combat-anti-semitism/

https://apnews.com/article/mahmoud-khalil-columbia-university-trump-c60738368171289ae43177660def8d34

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/04/11/zjrk-a11.html

https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8369

https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2025/04/rumeysa-ozturk-describes-detainment-poor-conditions-at-ice-detention-center-in-declaration

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/24/nyregion/columbia-student-ice-suit-yunseo-chung.html

https://abcnews.go.com/US/columbia-university-associate-mahmoud-khalil-arrested-dhs/story?id=120800223

https://theintercept.com/2025/04/14/ice-columbia-student-mohsen-mahdawi-citizenship-interview/

MACKLEMORE DEFENDS DETAINED PALESTINIAN MAHMOUD KHALIL

On 22 March, rapper and activist Macklemore (@macklemore on Instagram) spoke out in support of the people of Palestine and Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate, Syrian-born Palestinian activist and US permanent resident, who US authorities illegally arrested and detained over his pro-Palestine organising. The US State Department recently announced immigrants and those seeking visas would be rejected and deported for espousing supposed anti-Semitic viewpoints.

At an event called ‘Free Mahmoud!Free Palestine!’ at The People's Forum (@peoplesforumnyc on Instagram) in New York, the artist took listeners on a journey of what it was like for him, learning about the true history of Palestine, the systemic injustices and the fear of losing out on a livelihood for the possibility of being labelled 'anti-Semitic.’ However, he overcame that fear after he could no longer be silent in the face of Palestine’s oppression.

Continued……. It's been nearly 77 years after the 1948 Nakba, when Z*onist settler-colonial forces forced about 800,000 Palestinians off their land to establish the state of Israel. Between 1947 and 1949, Israel k*lled over 15,000 Palestinians through more than 70 massacres that destroyed 531 villages.

Many experts, including the UN, say Palestinians in Gaza live in the ‘world’s largest open-air prison.' Human-rights monitoring organisations have referred to Israel as an apartheid state, with Palestinians facing movement limitations, calorie and water restrictions, executions, arbitrary arrests, s*xual violence and other abuses. 

Macklemore reminded the world that the history of Palestine did not begin on 7 October 2023 and that US tax dollars that continue to fund Israel’s onslaught against Palestinians make those who choose to remain silent complicit in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. 

Video credit: @btnewsroom (X)

Sources

https://peoplesforum.org/events/fight-for-our-rights-free-mahmoud/

https://www.globaljustice.org.uk/blog/2024/05/remembering-the-nakba-a-70-year-struggle-for-justice/

https://www.nrc.no/news/2018/april/gaza-the-worlds-largest-open-air-prison

https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-44124396

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/5/23/the-nakba-did-not-start-or-end-in-1948

https://www.asawinstanley.com/2010/10/our-dreams/

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190420-why-zionism-has-always-been-a-racist-ideology/

https://www.ejiltalk.org/beyond-discrimination-apartheid-is-a-colonial-project-and-zionism-is-a-form-of-racism/

https://www.fidh.org/en/region/north-africa-middle-east/israel-palestine/israeli-apartheid-the-legacy-of-the-ongoing-nakba-at-75

https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203447

https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts

Continued….. https://agoa.info/news/article/16541-letting-a-trade-act-expire-won-t-fix-the-us-africa-trade-deficit.html

https://agoa.info/data/total-trade.html

https://www.cnbcafrica.com/2025/steep-us-tariffs-on-africa-signal-end-of-trade-deal-meant-to-boost-development/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1222625/value-of-exports-from-africa-to-china/#:~:text=For%20instance%2C%20in%202000%2C%20African,only%204.9%20billion%20U.S.%20dollars.

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/360deg-view-african-growth-and-opportunity-act-agoa

https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/business-tech/us-formally-removes-uganda-from-agoa--4480314

https://www.cgdev.org/blog/renewing-agoa-wont-do-much-africas-exports-heres-what-could
https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/renew-agoa-address-its-limitations

https://gfmag.com/economics-policy-regulation/africa-china-trade-debt-loans/
https://agoa.info/about-agoa/kb/article/16166-how-does-a-country-qualify-to-become-an-agoa-beneficiary-country.html

https://www.africanmining.co.za/2025/04/04/key-sa-mineral-exports-to-the-us-excluded-from-damaging-tariffs/

https://archive.uneca.org/publications/how-%E2%80%98agoa-20%E2%80%99-could-be-different

NO TIME TO DYE? INDIGO, GO, GOING FOR 500 YEARS!

Fashions come and go, but some stick around for hundreds of years. For over five centuries, people in the city of Kano have dyed cloth in open-air pits and sold it across the region. At Kofar Mata, dyers use a time-honoured procedure of mixing ash, potash, natural indigo and water - to create stunning indigenous patterns.

We travelled to northern Nigeria to witness the indigo-dye tradition of the people of Kofar Mata first hand. And to bag ourselves a few designs!

Hear Us Roar: https://news.1rj.ru/str/AfricanStream

MUGABE OWNS UK JOURNO

45 years ago on this day, Zimbabwe became an independent state - ending decades of British settler-colonialism.

Independence came after a bitter and protracted armed struggle, waged against the racist regime of Ian Smith by two liberation movements: the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU).

In December 1979, the warring parties signed the Lancaster House Agreement, which paved the way for the country’s first democratic elections. ZANU’s Robert Mugabe won those, and officially became the country’s first post-independence leader on 18th April, 1980.

To commemorate that momentous occasion, here’s a flashback to when Mugabe put a condescending British journalist in his place. At an African Union summit held in Egypt’s Sharm El Sheikh resort in 2008, the ITN correspondent tried to get a reaction out the Zimbabwean president. Mugabe did not hold back.

Which of today’s African leaders do you think are equally ‘no nonsense’?

A South African court has ruled that two apartheid-era police officers can be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. They are suspected of the 1982 murders of three young anti-apartheid activists and the attempted murder of a fourth.

The two men, Christiaan Rorich and Tlhomedi Mfalapitsa, had argued that it was too late, as the Criminal Procedure Act states that offences can only be prosecuted within 20 years of being committed. But the court ruled that there is no expiration date for prosecuting crimes against humanity.

Rorich and Mfalapitsa were allegedly part of an apartheid-era death squad (whose other members are deceased) that, on 15 February 1982, lured Eustice Madikela, Peter Matabane, Fanyana Nhlapo and Zandisile Musi to a water-pumping station rigged with explosives.

Continued……As well as secretly working for the police, Mfalapitsa was a member of the African National Congress’ military wing. The students were told he would help them leave the country to undergo military training in exile.

Once they arrived at the pump house, he is said to have left the students alone in the building under the pretext that he was going to bring additional training gear. Once outside, Rorich and the now-deceased Jan Coetzee allegedly detonated the explosives, killing three of the students and seriously wounding the fourth.

The incident was made to appear as if the students had blown themselves up while training to use explosives.

Hear Us Roar: https://news.1rj.ru/str/AfricanStream

SHUT THE MINES AND CONGO CAN FEED AFRICA

When we talk about the Congo’s resources, we tend first to think of its mineral wealth - worth an estimated $24 trillion. But as the ongoing conflict (aided and abetted by outside actors) in the east of the country shows, this wealth has brought more war than welfare for the Congolese people, who, in addition to suffering the ravages of a minerals war, work for a pittance in dangerous conditions in mines controlled by exploitative multinationals who are reaping all the profits. Yet Congo’s riches extend far beyond its mines. As Maurice Carney from Friends of the Congo argues, even if we shut all of DRC’s mines, the country is still extremely rich - for example, it has enough agricultural capacity, he claims, to feed the entire continent twice over.

Continued……Congo has everything it needs to flourish and, as the heart of Africa, to help our continent unite and prosper. But Congo’s wealth is not allowed to serve its people. Unfortunately, a system of imperialist plunder, enabled by corrupt elites and the legacy of colonialism, are ensuring it - and with it Africa - continues to bleed.

Credit: @praywithourfeet

Sources

https://discoveryalert.com.au/news-article/natural-resources-democratic-republic-congo-2025/


https://wrsc.org/story/how-drcs-inga-project-could-solve-much-africas-power-problems

https://data.worldbank.org/country/congo-dem-rep

https://worldhistoryedu.com/atrocities-committed-in-the-congo-free-state-under-king-leopold-ii/

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/world/africa/m23-goma-congo-rwanda.html