Beja Congress
The Beja Congress ( English for "Congress of the Bedscha") is an organization of the people of the Bedscha in eastern Sudan, which operates with both political and sometimes military means .
issue
The east of Sudan, mainly inhabited by Bedscha and Rashaida, is a poor, underdeveloped region that has repeatedly been plagued by drought and hunger. Despite the rich deposits of gold and iron ore , including in the Jibal al-Bahr al-ahmar , which are also mined, not much has changed in this situation. The population hardly benefits from the profits from oil production . This is why many Bedscha and Rashaida feel marginalized and oppressed by the central government in Khartoum .
history
In 1957, Bedscha intellectuals, under the leadership of Dr. Taha Osman Bileya the Beja Congress, which advocates more regional autonomy for the Bedscha. In the democratic elections of 1965, the organization won some parliamentary seats for the 1965-1969 government period. During the reign of Jafar an-Numairi from 1969 to 1984, the Beja Congress remained superficially inactive, but continued to recruit members and mobilize the population in Eastern Sudan. The Beja Congress has been part of the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA) since 1995 .
In the 1990s, the Beja Congress began an armed struggle in response to heightened government repression. Government institutions such as the strategically important oil pipeline from Khartoum to Port Sudan , which leads through the Bedscha area to the Red Sea , have been attacked again and again .
When a peace agreement between the government and the rebels of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) ended the war of civil war in South Sudan in 2005 , and South Sudan promised autonomy or possibly independence, this also fueled hopes for more regional autonomy in other parts of the country. The Darfur conflict broke out openly in western Sudan . The Beja Congress allied itself with the rebel organization SLA in Darfur . The Beja Congress, the Rashaida organization Free Lions and the JEM in Darfur joined forces to form the " Eastern Front ". At the same time as the outbreak of the Darfur conflict, attacks on government institutions also intensified in East Sudan. An open escalation of the smoldering conflict in East Sudan was feared, but initially did not materialize.
From the beginning of 2006, peace negotiations between the government and the rebels of Eastern Sudan were ongoing in Eritrea . A peace treaty was signed on October 14, 2006.