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2019 Is a Year the Sudanese Will Never Forget

The Sudanese Military Council and the Forces for Freedom and Change sign the political agreement that paved the way for the formation of the transitional government in Khartoum last August (Reuters)
The Sudanese Military Council and the Forces for Freedom and Change sign the political agreement that paved the way for the formation of the transitional government in Khartoum last August (Reuters)
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2019 Is a Year the Sudanese Will Never Forget

The Sudanese Military Council and the Forces for Freedom and Change sign the political agreement that paved the way for the formation of the transitional government in Khartoum last August (Reuters)
The Sudanese Military Council and the Forces for Freedom and Change sign the political agreement that paved the way for the formation of the transitional government in Khartoum last August (Reuters)

The Sudanese will not forget 2019 and their revolution, the revolution that brought down the most brutal dictatorship in the country’s history. They will forget not the bloodshed, the rapists, or the groans of the tortured. They will not forget the year with many days of hope, the year they weaved a “portrait of defiance” in the face of the regime’s brutality.

The Sudanese celebrated their revolution’s first anniversary on the 19th of December, the country’s third revolution after the October and March revolutions of 1964 and 1985. The revolution continues a year after it began and months after its victory on the 11th of April.

The revolution inherited arbitrary wars throughout the country and a flabby and corrupt state apparatus controlled by the regime’s Islamist cronies. The new government is fighting hard to find peace, retrieve the state from them, and instill an honest and efficient apparatus in its place.

The revolution’s story

After four months of uninterrupted peaceful protesting, the popular movement brought an end to Omar al-Bashir’s 30-year reign. The 6th of April, five days before Bashir was brought down, as the myth of the legendarily repressive state was shattered by the huge numbers who confronted the army in the capital.

The Sudanese Professionals Association

The Sudanese Professionals Association, an association of professional syndicates, adopted the movement’s demands and called for a protest in Khartoum, which would head to the palace and ask the president to resign on December 25th; they were met with gunfire and tear gas at the hand of the security forces. Protests continued, and on the 1st of January last year, the “Declaration of Freedom and Change” was born and adopted by most of the country’s opposition parties and civil society organizations. Thus the Forces of Freedom and Change alliance was formed.

Sit-in facing Army Command

By the end of March 2019, the regime had begun to crumble under the weight of the movement, and Bashir appeared shaken in the speeches he delivered to his supporters.

Social media played a pivotal role in documenting the killing of peaceful demonstrators, exposing the major transgressions perpetrated by the regime's security apparatus to the world.

“Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change” announced that a march to the General Command of the Sudanese Army would take place on April 6, the anniversary of the 1986 uprising against President Jaafar Nimeiri. As the sun set that day, millions of people surrounded the army leadership, and the alliance declared that the sit-in would persist until the president stepped down. The security services and the Islamists’ militias tried to break the sit-in by force, but they failed after attempts.

Tragedy at the sit-in

When the army announced that Bashir would be removed on April 11th to be replaced by a military council led by its former Lieutenant General, Awad Ibn Auf with Lieutenant-General Kamal Abdel Maarouf as his deputy. Both men had been members security committee set up by Bashir to quell the protests, and a massive sit-in was held in response immediately. Under the weight of its pressure, Ibn Auf resigned and the military council was dissolved, and he announced the formation of a new council headed by Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the Inspector General of the Army at the time, and the current Transitional Council Chairman. Tragedy in struck in a sit-in on June 3 third, the security forces committed a massacre next to the army leadership base, killing dozens wounding hundreds, ending the Forces of Change's relationship with the military. In response, what is known as the giant June 30 processions, were held, shifting the balance of power in the favor of revolutionary forces.

African mediation and the constitutional document

Regional mediation, led by Ethiopia and the African Union, supported by the international community, succeeded in compelling them to sign a sharing agreement on August 17th after holding marathon negotiations and putting intense pressure on the junta and revolutionary forces,

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As It Attacks Iran's Nuclear Program, Israel Maintains Ambiguity about Its Own

FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)
FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)
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As It Attacks Iran's Nuclear Program, Israel Maintains Ambiguity about Its Own

FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)
FILE - This file image made from a video aired Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, by Israeli television station Channel 10, shows what the television station claims is Israel's nuclear facility in the southern Israeli town of Dimona, the first detailed video of the site ever shown to the public. (Channel 10 via AP, File)

Israel says it is determined to destroy Iran’s nuclear program because its archenemy's furtive efforts to build an atomic weapon are a threat to its existence.

What’s not-so-secret is that for decades Israel has been believed to be the Middle East’s only nation with nuclear weapons, even though its leaders have refused to confirm or deny their existence, The Associated Press said.

Israel's ambiguity has enabled it to bolster its deterrence against Iran and other enemies, experts say, without triggering a regional nuclear arms race or inviting preemptive attacks.

Israel is one of just five countries that aren’t party to a global nuclear nonproliferation treaty. That relieves it of international pressure to disarm, or even to allow inspectors to scrutinize its facilities.

Critics in Iran and elsewhere have accused Western countries of hypocrisy for keeping strict tabs on Iran's nuclear program — which its leaders insist is only for peaceful purposes — while effectively giving Israel's suspected arsenal a free pass.

On Sunday, the US military struck three nuclear sites in Iran, inserting itself into Israel’s effort to destroy Iran’s program.

Here's a closer look at Israel's nuclear program:

A history of nuclear ambiguity Israel opened its Negev Nuclear Research Center in the remote desert city of Dimona in 1958, under the country's first leader, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion. He believed the tiny fledgling country surrounded by hostile neighbors needed nuclear deterrence as an extra measure of security. Some historians say they were meant to be used only in case of emergency, as a last resort.

After it opened, Israel kept the work at Dimona hidden for a decade, telling United States’ officials it was a textile factory, according to a 2022 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an academic journal.

Relying on plutonium produced at Dimona, Israel has had the ability to fire nuclear warheads since the early 1970s, according to that article, co-authored by Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists, and Matt Korda, a researcher at the same organization.

Israel's policy of ambiguity suffered a major setback in 1986, when Dimona’s activities were exposed by a former technician at the site, Mordechai Vanunu. He provided photographs and descriptions of the reactor to The Sunday Times of London.

Vanunu served 18 years in prison for treason, and is not allowed to meet with foreigners or leave the country.

ISRAEL POSSESSES DOZENS OF NUCLEAR WARHEADS, EXPERTS SAY

Experts estimate Israel has between 80 and 200 nuclear warheads, although they say the lower end of that range is more likely.

Israel also has stockpiled as much as 1,110 kilograms (2,425 pounds) of plutonium, potentially enough to make 277 nuclear weapons, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a global security organization. It has six submarines believed to be capable of launching nuclear cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles believed to be capable of launching a nuclear warhead up to 6,500 kilometers (4,000 miles), the organization says.

Germany has supplied all of the submarines to Israel, which are docked in the northern city of Haifa, according to the article by Kristensen and Korda.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST POSE RISKS

In the Middle East, where conflicts abound, governments are often unstable, and regional alliances are often shifting, nuclear proliferation is particularly dangerous, said Or Rabinowitz, a scholar at Jerusalem's Hebrew University and a visiting associate professor at Stanford University.

“When nuclear armed states are at war, the world always takes notice because we don’t like it when nuclear arsenals ... are available for decision makers,” she said.

Rabinowitz says Israel's military leaders could consider deploying a nuclear weapon if they found themselves facing an extreme threat, such as a weapon of mass destruction being used against them.

Three countries other than Israel have refused to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: India, Pakistan and South Sudan. North Korea has withdrawn. Iran has signed the treaty, but it was censured last week, shortly before Israel launched its operation, by the UN's nuclear watchdog — a day before Israel attacked — for violating its obligations.

Israel's policy of ambiguity has helped it evade greater scrutiny, said Susie Snyder at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a group that works to promote adherence to the UN treaty.

Its policy has also shined a light on the failure of Western countries to rein in nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, she said.

They “prefer not to be reminded of their own complicity,” she said.