Betreff: Marching towards a massacre: support for Rajaa in Sudan

Datum: Fri, 18 Jan 2019 20:45:42

Von: Sel Ma

DEAR FRIENDS AND FAMILY IN EUROPE,

I would like to kindly ask for your time to tell you about somethingthat means everything to me.

Next week, on January 25, is my dearest friend Rajaa Shamam’s birthday. I will send her money on this day. I’m offering you to do it with me, if  you can.

In 2011 Rajaa’s birthday saw the beginning of the Egyptian revolution which she supported as best she could even though she was a woman from Darfur living in Cairo.

In all the places where she lived after fleeing Cairo – Istanbul, Athens, Berlin – she fought for respect, emancipation, solidarity and healing.

Almost one month has passed since she decided to return to Sudan and join the revolution she’s always waited for. It began on December 19, 2018, as a protest against economic hardship due to Bashir’s regime spending 80% of the State budget on the army to kill its own people and soon turned into a nationwide political protest.

 During this time R. repeatedly told me that people marching at her side  for “Freedom, peace and justice!” had been gunned down by President  Bashir’s snipers shooting from rooftops. In total more than 40 have been killed, hundreds injured, thousands arrested and often tortured. Yesterday the security police tried to arrest R. in her family’s house. Spies had probably reported on her. Luckily, she wasn’t home.

This morning she told me that every day when going out to protest she  knows the risk of dying is higher. And it is not without fear for their lives that she encourages people in her neighbourhood to join in.

R. is determined to fight until the fall of the government that seized  power when she was a baby, jailed her countless times during her youth and committed a genocide in her home region Darfur, as well as in two other regions: South Sudan and Nuba Mountains.

But Bashir won’t resign, no matter how many of his people take to the streets: more than losing power he fears criminal prosecution, locally or by the International Criminal Court which wants him for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Bashir will remain President as long as he has foreign backing, most hypocritically by the EU which gave him €250 million to stop migration towards Europe on his Libyan border. Ironically, it is the former Janjaweed militias known for their participation in the Darfur genocide, that have been taking on this border-control function for the EU and that are now suppressing the popular uprising along with the police, the security police and the army. In the case that Bashir was ousted by elements within his party or security elites the EU would probably continue to work with his successor in order to “maintain stability in the region” and wouldn’t care that the power still isn’t in the people’s hands.

R. told me she’s desperate because protesters in Sudan risk their lives daily in vain as long as EU and US voters don’t pressure their parliaments and governments to tell Bashir very clearly that he will be held accountable if he massacres the peaceful popular uprising with a bloodbath as is likely to happenanytime soon. She said: “This is the time for campaigns in the EU and US! It is time to use Western parliaments.” As long as there is no significant interest on the part of their voters, EU governments on’t act. 

Let’s not wait for the dreaded massacre to happen or for any other protester to die. Isolated statements by Amnesty International, by the UN Human Rights Commissioner and by the European Commission are not enough. We must make our governments act in support of the popular uprising in Sudan!

Please let me know if you have ideas or experience in organising such a campaign or if you know persons that could be useful for it! In any case I will get back to you soon with my own plans.

Political support is what Rajaa wants most now. But if you can and want to support her financially during this time when she can’t make a living but needs money for herself and her family, for transport in order to attend demonstrations when fuel prices are skyrocketing due to a 120% inflation rate or for other purposes that she deems right, you can transfer your contribution – no matter how much – to the following account by January 23:

Selma Berg
IBAN: DE56100110012626317359
BIC: NTSBDEB1XXX
Reference: Rajaa

I will send her the money as a birthday present from my friends and family on January 25 in Sterling Pounds, which is a stable currency as opposed to Sudanese pounds, and will do so through a trustworthy private person whose services I have already used twice in the last weeks and who charges 5% which is fair.

If Rajaa gets arrested by then, the money will go to her sister Nahid whom I know personally until she is released.

Thank you for taking the time to read my message,

Hoping that Bashir’s foreign backing will stop and that the Sudanese revolution will succeed soon and without bloodshed,

Best

Selma

P.S.: You can follow the revolution on Rajaa’s facebook

 

Support for Radjaa in Sudan