What is the Next Episode in the Egyptian Bullying Serial!

Rasha Awad: The Egyptian side describes the massacre it committed against Sudanese miners as part of a campaign to combat illegal mining on Egyptian soil!! This implies that the Egyptian Armed Forces have declared their seizure of new Sudanese lands in addition to Halaib and Shalateen, as is understood from their claim that their actions are simply combating illegal activities taking place within Egyptian territory! And what is called the Sovereignty Council, affiliated with the Sudanese army, hears and sees!! What has it done? It issued a pathetic statement that did not dare to name Egypt! It did not even refer to the aerial bombardment! It referred to the matter as if it were a painful traffic accident, and not a military aggression by a foreign state in which tens, and perhaps hundreds, of Sudanese were killed! Despite this trivial statement, I do not rule out that the Egyptian government may have sent a reprimand or a warning to this so-called Sovereignty Council, ordering them to remain silent forever! The subservience of this authority imposed upon the Sudanese has no limits! A Sudanese citizen shot three Egyptian truck drivers in Sudan, which led—regrettably—to the death of two and the injury of a third. Certainly, we reject and condemn, in principle, the random retaliation against innocent Egyptian citizens; our problem is not with a poor truck driver or any innocent Egyptian citizen. But we must pause at the difference in reactions. Regarding the death of the two individuals, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry issued a statement, and contacts took place at the highest levels between officials of both countries. A portion of the Egyptian media, as usual, exploited the killing of the two Egyptians to cover up the killing and wounding of a large number of Sudanese by airstrikes, as the lowest estimates indicate that the death toll is seventy, not including the wounded and missing, while Sudanese sources estimated the number to be even higher! Naturally, the Egyptian media is the best at inciting sympathy for the perpetrator and, through some ability, transforming them into a victim! In contrast, what did the media of the 'War of Regret'—which they call the 'War of Dignity'—do? The 'People of Sudan's Gunpowder' press donated its efforts to mislead public opinion regarding the scene of the crime, as references in their trembling articles repeatedly suggested that it was the Sudanese miners who crossed into Egyptian borders, whether out of ignorance or intent. One broken mouthpiece said, verbatim and shamelessly, 'It is Egypt's right to defend its lands and resources'!! This is a shameful collusion with the narrative of the Egyptian government, which describes what happened as combating illegal activity within its lands! As for the lowest point in this abyss, it was questioning the victims' own belonging to Sudan and claiming they were from Niger or other African countries!! The common denominator among the comments of all the mouthpieces of the 'War of Regret' is, as usual, attacking civil forces and criminalizing them more than the foreign aggressor who violated the nation's borders and killed innocent civilians via airstrikes! Why? Under the pretext that they exploited the incident for political point-scoring!! What a mockery it is for these mouthpieces, who have relentlessly distributed accusations of agency, mercenary behavior, national treason, and dependence on foreigners, to speak of point-scoring! They want to suggest to public opinion that this alleged point-scoring should be the focus of criminalization and harsh moral judgment! The demand is to be angry at the 'Qahatists' (civilian political leaders) rather than being angry at the violation of the nation's borders and the bombardment of its citizens from the air!! And at the shameful silence and cowardly reactions of an authority that also engages in its own point-scoring regarding national sovereignty! Is there any greater subservience and degradation than this? Is there anything more audacious than these mouthpieces of the 'War of Regret' lecturing us about national sovereignty, agency, and treason?! Their agency and shameful prostration to Egypt have reached the point of preemptively conceding Sudanese lands that were bombed by foreign aircraft, where Sudanese citizens were killed and their bodies still lie in the open!! They talk about a disputed area!! And crossing borders into Egypt at a time when reliable international newspapers, such as The New York Times, published that the area bombed was forty kilometers from the Sudanese-Egyptian border! Even if we concede for the sake of argument that Egypt bombed Sudanese citizens with aircraft inside its own territory, does this not necessitate an official Sudanese response that rises to the level of the crime? Did Egypt remain silent over the killing of its two citizens who were actually killed inside Sudanese territory? Obviously, any government is responsible for the lives, dignity, and interests of its citizens, even if they are in another country; that is why embassies and consulates exist! The repeated questioning of whether the miners were killed inside Sudan indicates that a 'deal was completed in secret' to sell Sudanese lands rich in gold to Egypt, and what is happening now is the 'agreed-upon handover procedures,' at the forefront of which is clearing those areas of any Sudanese human presence. The aerial bombardment, which has recurred twice in less than six months and carries the threat of continuation, will ensure Sudanese miners do not go to those areas. The question is: will the Egyptian bullying stop here? Or are there other mining areas in Sudan that must prepare for aerial bombardment and the expulsion of residents after terrifying them by killing dozens or hundreds of them? We want to know exactly what was sold of our lands in return for this corrupt military junta remaining in the seats of power! May God have mercy on Abdullah Khalil, the former Prime Minister of Sudan during the first Sudanese democracy (1956-1958). When electoral districts were demarcated and a district was allocated to Halaib, the Egyptian army moved and occupied the region, declaring its sovereignty over it. Abdullah Khalil ordered the Sudanese Armed Forces to move north immediately, and diplomatically, Sudan filed a complaint against Egypt to the UN Security Council. The Egyptian forces withdrew from Halaib in record time after learning that occupying Sudanese land would not come for free. That was the first and last movement of the Sudanese army to defend the national soil. Now (after the strongmen are gone and the weak have taken charge), and the response to the aggression on Sudanese territory ranges between silence or (empty, muddled, and corrupt) speech, and the preemptive admission that the attacked lands are Egyptian, what do we expect? Certainly, Egypt's expansionist appetite will open up and will not stop at the north of the valley as long as 'the garden has no guard'!! This national disgrace completely undermines the military's claims that military rule is the guarantor of national sovereignty. Historical facts, especially in the relationship with Egypt (the state with the largest project for the subordination of Sudan), prove that military regimes are the guarantors of Egypt's sovereignty over Sudan. Therefore, all of them, without exception, were regimes of dependency and the squandering of Sudanese land and blood. Democratic regimes were the eras of defending national sovereignty. Halfa was drowned for a cheap price during a military era (Abboud's era); a subservient joint defense agreement was signed during a military era (Nimeiri's era); and the occupation of Halaib and Fashaga without a 'peep' occurred during a military era (Bashir's era). Innocent Sudanese being bombed by Egyptian aircraft inside Sudanese territory, followed by Egypt claiming those lands are its own, happened during a military era (Al-Burhan's era)!! Meanwhile, democratic eras witnessed the army being moved for the first and last time in its history toward the borders to protect them from occupation (Abdullah Khalil's era, may God have mercy on him); they witnessed the cancellation of the subservient joint defense agreement (the era of the late Imam Sadiq al-Mahdi, may God have mercy on him); and they witnessed the discussion of what was previously unspoken in Sudanese-Egyptian relations, at the forefront of which was the occupation of Halaib (the transitional period led by Dr. Abdalla Hamdok). The path to preserving national sovereignty begins first by stopping the civil war among the Sudanese themselves and building a solid foundation for equal citizenship, and then reviving the country politically, economically, and developmentally through a project that makes the Sudanese a single bloc in defending their homeland, represented by a true national state led by free Sudanese from outside the 'Club of Those Who Tremble Before Egypt'.