Sam Magdy – Associated Press Feb 11, 2023
Sudan’s ruling military concluded a review of an agreement with Russia to build a navy base on the Red Sea in the African country, two Sudanese officials said Saturday.
They said the deal was awaiting the formation of a civilian government and a legislative body to be ratified before it takes effect. The officials said Moscow met Sudan’s most recent demands, including providing more weapons and equipment.
“They cleared all our concerns. The deal has become OK from the military side,” one official said.
The officials did not provide further details and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. A spokesman for the Sudanese military declined to comment.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also said Thursday the deal still needs ratification by Sudan’s yet-to-be-formed legislative body.
Sudan has been without a parliament since a popular uprising forced the military overthrow of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. The country has been mired in political chaos since an October 2021 military coup derailed its short-lived transition to democracy.
The deal, which surfaced in December 2021, is part of Moscow’s efforts to restore a regular naval presence in various parts of the globe. It was reached during al-Bashir’s reign.
The agreement allows Russia to set up a naval base with up to 300 Russian troops, and to simultaneously keep up to four navy ships, including nuclear-powered ones, in the strategic Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
The base would ensure the Russian navy’s presence in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean and spare its ships the need for long voyages to reach the area, according to Viktor Bondarev, the former Russian air force chief.
In exchange, Russia is to provide Sudan with weapons and military equipment. The agreement is to last for 25 years, with automatic extensions for 10-year periods if neither side objects.
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The Anglo-Saxon hatred of Sudan is deep-seated and eternal. This came after the Sudanese people rebelled against the slave trade that benefitted Egypt and the British who were already meddling in Egypt and Sudan sent their tried and proven mercenary Charles George Gordon to quell this rebellion, but despite being armed with firepower and cannons he was apprehended and decapitated in Khartoum be the rebels. As if that not was enough the rebels wrote a letter to the Queen and the head of Gordon was attached to the letter. What insult.
You should know a little bit more about this Gordon to appreciate what the Sudanese rebels did. Besides being involved in some Crimean conflict he was involved in China after the Chinese rebelled against the freely conducted opium trade that was doing what fentanyl is doing to the US society. Incidentally the fentanyl is said to come from China, a clear revenge of how the West destroyed the Chinese society of 18th century with opium. Long story short is that the mercenary service of this Gordon was employed by the British establishment to go quell the Chinese rebellions against the opium trade and destruction of their societies. Indescribable cruelty was employed by Gordon however he managed to quell the rebellion by indiscriminately firing cannons into crowds and there was no choice for the Chinese Emperor to do against these mad tactics except sue for peace and offer surrender, humiliated. Gordon made a lot of money in this venture and earned monikers such as The lion of Taiping, among many which left many ladies fawning and swooning.
His capture and beheading by the Sudanese delighted the Chinese such that the they made a brotherhood covenant with the Sudanese, Sudan is the most important African nation to the Chinese. Many students are sent to China every year on free scholarship and the Chinese just adore these people.
You can imagine the indelible grudge of the Anglo-Saxon after their fully armed lion was killed and his head sent to their Queen as some kind of macabre trophy. Of course you know about the endless accusations against Sudan by the West and now you know why.
In my opinion Sudan has no choice but ally with Russia and offer whatever the Russia wants because the West hasn’t been very friendly to it for quite a while now. The mad queen people.
When Russia and China want something from abroad they build hospitals, ports and schools. When America wants something from abroad they bomb hospitals, ports and schools.
Why do White countries have to ask African ones for permission to do something? It shows that power means nothing, or else the Whites are just incredibly polite, or just that Africans are the favourite pet of Yid-man. It’s pretty mysterious
“The agreement allows Russia to set up a naval base with up to 300 Russian troops, and to simultaneously keep up to four navy ships, including nuclear-powered ones, in the strategic Port Sudan on the Red Sea….”
This is a rather a disingenuous statement. Nuclear powers as per a method of producing energy is something most of us “nuke deniers” accept. The disingenuity arises from leveraging the public’s ignorance in delineating “nuclear power” from “nukes” so as to imply the latter. “Nuclear power” is simply a method of fueling that may be more efficient than diesel, but the wording carries an unjustified “oh my” connotation to it…it hits the emotional centre before the intellectual centre can engage.
This misleading conflation is done all the time…
Simon Smith–I noticed that they do that, so I joked about wanting a nuclear-powered Bentley off Germany. Journalists are garbage
@ Kaftan
“Tha Anglo-Saxon hatred of Sudan is deep-seated and eternal.”
You’re capable of better than that, Kaftan. I do wonder how you arrived at such an erroneous assessment. It is untrue, simply. There is no especial enmity toward the Sudan among Britons. General Gordon may have been lauded by Victorian Imperialists but if his name is known now, it’s Charlton Heston whom people picture.
It doesn’t help your argument either, that you get some fundamental facts woefully wrong. There were a number of reasons spurring the Mahdist rebellion in 1881. In essence, the rebels were aggrieved at the lax religious observance of the Ottoman Egyptians, under Tawfaq Ismail. A major cause uniting the Madhists was the abolition of the slave trade by the Khevidate Egyptians throughtout the territories that they administered. The Madhists fought, in part, to restore slavery in the Sudan. Not the other way round. A poor mistake that doesn’t help your case at all.
Britain had abolished slavery throughout its lands and colonies in 1807. So, when the British allied with the Egyptians in 1884, their interest could hardly have been in slave profits. That is not to say that Britain re-engaged in Sudan for noble reasons. It was purely mercenary but their ambition was to build their own ports on the Suez Canal to more rapidly access India. Certainly, the British intervention in Sudan in support of the Khevidate of Egypt, was in its own commercial self-interest and purposed entirely to expanding Anglo-Indian trade. Neither would I defend General Charles Gordon’s bloody record.
There is a further assumption in your thinking, which is that somehow you imagine that the Mahdist uprising was a native rebellion against the Ottoman Egyptians. Neither the Mahdists, the Sufis and the Ottoman who engaged the war initially are natives of North Africa. The latter are Gokturk of the Asiatic steppes. The other two allied belligerents were generational Arab colonialists of the Arabic invasions of North Africa, which began in the seventh century and were completed in 1830 with the caliphate’s conquest of Egypt. In the Sudan, as in the rest of North Africa, the indigenous peoples of these territories, like the Amazigh, the Numidians, the Tuareg and, in the Sudan, the Funji and Zaghawa, were treated appallingly by the Arabs. Even to this day in Sudan, the native Zaghawa, are not allowed to commingle with the majority Muslim population because of their resistance to conversion and determined desire to maintain their native traditions. A bone fide contemporary policy of apartheid exists unnoticed by the world community in Northern Sudan.
strategicaly no good choice . to small
Red Sea + Bab el Mandep (sound detection).
to many USwarships around . better would be
an openwater land like Tansania or Angola
or Guinea, Venecuela !
@ KAFTAN
but atleast Kipling praised the Fuzziwuzzi warior
and he was much more impressed by indian
culture than his own .
@andyay Apologies for historical errors as it depends by whom the history is told. I was told that way by a Sudanese who, although only being an Arabic speaker he detested Arabs.
As to how Arabs treated the black non Arabs, well you do not have to tell me I know all about that. In fact I know how Arabs treat each other in places like Kuwait today where you have some local Arabs known as ‘bidun’ (not Bedouin) as ‘those without’ who are denied all citizenship rights. And that is how an Arab mistreat another Arab.
“There is no especial enmity toward the Sudan among Britons.” At least not on among individuals of the respective nations but certainly as a kind of policy between these 2 nations. Maybe you hadn’t paid due attention else you would have seen the ceaseless hounding of Sudan by the Western nations. Up to taking-out by cruise missiles their Julfar pharmaceutical factory a while back. As I am neither a Westerner nor a Sudanese all I do is observe and try to tell who is at fault and what I found was that these 2 parties have antagonize each other due to some fundamental grudge. Not that I care much, cause had I been around during Gordon’s time I too would have been not much different than him and would have picked up arms against the Mahdi, given what I know now. And were I to choose a neighbor I would feel much more at home among free-minded people like the natives of the aisles than being a neighbor of some straightjacket religious geek. Part of the reason you have immigration problems there.
Relationships between people is different than relations between nations and history is biased to record only relations between nation.
Apologies.
@ andyay + Kaftan
I’m in awe of your time travelling abilities, not to mention your ability to know what every white british person thinks throughout all of history.
Did it ever occur to either of you that no country in the world has ever been run by or for the people? Or that most “anglo saxons” couldn’t pick out sudan on a map if they tried?
If anyone in britain ever thinks of sudanese people, it will be the sudanese people who’ve chosen to invade the uk. If the ones they meet are scum, they’ll think they’re all scum. If they aren’t, they won’t. But most will never meet one and will just spout woke crap or racist crap, depending how they feel at the time.
@andyay Apologies please mate.
You are a good and decent man, Kaftan. No apology is necessary. I critiqued your ideas, not you. God with us.
“Britain” tried to get China addicted to opium after they did the same to us (but failed). It was easier the other way, as the British had better self-discipline (back then). I get this from Doctor John Coleman