Sudan security repeats summons of El Gezira Farm leaders

Five leaders of El Gezira and El Managil Farmers Association are summoned to report to the security service offices in Khartoum and El Gezira today. The leading members are questioned for hours during the repeated “detentions in disguise”.

In a series of summons, officers of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) have questioned members of the association for hours and ordered them to return the next morning.

On Sunday afternoon, NISS officers in in El Hasahisa in El Gezira summoned Abdelraouf Omar to their office. He was detained and transferred to the state capital, Wad Madani.

Also on Tuesday fives of the leaders and leading members of El Gezira and El Managil Scheme have to report to the NISS offices. Legal sources described to Radio Dabanga what is happening to the farmers' leaders as “a detention in disguise”.

The leaders of the association whom have to report to the NISS in Khartoum or El Gezira today are Hasabo Ibrahim, Zeinelabdin Bargawi, Kamal El Nima, El Amin Abdelnabi, and Abdelraouf Omar. Mohamed El Tayeb Dafallah has to report to the security office in El Managil.

Unknown reasons

One of the leaders recently revealed documents about the authorities’ obstruction of the establishment of a cooperative farmers’ movement at El Gezira Agricultural Scheme. “This is a clear attempt to obstruct the Association’s efforts to re-establish the Farmers Union,” Asim Kanoun, a member of the Farmers Alliance Secretariat, told Radio Dabanga on Sunday.

He said that the targeting of the association’s leaders started after the members agreed on the re-establishment of “a genuine farmers union in the region” during a conference in mid-October. The NISS has not provided any reasons for the repeated summons.

Yesterday, a member of the farmers’ association told this station that the repeated summons of the leaders would not scare them. “The issue of the farmers will not end with arrest, because this confirms its fairness.”

The El Gezira and El Managil Agricultural Scheme, located between the Blue and White Niles, south of Khartoum, used to be one of the world’s largest irrigation projects. Early September 2015, the Agriculture Ministry amended the El Gezira Scheme Act, aimed at transferring land ownership to the private sector and foreign investors. The Farmers Union was replaced by ‘work associations’.

Farmers, traders strike

Crop traders in El Gedaref, eastern Sudan, have held a strike for two days in a row because of the imposition of a new tax rate on trading. On Monday, a merchant in El Gedaref told Radio Dabanga that the strike against the increased profit tax by 150 per cent began on Sunday.

In addition, fees on sesame have been increased by 25 per cent. Farmers at the crop market in the state said that they will suffer financial losses from the new taxes, resulting in their inability to pay loans and the possible imprisonment of farmers.