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"The problem of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Salah Salem and the rest of the Revolution Council with Sudan is that they did not know or understand his family, nor did they perceive its importance for Egypt, so they acted as tourists rather than the children of one valley."

                     (Mohamed Naguib in his memoirs, "I was President of Egypt")

The relationship between Egypt and Sudan does not seem to be a transient relationship, whether on the level of joint history or geographical overlap, but rather it mixes in its historical details an extended relationship of stability, firmness and unity of destiny, the relationship of searching for the partner and the brother and the union with him, and the security of his existence, and as long as the leaders of Afzakh throughout history have noticed The importance of this relationship, if the ancient Egyptian civilization is still witnessing this greatness, Sudan has not lost sight of this civilization, and the effects of the regions of northern Sudan and its great similarity with the civilization of Egypt are still witnesses to this mixing, influencing and cross-fertilization for thousands of years.

Al-Zahir Baybars realized in the thirteenth century AD the strategic and geopolitical importance of Sudan and was able after a long series of wars to annex the Kingdom of Nubia to Egypt and penetrate deep into Sudan, and like him Muhammad Ali Pasha realized in the nineteenth century that securing the headwaters of the Nile, and controlling gold, would not be Except by annexing Sudan, but what started as a purely utilitarian exploitation in the beginning, the days soon made it a unity that brought out the features of the similar Egyptian and Sudanese national character, so Malik Egypt was still called "King of Egypt and Sudan" even during the years of the British occupation.

When the British entered the occupiers of Egypt in 1882 AD and after they implemented the decision to abolish the Egyptian army by decree of the weak and complicit Khedive Tawfiq, Sir Evelyn Dod was appointed commander-in-chief of the Egyptian army on January 16, 1883, and British policy was from the first moment aware of the danger of the unity of Egypt and Sudan over its goals Aiming at exploiting the two countries and spreading Christianization in Africa from Sudan, therefore, the British authorities ordered Khedive Tawfiq to withdraw the last Egyptian leader from Sudan Abdul Qadir Pasha Hilmi and replace him with the British Hicks who was appointed chief of staff of the Sudanese army [1].


Mahdi, leader of the Mahdi Revolution against the British occupation in Sudan (networking sites)

These English endeavors met fierce resistance from the Sudanese, which began on November 5, 1883AD. Then, when Gordon Pasha was appointed as the general rule of the Sudan and was besieged in Khartoum, which fell into the hands of the Mahdi and his revolution on January 26, 1885, the British-Sudanese clash continued until the success of the Lord. Kitchener, the commander of the Egyptian army, entering Omdurman on September 2, 1898 CE, and a few months later in January 1899 CE the agreement known as the Inauspicious Agreement was signed, whose representative on the Egyptian side was Boutros Ghali Pasha, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Lord Kromer delineating the borders between the two countries, By expanding the influence of the British and marginalizing the Egyptian role in Sudan, and because of betrayal of Boutros-Ghali according to the view of the Egyptians, the man was assassinated by an Egyptian youth in 1910.

British colonialism by demarcating the borders wanted Sudan to gain the character of the state with the aim of removing and severing Sudan's links with Egypt, and in order to tear the popular and historical relations between the two countries in conjunction with the border tearing. Because of the French advance to Africa, the British forces reused the Egyptian army to enter Sudan again, based on the pretext of the Egyptian forces returning to Sudan, using the formula "joint occupation".

In the year 1919 the revolution against the British occupation took place in Egypt, and against the exile of Saad Zaghloul and his companions, and the echo of this revolution had reached Sudan and the spirit of confrontation against the British flared up, and the spark of the revolution remained burning in the Nile Valley of Egypt and Sudan, until Saad Zaghloul was returned from his exile, and He concluded the agreement of 1923 and declared independence of Egypt, and Saad Zaghloul took over as prime minister, but people were surprised in 1924 by the assassination of an Egyptian youth to Sir Lee Stack, the High Commissioner in Egypt, the event that Britain considered a reason, justification and opportunity to demand the government of Saad Zaghloul to withdraw the Egyptian army crouching in Sudan, but Saad Zaghloul rejected this condition, and submitted his resignation, as a result of which the British forces besieged the Egyptian forces in Khartoum, and when the Sudanese forces saw the British attack against the Egyptians, they decided to enter into armed resistance against the British, but the armament weakness and the small numbers of the Sudanese forces caused the British success to defeat the Egyptian armies. Sudanese, and they were able to extend full control of Sudan [2].

Despite this, successive Egyptian governments continued throughout the monarchy to regard Sudan as an integral part of Egypt, and that the British attempts to compel these governments to accept the principle of a referendum for the Sudanese to determine their fate were rejected by the Egyptian political elite, says one of the most important men of the delegation and the minister The Ministry of the Interior in the 1940s, Fouad Serag El-Din: "The idea of ​​the Sudanese referendum was completely excluded, and rejected because the Assiut referendum, for example, cannot be approved." [3] Thus, in the eyes of the Egyptians, Sudan was an indigenous country, an integral part of the national territory, but the July 1952 coup stirred the stagnant waters and changed the balance of power.


Mustafa El-Nahhas Pasha and Fouad Serag El-Din Pasha were two of the strongest defenders of the unity of Egypt and Sudan (Communication sites)

The goal of Abdel Nasser and most of the members of the Revolutionary Command Council was the evacuation of the British from Egypt and Sudan, and the British, for their part, were determined to give the Sudanese the right to self-determination for themselves, a desire to prevent unity with Egypt, and in November 1952 AD Abdel Nasser and his men agreed, and sent a council Leading the revolution to the British Memorandum proposing "enabling the Sudanese to exercise self-government, and creating a free and neutral atmosphere that must be available for self-determination", and negotiations began under the leadership of Muhammad Najib and assisting the drafter Staff of Salah Salem and Mahmoud Fawzi and Hussein Zulfiqar Sabri, brother of Ali Sabri Al-Nasser is represented by the Egyptian side, and Sir Stephenson and Mister Barros are represented by the British side.

On the other hand, the head of the Revolutionary Command Council, Major General Mohamed Naguib, had begun meeting with representatives of the dispersed Sudanese parties and was able to unify them under the leadership of Ismail Al-Azhari, one of the greatest enthusiasts of unity at the time with Egypt, and the matter was finally culminated in the 1953 agreement, which stipulated a three-year transition period in preparation for ending the Egyptian bilateral administration. - The British are liquidated and liquidated. In the transition period, Sudan retains the sovereignty of the Sudanese until they have achieved self-determination or independence with Egypt.

Mohamed Naguib says in his memoirs: "We had to unite the Sudanese in their various parties into one position in which they would cooperate with Egypt, and we actually called on them for that. The Sudanese parties welcomed the Egyptian initiative, including the parties that call for independence and overestimate this call."


Mohamed Naguib, apparently averaging the joy of bringing the views of Sudanese and Egyptian leaders towards unity (communication sites)

Despite the turmoil of the Egyptian position regarding Sudan, especially between Al-Sanhouri, Hussein Sabri and Salah Salem, the most important men of this file, Naguib insisted on receiving the delegations of the Sudanese parties and bringing the points of view between them, saying: “And if I had failed to unify the Egyptian views regarding Sudan, I succeeded with the Sudanese and I was able to unify the Sudanese parties to agree on one opinion ... On November 3 (1952), the charter of the Unified Party Declaration was drawn up, and all of these were signed in my home by the establishment of the Federal National Party, which included all the federal parties before the start of the Egyptian-English discussions. 4].

Thus Muhammad Naguib succeeded in uniting the Sudanese, and made them enthusiastic about unity with Egypt, coinciding with the beginning of the three-year transitional period (1953-1956), during which time Egypt witnessed a struggle for rule between Naguib and Abdel Nasser.

The Sudan file was at this stage given to the author Salah Salem, one of the free officers with the aim of maintaining the approximation of the Sudanese to Egypt, and unifying with them at the end of the transitional period prescribed at the end of the year 1955 AD. It is strange that this sensitive and crucial file was given to Salah Salem based on two things:

The first: that Salah Salem was born in Sudan when his father was working there within the Egyptian army forces stationed on the Red Sea, thinking from members of the Revolutionary Command Council that Salah Salem is qualified because of this upbringing and birth to carry this sensitive and crucial file between the two countries.


Al-Sagh (the pioneer) Salah Salem (1920-1962 AD) (Communication sites)

The second reason, which is surprising, is what General Jamal Hammad, the author of the statement of the July coup that Anwar Sadat read in his testimony of the era with Ahmed Mansour, mentioned when he asked him: "Was Salah Salem qualified to carry the file of Sudan?" To respond: "Salah Salem took over the Sudan file by chance. Salah Salem was within the secretariat of President Mohamed Naguib, and he was contacted by Lt. Col. Hussein Zulfiqar Sabri al-Mutawalli, head of the Egyptian forces in Sudan, regarding the problem of border soldiers returning to Sudan and claiming their financial rights, so Salah Salem sent it to Members of the Revolutionary Command Council, and from here whenever a problem came from Sudan, members of the Revolutionary Command Council authorized him to solve it. The broadcaster interrupted him: "Without any experience, knowledge or anything ?!" Maj. Gen. Hammad answered him: “There is absolutely no need, he is born right there, but he has nothing to do with Sudan and he knows nothing about Sudan pure, and then he is precisely a non-diplomatic man, meaning a nervous man despite his many advantages like intelligence and understanding, but he is very irritable” (5 ].

Salah Salem was actually combining the two extremes, an intelligent but nervous and irritable person, and someone with such characteristics, with his ignorance of the nature of Sudan, his people, culture and power centers in him, adding to him some gains in front of tons of heavy losses! Britain was in turn throughout the transitional period working to dwarf and divide Sudan between its north and south, and it also worked on separating and broadcasting cargo between Egypt and Sudan throughout the years of the occupation, and this was a challenge to Salah Salem who decided to travel to South Sudan, as he approached the Americans who were in their interest to expel The British from Egypt and Sudan to take their place in the domination of the Middle East. Yusbashi Muhammad Abu Nar, Salah Salem's assistant for Sudan affairs, says the Americans "helped Salah Salem enter southern Sudan through the contacts of Mr. Kafri, the American ambassador in Cairo, and Mister Sweeney, the embassy's liaison officer" [6].

Indeed, Salem Salem entered South Sudan, the place where British policy transmitted her poison to cause unrest with the north in order to secede, however, Salem Salem gained it by his naked dances with the tribes of South Sudan, and because of him the British, who had long treated these tribes with contempt and resentment, so that the press The British took up that event and highlighted that dance, which is still a testament to Salah Salem's attempts to heal the rift, even if he was dancing naked! In any case, Salah Salem was indeed able to bridge that rift, and according to the British-Egyptian Understanding Treaty on Sudan, the elections were held on November 25, 1953 and what the patriots had hoped for in Egypt and Sudan alike, the Umma Party had fallen the largest party that opposed the issue of unity Between the two countries, the Federal National Party, which ran in the elections over the principle of union with Egypt, won a great result, and this great result was irrefutable evidence of the entrenchment of the issue of "Nile Valley unity" among the Sudanese before the Egyptians.

Ismail Al-Azhari, the lover of Egypt and unity, rose to be the first Prime Minister of Sudan after independence in January 1954, and visited Britain in the same year that he received him as the Kings in order to influence him to move away from unity with Egypt, so that Al-Azhari returned from his visit to Cairo, where he spoke with Abdel Nasser, Salah Salem and others on the foundations and mechanisms of the desired unit. At the moment, many sources agree that Salah Salem was underestimating Al-Azhari "and did not try to openly agree with him, or to agree with him on the minimum foundations of the union"; Al-Azhari was facing this deception and underestimation towards the demands of independence and lack of unity with Egypt.


Ismail Al-Azhari, the first Prime Minister of the State of Sudan and the most important supporter of unity with Egypt (communication sites)

Throughout the year 1954 AD, strikes continued from Cairo against Khartoum from "free officers." The Sudanese saw the humiliating treatment of the copper leader, Pasha, who was considered by many of them a national symbol, and he always stood against the British conspiracy that separated Sudan from Egypt, as the Brotherhood saw. The Muslims in Sudan commented on the gallows and horrific torture in Egyptian prisons, but the Sudanese Communists saw their pioneering comrades licking the courts of prisons, while on the other side the Egyptian regime wooed them, and it was not difficult to conclude what would happen to them if it extended The Nazarene regime is down there [7].

However, the great disaster that afflicted the Sudanese was the betrayal of Mohamed Naguib, the first president of the Republic of Egypt, and the greatest defender of unity with Sudan. The truth is that Naguib narrated with bitterness and sorrow what he was subjected to in treachery in his famous memoirs, "I was president of Egypt", and the failed policy taken by Abdel Nasser and the Council Leading the revolution in their dealings with Sudan and the Sudanese, the first of which was his removal from the rule of Egypt, and the Sudanese have always considered Muhammad Najeeb the man who was half Egyptian and half Sudanese as the true guarantor of the issue of unity.

Naguib was indeed the cornerstone of uniting the Sudanese parties as a start in the march of unity with Egypt, and he welcomed them in Cairo, and his endeavor succeeded while the Federal National Party headed by Ismail Al-Azhari was established on his hands, and it was Naguib who sought with Britain to conclude the February 1953 AD agreement to withdraw Egypt and Britain from Sudan in exchange for the Sudanese referendum on self-determination, either independence or unity, and Naguib had already confirmed unity.


Major General Mohamed Naguib, the first president of Egypt, his isolation was a severe blow to the unit's file (communication sites)

 Naguib was also the only man who visited the leader of the Sudanese Umma Party, Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, the father of al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, when he visited Cairo in 1937 AD. He was the man who always hated unity with Egypt, and above that, Naguib’s years of service were in Sudan as an Egyptian officer, and his mother, who descended from Sudan It helped him to know the nature of this country, and even to integrate into it with his spirit, his being, and his love for him, to the degree that Nqrashi Pasha, the Prime Minister of Egypt in the 1940s, was consulting with him regarding Sudan and his affairs and how Egyptian policy deals with this country.

Naguib, who wrote in 1943 AD a book on Sudan he called "A Message on Sudan" was a true embodiment of this man's vision of Sudan, its culture, people, heritage and land and considered an integral part of Egypt. Muhammad Naguib was sincere in his endeavor. He invited them to Cairo for unity, and he also answered his call when he visited Sudan in early 1954 AD despite the British conspiracy that claimed scores of him.

Therefore, when Gamal Abdel Nasser later tried to restore relations and had deteriorated due to the isolation of Naguib and because of the failed policy pursued by Salah Salem with the Sudanese people with insults, bribery and contempt, Abdel Nasser asked the Sudanese about the reason for intransigence as if he did not know, and they answered him: "Naguib! Jamal Abdel Nasser: Naguib is an individual, the individual is fleeting, and the strong relationship between the two countries is immortal. They repeated: Naguib, and Nasser lost his temper and said: It is not reasonable to put an individual in one hand and a relationship between two peoples on the other hand. They told him: We made Najib a symbol of unity. The valley north and south, and you broke this symbol "[8].

Until the moment of Najeeb's dismissal, he did not accept the resignation because of Sudan, he says: "When Abd al-Hakim entered Amer and Hassan Ibrahim to inform me on November 14, 1954 CE of a decision to exempt me from the presidency of the republic, I clearly told them: I will not resign. So Abd al-Hakim asked Amer: Why? I said: So that one day I am not blamed for the reason that I was the reason for Egypt's secession from Sudan, and in fact I endured everything that happened to me after Nasser gained power after the crisis of March 54 so that my resignation would not affect the outcome of the referendum on unity with Egypt in Sudan, especially since the Federal National Party, which was in favor of union and unity with Egypt, won the elections, but Nasser and his men in the Revolution Council did not occupy them at the time, the issue of Sudan, all they were concerned about was how to displace me and get rid of me. [9].


The moment Muhammad Najib was arrested after his announcement of his removal - November 1954 (Communication sites)

Naguib was not exaggerated when he said: “My resignation meant the separation of Sudan from Egypt.” Sudan’s newspapers and politicians endowed their supporters and opponents in the face of the shameful stance of isolating Naguib, and throwing him into house arrest in a humiliating manner. Sudanese newspapers described both Salah Salem and the Revolutionary Command Council They are “fascists,” but they said: “We assume that unity took place in some way between the Nile Valley, so what guarantees do our leaders have, and what opportunities do they have with these power-hungry bullies?” [10].

Naguib's testimony against himself is not the historical fairness of himself, but Major General Jamal Hammad, one of the free officers, confirmed this fact in his testimony of the times with Ahmed Mansour when he blamed Sudan’s separation from Egypt to Gamal Abdel Nasser, Salah Salem and the Revolutionary Command Council, as he confirms that Naguib He had been stripped of his powers since March 1954 AD, and that he was in Abdin Palace without any power, so why did they isolate him in this crude way in November of the same year, why did they not wait for the issue of unity with Sudan to end, but rather confirm that Sudan was a sub-issue It does not matter to Abdel Nasser, as his eyes were only to displace the power centers from before him, Najib, Salah Salem, and his brother Jamal Salem, on the pretext of failing in the files they imitated [11].

Salah Salem, while assuming the file of Sudan, was in charge of the Ministry of National Guidance, that is, the Ministry of Information of our time, and his strategy in front of the Sudanese disgust at the policy of Abdel Nasser and the Revolutionary Command Council is based on buying receivables with money, and on threats and insults through the Egyptian radio and media who were managing them, Both policies contributed to the deepening of the crisis, and the cracks increased, to the extent that Ismael Al-Azhari was forced by the man who had long been enthusiastic about unity, and the Sudanese brought him as Prime Minister, he was forced not to speak about the unity file again for fear that he would be known, or that he thought he was being bought with Salah Salem's money .


Ismail Al-Azhari raises the Sudan flag (communication sites)

Salah Salem’s last fatal mistake was his endeavor to convene a General Assembly of the Federal National Party to separate Ismail Al-Azhari and to promote his assistant Muhammad Nur al-Din, but in this also Salah Salem failed, and what came in the summer of 1955 AD was that the image of Egypt in the eyes of the Sudanese was miserable stained with lies and blood shed by members of the Council Lead the revolution.

In the memoirs of Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, one of the members of the Revolutionary Command Council, we see him detailing the disastrous moments that passed on the Leadership Council, the role of Salah Salem when he came in August 1955 AD, he tells Abdel Nasser that "Sudan is wasted ... lost", and Salah Salem accused some members of the Leadership Council The revolution by manipulating behind his back, especially Anwar Sadat and Ali Sabri, and that they are implementing the British-American plan to separate Sudan from Egypt, and that, against this failure, he submitted his resignation from the Revolutionary Command Council and the executive branch until he abandoned his responsibility for Sudan's separation from Egypt three months after this incident, and indeed Members accepted his resignation in the end not because of his failure in this file, but because he accused members of the Council of treason and employment!

Baghdadi recounts that the Revolutionary Command Council summoned a number of Egyptian experts from members of the committee responsible for the file of Sudan and from outside, such as Major General Saleh Harb, Abdel-Fattah Hassan, Deputy Minister of State for Sudan and Hussein Zulfiqar Sabri, a member of the Governor General Committee in Sudan at the time, and the journalist in Al-Gomhoria newspaper Qassem Goda Those interested in Sudanese affairs, having visited Sudan and examined the catastrophic conditions caused by Salah Salem, Abd al-Latif Baghdadi said by Qasim Judeh:

"The reputation of Egypt (in Sudan) was very bad because of the bribery that is given and given to every person even on the street, which called on people to doubt all who speak or call to union with Egypt that behind his call for bribery has been paid to him, and he mentioned that the officials there are attacking Egypt has the harshest words in official parties and even in the Sudanese parliament itself, and that all officials in Sudan have been offended by Egypt's attacking Ismail Al-Azhari (Sudanese Prime Minister) in the Egyptian press and radio, and this has harmed the relationship between the two countries, and that everyone in Sudan has become calling for independence, and he has made it clear The image that the Egyptian press gives about the situation in Sudan is completely different from the truth there. "[12]

The matter is greater than Salah Salem!

According to the analysis of Muhammad Jalal Kishek, Egypt's secession from Sudan was an American dictation by British pressure on the upper circles in Egypt to continue support for the July coup and the Revolutionary Command Council, and that Salah Salem was a victim of these games that he had already referred to and that they accused Anwar Sadat and Ali Sabri, he says:

"The United States realized that Britain's rejection of the union of Egypt and Sudan is a final refusal that cannot be overcome, neither by compromise nor pressure, because it represents a basic British political and historical strategy in weakening Egypt, preventing its extension in black Africa, and a vital issue to protect British colonial and crusader interests in black Africa, If the Nile Valley unit was in place, the Ugandans would remember that they were part of Sudan and Egypt, and their ruler was appointed from Cairo. [13]

Rather, Jalal Kishk returns and asserts that the consequences of the secession of Sudan and its acceptance of the right to self-determination away from Egypt and the popular will in it, was a disaster that was repeated once again when former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat did the same when he entered into Camp David negotiations with the Israelis, and confirms that the Egyptians Accept the two things, but "Sudan was the most cherished and entrenched in the Egyptian national conscience at the time."

Thus, Sudan was lost due to Salah Salem's ignorance of dealing with the Sudanese, until the enthusiasts of unity and a majority were forced to hide in shame from these shameful acts, and Sudan eventually separated, and it was strange after that that Egypt Abdel Nasser and Abdel Hakim Amer sought to unity with Syria is the most distant country geographically, and in this file it has failed miserably!