Sudanese protests coming from the United States

The Sudanese diaspora holing up in the US is eagerly organizing various events calling for a coup d’état in their home country. However, can people, who have lost their roots and befriended foreign politicians that are not in the least interested in the well-being of Sudan, do much good for their country? Moreover, many of those are ferocious to bring changes to Sudan and they are removed from the reality so far.

The Sudanese of American origin who insist on completely reforming the Sudanese government are not sellers, taxi drivers or handy men. Mostly, they are business people with close ties to US politicians or young people working for NGOs. United by the democratic idea planted in their heads, this community is swanning around protest marches recruiting more and more people in their sect. 

One of its members has distinguished himself on June 8 this year at the Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., where a large-scale march in support of the Sudanese revolution took place. Sulaf A. M. Lutfi organized the event. This young woman was born in Khartoum, but moved to Saudi Arabia where she completed her medical studies. Her cherished dream to treat people has relegated to the background, and currently Sulaf is working on Sudanese politics in a foreign country, the United States.

As of lately, she has lived in Herndon, Virginia. The political activist has started her own Facebook page but has been carefully keeping it out of prying eyes. She has a Twitter account, too, this one being highly active. She has not posted anything about her country here until December 2018 and only brought herself to do so in January 2019, when protests in Sudan were gaining momentum.

Another important detail is Sulaf’s profile photo. In the photo, she is smiling sweetly at the camera, holding terrifying photos of mangled people. Nancy Davoud, the wife of Roudvan Davoud, a Sudanese opposition activist also living in the US, in Oregon, is standing next to Sulaf. This man collaborates with numerous NGOs: Girifna, Sunrise Sudan, and Enough Project. In our earlier publications, we had already mentioned the strong ties these NGOs have with US political establishment. These are, however, not all interesting personalities that are linked to one another. Sulaf was spotted walking the corridors of the US Senate with Dimah Mahmoud. This woman had also lived in Sudan, but left the country 19 years ago.

Dimah has come to be known after organizing a single-member sit-in in front of the Embassy of Sudan in Washington. Many media has covered the sit-in, including the French radio station RFI. What is remarkable is the fact that she seems to have forgotten her mother tongue over the years she has spent in the US and always holds banners in English while taking part in protest marches. 

A number of journalists have asked Dimah why she would not return to Sudan in order to help her people. She responds them in English that she cannot do so «for many reasons».

Another person on Sulaf’s photo is Jalelah Ahmed from Pennsylvania. She is renowned for working at Fox News and Al Jazeera TV channels. We have already described the ways in which the latter operates, trying to destroy Sudan. Jalelah, too, only started to publicize her destructive political agenda in April 2019, after the overthrown of al-Bashir. It was exactly in April that she set up her Twitter account.

In spite of her work at major news agencies, Jalelah’s knowledge of her home country remains shallow. For instance, in one of her posts she condemned the US Charge d'Affaires in Khartoum Steven Kutsis for shaking hands with Hemedti. She thinks that by such gesture the American politician might easily legitimize the power of no matter which politician in Africa.

Jalelah leads a quiet life, her father running a car business in Pennsylvania. She likes spending her free time at riots, meetings at the Capitol and as a member of «lobbying team» – a specially created initiative group. Its members tend to like to communicate with American politicians. On this photo taken on May 22, they are in a meeting with Senator Jeff Merkley.

Another group of people closely working against Sudan gathered on May 24. The group comprised interesting people. Among them was Mo Sefeldin, an American of Sudanese origin and the Democratic candidate for 2018 election to the Town Council in Alexandria, Virginia. He is, at the same time, the head of a law firm in Alexandria.

Alexandria Times, a local newspaper, covered the campaign. In one of its publications, Mo claims his main objective to be the improvement of US taxpayers’ life. Meanwhile, as a rightful citizen of the United States (for one cannot run for election without appropriate documents in this country), he would not miss a single anti-Sudanese meeting.

Protesting against the Sudanese government and trying to climb up to the highest level of US politics, Mo would resort to an utmost cynicism. On his Twitter page, he once published a photo of himself posing in a US logo T-shirt.

Another person is Mohammed Khader, a native Palestinian that has moved to the United States. Now, he is an active member and an expert at Young Democrats of America, an organization that is a part of the youth arm of the Democratic Party of the United States.

On May 21, he gave a presentation on the situation in Sudan for Jeff Merkley’s team from Oregon. He published the report of the event on his Facebook page. Khader seems to have played a special role in the riots on June 8, since some days prior to the event he had called on his friends from different US cities to join in the protest march. He addressed US Arabs and Asians with the same speech, although they might not even be aware that a country such as Sudan existed.

What unites Kader and Mo is their joint meeting with Virginia Senator Tim Keyne. The politician has long had good connections with the Sudanese diaspora in Virginia. During his 2018 electoral campaign, he held a meeting with supporters from the Sudanese community. The meeting laid the basis for the Blue Virginia’s story that was complemented with a thorough photo report of the event. Interesting coincidence: on the photos, one might see the same people that took part in the meeting at the Capitol in May 2019 that happened not long before the riots of June 8.

For example, the young woman in the photo can be seen in another photo on Mo Sefeldin’s Facebook page dated May 24. Even the foulard she is wearing is of the same color.  

Following the meeting, the Sudanese diaspora supported Kaine at the election. The senator happened to be a kind person, mindful of his electorate, for he occasionally addresses the issue of Sudan on his page. It is likely that the demonstrations on June 8 at the Capitol have also served as a gesture of goodwill.

Exploring further Khader’s posts, one might stumble upon a publication where he thanks a certain Remaz for inviting him to meet Senator Jeff Merkley. Let us have a closer look at this new character.

Remaz Abdelgader is a Virginia resident of Sudanese origin. The study of her photos leads us to conclude that she is most likely to be employed at the United States Department of Homeland Security. Judging by her love to hug the American politician Bernie Sanders and stay warm by wrapping herself in the American flag, she seems to have already decided on her motherland. A foreign standard is closer to her heart than the place where her roots belong.

It must be noted that the famous Sudanese activist Mohamed Hashim Mattar was Remaz’s nephew. His death caused the launch of the #BlueForSudan hashtag (we wrote about it earlier). The hashtag stipulated a wave of a protest force that has later grown into large-scale riots in the streets of Sudan. The close connection between these protests, NGOs and social networks that have been extensively publicized by pro-western politicians seems quite peculiar.

As an icing on the cake, it should be said that Virginia is a city with a clear expressed desire among members of its Sudanese diaspora to impose on Sudan ideals of a foreign and alien state.