- Mubarak al Fadil al Mahdi
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Mubarak Abdullahi El-Fadil El-Mahdi commonly known as Mubarak El-Fadil is an Economist and prominent Politician, Chairman of the Sudanese UMMA Party. He was appointed to several important political and executive positions in the Democratic Government of Sudan during the period 1986-1989.
A staunch advocate of democracy, he played a key role in the political opposition to ruling military governments in Sudan – both during the Numeiri dictatorship and later during the military rule of the Islamist government. He was instrumental in founding the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and forming an alliance between Umma Party and Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) that led to the SPLM joining the Alliance. He was later elected Secretary General of the movement in 1995. In recognition of the need to reach a peaceful settlement to the civil conflict in Sudan, he engineered and signed the Djibouti Agreement between the Islamist ruling Sudanese military government and the Umma Party.
In his drive to instill renewed thinking and political direction in the Umma Party, he formed and was elected Chairman of the movement for Reform and Renewal within the Umma Party. The Party later participated in a coalition government with the ruling National Congress Party in which he served, for a short time, as Assistant President. In disagreement with government on policies and practices including the Darfur and Eastern Sudan conflicts, Sayed Mubarak El-Mahdi returned to the ranks of the opposition where he was vocal in pointing to the wrong doings of the regime and actively campaigned for return to democracy and a peaceful and just resolution to the country’s conflicts in the Darfur region and the East.
In this endeavor, he was instrumental to the formation of the Juba Alliance of Political Forces, to which he is a leading member. This alliance has brought closer southern and northern political forces and was born out of the Conference of Political Parties held in Juba in September 2009; this conference was both conceptualized and coordinated by Sayed Mubarak El-Fadil El-Mahdi.
He is currently a leading candidate for President of Sudan in elections due to be held in 2010.
His late father, Sayed Abdullahi El-Fadil El-Mahdi was the only son of the eldest son of the Imam El-Mahdi who was martyred in the battle of Shukkaba of 1899.
Sayed Abdullahi El-Fadil El-Mahdi, together with his late uncle Imam Abdel-Rahman El-Mahdi established the Al-Ansar entity and the economic enterprise of the ElMahdi family. He played a key role in the battle for independence, leading negotiations with the Egyptian government during 1952-1953, which culminated in the signing of the Convention on the independence of the Sudan with General Mohamed Naguib, President of the Egyptian Revolutionary Command Council at the time.
Date and Place of Birth: Khartoum, Sudan - 03/2/1950 Status: Married with three sons and one daughter
Contents
Education & experience
• Camboni College Khartoum, 1957–1968
• National College Choueifat – Lebanon, 1968–1970
• American University - Beirut, 1971–1973
• Schiller University (Bachelor of International Business and Economics) - Germany and London, 1973–1975
Practical and Organizational Experience
1975–1976
• Worked in the private sector as Assistant Director of the Sudan Chemical Industries Company.
• Contributed to the organization and management of the National Front-led July 2, 1976 movement to overthrow President Numeiri.
• Sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment and confiscation of property, for his role in the movement of July 2, 1976. He had left the country through the Eastern border to Ethiopia, where he joined the external opposition forces.
Sept. 1977: Returned to Sudan following the National Reconciliation between Sayed Sadiq al-Mahdi and President Numeiri.
1978–1982: Took over management of the private sector Sudan Chemical Industries and Medical Products companies as Director General and Managing Director.
1982–1985: Devoted himself to private business where he established his own trading company.
Sept. 1983 – Dec. 1984: Arrested with Sayed Sadiq al-Mahdi and detained at Kober prison by President Jaafar Numeiri for opposing the so called Islamic Laws.
1985: Foreign Relations Secretary – coordinated Umma Party Regional Relations (Saudi Arabia, Libya, Egypt and Ethiopia).
April 1986: Elected as a member in the Constituent Assembly (Parliament) representing the Tandelti constituency of the White Nile State.
Official Government Positions
April 1986: Elected as a Member of Parliament
May 1986- May 1988: Minister of Industry
June 1988- Feb. 1989: Minister of Economy and Foreign Trade
July 1988 – Feb. 1989: Minister of Energy and Mining (in addition to Minister of Economy and Foreign Trade)
Feb. 1989 - June 1989: Minister of Interior
1986–1989: Member of the Ministerial Economic Cabinet.
1988–1989: Member of the Council of Defense and National Security Council.
1986–1989: Served as Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs.
1986–1989: Served as Alternate Minister for Finance and Economic Planning.
1986–1989: Served as Alternate Minister for Presidential Affairs
Aug. 2002 – Oct. 2004: Assistant President of Sudan
Ministerial Term Responsibilities
1985 - 1989: Coordinator of political relations with the Federal Republic of Germany in cooperation with the German Minister of State for International Relations.
1986–1989:
• Coordination of US-Sudan relations with the U.S. Administration.
• Coordination of Sudanese-Saudi relations and Umma Party relations with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as the representative of the Prime Minister.
• Coordination of relations between Japan and Sudan, where he served as President of the Sudanese delegation in the Joint Parliamentary Committee between Japan and Sudan.
• Coordination of China-Sudan relations, chaired the Ministerial Committee and the Joint China-Sudan Friendship Association headed by Sudan. Led the Sudanese military delegation which reached an agreement with China to re-arm the Sudanese army in February 1989.
• Chair of the Joint Ministerial Committee with the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and coordinator of Libyan-Sudanese relations.
• Chaired the joint committee between Yugoslavia and Sudan, worked as a coordinator for relations between the two countries.
• Coordinator of Sudanese-Ethiopian relations, and special envoy of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi to Ethiopian President Mengistu Haile Mariam.
Dec. 1986 – Jan. 1987: Led negotiations with President Mohamed Hosny Mubarak to restore fractured Egypt- Sudan relations. This led to President Sadiq al-Mahdi’s visit to Cairo in 1987.
Aug. 1987: Member of the Sudanese delegation which took part in negotiations with the IMF and World Bank in Khartoum. Played an important role in the outcome of these meetings which led to a restoration of Sudan's economic relations and renewed cooperation with the IMF and World Bank. These relations were suspended in the era of President Jaafar Numeiri in 1984.
1988: Led negotiations with American Company Chevron for secure Oil Exploration and Extraction in South and South West Sudan.
July – Aug. 1988: Led the Sudan negotiations to settle trade debts of $ 2 billion owed to 155 banks with Morgan Greenfield (Advisor) and reached an agreement with the creditors’ representative for payment of debts over four years at a discount of up to 90% (this debt was accumulated by the regime of Jaafar Numeiri and resulted in the Sudan’s blacklisting in international monetary circles, depriving the country of any international funding).
Aug. 1988: Led the Sudanese delegation responsible for reaching a renewal agreement with the IMF and World Bank in Washington.
Dec. 1988 - May 1989: Participated with the Ethiopian Minister of the Interior in the drafting of a Peace and Cooperation Treaty between Ethiopia and Sudan to provide for a peaceful solution to the issues of Eritrea and southern Sudan, and put an end to conflicts between Ethiopia and Sudan, commissioned by the Sudanese Prime Minister and President of Ethiopia.
Political and Party Positions/Initiatives
1977-1995: Member of the Political Bureau of the Umma Party
1985-1996: Umma Party Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
1986: Re-elected as a member of the Political Bureau of the Umma Party in the Party’s General Convention as one of just ten members elected through free and direct election by the Convention.
1986–1989: Member of the Constitutional Positions Committee to form a coalition government between the Umma Party and Democratic Unionist Party.
1986-1989: Member of the Executive Council of the Umma Party
1988: Led the negotiations to expand the government to the parliamentary opposition - the Islamic Front party - which paved the way to its entry into the Government of Sayed Sadiq al-Mahdi in May 1988.
July 1989: Left Sudan, following the June 1989 military coup d’état, through the Western Borders. Founded the opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
Dec. 1989: Formed alliance between Umma Party and Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). This agreement opened the door to the SPLM under the leadership of Dr. John Garang joining the NDA at a meeting held in Cairo in March 1990 during which an agreement was reached to halt fighting between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army and Arab tribes along the border between North and South Sudan.
Dec. 1989–1992: Founded the National Democratic Alliance outside Sudan. Member and Umma Party representative of the Higher Coordinating Committee of the Cairo-based National Democratic Alliance.
1989 - 1996: Established Regional UMMA Party Offices / Branches (Washington, London, Cairo, Toronto, Chad, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Kampala and several Arab Countries)
Sept. 1990: Contributed effectively in the compilation of the previous leadership of the so-called “Ana al-Sudan”, or the legitimate leadership of the armed forces led by General Fathi Ahmed Ali, a former head of the Sudanese army.
Sept. 1990: Founded NDA Radio Station in Ethiopia under the administration of the Umma Party in an agreement with the Ethiopian authorities that held up until the fall of the Mengistu regime.
Jan. 1991: Reached an agreement with the Egyptian government to publicly open the offices of the Umma Party and the opposition coalition in Cairo.
May 1991: Reached an agreement with the Kenyan government to open an Umma Party office in Nairobi in place of the Party’s Addis Ababa Office that closed with the fall of the Mengistu regime.
Sept. 1991: Organized with Former US President Jimmy Carter, an International Conference on the political situation in Sudan, held in Atlanta, Georgia. Participants included UN Secretary General, African Union Secretary General, Representatives of European Parliament and Representatives of the US Government.
Dec. 1994: Engineered and signed the Chukudum Agreement with the SPLM. The agreement formed the foundation for the later Asmara Opposition Party Agreement and Sudan Peace Agreement.
Dec. 1994: Organized and played a key role in the agreement of the three major Sudanese political powers of the Umma Party - the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement - Democratic Unionist Party in Asmara.
March 1995: Led a delegation of the Umma Party to the Conference of African Political Parties in Tunisia.
June 1995: Elected Secretary General of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) – an umbrella for Sudan opposition parties.
Nov. 1995: Organized an International Conference on Peace and Democracy in Sudan with Christian Union, held at the United Kingdom House of Lords and attended by representatives of the IGAD countries, Egypt, the United States, Britain, France, Canada, Norway, Italy and the Netherlands. The conference was observed by members of the Houses of Lords and Commons.
2000: Engineered and signed the Djibouti Agreement between the Ruling Sudanese military government and the Umma Party, (under Sadiq al-Mahdi’s leadership). Returned to Sudan in April 2000 for the first time since the 1989 military coup.
July 2002: Elected Chairman of the Federal leadership of the Umma Party at the Party’s Extraordinary Convention.
July 2007: Arrested and detained for seven months at Kober Prison by the ruling National Congress Party
May 2009: Elected Chairman of the Umma Party at the Party’s Third Convention.
Sept 2009: Instrumental to the formation of the Juba Alliance of Political Forces, to which he is a leading member. This alliance has brought closer southern and northern political forces and was born out of the Conference of Political Parties held in Juba in September 2009; this conference was both conceptualized and coordinated by Sayed Mubarak El-Fadil El-Mahdi.
Feb. 2010: A leading candidate for President of Sudan in elections due to be held in 2010.
External links
Categories:- 1950 births
- Living people
- People from Khartoum
- Umma Party (Sudan) politicians
- Government ministers of Sudan
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