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The Beja Congress is a political group comprising several ethnic entities, most prominently the Beja, of the eastern region of Sudan. It was founded in 1957 by Taha Osman Bileya together with a group of Beja intellectuals, as well as Southern Sudan and western Sudan envoys, to advocate a federal system of governance similar to the US system. In the proposed system, the east, south, west and north would form the states, to avoid future problems. As a political group, the BC was able to mobilize the educated sector of the eastern Sudan and, in 1965, it successfully waged the democratic elections and several of its activists won seats to the constituent assembly (parliament) of 1965-69. Though it remained inactive during the years of the military government of Gaafar Nimeiry (1969-84), the BC was very much engaged, during those years, in recruiting members and mobilizing the Eastern population until the downfall of Nimeiry in 1984. With the military takeover of the current NIF government in 1989, the BC, together with other marginalized peoples of Sudan, found no alternative but to take arms and resort to force as the only means of achieving the political goals. In the 1990s, the Beja Congress began an armed struggle, and in 1995 signed the Asmara Declaration of the National Democratic Alliance. In 2004, the Beja Congress merged with other groups to form the Eastern Front rebel group.
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