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Born are the beautiful children, hour by hour with brightest eyes, and loving hearts you have bestowed upon  fatherland, they will come, for bullets aren't the seeds of life.  - Mahjoub Sharif, Born are the Beautiful Children The Imprisoned Poet Famed activist and poet Mahjoub Sharif was imprisoned for the first time in 1970 by the National Revolutionary Command Council, chaired by the soon-to-be 15-year president of Sudan, Gaafar Nimeiry. The recipient of a Master’s Degree in Military Science from Fort Leavenworth, Nimeiry retained power until 1985, when one of many military coups (succeeded by one of many Transitional Military Councils) led to the rise of Ahmad Al-Mirghani in what is considered the last democratic election in the country’s tumultuous political history. Enter (via yet another military coup) the first of several starring characters: Omar al-Bashir, chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation from 1989 to 1993, then president fr...

“My beloved wife, I’m writing these words not knowing whether they will reach you, when they will reach you, and whether I shall still be alive when you read them. Dead or alive, free or imprisoned by the colonialists, it’s not I who matter: it’s the Congo. It’s the poor people whose independence has been turned into a cage.” So wrote Patrice Lumumba from his prison cell in December of 1960. Only a few months earlier, Belgium had announced an end to colonial rule over what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Lumumba became the country’s first democratically-elected prime minister. But his days were numbered. Within a year, this inspiring mind would be dead, assassinated by his political rivals in direct collaboration with Belgium and the United States. --- Patrice Lumumba was born Élias Okit'Asombo on July 2, 1925, in Katakokombe, Belgian Congo. His parents were farmers, and he worked a variety of jobs - including mail carrier and beer salesm...