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 Dr. Taha Osman Bileya together with a group of Beja intellectuals, as a political platform for the politically and economically marginalized Beja people. According to the "Black Book", an analysis of Sudanese regional political representation published underground in the late 1990s by Darfur Islamist followers of Hassan al-Turabi, Eastern Sudan has been conspicuous since its independence for its political and economic marginalization. This part of Sudan had fewer ministers and representatives than other parts of the country in the civil and military branches of the central government, as well as having among the lowest rates of education and access to health services in the country. At first the Beja Congress was frustrated in seeking political power: it was banned in 1960, along with all other political parties, by the military junta of General Ibrahim Abboud. Once the ban was lifted in 1964, the party was able to mobilize the educated sector of the eastern Sudan and, it successfully participated in the 1965 parliamentary elections, with several of its activists winning seats to the constituent assembly. Though it was banned once again during the years of the military government of Gaafar Nimeiry (1969–84), after the popular uprising of 1985 removed Nimeiry, the Beja Congress participated in the national elections of 1986. The Congress won only one seat in that election, losing to a resurgent Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which subsequently participated in the Sadig Al-Mahdi-led coalition government of 1986–89. With the military takeover of the current National Islamic Front government in 1989, the Beja Congress was once again banned. In 1993 the group joined the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) based in Asmara, which had been founded by the DUP and the Umma Party in 1989. In the 1995 the Beja Congress signed the Asmara Declaration. Aided by the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SPLA) and the Eritrean military, armed fighters of the Congress made a series of attacks along the Sudanese-Eritrean border, concentrating on strategic assets, such as the Khartoum-Port Sudan road, the oil pipeline, and the military installations defending them. Despite their successes, Young notes, these attacks "did not close the road for more than a few hours or stop the flow of oil for more than a few days." Although the Beja Congress