Wüstenschiff

The protest movement that began in Sudan six days ago has gained momentum on Friday with serious demonstrations taking place throughout the day in various parts of the capital Khartoum as well as in other key towns. Sudanese activists posted dozens of pictures and video footages online showing clashes between protestors and police using tear gas in the streets of Khartoum, the capital of Al-Jazzera State, Madani, and Al-Obayid town in north Kordofan State. The protests started following Friday prayer in what anti-government activists online termed the “Friday of the Kataha [a Sudanese word for sandstorm]” as part of the “Sudan Revolts” campaign which began on Sunday, 17 June, with demonstrations mainly led by students against rising costs of living.

The rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement –North (SPLM-N) hailed the recent developments in the protests of the Sudanese people and stated its readiness to declare a l ceasefire after the fall of Bashir’s regime. The SPLM-N leader Malik Agar issued Saturday a statement welcoming what he termed as "qualitative shift" as the protests against the regime since Friday involve not only students but people from the different segment of the society [...] Agar said his rebel movement was following closely the recent developments in the country. He further added that the leadership including Abdel Aziz Hilu and Yasir Arman was consulting with its allied rebel groups, some political parties and civil society organizations. After expressing the support of the rebel group to the ongoing demonstrations in the country, he announced SPLM-N’s "willingness to proclaim a strategic ceasefire on all the military fronts after the fall of the regime to create a conducive environment for peaceful transition of power." The rebel leader stressed that this measure means to avoid the repetitionof the experience of April 1985 Uprising when the SPLM refused to join a national transitional government during the interim period.

Khartoum, witnessed on Saturday demonstrations organized by hundreds of protesters in different areas of the capital including Jabra, Alsahafa, Khartoum-3, Alabbassiya, Umbada, Nile City, Al-Ozuzab, Shambat, Khartoum North-Alamlak. Protests were also organised in Kosti of White Nile state, Port Sudan, Gedaref and Al-Obeiyed capital of North Kordofan. The protesters burned tyres, blocked the streets and chanted "the people want to overthrow the regime" leaving aside the anti-austerity slogans of the first days preparing Khartoum to experience what people used to watch in the TV from some Arab capitals. The demonstrations in some areas of Omdurman and Khartoum and Khartoum North lasted up to the first hours of Sunday. While opposition sources reported the arrest of Satih Ahmed Al-Haj and Mohamed Dia-Edine of the Bath Party.

Burgeoning demonstrations continued for the tenth day in sporadic parts of Sudan’s capital Khartoum and other provincial towns as the government reaffirmed its intention of going ahead with planned austerity measures.

As expected, the regime met the protesters with measured brutality and massive arrests. However, though, the regime seems to be losing the fight. The brutal regime has dug itself deep into the hole that it can never gets out of it.

The success of the current, rapidly growing rebellion in Khartoum and elsewhere in Sudan is far from assured. The National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime—facing a serious domestic challenge for the first time in years—will use all the considerable force at its disposal to retain full control over national wealth and power. Brutality has already increased with the number and determination of protestors, who now include not only students but lawyers and other civilian constituencies. And as the protests spread—to Omdurman and other parts of central Khartoum, to Sennar, el-Obeid, Wad Medani, Damazin (Blue Nile University), Gedaref, Kosti, and Port Sudan—there is even more pressure on this ruthlessly survivalist regime to emulate the tactics of Gaddafi in Libya and al-Assad in Syria. The coming days and weeks are likely to be extremely bloody.

Online Arabic newspaper Hurriyat Sudan has reported that the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has blocked its website since June 25, following its coverage of protests in Khartoum and other towns [...] The press in Sudan has been restricted during the protests and journalists and activists arrested by the National Security and Intelligence Services (NISS). On Tuesday June 26, Sudan deported Bloomberg’s correspondent in Khartoum, Salma El Wardany, and briefly detained Maha El Sanousi, a prominent Sudanese blogger.

Protests broke out as planned following Friday’s prayer in different parts of Sudan’s capital Khartoum as well as two regional towns amid reports of severe crackdown by police and security forces [...] First outbreak of demonstrations was reported in Wad Nubawi Mosque in Khartoum’s sister-city of Omdurman where around 300 protesters including members of the Ansar sect of the opposition National Umma Party (NUP) started chanting slogans calling for the downfall of the government as soon as the prayer ended. Witnesses said that police forces supported by plain-cloth security agents fired heavy teargas and rubber bullets on the protesters inside the mosque [...] the protests are currently spreading across other parts of Omdurman, including Ombada area. Simultaneously, protests erupted in Al-Haj Youssef and Shambat neighborhoods in Khartoum North town known as Bahri [...] Activists are also reporting that demonstrations erupted following Friday prayer in the central market in Kassala town in the eastern region as well as in Al-Obayid town in North Kordofan State.

It appears that the Arab Spring is finally reaching Khartoum as the NCP regime grapples with economic and political turmoil being manifested by student-led protests. The people of Sudan are finally beginning to see the NCP government as a liability that needs to be removed so that country can regain its path to economic development. The protest movement being led by the young people is yet to reach a critical mass but it is surprisingly gaining momentum. The question is whether these protests are prelude to the long awaited Sudanese ‘Arab Spring’ or just another disorganized discontent. What will be the outcome of such protests and how will they affect the tenuous peace at the border between North and South Sudan? Will the NCP regime start war at the border to rally the country behind its bankrupt agenda? These are the questions facing the policy makers in Juba at this critical juncture in its tumultuous relations with the NCP regime in Khartoum.

Dear Mr. Omer Elbashier:

When you took over power, it was uncomfortable. When you fired skilled workers in civic service, it was unreasonable. When you introduced Sharia laws, it was painful. When your regime announced war against South Sudan, I feared for my family and friends.

But now, after 23 years under your governance, after 23 years of discriminating, forcing, abusing and killing, now it is personal.

Here I am in London watching the uprisings In Sudan exploding all around our country. People are fed up seeking permission from your government just to survive. We were already struggling with your authoritarian system and restrictive laws, but the recent dramatic increase in the cost of living and fuel prices has pushed our country to the brink. We are angry and have reached the point of no return. Nothing is going to shut us up and we will not back down ....

Die jüngsten Volksaufstände im Sudan, so beschrieb es die Londoner Zeitung "The Independent" blumig, ein arabisches Sprichwort zitierend, könnten "der Strohhalm sein, der dem Kamel das Kreuz bricht". Bislang hatte der Arabische Frühling die islamische Militärdespotie unter Präsident Omar Hassan Achmed al-Baschir allenfalls gestreift. Noch vor einem Jahr hatte der Generalleutnant, der das Land bereits seit 1989 mit eiserner Faust beherrscht, getönt, ein Umsturz wie in Tunesien oder Ägypten sei im Sudan völlig ausgeschlossen. Zwar gab es Proteste im Sudan sogar schon früher als in Tunesien - aber das Regime schlug sie jedes Mal blutig nieder. [...] An diesem Wochenende - der 30. Juni ist der 23. Jahrestag der Machtergreifung al-Baschirs - wollen die Organisatoren der Opposition Abertausende Menschen zu Demonstrationen gegen den Despoten bewegen. Die Proteste stehen unter dem Motto "Leck deinen Ellenbogen", wie der "Independent" berichtet. Diese Redewendung bedeutet so viel wie: Tu etwas Unmögliches. Das Motto entspricht damit dem Sinn nach Barack Obamas "Yes we can".

Police and security forces have arrested about 1000 people during two weeks of sustained crackdown on anti-regime protests in Sudan, an activist group said on Sunday. Sudanese authorities use terms like “rioters” and “saboteurs” to refer to hundreds of citizens who have been protesting for the past two weeks on the streets of the capital Khartoum and other regional towns after the government moved to implement a set of austerity measures including cuts on fuel subsidies.

Sudan’s Presidential Assistant Nafie Ali Nafie has accused anti-regime protesters of seeking to “eradicate” Islamic Shariah laws in order to make way for a secular state in the country.

Sudanese security forces on Tuesday continued their arrest spree against activists and briefly detained an Egyptian journalist as anti-regime protests flared up ahead of a new “day of rage” on Friday [...] The journalist, Shima Adil, who works for the Egyptian newspaper Al-Watan, was arrested by NISS agents at a cyber café in Al-Haj Youssef at 8pm local time along with a female Sudanese journalist named Marwa Al-Tijani and a female activist named Yosra Abdulla. The spokesman for the Sudanese embassy in Cairo, Babiki Hanin, told Al-Watan that Shima has been released after she underwent a routine investigation to verify the authenticity of her journalistic license. “It was just an investigation. Not a detention or jail,” he said. Hanin however said he had no information on the arrest of Yosra Abdulla or the journalist Marwa Al-Tijani.

Im Sudan gehen die Menschen gegen Omar al-Baschir auf die Straße. Das Land ist ruiniert, Lebensmittel unbezahlbar. Ein Sturz des Präsidenten aber ist unwahrscheinlich [...] Studentenproteste gab es im Sudan schon häufiger. Diesmal aber scheint die Lage anders zu sein. Die Demonstrationen könnten al-Baschir und seine Günstlinge aus der National Congress Party (NCP) stürzen, schreibt der sudanesische Blogger und Aktivist Amir Ahmad Nasr in der Zeitschrift Foreign Policy [...] "Die Kritik an al-Baschir nimmt zu, auch öffentlich", sagt Kristin Linke, Repräsentantin der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in der sudanesischen Hauptstadt. Dass der Präsident in naher Zukunft darüber stürzen könnte, glaubt sie dennoch nicht. "Eine mit den Entwicklungen in Tunesien oder Ägypten vergleichbare Massenbewegung gegen al-Baschir gibt es derzeit nicht. Zudem gelingt es ihm noch sehr gut, das Regime zusammenzuhalten."

Sudanese security forces used “nerve gas” to incapacitate would-be demonstrators in the capital Khartoum on Friday, an opposition member has charged, whereas activists said the number of detainees has risen to 2000 in the third week of anti-regime protests. Police and plain-clothed security agents deployed heavily since the early hours of Friday around main mosques in the capital Khartoum ahead of planned weekly demonstrations as part of a protest movement that has been gripping the country for the last three weeks. Activists named the protest the “The Friday of Aliens and Bubbles” to gibe President Al-Bashir’s description of the protesters in the first week of the unrest.