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 الغارديان البريطانية: السودان على حافة الربيع العربي
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Sudan edges towards Arab Spring
Sudan is grappling with Arab-spring style protests, albeit smaller in scale than those that toppled leaders in its northern neighbours. Police arrested dozens of
protesters at the weekend in an attempt to nip the movement in the bud.
Angered by austerity measures aimed at reducing a $2.4bn (£1.3bn) budget deficit, activists have tried to use discontent to trigger an uprising against the government of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.
Security forces have used teargas and batons to break up the demonstrations in several neighbourhoods. Some scenes in the capital, Khartoum, at the weekend recalled events in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, with teargas in the air, rocks strewn across streets, and burning tyres.
Opposition leaders and youth activists – who say they share some of the complaints of Arab spring protesters, including concerns about unemployment and corruption – have called for more demonstrations to press for greater democracy and measures to control price rises. Government officials have played down the protests, insisting that they will press ahead with spending cuts aimed at dealing with an economic crisis caused largely by the secession of South Sudan a year ago. The new nation took about three-quarters of the country's oil output, which was previously Sudan's main source of revenue. That left Sudan with a widening budget deficit, a weakening currency and rising prices for food and other goods, many of which are imported.
In a sign that authorities plan to intensify their crackdown, the state-linked Sudanese Media Centre said in a text message that police had been ordered to "immediately end the demonstrations and incidents of unrest according to the law".
The security forces have commented only rarely on the protests, which have gone almost entirely unreported by local media. On Friday, police said they had contained "limited" demonstrations numbering fewer than 150 people.
On Saturday, opposition politicians and activists reported several arrests, including that of Saata Ahmed al-Hajj, the general secretary of the Sudanese Commission for Defence of Freedoms and Rights, the group's chief said.
The National Consensus Forces, an umbrella group of opposition parties, have so far recorded about 15 arrests of opposition members, including senior figures, according to the group's head, Farouk Abu Issa.
Four small protests broke out in the suburb of Omdurman, and two more in the Burri and Bahri districts, witnesses said.
Sudan and South Sudan were supposed to work out a deal whereby the landlocked South would pay Sudan fees to export crude via pipelines and other facilities on its territory, but they have failed to reach an agreement. South Sudan shut down its crude output in January after Khartoum started taking some oil. African Union-brokered talks in Addis Ababa have yet to produce a deal.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/24/s...rest-arab-spring?CMP
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