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2013-09-27 Africa Horn
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Sudan's Arab Spring? Public anger rises against Bashir, again
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[Al Ahram] Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir entered a new societal confrontation this week after the government suspended subsidies on petroleum products, as if problems with neighbouring Juba and Darfur and the  International Criminal Court
... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ...
(ICC) arrest warrant against Al-Bashir were not enough to shake the regime's stability.
Tyres were burned, and anti-government slogans were chanted as hundreds of demonstrators took the streets of Sudan to express rejection to a decision influencing their day-to-day lives.
Those scenes cannot be regarded as unique for the people of Sudan, for a wave of wide-range demonstrations against price hikes and austerity measures adopted by government hit Khartoum in 2012.
The government succeeded in containing, through security channels, and arresting hundreds of protesters. Student-led protests also emerged in 1994 against the same cause.
This time, analysts left room for anger to rise, or probably for the regime to collapse, against Al-Bashir who seized power in 1989 after staging a military coup.
Don't play on economy strings
The consequences of the government move appeared unaffordable, more than the decision itself. Oil prices reached 20.8 Sudanese pounds ($4.71) a gallon from 12.5 ($2.83), while diesel became worth 13.9 pounds ($3.15) instead of 8.5 pounds ($1.93).
On Tuesday, a day after the decision, furious protesters stormed the ruling National Congress Party headquarters in the city of Omdurman. "I saw the building's three floors on fire as people fled," a witness told AFP, saying many were carrying looted furniture. However,
some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves...
there were no reports of human casualties.
Hundreds of protesters took the streets of cities of Omdurman, Khartoum, Nyala, and Wad Madani.
Protesters shouted "Freedom, Freedom!" and "The people want the fall of the regime!" Meanwhile,
...back at the palazzo, Count Guido had been cornered by the banditti...
police forces fired teargas and buckshot and beat them with clubs to disperse the protests, according to eyewitnesses.
Moez Ali, a Sudanese political commentator and blogger, spoke to Ahram Online on the economic prospective of the ongoing crisis. "As it has done for so many years, the government has mismanaged state funds and that's why it's facing a deficit."
Ali believed that the government is dealing with a huge budget deficit and hence feels that lifting fuel subsidies will "plug the hole in the budget." He stated that the last government budget was mostly allocated to defence and security purposes (80 percent), while education and health care received 2 percent and 3 percent, respectively.
The military budget is used to fund the government's attempts to squash the rebellions in the Blue Nile State, South Kordofan State and Darfur, and is also used to feed the governments notorious National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) that ensures its grip on power, Ali argued.
"Unsurprisingly, the government never planned for a Sudan without oil
... but that's okay. They've still got Islam.
and made desperate last minute desperate attempts at a gold industry in the northern part of the country, which is now starting to cause tribal conflicts. It's all about running out of options," the Sudanese blogger concluded.
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Posted by Fred 2013-09-27 00:00||
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