As Sudan descends into anarchy, veteran Arab journalist Abdel Bari Atwan says the U.S, Israel and Gulf nations have shamelessly led the nation into a trap and have broken all their promises to prop up its economy.
Ever since the military regime in Sudan decided to join the Saudi-UAE coalition in its war on Yemen and yielded to the Trump administration’s pressure to normalise relations with the Israeli occupation state, things have gone from bad to worse in the country. The economic situation failed to improve, social peace has not been achieved, and the promised transition to civilian rule turned into a mirage.
Last weekend, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in the tenth such protest since the military coup led by Gen. Abdelfattah al-Burhan and his deputy Hemedti in October. The junta proceeded to dissolve the government and interim Sovereign Council, scupper the partnership between the army and the civilian Movement for Change, break every promise and agreement they made, and impose military rule through emergency laws.
Gen. Burhan and the small clique of officers surrounding him betrayed the trust they were given and assumed sole power. They wielded an iron fist to impose their rule, curtailed freedoms, and cut off the Internet to prevent people from interacting — leaving only the hopeless military media to cheerlead and convey their mendacious statements and dictates.
Sudan is experiencing a state of spreading anarchy that afflicts most of its regions and states. This could lead to the country’s disintegration and the emergence of separate entities based on ethnicity and regionalism, and the collapse of all federal institutions including the army which used to be the backbone of national cohesion.
Burhan’s latest deal with reinstated former premier Abdalla Hamdok which legitimised the coup, if only temporarily, only worsens the divisions. Hamdok’s capitulation and his wavering about whether to resign smacks of the worst kind of weakness and submission to the U.S./Zionist scheme to weaken and partition Sudan under military tutelage.
The Gulf states that pushed Sudan into the Yemen imbroglio and normalisation with Israel are behaving like distant onlookers, turning the other way, and shamefully disregarding all their promises to support the Sudanese economy. A heavy price for their deception is being paid by the Sudanese people and their country’s security, stability, co-existence and unity.
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The protests must continue until this corrupt trio is toppled, civilian rule is restored, and all others complicit in the coup are brought to justice for all their crimes against the Sudanese people who once believed their lies and false promises.
This article was first published in Raialyoum.
