After 2019 a joint military and civilian council had been ruling Sudan in preparation for a hoped-for transition to a democratic republic, but regular army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan is seen by the civilian leadership as dragging his feet on the next change and of acting in an authoritarian manner. In October 2021 al-Burhan dismissed Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and his civilian government. Last December, the military and the civilian leadership reached a new accord, which was supposed to be finalized in early April but so far no final agreement has been reached.

Gunfire and bombs were heard near the army headquarters and presidential palace, according to an Anadolu reporter in Khartoum.

In a statement, the RSF accused the army of attacking its forces south of Khartoum with light and heavy weapons. The paramilitary force called the army’s action a “brutal assault”, saying it had informed local and international mediators of the developments.

The RSF also claimed that its forces had taken control of Khartoum airport, presidential palace, the residence of the army chief and Merowe military base in northern Sudan.

RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, claimed that his forces have taken the Khartoum airport and the presidential palace.

Speaking to the Doha-based Al Jazeera television, Hemedti described army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan as a criminal and corrupt who killed the Sudanese people, vowing to end this war in the coming few days.

Hemedti is al-Burhan’s deputy in the ruling Transitional Sovereign Council in Sudan.

For its part, the Sudanese army accused the RSF fighters of attempting to attack its forces south of Khartoum.

“The rebel RSF spreads lies about our forces attacking them, to cover up their rebellious behavior,” the statement said, declaring the paramilitary force a “rebel” group.

According to eyewitnesses, the Sudanese army carried out airstrikes on RSF bases in the capital Khartoum.

Witnesses said military warplanes struck RSF bases in Riyahd and Bahri neighborhood east and north of Khartoum.

The Sudanese army also denied the RSF claim of taking major sites in the capital, saying its forces had confronted the RSF attacks against the presidential palace, Khartoum airport and al-Burhan’s residence.

Local medics said three civilians were killed in the clashes between the army and RSF forces.

In a statement, the Sudan Doctors Committee said two people were killed in the fighting at Khartoum airport, while a third was killed in El-Obeid city, south of Khartoum.

Nine people, including an army officer, were also injured in the violence.

The dispute between the two sides came to the surface on Thursday when the army said recent movements by the RSF had happened without coordination and were illegal, with their rift centering around a proposed transition to civilian rule.

Sudan has been without a functioning government since October 2021 when the military dismissed Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok’s transitional government and declared a state of emergency.

Last December, Sudan’s military and political forces signed a framework agreement to resolve the months-long crisis.

The signing of the final agreement was scheduled to take place on April 6, but was delayed. No date has been announced for the signing of the deal.

Sudan’s transitional period which started in August 2019 was scheduled to end with elections in early 2024.

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License Two paragraphs of background were added along with updates from this MEMO article.

Middle East Monitor

That isn’t enough. Congress needs to legislate explicitly so that if a Trump wanna-be becomes president in 2025, he can’t just impose such a measure again. The Democrats can do this now, for about 18 months before they likely lose the House of Representatives in 2022 and should put a rush order on it.

Moreover, the Arab press is pointing out that the visa ban could nevertheless have a long arm and harm its victims even after abolition, and that the Biden administration must prevent ongoing harm. For instance, when you apply for a visa, you are asked if you were ever denied a visa before. Obviously, a previous denial could look suspicious and be grounds for being turned down now! You’ve got millions who could be affected.

Trump’s Muslim visa ban wrought enormous harm to innocent Americans. It kept grandchildren from visiting their grandparents. Some died alone and far away. It separated not only families but close friends. It separated colleagues. It broke up research teams. It ruined careers and businesses. It had no basis in fact. Immigrants from the countries singled out were not responsible for any acts of terrorism in the US. All the while, Trump was coddling the real terrorist threat, of white supremacists.

The Executive Order was clearly discriminatory and a violation of the First Amendment (see below). The Republican Supreme Court that prides itself on upholding religious liberty against Democratic Party secularism gave in to the most hateful attack on freedom of religion in decades.

It is worth reviewing what judges said about the first two attempts at a Muslim ban, which failed in the lower courts because they were so egregious. Trump won on the third try by including a few officials in Venezuela and North Korea, while mainly targeting Muslim-majority countries, and SCOTUS let Trump get by with this sleight of hand. What judges said about versions 1.0 and 2.0 of the executive order was also true of 3.0, whatever Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito (two of the worst justices in history) might say. Thomas is inexplicably married to a white nationalist who cheered on the Capitol insurrection.

I wrote in February, 2017, when the first of the three Muslim visa bans was issued by Executive Order (EO) in February, 2017, about the first time it was struck down:

“US District Judge James Robart of Seattle, a Bush appointee, issued a judgment suspending the Executive Order on the grounds that it is unconstitutional and places an undue burden on the state of Washington and on its 25,000 residents from the 7 countries that Trump singled out…

Robart wrote, according to the Seattle Times:

“The executive order adversely affects the state’s residents in areas of employment, education, business, family relations and freedom to travel,” Robart wrote, adding that the order also harmed the state’s public universities and tax base. “These harms are significant and ongoing.”

Robart stood up for the residents of Washington state who were unconstitutionally deprived of basic rights by the EO. He also stood up for the economy of Washington state and its “tax base,” playing turnabout with Trump by arguing that what he did is bad for the economy!

He even mentioned the harm to the state’s great universities, a point I have made in the past.

Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, the Neofascists who wrote the EO, were hoping that immigrants would be treated by the US courts as foreigners with no rights or standing.

Robart is saying that residents of a state in the US have rights that the president cannot simply erase by fiat. He is further saying that institutions of the state itself, including universities, have a right to pursue their work unmolested by discriminatory policies . . . The court also accepted the state’s argument that the EO has “inflicted upon the operations and missions of their public universities and other institutions of higher learning, as well as injury to the States’ operations, tax bases, and public funds. These harms are significant and ongoing.”

Then the fascist racists came back with a revised version of the visa ban, which was struck down by Judge Derek Watson in Honolulu. I wrote,

“It is delicious that Hawaii stepped up here, as the most ethnically diverse state in the nation, where the quarter of the population that is Japanese-Americans well remembers the internment camps to which their families were consigned during WW II. Hawaii has a lot of immigrants, and those immigrants found companies and act as entrepreneurs, adding enormous value to the Hawaii economy. 1 in 6 residents of Hawaii is foreign-born, and 20% of business revenue is generated by 16,000 new immigrant businesses. Trump’s white nationalism is completely out of place in Hawaii. And by the way, Hawaii and California, the diverse states, are the future of America. Trumpism can only slow that down, not stop it…

Judge Watson notes, “The clearest command of the Establishment Clause is that one religious denomination cannot be officially preferred over another.” Larson v. Valente, 456 U.S. 228, 244 (1982). To determine whether the Executive Order runs afoul of that command, the Court is guided by the three-part test for Establishment Clause claims set forth in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 612-13 (1971). According to Lemon, government action (1) must have a primary secular purpose, (2) may not have the principal effect of advancing or inhibiting religion, and (3) may not foster excessive entanglement with religion. Id. “Failure to satisfy any one of the three prongs of the Lemon test is sufficient to invalidate the challenged law or practice.” Newdow v. Rio Linda Union Sch. Dist., 597 F.3d 1007, 1076–77 (9th Cir. 2010)….

The Establishment Clause says that Congress shall make no law affecting the establishment of religion, which is 18th century English for “Congress shall make no law designating a particular religion as the state religion of the Federal Government.” The Clause mandates that the Government be neutral as between religions. Obviously, a Muslim ban is not religiously neutral.

Watson finds that the EO targets six countries with a Muslim population of between 90% and 97% and so obviously primarily targets Muslims…

Judge Watson notes that the State of Hawaii alleged two major harms of the EO. The first is the University of Hawaii system, which is an “arm of the state.” The University, which has 55,756 students, pointed out that it “recruits students, permanent faculty, and visiting faculty from the targeted countries.” The EO harms the whole state of Hawaii “by debasing its culture and tradition of ethnic diversity and inclusion.”

The Iranian, Syrian, Libyan, Somali, Yemeni and Sudanese students who are excluded from the country “are deterred from studying or teaching at the University, now and in the future, irrevocably damaging their personal and professional lives and harming the educational institutions themselves.” …

Not only would some of these persons, and others, be dissuaded from continuing their search for knowledge in the US, “The State argues that the University will also suffer non-monetary losses, including damage to the collaborative exchange of ideas among people of different religions and national backgrounds on which the State’s educational institutions depend.” The EO is interfering not just in finances but in the very purpose of the University, which is the free exchange of ideas.

The EO also interferes with the University’s ability freely to recruit the most qualified faculty and students and with its commitment to being “one of the most diverse institutions of higher education” in the world. Moreover, the university envisages it as difficult to run its Persian Language and culture program without the ability to have visitors from Iran.

The State’s summary of the harm to the University of Hawaii includes educational and intellectual harms (and ethnic diversity is itself an intellectual advantage) as well as financial and monetary ones. In the Lockean tradition, property harms are typically the ones taken most seriously.

Hawaii’s second argument is that the EO will harm its tourism industry, a central component of its economy. The chaotic and arbitrary way the first EO was rolled out, and the uncertainties attending the second one will “depress tourism, business travel, and financial investments in Hawaii.”). Middle East visitors in the month after the first EO fell by 1/5. Tourism brings in $15 billion a year to the Hawaii economy (it is a small state of 1.5 million people).

Hawaii has a point, and Judge Watson recognized it.”

——-

Bonus Video:

Justice for All: “Struggles of Muslim Ban”

( Middle East Monitor ) – Giving up its decades-old position against Israel’s occupation of Palestine, Sudan has agreed to normalise relations with the Zionist state. Tellingly, this was announced by US President Donald Trump on Friday at the White House. He is, of course, seeking a second term in office in next week’s presidential election.

“HUGE win today for the United States and for peace in the world,” Trump tweeted. “Sudan has agreed to a peace and normalisation agreement with Israel!” He celebrated the deal as a personal achievement to add to the previous agreements. “With the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, that’s THREE Arab countries to have done so in only a matter of weeks,” he wrote. “More will follow!” The tweet was clearly part of his election campaign.

The deal was sealed during a phone call between Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, as well as Transitional Council Head Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan. “The leaders agreed to the normalisation of relations between Sudan and Israel and to end the state of belligerence between their nations,” they said in a joint statement.

At the same time, Trump removed Sudan from his country’s list of states which sponsor terrorism, lifting around three decades of tight restrictions imposed on the country and unblocking economic aid and investment. This measure followed the payment, on Sudan’s behalf — apparently by the UAE through Saudi Arabia — of $335 million in compensation for US “terror victims”. Not the victims of US state terrorism, as you might first think, but the American citizens affected by terrorists in East Africa.

Netanyahu described the agreement as a “dramatic breakthrough for peace” and the start of a “new era”. Hamdok, meanwhile, thanked Trump for removing his country from the “state terror” list and said that the Sudanese government is working “towards international relations that best serve our people.” In other words, the Palestinians can go away and rot.

Because they were not aimed at reaching a real reconciliation between the nations in the Middle East, it is hard to know what lies behind these deals, the fake “peace breakthroughs” as Netanyahu and Trump called them. However, slips of the metaphorical tongue by parties involved in the issue are revealing about what went on behind closed doors.

Globes is an Israeli economic newspaper. On Friday it reported that Israel’s Defence Minister Benny Gantz said that the Sudan-Israeli agreement means that “Israel’s security achieved a massive jump forward.” He was in Washington at the time. For the retired general, the “massive jump” has two dimensions: the renewed US “strategic commitment” to Israel’s security, as reported by Walla news website and Israeli TV Channel 13; and probably US arms deals worth billions of dollars with the Arab countries which are now Israel’s allies. A glut of advanced weapons plus support from the US and Israel will reinforce hostility among Arab states and destroy whatever bonds they have between each other at the moment, weakening rather than strengthening them. A weak Arab world is, of course, what Israel has been working towards for decades.

Israeli defence minister and alternate prime minister Benny Gantz in Jerusalem on 5 July 2020 [GALI TIBBON/POOL/AFP via Getty Images]

Moreover, if only the “normalised” states will be allowed such advanced weapons, those Arab states can be relied upon to stand with Israel in any confrontation with Iran. Again, something that Israel will have dreamed of for many years.

The Times of Israel reported that Netanyahu and Gantz announced earlier on Friday that Israel would not oppose the US sale of “certain weapon systems” to the UAE. This was an apparent reference to the advanced F-35 stealth fighter jets, about which Washington has given Israel assurances that it would “significantly upgrade” its own military capabilities in exchange. Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Qatar were also given the green light to buy advanced US weapons.

This is one aspect of the arms race, pitching Arab countries against Arab countries. The other is the competition between the Arabs and Israel. Given that Washington will always ensure that Israel has the qualitative and quantitative edge in the region, this is one race that the normalising Arabs must know they will not win. Nevertheless, Israel wants to make absolutely certain, just in case the current dictators in the region are overthrown and regimes less open to normalisation bribery and blackmail take over.

The race has already started. When Gantz travelled to the US, Ynet News reported that he was expected to order a third squadron of Lockheed Martin 5th Generation F-35 aircraft and Boeing F-15 EX jets, which will include a series of upgraded capabilities. He was also expected to discuss long-range munitions during his visit.

According to Responsible Statecraft, “On this trip, he [Gantz] wanted to make sure that Israel got the best deal it could to ensure that any weapons sales to the UAE, or to other states that agree to normalise their relations with Israel, would not diminish Israel’s military dominance in the region.”

Israeli journalist Alon Ben-David, who specialises in defence and military issues, said that the Americans refused to make such a pledge to Gantz. Speaking to Al Jazeera, the director of the Arms and Security Programme at the DC-based Centre for International Policy, William Hartung, said that arms sales were an “important factor” in the normalisation deals. Bahrain, he affirmed, may have agreed to normalisation in order to have access to advanced weaponry, and the Saudis could follow suit. Indeed, Israel’s Channel 12 has reported that the government believes that Saudi Arabia will normalise relations soon, and the decision will be accompanied by a significant arms deal with Washington.

Arming the Arab states in this way demonstrates that these are far from the “peace agreements” that the various governments claim; they are intended to equip them to wage war and suppress the human rights of their own citizens. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, remember, are still fighting a war against the Houthis in Yemen. Reports claim that they are guilty of war crimes there and want to split the country in two. In Libya, the UAE, along with Egypt, is supporting the renegade Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, whose militias have been fighting the legitimate government and are said to be responsible for numerous war crimes.

All the evidence suggests, therefore, that these “peace” deals are, in fact, little more than a fig leaf for arms deals which will make the region more dangerous for everyone. We Palestinians are not surprised, because Israel and its lackeys in Washington have been trying to pull the wool over our eyes for decades with fake “peace” deals which allow the colonisation of our country to continue unabated. The so-called “deal of the century” is but the latest of these. The Arab leaders normalising with the occupation state should be ashamed that they have sold their countries and their self-respect so cheaply.

Motasem A. Dalloul is a journalist based in Gaza and a specialist on Middle East affairs. He holds an MA in international journalism from the University of Westminster in London. He is is MEMO’s correspondent in the Gaza Strip.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Middle East Monitor

—

Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

Israel: Will not oppose US weapon sales to UAE | News Bulletin | Indus News

In the last few days, tens of thousands of people have, once again,
taken to the streets of Sudan’s major cities to demand “freedom, peace and justice”, the rallying cry for the protesters who ousted Omar al-Bashir in 2019.

The big difference is that this time they are marching against the civilian-military Sovereign Council, demanding a greater role for civilians in the country’s transition towards democracy and faster reform.

A year ago the people of Sudan were heralding the fall of Bashir, the country’s long-serving strongman. A mass uprising led by the Sudan Professional Association and Resistance Committees had eventually managed to precipitate the deposing of the president. A host of grievances fanned the protests. Among them were endemic corruption, a struggling economy, human rights violations, and a failed health system.

Why then have the protests returned to the street so soon after they vacated them in triumphant euphoria?

The answer lies in the fact that the balance of power in the transition period that follows the fall of a despot is always tricky. This was evident in Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt. When reformers are relatively weak and those determined to protect the status quo are strong, substantive change will be demonstrably lethargic and long-winded. It will sometimes be stalled, and even reversed in certain instances.

Entrenched status quo elites will be reluctant to change because this poses a threat to their interests.

Events in Sudan point to this tension.

What’s been done

Following Bashir’s ouster, a civilian-military sovereign council
headed by a civilian prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, and made up of six civilians and five military officers, was instituted. Its immediate challenge was ensuring security and stability, negotiating peace with Darfur rebels, and repairing Sudan’s battered economy.

So what is on its report card a year on?

For starters, the systematic jailing of opponents has stopped, and arbitrary arrests from the security bureau have largely ceased. Censorship and the muzzling of the press has all but stopped. And the public order law has been repealed. This law was notorious for giving police disproportionate powers of arrest and punishment including for moral and religious infractions.

In rebuilding institutional trust, the police chief and his deputy have also been fired, after protesters demanded more measures against officials linked to Bashir.

In addition, serious effort have been made to meet another core protest demand – the end to incessant conflicts in Sudan. Peace efforts have been pursued with the rebel Sudan Revolutionary Front. These efforts produced a preliminary peace accord, including the drawing down of the UN peace keeping mission in Darfur.

Most recently, an anti-corruption body to trace ill-gotten wealth and provide accountability has been set up. The confiscation of almost $4 billion of assets from Bashir, his family and associates signals a move in the right direction.

In addition, the transitional government has actively sought to change Sudan’s standing in the world by shedding its image as a pariah state. This was not of primary concern to the protest movement, which was focused more on issues of bread and butter. But the transitional government nevertheless has acted to mend fences in the hope that it will deliver dividends for the country.

To this end, it has actively lobbied the US government to remove it from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Washington is still considering this request. In the meantime it has removed the country from a black list of states endangering religious freedom. It has also lifted sanctions on 157 Sudanese firms.

And, for the first time in 23 years, the two countries have exchanged ambassadors.

For its part, Sudan has reduced the number of troops it has in Yemen by two thirds.

What’s missing

But the expectations of last year’s popular uprising have not been met. The reason for this is that substantive reforms have been slow.

One area of clear frustration has been the snail’s pace at which civilian control is taking place. The civilian governance footprint on the country’s body politic is not yet evident. Instead, the military elite continues to have de facto control and influence, sidelining the civilians and often pushing for greater compromises from civilian partners.

Examples of this include the fact that a legislative transitional council has yet to be installed. This would have provided a degree of counterweight to the military dominated sovereign council. Legislation is thus being done in an ad hoc manner.

In addition, civilian governors haven’t been appointed to replace military ones in the various provinces, which would signal another move away from military governance.

The lack of urgency in bringing Bashir and his henchmen to trial is also frustrating people. It appears to be a marginal priority, and in some instances deliberately frustrating.

Nor have the country’s economic woes been addressed. People still queue for three to six hours to buy bread, or fill their tanks at petrol stations. Electricity reliability is still sketchy, with power cuts the norm. Accessing domestic gas is also a problem.

The economy has been contracting and oil revenues have slumped due to falling oil prices and low production capacity. This has affected public expenditure and the investment needed to jumpstart the economic recovery.

COVID-19 has done even more damage.

What’s holding back reforms

Sudan has competing power structures that are inhibiting coherent and far reaching reforms. In the one camp are the reformers, in the other those who wish to defend the status quo. Reformers are constantly having to negotiate and make strategic calculations about what changes can be made and how fast.

This game of political brinkmanship is beginning to take its toll.

Clearly the civilian half of the transitional government has struggled to assert or leverage its moral authority or “popular legitimacy” in the face of military intransigence.

But the prime minister Abdalla Hamdor remains popular. In seeking to placate the demonstrators, he recently admitted that the transitional authority had to “correct the revolution’s track”. This was tacit acknowledgement that on his watch things have gone off the desired path.

But does he have the leverage to correct this diversion from the expectations of the street?

That answer might sadly be, not to a great extent.

For now, the reality that the protesters and civilian elite have to contend with is that after a long and destructive authoritarian legacy, change will not come easily. Nor can it be fast-tracked. Rather it is a product of patience, compromise – and above all perseverance.

David E Kiwuwa, Associate Professor of International Studies, University of Nottingham

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

—–

Al Jazeera: “Sudan: Growing protests against insecurity in central Darfur”

As 2019 began, Omar al-Bashir was president of the Sudan, as he had been for 30 years. A brutal dictator implicated in genocide in Darfur he was widely considered a war criminal after an International Criminal Court ruling. By April 11, continued urban unrest and strategic rallies led by the leftist Sudanese Professionals Association and, behind the scenes, by mystical Sufi orders, had pressured the officer corps into making a coup against al-Bashir. Not satisfied with replacing one general with another, the crowds continued to pressure the military to step down in favor of a civilian government. Saudi Arabia and the UAE appear to have backed the military junta against the people, but could not forestall a compromise. In the end a form of cohabitation developed, with a new civilian government but continued military oversight and a promise of transition to pure civilian rule. Sudan lost the revenue for South Sudan’s oil in 2013 when that region became an independent country, and its elite floundered in finding a new business model. Inflation was running at 75%, hurting people on fixed incomes or who depended on imports.

In ordinary times, the fall of al-Bashir should have been a huge story in the US, where at least lip service has been paid to caring about his Darfur genocide.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

As 2019 began, Adel Abdulmahdi was prime minister of Iraq. Although voters had indicated in the 2018 election that they were fed up with the handful of parties that has dominated Iraq since the Bush era, Abdulmahdi was nevertheless chosen as PM. He came out of the pro-Iranian Islamic Supreme Council. Massive protests broke out at the beginning of October in Shiite cities like Nasiriya and in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square. The Iraqi security forces and Shiite paramilitaries replied with deadly force, killing over 500 in October, November and December. Abdulmahdi was forced to resign. The crowds had demanded an end to corruption and to the party spoils system whereby the bigger parties in parliament were rewarded with government jobs for their supporters. They also wanted electoral reforms to block the dominance of the parties that keep winning the elections. Just last week, the Iraqi parliament moved away from the list system, in which you vote for a party list, and toward a system were voters can vote for individual politicians. Although Iraq is pumping 3.5 million barrels a day of petroleum, the billions in receipts that go to the government have not been invested in Iraqi jobs or infrastructure. Corruption runs so rife that the Iraqi treasury is said to be dry. All the $500 billion earned from oil sales since the Bush era seems to have just disappeared into the pockets of politicians. Crowds wanted more services and a share in the national oil wealth. Yesterday, Assad al-Eidani was nominated as prime minister. A member of the 2005- elite from the pro-Iran Islamic Supreme Council and the governor of Basra, his nomination holds out little hope of improvement of the sort the crowds demand.

As 2019 began, Saad Hariri was prime minister of Lebanon. On 17 October small street protests broke out against corruption, gridlock, lack of services, failure to collect garbage, lack of electricity, sectarianism and new taxes on the Whatsapp messaging program. By 18 December, Hariri had bowed out of consideration for another term as prime minister. The crowds are not mollified by simply switching out the prime minister for someone equally bad, and clearly intend to keep the government’s feet to the fire. Trump all this fall withheld military aid from Lebanon.

All four of these popular revolts caused a sitting prime minister or president to step down. All four demanded an end to corruption and an end to government inaction on providing jobs and infrastructure.. Many wanted more and better jobs. All were nationalistic rather than fundamentalist in character. Sudan’s Association of Sudanese Journalists is a leftist organization.

Algeria, Sudan, and Iraq are all oil states where the distribution of oil proceeds was closely held by the state.

All the air in American politics seems to have been sucked up by Trump and his Power Tweets, so that cable television seemed to have little energy to spare for the big developments in the world that had the potential to affect the United States.

In 2011 the American public was mesmerized by the youth street revolts that overturned governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, and which plunged Bahrain into a further authoritarian miasma and kicked off an 8-year civil war in Syria. Yet they showed little interest in the similar movements this year.

——

Bonus video:

Al Jazeera English: “Asaad al-Eidani nominated as Iraq’s next prime minister”

Medics linked to the opposition said the death toll from Monday’s operation and subsequent unrest had risen to 108 and that it was expected to increase. State news agency SUNA early on Thursday put the number much lower, at 46, citing a health ministry official.

The raid, which followed weeks of wrangling between the ruling military council and opposition groups over who should lead Sudan’s transition to democracy, marked the worst outbreak of violence since the army ousted President Omar al-Bashir in April after months of protests against his 30-year rule.

The Transitional Military Council cancelled all agreements it had reached with the opposition immediately after the raid, but it rowed back on Wednesday amid mounting international criticism of the violence.

“We in the military council extend our hand for negotiations without shackles except for the interests of the homeland,” its head, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, said on state TV.

But a Sudanese alliance of protesters and opposition groups rejected the offer, saying the military could not be trusted.

“Today the council invited us to dialogue and at the same time it is imposing fear on citizens in the streets,” Madani Abbas Madani, a leader of the Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces (DFCF), told Reuters.

Madani said Burhan’s invitation had come before the arrest of one of the opposition alliance members, Yasir Arman, deputy head of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) rebel group.

Opposition medics said 40 bodies that had been pulled out of the Nile on Tuesday were among the 108 killed. The bodies were taken to an unknown destination by pickup trucks belonging to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, the medics said. Reuters was not immediately able to verify the report.

A military council spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment, but the council said on Twitter that some Rapid Support Forces members had been attacked and that people had put on their uniforms to impersonate them in an attempt to harm their reputation.

The mood in the capital, Khartoum, remained tense on Wednesday, with demonstrators blocking streets in several districts. Gunfire rang out in the distance.

Most shops were shuttered on what would usually have been a bustling Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday. Minor protests erupted outside mosques after Eid prayers, but there were no reports of significant clashes with security forces.

The deputy head of the military council, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commonly known as Hemedti, said in a televised speech that it had launched “an urgent and transparent investigation” into the recent violence.

“Any person who crossed boundaries has to be punished,” he added.

The military has denied trying to clear the sit-in protest outside the defence ministry on Monday. Its spokesman said forces moved in to deal with disruptive groups nearby and the violence spread from there.

Saudi Arabia, which has close ties to Sudan’s military council, said on Wednesday it was watching developments with great concern and called for more dialogue.

US national security adviser John Bolton said in a Twitter post that Monday’s violence by Sudan’s security forces was “abhorrent” and demanded that the military council facilitate moves towards a civilian-led government.

The main protest organizer, the Sudanese Professionals Association, has called for an international committee to investigate Monday’s deaths in what it branded a “massacre”.

Several airlines have cancelled flights to Khartoum, including Bahrain’s Gulf Air, flydubai and EgyptAir.

Sudan has been rocked by unrest since December when anger over rising bread prices and cash shortages broke into sustained protests against Bashir that culminated in the military removing him after three decades in office.

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

——

Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

Aljazeera English: “Sudan protesters reject military election plan after crackdown”

(OpenDemcocracy) – With women leading revolutions in Sudan and Algeria, it is natural to wonder again, will Arab uprisings be finished by women?

In his famous essay, ‘Algeria Unveiled’, Frantz Fanon (1959, p. 35) writes: ‘The way people clothe themselves, together with the traditions of dress and finery that custom implies, constitutes the most distinctive form of a society’s uniqueness’. Protesting former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s absurd bid for a fifth term, Algerians flooded the streets angrily – yet peacefully, asking for political change.

On 1 March 2019, the female militant, Djamila Bouhired, joined the Algerian masses and marched for freedom in full solidarity with their demands. Received by roses and tears, the ‘living martyr of the Algerian Revolution’ fought another ‘Battle of Algiers’. The following week, on the International Day of Women, Bouhired was joined by other heroines, such as Zohra Drif. Together, the women of Algeria proudly exhibited their algerianness by wearing the traditional Maghrebi veils, the Haik and Ajar. Whereas the Haik is the traditional Maghrebi (mainly Algerian and Tunisian) white garment that covers the body, the Ajar is similar to the Niqab, it is the traditional Algerian face veil. The powerful images of the recent protests in Algeria take us back to the Algerian Revolution of 1954, and the instrumentalization of veiling and concealment.

Unveiling Algeria

In ‘Algeria Unveiled’, Fanon designates the veil as an important instrument of resisting colonial hegemony. Equating the female body with the land, Fanon asserts that unveiling an Algerian woman is synonymous with prostituting Algeria: ‘Every veil that fell, every body that became liberated from the traditional embrace of the Haik, every face that offered itself to the bold and impatient glance of the occupier, was a negative expression of the fact that Algeria was beginning to deny herself and was accepting the rape of the colonizer’ (1959, p. 42). Was unveiling a form of torture against Algerian women? Yes! The French occupation systematically targeted the veil as a remnant of pre-colonial culture and worked on its eradication.

Many Algerian women, mainly from rural areas, were forced to unveil themselves and pose for the colonizer’s cameras. In a poignant abuse of power, the camera was an instrument of humiliation and subjugation of women: who were ashamed to even admit what had happened to them. In many of the photographs, the women’s gaze at the camera reflects their horror, helplessness and a silent reproach, as they hold on tightly to the veils draped on their shoulders and chests. The camera was therefore an apparatus of power; the French soldier’s gaze and the camera’s lens both scrutinize the helpless denuded female body.

In his essay, Fanon underscored his belief that the colonial quest to unveil the women of Algeria represented an attempt to destroy Algerian society. As women are its pillars, detaching them from their cultural and religious heritage would ultimately undermine it and make it easier to conquer. In Gillo Pontecorvo’s La Bataille D’Alger (1966), however, we see combatants using both veiling and unveiling to manipulate enemy surveillance. The veil – which conceals by its very definition – creates a barrier between the soldiers’ gaze and the female body, rendering it un-inspectable.

The unveiling of female militants marked the climax of the film. Infuriated by the bombing of the Casbah building by the French Army, female militants perform an entire ritual of transformation: where they cut off their long beards, dye their hair, wear makeup and dress in European minidresses, taking off their veils to pass checkpoints without raising suspicions. At the checkpoints, soldiers oppress innocent Algerians and humiliate them by either beating them or arresting them for reasons as futile as not having an identity card on them.

On the other hand, they allow ladies who are not veiled to pass, sometimes even exchanging a few kind words or flirting with them. One female militant is shown telling a soldier that she is going to the beach and expresses her interest in him accompanying her. Unlike Fanon’s suggestion, Algerian women did not let go of any principles, be they religious or cultural, but used garments as a means of camouflage. Unveiling was therefore used willingly and strategically to subvert colonial gaze and resist occupation. In fact, many female militants, such as Bouhired and Drif, never chose to be veiled even after independence. They are still hailed as heroines and icons of the Algerian Revolution. The final scene of unveiling in La Bataille D’Alger is after independence: as we see women and men celebrating in the streets, and women festively taking off their veils, celebrating the departure of the foreigner. I would therefore argue that choosing to veil in traditional garments during the 2019 protests carries a silent warning: no foreign intervention is welcome!

Re-veiling the Algerian revolution

Evidently, the veil’s symbolism has undergone several shifts, from an Abrahamic practice of modesty to a politicized form of asserting identity. In the west, many Muslim women hold on to their veils to flaunt their Islamic identity and challenge media discourses loaded with narratives of oppression or violence. The Hijab has often been used by Muslim women throughout the western world to assert pride and belonging: as Marnia Lazreg (2009, p. 54) notes, it has been ‘an increasingly attractive method for women from Muslim communities in Europe and North America to display pride in their culture’. Moreover, in some Muslim societies, the veil can even be instrumentalized as a boundary that separates the self from the other, the private from the public and the permissible from the forbidden. In fact, in countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran, for example, where the veil is compulsory by law, women have been struggling to assert their individual choices. The extreme obsession with veiling in Saudi Arabia is best exemplified in a tragedy during which fifteen girls were reported dead after a fire eruption in a school in Mecca in 2002. A father of one of the girls reported that the school watchmen refused to let the girls out because they were not covered properly. The Commission of the Provision of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Saudi Arabia can safely be described as religious police which, among many things, is tasked with the control of women’s proper veiling.

Utilising the veil to assert algerianness represented a soft discourse of power, aimed at putting off unwanted, unwelcome foreign intervention. Oscillating between being victims of masculine authority or harbingers of terror, veiled women in the west often struggle with stereotypes. This politicized perception of the Islamic veil is relatively new and has developed since 9/11. Before then, it was given a more exotic symbolism; it was regarded as a coy invitation to peel away the barrier and reveal what it conceals, as in Orientalist paintings such as those of Eugène Delacroix.

As many women decided to go out into Haik and Ajar during the Algerian protests, one is forced to wonder: are Algerian women still resisting surveillance through veiling? Whereas many decided to cover their faces with Ajar or the Algerian flag to evade patriarchal surveillance, many others have used it as a subversive way to symbolize authentic Algerianness. The Algerian activist and painter, Souad Douibi, for example, shrouded herself in a long veil covered with her own Arabic transcriptions of ‘freedom’: a look that evokes Shirin Neshat’s series of portraits ‘Women of Allah’. Here, the veil renders the word ‘freedom’ more prominent than either Souad or any individual features; we see a woman asking for freedom or, more powerful still, a woman proclaiming her freedom.

If we compare the symbolism of the veil during the colonial era and the contemporary one, we instantly notice its shift from a seemingly exotic garment from the ‘Orient’ to western representations of it as a menacing symbol of violence and terrorism. Over-using the veil’s symbolism during the protests in Algeria was simply another way of emphasizing Algerian identity and sending a message to the west to keep out of it. In fact, many protestors held banners brandishing a humorous threat: ‘France and USA, this is a family matter, stay out of it’. Moreover, inscribing the word ‘freedom’ on a garment often branded as ‘oppressive’ in the west was an invitation to deconstruct the veil and read it against cultural stereotypes. Through this oxymoronic amalgam of tensions between freedom and oppression, obedience and disobedience, conformity and rebellion, the veil becomes a way of re-writing identity.

Seeing the veil being used to proclaim algerianness prompted me to reminisce on Mona Eltahawy’s essay ‘Why do they Hate Us: The real war on women in the Middle East’. In this essay, she professed: ‘The Arab uprisings may have been sparked by an Arab man […] but they will be finished by Arab women’. The fight against the current government – referred to by many in Algeria as ‘the mob of thieves’ – continues, despite the resignation of former President, Abdelaziz Bouteflika. While still participating in the protests, women face hardships which are anything but new. On April 3, the idiocy of a man calling for acid attacks against Algerian feminists ‘demanding freedom’ led to his being reported to anti-terrorism authorities in the UK.

This was followed by a poignant moment where female protestors were arrested in Algiers: where they were humiliated and forced to strip out of their underwear by police officers. The officers reportedly ordered ‘all to be removed’: a slogan widely used by Algerian protestors in the aim of toppling the entire regime. This only reminds us of the danger of patriarchal violence lying dormant in Algeria. Yet, we cannot help but marvel at the new lineage of resistance methods used by Algerian women. With women leading revolutions such Alaa Salah in Sudan and Djamila Bouhired in Algeria, it is natural to wonder again, will Arab uprisings be finished by women?

References:

Lazreg, Marnia. Questioning the Veil (p. 133). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.

Fanon, F. (1965) A Dying Colonialism . New York: Grove Press.

Lazreg, M. (2009) Questioning the Veil. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

La Bataille d’Alger. (1966). [online]. Pontecorvo, G. Algeria.

Neshat, S. (1994) Women of Allah. [Ink on Photograph]. MET Museum, New York.

Via OpenDemcocracy)

This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

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Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

VOA News: “Women Run Grave Risks Fighting for Change in Egypt, Sudan, Algeria”

Where there is revolution, there’s a central gathering point – just think of Egypt’s Tahrir Square, Taksim Square in Istanbul and Habib Bourguiba Avenue in Tunisia. They all captured the world’s imagination as places where the power of the masses couldn’t be ignored.

As an architect who studies urban public spaces, and as a Sudanese, I have wondered since December 2018 – when protesters rose up against Omar al-Bashir’s regime – which space would become Khartoum’s equivalent of Tahrir Square. Which of the Sudanese capital city’s public spaces would hold similar symbolism?

Some open areas in Khartoum, such as Al Saha Al Ghadraa, have historical links to the al-Bashir regime and would not have been acceptable to the protesters. Others would hold immense symbolic value, but would raise questions about links to specific political parties. Buildings of significance, such as the parliament in Omdurman, don’t offer a public square in the true sense of the word, and so would not be an appropriate gathering space.

The answer emerged on 6 April 2019. Hundreds of thousands of people marched to the Sudanese Army’s headquarters in the Ministry of Defence’s complex. That march evolved into a multi-day sit-in. Weeks later, and with al-Bashir ousted, the sit-in continues.

It’s a powerful, significant choice of venue. First, the army headquarters are usually off-limits. Photography is not permitted and access is restricted. Yet the army permitted a massive gathering on its doorstep. Second, the army actually went on to actively defend the protesters against attacks by the National Intelligence and Security forces. The venue offered protection and security.

Finally, it was a symbolic choice: the protesters knew that army collaboration would be crucial to achieve a transitional government.

All of this echoes what research and history have repeatedly shown. Urban public spaces may be built to represent governments, but they are often appropriated by citizens and become sites of protest. The space in Sudan has not been a gathering place before, and the roads that surround the complex actually hold no special characteristics spatially or architecturally. Yet they have been appropriated – and they have come to serve the protesters’ purpose well.

An altered space

The Sudanese military complex in Khartoum is comprised of three sections. The Land Forces occupy a section that’s built to resemble army tanks. The Air Force’s section is shaped like an airplane, and the Navy’s resembles a ship. This approach to architecture – buildings that project their meaning in a literal way – has a name: “ducks” The spaces adjacent to the buildings are inhabited by protesters who literally live on the site.

The complex sits just north of the airport and is flanked on the east and west by the Hay al Matar (Airport District) and the neighbourhood of Burri, which has been one of the most active neighbourhoods during the revolution. A couple of kilometres to the north is a bridge that crosses the Blue Nile to Khartoum North.

This has transformed the streets. Some have said that this space is now a microcosm of the future Sudan that the protesters envision. It’s a space where freedom of expression is permitted. Murals and street art are everywhere.

Temporary classrooms have been set up to commemorate a teacher who was killed by the security forces. Makeshift clinics staffed by volunteers offer free medicines. We are being told by people on the ground about the free food, water and medicines that are being provided through donations. Street children and the homeless have been accommodated. Engineering and architecture students are working to build drinking fountains. Temporary toilets have been set up.

Street traders are selling their goods. Cultural activities abound, too: musicians and political leaders from different parties visit the area each day to entertain and educate.

It’s important to point out that the situation is in flux. The routes were pedestrianised. Protesters would not let vehicles in, apart from those making important deliveries. But Sudan’s military council has now called for the reopening of the routes.

What next?

The fate of other iconic places of protest hasn’t always been celebratory or positive. Sometimes, authorities move to eradicate history and memory in these spaces.

There are hopes that Khartoum’s story might be different. Already architectural groups on social media are discussing the possibility of retaining this space as a “freedom square” in future plans for the city. Others have argued that this is not possible because of the site’s military nature.

But whatever happens, there’s no doubt that Khartoum’s military complex – and its role as a space for public protests and uprising – will go down in history and would have to be acknowledged in any future visions for the city.

Architect Mohamed Abd Abdelhamied Bakhit, who is often on site with the protesters, contributed to this article.

Amira Osman, Professor of Architecture, Tshwane University of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

France24 English: “Sudan’s protest leaders, army rulers agree on joint council”

60,000 armed Turkish soldiers will be deployed across four military bases abroad in accordance with a new 2022 plan, The New Khalij reported today.

The Turkish National Security Council finalised the plan yesterday, in order to meet Turkey’s military and commercial interests to support its allies.

Turkey already has 3,000 troops deployed near the Red Sea, in Somalia and a military base in Sudan’s Suakin Island, which is capable of holding some 20,000 military personnel for five years. 200 Turkish soldiers have been deployed in Somalia since October last year, training Somalia’s military.

In addition to some hundred soldiers currently based in Qatar’s Al-Udeid military base since shortly after the blockade on Qatar, Turkey plans to deploy more to fulfil its 2022 plan. The number has not publically been disclosed.

Qatar announced today that Turkish commercial firms will be given priority for business during the World Cup in 2022, to be held in the capital of Qatar, Doha.

Some 112 companies from a variety of sectors will be attending Expo Turkey by Qatar, co-organized with Turkey’s Independent Industrialists and Business people’s’ Association (MUSIAD). Turkish and Qatari commercial firms have already signed business agreements worth some 60 million dollars.

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Via Middle East Monitor

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Related video added by Informed Comment:

Al Jazeera English: “Why are so many countries expanding their presence in the Red Sea?”