SUDAN INSIGHT ALERT: The Nation - The Sudanese Ousted a Dictator Last Year—Why Is Washington Still Imposing Sanctions?
Stephen Zunes, a Middle East scholar at the University of San Francisco, calls for the US to lift sanctions from Sudan, provide sustainable development aid and democracy assistance, and to “make it very clear” to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt that support for Sudanese military and autocratic elements is “unacceptable.”
Zunes hints at US policy to “downplay democratic movements,” but concedes that he lacks evidence for this claim beyond US President Donald Trump’s alleged fondness for depicting Arab/African countries as chronically violent and in need of authoritarian governments.
Zunes argues that the Sudanese democratic movement has been successful in postponing elections in order to rebuild civil society and increase civic education to counter the organisational advantages of the military and conservative Islamists, noting that civil society is aware that the 1964 and 1985 uprisings both saw the military take over from “democratically elected but unpopular ruling coalitions.”