Sudanese gather at anti-US rally in front of American embassy
June 2, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — Several hundred demonstrators gathered Saturday in front of the American embassy here shouting “God is great” and “down with the CIA” to protest new U.S. economic sanctions on Sudan recently announced by the White House.
Riot police cordoned off the tightly guarded U.S. compound as students, including about 100 women wearing white Islamic headscarves, chanted slogans slamming U.S. President George W. Bush for announcing Tuesday that the U.S. had blacklisted 31 companies and three individuals, forbidding them from conducting business with an American company or bank.
The measure aims at pressuring Sudan into ending violence in its remote Darfur region, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million chased from their homes in four years of fighting between local rebels and government forces.
“The sanctions are not even worth the ink they were written with,” said rally organizer Omar Kambal in a speech to protesters.
Kambal, who heads Sudan’s Youth Union, described the new sanctions as part of “an ongoing American campaign to undermine Sudan” and called on the Sudanese government to “sever all economic ties with the U.S., today rather than tomorrow.”
After a decade of American economic sanctions, the two countries have little business in common. Sudan conducts nearly three quarters of its trade with Arab and Asian nations — mainly China.
Organizers said 1,000 people, mostly students and members Sudan’s lawyers association, attended the protest, which lasted about two hours and was held for the second time in as many days. An AP reporter estimated there were about 200 people at the scene before demonstrators ordered him to leave.
No incidents of violence were reported, and the embassy said its staff was absent from the compound because it was the weekend.
“We are fortunate that the demonstrators were not violent,” said embassy spokesman Joel Maybury.
He said the embassy was in contact with Sudanese authorities to make sure no violence occurred. “The U.S. government is obviously concerned about the demonstrations and is following the situation closely,” he said.
The U.S. first enforced economic sanctions on Khartoum in 1997 after withdrawing its ambassador because of Sudan’s past links to terrorism.
In retaliation to American embassy bombings in East Africa, the U.S. then launched cruise missile strikes against Khartoum in 1998, destroying a pharmaceutical plant at the time suspected of belonging to Osama bin Laden.
Sanctions were later reinforced because of a civil war in the south of Sudan, and beefed-up again since the crisis erupted in the western Darfur region in 2003.
(AP)