{"id":47621,"date":"2022-02-21T14:43:52","date_gmt":"2022-02-21T14:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=47621"},"modified":"2022-02-21T14:43:52","modified_gmt":"2022-02-21T14:43:52","slug":"irans-president-arrives-in-qatar-for-gas-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=47621","title":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s president arrives in Qatar for gas summit"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nDUBAI: Photographer and activist Lana Haroun, 34, was in Khartoum in 2019, at the epicenter of the revolution in Sudan. She helped to document the rage and optimism of the movement that brought an end to the 30-year rule of dictator Omar Bashir in April that year.<\/p>\n

\nLike thousands of Sudanese people who had long dreamed of political change, Haroun was hopeful as the country subsequently began a difficult transition to democratic civilian rule. Those hopes soon turned to despair.<\/p>\n

\nAbdalla Hamdok, a respected UN diplomat who was appointed prime minister in August 2019, offered a vision of peace and prosperity. But with the economy in crisis, Sudan soon began to run short of food, fuel and medicine.<\/p>\n

\n
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\nSudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. (AFP file photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\nHe acknowledged the hardship arising from the austerity measures he had adopted, but expressed hope that their positive impact would be felt very soon.<\/p>\n

\nHowever, as daily street protests became increasingly violent, Haroun decided it was time to leave the country. In November 2020, she and her family packed up and moved to Dubai, where she now works for a petroleum company.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe economic situation was very bad in Sudan and there are many things I want to do in my life,\u201d she told Arab News. \u201cI had to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
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\nGeneral Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. (AFP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\nSudan\u2019s democratic transition stalled in October 2021 when military chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan staged a coup, toppling the civilian government and removing Hamdok from office.<\/p>\n

\nIn response to the international condemnation that followed, the military proposed a power-sharing deal and reinstated Hamdok as prime minister in November. The agreement proved unpopular with pro-democracy groups, however, leading Hamdok to resign on Jan. 2.<\/p>\n

\n
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\nLana Haroun\u2019s photograph of Sudanese protesters during the 2019 uprising against long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir. (Photo courtesy of Lana Haroun)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\u201cNo one knows what will happen now,\u201d Haroun said. \u201cMany people are leaving Sudan because they are afraid to lose their lives, not just because there is no food or money but because they are afraid of being killed.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSudan is now worse than in Bashir\u2019s time. We don\u2019t have what we need to live normal lives and more people are being killed than ever before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\"\"In a televised address following his resignation, Hamdok said the country was at a \u201cdangerous turning point that threatens its whole survival.\u201d This was no exaggeration; with rising inflation, shortages of basic goods, and deadly unrest in Khartoum, the outlook has seldom been gloomier.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSudan has unfortunately fallen from the grace of being a rare positive story in the Horn of Africa into the hands of another military regime,\u201d Mohamed Osman, a Sudanese former journalist and an independent specialist on the region, told Arab News.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThis is history repeating itself for the third time since the country\u2019s independence. But this time it\u2019s a poignant combination of tragedy and farce.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nOne major challenge for international observers is the lack of reliable information from inside Sudan, in large part because of frequent internet blackouts.<\/p>\n

\n

\nFAST<\/span>FACTS<\/h4>\n
\n
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\nA number of former govt. officials and activists have been detained by Sudan\u2019s new military rulers.<\/p>\n

\nAmong those targeted are members of The Committee to Dismantle the Regime of June 30, 1989.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\nAs a result, responsibility for the killings of protesters \u2014 whether the result of factional infighting, criminality or deliberate targeting by the feared Rapid Support Forces \u2014 is hard to ascertain.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cNo one knows who is doing the killing in the streets,\u201d said Haroun, who tries to follow the events as best she can from her self-imposed exile in Dubai.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt\u2019s crazy. But for sure this killing is from the military themselves because they are running the show in Sudan now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nSince October, the value of the Sudanese pound has depreciated alarmingly, compounding inflationary pressure.\u00a0Sudan\u2019s removal from the US State Sponsors of Terrorism list in 2020 was expected to stimulate financial flows that could benefit growth. By all accounts, the advantage has been squandered.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe economy was already struggling to recover,\u201d said Osman. \u201cNow this coup has worsened its situation, making life in Khartoum very hard. Many people are running out of money and trying to leave the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nAccording to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, about 14.3 million people in Sudan, almost one in three of the population, will need humanitarian assistance this year \u2014 about 0.8 million more than last year.<\/p>\n

\nFurther complicating matters, disputes over land, livestock, access to water and grazing since October 2021 have triggered a spike in tribal clashes, lootings and rape in the vast, arid Darfur region.<\/p>\n

\nThe World Food Programme has suspended operations following looting at its warehouses in North Darfur state, an act which “robbed nearly two million people of the food and nutrition support they so desperately need,” the agency said.<\/p>\n

\nThough the main Darfur conflict has subsided, the parts of Darfur bordering Chad are awash with guns and home to most of Sudan\u2019s three million displaced people.<\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe situation in the short-to-medium term is very bleak,\u201d Rashid Abdi, a Horn of Africa analyst at Nairobi-based think tank Sahan Research, told Arab News. \u201cThe army, digging in, has refused all ideas about a resolution. They want a solution on their own terms.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI think they understand that they are not going to continue the strategy of Bashir and hope that a military government will be acceptable in the long term.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nBut Abdi believes the public in Sudan will not accept this status quo, so army chiefs probably want to install a civilian administration that is weak, that they can control. If that is the military\u2019s game plan, he said, it is unlikely to fly with the Sudanese public.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cTheir hope was that Hamdok would be the person to steer the country to better days,\u201d he said. \u201cI think he became trapped by the military and could not maneuver and did the decent thing, which was to resign.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nOn Jan. 26, the splits in Sudanese society appeared to widen further when thousands of pro-military protesters gathered outside the Khartoum office of the UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan demanding an end to \u201cforeign interference\u201d and for the UN\u2019s special representative for Sudan, Volker Perthes, to \u201cgo back home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nPerthes, who was appointed head of UNITAMS in January 2021, has been trying to bring Sudanese stakeholders to the negotiating table to discuss a peaceful political solution and get the democratic transition back on track.<\/p>\n

\nHe has said that the UN itself \u201cis not coming up with any project, draft or vision for a solution.\u201d But Sudan\u2019s military-led government has rejected his efforts, arguing that he should be working as a \u201cfacilitator and not a mediator.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nMeanwhile, Sudan\u2019s overwhelmingly young anti-coup protesters have continued to march in the streets of Khartoum, where they routinely clash with security forces amid a ferocious crackdown on dissent. Since the coup, at least 79 people have been killed and hundreds more injured.<\/p>\n

\n
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\nSupporters of the Sudanese army rally outside the office of the United Nations mission, west of Sudan’s capital Khartoum, on Feb. 5, 2022. (AFP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\nThe daunting task of restoring the democratic transition has fallen on a population fed up with unending internal conflict, displacement and impoverishment.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe protests are not just in Khartoum but also in Darfur and other parts of the country,\u201d Erika Tovar Gonzalez, communication and prevention coordinator at the International Committee of the Red Cross, told Arab News from the Sudanese capital.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThere\u2019s a humanitarian crisis, there\u2019s armed and criminal violence and tribal clashes that continue to displace thousands of people. The youth are depressed. Some even have suicidal thoughts. They feel they have no future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe result is two seemingly irreconcilable visions, with the nation\u2019s fate hanging in the balance.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cEven the Sudanese political parties that would have been willing to give Al-Burhan the benefit of the doubt for pragmatic reasons are more careful now,\u201d said Gonzalez.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cBecause once they get into bed with the military, they damage their credibility and won\u2019t get any support from the public. Al-Burhan has become more toxic as an ally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
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\nSudan’s top general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan greets soldiers during military exercise in the Maaqil area in the northern Nile River State on Dec. 8, 2021. (Photo by Ebrahim Hamid \/ AFP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\nAnalysts therefore believe it is unlikely that Al-Burhan and the military will be able to maintain their grip on power.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI don\u2019t think the military (strategy) has clarity,\u201d said Abdi. \u201cOne speculation is that the military is aware that it is not going to be accepted but what they are trying to do is to buy more time to make good their promise of exit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nOsman thinks the military badly miscalculated how events would play out after it launched last October\u2019s coup.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWho will give them money now?\u201d he asked. \u201cWestern assistance is suspended. Gulf countries won\u2019t give them enough cash. You cannot stabilize a regime without money. The military shot itself in the foot. The economic situation can only get worse as they move forward with this coup.<\/p>\n

\nOsman added: \u201cThere can be no hope for a political compromise unless the military stops its deadly crackdown on protests first.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DUBAI: Photographer and activist Lana Haroun, 34, was in Khartoum in 2019, at the epicenter of the revolution in Sudan. She helped to document the rage and optimism of the movement that brought an end to the 30-year rule of dictator Omar Bashir in April that year. Like thousands of Sudanese people who had long…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spotlight_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47621\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}