Sudanese protest against 18 years of US sanctions

Sudanese civil society organizations and citizens on Tuesday staged a peaceful rally to the US Embassy in Khartoum to protest against 18 years of U.S. sanctions on their country, and handed a memo demanding the U.S. administration to immediately lift those sanctions. A representative of the organizations read out a memo that was handed over to the officials of the embassy. “The US economic sanctions on Sudan have entered their 18th year. This has a great impact on the interests of the Sudanese people,” read the memo. “The US administration claims that it is punishing the government via the economic sanctions at the time when it is aware that these sanctions do not touch the government or topple it. The direct impact is on the Sudanese people who are paying expensive price for these unjust sanctions,” it noted. The memo further cited the negative impact of the sanctions on various vital sectors in Sudan, including the transport (land, sea and air), agriculture and industry sector besides the service sectors such as education, health, environment and collapse of infrastructure. In the meantime, Shama Ahmed Al-Sayed of the Sudanese Organizations Forum told Xinhua that “this is a popular initiative which basically tends to inform with the impact of the US sanctions on Sudan and at the same time demands the U.S. authorities to lift these sanctions.” “The Sudanese people have started to feel the negative impact of these sanctions as they are directly affecting the people and not the government. We want to send a message to Washington that it has to end this collective punishment imposed on the Sudanese people,” she added. Osama Meki Al-Shareef, a Sudanese activist in field of voluntary work, told Xinhua that the initiative of the civil society organizations in Sudan aims at casting light on the negative impact of the sanctions. He further urged the Sudanese government to use all means to force the US administration to lift its sanctions from Sudan. The Sudanese-US ties have been characterized by continuing tension where the U.S. has been imposing sanctions on Sudan since 1997 and putting it on its list of countries sponsoring terrorism. Since then, Washington has been renewing its sanctions on Sudan due to the continuing war in Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan regions besides a number of outstanding issues with South Sudan including the disputed oil-rich area of Abyei. However, last February, the US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced that it had decided to loosen the sanctions on Sudan via allowing exports of personal communications hardware and software including smart phones and laptops. It said the move aimed at helping the Sudanese citizens integrate into the global digital community. Last October, Washington also expressed readiness to cooperate with Sudan in the field of counter-terrorism and to work to prevent flow of terrorist groups and foreign fighters to Sudan and areas of conflicts. According to economic reports, Sudan’s losses due to the US sanctions amounted to over four billion US dollars annually besides the halt of important industries in the country. Sudan has also been witnessing an escalating economic crisis since the secession of South Sudan in 2011, which has greatly affected the Sudanese economy as the country lost around 70 percent of its oil revenues. The separation has also affected the revenues of the state budget, which dropped to around 50 percent. In September 2013, the Sudanese government adopted a package of economic measures to revive the economy including an increase in the oil prices, which then prompted wide protests across the country.