Sudan

Republic of the Sudan
Location	Africa
Leader	Sudan/President
Type	nation state
Interest of	George Clooney, Sudan/2021 coup d'état
Member of	Arab League, Organisation of African Unity, UN
Subpage	•Sudan/2021 coup d'état •Sudan/Finance minister •Sudan/President

Sudan was on a list of seven countries which retired 4-star general Wesley Clark (former supreme commander of NATO forces in Europe 1997-2001) stated the US military had plans to invade:

In 2001, in the Pentagon, a general told me : "I just received a classified memo from the Secretary of Defense: we will take seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and finally, Iran."

Conflict and partition

The Sudanese conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile in the early 2010s between the Army of Sudan and the Sudan Revolutionary Front started as a dispute over the oil-rich region of Abyei in the months leading up to South Sudanese independence in 2011, though it is also related to civil war in Darfur that is nominally resolved. The events would later be known as the Sudanese Intifada, which would end only in 2013 after Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir promised he would not seek re-election in 2015. He later broke his promise and sought re-election in 2015, winning through a boycott from the opposition who believed that the elections would not be free and fair. Voter turnout was at a low 46%.

On 13 January 2017, US president Barack Obama, signed an Executive Order that lifted many sanctions placed against Sudan and assets of its government held abroad. On 6 October 2017, the following US president Donald Trump lifted most of the remaining sanctions against the country and its petroleum, export-import, and property industries.

On 19 December 2018, massive protests began after a government decision to triple the price of goods at a time when the country was suffering an acute shortage of foreign currency and inflation of 70 percent. In addition, President al-Bashir, who had been in power for more than 30 years, refused to step down, resulting in the convergence of opposition groups to form a united coalition. The government retaliated by arresting more than 800 opposition figures and protesters, leading to the death of approximately 40 people according to the Human Rights Watch. The protests have continued since the overthrow of his government on 11 April 2019, when President al-Bashir was arrested and a three-month state of emergency was enacted. Over 100 people died in early June in clashes between pro-democracy protesters and state security forces, resulting in Sudan's suspension from the African Union. Sudan's youth has been reported to be driving the protests.

 

Related Quotation

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Wesley Clark	“In 2001, in the Pentagon, a general told me : ‘I just received a classified memo from the Secretary of Defense: we will take seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and finally, Iran.’”	Wesley Clark	2 March 2007

 

Event Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Bandung Conference	1955	1955	Indonesia	Important conference for the global south; participants soon became prime targets for US foreign policy

 

Related Document

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:A Brief History of the CIA’s Dirty War in South Sudan	Article	31 July 2019	Ryan Dawson	The CIA are now almost completely out of the picture in South Sudan though one should never underestimate the Agency’s capacity for evil. It's in the US national interest to deny China access to African oil so it will always continue to be US vs China in South Sudan, as part of Pax Americana’s designs for Africa as a whole.

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