Is Sudan next?

The momentum behind the Arab Spring revolutions appears to have been checked – for now. The Libyan domino hasn’t fallen. But there’s more unrest to come in North Africa. On March 21, a group called Youth for Change will hold mass protests throughout Sudan.

Youth for Change (sinister name) are inspired, obviously, by what has happened in Egypt and Tunisia. Their aim, they say, is to ‘to rewrite the constitution with the voice of the people in order to hold national general elections:

‘[We march] to reclaim our dignity as human beings first and second as Sudanese …that has been violated by the regime when it killed thousands of our brothers in Darfur, the north, the east, and all the documented incidents to dishonour the Sudanese nation. The regime violated the ethics, law and of course Islam itself when it allowed the security forces to torture and rape humans and abuse all the Sudanese people. We will say no: to torturing and raping carried by the security forces on prisoners. We’ll say no: in order to prosecute all those responsible for such atrocities and massacres that were committed in all parts of Sudan. We will say no: in order to find an urgent solution to the Darfur problem and to stop the killings and displacement. Find a solution to Sudan’s marginalized regions that are following in the footsteps of the South: we demand a genuine development of each area and not restrict them to the capital. We will say no: to the high living costs resulting from the corruption of the ruling party and the policy of starvation to humiliate the citizens. No to unemployment, which has become an unbearable fact for Sudanese graduates. Change for the uneducated children because of high tuition fees and for university students that have been deprived of their rights due to speaking out against the ruling party. We want to rely on the competencies of the Sudanese according to their qualifications and not by party or tribal affiliation and we will say no to corruption, which has eroded all state institutions: In order to prevent the national conference party from misusing the public services and institutions. No: in order to create an objective watchdog to overview the conduct of public services to guarantee fairness and to retrieve the public money from the people of the National Congress Party and its leaders We will say no: in order to restore respect to the Sudanese army, restore its role as the guardian of the country and give a chance for honourable officers to announce themselves. Providing the impossibility of satisfying these rights under this regime, we have no option but to overthrow the regime and restore the dignity of the citizen of Sudan, to raise grievances and save the Sudanese people from the gang of al- Bashir. May God bless us.’

Who knows how successful they will be? A source in Sudan told me yesterday he reckons they will have 30, 000 marchers in Khartoum on March 21. I don’t know how credible that guess is. But the protestors have reason to think the winds of change are in their favour. Unlike in Libya, the Sudanese protestors face an already weakened government. Sudan formally split into two countries last month, after the South voted to become an independent state. So – will the north follow? Or has the revolutionary ‘contagion’ – as the international experts call it – been stopped?