WHILE the Egyptians were celebrating the declaration of the name of the first elected president in their history, the young Sudanese were launching their protest against Omar Bashir's government because of its decision to cut fuel subsidies as part of wider economic austerity measures to rescue the country from chronic economic crisis. The protest first erupted in an impoverished eastern province before reaching some parts of the capital including Khartoum University. As all other Arab regimes have done, Omar al-Bashir's ordered the police to crack down on the protesters using teargas and batons along with widescale arrest of the protesters as well as some opposition figures. Similarly, al-Bashir followed in the footsteps of the other Arab dictators intending to show the demonstrators partly as outlaws and spies with the official media addressing them as gays. He dismissed the suggestion that the protest was part of the Arab Spring, remarking that the demonstrators were merely a group of agitators whose aims are not shared by the majority of the Sudanese. The Khartoum government has insisted on continuing with its austerity plans despite the public opposition. Sudan's finance minister Ali Mahmoud said the government would stick to its decision to cut fuel subsidies regardless of the continued anti-austerity protests in Khartoum and other cities. Scaling back fuel subsidies is one of the most unpopular measures in the package because it is expected to push up already high rates of inflation for food and other prices. The Sudanese economic hardship, caused by the international sanctions long imposed on the country and exacerbated by the cut of the oil revenues after division of the country, might cause the escalation of protest in the period ahead. Additionally, there are many political causes that would lead to the protests developing into calls to unseat al-Bashir, who has occupied rule since 1989. Because of his policies, Sudan, the largest Arab country acording to its land area, was divided into the two states of North and South Sudan last year. Under his rule, Sudan has also witnessed continuous unrest and protest whether in its eastern province of Darfour or in the Blue Nile region. Thus the question is, will the Sudanese people respond to calls of the educated young people and join them in their uprising to unseat their controversial president? This could happen, if al-Bashir committed the same error of the Mubarak regime as well as that of Gaddafi in Libya, Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Ali Saleh in Yemen by ordering firing on the demonstrators. Shedding the blood of peaceful protestors in Arab nations proved to be the last straw when they rose up against their rulers. So how far could al-Bashir contain his nerve and allow the continuation of the protests that are proving to gain more ground every day in the country? The young Sudanese, followed the example of their Egyptian brothers and sisters by using the Internet to propagate their protest . They even opened a page on the Facebook social networking website, on which they started posting news of the revolutionaries, said to have set fire to one of the ruling National Congress Party premises, which was later denied by the Sudanese satellite channel Al-Shorouq. It is quite natural for young people in Sudan to dream of having the Arab Spring reach their borders, after seeing its effect in toppling totalitarian regimes in their neighbouring countries of Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. Meanwhile, President al-Bashir is expected to strongly resist calls to topple him, not only in order to cling on to his seat but also to prevent being tried as a war criminal by the International Criminal Court (ICC). In March 2009, the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo issued an arrest warrant against al-Bashir on counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for the murder of some hundreds of thousands of civilians in Darfur province. Of course, al-Bashir refused to submit to the court arrest warrant. However, losing rule in a revolution would mean losing the national protection given him by the state authorities and so he might eventually be handed over to the ICC for trial. It is true that the African Union and the Arab League, as well as other regional organisations opposed the ICC accusations against al-Bashir, regarding them as being mere political pressure being exercised by world powers to force the man to accept the separation of South Sudan. Yet, if al-Bashir committed the crime of using violence against the peaceful demonstrators the way the Arab dictators did in Tunisia, Libya, Syria and Egypt, he might eventually be tried by the ICC. No one seeks such an end for an Arab ruler, just as no one wishes Sudan to pass through the same long weeks or months of unrest until the aspirations and rights of its people are fulfillled. Spread of unrest in Sudan might be the start of a long period of agitation and discord between the different conflicting factions in the country over rule, except if the newborn revolution got a leader who believed in the people's right to create democratic rule in the country and to unite all factions behind this goal.
