» Protesters in Sudan defy threats of further violence after an earlier crackdown.
Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters filled the streets of Sudan’s major cities Sunday in a defiant rebuke of the generals whose violent crackdown earlier in the month had left scores of people dead.
Despite veiled threats of violence from Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, the powerful paramilitary commander who led the June 3 crackdown, protesters paraded down major streets in the capital, Khartoum, banging drums and chanting, “Civilian rule.”
Some converged on the homes of protesters killed in earlier violence. Others pushed toward the military headquarters and the presidential palace, which overlooks the Nile, only to be repelled by police officers firing tear gas.
The Central Committee of Sudan Doctors said one man had been shot dead by soldiers in Atbara, a city about 200 miles northeast of Khartoum where protests first erupted in December over the soaring price of bread. A Sudanese official from the Ministry of Health said Sunday night at least seven people had died and 181 had been injured in the day’s demonstrations, the Associated Press reported.
The show of street power was a major boost to a protest movement that only days ago had seemed to be badly on the ropes. With the internet largely cut off for the past month, organizers resorted to text messages, word-ofmouth and messengers wielding megaphones to spread word of Sunday’s protest in Khartoum’s suburbs.
Since the ouster of Sudan’s dictator of 30 years, Omar al-Bashir, in April, the protesters have been locked in a violent struggle for supremacy with the junta that succeeded him.
At first the generals rejected protester demands for an immediate transition to civilian rule. Then on June 3, after weeks of talks, they ordered a violent dispersal of the main protest site outside the military headquarters by Hamdan’s paramilitary unit, the Rapid Support Forces.
In a dawn raid June 3, troops shot protesters, raped women, burned tents and cast bodies into the Nile. Doctors’ organizations said 128 people were killed over several days. The government admitted there had been 61 deaths.
The threat of further violence hung over Sunday’s protests.
Addressing supporters at a rally outside Khartoum at lunchtime, Hamdan claimed snipers hiding among the protesters had opened fire, killing three soldiers and five demonstrators. Hamdan had made a similar assertion to explain the civilian deaths in early June.
“We want to get things under control,” he said.
Witnesses and medical organizations in Khartoum could not corroborate those assertions.
A former camel trader and militia commander, Hamdan has emerged as the most powerful figure in Sudan, even if he is formally outranked by an older man, Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. His troops patrol the streets of Khartoum, and he has held rallies in recent weeks to position himself as a potential national leader.
Trust between the two sides is low. On Saturday, Hamdan’s troops raided the main office of the Sudanese Professionals Association, which is leading the protest movement, and prevented the group from holding a news conference.
Such measures appeared to have had limited effect Sunday. Some demonstrators managed to broadcast live video of the protests, using roaming services or other methods to circumvent the month-old internet blackout that the generals say is necessary for national security.
The crisis has diverted attention from the chronic economic crisis that had been a major factor in the protests that led to al-Bashir’s ouster in April.