The princes who want to destroy any hope for Arab democracy
Since the Arab uprisings of 2011, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have used their considerable resources to promote authoritarian governments run by military strongmen in the region. They helped crush Bahrain’s uprising, bankrolled a return to military dictatorship in Egypt, armed a rogue military leader in Libya and mismanaged a democratic transition in Yemen before launching a destructive war there.
A ghastly new chapter in the Saudi and the Emirati counterrevolution against democratic movements in the region is unfolding in Sudan, whose generals have unleashed terrible violence on supporters of democracy.
On the morning of June 3, Sudanese armed forces attacked sit-ins in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere, killing more than 100 people and injuring over 500. Even though the internet has been largely blocked, reports and videos have trickled out: bloodied protesters being carried away to makeshift first-aid stations; heartbreaking accounts of gang rapes of doctors; disfigured bodies of protesters pulled out of the Nile; protesters burned in their sit-in tents. [Continue reading…]