Mobs take to streets of Khartoum again

Press, 6 July 1985, Page 10

Mobs take to streets of Khartoum again

NZPA-Reuter Khartoum Demonstrators have appeared on the streets of Khartoum again just three months after riots prompted an Army coup in Sudan. This time they are demanding that the Army bring back the ousted President, Jaafar Nemery, from Egypt to stand trial. Some 40,000 people led by student radicals marched on the Egyptian embassy yesterday demanding Mr Nemery’s extradition and calling the Egyptian President, Mr Hosni Mubarak, “a Zionist agent.” Mr Nemery, an ally of Egypt’s and. the United States’, ruled for 16 years. He was visiting Cairo when the Army leader, General

Abdul-Rahman Swareddahab overthrew him on April 6. Mr Mubarak says Egypt’s constitution forbids extradition of political refugees. But labour union and student radicals, leaders of the agitation that prompted the coup, in April, now say he could be returned to answer criminal charges. They allege a treasonable role in the exodus through Sudan to Israel last year of Ethiopian Falasha Jews. Egyptian sources say Cairo sees Communists, Baathists and Libyanbacked “popular committees” in Khartoum behind the renewed agitation over Mr Nemery. Western diplomats in

Cairo see no easy answer for Egypt. They said Egypt’s failure to extradite Mr Nemery might expose General Swareddahab’s caretaker military Government to further Leftist-led unrest, jeopardising Sudan’s fragile stability, and also endanger Egyptian-Sudanese relations. A recurrent nightmare in Cairo is that a pro-Libyan Government might emerge in Khartoum, strategically located astride the middle reaches of the River Nile, the diplomats say. But surrendering Mr Nemery would run against an Egyptian tradition of granting sanctuary. A prominent example was the late Shah of Iran.