at seven thirty pm moscow time these are the top stories on our cheat us as secretary of state takes a shot at moscow and beijing claiming they are the true are supporting the syrian regime as the u.s. spearheads a pro rebel gathering. the pentagon minds guantanamo bay out for a multimillion dollar overhaul is critics say the promised closure of the scandal ridden facility seems ever more unlikely. and russian lawmakers voted on a bill to name noncommercial groups funded from abroad as foreign agents a move opposition party say could be used to crackdown on activists. thanks peter the valen has gas debate the surge needs conflict in crosstalk.

if you. start. a low in welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle is the arab spring finally coming to sudan as the protest movement grows the regime of al bashir appears to have limited options with a contract thing economy and it goes with the newly independent south still at a standstill is it possible the west help by local actors will i regime change. can. start. to cross whether sudan

will also experience an arab spring i'm joined by omar is small in washington he is co-founder of the darfur peace and development organization and advisor at the end of project in dubai we go to mohamed osman he is the associate editor of the online newspaper sudan tribune and in detroit we have a bio on me. he's the editor of the pan-african newswire right gentlemen this is cross tightenings you can jump in anytime you want if i go to you first in washington we see a protest movement growing in sudan is this the arab spring finally arriving there . well it is the sudan summary if you will because the dissident is have done this before in history in october of nineteen sixty four and in april of one nine hundred eighty five well before anybody in the world heard about the arab spring and what it means so it is the sudanese going back to doing what they do best protesting against the ship and trying to reclaim their country

this is not they are whispering finally reaching sudan this is the sudanese. home grown opposition to this government that has been percolating for the last twenty three years finally it's reaching its peak yes maybe there'll be a spring is affecting this because they see people revolting around them but this is not something that was imported to sudan it is indigenous it is home grown and the sudanese are just going back and trying to bring back the government. to their own and to push this government out has been there for the longest time in history that is this it in is remember and a government. brought a lot of misery to the people it shattered their country their economy their life and the wars that continued in there for south kordofan and blue nile. enough is

enough and those people are now trying to say that we got insurance or belongs to us we go to detroit about only do you agree with that characterization here. no i think the problems right now facing the republic of sudan. stem from a number of factors one of course is the sharp decline in oil revenue since the partition of the country in two thousand and eleven the majority of the oil resources of the country have been cut off largely as a result of the ongoing conflict and disagreement between the republic of south sudan as well as the republic of sudan seventy five percent of their earnings have been cut off as a result of these disagreements also you have ongoing citations on the part of the united states and other western powers who have never looked at the current

government in sudan favorably this of course is combined with the overall economic crisis that is sweeping the world so what you see now is people protesting against the imposition of austerity inside of the republic of sudan the same type of austerity that we see being implemented in many european countries even in the united states where you have massive cutbacks in education public spending as well as downsizing and most industries so what we see white now has very little to do with developments that are taking place in other countries throughout the region but more so with the fact that the country has been partitioned sudan was the largest nation state on the african continent prior to the partition last year so this of course has a major impact on the overall economy and sadly none of the opposition groups that have surfaced really have a program for reversing the economic crisis the only arguments the current national

congress party government ok mohan in dubai where do you stand in all of this so far nobody thinks it's the arab spring and sudan. that i believe. first i thank you for having us. i believe it is too early to call this protest movement an uprising it is still. very limited maybe it is bigger than the other protests that dan has witnessed recently but it is still it is still not up to the level of momentum that we have seen in other arab countries what people call the arab spring what i'm saying is that this protest movement will regionally opted. in response to those directed measures that the government has applied this its stated measures including cuts on. cuts in

subsidies of of for fuel and sugar so this protest started basically as a response but over the death of one of the next two weeks since sixteen genuity sixteen june these protests are no longer about austerity what activists are saying what opposition groups are saying they are blaming the national congress party for for the situation of the economy. their ruling officials in sudan they are trying to say that this economic crisis is big the clia result of losing oil revenues but they don't talk but this officials don't talk about how they would rule over the last twenty two years established. systematic corruption and consolidation of power over spending on defense and security at the expense of sales and education sixty years so this is this protest are no longer about

people are seriously fed up and i think as a said in the beginning this protest at the moment is limited and the government. has so far managed to confront this ripple protest without actually causing any. this cause this this case is so but this protest has the potential this protest movement has the potential to develop into a full uprising but i don't believe it will happen now it will take more time and on here if what do you think they need to eventuate is that it was you know they oppositions future moving forward now mohamed doesn't think. go ahead yes i must agree with mohamed that is not yet. at the level of uprising but is death by a thousand cuts this if this small demonstrations continue without the government

having in the solutions in the horizon then they will continue and they will get bigger and they will gain momentum and they are going to go for change this is not just again a street major is you know street images we have seen demonstrations like my colleague in chicago and in detroit said even even in the west in greece and in italy but we never seen those people chanting slogans that ask for regime change this is this is way past transcends the. the. major is no becoming a full fledged. direction of changing the regime and that is that is what these people. try do you think the west want to see regime change there. no question about it the u.s. under successive administrations have put pressure on the sudanese government of

president bashir we have to remember that in one nine hundred ninety eight the country was bombed the only. pharmaceutical plant in the entire region was destroyed under the clinton administration there was never any apology. given on the part of the united states government for that aggressive military action the us has been a major encourage person a major state that has encouraged the partition of sudan for example the breakaway of south sudan was heavily encouraged by the united states in the state of israel so this is very clear that they have maintained a very aggressive and very hostile position towards some done a lot of it has to do with the way in which the sudanese oil industry a structure. many of the concessions for all approximately eighty percent had been controlled by the people's republic of china the u.s. as well as britain and other western countries have not been able to get into sudan

and exploited all resources as they have and other african states so it's an economic crisis it's also political pressure from outside of sudan as actually causing a lot of these internal problems that are going on inside the country many of these opposition parties have been around since the end of pendants of sudan and even before that and some of them have even have power even after the nine hundred eighty five uprising the government that came to power represented some of the same forces that have been involved in sudanese politics going all the way back in one thousand fifty five one hundred fifty six when the country and its national independence they were not able to resolve the civil war as the n.c.p. government did do they were able to reach a peace agreement with the f.b.i. . they have several agreements with the various. factions in darfur and none of them i have really held firm but that's one accomplishment that the government

did achieve and that is the conclusion of the civil war and now since that period we've seen ongoing conflict even with the independence of south sudan because even internally within south sudan itself there are a lot of divisions you have the sudanese. liberation army let me jump in here i'm going to rangers i mean we're not going to see them i mean the f.b.i. government for we go to the break mohammed would you like to see the greater western involvement in seeing regime change in sudan. well you know certainly i believe it is the best in the best interest of all western country and the west in general to support any form of opposition to the ruling national congress party in sudan wonder he's in because the longer this party stays in power the dangerous it is for not only sudanese people who are who are suffering from war and. food shortage they do really have

a bad humanitarian situation particularly in south korea definable and i but also for the future of the neighboring state of south sudan which the waste has invested a great deal in ensuring its independence because there can be normal beast. as long we've. already inside let me jump in here gentlemen we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on sudan and the arab spring state. and.

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warrior lead coupons trioli gold. plate and take a. closer look. at the pledge. welcome back to cross talk i'm hearing about your mind you were talking about whether she will experience the arab spring. the told. and a story told in washington there's a lot of speculation that khartoum may turn its eyes to the south and start another conflict there to keep everyone's attention off to the economy what do you think the chances of there of that is. there is a. go back to some of the statements that were said earlier about the intervention of the west those did not separate the south the sudanese separate the

south this government in her tomb is internal responsible the responsibility of separating the silos rest squarely on the shoulder of this government that we are i think it's going to be my you should know that the united states played a very important role in seeing the south get it independently and i mean let's be very very this is a fact ok western they are a very important role in seeing that happen ok maybe they did not separate the south they did not separate the south it was a sudanese decision and it was this government that wanted to get rid of the cells so that the north and arab and islamic part. of the arab world this is a government that work from day one to separate this out was ok mommy why behind you want to jump in this is crossed out u.k. i had yes i just wanted yes yes i just wanted to clarify tormato that i didn't see that this is asian of south sudan is that responsibility of the west or was cause

no you didn't you say that no no no no no no no i didn't really hear i didn't say that is. saying. we are tired i decide i'm going to school this is a theory that that the west and israel and this and that this is the sudanese people who did this and this is this government. and that because they did that if there is a schedule to try to go ahead and i believe that that is on civility that it's a possibility for. ourselves with our survey i mean you want to really lie on the on the infeed be it with go ahead jump in i just want to say i decline in detroit in detroit regard to the divisions. these problems associated with the division of sudan are historic problems they go back to the era of british colonialism the way in which the british carried out the colonization of sudan was

specifically designed to divide and rule and that legacy is still very much a part of so don it's not just some don there's other countries for example nigeria they're still living with the legacy of british colonialism and it's resulted in civil wars in nigeria it's also resulted in civil wars and sue done but no question about it the west definitely wanted to have sudan partition they want to get back in there they want to take control of the oil resources and in regard to the current problems with the cell no question about it the hague leggo all feels were attacked by the s.p.l. a several months ago they were the aggressors and that particular conflict and shut down all production out of the south into the north and right now in south sudan is not operating economically or politically there's a tremendous amount of economic stagnation that exists there and there's a tremendous amount of corruption that exists there and still ongoing conflicts

that are going on inside of the south of sudan it is not proven so far to be a viable state a state capable of standing on its own without the assistance of the united states and the state of israel even the president silva kier went to the people's republic of china to request that they build an alternative pipeline through kenya so they could bypass the people in the north of the country and you know it will turn out a kind of not going to end with everyone else on america when they will be when south sudan got its independence they were supposed to be interdependent that was part of the plan why isn't it working out. it is not working out because of the challenges that south sudan has a war of over fifty years in the country did reduce the country troubles you travel in south sudan today and you wouldn't find about two hundred miles of paved road in a country the size of france it was

a theater of operations and all the war was in south sudan the south sudan is destroyed there were no new situations the talk about it and the independence had been challenge with a lot of issues one of them is south sudan is landlocked and the longest border with any country is with the north and it is a porous border with a lot of problems and this issue of higley going to be a and many other points of conflict in this border continue. to do fester and to bring in more more more problems corruption yes there is corruption in the south as it is in the north corruption is everywhere it is rampant in the south they were not able to use the coffers of the all in the six years of of transition that they did they had a tremendous amount of money and amounted to like ten billion dollars they were wasted because there were no institutions there were no accountability it was

a revolutionary. army or militia that jumped into a government without any transition without any training these are the situations that created the south sudan however when the north is not better it has been there this is the mother country and it is also running through almost the same problems and now you know if i go in my little region if i don't know how many i think it's really interesting is that as things stand now we get two failed states and the way things are going. well actually when when diplomats call in the phrase peaceful defaults to describe what they hoped will be from south sudan's decision because of two state viable states living in peace with me and with the other this is actually now. following months it since a separation has proved nothing was further from the truth reality is the

situation as we see it in style in south sudan this is a country. pointed out that is almost starting from from scratch there is nothing to reconstruct nothing but actually the situation in the north the real problem actually is the north of the city the security of these two countries this situation actually the been doing each other on their relations with each other now with this. economic situation that is happening in both countries it's basically the result of their failure to agree on a fair charge for transporting south sudan's or you through the north and eventually south sudan decided to shut down oil production altogether in response to what they claimed you know is stealing of their oil by by the northern

government so what i'm saying is. actually you can't really talk about the situation in tell us or so sudan for example in isolation from the situation in north sudan so what i'm saying it's south sudan people would still sympathize with south sudan because it is just i think that's a very interesting way of characterizing that you know i think you really you know you right up show if i could go to back to detroit here i mean this is a perfect storm for those who don't like the regime in khartoum because you you get a provocation these poor people in the south they've only been independent for a year they don't have any infrastructure and that's a really good reason for to go in and say we finally have a chance to get rid of this guy and get him arrested and put him on trial this is a perfect storm for those who don't like to redeem their. i agree and the fact of the matter is that the founder of the s.p.l. john garang who died mysteriously and

a helicopter crash in uganda several years ago the my understanding was not necessarily in favor of total independence for the south who wanted to have an autonomy relationship between khartoum and juba the current leadership on the silver kier push very strong alliance with the united states for the partition of the country as i started out saying sudan was the largest nation state on the continent of africa it has some of the most substantial all reserves also in that region there has been substantial economic growth inside the country over the last decade they were producing over five hundred thousand barrels of all per day in that central african state so i think it's very important we keep these things in mind that this is only going to help the western transnational wall corporations to have this type of partition and it also is going to provide a rationale for further military and intelligence in

a venture for the west into sudan and we've seen that we saw it in libya last year we see it ongoing in somalia africa is very much active right now in the afternoon that they're training troops they're sitting in drones they're doing all types of destabilization actions throughout africa this is just another opportunity for the pentagon for the sort of intelligence agency for the state department to come in and to intervene in the internal affairs of sudar and what should happen is that the all the parties involved should go back to the negotiating table and try to come up with some type of viable settlement to resolve these issues khartoum recognized the independence of south sudan last july they did not they did not actively oppose it diplomatically the a you accepted. republic of south sudan as an equal member of the african union so what really means to happen is that former south african president thabo mbeki who has been designated as

a negotiator. for the you should try to get all the parties back together to come up with some or some type of a viable solution ok amir hear me out of washington what do you think about that you think that's a good idea. it is a good idea for the two countries to negotiate and to reach agreements and the border issues and the oil deal. citizenship and the relationship between them in the future this is a problem with now or will tomorrow is going to be a problem with water for the day after tomorrow is going to be a problem of land this operation is not an easy thing to countries depend on each other for their survival yes you're only said we ended up having to feel the state if we continue in this trend and if you continue in this direction we are going to have to feel the state the way to reverse that is for them to go back to the negotiation table and to face fully and. you know in good

spirit and in a good faith they sit down and negotiate. their differences and to get both their people out of this gentleman it sure looks awful or one has to wonder if they'll be good well on either side very thank you very much gentlemen many thanks my guest today in washington by and in detroit and thanks to our viewers for watching us here to see you next time and remember.

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