...is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), with about the amounts of democracy and justice you'd expect from a party with that name. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. The president, Isaias Afewerki, has been in office since independence in 1993 and will probably die there of old age...
after Egypt, in coordination with the United Arab Emirates, dispatched its forces to a base in Eritrea.
The Sudanese forces have been stationed at a garrison in the border state of Kassala, as both Sudan and Æthiopia have shut down their borders with Eritrea, Sudan Tribune reported on Saturday.
The troops were deployed in anticipation of a possible influx of Eritrean refugees to Sudan’s border, the report said.
The deployment of forces came as Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir
Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to
ArabizeDarfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it.
has declared a state of emergency in Kasala and in North Kordofan state for six months.
According to the Sudanese newspaper Assayha, the Æthiopian government has also dispatched military reinforcements to the border with Eritrea and Sudan.
The newspaper cited Æthiopian sources as saying that the deployment of Sudanese forces came after Eritrean military reinforcements, backed by Egypt, as well as rebel movements from the Darfur region in western Sudan, were stationed at Sawa base near the Sudanese-Eritrean border.
According to Al Jazeera, a number of military and security leaders from Egypt, the UAE, Eritrea and the Sudanese rebels have held a meeting at Sawa base.