Demonstrators rally in Sudan at U.S. embassy

KHARTOUM, Sudan – Hundreds of demonstrators gathered Saturday in front of the American embassy in Sudan, shouting “God is great!” and “Down with the CIA!” to protest new U.S. economic sanctions on the country.\nPolice cordoned off the tightly guarded U.S. compound as protesters denounced President Bush, who announced Tuesday that the U.S. had blacklisted 31 companies and three individuals, forbidding them from conducting business with an American company or bank.\nThe measure aims to pressure Sudan to end violence in its Darfur region, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million chased from their homes in four years of fighting between local rebels and government forces.\n“The sanctions are not even worth the ink they were written with,” rally organizer Omar Kambal said in a speech. Kambal, who heads Sudan’s Youth Union, called on the government to “sever all economic ties with the U.S., today rather than tomorrow.”\nAfter a decade of U.S. economic sanctions, the two countries have little business in common. Sudan conducts nearly three-quarters of its trade with Arab and Asian nations, mainly China.\nOrganizers said 1,000 people, mostly students and members of Sudan’s lawyers association, attended the demonstration, which lasted about two hours and was held for the second time in as many days. An Associated Press reporter estimated the number of people present at about 200 before demonstrators ordered him to leave.\nThe embassy said its staff was absent because it was the weekend.\n“We are fortunate that the demonstrators were not violent,” embassy spokesman Joel Maybury said. \nThe U.S. first enforced economic sanctions on Khartoum in 1997 after withdrawing its ambassador because of Sudan’s past links to terrorism.\nIn retaliation for American embassy bombings in East Africa, the U.S. launched cruise missile strikes against Khartoum in 1998, destroying a pharmaceutical plant suspected at the time as belonging to Osama bin Laden.\nSanctions were later reinforced because of a civil war in the south of Sudan, and beefed-up again since the crisis erupted in the western Darfur region in 2003.