- From Reuters:
KHARTOUM, March 22 (Reuters) - Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir threatened on Monday to expel international election monitors after they said April's vote may have to be delayed.
"We brought these organisations from outside to monitor the elections, but if they ask for them to be delayed, we will throw them out," Bashir said in comments broadcast on state TV.
"We wanted them to see the free and fair elections, but if they interfere in our affairs, we will cut their fingers off, put them under our shoes, and throw them out," Bashir added.
The only long-term international observer mission in Sudan said last week that the country may need a slight delay in its first multi-party elections in 24 years to deal with logistical problems, with hundreds of thousands of names missing from the voters' list weeks before the polls.
Carter Center officials issued a report saying Sudan's April presidential and legislative elections remained "at risk on multiple fronts" and urged Sudan to lift harsh restrictions on rallies and end fighting in Darfur ahead of the ballot.
The Center declined to comment until it was able to review the president's speech.
Bashir expelled major aid agencies from Darfur after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for him in March last year for war crimes in Darfur.
OPPOSITION CRITICISMS
The opposition has criticized Sudan's National Elections Commission for making decisions they said favoured Bashir's ruling party.
Opposition presidential candidate Mubarak al-Fadil told Reuters the warning made it clear Bashir was worried.
"He (Bashir) is very nervous. He may do it," al-Fadil said.
Voting is due to start in Africa's largest country on April 11 in elections promised under a 2005 peace deal that ended more than two decades of north-south civil war.
Sudan is preparing for some of the most complex elections on record with at least six different votes using three different voting systems. The ballot, originally scheduled before July 2009, has already been delayed several times.
The Carter Center, a non-governmental organization founded by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter that aims to further democracy and human rights, said preparations by Sudan's National Elections Commission were lagging.
Many opposition parties have called for the elections to be postponed, saying Sudan needs time to pass democratic reforms.
A European Union election observer mission arrived in Sudan this month.
- From Reuters:
KHARTOUM, March 22 (Reuters) - Sudanese police demolished the homes and surrounded the residents of a refugee camp in the outskirts of Khartoum on Monday, just three weeks ahead of the first multi-party polls in 24 years, residents said.
After U.N. condemnations, Sudan had largely stopped forcibly relocating and demolishing homes in the slums surrounding the capital, filled with millions of people who fled conflict and hardship in the east, south and western Darfur regions.
But on Sunday night residents of Soba al-Shahanat, mostly from the troubled Darfur region, said they saw dozens of their homes and shops demolished by bulldozers.
They refused to move and on Monday a Reuters witness said they were surrounded by a police cordon and barbed wire fence hindering the delivery of food and water.
"We cannot allow this kind of barbaric behaviour to happen in Khartoum," said Edward Lino, the former southern rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement's electoral candidate for Khartoum governor during a visit to the camp.
April's first multi-party elections in 24 years have raised tensions in Africa's largest country with youth activists complaining of harassment and the opposition accusing the ruling party of anti-constitutional restrictions on freedom of expression and association.
At least one journalist was arrested and beaten by authorities for trying to film the operation, a Reuters witness said.
"They put up barbed wire around the area," said one female resident from Darfur who did not give her name. "We can't eat or drink or stay, we are all just sitting around in the sun."
"FENCING AND DESTRUCTION"
Sudan's governor was not immediately available to comment but the authorities have previously said they always give residents notice and provide them with adequate compensation and alternative land before moving them.
"The agreement was that they were to prepare for us a different place with everything -- infrastructure, streets, electricity, water -- then they give us our land and five months to move," said Abdallah Mohamed Ahmed, an independent candidate for the area in April elections.
"(But) until now they did not give us our land and as you can see -- the fencing and destruction."
The move is likely to be unpopular in the politicised camps surrounding the capital.
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir threatened to expel the international observers of Sudan's presidential and legislative elections on Monday, which opposition candidates said showed he was worried he may not win.
The polls are a key benchmark of a 2005 peace deal ending more than two decades of north-south civil war which destabilized much of east Africa and claimed an estimated 2 million lives.
It is quickly followed by a January, 2011 southern referendum on secession, which many analysts believe will create Africa's newest nation state.
