Sudan: new day of demonstrations under tension against the coup

Published on : 11/13/2021 – 15:35

A protester was killed Saturday, November 13 in Sudan, during a new day of mobilization against the coup. The security forces fire live ammunition and use tear gas canisters against thousands of opponents.

The supporters of civil power, reduced to organizing themselves by SMS or graffiti with the Internet cut for three weeks, want to show that they still weigh, while the military will have to show restraint to reassure the international community which condemned the October 25 putsch in this East African country.

Despite appeals for calm from Friday evening from all over the world, doctors identified in the early afternoon a protester killed in Omdourman, a northwest suburb of Khartoum, as well as “many gunshot wounds”, seeming to show that the army is determined to put an end to a mobilization which has continued to revive since the coup d’état.

Dams, blocked bridges

From the early hours of the morning, soldiers and paramilitaries from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) positioned themselves en masse in Khartoum, setting up fly barriers to prevent gatherings and block bridges connecting central Khartoum to the suburbs.

Despite these obstacles, processions left many neighborhoods with cries of “No to military power” and “Down with the Council” of sovereignty led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, author of the coup.

In the east of the country, a crowd of demonstrators marched in the streets, according to AFP correspondents on the spot.

Since the coup, 15 people have been killed and more than 300 injured in the crackdown on protests, doctors said. Hundreds of opponents and activists have been arrested, according to unions and other pro-democracy associations.

Relocation of the Sovereignty Council

With his coup de force, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane has reshuffled the cards of a transition that had been faltering for months. He rounded up almost all civilians in power and put an end to the sacred union between civilians and soldiers which had ended thirty years of Bashir dictatorship.

Thursday, he noted the break with the resettlement and reform of the Sovereignty Council, the highest authority in the transition since the dismissal, under pressure from the street, of President Omar al-Bashir in 2019, which he had dissolved on October 25.

He thus renewed the military within the Council and appointed apolitical civilians to replace supporters of a complete transfer of power to civilians.

With his second, General Mohammed Hamdane Daglo, head of the RSF and accused of serious abuses, they committed to “free and transparent elections” in the summer of 2023. Promises that have not appeased the opposition, while the backtracking is tangible.

During the putsch, General Burhane suspended articles of the constitutional declaration supposed to frame the transition to the elections. He reintroduced them on Thursday, but after removing all references to the Forces for Freedom and Change (FLC), a civilian bloc born of the popular revolt of 2019.

Call for “restraint”

For Volker Perthes, UN envoy to Sudan, “the unilateral appointment of the Sovereignty Council makes a return to constitutional commitments” of 2019 much more difficult.

But, the priority Saturday, adds Volker Perthes on Twitteris that “the security forces show the utmost restraint”.

The deposed Prime Minister, Abdallah Hamdok, is still under house arrest. The army has released only four ministers, despite almost daily calls from the international community for a return to civilian rule before October 25.

General Burhane has been promising for several days the “imminent” formation of a government, without having succeeded so far. Moreover, the new Sovereignty Council does not present a united front.

Observers noted that the three former rebel leaders returned to the body did not take an oath with the others. They had announced that they were rejecting the putsch and have not appeared since their appointment.

With AFP