Sudan activists to unite under 'revolutionary council'

KHARTOUM: Pro-democracy groups in Sudan announced a “revolutionary council” Thursday to close ranks against coup leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, rejecting his offer of a civilian government, as protesters keep pressing for his resignation.

Burhan led a coup in October last year that derailed a transition to civilian rule, unleashing near-weekly protests and prompting key donors to freeze much-needed funding.

The transitional government he uprooted was forged between the military and civilian factions in 2019, following mass protests and a sit-in outside army headquarters that prompted the military to oust long-time strongman Omar al-Bashir.

But in a surprise move on Monday, Burhan vowed to make way for a civilian government — an offer quickly rejected by the country’s main civilian umbrella group as a “ruse”.

On Thursday, pro-democracy groups, including local resistance committees, announced their plans to establish a revolutionary council in opposition to Burhan.

The resistance committees are informal groups which emerged during the protests that ousted Bashir, and have led calls for recent anti-coup rallies.

This “revolutionary council will make it possible to regroup revolutionary forces under the orders of a unified leadership”, Manal Siam, a pro-democracy co-ordinator, told reporters.

The council will consist of “100 members, half of whom will be activists from resistance committees”, according to another coordinator, Mohammed al-Jili.

Scepticism

The rest of the new organisation will come from political parties, unions, rebel movements opposed to the military and relatives of those killed in the repression of protests, Jili added.

A total of 114 people have been killed in a security forces crackdown against protesters since the October coup, according to pro-democracy medics.

Activists are deeply sceptical of Burhan’s promise to make way for a civilian government, not least because he pledged at the same time to establish a new “Supreme Council of the Armed Forces”.

Opponents and experts foresee this new body being used to sideline any new government and maintain the military’s wide-reaching economic interests, under the pretext of “defence and security” imperatives.

Burhan has also said he will disband the country’s ruling Sovereign Council — established as the leading institution of the post-Bashir transition — and on Wednesday he fired civilian personnel serving on that body.

The protests against Burhan received were reinvigorated on June 30, when tens of thousands gathered and nine people were killed, according to pro-democracy medics.

Daily protests have occurred since then.

Young protesters on Thursday sat atop stone barricades and on felled pylons in the capital Khartoum, while also maintaining sit-ins in the suburbs and in Gezira, an agricultural state to the south of the capital.

Doctors said that one young protester was arrested on Thursday inside a hospital where he was being treated for wounds.

Sudan’s interim Foreign Minister Dafallah al-Haj Ali met with Volker Perthes, who heads the UN mission in Sudan, in order to “remind him of his duty to be neutral,” a statement by Ali’s ministry said.

“Violence needs to end,” he had tweeted last week.