KHARTOUM: Pro-democracy groups in Sudan announced a “revolutionary council” on Thursday to close ranks against coup leader Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, rejecting his offer of a civilian government, as protesters keep pressing for his resignation.
Gen. Al-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 former President Omar Bashir.
But in a surprise move on Monday, Gen. Al-Burhan vowed to make way for a civilian government — an offer quickly rejected by the country’s main civilian umbrella group as a “ruse.”
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The ‘revolutionary council will make it possible to regroup revolutionary forces under the orders of a unified leadership,’ said Manal Siam, a pro-democracy co-ordinator.
On Thursday, pro-democracy groups, including local resistance committees, announced their plans to establish a revolutionary council in opposition to Gen. Al-Burhan.
This “revolutionary council will make it possible to regroup revolutionary forces under the orders of a unified leadership,” said Manal Siam, a pro-democracy coordinator.
The council will consist of “100 members, half of whom will be activists from resistance committees,” according to another coordinator, Mohammed Al-Jili.
The rest of the new organization 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 crackdown against protesters since the October coup, according to pro-democracy medics.
Activists are deeply skeptical of Gen. Al-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 “defense and security” imperatives.
Gen. Al-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 Gen. Al-Burhan received a new lease of life last Thursday, when tens of thousands gathered, and they have evolved into new sit-ins in some areas.
Young protesters on Thursday sat on stone barricades and on felled pylons in Khartoum, while also maintaining sit-ins in the suburbs and in Jazeera, an agricultural province to the south of the capital.
