General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane addressed the Sudanese on Monday evening July 4th. In yet another reversal, the main architect of the October 25 coup seems to be making concessions to the street. The head of the army indeed explained that the soldiers were withdrawing from the negotiations carried out under the triple aegis of the UN, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad) and the African Union. This process was stalled by the refusal of civilians to take part.
More surprisingly, Burhane wants to let the civilians form their government of technocrats. While the generals and their allies of the dreaded paramilitary militia of the Rapid Support Forces would unite in a new body which would be limited to defense and security issues. This announcement seems to respond directly to the spontaneous sit-ins erected on the evening of the anti-coup demonstration of June 30, which was severely repressed. Nine young people lost their lives there, raising the death toll to 114 in eight months.
A strategy to divide civilians
“We stay here to invite the people to join us. We want to show that we are peaceful, contrary to what the military tries to make believe. We also want to protect the wounded from June 30 who continue to receive treatment here.”detailed Lubna Ahmed, on the fourth day of the main sit-in, installed in front of a hospital in Khartoum.
This architecture student is a member of a resistance committee. These local pro-democracy branches took the leadership of the protest against the coup, refusing any negotiation with the generals. Their official position on the army chief’s speech had not yet been announced on Monday evening. Mustafa Abbas, an active member, however, expected the sit-ins to continue. While denouncing “a genius plan of Burhane” which would aim to accentuate the divisions between the different components of civil society.
“The military want to buy time by showing the international community that civilians are not united, confirms Jihad Mashamoun, political analyst specializing in Sudan. They want the civilians to compete in order to emerge victorious. » For Kholood Khair, from the think tank Confluence Advisory, “This decision is linked to the sit-in and the announced civil disobedience which threaten to cripple the already moribund economy. » The fault, among other things, for the freezing of more than 4.5 billion euros in international aid since the coup. The researcher also detects the shadow of the Islamists of the old regime behind this reversal.
The sit-ins continue
It was a sit-in that pushed their leader, Omar el-Béchir, towards the exit in 2019 after thirty years of military-Islamic dictatorship. The revolutionaries had nevertheless remained in place to demand the handing over of power to the civilians. Until their peaceful siege is bloodily dismantled. At least 127 of them were murdered, dozens were raped and as many bodies were never found.
To limit the risk of such a massacre being repeated, the activists in the capital have established themselves in a residential area, and no longer in front of the army headquarters. In the midst of musical notes, frescoes in progress and discussions on the future of the movement, no one excludes, despite everything, an intervention by the police. Student Lubna Ahmed rolls her eyes: “I’m a little scared but the violence has become something normal. We have faced it so many times. »