Protesters keep up pressure on Sudan's military for civilian rule

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Written by northsouth

Category: Africa

Published: 13 April 2019

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KHARTOUM - Protesters in Sudan said on Saturday they would keep up pressure for civilian rule after the defense minister stepped down abruptly as interim leader following the overthrow of President Omar al-Bashir after 30 years of autocratic rule.

Defence Minister Awad Ibn Auf stepped down as head of the transitional military council late on Friday after only a day in the post, as protesters demanded faster political change.

Celebrations erupted on the streets of Khartoum, where thousands of protesters waved flags and illuminated mobile phones in the darkness and drivers hooted car horns. People chanted: “The second has fallen!” a reference to Ibn Auf and Bashir, witnesses said.

The Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), which has been leading the protests, called for more demonstrations on Saturday.

“Today, we continue the march to finish the victory for our victorious revolution,” the SPA said in a statement.

“We assert that our revolution is continuing and will not retreat or deviate from its path until we achieve ... our people’s legitimate demands of handing over power to a civilian government,” it said.

The new head of the military council, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan Abdelrahman, is a commander believed to be more ready to talk to demonstrators.

Burhan was the third most senior general in the Sudanese armed forces and is little known in public life. As head of Sudan’s ground forces he oversaw Sudanese troops fighting in the Saudi-led Yemen war and has close ties to senior Gulf military officials.

DIALOGUE WITH DEMONSTRATORS

“What happened is a step in the right direction and is a bow to the will of the masses, and we have come closer to victory,” said Rashid Saeed, an SPA spokesman, adding the group planned more protests on Saturday.

The military council said earlier it expected a pre-election transition to last two years at most or less if chaos could be avoided. The head of the military council’s political committee, Omar Zain al-Abideen, said the council would hold a dialogue with political groups.

The announcement appeared aimed at reassuring demonstrators who had pressed for months for Bashir’s departure and resumed protests against army rule after his ouster on Thursday, calling for quicker and more substantial change.

Bashir, 75, seized power in a 1989 military coup. He had faced 16 weeks of demonstrations brought on by rising food costs, high unemployment and increasing repression during his three decades in power.

The protests escalated last Saturday when thousands of demonstrators, apparently bolstered by change in Algeria following similar protests, marched toward the Defence Ministry in central Khartoum to deliver a memorandum demanding the military side with them.

Demonstrators have been camping outside the compound since then to push for a handover of power.

Worshippers packed the streets around the Defence Ministry for Friday prayers, heeding a call by the SPA to challenge the military council.

The numbers swelled in the afternoon and a Reuters witness estimated hundreds of thousands of protesters thronged areas around the ministry, which was guarded by soldiers.

At least 16 people were killed and 20 injured by stray bullets at protests and sit-ins on Thursday and Friday, a police spokesman said. Government buildings and private property were also attacked, spokesman Hashem Ali added.

He asked citizens to help ensure safety and public order.

Ibn Auf was Bashir’s vice president and defense minister and is among the few Sudanese commanders on whom Washington imposed sanctions over their alleged role in atrocities committed in the Darfur conflict that began in 2003.

Pope kisses feet of S. Sudan leaders, urging them to keep the peace

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Written by northsouth

Category: Africa

Published: 12 April 2019

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VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis, in a dramatic gesture after an unprecedented retreat at the Vatican, knelt to kiss the feet of South Sudan’s previously warring leaders on Thursday as he urged them to not return to a civil war.

He appealed to President Salva Kiir, his former deputy turned rebel leader Riek Machar, and three other vice presidents to respect an armistice they signed and commit to forming a unity government next month.

“I am asking you as a brother to stay in peace. I am asking you with my heart, let us go forward. There will be many problems but they will not overcome us. Resolve your problems,” Francis said in improvised remarks.

The leaders appeared to be stunned as the 82-year-old pope, who suffers from chronic leg pain, was helped by aides as he knelt with difficulty to kiss the shoes of the two main opposing leaders and several other people in the room.

His appeal was made even more pressing as anxiety grew in South Sudan that Thursday’s coup in neighbouring Sudan might put at risk the fragile peace deal that ended South Sudan’s brutal five-year civil war.

The Vatican brought together South Sudanese leaders for 24 hours of prayer and preaching inside the pope’s residence in an attempt to heal bitter divisions before the country is due to set up a unity government.

“There will be struggles, disagreements among you but keep them within you, inside the office, so to speak,” Francis said in Italian as an aide translated into English. “But in front of the people, hold hands united. So, as simple citizens, you will become fathers of the nation.”

Sudan, which is predominantly Muslim, and the mainly Christian south fought for decades before South Sudan became independent in 2011.

South Sudan plunged into civil war two years later after Kiir, a Dinka, fired Machar, from the Nuer ethnic group, from the vice presidency.

About 400,000 people died and more than a third of the country’s 12 million people were uprooted, sparking Africa’s worst refugee crisis since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

The two sides signed a power-sharing deal in September calling on the main rival factions to assemble, screen and train their respective forces to create a national army before the formation of a unity government next month.

In his prepared address earlier on Thursday, Francis said South Sudan’s people were exhausted by war and the leaders had a duty to build their young nation in justice. He also repeated his wish to visit the country along with other religious leaders to solidify the peace.

Others who attended the retreat were the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who is spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican community, members of the South Sudan Council of Churches, and other Catholic and Presbyterian Church leaders from Africa. Welby had proposed the idea of the retreat to the pope.

Demanding civilian government, thousands defy military curfew in Sudan

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Written by northsouth

Category: Africa

Published: 12 April 2019

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By Khalid Abdelaziz

KHARTOUM - Thousands of Sudanese demonstrators camped outside the defense ministry in Khartoum to push for a civilian government, defying a curfew and calling for mass prayers after the military overthrew Omar al-Bashir after 30 years of autocratic rule.

Demonstrators who have been holding almost daily anti-Bashir protests rejected the decision to set up a transitional military council to run the country for two years and vowed to continue protests until a civilian government is established.

Activists called for mass Friday prayers outside the defense ministry compound, a focal point for protests.

At the compound, large tents were put up and people brought in food and handed out water as the crowd swelled, a Reuters witness said. Ahmed al-Sadek, a 39-year-old trader, said he had not slept at his home since the sit-in began on Saturday.

Activists wearing yellow vests controlled traffic around the compound on Friday morning and managed foot traffic to and from the sit-in, a Reuters witness said. They also blocked a major bridge in central Khartoum.

Bashir, 75, had faced 16 weeks of demonstrations against him. Announcing the president’s overthrow, Defence Minister Awad Mohamed Ahmed Ibn Auf said elections would be held at the end of the two-year interim period.

World powers, including the United States and Britain, said they supported a peaceful and democratic transition sooner than two years.

Auf is included on Washington’s list of Specially Designated Nationals for his role during the Darfur conflict, meaning all his assets in the U.S. were frozen and Americans were banned from doing business with him, the U.S. embassy said.

Speaking on state television on Thursday, Ibn Auf said Bashir was being detained in a “safe place” and a military council - which it was later announced he is heading - would now run the country.

Sudanese sources told Reuters that Bashir was at the presidential residence under “heavy guard”.


MILITARY COUNCIL


The military council set up a political committee that will meet political parties and foreign diplomats during the course of Friday, state media reported. The military council was also due to give a news conference on Friday.

Ibn Auf also announced a state of emergency, a nationwide ceasefire and the suspension of the constitution. He also said there would be a curfew from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m.

The main organizer of protests against Bashir, the Sudanese Professionals Association, rejected Ibn Auf’s plans. It called on protesters to maintain their sit-in outside the defense ministry.

In a challenge to the military council, several thousand protesters remained in front of the defense ministry compound, and in other parts of the capital, as the curfew went into effect.

They chanted “They removed a thief and brought a thief!” and “Revolution! Revolution!”

Some shops in Omdurman, across the River Nile from central Khartoum, remained open past 10 p.m., a Reuters witness said.

Bashir has been indicted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague and is facing an arrest warrant over allegations of genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region during an insurgency that began in 2003 and led to the death of an estimated 300,000 people. He denies the allegations.

Bashir’s downfall was the second time this month that a leader in the region has been forced out after mass demonstrations. Algeria’s Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in power since 1999, stepped down on April 2 after six weeks of protests.