2019 Is a Year the Sudanese Will Never Forget

Features

December 28th, 2:31pm

Khartoum- Asharq Al-Awsat

The Sudanese Military Council and the Forces for Freedom and Change sign the political agreement that paved the way for the formation of the transitional government in Khartoum last August (Reuters)

The Sudanese will not forget 2019 and their revolution, the revolution that brought down the most brutal dictatorship in the country’s history. They will forget not the bloodshed, the rapists, or the groans of the tortured. They will not forget the year with many days of hope, the year they weaved a “portrait of defiance” in the face of the regime’s brutality. The Sudanese celebrated their revolution’s first anniversary on the 19th of December, the country’s third revolution after the October and March revolutions of 1964 and 1985. The revolution continues a year after it began and months after its victory on the 11th of April. The revolution inherited arbitrary wars throughout the country and a flabby and corrupt state apparatus controlled by the regime’s Islamist cronies. The new government is fighting hard to find peace, retrieve the state from them, and instill an honest and efficient apparatus in its place. The revolution’s story After four months of uninterrupted peaceful protesting, the popular movement brought an end to Omar al-Bashir’s 30-year reign. The 6th of April, five days before Bashir was brought down, as the myth of the legendarily repressive state was shattered by the huge numbers who confronted the army in the capital. The Sudanese Professionals Association The Sudanese Professionals Association, an association of professional syndicates, adopted the movement’s demands and called for a protest in Khartoum, which would head to the palace and ask the president to resign on December 25th; they were met with gunfire and tear gas at the hand of the security forces. Protests continued, and on the 1st of January last year, the “Declaration of Freedom and Change” was born and adopted by most of the country’s opposition parties and civil society organizations. Thus the Forces of Freedom and Change alliance was formed. Sit-in facing Army Command By the end of March 2019, the regime had begun to crumble under the weight of the movement, and Bashir appeared shaken in the speeches he delivered to his supporters. Social media played a pivotal role in documenting the killing of peaceful demonstrators, exposing the major transgressions perpetrated by the regime's security apparatus to the world. “Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change” announced that a march to the General Command of the Sudanese Army would take place on April 6, the anniversary of the 1986 uprising against President Jaafar Nimeiri. As the sun set that day, millions of people surrounded the army leadership, and the alliance declared that the sit-in would persist until the president stepped down. The security services and the Islamists’ militias tried to break the sit-in by force, but they failed after attempts. Tragedy at the sit-in When the army announced that Bashir would be removed on April 11th to be replaced by a military council led by its former Lieutenant General, Awad Ibn Auf with Lieutenant-General Kamal Abdel Maarouf as his deputy. Both men had been members security committee set up by Bashir to quell the protests, and a massive sit-in was held in response immediately. Under the weight of its pressure, Ibn Auf resigned and the military council was dissolved, and he announced the formation of a new council headed by Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the Inspector General of the Army at the time, and the current Transitional Council Chairman. Tragedy in struck in a sit-in on June 3 third, the security forces committed a massacre next to the army leadership base, killing dozens wounding hundreds, ending the Forces of Change's relationship with the military. In response, what is known as the giant June 30 processions, were held, shifting the balance of power in the favor of revolutionary forces. African mediation and the constitutional document Regional mediation, led by Ethiopia and the African Union, supported by the international community, succeeded in compelling them to sign a sharing agreement on August 17th after holding marathon negotiations and putting intense pressure on the junta and revolutionary forces,

from Asharq AL-awsat https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/2056141/2019-year-sudanese-will-never-forget