The tension is at its height in Sudan. Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok, the civilian face of the transition, resigned Sunday following another murderous day in the country where the generals are now alone in command.
While the rumor kept swelling and the local press ensured that he had not appeared at his office for days, Abdallah Hamdok threw in the towel on Sunday evening, explaining at length on state television that he had tried everything but to have finally failed in a country whose “survival” is according to him “threatened” today.
The forgotten slogan “freedom, peace and justice”
The various political forces of the country, which emerged in 2019 from 30 years of the military-Islamist dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir, are too “fragmented”, he explained, and the civil and military camps too irreconcilable for a “consensus Comes “to end the bloodshed” and give the Sudanese the flagship slogan of the anti-Bashir revolution of 2019: “freedom, peace and justice”.
This former UN economist has not known a moment’s respite since the October 25 coup. That day, his main partner, the army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, had him placed under house arrest in the early hours of the morning. And with him, almost all the civilians of the transitional authorities brutally breaking the baroque team of 2019. That year, generals and civilians had agreed on a transitional timetable which provided for a handing over of power entirely to civilians. before free elections in 2023.
But on October 25, General Burhane reshuffled the cards: he extended his de facto mandate as head of the country for two years and reinstalled Abdallah Hamdok a month later. The demonstrators, who since October 25 have been criticizing General Burhane in the street, then began to shout at him too. Because in a country almost always under the rule of the army since its independence 65 years ago, the demonstrators proclaim it: they want “neither partnership, nor negotiation” with the army.
The EU, the United States and the UN outraged
And they repeat it more and more often at the risk of their lives: on Sunday, once more, among the thousands of Sudanese who took to the streets, three were killed by bullets or beatings by the security forces, reports a union of pro-democracy doctors. In all, since October 25, 57 protesters have been killed and hundreds injured.
Activists are calling for 2022 to be “the year of continued resistance”. In addition to the deaths and the shutdown of the telephone and Internet, the security forces are also accused of having resorted in December to a new tool of repression: the rape of at least 13 demonstrators, according to the UN. Europeans have already expressed their indignation, as have US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the United Nations. All plead for a return to dialogue as a prerequisite for the resumption of international aid cut off following the putsch.
