{"id":4564,"date":"2021-12-29T17:27:49","date_gmt":"2021-12-29T22:27:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alternatives.ca\/2021\/12\/urgence-dagir-au-soudan\/"},"modified":"2022-08-11T13:46:12","modified_gmt":"2022-08-11T17:46:12","slug":"urgence-dagir-au-soudan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alternatives.ca\/en\/2021\/12\/urgence-dagir-au-soudan\/","title":{"rendered":"Urgent need for action in Sudan"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the <\/b>Ideas <\/i><\/b>section, Feroz Medhi and Pierre Beaudet, respectively project manager and director of Alternatives, published<\/b> in the newspaper <\/b>Le Devoir, on <\/i><\/b>December 29.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

” While the military government claims to want to bring peace, clashes are increasing. Despite this situation, the United States and several of its allies, including Canada, with the support of the United Nations and the African Union, are encouraged by the general’s calls for negotiations with part of the opposition around former Prime Minister Hamdok. However, the popular opposition wants nothing to do with a “power-sharing” agreement that would leave the military apparatus intact. For the moment, the unity of the opposition is based on a threefold refusal of negotiations, of “partnership” and of the legitimacy of the army.”<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Every day since the coup on October 25th, Sudan has been reverberating with the cries, tears, and gunfire heard in the great metropolis of Khartoum. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets to demand the departure of the military. Processions, barricades, occupations, all peaceful, continue to challenge the power of the army.<\/p>\n

So far, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who governs the military junta, does not want to relinquish power, even if it means integrating a few “technocrats” to create the illusion of a return to “normality. He has suspended the constitutional charter accepted in 2019 and declared a state of emergency. Of course, this general has the support of a majority of the army as well as powerful paramilitary organizations that sow terror with impunity.<\/p>\n

The Sudanese military is also supported by some regional powers, including Egypt, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. Against this powerful force is a broad alliance of civil society and opposition parties who, despite their differences, are united in their desire to send the soldiers back to the barracks and begin a democratic process.<\/p>\n

This confrontation replicates a long-standing situation in Sudan. In 1969, General Gaafar Muhammad Nimeiry seized power, only to be overthrown by a popular uprising in 1985. After a democratic spring driven by trade unions, civil associations and the political opposition, a new coup d’\u00e9tat in 1989 brought the army back to the forefront with General Omar al-Bashir, who was then assisted by Islamic factions falsely claiming to be religious to sow destruction in several regions of the country, particularly in Darfur, where more than 300,000 people have been killed, according to the UN.<\/p>\n

In 2019, finally, popular discontent forced the departure of Bashir, who was being prosecuted for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court. The military was disarmed, but remained protected, like a state within a state, because it controlled the country’s economy.<\/p>\n

An economy of predation<\/b><\/p>\n

In the west of the country, especially in Kordofan and Darfur provinces, military-controlled companies exploit vast areas where sesame, cotton, and groundnuts are grown, as well as gold mines and huge quantities of livestock. These resources, exported mainly to the Gulf Petro-monarchies, represent revenues of more than $2.5 billion.<\/p>\n

Heavily militarized, run by militias controlled by warlords and the army, these activities are carried out in a quasi-slave-like fashion, with wages of one dollar a day for farm workers who live constantly on the brink of starvation. Elsewhere in Sudan, the population barely survives thanks to international aid controlled in large part by the army and especially thanks to the remittances of the millions of Sudanese workers who occupy the low-paid and dangerous jobs in agriculture and services in the region.<\/p>\n

Some of the military would be willing to side with the people, but they fear General al-Burhan’s security apparatus, which is structured around the fearsome elite troops who are not afraid to shoot and torture young people caught at random in the streets of Khartoum.<\/p>\n

Under international pressure, the general has been trying since the October coup to restore his image by inviting some leaders of the former democratic government to form a coalition, with the support of former Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok. But so far, few have responded to this call, which at first glance appears to be an attempt to “rebrand” the government to preserve the power of the army. The massive opposition on the street is virtually unanimous in calling for the army to return to the barracks.<\/p>\n

The hope of democracy<\/b><\/p>\n

The current resistance has acquired a particular character because it is the result of an irruption “from below”, that is to say, from neighborhoods and villages where “popular assemblies” prevail and where everyone has a say, both on the question of security and on that of food and medical supplies.<\/p>\n

The volunteers who populate the civic groups want the support of the opposition parties, of course, but without subordination (they are mostly grouped in the coalition “Forces for Freedom and Change”). From this broad civil and political alliance emerges, in the wake of the 2019 transition plan, a project that would move the country towards social justice, an end to corruption, federalism, secularism, and respect for cultural differences.<\/p>\n

While the military government claims to want to bring peace, clashes are increasing. Despite this situation, the United States and several of its allies, including Canada, with the support of the United Nations and the African Union, are encouraged by the general’s calls for negotiations with a part of the opposition around former Prime Minister Hamdok.<\/p>\n

However, the popular opposition wants nothing to do with a “power-sharing” agreement that would leave the military apparatus intact. For the moment, the unity of the opposition is based on a triple refusal of negotiations, “partnership” and the legitimacy of the army.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Ideas section, Feroz Medhi and Pierre Beaudet, respectively project manager and director of Alternatives, published in the newspaper Le Devoir, on December 29. ” While the military government claims to want to bring peace, clashes are increasing. Despite this situation, the United States and several of its allies, including Canada, with the support […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4566,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[87],"visibilite":[],"region":[54],"class_list":["post-4564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sujets-divers-en","tag-sudan","region-subsaharan-africa"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.alternatives.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/actualite-soudan-2022.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alternatives.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alternatives.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alternatives.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alternatives.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alternatives.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alternatives.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alternatives.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alternatives.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alternatives.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alternatives.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4564"},{"taxonomy":"visibilite","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alternatives.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/visibilite?post=4564"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alternatives.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=4564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}